Truly Outrageous presents: The 31st Carnival of the Feminists!

The Nineteenth Floor presents: Disability Carnival #9

Righteous Sister Speaks presents: Erase Racism Carnival #9

Brownfemipower: The Women The World Requires
“…For our communities, death is not the ultimate fuck you–living is.” A bit under a year from now, I hope someone nominates this post for a 2007 “best post” Koufax. It’s that good. And also impossible to summarize, so just go read it.

Crooked Timber: Why Are Dutch Children The Happiest, Healthiest Kids In The Industrialized World?

The Agitator: Context For The SWAT Team Shooting Of Kathryne Johnson
I hope folks are reading The Agitator. One of his most frequent topics is how SWAT teams are now commonly being used for no-knock raids on homes where there’s no reason for heavily-armed no-knock raids; as a result, more and more people are dying, in most cases shot to death by police invaders who didn’t identify themselves, and whose over-the-top tactics introduce violence into non-violent situations.

This post is a stunning — and by no means complete — list of people who have been shot to death for no acceptable reason. Except in the rare case where someone shoots a police officer in self-defense, there is never any significant punishment for the killers.

I Shame The Matriarchy: My Ex-Husband’s Porn Addiction

Geek Monthly: Interview With Joss About The “Buffy Season Eight” Comic Book Series
Page four of the interview is especially interesting for feminist readers, but the whole interview makes me excited about the comic book. There is a minor spoiler about what Dawn’s been up to, though, so skip page 2 if you’d like to avoid that. Curtsy: Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty.

Alex Blase at Dkos: Gay-Bashing Is The Reason “Forcible Sodomy” and “Rape” Are Two Different Crimes

Rad Geek: How The U.S.’s Drug War Contributes To Starvation In Afghanistan

BlackProf.com: Jim Crow Laws Were The Tyranny Of The White Minority

African American-backed majoritarian governments controlled the South after the Civil War; while in power, they enacted strong civil rights laws and created a public education system. These policies were reversed, and segregation imposed, not because African Americans were a minority, destined to lose in the majoritarian political process, but rather through elimination of democratic politics and imposition of minority rule. African Americans and their white allies were stripped of their electoral majority through fraud, violence and illegal disenfranchisement.

News Story: Hybred Cars, Blind Pedestrians, Audible Signals and Noise Pollution
The Gimp Parade links to this article, which points out that hybrid cars — because they’re so quiet — are potentially dangerous to blind pedestrians.

The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum: Rosie Demonstrates What A Real Apology Looks Like

Indianz.com: Bureau of Indian Affairs Is A “Black Hole” For Tribes Wanting Land Placed In Trust

Extremely cool photo of migrating starlings in Algeria.

Shakespeare’s Sister: Jimmy Kimmel’s Anti-Transsexual Rant
SS links to a YouTube video. In the video, interviewing Rebecca Romijn (who plays a transsexual on Ugly Betty) Kimmel jokes about how he thinks transwomen are ugly and unfeminine, and jokes about a fictional character taking an axe to a transsexual. Romijn disagrees with him and says some of the right things, but I was longing to see her get angry and chew Kimmel out, and I was disappointed.

I’m unhappy with the cliched use of the transsexual villain plot-twist on Ugly Betty, which obviously feeds on ugly anti-trans stereotypes. But despite that I still love the show, and the writers are attempting to make Romijn’s character both fully developed and sympathetic to the audience.

Never Judge A Book By It’s Cover: Democrat women are ugly! Ha ha!
For Republicans, this sort of thing passes for wit. The pettiness and stupidity of this post is made even more pathetic by the blog’s name. (The joke in this post parallels the Jimmy Kimmel anti-trans bigotry linked to above, further proof that banal minds think alike.)

Newspaper Rock: Simpsons Episode Does A Good (But Not Flawless) Job Depicting American Indians

The Blind Bookworm: Ashley X And The Journalistic Challenge Of Writing About Disability
A lot of really interesting stuff here. Curtsy: The Gimp Parade.

Deltoid: Poll Shows That Most Americans Badly Underestimate Iraqi Death Toll

Dissident Voice: Palestinian Refugee Family, Including Children, Imprisoned In Texas; Daughter May Have Been Sexually Abused With Punative Body Cavity Search
Absolutely disgusting. After reading the above article, read the follow-up article as well. (Thanks to Ms. Xeno for the tip.)

Dispatches From The Culture War: Christian Group Objects To Wal-Mart Carrying Books For Queers

A Bird’s Nest: Reading The Anti-Feminist Blogs
Check out her follow-up post, as well.

The Republic Of T: Wealth, Inheritance, and Excluding Same-Sex Couples From Marriage

My Private Casbah: Feminism Shouldn’t Be An Excuse For Anti-Trans Prejudice
Bint criticizes the decision of a Canadian women’s center to discriminate against a transwoman volunteer. Shorter Bint: None of us will truly be free until all of us are free.

International Federation of Journalists Condemns US For Unprovoked Attack On Iraqi Journalists
As ePurbus Media points out, the total lack of coverage of this story — either to confirm or to debunk it — is very disturbing.

Daily Campus: If “Rape Drugs” Are Uncommon And It’s Drunk Women Being Raped, That’s Still Rape
If you run into a login wall, you can use: Login: alas@amptoons.com Password: alasablog

Washington Blade: Proponents Of Federal Anti-Gay-Marriage Amendment Will Seek Amendment Via State Legislatures

The American Prospect: How Fundamentalist Christians Think About Gays And “Recruitment”

Last fall, while doing some reporting in northeastern Kentucky, I was talking to two local activists (registered Democrats, no less!) about why they were trying to shut down anti-bullying training at the public high school. Their gripe? By teaching that homosexuality is normal, and that students shouldn’t harass their classmates because they’re gay, the training sought to recruit students into being gay.

Daily Mail: Article About Troop Of Fat Ballerinas
As Big Fat Blog correctly points out, the article contains some annoying and needless anti-fat cliches, but the dancers are great. I always love seeing good fat dancers. (That’s a photo of one of the dancers, to the right.)

Newshog: The Case Against Iran Is Extremely Weak

Eurozine: Interesting Interview With Martha Nussbaum
The end of the interview, which includes her (mostly positive) reflections on MacKinnon and Dworkin, might be particularly interesting to feminists. Curtsy: Feminist Law Professors.

LA Times: Al Sharpton’s Ancestors Were Enslaved By Family Of Strom Thurmond’s Ancestors
Holy shit. (Thanks to Bean for the tip.)

Cool Beans: Our bank donates to charity! Which charity is that? Just, y’know, “charity.”

Why Sadly, No! Will Never Be On My Blogroll
(Fortunately for them, I’m sure they couldn’t care less.)

