"She's beautiful"

Yes, some men come to ogle the candidate, too. “She’s beautiful,” said a man wearing a John Deere T-shirt in Weirs Beach. “I came here to look at her,” he said, and his admiration for Ms. Palin’s appearance became more and more animated. Sheepish over his ogling, he declined to give his real name (“Just call me ‘John Deere’ ”).

-The New York Times

Welcome to the modern American political discourse.

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Be Fair Now

     Now, I must admit that I love the Gawker teams, all their blogs all incisively written and deliriously funny. And although I do understand the Consumerist/Jezebel double-team attacks on American Apparel (see here, here, and here)—mostly critiques of their choices of styling, advertising, and CEO Dov Charney's sleazy self-image—I must say that I find their harsh judgment of American Apparel's inherent fashion sense to be a bit irrational.

     Recently, a couple of folks from Jezebel went to a Brooklyn AA and tried on a few things to display what they describe as "aggressively unflattering outfits". And while I understand Jezebel's disagreement with American Apparel's throwbacks to seventies' spandex and lamé and eighties nylon and pastel, I must say that it seems a bit like they're deliberately looking for things to criticize.

     Now, in terms of brands, I do like some things that AA does (fair wages, pro-immigration stance, vertical integration) and dislike other things (overtly sexual advertising, simply gross CEO). But with all fashion brands, I understand that they are shooting for a certain aesthetic and a certain market; namely, skinny boys and girls who are just too damn hip to wear anything else.

     So while I agree with the ladies who so bravely put themselves up for online scrutiny that their outfits are positively dreadful, I also must say that it seems like they were setting themselves up for it. Would the result have been much different had they walked into a Pac Sun and tried to put on everything Roxy and Volcom? One would think that adults would know what they do and do not like to put on their own bodies and it seems a bit unfair to judge other people who have consciously made the choice to purchase and wear American Apparel products.

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That's Fucked Up

    When will the Catholic Church learn to just shut its trap?

     Bernando Álvarez, the bishop of Tenerife in Spain (ironically pictured above with a young boy), recently said that young boys abused by Catholic priests "[t]here are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you." Naturally, there are plenty of people in Spain who are plenty ticked off with the good bishop. Of course, his Excellency's PR guys immediately jumped on top of the story, explaining that the bishop would never (openly) condone such morally despicable action.

    I recently heard a story on NPR of a Dominican priest who was shuffled around all over the world, from Peru to Ohio, rather than being properly dealt with by the Catholic Church. The egregious inability (or refusal) by the Vatican to properly address such serious moral and ethical lapses are really telling of some greater problems with the church. I've never been very hostile to Catholicism (at least not anymore than I am most organize religious institutions), but I've got to say that I'm a little frustrated by how much they get away with.

There are plenty of faithful parishioners out there, just as there are plenty of devout and upright priests. But how many regular church-goers have really thought about the $660 million dollars that the Los Angeles Diocese (American's largest, mind you) paid out to its abuse victims. Where, exactly did that cash come from? Hint, be on the watch for the donation plate getting handed out for a second go around. Now, I'm not saying that honest Catholics are funding child abuse, but the higher-ups certainly seem willing to be put hard-working people's money towards less-than-holy purposes.

Slate's breakdown of how the $660 million was raised reveals plenty about the Diocese's inner workings. Basically, it splits up like this:

• ~$250 million = Los Angeles Diocese's own bank accounts
• $60 million = other religious orders under the Catholic Church
• $123 million = litigation with other orders that chose to sit out the settlement

For those of you properly following along with your calculators, that leaves $227 million of the total deal to be paid. And by whom? Insurance companies. That's right, folks, the Los Angeles Diocese, like any other business, can purchase insurance from an insurance company protecting it from a lawsuit. Yes, the Catholic Church purchased sex abuse insurance. And that might be the creepiest part of this whole sordid thing.

(Story and image courtesy of Typically Spanish)

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Giving Up

An appropriate image, as Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats in Congress have really managed to fuck this one up and turn their backs on their gay constituents. The New York Times had a wonderful piece on how the Matthew Shepherd Act failed to even reach the president's desk, despite a House vote of 237-180 and a Senate cloture vote of 60-39.

In answer to Bush's threatened veto, congressional leaders had cleverly attached it to the latest Defense Authorization Bill, which Bush's ideology would not have allowed him to veto. And yet, fearful Democrats unwilling to appear hawkish and staunch Republicans unwilling to appear liberal managed to kill a bill that would have expanded the definition of hate crimes to include all racial, sexual, and religious minorities and provided some measure of federal response to hate crimes.

Now, I haven't spoken much about this (neither on the blog nor in real life), just because I realize hate crimes are a really sticky issue. It's hard to explain to people why hate crimes aren't special laws meant to raise gays up or put social/religious conservatives down. But if the Catholics were being hunted down (either physically or verbally) by those around them, you can bet that they wouldn't stand for it and would demand immediate protections. The Matthew Shepherd Act and other laws like it do not state that gays inherently deserve special laws protecting them. What we really need to focus on is the fact that gays (and other targeted groups) need these laws because of the very real and very imminent danger that extremists pose.

Thus far, I remain unimpressed by the Democrat sweep of the Congress, mostly because they haven't done jack shit to deserve any praise.

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