A Quick LolElly For the Weekend

You were lookin' in the mirror and you wish you had some pot?

So apparently Amanda Palmer, who is awesome, had a falling out with her record label because she didn't want to cut out shots of her (incredibly hot) body out of her latest video, on the basis that she had a bit of a tummy and was thusly "not marketable" or some crap like that. This is fairly old news, so stay with me.

Palmer did what was right in flipping these jerkwads the bird, and they responded by refusing to promote her new album or single, I think. Details are hazy there. Palmer's fans and other people who can see the plain messed-up-ness of this nonsense have responded with The Rebellyon, which is comprised of many people sending in pictures of their own bellies with the knowledge that they all look amazing and are all beautiful and other hippie granola stuff that people will make fun of me for thinking.

I thought this Rebellyon was an awesome idea, and lamented its arrival being during the time when my real computer (with the webcam) is out of commission. Then, while perusing the subject further maybe about an hour ago, I realized: I HAD a picture of my belly, from a few months ago, when I was dying for snacks between shopping trips and thought it would be cute to take a silly little "SNAX PLOX" picture. So without further ado, I present my Belly.

And you know what? I'm quite proud of my little-kid-proturding tummy; moreso than I am of my bony hips because at least my tummy doesn't hurt immensely when I bang it on a doorframe. But I'd proudly take a picture of my bony hips (which are more like Shins Part 2, with how much covering they have) and post that on the internet if it meant something.

And I'd give you my toes, which I've always thought looked like men's toes on the basis that all the women in my life as a child (on my mother's side, mostly) had toes like my mother, and I had toes like my father, and all the pedicure ideas in magazines had toenails like me mother's to facilitate putting little mail polish pictures on them. I alas, have no room for such things.

And I'd give you my hands, which look, to me, at the same time like an old woman's and like a little girl's: worn from artistry and scarred from endless hangnails. (I was going to mention my warts too, but they seem to have mysteriously disappeared, which is strange because I have had the one wart for as long as I can remember, so I'm going to assume the wart fairy took them away.) My nails are never pretty; not since I stopped getting acrylics on them and went back to using my teeth for nail clippers and chewing off the polish whenever I do bother to polish them. They are, to my credit, almost always bizarrely clean, because I am so anal retentive about cleaning gunk out from my fingernails. (I used to come back from Painting and Ceramics classes with hands just as sparkling as they were when I walked in. There was probably paint or clay all over my clothes and in my hair, but MY HANDS WERE CLEAN. I put them in my mouth a lot.)

I'd describe similarly how I'd proudly display my bra-clad breasts, but my breasts are frankly my favorite part of my anatomy, so that would just be bragging. Suffice it to say my boobs are awesom and I heart them. (I do not heart the little lone black hairs that appear around my aurolae that bother me so much that I have to tweeze them away even if no one's going to be seeing them. WTF boobhairs; I am a blonde.)

I'd take pictures, if it had a larger purpose, of my unshaven legs in the fur coat I'm growing on them for winter. Other than the hair, very light on the top half and dark on the bottom half, they're pretty much ideal as far as Western Beauty Standards (tm) go. Other than bringing me only to 5'2", anyway. I'd proudly display my weird knees. Does anyone have attractive knees? Knees are pretty bizarre in general; like feet or genitals.

If I could get all high-res and artistic, even, I'd take close-up pictures of my shoulders so you could see the details I love about them most. They're freckled and shiny from years of sunburn after sunburn; the results of loving the beach but also being largely Irish.

If I could show the Internet at large the details in my face and hair that show up in a mirror but no on camera, I'd love to. The very specific pattern the tiny hairs in my nostrils make when I check for boogers. The thousands of freckles that run together to make freckle blotches that blend into my skin until summertime comes back. The pores on my nose. The blackheads on the edge of my upper lip that I can't get rid of because they are in such a difficult spot to get at without giving myself a fat lip. The individual hairs between my eyebrows that make me self-conscious about unibrow possibilities and so, must be shaved with that little As-Seen-On-TV electric thing for shaving tiny areas. The pattern made by the skin on my lips, which is a lot more pronounced when they're dry. The "beauty marks" on my cheeks. My crooked bottom teeth. All my split ends. The paint or glue or tea or clay or lip balm that is probably in my hair, no matter how long it's been since I've used any of those things. (Paint is an especially bad offender; I've seen blue ends a full week after using paint.)