Andrew Sullivan: Dildos, Penises, Anuses, and Texas Law, Oh My!
This is a link to an embedded youtube video. The entire thing (which includes comments from Molly Ivans) is pretty amusing, but the highlight is definitely a debate in the Texas legislature over a law making it illegal for a penis to ever touch an anus. I also liked the sex shop employee, standing in front of a display of at least 30 dildos, explaining that they don’t sell dildos. Curtsy: The Debate Link.

Angry Brown Butch: Race, Opposition to Equal Marriage Rights, And Homophobia

Slate: In Defense Of “Hooking Up,” The Latest Non-Crisis On Campus

Taking Steps: It Is Time For A Feminism Of The Monsterous

This is for the Lilim, because you forget that the next part after your co-opted icon parts ways with Adam and goes her own way is and she begat monsters, and she becomes terrifying. This is for the Gorgons and the vampires and the chimaeras, for Cybele and Baba Yaga, Hel and Ashtoreth, for Lamia and Scylla, for Kali and Kapo ‘ula-kina’u. This is for all of them with teeth.

It is time to look the monstrous in the eye. It is time. It is time to say that we are beautiful in our fierceness, and that we are our own. We are not the rejected of what we can never be. We are what we were meant to be. We are not pieces of wholes thrown together incorrectly. We are not mistakes.

YouTube: Man Testing Different Levels Of Dog Shock Collar
There’s probably something wrong with me, because I think this clip is hilarious. Via Damn Cool Pics.

My Private Casbah: Similarities Between Being A Person Of Color & A Person With Disabilities

Dispatches From The Culture Wars: The International Trend Towards Outlawing “Defamation of Religion.”
Scary stuff. Especially in light of Amanda and Melissa’s recent experiences.

Volokh Conspiracy: Yes, Athiests Are Capable Of Being Moral

Ruth Rosen: The Care Crisis

For four decades, American women have entered the paid workforce–on men’s terms, not their own–yet we have done precious little as a society to restructure the workplace or family life. The consequence of this “stalled revolution,” a term coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild, is a profound “care deficit.” A broken healthcare system, which has left 47 million Americans without health coverage, means this care crisis is often a matter of life and death. Today the care crisis has replaced the feminine mystique as women’s “problem that has no name.” It is the elephant in the room–at home, at work and in national politics–gigantic but ignored.

Three decades after Congress passed comprehensive childcare legislation in 1971–Nixon vetoed it–childcare has simply dropped off the national agenda. And in the intervening years, the political atmosphere has only grown more hostile to the idea of using federal funds to subsidize the lives of working families. (Curtsy: Our Bodies Our Blog.

YouTube: Super Flexible Girl Competition.
Via Damn Cool Pics.

An Even Scarier Photoshop Retouching Site
Very disturbing, both because they specialize in photos of contestants in child beauty pageants, and because they’re not as skillful as the folks who do adult models, and as a result the retouched photos look even more artificial. Via a comment left on Pandagon (normally I’d credit the person who left the comment, but Pandagon’s down at the moment, so I can’t look it up).

Clay Cane: Gallery of Black Women On The Cover Of Vogue
Curtsy: Blackprofs.com

Spain Standardizes Women’s Clothing Sizes

Glenn Greenwald: When Foreign Policy Is Dominated By Men Wanting To Preserve Their Masculinity
Glenn doesn’t put things in those terms, but I think anyone watching politics through a feminist lens would find it impossible not to see idiotic machismo lurking behind a bunch of politiicans going on about the need to appear “strong” rather than “weak.”

Equality Loudoun: Anti-Gay Male Preacher Propositions Undercover Male Cop

2000 Bloggers: Photo Montage
Neat. Curtsy: DeviousDiva.

Slactivist: Biblical literalism, homosexuality and charging interest

New (to me) Blog: Muzzlewatch
“Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy.”

(I’m only including this link to DeviousDiva in the hope that it’ll help her become a flippery fish. :-P )

Go over and check it out at Righteous Sister Speaks!! We are looking for hosts for future erase racism Carnivals if you would like to volunteer. For more information on the carnival check out Ally Work.

New Blog: Femchat, from the Institute For Women’s Policy Research

New (to me) Blog: As The Tumor Turns
Cancer-treatment experiences from the writer of the late, lamented blog Granny With a Vibrator. It feels oddly trivializing to call someone’s cancer treatment journal really well-written and funny, but well, it is.

New Blog: The Etch-A-Sketchist
Exactly what it sounds like!

Barbara’s Blog: Why Did Home Depot’s Departing CEO Get A $210 Million Dollar Golden Parachute?
I want get paid millions to lose millions for a major company too!

The Republic of T: Homophobia = Apartheid
If you follow the same-sex marriage debate, you know that the mainstream media publishes many articles highlighting black leaders who oppose lesbian and gay rights. So this post - pro-queer-rights quotes from Bishop Tutu, Julian Bonds, Al Sharpton and Leonard Pitts (whose quote is especially wonderful) — is a good reminder of what those articles are leaving out. Thanks to Bean for the tip.

The Onion: Teenage Boys Helpfully Point Out Fat Girl’s Shortcomings

Junk Food Science: Why Prisons Are Spending Tax Dollars On L. Ron Hubbard’s Pseudo-Scientific Claptrap

The Reality-Based Community: Scientific Research Into Mystical Experiences From ‘Shrooms

…The Supreme Court recently held (Gonzales v. O Centro) that the use of hallucinogens in religious ceremonies is protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and must be permitted unless there is a particularized showing of harm. It is well-established fact that psilocybin is neither addictive nor physically toxic, though it is not without psychological and behavioral risks, especially when used haphazardly.

If taking a dose of psilocybin under controlled conditions has a better-than-even chance of occasioning a full-blown mystical experience, it seems fairly hard to argue that forbidding such use doesn’t interfere with the free exercise of religion. How the courts will deal with those who want to seek out primary religious experience on an individual rather than a congregational basis remains to be seen.

Junkfood Science: When Schools Grade Kids’ Looks

Junkfood science: More Bad Science About Fat Kids

Women of Color Blog: Statement On The Brutal Murder of Dominique Samuels

Orcinus: Letter From Soledad Prison
A letter from a prisoner (the blogger’s brother) about the various ways the Prison sqeezes money out of prisoners. The library book cart scam is particularly striking for it’s catch-22 logic.

YouTube: Lara Logan, reporter in Iraq, gets eloquently pissed at criticisms of Iraq reporting

The Street Light: How Republicans Lie About Deficit Forcasts

Drawn! : Giant Puppet Girl In London
Soooo cool! And yet, kind of creepyish. Includes a link to documentary materials and a YouTube video.

