Rachael Larimore over at DoubleX is bemoaning the lack of excitement among feminists over the recent electoral victories for Republican women. She writes that “it is disappointing that many liberal women don’t even seem to want the GOP to have strong female candidates.” I don\’t think she’s got it quite right. It’s not that I don’t want the GOP to have strong female candidates, it’s that I’m not going to get giddy over candidates whose platforms I totally disagree with, regardless of their gender. Just like Sarah Palin doesn’t get points in my book for being a...
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Diplomats wager on U.S.-England World Cup Match
Via Laura Rozen at Politico (although she gets the order of the conversation backwards and calls it the UK team), an email exchange between the Philip Breeden at the U.S. Embassy in London and Martin Longden at the U.K. Embassy in D.C. unveils quite the wager (and nerdy trash-talk). Of course you know, England plays the U.S. in their first game in South Africa this weekend, and they’ve decided on a bet: steaks in D.C. if England wins, dinner in a London pub if the U.S. wins; loser pays. On England boasting their long history of football,...
Continue reading...No, John Roberts, judges are not umpires.
I had read about former Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s recent commencement address at Harvard, but it wasn’t til today that I read the entire speech, available here. The address is an eloquent and persuasive response to (and take-down of) the theory of Constitutional “originalism” espoused vehemently by Justice Scalia, among others. I’ve been thinking lately about liberals’ persistent inability to win the war of words, and conservatives’ great skill at manipulating language in their favor. Scalia, for instance, has done an excellent job of making originalism sound like duh, the only possible legitimate method of engaging in...
Continue reading...Doctor Who, "Amy's Choice"
Doctor: “This is going to be a tricky one.” Doctor Who returned this weekend after a short break with a strong episode that I’m late reviewing because my laptop was in the laptop hospital for most of the weekend. “Amy’s Choice” was an exploration of one of the major ongoing conflicts this season: will Amy choose a life of adventure with the Doctor or settle down for a quiet country life with Rory?
Continue reading...A little alma mater pride
While I was in Ohio over the weekend, my brother showed us this YouTube video of Ohio State’s very own flash mob, which took place a few weeks ago. He’s a sophomore there and happened to be walking through the (new, gorgeous) student union at the time, when all of a sudden: choreographed dance routine to music from Glee! My brother turned to the girl next to him to ask what was going on, and she expressed similar bafflement but then jumped up to join in a few minutes later. Look, I know it’s kind of cheesy,...
Continue reading...Poem of the Week
I can’t believe it’s already the end of May. Or that it’s almost 90 degrees here in DC. Anyway, despite the August-like-heat, it’s peak wedding season: I went to one last weekend and am going another this weekend, and pretty much everyone I know seems to be attending weddings as well. Yay for newlyweds! And hideous bridesmaids’ dresses! And personalized napkins! And sentimental speeches! And, you know, love and all that. So for this week’s dose of poetry, I picked out this sweet one by former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. It appears in his 2008 collection...
Continue reading...Adventures in Hypocrisy
For your daily dose of schadenfraude… If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth watching this video of Indiana Rep. Mark “Morally and Physically Repellent” Souder, the family values-touting Republican who just announced his resignation after admitting his affair with a staffer. In it, the woman with whom he was cheating on his wife interviews Souder about his passionate support for abstinence education. Ha. Real glad he was doing his best to keep teens from engaging in sex outside of the sacred bonds of marriage. The video, which up until yesterday was featured on Souder’s website but...
Continue reading...Primary Colors
There are several pretty important party primaries (and one special election) tomorrow around the country. Well, not important insofar as they’ll have any real impact, but important because they’ll guide the narrative leading to election day in November. Each party will see what messages worked, where the mood of the country is and is heading, and, probably less importantly, how big of a role the tea partiers can have in the election. I’ve been paying attention to most of the races since at least earlier this year, if not earlier, and have seen a stupid amount of...
Continue reading...Doctor Who, "Flesh and Stone"
Doctor: “I’ll be back for you as soon as I can, I promise.” Amy: “You always say that.” Doctor: “I always come back.” We’re five episodes into this season, and I feel like I need some sort of flow chart to keep track of what’s going on. This was a great conclusion to the new chapter of the Weeping Angels story, but many other questions were brought up in this hour that we likely won’t get an answer to until the season finale.
Continue reading...Let them kiss, for chrissakes?
The Daily Wh.at: Worthy Cause of the Day: Not a single episode of ABC’s uproarious new sitcom Modern Family goes by that I don’t find myself ranting and raving over the pseudo-progressivism of having an openly gay couple on a primetime TV show, and going out of your way to avoid having them show real-world physical affection toward one another. Happily, I am not alone in my diatribe: A Facebook campaign was recently launched to convince ABC to let the adorable duo smooch to their hearts’ content on national television. It may not seem like a big...
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