Cookie Party

Just because this makes me happy...

They Shoot Blonde Women In Los Angeles, Don't They?

Al Sharpton recently met with the Los Angeles County Sheriff to discuss his concerns that Paris Hilton is getting special treatment in jail. Of course she is getting special treatment in jail--she is a celebrity and this is Hollywood, baby. This is not about race, it's about class, wealth, privilege, and the power of celebrity. In this town, every male celebrity is allowed one murder--it's the rules. And we are worried about the special treatment Paris gets? Wow, I wonder how the families of these women feel:

Back in the seventies, the son of sam killer had fearful brown-haired women of NY changing their hair color to avoid being a target. So my suggestion, my fellow Los Angeles blondies, next time any one of us dates a celebrity--we must dye our hair brown before strapping on the Manolo's and heading out the door. We need to look out for each other because the law certainly won't.

Catching Up On Pop Culture - The Sopranos and Paris Hilton

Sopranos - Tony got whacked. Unless they make a movie. Ha ha! Glad I wasn't a die hard fan. My HBO shows, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City had totally satisfying endings and can still be made into movies (gross).

Paris (Hilton that is) - In jail again, found God, told Barbara Walters via a collect call, and is now planning to move to Calcutta and follow in Mother Teresa's footsteps. Can I get a hallelujah?

The Biggest Discussion Taboo: Gun Control

One of my least favorite slogans: Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People. When I hear this moronic statement I want to kill someone, with a gun. No not really. I want to use my fists--- no wait I'm not very strong---I'll use my psychic powers---oh wait I don't have those either. Oh well, I don't really want to kill anyone anyway. But if I did want to kill someone it sure is comforting to know that I can quickly purchase a gun, isn't it?

If you want to have a gun have a gun...but unless you need to kill something or someone really fast you shouldn't be worried about gun control. Well, unless there is something on your record that should prevent you from obtaining a gun...like your a psycho. Or, maybe you are just an idiot and actually believe in the slippery slope (oh but then you probably also believe that the US invaded Iraq to fight terrorism).

Democrats are such wimps on the issue of gun control because they are afraid they will lose elections over it and Republicans are in bed with the NRA. And the majority of Americans can't think their way out of a paper bag...wait maybe with guns they can shoot their way out.

America's Violent Heart: Poetry is Dangerous

This was forwarded to me as an e-mail and I think it is important...

Friday, April 20, 2007

Poetry is Dangerous by Kazim Ali

On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at Shippensburg University, I went out to my car and grabbed a box of old poetry manuscripts from the front seat of my little white beetle and carried it across the street and put it next to the trashcan outside Wright Hall. The poems were from poetry contests I had been judging and the box was heavy. I had previously left my recycling boxes there and they were always picked up and taken away by the trash department.

A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks. I later discovered that I, in my dark skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who look at me. Instead, in spite of my peacefulness, my committed opposition to all aggression and war, I am a threat by my very existence, a threat just living in the world as a Muslim body.

Upon my departure, he called the local police department and told them a man of Middle Eastern descent driving a heavily decaled white beetle without of state plates and no campus parking sticker had just placed a box next to the trash can. My car has NY plates, but he got the rest of it wrong. I have two stickers on my car. One is my highly visible faculty parking sticker and the other, which I just don't have the heart to take off these days, says "Kerry/Edwards:For a Stronger America."

Because of my recycling the bomb squad came, the state police came. Because of my recycling buildings were evacuated, classes were canceled, campus was closed. No. Not because of my recycling. Because of my dark body. No. Not because of my dark body. Because of his fear. Because of the way he saw me. Because of the culture of fear, mistrust, hatred, and suspicion that is carefully cultivated in the media, by the government, by people who claim to want to keep us 'safe.'

These are the days of orange alert, school lock-downs,and endless war. We are preparing for it, training for it, looking for it, and so of course, in the most innocuous of places-a professor wanting to hurry home, hefting his box of discarded poetry-we find it.

That man in the parking lot didn't even see me. He saw my darkness. He saw my Middle Eastern descent. Ironic because though my grandfathers came from Egypt, I am Indian, a South Asian, and could never be mistaken fora Middle Eastern man by anyone who'd ever met one.

One of my colleagues was in the gathering crowd,trying to figure out what had happened. She heard my description-a Middle Eastern man driving a white beetle with out of state plates-and knew immediately they were talking about me and realized that the box must have been manuscripts I was discarding. She approached them and told them I was a professor on thefaculty there. Immediately the campus police officer said, "What country is he from?"

