Hump Day Linkage

-xkcd = my life, once again: -Sadie at Jezebel takes on Cosmo's constant efforts to make you insecure, this time encroaching on sacred cuddling territory. "Because as we know, in Cosmo land, why try direct communication when there are tricks and wiles and boas!" Cosmo Takes the Fun out of Cuddling. (Jezebel) -J. Stewart gets sassy about Minnesota's as-yet-unresolved senatorial race. Also, Al Franken in a sexy speedo: -Though Melissa reports that it looks like Ted "Tubes" Stevens may finally be finished. Ted Stevens Loses. (Shakesville)

Pow!

Hey gang, So I've been kind of busy "doing work" to prepare for a presentation today and get some shit done before I head off to the MSP for a visit later this week (!). But the internet does not stop creating magic just because I am busy and/or lazy. Here are a few things I have come upon recently: 1. Young Joseph Stalin was a fucking hottie:

Yow! Am I right or am I right?

2. Via Feministing, Rachel Maddow continues to rock my socks and or knock them off or whatever is the best thing that can happen to ones socks. Also, she makes fun of Sarah Palin. 'Cause that never gets old.

3. Have you yet watched Demon Ride? 'Cause you should watch it now/again:

Voting: "It's like Cedar Point without the ride at the end."

That's what some guy in line near me said today. Totes. Sure, I got a tiny thrill in my soul when I confirmed my presidential vote, but let's be honest: six voting booths for the City of Bowling Green on the day before the election is not enough. Via Ezra, Rachel Maddow correctly identifies voting lines as a new kind of poll tax. I'm lucky to be a grad student with a flexible schedule. I read a couple of articles about cultural studies and Marxism while in line, and it didn't matter that I was technically half an hour late to my office hours. But it's far more inconvenient for people with real jobs, families, and/or who don't spend hours each day just hanging out reading anyway. Rachel Maddow, if the Mormons fail in California, will you gay marry me there? Please?

Read my lips: no second term for you, buster.

How many guys do you know have statues in the Houston airport, huh? Via mrdavisdc's flickr.

George H.W. Bush, "Bush 41," "Bush, Sr.," that guy who threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister,* etc. The 1988 Presidential Election is the first one I remember. For some reason, in my preschool brain, Bush was represented by a giant stalk of broccoli (this image may have come from a California Raisins special) and Dukakis was a styrofoam cup. I don't know why. Anyway, GHWB. Much like his son to come after, the first President Bush was born into privilege. His father was a pro-birth control, anti-McCarthyism U.S. Senator from Connecticut. Little George went to private schools growing up, and deferred enrollment to Yale to join the Navy upon high school graduation. He went on to be come the, like, youngest naval aviator EVAR in 1942. Some crazy shit went down on aircraft carriers and in planes over the Pacific during WWII, and GHWB was kind of a badass. After the war, he enrolled at Yale, where he participated in an accelerated program to graduate in 2.5 years with a bachelor's degree in economics. That means he wanted to make money. And he did. But first he was in a fraternity, played baseball and met Babe Ruth, and joined secret/sketchy patriarchal society Skull and Bones. He married a lady named Barbara Pierce, who was the great-great-granddaughter of President Franklin Pierce's fourth cousin and moved to West Texas to make money out of the petroleum business. He and Barb had six kids, one of whom died in childhood, one of whom is the former governor of America's Smartest State™ and goes by his initials "JEB,"** and of course, one who followed in his footsteps to become the President of the United States. People don't really seem to like that one very much, despite his reelection and "get-a-beer-with-ability." ANYWAY. George, Sr. was a millionaire by age 40. Which, we've all got to admit, is pretty speedy. But so he lost his first bid for the Senate in 1964 when his opponent called him a "right-wing extremist." Bush, Sr.? Ha! But he recovered quickly and was elected to the House as Houston's first Democratic representative in 1966. Then in 1970, Nixon was all, "Hey, George, you should totes run for Senate again." But then he totes lost. Again. So, Trickly Dickly felt a little bad and made him the Ambassador to the U.N. Which I didn't know you could do without a bad attitude and an even badder mustache.

