Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude (No. 342)

So, when the Clinton/Obama drama palls, and one's personal samsaric trauma drama morphs into mere annoying mosquito-esque repetitiveness, what is there to lift one's spirits that does not involve staying up till all hours in virtual frolic with west-coast avs and their naughty boundaryless east-coast enablers?

(RL avatar yawns appreciatively.)

Well, there's this guy.

Seat-Sniffing Leader Breaks Down.

Monday, April 28, 2008

New Poll: Senator Hillary Clinton Would Beat "Same Old Same Old" John McCain by Nine Points

This just in.

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton has a better chance than Barack Obama of beating Republican John McCain, according to a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable in the fall than her rival for the Democratic nomination.

The survey released Monday gives Clinton a fresh talking point as she works to convince pivotal undecided superdelegates to side with her in the drawn-out Democratic primary fight.

Clinton, who won the Pennsylvania primary last week, has gained ground this month in a hypothetical head-to-head match up with the GOP nominee-in-waiting; she now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent.


Hat tip to No Quarter.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Turkey Soup, Or, Why Sexism Should Matter to Dem Men More Than It Does At Present










I'm not windsurfing.

No, really, I'm not windsurfing.

No, I tell you, I'm just NOT windsurfing.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Windsurfing, I mean.

You know, it takes a lot of smarts and strength? It's kinda macho?

Unless and until it's spun completely otherwise? As one might completely otherwise spin an actual meritorious martial experience? Well, I'm just a broad so nevermind.


I'm just here making soup, as personal therapy. It might have been chicken soup, and frequently is, but today it's turkey. With vegetables and barley. As I chop, and saute, make things simmer, and str, while continuing not to windsurf, I have time to reflect.

I reflect on having been regaled in blogtopia recently with reminders of how poorly the Dems have done in general elections. I'm not sure why people are reminding me of this, since I need no actual reminders on this subject. (People remind me of a lot of things on the internets tubeses of which I am perfectly well aware, thanks so very much.)

How poorly the Dems have done . . . why would that be, one wonders?

This segues into my sexism theme since it is the Karl "Miss Piggy" Rove Bushist Fascist Propaganda Cadre that has done so well for so long by successfully branding male Democrats as -- well, pussies.

Pussies.

As in gurrrls. Wimps. Cry-babies. Losers. Effetes. Elites. Girlie-men. Smartypant sissies. Weaklings. Hysterics. Whackjobs. Nutbags.

Really, it goes back to the rat-f*ckers, the Canuck letters that turned Ed Muskie suddenly into a snivelling wimp.

Later, it was Mike Dukakis in-a-tank, looking like a Charles Schultz creation. Add soft-on-crime Willie Horton. Dukakis = wimp. Girly-man. Heavens!

Scandal over the insane price of Bill Clinton's haircuts, which proves he's a gurrl.

Hysterics over hysterical-Dean-scream Howard Dean.

Hysterics over the horrid girly price of John Edwards' haircuts, not to mention calling him "The Breck Girl."

Hysterics over patrician smartypants wussy effete ee-leete John "windsurfer" Kerry.

"Autumn Colors" smartypants wussy Al Gore.

You can't disparage someone in the US, at least overtly, for being of color. (You can do a miscegenation tap-dance, a la Harold Ford, certainly.)

But it's a-okay to disparage a man by labelling him as possessing the inherently inferior characteristics of the inherently inferior female class.

It's a-okay, because the belief of female inferiority is widely shared.

Not universally, but widely.

This is why all the sniggering fratboys (and their fratgirl enablers) of our media whore media continue to get away with it.

Why do we allow this to go on?

It is not unreasonable to try to portray one's opponent as weak, or stupid, or ill-informed.

It is wrong to attach a gender label to one's opponent for the sole purpose of disparaging their person.

It is sexist to do as Imus did recently, and call Obama "almost a bigger pussy than she is [referring to Hillary Clinton]."


Have we all had enough of this, one hopes? And if not -- why not?




The G Spot, here.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Thomas a Beckett's Ghost Asks: "Who Will Rid Me of This Meddlesome Female Candidate for U.S. President?"

Someone really really needs to get rid of Hillary Clinton.

Democrats really need someone who'll get rid of her, according to MSNBC's Howard Fineman, someone who'll "stop this thing."

Faux-Left Manichaean media darling Keith Olbermann agrees: "Right. Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."

(Thoughtful pause.)


"Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."

O-kay.


Let's compare:

"We need someone to stop Barack Obama's campaign in its tracks."

"Right. Somebody who can throw him in the back of a pick-up, and string him up."



