when the status quo frustrates.

I’m still trying to figure out why they even bothered writing this article.

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Maybe I just don’t understand the definition of “news.”

Main Entry: news
Pronunciation:
\ˈnüz, ˈnyüz\
Function:
noun plural but singular in construction
Usage:
often attributive
Date:
15th century

1 a: a report of recent events
1 b: previously unknown information
2 a: material reported in a newspaper or news periodical or on a newscast
2 b: matter that is newsworthy

I think my problem is that I tend to expect the “news” to be skewed a lot more heavily towards being 1b and 2b above, rather than 1a and 2a. Clearly having expectations is my problem!

Analysis: Obama, McCain both have lobbyist ties

How astonishing in United States senators running for President. Really! (snork!)

During this campaign, lobbyists and trade groups donated $181,000 to McCain, while Obama received $6,000, according to the New York Times.

You know, $6,000 doesn’t look too shocking when it’s sitting next to $181,000.

In all, lobbyists reported contributions of $4.7 million to Democrats and $3.3 million to Republicans, the Times reported this week.

So are we supposed to adjust each candidate’s actual numbers by some kind of percentage based on party affiliation..? If not, I’m not clear on what that snippet is doing in this article at all, purportedly specifically targeting Obama and McCain as individuals.

Still, both candidates maintain they are above the influence of lobbyists.

$181,000 is being above the influence? $6,000, maybe, but–?

The senator from Illinois also has taken in $18.8 million from lawyers and law firms, according to estimates from the Center for Responsive Politics, and some of those firms employ lobbyists for special interest clients.

Gosh, this reminds me of studying logic in high school. Let’s see how it works out!

Obama = A
money = B
laywers and law firms = C
lobbyists = D

Given facts:

A takes B from C.
C gives B to D.

..um, there is no way to link A to D there..?

“People who are not directly registered as lobbyists but perhaps working for a company, maybe working for a company in a capacity that’s tangentially related to the government affairs, can give money,” said Lisa Lerer, who covers lobbying for Politico.

I work for a company in a capacity that’s tangentially related to government affairs. Oh, wow, I’m like a LOBBYIST!

The rest the article is much the same, a whole lot of confused and impossible-to-substantiate inferences that contradict each other, though it is hard to avoid that if either candidate IS somehow tied at the hip to the lobbyist racket, it ain’t Obama.

Do they seriously get paid for this crap? Like, more than minimum wage..? If so, I’m clearly in the wrong business.

“Men” and “mankind” apparently not being defined to include “ambulatory wombs.”

Monday, July 21st, 2008

After having spent my adult life variously not being a mom, being a married mom, being a single mom, being a mom who stayed at home and being a mom who worked outside the home, I have come to the conclusion that if you are a fertile woman of childbearing years, no matter what you’re doing in terms of marriage and motherhood and career, you’re wrong. To wit:

1. You’re married, you get pregnant, choose to give birth, and decide to stay at home with the baby.

Lazy! Self-indulgent! and just GIVING away all the advances women have made in terms of career equality! Get a job!

2. You’re married, you get pregnant, choose to give birth, and decide to work outside the home without the baby.

Selfish! It isn’t all about YOU and YOUR fulfillment anymore, you have a child to think of now! you just don’t want to have to live within your means! You need to raise your OWN child!

3. You’re married, you get pregnant and choose to have an abortion.

Murderer! If you didn’t want to have kids you should have gotten your tubes tied! If you have a husband and a home, there is no excuse for not stepping up to the plate and carrying that life you created to term!

4. You’re married and you choose not to get pregnant.

Immature! Self-centered! Look at Europe–do you want to see our culture crash too? It isn’t all about you, you have a duty to society! It’s time to GROW UP and take on your responsibilities!

5. You’re not married, you get pregnant, choose to give birth, and decide to stay at home with the baby.

Leech! It isn’t society’s responsibility to care for your child conceived due to your irresponsible behavior! Get out there and get a job!

6. You’re not married, you get pregnant, choose to give birth, and decide to work outside the home without the baby.

Slut! Our culture is collapsing because of the explosion of all you single mothers! Why didn’t you give that baby to a real family that could raise it properly instead of shoving it off onto strangers!

7. You’re not married, you get pregnant and choose to have an abortion.

Slut! And now you think it’s okay to take another human life so you can just erase your careless, selfish behavior! You spread your legs, now you need to step up the the plate and take your medicine like an adult!

8. You’re not married and you choose not to get pregnant.

What’s wrong with you? Are you that ugly and unpleasant that no man wants to commit to you, or are you just a selfish whore?