Crooked Timber: Extremely Interesting Discussion Of The Moral Case For And Against Secession

Photography Touch-Ups Of Women: Before And Afters

The Debate Link: On The So-Called Sexism Of Ruth Bader Ginsberg

The Anti Essentialist Conundrum: Mayor Brings 100 Homeless People To Screening Of “The Pursuit of Happyness”
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum: Clarifying McIntosh’s Discussion Of Privilege

The Agonist: Link-filled post about the growing attempts to justify a war against Iran
Curtsy: The Arabist. Particularly striking was this quote from Josh Marshall:

I’ve said this before. But perhaps it seems like hyperbole. So I’ll say it again. The president’s interests are now radically disjoined from the country’s. We can handle a setback like Iraq. It really is a big disaster. But America will certainly surive it. President Bush — in the sense of his legacy and historical record — won’t. It’s all Iraq for him. And Iraq is all disaster. So, from his perspective (that is to say, through the prism of his interests rather than the country’s — which he probably can’t separate) reckless gambits aimed at breaking out of this ever-tightening box make sense.

Alternet: Marijuana Is Not A Gateway Drug

Geena Davis: Good Speech About Gender In Media (mostly children’s media)
Curtsy: Faux Real.

The Agonist: Congress Finally Investigates Credit Card Industry

Tiny Cat Pants: On White Congressmen Who Want To Join The Congressional Black Caucus

Paul Krugman: Assessment of Milton Friedman’s Career And Impact
Shorter Krugman: Friedman was a great technical economist; shame he was also a sloppy polemicist. Curtsy: The Sideshow.

YouTube: Juggling with five balls, a suitcase, a cane, and a hat.
I saw this juggler years ago, and was very impressed by his grace and creativity.

Orcinus: The New Racism: Beyond Rush

Feminist Law Profs: Even If Found “Not Guilty,” The Duke Lacrosse Players Aren’t Total Innocents
She’s right. But it does appear likely that the three accused men are innocent of the rape they’ve been accused of, which is a more than technical point.

YouTube: A daily photo of one dude for eight years
I’ve seen a few of these “photo a day for years” video projects, but this one is the one I enjoyed the most, probably because of the major changes in hair and beard over the years.

Owen Harries: How To Win Arguments And Influence Debate
Not a joke, just straightforward advice.

Obsidian Wings: Another Reason The Bush Administration Makes Me Ashamed To Be American

These men were captured by bounty hunters nearly five years ago. They are in all likelihood innocent of any crime, and of any act against the United States; they have certainly never been tried and convicted of any. We have held them in captivity since then, away from their wives and families. If they returned home now, their children probably wouldn’t recognize them — and as those of you who have kids will surely recognize, those are some of the saddest words there are.

And now, for some unfathomable reason, we have decided to lock them up in solitary, where we are driving them insane. Even if they were guilty, this would be wrong: having your mind and your spirit broken apart should not be the penalty for any crime. Our government is doing it to the innocent.

While Amp is busy fixing his basement, I figured I’d take over the link farm duties. As a rule I generally post bunch-o-links only on Rachel’s Tavern because y’all will never come over and visit my site unless I have some unique content. Plus, I can’t possible compete with Amp’s link farms; my man manages to get like 1,000 good posts in each link farm. Of course, it should not come as a surprise to anybody that my links are heavy on racism content with a little gender and human equality content thrown in for good measure. Admittedly, when it comes to progressive/liberal politics, y’all won’t find too many links here, but feel free to add you favorite links of the week in the comment section.

1. Donna has a really good post about American Indians and taxes.

2. How to Suppress a Discussion of Transracial Adoption by Harlow’s Monkey

3. Bomani gets hate mail from whites angry about two Black coaches being in the Super Bowl.

4. Terrence Says has one of the more interesting posts on the Isiah Washington F-Word controversy. For the record, I think Washington was wrong and I won’t defend his wording, but I think Terrence makes a couple good points.

5. Uh-ohh, this is really going to stir up some controversy!!!. I found this post on a site dedicated to Bollywood films (Indian films for those who don’t know. In order to understand why this is so ironic you need to have been following the coverage of the British version of Big Brother. Here’s a brief summary: Well known Inidan actress Shilpa Shetty was a contestant on the show, and she was the subject of racial taunts from a group of white women contestants. There was a huge uproar in India and in Britain over her treatment. Now, lo and behold, what do we see? Shilpa Shetty from a 2004 broadcast where the hosts are lampooning a guy in blackface, and Shetty appears to be laughing (of course, I don’t know if it’s uncomfortable laugh or what; you can’t tell from the picture.). Go figure!! This is a great example of why I don’t go for that people of color can’t be racist argument.

6. Brownfemipower has been blogging about her experience at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women Conference. She does a good job talking about how we need to refocus away from abortion and on to the reproductive rights/women’s and children’s rights. Amanda is also hosting presenters from the conference on her site.

7. I also had to give a shout out to Amanda on this post comparing anti-abortion activists and animal rights activists.

8. Racialicious Has there own list of the biggest racial trends on 2006: 1-3 here, 7-4 here, 10-8 here.

9. Ballastexistenz put up this post a while ago, and I forgot to put it in my last Bunch-O-Links. It’s a video she made about personhood that she dedicates to Ashley X.

The Koufaxes, for those of you unfamiliar, are the annual awards the lefty blogging community gives to ourselves. They’re run by the good folks at Wampum, who give of their time and money with incredible generosity to make the Koufaxes happen each year.

You can go here to leave nominations. At this stage in the process, there’s no limit to how many nominations you can turn in. I’d like to encourage any “Alas” readers who feel inclined to do so to nominate us. :-) (And remember, “Alas” qualifies for both the “Best Blog” and “Best Group Blog” categories, among others).

Also, my fellow bloggers, remember that the “best post,” “best series” and “best new blog” categories are categories in which bloggers are encouraged to self-nominate.

The nominations process is my favorite part of the Koufaxes: the part that’s less about picking just one winner, and is more about doing a lot of nominations as a way of patting our favorite bloggers on the back and saying “good job!” (Plus, “Alas” virtually never wins in the final round, although did win “best design” once. :-P)

Speaking of which, congratulations to occasional “Alas” comment-writer Holly, who has already been nominated for a best comment-writer Koufax this year!

I’m sure I’m forgetting lots of great stuff and leaving out lots of great bloggers, but nominations are inevitably like that. If you see someone deserving that I missed, why not go nominate them yourself?

Aaaargh! It’s even worse than I thought - Our connection crashed and I lost a lot of open tabs. Screw it. I’m going with what I already had done.

Here are the folks I’m nominating for a Koufax for 2006:

Best Blog:
Obsidian Wings.

Best Blog — Pro Division:
Broadsheet.
Barbara’s Blog
Our Bodies, Our Blog

Best Blog Community:
Culture Kitchen

Best Writing:
Hilzoy, Obsidian Wings.
Brownfemipower, Women Of Color Blog.
Amanda, Ballastexistenz.
Michael Berube, Michael Berube.
Flea, One Good Thing.
Suzanne Nossel, Democracy Arsenal.

