No surprises

G20 protest videos: Growing catalogue of evidence against police


See previous post.

What A Woman 2!

This Woman, Maureen Lipman, an actress with more than 40 years experience behind her has written to Daily Telegraph theatre critic, Charles Spencer, who described her as "a wildly unlikely grande horizontale who is supposed to have slept her way round most of the royal families of Europe" in his review of A Little Night Music at the Garrick because of her angular looks. Slagged of for not being fit enough by a man too gnome like to be a theatre critic (in my opinion)? Good grief.

Lipman wrote to Spencer is response to his review enclosing pictures of homely women in history who have won the hearts of kings and aristocrats including Wallis Simpson and The Countess of Wessex. I think the photographs uncessary (sure I get the point, but doesn't sending pictures of women often called ugly lend creedence to the idea that what you look like matters?), the letter too. I would have just picked up the phone and bellowed 'FUCK OFF'. I imagine my feelings would have been perfectly clear.

What A Woman!

All evening I've been reading stories about this woman. Kari Ferrell, a 21 year old from Salt Lake City who has managed to steal more than $60,000 from various people in her home town and a variety of hipsters in New York. She even managed to get a job at Vice Magazine on the back of her charm, wit, a fake job at GoldenVoice and a massive set of balls. Now I know I shouldn't idolise theives and liars who bring untold levels of pain to the people around them, but there's something a little bit sexy about being able to use your looks, wits and front to make a living. Right? Right? Anyway Utah have extradited her and she's bound to go to jail. Hopefully when she gets out she wont see this blogpost and think me a kindred spirit. I don't have enough cash to keep her in tattoos and 'cancer' treatments.

Read articles from
The New York Observer
Gawker Media

Amazon Fail Update

So Amazon are explaining away the removal of sales ranks from gay, lesbian and sex-related literature as a 'glitch' that they are trying to fix. The internet is ablaze with conspiracy theories More news below.

Publishers Weekly

Salon.Com

And yes, Jezebel

Amazon Rank

So it turns out that Amazon.com have been removing the sales rankings from Gay and Lesbian literature titles that they sell on their site. No big deal right? Well wrong, removing the sales ranks from a book keeps the book out of the best seller lists and off customer's minds. Their excuse is 'Please Think Of The Children!!!!!' or Amazon is used by everyone and that adult items need to be classified seperately. But as it stands, you can still see the sales rank on Rampant Rabbits, Clit Massagers and Ron Jeremy's Biography but not Heather Has Two Mommies, Queer Theory, Gender Theory; An Instant Primer or Ellen Degeneres' biography. This is bigoted, wrong-headed, illogical nonsense. It means that when you search for homosexuality on Amazon you get this list. A list that begins with 'A Parent's Guide To Preventing Homosexuality' and continues in pretty much the same vein (bar a few children's books - they'll be gone next as it's them we're thinking of, of course) is hardly representative and I don't want my reading and my moral viewpoint on homosexuality to be dictated to me by bloody Amazon!

It started with gay and lesbian books and now books containing sexual content are also gone, Delta of Venus - Bye, Lady Chatterly's Lover (Of course banned in the UK until 1960) - Later.

LiveJournal community MetaWriter are keeping a list of all the books affected. Peruse and wonder whether this is really 2009.

Oh and here's a link to Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Google Bombing page. Amazon Rank. Link to it, if you feel the need.

BEHOLD! The coming of God.

Sorry. Dog.

BO!

Happy Easter.

More News

This stuff isn't as heavy as death...

I have a real love/hate relationship with Women's issue blog Jezebel. At first I loved it, loads and loads of female-centric news stories, articles about sexism in the US presidential elections, and an opportunity to talk to other women about the issues that are close to my womanly bosom (failures of the police to catch rape, attitudes to women in the West and everywhere else, the sexualisation of young girls). But good Lord I mostly hate it now. In their desperation to keep the blog as light as it is serious, they're clogging the pages up with daily (at least!) stories about Lindsay Lohan, clips from trashy exploitative reality television shows like Bad Girls Club and Rock Of Love, and posting mean comments about pretty inoffensive women that they don't like (Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston, Nadya Suleman please stand up) while lecturing posters on Girl-On-Girl crime*. 

