No, I don't just dog on Christians...

I saw a story this morning as I sit and drink my coffee that piqued my interest.

If you drink, some cabbies won't drive
By Keith Oppenheim

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- It's always interesting to me, that in my own country, I often get assignments where I walk into a room, and everyone looks and sounds different from me. Different language. Different culture. And sometimes, different beliefs....

...I stepped into the taxi depot that serves the Minneapolis - St. Paul International Airport, where drivers sit and wait for their next fare. In this crowded, noisy room, most of the cabbies are Muslims originally from Somalia.

"We're doing a story about the conflict between the cabbies and the airport. The Muslim drivers have been refusing to take passengers carrying alcohol, such as wine or liquor purchased at a duty free shop," I explained.

Basically the argument is this: According to the cabbies' particular interpretation of Islam, it is considered a sin against Allah to participate in any way in the production, sale, transportation, or consumption of alcohol. OK, that's fair. There's plenty of sins in other religions that are far stranger than that (not wearing linen and cotton together comes to mind).

Let me start by saying a former colleague of mine is married to a man from Syria who, at least when I knew her, would not set foot in a restaurant that served liquor for fear of being seen by other Muslims as imbibing. I can completely understand this. Coming from a country where Islamic laws are strictly enforced, one is given little choice but to comply. That kind of habitual compliance must be difficult to shake. In this guy's case, there was also similar social control in the US as there was political control in Syria - he did not want his family and friends to think he was drinking or supporting establishments that serve liquor. This was his right to choose to do this and his decision did not impact anyone else's free choices.

The case of the cabbies is different. I see this as no different, ideologically, than pharmacists arguing that their religious beliefs prevent them from filling certain prescriptions for patients. Um, no dice. Religious freedom goes both ways. It's your right to believe that birth control or alcohol is sinful. It's my right to be able to purchase, transport, and consume such items. Just like I would assume a vegan would probably not want a job at Burger King, or a pro-lifer would not work at Planned Parenthood, I would expect that similar reflection occur on the part of anyone with strong moral convictions about a particular topic and not seek employment where this may be a conflict. It is unlawful discriminate based on religious or moral beliefs (or race or gender) if such service is part of your job description. Consider if a group of cabbies wanted to deny service to patients coming to/from an HIV/AIDS clinic because they believed that those with AIDS were moral degenerates? Same thing.

"This is America, we have freedom of religion," says one cabbie. We could see their feelings are intense -- that the issue seems to cut to the core of their identity. ...

I couldn't agree more. But it extends both ways. This is the dilemma of a pluralistic society. We all need to make some compromises to live together.

How I became the ugliest (and hairiest) lesbian in Chicago

Today, in the mail, I got yet another reminder of my secret. The Human Rights Campaign sent us a renewal form for 2007. By us I mean Laura and Anne.

I remember the day Anne was conceived, about 4 years ago. It was during a cold call from the HRC. The conversation went something like this:

John: Hello?
HRC: Hello, my name is Sue, and besides being a professional golfer, I also raise money for the HRC in my spare time.
John: Well, it's a wonderful cause and we've been looking for ways to help out the community.
HRC: Great! Would you like to become a member?
John: Sure, Laura and I would love to help! Where do we begin?
HRC: I need to get both of your names and address.
John: That's Laura LastName an' John DifferentLastName
HRC: Great! Pleased to make your aquaintance, Anne!

In case you missed the obvious, she thought I had said "Laura LastName, Anne DifferentLastName"

The rest of the phone call went on, and I must have been distracted because I didn't catch it. But that's how and when Anne was conceived.

Laura and I birthed her when I got the mail about 2 weeks later. Sure, it was a short gestation, but I was jazzed at first about Laura's coming out and my lesbian birth. It's been fun getting the mail directed at Anne, because it's usually about joining the lesbian book clubs (who knew how racey the titles can be!) and other alt.lifestyle items. And it's usually a good time when someone calls and asks for Anne. I used to always say, "That's me!" and then have an awkward (for them) call about some LGBT agenda. But like almost all good fun things, it got old. I tried to kill off Anne over the phone with the HRC (that's a post for another day), told the story of how I became Anne to the person in an always futile attempt to get the "Dikes on Bikes", "LPGA Monthly" and "Womyn's Day" marketing calls to stop. I've even macked on my share of lesbian fund collecting callers to stop their advances.

