It’s important to differentiate natural masculinity from toxic insecurity and not confuse the two. Embodying stereotypically feminine traits, such as vulnerability and empathy, as reflective of a healthy masculinity that informs a man’s conduct, as opposed to ill-conceived conquest metrics that reward false bravado borne of insecurity and inadequacy, and are misattributed to masculinity. Distinguishing the propensity to protect women as if they are owned property from standing up for and defending women because they warrant and deserve respect as equals.
At the same time, as much as it is critical for men to do a lot more listening than anything else at this juncture, they still have every right to feel okay about expressing inherent traits of physical strength and primal male sexuality without being demonized for it. Or demasculinized, and made to feel their mere existence represents a threat. Otherwise it is unrealistic to expect anything other than resentfulness and defensiveness, neither of which are particularly helpful.
To the extent locker rooms remain among the primary venues that introduce children to both the vocabulary and concepts of sex and intimacy, along with consent and permission, now is the time to take more responsibility for shaping the conversations happening there.
Trump voters explain why they voted for a man who doesn't appear to have their interests at heart. A man who has more disdain for America's institutions than the puppet master who arranged his Presidency.
For the right wing extremists, neo-Nazi’s, resurgent Ku Klux Klan members and others harboring racist sentiments, comparing Obama to Hitler is blasphemous. Imagery of Obama as a Nazi must irk neo-Nazis and white supremacists as much as it did Hitler when Leni Riefenstahl’s cameras captured the beauty and grace of athlete Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
It’s not the people holding signs comparing Obama to Hitler that America needs to be worried about. Fueled and fed by commentators, politicians and the media, it’s the ones whose racist hatred is being masked by more sinister, less obvious expression.
One hates blacks and one hates Jews
One hates Muslims throwing shoes
One hates Jews and also Whites
One spews hatred, one picks fights
Diverse, opinionated, noisy too
All American like me and you
Yet there's only the one whose hate is okay
A speech to made on Inauguration Day
Jews, Blacks and Whites, you have nothing to fear
Your rights are quite safe ...as long as you're not queer
Thank you Obama, what a wonderful change
Such diverse inclusion, what incredible range
Free speech justifications, good gracious, what luck
Your honeymoon's over now, fuck you Barack.
To the extent we give a flying fuck about Lynday Lohan and Perez Hilton in the middle of a recession and possible Palin presidency, the notion that Lynday Lohan deserves protection from "unwanted annoyance" in conjunction with her deposition in her girlfriend's defamation lawsuit is patently absurd.
Lohan's very presence is in and of itself, a fucking "unwanted annoyance." Video the deposition, and then file it in the "Who Give a Fuck" free video collection. Anything if it means we don't have to see, or hear from, or hear, or witness, or smell this fucking unwanted annoyance again.
"Things Go Better" was published on September 11, 2002, on the first anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil, inspiring a slew of hate mail and threats. Still fresh in the memory of many, few understood the intention of the piece.
The accompanying text, a reworking of The Gettysburg Address titled The Forgettysburg Redress envisioned the inevitable crass commercialization of September 11th, imagining the nauseating prospect of the government packaging fear, and companies making money off the tragedy, slapping their brands onto anything resembling twin towers, from key chains to currency. "…we here blithely empurple these dead through didactic commercialization; that the nation, shall trade platitudes for latitude, so that commoditization of the devastation by the government for the corporation, shall forever degrade memory’s worth."
Not much to say about this loser that hasn’t already been said. The new rising star of the Republican presidential hopefuls is a former governor of Arkansas with a few choice attributes that make him the perfect Republican.
He equates homosexuality with pedophilia and necrophilia (perhaps an association made by spending too much time in Church), refused to retract his absurd 1992 comment that people with AIDS should be quarantined, and is one of those self-appointed soldiers for Christ, to whom the fringes on the religious right gravitate like flies to feces.
She got a very light punishment...Actually, it’s not much of a punishment at all. It should be considered a warning that such acts should not be repeated."
Thus spake Rabie A. Atti, a Sudanese government spokesman referring to the conviction and sentence of British teacher, Gillian Gibbons, who was sentenced to 15 days in prison and a deportation. She could have spent months in jail and been lashed 40 times, after she allowed her 7-year-old pupils name a class teddy bear Muhammad.