(more…)

Umm…

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

So I was idly paging through CNN.com and came across this headline:

July 2, 2008
Poll shows Americans cool to Michelle Obama
Posted: 10:30 AM ET

Oh brother…aside from the fact that a candidate’s spouse should be a virtual non-issue and so should everybody’s opinion of him or her–

The new Associated Press-Yahoo poll shows 30 percent of Americans view the outspoken wife of Barack Obama favorably while 35 percent view her unfavorably. That compares to the 27 percent of Americans who view John McCain’s wife, Cindy, favorably and the 17 percent who hold an unfavorable view of her. Mrs. McCain is clearly less known than Mrs. Obama — 56 percent said they don’t know enough about the Arizona senator’s wife to render an opinion while only 34 percent said the same for Mrs. Obama. She’s been at times a lightning rod for criticism from some Republicans over the course of the presidential campaign, and a new poll out Wednesday suggests more Americans hold a negative view toward Michelle Obama than a positive one.

White Americans appear particularly suspect of Mrs. Obama. The poll shows those voters hold an unfavorable view of her by nearly 20 points while about 80 percent of black voters reported positive feelings about Mrs. Obama.

Those numbers are reversed for Cindy McCain: whites view her favorably by a margin of 17 points while only 10 percent of blacks like her.

In a similar trend line her husband faced during the primary season, Mrs. Obama’s favorability ratings are higher among unmarried people and college graduates while her ratings are particularly low among senior voters.

Mrs. Obama also appears to drum up stronger opinions among voters than does Mrs. McCain. About 20 percent of voters said they hold a very negative view of her while 10 percent said the same for Mrs. McCain.

Okay, well, I thought, I guess I’m not surprised (the outspoken wife–has any man EVER been referred to as the outspoken husband? sigh)…so I finished the article and continued my random clicking through the site and then–huh?

July 2, 2008
CNN Poll: Candidates’ wives viewed favorably
Posted: 01:40 PM ET

Now waitaminute…didn’t I just read–

According to the new poll, 51 percent of registered voters report a favorable view of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s wife while 28 percent hold an unfavorable view. Just over 21 percent did not express an opinion.

Meanwhile, 39 percent of registered voters hold a favorable view of John McCain’s wife, Cindy, while 23 percent report an unfavorable rating. The poll also shows she is considerably less known than Mrs. Obama — nearly 40 percent report having no opinion of her.

Conclusion: Poll results based on about 1,000 random citizens in a country of nearly 300,000,000 have absolutely no bearing on reality. I’ve always suspected as much.

Underage Pregnancy Conspiracies, Savage Lost Tribes and Don Imus is a Racist

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

This is the quality of news reporting today.

There was no teen pregnancy pact in Massachussetts.

There are no painted, spear-throwing primitives attacking Great White Helicopters in Brazil.

No shit Don Imus is a racist. Hello?

Of Course She Is

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Vagina , Its not a clown car
Because some graphics just get better with every repost.

You guessed it–the Duggars are expecting their 18th child.

“We’re expecting!” the happy mother told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira and the entire Arkansas clan. “Number 18!

Joshua, the Duggars’ eldest son, said the news, two days before Mother’s Day was “a shock” — if only to a point.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” the 20-year-old said. “But it’s been nine months [since the birth of the last baby], so yeah.”

Yeah. (sigh)

Writing on the skin, and below.

Monday, April 28th, 2008

I have some experience with rejecting self-taken identity. I have some experience with leaving communities. I have some experience with realizing that a thing you thought was good—and maybe it once was—is no longer a thing you can be part of.

I get this. In a really fundamental way. It is catastrophic to me that this shit happens, that it has to happen in this way, with so much damage, but it does. Communities become damaged; masks no longer fit. The preceding trauma looks like the cause, but it isn’t. It isn’t even the last straw. It’s more the light that flips on and shows you that the thing you thought was a camel’s back isn’t, and the thing you thought you were dealing with isn’t what you were dealing with at all.

(more…)

Who needs a cold war when you can have a wet one?

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Welcome to China! We hope you enjoy your stay during the Olympics.



Huh? What’s that? Those guns? Don’t mind them.

Sigh. Fine, fine, let’s talk about the guns. No, they’re not there to mow down Olympic torch protesters. Or Tibetan nationalists. [Though if any such offenders were to walk in the way of such gunfire, well, dem's da breaks.]

No, these weapons are reserved for the worst scourge of all. Rain.

China is preparing an arsenal of rockets and aircraft to protect the Olympics opening ceremony from rain, hoping to disperse clouds before they can drench dignitaries at the roofless “bird’s nest” stadium.

Fucking rain. What gall. Here we are, hosting the Olympics in a perfectly healthy share-and-share-alike Communist society, and then rain threatens to show up and remind everyone how seductively cool it is to compete for resources. If you think about it, of all the resources, rain is the most obnoxious capitalist. It inequitably and whimsically distributes its assets, creating a two-class system of have and have-nots. Rain sure must enjoy watching the little people scramble for its scraps.

Fortunately, the threat of military retaliation has reduced its likelihood of appearance to 47% during the ceremony, but we must be prepared for the worst. Should the clouds dare to spit upon visiting dignitaries, the insult would be too much to bear. And thus we’ll shoot rockets and attack with our planes until the rain is no more!

When science fiction writers dreamed of weather-changing machines, most of them described vacuum tube powered monstrosities or electrostatic contraptions. Turns out you just need to stab mother nature in the face with a few projectiles to put her in her place.

It Was Like a Lightbulb Exploded In My Brain

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Flying shards of glass and everything. I was so worried about the economy and BAM! FINALLY somebody, somewhere is aiming to do something about it!

Study: Single parents cost taxpayers $112 billion

That sure jumped out at me. Clearly, first off, single parents aren’t taxpayers! Or the headline would read “Taxpayers cost themselves $112 billion” and nobody’d care. Oh, wow. Surely this isn’t a blatant attempt at manipulating the reader before he or she even gets to the first sentence of the body of the article…oh, no, of course not. I have such a suspicious mind. Well, let’s read on:

The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion

Oops! Wrong article. Heh. My bad. Let me go back to worrying about those REAL community purse-drainers, Teh Unwed CrackHo Mothers and Homewrecking Feminazi Divorcees! er, “single parents,” sorry.

The study was conducted by Georgia State University economist Ben Scafidi. His work was sponsored by four groups who consider themselves part of a nationwide “marriage movement” — the New York-based Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Families Northwest of Redmond, Washington, and the Georgia Family Council, an ally of the conservative ministry Focus on the Family.

It doesn’t get much more unbiased than that! You know you can count on the results of this study to be fair, impartial and completely unslanted by any agenda the sponsors might have!

While the study doesn’t offer formal recommendations, it does suggest that state and federal lawmakers consider investing more money in programs intended to bolster marriages. Such a program has been in place in Oklahoma since 2001; Texas last year earmarked about $15 million in federal funds for marriage education.

“Because of the very large taxpayer costs associated with high rates of divorce and unwed childbearing, and the modest price tags associated with most marriage-strengthening initiatives … programs even with very modest success rates will be cost-effective,” the study says.

Lightbulb! Exploding!

But Tim Smeeding, an economics professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, who was not involved in the study, said he’s seen no convincing evidence that the marriage-strengthening programs work.

“I have nothing against marriage — relationship-building is great,” he said. “But alone it’s not going to do the job. A full-employment economy would probably be the best thing — decent, stable jobs.”

Another expert not connected to the study, University of Michigan sociologist Pamela Smock, suggested that bigger investments in education would pay long-term dividends — improving economic prospects even for children from fragmented, disadvantaged families.

Shut up, you heretics. Jobs, education–are you mad? Higher salaries for taxpayers don’t result in both increased tax revenues in general and decreased need for taxpayer-funded government programs to subsidize low-income taxpayers specifically! Increased government spending on “bolstering marriage” programs touted as likely having “very modest success rates” by their proponents do!

Blankenhorn said it was “fair criticism” to note that the study made multiple references to marriage-strengthening programs while not proposing other strategies for reducing the cost of family fragmentation.

“Maybe we should have been more ecumenical,” he said. “Let everybody have their say. Let’s try things out. … Nobody knows exactly the strategies which are going to work.”

Well gee, that’s seems to be a fair statement…since we haven’t done any studies on the effect of college education on slut-headed, I mean, single-parent households we really don’t have any way of knowing—

Mother’s Education Influences Family Financial Well-Being

“In the United States, poverty is more prevalent among women with children no matter what their marital status might be,” reports Shanta Pandey, Ph.D., associate professor at Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work and co-author of a new study examining the impact of higher education on poverty. “Poverty among college-educated mothers, irrespective of their marital status, is consistently low.”

The study, Bachelor’s Degree for women with Children: A Promising Pathway to Poverty Reduction, published in the current issue of the journal Equal Opportunities International. shows how poverty among women with children can be reduced through college education. According to the study, mothers having a 4-year college degree are between 3 and 10 times more likely to live above the poverty line.

Gad, it’s like I have gremlins in my laptop or something…see, now that’s TOTALLY irrelevant, gremlins! He said, NOBODY KNOWS EXACTLY THE STRATEGIES WHICH ARE GOING TO WORK, DAMMIT!! lalalalala I can’t HEEEAARR YOUUUU—

Suffering from being a patronizing, paternalistic ass? That’s just what organized religion was designed to combat!

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

Over at Boundless Webzine, Focus on the Family’s source of hip, Candice Watters is reminded by the New York Times to warn science to beware, bee–waaarrreeeeeee!!!!!!!! That is, beware to continue to be aware that scientific ethics are a good thing.

