Folks at ICE think white people dressing up like non-white prisoners is good Halloween fun.
In the immortal words of PeeWee Herman, it’s so funny, I forgot to laugh.
I’m glad the folks at Homeland Security seem to get how incredibly stupid and insulting this is. I just hope Julie Myers gets it, too.
Perhaps Little Pasture can get these answers for us.
Its WRAP week – will you wear a white ribbon?
Is Representative Lynn aware that WRAP week was actually last week?
Morality in Media asks every American concerned about the floodtide of pornography pouring into our nation’s communities, homes, and children’s minds to do one or more of the following in conjunction with the White Ribbon Against Pornography (WRAP) Week, which runs this year from Sunday, October 28 through Sunday, November 4, 2007. (see here)
Representative Lynn says:
The mainstream women’s movement gave up on this idea long ago. Instead, now sending the message it’s not exploitation if a woman exploits herself – It is power.
Eh, what can you say? If a woman can rise in power to the point where she’s serving in the legislature and still pretends like she’s not a feminist, what can you do? Anyway, as those of you who know feminists know, this is still a huge bone of contention in the movement.
Lynn knows a good sob story when she hears it, though. Look at this:
Many of the founders of WRAP are thirty something’s that have fled the porn industry to turn their lives around. Their heartbreaking testimonies tell of their own exposure as children to pornographic materials their parents had hidden in the house. This led to desensitization, early experimentation, abuse and, for them, careers in the porn industry. Their mission now is to spread the message of how the secret of pornography often leads both children and adults into destructive sexual addictions that tear families apart and destroy careers.
Oh my! How terrible! Can we learn more about WRAP? Let’s check out their website:
White Ribbon’s purpose is to increase public awareness of the harm done by exposure to pornography.
White Ribbon Week began in 1987 when Norma Norris heard a sermon delivered against pornography delivered by her pastor in Butler, PA. Soon after, she conceived the idea of a simple white ribbon as a symbol of decency.
Purpose: To increase awareness of parents and students about the following facts
Wow!
Does Representative Lynn really believe that swimsuit and lingerie images are a problem?
What kind of sexual information does Representative Lynn think is inappropriate for teens to have?
Does Representative Lynn really believe that sexual addiction can occur within a week? If so, how does she believe her constituents can best protect themselves from it? Is she advocating abstinence for everyone or are married people immune from sexual addiction?
And, heck, is it even true that “Many of the founders of WRAP are thirty something’s that have fled the porn industry to turn their lives around”? According to this news article, WRAP was founded by “Members of Court Little Flower No. 988, the local chapter of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas [who] have been fighting a war against pornography for 15 years.” So these 30-somethings all got out of porn when they were 15? And I hate to be snarky, but dang, porn must be rough on a body judging by the 30-something ex-pornstars in that photo with the mayor.
Lynn goes on:
Recognizing the harm to children, women and men worldwide, they’re asking for you and me to think about it and make a commitment not to support this industry.
When we pay to go see or rent many R rated movies, subscribe to cable movie channels such as Showtime, even watching some evening network TV programming we’re supporing an extention of this industry.
Is Lynn ready to make such a commitment? Will she be canceling her cable, since you can buy pay-per-view porn over cable networks? Will she be cutting up her credit cards, because, after all, if not for the credit card companies taking and processing the payments, there’d be no way for pornography to be the biggest money-making industry on the web. Oh, the web. Will Lynn stop blogging and stop using the internet since it’s the internet that allows the ease of pornography distribution? Has she stopped shopping at Amazon? Does she refuse to buy her gas from stations that sell pornography? Does she only stay at hotels that don’t have pay-per-view porn? Will she stop watching Fox News, since the NEWS corporation has such a huge stake in pornography? Shoot, the city of Nashville makes money from the licensing of strippers and the state of Tennessee makes tax money from the sale of pornography. Will she move? Never use another local or state service?
Or is wearing a white ribbon enough?
Edited to add: This.
So, I’m listening to the Butcher’s copy of Raising Sand and I just have to confess that, though Allison Krauss’s unnerving ability to sing at just above a whisper kind of annoys me, this is the strangest, coolest album I’ve heard in a long time. Plant’s voice is beautiful and, for those of you who care about these things, he even works in a few “henh”s just so you know it’s him.
So, this seems like good news for child rapists. See, if you seduce and raped children who are here illegally, especially if you run away with them to Mexico, the Feds will refuse to let your victim back in the country and may deport his whole family.
But, hey, we can take solice in the fact that he deserved it for being in the wrong place at the wrong time; or for using our tax payer dollars to attend school in the first place; or for being here illegally; or, you know, whatever. And we can take solice in the fact that, once news of this gets out, folks will be less likely to report incidents of abuse for fear of being deported, thus using even less of our tax dollars on investigating things like this.
Great. Let’s just have a whole underclass of people with no legal standing and no legal recourse and let’s just let every corrupt corporation and evil jackass prey on them while we all sit back and wring our hands about whether they don’t deserve it just a tiny bit because they or their parents came here illegally.
That will be good fun and totally moral!
The Redheaded Kid arranged a private screening of American Gangster for us last night. I meant not to watch it, but I got sucked in.
*************SPOILER ALERT*******************
Now, I’ve read a few reviews of this movie, but none of them have pointed out what’s going to be apparent to anyone who watches HBO. This movie is a total retread of The Wire, if McNulty were looking to be a lawyer and if Avon and Stringer Bell were the same character and they/he lived and flipped on everyone they/he worked with.
So similar to McNulty is Crowe’s character that when one of the corrupt detectives called him a “kike,” my very first thought was “Did I miss the episode where they explained when the Irish cop took up Judaism?”
It’s not just the incredibly handsome, charismatic black gangster v. the promiscuous cop who goes against the grain of police culture. It’s what we see in scenes–the board with all the faces on it; the sense that there’s someone high up in the organization that the cops can’t quite put a finger on; the browns and dark shadows of a corrupt, dying city; the expert use of music.
But, more importantly, it’s how, in looking to make sure this is the movie version of everyone’s favorite story-arc of The Wire, the movie makers miss out on what could have been a very interesting movie–the one in which Crowe’s character gets Washington’s character to flip, which he does, which leads to Crowe’s character eventually becoming Washington’s character’s lawyer.
Right now, that part of the movie takes no time. And yet, that’s where all the new ground is. I mean, you wonder, what is it about Washington’s character that appeals to Crowe’s character (sorry, Washington’s character is named ‘Frank’ but I’ll be damned if I can remember what Crowe’s character is called)? I know why McNulty is fascinated by Barksdale and Bell, but I should not have to extrapolate from a tv show not at all related to this movie the motivations for characters. And did Crowe’s character view his defense of Washington’s character as part of his efforts to be an upright guy? If so, what is it about defending a gangster that is upright? Is Washington redeemed? If so, why? Did he feel uneasy about his life as a gangster in the first place?
Anyway, I just felt like all the interesting stuff, that we haven’t seen done better by The Wire, stuff that could really showcase Washington and Crowe’s talents, was just glossed right over.
It was a fine movie and thought-provoking, but I wouldn’t pay money to see it when that money could be going to buy DVDs of The Wire.
Tiny Cat Pants 