[Insert "ironic" use of offensive term to illustrate edgy-ness]

A tad behind the times on this, but there’s been so much idiocy going about these days one has had trouble keeping up – not to mention that The Christmas is fast approaching.

First things first:  Long story short, Paul Henry added to his incredibly long list of infractions against basic tact/class/decency/empathy by referring to Susan Boyle as “retarded”.

Second thing second:  The bloggers at The Hand Mirror have a post up with some ideas about how to actually do something more than ignore Paul Henry in the vain hope he’ll go away.

Third thing third:  I could go on (and on and on and on) about Paul Henry, but that gets a little dull after a while, and why bother when there’s a much higher calibre of stupidity on the menu?

I speak of an instalment of Moata’s Blog Idle on *shudder* Stuff.

Specifically, a post entitled (because she’s so clever!) Let’s get retarded.

I’m sure we’re all breathless with antici…pation to see where she’s going to go with this one, right?

Well, she’s straight into it with an innovative twist on the old “I’m not racist but …”:

Let me just start by stating quite clearly that I am no great fan, or any sized fan, of Paul Henry.

It’s not just that you can see the apologism bearing down on you from miles away, it’s that there’s also something of an attempt to invoke QoT’s Law Of Strange Bedfellows:  why, if adorable “thirtysomething”* quirky girl-blogger Moata is actually going to agree with crotchety wankstain Paul Henry, surely there must be something in it, right?

And after some meandering through the classic Stuff blogger’s “what I ate for breakfast today” opening paragraphs we’re into the meat of it, the delicious steak of oblivious privilege upon which all future paragraphs will be but an array of experience-enhancing sauces:

But let’s have a little discussion about the use of the word “retard”, shall we, since it seems to be very much a topic of conversation at the moment?  In the past I’ve been taken to task for my use of this word, and I’ve accepted that it’s not to everyone’s liking but I am relatively unapologetic about it.  I’m very much a fan of words and I’m not going to facetiously claim that a word is just a word and it can’t hurt you.  Certainly words do have power, but sometimes only as much power as you are willing to give them.

Talking to readers like they’re schoolchildren and having to type out this post is a chore? Check.

Martyr complex because ZOMG someone has previously expressed displeasure at your use of offensive words? Check.

Brash declaration of refusal to give in to The Soldiers of Political Correctness, buttressed with sanctimonious I LOVE LANGUAGE bullshit? Check.

Statement about not downplaying something’s offensiveness immediately succeeded by downplaying its offensiveness? Check.

Smug implication that it’s actually your fault for feeling offended, you hypersensitive snowflake? Check.

With AMAZING BONUS “oh but I said sometimes I didn’t mean you” weasel-clause? Ladies, gentlemen, small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, we have a winner!

This is a princely piece of work, this.  The word “retarded”, you see, is simply not to everyone’s liking. It’s a matter of personal taste, an aesthetic choice, much like those stimulating “whence” vs. “from whence” debates one might have over a cup of wanker tea.  Nothing serious.

Nothing, for example, like a word with strong negative connotations used as a blanket term for both all mental illness and a lack of intellect, forethought, reason, or rational capabilities.

Nothing that could possibly give any kind of message, like “mentally ill people are all stupid”, certainly nothing that could be used to dehumanize an entire group of people, nothing that could be a part of common usage as a putdown because we view people with mental illness as being lesser beings,  because we [being of course the neurotypical majority who get to decide these things] consider it a bad, awful, horrible thing to be thought of as a retard.

If you’re having a hard time drawing the comparison, consider “throwing like a girl”, which I’ll come back to in a moment – because first, Moata has to let us know just how unwilling she is to acknowledge reality.

My take on the use of the word “retarded” is that it falls into two distinct categories.  You can use it derogatively or jocularly to refer to someone or something that is judged to be stupid or behave stupidly.  For instance, “trying to flirt with a woman by telling her you’re going to kidnap her (I overheard a guy yell this at an attractive female as she walked past a couple of weeks ago) is retarded”.  This is probably the way that the word is used by most people, most of the time (though not on television).

