Of penises, politics and peace prizes

This year the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen deigned to flip over their “[pretty nearly] no girls allowed” sign on the clubhouse door, as apparently 2009 was “a record year for female Nobel Prize winners:

This year a record five women were honored by the Nobel committees. In total, only 40 women have won the prestigious prizes, including Marie Curie who took the 1903 physics prize and the 1911 chemistry prize.

The Nobel Prizes have always seemed to me to be one of those self-defining, self-sustaining units, like the entertainment, fine art, and fashion worlds. The central figures  create their own definitions of what is exceptional and/or “groundbreaking” work, and then hand out “prestigious” awards for it.  The implication to the world is that these people’s achievements, in these specific subjects, are the most note-worthy — when in fact their selection is subject to the same biases of any highly insulated, elitist group.

Since they started awarding, 40 have gone to women, 765 to men. I’m sensing a pattern here.

But even the obvious (but not surprising) sexist bias of the League takes a back seat to their shameless politicking:  Obama takes home the Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Subtle!

Obama’s done fine so far. Maybe a hiccup here and there but at least he hasn’t started any illegal wars. But come on now. How extraordinary can his efforts have been this early in the game?

There were more than 200 other nominees for the Peace prize. It’s a good bet that at least one of those peacenik’s efforts have been extraordinary for longer and at much greater risk and sacrifice. They just had the bad luck to get nominated so soon after the Evil One was kicked out of office and the League of Extraordinary Gentleman has to let the world know they approve.

Now they’re going to go get shitfaced and teach him the secret handshake.

The A Word

So the Washington Post reports that Secretary of State Clinton seems “torn” between being a leader and being a team player.

Putting aside the fact that male politicians’ ability to do both is never publicly questioned in this way, the article reads alright…until:

[Clinton] and her aides say she is deeply involved in policymaking and has inserted herself at important moments. But the impression of many foreign policy experts is that she has her own agenda, such as her focus on women’s rights.

It was going so well.

I am so sick of the A Word.  Of course, Hillary must have an agenda because she’s doing something other than posturing. And I love the whispered-in-your-ear, anonymous-sources quality of that paragraph - “the impression of many foreign policy experts is….”  The reporter used to work for the National Inquirer.

Curiously, the article doesn’t mention the dreaded “women’s rights” again. I guess it’s like Voldemort’s name; if you don’t speak it, it won’t come true.

And on the seventh day, God created Hell

and called it Google Feeds.

Just so you fully appreciate what I go through for you: this week’s tour of Hell was made even more torturous than usual by the roughly thirty-six thousand articles about a certain third-rate entertainer who beat up his girlfriend and then took his crocodile tears to Larry King. I would rather be lashed to a hot slab and have my innards pulled out, roasted over an open fire and masticated slowly by a scaly, b.o.-reeking demon than read one more word about that asshat.

• Oh, snap:  Barney Frank handles the dining room table from Planet Moron who compares Obama’s plan for health care with Nazi policy.
• Article Title of the Week:  You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for (Gay Marriage) Ice Cream! Sweet.
• Badass: What woman “blew the minds of the entire intellectual community like an unstoppable mushroom cloud of face-melting science” back when women were still considered to be TSTL?¹
• RIP Ted Kennedy: So many icons dead this summer. Is the apocalypse coming or what?
• Fierce:  Did you know that Beyonce is possessed by the devil? It’s totally true.
• Ain’t to proud to squat:  DO NOT WANT more shit to drag around.
• Today in Creative Rationalizations for Sexism: Pimps are people, too.
• Kiddie porn: Apparently there are a bunch of supposed adults who think Pole Dance toys are a harmless reflection of little girls’ desire to emulate adults. The chicken-shit, deliberate cluelessness of these people makes me want to ground them in their rooms for the rest of their lives.
• Ack, after that, I need funny: How about these guys. BTW, what is it with the English and cross-dressing?
• Speaking of going girlie: I am an unapologetically girlie girl. So if anyone were to put any of these gorgeous things under my tree this Christmas, particularly the bra, I would not turn such a gift rudely away.
• Fear of a Black President:  Some parents don’t want Obama talking to their kids because the Nazis told their kids to stay in school, too.
• Sick and wrong (but so damn funny):  The Teaches of Piggy.
• It’s baaaaack:  School starts with swine flu. Did you know this virus can be traced back to one adorable little towheaded pig-licker? Figures.

1. TSTL = Too Stupid To Live. I had to look it up. [↩]

Iranian women

Only a few years ago, we had to watch “the news” on TV where we heard “the latest” about stuff like the Iranian election many hours after it actually happened. And if we were lucky, a few photos or video made it all the way to the studio without being confiscated or censored.

Now all we have to do is surf the net to see events happen practically in real time.

Gone appear to be the days when everything we saw could very well be manipulated by someone (powerful politicians, greedy network execs, etc) with a vested interest. Still happens, no doubt, but when anyone can hold a video camera and broadcast the action to the world within minutes, chances are good that what you see is what went down.

This is great for debunking popular myths, such as the one about women (especially middle eastern women) being the weaker, more passive sex.