People are entitled to whatever religious beliefs they want, but it's time to stop demanding respect and accommodation when lashing teachers and blaming imaginary voices are done in the name of religion.
Giuliani’s response to the Judith Regan suit was to dismiss it as sounding like a “gossip column story,” and one not worthy of his response. That strategy might have worked for George Bush Senior when asked about his adulterous affair, but Giuliani might not be so lucky. For one, even his Republican opponents are already all over it, and more importantly, it’s not only a gossip column story, it’s a lawsuit alleging criminal conduct on behalf of News Corp. executives in the name of protecting the presidential ambitions of Rudy Giuliani.
It makes sense really. The smutty programming produced and aired by Fox coupled with the smutty lifestyle exemplified by Giuliani is a match made in heaven…or hell.
California's Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein's decision to join Senate Judiciary committee Republicans in approving the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey for Attorney General is nothing short of disgraceful.
Much like her decision to sponsor legislation that would desecrate the constitution by criminalizing flag burning, Feinstein has shown her true colors yet again.
When Senator Craig determined that Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the arresting officer, was not responding to the foot-tapping, either by foot-tapping back, or making some other gesture that demonstrated his interest, he should have had the common sense to quit. That's why there are codes, idiot! It’s that clouded judgment, along with immediately pleading guilty to make it “all go away” that suggests he is ill equipped to serve as a representative of the people of Idaho, let alone in any leadership role.
Since I would never find myself in the same position as Senator Craig, I tried to imagine what I would do from Sgt. Dave Karsnia -- the entrapper’s -- point of view, or if I was minding my own business in a bathroom stall and some strange, liver-spotted, gnarled hand swept across the underside of the stall. My guess is I would probably yank off the wedding ring, and walk out, making sure to flush first. Etiquette always.
Following the tragic death of Princess Diana on August 31, 1997, Annoy.com’s Clinton Fein penned the song “Money Green,” which was performed live in Los Angeles in October 1997 by the talented Meri Free, and her band Circle.
Now, ten years later, we are re-releasing the song (for the first time, with an accompanying, cheesy production values, video). While certain of Fein’s predictions about the royals did not come true, most about the media did, and the song holds as true today as it did back then. (See accompanying lyrics.)
For instance, Fein wrote: “Now while tabloid sales are in decline, all we can do is wait, to see if Willy smokes a joint at school or Harry’s overweight.” Well, we all know Harry’s not overweight, and William, to our knowledge, was not the son smoking joints at school.
No one can tell the difference between The Sun and CNN anymore than they can tell the difference between the National Enquirer and The New York Post. The onslaught of here today, gone tomorrow reality stardom has diluted tabloidism to the point that the only celebrities anyone remembers these days are Jennifer, Brad and Angelina and the repulsive Lyndsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
There IS nothing “fair and balanced” to say about a man as unfair and imbalanced as former mayor of New York and Republican Presidential frontrunner, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Every supposed strength is nothing more than a sordid display of hypocrisy at its ugliest.
His flip-flopping on abortion, gays in the military (despite his cross-dressing propensity and gay friends) and other such hypocrisies, Giuliani continues to use the blood spilled on September 11th as a stepping stone for his political ambitions.
His fear-mongering, torture-friendly, censorship-happy, expedience-driven candidacy reveals that he’s probably the only man who, if elected to office, would be a worse President and unleash more damage domestically and internationally, than President Bush himself.
He may have been a nice father to someone, or a sweet grandfather, or a kindly mentor, but Jerry Falwell represented the absolute worst that mankind has to offer. His message was one of hate, intolerance and ugliness, sugar-coated along with a twisted and poisonous infusion of dogmatic religious fervor.
He may well have galvanized millions to fight the protected notion of separation of Church and State, but his legacy is as ugly and embarrassing as it was ever impressive.
She has made a habit of making history. After she became First Lady after her husband was elected President, she angered as many as she impressed by revolutionizing the role. She was involved in policy making, retained her maiden name, and proved to the world she was no wallflower.
She garnered sympathy following her husband’s notorious blowjob that caused her public humiliation, and to the surprise of many feminists, stuck by her man and resurrected her marriage.
Harsh and unfair as it sounds, John McCain is too old and too disfigured to be elected President. America elects politicians who look good on TV and who pretend to care about children. But even if we were a more mature, more sophisticated electorate, would we really elect a man who jokes about bombing a country, when indeed he would have just such power?
