Just figure out things you haven't done since Bush was in office. It makes it seem like it was so very long ago. I, for one, haven't had sushi since Bush was in office, something I'm going to rectify today. What about you?
Who did he pick? According to WPIX in New York, it's...
PIX NEWS is being told that Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand is the reported choice of Governor David Paterson to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton. Two Congressional sources say members of the New York delegation have been invited to join Governor Paterson for the announcement in Albany at noon tomorrow.Two members of that delegation, agreeing to speak without attribution, confirmed to reporter Marvin Scott that the Governor has telephoned New York's Democratic members of Congress for their views after Caroline Kennedy withdrew herself from consideration. One of the contenders, longterm Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney canceled a scheduled appearance on "PIX News Closeup" tomorrow because of a "conflict," which she did not disclose. She too will be in Albany. According to the sources, Gillibrand, now in her second congressional term, was favored by Secretary of State Clinton herself. Paterson has been under pressure to select a woman.
Kirsten Gillibrand represents New York's 20th Congressional district (upstate counties of Saratoga, Dutchess, Columbia, Rensselaer, Washington, Warren, Delaware, Greene, Essex and Otsego). Upstate representation, as well as pressure to name a woman to the seat, were factors discussed in the media.
There is expected to be a webcast of the event, so stay tuned and check the Governor's web site. If I learn more I'll post it.
I wondered how Gillibrand is on LGBT issues. Her web site doesn't say anything about it. She's pro-gun, pro-family farm and wants health care reform. Looking at this site, it's a mixed bag. She supported non-inclusive ENDA.
* Voted YES on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. (Nov 2007)
* Re-introduce the Equal Rights Amendment. (Mar 2007)
* Voted YES on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Jan 2007)
* Ensure access to and funding for contraception. (Feb 2007)
* She's a member of the "Blue Dog" Coalition of conservative Democrats. (Nov 2007)
However, if you look at the HRC scorecard, she scored 80 out of 100. And...
According to the Human Rights Campaign, she voted against the repealing of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislation, opposed legislation that would grant equal tax treatment for employer-provided health coverage for domestic partners, opposed legislation to grant same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and permanent residents the same immigration benefits of married couples and opposed legislation to permit state Medicaid programs to cover low-income, HIV-positive Americans before they develop AIDS.
Fail. We can't have an unreliable Dem vote in the U.S. Senate, but that's what the Empire State has now.
How many ways can you spell M-O-R-O-N? With all of the political change in the air, Faux News decides to focus on the loving affection that the Obamas have for one another. Only the expert seems to be unaware that the First Couple's "fist bump" is not the same as, well, of a certain sexual act where the fist goes where the sun doesn't shine.
"Barack and Michelle do a lot of touching, kissing, even FISTING with one another."
Jesus H. Christ, I had half a post for Blog For Choice Day written, and my dumb fuck self deleted it. Try #2.
Okay, the post is supposed to be an examination of misogyny. When I started blogging almost 5 years ago, I didn't really comprehend the extent that misogyny was the main, probably sole engine of the anti-choice movement. In part, it's because misogyny is so baffling to me. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to hate women, and yet in the years I've been doing this and therefore studying and interacting with anti-choicers, I have to conclude that's what motivates them. Watch this video PZ posted, for instance, and the one thing that really strikes you is that everyone in this video radiates contempt for women, who appear to be, in their estimation, stupid, weak, and just begging to be raped if they get out of line.
The other thing that will strike you is that everyone in the video is, despite their hatred for women, actually a woman. There's no doubt that this is 100% calculated in order to give a misogynist movement cover, though of course female misogyny is far from an unknown phenomenon. And being a woman, I have a pretty good grasp on what makes being a female misogynist appealing. You're emotionally rewarded by men for it (and rarely challenged, because your womanhood gives you cover), you get to feel like you're superior to your entire gender, and sometimes you're financially rewarded for it. Believing rape myths allows you to believe that you'll never be raped, and being anti-choice allows you to feel that you're a moral person because you're not a slut. I get it.
