It’s national BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH YOU IDIOT!!!! Keith Olbermann, today’s biggest boob in the world!!!
Well, the NFL was trying to do something nice by supporting Breast Cancer Awareness month with their Real Men Wear Pink Campaign. Leave it to Keith Olbermann to something completely Freudian on National TV.
From the time I was an undergrad to the time I was left at the ripe old age of 42 by a molecular biology professor significant other for a 20 year old undergraduate who just adored the presentation I helped him write, this shit has rolled on around me. As some one who has spent plenty of time in academia, I think the time is now to purge these perverts from higher education. This headliner at the UK Guardian just makes me want to drive to my daughter’s dorm room and adorn her in a burkha. I’m not kidding.
Are female students ‘a perk of the job’?
A vice-chancellor is encouraging lecturers to enjoy gazing at, even fantasising about, attractive female students
In an article for the Times Higher Education magazine on lust, part of a feature on the seven deadly sins of universities, Kealey wrote: “Normal girls – more interested in abs than in labs, more interested in pecs than specs, more interested in triceps than tripos – will abjure their lecturers for the company of their peers, but nonetheless, most male lecturers know that, most years, there will be a girl in class who flashes her admiration and who asks for advice on her essays. What to do?
“Enjoy her! She’s a perk.”
Flashing a few literary allusions, he continued: “She doesn’t yet know that you are only Casaubon to her Dorothea, Howard Kirk to her Felicity Phee, and she will flaunt you her curves. Which you should admire daily to spice up your sex, nightly, with the wife.”
Displaying a more surprising familiarity with the etiquette at lapdancing clubs, Kealey added: “As in Stringfellows, you should look but not touch.”
I would just like to say that me, my mother, my grandmother, and my two daughters sat in those chairs at university for an education, not to spice the sex life of some nasty old, over-educated and undersexed Humbert. Even as I write, I can name at least one colleague engaging in a grad student in the PhD. program from which I came.
Kealey, who has been vice-chancellor at Buckingham, the country’s only independent university, for eight years, said it was a myth that an affair between student and lecturer was an abuse of power, saying accountability has meant that “the days are gone when a scholar could trade sex for upgrades”.
But he added that some female students still fantasised about their lecturers.
Kealey’s comments were attacked by Olivia Bailey, women’s officer at the National Union of Students.
She told the Telegraph: “I am appalled that a university vice-chancellor should display such an astounding lack of respect for women.
“Regardless of whether this was an attempt at humour, it is completely unacceptable for someone in Terence Kealey’s position to compare a lecture theatre to a lapdancing club, and I expect that many women studying at Buckingham University will be feeling extremely angry and insulted at these comments.”
My daughters are not the perks of jerks. This guy should be fired post haste along with any one that agrees with him.
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Here’s some news about Hillary Clinton’s New Gender Agenda as reported last week by the NY Times.
I have to say that Hillary really captured my admiration in 1995 when she gave that powerful speech in Beijing for the United Nations Conference. The only really feminist first lady that I can recall in my life time before Hillary Clinton was Betty Ford. Although I remember reading many many things about Eleanor Roosevelt, she died before I could truly appreciate her. All the other first ladies seemed so demure by comparison! But not Hillary Clinton!
She is our third female Secretary of State. While I appreciate Condi Rice and her brilliance, she was not always arguing positions with which I agreed so I always watched her with a raised eyebrow. I do, however, admire all three of them from Madeline Albright forward. As my Irish Grandmother taught me from her very superstitious nature, the third’s always the charm! Hillary has put women’s issues front and center and I have to say brava for that! There are so many issues facing women in the world these days that it is hard to choose one as a priority. The ones that have grabbed my heart recently are that of the plight of child brides and the girls (and young boys) trafficked for the sex trade. The one I work for is microfinancing for women’s businesses all over the world. (Shameless plug here for The Confluence Lending Team at Kiva.) Here are Hillary’s priorities.
