Happy Birthday(s), Bard

It's a weekend for celebration of the birthdays of William Shakespeare. (His actual birthday is not known with certainty; he was baptized on April 26, 1564, and his birthday is generally observed on April 23, so I feel like labeling this a holiday weekend and recognizing the four-day stretch as his "birthdays".)

There's nothing new under the sun that I could say about Shakespeare. His life has been thoroughly - as much as possible, considering how little is actually known - summarized, analyzed, picked apart and re-synthesized. I became enamored of his works before I was old enough to really understand them, although Romeo and Juliet was the first one I read, at 14, and I think any teenager can grasp the sentiments there. (OMGZ I love you sooooo much and I'm totes gonna KILL MYSELF AND DIE if I can't be with you, waahhhh!!! Ah, high school.) While I may have been an English major, I'm no scholar and don't have much interest in a mini-dissertation on a subject that's been dissertationed like nobody's business. Just don't come up in here with that "He didn't write the plays" bullshit or I'll chase you around with a bullhorn, yelling refutations and accusations of classism until your eardrums burst and you collapse in a heap, at which point I will scrawl "ANTI-STRATFORDIAN" on your body with a quill pen.

In lieu of a lengthy pseudo-essay, I'd rather simply include one of my favorite passages, from Act III, Scene II of The Winter's Tale. Queen Hermione has been thrown in prison by her husband King Leontes, who publicly accused her of infidelity and declared that the child she was carrying was not his. Here she is brought before him and the court and defends herself against these charges, as well as claims that she aided in the escape of Polixenes, the man she is accused of having an affair with, and that she conspired to kill her husband with Camillo, a man the king had ordered to poison Polixenes.

Leontes: Read the indictment.

Officer: [Reads] Hermione, queen to the worthy
Leontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused
and arraigned of high treason, in committing
adultery with Polixenes, king of Bohemia, and
conspiring with Camillo to take away the life
of our sovereign lord the king, the royal hus-
band: the pretence whereof being by circum-
stances partly laid open, thou, Hermione,
contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true
subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their
better safety, to fly away by night.

Hermione: Since what I am to say must be but that
Which contradicts my accusation and
The testimony on my part no other
But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
To say "not guilty." Mine integrity
Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,
Be so received. But thus: if powers divine
Behold our human actions, as they do,
I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush and tyranny
Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,
Who least will seem to do so, my past life
Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
As I am now unhappy; which is more
Than history can pattern, though devised
And play'd to take spectators. For behold me
A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,
The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing
To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore
Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour,
'Tis a derivative from me to mine,
And only that I stand for. I appeal
To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
How merited to be so; since he came,
With what encounter so uncurrent I
Have strain'd to appear thus: if one jot beyond
The bound of honour, or in act or will
That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts
Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin
Cry fie upon my grave!

Leontes: I ne'er heard yet
That any of these bolder vices wanted
Less impudence to gainsay what they did
Than to perform it first.

Hermione: That's true enough;
Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.

Leontes: You will not own it.

Hermione: More than mistress of
Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not
At all acknowledge. For Polixenes
With whom I am accused, I do confess
I loved him as in honour he required,
With such a kind of love as might become
A lady like me, with a love even such,
So and no other, as yourself commanded:
Which not to have done I think had been in me
Both disobedience and ingratitude
To you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke,
Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely
That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,
I know now how it tastes; though it be dish'd
For me to try how: all I know if it
Is that Camillo was an honest man;
And why he left your court, the gods themselves
Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.

Leontes: You knew of his departure, as you know
What you have underta'en to do in 's absence.

Hermione: Sir,
You speak a language that I understand not:
My life stands in the level of your dreams.
Which I'll lay down.

Leontes: Your actions are my dreams;
You had a bastard by Polixenes,
And I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame, --
Those of your fact are so -- so past all truth:
Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as
Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,
No father owning it, -- which is, indeed,
More criminal in thee than it, -- so thou
Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage
Look for no less than death.

Hermione: Sir, spare your threats:
The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
To me can life be no commodity:
The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,
I do give lost; for I do feel it gone,
But know not how it went. My second joy
And first-fruits of my body, from his presence
I am barr'd, like on infectious. My third comfort,
Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast,
The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth,
Haled out to murder: myself on every post
Proclaim'd a strumpet: with immodest hatred
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs
To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried
Here to this place, i' the open air, before
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
Tell me what blessings I have here alive
That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.
But yet hear this; mistake me not; no life,
I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,
Which I would free, if I shall be condemn'd
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you
'Tis rigour and not law. Your honours all,
I so refer me to the oracle:
Apollo be my judge!

