‘Scuse Me, Great Nations Coming Through
By Jeff Fecke | May 14, 2012
Remember John Derbyshire? Of course you do! He’s the incredibly creepy guy who got fired from National Review Online for writing an incredibly racist screed for an online site frequented by Pat Buchanan and Steve Sailer.
Anyhow, Derbyshire may have left NRO, but he’s still kicking it old school at the online webmagazine VDARE (slogan: “It’s Stormfront For People Who Like to Pretend They Aren’t Nazis”). And by old school, I mean the 1650s.
VDARE.com occupies a corner of the non-Conservatism Inc. spectrum, though, and publishes commentary from other corners thereof, and it would be nice to have a definitive name for the whole shebang—something a little less defined-by-exclusion than “non-Conservatism Inc.”
“Alternative Right” has been snaffled by Richard Spencer, all good luck to him. “Paleoconservative” has come to have a whiff of incense and cassocks about it, at least to me. I have tried to float “Oppositional Right,” but it’s a bit of a mouthful.
The enemies of conservatism are eager to supply their own nomenclature. “White Supremacist” seems to be their current favorite. It is meant maliciously, of course, to bring up images of fire-hoses, attack dogs, pick handles, and segregated lunch counters—to imply that conservatives, especially non-mainstream conservatives, are cruel people with dark thoughts.
Leaving aside the intended malice, I actually think “White Supremacist” is not bad semantically. White supremacy, in the sense of a society in which key decisions are made by white Europeans, is one of the better arrangements History has come up with. There have of course been some blots on the record, but I don’t see how it can be denied that net-net, white Europeans have made a better job of running fair and stable societies than has any other group. [Emphasis Mine - jkf]
Yes, White Supremacy is a nice term! After all we white people have done a great job running the world, and we’ve only sometimes wiped out indigenous populations a few times. Sure, there was that one time we took all the valuable stuff out of Africa in exchange for subjugating the peoples of Africa and selling them into slavery, and okay, there was that time we started randomly partitioning the Middle East based more on what European countries’ interests were than on where actual peoples lived, and of course, there were those little bitty genocides here and there, but hey, you can’t steal the wealth of the world without breaking a few humans. And there’s no question but that the domination of other states by white people has worked out great for white people!
In all seriousness, a man who would embrace the idea of white supremacy as a good thing has no business in polite society, and neither does any site that publishes him. And frankly, it’s an indictment of any organization that ever published him, because you cannot tell me that Derbyshire suddenly became a white supremacist in the last few weeks, and you cannot tell me that a writer would never have shared those thoughts with his colleagues, even if he had enough sense to keep them out of print. If there was any doubt that NRO still clings to ideals of racial separatism and racist degradation, Derbyshire’s years of service there should eliminate them, even if they fired him when he had the poor judgment to actually express those ideas openly, rather than in code.
Finally, two quick things. First, the link above goes to Little Green Footballs (I know, they’re anti-racist now, which is weird, right?) rather than VDARE, because to hell with VDARE. I don’t link to Nazis.
Second, sing us off, Randy Newman.
Topics: Civil Rights, Hacktackular!, Race | No Comments »
I Fed Up With This World
By Jeff Fecke | May 11, 2012
Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit drinking:
An unidentified entrepreneur admits he is trying to profit off Trayvon Martin’s death by selling gun range targets featuring the teen who’s death has sparked a nationwide controversy.
Although Martin’s face does not appear on the paper targets, they feature a hoodie with crosshairs aimed at the chest. A bag of Skittles is tucked in the pocket and a hand is holding a can resembling iced tea.
[...]
According to an advertisement for the targets that had been posted on a popular firearms auction website, the sellers stated they “support Zimmerman and believe he is innocent and that he shot a thug.”
That online ad has since been removed.
[...]
In an email exchange with reporter Mike DeForest, the seller wrote, “My main motivation was to make money off the controversy.”
The seller would not disclose how many paper targets had been made, but said in an email, “The response is overwhelming. I sold out in 2 days.”
Some of those targets were sold to two Florida gun dealers, according to the seller.