I respect the HRC, but they've obviously sold Anne's name, and it's been amusing, but it's also a major pain in my box.



I am a card carrying lesbian.

How do we clean up this mess?

I suppose it never occurred to Bush, et. al. that having someone in the White House familiar with Islam and Muslim culture would be a good thing at this juncture. No, I'm not talking anti-terrorism experts. Contrary to popular perception in this country, there's more to Islam than that. I'm talking people educated in the many cultures, processes, histories, and customs of Islam. I found this article online. Irshad Manji makes some great points here - points and ideas that probably would not occur to someone unfamiliar with Islam. Namely to actually (gasp) engage the religious leadership and frame issues within an Islamic, rather than American, context.


Irshad Manji: Bush could do with new ideas
Here's one: hold referendums in US and Iraq on the next step
23jan07

TOMORROW, President George W. Bush will deliver his State of the Union address. The speech is widely viewed as his last chance to get it right.

By "it", Americans don't simply mean the war. They mean the world. Bush has no shortage of challenges, from winning Iraq to calming Iran to making Europe relevant as an ally of free countries. My advice to the President: propose new ideas rather than new tactics.

Let us begin with Iraq. What can be done to clean up the mess? Iraqis themselves disagree. Some demand a total pullout of Western soldiers while others say the coalition troops should be increased to enforce stability. Some insist on more control for Iraq's security forces while others say this must wait until they've got better training and equipment. Without consensus born of a national dialogue, any faraway presidential decision will be exactly that: distant and therefore devoid of legitimacy.

So the next step has to be broader than ordering a troop surge or resuscitating the road map for Palestinian-Israeli peace. If this war is all about democracy, why not hold a simultaneous referendum in the US and Iraq about what to do? Politicians from each country would visit the other country to make their case to the people.

Imagine an established democracy and an emerging democracy working together to resolve a conflict of global proportions. From this cross-cultural referendum, the citizens of each country would learn something about the other. Empathy can only be an asset in making decisions and investing them with credibility.

But what about the immediate menace of Iran? Washington refuses to restore diplomatic ties. Although that won't change any time soon, what can change is the role of America's friends in Europe. The European Union could serve as an honest broker between the US and Iran to defuse the nuclear arms race. The key is to engage Iraq's top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Here is the idea: Europeans should quietly lobby Sistani to issue a fatwa (legal opinion) against Iran's efforts to go nuclear. Sistani can emphasise that Iran's aggressive drive for nuclear capacity violates the Shia tradition of suffering for the sake of redemption. From the Shia perspective, it is always Sunni Islam that has sought to build empires and horde power. Shi'ites, by contrast, place moral victories over political ones.

That is what the prophet Mohammed's family did hundreds of years ago when fighting a Sunni tyrant. The fight failed, and ever since then Shi'ites have told this story to find meaning in their hardship. Nobody wants hardship, but do Shi'ites want to become Sunnis by resorting to belligerence? A fatwa from Sistani can make this point.

Ordinary Iranians increasingly listen to Sistani because he is a respected scholar of Islamic law and, equally important, he is not corrupted by the power that plagues the clerical class of Iran.

The question is, would the grand ayatollah play? Given that he answers questions from Fox News on his official website, sistani.org, he probably would talk with the EU.

Moreover, his eminence has a fatwa for every problem, including painfully personal ones. For example, Sistani's website advises young men not to befriend girls, but if you are already friends with a girl, you may temporarily marry her to consummate your lust. Do not, however, shake hands with her. Got it. I think.

Then again, I am no diplomat. The EU, on the other hand, is full of them. Its ambassadors are more than capable of deconstructing and interpreting fatwas on tricky geopolitical issues.

When Bush steps up to the podium tomorrow, he will need to marshal every resource at hand. Let this week mark the start of an effort that is collective, courageous and creative. Above all, let nobody claim that the free world ran out of ideas.

Irshad Manji, senior fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy, is author of The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in her Faith (Random House Australia).


See Irshad's appearance on Glen Beck last week on CNN. I can't say I'm a fan of Glen Beck, but on this subject, I have to agree with him...