A profile of the Arizona Senator is the first in a series that will explore the 2008 Presidential candidates who actually stand a chance of beginning the long path to remedy from the disastrous mess resulting from a two-term Bush presidency. The only thing we can state at this point, is that it can't get worse. Or could it?
April 19, 2007 - In the name of decency (also known as lost advertising revenue), Don Imus was fired by NBC, who claimed that they wanted to work toward a campaign of common decency that expanded beyond the walls of their news organization with its strained credibility.
That was before they received the “multimedia manifesto” from Cho Seung-Hui. Now watch how decency looks, grieving families be damned, when advertisers aren’t bolting.
April 11, 2007 - Two years ago, I warned MSNBC that Imus was tainting their brand. More than that, I questioned how they could continue to allow Imus to denigrate their journalists, as the media and political elite sustained his platform with appearances on his show.
Imus still has the right to free speech, and the right to call whoever he wants whatever he wants. With or without appropriate context. But never forget, that speech may well be free, but never free of consequences, and is not guaranteed under the banner of a news organization striving for integrity and journalistic excellence, no matter how far short they have measured.
For every deed, a million analyses; for every sentence, a million deconstructions. Blogs begetting blogs, begetting social networks, begetting conversations and commentaries. Comments about comments for comments, responses for responses about responses. Words tripping over words to embellish words about words. Sentences about sentences, broken down into keywords and efficiently retagged into categories and subjects to be repurposed and rehashed and replayed and redeployed. An over-bloated, over-tagged, over-stuffed, over-sub-categorized, over-rated, over-extended, over-hyped, overload of over-analyzed, over-distributed, over-offered, over-done overstatement -- over and over and over again.
Condoleezza stupid bitch
Spitting out your deadly spew
Dozens dying daily damn it
Nothing worthwhile, nothing new
Secretary, Statesman, Russian expert
Stanford Provost, Cunt Supreme
Still standing by her man abusive
Our kids are burning, hear them scream
President Fuckface, fucking prick
Christ your cock so small must be
Sending soldiers more to die
Your senseless fucking killing spree
A blocked up asshole, keeping shit trapped
Telling us history will view you kindly
Guess what dickwad, murderous asswipe
You sent our children to die blindly
Protecting Americans, who are you kidding?
Your actions kill, we bleed and burn
I hope you rot in hell you fucker
The only thing you’ll ever earn
A brouhaha of gargantuan proportions has enveloped Hollywood after the Grey’s Anatomy star, speaking to reporters at the Golden Globes, reopened a wound he had made back in October last year when he referred to T.R. Knight as a faggot.
Like Jesse Jackson’s attempts to ban use of the word nigger, efforts to punish Isaiah Washington for using the word faggot seem ridiculously misguided. His denial of having uttered it is what’s offensive, not his use of it in the context of the denial. Had he said, I am really sorry I called T.R. a faggot, as opposed to I didn’t call T.R a faggot, would his comment have been so explosive?
While Dick Cheney busies himself pouring over the private financial records of innocent American civilians, the fugliest man on the planet, (or just behind Cheney, as my friend Jayne argues), Donald Trump was dealt a number of blows this last week, none of them coming from Rosie O’Donnell, mind you.
To compensate for -- how do I say this delicately – an obviously very small penis, this delusional clown revealed his Achilles heel, by revealing his ever-so-desperate need to belong, to feel part of something he’ll never be part of. Laying out a minimum of $15,000, The Chump bought himself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. No matter how successful The Apprentice was once upon a time, long ago, acting it wasn’t. Nasally sneering “You’re Fired,” looking as ugly as is humanly possible wasn’t exactly a stretch for someone already as ugly as is humanly possible.
The much-anticipated Iraq Study Group led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Representative, Lee Hamilton of Indiana, released its findings on December 6, 2006.
Although the geriatric panel lobbied some tough criticism at the White House and Pentagon, its findings, supposedly delivered after the midterm elections to avoid injecting domestic politics into it (like politics can be divorced from it), are already outdated given the rapid escalation into violence and chaos in Iraq.
Nonetheless, it did call for U.S. combat brigades to be withdrawn from Iraq by early 2008, which in turn led the mentally retarded apes at Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post to conclude that Hamilton and Baker were “surrender monkeys” -- their brazen headline accompanying quite possibly the worst Photoshop image ever produced.
