Push it. Too bad I. didn't follow his gut because I actually think this is a great way to make it up to me. Everyone should take a cue from I. on how to best use AOL Instant Messanger to address past wrongs:

For a while, I was thinking, 'Next time [E.] signs on, I'm going to send her the following IM': "Dear [E.], I think you are a vixen, not a whore. Sincerely, [I]." Then I realized that was dumb.

They call me Mister Wiggles. What I want for Christmukkah (and Adam Brody, of course). I like how they give you ideas for use, in case you are totally dense and have no clue why you'd need an absurdly small, extra-cushioned, ergonomic rocking chair. Hmmm.

Ain't that a kick in the head. From The New York Times yesterday:

Q. Why don't you make fun of any women? - John Roark, Oberlin, Ohio

A. Hey, give me some more female CEO's, generals and presidents, and I'll happily make fun of them! - Barbara Ehrenreich

Awesome. Rock it, Barb.

Carry that weight. Sometimes I just love The Onion, especially with this gem. Make sure to check out the pop-up blog for our nation's nuclear launch codes.

Plus, this little horoscope which just tickles me in all the right ways:

Sagittarius: (Nov. 22—Dec. 21)
People will complain to you about the disruption of traffic, but it's not your fault that love-struck buildings are following you everywhere.

Can I help it if I'm so lovable? Obviously not, according to my extra-special Wombat:
R: Can I just virtually smack you bottom? :-)
E: Sure, go for it. I thought you prefer to nibble on me, though
R: Nibble on you???
E: You always come up to me and bite me in various places
R: aaaah ......... i see :-)
E: Or you scratch me under my chin
R: well both!
E: okay, i'm ready for butt smackage
R: *smack*!!!!!!!! aaaaaa......grrrrrrrrrreat!
E: HAHAHAHAH
R: *nibble in you ear* hmm :-)

Je vous ai dit que les Aixoises étaient tellement foux!

I've always been a guy with a sweet tooth and that girl was just like a king-sized candy bar. C-biscuit just made my day.

E: How's it going?
C: Fine, you?
E: Boring
C: You're boring? Wow, I never would have said that myself...I tend to think you're a lot of fun

Awwww, so sweet. Made me all smiley.

I can smell the chemicals. I have to share the nonsensical conversation I just had with my blue buddy I. about our respective universities. Of course, mine came out on top. The way it should be.

