anythings.org

Now, this article is supposed to be about the debate as to whether or not the alleged victim is actually the person shown on the R. Kelly child pornography sex tape, but the author of it decided to go for a catchy hook line, rather than starting the story off with what it was really about: R. Kelly is a pedophile, and he got caught on camera, but nobody is certain  who the victim was. I’m not even going to go into the fact that the article should be about the fact that R. Kelly is at trial for many counts of child pornography and not the victim’s identity.

She’s been described over several weeks of testimony as a Christian singer and a point guard, a participant in three-way sex and as the goddaughter to one of the music industry’s biggest stars.

As far as opening lines go, that’s pretty catchy. Sex! Scandal! Three-ways! Christianity! And then you read the next sentence, and you start to wonder what this article is really about:

Even the family of the alleged victim in the R. Kelly child pornography trial doesn’t seem to agree about her, especially about whether she’s on a 27-minute sex tape that could send the R&B star to prison for up to 15 year if convicted.

Continuing on with the story, they make it sound like the victim is on trial, rather than a pedophile:

Prosecutors say she was as young as 13 when the tape was made. Now 23, the woman has been identified at the trial. She has not spoken publicly about the case.

Prosecutors said they would not ask the alleged victim to testify. The defense hasn’t said whether they will, though Kelly attorney Sam Adam Jr. asked jurors in opening statements why prosecutors chose not to call her.

“One answer,” he said, his voice booming. “One: It’s not her on that tape.”

Let me say this now before my head explodes: it shouldn’t matter whether or not it is her on the tape. R. Kelly is at trial for having sex with a minor, and if the prosecution can prove that without being sure of the victim’s identity, then he should be convicted.

Not once does the entire article mention the word “pedophile”, which I find extremely shocking since the alleged victim was 13 at the time the tape was made, making her just on the cusp of puberty, which in the medical sense of the word, would make R. Kelly a pedophile.

So we can call (potential) child sexual abuse victims “vixens”, but we can’t call their attackers pedophiles?

This poster for The Women is not ok with me:

Not only is the movie poster in the shape of a woman’s torso, it has outlines of (perfectly even) breasts in bright red lipstick. Oh, wait! Don’t forget the belly button, and the perfect Barbie waist and hips! I suppose it wouldn’t be so awful if the poster didn’t make a massive generalization about women and shove them into a stereotyped box. I’ve taken the time to type out the text for those who are curious and do not feel like squinting:

The girlfriends. The joy. The boding. The betrayals. The breakups. The makeups. The sex. The fun. The jealousy. The gossip. The success. The struggles. The marriage. The divorce. The beauty. The warmth. The work. The family. The dreams. The career. The husbands. The kids. The laughter. The tears. The secrets. The support. The lovers. The fighters. The balance. The intuition. The thighs. The shoes. The diets. The trust. The loyalty. The lies. The intellect. The elegance. The confidence. The doubt. The mothers. The daughters. The compassion. The courage. The humor. The passion. The love. The friendship. The women.

So not only do you have to be an intellectual mother who cares about her thighs, her shoes, and diets, but you have to have a career, elegance, and confidence - and be successful. I think the designers of this poster took the phrase “having it all” a little too seriously: they’ve suggested that a woman must experience all of this (with the perfect figure and red lipstick) in order to be a true woman and belong to the “women” collective. A woman is not a woman if she does have breasts, a belly button, a husband, some doubt, a few tears, and success.

Image from Wild About Movies.

According to market researchers at Sony Ericsson, women spend more on electronics every year than they do on shoes. I’m glad some technology companies are finally getting the point that simply making something pink or slapping a flower on something crappy (like a Motorola Razr) does not automatically mean that women will buy it. I care more about the specs on my next laptop than I do about buying a year’s worth of shoes, but I’m a slightly skewed sample.

It is worth noting that they did compare electronics purchases to shoe purchases, which means we still have a long way to go until women can shake the Imelda Marcos stereotype.

Via Switched.

Courtesy of the Broadsheet, when being interview by a female reporter, Sen. Obama responded to her question by saying, “Hold on, one second, sweetie.”

This isn’t the first time Sen. Obama has made sexist remarks towards or about women that he’s had to go back and apologize for. Better yet, there’s a video clip of the sexist comment.

Sen. Obama, of course, apologized for the comment in order to avoid any additional negative press. He claimed “sweetie” was a term he used out of habit. Sorry, still not buying it.

Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I’m calling to apologize on two fronts. […]

Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front.

So, where is the video of Sen. Obama calling a man “sweetie?” Right, that’s what I thought, there isn’t one.

I was more than a little shocked to see this article on the front page of CNN:

As the weather warms each spring, women — especially in cities with active sidewalk traffic — once again face catcalls from men. It’s a situation some find unnerving and an invasion of their space, while others ignore it or are even flattered by it.

“I call it street abuse,” said New York filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh-West, 49. “It’s unwanted attention and invasion of space.”

In her 1998 documentary “War Zone,” Hadleigh-West confronted catcallers and filmed their responses. Many of the men literally ran away to avoid talking to her about why they whistled or made a provocative comment. […]

“Being in a public space with a strange man who is being sexually aggressive is potentially dangerous,” Hadleigh-West added.

On the other hand, some women appreciate the attention in certain cases, like Jessica, a 31-year-old health-care educator in Los Angeles who declined to use her last name to protect her privacy.

“Yeah, it’s objectifying and all, but you know, if I walked down the street and didn’t have men looking me up and down and catcalling, I’d think, ‘Boy, I must really be getting old and dumpy,’ ” she said.

This is absolutely disgusting. Is that how you feel better about yourself? BY being verbally assaulted by men? I think it’s a little sad that the state of the world makes women feel flattered when they are being yelled at by strange men simply for existing. Where is your self esteem? Do you really need that much attention to feel good about yourself? I know I’m being a little more than harsh here, but I absolutely hate women like this. Especially when cat calling isn’t as innocent as a man being a jerk and asserting himself on a woman:

“There seems to be some evidence that it increases self-objectification,” said Fairchild, who surveyed 550 women both online and at Rutgers University in 2006 and 2007. The women — who ranged in age from 15 to 64 in the international online component and from 18 to 24 in the Rutgers survey of women from central New Jersey — were asked about their experiences with street harassment.

Catcalling “encourages women to look at themselves as body parts instead of as full, whole, intelligent human beings” and can cause women to fear for their safety, Fairchild says.

“When a man catcalls you, you don’t know if it will end at that point or if it could escalate to assault,” she added.

I’m glad that there is research being done on this - but I’m sad that it’s getting attention only after the article’s author finds some random woman who just lives for the attention cat calling provides her with.

You know, I was totally fine with this article, even the bits including the attention-seeking woman, until I reached the end:

“A lot of men have no idea that women don’t like being talked to in this way,” she said. “It never crosses their mind, and yelling doesn’t educate them. If you yell, they often don’t understand why you are upset and so they take it personally.”

Often, Kearl says, an assertive, clear response can illicit a kinder reaction than one expects.

“A lot of the time, I find guys will just say, ‘Oh, OK, I didn’t realize it made you feel that way. Thanks.’ “

Ok, now, really, as a woman who experiences cat calling because she has to dress up for work, I can honestly say that no matter how you respond to a man making sexual comments about you, they will still take it personally and be even bigger of an asshole about it. I have asked cat callers more than once if they think whistling and making sexual remarks at women is really the way to get their attention, and I’ve either been called a bitch, stupid, or a lesbian because of my return comment.

What is a man’s expectation when he says these things to a woman he doesn’t even know? Does he expect her to fawn over him in appreciation? Does he expect his comments to be appreciated, or does he know they are offensive?

I’m doing my part as a woman to make it clear that we don’t appreciate these comments, but I’m only one woman living in one small city - I can only do so much.

I’m a big believer in following The Rule: I usually don’t see a movie unless it meets three basic requirements:

1. It has to have at least 2 women in it…
2. who talk to each other…
3. about something other than a man.

Which, considering the crap that Hollywood has been churning out these past few years, has been a difficult task indeed. I like movies with real 3D characters that face difficult life challenges and do it on their own - regardless of whether they succeed or not. I don’t like movies that skirt around important issues to improve their comedic value. While it is difficult to find movies to watch that have two women in it talking to each other about something other than men, it is a good starting point to begin any movie search.