Best Post:
Ebogjonson, “Should I Use Blackface On My Blog?”
One Good Thing, “Letter To Alex And Chris, Ten Years In The Future”
Michael Berube, “Academic Freedom.”
Having Read The Fine Print: “I Ain’t Having It.”
Shaenon Garrity: “Why I Hate Anthony.”
Political Saffire: “El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, Race, And Politics.”
Official Shrub.com Blog: “How To Be A Real Nice Guy.”
Alas, a Blog: “Do They Really Believe Abortion Is Murder?”

Best Series:
Fattiepatties: “The Top Ten Things I Am Tired Of Discussing.”
Alas/Rachel’s Tavern: “The Sky Is Falling On Black Men?” Part 1 and Part 2.
Pinko Feminist Hellcat: “The OC Rape Case Series.”
Alas a Blog: Refuting Men’s Right Activist Myths About Child Support: 1 and 2.

Best Single Issue Blog:
Big Fat Blog
The Gimp Parade
The Well-Timed Period

Best Group Blog:
Pandagon
Feministe
Alas, a Blog (Yes, very shameless.)

Most Humorous Blog:
Most Humorous Post:
Damned if I know. Everyone knows I have no sense of humor anyhow.

Most Deserving of Wider Recognition:
Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty
Super Babymoma
Racialicious
Angry Brown Butch
The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum
Shrub.com

Best Consonant Level Blog:
Women Of Color Blog.
Echidne of the Snakes
Fetch Me My Axe
Tiny Cat Pants
Reappropriate

Best Expert Blog:
Democracy Arsenal
Junk Food Science

Best New Blog:
Super Babymoma
Racialicious
Junk Food Science
The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum

Best Human Equality Blog:
Women Of Color Blog.
The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum
The Gimp Parade

Best Coverage of State or Local Issues:
Blue Oregon

Best Commenter:
[I’m taking the fifth on this one — Amp]

Ya’ll know the drill….

VeganKid presents: Radical Progressive Carnival #8!

Every Woman Has An Eating Disorder: Response to being told “An eating disorder—now that’s something I’d like to have.”
I forget who pointed out this blog to me (Maia, perhaps?), but it’s excellent. Gotta add this one to the blogroll.

The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum: Why The Pursuit Of Happyness Is Unfair To The (Ex-) Wife Character
This is one of my favorite posts that I’ve read all week. A definite addition to the ever-growing blogroll.

Confined Spaces: Top Ten Workplace Safety Stories of 2006
I really can’t recommend this blog too strongly. Always fascinating (and infuriating).

Women’s ENews: ‘Eve-Teasing’ Makes India’s Streets Mean for Women

Rachel’s Tavern: Is It Racist To Say A Black Woman Has Good Hair?
There’s some really excellent discussion in the comments.

Violet Blue Blog: 2007 Will See Several Small Publishers Forced Out Of Business
The bankruptcy of a major book distributor might be very costly to American books. Galley Cat has more.

Google Video: Tickle Me Elmo Burns To Death, Laughing
Disturbing.

Obsidian Wings: Beautiful Take-Down Of Right-Wing Attack On Silly-Sounding College Course Titles

If you not only stop to think, but have even a tiny bit of self-awareness, you’d have to notice one more thing: that writing a column like this exemplifies all the faults it is supposedly opposed to. Lack of intellectual rigor? Check. […] Political correctness? Check. The “hollowing out” of the op-ed pages and “replacement by crude indoctrination sessions in whatever is ideologically fashionable”? Check. Offering what’s “trendy” “at the expense of actual academic content”? Check.

There are things one might legitimately criticize about academia. But this is not the way to do it. And it bugs me to see someone pretending to stand up for academic standards, which are dear to my heart, while betraying them so completely in what she writes.

DaRain Man: Autobiographical Post About Being Bullied
Despite being on an anti-feminist blog, this post is excellent, and describes a very real harm done to boys in our society.

Women’s ENews: Discrimination Against Women For Their Marital Status Is Legal In 28 States
From what this article says, this may be a particularly severe problem for single mothers.

YouTube: Louie Anderson’s West End Blues might be the most perfect three minutes of music you’ll ever hear
Curtsy: Brownfemipower.

Tiny Cat Pants: Apparently The World Owes Wintermass A Perpetual Hard-On
Beautifully written, angry response to a misogynistic internet asshole.

Google Video: College Classroom Prank: The Musical!
Oh, I am awed. This is amazing. I love the prof cracking up, too.

Latina Lista: Mexican University Prepares To Outfit Undocumented Migrants With GPS Devices
The idea is, if they get lost in the desert or otherwise get in trouble crossing, they can activate the devices and be rescued by the border patrol folks, thus preventing deaths. It’s a neat idea, I hope it works.

NY Times: There’s Been A Big Drop In Breast Cancer Rates

Transadvocate Blog: More Thoughts On The Feminist Arguments Against Trans
Marti bounces off a post I wrote, adding thoughts and analysis.

Canadian Court Legally Recognizes Three Parents Of One Boy
His two lesbian mothers and his father. I think this development is wonderful.

Junk Food Science: “Fat Children Cost More In Health Care” is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Turns out the higher costs aren’t due to fat kids getting sick any more, or using more emergency room trips. The higher costs are due to doctors assuming that being fat is a disease and thus ordering more tests for fat child patients.

NY Times: Illegal Drug Use Is Up — Mainly Among Middle-Aged White People

Why are so few Americans aware of these troubling trends? One reason is that today’s drug abusers are simply the “wrong” group. As David Musto, a psychiatry professor at Yale and historian of drug abuse, points out, wars on drugs have traditionally depended on “linkage between a drug and a feared or rejected group within society.” Today, however, the fastest-growing population of drug abusers is white, middle-aged Americans. This is a powerful mainstream constituency, and unlike with teenagers or urban minorities, it is hard for the government or the news media to present these drug users as a grave threat to the nation.

PoliBlog: American’s Biggest Cash Crop: Marijuana

Balkinization: The Laziest Son
I’m not usually a poetry reader. But this thirteenth century poem by Rumi, and the blogger’s discussion of it, was both entertaining and fascinating.

Feministe: New York Public Schools To Start Issuing Obesity Report Cards.
Because the fat kids aren’t given enough shit about their weight already. See this post at Majikthise, as well.

5 Weight Loss Myths

Echidne: The Hairy Armpit Wars

The reactions to the armpit hair revolution were swift and of the expected type. The hairy armpit wearers were condemned as ugly (why not talk to Mother Nature about that?), as manly (ditto) and as unable to attract men and therefore giving up on the fight. But the hairy armpit wearers were also labeled as focused on a trivial matter, on something that has to do with body grooming, on something that was so silly as to endanger the whole feminist movement.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Alone in the darkness of a state mental hospital, Sarah Crider, 14, lay slowly dying….”
Well-researched, horrifying news story about pattern of neglect and abuse in Georgia state mental hospitals. Curtsy: The Gimp Parade.

Racialicious: Will UC Berkeley Become A, Um, Historically Asian College?

