There was this late-model white Mustang coming up behind me on Sunset Boulevard, coming on too fast. I got into the right lane, preparing to get onto the ramp for Jarvis Klapman, and it started to zip past me — but then we were both stopped by a traffic light.
My eye was drawn to the furious activity going on in the driver’s seat of that car. It was a young woman who was very busy applying makeup. She had a powder brush in her right hand, and rather than brushing it on, she seemed to be aggressively stabbing her cheek with the brush, and looking in her rearview to check the effect. Maybe she was trying to redden her cheek under the powder.
Then, I noticed the cigarette smoke curling up from her left side, partly blocked by her head. So I’m pretty sure that hand was fully occupied, too.
The light changed, and she stomped on the accelerator, and rushed away.
It was then that I realized that I had just seen Mustang Sally herself.
For those who weary of Vincent Sheheen criticizing Nikki Haley and not making enough positive statements about what he would do as governor (and I’m kinda one of those), this release should be welcome:
Gubernatorial candidate lays out plan to ensure equal pay for equal work, stop violence against women, & support women-owned small businesses
Camden, SC. – Today, Sen. Vincent Sheheen released his plan of leadership for women in South Carolina, after recently launching a statewide series of roundtables to discuss the challenges that women and their families face in the Palmetto State.
Sen. Sheheen’s Women’s Agenda includes immediate steps that he will begin work on in the State Senate as well as action he would take as Governor of South Carolina to support equal pay for equal work, reduce violence against women, grow women-owned small businesses, and restore common sense and accountability to government through honest leadership.
Throughout the month of March, Sen. Sheheen is holding a series of roundtable discussions with women to discuss these policy initiatives and listen to their stories. The statewide roundtable tour kicked off in Spartanburg and Rock Hill on March 8th and will include stops in Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Greenville and Aiken over the next three weeks.
View Sen. Sheheen’s Women’s Agenda as well as his other ideas for how to improve leadership and accountability in South Carolina atwww.vincentsheheen.com. His book, “The Right Way: Getting the Palmetto State Back on Track” is free and also available online, here.
Equal Pay for Equal Work. Women are a key part of our state economy and our businesses, and whole families suffer when women do not get paid equally to men. However, wage disparity is alive and well in South Carolina. Nationally, women earn only $0.77 for every $1.00 that a man makes. There is anecdotal evident that it’s in our state it’s even worse. So it’s time for action.
Vincent’s plan of action:
Call for an audit to examine the wages currently being paid to South Carolina’s state employees based on position and gender, to determine if female state employees are being compensated equally with their male counterparts for equal work
As governor issue an Executive Order requiring state employees to be paid equally for equal work.
Ensure state government sets a good example for the private sector on pay equity.
Stop Violence Against Women. Violence against women is at an unacceptable level in South Carolina. We rank first in the nation in the number of women killed annually by men, and the rape rate in the state is higher than the national average. Yet, Nikki Haley vetoed funding for rape crisis centers and even referred to abused women as a “special interest group.” It’s time to be proactive in working to stop violence against women, and ensure that our laws are strong enough to hold abusers accountable.
Vincent’s plan of action:
Expand Domestic Abuse definition to include teenage relationships and protect women under 18
Increase penalties for those convicted of domestic abuse.
Protect vital funding for rape crisis centers and women’s shelters to provide safe havens for women and children.
Work with faith-based and non-profit organizations to improve partnership with government and amplify efforts to prevent violence against women.
Support Women-Owned Small Businesses. South Carolina is close to last in the nation with the percent of businesses owned by women. But it’s not a lack of talent. So what’s the problem? Under Nikki Haley, women face significant challenges in opening and growing their businesses, and have unique barriers to achieving the American dream here in South Carolina.
Vincent’s plan of action:
Support small businesses in-state as much as those we recruit from out-of-state.
Remove the barriers women face in starting up a business in S.C. by creating a Division of Entrepreneurship and encouraging small business investment.
Fully fund our state’s technical college system and streamline worker-training programs to improve women’s access to education and technical skills.
Demand Common Sense & Accountability in Government. Women and families have been repeatedly hurt by the incompetence in government over the past four years. Nikki Haley’s administration hid a TB outbreak at a public school for two months before letting mothers know their children were being exposed. She covered up the Dept. of Revenue hacking for 16 days and put parents and their children at risk of identity theft for the rest of their lives. People deserve a government that works and works for them. And when government doesn’t, they don’t need excuses, they deserve action and results.
Vincent’s plan of action:
Appoint a diverse group of qualified leaders, and demand accountability from them.
Fully fund his Taxpayer Protection Fund to help those who suffer financial loss from the hacking.
Increase diversity on college boards and in leadership positions around the state to better represent women.