"What country is he from?!" she yelled, indignant.

"Ma'am, you are associated with the suspect. You need to step away and lower your voice," he told her.

At some length several of my faculty colleagues were able to get through to the police and get me on a cellphone where I explained to the university president and then to the state police that the box contained old poetry manuscripts that needed to be recycled. The police officer told me that in the current climate I needed to be more careful about how I behaved. "When I recycle?"I asked.

The university president appreciated my distress about the situation but denied that the call had anything to do with my race or ethnic background. The spokesperson of the university called it an "honest mistake," not referring to the young man from ROTC giving in to his worst instincts and calling the police but referring to me who made the mistake of being dark-skinned and putting my recycling next to the trashcan.

The university's bizarrely minimal statement lets everyone know that the "suspicious package" beside the trashcan ended up being, indeed, trash. It goes on to say, "We appreciate your cooperation during the incident and remind everyone that safety is a joint effort by all members of the campus community.

"What does that community mean to me, a person who has to walk by the ROTC offices every day on my way to my own office just down the hall-who was watched, noted,and reported, all in a day's work? Today we gave in willingly and whole-heartedly to a culture of fear and blaming and profiling. It is deemed perfectly appropriate behavior to spy on one another and police one another and report on one another. Such behaviors exist most strongly in closed and undemocratic and fascist societies.

The university report does not mention the root cause of the alarm. That package became "suspicious" because of who was holding it, who put it down, who droveaway. Me. It was poetry, I kept insisting to the state policeman who was questioning me on the phone. It was poetry I was putting out to be recycled.

My body exists politically in a way I can not prevent. For a moment today, without even knowing it, driving away from campus in my little beetle, exhausted after a day of teaching, listening to Justin Timberlake on the radio, I ceased to be a person when a man I had never met looked straight through me and saw the violence in his own heart.

http://www.kazimali.com/

You Can Call Me A Whore...

...just don't preface it with a racial slur cause then it's not acceptable. I can bet you, oh, say my house, that CBS would not have fired Don Imus from his radio show if he had merely called the Rutgers Basketball Team "ho's", a term I hear from radio, TV, and movies on a daily basis. That is because there is no women's issue leader ala Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, to invoke public outrage on behalf of women that can sway the likes of Procter & Gamble to pull advertising from the likes of Imus, Leykis, etc.


This could be because we as women are ambivalent about the use of derogatory terms used in the mainstream media to describe women. In fact the overt misogyny in mainstream media may have something to do with female appropriation of the language of the oppressor--an ideology that become very popular in the 90's. Perhaps as we became more comfortable as women referring to ourselves as dirty whores, bitches, pussy posses, and even cunts (I have to admit it felt pretty powerful to deflate these words through usage) we also became more comfortable hearing them from the media to describe us--now are we doubly bruised?

Furthermore, women's groups tend to be, like I am, intensely pro freedom of speech. Having fought so hard for our voices to be heard and accounted for, it is antithetical to the women's movement to squelch others. However, public opinion does have the power to dictate public discourse and I often wonder, where is our Al Sharpton, our Jesse Jackson...would anyone have heard this Imus comment or cared if he had said "viking ho's" or "giant bitches"?

My Humps

Yes, two youtubes in a row makes me a bit of a cheeseout bloggie, but I love that this exposes how totally lame and demeaning the lyrics of this song are. It's something you don't really think about when it's set to it's limpy dancebeat.

I've never been much of an Alanis Morisette fan for several reasons:

• I hate the way she says her S's. They always come out with a shushy sound that irritates me.
• I also hate that most of the situations that she sings about in her "Ironic" song are not really examples of irony. They are just things that would not be cool if they happened.
• It's weird to me that she's married (or was married?) to that sitcom guy--I can't make that one work in my brain and that bugs me.
• I was a big Sex in the City fan and her episode is not one of my favs so I hate it when that's the rerun waiting for me on TIVO.

Aside from that I think this is funny even if it is in a slightly weird alish sort of way.

Alanis Morisette Video for Fergie's My Humps

Do you ever hear kids sing pop songs and cringe a little at the words that come out of their mouths as they obliviously sing their little hearts out? Moms around the country must draw their fingernails into their minivan seat cushions every time they hear their daughters sing along to My Humps.

Bill O'Reilly says "We're the Bad Guys"

Bill O'Reilly cuts mic of US Colonel Ann Wright



Is it just me or is he getting crazier by the minute? Anyway, love to see him get his ass kicked by a woman.