E: Does your dorm have that thing where you can go online to see if the showers are free? I know some dorms do
I: bathroom.---.edu is the ---- hall (where I used to live) bathroom server, but ----(where I live till the 15th) has nothing like it.
E: That's messed up. Y'all are pathetically lazy
I: Or awesomely nerdy
E I like mine better
I: Here at ---, we have to physically check to see if the good shower is available
E: You mean, you actually have to emerge from your dark, dank cells lit only by the flickering of your computer monitor? I feel you
I: Well, sometimes we have to pry our filth-encrusted pasty flesh from our decrepit furniture first, but yeah
E: Well it's a good thing y'all don't shower too often, then
I: The dorm just starts to smell funny if everyone showers more than once a month. some of the frosh freak out and start to think they're home, among normal people
E: Yeah. Normal people are strictly not allowed at ---. If they were, the slave driving administration wouldn't be able to use you all for slave labor in their labs and research groups. You guys might start remember good things like food and the touch of a woman...and sunlight. It'd be a catastrophe
I: This is why 10% of --- fratboys die of system shock when they set foot on W. soil. All the estrogen in the air, it overwhelms them, and they go into cardiac arrest with a priapism
E: Oh so that's the excuse? The estrogen? What-EVAH
I: The --- male constitution just can't handle it. You see, --- women emit no estrogen, as their ovaries are removed for safe keeping during their studies here.
E: That sounds like a somewhat eugenic argument
I: No, they get them thawed out and re-implanted after graduation, it's all good
E: Are you saying that W. women are somehow inferior to --- women because --- has a more strenuous academic instruction and will thus damage overaries while W. education is not intense and perfectly safe?
I: No, in fact I hear at W. they take a blood sample from all the first years, and use that to grow one extra genetically matched ovary for everyone in vats, which are then implanted by the Tower Court dance that fall. It's a much superior technology to just removing, freezing, and re-implanting ovaries
E: Is this a yearly process?
I: Well, it only happens with the first years, usually - 3 ovaries are enough for most Wendies.
E: So when one atrophes from all the education, the other kicks in?
I: See, the reason --- removes --- women's ovaries is not because of the rigorous academics, it's because the males are such troglodytes, and so warped by their time in lab, that they're practically teratogenic, and any offspring spawned by an --- man and an --- woman would be an abomination
E: An abomination?
I: Yeah, huge fangs, fish scales, insatiable bloodlust, that kind of thing. I think the extra W. ovary is to make it easier for a W. grad to balance a career and a family
E: Because men don't help? Maybe men should be implanted with an ovary, since we're following a biology-influences-sociability rift which I'm not at all comfortable with
I: The male conspiracy still forbids it, except in rare circumstances. As for ovaries in men, maybe you should draft a proposal. Eventually, you could develop the Ovarizer 2000, a sniper rifle that implants men with ovaries. They'd be all like "Ow? what the fuck was that? Why do I respect women all of the sudden?"
E: I like my men to be men and my women to be women, I just have a fluid definition of what that means. Ovaries really do not come into the equation. Mostly, I'm a big fan of dispensing bitch slaps. And if that fails, blow jobs. My theory is that most conservatives just need a good orgasm to chill the fuck out
I: So has the discussion shifted onto a serious consideration of gender roles, as opposed to hyperbole? I'll try to shift gears if I can.
E: Well I wasn't comfortable with the biology as a major component of gender argument, so I sort of wedged in a bit of theory, but mostly I think --- people are strange and pasty and have an alarming affection for numbers. And their frat boys are glorified simply because they have access to beer and know the chemical composition for date rape drugs.
I: As the t-shirt says, the "--- Men: the odds are good but the goods are odd"
E: In essence
I: Guess you'll have to go elsewhere for your men, then
E: um....
I: (or man, singular, whatever you're looking for)
E: um...
I: I mean, you don't really need good odds; you've got good looks. So unless you're deliberately looking for odd goods, why bother with ---?
E: um...

God is a number. Just another way that the Catholic Church continues to alienate members and show that they're misogynists, but not that misogynistic. It's like they're saying, "Well, we think that men are naturally better than women, because of biology and the way the Lord created them, and we think that gays are evil and anyone who in any way tries to counter anything we say is going to hell, but, really, we don't hate women. Honest." Seriously, guys. Find a new theme.

Vatican Letter Denounces 'Lethal Effects' of Feminism

By Daniel Williams and Alan Cooperman (From the Washington Post)

ROME, July 31 -- The Vatican issued a letter Saturday attacking the "distortions" and "lethal effects" of feminism, which it defined as an effort to erase differences between men and women -- a goal, the statement said, that undermines the "natural two-parent structure" of the family and makes "homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent."

The sharp critique was contained in a document issued by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a chief adviser to Pope John Paul II and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department in charge of laying out Roman Catholic orthodoxy. The 37-page document also outlined the Vatican's own formula for relationships between men and women, calling for "active collaboration between the sexes" and rejecting subjugation of women.

The statement was the latest Vatican salvo against trends it regards as undermining its teachings on sexuality and the family. Vatican officials have assailed abortion and contraception; politicians who support abortion through legislation; and legalized same-sex unions. The pope approved the document issued Saturday, which is titled "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World."

Catholic feminists in the United States said the letter presented a caricature of feminism as antagonistic toward men and trying to deny any difference between the sexes. They said feminism seeks equal rights and respect for both genders.

"The demonization of feminism is most disturbing," said Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an advocacy group for abortion rights, who said her blood pressure "shot up 20 points" when she read the letter.

