feminist blogs

You have got to be kidding me:

Speaking to donors at a San Diego fund-raiser last month, Barack Obama reassured the crowd that he wouldn’t give in to Republican tactics to throw his candidacy off track.

“Listen, I’m skinny but I’m tough,” Sen. Obama said.

But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.

You know, I’m sure this will be a problem. I mean, it’s not like being skinny is still held up as the ultimate ideal for all Americans. Being fat is the new “it” thing. Why, I understand Seattle Sutton has fled the country for more tolerant Canada, while the last health club locked its doors last week. Plus, as a fat guy, I can tell you that all fat people hate skinny people, because nobody knows better than fat people that your body type is far more important than the ideas you have, the skills you possess, or the personality that animates you.

Snark aside — no, Wall Street Journal, Obama’s skinniness is not a deal-breaker. Indeed, as anyone who has engaged in American society can tell you, it’s an asset. There’s a reason Mike Huckabee wasn’t considered a presidential contender until he had bariatric surgery lost a lot of weight through “willpower.” This nation is far from embracing the idea that one’s body type does not correlate with one’s worth as a human being — and that includes a number of fat-hating fat people, who will be happy to tell you at length why Obama’s skinniness is a strength.

As for me, I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to care whether Obama was fat, thin, or trapezoidal. I just want a president who will wind down the Iraq war and not set the rights of women and the GLBTQQ community back 30 years. And given my choices, I think that I’ll pull the lever for Obama, whatever he weighs.

(Via Kevin Drum)

Google is telling some bloggers that their blogs are going to be deleted unless they can convince Google that the blogs are not spam. How does one go about convincing Google about that? I'm a vegetarian, for goddess' sake!

In any case, I'm not locked out yet, as this test proves. But some people with honest hard-working political blogs are. What's going on?

Somebody had better tell PhysioProf’s wife.

Here’s a little something for your inner 12-year-old:

You’re welcome. And happy weekend!

I had absolutely nothing to do with it. But, I think it's kinda cool all the same. You can try it out here.

As far as I'm concerned, Rob Halford has the voice of a god. And, this song (originally written by Joan Baez) just tears me up.



Lyrics:
I'll be damned, here comes your ghost again
But that's not unusual
It's just that the moon is full
And you decided to call

And here I sit, hand on the telephone
Hearing the voice I'd known
A couple of light years ago
Headed straight for a fall

But we both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust
Yes ,we both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust

Now I see you standing with brown leaves all around and snow in your hair
Now we're smiling out the window of the crummy hotel over Washington Square
Our breath comes in white clouds, mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me, we both could've died then and there

Now you're telling me you're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You were so good with words
And at keeping things vague

Cause I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
I love you dearly
But, if you're offering me diamonds and rust, I've already paid

But, we both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust
Yes, we both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust

Diamonds, diamonds and rust
Diamonds, diamonds and rust
Diamonds, diamonds and rust
Diamonds, diamonds and rust


*bimbles off*

When you’re sitting in your shower chair, don’t let your husband try to sit on your lap. The chair just may collapse out from under you.

RIP shower chair…

(Trigger warnings apply.) I’m very sorry to punctuate your day with something like this, for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, but this is a piece of news that I simply haven’t been able to get out of my mind for the last several hours.

In short, a man of about twenty or so years was stabbed to death and decapitated by the 40-year-old man next to him on a Greyhound Canada bus travelling between Edmonton and Winnipeg. The victim was sleeping with his head on the window at the time. After a standoff of several hours, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police apprehended the assailant. At this time, there have been no reports of a motive, or indeed anything resembling an explanation.

This afternoon on the bus in Vancouver, everybody seemed a little bit on edge, furtively scanning their neighbours for signs of who knows what. I’m sure that things will eventually settle down to normal again soon, but in the meantime many people around here are still in a something of a state of shock. I fervently hope that some sort of resolution can be brought to the victim’s family and friends, and that justice can be served for this awful, terrible crime.

Silly Site o' the Day

It might be hard to tell, given that Americans think talking about their earnings is worse than having porn on their computers at work. Or so it seems sometimes to me.

A new bill tries to make women's paychecks fairer:

Today, the House will consider the Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 1338.

...

The Paycheck Fairness Act:

* Requires that employers seeking to justify unequal pay bear the burden of proving that its actions are job-related and consistent with a business necessity.
* Prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with their co-workers.
* Puts gender-based discrimination sanctions on equal footing with other forms of wage discrimination – such as discrimination based on race, disability or age – by allowing women to sue for compensatory and punitive damages.
* Requires the Department of Labor to enhance outreach and training efforts to work with employers in order to eliminate pay disparities.
* Requires the Department of Labor to continue to collect and disseminate wage information based on gender.
* Creates a new grant program to help strengthen the negotiation skills of girls and women.

These are important points. Just think what happens if the Department of Labor stops to gather earnings data by gender: That would make it much harder to know if women are paid fairly, wouldn't it now? And I especially like the first point on that list, because it's the employers who have all the necessary data for that proof, and also the second point on that list, because I have never understood why stealing on the basis of sex is a lesser crime than stealing on the basis of race, disability or age.

Georgie will veto this bill, of course. The W in his name stands for women, as his campaign used to say. Only it's short for "war against women."