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.

Teamwork is Important

I have nothing to add.

Drunk driving bust: 1 truck, 2 drivers

Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers

Two Dorchester men were arrested earlier this month for driving the same vehicle while intoxicated in the Colby-Abbotsford area.

Harvey J. Miller, 43, who has no legs, was steering the 1985 Chevrolet truck from the driver's seat while Edwin H. Marzinske, 55, operated the brake and gas pedals, according to the police report.

They were headed northbound on Hiline Avenue in Abbotsford when police pulled them over at 2:40 a.m. on Aug. 18.

Miller admitted he was too drunk to drive but argued he wasn't operating the vehicle because he couldn't push the pedals. He was issued a citation for a third drunk-driving offense, while Marzinske was cited for a second drunk-driving offense. Both men also were cited for driving after revocation.

A third drunk man in the vehicle walked himself home after the incident.

Nightmares

I keep having dreams about moving to L.A. I don't know why. I hate everything about the Los Angeles area with a bright and burning passion. There is nothing I can imagine enjoying about living there, not even the climate. Are L.A. dreams my new zombie nightmares? If so, I have clearly graduated to a new and far more frightening "most feared" scenario.

I want my "anywhere but here" dreams to be about places I might actually want to go, like Mongolia or Nepal or East Africa.

It's a little freaky that I'm dreaming of escape scenarios after only two months.

A Master at Work

Tonight I got to spend some time with a lovely young woman who has become a very good friend of mine since I moved back to New York. We sat and drank rose at a recently opened wine bar in our neighborhood and had a lovely time. The night would have been a perfect girl's night out if it hadn't been for the intrusion of a couple of obviously Jersey men who insisted upon chatting with us.

The whole night would have been ruined by their awkward attempts at conversation if it hadn't been for my friend's brilliant improvisation. In response to one of the trio's attempts at negging us for being from WI and IL, she asked, "What other stereotypes would you like to run by us?" To another's inquiry about whether or not we'd ever really behaved like psychos, she said, "I poured hot tea on someone after he made it for me." They tittered in an off kilter sort of way, and we left shortly after, confident we'd departed with the upper hand.

Blessed with context for her statements, I spent the intensely uncomfortable(for them) moments laughing heartily on the inside. After all, what's the point of having beautiful, intelligent, witty friends if they can't shut down chubby loser dudes and still be (classy and) hilarious while doing it?

I have a new heroine.

Do Unto Others...

I bet this little monster would shape up if someone walked up to him and told him "I really really don't like horrid little boys" and threatened to stomp on his head.

It's kids like these that make me believe occasional beatings for small children can't be all bad.

Bus Stop

For years I have thought that The Ice Storm featured the most horrible tragic electrocution scene I could ever imagine. I was so, so wrong.

After reading this story I might never take the bus again, even when it isn't raining. What is it with my Midwestern stomping grounds playing host to tragedies that mirror my worst nightmares?

Sick Sick Sick

You know things are bad for American health care when even the White House Press Secretary has to get a better job to pay his medical bills. Granted, "financial reasons" could mean any number of things, but the normal code words for "I want to make more money" are "I want to spend more time with my family." That Mr. Snow would come out and say that he is leaving because he needs to make some cash suggests that he may well be much sicker than he is letting on, and that even free government health insurance might suck just about as badly as that of most regular, paying citizens.

A family friend currently undergoing clinical trials to treat their cancer said that treatments would cost $17,500 dollars a month if they had not been admitted to the trial. At $210,000 a year, that would drain the bank account of even a well rewarded GOP hitman.

Normally I don't like to feel things for Republicans, but I almost feel bad for the guy. Almost. There's only so much sympathy I can have for a man who lies professionally for people who believe his life is worth more than that of poorer people.

Potato Sack

I feel awful for admitting this, but I've always despaired at the fact that I am not effortlessly, annoyingly pretty. As it is, I am lazy, so I'm not anything other than regular person thin, I need makeup to make my features look at all striking(and I never really learned how to put it on) and unless I'm going through a skim-lattes-and-despair-diet phase, I always have more than one chin in photographs. I think my self esteem is begging for one day of being the hot girl, but that's hardly realistic in New York City. Blurg. Perhaps I will work on being funny.

It'll all be Company Scrip someday, I tell you

This article on Salon reminded me how much I really loved the movie Matewan, and how awful it is to be stuck working in what remains of the American industrial complex. When I think about how wildly companies abuse their workers here on US soil, I shudder to think what it must be like to work in, say, a gold mine in Brazil or a diamond mine in Africa(check out Sebastio Salgado's book of photos Workers to get just a small glimpse of it). We many no longer live in a country filled with company towns, but we're no longer short on union busters. We're basically being ruled by a cabal of them.

I thought they loved unsexy things

With all the money the administration poured into its failed abstinence education crusade, it's no wonder everything is falling apart. Even our nation's physical structures are buckling under the weight of sexual repression.

“Governments do not want to pay for maintenance because it is not sexy,” said John Ochsendorf, a structural engineer and an associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This is not something to joke about, obviously. It's not funny that US roads, bridges, levees, tunnels, trains, etc. are in disrepair. It's not cheap, keeping a country running. There isn't enough tax money to go around as it is, and we're spending billions on contractors that don't build roads here or in Iraq. If the country's infrastructure is consistently considered to be at a "C" or "D" level of quality, we need some serious changes. There are talented people working for the government. When will the people footing the bill(we know who we are and who we should be) figure out it's actually worth spending money on these things? Maybe the fact that some of the victims in Minneapolis are bound to be white suburban soccer moms will convince Norm Coleman and his ilk to pay attention to the general state of disrepair so many people live in.