Mike Huckabee Prefers Rapists to Democrats

My grandmother left the Baptist church after she married my grandfather. I asked her once why she felt compelled to leave the faith in which she was raised, and she told me it came down to cultural shifts that left her feeling undervalued and disrespected(this from a woman whose father was so strict she had to sneak out of her house during Sunday "sitting hours" to see my grandfather play baseball). I can't imagine what her reaction would be to the current Southern Baptist Ambassador Mike Huckabee and this appalling cover-up.

I came to terms long ago with the fact that victims of sexual assault will always face undeserved skepticism and disrepect(Pennsylvania is home to some of the worst, at least lately). Reading about then-Governor Huckabee's behavior towards the victims of Wayne Dumond, and his obviously political decision to value a violent felon's words over the safety of his citizens, makes me dream of dispatching machete justice.

It's terrible that Huckabee let this man go free over the obvously anguished pleas of his victims and their loved ones. It's terrible that he did so at a time when religious zealots were slandering his then underage victim by implying her case was affected by her distant relation to Bill Clinton. It's terrible that he wrote in his own book that he felt the criminal justice system should be more compassionate and yet signed 16 death warrants during his gubernatorial tenure. It's morally reprehensible that his 2002 campaign for governor in 2002 covered up illegal dealings that resulted in the rape and murder of two women.

In a reasonable society, the documents and public statements of the victims of Dumond's crimes would be enough to disqualify Huckabee from contention for the Republican nomination. Of course we do not live in a reasonable society. Huckabee has naturally responded to questions about Dumond by accusing those raising the issue of engaging in the dreaded "partisan politics."

The "partisan slur" defense is hardly new, and it always seems to work in favor of Republicans. Decisions made while in public office are open to public scrutiny. This is why Freedom of Information and Open Records laws exist. Think back to past Presidential campaigns. Michael Dukakis and his opposition to the death penalty. Al Gore's involvement with the internet. John Kerry's "flip-flopping" votes on the Iraq War. These were all incredibly effective attacks on Democratic candidates, and NO ONE DIED as a direct result of their administrative decisions. If the United States press turns out to be too spineless to delve more deeply into this deeply misogynistic and hypocritical chapter of Huckabee's political career, I'm officially changing my party affiliation to Anarchist.

Mike Huckabee spends an absurd amount of time defining himself as the candidate of choice for conservative religious Americans. The obvious choice for voters who want to conserve the lives of their female relations is to not elect him. The choice for the rest of us is to do as my grandmother did and respect women enough to let everyone know what kind of governement executive this man really is.

(Thanks to Jezebel for the post that got me all riled up).

Monday Night Football or Triumph of the Will?

Does anyone else feel like Leni Riefenstahl should be filming the Patriots' games this season? Or am I the only person that sees a resemblance between photos like this:

and this?

Confessions

I have the hots for Graham Chase. It's no wonder I have such a thing for frustrated men reluctantly facing middle age.

Fitter, Happier, Less Productive

The cats are playing with the popcorn I dropped on the floor. I'm taking the advice of a wise individual. Until further notice, it's 1997.

Coming Soon: Dispatches from Drivers' Ed.

Ah, fall

Global warming may have skipped autumn, but that doesn't mean you won't still get a healthy dose of Seasonal Affective Disorder this holiday season. It's that glorious time of year when the leaves turn bright orange for one day and then fall off en masse, the skies are blanketed in clouds that would promise snow if it were 30 degrees cooler, and the only rational response to life is to score some vicodin, buy a bunch of fancy chocolate bars, crawl into bed, and crank up some depressing music(I prefer Portishead, Morcheeba, Massive Attack, and Jeff Buckley, but I'm also currently living in 1997). Some newer options include Jose Gonzalez, Royskopp, Dirty Three, Jens Lekman, Boards of Canada, or maybe even some Kid A-era Radiohead.

The other great part about our new and improved cold season is the all the uplifting films we can look forward to. A friend lovingly refers to the months of November and December as "Holocaust season" at the cinema. Terminal illness, cold-blooded killers, existential crises galore-it's a feast for the senses that only the well-medicated and lobotomized could ignore. I'm looking forward to the weekend that I'm so overwhelmed by entertainment choices that I just stay in bed with said chocolate and vicodin. My advice for the SAD and cinemaphobic-put a bunch of Jan Svankmeier, Wong Kar Wai, Nicholas Roeg, and Brothers Quay on your Netflix.
You'll thank me for your agoraphobia later.

