Do check out the website of a German artist, Martina Minette Dreier, and her portraits of people ‘Doing Gender’.
(Thanks to AO for the link.)
Coal Country
Betty & I are spending some time with my family today & Monday; we plan to be back sometime on Tuesday. We’re going to coal country, where my mother’s peeps are from, as it’s my grandaunt’s 85th birthday – yes, she’s my grandaunt Helen, there really is only one page in the Polish baby names book – while my parents are up north for a visit, too. We’ll go revisit some of the places they brought me as a kid, but with my sister’s kids, who’ve grown up going to that region on their summer holidays and tromping around what they call “the bush” (otherwise known as the woods) the same as I did.
It’ll be four generations in two cars, which to me is always a lovely, if complicated, experience.
Since I’ll be in coal country, I’ll be thinking about those trapped Utah miners & their families, of course. This bullshit cowboy mining should be illegal, by the way. I’m sure John L. Lewis is turning in his grave now that they’re even stripping the pillars. Greedy bastards. Please keep in mind, folks, that while trapped miners are always a good “human interest” though tragic news story, we don’t often hear about the accidents that just kill miners outright – not here, or in China, or in India.
Hosed.
The FDNY has cancelled their annual calendar of hunky, half-naked firemen because one guy was in a more risque video shaking his own god-given hose for a bunch of girls with a video camera.
It just doesn’t seem right, especially since he made the video before he became FDNY & before he posed for the calendar. & Since the calendar raises $150k annually, this kind of prudishness – over one guy’s past! – seems ridiculous.
I’m Your Girl.
A woman on Hardball keeps referring to Hillary Clinton as a “radical feminist.” Um, for the record, Hillary Clinton is not & never was a radfem. Nope. Not. At. All.
What’s interesting is seeing an African American woman defend the use of the word “girl.” Interesting because I can’t imagine her defending an African American man being called or calling himself “boy.” For damn good reasons.
If Chris Matthews says “spunky” one more time I’m going to stuff a bra in his mouth.
I don’t care what Hillary calls herself. It was her vote on the war in Iraq that’s the problem.
Here We Go Again
So it seems that numbnut J. Michael Bailey has gotten more press, this time in a New York magazine article published in June that’s just now been picked up by feministing.com. Apparently Bailey, this time around, can tell whether someone’s gay by measuring their ring and index finger.
Next up: J. Michael Bailey gets taken seriously for telling people that they have the sissy gene by asking people whether they look at their nails by holding their hands palms down or if they bend the tops of their fingers over with their hands palms-up.
Cool for Cats
I woke up today to a cool, windy, rainswept kind of day, with a truckload of cats sleeping with me, one of them (my Aeneas) with his back curved around touching the curve of mine. What a lovely way to wake up.
& Tonight, because Neil Gaiman asked us to, we’re going to see Stardust.
The Further Adventures
& Then, of course, she does eventually notice the secretive sniffing and give Endymion what-for. She will boldly bite him in the ass, too, & then wonder why it is he pounces and she finds herself pinned by 18 lbs of Russian Blue. She may be a princess, but she’s not always bright.
Fa’afafine
There’s a small clip about Samoa’s Fa’afafine third gender on a current episode of National Geographic’s Taboo. I haven’t seen the whole bit yet, but it’s an interesting slip.
(Thanks to Eileen for the lead.)
LGBT Issues Presidental Debate
Tonight on Logo, a few of the presidential candidates will be asked questions specifically concerning LGBT Issues. It’s the first ever LGBT-specific debate that will be televised, and I’m quite curious as to what the media response will be – if there is a media response.
As of late July, the candidates participating are:
- Hillary Clinton,
- Christopher Dodd,
- John Edwards,
- Mike Gravel,
- Dennis Kucinich,
- Barack Obama, and
- Bill Richardson.
The Soup
So are there any other The Soup fans out there? I don’t catch this show a lot, but every time I do it cracks me up. McHale’s delivery is spotless. He’s kind of bitchy but with a kind of post- post- take on the media and the stupidity of television.
A recent favorite, about Drew Carey being chosen as the new host of The Price is Right: “They didn’t have a problem with Rosie being gay, they were just looking for a butchier lesbian.”
But you can’t really get the full impact until you watch it with the clips. It’s just too damn funny. & He was just on my other favorite host’s show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann.