“Meowerton? Baby Meow? Meowy? Meows?”
—How I just attempted to call my cat. His name is Oliver.
April 2010
This movie is so emotionally manipulative.
McConaughey is an X-TREME!!1!1!!!!11!!!!!!1!!!!!! chodeasaurus and yet I STILL ended up wanting him to get the girl.
Allowing Ghosts of Girlfriends Past to annihilate what little remains of my attraction to Matthew McConaughey.
This movie is meowing terrible.
I do love how they have the same girl who played young Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30 playing her here, though.
March 2010
I am exhausted.
I am thinking maybe I will take a night off from working out, get some tacos or a couple of slices of pizza, and drink some cheap wine. I feel like I am never going to dig myself out from under this pile of work, but somehow it always gets done so I guess I need to have faith that it will this time, too.
Health Care Passed, Now What About "Wealth" Care? →
huffingtonpost.com
“This isn’t about handouts or welfare, so Tea Partiers, don’t go there. A scenario in which a large percent of the labor pool is barely hanging on has the power to break America’s back. And with no way out, another generation will take this wealth gap with them into the future and will continue to live on the fringe.
We need real solutions. We must educate women of color on how to build wealth. And this means more than nagging about the importance of opening a savings account, or lecturing about spending too much at the beauty salon. Each and every solution must be realistic and textured and acknowledge the fact that we are doing the best we can while working like crazy, raising children, and caring for and supporting loved ones.”
Really hoping to take a class with this woman!
@abbyjean
Haha, we recommended each other! It looks like we had a pact or something.
More Than Myth →
morethanmyth.com
This is my friend’s startup that went live today. From the press release:
CHICAGO, March 31 /PRNewswire/ — More Than Myth™ (MTM), a ‘grand social experiment’ created to capture and chronicle the most uninhibited and outrageous (but true) stories of a generation launches March 31, 2010. Even cooler? The most legendary stories are guaranteed to be published in a book.
To celebrate undiscovered stories, ‘MTM: Living Legend’, kicks off the MTM search. More Than Myth will give the person with the best story $5,000 and propose a question, “Do you want to get paid $5,000 to blow $5,000 on creating a legendary story?” The winner’s story will be published in MTM’s upcoming book.
What are legendary stories? MTM founder Daniel Tweedall interviewed the likes of comedian Michael Ian Black, poker champion Phil Hellmuth Jr., pop culture ‘I.T. Girl’ and Party Monsters: Cabo runner-up and pop culture queen Kinsey Schofield, eccentric entrepreneur Peter Shankman and designer and Project Runway runner up Althea Harper, who all shared their incredible experiences.
“Life is often stranger than fiction, and those moments make for the best stories,” said Tweedall. “From the surreal and shocking, to the hysterical and emotional, More Than Myth gives you the platform – it only takes 5 minutes to begin telling your story.”
Anyone can share their stories on MTM’s website through a simple 3-step process. The top-ranked stories (decided by vote) are collected each month for the chance to be published in their upcoming book.
“More than just making the home page for an afternoon, this is a road to glory – getting your story enshrined in a book,” said Tweedall. “It isn’t about having the best formal writing skills, it’s the best storytelling – like you would with friends over a beer.”
About “More Than Myth™: Living Legend” Storytelling Contest
Enter “More Than Myth™: Living Legend” by telling your greatest stories at www.morethanmyth.com. To become eligible, register as a Member on MTM’s website and tell the ‘Quickie’ version of your story – 150 words or less – by Friday, April 23 11:59PM EDT. You then have until Friday, April 30 11:59PM EDT to tell the full story (1500 words or less).
Stories are voted on by the MTM community. The person with the most legendary (i.e. top-ranked story) receives $5,000, which is theirs to keep. Or (here’s where it gets good) they can opt to spend it all on creating a legendary story.
If they spend the full $5,000 and tell their story on www.morethanmyth.com, MTM will have that story published in MTM’s upcoming book and receive another $5,000.
For the official “More Than Myth™: Living Legend” contest rules, visit: http://www.morethanmyth.com/pages/view/living_legend_official_rules.
About More Than Myth™
More Than Myth (MTM) is a grand social experiment created to capture and chronicle the most uninhibited and outrageous (but true) stories of a generation. Those legendary stories that your friends say ‘sound like something out of a book.’
Now they can be. Launched on March 30, 2010, MTM is a next-generation platform that makes it easy to tell your most legendary stories to friends and the world. Which stories become enshrined in The Book is up to you. Who said the road to glory had to be a tough one?
I am one of those people whose stories generally have to end in “and then I found five dollars” to make them worthwhile, so I won’t be submitting anything, but a lot of you guys have done incredible things and had incredible experiences so maybe the $5000 can be yours.
I like arriving to the subway station to learn that two people were stabbed to death on my line over the weekend.
ETA: I forgot the best part: I learned this via a “Wanted for Homicide” poster, meaning they haven’t caught the guy yet!
REALLY, Law & Order?
Detective Lupo: “We’ve seen this before. It’s called homicide-itis.”
My boyfriend: “Jerry Orbach is probably spinning in his grave.”
More 90210 (spoilers)
- Whoa, actual thoughtful discussion on queer relationships and sexuality being fluid!
- Lori Loughlin = awesome three-dimensional mom character.
- I love Rumer Willis. She’s adorable. I was all about Adrianna and Navid getting back together but this is pretty cute.
- I realize these Kotex ads are a different side of the same coin and it’s all marketing and blah blah blah, but they are WAY better than the usual crap ads with blue liquid, white pants, etc. Cleverness will get you everywhere.
- I was annoyed when they wrote Ethan off, but I don’t miss him at all.
- Naomi is terrible, but I like her hair color. Also her purple vest.
- Liam is a fox. (Actor playing him is 26.) Didn’t like his doormat comment, though.
- For someone who’s ostensibly crazy about Silver, Teddy kind of sucks. Oh, wait, he’s afraid he’s going to hurt her.
- Why does Dixon have to have a gambling problem? Seriously.
- Jasper is the worst.
“You know what a Steinem is? It’s a beer mug.”
—I LOVE YOU, 90210. The Glorious Steinems.
“When we talk about acquaintance rape, we aren’t talking about “normal sexual activity” gone wrong. We’re talking about things that no compassionate person — no person without the intent to do harm — would do to another human being. This isn’t about confusion or miscommunication or domination or submission or seduction or regret. It is about hurting someone else, on purpose. It is about using sex as a weapon, not as a pleasure. It’s about seeing sex as something you do to someone, not something you do with someone. It looks absolutely nothing like your standard sexual interactions or negotiations, when you actually think about standard sexual interactions and negotiations. It’s about as anti-sex as you can get.”
—Feministe | Your definition of “anti-sex” is not like mine.
“I bet some of these male KBR execs have daughters. Or wives, girlfriends, sisters, mothers, nieces, female friends, etc. I wonder how they would react to a call from one of the women in their lives who had just sustained the level of injuries inflicted on Jones. I bet they would want to kill the bastards, right? Why is it so hard for people to exercise just a tiny bit of human empathy? Why? My faith in humanity is waning today.”
—comment here - trigger warning on post
“The contradiction has been pointed out over and over again by feminists but it bears repeating. Men are always painted as rational and logical as a justification for their near-monopoly on positions of power. And yet we are supposed to believe that when it comes to sexual attraction, the mere glimpse of a thigh is enough for a man to lose all self-restraint?”
—Jez commenter Squabble
“
The more privileged you are, the easier it is to envision human beings as pure individuals, unconnected to other individuals in any way that matters.
It sometimes puzzles conservatives that progressives are so concerned with what people think. What is racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, after all, other than a way some people think about some other people? And as long as I’m free to pursue my own self-interest, what does it matter what others think of me?
For someone with a lot of privilege, the rational answer is, “it doesn’t matter at all.” The more privileged you are, the less other people’s thoughts count.
” —Alas, a blog: Privilege is Driving a Smooth Road and Not Even Knowing It (via Maloy) (via dirtsky) (via clingtomymouth)
“This whole unemployment porn genre is honestly starting to creep me out to a very high degree. These self indulgent memoirs certainly don’t do anything to address the significant structural and social inequalities in the United States, nor do they challenge readers to think beyond their own experiences.”
