A great video from the Public Service Administration highlighting the depressingly over-looked issue of McCain cursing at his wife in the most misogynist way.
Via Huffington Post
Original Huff-Po article on McCain's use of offensive language.
Huff Post resurrected this video to remind everyone what kind of idiot we have running our country.
I read Consumerist everyday, and rarely do the comments piss me off as much as they did yesterday on this post. The post is about an Xbox Live player who was asked to change his gamer tag. His tag, TheGayerGamer, was apparently offensive to many people on Xbox Live. The irony of people being offended on Xbox Live is not lost on me. These people are playing horribly violent games and are constantly taunting each other with derogatory language, so why the hell do they care that his name is TheGayerGamer? I don't think it's because they want to protect the LGBT population from discrimination...
I don't think Microsoft is anti-gay. I am just disappointed that people are offended by someone expressing the fact that he's gay. It should be no different than if someone called themselves the TheBlackGamer or TheIrishGamer.
The fun part about all of this, is that I submitted it to Digg, and it has been Dugg 848 times, has 388 comments and is on page 3 of the Top in 24!
The WNBA recently unveiled its plans to boost support for the league and its bottom line: femme-ing up its players. Instead of focusing on the amazing athleticism these women possess, instead of putting more money behind marketing and media for the teams and the league, their answer is to make these athletes "women first." There are all sorts of gender issues here: the sexualization of women, the homophobia that exists in sports, women forced to change instead society moving forward. It's just disgusting that we are still forced to deal with things like this in 2008.
Below is a commentary from Feministing.com's "Friday Fuck You" series on YouTube. (Definitely worth subscribing to.) Also check out the discussion on Feministing.com here.
It's especially interesting when this push for new buildings becomes very literally destructive - in this case the crane that ripped through the apartments and lives of a few East Side tenants. The New York Times published a follow-up story today illustrating what's wrong with the New York real estate situation:
'Given the perverse logic of Manhattan real estate, the crane accident, a symbol of runaway development in New York, may end up paving the way for even more of it. “The landlord has no motivation to do repairs when he could tear a building down and build a highly profitable office tower instead,” says Adam Leitman Bailey, the lawyer for Crave Ceviche Bar.'
And so it goes. Property owners are extremely influential and hold much power over the future and culture of a city. And with money it seems as their sole motivator, our neighborhoods and our values do not stand a chance.
While Michael Vick is serving a 23-month sentence in federal prison for his abuse and torture of the dogs of Bad Newz Kennels, 47 of the surviving pit bulls now have a chance to perhaps become dogs again. Most have a long road to recovery. Georgia, for example, had all 42 of her teeth pulled so she didn't fight back when she was forced to breed.
It's hard to know how to wade through all the discussions regarding race and Vick's conviction. Was he made an example of? Definitely. Was it because he was a football star? Probably. Would the reaction have been the same if he was a white football star? I don't know.
One of the major points raised by Boyce Watkins, in his comments on the Vick conviction, is that the public was outraged over the abuse of these dogs while other (white?) folks serve lesser sentences for worse crimes. And that the horrors in Darfur continue while most Americans haven't a clue what's happening there. I wholeheartedly agree with him on both of these points. This conviction is just only if we convict people appropriately for their crimes, regardless of race or fame.
What I very much disagree with Boyce on here is that what Michael did is akin to hunting. When you hunt a deer, you shoot them, and they die pretty soon after that. The deer is not tortured mentally and physically again and again for years on end or brutally killed by slamming his head against concrete when no longer needed. Boyce also thinks we should give Vick a break because everyone does "stupid things" when they are "young" at 28. This is absurd. It doesn't matter how young you are; if you dig out your dog's 42 teeth, you are a disgusting pig. And I think Boyce does a disservice to the youth of today by excusing this behavior.
The struggle to end the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan has been going on for years. I first learned of the escalating violence at an ISG conference commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide back in 2004, and now, 3 1/2 years later, the violence continues despite the classification of genocide by the US government and the United Nations.
There has been recent movement in the right direction, but the UN has not yet deployed the UN/African Union troops to help the millions of people in danger of being tortured, raped and murdered. In particular danger are the women in the refugee camps who need firewood to cook what little food they have for their families. These women run an extremely high risk of being raped by the Janjaweed militia who patrol the areas surrounding the camps.
The brutality of the situation is unfathomable and we need to keep pushing:
Educate:
Frontline
Eric Reeves' Blog
Institute for the Study of Genocide
ENOUGH Project's links
Do something:
- Add the Causes app to your Facebook and donate to the SaveDarfur Cause. If you donate through Facebook by Sunday, your donation will be matched.
- Fast for Darfur on Dec 5th: give up one luxury item for the day (Starbux, anyone??) and donate the money to the Genocide Intervention Network (I will post more about what I am organizing for this in a couple of days.)
- ENOUGH lists number of events on their site.
Lots of info out there, many ways to help. Just do something.
Lots of strikes going on write now in the streets of NY and LA. Though I am not too sure of the validity of the Broadway stagehands' strike, I do think that the WGA writers have a good reason to strike; they should be compensated for their work published online. Here's a great YouTube video created by the writers of the Daily Show:
Via BoingBoing
