So Kim du Toit wrote a much-linked essay decrying “The Pussification of the Western Male”. I haven’t responded to it, because it seems pointless. The du Toits of the world have always been with us; before my parents were born, people like du Toit were panicking over the exact same thing. (That’s why the Boy Scouts were originally created, to counteract the alleged feminization of the Western male all those decades ago).

For me, arguing about if “pussification” of the Western male is taking place would be like arguing about if Jesus Christ was lord. It might be entertaining, but there’s absolutely zero chance of changing any minds. Du Toit is coming from a position of faith, not a position of evidence.

Frankly, I hope that du Toit’s right, and that the West is being hopelessly pussified.

Pretty much every evil thing in this world can be laid at the feet of non-pussified men; the sooner every last male is pussified, the better, as far as I’m concerned. (Yes, I’m aware that many non-pussified men have done a lot of good by joining the army and protecting the pussified men and the women from the invasions and deprivations of other non-pussified men. But that’s a dubious argument in favor of non-pussified men; if there were no non-pussified men at all, then the protection of non-pussified men would never have been necessary.)

Let me tell you, the Nazi party was anti-pussy. The kids who beat me up in the schoolyard were anti-pussy. The guys who killed Matthew Shepherd were anti-pussy. The KKK was anti-pussy - by bravely getting together in mobs and killing individual black people, they proved what men they were. The crusaders were not pussies, and neither were the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor. Jack the Ripper was no pussy. Truman was no pussy, and if you don’t believe it just visit Hiroshima. Andrew Jackson wasn’t a pussy, either.

Hitler: not a pussy.

Stalin: not a pussy.

Charles Manson: not a pussy.

Wouldn’t it have been great if all these guys had been through pussification, though? Wouldn’t history have been immeasurably improved if they were “objectively pro-pussy”?

The man who beats his wife is anti-pussy. The man who teaches his son to fear being seen as a pussy, is anti-pussy. The frat house guy who participates in a rape because he just has to score, because otherwise he’s a pussy - is anti-pussy.

Saddam was all about not being seen as a pussy, which is why he so resisted backing down even when that would have been the most rational course of action. George W. Bush is all about not being seen as a pussy, which is why he was so determined to invade Iraq in the first place. (Whenever someone says that we must stand tough in foreign policy to “maintain credibility,” that’s a code-word for “we don’t want to be pussies”).

Frankly, when every man in this world is too much of a pussy to hit his wife, to bash another gay, to value macho posturing above peacemaking, and to pass on to his son a fear of being seen as a pussy - well, then, this world will be much, much closer to paradise.

I read some Christian blog (sorry, lost the link) which was complaining about all those pussified imagines of Jesus Christ - you know, the ones with long hair and doe eyes, maybe smiling gently on some children at play or some other pussy bullshit like that.

In response, let me say:

Hey, God, you pussy!

Pussify us, please God!

Please, bless us with pussification! As much pussification as possible, as soon as possiible! Blessed be thy hallowed pussification!

Pussify us, O Lord, so that thy pussified Kingdom may come!

Amen.

* * *

That said, several people have been less dismissive than me, and have written good and interesting rebuttals to du Toit.

The funniest I’ve read is Philosoraptor’s “The duToitification of the Western Conservative.”

Feministe provides a very well-thought feminist rebuttal.

And so does Avedon Carol, in her essay “The Wimpification of Conservatives.”

Sara at Diotima also has an interesting reply, although I don’t agree with everything she writes. For example:

Okay, I agree that basing manliness on hunting and fistfights is dumb, but what about bravery and integrity are particularly masculine virtues? Surely these are equally desirable traits no matter what a person’s sex is, so why connect them to masculinity at all?

Speaking of Sara, I congratulate her on being quoted (and photographed!) in an IWF publicity pamphlet (.pdf link), and also for being compared to Betty Friedan and Gloria Stienem. (I know the pamphlet is from back in February, but I didn’t read it until today).

