Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 916
December 22, 2015
Bette Midler takes down Steve Harvey, Miss Universe and George W. Bush in one tweet
Not since Bette Midler and Donald Trump fought on Twitter back in 2012 has she gotten so much right in 140 characters:
Wrong #MissUniverse crowned last night. For 2 minutes. Remember when that happened with our President in 2000 & we had to keep him 8 years?
— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) December 21, 2015
John Oliver f**king kills it: From Big Pharma to Big Tobacco, his 13 best eviscerations of 2015
John Oliver is a comic genius, but he's also one of the greatest public servants when it comes to issues that face the nation... even if you had no idea the issue even existed. Thanks to Oliver, many of us learned about the intricacies of the criminal defense system, messed up bail requirements, municipal fines that can land you in jail if you can't pay and prisoner reentry complications when you get out. Despite being British, he's a damn national treasure. Here are the 13 stories that were the best and most important of 2015. 1. Destroying Big Pharma’s outrageous spending to influence doctors 17-minutes of a scathing attack on the pharmacutical industry's bypass of the expertise of doctors and marketing straight to the consumer. “Drug companies are like high school boyfriends,” Oliver joked. “They’re more interested in getting inside you than in being effective once they are there.” 2. John Oliver on Big Tobacco: “The agricultural equivalent of U2″ If there is one thing tobacco companies love to do it's finding new creative ways to put their products into the hands of new users who have long lives of usage ahead of them. Many countries are fighting back. There are fewer users and yet the tobacco industry is more profitable than ever. "It's an aging product that's decreasing in popularity and yet it just can't stop making money," says Oliver. "It's basically the agricultural equivalent of U2." 3. John Oliver eviscerates Congress over America’s crumbling infrastructure One of the most terrifying things John Oliver has covered. Our roads and bridges all over the country are falling apart. This will make you think twice before you drive over a river with a sketchy bridge. "Much like most Botox recipients and competitive cloggers, the average dam is 52 years old and has something deeply broken inside of it," said Oliver. "Infrastructure is like Legos. Building is fun, destroying is fun, but a Lego maintenance set would be the most boring fucking toy in the world." 4. John Oliver reveals the stunningly racist history behind why some U.S. territories can’t vote Over 100-year-old racist rulings that decide that those born in the U.S. territories don't have the same constitutional rights as those born in the United States. "The American part of American Samoa is really a title that doesn't mean anything," said Oliver, "like 'People's Choice award nominee' or 'social media expert.'" 5. A “fuckbarrel” of fines: John Oliver reveals the disturbing way police are preying on the working poor There are far too many people living paycheck to paycheck who can’t pay fines upfront when slapped with them. If you can't pay the fine you're issued another fine on top of that. Eventually, there are so many fines people go to jail. It's a never ending cycle that many can't get out of. “That situation is ridiculous,” Oliver said. “The only people who should be that excited about people waiting in line to hand over way too much money are Apple executives. That’s the only time.” 6. John Oliver perfectly sums up everything that’s wrong with standardized testing The scariest two words in any school among both students and teachers are "standardized tests." There are even parents who are opting their children out because the tests are so ridiculous. But apparently everything that you are as a kid boils down to one test. It's messed up and Oliver tells the world why. “Something is wrong with our system when we just assume a certain number of kids will vomit,” Oliver said. “Tests are supposed to be assessments of skills, not a rap battle on 8 Mile Road.” 7. John Oliver rips America’s disgraceful maternity leave policy: Thanks for giving us life — “now get the fuck back to work” Fun fact: The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that doesn’t offer paid time off for new moms. “This is not how its supposed to work,” Oliver said. “Mothers shouldn’t have to stitch together time to recover from childbirth the same way that we plan a four-day weekend in Atlantic City.” 8. John Oliver blasts the U.S. bail system for locking up poor people regardless of guilt There are basically three options a person has upon arrest — “go to jail, plead guilty to avoid waiting in jail for a trial, or pay a bail bondsman to front the bail costs," according to John Oliver. It ultimately leads to many innocent people pleading guilty because they assume they can't win. “Poor people are regularly choosing to admit guilt just to get out of there and that isn’t good,” Oliver said. “The only time that’s appropriate is in a Catholic confessional. ‘What do you mean is there anything else? I don’t know, I masturbated into a kiwi fruit. Is that what you wanted to hear? Just let me leave, I have stuff to do.” Thanks to Oliver, the New York City system actually changed its bail requirements for low-level offenders. 9. John Oliver blasts media’s tone-deaf transgender reporting: Medically speaking, their genitals are “none of your f*cking business!” It’s been a milestone year for transgender visibility but transgender people still must face a host of ignorant and demeaning comments about their lived experiences and a slew of terrible laws that hurt them. Oliver brilliantly explained: “Transgender people have a gender identity that differs from the one they were assigned at birth. And that gender identity is not the same as sexual orientation. Gender identity is who you are, sexual orientation is who you love. Some transgender people do undergo hormone therapy or sexual reassignment surgery as part of their transition, some do not. And interestingly, their decision on this matter is, medically speaking, none of your f*cking business!” 10. John Oliver reveals the shocking, “surprisingly legal” ways in which gay people can still be discriminated against Even though same-sex couples can marry, there are still a slew of laws that are still in place that discriminate against LGBT people. "Discriminating against gay people is surprisingly legal in much of the country," he continues. "The fact is, in 31 states, people are at risk of being fired, evicted or refused service just because they're gay. So while federal law may guarantee a gay couple's right to get married, it offers exactly zero guarantees about their rights to do the things that follow that." 11. John Oliver: If you’re forced to rely on “hideously broken” public defender system, “you’re f*cked” There are people who are accused of a crime and can't afford anything other than a public defender. The problem is, their case loads are so substantial that some only get seven minutes to prepare for their case. “Fifty years after the Supreme Court gave everyone the fundamental right to an attorney, even if you can’t afford one, we now have a system where the most vulnerable people are potentially being charged for access to a hideously broken system,” Oliver said. In a nutshell: “This is the American judicial system, not Candy Crush!” 12. John Oliver just brilliantly made this election a matter of life and death When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld “nearly all” of Obamacare in their 2012 decision, that wasn’t entirely enough. “Health care is like a pair of gym shorts — even if it covers nearly all it is supposed to, you’re still left with some problematic gaps and terrible things can happen,” Oliver explained. Thanks to states who refuse to expand Medicaid people are literally dying. In the end, the election still screwed them. Best bet at this point is really just to move. 13. John Oliver’s best piece ever: This brilliant expose on our endless prison cycle is an absolute must “For a surprisingly high number of prisoners their time on the outside may be brief,” Oliver says because the national average of recidivism is 50 percent. Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel says we’re spending $80 billion to fail half of the time. But when you look at the challenges that those who served their time face on the outside, it isn’t hard to see why they end up back in jail. Thank you, John Oliver. Thank you.John Oliver is a comic genius, but he's also one of the greatest public servants when it comes to issues that face the nation... even if you had no idea the issue even existed. Thanks to Oliver, many of us learned about the intricacies of the criminal defense system, messed up bail requirements, municipal fines that can land you in jail if you can't pay and prisoner reentry complications when you get out. Despite being British, he's a damn national treasure. Here are the 13 stories that were the best and most important of 2015. 1. Destroying Big Pharma’s outrageous spending to influence doctors 17-minutes of a scathing attack on the pharmacutical industry's bypass of the expertise of doctors and marketing straight to the consumer. “Drug companies are like high school boyfriends,” Oliver joked. “They’re more interested in getting inside you than in being effective once they are there.” 2. John Oliver on Big Tobacco: “The agricultural equivalent of U2″ If there is one thing tobacco companies love to do it's finding new creative ways to put their products into the hands of new users who have long lives of usage ahead of them. Many countries are fighting back. There are fewer users and yet the tobacco industry is more profitable than ever. "It's an aging product that's decreasing in popularity and yet it just can't stop making money," says Oliver. "It's basically the agricultural equivalent of U2." 3. John Oliver eviscerates Congress over America’s crumbling infrastructure One of the most terrifying things John Oliver has covered. Our roads and bridges all over the country are falling apart. This will make you think twice before you drive over a river with a sketchy bridge. "Much like most Botox recipients and competitive cloggers, the average dam is 52 years old and has something deeply broken inside of it," said Oliver. "Infrastructure is like Legos. Building is fun, destroying is fun, but a Lego maintenance set would be the most boring fucking toy in the world." 4. John Oliver reveals the stunningly racist history behind why some U.S. territories can’t vote Over 100-year-old racist rulings that decide that those born in the U.S. territories don't have the same constitutional rights as those born in the United States. "The American part of American Samoa is really a title that doesn't mean anything," said Oliver, "like 'People's Choice award nominee' or 'social media expert.'" 5. A “fuckbarrel” of fines: John Oliver reveals the disturbing way police are preying on the working poor There are far too many people living paycheck to paycheck who can’t pay fines upfront when slapped with them. If you can't pay the fine you're issued another fine on top of that. Eventually, there are so many fines people go to jail. It's a never ending cycle that many can't get out of. “That situation is ridiculous,” Oliver said. “The only people who should be that excited about people waiting in line to hand over way too much money are Apple executives. That’s the only time.” 6. John Oliver perfectly sums up everything that’s wrong with standardized testing The scariest two words in any school among both students and teachers are "standardized tests." There are even parents who are opting their children out because the tests are so ridiculous. But apparently everything that you are as a kid boils down to one test. It's messed up and Oliver tells the world why. “Something is wrong with our system when we just assume a certain number of kids will vomit,” Oliver said. “Tests are supposed to be assessments of skills, not a rap battle on 8 Mile Road.” 7. John Oliver rips America’s disgraceful maternity leave policy: Thanks for giving us life — “now get the fuck back to work” Fun fact: The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that doesn’t offer paid time off for new moms. “This is not how its supposed to work,” Oliver said. “Mothers shouldn’t have to stitch together time to recover from childbirth the same way that we plan a four-day weekend in Atlantic City.” 8. John Oliver blasts the U.S. bail system for locking up poor people regardless of guilt There are basically three options a person has upon arrest — “go to jail, plead guilty to avoid waiting in jail for a trial, or pay a bail bondsman to front the bail costs," according to John Oliver. It ultimately leads to many innocent people pleading guilty because they assume they can't win. “Poor people are regularly choosing to admit guilt just to get out of there and that isn’t good,” Oliver said. “The only time that’s appropriate is in a Catholic confessional. ‘What do you mean is there anything else? I don’t know, I masturbated into a kiwi fruit. Is that what you wanted to hear? Just let me leave, I have stuff to do.” Thanks to Oliver, the New York City system actually changed its bail requirements for low-level offenders. 9. John Oliver blasts media’s tone-deaf transgender reporting: Medically speaking, their genitals are “none of your f*cking business!” It’s been a milestone year for transgender visibility but transgender people still must face a host of ignorant and demeaning comments about their lived experiences and a slew of terrible laws that hurt them. Oliver brilliantly explained: “Transgender people have a gender identity that differs from the one they were assigned at birth. And that gender identity is not the same as sexual orientation. Gender identity is who you are, sexual orientation is who you love. Some transgender people do undergo hormone therapy or sexual reassignment surgery as part of their transition, some do not. And interestingly, their decision on this matter is, medically speaking, none of your f*cking business!” 10. John Oliver reveals the shocking, “surprisingly legal” ways in which gay people can still be discriminated against Even though same-sex couples can marry, there are still a slew of laws that are still in place that discriminate against LGBT people. "Discriminating against gay people is surprisingly legal in much of the country," he continues. "The fact is, in 31 states, people are at risk of being fired, evicted or refused service just because they're gay. So while federal law may guarantee a gay couple's right to get married, it offers exactly zero guarantees about their rights to do the things that follow that." 11. John Oliver: If you’re forced to rely on “hideously broken” public defender system, “you’re f*cked” There are people who are accused of a crime and can't afford anything other than a public defender. The problem is, their case loads are so substantial that some only get seven minutes to prepare for their case. “Fifty years after the Supreme Court gave everyone the fundamental right to an attorney, even if you can’t afford one, we now have a system where the most vulnerable people are potentially being charged for access to a hideously broken system,” Oliver said. In a nutshell: “This is the American judicial system, not Candy Crush!” 12. John Oliver just brilliantly made this election a matter of life and death When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld “nearly all” of Obamacare in their 2012 decision, that wasn’t entirely enough. “Health care is like a pair of gym shorts — even if it covers nearly all it is supposed to, you’re still left with some problematic gaps and terrible things can happen,” Oliver explained. Thanks to states who refuse to expand Medicaid people are literally dying. In the end, the election still screwed them. Best bet at this point is really just to move. 13. John Oliver’s best piece ever: This brilliant expose on our endless prison cycle is an absolute must “For a surprisingly high number of prisoners their time on the outside may be brief,” Oliver says because the national average of recidivism is 50 percent. Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel says we’re spending $80 billion to fail half of the time. But when you look at the challenges that those who served their time face on the outside, it isn’t hard to see why they end up back in jail. Thank you, John Oliver. Thank you.