I'd show you these things (for a real purpose, not for someone's gratification) because I know I am beautiful. And you know what? You're beautiful too. No, shut up, I mean it. You're reading my blog, which means I probably know you personally and can attest to it, but either way, I think everyone's got something beautiful to reveal. And once you own that? Everything else follows suit. People can see it.

Also, cookies for anyone who gets the title for this entry and why it is applicable..

YES YES YES YES

WE WON!

(Image from /b/, where good things are occasionally born.)

Rape Humor: You're Doing it Wrong

I have, as usual, been wasting my weeknights watching Comedy Central shows. In an odd enough twist of fate, not one but two shows dealt with rape as a central premise for jokes in the fresh new season. Loath as I am to say this usually, South Park got it wrong. And if you can believe this, The Sarah Silverman Program got it right. Let me explain these things one at a time.

South Park: DOING IT WRONG
The season premiere of South Park opened on Cartman having nightmares about the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, and raving to his friends the next morning, that the Chinese were going to take over. Kyle started and then said he couldn't do this today, Stan reminded Kyle that he was supposed to call Cartman "racist or something," and Kyle went home. For a glorious moment, I thought they were going to break the Fourth Wall. But alas, no.

The reason Kyle couldn't deal with Cartman today is because he had not been able to get over (apparently) witnessing the rape of his friend. For about five minutes we suffer, wondering who got raped. (Was it Butters? C'mon, it's always Butters.) Kyle has a horrible flashback which depicts to boys in a movie theater and we finally see who it was who was "raped": Indiana Jones. The boys run screaming out of the theater, one of them vomiting on the pavement outside and wailing things such as, "Aliens don't belong in an Indiana Jones movie!" And, alright, whatever, it's cool and "edgy" these days to use the word "rape" in that context, and the buildup was alright. There were a few throwaway gags that were actually, you know, funny, such as the good ol' Lifetime Rape Movie of the Week cliche of staring out into the sunset on a lake while talking about it in the most overwrought way possible. And this was, alright, not Trey and Matt's best work, but not too bad.

Until Stan started to "come to terms" with the "rape." Viewers were "treated," I guess, to an imaginary scenario in which Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas physically rape Indiana Jones. Two other characters had little visions like this, each one different, each one pretty graphic as far as basic cable goes, and each one just uncomfortably long. I don't mean uncomfortably long in the, "This was funny at first, now it's too long, now it's so long it's funny again" way; I mean uncomfortably long in that, "Wow, this was just umcomfortable, and now it's gone on for like an eternity and I hope there's a really good payoff." There wasn't a really good payoff. There wasn't ANY payoff. It was pretty much just three rape scenes which, I can imagine, would be pretty triggering for any survivors of rape who happen to actually like South Park. (I'm surprised it hasn't been on Feministe yet, really.)

The joke was not about how rape was bad or how rapists were terrible people, but how, even if Spielberg and Lucas are represented as evil demons, watching Indiana Jones get raped is FUNNY. But honestly, I watched it, three times, and it really really wasn't.

(To this episode's credit, the subplot about Cartman and Butters storming P. F. Chang's was fantastic and classic, "Cartman's not only a horrible racist but a total idiot" humor. That should have been the main plot, with the rape sequences being replaced with more Lifetime Movie clihes, I think.)

The Sarah Silverman Program: DOING IT RIGHT
The start of Sarah's domino effect of ridiculousness in this episode is her sister Laura's mention that she has vaguely Asian features because their Russian ancestors, ages and ages ago, were raped and pillaged by Mongolian invaders. This is not too unusual; lots of people were pillaged by Mongolians back in the day, but the silliness arises from the exaggerations in the show, as always. Sarah flashes back to her father singing a lullaby to her as a child. The last line is, in contrast to the rest of the happy song, a deathly whisper of "Your ancestors were raped by Mongolians." The ridiculousness builds up through the show, resulting in Sarah at one point screaming "rape" when her Mongolian landlords increase her rent. Jay rightfully chews her out for ever, EVER yelling rape when she wasn't in danger. Sarah, always kind of a horrible person, dismisses his arguments about "semantics" and goes on a rampage of ill-advised cartoonish crap, culminating in her purchase of a billboard with her sister's smiling face on it, declaring "Descended from a Mongolian RAPIST." The Mongolian Board of Tourism is, naturall, not pleased, and take Sarah to court. Sarah countersues for the rape of her ancestors.