But the pamphlet itself is pretty funny. For instance, it proudly notes that “over 80 students and professors were in attendance at the University of Chicago event” to listen to anti-feminist uber-nit-picker Chistina Hoff Sommers.

“Over 80″? At a campus as conservative as Chicago? [Note: Apparently Chicago ain’t as liberal as its reputation. See “update 2,” below.]

How lame can they get?

Seriously - when the Guerilla Girls appeared at Lewis & Clark last year, the auditorium was standing room only - and that was an auditorium that could fit hundreds. Similarly, when I saw Catherine MacKinnon speak at Oberlin, the hall was packed. At Portland State University, every Take Back the Night march I saw drew hundreds of students.

Meanwhile, the IWF - with far more funding than any student feminist organization could even dream of - thinks it’s a big success if they can dredge up 80 people for an appearance by their intellectual leader.

Elsewhere, the pamphlet breathlessly reports that the IWF has formed organizations not only at Chicago, but also at Harvard Law, Columbia, and Penn State. Wow - four whole campuses. (Apparently the “SheThinks.org” campaign for a IWF campus presence was a bigger failure than even I had imagined).

And these are the people who constantly tell feminists that our movement is unpopular. At least the feminist movement actually exists, which is more than I can say for the anti-feminists. If the Olin Foudation stopped pouring unearned money into the anti-feminist movement, the IWF would dry up and blow away within a week.

UPDATE: An Alas reader who attended the Chicago event informs me that they deliberately kept the advertising for the event low-key and non-controversial, in order to have a quiet and intelligent event. If so, then the organizers - which is to say, Sara at Diotima - should be congratulated, not criticized, for their approach.

UPDATE 2: A few people - including Allen in my comments this morning, and Will Baude more recently - have pointed out that Chicago is not as conservative as I assumed from its reputation. Will, in particular, makes a good argument that the IWF actually did pretty well in Chicago, compared to the turn-outs that other conservative student groups muster:

Fair enough; I stand corrected. My congratulations to Sara on an event that was apparently well-organized. (For what it’s worth, had I been in Chicago, I certainly would have attended).

That said, I don’t think the campus presence that shethinks.org established (after several years, the campus chapters can still be counted on my fingers) is very impressive. Given how often anti-feminists, including Sara, have criticized feminism for allegedly being unpopular on campus, I think it’s fair to note that feminism remains vastly more popular on campus than their own movement.

(By the way, Will, MacKinnon isn’t a liberal - she’s far more radical than that. And the crowd at Oberlin wasn’t “adoring” - many of the folks there, including myself, were liberal feminists who disagreed with her strongly.)

Sara at Diotima comments on this Womens Enews article:

A few comments.

1. “Tired old argument” is a right-wing code phrase for “I have no logical response to this argument, so I’m just going to turn my nose up at it.” Anyhow, criticizing something you disagree with by calling it a “tired old argument” doesn’t even rise to the level of being a tired old argument - it’s just a thoughtless cliché.

2. Sara’s argument - that a few “financially well off” women profiled in the Times don’t need access to high-quality child care, therefore the child care issue is moot - is groundless. As Sara must realize, the folks the Times wrote about are not a representative sample. (”If people need money for child care, can’t they just get a grant from the Olin Foundation?,” one imagines Sara’s IWF chums asking.)
3. Logically, it is perfectly possible that some women choose between career and home because they lack access to high-quality childcare (for instance, women who choose not to have children, or who delay having children until their incomes are higher).
4. Sara’s final accusation - “It does not seem to occur to Ms. Caiazza that staying home with the kids is a choice that women might actually want to make” - isn’t supported by a quote from Ms. Caiazza. This isn’t surprising, because no such quote exists. Of course, making up doubtful claims about feminists is a typical anti-feminist tactic, but I’m disappointed to see it on Diotima.

