


1) Joe McCarthy
2) Quentin Tarantino
3) Bill Murray
4) Punch

STILL, not one of these is exactly right.




Reader input begins now.

8) Downton Abbey's Bates (courtesy of Tim D.)

Although I now think he might also look like O'Brien.




I wish I could draw.







I will be taking next week off (and accidentally took last week off) because I am preparing to move, and it's difficult to organize one's time properly when there is so much organizing and planning and cleaning and general despairing to do. A great deal of time, for example, went into creating the following:
The orange paper was all I had on hand—I am not planning a Halloween- or Netherlands-themed apartment. And the place is fully equipped with both a kitchen AND bathroom, but as I won't be putting furniture in either of those places, I didn't build small orange versions of either of them.
I didn't realize until after I took this photo that I've somehow managed to misplace my tiny orange chest of drawers—it's probably somewhere in the depths of my couch. I am not going to go in after it right now, because yesterday I unexpectedly happened upon a wizened and distressing cashew under one of the cushions, and moving prep has demoralized me enough for the moment, thank you very much.

And this is the "Stabler" that will take up so much space:

She is extremely demanding and full of hate.
But I couldn't let this week go by without at least mentioning the people who've recently made feel grateful that at least I'm not moving in with them:

1. Ann Coulter (she would be difficult to live with because she's really mean and also crazy)

She tweeted after the debate that she approved of Romney's decision "to be kind and gentle to the retard."

She later tweeted (the "he" is Obama): "If he's 'the smartest guy in the room' it must be one retarded room."

Probably she tweeted these tweets because not enough people had been outraged by an earlier tweet she tweeted, about a video Obama made for the National Forum on Disability Issues: "Been busy, but is Obama STILL talking about that video? I had no idea how crucial the retarded vote is in this election."

2. Sue-Ann Levy (she's Canada's answer to "she would be difficult to live with because she's really mean and also crazy")

During Monday's debate, she tweeted: "Obama says he 'will stand' with Israel if attacked and they are a 'true friend.' His nose is growing again. #MuslimBS"

3. A bunch of scientists

Researchers asked a bunch of scientists to share their thoughts about why there aren't so many women in science, and why when women do go into science, they tend to be more interested in biology than physics:


Awesome. And if you think women can also say some worrisome and essentialist things about women, but do so in a slightly less douche-y fashion, you're absolutely right:


Everyone knows that the only thing funnier than death is the death of someone elderly and much loved. Just thinking of old, likable people dying is making me laugh out loud right now!

Just like I laughed out loud when I read the following tweet: "Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! 'She died 3 days b4 he became president.'"

As CNN notes, this zinger was inspired by the following comment made by Obama during Wednesday's debate: ""You know, my grandmother - some of you know - helped to raise me. My grandfather died a while back. My grandmother died three days before I was elected president. And she was fiercely independent. She worked her way up, only had a high school education, started as a secretary, ended up being the vice president of a local bank. And she ended up living alone by choice."

Who didn't hear that comment and spend the next half hour or so trying to come up with a gut-bustingly funny put-down? I know KitchenAid immediately got to panning for comedy gold. How do I know that? Because that tweet I mentioned earlier was sent out from their corporate twitter account.

Of course, KitchenAid claims the comment was accidentally posted by a team member who'd intended to put it on their personal twitter feed, but I'm hoping the tweet is proof we're entering a new era of politically active appliances. If only we'd always had Twitter, partisan toaster ovens, and irreproachable senses of humour, past elections could have read something like this...

Braun: Reagan's brain knew he was unfit to govern, so it tried to impeach itself! #LOLAlzheimer's

Black and Decker: Drowning in a car is a pretty dramatic way to get out of a date with Ted Kennedy, but who can blame her?

Cuisinart: Roosevelt said that "progressive government by its very terms, must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization." Is he really the best authority on "standing" still or marching? #ParalysisAmIRightPeople

Actually, that last one is probably too long.








I owe my father an apology. Not because I forced him to listen to Aerosmith's Pump when I was thirteen, or because I never managed to become a sullen teenager and so talked incessantly about things like Aerosmith's Pump (although I am desperately sorry for both of those things), but because I thought he just had to be wrong about Arizona. Arizona couldn't be that crazy. He had to have misunderstood. 

What a fool I was to doubt both my father and the unlimited batshit craziness of Arizona!

Perhaps ashamed of having a doctors-can-mislead-pregnant-women law slightly less batshit crazy than Oklahoma's, one proud Arizonan politician has decided to give all liberals an early Christmas present by telling a constituent that women who want to have abortions should first be forced to watch other women have abortions.

When he told me this, I of course concluded my father must have been watching Keith Olberman while sleep-deprived and high on something that makes people think totally outrageous things about conservatives. But no. Rep. Terri Proud (R! - Tuscon) responded to a concerned citizen's email about an anti-abortion bill with the following:


This concerned citizen was not the only one to receive this response, as Proud told her staff to send it out to anyone who suggested she oppose the bill.

