"Line"

I've been standing askance of Twilight since I discovered what it even was in the first place. I was content for awhile not to have any dog (or wolf) in that fight, while being basically sympathetic to the common-sense feminist complaints against Meyer's Teenage Chastity Porn with a Mormon Agenda™.

Its underlying themes of sex without touching, of abject attachment, of co-dependence, of deep, black snake moan need at all times for a superhuman man to protect you, the obsession with Edward, the constant description of....

...well, I've read detailed take-downs from people who've read the book so I didn't have to, and this is a damned good one: (part 1) (part 2)

For a surprise, read through this interview and you'll discover that Kristen Stewart is thoughtful enough to see what's wrong with Edward and Bella's relationship:

You have to question their (Bella and Edward's) motivations - to watch two people so unhealthily devoted to each other.

'The weirdest f**king themes run through this story - like dominance and masochism.'

This thoughtfulness doesn't preclude her staying on for the set-for-life status, and frankly, who could blame her?

So, other people, I should say mostly women, have fought this fight, and I've stayed out of it. Until now. Because this shit just gets creepier and creepier, and I can't ignore it anymore. I would say that most of the women I sell the books to at my bookstore are thirty-five or older. And this used to be all about Edward, but it's not now.

Like I just said, I work at a bookstore. I work at a corporate bookstore. I had never heard of Jon and Kate and the cabbages until I started working in a spot near the tabloids. I see all the trash. Less than five feet from where I work we have the Taylor Lautner bookmarks. We can barely keep them in the store.

Ladies, here's Lautner's IMDB page.

Look closely. Need help? Allow me:

11 February 1992

Guess what that means!

It's not about Edward anymore. It's all about Jacob.

And you are all pedophiles.


But your condition gave me the opportunity to laugh at this, so thanks!

Maddow's Stunned Silence

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Well. You may say, "why not just ignore this, it's just like watching a train-wreck and there's nothing you can do about it, anyway".

And I say to you, this is really happening right now. And believe me, a great number of people take this rhetoric seriously. Many others on their side do not. But you should be apprised.

(and with people like this in the spotlight, egging their kind on, we really need to be vigilant)

Lock-Step

People buying Palin voucher last night:

Customer 1: She's the only one who made any damned sense during that whole election. Not like that jack-ass who's in there now

Customer 2: AMEN

Customer 1: They act like being able to skin a moose and fire-

Customer 2: -fire a gun

Customer 1: -a gun, yes, that disqualifies her from being president!

(she wasn't running for president. You know that, right? I mean, yes, obviously she could've been president, in her position, god help us all, but, remember John McCain? War Hero? Accomplished Senator? No?)

Customer 1: If I keep hearing that the economy's improving I'm gonna puke.

So, is this a majority of southerners and other hard-line conservatives? This is what Karl Rove has programmed them to be? People who hear not policy, or words, just code? She makes sense? In what hypothetical linguistic way?

I know, I know, I shouldn't be surprised. Still, cheering for high unemployment and rooting for economic catastrophe because it would hurt Obama seems to be their past time, never mind who was in charge when we were attacked, or who was in charge when the economy tanked. And do they, or Sarah Palin have our best interest in mind? Do I really have to ask any of this?

And no, for the record, since you're boiling down the opposition to your addled Alaskan horror-show to some perceived elitist wash, against hunters, it is not because she can fire a gun and skin a moose. That doesn't automatically disqualify a candidate. How it counts as a credential, however, for the most difficult job on the planet, you have all yet to bother to explain.

Hate to vent about it, but I have to endure this throughout the holiday season now that this farce of a book is out on the shelves. And I won't get mad, 'cause y'all lost. Hope you keep losing, but could you find better ways to cope if and when you do?

Pharmacology and Its Benefactors

Very pretty tech house. Not my style, usually, but I dig VonStroke.

His and Justin Martin's "Beat That Bird" was a large track this year. Doesn't mean I'm strayin' from breaks, even as the best sounds have strayed, often to "electro-house", which, at its best, I will just call breaks, because I can.

Don't Care

Via this post at Sully's, via an email to The National Review:

I'm 26 years old and my generation holds very strong views on this topic... in my experience, mostly in support of same-sex marriage. Personally, I'm on the fence about it. But for most people my age, that is not good enough. The peer pressure to support gay marriage is enormous. Which is precisely why I refuse to give my (socially mandatory in many circles) full-throated support to it. When friends tell me it's a civil right and denying gays their "universal right to marriage" is the same as forbidding whites and blacks to marry, it makes my skin crawl . . . but I don't know how to argue against these points. I just know deep down there's something fishy about the arguments.

Your "skin crawls" because such statements implicate you personally. You don't know "how to argue against these points", because you have no argument, precisely because there is no morally righteous argument to be made against equal rights, save the one you dredge up from fraudulent, Judeo-Christian sophistry. As if Jesus said anything about homosexuals, but never mind.

Sullivan takes the Christian approach in arguing for our rights. I prefer not to. I simply don't care if any of you are ready or not. I'm especially less impressed by the ethical "sophistication" that requires you to wait and see if you're an "individual" before you do the right thing. You will never be an individual in all things, even as many things are not so black and white.

But, all those who possess rights I do not, tread carefully with me about how equitable I should be with my attitude.