Stuart Buck responds to my previous post on Estrada, arguing that there are no non-pretextual reasons for the Democrats to have filibustered Estrada but not John Roberts. Stuart definitely gets some good shots in.

We could argue these questions back and forth - Roberts’ questioning, which some of Stuart’s links imply was easy, was in fact a fairly blistering three-hour session, and furthermore it was the second time Roberts had been questioned - but lacking full transcripts, I don’t think there’s anywhere for the argument to go, on either side. Certainly, Stuart has completely failed to provide any convincing evidence that Roberts was overall as evasive as Estrada. (There seems to be no doubt that both of them were evasive, but that doesn’t establish that Estrada was not even worse than Roberts).

However, one of Stuart’s links brings up a new issue - one that I hadn’t been aware of in my previous post. From the Feminist Majority Foundation website (emphasis added by me):

Orrin Hatch confirms the existence of this “no filibuster” deal:

In other words, the Republicans only allowed Roberts to be questioned in exchange for a promise that he not be filibustered. No such deal could have been made for Estrada, because the Republicans were not threatening to refuse to have Estrada appear for a hearing.

(Why didn’t the Republicans make an identical effort to help Estrada - for instance, by having him initially appear in an obstructionist question-many-judges-at-once format, as they did with Roberts? That’s beyond the scope of this post to answer - but it’s important to note that this was a choice made by Republican leadership. It would be unreasonable to accuse Democrats of discriminating against Estrada because Republicans freely chose to make different efforts on Estrada’s behalf than they did on Roberts’ behalf.)

To make his case, Stuart has to show that Estrada and Roberts were in comparable circumstances; the fact that the two sides struck a “no filibuster or no questioning” deal before Roberts was questioned, however, makes Estrada’s and Roberts’ circumstances completely incomparable. The existence of a pre-existing “no filibuster” deal is a very strong, non-pretextual reason for Roberts to escape the filibuster, while Estrada did not.

Jim Leitzel - normally of Vice Squad, but in this instance guest-blogging on Crescat Sententia - reports that the Federal Government is cracking down on the owners of “Extreme Associates.” According to an ABC News report from August:

Jim also links to the case of a couple in Dallas who were “found guilty of three federal obscenity charges last month.” Following the link Jim provides, we learn that

And in an earlier post on Crecat, Jim links to “an amazing case” of “a couple in California who ran an Internet bulletin board was found guilty in Tennessee of purveying obscenity. (The same material might not have been considered to be obscene in California, which has different “community standards.”)” Following the link, it turns out that once again the material being prosecuted involved pornographic depictions of rape.

I wonder, is there a pattern here?

First Amendment lawyer Lawrence Walters, discussing the Extreme Associates case, fails to provide any independent reason we should care if Extreme’s customers are deprived of the chance to jack off to images of women being brutalized and raped. Instead, Lawrence suggests a “slippery slope” argument: we must defend Extreme Associates or Playboy magazine will be next! This argument assumes two things: first, that censorship of Extreme Associates will reliably (or even probably) lead to the censorship of Playboy, and second, that it would be an unbearable loss to culture if Playboy was unavailable.

Putting aside the question of why we should care if Playboy ceases to exist, I have to wonder - is there any evidence to support the theory that censorship of extreme rape porn will inevitably lead to the censorship of soft porn? After all, child pornography has been aggressively censored for decades, without any apparent “slippery slope” effect completely destroying our other free speech rights. If child pornography is any example, it should be possible to aggressively censor rape pornography without suffering any unbearable slippery slope effects.

Stuart Buck argues that the Democrat’s rejection of Estrada is probably an example of racial discrimination, under the legal standards used by the federal goverment (if federal anti-discrimination law applied to judicial nominees, which it does not).

This issue initially came up in a post by Jane Galt. Since Jane’s initial post, other bloggers have pointed out that the overwhelming majority of Bush’s non-white judicial nominees have not been blocked by Democrats in the Senate (see these posts by Ted Barlow, Dwight Meredith, and Nathan Newman).