Q: In your confirmation hearing, you said you would put women’s issues at the core of American foreign policy. But as you know, in much of the world, gender equality is not accepted as a universal human right. How do you overcome that deep-seated cultural resistance?
Clinton: You have to recognize how deep-seated it is, but also reach an understanding of how without providing more rights and responsibilities for women, many of the goals we claim to pursue in our foreign policy are either unachievable or much harder to achieve.
Democracy means nothing if half the people can’t vote, or if their vote doesn’t count, or if their literacy rate is so low that the exercise of their vote is in question. Which is why when I travel, I do events with women, I talk about women’s rights, I meet with women activists, I raise women’s concerns with the leaders I’m talking to.
I happen to believe that the transformation of women’s roles is the last great impediment to universal progress — that we have made progress on many other aspects of human nature that used to be discriminatory bars to people’s full participation. But in too many places and too many ways, the oppression of women stands as a stark reminder of how difficult it is to realize people’s full human potential.
Coming of age in the 70s with Shirley Chisolm (my all time shero) Bela Abzug, and a lot of other women politicians to serve as role models, my 
first instinct as a new voter was to check off every female name on the ballot. That was until I heard of and listened to Phyliss Schafly. I happened across her smug smile on C Span last night accepting some reward and was reminded how there are women who are not the friends of other women. She’s the reason I always check for certain things whenever a vote for a woman. Phyliss Schalfy made a career and name for herself selling out other women.
This woman politician to pictured to the right appears not to be the friend of reality and probably is an Eagle Forum member. She’s running for the mayor of Tulsa, OK which is very close to where I was born. Frankly, I wouldn’t vote for her to be in charge of the Sanitation Department. There would be too much stuff to shovel.
Republican mayoral candidate Anna Falling said Tuesday that putting a Christian creationism display in the Tulsa Zoo is No. 1 in importance among city issues that include violent crime, budget woes and bumpy streets.“It’s first,” she said to calls of “hallelujah” at a rally outside the zoo. “If we can’t come to the foundation of faith in this community, those other answers will never come. We need to first of all recognize the fact that God needs to be honored in this city.”
Falling, who has founded several Christian nonprofits and is a former city councilor, also said the next mayor needs to appoint people to city boards, authorities and commissions who will “honor God.”
“We will also look for people who want to characterize the origins of both man and animals in a way that honors Judeo-Christian science that proves God as the creator,” she said.
When asked whether she meant she would recruit Christians to serve the city, Falling said she was talking about “people committed to their churches,” and when asked whether she meant Christian churches, she said, “churches, yes.”
Falling’s campaign has been overtly Christian-themed. But she said she wants to embrace people of all religions, not alienate them.
Well, she’s certainly alienated me and probably any one that attends a mosque, a synagogue, a dharma center, or any other religious facility that’s not a church.
So, what’s a zoo got to do with proslyetizing creationism any way? At least it’s an equal opportunity zoo.
The zoo does have displayed an elephant-like sculpture said to depict the Hindu god Ganesha and an exhibit that deals with the creation of the earth from a scientific point of view.
Tulsa’s a pretty good size town. I’d like to know why she thinks this is the city’s foremost concern, also. This is the problem that comes with just voting for some one based on some specific trait. Some times, they package is not what you expect once you’ve opened it.
I never thought about math much until I found out, some where around 12 or so, that girls weren’t supposed to be good at it. Ever the tomboy, I just had to prove them wrong and I’ve frequently been the only woman (and definitely the only American woman) in advanced math classes at university. Both my daughters excel at math. However, the old stereotype has been out there for my mother and grandmothers as well as my daughters and me. Ask current Obama economic adviser Larry Summers who stirred up women scientists every where with this gem during his tenure as Harvard’s president.
This was the point that most angered some of the listeners, several of whom said Summers said that women do not have the same ”innate ability” or ”natural ability” as men in some fields.
