May 2005 – Page 11

Q&A, Part Deux

I signed up for another five question interview, but probably shouldn’t have. This one took me over two weeks to answer. Terrance asks some tough questions.

1. What, or who, inspired your feminism?
Lots of influences inspired my feminism. My older sister was a big one, talking about marriage and the politics of changing one’s name upon marriage. She also told me I should play a sport instead of being a spectator, pointing out the fetishization of cheerleaders. Those were my first exposures to feminist thought.

My other older sister gave me a copy of Susan Faludi’s Backlash long before I was old enough to understand it, and though I don’t know whether she would call herself a feminist, she certainly qualifies in many ways.

Playing sports, softball specifically, was another factor, especially as a young teen noticing that my male peers had a far better field than we did. Ours doubled as a soccer field and had divots in it the size of dinner plates — not conducive to softball playing.

My mom and dad raised us girls to be independent thinkers, sometimes by example and sometimes by negative example. I often think that I turned out to be their worst nightmare: a liberal hippie (in Dad’s words) more concerned with art and social systems than commerce. Then again, they inspired me to love the arts like I do. Dad, in particular, reads upwards of five books a week and is highly politicized. I certainly take after him. Furthermore, education was of the utmost priority in our house. As we know, in certain areas of the world demanding quality education for your daughters is a feminist act.

My young pregnancy was the final factor. Staying in Michigan with my sister for almost a month near the end of the pregnancy, I perused the bookstore and found a copy of a Germaine Greer book that literally changed my life. Like I said in the feminist influences post, “Giving birth as a teenager will do two things to a girl: send her into a neverending spiral of destruction or turn her into a politicized machine.” I took the latter path.

2. If you could change one thing about feminism today, what would it be?
Internal fighting is one of the biggest barriers I feel that all progressives face, in part because so many of us are ideologically driven. When I picked up Don’t Think Of An Elephant and read the first page, I found myself critiquing Lakoff’s use of language in one of the first sentences and was immediately put off, by myself for being so stiff and by the book for making certain assumptions about voters.

At this point I realized: Do I want to be right or win elections that are likely to benefit my personal politics? Well, both. But it’s difficult to be so ideologically driven and have to compromise our ideals for political gain. This, I think, is one of the downfalls of feminism as well. There are so many rifts. While I think these differences are what makes inter-feminist conversations so compelling, it also makes it easier for our detractors to divide us and paint us as political debutantes.

3. If you could permanently change one thing about the U.S. right now, what would it be?
That’s a hard one. My first answer regarded the political tone. Then I thought about more tangible, concrete issues and wished for world peace. Perhaps I should run for Miss America.

4. What’s it like being a feminist raising a son?
It is difficult at times, in part because I know his social structure relies on differentiations between boys and girls. I do my best to challenge some of his ideas about male and female roles, on his comprehension level of course, but I find that outside influences are more penetrative than I originally expected. One of my biggest pet peeves as of late with the little one playing a lot of video games is the lack of female characters. All the female characters in games suitable for him are token avatars or princesses in need of being saved.

We have talked about sex and love a few times, again on his level, first when he asked me where babies come from (and imagined that he emerged from my navel) and later when he asked me what “gay” means. The first talk was very standard, but the second was more of a challenge. I explained (poorly) that gay is when a woman and a woman love each other and when a man and a man love each other, and explained how this was different from mere friendships. Then I assured him that he already knows plenty of gay people, and though I didn’t name names or go any further, he seemed comfortable with that. There’s plenty of time for the rest in the future.

But for the most part, my feminism has been a nonissue except on purely ideological levels, of which he has no clue other than my weird aversion to certain media programming. I’m sure this will change in the future as he enters the preteen and teenage years and I begin to see him addressing personal relationships. I want him to know that one doesn’t have to follow the crowd — don’t dissect the frog, don’t give up your identity, don’t torture the poor/fat/gay/unpopular kid just because your friends do. Be brave by being different and above all, be yourself.