"It takes extreme positions that may have been historically held by five people and casts them as if they were held by every woman," Kissling said. "The feminism I know is all for partnerships and is all for empowering both men and women. The feminism I know does not ignore the fact that there are sexual differences."

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, a feminist theologian at Harvard Divinity School, said the document restated positions the Vatican has taken many times and that the only surprise was its timing. She said church leaders may be feeling some urgency to combat same-sex marriage, as well as renewed pressure to consider ordaining women in response to the worldwide scandal over sexual abuse by priests.

"It has some positive things in it, but the political function of the document is the same as the ones before," Fiorenza said. "It's trying to make a theological case, which they're really not able to make, against the full equality of women in the church."

Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said Saturday on Vatican Radio that the aim of the letter was to critique two current strands in feminism: one that emphasizes "a radical rivalry between the sexes" and the other that seeks to "cancel the differences between the sexes."

The letter argued that "the obscuring of the difference . . . of the sexes has enormous consequences," including inspiring ideologies that "call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality."

While assaulting what it said were the bases of feminist ideology, the letter tried to tackle the practical difficulties and inequities that feminists also decry. It appeared to attempt to strike a balance between a Catholic ideal of women raising children at home and the reality that many work outside the home.

Women ought not be stigmatized for desiring the life of a homemaker, the letter argued. "Indeed, a just valuing of the work of women within the family is required," it said. Women who choose to work in the labor force should be awarded a proper schedule and "not have to choose between relinquishing their family life or enduring continual stress," it said.

The Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the national Catholic weekly America, said in an e-mail that "although most American feminists would express their ideology differently than the Vatican, on the practical level they are on the same page (in terms of equality in education, politics, workplace) except on abortion and women priests." If there are differences, he added, "it is probably on the relationship between men and women in the family, not in society. . . . For the Vatican, the ideal is that a father be paid well enough so that a mother can stay home and raise the kids."

The letter called for the Catholic Church to take advantage of "feminine values" that include listening, understanding, caring and faithfulness. Although women are banned from the priesthood, their role in the church is not "a passivity inspired by an outdated conception of femininity," the letter maintained.

Almost a third of the letter was devoted to biblical declarations about the sexes. "From the first moment of their creation, man and woman are different, and will remain so for eternity," it said. Tracing the story of Adam and Eve, it said original sin opened the way to relations between man and woman "in which love will frequently be debased into pure self-seeking, in a relationship which ignores and kills love and replaces it with the yoke of domination of one sex over the other."

In the afterlife, the letter stated, men and women will continue to be different, but sex will come to an end. "The temporal and earthly expression of sexuality is transient," it declared.

Cooperman reported from Washington.

I'm right where I always wanted to be. The magnetic lumberjack has informed me that my new catch phrase should be "Stand up and take notice, losers." I quote: "Not only do you all need to pay attention to what I'm saying, but you're all worse than I am." I laughed so hard that my stitches hurt. He has also advised me to tattoo "stand up and take notice, losers" across my stomach and "We're all going down the crapper one by one" across my back.

It's good to know that I have at least one bloggy fan. Bitch.

Take these ties and make them true. Is it wrong that I think it ironic that the NY Sun published this on their editorial page? I'm not saying it's inaccurate, I'm just saying it's...hypocritical.

On Freedom: "When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist." John Adams (1735-1826)

Keep it goin' full speed. I realize that my blog is starting to be a bit redundant, but fuck it I'm redundantly pissed. So whenever I come across anyone who's saying what I've been saying but has had the foresight to share their views with the masses (extra points for humor), I have to share with my adoring public of....two people. Anywho, today's installment is courtesy of Tatsuya Ishida. But first, a little in your face humor.

