tsada kay

Star-Spangled Bannings

2015-07-08T20:59:00.000-07:00

Last week, retro cable network TV Land announced it will no longer broadcast reruns of The Dukes of Hazzard. If you're a child of the 70s and 80s like myself, there's a good chance you grew up watching the program, along with a bunch of other crap like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island and Trapper John, M.D. (Dr. Gonzo...le sigh).

From the time I could read (thanks, Sesame Street!) I pored through the TV guide in the newspaper every Sunday, meticulously mapping out my week of viewing. At one point, my obsession with Brady Bunch reruns became enough of a time-suck that for a while my parents instituted a 30 minute daily limit.

Fortunately for me, they never managed to enforce that limit. The only TV rule that actually held up over time was my father’s list of shows I was unequivocally forbidden to watch. There were three that I can remember: Three’s Company, Dallas, and The Dukes of Hazzard.

I remember lusting over this TV
Guide cover in line with my mom
at the A&P.

The Three’s Company ban was of course due to the consistently sexual nature of the show. Even as a young kid I could get that.

It wasn't until several years after they revealed who shot J.R. (something I had to learn from my classmates the day after the episode aired, the memory of which fills me with bile-inducing resentment to this day), that I came to understand Dallas was an amalgamation of almost everything my dad found wrong with the 80s--greed, U.S. dependence on oil, women with eating disorders, wine coolers, blow, and things in general that smacked of the word “Reaganomics”--hence it's verboten status in his home.

But the Dukes? What was there not to like? They were cute, friendly, seemingly well-intentioned good ol’ boys? The song even said so!

Just'a good ol' boys

Never meanin' no harm.
Beats all you never saw
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day they was born

In 1979, Tiger Beat listed stats on
John Snyder (AKA Bo Duke).
Because an informed stalker
knows her victim's inseam.

Staightnin' the curves

Flatnin the hills
Someday the mountain might get 'em
But the law never will

Makin' their way
The only way they know how
That's just a little bit more
Than the law will allow.

Makin' their way
The only way they know how
That's just a little bit more

Than the law will allow.

I'm a good ol' boy

You know my momma loves me

But she don't understand

They keep a showin my hands and not my face on TV

OH YEAH

Sometimes, if my father was feeling especially generous and lenient, he would let me watch the opening credits to the show, probably because that Waylon Jennings tune was so damn catchy and my dad loves a good guitar riff. This meant 30 seconds of joy and enticement until that final OH YEAH, at which point my dad would flip off the TV with an overtly animated, sadistically vengeful click.

The grown woman in me now looks back on that moment as the childhood equivalent to coitus-interruptus.

Of course, today I realize there was so much not to like about that show, not the least of which was that Confederate flag emblazoned upon the hood of the signature 1969 Dodge Charger, AKA The General Lee. I know now had father let me watch the program, the ideologue in him would have likely felt compelled explain to me what it meant. He would have probably wanted me to understand who Robert E. Lee was in history (i.e., a racist, slavery-loving cunt), and what that big X the roof of that car really symbolized (i.e., everything the racist, slavery-loving cunt stood for). And I don't think he would have had a problem doing that, even though I know at that age I was too young to understand the depth of the issue.

The General Lee. Current owner Bubba Watson said last week he will
be painting over its trademark Confederate flag. Photo via Yahoo.

I think the more difficult issue for my father would have been trying to explain why these "Good Ol' Boys" were nationally revered as television heroes, if their own hero (General Robert E. Lee) was such a cunt.

I believe it was Socrates who first asked the question, Can a man be a hero if the hero of that man is a cunt?

That's really the conversation we need to be having.

Why do people want to fly the flag so badly? Why do people take criticism of the flag so personally, particularly when slavery is mentioned in that criticism? When Neil Young wrote Southern Man as a condemnation of slavery, why did Lynyrd Skynyrd feel compelled to give a rebuttal to that condemnation with Sweet Home Alabama? By the way, did you know that Governor George Wallace, the notorious segregationist, made Lynyrd Skynyrd's members honorary colonels in the Alabama Militia after hearing the song's line "In Birmingham they love the governor", which referred to him? George Wallace! That cunt!

But back to my own childhood experience with banning.

My resentment over our household Dukes of Hazzard ban bubbled inside of me week after redneck cousin-fucking week that I had to hear about each episode's awesomeness from my friends at school. I didn't even know why I wanted to watch it so badly, but I did. My preteen, Esprit-wearing soul yearned for Bo and Luke and Daisy Duke, and even a little bit for Boss Hogg and Enos (even though I couldn't say his name without thinking "Penos" and giggling uncontrollably).

One day, while shopping at the infamous New England overstock emporium Spag's, I spotted a small, pull-back car replica of the General Lee hanging on the rack, as my mother and I breezed past the toy aisle. It was a Wrist Racer, a trendy new toy that was pretty much just a car attached to
The Spag-tacular discount emporium that was Spag's. R.I.P.
Photo credit: Greener Pasture.
a watchband.

I snatched the car off the rack and held it up to my mother, who was on a quest for something random (Spag's sold random shit)like galoshes or rugs or sleeping bags and didn't want to be distracted.

"Can I get it?" I asked.

I pointed to the Spag's bargain price tag. She glanced at the tiny car in my hand and went back to her shopping list. I'm sure she didn't even notice the cuntfederate flag on the roof, let alone process that it was Dukes merchandise.

"Fine," she replied. "Now let's move quickly, it's getting late. I don't want to sit in traffic on Route 9."

And just like that, a little bit of Hazzard County was mine.

It wasn't till I took U.S. history in high school that I began to understand why that X on the roof of that car maybe wasn't so cool, and in fact, that maybe actually HEY THAT SHIT WAS HELLA FUCKED UP.

Lynyrd Skynyrd began phasing out their use of the Dixie flag in 2012, but when
comes to history and hate, some things leave an more indelible mark.
Photo credit: Lord of the Barflies.

Around the same time in high school, my boyfriend and I were riding in a friend's car listening to a Lynyrd Skynyrd cassette, when he turned to me with a look of deep concern.

"You know they're racists, right?"

"Who?"

"Lynyrd Skynyrd. Great band, but totally racist Southern guys. They fly the Confederate flag at their shows."

I wrestled with that.

Really? So every time we engaged in heavy petting to the emo twang of Free Bird, I had been perpetuating oppression and hate? Was holding up a lighter at a Skynyrd show actually a precursor to a cross-burning? I was filled with shame, along with the overwhelming anxiety that, despite my disgust over this newfound information, I still might not be able to control my "Ooh-oohs" were I to accidentally hear That Smell sometime in the future.

Skynyrd might be a bunch of inbred racists, but me? I was a cunt. But in 2012, I was relieved to find my cunt status somewhat mitigated by Lynyrd Skynyrd's decision to stop flying the Confederate flag. The band told CNN:

"The KKK and skinheads kinda kidnapped the Dixie or Southern flag from its tradition and the heritage of the soliders."

Um, hello? What was the "tradition and heritage" those soldiers were fighting for? Last I checked it was slavery, something that came way before the KKK and skinheads, but which arguably paved the way for both groups. Not that it matters in this case, because Lynyrd Skynyrd eventually went back on their word not to use the flag. That same year, the band told this to Radio's Brian Ives:

"Johnny still puts the Dixie flag around his microphone for Sweet Home Alabama, and we put a whole flag over the piano. We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. But we're still so proud to be Southern and to fly the Dixie flag."

Cunt Status: REINSTATED.

Here's the thing. I was delighted to hear the news this week that the South Carolina Senate approved a bill to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the Statehouse.The Confederate flag has no place in this country except in textbooks and historical museums. But I also know that in this country we have an overwhelming capacity for denial when it comes to things concerning race and our checkered past in that regard. Just as many believe we became a post-racial society once the nation elected a Black man president [insert LOL here], I fear that same contingent will view any legislation banning the Dixie flag as another proverbial nail in the coffin when it comes to talking about our history of racial divide, particularly in the Southern U.S.

And that, I'm afraid, will lead to apathy.

Apathy--the silent killer. We see it already in the disproportionate coverage of this flag issue compared to the little-to-no coverage of the eight or more burnings of Southern, predominantly Black churches since the Charleston shooting (at least three of these fires have been directly linked to arson, yet authorities refuse to acknowledge them as possible hate crimes). We see it in the media's ambivalence to refer to the Charleston massacre as a hate crime, or to gunman Dylann Roof as a terrorist. We hear it in a similar dispassionate response from legislators--in what John Stewart so eloquently termed "the nuanced language of lack of effort".

But the flag! They are moving to take it down. There's the progress! There is the effort!

Really? Or is it more of a gesture, another media-driven distraction (like the distraction "transracial" Rachel Dolezal was until the Charleston story broke)? Is this true progress, or are we patting ourselves on the back for removing a symbol, while ignoring the manifestation of the very thing it symbolizes?

There’s also the sad economic reality that, by banning this flag on a retail level, we’re actually increasing its value . The New York Times recently reported that, as retailers pull the flag from their shelves, hordes of inbred consumers have been running out to buy Confederate paraphernalia wherever they can find it. For instance, this used Dukes of Hazzard Confederate flag thermos (in visibly poor condition) is currently going for $99 on EBay.

For the sake of comparison, note that this completely awesome Garfield thermos circa the same year (1978), is listed on EBay for just $7.

That's just fucking wrong.

Also wrong is that now Ben Jones (who played the mentally deficient Cooter [insert more immature giggling here] on The Dukes of Hazzard) is rolling in the dough. Why? Because he announced publicly that he will not be removing any Dixie flags from the merchandise he sells on his once-dormant, now-booming website, Cooter's Place--even despite Warner Brother's recent decision to stop selling toy General Lees with Confederate flags. Here is the message currently displayed on the Cooter's Place web page:

"1st of all, Thank All of you for your orders. Please forgive us for the delay, but we have been overwhelmed with online orders and have hired extra staff in order to meet the demand. Everyone
Congressman Cooter. This is why we can't
have nice things. Photo via Facebook.
placing orders can expect a 10 to 14 day delay on their orders. We're sorry for the inconvenience, but assure you that your order has been received and is being processed."

Yep. It's Christmas in July in Hazzard County.

Oh, and if you think all this is generally irrelevant to the political scope of our country, remember that Ben Jones, AKA Cooter from Hazzard County, was previously elected by the 4th District of Georgia to the United States Congress, where he served two terms. He continues to be a repeat guest and political analyst on the Fox News Channel and other media outlets.

#Murrikah

In the end, we can burn every Confederate flag on earth, but that won't change the sentiments of the people who continue to cherish it and the shameful history it represents. In fact, banning will likely incite and embolden them--it already has.

We can ban television shows. We can ban flags. But we cannot ban the threads of ignorance and hatred that weave together the tapestry of our country's history. That tapestry does not unravel just because we no longer fly it on a flagpole.

We are not done talking about race in this country. Regardless of this ugly flag's fate, we need to continue to talk about why the flag was and is so heinous, about what it represents and how its legacy continues to impact our society in profound ways. That starts with our children. We must teach them history--not just the good, but the bad and the ugly as well.

Remember when my dad (who, I should add, was a wonderful, loving, compassionate father--HI DAD!) banned The Dukes of Hazzard when I was in elementary school? Well I didn't truly appreciate his reasoning until I was in high school. To his credit, my dad saved me millions of innocent brain cells with the ban, but his actions didn't enlighten me--they only pissed me off and engorged my already-throbbing Dukes of Hazzard boner.

Not that I'm comparing prohibiting a 7 year old from watching an insipid television program to taking the Dixie flag away from a bunch of ignorant troglodytes...

Or am I?

Anyway, the real victory will be not when we succeed in banning the Confederate flag, but rather when it does not need to be banned--because nobody wants to fly it anymore.

Until then, flag or no flag, we remain a Cuntfederacy of Dunces.

Were they secretly gay? We may never know now. Also, Wopat? Schneider?
Rumor has it that the real reason Boss Hogg hated them is because
they were
secretly
JEWS.

Celebrity Reflux

2014-05-28T00:16:00.003-07:00

This instant gratification thing has gotten out of hand.

It started with the remote control. I’m old enough to remember watching television on my parents’ old cabinet-style Channel Master. When I wanted to change the channel, I had to pick my ass up, walk over to that mofo, and turn the knob. To make matters worse, some of the stations didn’t come in unless you carefully situated the knob halfway between one channel and another--a challenging trick for young fingers, and one complicated even more by the other critical task of adjusting the rabbit ear antenna (so that the picture didn’t “jump” up and down once the channel was tuned).
Photo via http://www.curtis-mathes.com/.
Looking back, I probably developed the majority of my small motor skills attempting to access The Brady Bunch on UHF. Of course, back then we only had about 4 channels to begin with, so the good part was, once you got a channel properly tuned, you tended to leave it there.