Before DeForest identified himself as a reporter, the seller claimed that targets were still available for purchase. After being informed Local 6 was investigating his online business, the seller claimed the targets would no longer be sold.
Oh, well that’s great. I mean, sure, the guy was evil enough to make a target depicting a murder victim, but heck, I’m sure he’ll totally back down now that he’s on the news.
Seriously, sometimes I think the comet can’t get here fast enough. Most people are decent, kind, caring individuals. But the worst of us are truly awful.
Topics: Crime, Gun Control, Race | 1 Comment »
Better Late Than Never
By Jeff Fecke | May 9, 2012
I don’t have much to say about President Obama officially endorsing same-sex marriage; it’s long overdue from him, but then, it’s still overdue from most Democrats. Indeed, North Carolina notwithstanding, this is an issue where the direction of history is already clear. If you’re under 50, you probably support same-sex marriage, and if you’re under 30, you almost certainly do, no matter your political affiliation.
That said, while the long-term direction of the marriage issue is clear, the short-term politics are not. There are still a lot of older independent voters who are put off by same-sex marriage, and while they’re utterly and completely wrong, they have votes. In a close election, Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality is risky. But it’s unquestionably right, and pace Laura Roslin, sometimes you have to do the right thing, even if it isn’t the smart thing. This may or may not be the smart thing, at least in terms of the 2012 election. But it is the right thing for liberty, the right thing for equality, and the right thing for morality (for what is more immoral than forbidding someone to marry the person they love?). It was a brave move by the President, and I’m glad he did it.
Now you can enjoy these videos what express happiness with things and stuff.
Topics: GLBTQQ Rights | 1 Comment »
I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more.
By Jeff Fecke | May 8, 2012
R.I.P., Mr. Sendak. You created one of the great anarchic works of literature, Where the Wild Things Are, which in its brevity is far deeper than most thousand-page novels.
If you missed Sendak’s unbelievably amazing interview with Stephen Colbert, or indeed if you didn’t, please enjoy:
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Topics: In Memoriam | No Comments »
The One Article You Must Read Today
By Jeff Fecke | April 30, 2012
From Peter Sagal of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” fame. It isn’t particularly funny:
The first soldier was in bed, surrounded by six members of his family, including his fiance, who was slumped over asleep. His left foot was missing, and he was in obvious pain, and also obviously in a fog of painkilling drugs. I chatted with his family, and heard about his injury – an IED in Afghanistan. My memory of this first visit was foggy, because I was slowly realizing something that for the life of me I had not anticipated: the men I would be meeting were not in rehab, or in recovery. These were not the guys I had read about in magazine features, gamely learning to walk on prostheses or deal with TBI,, months after their injury. These were guys who had just been gravely hurt, weeks or in some cases days before. They were sitting with family members who – also just weeks or days before – had gotten a call from the Army or Marines saying, “Your son has been wounded in battle,” and had with hearts pounding and tears streaming thrown things into a bag and gotten on a plane for Germany or Washington. These wounds were fresh and raw, in every sense.
I will not, or can’t give you details of every visit I made that morning, even a day after. I sat by bedsides and, as [Garry] Trudeau advised, asked them what happened, and heard their stories. As I listened, I tried to focus, and control my own feelings of horror and dismay, and my growing urge to walk out of the room and tell the Sergeant, patiently waiting outside, that I could take no more and needed to leave now. (The sergeant told me later that this does happen.)
But these are the things I remember most vividly….
Seriously. You must read this article. The men and women we send to war for us should not be forgotten. Especially as the war is still being fought.
Topics: Afghanistan | 1 Comment »
Because I’m Super-Helpful
By Jeff Fecke | April 30, 2012
I thought Mittens might want to use this as his campaign theme song. I’m sure Shatner would be okay with it.
Topics: Mitt Romney | No Comments »
Meanwhile, In Constantinople….
By Jeff Fecke | April 26, 2012
That Barack Obama knows nothing about foreign policy:
The Romney campaign organized a conference call today with three of Romney’s foreign policy advisers to push back. During the call, Romney adviser Ambassador Pierre Prosper attacked President Obama for dealing with Russia, albeit using geographical terms from the Cold War era:
PROSPER: The United States has become a spectator on issues of national security. We’ve also been embarrassed by North Korea where again it continues to be a conciliatory leaning forward approach and yet the North Koreans will launch a missile surprising the United States by violating their agreement.