He was dreamy, even holding the little booger.

Then he tried to salvage the RNC's reputation after that whole "Watergate" thing, was the sort of-ambassador to China, was the head of the CIA for like a year, and then took some private sector jobs before gearing up for The Big Run in 1980. So he tried to run for #1 that year (so did Bob Dole!), but he made up for his failure when Reagan chose him as his #2. As Vice President, George Bush went to a lot of funerals, had lunch with Ronnie on Thursdays in the Oval Office, worked on economic deregulation, the wildly successful War on Drugs, debated Geraldine Ferraro once on TV in 1984, and claimed to be an "innocent bystander" in that whole Iran-Contra "thing." In 1988, he ran for President (again), having to fight off Dole, Kemp, and Pat Robertson (!) in the primary. He promised not to raise taxes. He did not realize that one should never promise anything having to do with taxes. But he became the first serving VP to be elected to the presidency since Dutchy McShortguy Martin Van Buren! As President, he tried to avoid raising taxes. Unfortunately the meanie Democratic Congress was like, "Hey, lets try to fight that whole gigantic Reagan Deficit thing." Bastards. He appointed Souter and Thomas to the Supreme Court (he will not be forgiven for the latter) during his tenure, but also he helped make life a little bit easier for wheelchair-Americans.*** Then there was some sort of "just cause" in Panama that required us to depose some guy, we had to fight against Saddam. However, we avoided invading Baghdad and ousting everybody's favorite mustachioed Middle Eastern dictator and being "forced to rule Iraq" (see Wikipedia, as per usual). That would've sucked, right? The Berlin Wall came down and Bush met with sexy, sexy Gorbachev and helped usher in Russia's Golden Age of Capitalist Oligarchy at the end of the Cold War. Anyway, the American people were kind of down because of some sort of economic recession. Whatever, what a bunch of whiners dressed in unfortunate early '90s fashions.**** Blahblahblah Bill Clinton won in 1992.

XPBFF!

Now George Bush, Sr. hangs out at his various family compounds, holds his own fishing tournament in Florida, became one of those British knight-thingies, got a supercarrier named after him, plays tennis with sexy Russians,***** tries to avoid being seen with his son too much, and goes golfing with Bill. Writing about people who are still living is hard because there is far too much information available. I'll try not to make that mistake again. *Dear Wikipedia-editing Bush fans, just because you delete any reference to this event in his official article does not erase the public memory of said vomiting. Nice try. **If that doesn't spell "D-O-U-C-H-E-B-A-G" to you, you're beyond help. ***I am a terrible person. ****I was never a regular fan, but I know enough to wonder who the hell the guy on the far right is. *****The Cold War is truly over, thank The Sexy Gay Jesus.

Elizabeth Berkley is an amazing actress and some links

The combination of Oscar-worthy performances by Caruso and Saved by the Bell alum Elizabeth Berkley is pretty much rocking my Monday night here on CSI: Miami. Were you aware that Jessie Spano is now giving advice to young girls on an incredibly well-designed website? Horatio Caine just solved a case by linking a piece of crab shell to a hit-and-run driver! God I love this show. PRODUCT PLACEMENT! COMMERCIAL FOR BI-POLAR MEDS DURING AN EPISODE WHERE JESSIE SPANO GOES OFF HERS. OMG. -And speaking of the psychotropic magic pills, some Elle writer found anti-depressants caused her to be unsympathetic to other depressed types. I'm not going to lie, I've occasionally been of the mind of "Meds helped me, quit complaining and get yourself some." Whatevs. I've still got friends. And a few of them are on happy pills too. Celexa Made Me "Smug". (Jezebel) -My love for Rachel Maddow has been well-established. Well, now she's finally got her own show which I tragically do not have the cable to watch. Anyway, people are talking about her general awesome awesomeness, and I just like to continue to promote her. Apparently, she's cool as shit in real life. SHOCK! Herogram: Rachel Maddow, Normal Person. (Gawker)

New York Times discovers Minnesota has the internet; I tell Al Franken how to run his campaign

Maybe the fact that my mother constantly repeated this phrase while I was growing up explains some of what is wrong with me.