Let the smearing begin

I knew Barack Obama would run into the Right Wing smear machine eventually, I just didn't think it would be this soon.

Not only are they emphasizing the fact that his middle name is Hussein (GASP, surely not!), now they are questioning his upbringing.

Apparently there is an email going round (I wonder how long before one of my extended family forwards it on to me):

"Let Us Remain Alert!":

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black Muslim from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white atheist from Wichita, Kansas.

Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a radical Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia.

Obama attended a Muslim school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, he was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.

Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education. Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Osama [sic--yes, they slipped that in there too] was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.

Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

Let's pick this one apart, shall we?

First underhanded attack- the repeated use of the name Hussein. Hussein is a very common Muslim name. It's almost as common as John or Bob. This is obviously meant to confuse the extremely lazy and/or stupid into thinking of Saddam.

His father was a "black Muslim" and his mother was an "Atheist" GASP! This is obviously meant to strike fear in the hearts of racist conservative Christians.

His parents got divorced!! Another gratuitous jab for the "family values" crowd. He comes from a broken home, he must really be fucked up.

His mother remarried a "radical Muslim". This is obviously meant for the extremely ignorant people who think that all Islamizoids are the same. Define radical? According to Obama, his stepfather was not religious. I know it's hard for ignorant people to grasp the fact that there are secular Muslims (just like there are secular Jews and Christians). Just because Muslim is part of his identity does not automatically make him radical.

The rest is based on half truths and little white lies. Like the confusing of a Madressa (the general term for "school") with the types of institutions that spawned the likes of Osama bin Laden... and yes, there's a "typo" in the email too where Obama is spelled Osama. You know... it was an accident, honest.

There's another one I found on Snopes too:

This is the "dude" that some people want to be the next President of the United States.

Scary isn't it???????

Speaking bluntly, in a real presidential election, no one in their right mind would vote for Obama. That would be like voting for the guy who just moved in down the street from you, that you wave to from time to time but don't know a thing about. That's Obama. He's been a US Senator for about 100 days, give or take a week. Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim while admitting that he was once a Muslim, mitigating that damning information by saying that, for two years, he also attended a Catholic school.

Obama's father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was a radical Muslim who migrated from Kenya to Jakarta, Indonesia. He met Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, a white atheist from Wichita, Kansas at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Obama, Sr. and Dunham divorced when Barack, Jr. was two. Obama's spinmeisters are now attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came from his father and that influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya immediately following the divorce and never again had any direct influence over his son's education. Dunham married another Muslim, Lolo Soetoro who educated his stepson as a good Muslim by enrolling him in one of Jakarta's Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad on the industrialized world. Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when you are seeking political office in the United States, Obama joined the United Church of Christ to help purge any notion that he is still a Muslim, which, ideologically, he remains today.

Ok.... First off, the Fairly Biased Fox News outlet has basically let the viewer draw the following conclusion based on their poor research and fuzzy logic: That the madressa Obama attended in Indonesia 30+ years ago is ideologically the same as a Wahabbi madressa in the present day therefore he is a potential terrorist threat.

You know who else attended a conservative madressa in her early youth until the age of 13? Irshad Manji. She now travels the world speaking out for religious tolerance and reformation within Islam. (She'll be in Chicago at UIC on Feb 13th for all you who are interested and within driving distance. It's sure to be a lively discussion).

Madressa is a general term for a Muslim school. Some are conservative, some are not. Some, like the ones in Pakistan in the 1980s spawned such horrible human beings as the Taliban. Others produced intelligent, reflective, and tolerate imams and Muslim intellectuals. This is like comparing a liberal Catholic school with a Christian school that teaches children to be warriors for Christ. Well, they're both Christian schools, so they MUST be identical.

The other serious flaw here is this: Let's say, for argument's sake, that the school was a radical Muslim school that taught Wahabbi Islam: Can we seriously hold an adult accountable for religious decisions that were made for them by their parents when they were 6 years old? Can anyone but the most ignorant and closed-minded person seriously believe that a person is emotionally, mentally, and spiritually the same at 40 as they are at 6? This also implies that a person cannot decide later in life that the religion thrust upon them as a child is not right for them. By that standard I would still be considered a Lutheran - which doesn't even come close to describing my present spirituality. And what about those "Youthful indiscretions" (perpetrated at the "youthful" age of 30) the Right so easily forgave George W. Bush for in the 2000 election campaigns? If Georgie isn't judged for his behavior and beliefs at 30, then by that logic Obama should not be judged by his beliefs from age 6.