You now Russia is another example where we give and Russia gets and we get nothing in return. The United States abandoned its missile defense sites in Poland and Czechoslovakia, yet Russia does nothing but obstruct us, or efforts in Iran and Syria.
Yes, Czechoslovakia. Obama has abandoned them. What’s more, he’s ignoring our friends in Yugoslavia, Carthage, and the Kalmar Union. And what is he doing to address the rise of the Republic of Goust, Eastern Rumellia, or the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies? Truly, that Obama is terrible at foreign policy. I pray he doesn’t sell us out to the Kaiser, the Emperor of China, or the Pharaoh of Egypt.
Topics: Barack Obama, Election 2012, Foreign Policy, Mitt Romney | 1 Comment »
Save the Body Parts
By Jeff Fecke | April 25, 2012
As you may be aware, I’m a testicular cancer survivor. That sounds a lot more badass than it is; testicular cancer is extremely treatable if caught reasonably early, and while chemo and surgery are exactly as fun as you’d think they would be, they were not bad relative to many of the other cancers out there. Indeed, if you must get cancer, I can’t recommend testicular cancer enough.
Now, as someone who made it through testicular cancer, I believe strongly in self-checks and awareness of warning signs — especially since I made my treatment worse by ignoring early warning signs, allowing my cancer to hit very early Stage II. And so I’ve decided that, in order to build awareness, I’m going to start a web site called Ballstagram. What I want is this: guys, take a picture of your scrotum. Having the penis in the picture is okay, too. I want good pictures of nice-looking scrota, too, no crappy scrota, and no scrota of men who, like me, have had orchiectomies — nobody wants to look at a scrotum with only one ball in it. And for God’s sake, no pictures of any surgical scars. No, just lovingly-detailed pictures of men’s scrota, preferably young men’s (less drooping). I’ll post these pictures online. And this will promote testicular cancer awareness. I’m awesome, right?
What? I’m not? You think that’s not only not going to raise awareness of cancer, but it’s really just an excuse to post voyeuristic pictures on a website, sent in by well-meaning but naïve young men, the better for women and men to ogle?
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Boobstagram. I could describe it, but Anne Marie Ciccarella has done such a good job that I want her to do the honors:
An ingenious website (I really really REALLY wish there was a “universal sarcasm font”) wherein women are instructed that “Showing your boobs on the web is good, showing them to your doctor is better.” The website is filled with photographs of beautiful “boobs” in some exquisite lingerie. They have a Facebook page and a twitter feed. Breasts breasts everywhere. All beautiful breasts. The Facebook page looks a bit pornographic and I am FAR from a prude.
It certainly looks awful; I mean, as a person who’s attracted to women, it’s a lot of pictures of breasts, and I’m not necessarily opposed to that, but not in the context of “promoting women’s health.” And not in this way, a series of disembodied breasts, just body parts, lined up for people to gawk at. It literally removes the women affected by cancer from the picture, reducing the threat of breast cancer to a threat to breasts. It seems a lot less like a women’s health site than a site designed by a couple of douchey guys who came up with a sweet plan to get women to send pictures of their breasts to them.
But maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe this is being run by a women’s group that has the best of intentions.
To lend a bit of credibility, there is a “Why” page on this website. The “founders” [Julien GLT (self-identified as the "founder of Boobstagram") and Lionel Pourtau (a "sociologist")] introduce themselves and include the credentials that make them qualified to launch such a site and further explain how this site is the greatest way to raise awareness through fun rather than fear. Really? Has France ceded from this planet and moved to a new galaxy? OK… that’s not fair either…..it’s not France. Allow me to rephrase…. Have these two guys gone from human to alien and departed Planet Earth? What the HELL does that even mean? Fear to fun. There’s nothing fun about breast cancer or screening for it either. I was at the screening game for 20 years and being told, “Don’t get changed yet, there is dust on the film, we need more images” …. nothing but terror. Sheer terror. Most times it IS nothing but dust. Until one time, it’s something like cancer.