The second use of the term is to refer to someone who has some kind of deficiency of intellect that can accurately be described as a kind of mental retardation.  As best as I can tell this is the origin of the word “retard” which has since acquired a broader usage by being applied to things (or people) who are not, in fact, mentally deficient.

Like an episode of The Simpsons, we’re working on multiple levels here.  So, the first “distinct category” – retarded = stupid (oh but remember, it can be used jocularly!).

The second, retarded = mentally deficient.

First, the junior circuit stupid.  Moata apparently wants us to believe that when people call someone retarded, we just mean “stupid”.  Nothing more.  It’s just a synonym, with no implications or assumptions. No one, hearing a person say “That guy is retarded” (jocularly!), could possibly understand it to mean “that person is mentally deficient the way a generic person with mental illness (but let’s face it, probably someone with visible illness/condition/disability, and let’s face it further, almost certainly down’s syndrome) is mentally deficient”.

No no no, they hear “that guy is retarded” and it magically has no associations with the second “distinct category” at all. Fuck me, I think Moata’s a psychic and hasn’t figured out the rest of us aren’t.

Senior stupid:  if we look very closely in the thick undergrowth of the bloggy rainforest, we may be able to make out some fan-fucking-tastic normative language.

some kind of deficiency of intellect

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?  The way Moata, and a lot of her readers, and certainly all the other people who hit on this particular defence of the word, make nice big bold statements about how there’s obviously a normal level of intellect, and some people just don’t have it, and so they’re deficient.  Not like us normal people who have normal intellects.

And it’s obviously totes cool to refer to these deficient people as retards, because they’re backwards.  You know, like referring to indigenous peoples as primitive or barbaric because they haven’t discovered the joys of urban disease and nuclear warfare.  I mean, it’s a thoroughly objective thing to do, because we’re normal.  Right?  I mean, we must be, because everyone knows that not being normal would be a terrible thing.

But don’t let me get carried away.  Moata continues to impress by finding new and astounding ways to make my jaw drop:

So the irony with regards to the current Paul Henry debacle (there’ll be another one next week) is that he’s got himself into trouble for using the word, not in the derogatory way that it is often used by people like me, but by actually applying it to someone who apparently is a little retarded.

Now, the fact that “Paul smooth-as-a-gravy-sandwich Henry” took a gleeful delight in reading about Susan Boyle’s misfortune in life is an entirely different issue.  He could have used any word to describe her mental condition; what’s really upsetting is the silly, schoolboy laughter that accompanied it.

(emphasis hers)

I mean, shit on a brick.  The irony is that Paul Henry was actually calling a person retarded who IS retarded!  Isn’t life funny that way?  I mean, obviously he went too far with the laughing, the implication in his laughter that being retarded is a bad thing.  Because we all know that it can just be an accurate term for someone who’s mentally deficient.  Right?

And Susan Boyle obviously is retarded, I mean, Moata’s a physician psychic so she knows, it’s not like she, just like Paul Henry, is making assumptions about people based on their appearances or lives or attitudes or anything.

It’s certainly not like she, like Paul Henry, like many other people, feel quite comfortable saying “this woman looks a bit dim and is single and old and sings songs from Les Mis so she must have been brain damaged because no normal person could be dim/single/old/a Les Mis fan”.  It’s not like the continuing casual use of the word retard in any way supports these assumptions.  That would be wrong.

It’s par for the course that, naturally, Moata doesn’t really take these ideas any further.  That would involve her having ideas.  Instead, it’s back to the Stuff blogger’s grab-bag of tricks and making it all about her:

Personally, I’m going to continue to call myself or my nearest and dearest “retarded” when I or they do something stupid.  I’m going to continue to prefer the original version of the Black Eyed Peas song otherwise sanitised-for-our-safety as “Let’s get it started”.  I’m going to continue to think Paul Henry’s a dick, because he kind of is one. What I’m not going to do is taunt someone with an intellectual handicap with the word “retard” or laugh at their misfortune because the thing that I am most grateful for in life is my good mind.