I’m not the only one who has noticed movies have taken a pathetic downturn, especially in the female leads department. Almost none of the major movies slated for release this summer meet all of requirements of The Rule, let alone one or two:

The girls of summer are few in number, and real women are close to extinct. The teenage Emma Roberts plays a Malibu brat shipped off to boarding school in “Wild Child,” and little Abigail Breslin has gone blond for “Kit Kittredge,” the first big-screen spinoff from American Girl dolls. Meryl Streep stars in the adaptation of the jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!,” and the cast from “Sex and the City” hits the big screen, though as that HBO show’s fans know, its four bosomy buddies are really gay men in drag. Angelina Jolie flaunts big guns in “Wanted” amid a so-called fraternity of assassins. Cameron Diaz stars opposite Ashton Kutcher in the comedy “What Happens in Vegas,” in a role that shrieks Brittany Murphy five years ago.

And in August, Anna Faris stars in a comedy called “The House Bunny,” in which she plays a Playboy Bunny who is ejected from the Mansion because she’s too old. In a trailer for the movie Ms. Faris’s pretty-in-pink character responds to her firing with surprise. “I’m 27!” she yelps. “But that’s like 59 in Bunny years,” a male friend explains. In Hollywood years too, he might as well have added.

But the most gut wrenchingly true part of Dargis’s article is the following:

Last year only 3 of the 20 highest-grossing releases in America were female-driven, and involve a princess (“Enchanted”) or pregnancy (“Knocked Up” and “Juno”). Actresses had starring roles in about a quarter of the next 80 highest-grossing titles, mostly in dopey romantic comedies and dopier thrillers. A number of these were among the worst-reviewed movies of the year, including “Premonition” (Sandra Bullock) and “The Reaping” (Hilary Swank), the last of which was released by — ta-da! — Warner Brothers. The days of “Million Dollar Baby,” for which Ms. Swank won an Oscar, and “Speed,” which rocketed Ms. Bullock to stardom in the summer of 1994, feel long gone.

The last movie I saw in theaters was “Juno,” and before that, “Horton Hears A Who!” Prior to those two films, it had been over a year since I shelled out the $9.75 for a movie ticket, and I haven’t once been upset about my decision to abstain from theater going. If there were a movie worth seeing (that was available to me), I would have gone to see it. Granted, there were several films I wanted to see, but didn’t get a chance to, particularly 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days and Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day (which doesn’t appear to hold up to The Rule, but it just might upon closer examination).

Regardless, it looks like it is going to be a slow movie summer for me.

I knew today was going to be a good day this morning when I came to work and checked my feeds and discovered three “news” items that made me grin from ear to ear. They are the following:

1. The Gallup poll that shows 71% of Americans don’t like Bush’s job performance. His rating is actually worse than Nixon’s 66% disapproval rating during the Watergate scandal. I think this warrants the purchasing of one of those “01.20.09″ bumper stickers.
2. Not that I’m bragging, but a poll done by CNN shows that Obama is losing support. In my completely unprofessional (and100% personal) opinion, his loss of support might be attributed to his losing Pennsylvania. Clinton lost support when she went through her losing streak during the February primaries, and she came back out alright, so there is a chance that Obama could easily regain that support. Either way, this election feels like it will never end. I guess I’ll just have to keep waiting for the convention in August.
3. A huge “lol of the day,” and probably the best thing I’ve seen in the past month (thanks, Anna):

From Popaganda artist Ron English, via Juxtapoz.

All in all, it’s looking like it’s going to be a great Friday.

This headline is absolutely grotesque and inexcusable: Victim ‘had sex with captor willingly’

While the contents of the article are a little more divulging with the details than the headline, it’s obvious that the headline was created purely to attract attention and raise a shock factor. Which, congratulations, it has. However, I don’t think it’s the kind of attention any paper wants: degrading a victim’s suffering and her exploiting her experiences while being held captive to get more attention. That’s not ok.

The back story includes many more details than the New Zealand paper. Natascha was kidnapped when she was 10, and escaped when she was 18. During that time, she held captive in a small basement cell with no windows and a locked door, with books to keep her company (after the first two years anyways). She was also beaten and coerced into taking sexually explicit photographs and having sex with her captor. While the dynamics of a situation such as this are never simple, it more complicated than a victim having sex with their captor “willingly”. Putting the word willingly in air quotes doesn’t make it ok, and it’s not enough to explain the multi-layered situation that exists here.

From The New Zealand Herald:

Austrian police are at the centre of a storm after interrogation reports were leaked showing that the kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch admitted she “willingly” had sex with her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil.

