Tuesday, March 31, 2015

People Who Will Never be President - Chapter 7


Chapter 7: Carly Fiorina

http://media.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2006/oct/fiorina/fiorina200-0e5535bb1ed1060ceb13a73c0f4d58898ab99463-s6-c30.jpg



Carly Fiorina says chance of presidential run 'higher than 90 percent'

Odds of success: less than zero.

So you were unable to buy yourself a Senate seat from California and you figured, "what the hell, might as well take a shot at the White House?" Well, hjave fun, but let me just explain why that isn't going to work.

First of all, you have exactly one selling point - your business experience. Which might actually get you some votes in a Republican primary if that experience wasn't running Hewlet-Packard head-first into the ground. Also, the teabagger base thinks they hate "fat-cat businesspeople." I know, I know, they consistently vote for politicians whose policies further enrich these very fat cats and "unburden" them from pesky regulations and laws and rules and what-not, but if you actually listen to these slack-jawed, heavy-lidded colonial cosplayers, they really think they're voting Republican to, in part, stick it to the man!

Also, while we're on the subject of your time at HP, you earned the nickname "Fire 'em All Fiorina" by shipping jobs overseas as fast as you could. That's not going to play well with pretty much any demographic. Especially since you laid American workers off AFTER they had agreed to take pay cuts, then made them train their replacements.

And that, no matter what else may be on your resume', is the distillation of your business experience.
Your political experience consists of having held zero elected offices, throwing away millions of your own dollars in a quixotic bid to unseat Barbara Boxer, and the "Demon Sheep" ad.





But if you still have any doubt, here's the number one reason why you, Carly Fiorina, will never be President:

Bill Kristol thinks you can win.

http://inthesetimes.com/images/29/22/kristol.jpg


Bill Kristol: Email May Defeat Hillary — or So May Carly Fiorina

Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 05:09 PM
!
 But hey, look on the bright side. He's been wrong about everything his entire life, he's bound to get one right one of these days!

Spotted at Target







http://cdn.meme.am/instances/54162255.jpg


http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/52283121.jpg


Wednesday, March 25, 2015

My New Hero

Or "shero" if you prefer. I hate the term "heroine" because it just sounds demeaning or maybe infantilizing, like saying "hero-ette" or something, like a cute little mini-hero?

Anyway, my new hero is Indian activist Sampat Devi Pal.

http://sim02.in.com/b16846412c953cc98673e8b54f48e534_ft_m.jpg


This bad-ass lady is the founder of The Gulabi Gang, a band of Indian women who, well let's just let her tell you.

"Yes, we fight rapists with lathis [sticks]. If we find the culprit, we thrash him black and blue so he dare not attempt to do wrong to any girl or a woman again,"

 http://asalesguyrecruiting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Oh-Hell-Yeah.png 



Devi first discovered the power of the stick in the 1980s when she used it against a neighbour who abused his wife. Devi’s intervention had the desired result and the recalcitrant husband was forced to mend his ways.

And she is far from alone:
Devi’s model of delivering alternative justice inspired a movement that now boasts of a network of 400,000 women - dressed in pink sarees and all wielding a stick - across 11 districts of India’s largest province of Uttar Pradesh.

 


Four Hundred Thousand!
https://thisfelicitouslife.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/hell-yeah-gif.gif 

 

And of course the tragic part of the story is that such an organization is needed. But of course it is.
And not just in India. 
There should be chapters of this organization in every city, town, and village in the world until they are no longer needed.

 
This parade should be replicated on every street in existence.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

People Who Will Never Be President - Chapter 6



Chapter 6 - Donald Trump

http://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/images/productimages/59145/original_CW.jpg?16%2F12%2F2011+3%3A55%3A01+PM
Do we really even have to bother with this one?

Donald Trump is not going to run for President.
Oh, sure, he may form an exploratory committee, he may hire a campaign manager, some staffers, maybe even run some ads. But he'll be out of the race before the first primary. Because he loves talking about how he "would have won easily" had he decided to enter the race and he's not going to actually run so that the three people who still take him seriously can see how ridiculous that claim is.



http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/trumptweet.jpg


And yes, he's shut down "The Apprentice" in order to pursue this pipe dream, but I gotta think that's probably because someone told him that the writing was on the wall, that people were finally sick of this stupid stupid program and he didn't want the embarrassment of being cancelled, so this way he can say that he walked away of his own volition in order to spend more time pretending to run for President.

But even if he did run, who the hell would vote for this guy? His only supposed qualification  is that he's supposed to be this great businessman and how many times has this twit had to declare bankruptcy? Three? Four? I can't keep track.

I don't understand Donald Trump at all. Here's a guy who said to himself  "I'm going to be remembered, undeservedly, as a great businessman, a titan of industry. What kind of bullshit legacy is that? When I'm gone, I want to be remembered as the buffoonish blowhard who threw in his lot with Orly Taitz and Jenny McCarthy and spouted absurdly stupid conspiracy theories at any microphone I could find.

 http://images.thehollywoodgossip.com/iu/t_full/v1386937602/attachment/trump-tweet-insane.png
 http://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-7aeb049d7356940891069a0f2669368e?convert_to_webp=true


 I want to be looked back upon as a man with absolutely no dignity or sense of shame. A man who would boast about what his investigators were supposedly unearthing in Hawaii and then never revealed what that supposedly was because it was obviously nothing and got angry when asked about it. When people think of the name Donald Trump I want them to think of the pathetic clown with the most childish approach to foreign policy since. . . um. . . ever, I guess.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H6KMBe_GuF8/UEEKQT64k0I/AAAAAAAAHVA/zjqbFM-7nXc/s1600/Twitter+++realDonaldTrump++The+dummies+left+Iraq++and+....png

But anyway, whether he runs or not, Donald Trump will never ever ever ever be president.

Headline of the Day




Ted Cruz is Going on Obamacare as Wife Takes Goldman Sachs Leave


With his wife Heidi taking leave to help her husband campaign for president, the Cruzes are leaving the $20,000 per year coverage she enjoyed at Goldman. "We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care and we're in the process of transitioning over to do that," Cruz told the Des Moines Register's Jennifer Jacobs.


http://m.memegen.com/wbgw71.jpg


Monday, March 23, 2015

People Who Will Never Be President - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - "Jeb" Bush

 http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-02-19-AP_jeb_bush_jef_130918_16x9_608.jpg

First of all, look at the guy.

Jeb is Dubya without the glib, shallow pseudo-charisma.
Dubya was like the guy all the douchebag frat boys wanted to party with. Jeb is the guy they tolerated because Dubya asked them to do him a solid.

Second, the guy can't answer a simple question without stepping on his own dick. And then standing there wondering why his dick hurts.

Someone recently asked him about the minimum wage. He said there shouldn't be one. Which is the smart answer if you want the Republican nomination. "fuck those stupid people with jobs" always goes over big in Tea Town. But he couldn't just stop there. He had to keep saying more words until he looked like a moron.

At an event in South Carolina on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was asked whether he thinks the country should raise the minimum wage or whether the wage should be left up to private companies.
“We need to leave it to the private sector,” he responded.
 http://imgsrv.worldstart.com/ct-images/stop-right-there.jpghttps://underthehill.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/stop_stop.jpg

Seriously, if you just stopped right there, you're golden. Just don't say any more words.

Buuuut you're gonna say more words, aren't ya?

“I think state minimum wages are fine.

http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Tom-Hanks-Saying-Really.gif

Really?
You think wages need to be left up to the private sector, but also, state governments can set minimum wages and that's also fine? And you don't see the contradiction there? I guess you have to go through your checklist and tick off "private sector," "ststes' rights," "fuck the working class," and I guess you did accomplish that but, Jeezus do you even listen to yourself?

The federal government shouldn’t be doing this.” He went on, “The federal government doing this will make it harder and harder for the first rung of the ladder to be reached, particularly for young people, particularly for people that have less education.”

Yes, nothing is worse for the young people than making a halfway-decent wage!

Then he just dissolves into the patented Bush family gibberish.

“We’re moving to a world that is sticky in the ends, where it’s harder for people in poverty to move up and where the rich are doing really well and the middle is getting squeezed,” he said. “And any idea that makes, that perpetuates that is one that I would oppose, and I think this minimum wage idea is exactly one of those things.” He added that the people at the bottom “would be likely the ones that would lose their job. That’s how it’s always worked.”


https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9a/72/c0/9a72c06f0cebbf240f417f73af270e57.jpg

Boy does that bring back memories!
When asked about laws that would allow business owners to discriminate against the gays or anyone else they find morally objectionable, but really the gays, he went straight into drivel mode:


“I don’t know about the law, but religious freedom is a serious issue, and it’s increasingly so, and I think people that act on their conscience shouldn’t be discriminated against, for sure,” Bush said. “There should be protections, and so, as it relates to marriage equality — and that may change, the Supreme Court may change that. That automatically then shifts the focus to people of conscience, and, I don’t know, have their faith make — they want to act on their faith, and may not be able to be employed for example.”

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/19/190259/2649954-6188002925-huh.j.jpg

And lastly, when your main qualification for the office is that you are the son of a failed president and the brother of the most spectacular failure in history, it's a pretty good bet that you will never be President.

Bad Ads - Mountain Dew



Look, I understand that you're entering an over-crowded marketplace. The "energy drink" market is pretty saturated already with Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar, Nos, Amp, Full Throttle, etc. etc. etc. . . .  which are all pretty much the exact same thing with different made-up artificial flavors like "Khaos," "M-80" and "Bubbleberry." (Seriously, these are all actual names of energy drink flavors)

So it's tough to stand out. You have to come up with some kind of gimmick to set yourself apart from all the many many many other choices out there, and being "the one that tastes good" was going to take way too much effort, but this?




Your selling point here is, what? Your beverage gives you seizures? Then hallucinations? Boring, annoying, corny hallucinations? Wow, good luck with that!

Friday, March 20, 2015

Flashback Friday - The Wedding Present

I kind of lost track of The Wedding Present after their first couple albums which were so brilliant came out in the late 1980's, although we did see them at Slim's in San Francisco in, oh it must have been about '93 or '94. Hell of a show!

Anyway, please enjoy these selections from the albums Bizarro and George Best












And I have no idea how I originally heard about the "Ukranian Peel Sessions," But I somehow ended up with a 10" vinyl pressing of this album, in which the Wedding Present performs a selection of Ukranian folk songs in Ukranian.



Thursday, March 19, 2015

People who will never be President Chapter 4


Chapter 4: Rick Santorum

http://www.ianmonroe.com/santorum-is-a/santorum_frothy.jpg

First of all, the guy has zero charisma. Zero. He makes Jeb Bush look like George Clooney.

He looks like Seinfeld that time he got the bad haircut.

http://cdn.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/seinfeld_episode072_337x233_040420061510-300x207.jpg http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Rick-Santorum-570x427.jpg


Plus, even for a party infected with  theocrats, Santorum is pretty far out there.

A lot of Republicans want the government to impose "Christian" values. Santorum wants them to be specifically hard-core Catholic values.

Rick Santorum Even Opposes Birth Control


Not only is he personally opposed to birth control, not only does he believe crazy things about the supposed "harm" that birth control supposedly does to users, but he thinks that states have the right to ban birth control - even though it is a matter of settled law that no, they can not.

Then there's this:

Rick Santorum Makes Stop At Gaffney Cookout


Frank fucking Gaffney held a dickhole convention and Santorum showed up.  (So did Ted Cruz, of course, but we needn't concern ourselves with him right now.)
Gaffney is so far beyond the pale, even the other nuts don't want anything to do with him:

CPAC Conservatives Shun “Crazy Bigot” Gaffney

Do you have any idea how awful you have to be to be too awful for CPAC? You could murder puppies on stage and as long as you said "Obama sucks" during the performance, you'd get an ovation from these cretins.

So there has to be some consequence to hobnobbing with a noxious racist like Frank Gaffney. You can't just go speak at a gathering hosted by this hate-monger and not suffer any kind of blowback. There has to be some downside to courting this kind of venomous lunacy.

https://2onthebeat.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/mccainpalin.jpg

Trust me. There is!


It just has to cost you votes to associate with a scumbag like Gaffney. Not in the primary, of course, but in the general election, something like this has to come back to bite you in the ass:




You can't listen to a psychotic spew this kind of bizarre bullshit and not push back at all.
This demented crackpot accused the President of not only the standard communist Kenyan dictator shit, but of actually trying to nuke an American city, and you don't have anything to say about that? Like, No, ma'am, that's incorrect?

http://news.usni.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/John-McCain.jpg

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that either.


But you do take offense at being lumped in with the other lawmakers because you're no longer a sitting Senator? And never will be again? Or any other type of officeholder? Ever again?  And specifically, will never ever be President?

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

People Who Will Never be President, Chapter 3


Chapter 3: Louisiana Governor Piyush "Bobby" "Bubba" Jindal.

http://www.dirtandseeds.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/bobby-jindal1.jpg

One would have thought that after the State of the Union fiasco Jindal would no longer be considered even a dark-horse candidate, but there does seem to be at least the possibility of presidential run in his future, even if it is just a Gingrich/Cain book deal kind of run. Which for his sake, I hope it is because there is no way in Hell that Bobby Jindal will ever be President.

First of all, no matter what they may say to pollsters, the Republican base is not about to hand the keys to the White House to a guy whose family tree doesn't have it roots in Western Europe.

http://images.dailykos.com/images/127268/large/jindalportrait.jpg?1423001935
You can whitewash the portrait all you want, "Bubba."


Secondly, can you imagine this feeble little milquetoast in a debate against the Republican flamethrowers? Chris Christie's walking out of there with Jindal's lunch money.

And then there's the way he runs an economy:

Louisiana governor: Sell tobacco settlement for upfront cash

Wow. It's the J.G. Wentworth approach to macroeconomics. What's plan B, a payday loan? Auto pawn?
Maybe just buy some time until the check comes in from that Nigerian prince?
Gawd!  What are you, running the state out of a trailer park?

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration moved ahead Tuesday with a plan to sell the state's remaining share of a massive tobacco settlement, despite criticism the move would waste a valuable asset for a quick fix to budget problems.
A board that oversees the settlement agreed to the idea, though several more approvals would be needed before any sale. Treasurer John Kennedy objected, saying Jindal's plan is driven by desperation to find money for a budget awash in red ink.
 http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-03/enhanced/webdr08/24/23/anigif_enhanced-13961-1395717613-1.gif



Red ink, huh? You know, there's a thing that you can do to get money, um. . . what's it called? It rhymes with "snacks." Um, oh yeah, tax! You could maybe have some sort of a tax, then you'd have monies to pay for things. 

 As the Republican governor has stuck to a pledge against raising taxes, Jindal and lawmakers have refused to match the state's spending to its yearly revenue. They have plugged budget holes with short-term financing like money from property sales, legal settlements and trust funds, creating continued shortfalls year after year.

Ah, the party of fiscal responsibility! All you have to do is sell off like a billion dollars worth of property each year, and then, um. . . 

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/southpark/images/5/5c/38a.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100829133317  
Step Three: Profit!



 Well, you know Republicans are always saying they'd run the country like a business, and Jindal is running his state like a CEO who knows he won't be around in a year when it all hits the fan.

Kennedy, also a Republican, called the tobacco settlement plan more of the same maneuvering, as the state faces a $1.6 billion budget gap next year.
 Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols said the Jindal proposal doesn't involve a one-year cash infusion, but $750 million that could be spent over eight years

 Oh! Well, why didn't you say so? The $750 million isn't just getting thrown at the billion-dollar shortfall, that would be silly! It's spread out over 8 years, so it's only about 100 million to offset the on and a half billion. . . wait, how is that better?

 Louisiana is one of many states that settled lawsuits for claims of smokers' deaths and health costs against tobacco companies in 1998 in return for installments of money each year. The annual payments extend as long as the companies involved in the settlement are viable.

So, you would be getting money from this settlement for infinity years? That's what you're selling off? An infinity-year annual payment?  Who would sell that? I mean, unless you're getting magic beans in return - wait, are you getting magic beans?

 No, wait. Wrong fairy tale. You're killing the golden goose.

The state sold 60 percent of its settlement to investors for $1.2 billion in 2001, rather than risk tobacco companies going belly-up later and not making their settlement payments.
 https://31.media.tumblr.com/d52cd4fc00f0fb51304cac7ba8c55893/tumblr_n2a1z6KtLu1qb83vbo1_500.gif 

Really? You're the second Louisiana governor to think this was a good idea?

 The Jindal administration proposal to sell the remaining 40 percent would be structured differently. It would spend all the dollars that are received over seven to eight years — eliminating the yearly $55 million revenue stream after that, until the bond debt is paid.


Oy.

Thank God Bobby Jindal will never be President!

Monday, March 16, 2015

People Who Will Never be President, chapter 2

Chapter 2: Ted Cruz.

First of all, the guy's fucking nuts.
Secondly, he's such a huuuuuge asshole that even his Republican colleagues despise him.
Third, he's creepy as Hell.
Everybody hates Ted Cruz: The most unpopular man in Congress!
Ughhh. . . this is the face of a guy who's used to hearing "no, it's fine, I'll catch the next one!"

 http://www.fizzygrrl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1425437_o.gif




This video sums it all up pretty well:


First of all, there are what, maybe a dozen people there to listen to his ravings? And I'm assuming that all the folks standing along the wall are getting paid to be there. And most of the audience seems to be nodding off except the senile crackpot in the leprechaun hat.

Second, everything he says is just such obvious bullshit. "Oh, if we continue along this undefined path we're going to somehow lose this country in some non-specific way."
"Oh, the Obama economy is a disaster. I don't have any numbers to quote you to back that up, but trust me, even though it seems to be a big improvement over the flaming freefall he inherited, it's actually a disaster. You could look it up!  But don't! Because the reality might contradict my narrative."
"Oh, Obamacare is a trainwreck in some way that I'm not going to bother to articulate or back up in any way. And, sure it seems to be working as designed, getting millions of people covered and what-not, but in some undefinable way, it's a trainwreck."

Third, if you're going to preach doom and gloom, you might want to not sound quite so gleeful about it. When he shouts "Yes, your world is on fire," he displays an enthusiasm not heard since Russ Hodges in 1951.

http://cache.coverbrowser.com/image/weirdest-album-covers/473-1.jpg



And how, once you've told a little girl that her entire world is on fire (which is more obvious bullshit) do you come back with a promise to make it EVEN BETTER?

http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/Earth-on-Fire.jpg
So, you're saying it could even get better than this?



Also, the guy is most famous for taking to the Senate floor to read a children's book and fundamentally misunderstanding the point of it.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Greenegg.gif 

Not actually that difficult, Harvard!


Also, his batshit religious fanatic father raised him with a Messiah complex and delusions of grandeur that would make a cartoon supervillain blush.

Also,  did I mention that everybody hates him?
Seriously, do a quick Google search for "people who hate Ted Cruz" You'll see lots of headlines like these:

Why Senate Republicans Hate Ted Cruz

There’s more than one reason they despise the junior senator from Texas.

Everybody hates Ted Cruz: The most unpopular man in Congress!


Everybody Hates Ted: The Republican Party Has Turned on Cruz

Ted Cruz So ‘Hated’ by Republicans That He’ll ‘Need a Food Taster’ at Senate Lunches



So, is Ted Cruz going to run? He hasn't announced anything, but yes.
Of course he will.
Because he believes that God has chosen him to be president or king of the world or whatever.
But don't worry, Ted Cruz will NEVER be President.


Saturday, March 14, 2015

The World's Weirdest Film Critic Strikes Again.

Remember David Lindsay? The film critic who views every movie through the lens of his weird right-wing Libertarian philosophy?

Well, in the latest issue of Stomp & Stammer, he takes on the global phenomenon "Fifty Shades of Rape Grey."


Fifty Shades of Grey PDF Print E-mail
Written by David T. Lindsay   
Image


So there is nooooo way this isn't gonna get totally weird.
First, he opens with a totally appropriate quote:

Fifty Shades of Grey [R]:
“Today, there is no day or night
Today, there is no dark or light
Today, there is no black or white
Only shades of gray”

 – The Monkees, “Shades of Gray”

 Yes, he opens the review of the most controversial and sexually uncomfortable film since Last Tango in Paris with a quote from these guys:

 http://www.tvworthwatching.com/werts/Monkees-TV-show.jpg 

And then it begins.

Fifty Shades of Grey focuses on two consenting adults who are about to enter into a contractual agreement to get their rocks off.

Naturally, the loud crowd that claims to be so concerned with women’s rights and moral salvation can’t stand the idea that rather than it being a movie where people suffer and die, it’s about how two people choose to enjoy themselves.

 Okay, couple things.
Um, first of all, I believe the whole point of the book and movie is that consent is a sort of blurred line, hence the whole "shades of grey" thing. As has been pointed out many places, the Grey guy is not all that concerned with Ana's consent.


And, sure, you can say that she signed this gross BDSM "contract," but that doesn't forfeit her right to withdraw consent. It's not like a normal business-type contract. It's not like if I lease an apartment from someone, he can't halfway through the lease decide that he no longer consents to my living in his apartment. This isn't a business agreement. Even if it were, even if he had hired her as a prostitute, she still would have the right to say "you know what, on second thought, here's your money back, I'm going home. I don't want to do that gross thing you just suggested." 

Also, why would people who care about women's rights, aka decent human beings, prefer to watch people suffer and die? What is that even based on?

And in light of this controversy, the irony is that E.L. James’ book is a tale of volition and free will, which constitutes the basis for ALL rights and morality.



 Ah, the sweet sound of rights and morality! God bless you, Free Will!

I remember the ad campaign for Roman Polanski’s Tess, based on the Thomas Hardy story of a young girl foisted on polite society, with its tag line, “…at a time when rape was called seduction…”!

In Fifty Shades of Grey, its lead character, Anastasia, is an English Lit major who cites Tess of the D’Urbervilles as her inspiration for pursuing a college degree. Despite a 4.0 GPA, she sees herself on the sidelines. Anastasia Steele – her very name conjures up czarist Russia. She drives a Volkswagen, aka “the people’s car.” She represents Old World values in manner, dress and approach to life.

 Huh?
Is your point supposed to be that Anastasia's love of Tess of the D'Ubervilles means that she has some sort of rape fetish? And are you conflating Czarist Russia with "people's" socialism or communism as embodied by the car built for Nazi Germany? And which of these, Czarist dictatorship, Communism, or Nazi Fascism, is supposed to represent "Old World values?"


The other player in the story is Christian Grey, a name that’s self-explanatory: he lives amongst the clouds.
The other player in the story is Christian Grey, a name that’s self-explanatory: he lives amongst the clouds.
http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2012/06/gomc.jpg


Yes, nothing says "luxury penthouse living" like the name "Christian Grey!"

 As a kid he managed to survive a crack-addicted mom to amass a great fortune. He’s capitalism personified. He’s sure of himself and demands to be rewarded for his success, expecting things to be done on his own terms according to his values.

So, he's a narcissistic asshole?
Okay, I guess he is capitalism personified.

So where do we get our values? Or, to put it differently, how does one learn right from wrong?

Through the sensations of pleasure and pain!

It’s the Pavlovian concept of being rewarded with something desirable for making the right choice, or being punished for making the wrong choice. Thinking that this movie is about slapping a woman on her fanny is like continuing to believe that Fight Club is about scuffles.

And this asshole is the self-appointed administer of punishments and rewards? He will dole out pain or pleasure according to whether someone is behaving in a manner that he deems suitable. People will be rewarded if  they make choices that he thinks are correct and punished if their choices do not please him. And he gets to make these decisions because why? Because he's rich and powerful? So he gets to decide for lesser people what is right and wrong and if they are to be punished or rewarded? That's the deeper meaning of this movie? That this kind of sick authoritarianism is some larger metaphor for life or morality or something?

Also, I'm pretty sure that Fight Club was about me dozing off about an hour in and spending the next 15 years seeing dudebros quote it on the internet.

http://p2e.mobi/wp-content/uploads/fight-club-quotes-3.jpg 
So profound!
*eye roll*


In the Old World sense, marriage was established as a triad between two people and God! And let that settle in because according to God’s law, if you cheated on your spouse, you were cheating on God! Today, marriage is a contract between two people for their mutual benefit. For the most part, the romantic has been cast aside. 

Right, right, totally. Except, um, the exact opposite.
Traditionally marriages were arranged between families, so there was pretty much no romance involved at all. In the modern age, up until our parents' generation, there was certainly love and romance, but marriage was also an arrangement assumed to be mutually beneficial. The wife got a man to take over her father's responsibilities of  supporting her financially, keeping a roof over her head and food in the pantry. The husband got a woman to take over his mother's duties of cooking for him and cleaning up after him. Plus there was fucking, which was an added plus.

In today's world, when marriage has really become completely unnecessary - women can get decent jobs to support themselves, men have figured out how to cook and clean a little, people don't need to be married to do sex or raise children, two people deciding to marry is more of a romantic gesture than it ever was before. Two people saying to each other "I have no financial need to do this, I don't need to do this in order to get sex, but I choose to do this purely because I love you and want to spend my life with you and only you," that doesn't really feel like romance having been cast aside.

In a world of half-truths and moral turpitude, the contract Grey presents to Anastasia for her approval is black and white. What is one of the most often cited complaints about men in relationships? They avoid commitment. Here, Grey is completely committed.

But if you are one who insists that this movie is nothing more than a male fantasy of dominance over women, then consider Grey and how his responses play into the contract.

No.
Because that is the contract.
The contract is "sign here and I will dominate you. I will be dominant and you will be submissive." So how is this not a fantasy of male dominance? Yes, the contract is black and white, but so what? Is unambiguous assholery really that preferable to any other kind?

Far from displaying caddish behavior, Grey fights to keep his passion from being extinguished by what’s considered proper or convenient or expected. But neither is he interested in sharing Anastasia with the world, which is why he shoves her friend who’s trying to kiss her, and why upon hearing of her unannounced plans to return home, he declares, “you are mine.” 

Declaring ownership of another person, that's not caddish behavior?
And, yes, it is definitely not considered proper or expected to forbid one's lover from seeing her family, but it is also considered improper and unexpected to throw hammers at small children. Being unconventional is not equivalent to being moral or decent or right.


This from a guy who refuses to sleep over or spend the night after sex because that would play into the intangible, accidental vagueness of today’s casual sex climate which is more powerplay than mutually beneficial. Grey is the man unaffected by the pitfalls of feminism or moral tradition.

So, if you leave right after sex, it's no longer considered casual?
It's only cheap and shabby if you spend the night, is that what I'm getting here?
And BDSM is totally not about powerplay.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ewJhvXCtS-I/U0W2PI2U8CI/AAAAAAAABY8/CV46LjDYFqE/s1600/qskwuu.jpg



Anastasia holds the power of veto over the contents of the contract. A contract using specific language which establishes boundaries of her own volition that she agrees to. The certainty of romance is that to work it must be in black and white!

This cult of moral grayness is certain of nothing!


Except that when she does try to veto the contract, he doesn't stop.

http://assets.goodstatic.com/s3/magazine/assets/541817/original/1.jpg=s900x900

Also, the line "The certainty of romance is that to work it must be in black and white!"
Tells me that you know nothing of romance.

So, is this a good movie or not?
 Did Mr. Lindsay like it or dislike it?
He doesn't say.
Which is truly the mark of a weird weird film critic.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

People Who Will Never be President

Lindsey Graham


http://everyvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/graham-2.jpg

Sen. Lindsey Graham, testing presidential waters, to make first trip to Iowa

Test the waters all you want, sir. You will never ever be President.



First of all, this guy. . .









. . .  is not going to get the nomination of a party that thinks Uganda has some good ideas.


https://38.media.tumblr.com/a5af851b0c8fd69f8a186c1c048542be/tumblr_n4n4nha7ER1rkljv1o1_500.gif


And the Tea Party base just haaaaates him. Maybe because they remember when he used to be a teensy bit reasonable?

Seriously, there's a Facebook page called "Conservatives against Lindsey Graham that features shit like this:

You will see irrefutable evidence that places Lindsey Graham in rare company as one of history’s most...
presspatrol.com






 And it's not like they don't have a point. I mean, clearly Graham is both ultra-liberal and a huge Nazi who supports Barack Obama.


 http://persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tumblr_mm3wr1Urak1somw7ho4_500.png

Plus there's just the general weirdness:

Lindsey Graham: I've never sent an email


I don't know which would be weirder, if he actually has lived this many years without ever having sent an e-mail, or if he thinks this is something about which he needs to lie. Either way, weird!

But for some reason, someone asked the man who got a whopping zero point one percent in the CPAC straw poll what he would do first if he was elected President.


And here's the first thing I would do if I were president of the United States. I wouldn't let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We're not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We are not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/1e/a1/6a/1ea16a648c027404188cd6ef1e3c0342.jpg


Oh my Gawd! Your first act as President would be to stage a military coup?

You would bring the military into Washington DC, in clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, to force Congress to vote the way you want them to? You would hold Congress at gunpoint until they restored whatever cuts you think were made to the military and intelligence budgets?
The US military would be holding the United States Congress hostage until they agreed to fork over more money to the military?
That's what you would do as President?

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/archer-dammmn.gif?w=650

Man, oh man, it is a good thing that you will never ever ever be president!