I’ve actually given my husband grief before about how he described Hillary Clinton. To his credit, normally, he attacks her methods and character, not her gender!

Zuzu at Feministe does a fabulous job of explaining why it is harmful to women for people to launch misogynistic attacks on Senator Clinton. Well said. As one commenter on the post also said, I dislike Ann Coulter, but that doesn’t mean I don’t cringe when someone’s argument against her is calling her a “tranny.”

I participate in an online forum related to T-Tapp, and I’ve gotten accustomed (okay, acclimated) to the fairly high percentage of people who somehow think it’s absolutely necessary to wear their religion on their sleeve (in a signature line that is; religion-related posts are verboten). Yesterday, a couple folks on a thread where I’ve participated for a long time got onto politics — specifically singing from the FAUXNoise songsheet. After reading one final post that seemed to imply that the poster had swallowed the “Obama is a Muslim” koolaid (and what if he were? So fucking what?…anyway), I’d had enough and posted a brief request to cease and desist the political talk.

Okay, I wasn’t entirely innocent. I also asked one person to kindly clarify what she’d meant by “the whole ‘Hussein’ thing” (as in, the terrorists will be thrilled if BHO wins…wha???).

Anyway, a moderator posted next, more firmly insisting on NO POLITICAL TALK. She also cleaned up my post (dang, that’s embarrassing, especially since I almost deleted that part myself, duh), along with the one I quoted. She missed the ones on the previous page, but eh…whatever. In response to this verbal spanking, one of the original political-talk people replied thusly:

Allison & (other person who thanked the moderator for stepping in) -
My humble apologies if you have been offended by discussion on this thread of current issues in our country. While I don’t apologize for WHAT I said - I am sorry you and possibly others were offended at the personal opinions that leaked into our thread. I actually had thought during my typing “you know I wonder if we shouldn’t just use personal email for our thoughts on this issue to each other”

To the moderators - my bad…it won’t happen again. Please don’t lock this thread on account of some of us who are passionately opinionated/concerned about the current issues of our times.
As I did say in my last post…enough said.

(emphasis added)

A couple points:

1. Dude, if you’re not actually going to apologize, please don’t pretend. “I apologize for your being a sensitive wussy” is NOT an apology. Just STFU instead, and you’ll come across as having just a leeeeetle bit more integrity.
2. Just because you don’t have the netiquette to realize that posting political views (as if they’re *obviously* what *any* sensible person should believe) on a non-political forum is a rude thing to do, that doesn’t mean you’re the only person who’s passionate about what’s going on in our society. It just means you’re the socially stunted and rude person who cares.

I’d love to flame this person, but you know, I like the FITNESS-RELATED info I get on this forum. She’s not worth it.

Grrrrrr.

I just came home from renting An Inconvenient Truth, so I could FINALLY watch it. I know, it’s sad to be so late to the game, but hey, I have a 2-year-old.

I opened the box, thinking that I’m cool with watching a documentary with Maya over dinner. They. Didn’t. Remove. The. Security. Device.

Grumble. I have a pizza arriving in minutes, so I guess we’ll see this one another time. Instead, I may still watch Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (or whatever it’s called)…but that likely will need to wait until after Maya’s bedtime.

The Cloak. Nice. Heh, um…okay. If you feel such a driving need to read dozens of my ramblings, you go right ahead. Tell ya what — I’ll even unblock your home address IP, just to make it a little less inconvenient for you (and creepy to me). Enjoy!

From the NYT: World Leaders Release Plan for Resolving East/West Rift

Mr. Annan said in a written statement: “The problem is not the Koran or the Torah or the Bible. Indeed, I have often said that the problem is never the faith, it is the faithful and how they behave toward each other.”

Also from NYT: For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy’

Mr. Hagee says his message for the White House was, “Every time there has been a fight like [Lebanon in July] over the last 50 years, the State Department would send someone over in a jet to call for a cease-fire. The terrorists would rest, rearm and retaliate.” He added, “Appeasement has never helped the Jewish people.”