—
If I ever had to create an online dating profile,
I’m pretty sure I’d just post the lyrics to “Soldier” by Destiny’s Child and leave it at that.
“It’s not clear enough to merely speak of consent, because the lines of consent in sex — especially anonymous sex — can become very blurry.”
—
Dealing with AU’s anti-sex brigade | The Eagle Online
There is nothing—NOTHING—ambiguous about consent. If you are finding it difficult to navigate that, the failing is YOURS. Not the circumstance, not the person you’re with—YOU are the problem. Do something to correct it and LEARN WHAT IT MEANS.
(via sluthaditcoming)
Without Lady Gaga, today might've been just too much to bear.
(via inothernews)
I feel this way far too frequently.
“Let’s get this straight: any woman who heads to an EI party as an anonymous onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice, and walks back to a boy’s room with him is indicating that she wants sex, OK? To cry “date rape” after you sober up the next morning and regret the incident is the equivalent of pulling a gun to someone’s head and then later claiming that you didn’t ever actually intend to pull the trigger.”
—
Some joker with a platform in a college paper, quoted here.
Is this person utterly devoid of imagination or what? I’m always confused about how people who hold fast to this line of thinking go about dating. Basically all of my relationships have begun in a variation of the scenario above — by which I mean that I have been spending time with someone platonically, sometimes consuming alcohol, and then our interaction has in one way or another exposed itself as non-platonic and we go do some non-platonic stuff somewhere. I have never had sex — by which I mean the heteronormative definition of intercourse (strangely being employed here by a gay man) — with someone the first time I was alone with him. There are plenty of other (indeed related) activities to be done by two (possibly drunk) people who are getting to know each other. Assuming that a closed door equals a signed contract for penis-in-vagina sex lets rapists off the hook in a pretty major way. This is what rape culture looks like.
People that complain about LA people being shallow are usually DYING to break into the entertainment industry.
(via cijimcb)
Exactly.
Also, I guess I should clarify that I wasn’t quoting Gaga in endorsement of her feelings about LA, but because I liked the part about New York.
“She’s right, we don’t kill to get what we need: we hire people to do it for us.”
—
Ha.
these go to 11.: one thing that always bothers me about celebrity interviews →
morninggloria.tumblr.com
There’s a point in the interview when the celebrity subject tries to make their success look like as much as product of their own hard work as possible, to the point of downplaying or fudging a privileged upbringing.
In the Gaga article, for example, it’s mentioned that her father runs a company…
And also this.
You’re probably right, I just find that I tend to take everything Gaga says with a lot of salt because of the ridiculously super-constructed persona thing.
Yeah, I get this? But the issue is that, being aware of construction and media presence and pop culture’s influence on people - it almost makes these flippant comments worse than they would otherwise be. Understand I’m not calling for a ritual stoning here, but the cultural weight of an oppressive obligation isn’t from one thing - it doesn’t come from someone writing a manifesto about how attractive people shouldn’t eat - but from the slow accretion of tiny gestures like these that sort of gradually infiltrate your confidence, like pieces of glass, and slice it in a thousand ways towards sanity oblivion.
So, this.
“
Gertrude Boltz, 63, said the church was facing “very big problems.” But, she noted, she tried to separate them from her own personal faith.
“To think of Jesus Christ is one thing,” she said. “To think of the pope is another.”
” —Sexual Abuse Scandal Tests Catholics’ Trust in Leaders - NYTimes.com
Regardless of whether you are Catholic, not Catholic, religious, non religious, whatever - please remember this and similar conceptualizations of distinctions between “institution/hierarchy” and “faith” and be sensitive to them when discussing the scandal.
(via katharinec)
Exactly. A person can mean so many different things when they say that they are Catholic, or religious, or that they believe in God. Obviously, there are some major problems that exist within the Catholic Church today and have for some time, and these need to be dealt with unflinchingly. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that “Catholicism”, in all of its definitions, is either at fault or fundamentally bad. Everything is so much more complicated than that.
(via myvivavoce)
Um, you guys?
My friend Julia is quoted in this article.