So, let the mud-slinging begin. If any of you receive one of these emails or hear someone commenting about Obama being some kind of covert Muslim spy - please refer them to Snopes and set them straight.

For all you old band geeks...

...Or music buffs. My friend Heather sent this to me via email. It was too funny not to post. I love smart comedy.

Pachelbel's Revenge

Beerfest

Thanks to Heathen and Cillic for recommending this movie.

The only thing more ridiculous than the first 20 minutes of this movie is the the last 90. Seriously. It's one of the funniest stupid-funny movies I've ever seen. There were parts of Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle that I laughed at, but for the most part, I didn't like it. I was laughing almost the entire time during Beerfest.

Two German brothers, Jan and Erik Wolfhouse work at their family restaurant in Colorado called the Schnizengiggle. They are charged with carrying out the wishes of their recently deceased grandfather - to spread his ashes on the family resting place in Germany during Octoberfest. While in Germany, they accidentally wreak havoc on Oktoberfest - not realizing it's taken much more seriously in Germany than in the US.

(Side note: The footage of the Oktoberfest they used looked strikingly similar in style and size to the Oktoberfest that occurs in Lincoln Square here in Chicago every year in the old German neighborhood. I'm not saying that's where they filmed it, I'm saying if that looks like fun to you - come to Chicago for the fest - it's cheaper than a ticket to Munich) .

While running from the mob of drunken Germans, they are brought to a top-secret underground festival that happens during Oktoberfest -- Beerfest.

Beerfest is a highly-regarded, super-secret international competition of drinking games. Yes, you read that right. Quarters, beer bongs, you name it. They find out they are the bastard grandchildren of the most famous brewing family and demonstrate why Americans aren't let into the competition. Even though they're former college pro-drinkers (frat boys), they're no match for the German team's best competitors, Hammacher and Schlemmer.

They get pelted with rotten cabbage and thrown out, and decide to put together their own team and "train" for an entire year so they can go back next year to win the title... and that's when it really starts to get silly.

It's good, clean (well, not really clean) fun. I highly recommend it for anyone with a completely demented sense of humor.

Gurlesque Burlesque

A couple months ago, my professor for my Identity Politics class told us about a show called Gurlesque Burlesque - it's a revival of burlesque put on my feminists as a celebration and exploration of gender and power, rather than as an exploitation of women. It was founded by the Sissy Butch Brothers a pair of F/M transgender men, one of whom is a graduate student at U of C and the other is a film maker. (What I mean by transgender is that they are biologically born female but identify as being men. Not that they've had surgery - that's transsexual.) They started this project 5 years ago to document the revival of the Burlesque art in America. Their burlesque shows are fundraisers to support their film in progress.

I thought it was a fantastic show. Whoever thought Burlesque could be done by a bunch of feminist lesbians and trannies, huh?? The show wasn't all strip-tease. There was some political sketches, like two trannies dressed like Bush and Cheney in full rubber masks, stripping each other naked and pouring Texaco oil (chocolate) all over each other in a kiddy pool to "God Bless America."

There was also a singer and performance artist who, at first just appeared to be singing in a dress that had chains attached to glass balls hanging from it. Then, as she raised her arm up and out, you saw the hooks. Yes, meat hooks in her arm and she slowly took the chains one by one and attached them to 6 hooks throughout the song, three on each arm. It kinda creeped me out but it was really, really amazing.

Some other highlights.

Of course the biggest highlight for many people in the sold out crowd was the appearance of Margaret Cho. She has been a long time supporter of GLBT issues, and graced the stage twice with some pretty damn good moves. She's got fantastic tattoos around her waist. In her second act, a strip-tease fan-dance, she pulled an "M Butterfly," removed her bikini bottom to reveal a big rubber penis in what the emcee called the "Hottest tranny fan-dance ever".