LOOK OUT, WORLD!  We’re dealing with a FREE SPIRIT here who will NOT BE DENIED her right to be a fucking insensitive douchebag of the highest order.

Christ, Moata. Just tattoo “I don’t know anybody with visible disability and I lack the capacity for basic empathy unless something personally affects me” on your forehead while you’re at it.  They can take your original-edit Black Eyed Peas from your cold, dead hands, right?  Because the word “retarded” is just so essential to the subtext of that song, it loses its meaning without it.

And oh good Lords and Ladies, that last sentence.  Let’s see it again for the audience at home:

What I’m not going to do is taunt someone with an intellectual handicap with the word “retard” or laugh at their misfortune because the thing that I am most grateful for in life is my good mind.

So apparently, even though “retarded” is a totally appropriate word to use (jocularly!) to describe people who are “mentally deficient”, Moata … has reservations about using it to a person’s mentally-deficient face.  I guess that’s back to not to everyone’s liking, or maybe it’s just taunting people with it.  Context, tone, these things are all so important when you’re not just taking half a fucking neuron to not be an offensive wanker.

And remember, kiddies, Moata’s most important message: even though there are no bad connotations to a neurotypical person being called a “retard”, because it’s fucking jocular, we should still be mindful of the MISFORTUNES of people with intellectual disabilities.  THOSE POOR FUCKING SOULS, DON’T WE JUST WEEP FOR THEM, THEY’RE LIKE PINOCCHIO ONLY RETARDS INSTEAD OF PUPPETS.  Fucking misfortune, Moata?  You’re going to play the “words only have the power you give them” AND the “it’s technically accurate” cards and then you are going to fucking pity people who have mental disabilities or illness.

Good thing you’ve got a “good mind”, Moata.  That should make up for your complete lack of basic fucking soul.

–

*Personal gripe: OWN YOUR FUCKING AGE, WOMAN.

Who needs identity politics?

Alas, dear friends, it is late in the night and I’m buggered if I can recall what trail of sorry links lead me to the posts upon which I am to unleash my wrath.

It’s yet another spin-off of the cultural clusterfuck that is Nationhood Speech Der Zweite; specifically, the response by Chris Trotter entitled “The Liberal Left: Who Needs You?” Our special surprise guest is a commenter going by the name of John Pagani, apparently an adviser to The Speechmaker Himself, assuming anyone is honest about their identities on the interwebz these days (she says, writing under a pseudonym).

First things first, there’s the casual dismissal of all and sundry who thought that maybe explicitly modelling a speech after the Don Brash/Orewa mold might not be entirely kosher:

Their reflexive condemnation of anyone who dares to hold Maori politicians to the same standards as Pakeha betrays an arrogant unwillingness to accept the ethical norms of their own society. These people have become the fervent champions of an indigenous culture they can never truly join because, fundamentally, they despise their own.

On the “same standard” bollocks, see my previous post.  Idiot/Savant notes well in the comments,

Be honest, Chris. The word you’re looking for is “self-hating Pakeha”. Or maybe “race-traitor”.

Disclaimer: I am so white it’s ridiculous.  I don’t say I’m “proud to be white” because HOLY CRAP with the instant supremacist associations.  Also, you know, taking pride in the identity of an ethnicity which has categorically dumped on basically every other ethnicity over the past several centuries?  Not so much my thing.

But I am white.  My cultural points of reference are white and Western and English-speaking.  And there’s a big fucking difference between acknowledging that white people have seriously fucked up on the race relations/not committing genocide front and “despising [my] own [culture].”

But I guess it makes it much easier to ignore people’s objections when you can say “oh they just suffer from too much liberal white guilt” – and when you’re happy to forget the fact that we have quite a bit to be guilty about.  Throwing in that whole “too arrogant to accept basic ethics” line is a nice touch, too.

Fuck that, though, I’ve covered it already – point is, Chris Trotter is my least favourite kind of leftie: the one who thinks being a leftie makes him automatically open-minded and understanding of privilege and power dynamics and oppression, but clings happily to the notion that every single bad thing in the world comes down to nothing more than class.