Also, did you know that in the past, scientists were sometimes wrong? And other times, science-sounding words were used by people in authoritative positions to maintain the status quo, even when the status quo conflicted with the interests of the people these learned men were trying to serve? Really, it’s true.

In a culture where everything is relative, it’s hard to defend anything as true. Few trust anything that isn’t supportable by science. But science without truth is barbarism. The standard evidence of this point is Auschwitz, the concentration camp now decried for it’s “scientific” experiments.

Let’s go through this paragraph slowly:

1. Candice, LOTS of people trust plenty that ain’t supported by science. And LOTS MORE trust things that they think are supported scientifically, but in fact they are being scammed by people who are taking advantage of the fact that a lot of people are very hazy about what exactly counts as science. A few examples pulled just from blogs I’ve read recently:

  • It would be very convenient for some to believe that black people are naturally less intelligent than white people.
  • A select group of hypochondriacs believe that ingesting substances that make shitting somehow even more disgusting is an important health regimen.
  • Your very own blogmate is saying that he read that CFL will give you skin cancer, when in fact science is merely claiming that people who already have chronic skin conditions that could be exacerbated by CFLs, and that could lead to an increased risk of cancer for those individuals. However, being vague about the qualifiers fits in better with his anti-CFL legislation schtick, as it did for the Daily Mail.
  • Increased levels of estrogen mimicking chemicals in our water supply is bad news for aquatic life and probably us; some would argue that this is cause to ban birth-control pills when the real source of the problem is actually the plastics industry.

    2. So now we’ve established that ‘science’ is frequently used as a wishy-washy word at best. Are we talking pure research here, or application, or the way data is used to justify things that may or may not be accurate, or are we including instances where data is deliberately misconstrued to support an unfair or irrational policy, or sell something? In your case, you seem to be claiming it’s ‘science’ whenever a guy with an advanced degree does something. Ok, we’ll work with that. But now you say “But science without truth is barbarism” so what is truth? Truth is beauty, beauty truth, I suppose but that’s not actually helpful. By the end of your article it is clear you mean “biblical truth” and ohhh, baby, there’s a can of worms.

    3. I’m not going to declare a Godwin violation here, I’m just going to chastise you for your improper use of scare quotes. The Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners were vile beyond all possible imagining, but they were actually pretty scientific; as in, they resulted in usable data. And many of their scientists were top-notch, which is why we took them and their data at the end of the war. And we used them to beat the Russians to the moon.

    It’s important to note the the Nazis also had a sizable pseudo-scientific crazy person science department, that, for example, funded rocket experiments designed to prove we lived in a hollow earth.

    However, you can’t blame a lack of religion for Nazi atrocities, although you can certainly argue with their version of the ‘truth’ until you are blue in the face. So to wrap up everything that’s wrong with the final sentence of your opening paragraph: a) the Nazis are not the best example of science going amok because there was no religious philosophy to restrain their greed for knowledge, if anything, they managed to make a religious philosophy that was entirely consistent with their justifications for torturing concentration camp prisoners with ghastly experiments; b) if America’s Protestant religious underpinnings are a superior ethical guide to science policy than Nazi Making-Hateful-Shit-Up Christianity, then our leaders would have had a lot more qualms letting the captured scientists use and build upon the data obtained by experimenting on prisoners; c) I can’t believe you just invoked the freaking Nazis, the motherfucking Nazis, for the love of all that is holy, to set up an article about how doctors in the past were wrong to be so restrictive about parental visiting hours in pediatric wards.

    Could we please show a least an inkling of a sense of perspective? Ok, then, let’s blow through the rest of this trainwreck a bit faster.
    (more…)

  • Slate’s new Blog For Girls fails the ‘who the hell are you and why do I care’ test

    Sunday, October 21st, 2007

    Slate’s new gals-only blog (called the XX Factor because it’s x-edgy to the x-treme, and also women have two X chromosomes while men have an X and a Y chromosome. Get it?) is drawing criticism for being eyeball-meltingly boring. Erica Barnett calls it “fucking DULL.” Gawker remains unimpressed by the writer’s “femiladyism.” Slate commenters suggest that XX Factor posters may be indistinguishable from men posting as women and quickly get to the heart of the problem:

    I wonder if so far the writers for XX Factor just think it’s a place to jot down some thoughts before heading back over to the ‘real news’ that has nothing to do with women’s issues.

    I’ll continue to read and post, because I think these are important issues. But I do seriously question how on earth writers for this blog are chosen. Is it just because they’re women? Can we get some actual educated feminists over here please? Men and women feminists alike is fine with me. Just PLEASE, some deeper thinking, some educated opinions, some people who are already familiar with feminist theory, some actual insightful, keen allies to the women’s movement.

