This blog gets more than its share of drive-by comments by trollish sorts who deposit little turds and then wander back to their sad corner of the internet. I don’t let most of them through, but sometimes they are too good to keep to myself. And by “good” I mean whatever synonym for “terrible” this comment deserves:
Say what you will about Love Being Right here, but unlike most of his misogynist buddies he’s awfully concise. He covers all the basics here, and then some! Whatever will we do about all these viscous women?
@eli – Wow, small world! The Bushes seem to be the Kevin Bacon of WHTM.
I think a lot of these right-wing types are probably super duper nice and generous to family and friends, but have these callous, loathsome, let ’em eat cake attitudes towards humanity in general. They’re clannish people. They’re vehemently against certain things until it affects them directly, such as having a gay child or a pregnant teenage daughter.
Well said! I see this so much in certain circles.
I always hear that my former governor Tim Pawlenty is nice. But considering his views on choice and gay rights, I couldn’t give any fewer fucks.
As I understand it, it’s generally understood that George W. got the sheer meanness in his character from his mother.
@Bina
Ah, Christie Blatchford. There was a time, back when I only got my news from the Globe, when I had no idea what we were up to in Afghanistan, because there was no fucking way I was going to read another of her soft porn columns after how goshdarn sexy those sweaty bare-chested Canadian soldiers were.
Put it another way, Christie Blatchford makes me feel sorry for Karla Homolka every time she writes about her. That’s some talented loathsomeness.
As for Barbara Amiel, I admit that for the longest time I was confused about why everyone hated her, other than the fact that she was married to Conrad. Then she wrote that column about how she didn’t get why everyone was so up in arms about these college rape cases, seeing as how back in college she and her friends got drunk and had fun, so what’s everyone complaining about? At which point I understood that everyone hates her because she’s a horrible human being.
Bina
That’s not the only boundary Grey and E.L. James ignores. In one section of the book, Grey and Ana are talking about hard limits, and Ana lists one of hers, and Grey goes “but I want to do that, so we’ll work up to it”, completely ignoring what a hard limit is (A “hard limit” is something you won’t ever do ever, compared to a “soft limit”, which is something you might do as long as there’s heavy consideration and planning beforehand.)
I almost threw my keyboard against the wall when I was reading that bit. (I was reading a sporking online because I’ll be damned if that bratty, clueless “author” is going to get any of my money for such horrific sludge. I feel sorry for the trees it’s printed on.)
There are styles of BDSM where you’re a slave 24/7, but those are usually only when you’re not in public and it’s only you and your dom/me. There’s a schedule that the two (or more) participants usually talk about and make, to ensure that no one will get in trouble with the law, bosses, family, ect.
Also, the Non-Disclosure Agreement that Grey pushes Ana to sign in the beginning of their “relationship” is bullshit too. You can sign a contract when you participate with certain dom/mes, but nothing about it is legally binding, and it’s discussed beforehand so both parties know what it entails.
Grey just has his “lawyer” write a contract up, and pushes Ana to sign it before she’s read it.
Judging from what I’ve read in 50SoG, I don’t think that James knows the meaning of the words safe, sane, or consensual. And I agree with Mara Wilson that she obviously couldn’t be assed to read the BDSM Wikipedia page.
Mike Huckabee nursed his wife through cancer and them actually stayed with her.
Ok – that’s squarely on the human decency scale, but I’m always slightly surprised when a religious conservative politician’s not a gaping hypocrite.
lith re: “why do people want to ‘win’ by getting the last word?”: I’m not sure, but it seems like having other people get to the point at which they give up on constructive dialogue with them is the primary way that they “win” arguments.
“S/he stopped talking! I WON.”
That. Just…that.
Seems to me E.L. James is just following in the footsteps of the equally squicky woman she ripped off in order to write the thing in the first place. Stephenie Meyer is also known for declaring that she portrayed the perfect romance in Twilight and won’t hear anything to the contrary.
@proxieme:
Man, Gingrich really set a low bar there, huh.
WWTH: I too am distantly related to the Bush clan. It was also a very disappointing discovery made during a flurry of genealogical interest.
No relation to the Bush family so far as I know, but one of my direct ancestors was Nathan Frink, who was aide-de-camp to Benedict Arnold. … Let’s just say there’s a reason that branch of the family has been living in Canada for over 200 years. (Just like the main commemorative statue for Benedict Arnold in the U.S. doesn’t actually have his name on it: it only commemorates the leg he lost in the battle there.)
Regarding Canadian women worthy of criticism, yeah, Christie Blatchford is up there. Though the louder woman in that field in my area would be Sue Ann Levy, a columnist for the Toronto Star. She was a stauch defender of Mayor Rob Ford all the way to the end, and under the previous mayor used to regularly use ‘socialist silly hall’ to refer to City Hall. She actually ran as a Conservative for a provincial by-election in my riding; when she lost, she made a snarky comment on a news camera about people getting the government they deserve. (Which she then had to walk back. We may not expect willingness to admit defeat, but there is a general belief that you shouldn’t actively slam your opponents when conceding. At least not in public.) Levy is the sort who probably wants to be Coulter but doesn’t have enough class.
@karalora,
Oh, Stephenie Meyer has some fascinating defenses of her own. Apparently, twilight isn’t anti-womem because Meyer hates all humans equally, but it is feminist because Bella is allegedly allowed to make choices.
Of course Meyer hates humans. That’s why her little Stephie Sue holds the entirety of her native species in contempt, preferring the company of its predators, and the narrative supports her in this.
alaisvex
Oh yeah. And then she compares her books to the classics and goes “Look how awesome I am!”
Though, recently, she’s expressed that she’s “over” Twilight.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/14/stephenie-meyer-twilight-so-over
But she’s doing a Twilight “revival” via Facebook where she’s getting five female directors to make Twilight mini-films so female directors can get some “recognition”.
It’s pretty much Spec Work* though, and let’s face it, Twilight’s so anti-feminist it HURTS, so I’m side-eying that REAL hard.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/01/twilight-short-films-facebook/
*For those not in the know, “Spec Work” is where a company does a contest or something and has a bunch of designers/other creative workers “compete” for a job. Essentially, a bunch of people apply to it with their fully finished works, and only one or more are picked and given some sort of payment or compensation for their piece.
The problems with this are one, all the other people who didn’t win go home with no compensation for their work, and two, this incentivizes people to cheat the system by stealing other people’s art work and posting it as their own, and they sometimes flood the request with it, to make sure they win.
The other problems with this particular piece of Spec Work are that Meyer would be getting the most recognition, as would Lionsgate, and there’s no mention that the female directors would get anything other than a little bit of limelight on Facebook. They’re essentially paying with “Exposure”, which is another issue with design work/creative work.
“Exposure” isn’t a payment. It’s a pseudo-promise of more work in the future, but that won’t cover a creative worker’s costs. You can tell everyone how fabulous of a designer I am and send your friends my way, but if I agree to do it for free for you in exchange for “Exposure”, what’s to say that your friends won’t attempt to do the same because I did it for you?
…and I just realized I Teal Deer’d all over the place. Sorry.
I’m probably particularly viscous with all that gum I chew.
I like how you’ve been necroing dead threads for a while now. At some point I was gonna ask you why but then it struck me, and I laughed.
What can I say? It gets addictive