This story has been bouncing around for a bit (a week is a long time here on the interwebz), but apparently not only have The New York Times' intrepid reporters found out that we have the internet here in the MN, but there are these people called "bloggers" who write about "politics," and they sometimes have "readers" that they "influence." Ahem. Sorry, got kind of out of control with the quote marks there. That's right, kids: Senate Race in Minnesota Shows Power of Bloggers. That's a shitty headline, am I right or am I right? I guess blogs are still "news" to some people (some people who don't spend all day at their computers, ruining their hands and wrists, like us cool kids).

The long and the short of the story is about how douchebags serious political bloggers in Minnesota are striking out against Al Franken, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate. SHOCKING, I tell you. Did you have any idea that people express strong feelings on the internet, and sometimes it reflects negatively on their targets? I, for one, think that people should keep their opinions to themselves and off the toobz. As far as the Franken himself goes, my inappropriate crush on him has already been covered on this humble blog, but the actual meat of the NYT story involves conservative bloggers successfully exploiting his campaign's missteps. The gang over at Minnesota Democrats EXPOSED (all caps added for dramatic effect*) EXPOSED some back taxes Franken owed, and now are totally playing up the "Al Franken wrote stuff for Playboy" angle. I personally don't give a shit that Franken used to employ a shitty accountant, and I'm certainly aware of his notable past as a public figure and a comedian, but I think Jeff really hit the nail on the head as to where the campaign itself has gone wrong:

If Franken were upfront about this stuff, if he’d rushed to disclose it and apologized where necessary, maybe he could brazen it out, like Jesse Ventura did with some of his more colorful** past exploits. But that’s the other problem: he hasn’t been. Quite simply, [the Playboy] column should have come from the Franken campaign itself.

Anybody who has been gung-ho about Al Franken from the beginning already knows about Al Franken. I mean, he has an awesome feud with Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. He's a comedian who's been saying funny and outrageous things in the public sphere for a few decades. If you know him and like him already, the fact that he (at least) once joked around about porn isn't really your top concern as far as his candidacy goes.*** But for the people who are unconvinced, or don't find him funny, or have been living under a rock since the '70s, some of this stuff is going to be shocking and possibly fatal to his senatorial campaign. Regardless of the relatively objective lameness of these people, I agree with Jeff that all this stuff should have been right out on the table in the beginning.

Al Franken has been running for Senate for like two years, it's not like they just threw this campaign together last week and then realized that he once wrote for Playboy. For all the regular Minnesotans who aren't as pathetically steeped in pop culture as some of us big city internet-addicted types, I think it would have been beneficial to just say, "Hey, Al Franken has said some crazy shit, but it was funny, and he is awesome, and it's time to get over it." And then they could just spend the rest of their time reminding everybody what an undeniably huge douchebag Norm Coleman is. I mean, COME ON. Have you seen his MySpace? He's got like ten times fewer one-tenth as many friends as Al Franken, and his top friend is the Minnesota Young Republicans. And we all know that MySpace is pretty much just like real life.

Anyway, Franken's campaign should take back control of the story. Bloggers will blog, much like I am blogging right now, and there's nothing you can do about that. But the campaign has got to stop trying to brush Franken's comedic past under the table. Face it, love it, move on. I have. Now go win an election. (People like you!)



*I think I might get more traffic if I changed the name of this blog to Blonder and Thinner EXPOSED. Although anyone who is Googling that phrase will probably be sadly disappointed by my content.

