Apparently my opposition to Glenn Beck interferes with my objectivity

Guess what, America: I am not objective.

Another big surprise: neither are you.

Blogs are not news outlets. Bloggers are not journalists, although sometimes we pretend to be, and bloggers have been known to break big stories. People don't read blogs for news -- at least they shouldn't, that's what newspapers are for -- they read them for commentary, with two purposes in mind:

• To agree with it.

OR

• To find something wrong with it so you can disagree with it.

No one who reads a blog does so expecting objectivity. Well, maybe some people do, but they haven't been around the internet very long.

Let me tell you a little secret: I know that the frog was fake. I also know that Markfrog is a stuffed animal. Go figure, a stuffed frog would be upset about a fake frog being thrown in a pot of boiling water by an FM shock jock who pretends to cry on camera while trying to make an incoherent point which is only made to incite people. He's a clown, remember?

But apparently, my opposition to Beck makes me a bad reporter because it compromises my objectivity. But, aside from the observation of Yom Kippur, beginning tonight, Glenn Beck and I have something in common.

NEITHER OF US IS OBJECTIVE. Never have been, never claimed to be. Well, maybe he has, but that just makes him a fucking liar on top of everything else.

Glenn Beck is no longer invited to observe Yom Kippur with me

I don't think that Markfrog would appreciate me sharing the holiest of the High Holy Days with a frog-murdering, point-blowing douchebag.

Frivolity with a side of Beefcake

I podcast the Stephanie Miller show and listen to it during my 3 hour bus commute from home to my Yoga Teacher Training. On today's show, either Hal Sparks or Emmy-award-winng Jim Ward mentioned that President Obama has been overheard saying "Jesus, I wish they'd stop grabbing my ass."

This set me off in a bizzare direction wherein I began trying to figure out which biracial-man-to-whom-I-shouldn't-be-attracted is hotter: Barack Obama, our first not-wholly-white President or the half-human-half-alien who is old enough to have wooed my gran, David Bowie.

Each has his incredible points, and each has something about him that makes me blush. President Obama is, of course, the President and while power is sexy, elected officials aren't supposed to be hot. He's also intelligent, knows how to take and make a joke, and we've all seen those pictures of him on the beach. Hello!

Meanwhile, David Bowie is 62, which means that even by the "half-your-age-plus-7" rule I'm too young for my crush to be okay. But as he ages, Bowie just keeps getting more and more attractive - which is only confirmation that he's not wholly human. Plus, that voice! Generations of women, now have swooned for Bowie, but I am honestly stumped here.

Do I go with the 60-year-old double malt whisky, or the 40-year-old special reserve rum?

What do you think?

Glenn Beck invites followers to partake in Yom Kippur fast

This is interesting:

Those of you who have read my blog at all might be able to tell that when I first heard about this I was enraged. Furious. Who does Glenn Beck think he is trying to politicize the highest of the High Holy Days?! The most important holiday in Judaism?! You know, something like this:

But then I got to thinking about it... what is Yom Kippur really about? It's not about excluding people, it's not about giving Glenn Beck another 30 seconds on his 15-minutes-of-fame clock, it's about atonement.

Everyone does things that they aren't necessarily proud of of which they are not necessarily proud; everyone has something inside their heart for which they seek atonement. Even non-Jewish people like Glenn Beck. We Hebrews aren't alone in our need and desire to look within and see what we did in the last year that was fucked up, what needs work; how we can do things better next time. So, with that in mind, and the fact that he will be in the Seattle area this weekend, I would like to invite Glenn Beck to my house to break the fast on Monday. I don't want to talk about the "state of the Republic" or politics at all. If he is really interested in sharing in the experience of Yom Kippur, I invite him to do just that. Come with me on Monday to services at my temple, join me for the breaking of the fast.

After all, it's not like he doesn't politicize important Christian holidays, so why should I be upset when he does to Jews what he does to his fellow Christians? And since I have always been invited into the hearts and homes of other Jews when celebrating the High Holy Days, it would be terrible of me not to extend that very courtesy to someone else.

So, Mr. Beck, Mr. Beck's people. Drop me an email and we'll talk. The only thing I ask is that you don't cry on me.

Get 'em while they're young?

Interesting thing happened to me today. I was sexually harassed by a couple of 15-year-old boys while walking my dog. As they were walking up behind me, they started doing the 15-year-old equivalent of cat-calling, which I ignored because it was impotent and unoffensive. However, it was clear that they were trying to get my attention the way male humans attempt to do when they see an attractive female human.

Anyway, my dog stopped to do some dog thing and the boys passed me. As they walked by one of them said of my tits "I bet they're fake anyway." I laughed. "Oh please," I said, "you're like half my age." Then I thought to myself, I wish they were fake. There would be so much less upkeep and I wouldn't have to worry about them sagging down to my knees when I'm old. (It later occurred to me that by the time that starts to happen there will be a Mary Kay product that prevents such things from happening.)

The whole experience got me thinking though, why are accusations of fake-tit-ness considered an insult? I mean, who gives a shit? This isn't my real hair color, (and at the moment it's pretty obvious), but no one would try to insult me by saying "I'll bet that's not your real hair color" (they might point out rudely that my roots are showing, but I already know that thankyouvermuch), especially as retaliation for ignoring his advances. Yet somehow I'm supposed to be insulted by someone who isn't even old enough to drive thinking that my tits are fake? I don't get it.

