It was, of course, scintillating, insightful and funny, and now that I have a spare hour to write it, I feel anything but.  So I’ll save that for this weekend when theoretically I’ll be less exhausted and can do it better justice.

Meanwhile, celebrate Hump Day with a gander at the 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads of All Time.  Personally I don’t agree with Retro Comedy’s ranking; I think this one should be closer to number 1.

I don’t even get this ad.  How does a guy with a bad tan yelling at an indifferent, dare I say uppity, woman translate into a burning desire to buy postage meters?

Technorati Tags: creepy vintage ads

Now all we have to do is surf the net to see events happen practically in real time.

Gone appear to be the days when everything we saw could very well be manipulated by someone (powerful politicians, greedy network execs, etc) with a vested interest. Still happens, no doubt, but when anyone can hold a video camera and broadcast the action to the world within minutes, chances are good that what you see is what went down.

This is great for debunking popular myths, such as the one about women (especially middle eastern women) being the weaker, more passive sex.

In case you’re wondering what prompted these ruminations, it’s this excellent article by Mariam Aryai Rivera about how amateur coverage of the election protests in Iran are proving Iranian women are hardly the docile creatures we think they are.

But now, with the help of modern-day technology and amateur video footage, you can catch them drop kicking the cops and the Revolutionary Guard, and in a center-stage tragedy, taking a bullet to the heart. The women of Iran are in the house, and they’re in the front row.

This front-row female participation in social change has been way more typical than is commonly understood, mainly because men have written most of the history books.  Women’s contribution has been trivialized and ignored, like their vastly important role in shaping human evolution (hint:  it ain’t just gathering nuts).

But whatever - the internet to the rescue. It’s helping us all see the truth, one Youtube video at a time.

I don’t call this a revolution. Nor do I call this C.I.A.-backed interference. I call this a civil-rights movement, and there is no civil-rights movement in the history of humankind that excludes the power of women. Women in Iran are giving birth to something historic, and it’s not just with their wombs.

Word.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Iran election fraud

Alas, so many feeds, so little time. I’ve had to actually work at work (geez) and we’ve already been over how much I loathe to spend my non-writing off-time sitting at a computer.  Thus my Google Reader has become the cloggy, smoggy information highway to Hell.

Luckily Hell is why god made Sunday mornings.

Out of the buttloads of news articles I skimmed, here’s a list of those that made me go hmmm, awww, LOL, or WTF? Enjoy.

• Obama Watch:  Accusations that Obama supports banning gay marriage disturbed me greatly…until I searched the net for more info and couldn’t find any. Virtually every article about this cited this one article. If what it says is true, how come no one is talking about it? Is it true and its a big cover-up? Is it a lie and I’ve been punkd? Or am I just the worst Googler evar?
• Confusing:  One article says the fashion options for plus-sized women are dwindling, the other says they’re expanding (yuk yuk). Well, which is it? Are we embracing fatness, or the shaming of it? Other than these articles, can’t find evidence that we are doing either more than usual. All I know is that if I could design/sew, I’d specialize in plus-size fashion. If the average woman is a size 16 (which is considered plus size), that translates to a big fat bank account. I can’t believe more people haven’t figured that out.
• Speaking of fat: Bacardi has taken the “fat, ugly girlfriend” ads down, but the damage to their rep has already been done. Morons. I don’t even know any men who would think this was funny.
• Depressing:  Female art directors appear to discriminate against female playwrites more than male art directors do (at least in this one study). I don’t know why I’m still surprised to find that women are products of their environment, too.
• Gay:  Credo has a sweet new graphic which they’ve conveniently made into a bumpersticker for me. I’ve needed something new with which to enrage right-wing commuters since we got rid of the Saturn and my beloved “Republicans for Voldemort” decal…
• Dumbest person EVAR: Look, I have a tattoo and I know that there is no freaking way anyone could fall asleep while a needle is being pressed into their skin over and over and over. On their face. This chick must be either incredibly dumb to think anyone would buy that story for long, or really desperate for her 15 seconds of internet fame.
• Traffic: Selling humans, especially women, is big business all over the world, and if you want to expose the thugs, you risk a lot. Like 12 years of your life. How many of us would? There’s a lot of cowardly journalists in the world, but some heroes, too.
• Hot flash: I’m so happy someone’s finally asked whether men in the throes of mid-life should hold office. After all, as we know from the various recent melt-downs of high-profile politicians, some men simply can’t keep their shit together after age 40.  Is that statement offensive to men? Good. Maybe they’ll shut up already about women, politics and menopause.
• And in men-talking-about-abortion-as-if-they-can-have-one department… a video about bribing women into giving up their rights, starring two uterus-less people, inluding - guess who? - the Asshat from Slate.
• This is getting weird:  A state government paying women to do what others want them to do with their twats? Sounds a lot like a certain illegal activity.
• It’s not just for corporations any more: My parents are getting up there in years. It’s only a matter of time before I have to buy them a one-way ticket to elder care. I hope they like curry.
• lolfeminism: Who says we don’t have a sense of humor?

Oh yeah:

• RIP: Michael and Farrah. No links for this one because you seen one celeb eulogy, you seen ‘em all. But it’s a sad time for their families and friends. And fans, of which I was one.

Image by Barry King/Getty Images, from eonline.

Je ne le pense pas.

I do not see anything in their statement about supporting women. At best, it is just ego, a la “What will the neighbors think?”

At worst, its a non-too-subtle attempt to oppress and intimidate a subculture.

Yes, we all know Islam has sects that treat women as inferior to men (kinda like Roman Catholicism, the primary religion in France).  But the burqa is a symptom, not a cause. That’s what makes this so transparent.

If the French were really worried about upholding their “republican principles,” they’d work on fixing the legendary sexism in their dominant culture.

Technorati Tags: France, sexism, Islam, xenophobia

Little Red Riding Hood, illustration by Jeannie Harbour, uploaded to Flickr by finsbury.

Technorati Tags: William “Asshat” Saletan, Slate Magazine

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Yes Pecan, Ben & Jerry’s

Most of the time when I don’t blog often, it’s because:

1. My ass hurts. I sit at a computer rewriting other people’s crappy stuff for about 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Before work and on the weekends, I sit at a computer and write my own crappy stuff (though some days that means less actual typing than staring at the blank screen, willing it to magically resemble a fiction manuscript).  So when I have “free time,” I often can’t bear to spend it sitting at a computer.

2.  Inspiration is lost in self-induced oversaturation (you do not want to know how many feeds I subscribe to) and/or temporary wipe-the-brain-clean devastation (how many articles about the murder of Dr. Tiller can one read before all thoughts about it become “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH”?).

3.  I’ve lost the will to live. OK, this one hasn’t happened yet. But you never know… my head is not a safe place to go alone.

Anyway, I have several posts written in my head that I hope to get onto the interwebs between now and Sunday. The working title of one of them is “Writing & Exercise: Separated At Birth?”  Another one is about tinnitus, tentatively titled “It’s Always Something.”

Did I warn you or what?¹

Technorati Tags: exercise, writing, tinnitus

1. No, I am not drunk blogging. But that does sound good right now. TGI almost F.