Side note: Trotter responds to I/S’ comment with:

If the cap fits,Comrade …

GET IT, GUYS, HE’S A TOTAL LEFTIE BECAUSE HE CALLS PEOPLE COMRADE, WHY DON’T YOU WORSHIP AT THE FEET OF HIS MARXIST CREDENTIALS.

Anyway, point is:  identity politics.  Ah, yes, those trifling matters that get in the way of real class struggle.  Can’t think why “objects to “identity politics”" is a phrase instantly associated in my mind with white heterosexual males who happen to have a few leftwing ideas, but oh well …

Along with hassling the ZOMG LIBERAL LEFT for having no power or influence “beyond the blogosphere” (whereas Chris totes has influence ’cause they wheel him out to sing The Red Flag on election nights for a laugh) there’s a few nice jabs at we Liberal Lefties:

Those faint-hearted liberals who can’t stand the heat should get out of the kitchen.

…

They have no understanding of, nor empathy for, the hopes and fears of ordinary people.

…

The truth of the matter is, liberal leftists have been preaching to themselves for so long they no longer appreciate how few people give a tinker’s cuss what they say.

And then there’s allegedly-John-Pagani in the comments:

It’s about connecting with things that matter to people and making politics work for people, instead of instructing people in what’s good for them and inventing fabrications about the people the left represents.

And that’s frankly where I get right fucking pissed off.

Because apparently, the Liberal Left just don’t understand ordinary people.  We don’t care about things that matter to people, we just want to instruct them because we’re bossy britches.  Fuck, I’m stunned no one managed to insert a nanny/evil headmistress/other authoritarian-woman-figure-who-kills-our-fun-but-is-not-a-Helen-Clark-reference-AT-ALL into the discourse.

Why is the second “people” in both italics and bold up there?  Because when two guys get in a huddle and start slanging against the Liberal Left and the evil distraction of identity politics, and whinge about how we need to think about ordinary people, I think we can make a few very good guesses as to the kind of people they’re talking about.

And I’ll give you a hint:  it ain’t you or me, assuming you are not a middle class white heterosexual cisgendered currently able bodied male.

Because here’s what matters to me:

It matters to me that I not be passed over for a job or a promotion because I’m a woman who’ll obviously just leave to have babies.

It matters to me that I have the right to be paid the same as a man for doing the same work.

It matters to me that gay men and women can have their relationships recognised by the state just like every two-in-three-chance-of-divorce hetero couple.

It matters to me that people of colour not get pulled over by the cops because brown people shouldn’t be driving expensive cars, or are obviously on drugs because they’re brown, or not be played by white people in movies about their lives.

It matters to me that people with disabilities can travel on aeroplanes, and get into buildings, and pass exams at school (look out for that incredibly-expletive-filled-post tomorrow!) and go shopping without worrying some bastard’s going to throw them out for having a hearing dog.

It matters to me that trans people shouldn’t have to worry about being murdered because someone else feels they have the right to judge what defines a man or a woman.

It matters to me that people should be able to practise their faith without fear of persecution, and that people not-of-faith should be able to say so without harassment.

But fuck all that! That’s just identity politics!  That’s just me assuming that the way people identify, the way society wants to identify them, the assumptions others feel free to make about you because of your identity or assumed identity, might actually affect people!  It might actually rate a bit higher on their List Of Things That Pissed Me Off Today:

1. Harassed on bus by guy who wouldn’t leave me alone.
2. First question asked at job interview: “Do you have kids?”
3. Threatened with sexual violence by blog commenter.
4. Still alienated from means of production.

Come on, guys, the big important thing is obviously class struggle!  We can’t possibly let the things that affect women and people of colour and people with disabilities and trans people and people who ignore the gender binary and people whose identities are not the default white het cis male – who, in fact, by being not-white-het-cis-males, actually have the audacity to have identities – get in the way of the greater good!

And if we have to throw Maori under the bus to achieve our [white het cis male] worker’s utopia, then so be it.

To borrow a line from the bikers’ rally at Parliament, I can only ask, though: who’s next?

Other reading:  No Right Turn, Lew at Kiwipolitico.

An “unbalanced response”

You know it’s a bad fucking day when I have to agree, in part, with fucking WhaleOil.

Point the Zero: I’m actually not going to rehash his situation here, because then I’d feel hypocritical for slagging off Eddie at The Standard for Point One.*

That being said, Point the First:  It’s a bit fucking rich playing the “we kept quiet about this because we are Such Noble Creatures” card as a prelude to:

but seeing as the Sunday Star-Times felt differently, a few comments.

It’s a lovely tactic of some of our Parliamentarians to try a variation on this spin, the “well I might call the member a liar, if it weren’t against Standing Orders” line.  It’s childish bullshit and, in Eddie’s case, serves as a handy warning that things are going to go rapidly downhill.

Protip:  if it weren’t okay to comment on it before, it ain’t okay now that one of the trashiest newsrags in NZ has decided it’s a good time to rake through their Most Unflattering Photos file.

Fat hate ain’t just American

Via Fatshionista, a highly-recommended article on America’s Fat Hatred.  Here’s the bit, also quoted at Fatshionista, which leaped out at me:

In a study published in the 2005 issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law,Abigail Saguy and Brian Riley found that many overweight people decide not to get help for medical conditions that are more treatable and more risky than obesity because they don’t want to deal with their doctor’s harassment about their weight. (For instance, a study from the University of North Carolina found that obese women are less likely to receive cervical exams than their thinner counterparts, in part because they worry about being embarrassed or belittled by the doctor because of their weight.)

And of course, when those women drop dead of preventable cancer, it all gets ascribed to “ZOMG obesity epidemic fatties are UNHEALTHY why didn’t they put down the baby-flavoured donuts” and the cycle keeps going, dumbasses.

The reason this jumped out at me is that it’s only been in the last year (i.e. two six-monthly appointments) that I’ve started to just not like going to the doctor.

It was great when I was at uni.  The doctors were generally so head-over-heels with getting to deal with a patient who didn’t smoke, used two forms of contraception and knew exactly when her last smear had been that the dreaded BMI calculation often didn’t even make an appearance.

These last two?  Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah, different story.

… and I am the Cheshire Cat

To quote Anita at Kiwipolitico, If Bronagh Key is a solo mum then I’m an Iraqi refugee.

But no, apparently having a mansion so big the Diplomatic Protection Squad have difficulty covering it is totes balanced out by the long hours That Nice Mr Key puts in down in Wellington.

Like Anita, I don’t doubt that there are a lot of pressures put on a family by having one parent serving as Prime Minister. But … a “solo mother”? Seriously? That’s the line we’re running with? From a man who once attacked the Domestic Purposes Benefit because “some” solo parents* had been

for want of a better term, breeding for a business

And HE’S going to fucking pull the “lolz iz so hard for my wife coz I is away so much she iz totes solo mum lol” line?

GO EAT A BIG BOWL OF DICK, MR KEY.

*Because of course he was only talking about a minority and not in any way just leaving a loophole when criticised for characterizing all beneficiaries as bludgers. Oh no no no, he just meant SOME! Honest! That’s why the right wing spends so much time also talking about the other, non-bludging, non-headline-grabbing kinds of beneficiaries.

I’m an equal-opportunity victim-blamer-hater

First things first, though, the XIIIth Down Under Feminists’ Carnival is up at SAHM Feminist. Awesome work, Azlemed!

Now, I must admit, I was probably asking for it when I agreed with Cactus Kate on something.  But I could hardly have expected the Universe to respond with the best most mindboggling piece of victim-blaming I’ve seen in a while.

Karen Kissane can has transphobia, no can has journalistic integrity

Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere, as I just have time to post before din-dins.

Let’s start with a headline, courtesy of The Age via stuff.co.nz, which basically screams “let’s get some gratuitous offensiveness on”:

Court allows girl, 17, to have breasts removed

It can’t get worse? The hell you say!

An Australian court has allowed a 17-year-old girl to have her breasts removed so she can be more like a boy.