She also indicated that Priklopil - who killed himself in the hours following her escape - had accomplices; something she later denied. And the papers also reveal she was examined by a gynaecologist and left a suspicion that she may have become pregnant by Priklopil while in captivity, prompting speculation in Austrian and German media that she had a baby while being held. […]

The newspaper Heute received witness statements testifying about Priklopil’s love of S and M and how he routinely hurt females dressed as schoolgirls. Photographs of Kampusch being used as a sex slave by her kidnapper were hidden by police.

In the leaked documents, Sabine Freudenberger, the first person to interview Kampusch at the police station, said: “I only really asked her three questions - whether she had had sex with her kidnapper, how it is that after all this time she seemed to be so educated and whether there were accomplices.

“She admitted that she had had sex with him and that she had done that voluntarily. She had been given books by him to read, could listen to the radio and was given videos to see. When asked if there were any accomplices she said: `I do not know any names.”‘

Of course the photos of Natascha being used as a sex slave were hidden by the police, they had every right to hide those photos. She was a victim.

I think that interviewer needs some sensitivity training if you ask me. My three questions would not be if she had sex with him and how is it that she became so educated! Those questions were asked at the curiosity of the office, not out of necessity for the investigation. While it may have been relevant to ask is she was raped or had been subject to any type of sexual assault, asking a victim if their captor had sex with them is an entirely different question: it implies that the victim had a choice in the matter and that there was some enjoyment to be gained from the experience.

Disgusting!

Via The Curvature.

With Hillary winning last night’s primary in Pennsylvania, I think the naysayers who told Hillary to leave the race should be feeling a little more than stupid right now. While I’m sure their decision to ask her to remove herself from the race was based on their opinion that Barack is a better candidate, I feel it’s unfair (and immature) to ask someone to remove themself from a Democratic process just because you don’t like them. Maybe there is even a little fear in them asking Hillary to remove herself - maybe, just maybe they’re afraid she might win and that their golden boy will have lost.

Quite frankly, I will get behind whichever candidate is up for the general election in November. I’ve stated time and time again that I prefer Hillary because of my personal political motivations. I understand why some people don’t agree with her politics, but the biggest problem I have with anti-Hillary people is that they dislike her for other reasons not related to her abilities as a candidate or her political opinions.

The bottom line is both Hillary and Barack are not liberal. They are liberals when you compare them to McCain, but they are still both fairly conservative politicians. I know that my dream candidate will never run for president of this country because I am far too liberal and left-wing for enough Americans to get behind a candidate that I can whole-heartedly support, without any reservations.

This election has, without a doubt, put stress on a lot of my friendships. Many people in my age group and in my office are pro-Barack and anti-Hillary - which I think is an important distinction from being a Barack supporter. They are anti-Hillary in that they attack her for reasons that I don’t feel are relevant to her abilities as a potential president of our country. While I accept some things as humor and as attempts at jokes, the problem is, the majority of the negative things said about Hillary aren’t funny: they’re sexist, rude, and downright irrelevant in a presidential election. I have very few negative things to say about Barack, and I feel that they negative things I do have to say are relevant to his abilities as a presidential candidate. I spent a long time reviewing the issues and abilities of each candidate before I made my choice. I am comfortable enough with my choice that I have donated to Hillary’s campaign several times.

While this election is far from over, it is still a competition, it is still a race. There is no clear winner right now, despite the fact that Barack’s camp is using the argument that they have more of the popular vote. That’s the way the Democratic caucuses and primaries work: you can’t blame your party’s procedures for your own lack of a clear victory. I don’t like the winner-take-all mentality behind Republican primaries and the general election: it makes an individual feel like their vote counts less and less.

The bottom line for me, as a Democrat, is that I know we won’t have a candidate until August. And I’m ok with that. I can wait.

Regardless of everything that will happen after today, you have to admit Barack’s “loss” in Pennsylvania despite spending twice what Hillary did makes the victory only a little more important for the Clinton camp.

No, in case you were wondering, this is not ok. In fact, it’s downright embarrassing that a human being would find it acceptable to create and publish this.

There are no words!

I mean, even if you aren’t a Hillary supporter, you have to be able to get behind how ridiculous this is. An article - and a cover, no less - devoted entirely to “Hillaryland’s Fatal Psychodrama”? You’re joking, right? Are we 12?

Larger image here.

Via.