Another act, called Assimilate this! was a political dance sketch starting out with two lesbians walking down the aisle together while a male pastor reads their vows to assimilate their lifestyle in support of the capitalist structure and conform to society's narrow view of what gender should be. As the vows got more and more pointedly political, they began removing their dresses to reveal costumes made of corporate logos. You see, not everyone in the gay community supports access to marriage.

There was a woman who looked like Gwen Stefani and her costume was half a white nightgown and half a devil costume with a head against hers. Her right arm was painted red and controlled the half of the devil and she proceeded to do a very erotic, almost Faustian dance with the devil.

There was an artistic exploration of white masculinity done by 6 dancing trannies dressed like swimming sperm (one had a life jacket on). It started out with a 1950s sounding sound bite from a science film about reproduction, about how the sperm must compete to reach the egg and only one sperm can win. Then starts the music... Eminem: Lose Yourself. John and I were dying laughing. You know the chorus:

You better - lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go (go)
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime

There were some traditional burlesque strip teases, complete with boob-tassles swinging every which way. At one point, one woman's pastie fell off and after that act the emcee explained that it's Chicago law that you can't show erectile tissue and serve alcohol... "but we just fuckin did, didn't we?!" The finale was a woman named Satan's Angel, who has been doing Burlesque since 1961. The Sissy Butch Brothers went to interview her a number of years ago and convinced her to come out of retirement. I like that not all the women were what society would consider "strip tease worthy." This show isn't about exploitation and idealized beauty. It's about celebrating beauty in all it's forms, thin or fat, straight, gay, bi or transgender, male or female, young or old.

I don't think they travel with this show, but a lot of the performers were from New York and California, so if you're interested in this sort of thing, look up Burlesque in your area.

A, B, C, Me

ALPHABET MEME (from GreatWhiteBear)

Laura
A - Available/Single or Taken? Taken
B - Best Friend? Well John, of course.
C - Cake or pie? Yes please!
or, for Eddie Izzard fans... Cake or Death?... Ummm cake please.
D - Drink Of Choice? Vodka Gimlet, straight up (but only with real lime juice), otherwise CiderJack.
E – Essential Item You Use Everyday? Soap and my iPod
F - Favourite Color? Dark Purple
G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? Worms with the sour powder on them.
H - Hometown? Oak Park, IL
I - Indulgence? Hot stone massages
J - January Or February? January - it's at least usually sunny, even when 10 degrees.
K - Kids & Their Names? Nope
L - Life Is Incomplete Without? Chocolate
M - Marriage date? 9/6/03
N - Number Of Siblings? One
O - Oranges Or Apples? Oranges
P - Phobias/Fears? Things with more limbs than I have. Occasionally heights.
Q - Favourite Quote? I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!!

That or: As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

R - Reason to Smile? Happy puppies
S - Season? Spring or Fall? Fall, it's usually warmer and sunnier
T - Tag 3 or 4 people? Let's see... Dbackdad, Jason (just to keep you writing ;)) and SME.
U - Unknown Fact About Me? If I told you, it wouldn't be unknown anymore now would it?
V - Vegetable you don’t like? Cauliflower
W - Worst Habit? Nail biting
X - X-rays You’ve Had? Teeth
Y - Your Favorite Food? Good pizza. Dry rub ribs. Nothin beats a good cheeseburger.
Z – Zodiac sign? Libra

Johnny
A - Available/Single or Taken? Taken
B - Best Friend? Laura the Patient.
C - Cake or pie? Depends on the cake or pie.
D - Drink Of Choice? Dr Pepper/Mr. Pibb
E – Essential Item You Use Everyday? My itchin' finger
F - Favourite Color? Light Urple
G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? Gummy bears.
H - Hometown? I consider Chicago my hometown
I - Indulgence? Technology and cookies
J - January Or February? February - it's Annie's b-day and it's getting warmer.
K - Kids & Their Names? Asshat and Jesus Christ
L - Life Is Incomplete Without? a couch covered with creature fuzz.
M - Marriage date? 9/6/03
N - Number Of Siblings? 2.5
O - Oranges Or Apples? Apples
P - Phobias/Fears? That Laura will come to her senses and bolt.
Q - Favourite Quote? You are a crotch monster!
R - Reason to Smile? Happy puppies and Ween
S - Season? Spring or Fall? Fall, it's nicer to ride the motorcycle in.
T - Tag 3 or 4 people? LEMON FRESH MOXIE
U - Unknown Fact About Me? I hate almost all yellow foods.
V - Vegetable you don’t like? Harold - he's sending me evil thoughts.
W - Worst Habit? Technology
X - X-rays You’ve Had? every where.
Y - Your Favorite Food? Chicken
Z – Zodiac sign? Aries

