Alexandra Kerry (John Kerry’s daughter) showed up to watch Kill Bill at Cannes in a near see-through dress. Thank god she was wearing underwear! Am I prude for thinking she should have worn a slip? There’s just some things I don’t want to know about the future president’s family. Such as how they look naked!
Author: Ruby Sinreich
Big is Beautiful
Not that I worry about this kind of thing, but it’s nice to be reminded that our partners love us for who we are instead of what we look like.
Curves are girl’s best friend
Men are more likely to stray if their partners are slender, a survey has found.Those with skinny wives and girlfriends could be more interested in appearance alone – ensuring they are on the lookout for someone even more attractive.
In contrast, seven in ten faithful men have admitted they prefer their women a generous size 16 and over.
It’s a good thing I like MT 2.64
Warning, the following post is very geeky!
Complaint about Blogger (which runs this blog you are reading right now): I can’t do a “trackback” which allows my blog to tell another blog that I’m writing about something on the other blog. For example, I want to ping Mena Trott‘s entry about the MovableType 3.0, because…
Complaint about MovableType (which runs OrangePolitics.org): The new free version only allows for one blog and three authors. That means I would have to pay for that software to run OP.org. I already gave MoveableType a donation last year because their stuff rocks. But under the new licensing in MT 3.0, users are expected to pay $120 to accomplish what I’m already doing (having multiple authors in OP.org amd hosting other blogs) or maybe even more if I’m considered a “commercial” user.
It’s about time
It looks like the U.S. Justice Department will make a long-overdue investigation into the brutual 1955 murder of Emmett Till. But you have to ask, why now? Why not 3 years ago, or why not 30? According to this New York Times article, it’s because new evidence surfaced in two documentaries about the killing. But I’m sure if you ask anyone of any race who around at that time, they’ll tell you it was no secret.
Lewis Nordan was a little white boy growing up nearby in Money, Mississippi when Emmett Till was murdered. He later went on to write a wonderful book called Wolf Whistle which retells the story through a fictional and surreal lens. It’s an excellent book and also a good way to digest and understand the people involved, and how this kind of thing could happen. (And it certainly did happen many times in the first half of the 20th century.)
It’s embarrassing that it’s taking our nation this long to deal with our murderous racist legacy. Medgar Evers’ killer and the Birmingham church bombers were only convicted more then 30 years after the fact of their crimes. At this rate, maybe we’ll even get the truth about Martin Luther King’s and Malcolm X’s murderers before the decade is over.
Sad, But True
Happy Mother’s Day
1870 proclamation by Julia Ward Howe calling for the establishment of a national Mother’s day to honor peace and disarmament:
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
“Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
“Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
“We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devasted earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace,
And each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
Hero or horror
This profile of the female U.S. soldier in so many of the Iraqi torture photos provides keen insight into the worldview of many people who will continue to support this war – and this president – no matter what.
She faces a court martial, but at home she is toasted as a hero…
“We went there to help the jackasses and they started blowing us up. Lynndie didn’t kill ’em, she didn’t cut ’em up. She should have shot some of the suckers.”
By the way, she is now pregnant and has been transferred to Fort Bragg here in N.C. (Any connection to the Bush policy that prohibits servicewomen from getting abortions when serving our nation overseas?)
You (and I) should really read this report by Seymour Hersch in the New Yorker has the scoop regarding what really hapenned there and who was reponsible.
Can’t swallow this
How long do they think we will keep swallowing this bullshit about how they want to “reduce abortions” when they keep making it harder and harder for women to get contraception or even information about family planning?
No need to repeat the good words others have already written:
So let me get this right: teen girls are incapable of taking a goddamn pill that has instructions and everything on the goddamn box, but are capable of giving birth to and mothering another human being.
– Trapper John on DailyKOS
BushCheneyRobertsonFalwell want you barefoot and pregnant
– John Aravosis at AmericaBlog
Acting Commissioner: Okay, so we have two expert panels of doctors and scientists telling us to make it available over the counter, and we have four or five interest groups opposed to abortion and birth control telling us not to. What to do, what to do?
The Researcher: But we all know that the drug is safe and effective. Comprehensive research has proven…
Acting Commissioner: There you go again with that research blather. We all know what the research says. What we don’t know is how to ignore it and say we’re ignoring it to protect the consumer.
The Researcher: You mean spin the data, but I can’t do that.
Acting Commissioner: Can’t or won’t? You’ll do it and like it or you’ll be doing research on the absorption rate of light beers in chimpanzees.
The Researcher: Oh, please, anything but another light beer study.
It can be no coincidence that this decision will be “less filling” than it ought to be.
– The brilliant blogger at Now What!
If you don’t think this is OK, you better tell someone right now.
Thank you, Indy
I never thought I’d be saying those words, but the Independent Weekly is a whole ‘nother paper than that one that skewered and slow-roasted me over the pit of the 1999 Town Council race. Today’s Indy has many talented staffers that I admire such as Kirk Ross, Olufunke Moses, Jen Strom, Fiona Morgan, and others.
But enough gushing, I have real reasons to be impressed. This week, Fiona’s coverage of the March for Women’s Lives was so smart that I had to show it off to my coworkers. (Further proof about why I live here and not in D.C. with them.)
If you missed this story about citizens rallying against the pro-growth Chatham County Commissioners back in January, you have to take a look. What’s that all the activists are holding up in the picture? Why it’s the Indy from a few weeks previous, which graphically exposed how the county was “sold out” to developers. That’s meaningful journalism – changing the community!
And of course I’m not complaining about the award they gave to OrangePolitics.org (my other blog) for Best Blog of 2004! Although the timing could have been better – when I found out about the award I was in D.C. for the pre-march death week and couldn’t really bask in the glory. Hence my bragging now – after the fact.
TV “News” Non-Coverage of Historic Gathering
You gotta love watchdog groups like FAIR. I certainly don’t have the wherewithal to watch all the TV news to see what fresh stupidity they’re up to. I’m glad FAIR has it covered:
On Sunday, April 25, hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of Washington, D.C. to demonstrate for women’s reproductive rights. Crowd estimates ranged from 500,000 to 1.15 million, but it was clear that the March for Women’s Lives was one of the largest demonstrations in the capital’s history– and perhaps the largest ever. One might have expected, then, to see extensive coverage on national television– but a look at both network and cable news during the days surrounding the march turned up remarkably few reports.