The trial is where I realized the stark difference between the rape jokes in these episodes. The...prosecution? I don't know, who's the lawyer who's not working for the woman countersuing an entire country for rape? Well, whatever, the lawyer for the Mongolians produces a picture of a Russian peasant woman from, you know, way back when. She's got a long skirt and a babushka and the general frumpy look associated with "Russian peasant." The lawer presenting this picture notes that the woman's ankles are exposed, and that thusly, she is wearing the equivalent of one of Britney Spears' outifts, and so obviously, "She was asking for it."

After that, it gets a little weird and kind of loses the whole "rape" thread, so I'll wrap up. In contrast to the South Park episode, the joke here was about the attitudes toward rape, rather than the act itself. Sarah looks absurd for screaming rape about a rent increase, and buying a billboard of her sister's face with the word "RAPIST" underneath it in bold letters. The idea that a Russian peasant woman was "asking for it" by the way she dressed is patently ridiculous--as is the idea that any woman is "asking for it," ever. The idea of someone being raped isn't funny; it's how people act toward the idea of someone being raped that's funny.

I have to update my list of People Who Have Made Jokes About Rape That Have Not Made Me Incredibly Angry. It now consists of TWO people.
-George Carlin
-Sarah Silverman (or at least the writers for her show)

NEWSFLASH.

Women poop.


Not only that, dudes, but we fart and pee too. And one time, I let out such a ferocious burp in a Burger King that the entire place fell silent except for one guy laughing hysterically. And my farts? Sometimes, they can be pretty nasty.

I'm not even gonna get into my period, either, but I'm sure the ladies out there know that some gnarly stuff happens down there occasionally.

And no, we don't crap rainbows. Only Xlormp does that.

(Sarah Haskins marry me please)

Shameless Plugging Time!

Okay, so I don't know how many people who read this haven't already gotten my crossposting at my nerdy DA journal, and if there are any, how many of them are visually impaired, but just in case: Check this out.

Incredibly cheap (for glasses) and not even horrible and fugly like cheaper glasses tend to be. Not only that, but their reproduction Lennon frames come in waaaaay more color options than the actual official Lennon sunglasses.

At these prices, I might be able to have sunglasses again!

And I'm Sittin' Here on Capitol Hill

Sometimes, things happen that are awesome. This is one of them.

I saw a commercial for it about five minutes ago, and it was marketed as "just in time for the election," and is apparently being sold with an election-tracking map so kids can keep up with which candidate is winning which state.

In case you're unclear on why this is awesome, let me tell you a little story about my childhood.

In whatever grade it was that we started to learn about government, I became enraptured with the idea. We could pick who we wanted to be in charge. It was up to us. And on that glorious day that I hit the age of eighteen, I could join the ranks of people who helped to choose who ran our country. I would play pretend, and my games would involve my imaginary character's eighteenth birthday, on which she was given a voting license by her mother or something, and this was the best possible present. (Clearly, I did not understand the rules of registering, but I think that knowing you need a license to vote at seven is fairly impressive, right?) Other kids wanted to be eighteen because they wanted to be grown-up, to drive cars, to stay up as late as they wanted, and, after puberty, because they could buy cigarettes and porn or whatever. I wanted to be eighteen because it meant that I would finally, FINALLY be able to vote.

Perhaps if kids watch this Schoolhouse Rock thing, they'll get excited about voting like I was. Perhaps they, too, will look forward to the day that they can decide who they want to be president or governor or mayor or senator or head of the PTA or whatever. Higher voter turnout by excited young people could only be a good thing.


Also tangentially related to the Bill on Capitol Hill is some crappy stuff. Here I'll quote from the fabulous Cara of Feministe and The Curvature who has said it much better than I could: "I have previously written about the dangerous proposed Department of Health and Human Services rule that would endanger women’s access to reproductive health care. The rule, if instated, would allow health care workers to prevent women from knowing all of their health care options, including those regarding birth control — and would call government-funded providers “discriminatory” for refusing to hire such people, thus removing their funding.

The comment period for the proposed rule closes on September 25th."

Seriously, go say something about it. (They even give you a form letter for us lazy folk who can't think of anything more eloquent to say than "L. E. SMASH" on this matter!)