Champions of the Championship!

It's about time for a soccer post, and what a good time it is...for Newcastle fans! Having already secured promotion back to the Premier League a couple of weeks ago, there was still the hope of maximum reward for their great run this season in the Championship - winning the title.

Done and done! Newcastle needed only a point today but got three in their 2-0 win over Plymouth Argyle (which saw Plymouth get dropped down to League One) to secure the title with two matches to go. As a member of the Toon Army, I'm totally exuberant, although I'm sure the men and women over Tyneside are celebrating just a wee bit harder - partially since, you know, they are probably ingesting alcohol...lots and lots of alcohol, but also because they've been with the team for much longer than I have.

I only became a soccer fan (and Newcastle fan) about 5 or 6 years ago, so perhaps the sting of relegation last May didn't hit me quite as hard as it did the folks who have grown up with the team. Oh, but it sucked, trust me. That Newcastle was even near the drop zone was maddening enough. But it came down to the last match and all they needed was a point out of it. They were battling with Hull City for the last safe spot and had a better goal differential - that single point would have tied them with Hull and the Tigers would have been the ones to drop with their GD of -25 compared to ours of -19. A 0-0 result with Aston Villa would have been plenty. But the game ended 1-0 Villa, and that one goal? An own goal. A motherfucking own goal by Damien Duff (aka GOD DAMN FUCKING DUFF as he became known between me and a friend).

So relegated they were, which is frustrating in another way for U.S. footie fans since even Fox Soccer Channel doesn't show any European games from outside the top leagues. I followed along by watching the Fox Soccer Report highlights, by staring at match trackers screaming "UPDATE DAMN IT" in my head, and by reading as many UK match reports as I could find and attempt to understand (break the duck? zuh?). Even without seeing the games, it's still been exciting and refreshing to see Newcastle really dominate the Championship. Sure, it's not the same level of competition as the Prem, but that's not the only reason they've done so well - they've just been playing very good football. In August, new manager Chris Hughton took a team that was something of a mess, especially after the mass exodus of talent in summer of '09, and got a revival going immediately. Over 44 matches, they've scored 87 goals and only allowed 33, just 11 of which were allowed at home where they are currently unbeaten. Today's win makes seven straight and puts them at 29-11-4 and two points shy of the triple-digit mark - should they hit that with the last two matches, they'll be only the fifth Championship side to do so.

Granted, there is the worry that they will get the crap kicked out of them next season by the big sides, but I'm expectant that with a few additions to round out the roster and with the continued strength and confidence of the squad, they'll hold their own well enough. (Don't hate - I'm not expecting them to be lifting a trophy next May...but who's to say they won't make it to Europa? And that would be fine with me!) Coming back after only a single season out, with their first major trophy since 1993 in tow, should do well to keep them fired up. I'm sure the fans will be, if their storming-the-pitch celebration is any indication (it's a video taken at the park and is totally awesome ☺):



Geordies!!!!

Nothing Happened to Demi

I do not regularly read The Daily Beast, but through that wondrous pipeline of information and crap known as Twitter, I came across a vapid and pointless article by Gina Piccalo called "What Happened to Demi?" - as though Demi Moore had suddenly vanished, or shown up somewhere with no legs, or had gone catatonic.

No, Piccalo is just being what she probably thinks is a feminist but is really just a pseudo-feminist concern troll. To wit:

Demi Moore has apparently been domesticated. It’s evident in the way she touches that sleek Cher-hair self-consciously, how she so frequently refers to Ashton Kutcher as “my husband.” It’s in her coy indignation about the media’s focus on her looks, even the girlish way she speaks to the Webcam behind Buddy Holly frames in her YouTube videos. That ball-busting $12 million woman who was the Demi Moore of the mid-1990s would eat this fey facsimile for lunch.

Domesticated. As though she's a feral cat or something. And because she's not running around in G.I. Jane mode all the time, she's an airhead? Because she calls her husband "my husband", she's...what? A doormat? Yeah, JEEZ DEMI, what are you THINKING? Real feminists only refer to their male partner by his name or maybe as "the penis". I'm not sure what we decided on at the last convention.