More news:
· Slim Fast hires Dick Cheney as new spokesperson. "Go fuck yourself. Big time," reads new slogan.
· Weapons of mass destruction finally found in Iraq: Commercial airplanes.
· 9/11 Commission goes on book tour to promote its debut release. Critics pan the tome as a "failure of imagination."
· KFC chickens riot, capture Colonel Sanders and threaten to behead him unless all their brothers and sisters are liberated. Company officials blame the movie Chicken Run.
· Gay mafia leaves a decapitated head of a French poodle in George Bush's bed. Commander in chief vows to smoke out the anal-doers and rid the world of gayness.
· John Ashcroft makes surprise visit to Urban League, introduces himself as "J. Ash," performs hip hop version of his classic hit single "Let the motherfuckin' eagle soar."
· Terror color chart changed to black and white to better reflect administration policy.
· Latest conspiracy theory contends that a shadowy cabal known as the Bulliminati is covertly fattening up Americans with misleading nutrition information to usher in a Fat World Order.

I am now a central part. This is frigging phenomenal. Just...just...swell. It combines my favorite "Men are dumb" rift with "Men are really really dumb" along with a side of "At least some of us know we're dumb and are, consequently, endearing."

I am nothing if not complicated.

You keep your distance via the system of touch.



whole.

Keep turning me on with those French words I can't pronounce. Dudes, check out my horoscope courtesy of The Onion. I totally rule!

"Sagittarius: (Nov. 22—Dec. 21)
Scholars have decided that you probably don't exist at all, and are just a composite character based on several minor figures from the writings of George Sand."

Wait, I don't even like George Sand. This blows.

Feels like I've been run over in traffic. Alright, seriously, there are too many things to hate our current administration for. Just too fucking many. I'm losing count here to the extent that my outrage is going to manifest itself into a separate being known as "Lage" that spits fire every time it reads the paper and walks up to elected officials and starts pulling off limbs and ripping off other vital organs. Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr! All fear the Lage..... AAAAAHHHH!!! Run for your lives! We are conservative and evil and hell bent on undoing civil rights, freedom of speech, national security and even elections! She'll kill us aaaaaaaaallllllll!!!
 
But, because I can't do any of that (yet), I have the Daily Show. Take it away, Jonny.
 
In response to the failed (for now, keep an eye out, bitches) gay marriage amendment:
-Senator [Santorum], what will happen if gays are allowed to marry?
-A break-down of the family, children being born out of wedlock, and communities and cultures in decay.... I would argue the future of America hangs in the balance because the future of the American family hangs in the balance.
-So gay marriage will lead to children being born out of wedlock? How is sodomy that powerful? Let me ask you this. Does the union of penis and ass set off some kind of genital wonder-twin activation that emits some kind of community-decaying ray?
 
In response to Tom Ridge's dubious claims of an election day terrorist attack:
-So to sum up...be afraid enough not to vote for John Kerry, but not so afraid as to not vote for President Bush.
 
In response to the army hiring more musicians for army funerals:
-So let me get this straight. The army, confronted with the fact that it doesn't have enough musicians to play at all the soldiers' funerals, looks at that problem and comes up with this solution: Hire more musicians. You know, I'm not a military man, but it seems to me that those guys might want to start thinking outside the coffin on this one. Maybe less dead people.
 
In response to the Iraqi "prime minister" signing a bill allowing his government to impose marshall law in case of an emergency:
-Great, we faught a war to bring Iraq deomcracy, and the first thing they're doing with it is declaring marhall law. This was really worth it.
 
Stand up and take notice, losers. We're all going down the crapper one by one. So you'd better stand the fuck up and do something about it. Now.

I want to be your illusion. I thought that Beni Benassi was the only appropriate title for this little entry, courtesy of the inimitable Dan Savage. In response to one mysogynist's desire for abnormally ginormous breasts, Monsieur Savage had this to say:

The sudden appearance of women with ridiculously huge boob implants was arousing in part because of its shock value. There was the shock of women with such exaggerated racks, of course, but there was also the more important—and, sadly, the infinitely more arousing—shock of women finding a novel new way to imperil their health in order to attract the attention of men. Men have always found it arousing when women go to bizarre extremes, including self-mutilation (bound feet) and self-torture (high heels), to make themselves more attractive, and enormoboobs were extreme in the extreme. That enormoboobs played into the deeply ingrained and thoroughly eroticized misogyny that plagues all human cultures to varying degrees was lost on most men. (Let's not be too relativist about this: I'm sure most women would prefer to live in a culture that allows women who want to have enormoboobs to go and get them over, say, a culture that compels all women to have their clits cut off.)

It always makes me happy when someone infinitely more influential than me has the balls to point this shit out.

Do the kind of stuff that only Prince would sing about. There hasn't been enough artwork on my blog lately. I think this is so crude and so strange that it simply screams "Post me! I speak from your soul!"

Anyone know where I can get a steak-cookin' sex slave? My dry spell is running up quite a phone bill over here.

Somebody told me. Finally, someone says exactly what I've been thinking all about the current pop "alterna-rock" scene. It's beyond strange to be out of the country for six months and suddenly be plopped down into the current music scene which sometimes sounds likes an untalented nerd covering The Strokes on a delapidated casio keyboard. At least The A.V. Club sees it from my perspective:

Music in general—-and pop music in the accelerated media culture of the post-WWII world in particular—-is a synthetic art that involves refining and reviving bits of the past in the push toward the future. But what happens when the urge to imitate and build off the past that gives rise to The White Stripes or Jurassic 5 or Elvis Presley gets imitated itself?

Thanks, man.

Stop playin' keep movin'. So if you aren't familiar with The Stranger, you need to be. Now. They've recently added a very fun forum called "Lovelab" which features all sorts of goodies such as advice and interviews for those of us too preoccupied with sex for our own good. So I just read this gem from the "Knickers in a Twist" column about two women who've put out a woman-centric porn mag a la Playboy, only not crappy and stupid. One of the editors, Micole Taggart, gave this little piece of advice for all you straight men out there which I thought was actually quite simple and cogent: "Men are so different that general advice is not for everyone. But if you turn [on] a woman, she will always be coming back for more!" Awesome.

Also, this was fucking hysterical. It's rude, it's crude, and thus it belongs on my blog underneath the big nekked Man Ray photo.

"Lippy Imp: All right, let’s get right down to it. What makes for an attractive cock?

Robin Adams: A nice shape, size, color, attentiveness.

Micole Taggart: A clean, smooth cock with a lot of character in the hang. I like strong heads!"

Rock.

To pass the time while I'm on night duty, I re-read some of my old posts from my time in France, and goodness have I changed. I feel a ton more together, more confident, and even (dare I say it) more mature. Well, score one for me, I say. I win at life again!

We're about ready to rock-steady. The roomie, even though she's across the sea, knows exactly what to say:

"Rock what makes you feel good. I've never said anything differently. If that's "flirt flirt flirt," then for fuck's sake, what the hell are you waiting for?! FLIRT, damn you, flirt like you've never flirted before!!!"

And it's on. Oh yes my friends. It's on.

Make them apologize. Check out this little gem from Newsweek about the "new" infidelity.

Why is it that when women do something men have been doing since the dawn of time, there has to be an entire edition of a prominent national magazine dedicated to it? They did the same thing when the number of women working out of the home increased. Pretty soon you're gonna have an entire issue of Time dedicated to "Exclusive: Number of women who poop on the rise. Could they be rivaling men in excrement-production?" They'll get a bunch of experts talking about how the increased education and financial power of modern American women allows them to shit with reckless abandon.

It's not just opportunity that fuels the impulse to be unfaithful; it's money and power as well. American women are better educated than they've ever been. A quarter of them earn more money than their husbands. A paycheck and a 401(k) don't guarantee that a woman will stray, but if she does, they minimize the fallout both for her and for her children. The feminist Gloria Steinem once said, "Most women are one man away from welfare," but she recently amplified her views to NEWSWEEK: "Being able to support oneself allows one to choose a marriage out of love and not just economic dependence. It also allows one to risk that marriage." In other words, as women grow more powerful, they're more likely to feel, as men traditionally have, that they deserve a little bit of nooky at the end (or in the middle) of a long, busy day.

Ew. Just....just ew.