Stuart responds:

In order to make his case, Stuart must show that every reason Democrats gave to reject Estrada were pretexts, and thus possibly covering up racial discrimination.

For instance, Stuart writes:

What wonderful sophistry! Stuart is to be congratulated on his chuzpah, although not on his logic. To understand why Stuart’s argument is nonsense, consider this dialog between me and a job applicant:

What would happen if I decided not to hire Ms. Applicant, on the grounds that she was evading answering my questions? Any normal person - or court - would think I had acted appropriately. Yet according to Stuart, I’ve probably committed sex discrimination against Ms. Applicant, since by Stuart’s standards, she has been perfectly forthcoming to me.

Bottom line: Estrada flat-out refused to answer questions that the Democrats considered relevant. That he offered to answer different questions from those the Democrats asked is irrelevant. And for Stuart to pretend that offering to answer different questions magically means Estrada was being forthcoming is ridiculous.

So at least one reason the Democrats gave for rejecting Estrada has not been shown to be pretextual.

More from Stuart Buck:

This would only be true if John Roberts and Estrada were identical candidates (aside from race). But there is at least one substantive difference between the two candidates - Roberts did not evade answering questions to anywhere near the same degree. The Senate Democrats thus had a non-pretextual reason to ask for Estrada’s memos but not Roberts’ - given Estrada’s refusal to answer questions in a forthcoming manner, the Democrats had to seek alternative ways of judging Estrada’s views. (Some Democrats stated this explicitly: “Because Mr. Estrada has - arguably - the thinnest record of anyone ever to be nominated for a circuit court judgeship, and because he declined to answer so many basic questions - the committee asked for him to provide the legal memoranda he wrote while serving at the Department of Justice.” - Tom Daschle). Because Roberts was apparently more forthcoming (or maybe he had a fatter record), there was no need to ask for memos in his case.

Finally, Stuart ignores a major non-pretextual reason Democrats rejected Estrada. Rightly or wrongly, many Democrats believe that “the White House and the Republican Congress have adopted a steamroller strategy to carry out their court-packing plan to stack as many of the federal courts as possible with right-wing judges who will roll back basic rights…” (That was Senator Kennedy). Similarly, Senator Leahy worries that the Republicans are “seeking to pack our courts with ideologues,” and contrasts Estrada’s case to the more “mainstream” Judge Prado, whose nomination proceeded with relative ease. Even President Bush said that “they’re blocking the vote on this good man [Estrada] for purely political reasons.”

If the Democrats in good faith believe that Estrada is, or (in light of his refusal to answer questions, might be) a non-mainstream, far-right ideologue - and in fact treat Estrada no differently than white nominees who are (allegedly) far-right ideologues, such as Charles Pickering - then that would be a non-pretextual, non-racial reason for Democrats to reject Estrada but not John Roberts.

All links via Stuart Buck, except for Stuart’s own link, which was via Crescat Sententia.

• Janice Raymond’s 10 Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution. I tend to favor legalization myself, and furthermore Raymond has a well-earned reputation as a bigot (towards transsexuals). Nonetheless, she makes some good arguments against legalization here.