But what I've found in the past 5 years is that the female face that the anti-choice movement puts forward is misleading. The majority of anti-choice wackaloons I've encountered are straight men, and to the last one, they have Major Issues with women. (Of course, this is a self-selecting group, as men with Major Issues regarding women are attracted to fucking with me like nobody's business.) I think that the experience, however tedious, has given me some insight into why so many straight men are just plain old misogynists, even though they presumably like women enough to want to be with us. Women are socially constructed as men's inferiors and often in a servile role. But at the same time, sexual attraction makes men feel especially vulnerable to women, which hurts the ego. After all, if women are supposed to be in a servile role, but still have a right to reject you, that's got to be maddening. Much of our society is organized around putting women in their place to rectify this situation for insecure men. Think of a place like Hooters where scantily clad women are literally serving you, and you'll see what I mean. The reproductive rights wars are fueled by this issue. My experience has been that relatively secure men either are passionately pro-choice or tend to think that it's not their issue because it's women's bodies and therefore women's problem.
Pregnancy has a powerful symbolic meaning for fans of the patriarchy, and it's not just that it's the process by which we make new people. It's because it gets interpreted as biological proof that women exist for men, and our metaphorically understanding of pregnancy reflects this---men are characterized as cooks putting buns in ovens or gardeners sowing seed in passive ground. The Catholic Church dogma on contraception reflects this view---all the high falutin' talk about how contraception puts a wall up between married people is a nice way of saying that contraception keeps a woman's body from being fully subject to her husband's manipulations. (That many men would rather not risk pregnancy every time they have sex doesn't seem to change the belief that contraception is emasculating for anti-choice nuts.)
Anti-choicers like to defend themselves against the charge of misogyny by saying they simply believe that life begins at conception. What they fail to understand is that "life begins at conception" is a misogynist statement. It's the erasure of a woman's role in making new people, and a claim that the only effort that counts is the effort a man put into ejaculating. Abortion is horrifying because it's a reminder that men do not actually make babies, but that women do through a 9 month process, and that if a woman chooses to interrupt that process, there will not be a baby. Which is pretty conclusive proof that men don't make babies. Which directly contradicts the misogynist belief that only men are capable of really doing jobs worth doing. Really, it should be blatantly obvious that women make babies, not men, but psychologically distracting ourselves from this truth is the whole reason we even have a patriarchy and traditions like naming children after their fathers and not their mothers, as if the fathers were the ones who deserve the credit for making the baby. Even writing this paragraph is hard for me, because I know that saying something like, "Obviously, babies come from women supplying every bit of the material and energy except for 50% of the DNA," will not be a statement that's greeted with open arms. It may be a bona fide taboo.
What I don't get is why anyone gives a shit. I just don't understand the levels of insecurity that drive men to have this burning need to see women debased, especially sexually debased. It's everywhere in our culture, from mean-spirited pornography to rape apologists to sexual harassment to anti-choice nuttery. I get why women will engage in this---like I said above, it makes you feel like one of the boys. But in all the years I've been looking at this issue and trying to understand it, I just don't get why it's so satisfying to so many men to put women down, especially with regards to sex. And obviously, that's not all men, but it's plenty enough. I don't get anti-choice nuts, and I don't get guys who troll feminist blogs in an effort to try to gain some control over these women they consider uppity. I really don't get why men can watch really hateful porn and not be put off by spitting on women, smacking them, or calling them names when their only apparent transgression is being sexually attractive to the viewer. I can understand the dynamics of how a man turns into a misogynist, but I just don't understand the amount of energy they put into it is what I guess I'm saying here. Any theories, commenting hive?
Whenever I read about the fringe wack job survivalists, skin heads and other organized hate groups over at Dave Neiwart's Orcinus, it gives me the chills. There's nothing funny about these folks. In his latest piece, Dave covers the increased anxiety among the gun-crazed loons afraid of Barack Obama taking away their guns are gearing up...for something. In November of last year the number of background checks was 42 percent greater than in November 2007.
These fears are becoming widespread on the ground, particularly in the rural areas where gun rights have been a favorite bugaboo since the days of gas-station attendants and Beaver Cleaver. I know about this somewhat from personal experience; the fear that "Obama is gonna take our guns away" is certainly commonplace when I spend time in the rural West....On those fringes, what we're seeing is a reformation of the militia movement of the 1990s, which organized in large part over hysteria ratcheted up by Bill Clinton's gun-control measures, particularly the assault-weapons ban that passed in 1994. But there are a couple of twists this time around -- Barack Obama does not appear eager to push any gun-control measures through Congress for the time being, so the fear and paranoia required are even more ephemeral in their basis than in the '90s; and more importantly, the new militia is being constituted of a different base -- younger, more militant, more paranoid, and more likely to have an actual military background.
A lot of this organizing is happening quietly, and the Internet is playing a key role. Among the more common places you'll find militiamen networking is at Web social-networking platforms like MySpace.
Much of the networking is going on at private pages that you need permission to access, but others are public. For instance, there's this site, run evidently by an ex-Marine from Colorado, which features discussion of such subjects as "Training a Survival of Militia Group, Part 1."
Just pathetic. The loyal Bushies -- count among them Karl Rove, Margaret Spellings and tool Alberto Gonzales -- flew to Texas for Bush's "welcome home" fete after he passed the torch to Obama and became a former president. Apparently there was a little emotional man-love on the flight. Here's Gonzo reliving the moment and sharing it with Cox News reporter Ken Herman.
GONZALES: The last thing he said as he was getting off the plane — he kissed me on the forehead — and he said, “Just stay strong.” […]HERMAN: Any tears shed on the plane by anybody?
GONZALES: By me, yeah. There were a few.
HERMAN: Why?
GONZALES: Just pride. Just love and appreciation for the man and what he did, Ken. I feel — being on this trip did a lot for me, in terms of just making me realize — it was a small part, but I played a part in protecting our country, and I take a great deal of pride in that.
Watch this pathetic video of Gonzo; there's serious denial that all these Bush loyalists earned a paycheck on our dime as we watched them f*ck up the country.
Hat tip, Think Progress
Reading Matt Taibbi's despairing and darkly funny opus about American political lunacy in the days around the inauguration of a President whose major redeeming value, right now at least, is that he seems sane was an interesting experience. The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion is about how the red/blue culture war divisions that have been set up to distract Americans from our real concerns (peace, health care, a decent economy) have grown monstrous and completely deranged in the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11 and just generally 8 years of Bizarroworld politics. He spends months undercover in James Hagee's Cornerstone Church in San Antonio to see what it's like being a right wing nut Ends Timer (it sucks), and he also spends a lot of time kicking around with 9/11 Truthers, the biggest political embarrassment to the left since the invention of Che Guevara T-shirts. The book originally came out before the primary season, but this edition went to press right about the time that the 2008 election was getting consumed by non-stories like the "lipstick on a pig" faux controversy and Sarah Palin rallies devolving into the Two Minute Hate. Naturally, Taibbi ends his book on a depressing note, suggesting that all signs that the 2008 election might rise above politics as usual had proven false.
But what happened after the book went to press is that the economy went right down the shitter and, all at the last minute, the voters actually put aside the bullshit about 9/11 conspiracies, the evils of gay marriage, who wore what and who is uppity, and voted not out of hate but, well, out of fear for their own pocketbook. Which is a step up, because at least that fear of economic catastrophe was reality-based. And the Obama campaign was able to take the momentum and turn it into a transfer of power that really did feel like a changing of the guard. And not just the Republican guard, but the petty, divisive guard. Even controversial moves like asking Rick Warren to pray at the inauguration were done in the sincere spirit of defanging the culture wars---a recognition that validation is what your average rabid wingnut wants more than anything, and that the anti-gay hysteria is an attempt on their parts to be self-reassuring. (My inclination is to think it won't work, because resentful right wingers are emotional vampires and no matter how many nods you give them, they will always feel insecure and want more. But hey, maybe I'm wrong.)
As is usual with Taibbi, the book is blunt and hilarious. He tries his hardest to be open-minded and generous with the people he meets in Hagee's church, especially since fundamentalism is practically designed to prey on the lost and the weak. But of course, it's hard because they'll all buy any kind of hateful B.S. aimed at gays and liberals, and he gets plenty of occasions to encounter the line of cruelty that threads throughout the fundie subculture, no matter how much Christian love the profess. With the 9/11 Truthers, however, he doesn't feel any kind of populist guilt that would keep him in a state of generous anxiety, because the 9/11 Truthers hail from the same demographic slice he does---middle class, anti-war liberals. Because of these differences, and because of his need to keep cover in the Cornerstone Church community, Taibbi has different approaches with these two maddening groups of people. With the evangelicals, he just fucks with them, making up increasingly outlandish stories about his past to see how much they'll swallow. (All of it, of course.) With the Truthers, he tries to argue with them, perhaps thinking that because they're so similar to people he gets along with as a general rule, he can somehow make them see reason. Luckily, he documents this futile behavior to great effect, but I did feel sorry for him, because he couldn't quite seem to come to peace with the fact that Truthers, like all conspiracy theory nuts, are not even remotely interested in rational thought. Evidence that you can bring to bear that disproves their horrible theories doesn't relieve them, it just makes them angry.
I was skeptical about his equivalence between these two groups at first. I tend to think fundies are coming from a place of more personal frustration and fear, and conspiracy theorists are just people with major ego problems. But I think he convinced me that there was something going on, in that these political subcultures are the natural result of a political landscape that's already surreal, an ostensible democracy where The People really don't have much power. After all, The People hate the war, hate the way rich businessmen are screwing us out of our political fortunes, and hate free trade policies that are bleeding the country dry. But we don't really get to vote on these issues, which have been pulled out of our hands. We're left voting on abortion and affirmative action and school prayer. Taibbi's theory is that in an absurd political climate like ours, completely wack-a-doodle political subcultures are going to grow like weeds because there's no reality-based points of reference. Certainly it seems that a lot of 9/11 Truthers are people that have been slowly driven crazy by the political insanity that was the Bush administration, and instead of focusing on the realities that they don't seem to be able to affect---torture, human rights abuses, the war itself---they get involved in concocting crazier and crazier theories about how the Bush administration actually caused 9/11. Focusing on fantasies is just psychologically easier, I guess. Same story with fundie Christians. They live in communities strained by the ongoing economic problems, and they have problems doing things like holding marriages together or making friends, and the real causes of their problems are complex and hard to tackle, so instead they get sucked into a fantasy of the end of days and hope to just pray all their problems away.
My one major quarrel with Taibbi is that he falls into the trap of classifying culture war issues as merely distractions from "real" issues like economic issues. I'm 50/50 on this interpretation. I think it's absolutely true that culture war issues are meat thrown to wingnuts to get them into a frenzy of envy and hatred for the liberals with all the sex we're having in between interesting parties with good food and conversation. And of course it's small and petty for right wingers to be willing to throw their votes away worrying about what kind of sex some strangers are having. But the trap is in thinking that liberals who actively resist them are being equally hoodwinked by the powers that be into squabbling over nothing. Reproductive rights don't cause any damage, except to the feelings of sexists who need to get a life. But not having them can be utterly life-ruining in the same way that losing your job can be---thus, in my mind, they are both important issues, and as long as jobs and reproductive rights are threatened, it's an issue. It's actually a small quibble---I don't think that someone like Matt Taibbi thinks that a reproductive rights activist or a gay marriage activist is wasting her life, and it's certainly true that we're right. The question is how much we're letting these issues distract us from the larger economic trends. And I think it's clear that the right is using these issues as a distraction way more than the left.
Plus, I can't think of a bigger culture war issue than global warming. And Taibbi gets a taste of this when he's subjected to a Cornerstone minister berating congregants to avoid caring about global warming, because environmentalism is apparently a sin. This is definitely one of those lopsided issues, where the workaday right winger is primarily motivated by his loathing for effete liberals who do girly things like care about the planet and the human race's ability to survive, but liberals are in this because we can't afford to lose this one. Facing down a roomful of mouth-breathing morons gabbing about how Al Gore invented global warming, Taibbi had a really hard time not blowing his cover. Now, I thought, you know how it feels to have your basic rights to family life or bodily autonomy assaulted for the same self-serving reasons, faux populist reasons.
But really, minor quibble. The book is hilarious and thought-provoking, and it made me redouble my hopes that Obama's inspiring campaign can really get our nation past a lot of this crap.
Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. Our commitment to openness means more than simply informing the American people about how decisions are made. It means recognizing that government does not have all the answers, and that public officials need to draw on what citizens know. And that's why, as of today, I'm directing members of my administration to find new ways of tapping the knowledge and experience of ordinary Americans -- scientists and civic leaders, educators and entrepreneurs -- because the way to solve the problem of our time is -- the way to solve the problems of our time, as one nation, is by involving the American people in shaping the policies that affect their lives.