They also like to fly off the handle, take this for example. This Youtube vlogger Jesusophile posts a litany (arf!) of pro-Christian videos on Youtube and his latest video 'Why It Is Okay For Sex To Hurt The Vagina' got Jezebel editors and commenters really riled up. I watched about 2 minutes of the video and it was pretty clear to me (and most of the Youtube commenters) that this guy is a troll, posting outrageous things for attention. But most Jezebel commenters didn't look at it critically and just posted earnest messages about not caring what God thinks about their vaginas and punching him in the face. 

This is what I hate, hate, hate about Jezebel (along with the frankly unfunny and often mean Pot Psychology - A word of advice, sure you guys are stoned but if someone writes in with a serious worry and you can't give a serious answer, skip it). A lot of the commenters will dive in head first and write embarrassing comments without actually studying the evidence. 

I most definitely describe  myself as a feminist, I respect myself and other women, but unlike some Jezebel commenters I'm not blind to our faults. In order to be taken seriously, we need to be serious, (not all the time), but a blog that purports to reflect the views and interests of today's young feminists can not be posting videos of women in bikinis fighting over men and calling each other bitch when we know that these programmes denigrate and humiliate women for the benefit of the public, so why give them the oxygen of our attention? Why post pictures of cute cats all day so that everyone can comment with 'Awwww' and 'Nom Nom Nom' ad infinitum? Why are Barack Obama's abs more important than his policy, while they complain about Michelle Obama being reduced to mannequin? I mean, if Gawker Media commenters take the piss out of you, you know something is wrong.

Oh and of course there was Rape-gate last year. Moe Tkacik (who now solely works for Gawker) and Tracie Egan aka 'Slut Machine' (who has recently got engaged and funnily enough, now not so comfortable with being known by her former moniker). The two editors went on the Shoot The Messenger Show, got drunk and made some really questionable statements about women who  are raped ('they are like, not smart'), birth control ('pulling out is like, fun') and date rape. Forgive me, but I can't take birth control advice from anyone called Slut Machine/has herpes. 

Click for reportage by interviewer Lizz Winstead.

That may sound completely bitchy and Girl-On-Girl crimey** but I was and still am completely appalled by the things that these women said. Calling into question the intelligence of women who have been raped just because you have been lucky enough not to be is just not on, and then to continue to call yourself a feminist after that is just fucking stupid. But some women are of the opinion that what Tracie said was ok, and that the rest of us are hypocritical and stupid for being of any other opinion. I despair. You can't justify the fact that you've said some really stupid things by saying 'Oh I always stupid things, now chill out grandma!' It just makes you look like a douche. 

Anyway, if anyone can suggest a less hateable blog with a feminist slant, please do.

*Are we really referring to women as 'girls' on a feminist website? Really?

** Seriously. Really?

The News

As a member of the black community people often ask me if I trust the police, a catalogue of injustices, failures and out and out crimes perpetrated against people from ethnic minorities in Britain has eroded the trust that swathes of the community had in those we pay to protect us. So people ask me 'Do you trust the police?' and being the pretty traditional, straight laced liberal that I am I answer yes. I do trust the police. I still carry my house keys in my hand when walking home (to fight attackers with) just like PC Lady* taught me at 14, I still look for a policeman to help me if I get lost, just like Mummy taught me when I was 4. I have faith in them, I trust them to find the baddies and keep me safe from them. I trust the uniform, I trust the hat and badge and even the shit looking bikes. But the downright thuggery shown to Ian Tomlinson during last week's G20 protests has absolutely astounded and appalled me. Should I be astounded and appalled? Probably not. Should I even be surprised? With the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on my doorstep, the failure of the police to apprehend John Worboys who may have raped and sexually assaulted over 100 women in six years, their failure to catch rapist Kirk Reid despite him being a suspect with DNA on file for over four years (again in my neighbourhood), the BBC's The Secret Policeman documentary, The MacPherson Report, the fact that the men widely believed to be the killers of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 are still walking free etc..etc..etc... should have eroded my faith in the boys and girls in blue, but video evidence of a man in a passive stance merely walking along the street trying to get home and away from the protests being hit and pushed by a police officer has shocked and enraged me. 

This is probably because not catching a criminal is one thing, but attacking a defenceless man walking home from work is an entirely different kettle of shit. The police are paid to protect and serve not to attack anyone under any circumstances. Especially people who have made no violent or insolent overtures. I hate to think that there's no one but my own good self to protect me anymore. But it's finally dawned on me that I could be unlucky and come across that one violent, thuggish or racist police officer just when I need them the most. 

