season of the bitch

Inspired by Amber, I’m posting the Twitter tweets that I favorited during the month of January. Because Twitter provides me with constant information and entertainment, and I love it.

If you’re easily offended…well, you probably wouldn’t be reading my blog anyway. So please, go on.

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This guy is slick. Really slick. Either that or he really believes his bullshit.

He came in with his talking points, for sure–”The fix is in…” “Saints and Mother Teresa,” “I was just trying to help people!”

But Maddow sits back and lets him hang himself. (Metaphorically!) She even offers him a way out–though it’s not really, because we’ve all heard the tapes, so he can’t really deny it. Instead, he raided an Obama speech for his talking points, but he ends up tripping over his words.

Also, one more reference to breast and cervical cancer and I’m filing a sexual harassment suit.

My piece on the UAW and Bush’s stuttering admission that the free market is not, in fact, infallible is up at Global Comment.

But Friday morning, Bush announced a $13.4 billion loan to the auto companies from the TARP funds—better known as the $700 billion bailout. The loans are for a three-year period, but will have to be paid back immediately if the companies do not show themselves to be “viable” by March 31.

Lucky for the auto companies, there’ll be a new president by then.

Bush said, “Government has a responsibility to safeguard the broader health and stability of our economy. If we were to allow the free market to take its course now, it would almost certainly lead to disorderly bankruptcy and liquidation for the automakers.”

I don’t know about you, but I have to smirk at least a bit each time a Republican has to admit that the free market doesn’t always do the right thing. I also giggle each time Bush has to use the word “responsibility.”

While we’ve been watching the Republic Windows and Doors protest, the kind of successful workers’ action we haven’t seen in years, some of us have been reminded of what solidarity actually means. Politicians from Barack Obama to Rod Blagojevich stood up for the workers, and workers around the country demonstrated outside of Bank of America offices and threatened boycotts until the bank gave in and paid the workers their compensation.

Yet the UAW appears to get nothing but scorn from America.

as always, read on.

It boggles the mind that Charlie Crist extending early voting hours in Florida is seen as a death blow to John McCain. The fact that Republican operatives basically admit that high turnout is bad for them, that they thrive on apathy and on only privileged white folks voting…Yeah.

The fact that there are long lines to vote early in an election where turnout has been up exponentially all through the primaries just shows once again that it’s not just Republicans who depend upon low turnout. Our system doesn’t WANT everyone to vote. It doesn’t need everyone to vote. It completely fails to take into account the numbers of people who are eligible to vote, it makes it difficult for people to vote, it allows for purges of voter rolls and disenfranchisement of poor neighborhoods by simply putting shit voter machines and not enough of ‘em in those areas.

Because if we really cared about representative democracy, we’d be prepared for EVERY person over the age of 18 who isn’t a convicted felon (in states where felons can’t vote) to show up at the polls. There’d be no excuse for anything else.

(Sorry this isn’t coherent)

Regular readers here will know that I love me some Gina Carano, female MMA fighting superstar.

Well, apparently some male sports writers believe Carano needs to be “protected from herself.”

See, cutting weight is part of fighting. It’s one that I’m disgusted by, having lived with a fighter for two years and seen the battles that he–yes, he–went through with the process and the damage it did to his body image. Fighters weigh in a day or two before their fight, and the idea is to take a fight at a low weight, lose some of it off your body and sweat the rest of it out so that when you rehydrate, you weigh more–hopefully more than your  opponent, and you get an advantage. So no one actually fights at their real body weight, except amateur boxers and wrestlers, who weigh in the day of the event, just hours before their bouts. And even they  often sweat out a few pounds and hope to be able to hydrate and eat before their fight.

But thousands of men across the world do this regularly. Boxers, muay thai fighters, and MMA fighters, as well as even high school wrestlers “cut” weight. It’s been dramatized on shows such as The Ultimate Fighter and Fight Girls, which starred Carano.

None of them were called out by name as being in danger of injuring themselves by taking fights at weights too low to make, even though there are many who struggle with the weight-cutting process.

Instead, the writer here chose to make the female MMA star–and there is no argument that Gina Carano is the biggest female mixed martial arts star out there–the subject of his article.

Once again, the female body is there to be policed by men.

If this writer is so concerned with the health of fighters, he should have written an article exposing the entire weight-cutting process for what it is: physical damage done in the attempt to gain a somewhat unfair advantage. He could’ve written about high school coaches encouraging teenagers to go into the ring weakened and dehydrated in order to make a lower weight class.

In other words, he could’ve written this article without making it about a woman.

Instead, Carano needs to be protected from herself. She needs to be stopped from doing damage to her body. He throws in some images of naked Carano being weighed in between two towels, and jokes about internet fans hoping someone would drop the towel.

This is completely unnecessary. If he had a specific point to make about how women are more likely to be encouraged to lose weight, how the thin ideal is encouraged on women more than men, he could’ve done it. He could’ve proposed same-day or even right-before-bout weigh-ins (like jockeys on the racetrack, though they routinely go into races dehydrated and starved as well).

But he didn’t. He chose to sexualize and then scold the woman.

So I’m used to feminist complaints about overly retouched, unrealistic photos in fashion magazines. I’ve even indulged in a bit of this myself (even while I photoshop zits out of my own pictures on Flickr.)