Nicknames

Apparently last week, John and Donna got bored and decided we all needed new nicknames. I never really had a nickname besides "LK" (what Donna and John use in Instant Messenger as a shortcut for yours truly) and the playfully-derogatory nicknames (Dudley Do Wrong, for example) a former co-worker gave me when I was a student worker, a tradition he continued with all the students that work closely with him on projects.

Unlike those, these nicknames had to incorporate something of our personality and ethnicity - I think to represent the steady stream of ethnic slurs flung back and forth between us and Donna - you know, for fun... We're the Crackers in her soup and she's our Twinkie concubine.

I think Donna won out. She eventually settled on Lemon Fresh Moxie. I was originally dubbed Ivory Bumpinstein for some reason. Well ivory, I assume, because I'm paler than James Joyce's ghost, but I don't know where they came up with Bumpinstein to be honest. I think it may have been from the slang flashcards we got Donna for Christmas. It didn't incorporate my personality though; I don't think I'm particularly "bumpin".

It's still better than John's first suggestion: White Wife... thanks dear. Another, I was told, was Creme Brulee Commie. I have no idea where I was when this was occurring; all I know that I walked through the door and John started telling me my new nickname was Ivory Bumpinstein and I'm sure I looked more than a little bewildered. Donna and I eventually stumbled on to Creme de la Commie. It seems to roll off the tongue a little better.

John was more difficult. Creamy Goodness was a little too feminine sounding, and just a little too sexual for general usage. The Thrilla in Vanilla just didn't cut it either. Anyway... from now on, John is the Vanilla Juggernaut.

Oh the Irony

I juse read this and had to comment on it:



According to IMDB, Nicholas Cage had to have his Ghost Rider tattoo covered with make-up in order to play Johnny Blaze (Ghost Rider).

I mean, it makes sense to cover it. You cannot explain in the plot why a character that doesn't exist yet is tattooed on the person who will eventually embody him.

I'm still torn about this movie. It's Nick Cage playing his favorite super hero - hell, he even has a tattoo of Ghost Rider for chrissake. When he's in the zone, Cage can be a fantastic actor (Leaving Las Vegas, Matchstick Men, Raising Arizona, Face/Off). You've also got Peter Fonda (John said he thinks Peter Fonda may have originally been slated to play Ghost Rider in his youth but the project never materialized. I don't know if that's true, but it's an interesting thought). But judging some of the crap that has become comic-book characters coming to life (Fantastic Four, Punisher, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), I have my doubts too.

We'll end up seeing it, because, well... we will. I just hope it's at least as good as it seems from the trailers. Then again, the trailer could be showing us all the good stuff already.

Anyway, I thought it was funny.

A real zero

John recently found this little online test called the Sex ID from the BBC Science & Nature website. I don't know why, but I love taking these little quizzes. I know they're not really scientific most of the time. However, this one is part of a larger scientific study of sex and gender done a little over a year ago. They left the quiz up for people to play with, and also show the results of the study. It takes some time to complete, but it's pretty interesting. It tests how well you perform at certain tasks that are typically seen as male or female, and tries to figure out whether your brain is more typically one or the other. Now, one section in particular I noticed you could fuck with very easily because it's obvious what the questions are measuring.

Now, of course, you must remember that these results are based on the Western concept of masculine and feminine identity. For those of you who believe those are innate and natural, have fun with your results. For me, someone who believes those traits are learned and socially constructed, the results don't mean much beyond how well a particular person has learned to 'perform' their gender. We could argue all day (I could anyway) about whether, for example, women are more innately empathetic than men because of some biological trait or if women tend to be more empathetic because that behavior is socially rewarded in young girls and punished in boys. Or whether men are innately more violent than women, or rather, that this type of behavior is deemed "acceptable" for men. Anyone who thinks aggressiveness is innate in men should go meet a man who was raised by women. Every single one I know is more passive than your "average" guy.

