Jezebel In Hell
It’s hard to express how non-stop awful this week has been, so I’m not going to bother. Instead, I’m getting on a plane and flying to Austin. See, almost ten years ago this weekend, when I was in high school, me and two of my best friends put on a 30-band hardcore festival in New Jersey. Headlining the second night was one of the best punk bands of the 1990s: Chicago’s Los Crudos, who broke up shortly thereafter. Tomorrow, they’re reforming to play Prank’s Chaos In Tejas festival.
Seriously, if you read this blog and are in Austin, email sackerman-at-washingtonindependent-dot-com. Let’s have a beer. Especially if you can tell me where is/isn’t a good place to collect at least one new tattoo. (When I’m sober.)
I may blog a little this weekend. Not exactly sure. But I’m not leaving you guys high and dry! I raided the Jezebel comment threads and convinced three of my favorite commenters. This blog has too much testosterone, so welcome to the stage: Hicks (a/k/a Parasol), Charlotte Corday (a/k/a Charlotte Corday) and Erica (a/k/a JaneSays). Charlotte and Erica are IRL friends of mine, and I hold out hope that Hicks will be as well when we finally meet. You’ll get along. But if I see any sexist nonsense in the comment threads I will rip your throats out. After my guestbloggers castrate you.
Otherwise, have fun!
Now You’re Messing With A Son Of A Bitch
Read this and see if you regret not living in New York. Moe, why the f*ck are you wasting your time writing this b*llsh*t? And why do I continue to c*rse in my p*sts if I have to use aster*sks? The fact that I do is probably the most eloquent contribution I could offer to this odd Gawkercentric gender-literary “conversation.”
Spending the last couple days in New York has caused severe emotional retrogression. I mean, every time I walk from the IRT to the Q train platform at Atlantic Avenue I’ll always feel like a ninth grader. Seeing high school friends — under the worst circumstances, no less — doesn’t help. But that doesn’t mean I have to spend my time listening to Smashing Pumpkins, Temple Of The Dog, Teenage Fanclub and, now, finally, Guns N Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident? covers record.
In One More Hour I Will Be Gone
Men really shouldn’t be posting on Jezebel, should we? Safe space! Ah well, at least this time Moe isn’t there to annotate my stuff in a way that makes the commenters rip me to shreds.
Anyway, today on Crappy Hour, Megan and I take on the Lebanon pre-coup, Russia, and the connection between Guantanamo Bay and Montreal strip clubs.
Momma I’m So Sorry I’m So Obnoxious
If you read yesterday’s brilliant Crappy Hour comment thread, you saw how a community riven by the Clinton/Obama rivalry came together in a moment of grace and reconciliation. Today I ruin everything, as men tend to. But Megan and I also talk about, like, the Burma disaster and the Guantanamo disaster!
Oh look, SinisterRouge has already called me “clueless.” Margs on me next time I’m in New York, SinRoo!
Why?
Anna from Jezebel and Latoya from Racialicious have a really really great conversation about the intersections of race, gender, media and imperialism. Among the gems, from Latoya:
Fatemeh, the publisher of the Muslimah Media Watch blog also points out how condescending it is to want to “help” women in a foreign country without listening to them. We tend to infantilize them (example here) and act as those these poor poor women don’t have minds of their own and can’t speak for themselves, never realizing that they are actively engaging in these issues - just not necessarily where we can see. From the little I know about Muslimah feminism, people who still actively adhere to Islamic principles tend to work within those guidelines while fighting for equality. Our idea of equality may not be the same as what they want. So, for western people, it’s a really big fucking deal if Muslim women take off their veils and wear lipstick. To them, it’s kind of whatever, they want to focus on employment options and pay equality.
Grind Hard
If there’s one thing I know nothing about — I know, I know: “just one?” You’re so funny! — it’s economics. But when I read today’s Crappy Hour I see that two people who do, ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Moe Tkacik and ex-trade industry lobbyist Megan Carpentier, responded to the idea that we could break up OPEC thusly:
MOE: Ah, yeah so there is a bill to amend the Sherman Act to make oil-producing and exporting cartels illegal.
MOE: God, remember the f***ing Sherman Act?MEGAN: Which means, what? That we won’t buy oil from OPEC anymore? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I have read a grand total of one book about the global oil market. Luckily for me it was The Prize by Daniel Yergin. Among the points Yergin makes is that the inherent difficulties of extracting oil and bringing it to market inclines the oil industry towards creating cartels. A free market in oil is not a stable market in oil, and that leads to all manner of economic catastrophes. Hence the cartel. There’s something superficially attractive about breaking up a cartel — who’s in favor of cartels, right? — but Yergin’s book leaves you with the point that a cartel is sort of the best of a bad situation, and to futz with it creates more problems than it solves.
But I don’t, like, know what I’m talking about. Maybe an actual economist can weigh in here.
She Works At The Devil’s Whorehouse
What a bad Jezebel stalker I am! The Washington Independent’s campaign reporter, Holly Yeager, had to tell me that the Times Sunday Styles section — home to many a stupid profile subject — profiled the ‘Belles yesterday. Holy shit! Check out this quote from an already-obsolete women’s-magazine editor:
“Encouraging people to steal proprietary information was a somewhat dubious beginning, but I get it,” she said. “Gossip is fun, which is probably why all the assistants look at Jezebel.”
Why do you have to be such an underminer, Gramma?
Obviously the reporter, Lauren Lipton, is a regular commenter. Who are you, Lauren? PoliticalPartyGirl? Braak? You gave two-and-a-half paragraphs to SinisterRouge. Note these two self-satisfied sentences. One:
Jezebel’s readers — they often call themselves “Jezzies” or “Jezebelles”— are permitted to post to the site after a first prospective comment is approved by a Gawker Media staffer, and must adhere to some basic rules: be witty and relevant, no whining and don’t attack people.
Two:
This reporter has posted comments on Jezebel.com.
Big pat on the back, Lauren! See you on the CH thread!
Shout At The Devil!
Bobby Jindal: potentially one irregular heartbeat away from an invasion of Iran. Luckily he can convince himself that his emotional immaturity is the fault of… Satan.
It’s 1998 And The Sisterhood Is Back
My dear friend Amanda “Mattos Locos” Mattos upended all my fashionable opinions about the Greek system by being both awesome and a proud former member of a sorority. Her reflections, sparked by a Moe Tkacik post and my goading, go from being interesting to actually moving.
I made my absolute closest friends in college through the sorority. We’re still close to this day. I’ve been in the weddings of two sorority sisters in the past year. We have dinners regularly. We have an email list for sharing news. We go on trips together. And when one of us was killed this past fall, the power of being part of an organization like that had never been more apparent. …
I think of that pledge sleepover we had at the house our first semester. I think of purple beach buckets full of jello shots. I think of playing pranks on older sisters’ with old composite photos. I think of practicing those rush songs for hours on end. I think of practicing our derby days dance.
I Am The Hungry Wolf And I Roam Endlessly With My Mate
It’s Kathy G’s wedding anniversary. I happen to know both Kathy and her husband, am big fans of both, and her post is touching without being saccharine. Some of us, however, are UNWORTHY OF LOVE!
In related news, the new Portishead record comes out today.