Asked about this, Summers said, ”It’s possible I made some reference to innate differences. . . I did say that you have to be careful in attributing things to socialization. . . That’s what we would prefer to believe, but these are things that need to be studied.”
Summers said cutting-edge research has shown that genetics are more important than previously thought, compared with environment or upbringing. As an example, he mentioned autism, once believed to be a result of parenting but now widely seen to have a genetic basis.
In his talk, according to several participants, Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them ”daddy truck,” and one ”baby truck.”
It was during his comments on ability that Hopkins, sitting only 10 feet from Summers, closed her computer, put on her coat, and walked out. ”It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women [at Harvard] are being led by a man who views them this way,” she said later in an interview.
More and more evidence demonstrates just the opposite of the stereotype. Girls can and do kick ass at math. It’s not 
that they lack they aptitude, they lack they opportunity and environment to do so. Science Daily reports that study after study now show that it’s Culture, Not Biology, Underpins Math Gender Gap. Both Riverdaughter and I live the nightmare that comes with being woman practitioners of a field that requires heavy math. She is a research chemist doing work on drugs. I am an economist who relies heavily on econometrics and models that borrow heavy from physics models. One of my colleagues, another woman economist from Finland who absolutely kicks ass when it comes to high level mathematical models on trade, has similar stories. One friend I’ve had the longest has taught university level math for nearly 30 years now. At various times, I’ve had to adopt some kind of charade to make my numeracy less threatening to colleagues, bosses, and institutions. It adds a completely different dimension to how you do your work. You can do it, you can kick ass at it, but you have to make sure that you’re deferential enough not to make the boys pee their pants and vote you off their islands. It’s a strange, demented and twisted kabuki dance.
You think it’s too late to plan some kind of commemorative/commiserative event for the 5.31 rules committee meeting that led to the birth of PUMA? Maybe make it net/blog based? Any interest?
I’m not sure what made me go read No Quarter first thing this morning. It really isnt’ one of my usual morning haunts but I went there. I was greeted by and fully linked to this article by Scott Horton at Harper’s Magazine. This is one of my favorite magazines although I’ve lost touch with it since Katrina. (Getting fourth class mail delivered here is still an iffy thing.) Of course, SusanUnPC has been all aglow for Hillary as SOS, as have most of us Hillary fans. I’m not trying to ignite any blog wars here because I really don’t take issue with her at all or actually the posting of the article. It is what it is: a nice thread on the difference between Hillary and Condi as SOS and what that will mean to the employees of the State Department. But, it’s the framing of that situation that caught me in my pre-coffee, pre-first class condition. So, here was the eye-catching quote.
“There are great hopes for Hillary at State. I met last week with a number of career State Department employees and was surprised when one said she was looking forward to the “Glinda Party” next week. I asked her: if Hillary was Glinda, the Good Witch of the South from the Wizard of Oz, did that make Condoleezza Rice the Wicked Witch of the West?”
Now, I’m not one to be an apologist for ANY Bush policy, let alone the appalling lack of professional diplomacy, but are we so swimming in the patriarchy that we have to frame two of the most powerful women in the world as the good witch and the bad witch? Just askin if something smells a little fishy to you …
Two things stuck out in my mind when I finally read the inaugural speech written by Jon “the groper” Favreau. The first was didn’t some one get a fact checker for this kid or at the very least get him a calculator? (Turns out I wasn’t the only one that noticed this one, it hit immediately on the wire at MarketWatch.)
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Less than a minute into his presidency, Barack Obama committed his first gaffe. That’s wrong. Forty-three Americans, including Obama, have taken the oath of office.
The new president of the United States said in his inaugural address that “Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.”