And then there’s music. When I wanted to hear Disco Duck, I had to sit by the radio for hours until the DJ played it. If I was really being high-tech, I would have a cassette tape cued up and would press play as soon as I heard the song come on. Of course, the result would be a song that was inevitably missing its first measure or two of music, and its last five or six tainted with obnoxious DJ voice-over. Of course I could also go down to my local Strawberries or Tower Records and buy the 45 record, but only if I did it within the first few weeks that the single became a hit, because those were only available on a limited basis; after that, you had to purchase the entire album. And let’s face it, even the biggest Disco Duck fan doesn’t want an entire Rick Dees LP.

So while I love the fact that now I can access over a hundred television stations without leaving the comfort of my sofa, while I am grateful to Youtube every time I crave a particular song and can hear it without sifting through cds, records, or tapes, there are still some things that we don’t deserve to have on demand simply because technology may make it possible. There are some things we just don’t need to have at our fingertips.

Like dead people, for instance.

Last week I went into my living room to find Michael Jackson singing and dancing on my television during the Billboard Music Awards. Of course I realized almost immediately that this was another effort by techies to recreate a legend with a hologram. Even so, for a brief moment, I was tossed back to junior high school, sitting around that Channel Master with my parents, all of us in awe of this man who could do amazing things with his body and voice. While my parents and I had different taste in music, we all greatly anticipated his appearances on award shows, the display of unique talent that left me speechless (until the next day when it was all we talked about in school). Even though he wasn’t my favorite performer, I still played the hell out of my Thriller album, cried when he caught on fire that time filming the Pepsi ad, and generally appreciated him for being the inimitable icon he was.

Inimitable. Generally that’s what makes a legend most. That it can’t be fucking imitated. And if it is imitated, no matter how accurately, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. And that’s what I experience when I see these holograms of dead artistic geniuses, after the fleeting moment of nostalgia passes. Just as I was sickened when I saw the footage of Tupac Shakur's hologram inserted interactively into a live concert, I stood in my living room the other night feeling nauseated and repelled by how technological genius can rob artistic genius of its magic, all in an ironic attempt to create something magical.

It’s kind of like gastric reflux. Those escargots might have tasted really good when you shared them with your hot brogrammer boyfriend at that hip new restaurant in Downtown Oakland. But two hours later while you’re in the midst of pre-coital ceremonies back at your swanky loft, a belch wielding the same taste of snails in garlic butter just doesn’t have the same allure. In fact, that belch can make you never want to eat escargots again.

Indeed, it will be a while before I can listen to Michael again without having that objectionable hologram aftertaste in my mouth. Until then, I’m hitting OFF on my remote.

Imitation of (Thug) Life

2014-02-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

When I learned Wednesday that George Zimmerman will be fighting rapper DMX in a celebrity boxing match, my first thought was, WTF. George Zimmerman is a celebrity?

My second thought, of course, was, I hope DMX beats the shit out of that motherfucker.

After taking a moment to envision Zimmerman’s teeth flying across the ring like a handful of Skittles between X’s manic outbursts of "WUT!", I chided myself for thinking ugly, hateful thoughts. None of this would bring Trayvon back, and shame on me for even taking an interest in such a shameful display of greed and disrespect.

My third thought was, OMG. This is what they want us to see, because this is what they see.

They, of course, being the folks that think Martin had it coming. They, being the folks who believed the Zimmerman defense team’s assertion that this 17 year-old boy was a thug.

Let me first say that I have long been a fan of Dark Man X. As an artist, he has poured his troubled life into his work and the result is music that, regardless of what one thinks of its subject matter, reflects a brutal and often tragic authenticity that few artists are able to achieve. And the beats. Oh, the beats.

That being said, DMX is a thug.

I hesitate to use this term because of how it has been co-opted by racists as code for the n-word. Although many rappers themselves have branded themselves with the
Tupac Shakur. Image via Soul Train.
term (Tupac Shakur did so literally, with his iconic THUG LIFE tattoo), we also hear it in reference to young Black men who possess no true thuggish qualities (as was the case with Richard Sherman, the NFL star and philanthropist whose Stanford education and lack of criminal record could not seem to mitigate a few testosterone-fueled words on a football field a few weeks ago).

And of course, who can forget the way Trayvon Martin was portrayed as a thug by the media, despite the fact that he had no criminal record and was still legally a child?

Start typing “trayvon martin” into your browser and you’ll find that Google shows “trayvon martin thug" within the two subsequent autocompletes (second only to "trayvon martin costume"--equally disturbing, for different reasons).

In light of this reality, how will this match manifest itself in the eyes of the American people?

What if DMX wins? Is it vindication? And if so, for whom?

Or is this merely a perverted reenactment of something awful, a caricaturization of what happened that fateful night in Florida? Is it a charade that illuminates the most extreme stereotypes and prejudices that ignited a media frenzy in the first place?

Beyond the overtly distasteful premise in which Zimmerman and others seek to capitalize on the death of a boy, is the larger issue of what this boxing match really signifies to people.

Even those of us hip-hop-loving nerds (who have been known, in the privacy of our own vehicles, to rant about losing our proverbial minds up in the proverbial here) must recognize the reality of who DMX is.

Indeed, DMX is a tremendous talent, but he is also a tormented soul who has long battled addiction and mental illness. He is a convicted felon with a lengthy rap sheet who has pled guilty to charges of both assault and animal cruelty. He is a crack addict.

And upon recognizing the significance of DMX's checkered past, we must reflect upon all those things of which Trayvon Martin--a kid with no criminal record-- was posthumously accused of being: a ruffian, a criminal, a drug abuser.

Trayvon Martin was, and continues to be, packaged and sold to the general public as a thug (again, see: Google).

For every one of us who believes George Zimmerman got away with murder, there is another person who looks at a candy-wielding 17 year-old Black boy in a hoodie and sees this:

The many mugshots of DMX.

So what if Zimmerman gets what so many of us think he has coming to him? What if the real drug addicted criminal succeeds in finishing the job Zimmerman's lawyers claimed Trayvon the "thug" set out to do?

Who really wins this fight?

Git Money: The Dookie Chain Reaction

2013-10-03T12:25:00.000-07:00

Image from Poo B Gone.

This week has bummed me out a little. Between that horrible thing that happened on the Henry Hudson Parkway and the current government shutdown, I've been having nightmares about the world ending. In addition, I'm finding myself distracted by the obscenity of the fact that my friend, one of the hardest-working, most patriotic folks you'd want to know, has been furloughed indefinitely from his military job while lawmakers in Washington continue to collect their paychecks.

Photo via Get Rambled.

All this has got me to thinking about who will be the real sacrificial lamb in this whole thing. For some reason it seems like it shouldn't be the nice guy who signed up to risk his life for his country ten years ago. Then again, tell that to the homeless vet who panhandles at your local freeway off-ramp.

For example, I'm wondering, whose job it is to sift through a Ziploc bag filled with feces-encrusted currency remnants down at the ol' U.S. Treasury? Who is the dude (or lady) whom taxpayers paid to examine the $500 in bills that passed through the digestive tract of Wayne Klinkel's dog, Sundance earlier this year? Is that guy still getting his check?

Probably, for as our friend Jr. Deputy Accountant reminds us, the federal government may have shut down, but not the Federal Reserve.

Not familiar with Sundance, the golden retriever who shit a dookie chain of gold? Read on.
Daily Mail:

The Klinkels were on their way to Denver, Colorado, to spend the holidays with their daughter Amy Church and her husband Coty.
On the way, the couple stopped for dinner and left the 12-year-old retriever alone in the car - along with $501 in cash.
When they returned to the vehicle, the $1 bill was sitting intact on the driver's seat and half of one of the five $100 bills was laying next to it. The other four $100 bills were nowhere to be seen.

'Sundance is notorious for eating anything and everything, so right away I knew what happened,' Klinkel told the newspaper.
The man followed the pet around armed with rubber gloves for the rest of the vacation. Knowing that paper doesn't digest, he managed to pick portions of the gobbled notes out of the dog's poop.

Klinkel placed the dookie bills in a Ziploc back and sent them to the U.S. Treasury, with a request for replacement bills. Independent Record:

Git money. Sundance Klinkel displays his
government check. Photo by Eliza Wiley,
Associated Press.

A Federal Reserve spokesperson said that it could take up to two years and nothing was guaranteed; but if more than 51 percent of the bills were there, the Klinkels could get at least some of his $500 back.
Late Monday afternoon, when he picked up his mail, Wayne noticed an envelope from the government. Inside was a green and gold check for $500.
“I opened it and thought ‘holy s—t,’” Wayne said on Tuesday. “I gave Sundance a pat, showed it to him and told him not to eat it.”

So, just to recap:

--Guy is irresponsible with money.
--Guy ends up with big a pile of shit and no money.
--Guy hands shit to government, who gladly accepts it.
--Government pays someone to examine shit.
--In return for shit, government prints up some fresh money and sends it back to guy.

I'm not saying it's a metaphor for anything, but it does have me wondering if we need to trade in the bald eagle for a new mascot.

Perhaps a golden retriever?

Kind of Blue

2013-09-26T10:58:00.001-07:00

I have not written much lately.

And that bothers me, but not much as writing when I’m not inspired bothers me. And lately, there’s been so much that should inspire me, it’s kind of ridiculous that I’ve let my site sit dormant for so long.

The trial of George Zimmerman left me each day with a feeling of needing to write, but too despondent to summon the motivation.

Syria? Meh.

And Miley Cyrus? Hey, I like Miley! Although, in my personal opinion, what really

Chicken?

needed to be talked about was how in the hell Robin Thicke is allowed to copy a dead man's song, then sue that dead man’s family, then shove his fat butt into a zebra suit on MTV, but all anyone can see is a nymphet

dressed as a raw chicken.

A raw chicken who, as far as I can see, is smarter

and more career-savvy than

Robin Thicke.

But, hey, hey, hey--I digress.

And then there was the story of little Tiana Parker, the girl who was sent home from school for wearing her hair in locs (or “dreadlocks”, as they are commonly known), because natural hair styles such as afros and locs were against the school's dress code.

Tiana Parker, wearing the verboten style.
Photo via AP.

As someone who has spent a great deal of time working both with children and with hair, I was disturbed that a place of learning would outlaw locks and afros, two legitimate natural hairstyles that require essentially no unhealthy chemicals or damaging irons, effectively encouraging parents to keep relaxers in their girls’ hair.

How is a person’s natural hair not allowed at school?

Anyway, that got me to thinking about my own childhood, and the things about my own body I felt needed to be changed. I thought about the scores of Jewish girls to whom a nose job was (and still is) just another rite of passage like a bat mitzvah, and something I used to find myself considering more

Photo via Art of Manliness.

frequently than I'd like to admit. And, even though I resisted the urge to lop the bump off my Semitic proboscis, I have friends and family who were lined up at the nearest plastic surgeon by the age of 16. It was hard enough telling myself I was pretty in a school full of blond hair and button noses; I can only imagine how I would have felt had my school instituted a policy in which my face, in its natural state, was deemed a violation of dress code policy.

Sounds like a stretch, comparing a relaxer to a nose job? You're laughing at the idea of mandatory rhinoplasties? Okay, maybe, but given what we know about sodium hydroxide (the active ingredient in most relaxers), I think it's only fair to note that both procedures are just two of the many ways which American women and girls assume substantial risks and discomfort to mold their bodies to a different "standard" of beauty.

HAIR RELAXER, MEET CHICKEN:

With all this talk of identity and appearance in young girls, I was reminded of a lecture one of my most beloved teachers, Dr. Abdul JanMohamed, gave in regard to Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye. He related the protagonist--a young black girl named Pecola who wants to have blue eyes--to his own daughter, a dark-haired, dark-skinned girl of East Indian descent, who came home from school one afternoon, with a self-portrait she had drawn in art class. The picture was of a girl with blond hair and blue eyes.

When he asked her why she drew the picture in a way that did not accurately represent her looks, she replied that her drawing was a representation of what she wants to look like. Blue eyes and blond hair, she told her father, are beautiful.

JanMohamed was stunned. How could it be that his daughter, whom he was raising in arguably one of the most liberal, ethnically diverse places in the world (Berkeley), might harbor feelings of inadequacy and ugliness because her looks did not conform to a “Western standard of beauty”? Had he, a man whose job it was to lecture on identity and ethnic stereotypes, failed as a father? Or were societal messages about what is and is not pretty just too powerful for even its most "enlightened" members to combat?

Toni Morrison

This then brought him to tell another story, one about the negotiations made by Toni Morrison when, well over a decade after its publication, she agreed to sell The Bluest Eye movie rights to Oprah Winfrey. As this story goes, the two women were meeting with their respective agents to close the deal. As Morrison looked at the person about to own the film production rights to her book, she noticed something different about her. Her eyes.