5. What’s the biggest challenge you’ve found in being a parent?
Lack of mobility, hands down. I’m a social person. I like to go out and talk with people and, unfortunately, I’m a night person. None of these personality traits are that conducive to parenting, but we’ve managed to make them work. Blogging helps my need for connection (and often keeps me up late when schoolwork isn’t an issue), and Ethan likes his outings with me as well.

But perhaps the strangest thing that I had never thought of was mobility. If I need something in the middle of the night, I can’t just hop in the car and go get it. I’m at home because the little one is in bed. One learns how to curry favors from mobile friends and family very quickly.

No more five question interviews for a very long while — too many difficult questions that drag hard answers out of me.

Love Your Body

If you look at one thing today, look at this (warning: nudity).

Via Animeg.

Joke Deconstruction: Mars and Venus

Thanks to Lauren for letting me guest post here. My plan is to rip apart a joke, which I’ll indicate first, thus starting a (possibly) long tradition of ruining everyone’s fun.

The Story:
Man and woman are intimate in bed. Man feels that things are “heating up” but woman then doesn’t want to have intercourse.

Woman tells him he’s not in touch enough with her emotional needs for her to fill his physical ones. (1)

He then creates a scenario with a surprise ending, constructed to parallel his earlier frustration, and we imagine (?) giving him pleasure in the revenge. The details involve taking her shopping, lavishing her with clothing and accessories, far beyond her expectations, and responding to the eventuality of checking out and actually buying the stuff with “I don’t feel like it” and the sneeringly analogous “You’re not in touch enough with my financial needs… for me to fulfill your shopping needs…”

There are so many things wrong with this, it’s hard to begin. Part of my frustration is that the analogy’s failings are subtle, and threaten at first to stand up to critical deconstruction. But subtle wrongs make for the most painful struggles. They’re the easiest for people to miss and accept, and thus the hardest fights to expose and rectify.

Before diving into the analogy, I want to look at a comment tossed off near the start (without emphasis) that I found to be significant.

After the woman’s comment about obstacles to intimacy in (1), the man tells the listener, “Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night, I went to sleep.”

The devaluing of his partner here is extreme. Not necessarily uncommon, but extreme.

Working with the assumption that neither partner is using the other for impersonal gratification, physical intimacy is a two way exchange, creating a warmth that is basic to emotional health. I am not suggesting that the drive to complete the “final act” of intercourse and orgasm isn’t a genuinely felt desire, but what that experience provides doesn’t remotely compare with the crucial needs served when we receive love, warmth, and real connection.

That the woman didn’t want to be penetrated (which could depend on many factors including fear of pregnancy or a sense of boundary violation in a world where women are still devalued and denied many forms of integrity) can and should be understood in terms other than “not putting out”. Viewing her as a tease frames the entire intimate encounter as existing solely for the man’s enjoyment.

Not that the man counts for nothing at all. If this frustration is unbearable to him, he’s free to talk to her about it, maybe ask her to let him know in advance if she’s just feeling cuddly but doesn’t want to go “all the way”. It may be that she doesn’t always know how things will go ahead of time, but giving her a chance to express that at least lets him know she’s not taking his experience lightly or messing with him for sport.

The man in the story, however, seems to work with the assumption that his needs are the only factor involved. “No sex” translates into “Nothing is going to happen”: forget the intimacy they’d shared to that point. Further, when the woman expresses the implied pain in not being emotionally understood enough to feel comfortable with opening up to him physically, he doesn’t even consider trying to build a connection with her by working toward trust and communication. He simply abandons her to the aftermath of the conflict, preferring unconsciousness to the company of his partner: to the work, which should be a labor of love, of building the intimacy they’re so clearly missing.

On to the analogy.

The idea seems to be that he would build up to the moment of a big purchase and bring her crashing down at the last second, in an effort to duplicate his experience in bed.

My first complaint about the analogy is that her pain was conceived in revenge, while his was the result of a natural process getting sidetracked by understandable reluctance involving an extremely personal choice.