Anyway. I usually score strangely on these tests, because as many of you know, I'm not what you'd call a 'girly girl'. I was amazed at my score on this test though. Usually I'll be slightly lower than average on feminine traits and slightly higher than average on male, than your typical woman. On this test, I scored a perfect zero. Perfectly in between the two extremes. That's never happened before. John, on the other hand, got a more female than male score. Ironic as that is for those of you who've met him - he's not exactly what I'd call the archetype of a "girly man."


Try it out, it's a fun little test (you will need a metric ruler with mm on it, just fyi).

This made my day

One of my favorite movies of all time is Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket:

Killer Shrimp

So, remember the ecosphere J got us for Christmas? It had three little brine shrimp in it, one bigger than the other two. I originally named them Moe, Larry, and Curly and had started to grow rather attached to the little bastards.

Well, one of them disappeared this past weekend. He was just... gone. It was a mystery. Needless to say, we assumed he died and I was surprisingly sad. They do say that that could happen since they don't know the age of the shrimp when they're put in there and also environmental factors. The other day, I noticed the second one laying on the gravel at the bottom, not moving.

Poor little guys.

Now that the big one is doing just fine, I'm convinced he killed the others.

Only the largest one is left now. I am going to rename him Damien the Killer Shrimp or the Highlander (there can be only one...) You know it was nominated for an academy award for best movie made ever, right?.

PS3 v.s Wii

A parody of the Windows/Mac commercials. Gotta love it!

Movie Review: The Pursuit of Happyness

The days have all blurred together since the day after Christmas. One of those days (friday maybe?) we went to see the Pursuit of Happyness. It was either this or the Good Shepard, which I also want to see, but we didn't feel like hiking all the way down by Navy Pier that day, so we say Pursuit at the theatre two blocks away. I like this theatre because they have great popcorn, it's small, and it's one of the only independently owned theatres left in Chicago.

I'm not much for sappy movies, so I actually wasn't expecting much from this one. I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did. The acting was fantastic and the characters were engaging - two things usually lacking from the feel-good family movie of the year. It's based on the true story of Chris Gardener, a brilliant man who is down on his luck. To demonstrate how smart he is (this is the 80s remember) there are several scenes involving him solving the brand-new brain teasing toy called the Rubik's Cube.

(Side note: John can solve them. I can't. I get frustrated and pry them apart with a screwdriver and put them back together. Let's just say I'm more "creative" in my solving of the Rubik's Cube...)

His wife works double shifts at a laundry and he tries to sell medical equipment to doctors. Barely scraping by, bills and rent overdue, he admires a Ferrari and asks the owner "What do you do and how do you do it?". The man is a stock broker and tells Chris really all you need is to be good with numbers and good with people. That is the pivot point. He applies for an internship at Dean Witter - which he later learns has no salary (as most internships do) and only one of the twenty interns will actually get a real job at Dean Witter. Chris is a total underdog from the get-go: No college education, no experience, no easy way to balance his family, bills, and an internship that may or may not yield an actual job.

The rest of the movie is him working non stop to support his son, pay rent, sell his remaining medical gear to pay bills, and studying for his internship. There's some really gripping scenes, like when they are thrown out of their apartment and have to stand in line at shelters to get a room, or, totally desperate, sleeping in the bathroom of the subway station because they have nowhere else to go, not being able to explain to his son why they can't go home.

I tell you, it's frightening, especially in this economy, to think how fast something can be ripped out from under you - how fast anyone might find themselves in that kind of situation.

I think it's well worth seeing. I do worry, however, than conservatives will use this movie to bolster their claims that people who need social services are just lazy. It does have a little of that Horatio Alger feel to it, however they do emphasize that Gardner was very, very smart. It's easy to gloss over that fact - I can just hear Rush Limbaugh saying that if all the country's homeless had the initiative (forget the brains) of Chris Gardener that they wouldn't be homeless. I'm not saying that's the intended message of the movie - it's not at all. I'm just saying I can see it being taken out of context.