What would the New York Post recommend? Like old, die-hards Rice, Cheney and Bush: Staying the course, off course, of course.
Mary Cheney is pregnant! Of course, assuming a healthy term, little Cheney Poo Poe will have to grow up in a home where the tangible benefits of marriage that his or her five cousins take for granted, are only afforded to children born of parents whose superior sexual orientation better equips them to raise children, such as Britney Spears or Michael Jackson.
Things like inheritence, immigration and guardianship will have to be lawyered to death, because no matter how you cut it, here comes the bastard baby of the lesbian daughter of the Vice President of the United States. That's v-a-l-u-e-s for the spelling-impaired.
Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic meltdown was no less vitriolic because he used the word Jew instead of the more derogatory kike or hooknose. His seething sentiments were perfectly communicated by the context and delivery in which they were proffered, not by his choice of words.
Similarly, Michael Richards’ tirade was shocking because of the sentiments he communicated, not because he used the word nigger. Had he told the black men in the audience that he didn’t appreciate being heckled by African Americans, would that really have made the comment any more palatable? Would joking about a fork up the ass of an African American have been acceptable?
Judith Regan was feeling quite shitty
For a bitch that just isn’t that pretty
With her blow-job lips pursed
A martini she nursed
The most hated from city to city.
Utterly lacking in charm and in grace
She thought she would mention in case
Though Nicole had been bashed
And her throat had been slashed
She, Judith, was once punched in the face
Why I did it?” her response thought so smart
Some word play to tug at the heart
Offering lame justifications
And detestable recriminations
To feign her intentions had heart
Not many found an O.J. book sunny
Exploitation, she says, not for money
A book launch commotion
And a Fox News promotion
Toxic tell-all sweet coated in honey
When I interviewed him all I could think
Not how much lower I’d sink
Ron and Nicole in my heart
Like a sulfurous fart
This new low has a terrible stink
Back at home, the President's sinking popularity forced him to bring back Daddy's friends to help him get out of his Iraqi quagmire. The over-arching message of the recent elections, despite already going unheeded by the administration, showed the world where America really stood on the Iraq war. And unlike this President, global leaders read the news and understand public moods.
Against this backdrop, Bush's presence at APEC will be tinged with pity as global leaders posture against a sitting lame duck.
It’s a pity Daddy couldn’t help him get out of Vietnam once again.
Calling for the beheading of an artist for creating a caricature depicting a religion as violent is hypocritical. About as hypocritical as assaulting or killing a woman for appearing in a degrading beauty contest. Or like amputating Ann Coulter’s legs for her immodest vagina flashing on Fox News. Or castrating and sodomizing men who rape.
While all the world’s major religions -- Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, and Hinduism – shoulder responsibility for fueling extremist factions spewing hatred, violence and intolerance, Muslims do need to drop the victimization act and realize that just as they condemn and judge others with impunity, so too must they learn to cope with being subject to criticism.
Until people stop, in Allah's name, stoning woman to death, killing homosexuals, cutting the hands off children stealing food to survive, flying passenger planes into skyscrapers, car-bombing innocent people, forcing their religious convictions onto others, and other such atrocities, and until Muslims loudly and clearly reject and condemn the violence perpetrated by those who have hijacked and perverted their religion, the likelihood of cartoonists depicting Muhammad as a gentle, olive-branch carrying dove is not particularly high.
If gay bashing, teen suicide and genuine attempts by politicians and Presidents to actually amend America’s constitution to explicitly deny rights to homosexuals weren’t clear and present dangers, the notion of a “gay agenda” would be laughable.
Gays are constantly defending themselves against accusations by pseudo-religious bigots claiming they have an insidious agenda aimed at destroying family values. Let's put the matter to rest, once and for all, by providing the MOAA -- the Mother of All Agendas.
How strong can a marriage be – a supposedly sanctified institution – if two members of the same sex marrying will destroy it? How learned can a behavior be, if despite your best parenting efforts to instill heterosexuality onto your children, they still end up being gay?
SAN FRANCISCO -- October 5, 2004– Hundreds of art enthusiasts looking forward to San Francisco-based artist, Clinton Fein’s, latest exhibition may find an imageless 78” wall in the gallery after Palo Alto-based printing company, Zazzle, refused to release two of Fein’s images.
