Friday, November 5, 2010

Fry him

Well, have you seen the thing about Stephen Fry? First off, let me say, I quite like him as an actor and writer. But, homeboy made the make of saying that women don’t like sex as much as men. And he got PASTED for it. Straight across the kisser. The Internet tarred, feathered, vilified and bitch slapped him. For something that he thought was a joke. Like a funny-ha-ha-truth-in-clown-pants kind of joke. And the web babblesphere said, “Tain’t funny, McGee.”

And from his half-assed apology, you can really tell he doesn’t get what the vitriol is about. Myself, I think it comes from two things. Not that what he said was wrong. It’s debatable. I think in two respects the heat came from the way he put things.

First, his statement came off as women think differently from men, and therefore they are wrong. And this comes after about 50,000 years of women being told that “You’re just a stupid girl, so what do you know.” It’s a man’s man’s world, baby. Still. And if a gal has spent her entire life, everyday, being told by the nearest arm of the patriarchy (not to go all 70s era gyno-positive on you) that her viewpoint is essentially feminine (and therefore wrong), then when one dude sticks his head out in public to shoot his mouth off in this way, yeah, somebody is going to fire back. Stephen, you were just the latest in a long line of men who has called us wrong (and essentially you said we f*** wrong - really? REALLY? You thought that wouldn't piss women off?). And you did it in public. We already had itchy trigger fingers. We killed the messenger. Sorry, dude.

Second, Fry made the cardinal logical error of making a blanket statement about “women”. Honey, any time that you base and argument on an assumption that a group that makes up half of the world population is monolithic and concurrent about ANY opinion, you were on thin ice to start with. And if you thought that you could speak for all men, I’d hazard a guess that you were speaking out of turn there as well. If he thought he’d win that argument because no woman would ever say “Hey! I like sex with a stranger standing up in a service station bathroom stall too!” . . . guess he found out times have changed.

That’s the way it is. Sometimes a casual remark can hit a nerve. You thought you were making a joke, and it turned dead serious. But I certainly wouldn’t ever want a provocative thinker to back off. Say the outrageous. But next time, before you make a joke, you might want to make sure you’re wearing a cup.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

And they gave the Gap all kinds of crap about their logo

Have you seen the new re-branding for the Yellow Pages? Kind of a funny thing to say, since the Yellow Pages used to be just the yellow pages. Everybody had it. Everybody needed it. You thought anyone who didn’t have a copy of the yellow pages was a poor planner. And possibly an anarchist. But now they have to convince you need the yellow pages. In spite of things like the internet and cell phones, you need to have an outdated hunk of dead tree to look up phone numbers. Hence the branding. Branding is something that helps you believe that you need something essentially useless. Like Slinky or DeBeers. Or Republican. [Okay, equal time, Democrat.]

But the new brand image for Yellow Pages is apparently YP. Easy, breezy. Acronyms. We love ‘em. But I’m not sure why they would have picked an acronym that, when pronounced would come out “wipey”. Have these people never changed diapers? Wipey. And they had to have a meeting where it was said out loud. Let’s move on to the re-branding issue. Somebody came up with wipey. I like wipey. It’s very succinct. Friendly even. Do you like wipey? Yes, I like wipey too. Wipey wipey wipey. Let’s go with that. Come on guys. As far as brand image goes, let's just say the synergy isn't there. A wipey is a necessary thing. You can’t do a good job of cleaning a messy butt without one. Can’t be done. A wipey is good. Until it’s used. Then it’s not good. And you can’t throw it away fast enough. Much like the yellow pages.

Of course, the other possible pronunciation is “why pee”. Why pee? Cause otherwise I’ll explode.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The wheels on the bus go round and round

Okay. Back to business. Did I finish what I intended to do while I was gone. Well, actually, no. But I had a good time. And it was time to shelve it. So back to blogging. And how are you?

I’m not sure where I was. Or what I was talking about. I’ll get back to whatever it was. But for now I just need to get swinging again.

So. Speaking of swinging. The election. The US voting public swings like a pendulum do. Run this direction! No! No! Back the other way! We’ve worn ourselves into such a rut we can’t even see out the sides any more. I really hope that if somebody ever actually builds a ladder that will get us out of the wagon tread, we’ll all have the sense to climb up it. [I’ve mentioned that I believe that the two-party system will be the death of our country, haven’t I? Yes? Good. Just checking.]

Anyhoodle. The thing this election really did demonstrate is the fundamental temperamental difference between democrats and republicans. Oh, issues. They come and go. But the temperament always stays the same. Democrats will throw each other under the bus. They can’t hang together. They want to represent all groups equally. But my group more than others. Look at feminism. Given that women represent 50% of the population (and feminists skew democrat), you’d think that they’d want to all clump together on as many issues that effect women as possible. But nope. Most of the core feminists believe that if you don’t support abortion, you can’t be a feminist. Period. Regardless of the dozens of other issues that predominantly effect women (violence against women, pay and employment equity, mothering issues, women’s health), and tangentially effect women (social security – remember, we live longer than men, so SSI actually does effect us more) . . . regardless of all that. You get booted out of feminism if you don’t hold to this one tenant. Under the bus. And you’ll see that very tendency in every special interest group that is brawling under the democrat tent. They may win an election. But there’s no way they can hold it together long enough to finish out a term. Let alone get anything done.

On the other hand, republicans won’t throw anyone under the bus. If you call yourself a good republican and talk the party line – you’re in for life. No matter what. You can show up at a Tea Party rally dressed like Himmler. You can be a former practicing witch. You can be a two-timing, closeted coke addict. But as long as you believe in “small government”, “God”, and “family values”, you’re in. And you don’t even have to actually define what any of those things actually means to you. Hey, polygamy is a family value. NOBODY goes under the bus. But of course, that means that eventually they have so many wingnuts in their tent, that every one gets painted with the crazy train brush. They just seem to be able to hold it together long enough to get their legislation passed. Of course, much like in 2008, everyone wakes up with a hangover, looks around and says “Who are all these crazy people? Why am I losing my house? Run back to the democrats!”

Back and forth. Back and forth. Aren’t you guys tired yet?

TIME: Quotes of the Day