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?

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’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.

The past few months, the media has been overrun with stories relating to rapes that have been covered up by the military and KBR (and KBR, again), immigration officials, and many more. The coverage of rape myths has continued to remain popular, despite the thousands of women who have experienced otherwise. Stories have been released that tell us just how frighteningly common rape and sexual assault are in the military, even though we all know that the majority of sexual assaults go unreported, even though it is extremely frequent.

And you know what? I’m sick of it. Sick of the fear, the stigma, and the trauma all associated with rape. Sick of the guilt, sick of the terrible media coverage, sick of people blaming the victim. And you know why this happens? Do you? Because if you don’t, I do.

When companies like KBR discover that their employees are being victimized and violently attacked, they have the opportunity to do one of two things:

1. Take a stand for their employees and fight like hell for their rights. Assist them in the investigation and prosecution of the offender(s), and provide them with paid medical leave and access to trained rape crisis professionals, free of charge. Accept that you are responsible for what happened to them and reach an agreement with them privately.
2. Cower like idiots, take absolutely no responsibility for the crimes, discourage them from reporting it, force them to sign agreements taking away their constitutional right to a jury trial, and make them feel so much shame and guilt that they can no longer function physically or emotionally.

KBR, of course, being a huge, rich, and wealthy company, opted for route #2. Despite the fact that they have the money to help these women prosecute the offenders and the resources to provide them with help when they return home, they neglected to take care of their employees. They decided to force these women into arbitration so they don’t have pay exorbitant punitive damages to the victims if these charges were sent to a jury. Because, really, let’s be honest: if these cases went to trial, the circumstances are not in their favor. While the offenders may not be convicted, the women would most likely win in civil court.

But KBR knows just how many zeros can follow the number 1, and they didn’t want to take any risks. Instead of taking the high road and setting examples for corporations across America, they took the low road and continued to victimize their employees by not allowing them access to justice. It’s sick, and it’s wrong, not to mention cruel and inhumane.

But back to the point. All of this happens, the lack of reporting, the believing in rape myths, and the blaming of the victim because of the very public actions taken by KBR. If you are a 16 year old girl and you happen to stumble upon the story of one of these KBR rapes, what will you think? Will you think it’s safe to bring rape charges up on someone? Will you think the law is on your side? Will you think people will believe you? No, you won’t. And you won’t report your rape, and you won’t seek help. You will live your life in fear and shame, and you probably won’t even tell your friends what happened to you.

Rape is the dirty crime - it’s a crime associated with shame and dishonor. If you walk outside and discover your car is stolen, you report it. If you wake up and your house is on fire, you report it. If you are walking home from a night class and you are raped, you report it.

If you have been a victim of sexual assault, rape, or domestic violence, I urge you to REPORT IT NOW! April 29, 2008 is Angela Shelton Day: a day where victims come together, break the silence, and transform themselves into survivors.

Courtesy of Shakesville, I found an absolutely disgusting story on ABC News today:

Hillary At White House on ‘Stained Blue Dress’ Day
Schedules Reviewed by ABC Show Hillary May Have Been in the White House When the Fateful Act Was Committed

Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been in the White House when it happened, according to records of her schedule released today by the National Archives.

I have to say that I am completely shocked that ABC would even consider this as news. This story was published to embarrass Senator Clinton, plain and simple. This is not news! In now way, shape, or form is this news! I also like how they call her “Hillary” in the header: almost as if it doesn’t matter that she’s a Senator or a Democratic presidential candidate.

From Shakesville:

Susie Madrak says, “In all my years in journalism, I’ve never seen anything quite as disgusting as this,” while Brad Friedman notes, “A more shameful display of ‘journalism’, we don’t believe we’ve ever seen.”

Meanwhile, Lambert offers dryly: “Some people are of the opinion that misogyny has been pervasive in this campaign. How could they have gotten such a crazy idea?” Indeed.

And it doesn’t matter whether you support Hillary or not; letting the media get away with this tactic against her only legitimizes and tacitly encourages it, which means they’ll inevitably use it against everyone.

You can contact Brian Ross of ABC (the genius behind this spectacular piece) and the Executive VP of ABC News Dave Davis from the information Susie Madrak has here. Make sure to be concise, polite, and to the point in any messages you send their way. We don’t want to stoop to their level!

You can also check our more at Salon, Gina Cobb, Feministe, Slate, Glenn Greenwald, and probably dozens more.

