A reading from Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism

What?

A reading...from a book (wink)!

Mmmmhmm, from Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism.

When?

4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 22

Where?

Left Bank Books, 299 N Euclid Ave., St. Louis

What the hell is Girldrive?

I’m so glad you asked!

Here’s a brief what-what about Girldrive...
What do young women care about? Have they heard of feminism, and do they relate to it? These are just two of the questions journalist Nona Willis Aronowitz and photographer Emma Bee Bernstein set out to answer in Girldrive. In October 2007, Aronowitz and Bernstein took a cross-country road trip to meet with the 127 women profiled in this book. Girldrive is a regional chronicle of the struggles, concerns, successes and insights of young women who are grappling--just as hard as their mothers and grandmothers did--to find, define, and fight for gender equity.

Head on over, buy a copy of the book and get your listen on this Sunday!

Pondering a holy war up in Congress...

Hi y’all!

Guess what?

The Senate released its version of the Health Care Reform bill yesterday!

For real.

I’m serious!

Way (wink).

Mmmhmm, and Senator Hatch (R-UT) responded by saying there was gonna be a “holy war” in Congress.

For real.

I'm serious!

Way.

A holy way in Congress.

Pause…consider…continue.

No, that doesn’t make any sense to a bitch either...a holy way in Congress…isn’t that an oxymoron?

Shouldn’t it be?

Sigh.

A bitch suspects the reason for Hatch’s confusion on whether our nation’s legislative branch of government should indulge in a holy war (or shouldn’t that be a holy civil war?..ouch, there goes that pain in my Afro again!) may have something to do with his decision to introduce the Stupakian abortion ban language for consideration in the Senate’s bill.

I mean, that shit is so bursting with holy sanctified panderific bullshit that a bitch wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was written on church stationary!

Wince.

Pause...speculate…continue.

Ooooh, a bitch can just see it now!

First there will have to be a Mormon bishop versus Catholic bishop battle to determine which will lead the charge ('natch)…and then the winner of that cage fight will get their Crusade on up on the Senate floor…swords swinging, mud caked horse hooves flaying in the air as wild eyed holy warriors sporting full battle armor hack the Senate Health Care Reform bill to pieces in the name of the father, son and holy ghost.

Goodness!

Sounds like great theater...but a bitch has to wonder...while all that holy war drama is going down…

…will the rest of the Senate be getting their legislation on in the name of the people?

Blink.

A fluff of the Afro to the Riverfront Times!

Update – Mr. Greenbaum hath responded to the criticisms!

***crickets get their drum roll on***

Survey says?

EPIC FAIL!

Congrats to Kurt and stltoday.com for setting a new low in the Don’t Get It, Not Trying to Get It and Not Ashamed to Post That I Don’t Get It category of online word-based expression.

Y’all must be proud as a motherfucker!

Blink.

Original post...

A bitch is sure I've mentioned the epidemic of ig’nant racist comments that are allowed to take of residence beneath the articles on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website.

The site is so well known around town for allowing racist comments that people will send links to articles and either add an apology for the comments or warn folks against even bothering to read them.

Out-of-state folks should know that other Missouri papers have somehow figured out how to balance angry as hell comments with the need to avoid a virtual Klan rally up in the comment section…but Stltoday.com has indulged in a massive online comment moderation fail for forever and a day.

For so long, as a matter of fact, that a bitch was wondering if they had to let their online comment editor person go.

Enter the Riverfront Times and this article…which not only outs the fact that Stltoday.com still has an online editor (a certain Kurt Greenbaum)…but that his ass is capable of being offended by a comment.

Pause…allow sound of shocked gasps and exclamations to calm down..continue.

Mmmhmm, just not those racist comments that populate article after article upon commentary upon article-esque speculation dressed up as journalism (What? Shit we are talking about the Post!).

The RFT’s Chad Garrison uncovered the fact that Greenbaum was so offended by a comment containing a crude reference to a woman’s…well, my people call it a vagina…that he researched the comment, found out that it led to the comment maker’s employer and contacted that employer who then confronted the employee-based comment maker...who resigned on the spot!

Lawd, have mercy!

Look at that...would you look at that?!?

Shit.

That kind of dedicated payback for a comment-based offense made this bitch wonder why Mr. Greenbaum can’t seem to rustle up even half of that dudgeon when folks leave comments like those referenced here in another RFT article.

***cue crickets***

This latest online fail, coupled with the recent commentary fail by the Washington Times newspaper, has taken me closer to proving that overt racists are a highly desired audience for print media for reasons that escape me 'cause I don't speak stupid.

And 'tis shit like this that makes it kind of hard to feel sorry for the slow revenue-based starvation death many a newspaper is currently experiencing.

Blink.

Anyhoo, a fluff of the Afro to the RFT!

Poo...

Ahem.

If it didn’t bother you when President Bush the II loved on an unapologetic and perhaps even murderous enemy of free speech…

…and you didn't fret over how America's image abroad was being tarnished when our President publicly displayed that he had nothing but LOVE for a known violator of the human rights' of his people…

…but this picture of President Obama bowing to the Emperor of Japan (as is the custom, you hayseed) has y'all speaking in tongues and fixin’ to blow a blood vessel...

…you’re probably a conservative...but you are, without question, a hypocritical little shit.

And not the cute animated holiday kind, neither!

Lawd, have mercy.

Think for a minute!

If acting like an ig'nant fool and showing little to no respect for the traditions of others was the way to get international respect, George Bush would have been crowned Emperor his damned self ...or at least Head Dumbass in Charge... years ago!

Aw, fuck it.

Rep. Alan Grayson said it best…"If the President has a BLT tomorrow, the Republicans will try to ban bacon."

Blink.

Sarah Palin gets her book tour on…

Sarah Palin’s got a book coming out and she’s already hitting the road…starting, I believe with a stop at Oprah’s studio.

Blink.

Let’s jump right on in, shall we?

Unlike the folks at Good Morning America, this bitch is not at all interested in the tawdry details of Palin’s political life or her American story.

I’ll give credit where credit is due, though. Team Rogue managed to toss so much drama and so many attacks in a book pulled together faster than a good shift change at a hockey game that they may actually get through the high profile Oprah and Barbara Walter’s interviews without having to talk about...wait for it...politics!

Oh, that’s good.

That’s real good.

Full disclosure - a bitch hasn’t seen the entire Oprah interview…just the clips that have been released to stir shit and ramp up interest for the apparent McCain-Palin dish in the novel...err, memoir...um, book-like publication.

I hope I’m wrong.

I sincerely hope that Oprah asked Palin about some of the shit she said while campaigning against Oprah’s candidate of choice, President Obama.

And I’ve got my fingers crossed that she asked her some policy questions too…and no, I'm not talking about asking her if she reads newspapers.

Oprah must have…I mean, c’mon…if she didn’t ask some policy questions to clarify where Palin stands on covering the cost of medical visits when a person is dying and the family needs to discuss hospice care etc...well, then Palin would be insulted as hell right?

If Sarah Palin finished all these high profile and BIG name interviews without being asked about her policy position on the wars, energy conservation, the environment, the separation of church and state, reproductive justice, immigration reform, health care reform, tax reform, feminism, LGBT equality, Medicare or international diplomacy…cough…she’s gonna feel robbed, right?

Team Rogue would be firing off press releases complaining about the lack of respect being shown to the former GOP Vice Presidential candidate...right?

‘Cause Ms. Palin’s in the bitness of empowering America through rougue-powered political change!

***cue crickets***

Pause…consider…continue.

Yeah.

Right.

A bitch suspects that Team Rogue is banking on a nice war of words with former McCain aides coupled with the power of personality to keep those pesky issues at bay...but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

Fuck, how many books can a body sell fueled by speculation over what she was wearing, who said what about her daughter and oooh, her new hair?!?

Blink.

Home Training Fail of the week…

A bitch is starting a new feature – Home Training Fail of the week!

It may need to be expanded to Home Training Fail of the day…and, given the current fubarity surrounding health care reform, it could even go hourly…but we’ll kick it off with the home training fail of the week and see how things go from there.

I’ll get shit started with the Lou Dobbs.

Pause…sip coffee…continue.

Yep, Dobbs is a living a home training fail...shit, a bitch suspects he’s got HTF altered DNA.

It seems that Mr. Dobbs has decided to "be a leader" in a "national conversation" about immigration, jobs, health care, climate change and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- as well as "our now-weakened capitalist economy."

