Gratuitous cuteness on Friday the 13th...

Extraneous cuteness courtesy of Cute Overload

With the Republicans acting out over the stimulus bill, I've once more taken refuge in cuteness. I'm not proud of it. My grandmother used to take to her bed on Friday the 13th, and while I don't do that, I still get a little jumpy. Hence the pix of a hamster about to eat something the size of its head.

The hag-mags hit it...

Standard Issue Hag-Mag

Yesssss. A fourteen year old on the cover, eyes Photoshopped so far apart she seems to have fetal-alcohol syndrome, thighs the size of my arms, and plenty of idiotic headers surrounding her (The earring makes a comeback!). Yesterday, I bought my hag-mag for the year, wondering if fashion had finally gotten the word on rich-is-no-longer-in-style and being someone's arm candy is out. I can safely report a resounding No! What's between the covers are tight skirts and five inch heels, all the better to cripple you, my dear, and blouses that cost $1,600.

One of the most depressing parts of The Second Sex by Simone DeBeauvoir, written in 1949, is a chapter where she exhaustingly iterates all the work that goes into the acceptable female appearance: the mending, the hand-washing, the shaving, the trimming, the plucking, the curling. DeBeauvoir listed all that crap sixty years ago and I just spent three hours today, doing exactly the same stuff. Of course, the argument could be made that I chose to do this. The second wave of feminism certainly gave me the right and freedom to go about my business with hairy legs, a furry upper lip and Frida Kahlo eyebrows, while smelling like a wet dog. But having seen the societal acceptance of women who actually did this, I "choose" not to.

Anyhow, my quarrel is with a consumer culture that creates images which, in turn, foster a lifestyle that would be sustainable only if we had four more planet earths just for us ugly, overweight, fur-draped, Manalo Blanik-wearing, beef-eating Americans. Of which, hag-mags are only symptomatic.

I once counseled a younger woman about life choices, on an on-going basis. She had a college degree but seemed addicted to low-bottom office jobs. One night, she called me to report that she'd managed not to put a $2,600 designer suit on her credit card, but now she was weakening. It was a good investment she told me. No, I told her, it was not. Owning a suit like that would just make all her other clothes look like shit. She would be left with only unenviable choices. One, she could wear her fancy suit every day of her life. Two, she could wear her fancy suit only on the fanciest of occasions and be seen by perhaps twelve people, tops. Three, she could bankrupt herself getting the rest of her wardrobe up to snuff. She had already declared bankruptcy once. Why was she even thinking of charging this suit? Was she high?

No, she wasn't high. She was a hag-mag freak, who had tranced herself into believing that she was supposed to be wearing haut-couture clothes. And the belief that haut-couture was accessible to an eight dollar an hour office worker is a direct spin-off of a greed-head culture, that was never a reality.

And that's why I'm pissed at free-market Republicans tonight.

Makes sense to me.

Kluck 'em...

Kluckers

During the 1950's, in Burke, Virginia, school was dismissed on certain days so the kids could watch the Klan, along with the Daughters of The White Camellia parade down the middle of town. It was a big parade too. My mother taught school there and would tell us about it at dinner, her eyes the size of saucers. She knew that the parents of her students were Klansmen, although she didn't know how many. She lasted a year at that job as I recall, and often cried. But Burke was then known as a steamy little backwater, one where Southern-style barbarism was in full flower.

I've thought of this during the past few days, after reading about various Republican shenanigans during the debate on Obama's stimulus package. Thing is, there aren't many moderate Republicans in Congress any more, so we're down to the nut-jobs who survived the '06 elections, weren't indicted or jailed, and didn't retire to spend that vaunted time with their families. These bottom of the barrel Republicans have done nothing but obstruct critical legislation that's desperately needed to tackle this financial morass. To add on bitter insult, they are proposing cuts to childhood nutrition programs, Head Start, and food stamps among other programs, most of them benefiting women and children. That the Republicans have focused on such policies bespeaks a nasty contempt for our societal welfare.

So why is anyone still listening to them? Somewhere along the line, probably due to the Jerry Springer show, we decided that it was only fair "to listen to the other side". Except these guys aren't "the other side". They're extremists and their sell-by date was up in 1963. I propose that they be treated the way we'd treat any extremist hate group. Or used to treat them, I hasten to say. Now thugs, Nazis, racists, and David Duke can all be pretty sure of a spot on the nightly news, should they desire it.

Back in the day, Klansmen marched openly in the streets, sometimes holding the hands of their little Klanettes. Racists babbled about mud people and niggers; murders were not unknown. Thugs showed up at schools with ax handles to prevent six year old black kids from enrolling. And while attitudes are not quite as, um, blatant as they once were, I can't see that much has changed. The same hatred, cruelty, and callous disregard are in full flower among certain savages.

What has changed is the media's notional perception that fringe groups represent any sort of normalcy.

They do not. The lunatics among us are atavistic left-overs from a bygone age. They deserve only our studied indifference, our silence, and our revulsion.

These scrapings from the GOP barrel should be ignored by decent people, just as decent people once ignored the Klan.

So I say, Kluck 'em. It's time to pass the whole damned package now.