Oprah was wearing blue contact lenses.

Morrison gave pause for a moment, JanMohamed claims, likely wrestling with her suspicion that the novel’s message had perhaps been lost on the Queen of Talk. In the end, though, it seems the dollar won, and Morrison signed the deal with Oprah.

Anyway, I mention this all because, in the midst of all this talk of identity (whether it be that of a pixie-cut Disney starlet gone astray, or a loc-haired princess in Tulsa) comes the news that school officials in both Ohio and Alabama moved this month to ban The Bluest Eye from high school curriculums. Huffington Post:

“The Ohio schools chief is taking particular issue with the scene in which the novel's main character is raped by her father, commenting that the passage is not suitable for school-age children.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to [school leader Debe] Tehar challenging her seemingly personal opinion that Morrison's novel is "pornographic." Instead of banning the book, the advocacy organization suggested that Ohio schools "use controversial literature as an opportunity to improve students' critical thinking skills and to create open dialogue between students and the community."

In August, Alabama State Senator Bill Holtzclaw (R-Madison) also called for his state to bar students from reading the book, taking issue with the work's language and content.”

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a school board has voted to ban Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, another classic of African American fiction with similar themes of racial, cultural, and physical identity. PBS:

“In a 5-2 vote this week, the Randolph County School Board of Education banned the book from county school libraries after the mother of an 11-grader complained. The mother claimed Ellison's work was inappropriate for 11th grade summer reading, citing both language and subject matter.

In response, Board members each received a copy of the novel to assess for themselves. According to The Courier-Tribune of Asheboro, N.C., at Monday's meeting, the board chair rejected "Invisible Man" as a "hard read," and another member stated he couldn't "find any literary value" in it.”

I should add that all of this comes just in time for Banned Books Week (September 22-28, 2013).

Image via Taylor Marsh.

If you haven't heard about any of this, it's probably because our national fauxtrage has been reserved for a small group of inbred Miss America fans on Twitter, fans who, since the coronation of Nina Davuluri ten days ago, appear to be convinced that the Taliban is taking over the U.S., one beauty pageant at a time (see image to the left).

Miss America 2014, Nina Davuluri. Photo via Getty Images.

Not that I don’t support our new Miss America, a woman who, much like JanMohamed’s daughter, is a dark-haired, dark-skinned beauty of Indian descent. I just wonder why sometimes we choose to pick the battles we choose, and why our media chooses to report the musings of morons as if they actually matter. Then again, we live in a country where more girls dream of winning the Miss America crown than the Nobel Prize for Literature (Morrison won hers in 1993). Our girls should be looking towards champions of identity like Morrison or, for that matter, like Tiana Parker, the similarly loc-haired little girl in Tulsa who changed schools rather than would agree to change herself. These ladies, and the controversies that recently surrounded each of them, are worth our tweets, not to mention a spotlight in our weekly news cycle.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not pause for a moment to wax nostalgic upon my own memories of the Miss America Pageant, which I watched with my mother almost every year as a child. I can remember my mother’s outrage when the legendary Burt Parks was fired from his position as emcee, just as I can remember the joy she expressed when Vanessa Williams became the first African American woman to win the crown.

As emotional as that moment was, in retrospect, I am confounded by the irony that exists in “progress” (racial or otherwise) made within an archaic tradition of ranking women based mainly on their physical appearance.

It makes me wonder, had Twitter been around in 1985, what would people have been tweeting about Vanessa? Would there be blatant racism like what we saw last week? Would the whole thing be politicized by people largely ignorant to politics, not to mention geography? Or would people focus on the basic question posed by the pageant and society itself? “Is she beautiful?”

Would they comment on anything besides that beauty? Would they mention her merits beyond her appearance, her singing talent, for example? Furthermore, would they foresee that this woman, soon to be de-throned by haters in a shitstorm of scandal (see photo to left), would fight back with a vengeance, eventually becoming one of the most successful performers of our generation?

Or would they be too distracted by the intoxicating blueness of her eyes?

Tastes Like Chickampf

2013-07-06T00:17:00.000-07:00

Oh boy.

I step away from this blog for a hot minute and THIS HAPPENS?!

Hitler. Chicken.

Huffington Post:

"Hitler" fried chicken better surrender its logo, because the Colonel's ready to fight.
Kentucky Fried Chicken told The Huffington Post Friday it may take "legal action" against a fried chicken shop named Hitler that sports a storefront emblem very similar to KFC's, only with Adolf Hitler's head replacing Colonel Sanders.
"We find it extremely distasteful and are considering legal action since it is an infringement of our brand trademark and has nothing to do with us," a spokesman for KFC parent Yum! told The Huffington Post in an email.Hitler, which recently opened in Bangkok, Thailand, first garnered attention after Andrew Spooner, author of the "Footprint Thailand Handbook ," snapped a photo of the restaurant and tweeted it out in May.

Of course, I’ve previously discussed at length the ~~possibility~~ glaring probability that Colonel Sanders was a sadistic muthafucka, so the fact that an asshole like Hitler is jumping on the 11 herbs and spices bandwagon isn’t a huge surprise to me. But what is a huge surprise is that the big H is now endorsing CHICKEN.

I mean, wasn’t this dickhead a vegetarian?

Turns out, Hitler did follow a predominantly vegetarian diet, but only because he had gastrointestinal issues. Well that makes me feel a little bit better; Hitler wasn’t an animal lover or an environmentalist, he was just gassy.

So if the Germanic Führer was plagued with gassy gut and leaky butt, how in the name of all that is Regular and Extra Crispy did he become the new face of Southern cooking?

I don't know about you, but I know who I blame. I'm not gonna name names, but let's just say it rhymes with "maul a spleen".

Image via www.ghettoredhot.com.

Jim Crow Under the Stars: How Georgia is Bringing Segregation Back, One Prom at a Time

2013-04-04T13:17:00.001-07:00

Photo via Your Daily Chum.

Can you remember your prom?

"Tiki Lagoon" at the cheese-tastic Kowloon restaurant.

I can remember mine.

My best friend Shana and I double-dated that night. We started off with pictures at my house, Shana in a fabulous birthday cake of a dress from Sarah Fredericks, me in a gauzy pink number my mom had picked up at Filene's Basement. Then it was off to the iconic Kowloon restaurant in scenic Saugus, MA, for virgin cocktails and greasy Polynesian fare. Later--after my date had finished puking up his moo goo gai pan alongside Route 1--we embarked upon a night of grooving to MC Hammer and the Beastie Boys in the function hall at Quincy Market, where the romantic theme of the evening was "Jim Crow Under the Stars".

Oh wait, that wasn't our prom theme!

I'm getting us confused with Wilcox County High School in southern Georgia again. I hate it when I do that.

The Huffington Post:

The school holds separate proms for white and non-white students. Homecoming is also normally segregated, with separate courts for each race.
If a student attempted to cross the segregation divide "They would probably have the police come out there and escort them off the premises," said [a student at the high school].
Mail Online reports that the school has not broken any civil rights laws because it doesn't actually sponsor the segregated prom dances - or any prom dance, for that matter. Instead, parents and students are responsible for organizing and funding the private events

Yes, you read that right. Segregated proms (not to mention a segregated homecoming as well).

And if you're wondering how they solve the problem of biracial students, it appears that the folks in Wilcox still follow the good ol' one drop rule.

Jezebel:

A biracial student was actually turned away by police at the white prom last year. And when the school decided to elect only one pair for homecoming queen and king for the first time this school year — mmhmm, homecoming is segregated, too — and one of the integrated prom-organizing students won, she still wasn't allowed to attend the white homecoming. The king and queen took separate pictures for the school yearbook.

Wait, "integrated prom-organizing students"?

Yes, that's right--a few folks evidently not residing in pre-Civil War Georgia have taken it upon themselves to initiate another prom in Wilcox County. The segregated proms will still take place, but for those students who prefer formalwear to white hoods, all will be welcome at the new event.

If you want to show your support to the brave individuals organizing the Wilcox County integrated prom, you can "like" them here on Facebook. Better yet, donate to their cause here.

One final note: Today, April 4, 2013, marks the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Keep the dream alive.

Passover...It's Smokin'!

2013-03-30T16:55:00.001-07:00

Israeli children smoke cigarettes during another Jewish holiday--Purim. Smoking cigarettes is one of
the celebratory rituals of the holiday, even amongst youngsters. Purim, many argue, is how most
Israeli smokers begin a lifetime smoking habit. Creepy-ass photo via Associated Press.

Welcome to my Passover post.

Yeah, yeah, I realize I'm almost a week late, but fuck it, I've never been a practicing Jew a day in my life. Why, as a kid I'd only know it was Pesach when food service would break out the Rokeach matzo in the school cafeteria (prompting my friend Shana to complain about the goyim happily eating that shit when, unlike her, they could be enjoying a nice turkey sandwich or a slice of pizza). Indeed, my only experience with formal Judaism was at weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs (bar mitzvahs being the most painful to sit through). Oh, and there were the one or two instances when I somehow randomly ended up at the house of a deeply religious friend or distant relative for a Shabbat dinner or a seder.

Take for example, one Passover when I was a kid, when a woman named Miriam invited my family to her home for the holiday. To this day I am not really clear as to why we were there, or even who this Miriam woman was to begin with. From what I gather, she was a distant relative, not by blood but by marriage--the cousin of the husband of one of my grandmother's sisters, or something like that. I had never seen her before, and I never saw her again after that evening, but somehow, at some point, someone decided it was a good idea for our polar-opposite families to break matzo together.

And it was pretty intense.

Miriam's family was strict orthodox, the kind that had not only had two sets of plates but also two separate dishwashers, one labeled for dairy and the other one for meat. You know, just as the Old Testament tells us our high-efficiency dishwashers must be labeled.

During the seder, I sat, bored and confused. I ate the gefilte fish (like a boss), but was completely freaked out by the crusty lamb shank, and the whole slay-the-first-born thing kinda traumatized me as well. Not to mention frogs and boils. WTF, man?

Anyway, after several Manischevitz-lubricated hours of poring through the Hagaddah, the evening culminated in a big fight between Miriam's husband and her eldest son, over what the son felt to be insufficient financial compensation for his successful retrieval of the afikomen. Because it's not a holiday until you've reduced yourself to the most stereotypical caricature of your people.

It was at this point I slipped away from the group and ran upstairs to use the bathroom.

Now, when you're a kid, it's always interesting to see what other people have in their bathrooms. This was especially true for me, for when it comes to brand loyalty, my mother is as unwavering in her fidelity as a member of the mob. There was no product deviation whatsoever in our home. We had Dove Soap, White Cloud toilet paper, Vidal Sassoon shampoo, and Close Up toothpaste--the toothpaste that evidently shares a PR account with Newport cigarettes (hello, creepy smile campaign).

And so, when I visited other people's homes, it was always fascinating to see people using Irish Spring (too drying) or Charmin (too much dust) or Agree (makes your hair greasy) or Crest (feh!). It was almost like traveling abroad, to countries with customs and products you'd only seen on television or read about in magazines.

But that evening, I saw a brand of toothpaste I'd never seen, not in a home, a television ad, not anywhere.

Kosher toothpaste.

Nope, never seen that before.

I finished up in the bathroom, resisting the not-very-powerful urge to sample this mysterious Jewish toothpaste. I had a vague suspicion that it tasted like chopped liver.

On the way home in the car, I told my parents.

"Did you know they had kosher toothpaste in their bathroom?"

"Really? No!" My mother was shocked.

"Yeah, " I said. "I didn't know that toothpaste could be unkosher."

"Traif," corrected my father.

"Huh?"

"Traif. Not unkosher."

I rolled my eyes. "What-ever."

"How do you know it was kosher?" my mother asked.

"It said KOSHER in big letters right on the tube. I think it was Zofart brand or something."

My father let out the moan he reserves only for extreme cases of religious dogma he finds too absurd for words.

My mother laughed.

"Because you know," said my dad, finding his tongue, "that the Old Testament clearly specifies what kind of industrially pre-packaged, highly processed fluoride toothpaste God allows. I wonder if Moses used Zofart, or if he took a little chometz now and then in return for a dazzling Pepsodent smile?"

"Pepsodent? Feh!" said my mother. "Tastes like chalk."

"I wonder what that kosher one tastes like?" my dad pondered. "Hmm..."

"Chopped liver," my mother and I responded in unison. "Chopped liver."

Alas, I never got to try the kosher toothpaste, but this Passover I hope they're making a whitening version of it, particularly one that will remove smoker's stains. That's because this year, Israeli Jews can enjoy not only a week of matzo-induced constipation, but also kosher cigarettes.