MY FRIEND JULIA KNOWS LADY GAGA.
I HAVE TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION FROM LADY GAGA.
“I don’t like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I’m from New York. I will kill to get what I need.”
—
wearing shoes that be talking: How Lady Gaga Became the World’s Biggest Pop Star — New York Magazine
“Your constituting women as being merely sex objects, which seems to have a long and shameful tradition in your line of ‘thought,’ is unrelated to any woman’s actions. Didn’t your mother ever tell you to treat everyone with respect? It’s the basic idea underlying the whole of society. I’m not going to make an historical argument about how people have treated other people as objects because it suited their (the objectifiers’) purposes to. That people generally dehumanize and objectify other people when they rape, murder, enslave, or simply act a fool toward them. I’ll just say that you’re probably young and angry and you do not really believe what you’re writing, and I feel really sorry for you. Good luck.”
—more bmichael
“This whole line of thought is some weird, windmil tilting, obviously malformed sort of argument that seems to exist only for provocation because you cannot possibly believe in something so stupid. I mean, you obviously know how to use a computer, so you possess the basic motorskills and logical aptitude that requires. You have to see this for what it is, this ridiculously peevish, oversensitive, caricatured depiction of women and the extension of social rights. I mean, at least if it were the 1980s and you were a terrible stand-up comic, this would be topical?”
—bmichael
“This is especially problematic in light of studies (notably ones by David Lisak at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Stephanie McWhorter at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego) suggesting that 60 to 70 percent of rapists deliberately get their victims drunk or otherwise manipulate the situation so that it’s not necessary to inflict the very physical injuries that might give them away. No wonder that the Justice Department has found that at least 60 percent of rapes go unreported.”
—Key quote right here. There was also a study about how many men who raped a woman recognize that they raped her. This is the big key here. A huge percentage of men, having detailed the sex they had that is legally defined as rape, still deny it. Sex education needs to change to reflect this. (via fatmanatee)
By far one of the most insulting things I've read on tumblr in a while. →
fucknoliberals.tumblr.com
And that’s saying something.
Here’s an insane idea. Instead of viewing women as a commodity to be bought, sold, or traded in, solely for sex and in particular for sex that she has never, ever, ever had with anyone else, maybe you could view women as people. You know, human beings you spend time with and commit to because you like them. Because they are smart, funny, interesting, and in general, make your life better. I say this as a recently married feminist whose husband really doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that I’ve *GASP!* had sex with other people in the past or that I think I should be treated as an equal. Perhaps this is because he’s actually interested in me as a person instead of as some archetype that he can purchase if the price is right.
I think there is something incredibly warped when a grown man honestly can’t find any value in any woman other than sex. It’s fucked up, but it says far more about the person who has so thoroughly dehumanized half the population that he flippantly says to all of them “you’re not worth it,” than it does about anyone else.
“[W]hen sex is the only thing a woman brings to the table (and let’s face it, in this day and age, that is all she brings to the table,) what does it matter who the woman is? And why should the man commit to her, given the enormous costs of doing so, when he can just trade her out like a used car?” What a sad, presumably lonely little person.
So how about this, everyone:
Rape is a crime.
No, really.
It is.
Look it up.
So stop blaming women for the crime perpetrated against them.
It’s not just an asshole thing to do.
It’s a contribution to violence against women.
Blaming victims causes them to be reluctant to talk to the proper authorities.
And then perpetrators are never punished.
Impunity empowers them.
They commit the crime again.
Victim blaming intimidates the next victim and they don’t come forward.
Perpetrator rapes again.
The victim says nothing.
See a pattern developing?
Good.
Has writing this in one-sentence installments made it easier for you to digest?
Because I don’t want to have to repeat myself.
Alright then.
Enough of this “be cautious and you’ll be fine!” crap.
Fresh From The Source: "If you don’t gouge his eyes out, whatever happens to you is all your fault." →
sandychang.tumblr.com
I remember when Washington City Paper posted an interesting article about Valdosta State University’s sexual assault information page, entitled, “The Worst Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Ever”. The university blames women for not taking special precautions against being raped, like avoiding…
“
However, in most ways, rape is not at all similar to either dropping or breaking your iphone as it is a traumatic event with life-long consequences that include, but are not limited to, PTSD, isolation, job loss, depression, suicidal ideation, STD, STI, pregnancy, and internal injury.