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology: Everyone Seems Smarter On A Little Screen
A study finds that, all else held equal, job candidates are more likely to be liked by employers if they interview via a videoconference rather than in person.

William Saletan: The Ongoing Failure Of The 30-Year Search For The Harms Of Lesbian Parenting

Black Britain: Blacks Fell Less Pressure To Obsess About Their Weight
Alas, the article-writer seems to think this is a bad thing.

Pandagon: Mean, sarcastic take-down of anti-sex right-wingers. I loved it.

Boing Boing: Microscopic fungus practices mind-control on ants.
What is there to say, except: Keeewwwlll!

Box Turtle Bulletin: Respected Study Finds That 95% of Americans Have Had Pre-Marital Sex
And check out “Breaking News: Having Sex Is Normal” at Sometimes Feminists Aren’t Nice, too, for another excellent post about the same finding.

OMWO: Breastfeeding follies: Baby Attempts To Nurse From Bare-Breasted Statue.
With pictures! Curtsy: Boing Boing.

Planet of the Blind: Waiting For The Bus, Part II

I’m having a revery on the bus. Someone will shortly lean toward me and say that they once had a dog like mine. They will tell me a long and pointless story about their dog. They will not imagine that I have heard approximately four hundred and twenty five thousand dog stories from assorted strangers over the past decade.

Replace The Lies With Truth!: Anti-Gay Christian Group Provides Hilariously Textbook Example Of An Ad Hominem Attack.

Queer Dude Formerly Known As…: Dinesh D’Souza really, really, really hates liberals.
Every time I think that right-wing bestselling authors have reached the limits of their irrationality, I’m amazed anew.

The Morning News: Being Christopher Hitchens
What if Hitch were a professional wrestler? Or a children’s book reviewer? Or stuck in a room with several other Christopher Hitchenses? Curtsy: Truly Outrageous.

Because Sometimes Feminists Aren’t Nice: Round-Of Of MSNBC’s Advice About Eating and Weight

Damn Cool Pics: Amazing Manhole Cover Art From Japan
A couple of examples are on the right side of this blog post. Damn, are we lame in comparison. Curtsy: Obsidian Wings.

Crooked Timber: Contrary To Conservative Belief, That People Own Playstations Doesn’t Prove Inequality Isn’t A Problem

Balkinization: Constitutions are most effective when they do not appear to be doing anything.

As is the case with a good shot blocker, the constitution functions by creating a kind of consciousness that prevents issues from even arising in partisan politics. A corollary to this thesis is that issues are likely to arise and prove relatively enduring only when standard constitutional sources do not provide clear answers to the relevant constitutional questions.

From The Archives: How Shy Young Men Ought Nicely Ask Women For Kisses, Or Sex
Indirectly via Ezra, who discusses how excruciatingly horrible small talk is. I quite agree.

BBC: The Tower Of London Has Appointed A Female Beefeater For The First Time In History
Very cool. And as Jack at AngryBrownButch points out, it’s supercool that they’re having her wear the same uniform as all the other beefeaters.

I’m Not A Feminist, But…: Being Given Shit For Caring About Men Sucks And It’s Wrong

Wonkette: Amazing NRA Graphic Novel Revealed!
The politics are awful, but the drawings are wonderful. (Curtsy to Echidne).

The View From (Ab)Normal Heights: Anti-Gay Activists In Virginia To Target Divorcing Straight Couples

Shakespear’s Sister: First Muslim Representative Sworn Into Office On Tom Jefferson’s Copy Of The Koran
A slap in the face of bigot Virgil Goode, the Representative from Jefferson’s home district, who loudly called the use of a Koran un-American.

NY Times: The Financial Costs Of Caring For Elderly Parents
Curtsy: Family Law Prof Blog.

Iambored.com: Condom Plant!
It’s a science project! Curtsy: Bint.

Shakespeare’s Sister: Quote I Really Liked, Click Through To Read The Whole Post

Realistically, the breadth of allies in a comprehensive challenge to the patriarchy is vast and varied. Though all of us, sans rigorous philosophical exertion, are hapless conduits for every limiting and oppressive archetype upon which the patriarchy depends, conveying the bars of our own cages, very few of us are its unconstrained beneficiaries. Even the average straight, white, middle class American man exchanges privilege for severe limitations on his personal expression and emotional life—and he is encouraged never to examine that devastating trade-off too closely, lest the veneer on the alleged bargain prove thin enough through which to see. We all serve the same callous master, and there’s little to celebrate in being the favored slave—especially compared to a life of freedom.

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home Name Entertainment Weekly’s #1 Nonfiction Book Of The Year
This is in addition to the Time endorsement I blogged about a week or two ago. I find it thrilling that Bechdel is having such mainstream success, after years of being one of America’s best unknown cartoonists. Late Reviews has a review of Fun House, if you’d like more info.

Google Video: Laurence Lessig Lecture On Copyright Reform And New Technology
Long, and probably only of interest to people who already believe that the US approach to intellectual property desperately needs radical reform, but I enjoyed it. It’s worth sitting through the one or two dull Q&A bits at the end to get to the more interesting ones that follow, too. Curtsy: Boing Boing.

I thought I’d do a proper retrospective, with my favourite post from each month. It’s been a funny year for me; I think it shows in my writing. I had two months of insanely intense activism, so that I couldn’t think about anything else (see March and September below). But those months almost threw the rest of the year out of balance - I know I did a lot but it’s hard to see every other month as anything but empty.

January Why I call Myself a Feminist and don’t qualify that statement:

There’s an interesting discussion on Alas: ‘Is The Oppression of Women The Root Of All Oppressions?’ Now I’ve given my response to that argument in the comments (Short Answer: Don’t know, don’t care. Slightly Longer Answer: Will you shut up with comparing black men to white women already; I’m glad that the rest of us have learned a bit from the 19th Century), but I thought I’d take this opportunity to write a little about why I just call myself a feminist, and don’t put anything before or after it.

I wasn’t that into any of my posts in January last year, but this post outlined some of my ideas about feminism quite nicely. I wanted to include this post, just because I liked the pull quote I would have used:

I’m finding it really hard to believe that there’s anywhere in America or New Zealand where a teenage girl is sitting thinking “I really want to know what the low-fat alternative to ice cream is, but I just don’t know where to find that information.”

February Being Purple:

Maybe that’s not even what I mean - maybe I mean: the experience of being fat is part of being a woman in the society I live in - whatever size you are.

This was the first post where I wrote about something that was hard for me, something I still don’t do enough (if anyone - except my friend Besty) can identify where the title of this post comes from I’ll write a post on the topic of your choosing, but your guesses in the comments).

March I Believe Louise Nicholas:

The jury has found Brad Shipton, Clint Rickards, and Bob Schollum not guilty of raping Louise Nicholas.

[deleted]

Obviously some members of the jury believed Louise Nicholas, or else the deliberations wouldn’t have taken this long. I pay tribute to them, and wish they could have had the evidence that would have convinced the rest.

