Janine Garofalo on Olbermann

So, I'm posting this not so much for content (I don't so much care why more women don't like Rush, but one interesting note is that they are looking at why less women like him but not what I think is the more pertinent question: why do so many men like him?) but I freaking loooove Janine Garofalo! So, here she is on Olbermann a couple of nights ago:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"Instead of Trusting Us to Make Decisions With Our Own Money..."

Last night after watching the State of the Union, I commented on how Obama is a breath of fresh air (trite, but I really think it's the best way to put it.) And today I tainted my air, by listening to the republican rebuttal. (Have you noticed how the Nellies are falling all over themselves to get people of color to speak for them these days?) I'll sum up the following video for you:

Members of the Republican party also have parents who were from a far off land

The Republicans also want to be bi-partisan

The Stimulus Bill is too full of stimulus

Nellies want people to have the option to pay for their own Health Care

Nellies are against corruption

And finally: The best government is no government!

I really loved this gem: America is great in evidenced by the fact that "We defeated the Soviet menace". Really? Are they trying to evoke some kind of superhero image? Let me ponder this for a moment...



Ooooh, my heroes! I do like the Republicans better now. They just need to find a Wonder Woman who can reminds us of how heroic we were when we conquered the Nazis with our invisible airplane and truth lasso. That would be hot.

But I thought the real topper was the meme about government should leave "us" along to do with our money what we please. I wonder if this us is the us that flushed the banking system down the toilet. Or maybe it was just the less important uses that put all of our life savings into the stock market to get flushed down the toilet. Or is it the uses who don't have any life savings and are struggling to pay their monthly mortgage. I could go on and on, but I think the uses that he's talking about are wealthy business owners who have money in over-seas accounts and have private health insurance whose kids go to private schools and who don't want to see their taxes increase in order to increase access to decent schools and public transportation for others. But...that's just me.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

California legislation process sucks

As a California resident for most of my life, I have come to view yearly budget impasses with a sort of non-chalance. I honestly haven't thought much about why this happens and, amazingly, have given little thought to how this could be different and why our state is so F'd up. That's why I found this segment on The Rachel Maddow show to be so enlightening. It was like the proverbial light bulb went on. Check it out, especially if you live in CA.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So, what do you think of Strip clubs?

I was reading Erin McKeown's post about a pissy email she received from some dude who took exception to her telling a story about visiting a strip club as a prelude to a song. The email is short so I'll include it here for reference:

While suffering through your sub-textually convoluted tale about nights at the Satin Doll, I was reminded of early African American movie actors who would make fools of their own race on camera.No matter how many jazz chord progressions and clever vocal inflections you employ, the conclusion is that you have tasked yourself to resound the message to a full house that it's acceptable to objectify other females for entertainment purposes.

Holding out a dollar bill to extort bizarre behavior from a fellow human being is beyond repugnant. Maybe you have a special - "Gee, I'm bored tonight" - clause in your moral code, that allows you to randomly minimalize others.

I came to the conclusion some time ago that not all misogynists are necessarily men.

So, to address the issue that "Holding out a dollar bill to extort bizarre behavior from a fellow human being is beyond repugnant" I'll just say that it's worse to go to a strip club without any singles! It reminds me of the time I went to a Fairy Butch show in SF (kind of a burlesque show, with some comedy, some match making, some strippers...) and a whole row of us lezzies where just horrified that a sweaty stripper was going to come over and rub all over us. Now, our behavior was repugnant. Fairy Butch must have seen our grimaces because in the next segment, dressed in counter-drag (dressed as a Lady) she laid all over all four of us....

OR, maybe it reminds me of the time I went to a fund-raising party for the Lusty Lady in SF. I felt bad for not getting a lap dance or participating in some mud-wrestling--because lady's gotta pay the rent--but I don't like to get sticky or dirty. But I bought a shirt!

Anyway, yes, I'm sure that some sex workers (I'm not going to differentiate right now), have had some kind of trauma in their life (and shit, who hasn't!) and the sex industry is a continuation of this in some way...but there are lawyers out there coercing their secretaries into having sex with them, does that mean that we're going to outlaw lawyers! OK, some might think that this is stretching and that some kind of unequal power dynamic is more apt to occur, or is even inherent in the sex industry and that it why it is singled out as being "mysoginistic", "repugnant", "degrading". I disagree.

I think that there are a couple of more important issues that are too big and burly that people would rather not talk about.
1) The pervasive misogyny in our culture--NO MATTER what industry it is. Women deal with that shit everywhere. One doesn't escape it by staying out of the sex industry.
2) OK, this is awkward because I don't usually go in for the goddess talk, but for #2 I'm going to say that the worse sin than giving a working lady a couple of singles, is not appreciating her, not appreciating her work, not valuing a woman's sexuality.
3) There are few industries that a woman can make as much money as a man. Deal with that! (Thank you, Mr Prez for the Lilly Ledbetter Act) I've worked a ton of jobs that, while nobody was twisting my arm to be there, I certainly would not have been if I had another great idea for how to pay my rent. There are myrid reasons for why people work jobs that they would rather not do. And there are some really lousy jobs out there, some pay better than others.

A slight tangent: I saw the movie, The Wrestler, recently. Marissa Tomei played an aging stripper, Cassidy, who is having trouble rustling up interest and Mickey Rourke plays an aging wrestler, Randy, who enters the ring to cheering, albeit small, crowds. I thought a lot about the juxtoposition of these characters. They both are exploiting their bodies, bodies which are not what they once were. And here Randy is, going out (literally) to cheers, and Cassidy dances to indifference--groups chatting amongst each other, individuals looking for a younger piece of ass. It was really interesting. Sad. Life. Check it out. AND TIP your stripper well!