Then I thought, well that’s nothing new considering how much Obama re-invented all kinds of history and things in the primaries: like we have fifty seven states, a great lake in Oregon, the US army liberated Auschwitz and on and on. But the second one really disturbed me because plagiarizing and paraphrasing great thinkers in a major speech without crediting them is just plain something one should not do. I wasn’t the only one who caught it. Economist and columnist Krugman caught it also. The prez’s economic meme was a wrangled and mangled copy of something the great economist John Maynard Keynes once wrote.
Or consider this statement from Mr. Obama: “Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed.”
The first part of this passage was almost surely intended as a paraphrase of words that John Maynard Keynes wrote as the world was plunging into the Great Depression — and it was a great relief, after decades of knee-jerk denunciations of government, to hear a new president giving a shout-out to Keynes. “The resources of nature and men’s devices,” Keynes wrote, “are just as fertile and productive as they were. The rate of our progress towards solving the material problems of life is not less rapid. We are as capable as before of affording for everyone a high standard of life. … But today we have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand.”
But something was lost in translation. Mr. Obama and Keynes both assert that we’re failing to make use of our economic capacity. But Keynes’s insight — that we’re in a “muddle” that needs to be fixed — somehow was replaced with standard we’re-all-at-fault, let’s-get-tough-on-ourselves boilerplate.
At least some body in the press didn’t overlook it this time. Krugman caught one more ripped off and just plain wrong idea that I missed. It appears our “new Era of Responsiblity” message came straight from what Dubya called for eight years ago. Oh, dear.
Here’s James Carville in one of his worst moments.
Here’s my response:
What if it were a cardboard cut out of Obama and a noose instead of a bottle of beer?
What if it were a cardboard cut out of Joe Lieberman and some one was putting say, a felt star on him, or a tatoo’d number on his arm instead of groping him or say they were doing the same thing and were wearing swastikas instead of Obama team tshirts?
What would your reaction be?
What would the reaction be of black civil rights leaders or leaders of the antisemitic leagues? Being plied with alcohol and groped is strong symbolism for women. We know that most men can out wrestle us and we are one moment of trust away from brutalization. Many fratboy antics are in fact sexual assault.
AND Symbols matter.
Would these two cardboard ‘fratboy antics’ I discribed above be taken as trivial or would they be considered hate crimes? After all, a small town in Louisiana became a symbol of lingering racism with the hanging of a noose in a tree by a couple of idiot high school boys. Why didn’t folks consdier that to be just highschool boy antics? What about the University of Kentucky students that had an effigy to hang of Barrack Obama who were treated way worse than those guys in California’ responsible for the hanging of Sarah Palin in effigy in a Halloween display? The guys in California only experienced a little neighborly humiliation. Not so the kids at at U of K.
And you know what? None of these citizens put words in the president’s mouth and yet there was tremendous outrage in each circumstance. In several cases, these were adolescent boys and not 27 year olds on the way to be a Director in the White House for a President of the United States. This is the jerk responsible for “Yes we Can” and “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”. Obama rode those two banal slogans into Washington.
The only time symbolic brutality is sanctioned these days is if its victims are women, GLBT, and possibly the homeless mentally ill people. This has got to stop. A symbol is powerful. If this were not true, people would not be upset by swastikas, confederate flags, and nooses. We need to stay upset about this until this jerk is told to resign.
Obama Chief Speech Writer Jon Favreau 
in yet another one of those ‘innocent’ frat boy moments for Team Obama.
What does it take to get men to understand that acting out rape fantasies is not funny? Swanspirit did a little photoshop with the offending facebook photo and I want you to play a little infinite regress … will it offend you now? Start putting the heads of your mothers, your daughters, and other women you know in the shot and ask yourself is this offensive?
Riverdaughter’s been on roll about this and I suggest you check it out.
update: Oh, jon’s a busy boy …
Does it offend you now? 
UPDATE: oh, no, they struck again … and yet again!
Postscript: We think we’ve identified the entire Obama speech writing team:
Adam Frankel … kissy guy on the right
Sarah Hurwitz in the back left
Ben Rhodes in the back right
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