    And it’s true that the gals have left themselves open for criticism about being boring, too self-referential, and irrelevant. On a whole page of posts from four or more women who are devoted to two topics (that school in Maine that gives BC to students and the smashing, star-studded divorce of France’s biggest media-whore political couple, because nothing else is going on anywhere that needs discussing) one takes a break from toeing the affluent midwestern mom party line to defend her prattle:

    And I don’t see why a bunch of women talking to one another is necessarily a “feminist” project. I had assumed it would be more like the all-women dinner parties I started giving a few years ago, when I realized how much fun they were.

    For some reason, I’m reminded of this:


    Blogs…For GIRLS!

    Let me just say, if this blog is a re-enactment of Anne Applebaum’s gals-only dinner parties, then Anne’s parties must suck. If you went to a party where a core group of dull women dominated the conversation with their vapid opinions while you had to do the real-life equivalent of scrolling to the bottom of the page to find the disorganized mish-mash of responses that you’d have to sift through in order to get your opinion heard, wouldn’t you just leave?* What insane fantasy land does Anne live in where “everyone in [her] neck of the woods” is actually talking about the Sarkozy divorce? Seriously, if she’s not posting from France than WTF? And if she IS posting from France, exchanging bon-mots over the scandalous Sarkozys at sparkling dinner parties with her girl friends, then maybe her personal experience is a bit irrelevant for making the personal political all over the Slate girlie ghetto as though she speaks for the rest of us girlie girls.

    Honestly, I don’t have any idea who any of these women are. If I’ve read stuff by them in the past then it failed to make an impression. Their names don’t link to any bios, so the only way I’ll ever find out who they are and why I care what they think is if I keep on reading the XX factor, and really after today’s taste I’ll probably just stop in when I need something to make fun of.

    I award Slate 10 Lazy Points for going to the effort of creating a safe, mainstream place for women to discuss politics, then staffing it with whatever vagina wandered past the editorial staff within an hour of getting the concept approved. Because if there’s one thing women need, it’s a bunch of pseudo-intellectual women prattling on about how their husbands are just better at playing because guys are just better, and ick, feminism. Slate really saw a need there and filled it. Unfortunately for them, had their hiring process been a little better, they could have just gotten some Cotillion women who would provide the exact same level of “status quo forever!” gender politics while providing enough spite to stave off the cries of “borrr-iinnng!” from the critics.

    *The top post right now is a Re: by another poster to a previous post. No comments on the posts themselves, but a “discussion forum” link at the very bottom of the page. It’s a blog layout and posting system as graceful and delicate as the ladies themselves.

    Next week, how I used my power as a woman to trick a guy into buying me a $3 cherry bomb, proving feminism unnecessary

    Sunday, September 30th, 2007

    Is it midterm time already? It must be – the weather is changing, the days grow shorter, and the wind blows over hill and dale, caressing the campus and picking up the smug cry of the newly hatched ‘concern’ feminist. Hearken to the self-righteously uninformed screed of the third-runner up of the Bestest Girl/Honorary Boy competition as she makes the first of many homes she’ll find in inferior, content-desperate publications across the land. Sure, today it’s the wretch that is your student paper (seriously, is there a student-run paper worth a damn anywhere in the country?) but tomorrow, it could be Townhall, or even, God willing, IWF.

    But she’s got the routine down, she just needs some polish. Step 1: Pick a somewhat interesting non-topic over which to get your panties in a twitch. Ignore the fact that the vast majority of students have sex lives that rival that of their parents in terms of frequency and variation of partners and go straight to giving yourself a wedgie over the fraction of the 20% who are actually getting some who may be getting theirs in an irresponsible manner.

    An online search of the phrase “hook up” returned some interesting – though nonscientific – results. The most benign definition I found came from dictionary.com – to join or become associated with.

    I found the most disturbing definitions on open-source Web sites like wikipedia.com and urbandictionary.com. A hook up, according to Wikipedia, is “casual sexual activity.”

    Really? Because the most disturbing definitions I found were when I did a safe-search-off Google Images search for “hook up.” Although I was impressed with the diversity; it’s not often the same search will bring you old men golfing AND a close-up of a fishhook injury AND a woman fucking a large dog in the top 10 results.

    Two grafs in and already I’m thinking Callie Corley’s opinion isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Clearly she didn’t dive into the real nitty-gritty of her subject matter. Where is her outrage over what that dog is doing to that poor woman’s emotional fidelity?

    And here, she fumbles again:

    And if you ask most college students how they classify a hook up, their definitions echo those from the open-source Web sites. Also, forgive me for any wide-sweeping generalities I make. I know there are always exceptions.