When I was younger I was quite the reader. I liked to read because I wanted to be just like my mom (and I still do want to be just like my mom, hence the knitting and the reading) and she loved reading, too. After my brother was born, we spent a lot of time trying to prepare him for school by teaching him how to write and read (he has Asperger’s). When we started working with my brother, I started reading more because my mom began purchasing books that were shorter, quicker, and easier to read. I like books that go by quickly, even if they are 700 page bricks. But the one author I never liked was Dr. Seuss.

I was scared to death of Dr. Seuss. The rhymes, the scary pictures, the political undertones, it was all too much for little four year-old me. The only Dr. Seuss book I read was I’ll Teach My Dog 100 Words - which I probably still have memorized. And then, one day, even though she knew better, my mom brought home Horton Hears A Who!. I begrudgingly read the book, and it ended up being one of my favorite books as a child. As an adult, I even have a Horton Hears A Who! tshirt with his catch phrase “a person’s a person, no matter how small.”

So this weekend I went to see the movie. I was excited for many different reasons, but the two most prominent being 1.) Horton!! and 2.) amazing new animation technologies. And I can just say, I really really do not like it when my childhood memories get hijacked by wing nuts.

From AlterNet:

Anti-choicers demonstrate at a children’s movie to claim that “a person’s a person no matter how small” — unless that person has a uterus.

The book was written in 1954, long before Roe v. Wade and the modern framework of the abortion debate. If Seuss’ simple rhymes do contain social commentary, they appear to be a condemnation of Cold War era paranoia. But context doesn’t matter to the anti-choice crowd — in fact a quick internet search reveals that there are many out there who believe that God spoke through the decidedly liberal Seuss’ pen, willing him to write this line that can now be used to justify a movement he didn’t support. They are undeterred by Seuss’ widow’s support for Planned Parenthood and an interview with Seuss Scholar Philip Nel, who said that the author threatened lawsuits against anti-choice groups: “It’s one of the ways in which Seuss has been misappropriated. He would not agree with that.” Death of the author, indeed.

This past Saturday a group of anti-abortion protestors filtered in to the Hollywood premiere of the “Horton” film, voiced by Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell and Carol Burnettt, and others. They interrupted the screening with a coordinated protest, shouting during the film and then walking around with tape over their mouths. It was a bizarre stunt, considering the fact that most of the audience was made up of children who doubtless missed their political message, and Hollywood journalists who made fun of them.

But these kinds of shenanigans, while frustrating, weren’t exactly shocking. Despite lawsuits and voiced disapproval from Dr. Seuss and his widow, the “a person’s a person no matter how small” line has snowballed and is now a de facto motto for the anti-abortion movement. Just google the line: some pro-life sites show up above Dr. Seuss.

[…] The anti-choice protesters, incidentally, were happy to ruin the afternoon of hundreds of those kids, too busy advocating on behalf of blastocysts to pay attention to real people — real “small people,” in fact. This kind of behavior sums up the hypocrisy of a movement that would give personhood to a fertilized egg while denying health care to children and physical autonomy to women.

The problem is that those who are particularly proud of saying “a person’s a person” don’t care about actual persons.

And from Seuss’s side of things:

None of this sat well with Audrey Geisel, widow of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), who attended the screening. So did Karl ZoBell, the lawyer who represents her and who has represented the interests of Dr. Seuss for some 40 years. In an interview with NPR, he said he couldn’t make out the yelling and thought maybe “some nut” was in the theater. Later, he asked the protesters what group they represented, and none would answer. Their silence didn’t seem like an accident to him, which makes sense, because ZoBell has not been bashful about sending cease-and-desist letters to those who appropriate Dr. Seuss’ material for their own purposes. And many do. (According to ZoBell, politicians love to sling the term Grinch at their rivals.)

ZoBell says it would be nice if these people came up with their own material. But if they don’t go too far—by copping the illustrations, for example—they can use a line like “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” even if it wouldn’t have pleased Dr. Seuss. And it wouldn’t have. The Geisels were opposed to using the Dr. Seuss books for any political agenda.

STOP RUINING MY CHILDHOOD, ANTI-CHOICERS! And more importantly, stop ruining the childhoods of the millions of children going to see this movie.

I understand that they are trying to make their point in as public a venue as possible, but it is a children’s movie: the primary audience is children (and families)… not exactly the kind of people that need to be converted to their cause.

If a person’s a person (no matter how small), then why is the person in my uterus more important than me?