Fein learned of the last minute decision after a company representative informed him that two of his images had been deemed inappropriate, and Zazzle did not want to be associated with the images.
The one image, recently reviewed at Chelsea’s Axis Gallery by New York Times’ Ken Johnson, who described it as “an American flag with the stars and stripes made from the text of the official Abu Ghraib report is accompanied by fifty representations of the iconic image of a hooded man teetering on a box with wires trailing from his arms comprising the stars.
For thousands of Iraqis, liberation has been nothing short of laser guided destruction and horror. The recent furor that arose following the release of images of dead servicemembers returning to Dover Air Base in flag-draped coffins, did more than hit home the cost of American lives. It demonstrated that, for all its many flaws, the U.S. military at least treats its dead with dignity and respect. For one thing, they count them. America’s policy of not counting the dead is not likely to win any points in the battle for hearts and minds. Nor is the treatment of those injured, let alone those killed. Clinton Fein’s Sweet Dreams is simply a compilation of photographs from all over the globe that doesn’t answer any questions, but suggests that the American Dream, for those in Iraq, is not so sweet.
A slide video presentation made possible by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by First Amendment advocate, Russ Kick, and made available on his web site www.thememoryhole.org. A Pentagon ban, supported by the Bush Administration forbids the taking of pictures of dead soldiers -- the practice of which many believe changed America's course in Vietnam. To date, over 700 Americans have been killed in Iraq since George W. Bush declared war, but the practice of only counting Americans is perhaps the most troubling of all.
Clinton Fein's audio-visual slide show, One Summer, captures a moment in time in San Francisco when the city said no to war. The apathy that followed the anti-war movement's inability to stop the war was preceeded by the passion evident of those appearing in this production.
There were times I rejoiced
The panic of the mighty, the desperate,
And the heavenly virgins brandishing men’s vulnerability.
Then the oil men sobbing and frantic
And flying away, and wanting their fixes and crucifixes,
And the hell’s-fire blazing, and the lack of reason,
And the city inquisitional and the skies unfriendly
And the coffee franchises filthy and charging high prices:
A crude time we had of it.
The horror of war is difficult to comprehend without being there and witnessing it first hand. Yet those opposed to the war are not all vandals, bleeding hearts and left-wing lunatics as the mainstream media would have everyone believe. Many of those protesting have siblings, children or people they love in the military, and want nothing more than to see them home safely. And not every person opposed to George W. Bush automatically supports Saddam Hussein.
Similarly, many of the riot police who are arresting citizens on the streets of San Francisco do not support President Bush or the war, but are forced to bear the brunt of vicious baiting and taunting vitriol at the hands of some protestors in the performing of their job. There is no black or white in this War Against War.
From ground zero of the antiwar movement, War Agaisnt War is the beginning of an audio-visual commentary on what the modern antiwar movement looks like and how it operates.
Annoy.com is over ten years old, surviving a disasterous economic downturn and the increasingly totalitarian dictates of the Bush regime. While many dot coms were caught with their pants down bearing witness to their dwindling presence, Annoy.com survived that market unscathed while battling the onslaughts of tougher market forces, namely the US Supreme Court (ApolloMedia v. Reno) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (United States v. ApolloMedia). Fighting for First Amendment rights and balancing privacy with freedom of the press are battles Annoy.com has chosen to fight and to win, yielding strong journalistic victories.
Annoy.com is fashionably relevant, with up to the minute focus on media, politics and current affairs. Annoy.com has remained a consistent alternative voice in an uncomfortably acquiescent and increasingly propagandized publication environment. Says Annoy.com Publisher and Editor, Clinton Fein “In light of the curtailment of civil liberties that are being trashed on a daily basis in the U.S. today, the need for a site like Annoy.com -- untrapped by the strictures of political correctness -- could not be more important.”
A visit to gibe, Annoy.com’s online community, is testament to the fact that Annoy.com is alive and well and living in a utopian universe free from the wiretappings and similar trappings of Dick Cheney's “New Normalcy” and Donald Rumsfeld's "New Europe". This global audience of gibers (referential name given to active Annoy.com participants) are engaged in a passionate dialogue that offers invaluable insights into how people view what is going on in the world, both before and after September 11, providing a rich archive of incredible insights. The technology reveals the power of unmediated online communications and has been pointed to by academics as a remarkable tool for conflict resolution.
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