• The Rhubarb Patch presents a good same-sex-marriage debate, although in my opinion the pro-gay-marriage side of the argument wins. There are other entertaining debates available in the patch, too. I’m not sure where I saw this link - Diotima, maybe?
• CicerosGhost was momentarily falsely accused of rape, and so experienced “conflicting views on what it means to actually rape someone.” What happened to him was wrong, but why is only rape written about this way? I mean, I know people who have been falsely accused of stealing cars they had legitimately borrowed. People are falsely accused of using drugs, of child abuse, of all sorts of things. Yet only false accusations of rape seem to move people to rethinking the validity of the crime.
• Excellent post from Easily Distracted: Please Touch. The writer brings his daughter to two museums - one public and mobbed by those rude lower-class kids, one private and relatively free of rudeness (one bullying kid aside). Private/public conflicts, middle-class guilt complexes, and everything else that makes the world spin round.
• Hey, right now a google search for “reclining cucumbers” doesn’t lead to any entries. But maybe soon it’ll point to this blog. Then I’ll be able to corner the blog market in readers interested in reclining cucumbers. And after that, the universe itself.
• Good “Findlaw” article on the new partial-birth abortion ban.
• Robot Jenny describes her top ten childhood frights.
• Nathan Newman argues that the democratic primary race is all over but the shouting. With his fundraising advantage and now the major union endorsements, Dean (Nathan argues) is unbeatable. If he’s right, Emma will be in beer a year from now.
• Speaking of Howard Dean, Mark Kleiman dissects the “guys with confederate flags” controversy and finds it wanting.
• I’ll probably still vote for Kucinich, though. Here’s why, in a nutshell.
• CNN reports on the stupidest lawsuit of the year: Merriam-Webster is being sued by McDonalds for copyright violation for including the word “McJob” in their dictionary. Via Boing Boing.
• New additions to the blogroll: MidEastWeb blog, an excellent lefty blog on Israeli news. And also Curmudgeonly Clerk, a good right-wing law blog. And also Easily Distracted, a good lefty academic blog. And Dan Drezner, another good righty blog.
• Making Light has a great post discussing pro-woman, pro-gun, and the NRA.
  I’d also like to see them get into some earnest discussions of what firearm strategies are best suited to the kind of violence women most frequently encounter: up close and personal, involving someone who isn’t a stranger. If they’re serious about self-defense for women, they have to consider which guns are best for prostitutes to carry, and what kind of muzzle velocity it takes to stop a berserk ex-husband.
• PETA’s usually flat-footed publicity department scores a hit with this animated piece, The Meatrix. Via Crooked Timber.
• Dan Drezner and Robert Reich agree: manufacturing jobs are disappearing the world over, not just in the USA. Extremely interesting, if true. (Via Prometheus 6)

  As an aside, Peter Parker is a superhero. So is Scott Summers. So are Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, Clark Kent, Matt Murdock, and Billy Batson. Does this tell us anything about Dan Drezner and Robert Reich?

• Has Lovecraft taken up gardening, or is it Lemon Porn? Then again, maybe you’d rather read a story summed up by the quote “Lucy had a great sense of humor and I’m sure she would appreciate being my coffee table.” Be sure to visit these and other results of the Boing Boing Link Fu contest.

While in Israel, a reporter sees an old man praying at the Western Wall. As the man leaves, the reporter interviews him:

“How long have you been coming to the Wall?”

“Fifty years.”

“And what do you pray for?”

“For fifty years, I have been praying for peace between the Jews and the Arabs.”

“And after fifty years, how do you feel about the effect of your
prayers?”

“Like I’m talking to a fucking wall!”

Bush signs the “partial birth” abortion ban. Via Nathan Newman.

Oberlin, one of the colleges I’ve attended, was given a spanking in the far-right Frontpage Magazine. Frontpage’s problem? Oberlin is a left-wing school. Well, duh! In addition, the writer seems really bothered by Oberlin’s acceptance of queers and transsexuals:

My god, students exercise free speech! (Why does FrontPage put free speech in scare quotes?) That some faculty members are gay is acknowledged where all can read it! And they pay on-campus speakers even when those speakers are trans or queer! Oh, the humanity!

The article goes on to be appalled that students at college have sex. I was reminded of a year ago, when certain right-wing bloggers gloated that leftists don’t have any fun. I mean, which would you rather have, wild sex and high living at Oberlin College, or FrontPage Magazine’s spare lifestyle relieved only by anti-queer, anti-trans bigotry disguised as moral superiority?