December 21, 2015
Steve Harvey’s epic Miss Universe fail: For one moment, we were all Miss Colombia
Imagine this: you spend months -- years, even -- in preparation to achieving a goal. You skip parties, forego your favorite foods, quiz yourself daily on current events, and change your body to look not acceptable -- but as close to perfection as possible -- in swimwear and evening gowns. You do this alongside beautiful women from all over the world, all of you in front of an audience of representatives from your home country, aired on television for millions of viewers around the globe. The women on stage are fierce competition as well as peers; you respect how far each has come, but still hope to be the one left on top. Think about the moment when you get everything you’ve ever wanted. You’re a winner, you’ve earned it. Despite the odds, you’ve made the impossible happen through perseverance, dedication and faith in yourself. For a second you don’t believe it’s real -- how could it be? But then the cameras start flashing, flowers are handed to you, and a crown is placed atop your expertly-coiffed head. You’ve done it. You’re queen of the universe. Breathe in the relief, excitement and sense of achievement. Exhale, and have it taken away just as suddenly and so cruelly. That’s what happened at last night's annual Miss Universe pageant hosted in Las Vegas. Host Steve Harvey misread the final judging on this year’s winner, naming Miss Colombia contestant Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo the winner instead of Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach. https://www.youtube.com/embed/dqsEoje... The faux pas will live in unfortunate infamy, allowing few to savor the victory. From the clip, it’s clear that something went wrong. Miss Colombia, who used an interpreter for the duration of the pageant, basked in what she believed to be her hard-earned title as Miss Universe. Both she and Miss Philippines gave stellar performances throughout the pageant by epitomizing grace, femininity and strength. Miss Colombia accepted her crown as Miss Philippines stepped graciously to the back, joining the remaining beauties who fell short of the crown. From there, things got weird. After a round of applause, the crowd fell eerily silent -- like a storm about to strike. The camera shots switched from close-ups of the winner’s elated face, to wide shots of the crowd. Harvey appeared back on stage with trepidation. How do you tell a woman on top of the world she’s actually the runner-up, and now must take away her crown and her dream in front of the entire world per your own mistake? Harvey apologized on air and later via Twitter (where he misspelled both countries’ names), and stated no one felt worse about the situation than he -- but I beg to differ. (The original tweet was deleted shortly after, but not before it was screen-grabbed and shared again by many.) https://twitter.com/liamstack/status/... I don’t think anyone could possibly feel worse than Miss Colombia and Miss Philippines surely do. Arevalo had very little understanding of what was going on given the language barrier and sheer excitement of believing she won. Former Miss Universe and Colombia native Paulina Vega was ultimately the one to de-crown her compatriot while explaining the error. It’s clear from the footage that Wurtzbach had no idea what was going on either. There’s a moment when you can see a brief flash of recognition followed by a slight hesitation. Why would she think something so out of this world was occurring in her favor? Miss U.S.A was less discreet in her shock and amusement at the situation, and confirmed the news -- Miss Philippines was the winner. Reluctantly she rejoined Arevalo on stage as the camera struggled to achieve synchronized shots. Wurtzbach’s surprise and excitement was featured in tight shots of her soon-to-be-crowned head, before switching to wide angles avoiding the likely horror, embarrassment and tears on Arevalo. What was either woman to do in that situation? Ultimately, Vega removed the crown from a dismayed Arevalo and placed it on Wurtzbach, who seemed reluctant to accept it. Victory isn’t as sweet second-hand. The show rushed to credits, avoiding any further publicly-aired discomfort for viewers, contestants and audience members. It’s a particularly relevant moment in cultural history because it’s not exclusive to beautiful women. Anyone can relate to the feeling of reaching a near-impossible goal, whether it be professional, romantic or anywhere in between. You fancy yourself lucky for the opportunity, but are also proud for earning it. We can all identify with the pain of losing something you never had. This year’s Miss Universe pageant was transformed from what was intended to be an inspiring and empowering event for women to a showcase of loss for everyone involved.Imagine this: you spend months -- years, even -- in preparation to achieving a goal. You skip parties, forego your favorite foods, quiz yourself daily on current events, and change your body to look not acceptable -- but as close to perfection as possible -- in swimwear and evening gowns. You do this alongside beautiful women from all over the world, all of you in front of an audience of representatives from your home country, aired on television for millions of viewers around the globe. The women on stage are fierce competition as well as peers; you respect how far each has come, but still hope to be the one left on top. Think about the moment when you get everything you’ve ever wanted. You’re a winner, you’ve earned it. Despite the odds, you’ve made the impossible happen through perseverance, dedication and faith in yourself. For a second you don’t believe it’s real -- how could it be? But then the cameras start flashing, flowers are handed to you, and a crown is placed atop your expertly-coiffed head. You’ve done it. You’re queen of the universe. Breathe in the relief, excitement and sense of achievement. Exhale, and have it taken away just as suddenly and so cruelly. That’s what happened at last night's annual Miss Universe pageant hosted in Las Vegas. Host Steve Harvey misread the final judging on this year’s winner, naming Miss Colombia contestant Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo the winner instead of Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach. https://www.youtube.com/embed/dqsEoje... The faux pas will live in unfortunate infamy, allowing few to savor the victory. From the clip, it’s clear that something went wrong. Miss Colombia, who used an interpreter for the duration of the pageant, basked in what she believed to be her hard-earned title as Miss Universe. Both she and Miss Philippines gave stellar performances throughout the pageant by epitomizing grace, femininity and strength. Miss Colombia accepted her crown as Miss Philippines stepped graciously to the back, joining the remaining beauties who fell short of the crown. From there, things got weird. After a round of applause, the crowd fell eerily silent -- like a storm about to strike. The camera shots switched from close-ups of the winner’s elated face, to wide shots of the crowd. Harvey appeared back on stage with trepidation. How do you tell a woman on top of the world she’s actually the runner-up, and now must take away her crown and her dream in front of the entire world per your own mistake? Harvey apologized on air and later via Twitter (where he misspelled both countries’ names), and stated no one felt worse about the situation than he -- but I beg to differ. (The original tweet was deleted shortly after, but not before it was screen-grabbed and shared again by many.) https://twitter.com/liamstack/status/... I don’t think anyone could possibly feel worse than Miss Colombia and Miss Philippines surely do. Arevalo had very little understanding of what was going on given the language barrier and sheer excitement of believing she won. Former Miss Universe and Colombia native Paulina Vega was ultimately the one to de-crown her compatriot while explaining the error. It’s clear from the footage that Wurtzbach had no idea what was going on either. There’s a moment when you can see a brief flash of recognition followed by a slight hesitation. Why would she think something so out of this world was occurring in her favor? Miss U.S.A was less discreet in her shock and amusement at the situation, and confirmed the news -- Miss Philippines was the winner. Reluctantly she rejoined Arevalo on stage as the camera struggled to achieve synchronized shots. Wurtzbach’s surprise and excitement was featured in tight shots of her soon-to-be-crowned head, before switching to wide angles avoiding the likely horror, embarrassment and tears on Arevalo. What was either woman to do in that situation? Ultimately, Vega removed the crown from a dismayed Arevalo and placed it on Wurtzbach, who seemed reluctant to accept it. Victory isn’t as sweet second-hand. The show rushed to credits, avoiding any further publicly-aired discomfort for viewers, contestants and audience members. It’s a particularly relevant moment in cultural history because it’s not exclusive to beautiful women. Anyone can relate to the feeling of reaching a near-impossible goal, whether it be professional, romantic or anywhere in between. You fancy yourself lucky for the opportunity, but are also proud for earning it. We can all identify with the pain of losing something you never had. This year’s Miss Universe pageant was transformed from what was intended to be an inspiring and empowering event for women to a showcase of loss for everyone involved.
5 worst right-wing moments of the week — The Donald’s campaign spokesperson is the dead-eyed face of Tea Party lunacy
1. Donald Trump’s spokesperson scares the bejeezus out of us. Donald Trump has not only graced the world with his presence during this presidential election, he has also introduced us to some of the outstanding people he surrounds himself with. This week we got to meet his marvelous personal physician Harold Bornstein, who writes notes that open, “To Whom My Concern,” and include medical-sounding terms like “astonishingly excellent” when talking about Trump’s blood pressure, which sounds very medical indeed. He concludes: "If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency," which absolutely sounds like a doctor would have written it without any interference. So, it is not as if the Donald’s gastroenterologist/proctologist is kissing Trump’s ass or anything. Then there is the lovely Trump spokesmodel, Katrina Pierson. A few weeks ago, Pierson went on television to defend Trump’s plan to ban all Muslims from the country. She showed she is just as unencumbered by deep thoughts or conscience as Trump himself, when she pointed out, “So what. They’re Muslim.” This week, Pierson, a wealthy, nutty-as-a-fruitcake Texas Tea Partier who formerly backed Ted Cruz, was just as reassuring on another topic. As viewers of the Republican debate might recall, Trump responded to a question about our “nuclear triad” with an embarrassing word salad in which the only coherent sentence was something like, “nuclear is very important.” Pierson was in no mood to discuss whether her boss knew what he was talking about when discussing options for waging nuclear war. She had a larger point to make in her appearance on "The O’Reilly Factor." “What good does it do to have a good nuclear triad if you’re afraid to use it?” she said, leaving the conservative general guest agog. We are seriously afraid now. 2. Carly Fiorina is terrible. Some of her detractors are even worse. Carly Fiorina is a horrible human being. She’s vicious. She lies brazenly and then she doubles down on the lie when she is caught lying, and she attacks the people who question her lies. Still, being totally awful does not mean other awful people won’t attack you, and Fiorina was attacked during the debate this week, with a tweet from uber-right-wing Iowa radio host Steve Deace, who tweeted, “Fiorina goes full vagina” in her opening remarks. Whatever that means. Megyn Kelly is nothing if not sensitive to other conservative women being attacked just for having lady parts. When she chatted with Fiorina about the distasteful tweet, Kelly— we thought very helpfully—pointed out to Fiorina that a vagina is something Hillary Clinton also has. Thank you for clearing that up, Megyn. She followed that incisive comment up by saying reproductive anatomy is probably the only thing Fiorina and Clinton have in common, but she even undercut that point later on when she mentioned that they both love dogs. Go figure. Whew, no wonder we have such an informed electorate! 3. Bill O’Reilly is not about to listen to some guest on his show who disagrees with him. Bill O’Reilly simply cannot be rational about the group Black Lives Matter. He invites the group’s advocates on his show so he can yell at them and threaten them and imagines that maybe his hectoring will make them go away. But it keeps not working. "You would think if you have an organized group in America saying we want dead cops that all decent people would reject that group. You would think, correct?" O'Reilly said, completely falsely and without basis on Thursday."But the Democratic Party is actively embracing Black Lives Matter." Seriously Papa Bill. You need to calm down. He was referring to the fact that the DNC had the audacity to invite members of the movement to organize and host a presidential town hall forum on racial justice. Racial justice! Where do those Democrats get off? Keith Boykin, who was an aide to President Bill Clinton, had been invited on to comment, but when he disagreed with O’Reilly, O’Reilly threatened to cut his microphone. Strange way to treat a guest on a talk show, but never mind. O’Reilly frothed some more. "All right. So you believe that the Democratic Party is correct in embracing a radical group, a group that calls for police officers to be killed. I'm talking about—look, would you be comfortable with the Republican Party bringing in the storm front, the Nazi people and saying we would like our candidates to talk to you guys?" It was a rhetorical question, because Boykin’s microphone really had been cut. It’s that hospitality thing. "They are an extreme group, the Nazi Party. The Black Lives Matter is also an extreme group, as you have heard," O'Reilly added. Boykin was granted the power of sound for a brief moment, just long enough to say he was outraged by the comparison, which of course, fell on deaf ears. 4. Fox Newsian Tantaros has a no-lose campaign strategy. Something that basically guarantees apoplexy at Fox News is the suggestion that it might be time to close down Guantanamo Bay or release any of the people who have been held in indefinite detention without a trial in blatant violation of the Constitution. So, when President Obama announced he would pursue his plan to close Guantanamo Bay and release 17 more prisoners this week as part of the administration’s counterterrorism effort, the results were predictable. Andrea Tantaros said she was afraid that she was really going to blow a gasket on national television if she discussed the topic. Imagine our relief when she managed to compose herself and make this perfectly rational assessment of the situation: “This is why people ask what side is [Obama] on. Whose side is he on? Everything he is doing is the antithesis of being pro-American. Everything.” See, calm and measured. "You can't imagine the body count,” she continued, not the least bit hysterical. “It's complete insanity. And all he cares about is his political legacy. These families that have lost loved ones that searched to capture those Gitmo detainees that he is releasing. And you know what he cares about? Hurt feelings. He cares about the hurt feelings of people in this country that are trying to kill us. It is unbelievably anti-American at its core. And it infuriates the American people and it's the only thing Republicans should talk about from now until election day." GOP candidates, you have received your new talking point from this fount of political wisdom. 5. Fox Newsian Kimberly Guilfoyle has an even better idea. Kimbery Guilfoyle and Donald Trump have something in common. They both heart Vladimir Putin. Big time. On the topic of Guantanamo Bay, Guilfoyle had a very Putin-esque suggestion. Why not just kill the prisoners? Problem solved. "Just kill them all and close Gitmo, that’s fine,” Guilfoyle yelled, pleased as punch with herself. Anyway, she (like Tanataros) knows exactly what is in the heart of President Obama. He just wants to close Gitmo, “because he doesn’t like the idea of it. It doesn’t sit comfortably. Not because it’s a violation of habeas corpus or because they’re entitled to provisions of the Constitution of the United States of America. They are enemy combatants. They are not entitled. … Kill 'em!” We're getting scared again. 