This is assuming that the woman is interacting in earnest, and isn’t just toying with him. Granted there are likely women out there who do that sort of thing. But I am a woman, and I am the one responding to this joke. I happen not to play these sorts of games and so am speaking from that perspective, addressing what this kind of humor does to a person who brings her true self to the world, including her lover.

Next, he compares shopping with petting (please excuse the dated term: I’m avoiding “foreplay” because of its suggestion of intent), purchase with penetration and orgasm, and emotions with finances.

Unless he’s up for standing around in a (gag) department store all day just to see her model cute outfits, the shopping/petting analogy is just a lie.

“I don’t feel like it” is a stretch to imagine at checkout. Maybe “I was just shopping for fun” could fly. Clearly he was aware of his own intent from the start and his withholding this information from her is recreational torment for the purpose of delivering that sarcastic mimic of her earlier attempt at connection.

His attempt to compare his finances to her emotions comes closest to legitimacy. Certainly he shouldn’t have to ruin himself financially for her shopping pleasure any more than she should have to ruin herself emotionally for his sexual pleasure.

But this last connection is a little more sinister, maybe that being part of what gives the joke its twisted punch.

Doesn’t the attitude still linger in our culture that a man’s purchases entitle him to a woman’s body? Is there a suggestion here that her being “deprived” of fashion trappings is the consequence of depriving him of some action? Are we to feel that she deserves this punch of disappointment, humiliation, and deprivation? (Granted, it’s the deprivation of a luxury item, but then so was his, assuming him to have at least one good hand.)

And I can’t help but wonder why the joke included her interest in an item she didn’t seem to have use for. The simple answer seems to be “to paint her as crass, as lacking in character, as a user”. But I then wonder further, “to paint whom? Just the woman in the joke? All women? A typical woman? Any woman who’s ever refused a man who happens to be enjoying the joke?

Jokes are a product of and a contribution to our culture, transmitting attitudes as they reach their listeners, which makes me lean toward the broader interpretations. And the contribution this joke makes to our culture is pretty revolting. It makes light of a woman’s need for connection, attempts slight of hand to deliver what’s presented as just due, paints her as a viper and leaves her abandoned twice in the telling.

Told, I’m heartbroken to report, by a woman.

Note: since writing this, I’ve spoken with that woman, and am at least encouraged to hear that she didn’t write the joke and didn’t even relate to it fully. Still, I think jokes are much more important than they seem, and needed to address this one. I’m often uncomfortable with the license joke-tellers sometimes take in suggesting or assuming a derogatory notion, and then hiding behind the vague medium when called on it. Thus my new hobby of public joke deconstruction.

Pablo Eduardo Maximo Sanchez Jr. and His New Friend, Doug

For Mother’s Day I was made a mother all over again. I went to the pet store to replace Frank and Beans who, much to Ethan’s dismay, disappeared from the pond without a trace, and ended up leaving with this little fellow as well.

Meet Doug.

Doug is a six-month-old orange and buff pseudo-kitten that may have been a totally bad idea, funds and patience allowing, but has added quite a bit of spice to the Feministe household. He was found abandoned in Northern Indiana and rescued by the regional no-kill shelter. He was adopted for pennies.

Pablo hasn’t decided what to think about him yet, acting far more the Alpha than I ever expected. He watches Doug from afar, hissing when Doug infringes on his infallible bubble of personal space. Doug, however, has a significant advantage over Pablo. While Pablo has at least ten pounds on the kitty, Doug has his claws. Pablo was front declawed when I got him, unfortunately, and this fact may be the bane of his existence while Doug gets acclimated to the house.

The last twenty-four hours have consisted of significant amounts of lovin’ given to both kitties. And Doug’s name, for the record, still cracks me up.