**"Colorful" is officially one of my favorite euphemisms.

***Note: my personal feelings about actual porn are mixed at best, but I can't muster up the wherewithal to care about shit like this.

Hot guy with funny accent endorses other hot guy with funny name

"Not in our America, and not in our America when Barack Obama is President of the United States." John Edwards, stop inspiring me to be inspired by other inspirational politicians, I'm DONE.

The internet is a many-splendored thing

"Imagine me half-naked."

OMG I am looking forward to taking a nap this afternoon. I've been looking forward to napping since I didn't take a nap yesterday. Since drowsiness is blocking my muse and I'm resisting the Diet Coke urge, I'm going to post some links to, you know, other stuff on the webernets.

First: Did you know that the park police don't like it when you dance at the Jefferson Memorial? Bastard pigs.

Second: Someone fabulous has created pictures of animated Disney guys as underwear models (NSFW). Including my favorites, Thomas from Pocahontas and the Donny Osmond-singing-voiced Mulan guy. If only Anastasia had been Disney; I had such a crush on Dmitri. He was drawn very well. Via Webster's Is My Bitch.

Third: I totally second Twisty that Feministing is a "feminist gateway drug." A great way to start exploring the feminist blogosphere. I found it kind of overwhelming at first, but they have tons of links and enthusiasm and I still check it multiple times a day for quick hits on various news stories.

Confession: I love being Rick Roll'd

Look at that passion. And those teeth (British).

I'm totes singing this (again) next time I karaoke.

Junior High Crushes Revisited: John Stockton

Reminds me of how my favorite use for the internet in the late '90s was for finding pictures of my favorite hot guys and making collages of them on Print Shop Deluxe. I was really cool.

You may say, Lauren, John Stockton could not have possibly attended your junior high school. And I would say, you are correct. But it would be really lame to actually talk about the boys I liked that I went to school with. My only excuse would be "I was in junior high, OKAY?!" It's not like I ever dated any of them, and 79% of the boys who liked me before college turned out to be gay. Can I retroactively refer to myself as a fag hag? I still love you guys! Thanks for not actually going out with me and then coming out. No, besides Prince William, JS was my big celebrity obsession circa ages 13-14. Decidedly not gay. And decidedly AWESOME.

I thought of John Stockton today in honor of the fact that I am going to my first NBA game since said obsession, back when the Jazzy Jazz were good and my dad took my brother and me to see them play the Blazers circa 1997. I think I was the only Jazz fan there and they lost.* But I could see my Johnny S from way up high in the cheap seats at the Rose Garden, and he looked just as short in person as he did on TV. This of course, was a never-ending source of amusement to me, considering that in real life--AKA not standing next to other freakishly tall professional basketball players--he would be considered quite tall (6'1"). Perhaps this was the beginning of my long-standing obsession with men who I deem adorable by how "pocket-sized" they are.

Anyway, I just wanted to take the time to reminisce with myself and the intertubes about how awesome John Stockton was (all-time assists leader!) and what a shame it is that he never won a championship. God I hate the Bulls. It seems that in his retirement, he's moved back to his hometown of Spokane (ew), WA, where he lives with his 87618976 Catholic children. I imagine he continues to be adorable and badass.

*Note: the Jazz being from Utah and me being Mormon was purely incidental, and I resent it highly when anyone says otherwise.

The Caucus: America's Lowest Form of Democracy

It's hard to take seriously a form of voting that resembles an elementary school field day.

So last Saturday I went to my local senate-district caucus convention. It was half incredibly boring and half completely ridiculous. I loved it. But I have to throw this out there: CAUCUSING IS THE STUPIDEST WAY TO VOTE EVER. The day began quite early for a Saturday (Roommate A and I left the house at 8:30, ew), and when we arrived at Humboldt High School, we stood in a very long line to register with everyone else who hadn't bothered to show up earlier. (I got a nametag! On a piece of yarn!) My roommate was corralled into some sort of strategy discussion with some other Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer supporters and I found us seats with our other precinct delegates. Now, let me tell you a little story about the Humboldt High School auditorium: the stairs are TREACHEROUS. They are all different sizes. This seems to be by design. WTF? I watched as some woman tripped and fell down a bunch of stairs. They had to call an ambulance. I hope she's okay. She was moving around and stuff, so she's not paralyzed, but she didn't even get to caucus. Fuck you, Humboldt architects. A great way to start the day.