###
And I particularly appreciate it when a Democrat gets all the way through a release like that without saying “War on Women.” It shows admirable restraint.
That’s all. Just wanted to give a heads-up, particularly to any of y’all who remember Brigid from when she worked for The State, before her long stint at The Washington Post, where she still works when she’s not writing books…
OK, technically, it wasn’t the fictional Mrs. Underwood’s plan. It was pushed instead by the real-life Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand — who, as tacky as it may be in the context of talking about sexual crimes (but it’s true), is also a rather striking blonde.
A more relevant coincidence is that her proposal was the very same one that caused the majority whip to stop the Underwood bill on “House of Cards.” To wit, according to The Washington Post:
The Senate rejected a controversial proposal Thursday to remove military commanders from decisions on whether to prosecute major crimes in the ranks as the concerns of Pentagon leaders trumped calls from veterans groups to dramatically overhaul how the Defense Department handles assault and rape cases.
Congress has already voted to revamp the military’s legal system by ending the statute of limitations on assault and rape cases, making it a crime to retaliate against victims who report assaults and requiring the dishonorable discharge or dismissal of anyone convicted of sexual assault or rape.
But on Thursday senators rejected a plan by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) that would go further by taking away from military commanders the power to refer serious crimes to courts-martial. The decision would shift instead to professional military trial lawyers operating outside the chain of command.
The proposal fell five votes short of the 60 votes necessary to clear a procedural hurdle and proceed to a final vote. In a reflection of the complexity of the issue, 10 Democrats voted against Gillibrand’s plan, while 11 Republicans — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — joined her in voting to proceed….
I think the Senate acted wisely. It moved to toughen the law without undermining the military system of justice. I realize the Underwood/Gillibrand approach has attracted growing support — witness how close it came today. But while I’d like to throw military rapists under the treads of an Abrams tank, I don’t think it’s right to take commanders out of the equation. In other words, I agree with the position taken by the fictional Jackie Sharp, and I really identified with her discomfort when she broke the news to Claire. Although it might have been easier for her, as a woman, to take that position than it would for a man.
I know I, for one, hesitate to voice it. But I thought it would be a copout to mention the issue without doing so….
Saudi Arabian performer Hisham Fageeh, well known on the Arabic-speaking Web for his funny YouTube videos, which often contain a degree of social commentary, has posted a new video spoofing his country’s practice of forbidding women from attaining driver’s licenses. Fageeh parodies the Bob Marley song “No woman, no cry” with lyrics lampooning Saudi Arabia’s car-related gender restrictions, which Saudi women are challenging this week with a mass protest drive….
You know, if this guy can post stuff like this and live, maybe there’s hope for that part of the world.
Certainly not I. But you see, I strongly doubt that most of the people really stirred up about her candidacy for the Fed do, either.
This is stimulated by a couple of things. One of which is the withdrawal of Larry Summers — the candidate the president wanted — from consideration for Ben Bernanke’s job, for “reasons” that seem kinda sketchy.
Then, there was this email this morning:
Hi Brad,
Now that Larry Summers — the President’s Rock of Gibraltar — has withdrawn himself from consideration for the top Fed job, he should — in for a penny, in for a pound — do everything he can to make sure that Janet Yellen gets the job. Summers should privately tell the President that Yellen is the best choice (because she is), he should aggressively lobby Senators from both parties to support Yellen (because they still listen to him, even though they don’t want to), and he should publicly endorse her for the job.
Just think: if the President nominates Janet Yellen to the Fed, Republican Senators will have no choice but to vote to confirm her or to face the wrath of American women at the voting booth. And even the GOP isn’t that stupid. I mean seriously, hell hath no fury like women scorned by a bunch of old white male Republican Senators stopping the confirmation of the first female Fed Chair in American history.
So if Larry comes out and supports the best person for the job…a historic President gets to make a historic appointment…the country gets the most qualified person to run monetary policy…Republicans suffer apoplectic seizures while being forced to do the right thing or cost themselves the women’s vote for the next 20 years…and Larry Summers gets to redeem himself with 51% of the population (even those oh-so-hard-to-please Harvard feminists).
Everybody wins.
Come on Larry, be a real man, support Janet.
-Erica
No, I don’t know who this Erica is when she’s at home, either. Even after finding this page. Near as I can tell, she’s some sort of professional “progressive.”
Nor, as I say, do I know anything about this Janet Yellen, although at a glance her resume seems a good fit. But so did Summers’.
And following the link my new BF Erica sent me, I see that the reasons given for Democrats not liking Summers were pretty weak. I find myself focusing on this:
Some Democrats are not keen on Summers as a candidate for the job, arguing that he was too supportive of deregulation during the Clinton administration. Nineteen Democratic senators – joined by an independent – signed a letter last week urging the president to instead consider Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen. Other candidates may in the mix as well.