Of course there isn’t anything fun about looking for breast cancer. Nobody with a functioning brain would think there was. Cancer sucks, and breast cancer sucks worse than most cancers. Yes, it’s important to keep an eye on warning signs, because like all cancers, it’s easier to treat if you catch it early. But it’s a necessary monitoring, like a colonoscopy or a prostate exam — you go through it not because you enjoy it, but because you need to know if you’ve got cancer.
This is, of course, the end result of the stupid “Save the Ta-Tas” movement, which has also given us abominations like this:
Why yes, that is a “breast cancer awareness” van being run by a porn site, urging women to preserve their luscious, heaving breasts, and also reminding people that there’s a website out there that features women who have breasts. Because breast cancer would be really bad if it affected the ability of people to stare at breasts.
I know I’ve said this before, but let me say it again: the problem with breast cancer is not that it takes breasts. Let it take them! Breasts aren’t all that important, really. The women they’re attached to are.
I’m not saying it’s easy to lose a breast; it wasn’t fun to lose a testicle, and that’s about 100 times less visible and 10,000 times less painful. But given the choice between losing a breast and losing your life, women are going to choose losing the breast. Indeed, women being good about checking their breasts and getting adequate treatment means that more breasts may be lost to surgery, because women are getting treatment.
We don’t need to save breasts. Pace Westley, there isn’t currently a shortage of them. What we do need to save is the women they’re attached to. Women need to get breast exams and pap smears and colonoscopies and ECGs and regular check-ups because women are important. Their lives are important. Their health is important. Their breasts? Not so much.
We need to get over this. We need to grow up as a society, and stop trying to save body parts. Body parts are expendable. The people who own them are far more important than any part of them could ever be.
Topics: Feminism, Health Care, Testicular Cancer | 4 Comments »
I Said, “Pretend You’ve Got No Money.” She Just Laughed and Said “Oh, You’re So Funny.”
By Jeff Fecke | April 24, 2012
The Romneys are not like you and me.
[Ann] Romney alluded to the fact that not all women can stay at home saying, “I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn’t easy for any of us.”
You know who doesn’t love the fact that there are women (and men) who have no choice but to work, rather than staying home full-time? It’s those women (and men) who have no choice but to work. That’s not something they celebrate; that’s something they lament.
I don’t blame Ann, though, any more than I blame Mitt for his rich guy gaffes. Because the Romneys aren’t like you and me. They don’t know what it is to struggle to pay the bills. The worst they ever had to go through was deciding when to sell part of their hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock to pay the bills. Ann never had to work; she could have, but she had the option not to. For that matter, Mitt never had to struggle to get his foot in the door; he was the son of a cabinet secretary. He had his dad’s connections and his family name to trade on.
If the Romneys would show some sign of understanding that they’re tremendously lucky, I could accept it. If they showed any evidence that they realized that their experiences weren’t typical, that their experiences were not the same as most normal humans — well, I could accept that. I can understand them not knowing it from experience, but at least they’d show some hint that they had some empathy.
But they don’t. They simply haven’t spent time trying to imagine what it would be like to be poor or middle class. They have no understanding of what it means to struggle, not for a moment. They don’t get it. And far worse, they don’t want to.
Topics: Economics, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, The Class War | 1 Comment »
Random Music Videos
By Jeff Fecke | April 23, 2012
No reason for these other than that I can.
Topics: Potpourri | No Comments »
Please, Dear Venus, Show Me Now
By Jeff Fecke | April 23, 2012
I feel sorry for Men’s Rights Activists. No, really, I do. Like the people in Plato’s cave, they have a sense of the problems caused by a society that demands a harsh conformity to gender norms; they can see the shadows of the patriarchy on the wall. But just like the people in the cave, they only see a part of it, not the whole. And because of that, they spend their time attacking those who could and should be their allies.
Take me, for instance. The other day, I wrote an article about the continued awfulness of Jezebel, specifically with regard to an article by Doug Barry that mocked a male victim of rape for being a male who was a victim of rape. I based my argument on a clear, bedrock feminist principle: that consent is requisite for sex, and that sexual acts undertaken without consent constitute sexual assault or rape. This is not controversial in the feminist community. Indeed, it’s only controversial in the MRA community, where consent is not so much seen as something important.