One side says to educate and to teach people how to see each other as human. The other says to bomb them all. Gee, I wonder why we don’t have any peace in the Middle East? At this point, I’m really wanting to re-read Tom Robbins’ Skinny Legs and All. The storyline used to seem like an over-the-top farce of people trying to force God’s hand for the end times. Now, it seems not only plausible, but likely.

I recently wrote a post, Our nation is falling apart. As commenter Stevo has pointed out, there’s very little factual truth in the email I received as a forward (what, am I supposed to be surprised, or something?) and grumbled about in this space.

I still agree with my assessment of (and agreement with) the first portion of the spammail, but that’s something I can’t defend with any academic precision. As for the second portion, I do vaguely recall thinking it odd that some quite conservative-leaning commentary would be coming from a professor in liberal St. Paul, NM. Turns out, it wasn’t:

DISCLAIMER: There is an e-mail floating around the internet dealing with the 2000 Bush/Gore election, remarks of a Scotish philosopher named Alexander Tyler, etc. Part of it is attributed to me. It is entirely BOGUS as to my authorship. I’ve been trying to kill it for 3 years. For details see: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp.

The rest of the snopes article is worth a look, including their evaluation of the accuracy of the demographic data for the counties voting for Bush and for Gore.

For what it’s worth (and to my eternal embarassment), I voted for Bush in 2000. Of course, voting in El Paso County, Colorado, that meant…nothing. Bush would have won here (in both elections) regardless of my ballot. Anyway, I’m just one of the millions of dupes who thought that “compassionate conservatism” might actually mean something.

For more embarassment, I can’t believe I didn’t at least poke through Snopes before responding — this is the sort of mistake a newbie would make! I know better, people. Argh!

I haven’t yet explored the local public radio stations (but doubt I’ll ever find one I love as much as KRCC), but I found a decent commercial station while driving yesterday. When I’m north of Monument Hill in Colorado (ie, out of El Paso County), I listen to KBCO, a Clear Channel station out of Boulder that’s remarkably good, and doesn’t tend to play the same crap again. And again. And again. Well, okay, they repeat some, but not the way that typical commercial stations do.

Anyway, here, there’s Radio Free Santa Fe / KBAC, which seems to be an exact clone of KBCO.

I’ll try to not annoy myself too much with the idea of “radio free” and “Clear Channel” being related to the same station. As if.

I really should just bite the bullet and get an XM receiver, huh?

Someone came across this post when googling the phrase, “I was raped and loved it.”

I am disturbed. Mr. South Carolina, I seriously doubt she did.

Hints that many men don’t read profiles:

Candidate 1: Winked, rather than writing an email. Buh-bye.

Candidate 2: Wrote, and the email was at least not blatant spam mail, but it said nothing about why he was writing to me, as opposed to any other woman online. From his profile, copied and pasted verbatim:

The last book I read was Treason: Liberal lies and trechory from the cold war to the war on terror. That should give you a littel clue about where I am in the political world.

While I get lots of good blog fodder, that seems to be about all I’m getting from match lately.

This freakin’ cracks me up:

This? Not so much. It’s not because of the text. Honestly, I think I might have found it wryly amusing to wear while I was pregnant…IF IT WEREN’T SO GRAMMATICALLY WRONG.

“Whose my daddy?” Whose? UGH. C’mon people. If you’re going to sell something via a big-box mass merchandiser, please, please at least check to ensure you’re not looking like an idiot on a grand scale. Repeat after me: Whose = possessive. Who’s = Who is.

Then there’s this one, which I just find plain annoying, even though it is grammatically correct.

(/rant)

hat tip: Pandagon

This one arrived today, in 30-point typeface. I love, love, love the woman who sent it. I hate the email. It’s supposed to be cute. It’s not. It manages to insult both men and women, then expect that we should laugh at it. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Men Are Just Happier People– What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President.

Screeeeeech! Brakes! A woman can be President. Just because one hasn’t, that doesn’t mean we can’t be. On the less-irritating front, the garage IS MINE. Of course, I live alone, but even if I didn’t, I’d expect equal rights. And he’d get equal rights to the kitchen.

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