Meanwhile, the Curmudgeonly Clerk curmudgeons:

What Curmudgeonly misunderstands is that this was a demonstration of safe sex techniques, something that might not come so naturally without instruction. And apparently, students - even the homosexual ones - do learn from the demonstration. As Oberlin student The Bitter Gay Grinch reports, “I was introduced to uses of rubber and other synthetic materials that I didn’t know to exist.”

* * *

I’m sorry to report that I didn’t have loads of sex as a college student (shy, conventionally unattractive folks generally don’t, even at Oberlin), although I certainly had more sex at Oberlin than I did in high school. Still, my (relative) lack of sex seemed to me a grevious injustice (hey, I was 18). Under the circumstances, my friends who talked about having a lot of sex quickly became tiresome.

Even at the time, the people who did have lots of sex seemed to be having a lot of soap opera, as well - the emotional baggage did not fit under the seat. I admit, I took some satisifaction in this where a better person would not have.

In retrospect, I don’t think it matters much; having lots of sex can be a good college experience, like traveling to Rome or taking lots of LSD. But in the long run, the Obies I know who had lots of sex (or at least talked as if they did) don’t seem any happier or wiser than those who didn’t.

* * *

The FrontPage article did raise one sex-related issue that’s of interest even to those of us who aren’t prudes or bigots:

But it’s not clear that the administration has brushed aside these concerns. The Oberlin Review reports that the organizers have added “peacekeepers” to patrol the event. And, given the number of studies (including FBI statistics and studies by feminists such as Mary Koss) showing a correlation between alcohol and rape, eliminating the alcohol seems like a serious and appropriate response.

Banning popular campus events (and no party at Oberlin is more popular than the drag ball), on the other hand, would be a stupid response. Oberlin students are quite capable of organizing their own parties; it’s better that the party remain above-ground, since the underground version would doubtless include drinking and exclude the peacekeepers.

Finally, even if there are increased calls to the campus rape crisis center following an educational party about safe sex and consent, it doesn’t follow that the party causes rape. It’s plausible, for example, that there are increased calls because the parties succeed in making students more aware of the rape crisis line’s existence.

I’m not saying that Oberlin has necessarily done enough to combat rape on campus. However, I’m not silly enough to think that “banning parties” is a serious anti-rape measure; nor am I convinced that FrontPage would have any concern with rape at all if they weren’t able to use anti-rape concern as a front for homo- and trans- phobia.

Anyhow, I much prefer Oberlin’s “orgies” - emphasizing as they do safe sex, consent and screwing with gender conventions - to the drunken frat house moron-fests that are found on more conventional campuses.

* * *

For more discussion of Oberlin Orgies, check out Begging to Differ, Crescat Sententia (here and again here), The Curmudgeonly Clerk, The Bitter Gay Grinch and Naked House.

Good pro-choice post from The Fifty Minute Hour:

Read the whole thing.

• Understanding Terri Schiavo, from the St. Petersburg Times. A decent one-stop summary of the conflict, with a lot of focus on the videos that Terri’s parents have released.

• The Terri Schiavo Information Page, a sub-project of the Abstract Appeal blog. Absolutely the best source of information about Terri Schiavo, including a timeline and links to the relevant court decisions. Abstract Appeal itself is the best blog to check for breaking news on this story.
• The Lost Lesson of Terri Schiavo points out that Terri’s condition was brought on by her bulimia, which in turn was brought on (or at least encouraged) by an appearance-obsessed society.
• To read what “the other side” says, visit TerrisFight.org.

Amy Welborn quotes a newspaper columnist:

I’ve seen this going around lately: the right-wing is glooming onto the arguments of disabled rights activists in order to argue that Terri Schiavo’s body must be kept alive at any cost. Allowing Terri Schiavo to die, we are told, is the equivalent of murdering Stephen Hawking, or that newspaper columnist’s little sister.