The implication, of course, is that only slutty bad girls would have fake boobs. And of course, it's not okay to be a slutty bad girl (whatever that means anyway), so it's okay for 15-year-olds to try to hit on you if you look like a slutty bad girl. Had they been a couple of years older, had I not had my dog, they might have been more aggressive (in which case I would have had to take off my Mary Kay pins and defend my honor by busting some skulls and calling the cops).

It's fabulous, really, this thought process that goes on in the minds of some men and boys. You're obviously a slut in a good way so I'm gonna hit on you, but if you ignore me you're a slut in a bad way so I'm gonna tell you what I really think about you. These guys don't understand that we already know what they think of us the moment they start harassing us in the street. We know the second a douche-y little wanna-be gangbanger (and we're talking white kids from the suburbs, so he's more of a wannabe-Shadey than anything else -- which is also amusing for a kid from Lynnwood) starts trying to pick us up in that douche-y little wanna-be way: he thinks that because I'm wearing a skirt, or because I have big tits (that fwiw, are 100% my own fat grown in that part of my body because that's what my genes demanded), I'm a piece of meat.

The funniest thing, though, is that this kid wasn't more than 15. I can see a 25-year-old thinking that he might have a chance so why not say "hey hott stuff" or something inappropriate like that, but 15? Really? First of all, illegal. Second of all, I wouldn't even want to touch him because boys that age have a hair-trigger ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkthatyoudo. Third, I'm gonna have to be at least 55 before being half my age will be an acceptable criterion for a guy to whose sexual advances I respond. Finally, where the hell did a 15-year-old work up the chutzpah to hit on a fully-grown woman? Video games? Rap music? Or is it just one more example of the asshattery going on in the world this week? The quadfecta of douche-y diatribes is completed by this little pip-squeak? Well, at least he accomplished something.

Godwin's Law

Dear Internet,

You and I have had some problems in the past. Remember that time you hosed up my computer because of that one bug in IE7? Or that time in college when I put up those scandalous photos? Or that other time in college when I put up those other scandalous photos? We've been through a lot, but mostly we've gotten through it for two reasons: feminist blogging, and old episodes of the Muppet show sliced into 9-ish minute segments posted on YouTube.

Lately, though, there's been some things going on that I just have to call you to the floor for. There's been a lot of talk of Nazis lately, and I'm not talking about the actual Nazis who killed 6,000,000 Jews, 2,000,000 Polish people, 3,000,000 Russians, 1,000,000 Gypsies (or Romani), 250,000 mentally and physically disabled people, 15,000 homosexuals, 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses (as well as lots of German dissidents, socialists, and other people who aren't counted on the handy little chart on the Holocaust Wiki page). No, those Nazis aren't be discussed so much these days, it's more like asshats like this guy, comparing sex workers to Nazis. Or any number of bed-wetting, Glen-Beck-watching Freeper Morons who keep painting Hitler mustaches on pictures of President Barack Hussein Obama. (Just click the link and hit CTRL+F and type in "nazi" and you'll be able to navigate the handily documented Freeper quotes.)

Now, Internet, we both love each other, and if you want to talk about sex workers being horrible people who prop up the patriarchy by engaging in teh secks with teh menz for teh $$$, fine. Let's have a discussion. You can start with how inherently bad money is because it, too, props up the patriarchy since capitalism is essentially one great big game of "who's got the biggest wang!". You may feel free to continue to tell me how engaging in sex for money objectifies all women by proxy because when one woman does something, all women do it -- which, I assume, is where the myth that "all women are bisexual" came from. But the second that you start saying things like "Nazis used to give certain Jews jobs and power over other Jews in the concentration camps, therefore any woman who engages in sex work is just like one of those Jews that betrayed the others to find favor with the Nazis"; your're doing less for the conversation and more for the perception that you are, in fact, an accessory one might wear on one's hind-end.

And if you want to talk about President Obama's policies, feel free. You can say whatever you want about how certain policies of the administration. Hell, if you want, you can say that he's just as bad as George W. Bush for continuing the war in Afghanistan, and not putting pressure on congress to repeal at least some of the more egregious aspects of the Patriot Act. But the next time you utter a string of words that include "Obama" and "Nazi" without the words "calling President a" and "makes no sense"; you are again doing less for the conversation and more for the perception that your sole purpose, Internet, truly is the browsing of porn.

Internet, Godwin's Law is now in effect. Quite simply, "that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact". I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else, and I understand where the desire to demonize one's intellectual opponents comes from -- especially on emotional issues. It's easy, when discussing these topics (sex work, health care, Governor Sanford's continuing governorship), to allow your emotions to run away with you; humans are not logical creatures, we are inherently emotional creatures, so the first place we go is emotion. We seek to get others to our way of thinking by appealing to their emotions. Appealing to their love of their granny, appealing to their hatred of brown people; appealing to their deep-seated instinct to call women who enjoy sex "dirty, dirty whores".

I'm not saying that you can't continue to love your gran, hate the Mexicans in the kitchen of every restaurant you've ever been to, and stroke your mighty internet-cock while insinuating that women who like sex deserve whatever poor treatment they get IRL. I'm not saying that at all. All I'm saying is to edit out the bit about them being Nazis before you post your comment. Barack Obama isn't a Nazi (by the way, fun fact, the Nazis killed people of color too). Sex workers aren't Nazis. The only people who can rightfully be called Nazis are Nazis and neo-Nazis. That's it.

I mean, if you're watching skinhead porn, that's one thing, but Oz has been off the air for 10 years, so it's time you got over it. K?

Love,

Rachel