Yes, kosher cigarettes. Is this a politically correct act of inclusion towards smokers of all faiths or, as the Hipster Jew seems to opine, a diabolical money-making scheme of carcinogenic proportions? You be the judge.

From Time:

The stamp of approval came from the Beit Yosef private rabbinic group, which certifies foods as compliant with Jewish dietary restrictions. Last month, Beit Yosef approved three local cigarette brands for smoking during Passover. The chief rabbinate in Israel,
however, disapproved of the measure, saying cigarettes are life-threatening and should not be approved by rabbis. “Poison is not kosher. For all days of the year, not just Passover,” said the chief rabbinate’s spokesman, Ziv Maor.

What? Nu? Poison is not kosher? Clearly Mr. Maor has not read my post about the palatability of Passover candy. Oy.

Cloaca: It's Not a Clown Car

2013-03-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

I know I write a lot about chickens, but rarely during the course of my research (yeah, research--stop looking at me like that) do I come across something that not only leaves my mouth speechless, but also my vagina aching with sympathy pain for chickens everywhere.

Wait, did I just compare my vagina to a cloaca? Yes. Yes, I did.

Anyway, here you go--the new Chinese "Miracle Chicken" with the huge vagina...I mean cloaca...I mean eggs.

10 Other Disgustingly Unhealthy Foods That Are Still Completely Legal to Sell to People in New York City

2013-03-11T10:10:00.002-07:00

Image via Buzzfeed.

Behold, the infamous 7-11 Super Big Gulp.

Some argue it is the poster child for America's deadly soda addiction. Ironically, it is also completely legal to sell under ~~house mother~~ Mayor Blooomberg's "soda ban", which goes into effect tomorrow in New York City. New York Daily News:

Stores in the 7-Eleven chain — which sell enough groceries to escape regulation by the city Health Department — can keep selling their famous massive sodas, but all city restaurants and bodegas that do more prepared food will have to banish sodas larger than 16 ounces starting March 12.

But wait--before you put your hands together for slowest slow clap ever, here are just a few other obscenely unhealthy New York City foods vendors are still free to shove down the public's gullet:

1. The Choose Your Own Adventure sandwich at the Carnegie Deli. Pastrami, tongue, brisket, chopped liver. Really, there's nothing wrong with consuming a few pounds of cattle and pureed chicken innards in one sitting, just as long as you wash it down with a SMALL FUCKING SODA DAMMIT. Make it the New York deli classic, Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray soda (AKA "the Jewish champagne"), because that stuff takes like piss, and everyone knows nothing goes better with organ meats than carbonated urine.

2. Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster. All-you-can-eat corporate arthropod, coated in your choice of cheese, alfredo sauce, batter dip, or good ol' fashioned butter. Also, you're in New York City and eating at Red Lobster--kill yourself.

3. Slice of pizza bigger than your kid at Koronet. I used to live a few blocks from this place and I personally gained a shitload of weight as a result of their delicious, ridiculously oversized slices. Really. I used to be as small as this girl. And blonde. Fucking Koronet.

4. The KFC Double Down. Role-playing with chicken. This is why we can't have nice things in America.

5. Twice-Fried Cherry Pie at Park Slope Chip Shop. Great news for gluttons--this dessert is officially back after having been outlawed under one of Bloomberg's other famous nanny missions, New York City's 2008 trans-fat ban.

6. Chili Cheese Waffle Fries with sour cream and bacon at BLT Burger. It's sad that in this day and age we must resort to gluttony and excess to satisfy our most basic...ugh. I ain't even gonna lie. That shit looks tasty.

7. Half-Pound of Deep-Fried Bacon at Fatty 'Cue. I'm not even sure what you do with this.

8. 20 Piece Chicken McNuggets box at McDonald's. Don't be fooled by the "Share Box" labeling; this ad is actually from Mickey D's the UK . Share, shmare. Everyone knows Americans ain't gonna share shit--especially when it comes to 20 pieces of motherfucking chicken.

9. Sausage, Egg, and Cheese on an Asiago Bagel at Au Bon Pain. I'm not just including this sandwich because its 760 calories (330 from fat), 36 grams of fat (17 grams saturated), 410 milligrams of cholesterol, and 1210 milligrams of sodium have made it one of Men's Health's 18 Worst Breakfasts in America, but also because anyone who is in New York City and orders a bagel at Au Bon Pain is obviously a huge cunt.

Image via Men's Health.

10. Red Velvet Cheesecake at Junior's. It's like cheesecake stuck its fat cheesy dick inside a red velvet cake and made a big hypertensive baby with chronic rosacea. Hey, if it's good enough for Diddy, it's good enough for Bloomberg (see photo below).

Soda bad, cheesecake good. NYC ~~Nanny~~ Mayor Bloomberg schleps hella Junior's

cheesecake while paying a visit to his friend David Boren (D-Okla.).

Image via NY Daily News.

UPDATE: Drink up, New York! Just minutes ago, New York state judge blocked Bloomberg's plan to limit sugary beverage consumption in the city. Bloomberg:

In October, groups representing beverage makers, restaurants and theaters filed a petition in state court, seeking to block the measure. They called the ban “unprecedented interference” with consumer choice.

New York Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling in Manhattan approved the group’s request, issuing a permanent injunction today preventing the city from implementing the plan. The city said it will appeal the ruling, which also held the law violated the separation of powers, as the city council, and not the executive, should promulgate such laws.

Now pass the motherfucking Big Gulp.

Integrated Israeli Buses and Cheap Fares for Chinese Immigrants: It Was Fung Wah It Lasted

2013-03-05T12:19:00.002-08:00

Behold the Masshole is its native environment (pahhhty). Note the characteristic pasty white skin
and off-color local humor. Image via Barstool Sports.

One month ago yesterday, we celebrated the birthday of Rosa Parks, the woman credited with launching the Civil Rights movement when she refused to relinquish her seat to a white person on a bus in Jim Crow Alabama.

Sadly, since then, it’s been a pretty fucked-up month in the world of buses.

Take, for example, yesterday, when Israel debuted its new segregated bus service, launching two Palestinian-only lines in the occupied West Bank.

Shockingly, this is not going over as smoothly as planned. NBC:

Palestinians with entry permits to work in central Israel must now all converge on one single crossing point, at Eyal near Qalqilya, where the new line operates, leading to delays.
A riot broke out Tuesday morning when Palestinians discovered there were not enough buses to take them all to their jobs in Israel.
According to Gal-On and other sources, the move follows pressure from Jewish settlers, who also cross from the West Bank into Israel to work, and who objected to sharing their buses with Palestinians.
Their reason: Fear that Palestinians could leave bombs on the buses and blow them up.

Right. Because everyone knows the path to peace and harmony is always paved with MOAR SEGREGATION.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, another segregated bus line is having its own issues, as just last week the feds put an end to an era of uber-discount Chinese transportation service.

Okay, I'm ~~sort of~~ totally kidding. To be fair, Fung Wah never actually instituted Jim Crow-type legislation, but anyone who has lived in either Boston or New York City is undoubtedly familiar with the bargain bus line that catered largely to Chinese immigrants, with Chinatown-to-Chinatown (Boston/NYC or NYC/Boston) service priced at an unheard-of $15 per ticket. You might also recall images such as these:

Image via Boston Globe.

Image via Inebriated Discourse.

Image via Boston Globe

Image by Filippo Diotalevi via Flickr

Image via Democratic Underground.

And in case the pictures aren't enough, here's a brief history of Fung Wah's safety record via Wiki:

August 16, 2005: A New York-bound bus caught fire on Interstate 91 near Meriden, Connecticut. Though the passengers later criticized the driver for being unhelpful and untrained in evacuating the bus, all passengers were eventually evacuated and no injuries were reported.^[9]
September 6, 2006: A bus rolled over in Auburn, Massachusetts and caused minor injuries to 34 passengers.^[10] Excessive speed was cited as a factor and the bus company was fined.^[11]
January 3, 2007: In Framingham, Massachusetts, a New York-bound bus lost its back two wheels. No injuries were reported.^[12]
February 14, 2007: The driver of a New York-bound bus lost control in a winter storm and hit a guardrail on the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) in Allston, Massachusetts. No injuries were reported.^[13]
March 23, 2007: A New York-bound bus got stuck on a concrete barrier in front of a tollbooth on the Massachusetts Turnpike at Route 128 in Weston, Massachusetts, when the bus drove up on a cement lane divider. The driver had entered an automobile-only lane and tried to change lanes. No one was injured in the incident, but the bus was taken out of service and passengers boarded another Fung Wah bus that arrived later.^[14]
June 23, 2008: A bus loading passengers was struck by an out of control dump truck at the corner of Bowery and Canal Street in New York’s Chinatown. The force of the impact pushed the bus onto the sidewalk and into a bank. As the result of the accident, a sign attached to a light pole fell, injuring a 57-year-old woman; the woman later died as the result of a heart attack. Several people, including two police officers, were treated for minor injuries.^[15]^[16]^[17] State Department of Transportation inspectors found the dump truck, owned by CPQ Freight Systems, had eight mechanical issues including faulty brakes which led to the accident.^[18]
There were no crash incidents reported to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (United States Department of Transportation) by states for 24 months prior to December 26, 2011.^[19]
February 25, 2013: The company pulled nearly its entire fleet off the road with 21 of 28 buses after inspectors from the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities found multiple structural cracks in several buses. The company reduced their service from every half hour to hour, and used rental buses in place of the fleet.^[20]
February 26, 2013: As a result of the the structural damages discovered the day before the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) ordered Fung Wah to "immediately cease passenger service" indefinitely and park its remaining seven buses.^[21]
March 1, 2013: The FMCSA formally cancels the motor carrier docket (MC 405969, USDOT 954187) and operating authority of Fung Wah after Fung Wah blocked access to safety records. As such, Fung Wah cannot charter buses to meet service.^[22]

Sure, it's akin to hiring Gary Busey as your personal chauffeur, but with the competition's fares running two-to-four times what Fung Wah was charging, who wouldn't throw caution (not to mention human dignity) to the wind and take advantage of such a sweet deal?

Alas, in an historic move that has Chinese grannies shaking their fists in outrage, the Department of Transportation shut down Fung Wah last week. CBS Boston:

This is the first time the Department of Transportation has revoked a motor carrier’s operating authority under a law signed by President Obama last year.
“Bus companies that jeopardize public safety and refuse to cooperate with our investigators have no place on the road, and now, thanks to our additional authority, we can take them off,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Safety is our highest priority, and we will continue to do all we can to ensure that unsafe bus companies are not on our roads.”

Oh well. It was Fung Wah it lasted.

Shameless Promotions: Chick Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

2013-02-25T11:15:00.002-08:00

Amazing Chick-adillac image courtesy of http://www.flickriver.com.

Oh hi.

As you may recall, last time we were together I was preoccupied with the prospect of the first Mormon game show host being elected to the White House, consumed by the possibility that 47% of American dogs would soon be riding atop the roofs of Range Rovers on their way to the country club. I’m not gonna lie, I was scared.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and you know what that means...four more years of inappropriate Obama/chicken references from corporate America!

Yes, with another term of the Obama administration, we can look forward to promotional assholery subjecting America to awkward moments like the one this past holiday weekend, at an Upper West Side Whole Foods Store in Manhattan. NBC:

The sign outside the supermarket on Columbus Avenue and 97th Street featuring an apparent caricature of Obama advertising an upcoming sale on whole organic chicken outraged neighbor Woody Henderson.
"There are certain things that have been used to put down black people -- watermelon, fried chicken," he said.
Jason Nunez of the Bronx said, "Even if he's not the president, you're going to have an African American promoting the sale of chicken? They can do better than that."
Residents and passersby agreed the man in the sign looks like Obama but not all thought it was derogatory.
"Obviously it looks like the president, but I don't think it's racist," said Joseph Joshua.
A spokesman for Whole Foods said store artists create a variety of pop culture imagery to promote sales and events. The sign advertising the chicken was put up earlier in the week but taken down "once it was brought to our attention by a shopper that it may be perceived as offensive," said the spokesman.

Veiled racism aside, I must ask Whole Foods, Uh, who has a chicken sale on Presidents Day? Just as Labor Day is traditionally appropriated for mattress promotions, isn’t Presidents Day specifically reserved for car sales? Shouldn't Toothy Cartoon Obama be hawking Cadillacs rather than chicken?

Now, now, do not cluck your tongue in judgment. To be fair, my Jewish people probably love Cadillacs even more than Black folks. My grandfather owned a pink Seville (read: JEW CANOE) that would have made the hardest East Oakland OG nod solemnly and fist-pump his chest in respect. You can be as politically correct as you want and still recognize that, between our mutual affections for large American cars and Chinese cuisine, Blacks and Jews are uniting the races, two PF Chang's parking spaces at a time.