    NEVER apologize for getting your rage on, Callie! I mean, you are a girl and are therefore hardwired by genetics to apologize in advance for breathing, but if you want to moral scold with the big dogs, then you have to stifle that impulse, ESPECIALLY when you’re about to shoot your mouth off over something that you have no idea about.

    Cosmopolitan magazine says hook up culture consists of “lots of partying and flirting, plenty of alcohol, and [...] the idea that women can be just as bold and adventurous about sex as men are.”

    Cosmo says alot of things, though, and almost all of it’s crap. For example, they routinely suggest “surprising” your partner with sexy-time props like ice when in reality that is the sort of thing you need to clear with your lover in advance. They also imply that you should feel comfortable spending $200 on a pair of jeans, and that the $80 range is a bargain.

    Also, it’s a newb mistake so don’t feel bad for making it, but if you’re blaming feminists for something and your examples come mostly from your imagination and Cosmopolitan Magazine, prepared for a good old fashioned feminist mocking, because you have already torched your relevance as the voice of the young and hip-to-be-square.

    College students around the country fall victim to this hook up culture everyday, not just women.

    And the remaining 80% of students who have between 0-1 partners a year (but are all convinced, absolutely sure, that their contemporaries are getting more tail) would like to know how it’s done.

    I won’t let the pig-headed college guy stereotype convince me that all guys only want to hook up. I refuse to believe that.

    Hey! She’s right! Men might be individuals, too! Some may want things different than others! What bold and visionary thinking!

    I do believe, however, that women are more affected emotionally – and, obviously, physically – by this culture.

    This is the part that is feminism’s fault, for feminists told women they could reach for the stars, and then promptly fuck them, but failed to have the proper PR in place for when society ignored the boring thinky bits (“Women, long denied access to power, wealth or even bodily autonomy… *snzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* Boorrr-iiiing!”) and kept only the juicy bits (“Hotties, feel free to fuck, and ignore that ugly woman crying about how all sex is rape – what a nut!”).

    You got a better theory? Patri-what? Booorrr-iiinnnggg!

    I think when it comes to equality the genders should be equal.

    If Plato had been a chick, and felt the same way about gender equality, he’d totally have been Callie Corley. Because that was deep.

    Women and men should be able to achieve the same high-profile jobs with big-figure salaries. We should share the workload in the office and in the household.

    Equality is fine for the boardroom, but in the bedroom, skanks and virgins only, the way God intended. We’re not all going to get high-profile jobs with big-figure salaries, and in the event that I’m pushing papers for a mere low-5-digits, I’m going to need a lightly used pussy to have some marriage market value. Feminists are destroying my plan B!

    Thanks to feminism, women are doing better, going farther and achieving more than ever before. From childhood, men are taught to – hopefully – respect women and treat them equally.

    With all the positive things feminism started, it did neglect to educate women about one certain thing. Though we can do whatever men can, we’re going to handle and react to it differently.

    Let Callie say this slowly so you assholes get it. Cake. Eat. Too. Callie likes the college educating and the voting and the ability to get credit in her own name and everything, but she is not ready to go head-to-head on a level playing field when it comes to getting the best guys, and we all know it’s still all about getting the best guys. There is a script that she is comfortable with, and she’d prefer we not screw with it. So instead of saying that a fast and easy sexual culture upsets women because the patriarchy has distorted sex-positivity and young women rush into the new sexytime ‘feminism’ without properly internalizing real feminist principles, leaving them open for a big old shaming the morning after, let’s just say women and men are “wired differently.”

    Grossman has seen thousands of students, but remembers one girl’s searching question vividly.

    “Why, Dr. Grossman, do they warn you about STDs and pregnancy, but they don’t tell you what it does to your heart?”

    With so much accessibility to birth control and other contraceptives, women can have as much sex as they think the average male has with less worry – though avoiding pregnancy or STDs is never guaranteed by any product….

    Nothing, however, protects the heart or mind.

    Which is why Grossman immediately developed the condom…for the heart. Buy with the Mind Sponge to prevent dangerous oxytocin saturation!

    Women will, always, treat sex different emotionally and mentally than men. Men have the ability to compartmentalize and separate emotions. Women have a more difficult time disassociating from their emotions. It’s just the way our bodies are chemically designed.

    …Feminism failed us, in this respect. We were given this freedom but not taught how to properly utilize it.

    Is this what our sister suffragettes envisioned when they fought for women’s equality?

    Right. Women are ‘wired’ to be clingy needballs, while men are basically Data from Star Trek but hornier. Just keep telling yourselves that.

    Something needs to be done. Help women understand that nothing will change the way their brains chemically react, and give them the tools and courage to make good decisions about sexual health.

    Silver Ring Things for everyone!

    Educate men about this difference. Teach them to be understanding – when it comes to sex, a girl can never be one of the guys.