All people have the right to not have crimes committed against them. This is why crime is against the law. The post probably sounds silly to you because you are surrounded by a culture that has led you to believe that people who are the victims of the crime of rape are, in your words, “retarded.” I appreciate your interacting with the ideas, and hope that all of us can benefit from your particular insights.
” —Fem!n*Ally: TIMOTee: People shouldn’t like something on Tumblr just because it seems humanitarian or “the right thing to do.”
OK, seriously? How awesome is Fem!n*Ally? I mean, remember the other day when I said that thing about how finding myself resorting to name-calling makes me feel powerless? The perpetuation of rape culture and revictimization by people who don’t know what the meow they are talking about is another thing that makes me feel powerless, and in this particular case I could not have responded in a calm, rational manner, as has been done above.
"She used to look good to me, but now I find her simply irresistible"
So the first question is, why? I mean, it’s usually the opposite, right? You meet someone, you’re enthralled, time passes, she’s not as exciting to you as she was the first time you saw her, she makes you get a cat, she commits herself more vehemently to feminism and it kind of gets on your nerves sometimes, you wish she’d clean up the floor between the bed and your wardrobe, whatever.
It’s the big mystery of the song, really. How did he go from being sort of lukewarm about this chick to compromising principles, breaking promises, and feeling obliged to conform? You don’t just wake up one day and realize some lady you thought was fairly attractive (but not your type or something) is a craze you’d endorse, a powerful force, so fine, there’s no tellin’ where the money went, etc. Unless, I guess, it’s one of those things like the Bee Gees song “More Than a Woman” where you thought of her as your kid sister, and then one time she shows up in a dress instead of pants and instead of being confused about why your awesome tomboy friend isn’t being herself, as on every sitcom episode dealing with this theme, ever, your radar finally goes off, notifying you that, yes, she is actually a woman (more than a woman, even), and now that you have figured this out it’s time to start trying to sleep with her.
But anyway, based on the lyrics, I’m guessing that’s not the case. If anything, it sounds more like the song “Love Potion Number 9.” (Understanding songs through other songs!) I mean, her methods are inscrutable, her love is mythical, the woman is invincible, it’s simply unavoidable, and the trend is irreversible. So it could be a spell, right?
But let’s say it isn’t. Beyond witchcraft (that’s another song! it was sung by some bro from Hoboken who was a dick to Mia Farrow), what about this woman changed drastically enough to justify this dude’s irrational behavior? Did she pick up some liquid liner and a flatiron? Learn to play the guitar and/or poker? Throw out her Hello Kitty collection, instantly making herself appear more mature and womanly (cold dead hands, etc.)? Buy a red dress? Learn Mandarin (although according to the episode of Cougar Town I accidentally watched the other night, this makes people like you less; memo to self, should you ever watch it again: things that happen on Cougar Town are not really applicable to real life)? Win a taco eating contest? Start homebrewing beer? Lose 10 pounds and become delusionally self-confident, emitting said confidence in the form of mojo? Reveal herself to be the superhero G-Girl? (Oh, God, that movie. P.S.: IMDb lists a character called simply “Shapely Bartender.”) Discover a new kind of dinosaur? Double-fist Irish carbombs, which is apparently something that made a guy like me one time? Get a sexier pair of glasses? Do something to differentiate herself from the other be-lipsticked guitar-playing drones writhing behind you?
No, seriously, this is what I think about on the Stairmaster. Also this is a surprisingly good workout song.
as a lady who wears very pretty dresses, what are your thoughts on leg shaving? mandatory? optional? appropriate?
I think it would be impossible for me to come up with any response to this that wasn’t influenced by the patriarchy. I shave (not as often as I “should”), but I don’t really think it’s my place to pass judgment on other people’s decisions, especially as mine are the result of socialization. And I loved Mo’Nique at the Oscars!
(I realize I am behind on other questions! Short version: I don’t really hate guys who like jazz and I need to read more about the Terry Richardson thing before I answer!)