My point is that as Americans, in addition to being hyper-vigilant when it comes to implied racism associated with poultry references, should we not also examine how we use national days of remembrance and figures of historical significance to promote ridiculous shit like mattresses and cars and, yes, chicken?

It’s just a little food for thought if we in this great capitalist society are going to stick to the calendar of tradition regarding shameless promotional tactics which may or may not involve racial stereotypes and/or important historical figures who may or may not be dead.

Anyway, as you may recall, Obama Fried Chicken was definitely over the top for me but, even though I've adhered to a strict pescetarian diet for over two decades, I’m not sure how much fautrage I can muster over a nice organic chicken.

Then again, I’m also not going to get offended if PF Chang’s starts using cartoons of Joe Lieberman to sell their overrated lettuce wraps...although I wouldn’t buy that chicken either.

Ugh. Lieberman.

Romney in Wonderland

2012-09-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

I’m gonna let you guys in on a little secret. I suck at math.

For years I was told this would be a hindrance for me in life. Now, I realize it means I could run for office on the GOP ticket.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually got a pretty decent score on my math SAT, thanks to my mom and dad, who shelled out big bucks on my behalf for a math-centric SAT preparation class. For six excruciating weeks, I sat through lecture after lecture on formula and strategy, and subsequently managed to raise my abysmal math SAT to a number even higher than the score I received the English language section of the test! Given my tendency to fail at all things mathematical, my achievement was a huge surprise and real a testament to the power pricey prep courses—or, as the Romney campaign would put it, I BUILT IT!

That’s right, on paper I looked like my strengths lay mainly in the field of mathematics. On paper, you’d never have known that, junior year, I was averaging a D+ during the first marking period of Algebra II. I was crushed, my stellar GPA was doomed…until my kindhearted instructor, Mr. E (who also, incidentally, also taught the SAT class) took pity on me and moved me into a remedial section (read: Dumb Math 101), where I managed to maintain an A average until I graduated. I then went on to a top-notch university knowing nothing of calculus, and with an SAT score high enough to satisfy any requirement for me to have to learn it in the future (thanks again to mom, dad, and Mr. E’s awesome prep class). Yep. I. BUILT. IT.

And yet, even my math is better than Mitt Romney’s.

All that aside, I’m not going to go into the mathematical inaccuracies of Romney’s remarks on the recently released tape from his Florida fundraiser, particularly those about the 47% of Americans who are, according to him, both deadbeats and Obama supporters. For one, why would you listen to me, a self-admitted math loser? And besides, the Internet is full of maps, graphs, and charts that articulate the dumbassedness of his accusation far better than I ever could. What I’m mainly concerned with is an exploration of this magical world in which Romney lives, a world where math does not matter, where fact-checkers are the enemy.

Even if he honestly believes in the sentiments he expressed, why would a man running for office in an era when nearly every phone has a record button, voice those sentiments in a public setting? Indeed, Romney has long struggled to combat the out-of-touch, rich-kid persona he’s been accused of having for years. And so I wonder, how could he have acted so stupidly unless he, in fact, is living in some sort of alternate reality most of us cannot comprehend, let alone experience first-hand. I can’t help but imagine that the world in which Mitt Romney dwells is not unlike the world Eddie Murphy explored when he went undercover as a white man back in the eighties:

Or maybe it’s like the world Boots Riley enters when he slips into the realm of Fat Cats and Bigga Fish (at 2:50):

As I watched the video of Romney, I got flashbacks to a time back in my teen years when my very sweet, very WASPy friend Alice invited me to have dinner with her at her family's country club, a club which she informed me, as we waited for the African American waiter to bring our Diet Cokes, did not allow blacks or Jews as members. I’m not sure whether she told me this as a precaution of some sort, or rather, if she did so in an awkward attempt to make me feel special--as though I, the Jewess, were not only chosen by God, but by bigots as well. And while I have never been a practicing Jew, I’m not sure I ever felt so Jewish as I did that day overlooking the golf course, eating chicken with a plum reduction that was served to me by a black man, whose color, like my Jewishness, was decidedly palpable in the warm summer air.

And so, when I watch that video of Romney, I’m taken back to a place where I am again a half-invited voyeur of unapologetic disdain, where I appear as a guest conditionally welcome in an enclave overwhelmingly confident in its entitlement and exclusivity. I’m transported to a land where residents are so comfortable with the rules of their game, that they will frequently let outsiders in, but if only to remind them later that they are guests, employees, anything but equal players on an even field. For those of us who cannot afford $50,000 a plate for dinner, that tape offers a glimpse into Romney’s world, a place where we are frequently topic for discussion, but never allowed to partake in the discussion itself.

Finally, I’d ask you to try to imagine Romney, or any candidate for that matter, making these kinds of remarks in regard to another candidate’s voters. Take John Kerry, for example. Remember back in 2004 when the Bush campaign painted the Democrats as liberal elitists, out of touch with the average American? That year we heard little about freeloading Democratic voters. In fact, judging from the accusations of the 2004 GOP, one would assume that the 48% of Americans who voted for John Kerry were not the parasitic “victims” Romney paints Obama’s electorate to be, but rather wealthy, educated “elitists” who were out of touch with the daily lives and concerns of the average American. In other words, they were Romneys.

When a guy like John Kerry runs for office, we are 47% Harvard graduates. When a guy like Obama runs, we magically morph into 47% welfare queens.

Seem impossible? Not if you've fallen down the rabbit hole, into the Wonderful World of Romney.

Anger Manage-Mitt

2011-12-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

Original (non-hulkified) image via http://www.pleasenotromney.com/.

If you’ve read my post about the time Mitt Romney strapped his dog to the roof of his car during a family road trip, you already know I have an axe to grind with the GOP frontrunner and his pathological control issues. And as we all know, control issues and poor anger management skills go hand-in-hand, as Alec MacGillis’ illustrates in his recent New Republic piece, Temperamental Journey: The Peculiar Anger of Mitt Romney. Specifically, the article recounts several events that illustrate how Romney’s legacy of so-called “emotion-free crisis management” may prove true only to those who do not consider anger an emotion.

For example, there’s the tiff he had with Rick Perry during October's GOP debate in Nevada. Admittedly, it was only a moderate scuffle (and to be fair, Perry wouldn’t STFU during Romney’s talk time), but I personally find troublesome the fact that Romney felt compelled to put his hand on Perry in an effort to silence him, especially given a physical altercation he had a few years back on an Air Canda flight with rapper Sky Blu. Blu, who was seated in front of Romney, failed to return his seat back to its upright position in preparation for landing. This evidently perturbed Romney, who proceeded to inform Blu of airline landing procedures and instructed him to adjust his seat immediately (um, who does that?). When Blu refused to comply, Romney reportedly placed his hand on the rapper in what Blu described as a “Vulcan grip”. The situation escalated and an enraged Sky Blu took a swing at Romney.

No doubt Sky Blu has a few anger issues himself (as well as being guilty of producing some of the worst music known to Jersey Shore fans), but golly, Mitt—bossy much? In my opinion, even the most benign physical “correction” can signify something far more ominous in a person’s character. That's because people who feel the need to touch others to resume control of a situation rarely do so because they are in control of their own emotions. Not that I’m a fan of Herman Cain, but sheesh—in the end, I’m more concerned about where an elected official puts hands than I am about where he puts his penis. Realistically, poor anger-management skills indicate irrational thinking in times of crisis--catastrophic when a person is in a position of tremendous power. Poor penis-management? Catastrophic to a marriage, maybe, but to a nation? Only if scheming fucks like Ken Starr get their way. In any event, I predict that next we’ll be hearing about Romney following folks into the airplaine lavatory to make sure they wipe out the wash basin as a courtesy to the next passenger.

But TSA agent isn’t the only title to which Romney has appointed himself. In 2002 he took it upon himself to play traffic officer, when he got held up in a road jam on his way into the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Infuriated by what he saw as mismanaged direction, Romney got out of his car and, ignoring requests from law enforcement and grounds security, took charge of the situation. The New Republic:

He started directing traffic, over the objections of a sheriff’s deputy, Kodi Taggart; she later filed a report on Romney’s interference. And he lit into an 18-year-old volunteering as a security officer, Shaun Knopp. Knopp told reporters that Romney had asked “who the fuck” he was and “what the fuck” he was doing and had then told him, “We got the Olympics going on, and we don’t need this shit going on.”

Because nothing’s more gangsta than a big Ken doll talking smack to a kid in the parking lot of a ski resort. Well, nothing except maybe a Ken doll getting arrested in his bathing suit for copping an attitude at the yacht club:

In 1981, Romney and his family were about to launch their motorboat on Lake Cochituate, west of Boston, when a state park ranger alerted Romney, who was 34 at the time, that he risked a $50 fine because the boat’s registration number was painted over. According to news reports that emerged during his 1994 run for Senate, Romney believed that the number was partly visible, and, against his wife Ann’s advice, proceeded to launch anyway. “I figured I was at the state park with my kids,” Romney told The Boston Globe in 1994. “My five kids were in the car wondering why we weren’t going out in the boat, so I said I’d launch and pay the fine.” The ranger ordered him to shore, put him in handcuffs, and drove him, still in his wet bathing suit, to the Natick police station, where he was booked for disorderly conduct. The charges were dropped a few days later, the case was formally dismissed in February 1982 by Natick District Court, and the court file was sealed at Romney’s request.

Since the release of MacGillis’ article, a number of journalists, including Jason Linkins of The Huffington Post, have claimed that his characterization of Romney has been grossly exaggerated. This blogger, however, disagrees. Again, I cannot help but hearken back to that fateful Romney family road trip and the image of his dog, poor Seamus Romney, incontinent with fear on the roof of the speeding car. I keep envisioning the picture of Romney’s three young children, all denied bathroom breaks except at scheduled refuelings during the trip. Even if Linkins is right and MacGillis is overstating his argument, all signs point to a guy who at the very least, is missing a few synapses when it comes to managing his ego, who is willing to cast away conscience and principal if it means garnering supreme control and authority (*cough* campaign flip-flops *cough*).

Speaking of dogs, I’ll end things on a lighter note and leave you with this Romney gem, from an MLK Day celebration in Jacksonville, Florida. No anger here…just pure, unadulterated fail. And because I don’t claim to practice “emotion-free” blogging, I have no problem admitting, I’m embarrassed for him.

Yeah. I’m empathetic like that.

From Wall Street to Walmart: Thank Greed It's Friday

2011-11-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

For the past month or so, I’ve been reading street flyers and Internet posts demanding that Americans boycott his weekend’s Black Friday sales in order to send a message to the corporate 1% that the 99% is tired of its greed.

Of course, anyone who read my last year's post about shopping on a full colon knows I’ve been boycotting Black Friday for years, mainly because I dislike shopping and dislike crowds even more. I’ve also spent enough holidays without people I love on account of obscene mandatory holiday hours, corporate retail policies uncivilized enough to sour even the most enthusiastic bargain shopper over the years.

For those of us with family members who have long toiled in retail, Black Friday is more like a black cloud—one that looms over Thanksgiving dinner with the malaise of a thousand Sunday nights. And yet, the ~~painful irony~~ silver lining of that cloud remains that, without their jobs in retail, those same Americans would not be able to afford gifts to place under their own trees come Christmas.

And so, my goal this weekend was two purchase two things only: A haircut, and a ticket to see The Muppets (I succeeded in that goal...well, plus large bucket of popcorn). As in years past, I boycott Black Friday this weekend not so much to send a message to the 1%, but rather in an effort to preserve my own sanity, not to mention my cash and my karma.

Still, I respect those who choose to make a statement with their pocketbooks as, in the end, a silenced cash register speaks far louder to corporate America than a throng of linked-arm hippies singing We Shall Overcome. And yet, when I read the news that, by early Friday morning, acts of violence/terrorism had already occurred at nine Wal-Mart stores nationwide, I was reminded that the 1% does not have a monopoly on greed and corruption. Shameful Black Friday stories like the ones from Walmart speak to the fact that remorseless acts of greed are not relegated to Wall Street fat cats and corporate moguls. The 1% is not the only % plagued with unabashed cupidity, nor are the rich the only souls to fall prey to an unraveling of conscience in the face of seemingly irresistible opportunity (incidentally, what exactly is so irresistible at Walmart anyway?). At one point or another, to some degree or another, we all have caved to temptation and greed, although it is fair to say that our financial posture and position in society often determine the repercussions of that greed on a larger level. Indeed, generally speaking, the more well-off we are, the more resounding the societal effects of our rapacity.

