Monday, October 26, 2009

Monday Reading List

Thoughtful Masculinities (Theory & Practice) from Walking Vixen. Choice quote:
The frontier of gender, as I see it, is very much in deconstructing and radicalizing masculinities, it’s in really taking to heart the notion that “gender” doesn’t just mean women and trans-identified people.
Traditional Americans by Mustang Bobby, a rebuttal to Pat Buchanan's assertion that 'they' (namely white, middle class Christians) are "losing their country". Bobby's comeback:
You can't lose what you weren't entitled to think was yours alone. And you really can't lose what wasn't yours to take in the first place.
Right on. As an atheist, not having the Christian faith featured prominently in my school system helped give me a piece of My America, in a way my mother didn't have and my father didn't have, in the way my grandfather didn't have and my great-uncle and great-aunts didn't have.

Don't Let A Girl Beat You by Renee. I think the title is self-explanatory, but there is this idea that men are really the sporty ones and girls aren't. Still. And when a girl is really super good at a sport (or many of them), it seems like it is a personal affront to the guys playing against her.

Seven Scenes, For A Reason by Melissa. One of my close friends is what one would consider overweight. She is beautiful, healthy (until she discovered WebMD and began diagnosing herself), and she has a lot of jewelry. I have always thought of my friend as the Fashionista among us, because she always looks so well put-together. I've been envious of her gift since high school. But what occurs to me upon reading this is how she uses jewelry. She has a lot of jewelry; I don't. And now I wonder if what I saw as Fashionistaness, going above and beyond, is really just her spicing up what she can find - being a Fashionista out of necessity.

Things To Remember During the Fall Pledge Drive from Lawyers, Guns and Money. I don't like Ken Rudin. At all. I don't like Ken Rudin at all, and things like this are why. He grates me like very few others, and I much prefer his It's All Politics cohost Ron Elving. In this case, it is because comparing a president's actions to Nixon is kind of like comparing someone's actions to Hitler. Only in extreme circumstances does the comparison come close to illustrating reality, and only in rare moments are those specific hyperbolic statements useful. IE, not here. I'm not a fan of comparisons between Nixon and George W. Bush. I don't think Bush was as amoral as Nixon, I don't think Bush was as talented as Nixon, I don't think Bush was as successful as Nixon, and I think it demeans the truly historic and, frankly, horrific abuse of power and government Nixon perpetrated to drop his name willy nilly.

To whit, Weighing in on White House vs. Fox News: An Apology from Ken Rudin's Political Junkie blog. I still don't like him, but I begrudgingly offer Rudin's apology. If I have to give Rudin something, it is that he didn't go the "sorry if you found what I said/did offensive" route. But he did spend the first couple of paragraphs defending his position on Fox vs Obama Administration.

And, from xkcd:

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