Los Angeles and Artistic Vision

There's a lot of writing as of late about Los Angeles as the center of the cultural universe. These people aren't talking about just pop culture such as the possibility of Paris Hilton going to jail for DUI or Winona Ryder trying to make a comeback. Los Angeles has become the art mecca of the 21st century--where NY and everywhere else look to to see what's goin' on, so to speak. I can dig it, I get, and I've been gettin' it since I moved here in '97. Here are a few recent tidbits...



Werner Herzog (from this Esquire article)

Los Angeles is the city with the most substance in the United States--cultural substance. There is a competition between New York and Los Angeles, but New York only consumes culture and borrows it from Europe. Things get done in Los Angeles.




Caryn Coleman (from this abLA article)

Sometimes I read articles on the art world and, in particular, Los Angeles that make me wonder if I'm living on a totally different art world planet than the people writing or quoted in the piece. Last week there were two such things that made me feel this way...

On Artforum.com's diary Painting the Town by Andrew Berardini, says:
Los Angeles loves to hate painters—whether homegrown or imported.Really???? I don't think I've ever had that conversation or if that opinion (if partially true) is strong enough in LA to make such a bold statement.

And then the New York Times had the article The Art’s Here. Where’s the Crowd? about LA art scene (downtown, the Hammer, you know the drill) and Gary Garrels is quoted as saying:
“The rest of the world is promoting the city as well or better than L.A. does,” said Gary Garrels, the chief curator at the Hammer Museum, who moved here two years ago from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “All of the curators and galleries that are dynamic are coming to Los Angeles and looking at what’s going on here.”Ok, so I'll admit that I actually do a bit more business with people on the east coast than in LA sometimes but I can't imagine that the rest of the world is promoting LA as much as LA is let alone more. I mean, even this NYT article is about a year after the fact.

Free Shoes

They are a slightly too large 6M but they were free! OK, not really. But they were brought into my life through an Amazon.com gift card from my brother for my December birthday. My friend, Bee, hates gift cards. She thinks they are cold and impersonal. Well, I am the opposite. Gift cards fill me with warmth and joy. With this card, I was able to purchase these:

Then I kind of forgot about it. Then I realized, spring has sprung and baby needs a new pair of shoes...espadrilles to be exact because they are all the rage this season. I love when you find a forgotten gift card--it's like finding a long lost $20 in a pocket.

(by the way, you can click on the books and cd pics for more info)

Bong Hits 4 Jesus

Kids are funny. I couldn't believe that the kid's school district took this case all the way to the supreme court, but then I read who is representing (and for free I might add) the school district--none other than the most repressed man alive, Kenneth Starr. You know him as the guy that was so obsessed with Bill Clinton that he ultimately got him impeached for getting a BJ. My personal belief is that Starr was secretly in love with Clinton and so ashamed of his own feelings that he tried to destroy the man. And with all the whacked out conservative gay-bashing politicians turning out to be closeted homosexuals these days, I think my hypothesis may be gaining validity. And now, because there is nothing that this repressed little man needs more than a bong hit, he is on to destroying free speech. Starr, Jesus says its OK, free speech and bong hits...

Who is My Baby Daddy: A Sperm Doctor Snafu

You've probably already read about Thomas and Nancy Andrews. They went to a fertility clinic for in-vitro fertilization treatments and ended up with a baby that was too dark for their liking and DNA tests confirmed that the baby, now a toddler, was not the biological child of Thomas. While I totally understand that they did not get the service that the clinic was supposed to have provided and it seems perfectly legit to sue in this situation, I am bugged by the overt racism of their complaint. They worry that their "daughter will be the object of scorn and ridicule by other children, both in school and as she grows up." I'm not sure I understand this. Ridiculed because she is half African American? Ridiculed because she is half Dominican? Ridiculed because she is darker than her sister (who she looks just like, in my meager opinion)? I'm not sure these are the right people to raise this child.

I know this is not a PC statement, but maybe not everyone should be parents. I acknowledge that we live in a if a want it, and I can afford to buy it, then I have the right to have it culture, but maybe, just maybe, snafus like this are a little nudge from the universe reminding us who really is boss. I mean these people had a beautiful, healthy baby. There are so many parents who look to adoption after infertility and I wonder if another couple could give this innocent child the unconditional love that she deserves. Just a thought.


On a weird side note, their attorney's name is Howard J. Stern--I know, there are probably a lot of Howard, Initial something, Stern lawyers out there, but I still think its weird in a funny kind of way.

Strange Pairings: John Waters and Court TV, Paul McCartney and Starbucks

I have a love/hate relationship with our mass-marketed, tie-in obsessed, hyper-commercialized media culture.