And this isn't solely a race or women's issue either, this could happen to any of us. Ian Tomlinson was an average looking white male wending his way home. Whether he should have moved out of the police officers' way (There's no evidence that they asked him to) is immaterial what happened to him was wrong and illegal. Even if he hadn't died it would still be wrong and illegal.

*This is not her real name.

The Britsh public, Don't you just love 'em?

The residents of the village of Broughton

Google Streetview may (or may not) be invasive, but describing it as an invitation for bad men to come and rob your affluent village because they can see it on the internet is probably the most idiotic reason for objecting to anything that I have ever heard*. Robbers are too busy studying fixture lists and robbing premiership footballers while they play away to bother with suburban towns who draw attention to their opulence in the national press when no one would bothered to look them up had they not.

Anyway, I'm surprised that the majority of the responses on The Daily Mail's website are actually sensible reasoned arguments** contradicting the facile, NIMBYism displayed by the residents of Broughton, Cambridgeshire. But there are, of course, plenty of 'THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!' comments to delight and amuse.

Enjoy!

*This is unlikely to be true.
** Yuk, I hope I never have to say this again. They're probably Guardian readers who have gone on a web holiday.

Sunday Morning

Articles I read in this morning's papers, (ok colour supplements).

From Here To Divinity - Tim Lott - The Sunday Times
I always enjoy (but rarely completely understand) reading articles about the Science vs. God debate. Like most of my generation, I am confused about the existance of God, I was brought up to beleive in Him, but science has tried to persuade me otherwise (Catholic schools don't teach you about The Big Bang...or contraception - what a strange bunch we must be). I admit that for the most part I no longer believe in an all-seeing, all-knowing deity, but there is nothing in His place and I'm not sure that this vacuum, this emptiness enriches me.

Michelle Obama - 'She Chose Us - Carole Cadwallr - The Observer
I love Michelle Obama. I admit it. She's a hero, a superstar, she is everything that I want to be: beautiful, intelligent, brilliant with class, verbose, erudite, and inspirational. Although it is probably too late for me, it is most definitely not too late for the young ladies of Elizabeth Garett Anderson Language College who were surprised by a visit from The First Lady this week. When discussing this article with my friend Jennifer Hodgson (an incredible young woman who has fled our shores to escape the inanity of the British press) the shine was taken off this article a little.

Of course Mrs Obama gave a fantastic speech, she is an incredible woman, why shouldn't she make an inspirational and touching speech? Should it be such a surprise that a Princeton and Harvard Law graduate should know how to speak well? I have a feeling that all the talk of her clothes and her guns (on both sides of the Atlantic) has made us forget that she is more than a first wife in lovely dresses. Regardless of whether we should be impressed by the speech itself is the effect she seemed to have on the pupils of this state school in the much maligned Islington school district (where numerous New Labour polititians have refused to school their children - not that this is not their choice).

For sixteen year old Brenda Mensah, the idea that being smart was cool was received loud and clear. I wish someone had told me that at 16. I was smart, but never cool (and I'm still not), I messed around and have squandered what potential I had on trying to keep up with my apathetic chums. I did ok, but I'm not what I could have been. I hope that Mrs Obama's words have penetrated the culture of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Language college and girl's schools all over the world. We need our young women, we need them to be more than the frankly pathetic image of feminism that pervades online blogs (yes I'm talking about you Jezebel). We need our young women to do better, to be better, especially those who have been for the most part forgotten.

Cinema's Best Kep Secret - Kelly Macdonald - Carole Cadwallr - The Observer
Another article about Kelly Macdonald being forgotten despite appearing in some of the best films of the 90s and 00s. Yawn.

This Much I Know - Damien Lewis - The Observer
Damien Lewis appears to be a self-obsessed knobber. I know that the article is about him, but yuk.

I also looked at the pictures in an article about The Return Of The Beefcake in The Observer Woman Monthly which as usual enraged me. I couldn't care less about Madonna, expensive beauty products, Scarlett Johansson's clothing and make up regimes. I'm not that sort of woman and don't know many who are. Who is this suplement for?

Oh and on a completely off topic note, how can my (soon to be ex) housemate be all about slamming doors in the middle of the night and early morning but not when having (loud completely ridiculous spanky) sex with his girlfriend in the middle of the afternoon? I have never wanted anyone out of my hair more.