As it happens, the disabled activists have a good point, especially when it comes to media coverage of the case. It’s degrading when reporters bring up Terri Schiavo’s inability to talk, or to feed and care for herself, as if these things determined the worth or lack of worth of a human life. That’s ridiculous: there is infinitely more to existence than the ability to wipe one’s own rear end.

However, as applied to Terri Schiavo, the argument is nonsense.

Look, I’m convinced that people can have meaningful, great lives without talking, walking, eating unassisted or controlling one’s bowels. What I’m not convinced of is that Terri Schiavo can have a meaningful existence if she can’t think. Here’s how Florida’s 2nd court of appeals described Terri’s medical condition:

Without a cerebral cortex, Terri Schiavo cannot think. She cannot feel. She cannot experience.

There’s a huge gulf between being disabled and being unable to think, feel, or experience. It’s the gulf between being alive and being dead. Terri Schiavo is dead, and has been dead for years; to compare her condition to folks who are alive and disabled is, it seems to be, an insult to disabled people everywhere. (Obviously, many disabled activists disagree with me).

How can anyone say that Terri Schiavo can still lead a fulfilling life, when “fulfillment” itself can’t be experienced without a cerebral cortex?

Go. Look. Cringe.

I’m currently in Florida, visiting my parents and feeling oh so sorry for my housemates stuck back in the cold weather of Oregon. My apologies for my poor posting record lately.

Anyhow… be sure to check out The New Republic’s online debate between William Saletan, Kate Michelman & Gloria Feldt. Truthfully, it’s not much of a debate… much as I admire Michelman and Feldt, both of them seem too caught up in the talking points of pro-choice politics to really engage the questions that Saletan (who is pro-choice, but who questions some choices the pro-choice movement has made) brings up.

Here’s Saletan’s analysis of the current pro-life strategies. The person he’s addressing is Kate Michaelman, who served for many years as the head of NARAL:

Interesting stuff, well worth reading if you follow abortion politics. Thanks to Diotima for the link.

Continuing on the theme of works of art beginning with the letter “A” (for two hundred, Alex), I cannot highly enough recommend Clive Barker’s Abarat. I’ll have to wait for the next three books in the series before I’m sure, but Abarat is a masterpiece.

It’s a young adult novel but not in the alliterative silly-names genre of young adult novels like the early Harry Potter books; Abarat is a great story that happens to be written with young adults in mind like Alice In Wonderland or, dare I say, the later Harry Potter books.

Abarat was, as I mentioned, written by Clive Barker who is perhaps best known as an author in the horror genre. Abarat, though, like Barker’s own Imajica is not a work of horror but is instead a journey through a wholey unique world that Barker created hundreds of abstract-ish paintings in order to illustrate (and to facilitate the novel’s (novels’?) own creation).

I said a “wholey unique world” and I imagine that some of you scoffed but, really, I’ve never encountered anything like this before. While fantasy worlds tend to be built around preexisting mythologies (e.g., Tolkien’s Middlearth, J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts and sundries, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and so forth) Abarat seems to have been constructed from previously untapped images and ideas.

The story, so far, follows a fairly standard Alice In Wonderland-esque journey with a young girl, Candy, being transported from our world into a bizarre and magic other world. It’s the world that astounds, but I have to say that the thing that most sealed the book for me was the way that the characters were well-developed and realistic. From Candy herself, who has real-life problems (an alcoholic father as compared to, say, living under the stairs) and behaves in a real way. She’s smart, resourceful, and I think would make a wonderful role-model for girls because she’s anything but a passive airhead who stumbles around until some man comes along to save her.

The supporting characters are equally well-drawn. There’s John Mischief, a man whose seven brothers live on the tines of his antlers. Each of those brothers has a distinct personality, as does John Mischief, and yet their symbiosis even on an emotional level is unmistakable. There’s Mendelson Shape, the fully fleshed-out dark servant that so many stories try for and fail to create (and I have to say that I think Mendelson Shape is one of the greatest names I’ve ever encountered). Then there’s Christopher Carrion, a great female ship captain, a sorcerer with seven hats, and the greedy overlord of 3 A.M.