-- President Barack Obama, 1/21/2009, in remarks delivered in his welcome to senior staff at the White House
Can you believe it - an administration that actually believes in oversight? I just received this in my inbox from the administration press office about executive orders that President Barack Obama signed today.
A breath of fresh air...
The President today signed two Executive Orders and three Presidential Memoranda. These five documents represent a bold first step to fulfill his campaign promises to make government more responsible and accountable, to launch sweeping ethics reform, and to begin a new era of transparent and open government.
Read details about the orders after the jump.
Across the country, families are tightening their belts in this economic crisis, and so should Washington. That is why in the Presidential Memorandum Regarding Pay Freeze the President has announced that he will freeze his White House senior staff pay at current levels to the full extent allowed by law. This will enable the White House to stretch its budget to get more done for the country. The President and his staff recognize that in these austere times, everyone must do more with less, and the White House is no exception. [NOTE FROM PAM: the press office elaborated and said that the freeze applies to those making $100K or more.]The American people also deserve more than simply an assurance that those coming to Washington will serve their interests. They deserve to know that there are rules on the books to keep it that way. In the Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel, the President, first, prohibits executive branch employees from accepting gifts from lobbyists. Second, he closes the revolving door that allows government officials to move to and from private sector jobs in ways that give that sector undue influence over government. Third, he requires that government hiring be based upon qualifications, competence and experience, not political connections. He has ordered every one of his appointees to sign a pledge abiding by these tough new rules as a downpayment on the change he has promised to bring to Washington.
In the Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, and the Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act, the President instructs all members of his administration to operate under principles of openness, transparency and of engaging citizens with their government. To implement these principles and make them concrete, the Memorandum on Transparency instructs three senior officials to produce an Open Government Directive within 120 days directing specific actions to implement the principles in the Memorandum. And the Memorandum on FOIA instructs the Attorney General to in that same time period issue new guidelines to the government implementing those same principles of openness and transparency in the FOIA context.
Finally, the Executive Order on Presidential Records brings those principles to presidential records by giving the American people greater access to these historic documents. This order ends the practice of having others besides the President assert executive privilege for records after an administration ends. Now, only the President will have that power, limiting its potential for abuse. And the order also requires the Attorney General and the White House Counsel to review claims of executive privilege about covered records to make sure those claims are fully warranted by the Constitution.
Thank god/dog/FSM. An end to the secret unchecked government of Darth Cheney.
How on earth can anyone take this "news" seriously? Nothing like Papa Ratzi's boyz claiming to win the battle of ridding the scourge of man-love from its ranks (after all, we haven't heard of a lesbian purge in the nunnery). The Catholic Church has an excellent record on that front, no?
A Vatican office that evaluated U.S. Roman Catholic seminaries says the schools have made improvements in halting what they call “homosexual behavior” among students.The Vatican also says seminaries are doing well in teaching about celibacy and are generally effective in screening candidates for the priesthood. The Vatican also directed evaluators to look for “evidence of homosexuality” in the schools.
And what does that look like? Do they have a special Papal Homometer to alert the evaluator of the level of homofabulousness. You know, like red Prada footwear?
Stewart's comments about Dick Cheney (and the accompanying visuals) are hysterical. He also scorches Rick Warren quite nicely. Sorry, I don't have a transcript.
Bishop Gene Robinson was on the show last night, but the above clip doesn't include the interview. The segment with the interview is below the fold. An exchange for the ages...
STEWART: Washington was, so, crowded today. There were so many people. You as a bishop were sort of doubly handicapped in that situation because you are only allowed to move diagonally. How is that negotiating the crowds.
ROBINSON: John, you have to understand there's a queen on the board as well.
(Stewart loses it, laughing.)
Robinson goes on to say that he met the Rick Warren at the worship service before the ceremony and he "let him know that I was praying for him." Stewart asked the Bishop whether his invitation was orchestrated to counter Warren's appearance. Robinson said that he was going to be a part of this all along, and mentioned the fact that he had advised the Obama campaign during the election season on LGBT issues. Stewart also asked him about whether he thought he would see someone LGBT as president one day.