In case you’re wondering what prompted these ruminations, it’s this excellent article by Mariam Aryai Rivera about how amateur coverage of the election protests in Iran are proving Iranian women are hardly the docile creatures we think they are.

But now, with the help of modern-day technology and amateur video footage, you can catch them drop kicking the cops and the Revolutionary Guard, and in a center-stage tragedy, taking a bullet to the heart. The women of Iran are in the house, and they’re in the front row.

This front-row female participation in social change has been way more typical than is commonly understood, mainly because men have written most of the history books.  Women’s contribution has been trivialized and ignored, like their vastly important role in shaping human evolution (hint:  it ain’t just gathering nuts).

But whatever - the internet to the rescue. It’s helping us all see the truth, one Youtube video at a time.

I don’t call this a revolution. Nor do I call this C.I.A.-backed interference. I call this a civil-rights movement, and there is no civil-rights movement in the history of humankind that excludes the power of women. Women in Iran are giving birth to something historic, and it’s not just with their wombs.

Word.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Iran election fraud

Banning burqas is stupid

The spokesman for the group of lawmakers behind banning burqas in France says that “wearing the burka is a submissive act, and that… is contrary to republican principles.”  Clearly they hope we’ll interpret this to mean the ban is about gender equality.

Je ne le pense pas.

I do not see anything in their statement about supporting women. At best, it is just ego, a la “What will the neighbors think?”

At worst, its a non-too-subtle attempt to oppress and intimidate a subculture.

Yes, we all know Islam has sects that treat women as inferior to men (kinda like Roman Catholicism, the primary religion in France).  But the burqa is a symptom, not a cause. That’s what makes this so transparent.

If the French were really worried about upholding their “republican principles,” they’d work on fixing the legendary sexism in their dominant culture.

Technorati Tags: France, sexism, Islam, xenophobia

I heart the Ice Cream Man

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Yes Pecan, Ben & Jerry’s

Superfly

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. [↩]

Little stories everywhere

So every once and a while, NPR’s This American Life does a show where they present 20 stories in 60 minutes. The stories are just a few minutes long and recount something interesting or quirky or puzzling or moving or funny that happened to the storyteller in a very short space of time.

Like the one by the guy who was nodded at in a store by someone he recognized but couldn’t place, and then after a torturous night of trying to remember who she was and feeling like an asshole, he finally concluded she must be an old flame because he could just barely remember being in love with her…And then realized the next morning that she’s the lady at Starbucks who gives him his coffee every day.

That one in particular made me think that these TAL stories are like blog posts: they’re short (because who has time for a blog post that takes an hour to read?) yet show how slices of the storyteller’s everyday life are actually interesting. And then I wondered if, on any given day, the average person had at least one thing that had happened to them that, if Ira Glass happened to call, they could turn into a short-short story.

You’ll never guess where I’m going with this.

This is the inaugural post for a new category on the Rib: Storytime. It’s kind of an experiment to see if there really is at least one thing in my average day that I can turn into a little story that others would find worth reading. The fact that “short” is a requirement makes the idea much less intimidating. I probably can’t do one every day due to time constraints, but several times a week is the goal.

Here goes nothing…

——–

Most days of the week, my office mate Shelby, who is also my mentor, and I meet for half an hour to discuss my projects. Lately we’ve taken to having this “meeting” outside, chatting as we walk around the neighborhood.

We work downtown in the International District which has everything in it from office workers like ourselves to shopkeepers to train travellers to the homeless. No one ever talks to us as we walk and we don’t talk to them.

Except today, as we were walking past an office building, someone yelled out “Obama!” We looked up from our conversation to see a black man crouching in the planter box in front of a window. He was looking straight at us, grinning from ear to ear.

It took me a second to realize the guy was washing the windows, not just crouching in the planter in order to shout at unsuspecting passers-by. “Obama!” he said again, and gave us the thumbs up.

We kept walking, but Shelby returned the thumbs up. “Obama!” she said to him, grinning just as widely.

“Obama!” I heard him say behind us. I swear I thought he would break into song.

I waited until we got all the way back to the office to check out the front of Shelby’s baseball hat. I was sure it had an Obama logo on it, but no. The window washer was just bursting with joy and couldn’t keep it to himself.

Technorati Tags: This American Life, NPR, writing

Happy Friday from basement cat

The things that float around the workplace. [shakes head] Don’t these people have anything to do? (she asked, as she blogged, surfed, Facebooked…)

Technorati Tags: lolcats

Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

“President Barack Obama.”

And by the way, the front page of the NYT has a big, above-the-fold article on the fabulousness that is Michelle Obama (editorializing mine). Pretty cool that she is recognized in that way.

And on a personal note, I caught good-natured flack this morning for not watching the inauguration ceremony. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal if the flack-givers hadn’t been citizens of the UK and Germany.  I’m like, “Hey, the ceremonies were broadcast in late afternoon over in your neck of the woods, by which time I assume you’d already had YOUR morning coffee?”

Technorati Tags: politics, Obama