I suppose therein lies perhaps the most difficult task appropriated to Occupy Wall Street—to create a movement in protest of tangibly definable crimes—transgressions like deceit and swindling—as opposed to nebulous human weaknesses like desire, megalomania, and, of course, greed. Such an effort is complicated, of course, because the acts that lead to the current economic crisis were born specifically of greed and, in a victimized person’s state of outrage, it is often easier target the failure of character than the criminal manifestation of that failure. But the paradox is not unlike the inconsistencies associated with the so-called War on Terror; just as it is physically impossible to wage a war against a tactic of intimidation, one cannot successfully fight a battle against a trait in human nature. We can only combat people and the organizations they comprise, not the emotions, urges, or desires that motivate them.

Occupy Oakland protesters vandalized this
Downtown Wells Fargo branch...two days prior
to depositing 20K into an account at the bank.
Image by Justin Sullivan, Getty Images.

Speaking of which, on the flipside, I worry sometimes that (perhaps as a subconscious side effect of the Supreme Court’s recognition of corporate personhood) protesters have fallen into a trap of thinking that corporations can be somehow swayed by their emotions, their contempt, their outrage, their spite. They are not. (Case in point: The 20K in Occupy Oakland cash Wells Fargo gladly accepted in the form of a deposit, just hours after the same protesters picketed and vandalized the bank’s local branch.) Indeed, greed is a whore’s best friend—well, that and antibiotics.

In the end, man might succeed at occupying Wall Street, but he can’t occupy the broken conscience of another man. He can punish crimes, he can lock up criminals, but he can never incarcerate greed. Greed is gansta, with the slight-of-hand of a motherfucker. Turn around once and it’s in the eye of a predatory lender. Turn around again and it’s in the eye of the working-class lady who pepper-sprays her fellow Black Friday shoppers at a crappy discount superstore.

Greed. So elusive, and yet as predictable as a frothy Walmart clusterfuck the day after Thanksgiving.

We Are the World, We Are the Cheesecake

2011-10-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

When the We Are the World extended-play album came out in 1985, I saved my pennies for weeks so that I could own the song to which I had spent so many awkward middle-school dances pressed against the arrhythmic body of a smelly teenage boy. Not only would I be able to listen to it over and over again, in turn driving everyone in my house insane, but I would also sleep more peacefully at night, empowered by the pride that comes with knowing your hard-earned tooth fairy money is going to feed hungry Ethiopians.

Little did I know that, decades later I would fall in love with a real-live Ethiopian, who would eventually find the dusty LP nestled between the Footloose soundtrack and Pat Benatar’s Get Nervous.

G: You bought We Are the World?

TSADA: Of course I did!

G: ...

TSADA: So...aren't you going to thank me?

G: Thank you for what?

TSADA: Um, for what do you think? For helping to feed your black ass!

G: *glares*

TSADA: *grins proudly*

G: Ugh. White people.

Of course, I kid my beloved G, who himself did not grow up in poverty back in Africa. Not only did he have enough to eat, but his family also owned a television upon which he, too, was able to watch the We Are the World video, inwardly laughing at the the fat, lazy, American assholes who honestly believed that their five dollars spent on a hit record constituted an act of monumental charity. Little did he know he would grow up to fall in love with one of those assholes.

Speaking of fat and lazy, fast-forward to October 2011, when the lazy American and the cynical Ethiopian decide to ~~engage in gluttony~~ share a meal at The Cheesecake Factory one Sunday evening. (Don’t judge—we had a gift card.) After he had scarfed down a steak and I, a delicious Tuna Tataki Salad, the waitress asked if we still had room for cheesecake.

Now, like most native New Yorkers, I’m a snob when it comes to cheesecake. Chain restaurant cheesecake does not excite me. Forget the fact that I’m supposedly cheese-free (um, that was my doppelganger, not me, who stole five heavenly forkfuls of mac and cheese from the side dish G ordered); I just can’t love cheesecake unless it’s a fat slice of dense bliss (preferably plain, or possibly topped with a few shellacked strawberries) served in a deli amidst the fragrance cocktail of corned beef, pickles, and kasha varnishkas.

But we had about twenty bucks left on our gift card—just enough for an overpriced slice of cheesecake and a tip. We studied the cheesecake menu, which boasted the mostly-gagtastic flavors as follow:

• The Original

• Fresh Strawberry

• Hershey®'s Chocolate Bar Cheesecake

• Ultimate

Red Velvet Cake

Cheesecake™

• Reese's® Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Cheesecake

• Piña Colada Cake Cheesecake

• 30th Anniversary Chocolate Cake Cheesecake

• Godiva® Chocolate Cheesecake

• White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle®

• Fresh Banana Cream Cheesecake

• Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple

• White Chocolate Caramel Macadamia Nut Cheesecake

• Lemon Raspberry Cream Cheesecake

• Dulce de Leche Caramel Cheesecake

• Chocolate Coconut Cream Cheesecake

• Tiramisu Cheesecake

• Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake

• Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

• Chocolate Tuxedo Cream™ Cheesecake

• Kahlua® Cocoa Coffee Cheesecake

• Pineapple Upside-Down Cheesecake

• Chocolate Raspberry Truffle®

• Dutch Apple Caramel Streusel

• Chocolate Chip Cookie - Dough Cheesecake

• Oreo® Cheesecake

• Low Carb Cheesecake

• Low Carb Cheesecake with Strawberries

• Wild Blueberry White Chocolate Cheesecake™

• Key Lime Cheesecake

• Caramel Pecan Turtle Cheesecake

• Snickers® Bar Chunks and Cheesecake

• Craig's Crazy Carrot Cake Cheesecake

• Brownie Sundae Cheesecake

• Cherry Cheesecake

• Pumpkin Cheesecake

• Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake

• Peppermint Bark Cheesecake

The über-heroic Hershey's Chocolate Bar Cheesecake.
It's the Bono of cheesecakes.

After much agonizing, we decided on a slice of the Hershey’s Chocolate Bar Cheesecake to go. Of course, I, purist that I am, personally don’t believe in chocolate cheesecake, but then I insisted my dairy-free ass wouldn’t be so much as tasting it anyway (my ass lied--OMG it was fucking delicious). In the end, G and I were wooed by the fact that, with every purchase of the Hershey’s Chocolate Bar Cheesecake, the Cheesecake Factory donates $.25 to fight hunger in the United States.

Ah, only in America can an Ethiopian man and a Jewish woman mitigate the guilt that comes with ordering a $7.95 slice of sugar, fat, and cholesterol, by telling themselves they’re humanitarians, sacrificing their own health to save the world, one diabetes-inducing bite at a time.

It’s a choice we’re making,
We’re saving our own lives.
It’s true, we’ll make a better day,
Just you and me…and this obscenely large slab of overpriced corporate cheese pie.

Mitt Romney and Other Cunts: A Dog on the Roof is Worth Two in the Mouth

2011-10-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

Well, now that Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have proven themselves to be lobotomized corndog-eaters even by Tea Party standards, and since that pizza guy has less political experience than Monica Lewinsky's gullet, folks seem to be looking to Mitt Romney as the only realistically viable ~~cunt~~ candidate in the race for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

That said, the fiscal cuntservative who managed to woo otherwise generally "liberal" Massholes a few years back still faces obstacles as he vies for the presidency. For one thing, he's changed his position on everthing from gay marriage to taxes to abortion more frequently than Sarah Palin changes job titles. And then there’s always that magic Mormon underwear that has gotten the fundy undies of Christians like Pastor Robert Jeffress all in a bunch.

Of course, it goes without saying that I don’t intend to vote for any of these Mad Hatter wannabes. What may come as a surprise however, given frightening ~~hate speech~~ "politics" the likes of Michele Bachmann's and Rick Santorum's, is that even though Romney is arguably the most "moderate" of the GOP candidates, the sight of his game-show-host-looking ass makes me sicker than any of those clowns.

That’s because I can’t see Mitt Romney's face without remembering how, back in 1983, he strapped his dog carrier---with his dog "Seamus" inside-- to the roof of his car while he and his family drove 12 hours to their vacation home on Lake Huron. Romney also refused to stop for potty breaks (for the dog or his five children) unless the car was in need of refueling. The poor dog, undoubtedly terrified atop the roof of the speeding station wagon, suffered profuse diarrhea which, in midst of high freeway winds, splattered the car, the carrier, and the dog itself. The Boston Globe:

As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours. As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.

One might argue you don’t have to have a heart to be a politician (indeed, heartlessness is a virtue in the eyes of those ~~cunts~~ who view emotions as a sign of authoritative weakness), but what about common fucking sense?

I’d sooner vote for Herman Cain. At least he lets the pizzas ride shotgun.

To Bead or Not to Bead

2011-10-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, my mother was driving on I 93 in Somerville, MA, when she was struck from behind by a woman in a minivan. Fortunately, neither my mother nor the other woman sustained injuries.

“Deeeyah Gahd, I’m so sahh-ree!” The woman apologized, clutching a strand of rosary beads as she inspected the damage to the vehicles. “I didn’t see yah cahh. I wahs sayin’ my six ah'clahhck rosahhry!”

Elizabeth Carey and her verboten rosary.
Image via KETV, Nebraska.

Oh, the irony. But perhaps not as ironic as the case of little Elizabeth Carey, who was told last week that she is prohibited from wearing her rosary to her Nebraska middle school. Administrators recently banned all rosaries from the school because, they claim, gang members have also been wearing the religious beads as necklaces.

Well, my first thought was, What? There are gangs in Nebraska? Oh, wait, don’t tell me— Children of the Corn, right?

My second thought was, When did rosary beads become a fashion statement?

So I did a quick Google search resulting in--lo and behold--an endless supply of images depicting douchebags draped in rosary beads. Apparently the trend is particularly popular with the boys from Jersey Shore. OMG.

Now, nobody loves a little sacrilege more than Tsada, but this is too much even for me. Channeling Tony Manero's grandmother in Saturday Night Fever, I shook my head, genuflected, and then, on behalf of douchebags everywhere, prayed for forgiveness in the name of the Lord and Glamour magazine.

But then I found--wait for it--the (un?)official Jersey Shore Rosary Beads website, which states, unequivocally, that there's nothing at all sacrilegious going on here:

Q: Is it sacrilegious to wear a rosary beads as a necklace?

A: No. One you have to be a believer, second Rosary Beads are just that, Beads. If you enjoy them, wear them. Sacrilege is is the use of holy objects in a non-religious manner. Christ says that none is holy but the Lord. Just be careful that your wearing of the Beads is not a prideful thing. Pride would be the sin, not wearing the Beads.

And of course there's nothing "prideful [sic]" about Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino (pictured in the image at the top of this post). Gloating, vain, boastful, conceited, self-aggrandizing, and obnoxious, sure. But "prideful [sic]"? Nah.

Oh hai. I always wear my rosary when I go swimming.
(Jersey Shore's Pauly D.)

Anyhow, all this talk of Jersey Shore fashion statements made me recall how, a few months ago, in an unprecedented case of Douchebag v. Douchebag, legal representatives for clothing manufacturer Abercrombie and Fitch contacted The Situation with a request that he please stop embarrassing the company by wearing its apparel. With that in mind, I began pondering that eternal question, What would Jesus do?

I'm thinking it's only a matter of time before the Sitch gets a Cease and Desist letter from Jesus’ attorney. Because Lord knows this shit just ain’t right.

Yes We're Going to a Chicken Party

2011-10-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

Proving once again my theory that Chinese cuisine was created with Jews in mind, Beijing entrepreneurs made it way too easy for yours truly recently when they opened—wait for it...Obama Fried Chicken!

How did those wacky Chinese folks know I was long overdue for another post about CHICKEN?

Okay, so maybe it's not all about me. The Daily Mail:

The Obama Fried Chicken could be a response to the U.S. filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization about Chinese tariffs on American chicken exports.

According to the New York Times, the tariffs affect an industry that employs about 300,000 people and range from 50 to 100 per cent, which means some Chinese importers paid as much as twice the price for American chicken.

Wait, Obama Fried Chicken is a response to a chicken tax controversy? What is this, some sort of Bizarro World Boston Tea Party? A Chicken Party, if you will?

Now that the proverbial chicken has hit the fan (what?), will the Colonel issue a Chicken Fatwa ("Schmaltzwa"?) on his clearly ripped-off likeness? Or will he take it as a compliment that the Chinese have ditched his "Finger-Lickin' Good!" catch-phrase, in favor of the slogan, "We're So Cool, Aren't We?" (printed in Chinese characters on the awning depicted in the image above)? Will the Obama administration sue for defamation of character? Will Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry start hanging drumsticks from their hats? And what about the coleslaw? WHAT ABOUT THE MOTHERFUCKING COLESLAW?!

So many questions. And they all taste like chicken.