Raise your hands, boys and girls, if that metaphor works for you?

No? It doesn't work for you?

Well, it shouldn't.

Nor should the first one.

Sexism and racism are completely unacceptable.

Sexism is tolerated in the United States today in a way that racism is no longer tolerated.

Recognition of the pervasiveness of gender bias in the USA is not a reason to vote for Hillary Clinton; however, rampant sexism, particularly in the media, has adversely affected and continues to adversely affect her ability to communicate information on her actual plans and actual policy proposals.

Thus, the citizenry continues to be bombarded by sniggering fratboy vitriol that disparages Senator Clinton merely as a female, rather than engaging in an honorable war over her ideas, plans, and policies versus the ideas, plans, and policies of her opponents.

That's why the pervasive "just shut the fuck up, bitch" theme of her opponents is so very vile.

And that's why so many of us have our frickin' panties in a twist.

Just in case you'd been wondering.


.
Alegre, at No Quarter, here.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Poet Jane Cooper (1924-2007)


This morning I found out that my wonderful teacher and mentor, Jane Cooper, has died -- actually that she died last fall, a few months after Grace Paley. I knew about Grace from the Times, but somehow I missed Jane's obit, here.

Jane was kind enough to get me my first job -- an actual job in the actual field of poetry, a miracle in itself. We kept in touch until I moved to Asia -- pre-internet. I'm too sad to write more, but I wanted to note and honor her passing. Here's one of her poems:

Souvenirs

Anyway we are always waking
in bedrooms of the dead, smelling
musk of their winter jackets, tracking
prints of their heels across our blurred carpets.

So why hang onto a particular postcard?
If a child's lock of hair brings back
the look of that child, shall I
nevertheless not let it blow away?

Houses, houses, we lodge in such husks!
inhabit such promises, seeking the unborn
in a worn-out photograph, hoping to break free
even of our violent and faithful lives.


From: Calling Me From Sleep, by Jane Cooper

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Hillary-Hating Uber Alles: Karl Rove's Wet Dream Comes True


What is wrong with these people?

Click on this, and scroll down to this headline:

HILLARYLAND IS A FAR MORE CONNIVING AND RAGE-FUELED PLACE THAN YOU HAD IMAGINED: THE EXCLUSIVE INSIDE STORY

Ok, boys and girls -- it's 2008, and guess what?

We at the New Republic ha ha are proudly using classic sexist stereotypes to trash a candidate from our own party!

"CONNIVING" is classic sexist spin-speak for "actually has the nerve to run for president"!

"RAGE-FUELED" is classic sexist spin-speak for "why won't the angry bitch shut up and roll over and die along with all those other uppity angry bitches who just won't shut up and roll over and die -- who do they think they are, anyhow?"!

Click on, and it's even better: anyone like Hillary who won't roll over and die at Obama's feet must be suffering from a whole bunch of Schneiderian psychotic symptoms! Ooh! Voices in her head! Ooh! She must be craaaaa-zy! Look at her hysterics in this Dean-screamy unbelievably unflattering photo! That angry f*cking bitch is f*cking craaazy!

VOICES IN HER HEAD --
INSIDE HILLARYLAND'S FATAL PSYCHODRAMA


by Michelle Cottle (Proving that females can be just as sexist as males. Ooh. But we knew that already, Michelle, dear.)
By the time Hillary Clinton's campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle finally packed up her lovely corner office with its fresh blue carpet and mini-fridge full of Diet Coke, her exit must have come as a relief--even to many of her friends on Team Hillary. Since Iowa, colleagues had been conducting an uneasy deathwatch for her.
"Lovely corner office" -- "fresh blue carpet" -- "mini-fridge full of Diet Coke" -- hmm. Interesting word choices.

[Then follows a boring account of supposed internecine warfare and slagging of Mark Penn, who I believe got canned some time ago. People I know and respect seem to hate this guy, I don't know why, and seem to hate Hillary's candidacy even more because of him. Me, what do I know?]
And so the jockeying and layering and squabbling grinds on, even as Hillary's chances of capturing the nomination grow ever more remote. [Translation: shut up and die, bitch]. From the outside, the struggle for control of a campaign that likely won't be around much longer [Translation: jeez, bitch, why won't you just shut up and die??] may appear absurd.
Not as absurd as this article -- not to mention its inflammatory headlines.

Who are you people?

Why are you so stupid and so awful? Shouldn't you know better?

Sadly, no.



--------------------------
Here's an article for persons who didn't get why The New Republic's coverage was sexist and why being explicitly anti-sexist actually matters.

Ditto, from Feministe (& not a pro-Hillary blog, btw).

Here's "Keith Olbermann's Head Explodes."

Here's Corrente on Obama, Sexism, and the Infantile Id.

Here's Watermelon Shuffle, reprised.

--------------------------
Hat tip on the NR article to Tennessee Guerrilla Women, who saays:
Hillary Sexism Watch: Cancel Your Subscription to The New Republic
Why does the lefty New Republic look just like the righty Free Republic?

If you don't already have a subscription to The New Republic, why would you ever want one?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a woman who has inspired mothers, daughters and sisters all over the nation with the hope that women and girls will one day be treated fairly.

Portraying the first woman to have a chance at the presidency as a raving lunatic is what we have come to expect from progressives and conservatives alike.

Anyone who has graduated from feminist studies 101 knows that the portrayal of uppity women as raving lunatics is as old as the patriarchy itself. And hasn't it worked out really well for the chauvinists?

I should be used to it by now. But if this is what it means to be Democrat, I am not one.

-----------------------------------------------------

Full story, here.

The G Spot, here.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Rummy, Cheney, Bushist Fascists: Torture Gets Them Hard, Says Beaver (no, I'm not making this up)


Why aren't all the members of the pro-torture crowd safely rotting in jail?
On Tuesday, December 2 2002, Donald Rumsfeld signed a piece of paper that changed the course of history. That same day, President Bush signed a bill to put the Pentagon in funds for the next year. The US faced unprecedented challenges, Bush told a large and enthusiastic audience, and terror was one of them. The US would respond to these challenges, and it would do so in the "finest traditions of valour". And then he signed a large increase in the defence budget.

Elsewhere in the Pentagon, an event took place for which there was no comment, no fanfare. With a signature and a few scrawled words, Rumsfeld reneged on the tradition of valour to which Bush had referred. Principles for the conduct of interrogation, dating back more than a century to President Lincoln's famous instruction of 1863 that "military necessity does not admit of cruelty", were discarded. He approved new and aggressive interrogation [torture] techniques that would produce devastating consequences.

I don't know why they're not safely rotting away in jail.
[Staff Judge Advocate Lt. Col. Diane] Beaver recalled that smothering was thought to be particularly effective, and that [Major General Michael E.] Dunlavey, who'd been in Vietnam, was in favour because he knew it worked.

The younger men would get particularly agitated, excited even: "You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas." A wan smile crossed Beaver's face. "And I said to myself, you know what, I don't have a dick to get hard. I can stay detached."

Beaver confirmed what Dunlavey had told me, that a delegation of senior lawyers came down to Guantánamo well before the list of techniques was sent up to Washington. They talked to the intelligence people, they even watched some interrogations. The message from the visitors was that they should do "whatever needed to be done", meaning a green light from the very top - from the lawyers for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the CIA.

I hope they begin rotting away in jail very soon, and for a very very long time.



Full story at the Guardian, here.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Bitter Poor Have No Bread? Why, Then, Let Them Eat Arugula! (Hey. It's Bitter, too!)


I said he was a timid centrist.

I said he was Not Ready for Prime Time.

And I'm right.


Now that people are listening a little harder to what Obama says, he's starting to get caught saying just what he means. And get caught not saying what he should say -- like never apologizing for Randi Rhodes at an Obama fund-raiser calling a Presidential candidate FROM HIS OWN PARTY a "big fucking whore."

"Bitter" Pennsylvanians? Oh? Those poor poor people. Those poor dumb poor people. Clinging to their faith.

No, Barry's not sounding out of touch. Nope. Not at all. He'll do just fine against McCain. Pinky swear, I promise!

Bitter bitter bitter. Bitter as arugula. Yep. Trash the working poor, why don'tcha?

It's so Bushist -- so "poor people are poor because they are lazy." It's all their fault. (Just like every time Obama puts his foot in his mouth, it's Hillary Clinton's fault. Hunh?)

Complaining about the high price of arugula?

That was a good idea.


FOOT IN MOUTH.

We're not electing a Prom King, people.


Really, we're not.



.

It's the Sexism, Stupid!


Watch it at YouTube, here.

Watch it if you dare, testosterone-deprived acne-pocked media whore media sexist sniggering fratboys. [MSNBC, Matthews, Carlson, FlabbyMatt Taibbi, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Kristol, Olbermann, Shuster, Cafferty, Beck, Cavuto, Russert, Barnicle, Scarborough, Snyder, etc. etc.]