The post that is there now isn’t actually the post that I’m talking about - read this for an explanation.

April East Beasts:

I was talking about high school with a guy who had recently left Rongotai (the male version of my Wellington East). When I mentioned that I’d gone to Wellington East he started a chant I’d forgotten about (if I ever knew about it in the first place, paying attention to the world around me wasn’t my forte in high school):

East Beasts
Thunder Thighs
Eating all the Georgie Pies

Ten years later I found it funny. But it reminded me that this is what boys, particularly those at all-boys schools, chanted at East Girls. In a way I’m impressed at how much they managed to pack into 9 words, at how many different degrading sexist and racist attitudes can be conveyed in so little time.

The first moral of this story is don’t send your sons to all boys schools.

May Geeking Out This was mostly a list of my top 5 most feminist, and top 5 least feminist episodes of Buffy:

3. Lullaby Ok I know this is actually an Angel episode, but it flew from one franchise to another powered on nothing but it’s own misogyny, so I had to include it. The plot is that Darla is pregnant with Angel’s child, and having a good human being inside her has stopped her from being evil. It looks like the child will not survive giving birth so Darla stakes her (evil) self in order that her (good) child can live.

I watched this episode with my friend Betsy and said “wow everyone who had anything to do with this episode must have hated women with a firey passion.”

I enjoyed writing this post more than is healthy.

June Women are Really neat People:

I think there is some danger that this sort of analysis leads to the sort of paralysis that comes when feminists talk as if ‘choice’ was the most important thing for women. I used the word ‘actions’ rather than ‘choices’ in this post, and I’ve did that deliberately. To me the point of feminism isn’t to give women choices, but to make sure that we don’t have to make them. We don’t have to be virgins or whores, or career women or housewives. We have to make shitty choices every single day - for me the point of feminism isn’t to celebrate shitty choices, but make sure we don’t have to choose.

This was my piece about Carol Hanisch’s article The Personal Is Political, as I’d said earlier in the year:

Before I go any further, I have to interrupt our regular programming with some words from the rant department. The phrase is “The Personal is Political” not “The Political is Personal.” There’s a really important difference there, and it gets lost (although to be fair less lost in the feminist blogsphere than it does among hippy types).

The feminist revelation wasn’t supposed to be that by buying fair-trade coffee, not shaving your legs, going braless, having lots of sex, charting your fertility, boycotting tobacco companies, dumpster diving, dressing butch, dressing femme, not doing the dishes, vacuuming the floor, boycotting Domino’s, working as a lawyer, raising children, or whatever other individual decision you made, could change the world. These decisions are all fine decisions but they’re not political actions and they’re not going to change anything.

What women’s liberation was saying was that things we experience as individual problems: sexual harrassment, unwanted pregnancy, body hatred, unconcensual sex, domestic violence, depression, housework and so many other parts of being a woman, were actually political problems. They weren’t just things individuals were experiencing and they weren’t things individuals could fight - they had to be fought collectively. Almost the exact opposite of what the phrase is so often reduced to now.

Every time I hear that phrase so bastardised, so trivialised, and so misrepresented I imagine the members of those early women’s liberation groups turning in their graves - and most of them aren’t even dead yet.

July Beautiful Boy:

My friend has an 11 month old baby boy. When she was pregnant someone she knew was raped and we talked about the not-yet-child inside her. She didn’t know whether the Frog was going to be a boy or a girl and we didn’t know whether it was worse to raise a girl and be afraid that when she grew up she’d be raped, or a boy and be afriad that when he grew up he might rape someone.

This was the post that made my friend’s baby (known as the frog) pitied by right-wing men all over New Zealand. The thought that there was a little boy out there that was being raised by women who didn’t want him to rape anyone, terrified them (yeah I wish I was kidding).

August Motherhood

Until we acknowledge that caring for children is work - and restructure our society accordingly - women are going to continue to be screwed over by the double shift. I’m not suggesting it can be done under capitalism (I don’t believe it can). But I think we can fight for changes in the right direction - anything that makes it easier for parents, that makes space more accesible for parents, that offers more support for parents, and makes child-rearing more a collective responsibility, will make women’s lives better.

The more I think about it, the more I write about, the more I realise how central my analysis of reprdouction is to my feminism.

September My favourite post was definately Take it Easy but Take it:

But out at Ford, here’s what they found,
And out at UPS, here’s what they found,
And out at Stagecoach, here’s what they found,
And down at Progressive, here’s what they found:
That if you don’t let the red-baiting break you up,
And if you don’t let the racism,
And if you don’t let the sexism break you up,
And if you don’t let homophobia break you up,
And if you don’t let red-baiting break you up,

You’ll win

Obviously more for the sentiment than the content - that was the day we won the lockout (I think my favourite post of any substance is my post on Section 59, it was one of those issues where the debate was infuriating me, even though I was very firmly on one side).

October I’m not even going to touch the ‘oh my god she’s had sex’ subtext:

Look I’m a middle-class white girl, I find the idea of having a baby before I’m economically and socially secure terrifying, but I get to think that one day I will be economically and socially secure. Not everyone grows up with those set of assumptions about their life, and if you don’t have those assumptions your feelings about pregnancy and motherhoood are going to be qutie different.

The response to Keisha Castle-Hughes’s pregnancy in the New Zealand media infuriated me.

November Mutually Abusive:

‘Mutually abusive relationship’ as the default setting creates the idea of a perfect victim. If anyone who fights back is in a ‘mutually abusive relationship, then the only way you are entitled to support is if you don’t fight back. But if you react to the abuse, physically defend yourself, act jealous or fucked up by what’s happened to you, then you don’t deserve support, and people around can wash their hands and walks away from what they term a mutually abusive relationship.

As a feminist, as a human being, it is my duty and my desire, to support the powerless against the powerful, and to not wash my hands of women who fight back.

My favourite posts are the ones where I can bring together personal experience and link it to a wider debate. A lot of my posts about violence against women recently have been based on what I’ve seen among people I know.

December Maia vs Winz: wrk4u:

The whole thing was in essence creating opportunities to shove people down the cracks. What makes me so angry is that it won’t be the people who need the benefit least who don’t get the benefit under this system, it’ll be the people who need it most. I’m fairly certain that I’ll get the benefit, and I’m also fairly certain that the woman sitting next to me, who’d been on the student allowance and was wearing a Gucci bracelet, will too. But the guy who’d been on the independent youth benefit and didn’t have a passport or a birth certificate, he probably won’t.

This has definately been a year of beneficiary bashing in New Zealand and I’ve written a bit about it, but you can’t quite comprehend the complete distance between WINZ-land and reality until you experience it first hand.

Onwards and upwards, I start 2007 unemployed, wondering what to do next with my life, and with a shockingly tidy house.

Hey, it’s the 24th. Merry Christmas, for those of you who do that sort of thing. (Me, I have my own way of celebrating Xmas - I call it “time and a half day”).