"I think for every gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender person that dream for us is now in place, and all we have to do is the hard work to get there."
By now, I'm sure most of you have heard the horror story about the apples-and-oranges comparisons between Bush's inauguration costs and Obama's. If not, here's the story at Media Matters.
Here's why using the $160 million number and comparing it with Bush's 2005 costs represented a classic apples-and-oranges assessment: For years, the press routinely referred to the cost of presidential inaugurations by calculating how much money was spent on the swearing-in and the social activities surrounding that. The cost of the inauguration's security was virtually never factored into the final tab, as reported by the press. For instance, here's The Washington Post from January 20, 2005, addressing the Bush bash:
The $40 million does not include the cost of a web of security, including everything from 7,000 troops to volunteer police officers from far away, to some of the most sophisticated detection and protection equipment.
For decades, that represented the norm in terms of calculating inauguration costs: Federal dollars spent on security were not part of the commonly referred-to cost. (The cost of Obama's inauguration, minus the security costs? Approximately $45 million.) What's happening this year: The cost of the Obama inauguration and the cost of the security are being combined by some in order to come up with the much larger tab. Then, that number is being compared with the cost of the Bush inauguration in 2005, minus the money spent on security.
This calculation showed up not just on Fox, but on MSNBC, because all these fuckers are in the habit of repeating slander they see on the Drudge Report as if it were news. I don't think that the people at MSNBC were being willful in this, but I have exactly zero doubt that the right wing sources who started this story knew that's it's intellectually dishonest to remove the costs of security from Bush's figure and include it in Obama's. And they didn't care. This is going to be a major issue for the next 4-8 years. Right wingers will just blatantly lie about Obama, Drudge will post links, and the morons in the mainstream media will repeat the lies without doing basic fact-checking. Which will be left to Media Matters. Great.
To make it worse, the lie has an unsavory element to it that Brian Beutller teases out.
Instead, though, the press has quietly started holding Obama accountable for the high cost of protecting himself. Whereas before, it was customary to factor in security as an acceptable cost of doing business, it now falls to this incoming president to be discreet, if only to keep costs down.
Regardless of whether you think Obama has high-minded motivations or is just a really ambitious person, it's undeniable that he and his wife have demonstrated a great deal of courage in undertaking this campaign and office. And our worst fears about the worst elements of our society have been backed up by the piles of threats that Obama has received. This isn't going to get better, but worse, I suspect, because on top of the crazy white supremacist stuff, you're going to see the development of a cottage industry dedicated to spinning conspiracy theories to "prove" what most wingnuts are eager to believe, which is that Obama is not a legitimate President. There's a reason you all know the name of Vince Foster, and it's because the wingnuts did it to Clinton. But now they have the shame of having elected Dubya Bush to office, and so they're going to be eager to lash out even more, because the President they hate is cleaning up the enormous mess they caused.
The cost of security is the price we pay for what's likely to be a new era of openness from the White House. The Obamas got out of the limo and took the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue for part of the parade, a tradition that Bush broke with out of a combination of his contempt for the citizenship trappings of the Presidency, and out of fear of getting hit with eggs, a fear that Obama didn't have to share. It was an important gesture to make, because it's a symbolic break with the closed doors and secrecy of the Bush White House. Plus, the people who elected Obama want to see him out there interacting with the public, and the cost of that is paying for security.
I don't think the wingnuts who started this story were consciously up to anything more but floating a blatant lie in order to slander Obama and imply that he thinks he's some big deal. But I do think there was a subconscious element of begrudging him and the people who voted for him Obama's popularity and openness, because the preferred President of wingnuts is a loathed figure who really does think he's too good to show respect for the trappings of democracy. And so it results in begrudging Obama the security price tag that comes with going out in the public to wave and shake hands. And let's face it---the Obama inauguration did seem more glittery, but not because it cost more. It's because the attendees were more glamorous. Obama gets Beyonce to sing for him, and lucky Bush got Ben Stein to crack unfunny jokes. It's the dueling Starbucks problem, but this time with more balls.
The original Starbuck finally has a place to let the world zzzzzzzzz...
Oh, I'm sorry. I fell asleep because this guy is so fucking boring.