And all you sniggering fratboy sympathizers. [MoDo, HuffPo]

And the rest of some of the rest of you who are Faux-liberal Manichaean sexist sniggering fratboys who don't even know that you are sexist sniggering fratboys. [Kos, Aravosis, PDA, Move-on, Buzzflash, Olbermann, FlabbyMatt Taibbi, Shuster, Rich]

Watch it if you dare. All the way to the end.

But don't forget:
"While women have been elected to the highest offices in countries such as England, Germany, and India, [oh, and not to mention Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Israel, and Ireland -- who have I forgotten?] the idea that a woman could be president of the United States provokes scoffs and ridicule.

The press portrays female candidates as unviable, unnatural, and incompetent, and often ignores or belittles women instead of reporting their ideas and intent. [What? They DO??]

Since voters learn most details about presidential candidates through media outlets, Falk asserts that this prevailing bias calls into question the modern democratic assumption that men and women have comparable access to positions of power." -- Women for President, Media Bias in Eight Campaigns

Sexism pervading America? What? Well, I must tell you that I'm shocked. Shocked.

[Why do I now call Matt Taibbi "FlabbyMatt"? Check out his most recent anti-Hillary screed, in which he leads off by disparaging the physical appearance of a leading candidate for President of the United States, hurling an insult that is at once both sexist AND ageist. Way to go, FlabbyMatt.]

Bill O'Reilly rips off my post title, here.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Obama's "F*cking Whore Fundraiser" Scandal: See No Evil? Hear No Evil? Really? Speak No Evil? Well, nevermind.

Obama's odd silence on the Fucking Whore Fundraiser Scandal is shocking, yet unsurprising. Somehow. And you'd think that this would be a major story for the media whore media, would you not? And yet that silence, too, is deafening.

Hmm. Whatup?

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama needs to denounce Randi "Clinton is a big fucking whore" Rhodes' comment. Right frickin' now. (Then Mr. Hope/Change/Hope can explain why he waited so long to do so, and why that behavior is not both sexist and majorly righwing.))

His continuing silence about this vulgar sexist attack gives consent and complicity, especially since it occurred at an Obama fundraising event.

Obama must denounce Rhodes' statements about both current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, apologize for the sexist slurs being made at his fundraiser, and return all money that event made. [Update: didn't happen. Aint's gonna happen.]

And Randi Rhodes needs to have her head examined. (She's not the only one). I hadn't realized that the Democratic party was so severely infested with vulgar, sexist vitriolic boors masquerading as liberals -- so now there's a Pottymouth Cheney/Freeper wing of the Dem party, eh?

Makes me sick. Kos makes me sick, Progressive (sic) Dems of America makes me sick, BuzzFlash, Americablog, blah blah blah. Why do they think it's ok to behave this way? Shrieky hysterical mob mentality behavior from people who really really should know better -- but don't.

Shame on them. Feh.



More here, via No Quarter.

And good comments here at Anglachel:

[Update: I have to say that with every week, and with every passing day that brings more Hillary-hating hysteria and swiftboat slime, I am sliding further and further away from my vow of supporting the Democratic candidate whoever that might be. I have taken hard hits for supporting Hillary, both in RL and SL (oddly enough), and I'm telling you, I don't frickin' like it. Drummed out in RL of Americablog and HuffPo and Buzzflash and DU and Kos, I fled to the Hillaryblogs. Where I found myself with the similarly drummed-out with similar philosophies -- it sure feels like home. (And even SL is less so, though most I hang with have been very polite. I learned recently that one Obama supporter there was been spreading rumors behind my virtual back that I had said I was not going to vote for Obama, which I had never ever said. I'm adding that experience to my list of things that are starting to make me frickin' wonder.)

I don't like Obama's policies, and I don't like the way the more vocal of his supporters behave. My opinion of him has gone from generally favorable a few months back to generally unfavorable, as I have learned more about him. I think he is a timid centrist candidate who is not ready for prime time. I don't like how his team treats his opponent. At all. I don't like all this constant wierd-ass dismissive sexist crap, and I don't like what Leahy and Kerry and Kennedy and Carter are saying and doing; I don't like being vilified, I don't like the media whore media's sexist crap, especially not Frank Rich and Huffington and MoDo and Olbermann, and I particularly don't like the Faux-left's sexist crap, like that of Randi Rhodes, above. You act like that, you're not on my side. And I am not on yours. Forewarned is forearmed. So far I'm sticking to my pledge, but I'll tell you, as of about an hour ago, I've started wavering. And I am a big-time long-time ultra-progressive Democrat. A real one, not a timid centrist. Lose me if you dare.]