(I’m going to be traveling more or less nonstop for the next five or six days, by the way, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to check in on “Alas” in that time.)

Please feel free to use this thread to discuss anything, including posting links to anything you think is cool (including your own stuff - in fact, posting links to your own stuff is encouraged!).

People In Our Blogging Community Need Help
If you have even five bucks you can spare, now’s the time to hit the donation buttons on the sidebars at:

Black Amazon’s place. BA is broke because she got ticketed in an empty subway car by the NYC Transit Cops (for those of us without perfect vision, you have to kneel on the seat to be able to read the tiny print on the maps!) Note: You’ll have to go to BFP’s front page to find the donate button!

Wampum, which does a huge service to the entire lefty blogosphere by running the annual Koufax Awards, but needs a new hard drive on their server to make it happen.

Shakespeare’s Sister, where a combination of a car accident and long-term unemployment is turning SS’s wallet into an echo chamber.

Brownfemipower is looking for help attending a variety of academic conferences which will be otherwise be Brownfemipower-less, which would be a loss for all parties.

And Bitch|Lab is fundraising for mysterious purposes a new host after her old hosting was attacked by hackers (see her comment in the comments). You can click through on her ads to help her out, or donate on the right sidebar, or get her a lead on some work in Web design, Web development, editing, proofing, graphic design, book design, or database development.

Please, if you can drop just a few bucks into a few of these fine blogs, do so. I’ll do the same.

* * *

Sandy D’s presents: The 29th Carnival Of The Feminists!

Shaenon: Why Everyone Should Hate Anthony
This post, a feminist-informed critique of the character “Anthony” in the comic strip For Better Or For Worse, is the best post I’ve read all week. And, sadly, it convinced me that it’s not just me getting tired of the strip; For Better Or For Worse really has lost a lot of its spark.

Latina Lista: Privatized American Internment Camps Lock Up Whole Families Indefinitely, Without Trial

Obsidian Wings: Carrying Water Has A Huge Impact On Third World Women’s Lives

Think about spending 660 hours a year just collecting water — and often pretty vile water at that. An hour and 48 minutes a day. Think about 40 billion wasted hours, hours that might have been spent working, caring for children, or doing any number of productive or interesting things.

Washington Post: My Life As an Open-Identity Sperm Donor

Youtube: Mary Poppins, The Horror Movie Remix
Brilliant! The best I’ve seen since the remix of The Shining. Curtsy: Boing Boing, The Disney Blog.

YouTube: Dude, I’m Deaf
Far better to be hearing-less than clueless. Curtsy: a fabulous post at Making Light about how some Deaf people are using YouTube as a public forum for Sign speakers.

The Debate Link: Young Black Men, The Cops, And “Existing While Black”

The Gimp Parade: The Best Gimp Parade Posts of 2006!
One of my favorite bloggers (and an occasional “Alas” contributor). The best of Blue is guaranteed good reading - check it out.

The Gimp Parade: Finding The Langauge, Making The Connections
Blue bounces off of Richard’s recent post about male survivors of sexual abuse and adds thoughts of her own.

Feministing: Interview About Immigration and Lesbian And Gay Issues

Box Turtle Bulletin: Another Scientist Objects To Focus On The Family’s Anti-Gay Distortion Of Their Research
Follow the links at the bottom of the post for more info.

Making Light: The News Media Have Sided With The Privileged Elite

Big Queer Blog: Why Gender-Neutral Pronouns Don’t Work For Me

The Debate Link: Why A “Top 10%” Alternative To Affirmative Action Does Far More Harm Than AA

Blackfeminism.org: Why Aren’t More Black Women Married?
Clue: It’s not because of the bias of bridal magazines.

The Infamous Brad: Is “It’s Cold Outside” The Date-Rape Christmas Carol?
Brad says “yes”; I think “it can be, but it depends on how the female singer interprets her role” is a more accurate take on it. But I’m just being pedantic. (Thanks, AJ!)

Latina Lista: Why Are Latino Candidates For Office So Often Dismissed As “Unqualified”?

Planet of the Blind: Thoughts Regarding A Guy Wearing A Gorilla Mask At A Bus Stop
And check out Connie’s followup , as well.

Geogreeting: Your name or message spelled out in sattilite photos of buildings. Neat!

Blackprof: China, the Adoption Market, and the Demand For Healthy Non-Black Babies

Thinking Girl: Reflections On Barbie

The National Student Genderblind Campaign
These folks advocate for gender-neutral policies in college housing for bathrooms and dorm rooms. Curtsy: Hugo.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Many Muslims Have Simply Never Heard Of The Holocaust

The Guardian: Interesting Article About “Orthodoxia”

Taken from the Greek “ortho” (meaning “correct” or “true”), this term was first coined by a Californian doctor, Steven Bratman, in 1997, to describe a “fixation on righteous eating”. It refers to people who, while generally not as extreme in their limitations as Hackney, are obsessed with healthy eating, concerned with quality rather than quantity, refining and restricting their diets according to their own personal understanding of which foods are truly pure.

Rabble News: Excellent Article About Working For Iraqi Women’s Rights In Iraq

CM Lee: Latin@ American Citizens Sue INS For Illegal Raids And Harrassment

The agent twisted Perez’s arm behind his back and held him that way for 10 minutes while other agents searched his home and property. The agent then suggested Perez and his family should leave the area for two weeks to avoid any more such incidents.

YouTube: This kitten falling asleep is so cute it’s almost painful.

On The Whole: Incredibly offensive, anti-fat program airs on public radio.

Screw Bronze!: On Being Female And Over Six Feet Tall

Because height is a key part of how our society determines masculinity, tall women are societally often viewed as unfeminine….

Racialicious: Odd Trend Of “Ask A Racial Minority” Columns Being Used To Endorse Misogyny

Feministing: Working Mothers Leave Jobs Because Jobs Aren’t Structured To Combine Parenthood And Work

Cerebus Fans Take Note: New Comic Strips by Dave Sim
These three odd strips, about a Canadian actress I’ve never heard of, are lighter than lightweight, but diehard Sim fanatics will want to take a look. The first two strips are drawn in Sim’s Al-Williamson-esque style; the third is done in Sim’s more lively and slightly cartoony style, which for my taste is far more interesting to look at.

The Silence Of Our Friends: Free Anti-Virus Software
Donna has the current scoop on which free anti-virus software is good. I’m linking it here because I need to get around to installing some of that stuff on my own computer, and putting it on the blog makes it unlikely I’ll lose the link. But hey, maybe it’ll be useful to some “Alas” readers as well. :-)

There were too many good posts from Junkfood Science for me to pick just one to link to… so here’s a bunch!

Junkfood Science: The Holiday Weight Gain Is Mostly a Myth

Junkfood Science: Some Health Benefits Of Being Fat

Junkfood Science: Being Fat Does Not Increase The Odds Of A Miscarriage

Junkfood Science: On Mass Hysteria

Junkfoodscience: Increasing numbers of the obese in hospitals, or just a change in how frequently data is being recorded?