Piccalo gets even more direct about it:

At the Los Angeles press conference for her new comic indie drama The Joneses last week, Moore, 47, looked great. But whatever claim she has to feminism or authenticity or even Hollywood star power felt especially stale on this afternoon.

And what exactly caused her claim to feminism and "authenticity" (!!) to be compared to a day-old bagel? Well, she had the AUDACITY to wear an expensive dress and heels. I KNOW RIGHT, a woman in Hollywood showed up a press event in fancy clothes. The movie is apparently about the ills of consumerism, so I guess Piccalo thinks she's being all perceptive and observant by mentioning this. But what did she expect - that Moore would show up in an outfit from Kmart? She's a person, an actor - not a character in a movie. Even if Moore supports the concepts in the film, her support isn't decimated by her desire to still wear expensive shoes. I care about the environment, but I don't carry a reusable coffee mug with me. I know, I'm such an asshole. And probably not a feminist, somehow, in Piccalo's world. (Because also: what, precisely, the fuck does feminism have to do with how a woman dresses? I thought we liked the idea of not judging women on their clothing choices, but I guess that was another change to the rules that I missed the memo about.)

A few paragraphs down, Piccalo uses the word "hubris" to describe a recent quote from Moore in UK Elle, in which Moore declares that when she said, years ago, that she wanted it all, "[i]t was coming from a desire for balance. I wanted to remove the limitations that I felt were being imposed on me.” Call me naive - or don't actually, because bullshit, I do not see hubris in that quote. A touch of pride and self-interest, sure, but that doesn't translate to extreme arrogance for me. Wanting balance in your life and wanting some control over how your very public life is proceeding is pretty understandable, actually. Wanting to feel like you can have things the way you'd prefer them is natural, especially for someone in a position of power who is able to actually make it happen. It's amusing considering just before this, Piccalo was criticizing Moore for what she saw as caricature-like behavior, and now she's calling her arrogant for saying something entirely common and human. So picky!

From there, she goes through a run-down of Moore's career, noting the blockbusters she notched in the 90s. Then she mentions how Moore's marriage to Bruce Willis ended and her mother died, and that "[s]he did one last film, a romantic drama Passion of Mind that proved once and for all that her days opening a blockbuster were over", and hey, I don't know about you but I know if my marriage ended and my mother died, the one thing on my mind? BOX OFFICE RATINGS, BITCHES. Yeah, no. Piccalo is essentially mocking Moore for this change in her status which came after two negative life-changing events. Way to go! Your feminism sucks.

After reading this piece, I really wondered what Piccalo's editor was thinking, not to mention Piccalo herself. What was the point of this? Why did she think there was a need to write a long article about her personal disappointment in a certain female actor's insignificant actions? It really felt like sour grapes, or just spite maybe. "What happened to Demi"? Nothing happened to her. She's living her life, and even if she has said that she "seemed to lose her way" as Piccalo states, it's nothing that doesn't occur in basically every human life at one point or another, and sometimes multiple points. So she loves having glossy hair, so she speaks in a soft voice, so she tweets as @mrskutcher - so what? Ms. Piccalo, it doesn't make you a better feminist to say another woman isn't one for things like this. When she starts filming ads for crisis pregnancy centers, or campaigning against fair pay initiatives, get back to me.

SCOTUS Wishes

Scott Lemieux has a brief post over at The American Prospect about the nominees we might see in an ideal world to fill the Supreme Court seat of soon-to-retire Justice John Paul Stevens. Any progressive who's been awake for the past few months has likely already accepted that whoever the nominee is, he or she would not be our own first choice (or second or third for that matter, sadly enough). Obama has been, shall we say, letting us down somewhat lately.

But hope springs eternal, no? I know very little about most of the names being tossed around (with the exception of Ezra Klein's awesome fucking suggestion), but Lemieux is partial to Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, and after reading up on her and watching this, I'm inclined to agree:



Her focus on the tone and the terminology that the Court used (and I'm not certain which decision she's discussing here, though it sounds like it could be this one from April 2007 regarding late-term abortion) is extremely important and not often present in public commentary on how we talk about abortion. As she says:

"...the decision is written in a tone in which the pregnant woman is referred to almost entirely as "the mother", although these women have made the decision that they do not want to be mothers now. The fetus is always referred to as "the unborn child". The doctors are not referred to as "physicians" but as "abortionists"..."

