For Your Consideration: Natalie Portman (again!), (female) binge-drinking, and LGBT youth

What were some of the scientific achievements that mattered most in 2010? The New Yorker‘s Michael Specter has 7 of them.

“Who’s White? Who’s Black? Who Knows?”

Are LGBT youth punished more harshly than their straight friends, and is “fat” bullying still prevalent?

Has the “Other Swiss” Stanislas Wawrinka peaked at No. 21 on the ATP rankings chart? And can Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova improve her head-to-head record against top players to move beyond the 21st spot?

Does Natalie Portman already have that “Best Actress” Oscar in the bag? (For more of Time‘s film-related reading, check out its Top 10 Movies and Top 10 Movie Performances of 2010.)

Are women really heavy binge-drinkers? And what did the vacillating banter between female celebrities Bristol Palin(?), Chelsea Handler, Margaret Cho, and Kathy Griffin have to say about the gestures of female friendship?

What’s There to “b thankful 4”?

b

=

4?

The commonly repeated formula is 2 + 2 = 4, a sign not only of a successful elementary education but also of an assured sanity. In a text a few weeks ago, Alaska’s former governor and the Republican party’s biggest star, Sarah Palin, used each of these symbols to demonstrate her new-age, technological savvy. It seems that recently — though, some hard-line, mainstream-media dogs may claim it’s consistent — Ms. Palin has taken a policy of bilocation. In trying to expand her (fan-)base (I thought she wasn’t running for office…), she has decided to hob-knob with the Libertarians and the infamous “gun-toting” conservatives simultaneously. It’s rather confusing trying to follow her.

Send Them a Pocket Constitution, Stat!

Dr. Laura Schlessinger used the n-word 11 times on her radio show when taking a call from a Black woman in an interracial marriage. (Full audio here. *trigger warning*)

Unsurprisingly, controversy explodes. Schlessinger bows to pressure and decides to discontinue her show at the end of the year. Of course, she couldn’t leave without one last display of her pathetic persecution complex: “I’m done trying to help people in a situation where my First Amendment rights don’t exist, where special interest groups and activists can make a decision to silence you. It’s not American, it’s not fair play.”

But worry not, Laura! Sarah stepped in to save the day (if you can understand her tweets):

RT @SarahPalinUSA: Dr.Laura:don’t retreat…reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence”isn’t American,not fair”)

RT @SarahPalinUSA: Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice,America!

Laura Schlessinger has the right to say the n-word as many times as she damn well pleases in whatever context with whatever intent she’d like, but she does not have the right to a radio show. She exercised her free speech, and in return those “special interest groups and activists” exercised their free speech by protesting against and organizing a response to her remarks. When the dust settled, it turned out that there there is no longer tolerance for Schlessinger’s brand of bigotry…except from Palin and her ilk.

Much as they don’t understand the Second Amendment and couldn’t explain the function of a prefatory clause to save their guns, straight/white/conservative Christians clearly also have a poor grasp of the First Amendment, railing that the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act will infringe on their right to say, GOD HATES FAGS (oh, wait—they don’t generally phrase it like that, because they’re not like those Westboro loonies and truly want to share Christ’s love with the sodomizing faggots); the Employment Non-Discrimination Act will force schools to hire transvestite pedophiles; and gender-neutral marriage laws will force their churches to wed a bi man, a genderqueer dyke, and their pit bull in a most unholy union.

And now they confirm for us yet again that they believe that all their speech is free and all our speech is hate and how DARE we silence them?!

Backwards, much?

Welcome to Real America.

The “Sherrod Saga” Sees the Speaker’s Side

Yesterday, I posted a blot condemning Shirely Sherrod for her seemingly racist comments. She continued, in vain, to have her side of the story presented throughout today and this week. Today, another development in what can only be called the “Sherrod Saga” occurred when the NAACP posted a video with Sherrod’s FULL speech. Needless to say, the supposedly racist comments that cost Shirely Sherrod her state director’s job at the USDA seemed to have been taken out of context.