    We must teach our children the difference. We must teach our boys of the Pussy Oversoul. For it seems as though the Oversoul taunts them, taunts them mercilessly, but there is a reason behind the torture, for first and foremost, the Oversoul must protect itself.

    Had your fathers and your father’s fathers not been such bastards about the skank thing for oh, about the whole history of civilization, perhaps the Oversoul would be more generous and benevolent, but alas, they were and now you must respect the Oversoul, unless she’s put out in the past and is drunk, in which case, game on.

    Relationship education is what’s needed. Somewhere college students are learning that it’s OK to hook up. Somewhere they’re learning that this represents the norm. Somewhere they’re learning that such behavior carries no consequences. Somewhere.

    I blame the heart.

    But that somewhere is not in the heart.

    Oh, then I blame the patriarchy. It wasn’t the feminists; sure, we like for the wimmins to have a good time in the sack, but we emphasize that it often means being very discriminating and choosing sexual partners who are committed to sexual equal…*snnnnzzzzzzz snork!* Boorrrr-iiiinnngggg!

    Dr Mike tells the kids how to police their purity of essence

    Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

    Ahh, it’s the beginning of the school year – a time fraught with fraughty goodness for incoming undergraduates heading off to the first day of their new classes. I remember the computer science class where the graduate TA simply never showed up, and the resulting hissy fit some guy sitting behind me pitched while administrators scrambled to find someone else to teach (which they did by the end of the hour). A friend of mine had a physics professor tell her all about his beliefs in women’s inferiority in the sciences. Another friend had a documentary professor fresh to academia from his previous stint as a producer of one of those fear-mongering news magazine shows. He nearly failed the whole class just to show them who was boss, and was a bit surprised to find the kids could call his bluff.

    And Mike S Adams, professor of criminal justice with the feminist fixation, does his bit to bewilder the students with another one of his patented “What I Should Have, Would Have Said” columns. Will he actually start his Intro to Criminology course with a lecture on the importance of emotional chastity, or does he just wish he could? I wish he would; in today’s business environment, students need to learn how to handle being a captive audience to a superior with a bizarre, completely-irrelevant- to-the-point- of-the-meeting pet cause.

    Welcome to UNC-Wilmington! My name is Dr. Adams and you are enrolled in CRJ 105 (Introduction to Criminal Justice). If you are in the wrong class, please get up and leave now – unless you’re majoring in Women’s Studies in which case you would be ostracized for leaving now. And, by the way, if you dislike bad puns you should also consider leaving this class.

    I’ve read that paragraph four times, and am still trying to find the pun. My brain rejects any suggestion that it lies in the word “ostracized” for purely self-preservation reasons – there’s no way I should be able to pick a pun that obscure and bad out of anyone’s writing.

    Of course, maybe there is no pun and Dr Mike is required by his department head to make that disclaimer after some terrible pun-related incident in a past semester.

    Let’s skip straight to the part where we suspect Dr Mike of making stuff up:

    Almost every year at UNCW, I see a feminist professor or administrator (sometimes both) handing out condoms to students in the hopes that they will engage in “protected” sexual intercourse.

    Pop quiz kids: who passes out the free condoms at your school? Because at every school I’ve ever been to, that task is usually delegated to the health center (which just tosses them in a self-serve basket) and student clubs, fraternities and sororities. I have yet to see a professor, even a kooky one, or any administrator actually passing out the condoms. All of the school administrators I know are usually, you know, administrating. There’s also an unspoken agreement that getting free condoms from your friends is cool, getting them from your doctor makes sense, but getting them from your adviser is just creepy – this person grades my essays, why the hell is he or she meddling in my sex life?

    Since the other professors don’t let Dr Mike sit with them at their lunch table, there’s apparently no way for Dr Mike to know that students don’t come to class expecting their teacher to hand them condoms so there’s no need for him to reassure them of the true contents of his imaginary fantasy box:

    This box on my desk is not full of condoms. It is full of copies of the book “Unprotected” by Dr. Miriam Grossman, a psychiatrist who wrote about her experiences working at the student health center at UCLA. The book tells many stories you need to hear – stories you will never hear from the censorious feminists who run the Women’s Resource Center.

    Does he really have a box of books to pass out to the class? Does he have enough for everyone, or do they have to share? How many sections of Intro to Criminology does he teach, and who paid for this blatantly inappropriate gesture? Does the assistant to Mike’s long-suffering direct superior schedule time in advance for the inevitable grievance process every semester, or do they prefer to act surprised? Is this why Mike teaches a freshman intro class – freshmen being less likely to be aware of official grievance procedures or the location of the ombudsman’s office? Does pouring the fantasy into his Townhall column keep him from pulling these stunts in real life, or is he just working up the courage to turn his thoughts into action? So many questions!