Nevertheless, my argument was against Jezebel, which is, if not a feminist site, then a site that is read by many feminists. And because I dared to take a stand against the dread Gawker empire, I have been outed! Yes, it turns out that because I believe men can be raped if they refuse to consent, I am a closet MRA.
I…I’ve always known I was different. I was hiding it because I was rightly ashamed.
Wait. I’m not an MRA. Who would be foolish enough to think I was? Why, Adam Geddes, that’s who!
Even zealots like Jeff Fecke are having their doubts about pop feminism. Days ago he penned a piece entitled ‘Jezebel Continues Its Long, Slow Decline,’ lambasting the online mag for its lax standards. Barring the bits where he bends over backwards to avoid offending his readership, his opinion here is no different from MRAs, the very people he demonized. He points out author Doug Barry’s hypocrisy for making light of sexual assault, when it’s a woman doing the raping.
Well, actually, I pointed out Barry’s evil for not taking sexual assault seriously, something that Jezebel has been willing to do when men were doing the raping, too. I did point out that flipping the genders might also allow Barry to plug into male stereotypes, especially the “men always want to” stereotype, but I didn’t see it as radically different from any other bit of victim-blaming, like, say, this one, where MRAs attack a 14-year-old girl who thinks she might have been raped. (Trigger warning: Reddit. Really, do you need me to be more specific than that?) Reversing the usual genders was useful to highlight just how wrong victim-blaming always is, but I’ve seen far worse written about women who were victims of sexual assault, much of it from the MRA community.
Anyhoo, Geddes notes something that I wholeheartedly agree with him on: that feminists and MRAs could, if both were rational, agree on. Unfortunately, one of those groups is not rational. Hint: it isn’t the feminists.
Although feminists and MRAs actually agree on some issues, they’ll never make nice. MRAs are repelled by the phony political correctness, sophism, and cultural Marxism inherent to feminism. Women right’s proponents despise the lewd speech (perceived as “misogyny”), and focus on the masculine ideals of liberty and self-sufficiency (over security and comfort) inherent to MRAs.
One of the things the MRA set completely fails to grok is that “phony political correctness” is actually an arduous attempt to open up society to ideas that it has become opposed to thinking. Far from being cultural Marxism, the push by feminists to make language and society gender-neutral is a very good thing; it allows women and men to be more free to be themselves, and to ignore the demands the culture makes on gender.
That’s why the misogyny of the MRAs is so disappointing, and why Geddes’ calling liberty and self-sufficiency “masculine ideals” so completely misses the mark.
The fact is that liberty and self-sufficiency are not masculine ideals. They are ideals. Security and comfort are not feminine ideals. They are ideals. Ask any woman who’s living alone in New York City if the law should constrain her movements, or require her to marry. Ask any man who’s raising a family whether the police should patrol his city and protect his family, or whether his children’s school should serve decent food in the cafeteria. All humans desire some degree of liberty and self-sufficiency, some degree of comfort and security.
That’s what the MRAs fail to understand — that simply accepting that some ideas are masculine and some ideas are feminine is doing the patriarchy’s work. Are you mad, MRAs, that judges don’t think that you can be a good parent? Well, why would they? You don’t even care about security or comfort!
When you accept that all boys are different from all girls, you accept that there should be proscribed rules for boys and for girls. Some MRAs more than accept this; they embrace it with both arms, lovingly, because they believe that if we could only stuff the genie back in the bottle that they could be on top again.
The MRAs I feel sorry for are the ones who don’t really embrace that, who know that there’s something wrong, but who have locked on to the wrong target. Rather than being angry at a society that tells us that women and men are far more different than we are, they rage against the women who have had the temerity to stand up and say otherwise. They are shooting the messengers, and ignoring their jailers.