Moving on, the caucus started about an hour or so late. SHOCK. We had to like, ratify the rules and agenda before we could do anything. But before that, we did the Pledge of Allegiance, which I haven't done since, god I don't know when. I hate America almost as much as Barack Obama. (I also do not wear a flag lapel pin. I generally don't have lapels, but I'm still trying to make a statement.) Anyway, lots of people nominating themselves for various local party positions and blah blah blah. Roommate A and I shared the one pen she actually thought to bring and went through all the platform resolutions, voting on whether or not to forward them to the state convention. There were over a hundred. Some of them were good, like the ones about ending the war. Others were vaguely offensive, as in: "Men should stop being forced to pay child support for children that are not their own." I mean, that seems basically reasonable, but I've spent enough time on the internets to see a Men's Rights Activist's fingerprints all over that shit. So I voted no. Maybe I should've waited around to hear people read their statements explaining the resolutions. But I was so not going to stay later than I absolutely had to.

But so there were a few more hours of motions and seconding and saying, "yea" to close nominations and such. I enjoyed observing our hot, young city council member with his adorable small children, because I'm a creep like that. But in the meantime, there were speakers! There were state politicians, but I don't care about those people. I was excited about Betty McCollum, who is fucking awesome, and about the candidates for Senate. Ciresi and Nelson-Pallmeyer both spoke in the morning. Ciresi was blah. Nelson-Pallmeyer was actually pretty good, and I could see why all the hippie types were working for his campaign. But I have a special place in my heart for Al Franken. I was afraid he wouldn't show, but he came right before we split up to sub-caucus. (Strategery much?) He is so short and adorable and funny and I kind of have a crush on him. (THOSE GLASSES!) And he jumped off the stage and almost tripped on a microphone wire. It was great. The crowd was very enthusiastic. Then he came into the audience and he was like six feet away from me at some point, but I am very awkward and shy and couldn't work up the nerve to ask him for a picture/chat with him. But I could have, had I not sucked so much.

Then it was time to do the ol' Sub-caucus Walk-us. OMG ridiculous. I don't know if this is what Thomas Jefferson et al had in mind for our representative democracy (setting aside all the women and black people that were there, of course), but have I mentioned that it is THE STUPIDEST WAY TO VOTE EVER? 'Cause it is. But it was kind of fun. I managed to find a Franken sub-caucus that wasn't also an Obama group (remember how I'm kind of on Team Hillary now? Go Texas and Ohio!) The only Clinton sub-caucuses were uncommitted for Senate, and I really wanted to support Al, so I went for Al Franken/Universal Health Care. I couldn't argue with that. Our sub-caucus was viable, so I didn't have to walk again. During the second walk, though, all the Franken staffers were trying to do mathematical calculations to figure out how to win remainder delegates or whatever. We kept having to shift a few people between Franken sub-caucuses. It was ridiculous. Again, kind of fun, but I really didn't feel like I was VOTING or anything. It felt like a game. But Al won the most delegates to the state convention, so huzzah!

Anyway, that is far more than anyone ever wanted to know about my experience at the caucus. I'm glad I did it, if for no other reason than blog fodder. I might have actually nominated myself for some local party position if I planned on still living in Minnesota six months from now. Oh, well. Mostly, the lesson is this: caucusing is the least-straightforward, most silly way to hold a primary. God bless the Minnesota DFL and my six hours of participatory democracy on a Saturday!



STILL TO COME: I write to Al Franken's campaign to tell him all the things I didn't say when I had the chance.