The Jaundiced Tumblr

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:34:28 -0400

Just perfect. Not to get all boys-vs-girls, but when you think...

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:43:00 -0400

Just perfect. Not to get all boys-vs-girls, but when you think about what the dooz in the original fight club were reacting to, then compare to what women in the Jane Austen era (and eras before, and, actually, eras after) and… yeah. So. Whatever, Tyler Durden.

Jane Austen’s Fight Club

Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist...

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:17:54 -0400

Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist Church, the good folks of San Diego’s Comic-Con were prepared for their arrival with their own special brand of superhuman counter protesting chanting “WHAT DO WE WANT” “GAY SEX” “WHEN DO WE WANT IT” “NOW!” while brandishing ironic (and some sincere) signs. Simply stated: The eclectic assembly of nerdom’s finest stood and delivered.

Super Heroes vs. the Westboro Baptist Church

© David Horsey editorial cartoons

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:21:59 -0400

(via lukees, inothernews)

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:38:10 -0400

(via lukees, inothernews)

"They are portraying this as a religious moral issue and as a threat to ‘the natural order,’ when..."

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:36:42 -0400

“They are portraying this as a religious moral issue and as a threat to ‘the natural order,’ when what we are really doing is looking at a reality that is already there. It would be a terrible distortion of democracy if they denied minorities their rights.”

- Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner responding to protests over the legalization of same-sex marriage made by the Catholic Church.

What I wouldn’t give for a U.S. President with the courage to say the same.

And in the First Season, that Country Didn't Even Exist

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:59:08 -0400

And in the First Season, that Country Didn't Even Exist:

…There are some shows that go completely beyond the pale of enjoyability, until they become nothing more than overwritten collections of tropes impossible to watch without groaning. I think the worst offender here is the History Channel and all their programs on the so-called “World War II”. Let’s start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn’t look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn’t get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons. I wouldn’t even mind the lack of originality if they weren’t so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we’re supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be…

Amazing. Read the whole thing at the link.

Both parties have always agreed to extend unemployment benefits...

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:10:32 -0400

Both parties have always agreed to extend unemployment benefits during recessions. It makes economic sense, and it’s the most humane thing government can do when its citizens are economically stressed. First of all, the money goes immediately into circulation–it gets spent, both alleviating the pain of the unemployed, and acting as an economic stimulus to the broader economy. This Republican Party, though, either can’t understand the benefits, or more likely, is quite willing to inflict untold pain on the people of this country if it sees an electoral benefit. The economy will get worse, Obama will be blamed, and the Republicans will reap the gains in November. Never mind the suffering. The cynicism is staggering, and shameful.

(via Obama Wouldn’t Have Done This for You © EdSteinInk.com)

Everything That Is Wrong With Our Media

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:02:18 -0400

Everything That Is Wrong With Our Media:

Sarah Palin releases a web video in which she pays women to dress like bears and pretend to maul socialism or something.

Cable news covers it ad nauseum, and justifies its coverage by saying everyone’s talking about it, even though “everyone” literally only means the people who are talking about how much everyone else is talking about it. The discussion of the discussion is then discussed on Politico, which then uses the completely self-referential dialogue to point out how Sarah Palin is rehabilitating her image and winning the day.

Meanwhile, it is apparently pretty much okay in America to shoot a man laying on the ground in the back because you’re too frightened to check to make sure you’re inappropriately tazing him rather than killing him.

If only Oscar Grant had been savvy enough to release a web ad…

Guess Who Hates You

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:21:00 -0400

Guess Who Hates You:

Gallagher gets a tin pie plate. He opens a giant can of fruit cocktail and pours it in. He opens a can of some Asian vegetable — water chestnuts, maybe — and pours that in, too. “This is the China people and queers!!!” he screams and takes his sledgehammer to the thing with a fury that is no fun at all.

No fun at all, and no joke at all in using a sledgehammer against a representation of groups of people you don’t like. This is some dangerous stuff being done in the pursuit of comedy.

The Saturday Profile - Icelander’s Campaign Is a Joke, Until He’s Elected

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:20:20 -0400

The Saturday Profile - Icelander’s Campaign Is a Joke, Until He’s Elected:

Last month, in the depressed aftermath of the country’s financial collapse, the Best Party emerged as the biggest winner in Reykjavik’s elections, with 34.7 percent of the vote, and Mr. Gnarr — who also promised a classroom of kindergartners he would build a Disneyland at the airport — is now the fourth mayor in four years of a city that is home to more than a third of the island’s 320,000 people.

"The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or..."

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:22:07 -0400

“The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it. The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

- Prince, on why he banned his music from iTunes and YouTube and closed down his personal site.

The ad is a perfect example of the way in which...

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:12:08 -0400

The ad is a perfect example of the way in which entirely-unrelated messages get inexplicably translated into half-naked women looking uncomfortable… Why in heaven’s name slather a perfectly clean woman in goop that looks like oil and make her crawl in a marsh? Because half-naked women who are dirty, disgusting, and uncomfortable are high-fashion. Because we love to see women on their knees in the mud. To a great extent, elite fashion imagery involves putting women in gross situations and pretending that it’s cool. These images assault their bodies and their dignity. So how else would an elite salon advertise its good-doing? Female punishment is the language of fashion. Fluid just speaks it fluently.

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his..."

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:10:46 -0400

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another mans freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro the wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating that absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

- Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

Every so often, I re-read this letter.

I ran across it again tonight, and this excerpt stood out to me as a parallel to my own frustrations at the the “civil unions for everyone” people or the “let’s do away with legal marriage altogether” people, or, most of all, the “I agree with you but now’s not the time to push for marriage equality” people.

"He inserted his male attachment into the female adapter, and watched his progress bar creep across..."

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:19:57 -0400

“

He inserted his male attachment into the female adapter, and watched his progress bar creep across the screen. The green line’s smooth rationality was undercut by the capricious time estimates that were careening wildly across the spectrum of likely endpoints. Five hours. Three minutes. Twelve minutes. A day. He thought of organized sports, for some reason.

Then, at last, the apex! The timer was counting down reliably from thirty seconds, the bar was filled with vigor. He hastened to his appointed destination, only to be distracted by a notification window (ERROR 739: FEMALE ORGASM NOT FOUND.) He felt his baud rate begin to slip. In a panic, he closed the window and pushed it from his mind. And then there it was: le petit écran bleu de la mort. He defragmented into a million bits of solitary pleasure.

”

- Tiger Beatdown › Fond Memories of Vagina: Martin Amis’ The Pregnant Widow

newyorker

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:29:15 -0400

newyorker

Presidential scholars: Bush is the worst president of the modern era, bottom five of all time.

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:06:21 -0400

Presidential scholars: Bush is the worst president of the modern era, bottom five of all time.

"Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something..."

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:52:00 -0400

“Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in. […] It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”

- RNC Chair Michael Steele

And only slightly less well known is this: never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!

(Also? The war in Afganistan started in 2001, when Obama was a state senator in Illinois.)

Income Tax Fairness Stripped from N.Y. Budget Bill

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:24:00 -0400

Income Tax Fairness Stripped from N.Y. Budget Bill:

A proposal that would have granted married same-sex couples in New York the ability to file state income taxes jointly was stripped from a budget bill Tuesday following opposition by antigay Democrat Ruben Diaz, Sr.

…Remarkably, Diaz framed his opposition as an attempt to spare same-sex couples the “insulting” invitation to file taxes together when the state does not allow them to legally marry. Of course, Diaz is one of the senators who voted against the marriage equality bill that failed by a wide margin in December.

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:44:54 -0400

The Jaundiced Tumblr

Just perfect. Not to get all boys-vs-girls, but when you think...

Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist...

© David Horsey editorial cartoons

(via lukees, inothernews)

"They are portraying this as a religious moral issue and as a threat to ‘the natural order,’ when..."

And in the First Season, that Country Didn't Even Exist

Both parties have always agreed to extend unemployment benefits...

Everything That Is Wrong With Our Media

Guess Who Hates You

The Saturday Profile - Icelander’s Campaign Is a Joke, Until He’s Elected

"The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or..."

The ad is a perfect example of the way in which...

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his..."

"He inserted his male attachment into the female adapter, and watched his progress bar creep across..."

newyorker

Presidential scholars: Bush is the worst president of the modern era, bottom five of all time.

"Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something..."

Income Tax Fairness Stripped from N.Y. Budget Bill

Who To Blame? © Progressive Political Cartoon by Barry Deutsch