Or as we say in HaveAFuckingBrainistan, “An Australian court has allowed a young transgender man to have surgery so his external appearance can reflect his internal reality.”

… Admittedly, that requires both having a brain and believing in this crazy notion that transgendered people exist.

It’s your usual “denial of transgendered person’s identity, constant and deliberate use of blatantly incorrect pronoun in the face of clear stated preference” tail, only this one has two little twists, one almost funny and the other fucking sick:

First, there’s the fact that Justice Diana Bryant, who made the decision to allow 17-year-old Alex to have the surgery, always uses the correct, male, pronoun … which, given the introduction has already identified Alex as a girl, leads to this:

Justice Bryant told The Age: “In the end, it wasn’t a particularly difficult issue because the only real issue was, ‘Would he (Alex) have it at 17 or once he’s 18?’ Then, he doesn’t need permission…

The “journalist” feels the need to explain that the he Justice Bryant refers to is the same Alex referred to in the headline as a girl.

I mean, most people might have taken the hint when the Chief Justice of the Family Court is using a particular set of words to describe a person.

But not Karen Kissane, senior writer at The Age. Nope, she goes straight for the fucking sick twist:

But ethicist Nick Tonti-Filippini said mainstream medicine did not recognise hormone treatments and surgery as treatment for gender dysphoria. He said it was a psychiatric disorder qualifying under American guidelines as a psychosis because “it’s a belief out of accordance with reality“.

Well, he’s an ethicist, he would know, right?

And if there were anything about this ethicist that might possibly put his comments in context, Karen Kissane would have mentioned it, right?

Like how they stick little “XYZ ABC is a commentator for the Suchandsuch Thinktank and has previously written on the effect of lint on suit jackets” disclaimers at the end of opinion pieces.

I mean, if you’re just going to call someone an ethicist and then report their words with no criticism or questioning, they’ve got to be, well, credible, right?

You wouldn’t, for example, expect them to be Associate Professors at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, right? It’s not like that screams I have a certain and telling doctrine underwriting my statements on gender and identity or anything. It’s not like that might affect how people read this article, and interpret this ethicist’s statements, and how they reflect on the life and identity of a 17-year-old boy.

Karen Kissane, I might have raised an eyebrow over your illiterate inability to get the pronouns right. I might have just screamed FUCK at my computer screen a few times over that pathetic excuse for a headline.

But when you describe Alex’s identity as “longing to be the opposite sex”, when you quote someone like Nick Toni-Filippini and feel apparently no need to point out that his comments are hardly objective, when you discard the serious efforts Justice Bryant has gone to to reach the best decision for Alex because you want to treat a young transman as a circus freak to get you headlines?

There is a special circle of Hell waiting for you, Karen.

Letters to The Age: letters@theage.com.au

ETA: More at Hoyden About Town and The Hand Mirror.

Second chances

Second chances are for people who honestly acknowledge their previous misdeeds and sincerely commit to change.

Second chances are not for people whose apologies contain the phrase “I make no excuses … except to say …” followed by a list of excuses.

Second chances are not for people who act like their treatment by the courts is not almost certainly affected by the fact that they have famous friends, and are white, and have money.*

Second chances are not for people who use character reference statements given under apparently false pretences in order to get their sentence lessened.**

Second chances are not for people who did, in fact, injure another person’s spine by kicking them as they lay on the ground but do, in fact, think they’re the victim because a broadcaster said the kick was to the head.

Second chances are not for people whose principal concerns appear to be hiring media handlers and carefully character-assassinating the victim of their “cracking” “out of character” violent assault.

I fully believe in second chances. I fully believe in people’s capacity to change and redeem. Tony Veitch, on the other hand, seems to fully believe in his right to mouth empty apologies and pretend this never happened, and calling his actions “getting on with his life”. So no. He does not*** deserve a second chance.

Run On Hamster Wheels For Eternity In Hell Honorable Mentions:

Judge Jan Doogue, for assuming that only what gets proved in court is actually real, and for apparently thinking that what a person’s mates say about them is a better measure of their previous behaviour than the crime they’ve just been convicted of. May the words “single act” haunt you for the rest of your life, ma’am.
ETA: Holy crap on a shitstick, LudditeJourno has more on Ms Doogue. I’m off to find a brick wall to smack my head against.