I'm very pleased that she recognizes the fault with this phrasing, because it clearly sets up the anti-choice argument as being the right one, the default one. Women are "mothers", fetuses are "children", doctors who perform abortions are nothing more than that. It comes from the conservative standpoint which is heavily influenced by opinion, whereas the liberal standpoint is much more objective - pregnant women are pregnant women, fetuses are fetuses, and doctors are doctors. It's not a radical view, it's a rational view. It's a view that doesn't look through a lens of personal opinion but rather just assesses the facts. We need a lot more of this in the discourse, on abortion and many other topics, and Karlan has a handle on that.

Of course, she's also gay, so the GOP would lose their shit if she were the nominee - because anyone who isn't white (or far-right non-white), hetero, male (or non-feminist female), and Jesus-following would be nothing but a wild and crazy ACTIVIST JUDGE BOOGA BOOGA. In RWNJ world, a member of a marginalized group is incapable of any aims other than destroying and subjugating the oppressive classes. As flattered as I am that they think us so ambitious and mighty, I'm also seriously sick and fucking tired of the ludicrous idea that those who've had so much power for so long are ever on the verge of losing it all because someone else manages to capture a shred of their own.

Virginia Is For Lovers...of Slavery?

With all due respect to Virginians who aren't racist assholes...

What the fuck?

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has quietly declared April 2010 Confederate History Month, bringing back a designation in Virginia that his two Democratic predecessors — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — refused to do.

"Refused to do" - yes, well...decent, non-hateful people generally do refuse to pay homage to disgusting and shameful periods in history. But apparently McDonnell has no such qualms. How nice. And by "nice" I mean excuse me while I imagine throttling him.

People often try to claim that waxing nostalgic about the days of the Confederacy totally doesn't mean they're racist because, you know, it's just their HISTORY. As though it's somehow a character flaw, or an insult to your state or your family name or whatever, to recognize the fuck-ups of the past. Or as though ever admitting that the United States has maybe kinda sorta been a shitty place for certain people to live at times means you're a traitorous heathen who might as well poop on the flag and run off to dry hump Osama bin Laden.

The proclamation apparently makes no mention of slavery, which is not surprising but is incredibly mind-boggling. Think whatever you like, racists, but wanting to celebrate "Confederate History Month" is wanting to celebrate slavery, pure and simple. You are celebrating a time when an entire group of people, because of the color of their skin, were treated like garbage, like objects, were specifically deemed to be less than whole. You are honoring laws and policies that labeled human beings as property. You are longing for a time when your beloved South wanted to secede - which sure doesn't sound patriotic to me - in order to continue these practices, rather than face the reality of NOT BEING SLAVE OWNERS.

That is what you're doing when you support "Confederate History Month". If you're okay with that, I suppose I can't change your mind, but you at least have to be honest about what it means. Don't tell me you're not racist - the belief that all people are of equal worth no matter their skin color is in direct opposition to the practice of enslaving a people based on their skin color. If you don't like being called a racist, then somewhere inside you, you know it's a bad thing to be. So take a step back and think about what kind of person you claim to be, what kind of person you want to be and what kind of person your words and actions say you are.

Celebrity Celebration: Ellen Page

In the interest of full disclosure, I never saw Juno, and still don't care to. Seriously, just thinking about the phrase "honest to blog" makes me want to stab myself in the face. The only Ellen Page movie I've seen is Hard Candy, and well...eh, just click the link if you're not familiar. If you are, you know what I'm talking about. (Pause for ouchie cringing.)

However, of course I know the basic plot of Juno: teen girl gets pregnant and decides to have the baby so it can be adopted. Aw. Of course, the other path the movie could have taken - and the one I'm going to wildly guess happens more often in real life - is that Juno could have had an abortion. OMG THE A WORD! But anyway, I do recall some feminists talking about the movie and lamenting that, once again, abortion was basically treated like Voldemort, if Voldemort was, you know...a medical procedure. And that some anti-choice people thought the movie was just lovely and see? You stupid cruel bitches, look how nice it is to carry and give birth to a baby you don't want IN THE FUCKING MOVIES WHERE EVERYTHING IS FAKE.