Greatest Mix Ever

I discovered this playlist buried deep in the comments section of the AV Club. It's pretty amazing. What is it missing?

Alanis Morrissette, "Thank You" (bizarre, bizarre lyrics)
Live, "I Alone"
Temple Of The Dog, "I'm Going Hungry"
Third Eye Blind, "Semi Charmed Life"
The Verve Pipe, "The Freshman"
Don Henley, "Boys Of Summer"
John Parr, "St. Elmo's Fire"
Journey, "Separate Ways"
Any Pearl Jam song from Ten
Stan Bush (and Dirk Diggler), "The Touch"
Arrested Development, "Tennessee"
BoDeans, "Closer To Free"
Better Than Ezra, "Good"
4 Non Blondes, "What's Going On" (the worst one of the bunch)
Europe, "The Final Countdown"

My So-Called Mid-Twenties

I think the dye seeped into my brain while I was waiting for the color to set. Despite ten years, 2,000 miles, and plenty of current developments that all fall squarely into the "Life Doesn't Suck After All" column, I still feel an awful lot like I did when I was 15. A couple of days wouldn't be so bad, but my Angela Chase mood continues apace. What will it take to snap myself out of it? I can't go to college and lose 20 pounds again. That's really only a once in a lifetime thing.

I am angry with you, Target. The DVDs came out on Tuesday. Why are they not going to be in your store until Saturday? Why do you have to make me more prone to cry than I already am? Is it not enough of a clue for you that I walked in wearing a huge frown and an unfortunately pinkish/red dye job? I don't have enough Matthew Sweet on my iPod to sustain another day of this mood.

Do you even know what I listened to on my way to your store? Oasis. OASIS. Yeah, it was that bad. And you couldn't even meet me there. You couldn't even meet me in the late '90s. I'm so disappointed it you, Target.

Random thoughts

The movie that is called "Turkish Star Wars" in conversation happens to be the greatest movie never covered by MST3K. It wouldn't have been, since it is not dubbed, and is in fact subtitled, but the late-in-the-film description of the Koran's importance(and it's connection to "The Sword" and "The Brain") is the greatest visit from the exposition fairy EVER.

REDACTED: For further random thoughts, please contact the author directly.

If this were Livejournal

"Wonderful Life" by Nick Cave would be my song for the moment. Because it's that sort of day. Tomorrow might even descend to depths worthy of a female singer-songwriter.

Please, don't let that happen. If you see me, buy me a drink or a cookie. Only you can prevent pointless pseudo-feminist navel-gazing.

You Stay Classy, Philadelphia

As if it weren't enough to blow several mental circuits contemplating last week's tale of horrific sexual violence in Philly, I stumbled upon another reason why I think Pennsylvanian women must be the worst rape crisis counselors on Earth. If a men can gang rape a woman at gunpoint and walk away without being charged with any sort of sexual assault, it's hard to believe that anyone gets convicted of rape in that city.

Please excuse the terrible pun, but Philadelphia most certainly isn't in the running for "City of Sisterly Love." The primarily female jury that sat on the Marsalis case refused to believe that women might behave irrationally after being drugged and taken advantage of, and the judge in this more recent case clearly viewed the victim as nothing more than chattel and spoke derisively about her.

It's not exactly controversial to state that Americans collectively have a mangled sense of sexual morality. The appalling ruling made by Judge Deni reminds me of an episode of Oprah that infuriated me particularly. In one of her "hard-hitting" post-View reports, Lisa Ling went to hang out with a vice squad that worked an Oklahoma truck stop. Rather than picking up, arresting, and then exposing the drivers who waited for young, desperate women to knock on their cab doors, the prostitutes were arrested and subjected to Ling's "Why do you do it? Aren't you worried about your children while you're out here all night?" sympathetically-toned national shaming.

It never ceases to amaze me how vicious women are to one another. When female figures of authority dismiss women who work in the sex industry as unworthy of sympathy, as deserving of contempt and violent comeuppance, it makes it that much easier for men of all types to write all women off as sex objects. It's not a long road from "she deserved it because she was a hooker" to "she was dressed like a slut so I treated her like one."

This just makes me hate people, as well as to catapult Philadelphia to the top of my "Rapingest Cities in America" list.

The Prices that Fell to Earth

Is it wrong that I plan on attacking my local Target's menswear department this weekend in order to buy some of their new Bowie clothes? Don't fight me for the Man Who Fell to Earth trench coat. I will cut you.

Political Legacy via "Freaks and Geeks"

Yeah Al. Go Ozone Man.

I found out that Gore and the IPCC had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize through a text message from my mom. That bit of intergenerational connection was cool; Al Gore winning a Nobel is less so.

It's not that I don't think that Al doesn't deserve recognition for his work; far from it. He's doing good work and he's a brilliant man. What worries me the most can be summed up by a scene from the last episode of Freaks and Geeks.

Geeks get cleaned out and arrive in the AV Room grumbling. AV Club Teacher runs the Geeks through the next several years, assuring them that the Jocks' lives will only deteriorate from high school and that the Geeks can look forward to lives of success and vindication.

This is how I feel about the Nobel Peace Prize and the Democrats at the moment. It's great that the world recognizes their ability to think and act on a global scale, but I can think of another arena in which I would like to recognize those abilities-the US Presidency. It sucks that the US voters would rather be led by men who treat international conflict like a football rivalry between neighboring towns. George W. Bush will never win the Nobel Peace Prize, but that doesn't mean that his actions won't be as memorable as Al Gore's.

This isn't an "Al Gore for President" post. It's not possible to apply "he who laughs last laughs best" to global politics. I would forgo any number of "I told you so's" to have a President who wasn't going to completely destroy the world, or maybe one that could manage to win the Nobel and be a political leader at the same time.

Freedom!

Well, sort of. If you're a sucker like me and you still pay for some of your music downloads, make the switch to Amazon's newly started mp3 store. It's cheaper than iTunes and all of their 2.3 million songs are DRM free. That means you can play them any time, anywhere, and copy them as much as you like, all for about $.89 a song.

Seriuosly, make the switch. If you're not cool enough to know where to get it all gratis, you're definitely cool enough to bust up a monopoly.

What am I supposed to do now?

Jezebel informed me that drinking three drinks a night will give you breast cancer.

Granted, pretty much everything gives you cancer these days, but if I can't hide from my body's inevitable collapse in the sweet, dark embrace of my favorite bar, where am I supposed to go? The gym? Hell no.

Off the top of my head, here are things that are going to give me cancer and/or kill me through other awful side effects:

Stress
Cell Phones
Alcohol
Hot Dogs
Diet Coke
French Press Coffee
Microwave Popcorn(!)

What's the point in living without these things?

Tension breakers

Sometimes, I have bad days for no real reason. Last night I was deep in the depths of despair(as Ann(e) Shirley would say) when my sister called. And it fixed everything.

S: I think that for my date tomorrow I'm going to wear my cute dress, tights, and these adorable ankle boots that I just got.

M: You have ankle boots?

S: Yeah, they're amazing. I might have to bring them with me to New York to visit you.

M: If you bring your ankle boots and wear them, I'm wearing my skinny jeans.

S: You have skinny jeans?

M: Yeah, I bought them for really cheap...shut up! YOU HAVE ANKLE BOOTS!

Commence insane laughter. End scene.

Betty Crocker meets Bettie Page

When Rachel Kramer Bussel is your go-to quote person, you know you're looking at a "hot" trend. Does this mean cupcakes are the new knitting?

My own Hot List

So I am starting my own list of things I think are "hot" as I go through and fact check this year's "hot issue." My first three entries:

Hot Rock & Roll Suicide: John Berryman. When you show up in songs by both the Hold Steady and Okkervil River, you're officially a muse.

Hot Tranny: Begum Nawazish Ali, Pakistani talk-show host(ess) and pro-democracy agitator.

Hot Job: Fact Checker. Because that's what I do.

What else belongs on the list?

(All credit for the tranny info goes to Coco. May you find a more receptive publisher for your political drag queen stories someday soon)

Good Content, but the execution...

Is it just me or is Barack Obama totally off his game in this speech? I know he must be tired, and he's staking what will be a lonely spot in the Democratic field, but he's not the Obama I remember.

I'm being too hard on the man, especially since he just called for an immediate end to the war. Nevermind his less than inspiring and somewhat stumbling delivery, he's got the right policy idea.

Drowning

Have you ever found yourself so totally overwhelmed by a seriously time-crunched project that you just want to throw it in the air and start sobbing? That's about how I feel right now. I'm about ready to curl up under my desk in the fetal position.

Banished from the Lexicon

Please, for my sake, do not ever use the word "mumblecore" in my presence. It is a word created to describe a genre that was created by and for pretentious emo jerks. Emo, incidentally, is the last adjective I hated with a burning passion. With any luck, these movies will not become popular enough to require me to add this particular "-core" to my vocabulary.