I hope to have MWL 2: Brain done and posted this weekend, but given that this one is weeks late, don’t hold your breath.

This is not an exhaustive list of hotties, just the best I can find right now on Flickr. There are others I for whom I continue to search diligently and hopefully will be able to share in the future.

Disclaimer:  Just because these guys are not on the Brain list doesn’t mean I think they don’t have one. Also, I make no statement whatsoever about whether they’re feminists. How would I know? A girl can dream, though.

Credits:  1. Hugh Jackman Again, 2. Salve, sono Hugh Laurie!, 3. adrien_brody_01, 4. Jason Statham, 5. Clive Owen, 6. Jude Law , 7. Daniel Craig, 8. Forearm, 9. Vintage Celebrity Portrait: Marlon Brando, 10. heath ledger, 11. Johnny Depp, 12. Ralph Fiennes, 13. Jake Gyllenhall, 14. 502806-chained_super, 15. Sir John Martin Harvey, 16. rusty joiner

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

This has been a hell of a week. No, make that “month.”  No tragedy has befallen the House of Rib, but a few close friends are having a rough time lately, the work Project From Hell has been driving me to paroxysms of vexation, and an unexpected health problem is slowly eating away at my sanity.  Suffice it to say I’m just worn out.

So when I found out yesterday that a few of my projects at work had been pushed out a few days, I said a silent prayer to the flying spaghetti monster and told everyone I was taking the day off.

I’m going to spend most of today writing and reading. I’ve been doing a lot of both lately, as they’re the only things that keep me from going over the edge.  Them and Dove chocolates.

Coming soon, then, to ye old Rib is a Mens We Love list.  In a perfect world each of the them would have his own post singing his praises, but alas, the world stays resolutely flawed.

There may also be a post on a recent revelation I had about writing that made me utter words I never dreamed I would say.  Stay tuned for that this weekend… that is, if I can finish off this plate of crow in time.

I just recently discovered that one of my fave stem-people of all time has a great website and a podcast.

Why it didn’t occur to me sooner that Stephen Fry would have done these things, I don’t know, given that he’s done virtually everything else “linguifiable”: books and documentaries and films and radio and all kinds of other creative endeavors. You’d have to be that prolific, I think, if you had this guy’s Renaissance-person brain. If you weren’t, you’d explode.

Anyway, I discovered Fry’s podcast yesterday and downloaded all the episodes. The first one I listened to was a half-hour long rant about how much he vehemently, passionately, totally, and unreservedly hates, loathes, and detest dancing.   And I, who loves dancing – who can’t not dance when music’s playing, who even danced to Kodo drumming, which is mostly just boom-boom-boom -  loved every minute of it.   I laughed my ass off all the way through this dance-despising deposition, sympathized with his perspective, and was sad when it was over. That’s how much I like Stephen Fry.  Or rather, that’s how skilled Fry is at charming the pants off a person.¹

Fry is a man of intelligence and wit in a world that seems to value those things less and less.

His podcast on language is so full of information, so hippity-hop from one point to another (yet without being scattered at all) I had to listen to it three times for any of it to sink in.  I pity da foo who attempts to debate him about the necessity and future of radio. He can recite reams of poetry and entire short stories by Oscar Wilde. He knows a billion Greek myths and how they instruct us now. In every podcast and blog, there’s at least one word I have to look up in the dictionary, and you know this guy don’t need no stinking thesaurus to come up with them.

But he’s like, totally unsnobby at the same time.

I’m not being glib. He can make fun of his own human foibles with the best of them; one of his charms is his self-deprecating humor – and cuss like a sailor while he’s at it.

One of his podcasts is his hilarious, self-described “self-indulgent rant” about the British t.v. industry’s “Compliance Team” whose sole job is to make sure television shows don’t show actors driving and talking on the phone at the same time. Because talking on the phone while driving sets a bad example… though apparently shooting people in the face does not.  “Why do we comply with the stupidity!?” he shouts into the microphone.  “Why don’t we just tell the Compliance Team to shut up shut up SHUT THE FUCK UP!?”

I don’t actually know if Fry considers himself a feminist, but I think anyone who describes himself as “a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance” qualifies at least as far as the spirit of the word goes.

Assuming he doesn’t mean “purity” in hymenic terms – which I’m pretty sure he doesn’t given that his personal hero Wilde is one of the great moral nonconformists of all time – I’m comfortable bestowing upon him the Uppity Seal of Approval.

One more thing about those podcasts. The thing about listening to a lot of Stephen Fry is that it makes you want to talk like him…until you realize you’d never sound quite as smart or erudite or funny as he does, or be able to compete with his record-setting radio cuss-a-thon.²

Well, maybe I should speak for myself.  In any case, I’m content to listen to the man himself. When I’ve made it through all the podcasts and audio books, maybe he’ll record the Yellow Pages.

[tags]Stephen Fry, feminism, men we love[/tags]

1. Figuratively speaking for us ladies, of course. [↩]
2. According to Wikipedia, Fry claims to hold the UK record for saying “fuck” the most times on a live television broadcast. [↩]

I know you’re probably weary of hearing about this guy by now, but I can’t not include him in Men We Love month.

How could we not love a guy who follows up his excellent pre-presidency track record on “women’s issues”¹ with the global gag rule reversal and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act signage within his first 100 days?

Plus the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act signing, which supports women as much as children, since so many of the families that will benefit from it are headed by single mothers.

Not to mention the fact that he had the brains and humility to put aside impassioned rivalry and nominate Righteous Rib Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State.

Did you say something?

1. Check out the Feminists for Obama site for gush-free info on that. [↩]

Righteous Rib Hall-of-Femmer Greg Mortenson has been kidnapped, caught in a firefight, targeted in fatwehs, and even investigated by the CIA…and all for love of a girl. Well, girls.

He’s the guy who, since 1993, has been building dozens of schools, especially for girls, in impoverished rural areas of uber-oppressive Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time, is his book about it.

Facing down the Taliban and other religious extremists is brave, alright. But to me, what’s coolest about Greg is that he truly understands the impact that educating women has on society. He gets it.

“You can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change.”

Let’s repeat that: Until you educate the women of a society, nothing will really change.

There’s a lot of implications in that statement about the power of women. Which is probably why so many politicians and activists pay lip service to it (“yes, yes, we must remember the women”) but then resume dropping the bombs and dispensing the condoms.

The oppression of women and girls is so deeply ingrained in all societies that we have forgotten why they’re oppressed in the first place. Greg’s activism reminds us all that “girl power” isn’t just a cute slogan but a force that can literally change the world.

[tags]Greg Mortenson, men we love, women in poverty, education[/tags]