On the love side--John Water's 'Til Death Do Us Part. Remember when he was so underground, it was almost taboo to openly admit you found him amusing or liked his movies? Now he is the shining star of Court TV. This is the weird part, Big D and I have been OBSESSED with Forensic Files for about a year--and then John Waters comes along with this totally campy murder drama show where he plays the "groom reaper" a kinda Vincent Pricesque character that appears throughout each episode--and I'm thinking, I must be getting old because no corporation used to market to me, the tail end of the gen-x nobody nothing group. And now here I am watching several good murder shows (and not that crappy law and order shit my parents and every other baby boomer consume like lines of coke spread out on the TV screen). So even though I no longer have Six Feet Under, I now have Dexter, Showtime's mind-fuck serial killer show, and Forensic Files (love this shit, love it) and 'Til Death do us Part, to fulfill my death fascination TV, no make that TIVO experience.

On the hate side--Anything Paul McCartney. He is such a has been--even before the turkey neck idiot married the pegleg. I wish he would just go away. I'm perfectly fine with Starbucks though I think Pete's is better as far as a chain is concerned. But I always tend to set celebrities up against each other and I'm on the John Lennon side. And, aside from that, I think of Bob Dylan was the true music innovator in the pop/rock genre of the previous century. However, I did love The Beatles Love Songs album (cassette to be exact). So, if this merger doesn't help me download Beatles on i-tunes then I frankly don't give two shits about it.

Angelina Jolie: Mommy Dearest for the 21st Century

You probably guessed the answer to Friday's Riddle:

Q:What do prada and third world orphans have in common?

A:They are both the must-have accessory for the rich and famous.

And while I am sure life will be better for the 3-year old Vietnamese boy in Branjolina's mansion in the Palisades over the Wal-mart sweatshop he was destined for otherwise, I just have this unsettling feeling that life with Angelina Jolie might have a little "no wire hanger" in it. I mean, she referred to her own flesh and blood as "the blob" that "seemed so privileged from the moment she was born." I'm sorry but this sounds crazy to me. Even though I've never had a baby, I am pretty certain that a newborn is just about one of the most helpless needy creatures there is, despite to whom he or she may have been privileged to be born. And the statement that Ms. Jolie made regarding her biological child, "I’m conscious that I have to make sure I don’t ignore her needs, just because I think the others are more vulnerable.” is literally insane. Really, what could be more vulnerable than a newborn?

Where do you think her next baby buy will come from? I am guessing South America? Or the Middle East? Living in Los Angeles, I am used to this celebrity obsession of having more than one of anything--It's as if there's a collector switch that turns on in their brain. It's similar to those women who devote an entire room of their house to precious moments dolls or the guy who gets into movie posters. However, when a celebrity's collector switch gets turned on it's with things like Manolo's, Mercedes, and mansions. One just isn't enough. And now it's children. I wonder what the next fad of the outrageously rich and famous will be. Maybe purchasing countries? Any takers for Darfur...or Iraq? Just a thought.

Free Association and St. Patrick's Day

Ok, this is how the thought goes...

Oh, it's St Patrick's day.

I hate green beer (when I was a teenager, my brother puked green beer all over himself and left the clothes in his closet to ferment--it was pretty hideous when we finally realized where the stench was coming from)

But I love Dublin (I remember standing in the rain in Dublin while Jessica painted lyrics on the wall where u2 once recorded--Dublin was her Mecca)

"Daniel Day! Daniel Day!" (living in a flat in London, we got word that Daniel Day Lewis owned property across the courtyard. I think we actually believed we could sweetly entice him to appear to us by yelling his name across the green)

I married a Scot-Irish. He doesn't drink green beer.

Happy Saint Paddy's Day!

A Kernel of Truth?

Does this...


(Selma Hayek and Francois-Henri Pinault)

mean this asshole...


(Tom Leykis and bimbos)

is right?

Ann Coulter is Fun!

Here's Why:

1. Don't you get the sense that she was the ugly gawky-limbed girl in high school that everyone made fun of? I bet they called her "spaz"
2. She likes to be made fun of. Psychologists call this a negative personality disorder.
3. She is pretty in conservative republican circles, but ugly to the rest of the world.
4. She sounds (and looks) like a transgendered person.
5. She prostitutes herself for attention and money so she actually encourages us to make fun of her--it's her career.

Here are some FUN quotes from our gal: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter

Oh, and this is really FUNNY http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/gallery.cgi

Thanks Ann for brightening my day!