Blink.

Yes!

Oh, the gods are feeling generous… ‘tis like Festivus just broke out all over the place!

Lou Dobbs getting his Mr. Independent on in 2010 is more than just mana from political blog heaven (can you say guaranteed content, chil’ren?)…but it’ll also provide the masses with a constant loud ass hell and visual as a motherfucker reminder of what The Man really means when they use code language like “traditional Americans” and “traditional family values.”

Fantabulous!

And if Dobbs lands at FOX…even better.

This bitch would buy tickets to a Beck v. Dobbs cage fight…

…and I know my ass isn’t alone there (wink).

Anyone else have a home training fail you’d like to add to the list?

On The Issues Magazine - Race, Feminism, Our Future...

A tip of the Afro to the people at On The Issues Magazine The Progressive Women’s Magazine for their current issue Race, Feminism, Our Future.

A bitch has been working my way through it and…well, it’s a must read. Not because you’ll agree with everything, but because even the shit you’ll disagree with will inspire the kind of conversations we need to be having right now.

They had me hooked with this From The Editors…

“What do postfeminism and postracialism have to do with liberation and freedom? The answer is clear: nothing -- not a single thing. Postfeminism or postracialism contribute nothing to dismantling the patriarchal systems that spread across cultures and races. Or to inhibit gender violence, deliver healthcare, provide economic relief or increase abortion accessibility. The “posts” are nonmovements and they move precisely nothing forward.”

Mmmhmm.

Check it out and let me know what you think of it.

I’d like to recommend Taking on Postracialism by Rinku Sen…and Birthers and Birchers: Hiding Behind Stars and Stripes by Loretta J. Ross…oh, and..

...shit, just go read the issue from start to finish and discuss!

More often than not...

Happy belated birthday to the United States Marine Corps!

Cough.

I’m gonna go off a wee bit…okay?

Cool!

I have had enough of conservative pundits and politicians sporting American Flag jewelry and spewing ig’nant as hell rhetoric about [insert "other" determined to rile up the base].

Enough!

I am the grand daughter, daughter, niece and cousin of veterans. My grandfather, bless his soul, served during World War II...standing up to protect this nation even though this nation wouldn’t stand up to protect him when he had the audacity to travel while black and in uniform through the segregated south.

From the very beginning…the damned Revolutionary War, for Christ’s sake...people of color, immigrants and non-citizens, women and gays and lesbians and so forth have fought on behalf of the United States of America. Shit, there wouldn’t be a United States of America is it weren’t for the assistance of France…and French soldiers and military know how.

And to this day there are non-citizen soldiers who serve honorably…soldiers who are immigrants who deserve our respect not our skepticism and hatred.

Latinos, both citizens and non-citizens, serve and have served.

Black people serve and have served.

Native Americans serve and have served.

Women serve and have served (a tip of the Afro to my cousin…go on, girl!)

Gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals and transgender people serve and have served.

Muslims…Pagans…Jews…Atheists…serve and have served.

So let me tell it plain so fools can’t say they weren’t evah told.

Lou Dobbs - you cannot honor the American Veteran and preach hatred and fear of immigrants.

They are often one and the same.

Rush Limbaugh – you cannot honor the American Veteran and preach hatred and fear of people of color in general and black men in particular.

They sure as shit are often one and the same.

Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, the Cheney Women, the staff of FOX television/radio and the rest of you assholes who know who you are – you cannot and you DO NOT honor the American Veteran or soldiers when you campaign against LGBT people, mock the contributions of women, question the equality of and work to erode the rights of women, question the equality of work to erode the rights of LGBT citizens and generally, but with freakish dedication, contribute to a climate of hate and fear toward Muslims.

They are, more often than you allow your tiny little brains to think, one and the same.

Because this is America, the “other” you hate has, is and will continue to fight for the right of all Americans to say and do what those who spew hate sadly say and do.

But if you want to get your hate on you really ought to take those fucking flag pins off and pull the bullshit video segment celebrating America’s heroes off the air.

Because when you hate on the “other”…

…you are, more often than you think, hating on America’s heroes.

No if, ands or buts about it.

Happy Veterans Day and special cyber hugs to all members of the flock of bitchitude stationed at Ft. Hood …blessed be.