The Blogroll – One Last Time

I went out last night for a friend’s birthday celebration and ended up talking about blogging, the politics of blogging, the politics of linking, rank hierarchies and their inconsistencies, and the amount of ire this topic incited. Several of us at the table are dedicated bloggers for various reasons and had to explain the entire process and appeal to the non-bloggers at the table. If you’ve ever done this, you probably realize how much this sucks. Especially if you’ve been ruminating all afternoon over how miserable your feedback can sometimes make you feel. While you’re out trying to have a good time.

This has happened to me before, primarily on more controversial issues in which I have been accused of endorsing censorship. Passersby often leave disapraging comments, but they are absolutely nil when the criticism is from those within your desired community. This case was an instance of being accused of endorsing the breakup of this community. This was never my intent.

Chuck had several inciteful things to say last night, in particular regarding his version of my long-winded, much maligned disclaimer which he responded to with his post “My Sandbox.”

Think of this site as my sandbox, in the big playground of the Internet. There are lots of sandboxes, jungle gyms and curly slides on which to play, but this happens to be my sandbox. Here, I write what I think, I grapple with how I feel, I fight the bad guys I want to fight, and I get to make the rules.

You’re more than welcome to play in my sandbox. I like playing with other people when they make the experience more enriching. More minds involved in the game we’re playing can take us to places we never would have gone by ourselves. And we can do it all without leaving the sandbox — but when we do leave, surely, if the game or its outcome was worthwhile, we’ll end up telling others about it. That, in turn, could lead to others wanting to play the same game, or reconsidering or taking a more critical look at the games they play themselves. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

…I’m more than happy to share my sandbox with you. Please, jump in!

I’m totally down with this explanation of the personal blog. And lately, because I want to take a different turn with my blog, one that is more personal and less likely to get me labeled as positioning myself as an arbiter of anything other than myself and my own feelings on whatever issue, I have a few choices. I can modify this blog to something more suited to my long-term writing goals and risk a significant amount of readership, including burning bridges which I never intended to burn, or I can ditch this place and start over elsewhere completely new.

I have long been loathe of my choice to name this blog what it is named, in part because it seems to posit myself as some sort of authority on a position in which I have little authority, but do I really want to leave it behind? Rana pointed out that it is only those of us who see blogging as a political act who have so much invested in the social structures underlying the blogosphere, including how rankings systems work (or don’t) and who is (supposedly) being heard. But unline Rana, I don’t think Shelley was trying to convince everyone to remove the blogroll so much as her post is in the spirit of provocative writing. And provoke it did.

Some accused Shelley and I of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but I find that many have disregarded the value in the claims that Shelley was making. It seems that many stopped after reading her initial post and didn’t read the between the lines or touch on her follow up posts (thanks to Astarte for a defense of the spirit of Shelley’s initial post). But one thing I think was exactly right in this fiasco is that seems to be entirely overlooked is this:

Fuck, people, don’t we get it yet? Ten thousand of us women could pick a handful of our numbers to link to and artificially push these people into the Technorati 100 list — but it still doesn’t mean that we women are heard, that we women are seen, and, especially, that we women are given equal respect. All we’ll have done is is ‘even’ out the Technorati 100, and manage to sweep the problem of our invisibility under the carpet–where the elite and the bean counters can then pretend there are no issues, and there’s nothing to be concerned about. Oh no siree, boss, we is all equal here now.

We need to change, yet, what would we change? Will we change things by creating a campaign and educating women to write a certain way, enabling more women to be linked? Will doing so make this all better?

Before this week, I would have said so, but not after seeing page after page at Scoble’s with people recommending the same people over and over again. And frankly, not if women and other ‘non-represented’ groups have to change their behavior in order to get these links. As Michelle Malkin has demonstrated so well, and with such dispassionate and carefully planned out skill–this issue is more about behavior, than race or gender.

Might as well say there are few poets in the Technorati Top 100, as say there are few women or few blacks.

Certain behaviors are rewarded with links in weblogging; certain behaviors are not. It’s just that a certain class of weblogger (white, male, Western, educated, charismatic, pugnacious) has defined the ‘winning’ behavior in weblogging and what must be done to ‘earn’ a link, and this is what we need to change, if change it we can. We have to start valuing the poet, the teenage girl, the middle aged gardener, as much as we value the pundits, whether political or technological.

Bottom line: I want to be respected, I want to be heard, I want to be seen. I want to be visible, but I don’t want to be you.

Further, in the comments to this post, Shelley says:

How many people have felt discouraged when they’ve been out to a person’s site for a while, and left comments or even written about their posts, but they’re never added to the blogroll?

How many people have felt excluded as part of these ‘communities’ because they don’t match some characteristic or another?

I don’t deny the ability of blogrolls to allow discovery — encourage it even (though I think that Lauren’s multi-link posts or including a link in a weblog post are better for this; leaving comments is, I feel, an equally effective measure).

But you’re equating a worth, a measure of a human, based on a hypertext link.

A-listers never had any power until we gave them power. We walked up to the Illuminati and we basically said, “Since you’re so well linked, you must have greater worth than any of us — why don’t you be our spokesperson from now on”.

That is the end result of infusing links with an emotional meaning.

Shades of Grey has a nice, well-balanced view on this whole bit.

And from the response I got regarding the blogroll in the last two days, I think Shelley has a point. A big one. I have witnessed several incidents of “public de-linking” over smaller issues than this and, despite sounding absolutely stupid when you remove it from the digital atmosphere and into the earthly world, have recognized how, apart from being politically loaded, the issue of whom and how to link is personally loaded as well. One reason that I have a problem with maintaining a blogroll is that once I’ve linked someone I don’t want to remove them. At times the removal is a rejection of the person and their writing, and it doesn’t get much more personal, as someone who fancies herself as a writer, than rejecting a person’s writing. I also had extreme issues with removing people from the “feminist blogs” list, in part because I allowed a day for self-selection in which people were able to submit their own blogs as feminist blogs, and in part because although I genuinely like some of the people blogrolled, I was no longer reading them. Because of this, I completely understand some of the reactions I got regarding the removal of the easily available blogroll, but what I didn’t expect was the bit about delinking me because whomever “didn’t want to hurt me.” Delink if you will, but publicly? Condescendingly?

I should have been one of the popular kids in high school so I’d know better how to handle this. Alas, I was not. Am not. Am human, can respond positively to honest criticism, but react negatively to those who cut me off at the root of my personhood.

The bloglines account is a far more accurate expression of my endorsements and daily reads — it changes literally every time I read it. I could generate a blogroll via bloglines, but that would negate the point of removing the blogroll because of my killer loading time. What to do?

Nonetheless, I followed a commenter from Shelley’s blog who writes:

Right now, there are people in the “A-list” who are viewed as authorities. Many of them overtly embrace this and exploit it to their advantage. Some of them, Doc Searls probably most notable among them, demur; but make no explicit disclaimer, seeming to prefer to allow people to have their misperceptions. What is troubling about this is that none of these individuals has indicated they have had any thought as to what their responsibilities may be as a result of their authority, regardless of how they happened to come by it. They can’t simply disclaim, “Hey, I didn’t ask to be on the A-list.” The fact is, they are.

I’m not going to claim A-list, or even B-list, but I do recognize that I have some responsibility to this community of feminist and/or women bloggers if one places value on my ranks in the ranking systems. I do want people with valuable words to be regarded as valuable, and as such attempt to highlight them in ways apart from passive links. Until I decide what to do with this ol’ blog, I’m going to honor the community of people who have supported my thoughts over these last few years. It was never my intent to rebuke you.

Because of the overwhelming response to my removal of the blogroll, and the insistence that others are actually using it, I am asking what kind of arrangement readers would like to see. Is the link to Bloglines and Feminist Blogs enough? If not, what is useful?

And remember, please, that it must be useful to me as well. I won’t be getting off of my damned dial-up connection anytime soon.

On Linking and Blogrolls II

Jesus H. Christ, people.

1) My blogroll was/is over 200 blogs long. Some of you found it useful to find other bloggers and others find it difficult to navigate a list of links 200 blogs long with only names and no descriptions, which is why I

2) Regularly provide a list of links of notable blogs and posts that I find inspirational or thoughtful or notable in some way or another. I realize that some are interested in perusing my list of links, which is why I

3) Provided a link at the top of the page to my current reading list of blogs. Which remains around 200 blogs long.

4) Someone is convinced that my assertion that my dial-up connection impedes my blog reading enjoyment, including loading my own blog, is a load of crap. Right now on my free internet service, I am pushing about 51 Kbps. You try loading up a list like that several times a day, deciding to wander about the house or play Freecell until the damn thing has loaded. I could load this blog all to hell with bells and whistles that are fun and exciting for my readers, but I couldn’t enjoy it.

5) Several have accused me of deleting the blogroll because I am bitter that I’m not higher ranked. Sounds a lot like the criticism revolving around the Where Are The Women Bloggers? question, doesn’t it? One might also notice that in addition to removing the blogroll, I also removed the links to Technorati and TTLB. Gross oversight, no?

6) Frankly, I’m trying to convince myself to continue with blogging at all. I don’t care about the rankings, I care about the discussion, and questions of ethos aside, a static list of links doesn’t do much for discussion. How I ended up in the ranks that I did is baffling to me and sometimes, as in times like this, I wish I weren’t so highly ranked. Which is why I

7) Don’t mind being delinked.

But it seems instead that the accusations surrounding my removing the blogroll are in fact bitterness about rankings and visibility. Considering that I do my best to provide links and visibility on what I consider meritable or of interest to my general readership, and considering that I directed everyone to the link to my blogines account (all of which is public) at the top of the page, and considering that I regularly allow others to post on my blog, I think these feelings of anger directed at me are unfair.

Such silly drama.

My feelings on the discussion surrounding my blog and blogroll are perfectly summed up by the comments by Michelle of JMP at Krista’s blog.

She writes (here and here):

Why should other bloggers have the authority to place obligations on a blog owner of what they should do w/their space? Even in the name of “a cause.” Peer pressure and strong-arming in the blogosphere is not the way to retain contributors to a cause.

…Most people are too interested in being read to alienate themselves by removing the blogroll. While it’s obviously a helpful referential tool, if 95% of blogland is running a blogroll, those who choose to discontinue it shouldn’t be held culpable for the imagined breakdown of communication in the blogosphere.

Dorothea Salvo responds with my exact sentiments on the unseemly adoration of blogrolls:

I lost my blogroll some time ago (though like Lauren’s, it’s still sort-of available as a link to my public Bloglines subscriptions — and before you ask, all but my ego-searches are public). I did it because I had it made crystal-clear to me that blogrolls (and, more specifically, the act of removing someone from a blogroll) can exert a style of social control that I just don’t want any part of.

I’m not sure we should discuss the social positives of blogrolls without also discussing the social negatives.

Shelley has also responded to the criticism she has received since I revived the whole debate.

Anyhow, with the amount of protest I’ve received in removing the blogroll, including a comment left by Bitch Ph.D. at Roxanne’s and a thoughtful post by Pig at Epigraph, I will bring it back in some form or another.

But it will take time. I have to figure out a way to keep it useful for me as well. After all, this site is my endeavor.

Why I Heart Dr. Charles

The sometimes crossed signals between testosterone and estrogen in the developing young body demonstrate the pliability of external gender. When that conflicts with inner gender indentity it can be quite traumatic, especially for 13 year-old boys. It may be a valuable right of passage for the heterosexual male if only for the simple demonstration that, like nipples, gender can be unpredictable and mutable. Only the effects of a handful of DNA and a few hormones separate the males from the females.

Even this doctor can shamelessly admit to having had peripubertal breast buds on the way to masculinity.

Read the rest.

More Design Stuff

I killed the theme switcher because it wasn’t working properly, and outfitted the joint into something far more my style. Not that country is my style, exactly, but I’m down with cowgirls.