After watching the entire 43-minute, 14-second speech (the out-of-context comments start around the 17-minute mark), I was mostly wrong to condemn Sherrod for her comments and apologize for doing so. I say “mostly,” though, because Sherrod seemed to still, unconsciously or not, cling to racism and black exclusiveness. After sharing the controversial story, in which there should be no doubt Sherrod was conveying racism, the former state director claimed she learned to move beyond race to a more class-oriented approach regarding aid.

She proclaimed that she desired to help only the poor, the ones without help, to survive. And while I think all people, regardless of money, race, religion, etc., deserve help, I don’t take as much issue with her approach. That said, Sherrod’s not totally off the hook.

Intolerance Is Now Their Best Friend

About a week ago, my fellow blogger and good friend Joey posted a blot on former Alaskan governor—or, as he so lovingly puts it, a “future nobody”—Sarah Palin’s recent Facebook post on racism regarding Reagan, Republicans, and herself. Though my post today is in some ways tangential to it, it pertains to a different kind of racism: the purely intolerant kind.

Shirley Sherrod, Georgia’s former Director for Rural Development of the Department of Agriculture, spoke at a state-wide convention for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in March (March 27th, according to BigGovernment.com). In a speech during which she discusses her relations with a struggling white farmer and the private conflicts she experienced, she proves intolerance is not always the result of ignorance:

Ignorance Is Still Their Best Friend

The NAACP voted on July 13th “to condemn extremist elements within the Tea Party, calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.” Which is to say, they stated the obvious about America’s hot/new/overblown political movement.

JK! Nothing is obvious to these Founding Father-lovin’ patriots except Obama’s rampant Fascist Nazi Communism™, as future-nobody Sarah Palin was only too glad to demonstrate in her latest Facebook missive.

While most of the post is just the standard vomit-inducing drivel embracing such delightful garbage as “post-racial America,” and was replete with the expected worshiping of the ever-tolerant, fag-murdering Ronald Reagan, I must say I had to reserve a special snort of (near-)disbelief when I came across this gem: “To be unjustly accused of association with what Reagan so aptly called that ‘legacy of evil’ is a traumatizing experience, and one of which the honest, freedom-loving patriots of the Tea Party movement are truly undeserving.”

*GUFFAWSQUAWK*

You know you’re privileged when you consider having your oppression of others pointed out to be “traumatizing.”

Ms. Palin, I think I have a few million current victims of the Prison-Industrial Complex who’d like a word with you…for starters.

Anyhow, all this hubbub made me think of my favorite song of the moment, Paramore’s “Ignorance”:

Perhaps it’s time for some COCs (children of conservatives) to step forward and start to sing, because

The same tricks that, that once fooled me
They won’t get you anywhere
I’m not the same kid from your memory
Well, now I can fend for myself

Onward to November!

A Not-So-Precious Slumdog

Let me start by sharing two images with you:

Confused?

While the similarities might not be readily apparent, they are there. Both Slumdog Millionaire and Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire are films depicting protagonists struggling to overcome wretched circumstances predominantly involving poverty. Both were critically acclaimed, with Metacritic ratings of 86 and 79 and Rotten Tomato scores of 93% and 91%, respectively. And in the months following its release, Precious seemed to be on the Slumdog track as a strong Oscar contender.

But now? A(n incredibly well-deserved) Best Supporting Actress win for Mo’Nique, a token Best Picture nomination (even more token now that there are ten nominees and we will never know whether it was in the top five of those), and millions of enthralled viewers left bemused.

…What happened?

The Art of Talking About Something and Nothing

Today I am going to talk about Tony Hoagland’s poem “The Change.”

Today I am not, however, going to teach you how to write an effective hook for a blog post. XD

So. You read it? The poem? Good.

Kinda weird, huh? Hoagland’s an odd guy. Not my favorite. But he certainly gets props for bluntness. After the jump, see what Michelle Minkoff had to say about this piece: