A Post that begins with Emma Watson, then digresses pretty quickly

I don't really know much about Emma Watson. I think she was one of the kids in the Harry Potter movies. The one who isn't Harry Potter.

 

I'm guessing the one on the right?

I had heard that she was some sort of UN envoy for women or something equally admirable, so I figured I liked her whoever she was.

Anyway, today she popped up twice on Yahoo News headlines:

Emma Watson hides feminist books on London trains

How cool is that?
Wait, it gets better.

Riders on London’s Central line train may have gotten a surprise from Emma Watson.
The actress and activist has been sneaking books onto the train according to Time Out London. Watson has been placing copies of Maya Angelou’s novel Mom, Me & Mom along the underground train network, including the escalators and documented the escapades on Instagram.

Mom, Me & Mom is the current book for Watson’s bi-monthly Our Shared Shelf  Book Club and her Books on the Underground project. Our Shared Shelf brings readers all over the world together to discuss feminist books. Watson left approximately 100 books for readers to find, all containing a hand written note from her. Those who find the books are urged to read them and then pay it forward by leaving it on the train for someone else to find.

I knew it! I knew I liked her! Nothing could possibly shake my opinion of Emma Watson!


 


Did I mention that she popped up twice?

Entertainment

Here are the first photos of Disney's live-action 'Beauty and the Beast' with Emma Watson

Disney has been very tight-lipped about its live-action "Beauty and the Beast" movie coming out...

Really? Beauty and the Beast? Really?
The movie that teaches boys that if you want a girl to fall for you, just kidnap her and if you hold her prisoner long enough, she's bound to eventually see what a swell guy you are deep down inside and totally want to make out with you.
And the movie that teaches girls that, sure some men may seem like monsters, but don't give up on them. If you spend enough time with a monster, especially one that holds you against your will, eventually he's bound to drop the gruff facade and then hello Prince Charming!

Oh, and also, the movie with the song "Be Our Guest" which has this to say about the serving classes:

Life is so unnerving
For a servant who's not serving.
He's not whole without a soul to wait upon

Yes, that's right. The reason some people have roles in the service industries? Because they LOOOOOOVE it! They were born to fulfill this destiny of waiting on the more fortunate, so there's really no reason to thank them or be polite or be a decent human being when dealing with your waiter or waitress. After all, you're really doing them a favor by allowing them to fulfill their destiny.

Seriously:

Soup du jour
Hot hors d'oeuvres
Why, we only live to serve

They live for this! They aren't serving because there were no better job options. There's really nothing they'd rather be doing.


Of course, that wasn't the first time that Disney has taught kids that people with difficult, low-paying jobs are actually happy doing them and really wouldn't even want to try to better their station.  Take Dick Van Dyke's chimney sweep in Mary Poppins:

Chim, chimney
Chim, chimney
Chim, chim, cher-ee
A sweep is as lucky
As lucky can be

Really? Lucky? Because honestly, to me it seems that a chimney sweep is stuck on the bottommost rung of the ladder of life.

Now as the ladder of life
Has been strung
You may think a sweep's
On the bottommost rung

Though I spends me time
In the ashes and smoke
In this 'ole wide world
There's no happier bloke

I stand corrected!


Look at this lucky stiff!

I mean,  he'll be a stiff any day now, what with the black lung disease and all.


And you know, it's one thing to say, "Hey, even though I have this terrible job breathing in ashes and smoke for shit wages, I have my friends, my wife loves me, all things considered, I'm a pretty lucky guy." But that's not at all what he's saying. He's saying he's lucky because he's a chimney sweep. For some inexplicable reason, he wants us to believe that the chimney sweep life is something that only the lucky few get to experience. So we certainly needn't push for regulatiuons to make dirty, dangerous jobs less dirty or dangerous. Or try to increase the wages of the people who do them. No! Thy are living the fucking dream!

Chim, chimney
Chim, chimney
Chim, chim, cher-ee
When you're with a sweep
You're in glad company

Nowhere is there
A more happier crew
Than them wot sings
"Chim chim cher-ee
Chim cher-oo"

Although, I guess that's less offensive than teaching people that if you run across an unconscious woman it's make-out time!

A Halloween fright

Do you like scary movies?
Well, if you think you're brave enough,
Just click play on this terrifying video.
Be sure to leave the lights on tonight!

Bad Ads - Domino's

The guy in the Domino's salad commercial just seems like the personification of  the concept of toxic masculinity.





There's just such an ugly hostility to this ad. So much anger and contempt for the salad eaters who all just happen to be women, and all sort of seem smug and arrogant. It's like a 30-second helping of "women! Am I right? Always ruining all the fun!"

Also, there's this whole like "Ungh! Must eat man food! Salad for girls and girlymen! Must eat something to clog artery!" It reminds me of the "Just a Salad" episode of Seinfeld where Jerry's masculinity is called into question because he's trying to eat healthy.

So, fine. If it'll keep you broads from ruining pizza night, we'll start selling salads. Okay? Happy now? Geez! Can't we big tough macho men have one little thing we enjoy without you dames comin' along and spoiling it?
Hey, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, am I right?

Also, maybe try working on getting pizza right before you branch out into other foods, hmm?

Bad Ads -- Paper Airplanes

What the hell is wrong with this kid's mom? The kid's father is deployed overseas. The kid, who obviously misses his dad, writes him letters. Now any normal mom would put those letters into an envelope and send them to the dad. But no, not this mom. She lets the kid fold the letters into paper airplanes and toss them over the fence, littering the neighbor's yard with sheets of paper.

she doesn't say to the kid "how far do you think you can throw a paper airplane? 30,40 feet? Maybe 50 with a tailwind? Do you have any idea how many feet it is to Iraq? Come on, we're going to the post office.
I mean, it'd be one thing if the dad was dead and the kid is trying to throw letters to Heaven, then I could see where you'd just humor the kid. But if the curmudgeonly old neighbor hadn't discovered a soft spot in his heart and mailed the letters to the guy's Army base (which, for some reason he knows where the guy is stationed), the kid would have just thought that his dad was ignoring his letters and doesn't love him. All because the mom was too stupid to buy an envelope and a stamp, or such a negligent parent that she has no idea that her kid is doing this and has anyone in this family heard of e-mail?

But, I guess that's their target market. The first few times I saw this ad, I assumed it was for UPS or FedEx or the Post Office, but no. It's for "Paper and Packaging."  Paper and Packaging apparently need an ad campaign now. This commercial is apparently aimed at people who are thinking "Gee, I sure wish I had some sort of substance on which to write my words, and also some sort of, I don't know, container, I guess, to transport that substance from one place to another," see this ad and say "Paper? Packaging? Eureka! My prayers have been answered!"

Trying to defend the indefensible

Here's  businessman, media personality and all around douchenozzle Wayne Allyn Root explaining why Drumpf didn't actually do the thing he totally does all the time and brags about doing:

“If you’re a Christian, you just can’t spend your life worrying about the words of Donald Trump from 11 years ago, or what women he groped 30 years ago. I don’t believe any of it anyway. I believe Donald Trump is one of the handsomest billionaires that’s [sic] ever lived; I don’t think he ever had to grope a single woman ever. I think they threw themselves at him, so it’s all a lie.”

You know, I used to think that about Bill Clinton. Of course, this was back in the 90's when I was still relatively young and naive, not a 55-year-old man of the world, so I had some excuse. When rape allegations began to surface against Bill Clinton, I thought "this guy is rich, famous, charismatic, and I'm told a lot of women think he's dreamy. Why would he have to force himself on anyone? He would have no trouble finding women to have sex with him."  I used to be equally perplexed when I heard stories about professional or college athletes being charged with sexual assault. "These guys must have their pick of women. Why would they need to attack the one girl who isn't willing?"

Now, of course I'm older and less stupid, and I realize that men in that position, men who generally have no trouble finding eager, willing sex partners due at least in part to their status, are probably more likely to commit this type of horrible crime. Instead of saying "oh, you don't want to do it? That's okay, there's plenty who do!" a lot of these men are apt to say "oh, you don't want to do it? Who the hell do you think you are? Do you know who I am? You don't say 'no' to ME!"

Leaving that aside, I do find it interesting to see that within three sentences, Wayne goes from "who cares how many women he groped?" to "Ah, he didn't grope any women!" Also, I'm no theologian, but I'm pretty sure that Christianity doesn't include a statute of limitations on groping strange women. You don't get to go to the Pearly Gates and say "ah, c'mon! That was like thirty years ago!" and get ushered in to Heaven. I'm pretty sure that however long ago you committed sexual assault, you have to repent and seek forgiveness. You don't get to just blow it off because of a time lapse.






Former Governor of Arizona and current wackadoo Jan Brewer decided to go with the lunatic babble approach to defending Trump.

"He's been waterboarded by these issues," Brewer replied. "It seems like it's been somewhat of a put-up impression on Donald Trump from all these people lining up. It's just unbelievable. And anybody that's been under those kinds of assaults, I think would want to defend themselves."
"Donald Trump is authentic and he tells it like it is," she added. "And he went out and told the public exactly what he's going to deliver when he become president of the United States."

WATERBOARDED? I don't even know what to say. How does one respond to such an offensive and yet nonsensical claim? I got nothing.





Trump Junior, proof positive that the turd doesn't fall far from the asshole, decided to go with the "hey, c'mon. Everyone brags about sexual assault" approach.

“Obviously he’s not happy about that, but I think we probably all know guys who have had conversations with other guys that go a little bit in that direction, that’s a fact of life,” Trump Jr. said.
“I think he’s able to relate to ordinary Americans because in many cases he is still very much like that. He does do that. He hasn’t spent his whole life sitting there polishing every statement he’s ever made, every conversation he’s ever had,” he added.

I mean, for Pete's sake, you're not gonna sit there and act like you've never committed a sex crime and then bragged about it, are you? I mean, if he had planned on running for president, he never would have admitted to these crimes. So you can't hold it against him 'cuz he didn't know he'd be running for president some day. Right? I rest my case!