The teal blue just wasn’t doing it for me.

Thursday Reads

I pass around the link love as my professors pass out the exam love.

Feminism
Nerve: Sex As A Weapon, Decoding the Language of the Christian Men’s Movement
“…Push your anger down and store it inside your heart, where Jesus will work it over it until it is ready to be ‘released,’ transformed into ‘white-hot brother love.'” The homoeroticization of Jesus has got to be one of the funniest things I’ve contemplated since November of 2004.

Big Brass Blog: Eugenics in North Carolina
And it isn’t performed against wealthy, white women: “more than 60 percent were black. ”

The Disenchanted Forest: Blame It On B
An explanation for the opposition to Plan B contraception.

Bitch Ph. D.: Discrimination Against Women in Academia
Professor B is looking for examples of women who have been discriminated against in academia for a book she plans on writing. I contributed my experiences. Share yours as well.

Pandagon: The Men’s Right’s Movement, Women Up Front
In part three of her explanation of the MRM, Amanda discusses how women, some of whom identify as feminists, join an anti-feminist movement to erode their own rights as wives and mothers.

Green Gabbro: Penis Talk
A discussion on the differences in how men’s bodies are (not) regarded on a socio-political level in contrast to women’s.

Tennessee Guerilla Women: Greener Feminist Pastures: ‘Miss Sweden’ Cancelled After “Feminist Harassment”
Where the show’s producers pretend that the way one looks in a swimsuit is indicative of their moral character. About as indicative as the way one looks in a burqa.

XX is going through some changes, adding new authors and upgrading their site. They promise no more spam. I haven’t had much since I updated my WordPress release. The comment turn-off after 21 days is a life saver.

And Alternet has more on the War on Birth Control.

Politics
BlogAlice: Darfur
This just hurts. Alice provides the drawing of children in Darfur, pictures of rape and murder in crayon.

WaPo: Researchers Tested Drugs on Foster Kids
Culture of life, my ass. The big story is to break tomorrow. via Roxanne.

The All Spin Zone: Bush’s “Final Solution” for HIV+ Jezebels
In which Brazil comes out on top as the smartest country in the Western hemisphere.

Fables of the Reconstruction: Why Do They Refuse to Stop Their Extremists?
Read this, mom. If you vote Republican next year, I’m leaving the family.

The Heretik: The Burning Desire of Laura Bush
I’m not captioning this one — you should read it for yourself.

Academia
Language Log: News Flash: The Effect of Politics, Athletics and Sex on IQ
The findings are compelling. *cough*

Sappho’s Breathing: Vandana Shiva
What appears to be notes from a speech. Shiva is one of my current inspirations. Why? “The current practice in the U.S. is: when something is complex, simplify it to crudeness and then lie about it.”

Majikthise: Relativism Case Study, Kyrgyz bride kidnapping
A guided tour of “objectivist/absolutist answers to the moral skeptic.”

To Be Determined: On the Grammaticality of Expletive Insertion in English
Chuck explains why “Shut up, guys, I’m trying to talk to my fucking mother” and “The soldier ate an occasional pizza” are in effect the same sentence. And not in the way you may think.

Media
Whirled View: “Born into Brothels” Stars the Good Fairy, Really, Not the Kids
A positive, maybe negative, movie review of a documentary on the lives of children in Calcutta. I too dislike movies that reel us in with the emotive rather than factual.

LATimes: Chat Room for the Chattering Class
A spoof on Huffington’s new upcoming celebrity blog. via Tild.

Humanity
Ilyka Damen: The Deal With London Calling
Ilyka explains why London Calling is one of the best albums of all time. Ethan would agree.

Pax Nortana: The Big Store
Joel hates big retail stores. I do too — they give me headaches, make my eyes water, and in general, put me in a horrible mood. Trips to massive stores must be as quick as possible, a mad dash in and out without stopping to gaze or chat or browse. I save that for the stores that are worth it.