Nutrition Today: It’s Not Healthy To Cut Fat Out Of Kid’s Diets

One of the principal worldwide goals of public health practice is to provide adequate nutrition for children. In the Third World, this goal is not attained because of the lack of food. In the Western World, this goal is in jeopardy because of unwise recommendations from expert committees that fat in the diets of children be restricted in the vain hope that this measure will prevent coronary artery disease many decades later. (Found via an excellent Junkfood Science post on the subject).

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where we think every day is Christmas Eve, because we’re just that clueless. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]

Talk about anything you’d like. Also, if you have good links to share — either your own stuff, or someone else’s — don’t selfishly keep ‘em to yourselves.

Faux Real presents: Help Us Help Ourselves #1

New Blog: Junkfood Science
A blog by one of my favorite writers about fat acceptance and health issues, Sandy Szwarc.

New to the Blogroll: Ebogjonson.com
One of the sharpest writers about race in the blogosphere.

New to the Blogroll: Masculinity and its Discontents.

Abstract Nonsense: Six Policies To Reduce The Gender Wage Gap

Balloon Juice: Best Quote Ever From A Right-Winger About Iraq

I really don’t know why anyone would listen to me anyway. My credibility on this issue should hover between snake-oil and used-car salesmen- as recently as a year ago I was flaying Murtha.

Positive Liberty: Debunking Right-Wing Myths About The History Of The Separation Of Church & State

Sex And Race: A Guide To The Art Of Defending Racism

Racialicious: Regarding “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs”
Very interesting analysis of a racist Warner Brothers animation from 1943 (a video of the animation is embedded in the post).

Thus Spake Zuska: Republican Senator Claims Global Warming Is A UN Plot.
He also claimed that working against global warming is Idolatry. Is there any chance Senator Inhofe’s flight from reality will hurt him with right-wing voters?

Trash Talks Back: 13 Tips For Non-Fat People When Dealing With Fat People

Rape Trial - The Reality TV Series! With A Jury Of Celebs!
Whenever you think reality TV has bottomed out, it surprises you. (Curtsy: Bean.)

The Debate Link: Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Does AA Lead To An Increase In Racism?

The Debate Link: An Anti-Heteronormative Reading of Leviticus 18:22
By the way, The Debate Link has been nominated for an award, and is seeking votes - you can vote for The Debate Link (or the other nominees) here. And Mozil Tov to David on the nomination, regardless of how the vote goes.

Contexts Magazine: Married People Have Less Commitment To Friends, Family and Community
On average, that is. Of course, all married “Alas” readers are outliers.

Living On Less: Consumerism Is Not A Sin

If the feminist movement can make it acceptable to be hairy, why doesn’t the anti-capitalist movement take a page from their book and work to make it acceptable to be poor? We’re poor already — the median income in the US is $23,000 a year — we just aren’t allowed to walk around looking like we’re poor without being made to feel ashamed. The feminist message that you are acceptable just the way you are is fundamentally a compassionate message. It’s not that you can’t doll yourself up if you enjoy doing so — though there are some who take that stance — what’s important is for you to have a choice: being dolled up is not an imperative, and it isn’t shameful to just go out in public looking like yourself. Movements like Voluntary Simplicity, which Levine discusses, are very much centered on the individual, not on society’s responsibility to address inequality nor to help make the outward appearance of poverty socially accepted.

Echidne: How Homophobia and Sexism Are Linked

Obsidian Wings: Must-Read Post About The Tampon Shortage Crisis In Zimbabwe

Box Turtle Bulletin: Family Research Council Cites Ludicrously Bad Research To Smear Gay Men

Official Shrub.com: The Female Gamer Archetypes

Matt Yglesias: The Green Lantern Theory Of Geopolitics
Willpower alone won’t make impossible wars winnable.

New York Times: Good Article About Transgendered Girls And Boys, And Their Parents

Obsidian Wings: Right-Wing Econ 101: Consumers Registering Preferences Through Their Purchasing Choices Is A Good Thing, Unless They Do It In Support Of Decent Labor Conditions.

Damned Interesting: Study Shows, Most People Think They’re Above Average
And furthermore, in many cases, the problem is that they’re too incompetent to be able to recognize their own incompetence.

Lorielle on WordPress: The Growing Problem of RSS Feed Fatigue
The problem with my RSS reader is that if I miss a day or a week of blogreading, the posts I miss don’t disappear. They just build up.

Abstract Nonsense: Iranian Elections 101

The upcoming general election in Iran is a good opportunity to explain how Iranian politics works. In principle, there’s an elected President, right now Ahmadinejad. In practice, the President is a pretty face, whose job is to represent Iran internationally and exercise minor influence on policy. The American equivalent would be electing a pundit to make statements about world affairs and pretend to lead, while reserving real power to an unelected President.

Reappropriate: Spike Lee To Direct Film About 1992 LA Riots
Jenn wonders if the film will present a balanced portrait of Koreans, rather than ignoring or demonizing them.

Ezra Klein: Study Shows Car Drivers Drive Closer To Helmet-Wearing Bicyclists
Just goes to show, there’s a down side to everything.

NY Times: The $100 $150 Laptop
Remember the much-discussed $100 laptop, to be mass-manufactured and sold to third world governments, to be given away to third world schoolchildren? It’s now $150, but plans are going forward. I think this is a good idea, although obviously it’s not a solution to anything by itself. There is some interesting reader comments and debate on the Times site, as well.

Even The Devils Believe: Christians Have Gotten So Used To Owning The Public Sphere, We’ve Forgotten Our Calling

Even The Devils Believe: Could Judge Roy Moore Swear To Uphold The US Constitution?

Equality Loudoun: Yet More Christians Lying About What Social Science Says About Gay Parenting

Obsidian Wings: Glenn Reynalds Thinks That Southerners Didn’t Hold Much Of A Grudge After The Civil War.
See also this post at Sadly, No! For someone who’s pretty smart, Reynalds is an idiot.

Weblog Tools Collection: Bloggers, please. Stop using Captchas.
They don’t work well, they’re often bad for accessibility, and they’re a big pain in the neck. Other than that, they’re swell.

Racialicious: More On Gwen Stefani and Racism
A topic I know is near and dear to some “Alas” readers’ itty bitty hearts.

East Village Idiot: Questions I Want to Ask Potential New Roommates, Based on Experiences with the Roommate They Will Be Replacing

NY Times: Review of the new production of Sondheim’s “Company”
Another the-cast-is-the-orchestra Sondheim production, from the same director as the recent “Sweeny” revival. The review makes the new “Company” sound excellent; the gimmick is put to good use to emphasize Bobby’s isolation (Bobby is the one character who doesn’t play an instrument). I hope the production is still playing this summer, when I’ll be in NYC.

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where we gave up freedom for ease. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]