Slattern

Miss Universe is crowned, faints over her part in creepy, outdated, objectifying pageant

Case ya weren't glued to the TV for this one, a very giggly Miss Puerto Rico was crowned Miss Universe the other night and promptly fainted under the sheer excitement of it all. I didn't catch the pageant (I was busy sorting socks), but strangely I did catch Inside Edition's hard-hitting coverage of this bombshell of a news item. (I tell myself I watch it for "the material", but sometimes it's just, you know, on.)

This was just days after she and her (slightly uglier) fellow contestants creepily escorted pageant owner Donald Trump onstage on David Letterman. You've got to love ol' Trumpy. I do give him props for at least admitting that the pageant isn't a scholarship pageant but is instead just about "beautiful women." But whatever sliver of respect that scraped up for him evaporated when he said that rich people like him "have to" give away a bunch of money to charity. Yeah, dude, there's a law. We wouldn't want you to do anything out of the, you know, kindness of your heart.

Vomit. People suck.

Pulling a Rabbit out of a sex shop

In yet another bogus attempt by state legislatures to tell folks what they can and can’t do with their nether parts, the state of South Carolina is considering banning the sale of sex toys. Who cares, you ask? If you live in South Carolina, you've got bigger problems than whether or not you can buy a vibrator. Right?

I am a native South Carolinian (who now lives in a considerably more backward state). So I don't tend to be surprised by the uberconservative weirdness emanating from my birth state. But I am still floored at the way its Powers That Be want to tell me what constitutes healthy and moral sexuality.

Obviously, the people of South Dakota are frying much bigger fish, but it speaks to the same fundamental issue. Whether we say so or not, we're legislating from the pulpit, but we can't even agree on what church--or even what faith--that pulpit should be based in.

If we’re just talking vibrators, I’m waiting for the Front Pew Brigade to produce that verse in the Bible. You know the one:

“Whoa to thee who causes thine own clitoris to quiver! For the flames shall consume thy soul.”

I don’t know what is so upsetting to some people about a person—mostly a woman—taking care of business. Is it the whole “sisters are doing it for themselves” thing? That deep down the fish really does need the bicycle? Or is it just that the “marital embrace” being available in hot pink with a convenient travel case is just Not How God Intended It?

I mean, what’ll it be next? Dancing?

I realize it isn’t as simple as a few blue-haired old ladies and their crusty senators being grossed out. I myself cringe each time I drive a certain stretch of I-75, where Café Erotica, possibly the most gaudy strip club in the South, not only sits right by the interstate but advertises for several miles: “We bare all!” I feel for parents who have to explain what XXX means because a sleazy sex shop is advertising its services via billboard.

But banning sex toys altogether? It’s offensive, and on some level laughable, and on yet another level disquieting for the simple fact that we still allow much more disturbing things like smoking in public. Somehow I think that forcibly inhaling second-hand smoke is a much more dangerous prospect than manually bringing myself to orgasm in the privacy of my own bedroom, in the dark, under the covers. Where no one can see me.

But that's just me.

Lawmaker Puzzled by Staff's Clear Hatred of Her

Posted by Emily

See, I totally know how this happened.

One of Montana Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson's constituents recently got an otherwise normal reply letter from her, which had the phrase "I think you're an asshole" at the end. The C'woman responds,

We cannot determine whether the addition to the letter was made by someone within the office or by someone with access to the office, but it is on my letterhead and the responsibility for it lies with me.

I used to do this kind of thing when I worked as a secretary putting myself through grad school. Your anal-retentive scientist (or in this case congresswoman) boss has let you know just one time too many that she thinks you are one of those medical mystery kids who manage to function despite only having a sliver of brain at the top of their spinal cords. In another setting, these kids would of course be forced to run relay races and told they are special, but when you work for a microbiologist/congresswoman with his or her head up his or her own nether parts, this makes you a target for abuse and condescension.

Nevermind that you yourself are working on a terminal degree that will one day land you a similarly cushy academic job WITH TENURE, ASSHOLE, but whatever.

I would never have gone quite *that* far, but it's true that there's only one thing you can really do to get these people back. You go in and find a letter that gets sent out frequently, and you bold a letter here and there throughout the text, forming the message of your choice:

Obviously, the little doohickies on the undersides of paramecia are of great interest to the scientific community and, we think, THE WORLD! 

It's a little thing. But it's all you have. You're not going to put this job on your resume anyway. Fuck do you care?

Thank Gawd we're in Georgia

posted by Emily

It seems only fitting that our first official posting should be a link to Reason's Hit and Run blog, which this morning celebrates the Great State of Georgia. Apparently some folks exercising their first amendment rights to think the president sucks and say so were ticketed for, um, slightly naughty bumper stickers.

Check it: http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/

But you know what makes it a really interesting piece of news? The Georgia Supreme Court declared the ban on lewd bumper stickers unconstitutional a decade ago. Ain't that a pissah?