But now apparently there’s some controversy (granted, this is from FOX NEWS) about an UNretouched photo of Sarah Palin gracing the cover of Newsweek.

I found this ridiculous sentence while searching: “The cover photo is a very close-up picture, which drew controversy because many people say that a close-up picture of a woman is meant to be unflattering.”

To me, among many, many other things, this proves the fact that Republicans chose Palin because she was pretty, not because of any other qualities she brought to the ticket. I’ve seen hundreds of unflattering photos of Obama and McCain this election cycle, not to mention insulting and racist cartoons. Yet we’re supposed to be up in arms because she was NOT photoshopped?

First off, from what I know of photojournalism (and I do TA in the photojournalism department of my university), altering the photo is a breach of ethics. Now, granted, that usually has more to do with adding people into events where they weren’t, or making someone look worse (whoops, Fox), or, perhaps, making a black man look blacker?

So apparently I’m supposed to be up in arms because a close-up photo of a very attractive 44-year-old woman with more money than average and better skin than I’ve got shows what, her pores? That she’s got a few fine lines?

This is ridiculous.

I write in defense of beauty rituals and makeup, glitter and sparkle and high heels and femininity. And I don’t pick on Sarah Palin for using any of the above. I don’t even pick on her for being “Caribou Barbie” or “Bible Spice.” She’s allowed to be a pretty woman and to make herself even prettier.

But what the hell is wrong with us that a simple unretouched photo is enough to set the right wing howling that it’s unfair coverage? What’s wrong with showing a 44-year-old woman’s skin? Do they honestly think someone’s going to decide not to vote for her because they can see her laugh lines?

After debates over Biden’s possible Botox, and comments that Palin could wink so she clearly hasn’t had it (used to imply elitism on the part of the Democrats), this whole tempest in a teapot seems forced at best. At worst, it’s profoundly insulting to the woman’s intelligence–and to all of ours.

But then, presidential campaigns in general are an insult to our intelligence. And the more we harp on issues like this, the more they really do seem like a beauty contest.

I warn everyone: this may be offensive. There was champagne, and much shouting at the TV. Click “more” at your own risk. Also, it goes in reverse order, with the most recent first.

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McCain is not hammering on Obama because he believes we don’t invade sovereign nations like Pakistan (which he stated in the case of Georgia, but hey, those people are white).

He is hammering on Obama over the Pakistan comment because you don’t ADMIT that you are going to invade a sovereign nation.

God, they really think we’re all idiots, don’t they?

I wrote this tonight:

Scared to Debate?

John McCain has proposed “suspending” the campaign and cancelling Friday’s scheduled debate to “concentrate on the economy.”

Problem is, he’s spent almost no time doing his job as a Senator since the campaign started.

Chris Dodd, on the Rachel Maddow Show, said he hadn’t seen “hide nor hair” of John McCain while Congress has been busy trying to agree on a bailout plan to the tune of some $700 billion dollars. McCain has spent the least amount of time in the Senate, a job he is still collecting a taxpayer-footed paycheck for, of anyone outside of Tim Johnson, who nearly died last year.

Among the things McCain did not find important enough to suspend his campaigning for: the Webb GI bill, which was the biggest chunk of “Support the Troops” legislation to make it through Congress this year. Also, the economic stimulus package, which fell one vote short of the 60 votes necessary to stop debate. READ THE REST

I also have had some fun with Tumblr. And of course, Twitter (available in sidebar).

I linked below to Little Light’s post, and I want you to please read it first, before I weigh in on this.

BFP wrote about this as well, and her post is also far better than mine. The two of them are an inspiration in so many ways, and I think more people should be reading them.

Police brutality is a feminist issue. I’ve written about it, oh, a million times. In addition, it is a progressive issue, a liberal issue, an issue for anyone who cares about civil rights and civil liberties.

Our freedoms are NOT granted to us by the state. They are agreed upon with the state, and part of the contract we’ve made with the state is that it will protect us and provide certain things for us.

I posted the First Amendment the other day in regards to Amy Goodman and other journalists’ arrests. It, in addition to the right of a free press, provides that people shall be allowed to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

This State has failed us. Instead of protecting us, it has gotten us into unwarranted wars that have weakened us and diminished our ability to protect ourselves (and that’s even allowing that war may sometimes be necessary, an argument I am not going to have here). Instead of providing for us, it has attempted to control our personal lives and allowed profit to take precedence over silly little things like health and shelter.

Protests at the RNC especially, but at the DNC as well, have every fucking right to go on. There is no need for a “free speech zone” or anything of the kind. As long as the protesters aren’t attacking people in the streets, they have a right to be there and be heard. They certainly don’t deserve being arrested, let alone being brutalized beforehand (and afterward, while in jail).

This is not getting the press it deserves. Which is ironic, considering that the press should be freaking out at its rights being trampled, the way they freaked out at the idea that Judith Miller might have to give up her high and powerful source.

Freedom of speech, in other words, is no longer the concern of the ones who are supposed to fight for it: the media. They are more concerned with access to power. It is up to us to preserve the rights that we handed over control of to some state authority. The police are here to serve, not to coerce and control.