Graham Henry, for not wanting to be “misconstrued” about that whole “Tony must be good because he didn’t say meanie-poo things about the World Cup” character reference thing. One, RELEVANCE, GET YOU SOME and two, GET THE FUCK OVER THE FUCKING WORLD CUP ALREADY.

And Stuart Grieves QC, for saying, of the prospect of defending his client against charges involving horrific violence against another person, “I was ready to brawl in court.” FUCK YOU, AND GOOD NIGHT.

*Though full credit to the DomPost for that screamer “CELEBRITY JUSTICE” headline. There shall be cake.
**I mean, seriously, THAT’S IRONY, PEOPLE.
***As yet.

DIAF, Karzai

As seen at No Right Turn, The Hand Mirror, and Shakesville:

Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, has signed a law which “legalises” rape, women’s groups and the United Nations warn. Critics claim the president helped rush the bill through parliament in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August.

It gets even better worse:

Article 132 requires women to obey their husband’s sexual demands and stipulates that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least “once every four nights” when travelling, unless they are ill.

Along with the usual grab-bag of “oh, and it’s harder for you to leave him after he DOES rape you, but if he wants to rape greener pastures it’ll be comparatively easy to dump you” in a country which I’m sure offers fantastic welfare packages to divorcees.

And of course it’s not even like Karzai supports this crap. He just wants to win a fucking election, and if women get raped and imprisoned in their own homes as a result, well, at least he stays in power, amirite?

And fuck you, The Independent. Fuck you and your “legalises” scare quotes to hell. Does this legislation make it legal for a man to fuck a woman without her consent? OH I THINK THAT’S RAPE. But Christ, I guess we can at least credit you with using the r-word at all, yeah?

You can has entitlement issues

I don’t want to get into Paul Henry’s predictably obnoxious comments about Stephanie Mills of Greenpeace and her physical appearance.  Gina has a [guest] post at The Hand Mirror about it, as does Tane at The Standard.

What I do want to point out, though, is how utterly oblivious some of the comments on that Standard post are (The Hand Mirror draws fewer Fungi from Yuggoth, but they’re there too).

There’s tsmithfield:

If she knew she was going on TV, then why didn’t she shave first?

[Same commenter further down] Facial hair can be sorted out in about two seconds.

There’s justthefacts:

MIlls DOES have a moustache, it DOES look ridiculous, and of course all Henry did was read out emails.

And there’s bingo-triggering concern troll Madeleine:

I felt for the woman as having a problem like that is embarassing and having it all over TV is not nice but its like any personal problem that is visible, if you are about to go on TV you pop that pimple, you wipe that snot, you clean your face, you do your hair, you put on makeup and tidy clothes, you wax/shave your mo.

And I have just one very simple question:

Why the FUCK does Stephanie Mills owe you wankers a hair-free upper lip?

Oh, that’s right. She’s an independent, autonomous human being who can set her own priorities and make her own decisions and look however the fuck she wants to look.  And especially when your fucking ilk are complaining over at THM that no one “has the right NOT to be offended”? It’s supreme fucking hypocrisy to simultaneously whine that you’ve been exposed to someone who clearly hasn’t had your specific aesthetic pleasure foremost in her mind.

I’m sorry to break it to you, guys, but societal beauty standards? Not actually laws. And while I’m sure you’re fucking thrilled that across the country hundreds of thousands of women are stressing the fuck out over invisible blemishes they’ve been assured are there by cosmetics ads, you know what? Some women don’t have the time, or the money, or the inclination (or they’re tweezing and curling and grooming according to their own damn aesthetics). And those women do not fucking owe you an existence without seeing a non-airbrushed human form.

Stephanie Mills can do whatever the fuck she likes with her appearance. At the end of the day, she’ll still be a fucktonne more dignified than you.

PS. GREENPEACE IS ONE FUCKING WORD YOU FUCKING IDIOTS.