Oh brother!

I may as well just call this blog 'I hate Jezebel. Why do I still read it?!'

Tropicana ad causes controversy

Now I know that often adverts play on stereotypes and use them to sell us stuff and this is what has been done here. It's an obvious play on the devil/angel dichotomy and while that is cliched, dull and a bit silly. What's maddenlingly dumb is the mention of undertones of sexuality in the article and the mind-bogglingly easy jump the commenters have made to sex faces, peadophilia and the idea that an advert like this would NEVER be made with boys. It's bullcrap, it's annoying and it's making me want to smash my own face in.

What A Woman - Update!

Kari Ferrell aka The Hipster Grifter has been arrested in Philadelphia. Ok, this happened about a week ago, but I've been lazy. She told everyone that her arrest was due to her finally taking herself down to the cop shop and telling the fuzz 'It's a fair cop guv, take me dahn' but it turns out she was shopped (boo! hiss!) by some dude in a band. 

Anyway, she's still lying all over the place, mainly in court though. She told the court that she has a degree, which she doesn't and has never been enrolled at the university she claims she graduated from.

I don't know, when she was running around New York fleecing hipsters and getting hotdogs thrown down her hallway she was more fun than when she's lying in court and sleeping in jail. It's kind of sad actually. 

Does anyone want to throw their bandanna in the ring and take her place in the Hipster hierarchy (purely for my entertainment)? Sleeves/front/back pieces - a must.

Gawker

Whoa! John Stewart Criticises The Obama Administration

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Moral Kombat
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

I think Stewart is right here. Blocking pictures of the American military torturing foreigners to me says 'Doing this is ok because we sometimes get information that we need from it, but um..don't look at us while we do it, because it's totally wrong and we know it really'. Former Governer of Minnesota Jesse Ventura (yes, Jesse 'The Body' Ventura) made some pretty good points of on Fox this week. He asked that if waterboarding is so incredibly central to information gathering and attack prevention then, why doesn't America do it to domestic criminals and even domestic terrorists like Tim McVeigh? It's a good question, with an obvious answer and if a former wrestler can work it out, then more fool Fox right? This guy was a Navy Seal in Vietnam and had his lungs fucked up by Agent Orange (this is irrelevant - but this this guy is double hard) and is probably the only talking head who has actually been waterboarded (apart from Christopher Hitchens), shouldn't we be listening to him when he says it's torturous? Hmmm.

Also the dismissal of Dan Choi and 53 other openly gay servicemen (Arabic translators no less) is beyond ridiculous. Don't Ask Don't Tell is hopelessly flawed, it doesn't protect gay servicemen and women from discrimination and doesn't make the military any safer for gay soldiers to work in. I mean, what are they expecting to happen? Widespread military gaybashings? Isn't that happening already? If so, then problems in the military go deeper than homosexuality. It also angers me that President Obama has changed his mind on the issue, which he was so vehemently against while campaigning. I don't mind 'flip flopping' in itself, I think it's good that politicians learn more about an issue and change their minds. (I hate the way the public and media act as though listening to protest and changing your mind is a sign of weakness when to me it's a sign of good government and representation - but what do I know?) But simply refusing to get involved when you promised that you would is a whole bunch of bullhockey.

I have a very biased view of servicemen, everyone I speak to who lives in a garrison town has had problems with squaddies or knows someone who has, a mate of mine was thrown through the window of a restaurant in the middle of Colchester at midday by a squaddie who thought that he was 'looking at his bird'. Shouldn't we picking the best of the best to serve our countries? Not the violent and bigoted ones who just happen  to graduate West Point and Sandhurst*. The left must be pretty airaited about this as John Stewart is a dyed in the wool Obama supporter and to criticise him on television must have been a difficult decision to make. This is the kind of media analysis I like to do, it's clear, transparent doesn't take unnecessary potshots

Following American politics is much more interesting than following our own, mainly because I don't feel as depressed because these douchebags don't look after my interests, unlike the people we elected.  I feel sorry that Michael Martin is taking the fall for the expenses scandal. He didn't take the cash and stuff it into the pockets of the MPs, he shouldn't be taking the rap alone. Obviously.

