Admiration

By the end of the day I am usually so brain dead from correcting writing mistakes (while pointing and laughing at the more unique, i.e. ridiculously stupid, ones) that any attempt to write something profound and witty of my own becomes the very thing I so mock. My own writing falls to the wayside in lieu of reading and dreaming and mentally dictating. If I were to really embrace my inner Lois Lane and fall headfirst into a devotion of news writing and reporting and overall journalism, now would be a terrible time to do it. (See post below.) Since the election is over I have let up on my constant Palin-bashing blogging over at the paper's Web site and relaxed back into meaningless celebrity gossip and funny pictures. But when I visit my favorite progressive Web sites and see the amazing things people are writing, I am equally inspired and blown away.

I Blame The Patriarchy is one of those sites.

It's feminism that pulls no punches. And I admire it. Simple as that.
Admire it for the honesty, for the brutal honesty, in pointing out that injustice is too soft a word for what happens every single day to half of the population.

A few quotes:

A black dude can get elected president, but a woman? When swine defy gravity. Racism flourishes, all righty, but it’s covert, on the DL, the embarrassing private luxury of elderly honkys and parochial-minded nincompoops, an imp of the perverse the public indulgence of which is becoming increasingly difficult both to justify and to legislate. It seems safe to say that if the majority of Americans wished to cling to racism as a defining aspect of their cult, last week’s election would have had rather a different outcome.

Misogyny, on the other hand, is bullet-proof. It’s not merely tolerated, it’s openly celebrated in the American street, the American courtroom, the American bedroom, the American internet. Except for a puny consortium of bruised and contused blamers calling blindly to the Vaginatariat through mists of dime store cologne, even the victims of this oppression embrace it. Thus is it possible for American voters to view straight male Barack Obama as a human being, but to view the queers seeking some of that liberty and justice as a bunch of deviant meatsock mutations to throw under the bus.

And this quote, from another post, is subtle, but more effective than many a tome from a Women's Study class.

Then, while in line at Whole Foods, I espied the current copy of Vanity Fair, and was repelled by a cover featuring, in full drag, the most famous dude-fantasy cipher of the 20th century, Marilyn Monroe. The cover story, which I haven’t read, purportedly contains vital new information on the “mystery” of her death. Pah. I’ll tell you what killed Marilyn Monroe. Femininity. It kills thousands of women every day.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Our medium is dying!

Item 1:

"When a newspaper cuts its staff, those who remain in the depleted newsroom
become valuable. But as The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. slowly says farewell
to 151 newsroom folks who took buyouts last month, at least two longtime
journalists have been reassigned to the mailroom.

Reporter Jason Jett and Assistant Deputy Photo Editor Mitchell Seidel have
been filing, sorting, and delivering mail for more than a week, according to
sources.

Jett and Seidel could not be reached for comment."


Item 2:

"Talk about a sign of the times in the journalism industry. Staffers at the
Longmont Times-Call recently received an internal e-mail inviting them to
work as valets at a private Christmas party for the Lehman family, who own
the paper. And at least two employees have already accepted the offer.

The party honors Ed Lehman, who's currently in his 51st year as the
Times-Call's publisher, and his wife Connie -- and Dean Lehman, the paper's
editor and president (and Ed's son), says valets are needed because many of
the guests are elderly and may need a little extra help. So, too, do
small-market journalists in a struggling economy, so Lehman saw it as
natural to give Times-Call workers the chance to earn a little extra cash as
Christmas approaches. He says valets will earn the same rate of pay they
receive at their day job for the hours they work.

Although most Times-Call employees aren't invited to this bash, they'll have
a holiday celebration of their own. Lehman says the entire workforce is
invited to a catered sit-down luncheon. Presumably, there'll be no need for
valet parking at this event."

Item 3:

"Ken Edelstein, editor of Atlanta Creative Loafing for the last ten years, 'was fired in a time of crisis because he talked back to [the CEO],' says one staffer. Last week, Edelstein said that CEO should trim the general administration staff before cutting the editorial side."

Yes We Can!

Still thrilled for our new President-elect, Barack Obama.