Fortunately, I was young, my imagination fertile and adrenal glands strong, because bringing Starbuck to life was over the dead imaginations of a lot of Network Executives. Every character trait I struggled to give him was met with vigorous resistance. A charming womanizer? The “Suits” (Network Executives) hated it. A cigar (fumerello) smoker? The Suits hated it. A reluctant hero who found humor in the bleakest of situations? The Suits hated it. All this negative feedback convinced me I was on the right track.
The world is grateful that Dirk Benedict, and Dirk Benedict alone, gave us Starbuck and the original Battlestar Galactica. We must also thank him for the discovery of the airless void known as "space", the little pinpricks of light we call "stars", and also for the Oxford comma. That one was for you, Dirky. And seriously, fuck writers. What did they ever do besides provide logical endings and spell words correctly. Too infinitee and bezond, say all of!
I appreciate that he bravely fought for a wisecracking womanizer with balls of steel. Nobody had ever thought of that. Not once. Beverly Hills nearly burned down when a writer suggested a steely-eyed manly man crack a joke - a joke, I say! - in the middle of a stressful situation.
So we persevered, Starbuck and I. The show, as the saying goes, went on and the rest is history for, lo and behold, women from all over the world sent me boxes of cigars, phone numbers, dinner requests, and marriage proposals.
Excised are several sentences about how he managed to fight for the right to be a walking, smoking penis, which in turn led to his being named head of the United Nations of Tobacco-Scented Pussy.
The Suits were not impressed. They would have their way, which is what Suits do best, and after one season of puffing and flirting and gambling, Starbuck, that loveable scoundrel, was indeed fired. Which is to say, “Battlestar Galactica” was cancelled. Starbuck, however, would not stay cancelled, but simply morphed into another flirting, cigar smoking, blatant heterosexual called Faceman. Another show, another set of Suits, and of course, if The “A-Team” movie rumors prove correct, another remake.
I enjoy a great deal that Starbuck was canceled, because everyone else on the show was apparently a fucking extra. Another reason why conservatives may not be hired in Hollywood: their propensity to declare themselves Emperor for Life of Episode #2B102-3, "Dude Looks Like A Lady". Kind of a dick move.
There was a time, I know I was there, when men were men, women were women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result.
[...]
Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Hans Solo as Hans Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars. Women “hand out” babies. And thus the world for thousands of years has gone’ round.
The part I cut out makes two things obvious. One, he's watched less of the new BSG than I have of his off-Broadway production, Fuckstick Magoo Pop Wang Dookie Dong. Two, Dirk Benedict is a giant sexist and also incredibly bitter about the fact that his supporting star roles have been usurped by writers and actors who think characters have deeper motivations than fucking.
Dirk Benedict has had his legacy supplanted by someone with a vagina. He's a manly man, and as we all know, manly men, rather than accept new developments with grace and class, whine like little babies because someone's taking their dusty old toy and playing with it. Benedict thinks he's been emasculated, while making it obvious that he had little to emasculate. The qualities he thought he embodied because he walked around chewing on a phallic symbol and hamhandedly spouting "clever" dialogue to sparkle-clad space women were the manliness of props. He knew he was a man, and still is a man, because he dressed like it and acted like it - "it" being what he thought a man should be, all bravado and cigars. However, he's an insecure child, lost and alone because someone has a cooler, shinier bike, and all the other kids are crowding around them now instead of him.
People like Benedict offend me because they walk around feeling victimized by everyone who doesn't cover themselves in the shiny patina of man-worship. They're constantly hurting because their cover for their insecurity doesn't work at all times in all places, and so they lash out. They lash out at women who break the mold of worshiping them for demoting females to the level of trash, and they lash out at men who don't want to walk around all the time like their entire self-worth is wrapped up in their erection. Mine, for instance, is totally wrapped up in my XBox Live Achievements.
Benedict has determined that one of the deepest shows on television, one that explores sacrifice, despair, hope, loyalty and a dozen other deep emotions that make us men and women and whoever else we are, is an offense to an entire gender because a better actor than him in a better show than his is a woman. And also doesn't chew up scenery like she's the goddamn Hamburglar and the ships are made of Big Macs.
Get a life. Better yet, get a job.
White House officials tell CNN Obama Chief Staff of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo Tuesday to all agencies and departments of the federal government. The memo halts further consideration of pending regulations throughout the government until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama Administration.
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