Klan of the Cupcake

2011-10-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

When I first learned of Tuesday's “racist bake sale” hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans at the University of California, Berkeley, two things came to mind:

1) How can a cupcake be racist?

2) Mm…cupcakes.

Well, turns out the event--the "Increase Diversity Bake Sale"--was organized in an effort to protest SB 185, a bill introduced by Senator Ed Hernandez . The bill, if signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, would “bring admissions practices in California’s higher education system in line with U.S. Supreme Court precedent that allows public universities and colleges to consider race in their outreach and retention programs”.

If Brown signs SB 185, section 66205 of the California Education Code will be amended to include as follows:

Pursuant to subdivision (b), the University of California may, and the California State University may, consider race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, geographic origin, and household income, along with other relevant factors, in undergraduate and graduate admissions, so long as no preference is given. This consideration may take place if and when the university, campus, college, school, or program is attempting to obtain educational benefit through the recruitment of a multifactored, diverse student body. It is the intent of the Legislature that this provision be implemented to the maximum extent permitted by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) 539 U.S. 306, in which the court state that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution does not prohibit a university's "narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body," and in conformity with Section 31 of Article I of the California Constitution.

And it wasn’t the cupcakes that were racist, but rather the pricing of the treats that was deemed discriminatory by critics:

WHITE: $2.00

Image via News One.

ASIAN: $1.50
LATINO: $1.00
BLACK: $0.75
NATIVE AMERICAN: $0.25
WOMEN: $0.25 off above prices

Seem like an oversimplification of a complicated issue? Well, give the BCP a break. Sometimes the only language they understand (and I use the term "understand" loosely) is that of dollars and cents. Which makes it all the more confounding that when political science Professor Wendy Brown tried to buy all of the cupcakes at the beginning of the sale, her business was refused. Brown told the Daily Californian:

“I thought the Republicans were free enterprise, but they won’t let me buy all the cupcakes.”

But mostly I’m just wondering, since the bake sale was in protest of the supposed preferential treatment proposed in SB 185 (um, are they unable to read the words “so long as no preference is given”?), where are the cupcake prices that take into account national origin, geographic origin, and household income? Where are the prices for Israeli students? French students? Students from the East coast? Students from Alaska (provided they are not Palins)? Students--of all colors--who have grown up in poverty? Indeed, it seems the only racial preference being given is by the BCR, in their own choice to recognize race as the only factor in this issue.

Finally, as a UC Berkeley Alum, I’d just like to add that one of the things that drew me to Cal as a transfer student was its diverse campus (keep in mind that I was admitted just prior to the passing of California Proposition 209). Coming from a smaller private school on the East coast, I was eager to attend a university hosting a great variety of individuals in its student body, where classroom discussion would draw from a broad range of experience in regard to all aspects of life.

That said, I probably learned more about the world itself when I graduated from the university and attended beauty school.

My dream is that, one day, the Berkeley College Republicans will be forced to spend 1600 hours performing $15 Jheri curls and $5 finger-waves on elderly Black women as part of their lower-division breadth requirements. No cupcakes allowed.

Reality Television, Fox News, and Other Oxymorons

2011-09-11T14:25:00.000-07:00

Why am I posting a picture of Snooki wrapped in the American flag on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedies?

Am I just another baiting blogger who uses inflammatory images to rile her readers? Or has my Jersey Shore addiction finally sent me off the deep end to where I can’t see how some might find this choice offensive?

No, and no.

I came across this picture yesterday, after watching a few hours of the endless 9/11 programming broadcast on every cable news network for the past several days. I came across it after watching, through tears that were not at all cathartic, those towers fall, over and over and over again, every time I flipped the channel.

I came across this picture after watching hours of hype about possibly imminent terror threats, hype that all but eclipsed any discussion or analysis of President Obama’s congressional address Thursday. Once again, a reminder that when it comes to American life in the media, nebulous fear and hysteria almost always trump reality and productivity.

I came across this picture after watching Mike Huckabee’s Fox News program yesterday, where he launched his special 9/11 episode with a discussion of intolerance, a discussion in which he boldly compared the 9/11 hijackers with those Americans who disagree with his party’s views on life (that it begins at conception) and marriage (that it should be between a man and a woman). He paralleled the Democrats’ intolerance to that of Al Qaeda, and used the recently released video game, “Tea Party Zombies Must Die” (in which right-wing figures including Huckabee himself are targeted and shot) to characterize the motives of all those opposed to “family values”, as evidence that those on the left are as dangerously violent in their intolerance as those who committed the heinous attacks on America ten years ago today.

I found this picture after watching ads that urged me to pick up the phone and order my YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE commemorative 9/11 "Justice Coin". I found this picture after learning that, had I acted faster, I could have gotten the protective plastic case included in my order, all for the low, low cost of $19.99.

I came across this picture after watching--in between discussions of The Situation’s GTLing and Snooki’s desire to lick her boyfriend's butt--gushy, MTV-produced PSAs that included Jersey Shore star Pauly D.’s sentimental musings on his memories from the day our nation fell under attack.

I came across this picture while wondering, when do remembrance, tribute, and ceremony cross the line into sensationalism, opportunism, and greed? When does “news coverage” become nothing more than cheap reality television all wrapped up in an American flag?

RIP:
Victims

Two Shots, a Bitter Twist, and a Splash: The Legacy of Charles Stuart

2011-09-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

Before there was Scott Peterson, there was Charles Stuart.

Charles and Carol DiMaiti Stuart. Photo via The Boston Herald.

If you lived in Boston in 1989, you recall how Carol DiMaiti Stuart's murder preoccupied the community and fanned flames of racial disharmony throughout the city.

I remember mornings at my house, listening to the scratchy AM-frequency reports on our clock radio, WEEI’s newscast interspersed with the spritzing of my mother’s Niagra spray starch as she ironed her blue chambray shirt. The case played out like the 80s soap operas my parents would never let me watch, with what seemed to be a new plot twist unfolding with each morning’s bowl of Rice Krispies.

It all began on October 23, 1989, when Charles Stuart and his very pregnant wife, Carol DiMaiti Stuart, were on their way home from a birthing class. That’s when emergency dispatchers received a call from Charles Stuart stating that he and his wife had been shot by a Black man wearing sweats, who had also robbed them of their valuables.

Despite the fact that one-third of women murdered in the US are killed by their husbands, and despite the fact that Stuart had very recently taken out a hefty life insurance policy on his wife, police never investigated him as a potential suspect in the homicide. From Time:

Instead of suspicion, Stuart was showered was showered with sympathy. The media apotheosized the couple as starry-eyed lovers out of Camelot cut down by an urban savage. Some politicians attended Carol's funeral; others called for the death penalty. Mayor Raymond Flynn ordered all available detectives to work on the case. Hundreds of men in Mission Hill whose only connection to the case was that they were young and black were stopped and frisked.

The massive manhunt in all the wrong places tied up police for weeks. No one had time to look for cracks in the smooth façade of the husband who tended his rhododendrons, jogged with his wife and shoveled snow off an elderly neighbor's steps. Few of the leads were followed that might have revealed a psychopath who had taken out large amounts of life insurance on his wife, possibly to finance the opening of a restaurant, a pathetic aspiration that shattered two families and a city's racial peace.

Eventually, police arrested William Bennett, a 39 year-old Black man with a past criminal record that included shooting a police officer. Police claimed that Bennett’s nephew said Bennett had boasted to him about committing the robbery and murder (although the nephew later recanted that statement, saying police pressured him into making it). Also from Time:

According to the police, Bennett bragged to his 15-year-old nephew that he had robbed the Stuarts and taken their jewelry. In the warrant the police obtained to search Bennett's home, they underlined the recollection that Bennett said he told Stuart, "Don't look in the rearview mirror." Those words were almost identical to the ones that Stuart, in a brief interview with the police right after the shooting, claimed the killer used. Already in custody on a charge of robbing a Brookline video store, Bennett was placed in a lineup as soon as Stuart was well enough to come to the station. Stuart picked out Bennett as a man who resembled the killer. With that, hope vanished that the police might look for flaws in Stuart's story.

And with another bowl of Rice Krispies, the story was coming together in a package neater than Mayor Ray Flynn's glass of Maker's Mark "down the bar" at JJ Foley's.

What nobody counted on disrupting that packaging—least of all Charles Stuart and the BPD—was the conscience of a man named Matthew Stuart, brother of Charles Stuart.

In the days surrounding the December holidays, a near-suicidal Matthew Stuart, overwrought with guilt and anxiety, confided in his family that he had aided his brother in the murder of Carol DiMaiti. On January 4, 1990, Matthew Stuart went to the police, where he confessed. He told authorities that Charles had planned to kill his wife so that he could cash out on the life insurance policy he had taken out on her, as well as to escape his impending fatherhood, with which he had grown greatly apprehensive. According to Matthew Stewart, his brother not only shot his wife, but also inflicted a gunshot wound to his own abdomen to make the scenario of a robbery more believable. On the evening of the murder, as Charles phoned for help, Matthew took the gun and the couple’s valuables and drove them to Revere, where he dumped them off the Pines River Bridge.

Matthew Stuart, at his brother Charles'
funeral in 1990. Image via AP.

Charles Stuart, aware that his brother was about to make this confession, drove to the nearby Tobin Bridge that same day. Within hours of Matthew’s appearance at the police station, Charles Stuart had jumped to his death, into the icy waters of the Mystic River.

And with that, the mystery was solved, leaving in its wake outrage from Boston’s Black community (as local journalists like the ethically challenged Mike Barnicle scrambled to defend the actions of the police), heightened racial tensions, distrust of law enforcement and, of course, Matthew Stuart. Oh, and in true Masshole-ian form, some predictably offensive but admittedly funny Charles Stuart jokes (thanks for reminding me of them, Franklin Davis):

Q: What's the difference between Charles Stuart and Larry Bird?
A: Larry jumps before he shoots.

Q: How do you make the new "Charles Stuart" drink?
A: Two shots, a bitter twist and a splash.

Q: What's the first thing Charles Stuart said when they pulled him out of
the Mystic River?
A: A big black guy in a running suit pushed me!

Matthew Stewart plead guilty to conspiracy, insurance fraud, and possession of a firearm. He was released from prison in 1995, but soon after was arrested on drug charges, which were later dropped.

This past Saturday, he was found in his room at a Cambridge homeless shelter, dead from an apparent intravenous drug overdose.

According to those who knew Matthew Stuart well, he found solace in the fact that few around him did. Indeed, the conscience he sought to clear with his confession two decades prior haunted him, disabled him even, for the rest of his life. From the Boston Globe:

Yesterday in an e-mail, a friend described Matthew as a man tormented over the killing, which aggravated racial tensions in the city and led police to initially focus on William Bennett, a black man who had a criminal record at the time of the investigation.

“In my opinion the ‘demons’ of that October night in ’89 never stopped torturing him,’’ said the friend, Steven Gerard.

Today, Michael Stuart, brother to Charles and Matthew, told the Boston Herald that "he fought for 22 years to save his tormented kid brother from the demons of his role in the murder of their pregnant sister-in-law". He says that after Carol's murder and Charles' suicide, "his troubled brother 'never could shake' his battle with the bottle. 'He went through his trials with alcohol. We spent years trying to create opportunities for him. It always seemed like one step forward, two steps back.'”

I wonder, 22 years ago, could Charles Stuart have predicted the legacy his actions would leave on both the city and the families involved? Had he successfully carried out his diabolical plan, would the city’s race relations ignited in the way in which they did, and on as many different levels? Would the suspiciously shoddy investigation by the Boston Police Department ever have been scrutinized by the community, or caused such overwhelming distrust of law enforcement? And what would have become of the tortured Matthew, had he kept the secret and not sought redemption?

Had the terrible secret been kept, would it have changed anything? Or would the only difference be that Charles Stuart "walked" instead of jumped?

What are the broader implications of one man’s evil? Or, perhaps more importantly, of another man’s conscience?

RIP:
Carol DiMaiti Stuart
Charles Stuart
Matthew Stuart

Knock-Knock-Knocking on Heathen's Door

2011-09-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to the Jehovah Witnesses who came to my door today and, honoring my request that they please not leave their literature, instead deposited a ketchup-and-mustard-smeared napkin and a half-eaten bag of Fritos on my front porch.

Mmm...babaganoush.

Image via Apple Pie Patis Pate

Or perhaps it was The Almighty himself who left those items. Was this was an effort on His part to remind me that a more godly woman would have accepted that copy of The Watchtower and simply said thank you, rather than refusing it and asking that the ~~salesmen~~ missionaries kindly take me off their People-to-Disturb-in-the-Privacy-of-Their-Own-Home list? And maybe if I hadn’t been so sucky as a human, God would have left me a full bag of lightly salted Stacy’s Pita Chips and a half-pint of babaganoush, rather than someone else’s wiener refuse and a picked-over bag of the only variety of chips (Fritos smell like moist dog paws) I don't want to employ as the central player in a late-night bulimic episode.