So anyway. Today I came across this interview with Page in The Guardian. The whole thing is pretty great, but the main passage making me want to hug her and thank her and give her cupcakes is this:

How did you feel about the controversy aroused by your role in Juno?

I was like, you know what? You all need to calm down. People are so black and white about this. Because she kept the baby everybody said the film was against abortion. But if she'd had an abortion everybody would have been like, "Oh my God". I am a feminist and I am totally pro-choice, but what's funny is when you say that people assume that you are pro-abortion. I don't love abortion but I want women to be able to choose and I don't want white dudes in an office being able to make laws on things like this. I mean what are we going to do – go back to clothes hangers?

Oh, listen to my pro-choice heart go pitter-pat! This is the stuff that feminists have been saying for YEARS but most of us don't have the same platform or level of popularity that someone like Page does. And while there are certainly other feminist celebrities, more often you hear women in music and Hollywood backing away from the term and the politics, because ew, right? Feminism. Ick.

When she says that saying you are pro-choice makes people think you are "pro-abortion", she seriously hits the bulls-eye. I've heard the term "pro-abortion" bandied about by anti-choicers many times, as though anyone who supports a woman's reproductive freedom is just SALIVATING over the thought that said woman might have an abortion, and oh pleeeeeease please have an abortion because we just love them so much, we CAN'T GET ENOUGH!

No. As Page says, it's not about wanting to have an abortion, it's about wanting the choice should you need to make it. And that choice should be made by the woman facing it, not by random strangers - who, as she says, are mostly white dudes, ahem ahem STUPAK - who, as far as I can tell, just might be salivating over the thought of going back to the days of clothes hangers that Page mentions. Oooh, I know, that's so mean of me to say, but hey - wanting to punish women as the total sluts they are for getting pregnant is the anti-choice shtick, so forcing women into a dangerous back alley procedure would fit in well with that twisted fucknut way of thinking.

And I do not doubt for a moment that she's right, that if this movie had been about a teen girl getting pregnant and deciding to get an abortion, and what that whole process is like, people would have been fucking scandalized. How DARE they make a nice and not-completely-shit-talking movie about abortion! Why...it's like they think it's NOT totally evil or something! Anti-choicers would have picketed outside theaters and written miles of freaked-out text about how appalling and inappropriate it was to portray abortion as something normal.

The funny thing is, even though celebrities are fairly far from what "normal" is for most of us, they can help so much with "normalizing" things. Why else do we see random celebrities selling products in commercials and print ads? Because advertisers know that when we see that, we think "Hey, if Celebrity I Like likes it, it must FUCKING ROCK. I want it!" Usually this is done with lipstick or face wash or god damned yogurt...but if it could be done with women's rights? If Ellen Page could make a few people say "Yeah, that's awesome, I want that!" about women's equality? Cause for celebration, indeed.

Let's Get Meta!

Subtitled: Blogging About Blogging – everyone loves to do it!

When I started this blog, it was mostly out of a need to rant and blather. Having no one around to hear it, and not wanting to just grouse all day in comment sections of other blogs, I thought, “Do it already. Give in. Start a blog like everyone and their mother.” (Oh God…does MY mother have a blog? Let’s not think about that right now.)

While every random person who chooses a pithy blog name and a pre-made template that conveys their personal serious-but-still-fun-because-LOOK-purple-links attitude probably secretly hopes to become a Big Blog that is linked in other Big Blogs’ blogrolls and in their linkfest posts and have people say “Oh yeah, I read about that on ”, I think we also all realize that’s rather unlikely. I don’t care much about it at the end of the day, but one issue that arises from not having readers and not being known is there’s no pressure on you to keep it up. No one commenting on old posts saying “Hey, where are you? Everything okay? Why haven’t you written about this, that, or the other thing?” No one emailing links to outrageous (in the good or bad sense) articles and asking you to write about it in that way that only you can. No one tweeting their despair at the silence of your keystrokes. When no one laments your absence, it’s hard to maintain a presence, even if praise and page views aren’t your lifeblood.

So, eh…I let it go for a while. One of the good things about casual blogging is that it’s easy to pick it back up, right? Even though I do now have someone to listen to my rantings – and who actually seems to enjoy it, because he’s totally amazing like that (lucky me!) – I would like to get back in the habit of working out my thoughts and forcing them into somewhat-sense-making sentences. I plan for it to last.

Famous last words, right? Good thing it’s just the internet.