When the concerned citizen became even more concerned as a result and sent a follow-up email indicating she was both embarrassed and frightened by Proud, Proud responded with: "You're kidding right?" I can only assume this was also a blanket response sent out to all those who'd emailed back to suggest her last blanket response had been embarrassing and frightening. 

So once again, Dad, I'm sorry. I should never for a second have questioned your claims. If you tell me next that a state rep (R!!!) from Oklahoma has suggested women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they have have actually performed an abortion on another woman, I will not doubt you for a second.


Last week it was Kansas and Oklahoma. This week it's Georgia. Perhaps afraid of being pigeonholed as "those people who have extremely backward views about women", some right-wingers have decided to prove they have range by reminding us they can also have repugnant attitudes towards race. 

Earlier this week, Eric Pfeiffer drew attention to this snappy bumper sticker available for sale on the internet:
In case the smallness of the font or the repulsiveness of the sentiment make the bottom line hard to read, here it is: "Stop repeat offenders. Don't re-elect Obama!"

But wait! If you're thinking, "Boy, that's the most racist pun I've come across in a while," that's only because you haven't yet heard the seller's perfectly reasonable and convincing defense of her product. Paula Smith, of Hinesville Georgia, says the sticker is "not racist" because "according to the dictionary [the N word] does not mean black. It means a low-down, lazy, sorry, low-down person. That's what the N word means." 

And when I read that she not only knows black families in her neighbourhood, but has also helped "to guide them in the right direction", I just knew she was a generous, totally un-bigoted person who was being unfairly attacked for being harmless and fun-loving.

I'm now looking forward to hearing from whoever runs (or used to run - it seems to have disappeared) "Stumpy's Stickers". That's the site where the sticker first popped up, and where the discerning consumer could also purchase such gems as a photo of an ape with the caption "Obama 2012", a drawing of a Confederate flag with the caption "If this flag has offended you, then it made my day!", and a drawing of members of the Ku Klux Klan with the caption, "The Original Boys in the Hood".

Because surely they're just as innocent and as fond of a good joke as Paula Smith. Obama and an ape? Why, that's not racist! That's just a hilarious joke about how an ape would be a really bad president, and Obama is a really bad president, so it's like Americans elected a great, big monkey as president! Hilarious. And everyone knows the Confederate flag is all about wholesome Southern pride and nothing to do with slavery. And everyone also knows that any joke involving the KKK pretty much has to be a benign and funny one. 

I bet if someone manages to identify the Stumpy behind the stickers, we'll find that he or she is simply a high-spirited, down-home soul who has an unusual dictionary and is just trying to guide us all in the right direction. 








I love a fair fight.



If you haven't read this post yet, please note that everything has now changed. If you have read it, please note that everything has now changed.

If you're like me, you approve of events like Race for the Cure (which is American and not the same thing as the Canadian "Run for the Cure") because it promotes an awareness of breast cancer and raises money to fight breast cancer, but wish it didn't also create such a showy spectacle of... togetherness... camaraderie... tolerance. All those people pulling together to fight a common enemy, drawing strength from one another, etc...etc... Nauseating. How can a sensible person combat evil while simultaneously excluding and disempowering people?

Thankfully, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, that charitable behemoth, has once again proved that it can rustle up both funds and controversy. A few years ago, it trademarked its pink ribbon and started telling other charities they couldn't use the phrase "for the cure" in any way, ever. They set lawyers on charities with initiatives like "Kites for the Cure" and "Cupcakes for a Cure" who dared either a) raise money for a non-breast-cancer cancer cause, or b) raise money to fight breast cancer for an organization not called the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. It's also been partnered with companies that engage in "pinkwashing", a name for what happens when companies use pink packaging, announce that proceeds from their product will go to breast cancer research, and then never actually reveal how much money was involved or where, precisely, it will be going. And it's partnered with companies like KFC which (although we know they're simply a victim of "crispyfatwashing") have been associated with general unhealthiness.

But Komen recently decided it had set it sights too low - that it was, in fact, possible to be more ambitious and alienate more people. It emerged yesterday that Komen will no longer be giving any money to Planned Parenthood. This money - hundreds of thousands of dollars - was primarily devoted to the subsidizing of breast exams for low-income and at-risk women. Komen claims it put a stop to the grants because Planned Parenthood is currently being investigated by the U.S. Congress. Of course, that investigation was  instigated by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla) at the behest of pro-life groups, and most Democrats claim it's stupid and senseless. Oddly enough, a woman named Karen Handel was recently appointed senior VP of public policy at Komen, and she ran as a Republican for governor of Georgia two years ago (unsuccessfully) on an anti-abortion platform and is chums with Sarah Palin.

So bravo, Susan G. Komen for the Cure! You have made it possible to run for a cure, while also running away from people who as a result might not know in a timely fashion that they're in need of one.