Anyway, when I first moved into the house where I currently reside, it seemed the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons were at my door every week, despite my repeated requests that they stop ringing my bell to talk to me about religion. Eventually, I broke down and posted a NO SOLICITORS sign on my door. Alas, the only thing that prompted was this exchange:

MORMON #1: Good morning, ma’am. We’d like to take a moment to talk with you about a subject that concerns us all.

TSADA: Um, didn’t you see my sign?

MORMON #1: Yes. It says, "No Solicitors".

TSADA: Correct. So then why did you ring my bell?

MORMON #2: Because we’re not soliciting.

TSADA: Uh, yes you are.

MORMON #2: No, we’re not.

TSADA: Yes, you are.

MORMON #1: No, we’re not. We’re sharing a message.

TSADA: Wow. Nicely played. Anyway, even if that is all you’re doing, you’re still soliciting.

MORMON #1: No. Solicitors sell things. We’re not selling anything.

TSADA: You can solicit without selling.

MORMON #1: No, you cannot.

TSADA: Yes, you can.

MORMON #1: No.

TSADA: Yes, you absolutely can. Right now, you’re soliciting my attention. Soliciting my attention by ringing my doorbell while I was trying to sleep.

MORMON #1: That’s a matter of semantics, ma’am. We’re not here to dissect semantics.

TSADA: Right. I forgot. You’re here to “share a message”.

MORMON #2: We’re missionaries. That’s what we do.

TSADA: I suppose when I want to dissect semantics, I should probably come to your house and wake you up. Or should I say, "solicit your attention"? *wink*

MORMON #2: Uh…

TSADA: Because I’m an asshole. That’s what we do.

*pregnant pause*

MORMON #1: Anyway, as I was saying, we’d like to talk to you about a subject that concerns us all--

TSADA: Perhaps I’ve not been clear. I’m not interested in your message. I’ve already hung a sign that requests that solicitors do not ring my bell.

MORMON #2: We’re not solic—

TSADA: YeahyeahyeahyeahIknow. Okay, so listen, if I don’t want you to ring my bell again, what do I need to put on that sign so that you know it pertains to you?

MORMON #1: In that case, I would probably write, “No Solicitors or Religious Peoples”.

TSADA: But I don’t have a problem with religious peoples. Some of my best friends are religious peoples! Besides, a sign like that would make me look like an intolerant asshole.

MORMON #1 and MORMON #2: *loud silence*

Alas, two weeks later the Mormons were back at my door—with different faces, of course, but wearing the same semi-opaque, short-sleeved, permanent-press Haggars. I suppose it’s my own fault for not adding the “or Religious Peoples” to my sign.

They continued to visit me for a few more weeks, until one morning after my beloved hubby G had worked an exhausting night shift. G, who grew up Ethiopian Christian Orthodox, is no stranger to religious peoples himself. However, having lived in Oakland for the past twenty or so years, he’s also no stranger to the term “muthafuckah”, a word, amongst other choice expletives, which he employed generously that morning. And it seems that Mormons--at least those proselytizing in the greater Oakland area--grasp far better the implications of the word "muthafuckah" than that of the word “solicitor”, because they’ve not darkened my doorstep since.

The Jehovah Witnesses, on the other hand, still pay me a visit every now and again. Perhaps they need a healthy dose of G's muthfuckah-ing as well. Either that, or G and I need to try what my newest hero, Australian filmmaker John Safran, does here:

*slams door*

A Fresh, New, Not-So-Fresh Feeling

2011-08-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

If you are a woman who came of age any time after 1970, chances are you have read the Judy Blume classic, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Actually, if you’re a man, chances are you too read the book as a voyeuristic journey into the life of a pubescent teenage girl, just as we girls pored through the accounts of spontaneous erections and nocturnal emissions of AYTGIMM’s male counterpart, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t.

Of course, in between adolescent chants of We must, we must, we must increase our bust!, the pages of AYTGIMM were filled with accounts of first menstrual periods, and the awkward brand loyalty of teenagers in regard to feminine hygiene. I’m speaking, of course, about the reluctance of the teenage protagonists to use the fictional Private Lady sanitary napkins endorsed by their mothers and sex education instructors, as the girls instead showed preference to the more youthful branding of Private Lady's competitor, Teenage Softies.

I remember many an adolescent moment, perched upon a toilet sans reading material, studying my own mother’s box of Tampax Super Plus (um giant tampons = SCARY). Tampax was a name which was, at that time, synonymous with “tampon”. It dominated the market, trailed by the newer, plastic-applicatored Playtex, and the completely terrifying, applicatorless OB, which my mother insisted was at the center of a Toxic Shock Syndrome scare in its earliest days. I do not know about the validity of her concerns, as I am unable find information about this "scare" on the web, but I do remember one time we got a sample of OB in the mail. My mother threw them in the trash.

ME: Why are you throwing away the tampons?

MOM: They’re OB. The could kill you.

ME: They’re cotton. And they’re free.

MOM: Fine use them. You’ll get toxic shock syndrome and DIE.

ME: I think that’s only if you leave it in for a week or something. Ugh. Gross?

MOM: THEY WILL KILL YOU. IS IT WORTH IT FOR A FREE TAMPON?

ME: Um, no?

MOM: Don’t worry. We still have plenty of Tampax.

And of course, last but not least, there was Kotex.

Back in my early-bleeding days, Kotex existed as the forerunner of the old-lady products. If you had a box of Kotex in your shopping cart, you likely also had a bottle of Geritol and a Fleet Enema. Maybe some Efferdent as well. I don’t think I ever met a woman who used Kotex tampons…well, until recently.

Kotex gets a makeover.

In my aformentioned copious hours of reality TV watching, I’ve noticed—now that Comcast has sort-of fixed my service—that everything old is new again, vaginally speaking, that is. It appears that Kotex is the Teenage Softies of the new generation, having undergone a makeover of Heidi Montag proportions. The formerly dull, unhip packaging previously displayed near the bottom of the shelf of feminine hygiene products, has been moved up to the center shelf, its box lacquered out in a sleek black finish. Kotex is hawking its tampons endlessly on MTV (um, new season of Teen Mom!), in ads mocking the cheesy, out-of-touch, woman-running-on-the-beach feminine hygiene ads of my own AYTGIMM years.

But it wasn’t until recently, when I found myself perusing the shelves at Walgreens, feeling particularly frugal, that I found myself with a box of the newfangled Kotex (on sale for nearly half-off) in my hand, surveying its I'm Too Sexy For Your Twat packaging. How bad could they be?

(I ignored the voice of my mother that was screaming TOXIC SHOCK! TOXIC SHOCK! repeatedly in my head.)

I headed to the counter with the Kotex.

When I got home, I opened the box. To my delight, I found each of the 36 tampons wrapped like Starbust candy in candy-coated multicolors. YUM! Within which each sherbety delicious wrapper rested the regal cotton/rayon mouse, encapsulated in an ingenious micro-mini applicator. Fabulous!

I have to admit, I half-expected my vagina to reject this new novelty tampon, to cough it up like an old Jewish man who’s just been told his beef hotdog has pork casing. It did not. And consequently, I felt younger than I had in years.

But back to the great vagina revolution. To me, the most fascinating rebirth of vagina products has to be the newly-launched Summer’s Eve campaign, AKA, Hail to the V! Indeed, the country’s leading douche brand has taken the vagina by the horns (yikes!), attempting to tackle what has become a dwindling market.

According to a recent report by All Business, douche sales have been taking a tumble over the past few years, a far cry from the 1920s and 30s, when women rushed out in scores to purchase Lysol (yes, Lysol) to sanitize their lady bits. Products like Summer's Eve and Massengill now rely on a small niche market, found to be comprised of mainly Black and Hispanic women.

The causes of the market’s decline are not entirely clear, but it is likely that, as more women become educated about the fact that douching is not only unnecessary but can actually be dangerous as well, the companies that market these products have had to rethink their marketing strategy.

Enter: Hail to the V!

These new advertisements, said to target a largely non-white audience, directly attack the argument that opponents of douching have been using for years: that the feminine hygiene industry has set out to denigrate and control women by making them believe that their vaginas are dirty, smelly, and, in general, in perpetual need of a good cleansing. Which is not to say that these new ads don’t perpetuate the same message, because they do. It’s just that now they do so in the name of feminism. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself (keeping in mind that the following commercial was released shortly after the company pulled this series of Summer's Eve ads, having received complaints that they were racially offensive).

Oh, the irony. As my wise friend Janice so eloquently put it, "Those commercials make me feel both empowered as a woman and also worried about how my vagina smells at the same time."

But again, the real irony lies in the fact that a douched vagina is not necessarily a clean vagina. As a matter of fact, the CDC has found that women who douche can actually putting themselves at higher risk for STDs/STIs. According the CDC website, “research has shown that douching changes the vaginal flora (organisms that live in the vagina) in harmful ways, and can force bacteria into the upper reproductive organs from the vagina.”

Dr. Carla Stokes

Sound like a cuntflict of interest? Wait, there’s more. In addition to the new “female empowerment” focus of its new ads, Summer’s Eve also recently announced a partnership with “women's empowerment expert”, Dr. Carla Stokes, as well as with the girls advocacy nonprofit, i am that girl. Summer's Eve currently boasts on its website:

"We're thrilled to be working with these incredible women and their organizations and cannot wait to align our efforts to come out with one strong, powerful message," said Angela Bryant, director U.S. marketing, feminine care for Summer's Eve. "Together with Dr. Stokes and i am that girl, we are ready to change the conversation women are having, or not having, about their bodies and start breaking down the barriers related to feminine health and education."

Carla Stokes, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an educator, researcher, social entrepreneur, and speaker as well as the chief empowerment officer of Dr. Carla LLC™, a health promotion, coaching, personal development, and self-empowerment company for women, youth, parents, and girl advocates. She is passionate about addressing health concerns among women and youth, and founded Helping Our Teen Girls In Real Life Situations, Inc. (HOTGIRLS)®, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health and lives of underserved young women and girls through leadership development, peer health education, youth activism, and media education.

It's hard to argue with a company so seemingly devoted to empowering women and girls, but it's also hard to argue with the fact that even the U.S. government has produced a douching fact sheet warning women of the risks associated with douching. Again, as the All Business report mentions, the gradual recent upswing in douche sales can mainly be credited to popularity and growth in a select, specific market, specifically Black and Hispanic women residing in poorer communities. Given the fact that that those demographics also represent those women with the highest per-capita rates of new AIDS infections, and given the medical link between douching and the facilitation of STD transmissions, I have to wonder...

who exactly is Summer's Eve seeking to "empower"? And how?

An Open Letter to Comcast

2011-08-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Comcast,

I realize there are some people who are happy to pay for a long, hard assfucking.

I, personally, am not one of them.

Well, that is, unless you count the anal bleeding that took place this past year on both Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of Orange County (no, I'm not kidding--click the links). That's right, I’m completely obsessed with these kinds of reality shows, and were it not for them, I might actually be one of those assholes who never fails to find a way to slip into casual conversation the sentence, "Oh, I don’t even own a TV". You know who I'm talking about. That asshole.

And so, like any other proverbial dopefiend unto her pusher, I pay you to assfuck me on a monthly basis and, as a courtesy, you provide me with a product that sucks ass on a daily basis. And you seem to know I like reality television, because the channels on my television where your service sucks ass most just happen to be Bravo, MTV, VH1--the magical reality TV trifecta. (Interestingly, I never have any issues with reception on The Fox News Channel...hmm....*cue villain music*) And what’s really curious is that the interruptions in service aren’t constant, but rather seem to ebb and flow with the tides of programming and, more specifically, according to my likes and dislikes. For example, I’ll be getting fantastic reception until, say, this past weekend’s Jersey Shore marathon, and then, BOOM. Scramble-city for three days straight until the 4AM ExtenZe ad on Tuesday night. That comes in crystal clear.

Which is why I’m sitting here at 3:55 PM, like Carrie on prom night, waiting for you to show up for a 2-4 PM appointment window, knowing that the chance you will show up is unlikely, but more importantly,if you really do show up, the chance you’ll actually fix the problem is even less likely. And come this Thursday evening's season premiere of Jersey Shore in Italy, when I’m straining to make out Snooki’s cuca on a heavily pixilated monitor, YOU’RE ALL GOING TO LAUGH AT ME. Because you bitches have my money, and all I have is a reality television addiction.

(Which reminds me, OMG can you believe Amy Fisher is on Celebrity Rehab this season?! Mmmm...Dr. Drew...le sigh.)

Cordially,

Tsada Kay