*I'm a liberal, of course I am pre-programmed to hate the military. But you know, all the rapes (like this one, this one, oh and this one), murders (and don't forget the rapes AND murders) and Deepcuts don't help matters.

It's Squeaky Bum Time For The Labour Party

Labour MPs Who Cheat On Expenses Will Be Deselected And Barred From Running In The Next General Election

Fuck. This could change the face of the Labour Party and politics in Britain. With The Guardian referring to the expenses bruhaha as a 'constitutional crisis' (I've been dying to use that phrase since lower sixth Government and Politics lessons), this is it. If this was the West Wing and I was Josh Lyman I'd be calling all the principled, small time local politicians I know and urging them to get their butts into the House of Commons. All I can say (and I've deliberately avoided talking about this, as I feel the media - who are the kings of fudging expenses claims - have whipped up the British public's ire despite the fact that no one I've spoken to is actually surprised) is that this could do us all some good. Labour probably wont win the next election, but at least the party will be cleansed of some of the most cynical members of Parliament who care the least about us and our interests. Maybe.

Yukyukyuk!

I was going to post something deep (a slightly larger than average puddle on a country lane, or about half a bath) about media intrusion into the lives of terminally ill celebrities (what I stole from Popbitch - Hmmm) but I nicked this instead:

Police have confirmed that two Premiership
footballers have had their houses burgled
on the same night last Tuesday.

Ryan Giggs had 70 welsh caps, 10 premiership
medals, 2 champions league medals, 5 FA cup
medals, 1 league cup medal, 2 world club
cup medals, 8 charity shield medals and 1
super cup medal stolen.

Emmanuel Adebayor lost a kettle and a toaster.


HAHAHAHAHAH!

Oh please.

Britain's Naughty It Girls.

Shut up.

It's Been A Long Time A Long Time, I Shouldn't Have Left You

I haven't posted in a while, not because I haven't had anything to rant about (please see friends and significant other for evidence) but because I am a lazy arse.

Anyway, The Incredible Human Journey - Out Of Africa with Dr Alice Roberts has forced me back to blog-moaning. I really excitedly watched this last night (after looking forward to it since I saw the adverts for it last week) but found myself disappointed. As with all history/anthropology/geography/archaeology television programmes at the moment (apart from Time Team) the host, Dr Alice Roberts, is beautiful, photogenic and engaging; presenting in a call and response style (that drove my history degree holding boyfriend mad) she began to explain how early human beings had travelled from the cradle of life in East Africa to populate the rest of the world, travelling through the harsh deserts of the Sahara and Arabia (which we find out weren't so desert-like for a few thousand years so those intrepid few could pass through a lush, green and fresh water filled oasis where the Sahara is now) to the Middle East, Europe, Asia, The Americas blah blah blah.

Through DNA analysis, clever boffins have worked out that if you're not African you are descended from the few Africans who made just ONE successful trip from the continent to everywhere else. Pretty cool huh? Yeah, well except if you're African. I felt SO inadequate! The whole rest of humanity come from these adventurers who got up, dusted themselves off and bloody walked across continents and shagged like mad and made new homes all over the place. But me? Pah, my lot couldn't be bothered. We walked from one coast to the other and no further. Booo! How crap.

Also crap was the buff, tattooed, motorcycle riding American archaeologist that they dug up (arf! geddit!) from somewhere to temper Dr Roberts' clear eyed, home counties charm and make archaeology seem somehow dangerous and rock and roll. Barf.

Not all bad though, I was quite touched by a discovery in Israel (I think) of 10 Stone Age graves containing skeletons buried with items, explaining this as an example of modern thinking, ritual and even evidence of a belief in some form of afterlife I got a bit teary. I wanted to be an archaeologist as a child, but gave it up when I decided that all the cool stuff had been discovered (natch!) how wrong I was. How life affirming it must be to find these things for the first time and revel in the wonder of human endeavour, exploration and discovery. Amazing. 

Anyway, to sum up Sunday night TV science programme makes me feel lectured, irritated, insecure and full of wonder in turns. Standard.