I'm in DC for the National LGBT Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative this weekend, an event put together by Mike Rogers of Blogactive and PageOneQ. The goal is to bring together LGBT bloggers, many from outside of the Beltway, to network with, educate and strategize with some of our advocacy organizations, politicians and non-profits about the political blogosphere and its role in advancing LGBT rights.
It's the holiday season, which means a series of annoyances, including the fake War On Christmas, relentlessly stupid Christmas carols, trying to figure what to buy your loved ones whose taste is impossible to guess, and the fucking cold weather. But topping the list of the most head-bashingly annoying traditions must be the round of ads trying to sell diamonds to straight dudes by arguing:
They're an Austin-based band, and it's been a good year for them. They opened for Spoon. They played Lollapalooza. They opened for Barack Obama, and were thrilled when he asked for a round of applause for them by name. Their record is coming out in March, so keep an eye out for it.
Today's Genius song: "River Deep/Mountain High" by Ike & Tina Turner
1) "Please, Please, Please"---James Brown
2) "Love Makes A Woman"---Barbara Acklin
3) "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man"---Aretha Franklin
4) "A Change Is Gonna Come"---Sam Cooke
5) "Blue Velvet"---The Clovers
6) "Piece Of My Heart"---Erma Franklin
7) "Super Stupid"---Funkadelic
8) "Soul On Fire"---Lavern Baker
9) "Just Kissed My Baby"---The Meters
10) "Tell Me"---Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Critique of Genius: Ike & Tina Turner had one foot in the R&B/soul world and one foot in the rock world of the 60s. And this particular selection was a Phil Spector production, which means that there's linkages to other Spector bands. I feel that this list would have been better if it had the soul acts, some 60s rock like the Animals, and some Spector tunes by the Ronettes or the Crystals. I hope that future incarnations of Genius can be that intelligent.
Cat pic and videos under the fold.
So I come home from the grocery store, and take all my groceries out of the bag. And then I leave it there to go to the bathroom or something, and when I come back, Dusty had crawled into the bag with only her head sticking out.
She was quite relaxed, and napped there for a couple of hours until I made her move lest she think that my grocery bag is her property.
Erma Franklin:
Lavern Baker:
Shorter Abe Greenwald: tiny Muslim brains cannot understand the big words of Barack Obama, and, in fact, any effort to engage the wider world of Islam in a respectful and direct manner would be a symbol that we think they're all murderous savages out to kill us. Therefore, it's much smarter to bomb their asses into last Eid, because nobody listens to speeches in a post-11/4 world.
Randall Munroe gets it.
Well, either that, or he really, really doesn't get it, but that's just a disclaimer born of too many times reading Chris Muir's "Should-be-ironic-but-is-really-quite-earnest" dialogue.
(Hey, Auguste, where do you get off hotlinking that cartoon, anyway?)
I'm sort of stunned, but here it is (via Figleaf)---a conservative who makes a valid point in an otherwise silly rant based on traditional ideas about forcing people to suffer for "morality". He's trying to parse out why voters are pro-choice but still anti-same sex marriage even though reproductive rights and same sex marriage are both ways for oppressed people to reach for the brass ring of liberty against traditional sexual patriarchal oppression morality. His conclusion is that there's a lot of self-interested straight people who see gays as a good scapegoat:
I hope every man in this story walks into his house one day to find his wife having sex with two hard-bodied hotties at once while her lawyer serves him divorce papers. Toss in a couple of cute women who laugh and say, "God, you really settled for that one? Let's get you a real man."