Ahem… I think I’m finished gushing, now. Suffice to say, I very highly recommend purchasing a copy of Abarat and giving it a chance. The only thing I regret about the book is that fewer boys will read it because its main character is a girl.

In my opinion, two of the best movies ever made are Ridley Scott’s Alien and the sequel to it, James Cameron’s Aliens.

I grew up watching Aliens all the time, but until last night I’d never gotten to see the original, Alien. A digitally remastered director’s cut of it, however, is currently on limited release in theatres so I jumped on the opportunity to see it on the big screen (even though I had to drive 60+ miles to Denver to do so). Suffice to say that I was floored and am half-way contemplating driving out to see it again next weekend.

So this is just a little post to say that if it’s showing in your town, or even if it isn’t, take some time out of your day to watch Alien. It is one of the best feminist movies I’ve seen (arguably; I think the sexual symbolism in the movie can be interpreted in multiple ways, but I think that the movie comes down firmly on the side of women as being smart, mature, compassionate, assertive, and worthy of respect), and is certaintly one of the best movies of any genre I’ve ever seen.

(On a related note: It’s not scary. Why the hell do people say it’s a horror movie? Because people die, it’s claustrophobic, and there’s a lot of tension? I could say that about a movie about the trenches of World War I, but few would call it a horror movie.)

The story of how the male contestants on Sky’s reality show “There’s Something About Miriam” are suing Sky Broadcasting has been getting press on air, on the blogs, and in print, so you may have read about it already, but in case you haven’t here’s a recap: (via The Guardian.)

Now, I’m not an expert on sexual assault laws, but it seems to me that the plaintiffs in this case don’t have a legal leg to stand on. Their kissing, cuddling, and fondling of Miriam (a pre-operative transsexual) was entirely consensual on their part (as near as I can tell) and is no more sexual assault against them than if they had picked up Miriam in a bar and taken her home with them.

It sounds to me like these six men (I’m tempted to make insulting comments about them, but it seems that everyone involved in the show was acting in a reprehensible manner) were profoundly embarrassed by what happened and are trying to find some legal ground to keep themselves from being internationally shamed. (For some reason, I can’t shake the idea that these were all uber-masculine, manly-man types. I can’t imagine a show that played so much off of homophobia that didn’t have contestants of this type.) But really, how can they claim that Sky is responsible for any personal injury (what personal injury? Finding out that the super-model-type you thought you had free reign to grope was actually a preoperative transsexual?) when any sexual acts they may have committed with Miriam were entirely consensual.

I’ve seen it argued that the men have a legal standing in their case because Sky may have told them that Miriam was a woman and therefore they were deceived into fooling about with a man who they had been told was a woman. Again, all the acts were entirely consensual, so as far as I’m concerned there was no sexual assault, but if Sky did refer to Miriam as a woman they weren’t really lying. Most preoperative transsexuals prefer to be referred to as members of the gender they wish to become (and already are, in my opinion; what’s an organ?) and so Sky may have been following the wishes of their employee, Miriam, or simply following what’s an established convention in the trans community.

I guess the question remains: when writing legal contracts, are preoperative male-to-female transsexuals referred to as men or as women? I’m not sure how much this changes; for instance, the men may not have read the contracts, or Miriam may have been referred to with a gender-neutral term (e.g., “the contestant”) and it was only the Sky people who referred to Miriam as a woman.

I’d be interested in the opinion of someone who is more familiar with sexual assault laws and laws with regard to preoperative transsexuals.

[Edited for accuracy.]

[The original form of this post referred to Sky Broadcasting as being owned by Fox. One of the commentators informs me that this is not true; in fact, Sky Broadcasting and Fox are both owned by News Corporation. I’ve corrected statements to the contrary in the post and have removed all references to Fox. Sorry for the inaccuracy.]