Indeed, the fixation on women — their supposed power, their ability to make men’s lives horrible — ultimately derails Geddes’ path to enlightenment. This, for example, is what he thinks my motivation for being a feminist is:
Growing up Jeff Fecke was the awkward, omega kid that tried to earn female approval by blending in with the girl group. Sadly, this strategy never works. That and it’s a type of earthy hell. Cuties cried on his shoulder but didn’t have the decency to toss him the occasional mercy fuck.
Instead of adapting, he grew resentful of the so called alphas that pulled all the babes. The man’s man was his mortal enemy back then as it is now. MRAs are essentially the new “real men,” who seek autonomy from feminine approval or any approval for that matter.
That is just so completely off that I must turn to Billy Madison’s principal to give my response.
I will freely admit that I’ve never been a manly man of manhood. I’ve never claimed to be. Indeed, I’ve never wanted to be. But I’ve never viewed men who were “manly” as a threat, an opponent, or anything else. I don’t aspire to be them, and I don’t care or believe that they “pull all the babes.” I’ve been married once; I was able to “pull” at least one “babe.”
As for whether I fell in with the “girl group” — no, sorry. I was in a group of friends. Some were guys. Some were girls. I’ll admit, I had a brief period of Nice Guyness™, but I got over it long ago.
But where Geddes really fails is in thinking that I am a feminist because I hope it will help me get the chicks. Sorry, Adam; I’m a feminist for one primary reason: my daughter. You see, I can date or not — I’m okay with being single, and dating had its perks, and both have their drawbacks and I’m cool with either state. But I desperately want my daughter to live in a world that does not look down on her because of her second X chromosome. That is what motivated me to write on feminism in the first place, and that is what motivates me today.
You see, when Geddes writes:
Fecke would rather think of the MRM as a band of ‘woman beaters,’ and ‘rape apologists’ because the truth stings. Deep down, he wants to rub elbows with the men he grew up despising as an equal. Somewhere inside him, there’s this little MRA voice he hushes every time he sees clues that current-wave feminism has jumped the shark.
he simply and completely fails to understand what motivates me, or the vast majority of men who view MRAs with a mix of pity and disgust. I have friends who were high school athletes and are good looking and had their pick of girls, and I have friends who were nerds in high school and never aspired to date more than one special someone, and I have friends who are — gasp – girls. And you know what? They’re all my equals, and I am theirs. And you know why I know that? Because being a feminist has taught me over the years that “manliness” or lack thereof has little bearing on one’s worth as a human being.
That is the lesson of feminism, and why the MRAs will never appeal to me, and will never get it. They understand that men and women have different standards imposed upon them. Feminists say those standards are wrong, and work to broaden the definition of what it is to be a woman — and by extension, what it is to be a man. MRAs see that, and try to change those standards to fit their own idea of what is ideal — to make a world where manliness is rewarded, but where men are also rewarded simply for being men. In short, MRAs seek to undermine liberty, and take away the ability of women to be self-reliant. It would be hilarious, if it wasn’t so tragic.
Topics: Feminism, The Men's Rights Movement | 4 Comments »
Now Next Friday Come I Didn’t Get the Rent, and Out the Door I Went
By Jeff Fecke | April 23, 2012
Here’s a little Schadenfreude to start the week off right:
The Minnesota Republican Party’s financial woes continue with the filing last week of eviction papers that could oust the party from its headquarters in a St. Paul building.
Politics in Minnesota notes that the state GOP is nearly $100,000 in arrears on its rent for the office at 525 Park St., not far from the state Capitol. Building owner Hub Properties has filed the eviction paperwork in Ramsey County Court, and records show the party signed a 10-year lease in 2003 calling for $6,881 a month, the story says.
No rent has been paid since August, and party leaders say they’re trying to renegotiate the lease and hope they aren’t evicted.
They’re the party of fiscal and personal responsibility, ladies and gentlemen! The party that opposes spending money on schools and roads and infrastructure because taxes might go up. The party that would blast a poor person who was kicked out of their $600-a-month apartment because they couldn’t scrape the money together. The party that views welfare as a moral failing. The party that spearheaded bankruptcy “reform.”
But the Minnesota GOP would like you to know that this is all a myth perpetrated by the lamestream media. Minnesota GOP chair and former Enron lobbyist1 Pat Shortridge issued a statement that called them to task for their mendacity.
In light of an exaggerated press story in a publication this morning, we wanted to make sure you were aware of it. The MNGOP is not being ‘kicked out’ of its offices.
See! Take that!
While we have successfully negotiated with our creditors in most cases, our landlord took the unfortunate step, which they are certainly within their rights to do, of bringing the matter to court.
Yeah! They haven’t been kicked out yet! There’s still a court hearing to attend to. Then they’ll be kicked out.
Remember, these people accuse Democrats of being unable to balance the books. But then, these people also believe that you can cut taxes and increase revenue; math has never been their strong suit.
—
1 I am not making this up.
Topics: Minnesota Politics, MN GOP | No Comments »
Fat Is as Fat Does
By Jeff Fecke | April 17, 2012
Being fat, in and of itself, is not going to kill you. I know, I know, this seems impossible; don’t we hear all the time that obesity is inevitably going to cause everyone in society to spontaneously drop dead of icky fat heart attacks? Well, sure. But studies continue to show that fat is not, by itself, deadly. Inactivity is :
A recent study offered the HAES movement some interesting ammunition in this battle. The study recruited almost 12,000 people of varying BMIs and followed them for 170 months as they adopted healthier habits. Their conclusion? “ Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index.”
Take a look. The “hazard ratio” refers to the risk of dying early, with 1 being the baseline. The “habits” along the bottom count how many healthy habits a person reported. The shaded bars represent people of different BMIs from “healthy weight” (18.5-24.9) to “overweight” (25-29.9), to “obese” (over 30).
Essentially, the study concludes that if you’re doing the right things — watching what you eat, getting up off the couch and going for a walk, maybe going to the gym once in a while — that it doesn’t matter if you’re fat or thin — you’re equally likely to live a long, healthy life.
All is not sweetness and light, of course. As Lisa Wade notes:
This data doesn’t refute the idea that fat matters. In fact, it shows clearly that thinness is protective if people are doing absolutely nothing to enhance their health . It also suggests, though, that healthy habits can make all the difference . Overweight and obese people can have the same mortality risk as “normal” weight people; therefore, we should reject the idea that fat people are “killing themselves” with their extra pounds. It’s simply not true.
Exactly. There’s plenty of evidence that suggests that it’s important to exercise, and important to be healthier. And that’s fine — healthy habits are a good thing. But not because they will cause you to magically not be fat. Rather, developing healthy habits will help you live longer and better, which is really the important thing.
The societal impulse to push thinness over everything else is ultimately dangerous. There is some evidence that if you’re a sedentary thin person who eats poorly, you’ll have a better shot at a long, healthy life than a sedentary fat person who eats poorly. But that’s just genetic luck — we all have a touch of that. If you’re an active fat person, however, you’re much more likely to live a long and healthy life than a sedentary thin person. If we as a society advocate for healthy habits — exercising more and eating healthier — we will all benefit. If we keep our focus on fat, not only will it not help fat people live longer, it won’t help skinny people, either.
(Via io9)
Topics: Fat Phobia, Health Care | No Comments »
Jezebel Continues Its Long, Slow Decline
By Jeff Fecke | April 16, 2012
You know what’s super-funny? Rape!
What’s that? You say rape isn’t funny? It’s a horrible act of violence, one of the worst crimes a human can commit? Well, what if I told you a girl raped a guy? Have you busted a gut yet?
No? You don’t think it’s funny if a girl rapes a guy? Indeed, you think that patriarchal expectations of men’s sexual appetites would instead make it difficult for the guy to deal with the attack? And you think that while we shouldn’t get too far into the weeds (women are still more likely to be raped then men, and men are vastly more likely to commit sexual assaults than women), you think that the gender of both perpetrator and victim is not nearly as relevant as the need for society to condemn sexual assault unreservedly?
Well, you’re no fun. And you’re never going to be able to write for Jezebel, which Saturday launched a truly reprehensible article about a man being raped by a woman. Its title?
German Woman Tries to Hold Sexhausted Man Prisoner in Her Apartment
It’s funny because after being raped, he was exhausted — and rape is about sex! Evidently, I guess!