Take this, Fox News: Wal-Mart, Chick-Fil-a and the War on Christmas we should all get behind
Donald Trump is constantly bemoaning the “War on Christmas” and ripping Starbucks for its plain red cups. “I tell my wife don’t go to those stores, I want to see Christmas,” he told attendees at the 2015 Values Voter Summit. But the Donald is a rhetorical Christian soldier. Real believers take the Fox News “War on Christmas” talking point seriously. Some, such as evangelical brand specialist Chris Stone, are acting on it. Stone—the founder of Faith Driven Global—launched a Christian retail index earlier this year, which seeks to harness the $30 billion in Christmas buying power of the nation’s “Biblically Orthodox Christians.” As Stone sees it: “Today’s marketplace is tribalized.” Stone’s base of evangelical BOCs are already almost as tribal as the Williamsburg Lubavitchers. The BOCs have their own Boy Scouts (Trail Life U.S.A.), Girl Scouts (American Heritage Girls), and their own Liberty University. They even read their own newspapers, like the dreary, tendentious Washington Examiner, where Stone announced his 2015 “ChristmasBuycott”—complete with a hashtag, of course. A “buycott” is the flip side of a “boycott.” It guides faithful consumers toward Christian-friendly retail outlets, while ranking the places they can avoid by spending their money with merchants who share their biblical worldview. I’m not sure there’s a difference, but Stone argues that a buycott is not as negative as a boycott. Informing these buycott consumers is Stone’s Faith Equality Index—a ranking of “how well brands acknowledge Faith Driven Consumers (FDCs) by welcoming, embracing, and celebrating them.” Stone’s Index draws heavily on the Human Rights Campaign’s “hugely successful” Corporate Equality Index, which ranks brands, workplaces, and retail outlets by policies and practices regarding the LGBTQ community—and has even been “largely successful in compelling brands to include transgender transition in health coverage.” The Faith Equality Index site even compares HRC rankings with each product or outlet it ranks—a subtle “buy here or buy queer” message. The Index includes a leaderboard where a consumer can track the FDC-plus points earned by reaching out to brands and recruiting family and friends. The real-time competition invites FDCs to engage in a mercantile evangelical movement that rewards the faithful and punishes the not-so-faith-friendly retailers. Starbucks was an early buycott target. Like Trump, Stone came down hard on Starbucks after it replaced its traditional “Christian-themed” cups with a “solid red blank canvas design.” Stone’s Index directed believers looking for a more Christ-centered cup of coffee to Dunkin’ Donuts, which honors the faith by serving coffee in red cups emblazoned with the word “Joy.” Krispy Kreme donuts is offered up as another option. Here’s the FEI as pitched in one of its promotional e-mails. (Attend a Faith & Freedom convention, or a Values Voter Summit, and you, too, will be on the mailing list.) But caveat emptor: the FEI’s preferred retailers are often high-calorie, low-salary outfits—not to mention generous donors to right-wing causes. A few examples. Cracker Barrel, a restaurant chain of painfully treacly country-store knockoffs complete with porch rockers, is a nutritionist’s nightmare, serving calorie-laden plates of down-homey “Fancy Fixins.” But paychecks are lean. Cracker Barrel servers earn an average $3.52 an hour (plus tips), and cashiers get $8.40 an hour. The chain’s management has an affinity for right-wing politicians. In fact, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay almost ended up in prison, partly because of the money the chain’s CEO lavished on him. The FEI’s top-ranking restaurant, though, is Chick-Fil-A, which pays its cooks from $7.70 to $9.41 an hour and its team leaders $9.81. It is privately held, so executive compensation isn’t published, but co-owners Dan and Ronald Cathy are worth $1.5 billion each, according to the PrivCo research firm. The chain was mired in controversy in 2012 for its openly anti-gay politics; millions of company dollars were funneled through the Cathy family’s WinShape foundation to anti-LGBTQ groups like the Family Research Council. Sam’s Club tops the Faith Equality Index big-box retail outlet rankings, while Costco is at the bottom. Sam’s Club, of the Sam Walton (Walmart) dynasty, pays cashiers $9.50 an hour; Costco provides cashiers with an hourly wage of $15.18. Sam’s Club’s CEO earns $23.1 million a year and pays his employees an average annual salary of $22,400. Costco’s CEO earns $2.6 million a year and pays his employees an average salary of $45,800. The Waltons also own the top-ranking grocery chain on the Index, Walmart. With $487.7 billion in annual revenue in 2014, Walmart is the world’s largest company. Yet, it wasn’t until April 2015 that it increased its salaries from minimum wage to $9.00 an hour in response to a protracted and ongoing fair-wage campaign advocating for a living hourly wage of $15. Plus, when it comes to political donations, you could say the Waltons are the Koch Brothers of big grocery retail. The Index might be useful to the secular shopper, or the Christian not completely given over to Biblical orthodoxy. Buy from the FEI’s low-scoring retailers and odds are you’re supporting workplace equity while undermining right-wing philanthropy. It’s not entirely reliable. (Bank of America is an FEI loser; but that’s no reason to champion that behemoth). But turned on its head, the Faith Equality Index is a decent consumers’ guide that will at least keep the alert secular shopper out of Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and Sam’s Club. There’s some value in that.
Originally published by the Washington Spectator
Donald Trump is constantly bemoaning the “War on Christmas” and ripping Starbucks for its plain red cups. “I tell my wife don’t go to those stores, I want to see Christmas,” he told attendees at the 2015 Values Voter Summit. But the Donald is a rhetorical Christian soldier. Real believers take the Fox News “War on Christmas” talking point seriously. Some, such as evangelical brand specialist Chris Stone, are acting on it. Stone—the founder of Faith Driven Global—launched a Christian retail index earlier this year, which seeks to harness the $30 billion in Christmas buying power of the nation’s “Biblically Orthodox Christians.” As Stone sees it: “Today’s marketplace is tribalized.” Stone’s base of evangelical BOCs are already almost as tribal as the Williamsburg Lubavitchers. The BOCs have their own Boy Scouts (Trail Life U.S.A.), Girl Scouts (American Heritage Girls), and their own Liberty University. They even read their own newspapers, like the dreary, tendentious Washington Examiner, where Stone announced his 2015 “ChristmasBuycott”—complete with a hashtag, of course. A “buycott” is the flip side of a “boycott.” It guides faithful consumers toward Christian-friendly retail outlets, while ranking the places they can avoid by spending their money with merchants who share their biblical worldview. I’m not sure there’s a difference, but Stone argues that a buycott is not as negative as a boycott. Informing these buycott consumers is Stone’s Faith Equality Index—a ranking of “how well brands acknowledge Faith Driven Consumers (FDCs) by welcoming, embracing, and celebrating them.” Stone’s Index draws heavily on the Human Rights Campaign’s “hugely successful” Corporate Equality Index, which ranks brands, workplaces, and retail outlets by policies and practices regarding the LGBTQ community—and has even been “largely successful in compelling brands to include transgender transition in health coverage.” The Faith Equality Index site even compares HRC rankings with each product or outlet it ranks—a subtle “buy here or buy queer” message. The Index includes a leaderboard where a consumer can track the FDC-plus points earned by reaching out to brands and recruiting family and friends. The real-time competition invites FDCs to engage in a mercantile evangelical movement that rewards the faithful and punishes the not-so-faith-friendly retailers. Starbucks was an early buycott target. Like Trump, Stone came down hard on Starbucks after it replaced its traditional “Christian-themed” cups with a “solid red blank canvas design.” Stone’s Index directed believers looking for a more Christ-centered cup of coffee to Dunkin’ Donuts, which honors the faith by serving coffee in red cups emblazoned with the word “Joy.” Krispy Kreme donuts is offered up as another option. Here’s the FEI as pitched in one of its promotional e-mails. (Attend a Faith & Freedom convention, or a Values Voter Summit, and you, too, will be on the mailing list.) But caveat emptor: the FEI’s preferred retailers are often high-calorie, low-salary outfits—not to mention generous donors to right-wing causes. A few examples. Cracker Barrel, a restaurant chain of painfully treacly country-store knockoffs complete with porch rockers, is a nutritionist’s nightmare, serving calorie-laden plates of down-homey “Fancy Fixins.” But paychecks are lean. Cracker Barrel servers earn an average $3.52 an hour (plus tips), and cashiers get $8.40 an hour. The chain’s management has an affinity for right-wing politicians. In fact, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay almost ended up in prison, partly because of the money the chain’s CEO lavished on him. The FEI’s top-ranking restaurant, though, is Chick-Fil-A, which pays its cooks from $7.70 to $9.41 an hour and its team leaders $9.81. It is privately held, so executive compensation isn’t published, but co-owners Dan and Ronald Cathy are worth $1.5 billion each, according to the PrivCo research firm. The chain was mired in controversy in 2012 for its openly anti-gay politics; millions of company dollars were funneled through the Cathy family’s WinShape foundation to anti-LGBTQ groups like the Family Research Council. Sam’s Club tops the Faith Equality Index big-box retail outlet rankings, while Costco is at the bottom. Sam’s Club, of the Sam Walton (Walmart) dynasty, pays cashiers $9.50 an hour; Costco provides cashiers with an hourly wage of $15.18. Sam’s Club’s CEO earns $23.1 million a year and pays his employees an average annual salary of $22,400. Costco’s CEO earns $2.6 million a year and pays his employees an average salary of $45,800. The Waltons also own the top-ranking grocery chain on the Index, Walmart. With $487.7 billion in annual revenue in 2014, Walmart is the world’s largest company. Yet, it wasn’t until April 2015 that it increased its salaries from minimum wage to $9.00 an hour in response to a protracted and ongoing fair-wage campaign advocating for a living hourly wage of $15. Plus, when it comes to political donations, you could say the Waltons are the Koch Brothers of big grocery retail. The Index might be useful to the secular shopper, or the Christian not completely given over to Biblical orthodoxy. Buy from the FEI’s low-scoring retailers and odds are you’re supporting workplace equity while undermining right-wing philanthropy. It’s not entirely reliable. (Bank of America is an FEI loser; but that’s no reason to champion that behemoth). But turned on its head, the Faith Equality Index is a decent consumers’ guide that will at least keep the alert secular shopper out of Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and Sam’s Club. There’s some value in that.
Originally published by the Washington Spectator
Donald Trump is constantly bemoaning the “War on Christmas” and ripping Starbucks for its plain red cups. “I tell my wife don’t go to those stores, I want to see Christmas,” he told attendees at the 2015 Values Voter Summit. But the Donald is a rhetorical Christian soldier. Real believers take the Fox News “War on Christmas” talking point seriously. Some, such as evangelical brand specialist Chris Stone, are acting on it. Stone—the founder of Faith Driven Global—launched a Christian retail index earlier this year, which seeks to harness the $30 billion in Christmas buying power of the nation’s “Biblically Orthodox Christians.” As Stone sees it: “Today’s marketplace is tribalized.” Stone’s base of evangelical BOCs are already almost as tribal as the Williamsburg Lubavitchers. The BOCs have their own Boy Scouts (Trail Life U.S.A.), Girl Scouts (American Heritage Girls), and their own Liberty University. They even read their own newspapers, like the dreary, tendentious Washington Examiner, where Stone announced his 2015 “ChristmasBuycott”—complete with a hashtag, of course. A “buycott” is the flip side of a “boycott.” It guides faithful consumers toward Christian-friendly retail outlets, while ranking the places they can avoid by spending their money with merchants who share their biblical worldview. I’m not sure there’s a difference, but Stone argues that a buycott is not as negative as a boycott. Informing these buycott consumers is Stone’s Faith Equality Index—a ranking of “how well brands acknowledge Faith Driven Consumers (FDCs) by welcoming, embracing, and celebrating them.” Stone’s Index draws heavily on the Human Rights Campaign’s “hugely successful” Corporate Equality Index, which ranks brands, workplaces, and retail outlets by policies and practices regarding the LGBTQ community—and has even been “largely successful in compelling brands to include transgender transition in health coverage.” The Faith Equality Index site even compares HRC rankings with each product or outlet it ranks—a subtle “buy here or buy queer” message. The Index includes a leaderboard where a consumer can track the FDC-plus points earned by reaching out to brands and recruiting family and friends. The real-time competition invites FDCs to engage in a mercantile evangelical movement that rewards the faithful and punishes the not-so-faith-friendly retailers. Starbucks was an early buycott target. Like Trump, Stone came down hard on Starbucks after it replaced its traditional “Christian-themed” cups with a “solid red blank canvas design.” Stone’s Index directed believers looking for a more Christ-centered cup of coffee to Dunkin’ Donuts, which honors the faith by serving coffee in red cups emblazoned with the word “Joy.” Krispy Kreme donuts is offered up as another option. Here’s the FEI as pitched in one of its promotional e-mails. (Attend a Faith & Freedom convention, or a Values Voter Summit, and you, too, will be on the mailing list.) But caveat emptor: the FEI’s preferred retailers are often high-calorie, low-salary outfits—not to mention generous donors to right-wing causes. A few examples. Cracker Barrel, a restaurant chain of painfully treacly country-store knockoffs complete with porch rockers, is a nutritionist’s nightmare, serving calorie-laden plates of down-homey “Fancy Fixins.” But paychecks are lean. Cracker Barrel servers earn an average $3.52 an hour (plus tips), and cashiers get $8.40 an hour. The chain’s management has an affinity for right-wing politicians. In fact, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay almost ended up in prison, partly because of the money the chain’s CEO lavished on him. The FEI’s top-ranking restaurant, though, is Chick-Fil-A, which pays its cooks from $7.70 to $9.41 an hour and its team leaders $9.81. It is privately held, so executive compensation isn’t published, but co-owners Dan and Ronald Cathy are worth $1.5 billion each, according to the PrivCo research firm. The chain was mired in controversy in 2012 for its openly anti-gay politics; millions of company dollars were funneled through the Cathy family’s WinShape foundation to anti-LGBTQ groups like the Family Research Council. Sam’s Club tops the Faith Equality Index big-box retail outlet rankings, while Costco is at the bottom. Sam’s Club, of the Sam Walton (Walmart) dynasty, pays cashiers $9.50 an hour; Costco provides cashiers with an hourly wage of $15.18. Sam’s Club’s CEO earns $23.1 million a year and pays his employees an average annual salary of $22,400. Costco’s CEO earns $2.6 million a year and pays his employees an average salary of $45,800. The Waltons also own the top-ranking grocery chain on the Index, Walmart. With $487.7 billion in annual revenue in 2014, Walmart is the world’s largest company. Yet, it wasn’t until April 2015 that it increased its salaries from minimum wage to $9.00 an hour in response to a protracted and ongoing fair-wage campaign advocating for a living hourly wage of $15. Plus, when it comes to political donations, you could say the Waltons are the Koch Brothers of big grocery retail. The Index might be useful to the secular shopper, or the Christian not completely given over to Biblical orthodoxy. Buy from the FEI’s low-scoring retailers and odds are you’re supporting workplace equity while undermining right-wing philanthropy. It’s not entirely reliable. (Bank of America is an FEI loser; but that’s no reason to champion that behemoth). But turned on its head, the Faith Equality Index is a decent consumers’ guide that will at least keep the alert secular shopper out of Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and Sam’s Club. There’s some value in that.
Originally published by the Washington Spectator
Donald Trump is constantly bemoaning the “War on Christmas” and ripping Starbucks for its plain red cups. “I tell my wife don’t go to those stores, I want to see Christmas,” he told attendees at the 2015 Values Voter Summit. But the Donald is a rhetorical Christian soldier. Real believers take the Fox News “War on Christmas” talking point seriously. Some, such as evangelical brand specialist Chris Stone, are acting on it. Stone—the founder of Faith Driven Global—launched a Christian retail index earlier this year, which seeks to harness the $30 billion in Christmas buying power of the nation’s “Biblically Orthodox Christians.” As Stone sees it: “Today’s marketplace is tribalized.” Stone’s base of evangelical BOCs are already almost as tribal as the Williamsburg Lubavitchers. The BOCs have their own Boy Scouts (Trail Life U.S.A.), Girl Scouts (American Heritage Girls), and their own Liberty University. They even read their own newspapers, like the dreary, tendentious Washington Examiner, where Stone announced his 2015 “ChristmasBuycott”—complete with a hashtag, of course. A “buycott” is the flip side of a “boycott.” It guides faithful consumers toward Christian-friendly retail outlets, while ranking the places they can avoid by spending their money with merchants who share their biblical worldview. I’m not sure there’s a difference, but Stone argues that a buycott is not as negative as a boycott. Informing these buycott consumers is Stone’s Faith Equality Index—a ranking of “how well brands acknowledge Faith Driven Consumers (FDCs) by welcoming, embracing, and celebrating them.” Stone’s Index draws heavily on the Human Rights Campaign’s “hugely successful” Corporate Equality Index, which ranks brands, workplaces, and retail outlets by policies and practices regarding the LGBTQ community—and has even been “largely successful in compelling brands to include transgender transition in health coverage.” The Faith Equality Index site even compares HRC rankings with each product or outlet it ranks—a subtle “buy here or buy queer” message. The Index includes a leaderboard where a consumer can track the FDC-plus points earned by reaching out to brands and recruiting family and friends. The real-time competition invites FDCs to engage in a mercantile evangelical movement that rewards the faithful and punishes the not-so-faith-friendly retailers. Starbucks was an early buycott target. Like Trump, Stone came down hard on Starbucks after it replaced its traditional “Christian-themed” cups with a “solid red blank canvas design.” Stone’s Index directed believers looking for a more Christ-centered cup of coffee to Dunkin’ Donuts, which honors the faith by serving coffee in red cups emblazoned with the word “Joy.” Krispy Kreme donuts is offered up as another option. Here’s the FEI as pitched in one of its promotional e-mails. (Attend a Faith & Freedom convention, or a Values Voter Summit, and you, too, will be on the mailing list.) But caveat emptor: the FEI’s preferred retailers are often high-calorie, low-salary outfits—not to mention generous donors to right-wing causes. A few examples. Cracker Barrel, a restaurant chain of painfully treacly country-store knockoffs complete with porch rockers, is a nutritionist’s nightmare, serving calorie-laden plates of down-homey “Fancy Fixins.” But paychecks are lean. Cracker Barrel servers earn an average $3.52 an hour (plus tips), and cashiers get $8.40 an hour. The chain’s management has an affinity for right-wing politicians. In fact, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay almost ended up in prison, partly because of the money the chain’s CEO lavished on him. The FEI’s top-ranking restaurant, though, is Chick-Fil-A, which pays its cooks from $7.70 to $9.41 an hour and its team leaders $9.81. It is privately held, so executive compensation isn’t published, but co-owners Dan and Ronald Cathy are worth $1.5 billion each, according to the PrivCo research firm. The chain was mired in controversy in 2012 for its openly anti-gay politics; millions of company dollars were funneled through the Cathy family’s WinShape foundation to anti-LGBTQ groups like the Family Research Council. Sam’s Club tops the Faith Equality Index big-box retail outlet rankings, while Costco is at the bottom. Sam’s Club, of the Sam Walton (Walmart) dynasty, pays cashiers $9.50 an hour; Costco provides cashiers with an hourly wage of $15.18. Sam’s Club’s CEO earns $23.1 million a year and pays his employees an average annual salary of $22,400. Costco’s CEO earns $2.6 million a year and pays his employees an average salary of $45,800. The Waltons also own the top-ranking grocery chain on the Index, Walmart. With $487.7 billion in annual revenue in 2014, Walmart is the world’s largest company. Yet, it wasn’t until April 2015 that it increased its salaries from minimum wage to $9.00 an hour in response to a protracted and ongoing fair-wage campaign advocating for a living hourly wage of $15. Plus, when it comes to political donations, you could say the Waltons are the Koch Brothers of big grocery retail. The Index might be useful to the secular shopper, or the Christian not completely given over to Biblical orthodoxy. Buy from the FEI’s low-scoring retailers and odds are you’re supporting workplace equity while undermining right-wing philanthropy. It’s not entirely reliable. (Bank of America is an FEI loser; but that’s no reason to champion that behemoth). But turned on its head, the Faith Equality Index is a decent consumers’ guide that will at least keep the alert secular shopper out of Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and Sam’s Club. There’s some value in that.
Originally published by the Washington Spectator
Donald Trump is constantly bemoaning the “War on Christmas” and ripping Starbucks for its plain red cups. “I tell my wife don’t go to those stores, I want to see Christmas,” he told attendees at the 2015 Values Voter Summit. But the Donald is a rhetorical Christian soldier. Real believers take the Fox News “War on Christmas” talking point seriously. Some, such as evangelical brand specialist Chris Stone, are acting on it. Stone—the founder of Faith Driven Global—launched a Christian retail index earlier this year, which seeks to harness the $30 billion in Christmas buying power of the nation’s “Biblically Orthodox Christians.” As Stone sees it: “Today’s marketplace is tribalized.” Stone’s base of evangelical BOCs are already almost as tribal as the Williamsburg Lubavitchers. The BOCs have their own Boy Scouts (Trail Life U.S.A.), Girl Scouts (American Heritage Girls), and their own Liberty University. They even read their own newspapers, like the dreary, tendentious Washington Examiner, where Stone announced his 2015 “ChristmasBuycott”—complete with a hashtag, of course. A “buycott” is the flip side of a “boycott.” It guides faithful consumers toward Christian-friendly retail outlets, while ranking the places they can avoid by spending their money with merchants who share their biblical worldview. I’m not sure there’s a difference, but Stone argues that a buycott is not as negative as a boycott. Informing these buycott consumers is Stone’s Faith Equality Index—a ranking of “how well brands acknowledge Faith Driven Consumers (FDCs) by welcoming, embracing, and celebrating them.” Stone’s Index draws heavily on the Human Rights Campaign’s “hugely successful” Corporate Equality Index, which ranks brands, workplaces, and retail outlets by policies and practices regarding the LGBTQ community—and has even been “largely successful in compelling brands to include transgender transition in health coverage.” The Faith Equality Index site even compares HRC rankings with each product or outlet it ranks—a subtle “buy here or buy queer” message. The Index includes a leaderboard where a consumer can track the FDC-plus points earned by reaching out to brands and recruiting family and friends. The real-time competition invites FDCs to engage in a mercantile evangelical movement that rewards the faithful and punishes the not-so-faith-friendly retailers. Starbucks was an early buycott target. Like Trump, Stone came down hard on Starbucks after it replaced its traditional “Christian-themed” cups with a “solid red blank canvas design.” Stone’s Index directed believers looking for a more Christ-centered cup of coffee to Dunkin’ Donuts, which honors the faith by serving coffee in red cups emblazoned with the word “Joy.” Krispy Kreme donuts is offered up as another option. Here’s the FEI as pitched in one of its promotional e-mails. (Attend a Faith & Freedom convention, or a Values Voter Summit, and you, too, will be on the mailing list.) But caveat emptor: the FEI’s preferred retailers are often high-calorie, low-salary outfits—not to mention generous donors to right-wing causes. A few examples. Cracker Barrel, a restaurant chain of painfully treacly country-store knockoffs complete with porch rockers, is a nutritionist’s nightmare, serving calorie-laden plates of down-homey “Fancy Fixins.” But paychecks are lean. Cracker Barrel servers earn an average $3.52 an hour (plus tips), and cashiers get $8.40 an hour. The chain’s management has an affinity for right-wing politicians. In fact, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay almost ended up in prison, partly because of the money the chain’s CEO lavished on him. The FEI’s top-ranking restaurant, though, is Chick-Fil-A, which pays its cooks from $7.70 to $9.41 an hour and its team leaders $9.81. It is privately held, so executive compensation isn’t published, but co-owners Dan and Ronald Cathy are worth $1.5 billion each, according to the PrivCo research firm. The chain was mired in controversy in 2012 for its openly anti-gay politics; millions of company dollars were funneled through the Cathy family’s WinShape foundation to anti-LGBTQ groups like the Family Research Council. Sam’s Club tops the Faith Equality Index big-box retail outlet rankings, while Costco is at the bottom. Sam’s Club, of the Sam Walton (Walmart) dynasty, pays cashiers $9.50 an hour; Costco provides cashiers with an hourly wage of $15.18. Sam’s Club’s CEO earns $23.1 million a year and pays his employees an average annual salary of $22,400. Costco’s CEO earns $2.6 million a year and pays his employees an average salary of $45,800. The Waltons also own the top-ranking grocery chain on the Index, Walmart. With $487.7 billion in annual revenue in 2014, Walmart is the world’s largest company. Yet, it wasn’t until April 2015 that it increased its salaries from minimum wage to $9.00 an hour in response to a protracted and ongoing fair-wage campaign advocating for a living hourly wage of $15. Plus, when it comes to political donations, you could say the Waltons are the Koch Brothers of big grocery retail. The Index might be useful to the secular shopper, or the Christian not completely given over to Biblical orthodoxy. Buy from the FEI’s low-scoring retailers and odds are you’re supporting workplace equity while undermining right-wing philanthropy. It’s not entirely reliable. (Bank of America is an FEI loser; but that’s no reason to champion that behemoth). But turned on its head, the Faith Equality Index is a decent consumers’ guide that will at least keep the alert secular shopper out of Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and Sam’s Club. There’s some value in that.
Originally published by the Washington Spectator
Donald Trump is constantly bemoaning the “War on Christmas” and ripping Starbucks for its plain red cups. “I tell my wife don’t go to those stores, I want to see Christmas,” he told attendees at the 2015 Values Voter Summit. But the Donald is a rhetorical Christian soldier. Real believers take the Fox News “War on Christmas” talking point seriously. Some, such as evangelical brand specialist Chris Stone, are acting on it. Stone—the founder of Faith Driven Global—launched a Christian retail index earlier this year, which seeks to harness the $30 billion in Christmas buying power of the nation’s “Biblically Orthodox Christians.” As Stone sees it: “Today’s marketplace is tribalized.” Stone’s base of evangelical BOCs are already almost as tribal as the Williamsburg Lubavitchers. The BOCs have their own Boy Scouts (Trail Life U.S.A.), Girl Scouts (American Heritage Girls), and their own Liberty University. They even read their own newspapers, like the dreary, tendentious Washington Examiner, where Stone announced his 2015 “ChristmasBuycott”—complete with a hashtag, of course. A “buycott” is the flip side of a “boycott.” It guides faithful consumers toward Christian-friendly retail outlets, while ranking the places they can avoid by spending their money with merchants who share their biblical worldview. I’m not sure there’s a difference, but Stone argues that a buycott is not as negative as a boycott. Informing these buycott consumers is Stone’s Faith Equality Index—a ranking of “how well brands acknowledge Faith Driven Consumers (FDCs) by welcoming, embracing, and celebrating them.” Stone’s Index draws heavily on the Human Rights Campaign’s “hugely successful” Corporate Equality Index, which ranks brands, workplaces, and retail outlets by policies and practices regarding the LGBTQ community—and has even been “largely successful in compelling brands to include transgender transition in health coverage.” The Faith Equality Index site even compares HRC rankings with each product or outlet it ranks—a subtle “buy here or buy queer” message. The Index includes a leaderboard where a consumer can track the FDC-plus points earned by reaching out to brands and recruiting family and friends. The real-time competition invites FDCs to engage in a mercantile evangelical movement that rewards the faithful and punishes the not-so-faith-friendly retailers. Starbucks was an early buycott target. Like Trump, Stone came down hard on Starbucks after it replaced its traditional “Christian-themed” cups with a “solid red blank canvas design.” Stone’s Index directed believers looking for a more Christ-centered cup of coffee to Dunkin’ Donuts, which honors the faith by serving coffee in red cups emblazoned with the word “Joy.” Krispy Kreme donuts is offered up as another option. Here’s the FEI as pitched in one of its promotional e-mails. (Attend a Faith & Freedom convention, or a Values Voter Summit, and you, too, will be on the mailing list.) But caveat emptor: the FEI’s preferred retailers are often high-calorie, low-salary outfits—not to mention generous donors to right-wing causes. A few examples. Cracker Barrel, a restaurant chain of painfully treacly country-store knockoffs complete with porch rockers, is a nutritionist’s nightmare, serving calorie-laden plates of down-homey “Fancy Fixins.” But paychecks are lean. Cracker Barrel servers earn an average $3.52 an hour (plus tips), and cashiers get $8.40 an hour. The chain’s management has an affinity for right-wing politicians. In fact, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay almost ended up in prison, partly because of the money the chain’s CEO lavished on him. The FEI’s top-ranking restaurant, though, is Chick-Fil-A, which pays its cooks from $7.70 to $9.41 an hour and its team leaders $9.81. It is privately held, so executive compensation isn’t published, but co-owners Dan and Ronald Cathy are worth $1.5 billion each, according to the PrivCo research firm. The chain was mired in controversy in 2012 for its openly anti-gay politics; millions of company dollars were funneled through the Cathy family’s WinShape foundation to anti-LGBTQ groups like the Family Research Council. Sam’s Club tops the Faith Equality Index big-box retail outlet rankings, while Costco is at the bottom. Sam’s Club, of the Sam Walton (Walmart) dynasty, pays cashiers $9.50 an hour; Costco provides cashiers with an hourly wage of $15.18. Sam’s Club’s CEO earns $23.1 million a year and pays his employees an average annual salary of $22,400. Costco’s CEO earns $2.6 million a year and pays his employees an average salary of $45,800. The Waltons also own the top-ranking grocery chain on the Index, Walmart. With $487.7 billion in annual revenue in 2014, Walmart is the world’s largest company. Yet, it wasn’t until April 2015 that it increased its salaries from minimum wage to $9.00 an hour in response to a protracted and ongoing fair-wage campaign advocating for a living hourly wage of $15. Plus, when it comes to political donations, you could say the Waltons are the Koch Brothers of big grocery retail. The Index might be useful to the secular shopper, or the Christian not completely given over to Biblical orthodoxy. Buy from the FEI’s low-scoring retailers and odds are you’re supporting workplace equity while undermining right-wing philanthropy. It’s not entirely reliable. (Bank of America is an FEI loser; but that’s no reason to champion that behemoth). But turned on its head, the Faith Equality Index is a decent consumers’ guide that will at least keep the alert secular shopper out of Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and Sam’s Club. There’s some value in that.
Originally published by the Washington Spectator
Rand Paul’s immigration hypocrisy: He has no credibility to attack Cruz on “amnesty”
Outside the Donald Trump black hole of insanity and despair, the real political action in the Republican presidential race is happening between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who are busily attacking one another over immigration. Cruz is attacking Rubio for supporting comprehensive immigration reform in 2013 and trying to position himself as the one candidate who has stood against “amnesty.” Rubio is making the case that Cruz also supported some forms legalization and is not the consistent conservative he claims to be. With these two at each other’s throats, lesser candidates are sensing an opportunity to sneak in and claim a slice of the media and voter attention for themselves. Rand Paul is one of those candidates. Languishing in the polls and incapable of generation even the slightest hint of buzz, Rand is trying to insert himself into the adults’ conversation, arguing that you just can’t trust Cruz on immigration:
“Without question both Rubio and Cruz have been for amnesty, so it’s kind of a silly debate,” the Kentucky senator said. “The amendment that Cruz put forward at the time — no one understood it to be a poison pill, it was not advocated or put forward as a poison pill, it was an advocacy for legalization and normalization.” […] “I think Cruz is being disingenuous and not honestly presenting the facts when he says that he was not for legalization: He’s wanted to have it both ways,” Paul said. “His amendment, I think, was put straight forward — and I don’t think there’s any contemporaneous evidence that he was putting forward something that he didn’t really believe in.”This is in reference to an amendment Cruz offered to the 2013 Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status, but close off the path to citizenship. Cruz argues that the amendment was a poison pill designed to kill the legislation altogether. Rubio (and Paul) are making the case that the amendment reflects what Cruz actually believes and that he’s lying when he says he’s never supported legalization. “It stretches credulity,” Paul said about Cruz’s argument, “and I think it also makes you wonder about exactly whether or not we can take him at face value on what he presents.” It’s all very messy politically, but if we’re talking about shifting stances on immigration as a matter of trust, then there are few people less trustworthy than Rand Paul. His history on immigration is one long series of flip-flops and reversals. While campaigning for the Senate in 2010, he was a hardline immigration opponent, attacking the DREAM Act as “an official path to Democrat voter registration for 2 million college-age illegal immigrants.” One of his first acts as a senator was to back a constitutional amendment that would end birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But then Mitt Romney got thumped in the 2012 election, losing badly among Hispanic voters after advocating “self-deportation,” and Rand Paul the hardliner became Rand Paul the moderate. He endorsed “an eventual path” to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He wrote about the need to “normalize the status of the 11 million undocumented citizens,” starting with “Dream Act kids.” He announced qualified support for the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill and its path to citizenship. But then, as conservatives lined up against reform, he began his shift back into hardline territory. He ended up voting against the Senate bill, and in the aftermath of the child migrant crisis he voiced support for House legislation to end President Obama’s deportation protections for DREAM Act-age immigrants. So compared to Rand Paul, Ted Cruz is the picture of consistency when it comes to immigration. Rand has voiced support for "amnesty" no matter how you want to define it -- citizenship, legal status, whatever. But Rand is desperate to get back in this thing and he has to seize opportunities where he can. If that means pretending he’s a trustworthy voice on immigration, then that’s what he’ll do. And if that means launching a frontal assault on Cruz, who is something like a folk hero among conservatives for, among other things, his opposition to “amnesty,” then he’ll do that too. The problem is he just doesn’t have any credibility to make a case against Cruz’s trustworthiness.Outside the Donald Trump black hole of insanity and despair, the real political action in the Republican presidential race is happening between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who are busily attacking one another over immigration. Cruz is attacking Rubio for supporting comprehensive immigration reform in 2013 and trying to position himself as the one candidate who has stood against “amnesty.” Rubio is making the case that Cruz also supported some forms legalization and is not the consistent conservative he claims to be. With these two at each other’s throats, lesser candidates are sensing an opportunity to sneak in and claim a slice of the media and voter attention for themselves. Rand Paul is one of those candidates. Languishing in the polls and incapable of generation even the slightest hint of buzz, Rand is trying to insert himself into the adults’ conversation, arguing that you just can’t trust Cruz on immigration:
“Without question both Rubio and Cruz have been for amnesty, so it’s kind of a silly debate,” the Kentucky senator said. “The amendment that Cruz put forward at the time — no one understood it to be a poison pill, it was not advocated or put forward as a poison pill, it was an advocacy for legalization and normalization.” […] “I think Cruz is being disingenuous and not honestly presenting the facts when he says that he was not for legalization: He’s wanted to have it both ways,” Paul said. “His amendment, I think, was put straight forward — and I don’t think there’s any contemporaneous evidence that he was putting forward something that he didn’t really believe in.”This is in reference to an amendment Cruz offered to the 2013 Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status, but close off the path to citizenship. Cruz argues that the amendment was a poison pill designed to kill the legislation altogether. Rubio (and Paul) are making the case that the amendment reflects what Cruz actually believes and that he’s lying when he says he’s never supported legalization. “It stretches credulity,” Paul said about Cruz’s argument, “and I think it also makes you wonder about exactly whether or not we can take him at face value on what he presents.” It’s all very messy politically, but if we’re talking about shifting stances on immigration as a matter of trust, then there are few people less trustworthy than Rand Paul. His history on immigration is one long series of flip-flops and reversals. While campaigning for the Senate in 2010, he was a hardline immigration opponent, attacking the DREAM Act as “an official path to Democrat voter registration for 2 million college-age illegal immigrants.” One of his first acts as a senator was to back a constitutional amendment that would end birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But then Mitt Romney got thumped in the 2012 election, losing badly among Hispanic voters after advocating “self-deportation,” and Rand Paul the hardliner became Rand Paul the moderate. He endorsed “an eventual path” to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He wrote about the need to “normalize the status of the 11 million undocumented citizens,” starting with “Dream Act kids.” He announced qualified support for the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill and its path to citizenship. But then, as conservatives lined up against reform, he began his shift back into hardline territory. He ended up voting against the Senate bill, and in the aftermath of the child migrant crisis he voiced support for House legislation to end President Obama’s deportation protections for DREAM Act-age immigrants. So compared to Rand Paul, Ted Cruz is the picture of consistency when it comes to immigration. Rand has voiced support for "amnesty" no matter how you want to define it -- citizenship, legal status, whatever. But Rand is desperate to get back in this thing and he has to seize opportunities where he can. If that means pretending he’s a trustworthy voice on immigration, then that’s what he’ll do. And if that means launching a frontal assault on Cruz, who is something like a folk hero among conservatives for, among other things, his opposition to “amnesty,” then he’ll do that too. The problem is he just doesn’t have any credibility to make a case against Cruz’s trustworthiness.
Donald Trump’s got Putin fever: The GOP frontrunner is stumping for a Russian strongman
Despite the fact that this past weekend featured a Democratic Party presidential debate, the news continues to be Donald Trump and the GOP race. One assumes the press was not interested in the debate simply because the three candidates are professional, intelligent, well-informed and serious. In other words they are not a circus act. Luckily we still have Trump to entertain them, and he's doing a bang up job. For instance, when "Fox and Friends" ran a clip on Sunday of Clinton criticizing him in the debate the night before, Trump, on the phone, responded, "could you imagine that as president? I'm just watching and to see that as president just doesn't work." That got a big smile from one of the hosts, Tucker Carlson, who is know for a famous quip about Clinton which he repeated often in the last election:
"She scares me. I cross my legs every time she talks...every time, involuntarily. It is like those pictures you see of the soccer goalie when they're about to get the free kick. That's me when she talks. I can't help it."But Trump's comment about Clinton was a throwaway line. What the Sabbath Gasbags were most interested in were his comments about Vladimir Putin. Trump has been saying for some time that he and Putin would get along great. Months ago he told Anderson Cooper, "I think the biggest thing we have is that we were on '60 Minutes' together and we had fantastic ratings. One of your best-rated shows in a long time. So that was good, right? So we were stable mates." They weren't actually on "60 Minutes" together, there were simply stories about each of them on the same program, but that's Trump. They made ratings together so that makes them blood brothers. In fact, they've never met. Nonetheless, on that and on numerous other occasions, Trump has said that he believed he and Putin would "probably work together much more so than right now." And last week, Putin returned the compliment. In an end of year press conference he called Trump “a very bright and talented man,” and an “absolute leader.” Trump nearly swooned at the compliment saying, "it is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond." It didn't matter in the least that the media was gobsmacked, he was thrilled, telling Joe Scarborough "when people call you brilliant, it’s always good, especially when the person heads up Russia.” He even went out of his way to defend him against the charges that Putin had been responsible for the deaths of opposition journalists, saying "our country does plenty of killing." On ABC's "This Week" on Sunday he went to the mat for him:
"They are allegations. Yeah sure there are allegations. I’ve read those allegations over the years. But nobody’s proven that he’s killed anybody, as far as I’m concerned. He hasn’t killed reporters that’s been proven."He said it would be terrible if true, but "this isn’t like somebody that stood with the gun and taken the blame or admitted that he’s killed. He’s always denied it. He’s never been proven that he’s killed anybody. You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, at least in our country.” This is the same man who calls for the summary execution of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in every stump speech, usually followed by a nostalgic comment about how we used to do such things "when we were strong." It's also the same man who routinely points to the press in the back of the hall at his rallies and calls reporters disgusting and "scum," sometimes even naming names. The GOP establishment is clutching their pearls over all this under the assumption that saying you admire Vladimir Putin surely will be the ultimate put-away shot. After all, we just had a debate in which the candidates were variously vowing to "punch Russia in the nose" and to shoot Russian planes out of the sky. Perhaps the most bellicose was Chris Christie who has long criticized President Obama for being soft, saying a few months back, “I don’t believe, given who I am, that [Putin] would make the same judgment. Let’s leave it at that.” Evidently, "who he is" is so macho that Putin will roll himself into a ball and have a good old fashioned cry if Christie looks at him sideways. Mitt Romney tweeted furiously about Trump's coziness with Putin and his former advisers were all up in arms throughout the week-end calling him a "seriously damaged individual." Trump responded by saying, "they're jealous as hell because he's not mentioning" them. Trump doesn't care one whit about any of this carping. His reasoning is clear in this one comment:
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, you know, unlike what we have in this country.”Later he said, “I think that my words represent toughness and strength." Trump understands the base of the GOP a lot better than Mitt Romney and the Sunday talking heads. These GOP base voters like Putin. Like so much else, Trump is just channeling an existing right wing phenomenon. Marin Cogan at National Journal wrote about the right wing Putin cult two years ago:
Putinphilia is not, of course, the predominant position of the conservative movement. But in certain corners of the Internet, adoration for the leader of America’s No. 1 frenemy is unexceptional. They are not his countrymen, Russian expats, or any of the other regional allies you might expect to find allied with the Russian leader. Some, like Young and his readers, are earnest outdoorsy types who like Putin’s Rough Rider sensibility. Others more cheekily admire Putin’s cult of masculinity and claim relative indifference to the political stances — the anti-Americanism, the support for leaders like Bashar al-Assad, the oppression of minorities, gays, journalists, dissidents, independent-minded oligarchs — that drive most Americans mad. A few even arrive at their Putin admiration through a strange brew of antipathy to everything they think President Obama stands for, a reflexive distrust of what the government and media tells them, and political beliefs that go unrepresented by either of the main American political parties... [T]he Obama’s-so-bad-Putin-almost-looks-good sentiment can be found on plenty of conservative message boards. Earlier this year, when Putin supposedly caught — and kissed — a 46-pound pike fish, posters on Free Republic, a major grassroots message board for the Right, were overwhelmingly pro-Putin: “I wonder what photoup [sic] of his vacation will the Usurper show us? Maybe clipping his fingernails I suppose or maybe hanging some curtains. Yep manly. I can’t believe I’m siding with Putin,” one wrote. “I have President envy,” another said. “Better than our metrosexual president,” said a third. One riffed that a Putin-Sarah Palin ticket would lead to a more moral United States.Is it any wonder that Trump is saying he's "honored" that Putin thinks highly of him? But the pearl clutching about all this Putin love from the other presidential candidates is seriously hypocritical. They may not be tapping into the macho Putin cult as directly as Trump, but they are very much on Putin's authoritarian wavelength. Just like Putin they are very upset at the idea gay people might have equal rights and they are prepared to use government power to discriminate against them:
Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee vowed to push for the passage of the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), legislation that would prohibit the federal government from stopping discrimination by people or businesses that believe “marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman” or that “sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.” The pledge is supported by three conservative groups: the American Principles Project, Heritage Action for America, and Family Research Council Action.Apparently, Bush, Graham, Paul and Trump, have also publicly expressed support for FADA. In the name of freedom, of course, just as the old Soviets would have done. These liberty lovers may shake their fists and pretend they are in opposition to Putin's tyrannical ways, but when you get down to it they're all on the same page. And the rest of us should probably stop laughing and start paying attention according to a warning from someone who knows what she's talking about, Maria Alekhina, aka Masha of Pussy Riot:
"When Putin came to his first term or second term, nobody [in Russia] actually thought that this is serious. Everybody was joking about it. And nobody could imagine that after five, six years, we would have a war in Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, and these problems in Syria," in which Russia has become involved. "Everybody [is] joking about Donald Trump now, but it's a very short way from joke to sad reality when you have a really crazy president speaking about breaking every moral and logic norm. So I hope that he will not be president. That's very simple."Strongman cults of the likes of Putin and Trump are often dismissed as silly and unserious at first. And then, all at once, it's too late.
December 20, 2015
7 things that can go disastrously wrong during sex — and how to avoid them
Sex is a messy beast. When it’s good, it’s great, and when it’s bad, it’s really bad. Luckily, most negative encounters can be improved with a modest dose of information. That's why we've compiled our list of seven bad things that can happen during sex. If you find something really turns you off, chances are you’re not alone. Check it out to see you can relate. 1. They won’t go down. Most women really enjoy oral sex. Unfortunately, not enough of them are getting it. Certain sexual trends would suggest it’s easier for a girl to wrap her lips around a dick than for a guy to place his head between a lady’s legs. But we all know that’s not true. Refusing to go down on a girl not only robs her of a perfectly good chance to have an orgasm, it implies there’s something you don’t like about her. If you’re a sexually active person, it’s my understanding you should be able to stomach any kind of ick factor that may arise. Sexual maturity doesn’t just apply to the body. Besides, guys seem willing enough to go in there with their penis. Why not a tongue? Going down on a girl is a sign of a great lover. Who would go out of their way to pass up that title? 2. They’re insecure about their bodies. Sex is something you want to experience with all senses: sight, smell, taste, etc. So it can get a little awkward when one partner is reluctant to let the other fully experience them in that way. Besides, the way you feel about yourself and your body carries over into the way you present yourself, the way you move. Psychologist Alexis Conason explained to AlterNet, “I think the biggest detriment to healthy sexual functioning is the anxieties and insecurities you may have about your body. Have that shame and self-consciousness, that’s what really prevents people from having enjoyable sex lives.” So relax, if someone is sleeping with you, it’s likely that they’re enjoying your body. Even the areas you’re not so crazy about yourself. 3. They can’t laugh about the little things. Sex therapist Susan Block says, “Sex should be a comedy, not a tragedy.” Because let’s face it, sex can be kind of strange and a little gross. There are body fluids flying all over the place. Sometimes a fart sneaks out, maybe a queef. I once had a partner who would get so sweaty in the sack beads of sweat would fall from the tip of his nose and into my eyes. It stung. But these things happen, and it’s comforting to know you’re not experiencing them alone. If your partner isn’t willing to embrace these incidents, you’re probably going to feel prettying alone in addressing them. If you’re already having sex with someone, why not try bonding with them a bit in the process? 4. You can’t get wet. This may strike some as a female-specific issue, but I promise, unlubricated sex isn’t much fun for anyone. It's true, women do produce a natural lubrication, but sometimes, it’s not enough. And forcing penetration is never a good idea. It’s uncomfortable, it can cause tearing and it puts a pretty big damper on something that should be fun and pleasurable. Maybe you’ve had a few too many drinks. Maybe stress is preventing your brain and body from fully communicating. Or maybe you have absolutely no clue as to what’s going on. Don’t worry. It’s possible that it’s just not a great time for sex to take place. If you are in the mood, however, don’t be afraid to hit up the local pharmacy. Sex and relationship expert Emily Morse once told AlterNet, “My dream is to have a lube on every nightstand.” 5. You’re too drunk. If the one-night-stand has one ally, it’s the bar. It’s almost amazing to see how quickly alcohol can help facilitate the late-night hookup. Alcohol lowers our inhibitions, which makes talking to someone you find attractive (or whatever) a whole lot easier. And besides, it’s not like the bar can stay open forever. Sometimes it’s fun to take the party home with you. If sex is part of that party, however, it’s probably a good idea to watch how you much you drink. The only thing worse than bad sex is not remembering good sex. 6. There’s not enough foreplay. Standard definitions of (hetero) sex tend to focus on penis-in-vagina penetration. But those living outside of a laboratory know that sex can expand far beyond that. Horniness usually inspires sex, and foreplay is a great way to get horny. It seems simple. Still, too many sexual participants tend to skip this stage and jump right to the action. Why rush it? Sex shouldn’t be set to a timer. Give them a little something more to remember you by. 7. They don’t communicate. Everyone is different and it’s impossible to decode someone's likes and dislikes without talking to them. Sex is weird enough. So please, do yourself and your partner a favor and verbalize what you want to do before someone gets an elbow in the face, or worse, before you finish without getting your partner off. Because really, nobody wants to play the clown in someone else’s sex story.
Sex is a messy beast. When it’s good, it’s great, and when it’s bad, it’s really bad. Luckily, most negative encounters can be improved with a modest dose of information. That's why we've compiled our list of seven bad things that can happen during sex. If you find something really turns you off, chances are you’re not alone. Check it out to see you can relate. 1. They won’t go down. Most women really enjoy oral sex. Unfortunately, not enough of them are getting it. Certain sexual trends would suggest it’s easier for a girl to wrap her lips around a dick than for a guy to place his head between a lady’s legs. But we all know that’s not true. Refusing to go down on a girl not only robs her of a perfectly good chance to have an orgasm, it implies there’s something you don’t like about her. If you’re a sexually active person, it’s my understanding you should be able to stomach any kind of ick factor that may arise. Sexual maturity doesn’t just apply to the body. Besides, guys seem willing enough to go in there with their penis. Why not a tongue? Going down on a girl is a sign of a great lover. Who would go out of their way to pass up that title? 2. They’re insecure about their bodies. Sex is something you want to experience with all senses: sight, smell, taste, etc. So it can get a little awkward when one partner is reluctant to let the other fully experience them in that way. Besides, the way you feel about yourself and your body carries over into the way you present yourself, the way you move. Psychologist Alexis Conason explained to AlterNet, “I think the biggest detriment to healthy sexual functioning is the anxieties and insecurities you may have about your body. Have that shame and self-consciousness, that’s what really prevents people from having enjoyable sex lives.” So relax, if someone is sleeping with you, it’s likely that they’re enjoying your body. Even the areas you’re not so crazy about yourself. 3. They can’t laugh about the little things. Sex therapist Susan Block says, “Sex should be a comedy, not a tragedy.” Because let’s face it, sex can be kind of strange and a little gross. There are body fluids flying all over the place. Sometimes a fart sneaks out, maybe a queef. I once had a partner who would get so sweaty in the sack beads of sweat would fall from the tip of his nose and into my eyes. It stung. But these things happen, and it’s comforting to know you’re not experiencing them alone. If your partner isn’t willing to embrace these incidents, you’re probably going to feel prettying alone in addressing them. If you’re already having sex with someone, why not try bonding with them a bit in the process? 4. You can’t get wet. This may strike some as a female-specific issue, but I promise, unlubricated sex isn’t much fun for anyone. It's true, women do produce a natural lubrication, but sometimes, it’s not enough. And forcing penetration is never a good idea. It’s uncomfortable, it can cause tearing and it puts a pretty big damper on something that should be fun and pleasurable. Maybe you’ve had a few too many drinks. Maybe stress is preventing your brain and body from fully communicating. Or maybe you have absolutely no clue as to what’s going on. Don’t worry. It’s possible that it’s just not a great time for sex to take place. If you are in the mood, however, don’t be afraid to hit up the local pharmacy. Sex and relationship expert Emily Morse once told AlterNet, “My dream is to have a lube on every nightstand.” 5. You’re too drunk. If the one-night-stand has one ally, it’s the bar. It’s almost amazing to see how quickly alcohol can help facilitate the late-night hookup. Alcohol lowers our inhibitions, which makes talking to someone you find attractive (or whatever) a whole lot easier. And besides, it’s not like the bar can stay open forever. Sometimes it’s fun to take the party home with you. If sex is part of that party, however, it’s probably a good idea to watch how you much you drink. The only thing worse than bad sex is not remembering good sex. 6. There’s not enough foreplay. Standard definitions of (hetero) sex tend to focus on penis-in-vagina penetration. But those living outside of a laboratory know that sex can expand far beyond that. Horniness usually inspires sex, and foreplay is a great way to get horny. It seems simple. Still, too many sexual participants tend to skip this stage and jump right to the action. Why rush it? Sex shouldn’t be set to a timer. Give them a little something more to remember you by. 7. They don’t communicate. Everyone is different and it’s impossible to decode someone's likes and dislikes without talking to them. Sex is weird enough. So please, do yourself and your partner a favor and verbalize what you want to do before someone gets an elbow in the face, or worse, before you finish without getting your partner off. Because really, nobody wants to play the clown in someone else’s sex story.
Sex is a messy beast. When it’s good, it’s great, and when it’s bad, it’s really bad. Luckily, most negative encounters can be improved with a modest dose of information. That's why we've compiled our list of seven bad things that can happen during sex. If you find something really turns you off, chances are you’re not alone. Check it out to see you can relate. 1. They won’t go down. Most women really enjoy oral sex. Unfortunately, not enough of them are getting it. Certain sexual trends would suggest it’s easier for a girl to wrap her lips around a dick than for a guy to place his head between a lady’s legs. But we all know that’s not true. Refusing to go down on a girl not only robs her of a perfectly good chance to have an orgasm, it implies there’s something you don’t like about her. If you’re a sexually active person, it’s my understanding you should be able to stomach any kind of ick factor that may arise. Sexual maturity doesn’t just apply to the body. Besides, guys seem willing enough to go in there with their penis. Why not a tongue? Going down on a girl is a sign of a great lover. Who would go out of their way to pass up that title? 2. They’re insecure about their bodies. Sex is something you want to experience with all senses: sight, smell, taste, etc. So it can get a little awkward when one partner is reluctant to let the other fully experience them in that way. Besides, the way you feel about yourself and your body carries over into the way you present yourself, the way you move. Psychologist Alexis Conason explained to AlterNet, “I think the biggest detriment to healthy sexual functioning is the anxieties and insecurities you may have about your body. Have that shame and self-consciousness, that’s what really prevents people from having enjoyable sex lives.” So relax, if someone is sleeping with you, it’s likely that they’re enjoying your body. Even the areas you’re not so crazy about yourself. 3. They can’t laugh about the little things. Sex therapist Susan Block says, “Sex should be a comedy, not a tragedy.” Because let’s face it, sex can be kind of strange and a little gross. There are body fluids flying all over the place. Sometimes a fart sneaks out, maybe a queef. I once had a partner who would get so sweaty in the sack beads of sweat would fall from the tip of his nose and into my eyes. It stung. But these things happen, and it’s comforting to know you’re not experiencing them alone. If your partner isn’t willing to embrace these incidents, you’re probably going to feel prettying alone in addressing them. If you’re already having sex with someone, why not try bonding with them a bit in the process? 4. You can’t get wet. This may strike some as a female-specific issue, but I promise, unlubricated sex isn’t much fun for anyone. It's true, women do produce a natural lubrication, but sometimes, it’s not enough. And forcing penetration is never a good idea. It’s uncomfortable, it can cause tearing and it puts a pretty big damper on something that should be fun and pleasurable. Maybe you’ve had a few too many drinks. Maybe stress is preventing your brain and body from fully communicating. Or maybe you have absolutely no clue as to what’s going on. Don’t worry. It’s possible that it’s just not a great time for sex to take place. If you are in the mood, however, don’t be afraid to hit up the local pharmacy. Sex and relationship expert Emily Morse once told AlterNet, “My dream is to have a lube on every nightstand.” 5. You’re too drunk. If the one-night-stand has one ally, it’s the bar. It’s almost amazing to see how quickly alcohol can help facilitate the late-night hookup. Alcohol lowers our inhibitions, which makes talking to someone you find attractive (or whatever) a whole lot easier. And besides, it’s not like the bar can stay open forever. Sometimes it’s fun to take the party home with you. If sex is part of that party, however, it’s probably a good idea to watch how you much you drink. The only thing worse than bad sex is not remembering good sex. 6. There’s not enough foreplay. Standard definitions of (hetero) sex tend to focus on penis-in-vagina penetration. But those living outside of a laboratory know that sex can expand far beyond that. Horniness usually inspires sex, and foreplay is a great way to get horny. It seems simple. Still, too many sexual participants tend to skip this stage and jump right to the action. Why rush it? Sex shouldn’t be set to a timer. Give them a little something more to remember you by. 7. They don’t communicate. Everyone is different and it’s impossible to decode someone's likes and dislikes without talking to them. Sex is weird enough. So please, do yourself and your partner a favor and verbalize what you want to do before someone gets an elbow in the face, or worse, before you finish without getting your partner off. Because really, nobody wants to play the clown in someone else’s sex story.
“I didn’t feel fit to be a mother:” I was holding it together, pushing through, getting by, and then one night, I wasn’t
No one felt sorry for Andrea Yates, the woman in Texas who, suffering from postpartum psychosis, drowned her five children in the bathtub in 2001. But there was one moment in my life when I did, when I felt an unexpected flicker of empathy for her and for all the other mothers who struggle with mental illness or who have lost control.
Mental illness is in my blood like being Irish is in my blood — it’s just there, part of who I am. Bipolar disorder runs in my family. My sister took her own life last year. Several family members have been institutionalized. As I near age 50, I’ve come to feel there’s no shame in discussing these struggles; better out than in. I have learned there is a generations-deep war with anxiety and depression in our family, and I am not immune to it.
My own mental health issues apparently are relatively mild. My current therapist jokes that I’m “NOS,” or what they call in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, "Not Otherwise Specified.” I have a psychology degree and spent four years in college trying to diagnose myself (a pre-requisite for psych majors). Adult child of an alcoholic, check. Mildly neurotic, yeah. Garden variety depression and anxiety, sure, but really nothing to write home about. So, up until age 36, I never needed or sought medication for mental illness.
People who are diagnosed at an early age with bipolar or depression are faced with lifelong challenges of managing medication, negotiating their own identity, and coping with the effects of hormonal shifts and situational stressors on their conditions. For me, the mental health scales were tipped by hormone fluctuations over the course of a decade, during which I had seven pregnancies (four children and three miscarriages), leading me up to a moment of crisis when postpartum depression sent me literally running for help.
At 25, I gave birth to my first daughter, Sarah, at 29, my second, Molly. I didn’t experience any feelings of depression whatsoever surrounding their births. I began a successful part-time writing career while I raised my girls. After about two years, I had a miscarriage about 12 weeks into my pregnancy. It was a devastating loss — I’d seen the baby’s heartbeat, everything had progressed normally and suddenly the heartbeat was gone and I had to have surgery to remove the lost baby. Heartbroken, I sought out other women who had experienced miscarriages; they seemed to be the only ones who knew what to say. Others said the wrong things, awful things. Too soon after, another pregnancy came and another miscarriage at around nine weeks. I couldn’t understand why, after two full-term lovely girls, my body seemed to have forgotten how to be pregnant. It was only after this second miscarriage that I learned I had a condition called bicornuate uterus, which meant I’d only ever had a 50/50 chance of carrying a baby to term due to the shape of my uterus.
I felt as though I’d been told my body was some sort of Darwinian abortion factory. Only the fittest children could survive — the luckiest, who landed in exactly the right spot in my womb. How morbid was it, I wondered, how presumptuous, for me to choose to get pregnant again? Was it even fair, expecting a baby to survive in the adverse conditions of my substandard uterus? I felt immensely thankful to have had two full-term, perfectly healthy babies and thought maybe I should just quit while I was ahead. And then I found out I was pregnant, going through yet another miscarriage. I endured three D&C operations (dilation and curettage, aka the carving of your uterus, not unlike a pumpkin), and the worst moment was when an anesthesiologist assumed I was having an abortion and said something along the lines of “It isn’t too late to change your mind.” I just looked at him, bewildered, horrified he’d say that to a woman under any circumstances, and replied, “The baby is already dead.”
I’m sure many other women would have decided to call it quits after five pregnancies. I considered it. But I’d grown up in a large family and wanted one of my own. Although I was scared and my body was tired, I knew I wasn’t finished being a mother yet. It seems cliché to call it “motherly instinct,” but in my heart, despite the odds and the morbid condition and everything I’d been through, I guess I had faith that I would get through it. My third daughter, Faith, was born when I was 34, and her brother Bobby arrived two years later.
My own mother gave birth to seven children, and she always said it was after the third child that things got really tough, because you only have two hands. When you cross a street with three children, one of them is going to be loose.
So for me it turned out that after this seventh and final pregnancy, when my fourth child was born, my world got a little bit out of control.
Maybe the hormonal rollercoaster from seven pregnancies in 10 years took their toll, but I’d never experienced crushing lows or moments of sheer, throat-clenching anxiety, so I didn't recognize them when they struck. The birth of my son had been a joyous occasion (last try for the boy) and I assumed fulfillment would arrive with the completion of my family.
In motherhood, the years are short but the days can be very, very long. I’d never been much of a joiner — playgroups where moms sit around and talk about who’s sitting up or crawling or saying this many words in a sentence were never for me. Writing is an isolated career, too. I was home by myself pretty much all the time. I doubted myself constantly, wondering if I was a good mother, if I was giving my children all they needed, making the best decisions for them and for our family.
I cared about my community and started attending town meetings, concerned about local development in our area. I was elected vice president of the town council while I was pregnant with Bobby. When I went into labor during a town budget meeting, I was jotting down contraction times in the margin of an agenda. It was an overwhelming time for our family, and the evening it happened wasn’t so unusual for us. I hadn’t had three consecutive hours of sleep in weeks. My husband was out of town for work, as he was most weeknights, leaving me alone to care for our four kids and run a small town without really knowing what I was doing.
I felt isolated, didn’t have much of a support network, and was weighed down by exhaustion, anxiety, and an overall feeling of anger and hopelessness I now know was depression.
But despite these feelings I was holding it together, pushing through, getting by, and then one night, I wasn’t.
It started with the Christmas tree. I was getting my middle girls, Molly, 8, and Faith, 2 ½, into the tub when I heard the fully-decorated, 10-foot Christmas tree crash to the ground downstairs. The 1881 Victorian house had plenty of drafts and ghosts; who knew why it happened? I ran downstairs and in a fit of misdirected fury, I screamed at my twelve-year-old as though she could somehow help me fix the tree, which of course she couldn’t. I remember the terror in her eyes — she’d never heard me curse and yell like that. I did my best to upright the tree, but there was broken glass everywhere, shattered and strewn across the floor.
Molly and Faith were still in the clawfoot tub. Beside the tub was my screaming baby in an infant seat; he wanted to be held and nursed all. the. time. Leaving the devastated tree scene, I ran back to the upstairs bathroom.
The girls in the tub were arguing (over something like who gets the blue mermaid or the pink mermaid) and Faith was shrieking as only a child that age can do. Sarah called from downstairs, and I specifically remember a moment where I heard the shrill chorus — the cacophony — of all four of my kids yelling in my direction.
There are these moments in parenthood once in awhile where you just wish you had a remote control (like in the movie "Click") and you could hit the “pause” button on the whole thing, just to stop it for a second so that you can run away — not even far, really, just to the car maybe to put some headphones on for a few minutes, grab a drink or a snack, take a quick walk around the block, just stop time, get your head on straight, think about what to say or do. If we as parents could just have this tiny superpower it would save us so much hurt and pain. We could, for example, take back words we’d never meant to say but spurted out one day to a belligerent teenager — words we know might ring in their heads for years. But we don’t. We don’t have that pause button.
I had to stop all the screaming. I was trying to wash my daughter’s hair and in a moment of true horror that I will never be able to un-live, I dipped her under the water for one brief second just to stop the screaming.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Faith stopped screaming, her blue eyes wide, blinking. Her face, dripping. Molly stopped bickering, gasped, stared. Baby Bobby stopped crying as Sarah ran upstairs and asked what she could do to help. I apologized, dried off, hugged, sorted and tucked each of the girls safely into their beds. And then I laid in my bed, nursing my newborn son, and shook and shook and shook.
Terrified and crying in bed, I didn’t feel fit to be a mother. What kind of monster would do something like that? In recalling the moment that I had dunked my daughter under the water, I thought of the mothers I’d seen in the news — women who’d likely never meant to harm their children but just lost control. I thought of the mother in Texas and, to my own shock, I felt empathy for her. She obviously had been out of her mind to hold each of her children underwater, because no mother in her right mind would harm her child. I thought of Joan Crawford in "Mommy Dearest." This had clearly been my “wire hanger moment."
The next day, I called the doctor. I went to her office, and she (a mom) asked me if I needed "just a little something to help me get by." Yes, I said, perhaps in the interest of my children's health and safety I should take just a little something. Just a Little Something came in the form of a purple and pink pill with an unfamiliar name, the generic for Prozac. Mommy’s little helper. My psych degree came in handy. I wasn’t afraid to join Prozac Nation. The mental health stigma didn’t bother me a bit, not when the health and safety and well-being of my family was at stake. After all, my family had a long history of dealing with these issues, and I wasn’t going to ignore the very obvious danger signs that I needed help.
I took the pink and purple pills for a few years, afraid to stop. They made me feel … well, not happy exactly, but less sad and less anxious. They took away the lows, but also the highs. I didn't cry. Ever. Even for really good moments, like an old movie, when a cry actually makes you feel better. I came up with a term for what I felt like during those years: a mombie.
Too much paperwork, home from schools, that needed filling out? Yeah, fine. Department of public works scandal in the town? Whatever. Kids come home with straight A's? Great. Bully on the bus? Bring it. I have my purple and pink pills, and I am ready to face the world with complete emotionless momchalance.
I didn’t like myself when I was on the medication, though clearly it served a very real and necessary function. For women struggling with postpartum depression, and of course, for anyone struggling with mental health issues, antidepressants are literally a lifesaver. But when I stopped taking the pills after the time I truly needed them, something important happened.
I started writing again. The price of the chill pills, for me, had been creativity. I couldn't write anything longer than a Christmas card during the years I spent taking them. I needed my career back. I missed writing. For me, the medication had been something I needed to help me survive the mental health crisis of motherhood. And apparently, I wasn’t alone. According to the Centers for Disease Control, around 15% of new mothers experience postpartum depression symptoms. PostpartumProgress.org reports that 1 in 7 new moms experiences a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder.
There are such high expectations surrounding that moment when you hold your new baby for the first time. After months and years of hopes and dreams and nursery-decorating Pinterest boards and baby showers, you’re supposed to feel bliss, love and joy. But sometimes you just don’t. Sometimes there are moments when instead of bliss, love and joy, you feel helplessness, rage and terror. And that’s okay. What isn’t okay is that fewer than 15% of the women who suffer with these feelings seek help. This puts not only women at risk, but their children as well. It needs to be okay in our society for moms to not to be okay. In an airplane, the flight attendant tells women, every single time, to administer the oxygen to themselves first before giving it to the child beside them. As hard as we may try, we simply can’t be good moms if we aren’t taking care of ourselves first.
Looking back now (my kids are 22, 18, 12 and 10), I realize my hormones probably stabilized after I finished nursing my son. My three-year term in office ended, and I did not seek re-election. My husband started traveling less. Our marriage would face additional challenges, but I would never again have to deal with the raw depression, agony and emptiness of postpartum depression that had made me feel so alone and scared the night of the crashing Christmas tree. Yet I continue to think about the mother in Texas, sitting in that cell year after year, thinking about her five dead children, and I wonder if there was another way for her and her family, a way it might have been different. I think about all the other moms out there, wading through a depth of anguish they might not have known was possible, and I wonder how close they are to drowning.
Women who are struggling can find out more about Postpartum Mood and Anxiety Disorders at PostpartumProgress.org .
Mary McCarthy is the author of The Scarlet Letter Scandal. She is working on a memoir titled Upper White Trash. Find her on Twitter @marymac.
“Transparent” tells the truth about being a mom: Motherhood is just as performative as gender
Note: Many, many spoilers ahead for major and minor plot points of Season 2 of "Transparent." This latest season of Jill Soloway’s “Transparent” is another deep dive into gender, sex, family, friendship, spirituality, feminism and parenthood, among other things — which is incredible to think about, in and of itself. Of all the especially difficult scenes to watch, there seems to be a general consensus that Josh’s turning away from Colton ranks pretty high on the list, along with the ultrasound scene he shares with Rabbi Raquel. There’s the terror in the ‘30s Berlin scene when Gittel is arrested by Nazis, Tammy’s drunken pool party meltdown and basically every scene with Leslie and her red-headed girlfriend (who, for the record, did not look a day over 16, although they claimed she was 21). Fans and critics will all have that one scene every season that sticks to their guts, and this time around mine is—at least now—Shelly weeping and gnashing her teeth at the Yom Kippur breaking-the-fast feast. The sounds of Judith Light's moaning after Josh’s devastating announcement still rings clearly in my ears, and the anger I felt toward the character in that moment speaks to the strengths of Light's performance and the series itself. But Shelly’s selfish breakdown was more than just infuriating; it was one of the show’s strongest depictions of the art of motherhood, in all its performative and socially constructed glory. This scene from episode seven is big—the culmination of so much else that’s happened—but “Transparent” is also filled with all sorts of important, small moments where we get to see mothers actively performing a role that many still believe women are born knowing how to fill — a misconception Soloway's characters push against. Last season, we were introduced to Maura and Shelly's daughter Sarah (Amy Landecker) as she filled her kids’ bento boxes up for their school lunches. It’s a small moment that was clearly intentional, as it’s one of the first things Sarah brings up in this season when she’s trying to explain to a life coach how controlling she used to be. “I used to have the perfect house, the perfect marriage and these little kids’ aluminum bento boxes,” she says. For Sarah, part of her performance as a mother meant all of these things. And she believes that because she’s rid herself of some of that behavior—of this one type of performance—she’s better for it. But performing motherhood is more complicated than that. The reality is that she just put her children through quite a trauma after her affair with and then botched wedding to Tammy. Immediately after setting up a custody arrangement with her ex-husband Lem, Sarah shows up unannounced during his time with the kids because she’s not sure what to do with herself. She feels isolated by the moms at their school, and she’s convinced that everyone, including that life coach, is judging her. These feelings do not necessarily reflect reality, but instead speak more to an inner and self-centered fear that her performance as a mother—not her parenting skills themselves—are under constant critique and attack. She’s been dressing up for the last few years as a good mom, though deep down she was dealing with certain misery (or just plain old-fashioned boredom—we’re not entirely sure), in the same way that Maura was dressing up as a man her whole life. Now that Sarah can’t put on that outfit anymore, she’s not sure what to wear. And although it seems like Sarah's struggle throughout this season, particularly the trouble she has finding a sexual partner who can fulfill her fantasies (hilariously inspired by her old high school disciplinarian), is separate from her life as a mother, the connection between these various worlds is made during episode nine (the incredible “Man on the Land”), when she goes to the Idylwild Wimmin's Music Festival. She’s captivated by women performing various BDSM acts, but can't bring herself to participate until she runs into another mother at the event. The woman tells her, in so many words, that the performance she’s been putting on—the sad, post-Tammy, post-post-Lem Sarah who can’t find her place in the world—needs to stop. “Nobody cares,” she declares, speaking for all of the other moms Sarah has convinced herself are out to get her. Upon hearing these words and being chastised in a way for her own arrogance, she promptly finds the BDSM crew and gets spanked. The release the other mother gave her from the performative aspects of motherhood that she’d taken on—her own cross to bear, in a way—simultaneously freed Sarah to pursue the sexual release she was seeking as well. And finding that balance changes the way she interacts with Lem in a later scene. We don’t see her with the children, but the message is there all the same—she’s worked out things in herself enough so that she’ll likely function as a better parent going forward. Sarah’s journey deals with the very difficult process of letting go. Another mother has to do the same this season, though it’s a different scenario. In an episode eight flashback to Berlin, the scene of Maura's grandmother Yetta (Michaela Watkins) melting chocolate, then baking family jewelry into the chocolate, is juxtaposed against scenes of another performance—the Adam & Eve production by the trans family her daughter seems to have chosen over her. This baking process—shot beautifully, as so many of the Berlin scenes are—shows us another side to the same woman we saw earlier being somewhat vicious to her children. In including the ring Gittel gave Rose, she is working to preserve a certain legacy which she will carry to America. Like Virginia Woolf before her, Jill Soloway has taken the common image of a woman in the kitchen, an act with mostly feminine associations, and made it so much more than a performance of gender. History and understanding are tied up in this small moment—but it also makes you wonder if the anger she’d directed at her children before was the “real” Yetta. In previous scenes she performs a certain style of angry mom, exploding when she hears Gittel say that she’s not coming to America. Yetta storms into the office of the man she believes has ruined her child—the man she tells herself is responsible for Gittel transitioning—and after accusing him of starting a “sex circus” or a “sex religion” (she’s not sure which), she hands over Gittel’s visa. She lets go literally and figuratively, and in this moment Yetta seems to be performing the least. No longer interested in playing the disapproving mother, or resisting the inevitable, she leaves her child in the care of someone Gittel trusts. Of course, in typical “Transparent,” fashion, it’s not all wrapped up so neatly. Before she leaves Gittel, presumably forever, she says, “If you’re gonna be a girl, cover your tits.” It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest Yetta will probably come to acceptance, and there’s something beautiful about the moment. For the Pfefferman matriarch Shelly, acceptance of her children is not the issue. In Shelly’s performance of motherhood, she is something like a God—a being who can construct the past as she sees fit and affect the future, for better or worse. We saw hints of this in season one, but even more so in season two’s “Bulnerable,” when she chastises Josh for the questions he had about his child and his parents’ decision to keep the baby a secret. “You think I was so terrible? I didn’t beat you,” she declares. It’s important to Shelly that her kids understand how much she sacrificed for them, and how every decision she made was for their own good—but this is all a part of her own “good mom” performance. Sarah had her bento boxes, Yetta had her disapproving stares and quips, and Shelly’s got the long-suffering mom thing down to a T. Later, she delivers another perfect one-liner when Sarah (interrupted while in the midst of a sexual tryst) asks why she bothers volunteering to babysit, when in actuality, she hates watching the kids: “Because all my friends do it for their grandkids.” Like the other mothers on the show, Shelly knows there are things a good mom (or grandmom) is supposed to do. And in episode seven, “The Book of Life,” we see that for Shelly, performing grief is on that list as well. Josh tells the family and their guests at the break-the-fast feast that Raquel suffered a miscarriage, and somehow the entire scene becomes about Shelly, who takes full responsibility for the tragedy. It’s all her fault. She’d bragged about Raquel’s pregnancy at Sarah’s wedding and forget to say kina hora. “I brought out the evil eye and I killed the baby!” she moans. Like many of the great scenes this season, there’s a lot that’s wrapped up in this moment, but it’s especially infuriating because we know Shelly’s grief is partly—and perhaps mostly— performative. All it takes is a few words from her new boyfriend to calm her down and absolve her, and she’s back to her normal self. Her moans and cries aren’t rooted in grief, but in the peculiar aspect of motherhood which requires moms to take the responsibility and the blame for all things related to their children—every win and every loss. The Pfefferman children are used to this with Shelly, but in the case of Raquel’s miscarriage, it just feels so wrong—because it is. But right and wrong are, of course, complicated notions, especially under Soloway’s lens. After Shelly calms down, she confesses, “I’m always afraid I’m gonna die, I’m always afraid I’m gonna make someone else die.” Just like any good performance, there’s something real underneath all that noise she’s making: It's fear. And in this she’s certainly not alone. Fear informs the actions of many of the “Transparent” characters, and it plays a huge role in the decisions made by those mothers we see performing their roles. In a tender moment from episode eight, yoga instructor Shea tells Maura, “You’re such a good ‘mom’.” You can actually hear the quotes around the word “mom.” She is, on the one hand, acknowledging that Maura is only just now a “mom” (though she’s been called “Moppa” since season one), and also that Maura is not her mom. But her phrasing also points to the fact that women who were born women are also “moms” in quotes, insomuch as “mom” is performative. To invoke Simone de Beauvoir, one is not born a mother, anymore than one is born a woman. “Transparent” is a show that asks us to re-consider all of these categories and the emotional highs and lows that come with them. What’s so brilliant about the series is that it does all of this and still feels more like a comedy than a drama, much of the time. Hilarious moments abound in all of the aforementioned scenes, like Gittel mouthing the words “Mom’s here” to her sister, when Yetta shows up at the end of the production; Shelly staring at Buzz and saying, “You drive at night?!” after her meltdown; Sarah paying for her BDSM sessions with the convenience of a Square credit card reader. Soloway is not ham-fistedly working the comedy into these big social issues, but rather, highlighting the inherent humor in them all. Make no mistake—Soloway is out to topple the patriarchy. But she’s doing it as a storyteller, which means the performative is no less significant than what we call “real”—it informs the real, and vice versa. Or, as poet Eileen Myles noted, in a conversation about her partner’s amazing series, “Part of it is just the fiction of being alive. Every step, you’re making up who you are.” That motherhood is as performative as gender doesn’t make either concept less interesting, or less real. What it does, is make it all great fodder for TV, especially if this very masculine golden age is going to be toppled by the feminist gaze.Note: Many, many spoilers ahead for major and minor plot points of Season 2 of "Transparent." This latest season of Jill Soloway’s “Transparent” is another deep dive into gender, sex, family, friendship, spirituality, feminism and parenthood, among other things — which is incredible to think about, in and of itself. Of all the especially difficult scenes to watch, there seems to be a general consensus that Josh’s turning away from Colton ranks pretty high on the list, along with the ultrasound scene he shares with Rabbi Raquel. There’s the terror in the ‘30s Berlin scene when Gittel is arrested by Nazis, Tammy’s drunken pool party meltdown and basically every scene with Leslie and her red-headed girlfriend (who, for the record, did not look a day over 16, although they claimed she was 21). Fans and critics will all have that one scene every season that sticks to their guts, and this time around mine is—at least now—Shelly weeping and gnashing her teeth at the Yom Kippur breaking-the-fast feast. The sounds of Judith Light's moaning after Josh’s devastating announcement still rings clearly in my ears, and the anger I felt toward the character in that moment speaks to the strengths of Light's performance and the series itself. But Shelly’s selfish breakdown was more than just infuriating; it was one of the show’s strongest depictions of the art of motherhood, in all its performative and socially constructed glory. This scene from episode seven is big—the culmination of so much else that’s happened—but “Transparent” is also filled with all sorts of important, small moments where we get to see mothers actively performing a role that many still believe women are born knowing how to fill — a misconception Soloway's characters push against. Last season, we were introduced to Maura and Shelly's daughter Sarah (Amy Landecker) as she filled her kids’ bento boxes up for their school lunches. It’s a small moment that was clearly intentional, as it’s one of the first things Sarah brings up in this season when she’s trying to explain to a life coach how controlling she used to be. “I used to have the perfect house, the perfect marriage and these little kids’ aluminum bento boxes,” she says. For Sarah, part of her performance as a mother meant all of these things. And she believes that because she’s rid herself of some of that behavior—of this one type of performance—she’s better for it. But performing motherhood is more complicated than that. The reality is that she just put her children through quite a trauma after her affair with and then botched wedding to Tammy. Immediately after setting up a custody arrangement with her ex-husband Lem, Sarah shows up unannounced during his time with the kids because she’s not sure what to do with herself. She feels isolated by the moms at their school, and she’s convinced that everyone, including that life coach, is judging her. These feelings do not necessarily reflect reality, but instead speak more to an inner and self-centered fear that her performance as a mother—not her parenting skills themselves—are under constant critique and attack. She’s been dressing up for the last few years as a good mom, though deep down she was dealing with certain misery (or just plain old-fashioned boredom—we’re not entirely sure), in the same way that Maura was dressing up as a man her whole life. Now that Sarah can’t put on that outfit anymore, she’s not sure what to wear. And although it seems like Sarah's struggle throughout this season, particularly the trouble she has finding a sexual partner who can fulfill her fantasies (hilariously inspired by her old high school disciplinarian), is separate from her life as a mother, the connection between these various worlds is made during episode nine (the incredible “Man on the Land”), when she goes to the Idylwild Wimmin's Music Festival. She’s captivated by women performing various BDSM acts, but can't bring herself to participate until she runs into another mother at the event. The woman tells her, in so many words, that the performance she’s been putting on—the sad, post-Tammy, post-post-Lem Sarah who can’t find her place in the world—needs to stop. “Nobody cares,” she declares, speaking for all of the other moms Sarah has convinced herself are out to get her. Upon hearing these words and being chastised in a way for her own arrogance, she promptly finds the BDSM crew and gets spanked. The release the other mother gave her from the performative aspects of motherhood that she’d taken on—her own cross to bear, in a way—simultaneously freed Sarah to pursue the sexual release she was seeking as well. And finding that balance changes the way she interacts with Lem in a later scene. We don’t see her with the children, but the message is there all the same—she’s worked out things in herself enough so that she’ll likely function as a better parent going forward. Sarah’s journey deals with the very difficult process of letting go. Another mother has to do the same this season, though it’s a different scenario. In an episode eight flashback to Berlin, the scene of Maura's grandmother Yetta (Michaela Watkins) melting chocolate, then baking family jewelry into the chocolate, is juxtaposed against scenes of another performance—the Adam & Eve production by the trans family her daughter seems to have chosen over her. This baking process—shot beautifully, as so many of the Berlin scenes are—shows us another side to the same woman we saw earlier being somewhat vicious to her children. In including the ring Gittel gave Rose, she is working to preserve a certain legacy which she will carry to America. Like Virginia Woolf before her, Jill Soloway has taken the common image of a woman in the kitchen, an act with mostly feminine associations, and made it so much more than a performance of gender. History and understanding are tied up in this small moment—but it also makes you wonder if the anger she’d directed at her children before was the “real” Yetta. In previous scenes she performs a certain style of angry mom, exploding when she hears Gittel say that she’s not coming to America. Yetta storms into the office of the man she believes has ruined her child—the man she tells herself is responsible for Gittel transitioning—and after accusing him of starting a “sex circus” or a “sex religion” (she’s not sure which), she hands over Gittel’s visa. She lets go literally and figuratively, and in this moment Yetta seems to be performing the least. No longer interested in playing the disapproving mother, or resisting the inevitable, she leaves her child in the care of someone Gittel trusts. Of course, in typical “Transparent,” fashion, it’s not all wrapped up so neatly. Before she leaves Gittel, presumably forever, she says, “If you’re gonna be a girl, cover your tits.” It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest Yetta will probably come to acceptance, and there’s something beautiful about the moment. For the Pfefferman matriarch Shelly, acceptance of her children is not the issue. In Shelly’s performance of motherhood, she is something like a God—a being who can construct the past as she sees fit and affect the future, for better or worse. We saw hints of this in season one, but even more so in season two’s “Bulnerable,” when she chastises Josh for the questions he had about his child and his parents’ decision to keep the baby a secret. “You think I was so terrible? I didn’t beat you,” she declares. It’s important to Shelly that her kids understand how much she sacrificed for them, and how every decision she made was for their own good—but this is all a part of her own “good mom” performance. Sarah had her bento boxes, Yetta had her disapproving stares and quips, and Shelly’s got the long-suffering mom thing down to a T. Later, she delivers another perfect one-liner when Sarah (interrupted while in the midst of a sexual tryst) asks why she bothers volunteering to babysit, when in actuality, she hates watching the kids: “Because all my friends do it for their grandkids.” Like the other mothers on the show, Shelly knows there are things a good mom (or grandmom) is supposed to do. And in episode seven, “The Book of Life,” we see that for Shelly, performing grief is on that list as well. Josh tells the family and their guests at the break-the-fast feast that Raquel suffered a miscarriage, and somehow the entire scene becomes about Shelly, who takes full responsibility for the tragedy. It’s all her fault. She’d bragged about Raquel’s pregnancy at Sarah’s wedding and forget to say kina hora. “I brought out the evil eye and I killed the baby!” she moans. Like many of the great scenes this season, there’s a lot that’s wrapped up in this moment, but it’s especially infuriating because we know Shelly’s grief is partly—and perhaps mostly— performative. All it takes is a few words from her new boyfriend to calm her down and absolve her, and she’s back to her normal self. Her moans and cries aren’t rooted in grief, but in the peculiar aspect of motherhood which requires moms to take the responsibility and the blame for all things related to their children—every win and every loss. The Pfefferman children are used to this with Shelly, but in the case of Raquel’s miscarriage, it just feels so wrong—because it is. But right and wrong are, of course, complicated notions, especially under Soloway’s lens. After Shelly calms down, she confesses, “I’m always afraid I’m gonna die, I’m always afraid I’m gonna make someone else die.” Just like any good performance, there’s something real underneath all that noise she’s making: It's fear. And in this she’s certainly not alone. Fear informs the actions of many of the “Transparent” characters, and it plays a huge role in the decisions made by those mothers we see performing their roles. In a tender moment from episode eight, yoga instructor Shea tells Maura, “You’re such a good ‘mom’.” You can actually hear the quotes around the word “mom.” She is, on the one hand, acknowledging that Maura is only just now a “mom” (though she’s been called “Moppa” since season one), and also that Maura is not her mom. But her phrasing also points to the fact that women who were born women are also “moms” in quotes, insomuch as “mom” is performative. To invoke Simone de Beauvoir, one is not born a mother, anymore than one is born a woman. “Transparent” is a show that asks us to re-consider all of these categories and the emotional highs and lows that come with them. What’s so brilliant about the series is that it does all of this and still feels more like a comedy than a drama, much of the time. Hilarious moments abound in all of the aforementioned scenes, like Gittel mouthing the words “Mom’s here” to her sister, when Yetta shows up at the end of the production; Shelly staring at Buzz and saying, “You drive at night?!” after her meltdown; Sarah paying for her BDSM sessions with the convenience of a Square credit card reader. Soloway is not ham-fistedly working the comedy into these big social issues, but rather, highlighting the inherent humor in them all. Make no mistake—Soloway is out to topple the patriarchy. But she’s doing it as a storyteller, which means the performative is no less significant than what we call “real”—it informs the real, and vice versa. Or, as poet Eileen Myles noted, in a conversation about her partner’s amazing series, “Part of it is just the fiction of being alive. Every step, you’re making up who you are.” That motherhood is as performative as gender doesn’t make either concept less interesting, or less real. What it does, is make it all great fodder for TV, especially if this very masculine golden age is going to be toppled by the feminist gaze.