    For example, Grossman tells the story of one college freshman who started having uncontrollable crying spells. Her depression became so severe that she sought help at the student health center. It did not take long for the therapy sessions to reveal that her problem was a “friendship with benefits” she established during the fall semester. She and her casual sex partner had agreed that they would just sleep together without dating. But she was beginning to long for something more.

    Those espousing the radical feminist agenda at the university had told her that using condoms would protect her – this without any reference to the emotional consequences of casual sex.

    My God! This is shocking! Why, oh why do feminists promote using sex to gain approval from guys or entering into sexual relationships that leave you unsatisfied? Don’t they realize that their subsidizing of Girls Gone Wild videos actually hurts women? And why do all these homosexuals keep sucking Mike’s cock?

    Back in reality, feminists would tell Betty Coed to break it off with her fuck buddy if it upsets her that much. If he drops the friendship just because you dropped the benefits, then consider that a lesson learned. People can be jerks, but if you’re smart, being burned once should be sufficient.

    The same problems that Grossman saw at UCLA are also prevalent on other campuses. For example, this summer, I got a letter from a young woman who was experiencing deep pain as a result of her decision to abandon the values she grew up with and to adopt the values of the “hook-up” culture, which is the dominant culture on most college campuses. She was a virgin in her 18th year. Now, in her 21st year, her number of sex partners has almost caught up with her chronological age. And she is now beginning to learn that there is no condom for the heart.

    Let’s take this paragraph in two parts:

    Part A: Who the fuck is pouring their heart out to Dr Mike in that manner? No, really, who?
    Part B: Girl goes from virgin to whore and suffers dire consequences – how perfectly narrative! It must be the actual act of sex that’s making her sad. It can’t possibly be that she’s been raised with conflicting messages about sex, and is now undergoing the very tough process of sorting out the truth from the lies while her peers judge her every move. And the double standard, that’s probably not making her sad either. Certainly, none of those seven guys a year for three years ever did anything assholish like being nice before getting some and ditching her right after, so she can’t be confused about that. It must be the sex, so this is nothing a little chastity won’t cure.

    Patriarchy, the cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems!

    And men are also put at risk by those who would put political correctness above concern for student well-being. This is especially true for gay men.

    So sex is bad for women, and bad for gays, and according to this nervous straight man, this is just the natural order of things and we’ll have to deal. Right. Pardon, Dr Mike, but your slip is showing.

    If you are gay and engaging in anal sex, it is unlikely that you will ever see the words “anal sex” listed among the risk factors for contracting AIDS in any campus publication anywhere. Nor is it likely that you will ever hear these words mentioned by any professor discussing such risk factors in a relevant lecture.

    To be fair, you do actually have to open the publications and read what’s inside of them rather than just imagining what might be inside of them. Sometimes you don’t even have to go that far. My mom, for reasons that will god willing remain forever unclear, was the recipient of a postcard that listed from left to right all kinds of sexual activities. The background was a gradient from green to yellow to red, and the act’s place on the postcard represented it’s relative risk. Up in the top left, greenest corner was abstinence, and unprotected anal sex was about as lower right as it could get, just slightly to the right of unprotected vaginal sex and unprotected oral sex. Protected sex of any kind was in the yellow to yellow-orange region.

    Mom passed the postcard on to my roommate, who passed it on to me. The point is, this information is not only out there, sometimes you don’t even have to look for it. And the “relevant lectures” have to cover it just to make sure there’s one more drop of sanity to counter the tidal wave of bullshit that sweeps curious students into human sexuality courses. Not that I have any idea where this bullshit comes from, mind you.

    But because your health and well-being is important to me – despite my religious opposition to your lifestyle – I want you to get better information than you are likely to get on this or any other college campus.

    I guess I don’t have to take the obvious shot here.

    I’ll start by offering you a copy of Dr. Grossman’s book. If you need additional information, I’ll send you somewhere off campus to ensure that you will get accurate information.

    Bow-chikka-bow-waaa!

    Ok, sorry, I couldn’t resist. But come on, a guy who writes about how just hearing the word “vagina” gives him ED should be more careful about suggesting that he deeply cares about the sexual health of his homosexual students before stating that he’d be happy to direct them to an off-campus location to learn more. I realize that at some point after anal sex but before Grossman’s book giveaway he switched back to addressing his whole audience (women and fags, mostly, as straight men are too manly to let a little sex get them down) from addressing just the gays (at least, I hope he did) which makes the suggestion, while still insanely inappropriate, at least less blatantly homoerotic. So I guess depending on how you read that, Dr Mike is in need of either a really good copy editor or a really good therapist. Either way, how those poor kids handle him on the first day of class will be the first step towards making adult decisions like what their coping strategy is for dealing with insane people who, for whatever reason, can’t be ignored.