Doug Barry headlined the piece poorly, but perhaps the article will improve. Do you think so? No, I don’t either.
It’s your typical modern liaison — a man and a woman meet in a Munich bar, get a little drunk because they still have some vestigial social hang-ups about casual sex, head back to the woman’s apartment, and do it. When neither of them falls asleep after the first go-round, they do it again and again and again until the man predictably says that he’s tired and probably should, um, leave or whatever. Except that he wasn’t allowed to just leave.
So…that seems disturbing. And no less so because they did it “again and again and again.” Though it’s a nice bit of victim-blaming (he consented! More than once!), it’s not really relevant; once he wanted to leave, he should have been allowed to leave. If he wasn’t, he’d been unlawfully detained, and that in and of itself was a crime.
What followed was rape.
According to a report in The Province, the 47-year-old hostess refused to let her 43-year-old partner leave the apartment even after they had intercourse “several times,” insisting that he continue to have sex with her, which he did even after his first escape attempt. When the woman barred his second escape attempt, the man fled to the apartment’s balcony, where he succeeded in alerting the police. When the police showed up, the woman allegedly made similar (though unsuccessful) sex demands of them and now faces charges of sexual assault and illegal restraint.
Yup. He was detained and coerced into a sex act he did not want. That’s rape, and a pretty black-and-white case of it, at that.
Or it’s kind of funny, right Doug?
There’s an obvious Calypso reference to be made here…
Well, yes, insofar as the guy, like Odysseus, was trapped by someone he’d initially been besotted with. But it seems a bit too light-hearted, no?
…and though it’s tempting to read this episode of sexual aggression lightly because of the gender reversal of popularly accepted roles, sexual assault is a bad, bad thing, not made any more innocuous by the fact that a woman was the aggressor in this instance.
Well, okay. I mean, I guess I’ll just ignore the headline and the fact that you did make a reference to Calypso and did a bit of victim-blaming. As long as the article ends here.
By all accounts, however….
Oh, hell, it’s on now.
…the initial hook-up was consensual and, even after being stopped from leaving, the man had sex “several more times” with the woman who detained him.
Um, okay? So that proves…what, exactly? The guy is allowed to withdraw consent, you know. The fact that he had sex a couple times willingly doesn’t mean he’s going to be forever willing. And quite simply, the man didn’t “have sex several more times.” He was raped several times. Once he was stopped from leaving, once he was trapped there unwillingly, everything after that point is rape. That he chose to give in to his attacker in hopes of getting out of the situation is no reason to shame him; though the article is unclear how the perpetrator detained her victim, one can only speculate that he had reason to fear for his safety. If he acceded to the rape to buy him time to get free, it was a survival strategy — one that, not incidentally, worked.
It’d be interesting to see what becomes of these charges, and whether a German defense attorney chronicles this man’s entire sexual history in an effort to discredit his accusations and make him seem way too promiscuous in an effort to prove that it was his own fault in the first place for sleeping with a complete stranger. Can you picture a bunch of German talk radio hosts calling this guy a “slut” or suggesting that he was just asking to be held as a prisoner in this woman’s apartment?
Well, I don’t know about the Germans, but the American bloggers are certainly happy to do so. That Barry tosses in a half-hearted nod to the fact that he was raped is irrelevant; Barry spends the entire article declaiming the man for having casual sex more than once and, notably, giving in to demands for sex after he was detained. That certainly sounds like slut-shaming to me.
Now that would be quite the gender reversal.
A gender reversal? Yes, it is, at least given what we usually expect. But in one major respect, it’s not a reversal at all. We have yet another victim of sexual assault being blamed for their actions, having their motivations questioned, and having it insinuated that they really wanted it, no matter what they said. The genders are irrelevant; the pattern is the same. Doug Barry, like so many, is quite happy to blame and shame victims of sexual assault for failing to live up to an arbitrary level of purity. And that is both disappointing and enraging.
Topics: Civil Rights, Sexual Assault | 3 Comments »
I Hate This
By Jeff Fecke | March 29, 2012
I hate that this song is still relevant. It shouldn’t be.
Topics: Crime, Potpourri, Race | No Comments »