“He is really a non-starter for us,” one senior Democratic staffer said of Summers.
Really? I have to say that any Democrat who would not want to return to the policies of the Clinton era — a time of balancing budgets, a booming economy and triangulating the Republicans silly — is a few bricks shy of a load. I’ll never quite understand what motivates these Democrats who think the people they manage to get elected aren’t lefty enough. Something they’re all smoking, I suspect.
Of course, we have reason to suspect it’s not really about that. That isn’t the emotional center for these rather gut-led people, is it? Isn’t it about that all that hoo-hah at Harvard? Erica seems to refer to that with her appeal to Larry to “redeem himself with 51% of the population,” which is the kind of hyperbole we have come to expect with people who think Summers said something horrid. Frankly, when I go back and look at what he actually did say, it’s so dense that I find myself wanting someone to interpret it for me from the academese. And I suspect any set of people constituting “51% of the population” would have the same problem. And “interpreters” play a big role in this. Most of the people who are truly indignant toward Summers — which I sincerely doubt is anything close to a majority of the country, or even of women — are mad about what someone said he said, rather than what he said.
In any case, he’s out and some people who look at things in simplistic terms are going “Yay!” and thinking this means Janet Yellen is in, although that’s not necessarily the way the president is going to go.
Far as I know, she’s the best candidate. But I know that I don’t know enough to judge that. (I know that my gut feeling that she’d be good is just a prejudice on my part — I tend, other things being equal, to cheer for in-house candidates, and she already works there.) And I marvel that so many other people seem to think they do…
In 2012, Democrats’ constant refrain that the Republican party was in the midst of a “war on women” left the GOP — all the way up to presidential nominee Mitt Romney — exasperated at what they called a gross mischaracterization. Now Republicans are embracing the term as a way of reminding voters of Democratic men who have cheated, sexted, and harassed.
In e-mails, press releases and tweets, the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee are highlighting a “war on women” waged by San Diego Mayor Bob Filner (harassment), New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (sexting), and former New York governor Eliot Spitzer (prostitutes).
Mentioned less often but still on the list: New York State Assemblyman Vito Lopez (harassment) and Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen (mistakenly thinking he had a daughter, calling a reporter “very attractive”) among others.
“The best tools we have as Republicans to recruit women candidates this cycle are three Democrats named Bob Filner, Eliot Spitzer, and Anthony Weiner,” said NRCC spokeswoman Andrea Bozek…
Yes, it’s ridiculous to accuse an entire party of a “war on women” because of the personal misdeeds of a few. But it’s no more ridiculous than the Democrats using the hyperbolic term the way they did in last year’s election.
This is the cover of the August issue of Rolling Stone, set to hit newsstands soon. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Internet will likely have a few thoughts on the editorial decision to give the “Free Jahar” crowd something to pin up on their bedroom walls. (As a man who’s had to art an untold number of Tsarnaev-related posts with only a handful of images to choose from, I’ll grant the editors didn’t have a whole lot of options to accompany Janet Reitman’s report on the “life and times of Boston bomber Jahar Tsarnaev.” That said, it’s pretty clear the masthead knew what they were doing when they settled on this one.)
They had to do that, because it’s been awhile since I found anything interesting in Rolling Stone. (The last thing was probably the book, Generation Kill, by one of their writers. It was a good, unblinking look at the experience of a group of Marines in the Iraq invasion in 2003. But I didn’t read that in the magazine.)
This is the first I’d heard of their being a “Free Jahar” movement among young females, which is apparently a sort of squealing, latter-day Apple Scruffs sort of thing. Disturbing. Apparently, some people are still in need of consciousness-raising (do feminists still use that term?)…
I didn’t, until the DCCC sent out a fundraising appeal with the following text:
Brad —
I’m not sure if you were alive when President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act 50 years ago today.
I was a recent Trinity College graduate (here’s a picture of me with President Kennedy from just a couple years before to prove it):
President Kennedy called the Equal Pay Act “a first step” to ending the widespread practice of paying women less than men for the same amount of work. And that’s exactly what it was: a first step.
50 years later, we’re still fighting this fight, and women STILL make 23 cents less on the dollar. House Democrats have proposed a solution — the Paycheck Fairness Act — but Republicans voted to block this legislation from even coming to a vote. That’s unacceptable…
And so forth and so on. I’m happy to say that she restrained herself from saying “War on Women” this time, so let’s be grateful.
Silence complains that I had no new posts yesterday:
Brad, do you have plans to ever do a new post again, or should we just continue to battle amongst ourselves in last month’s comment threads?
He makes it sound like forever. It was just one day — and I was responding to comments. Gee, I figured that y’all were having enough fun with that rambling 153-comment thread on last Thursday’s Virtual Front Page.
I responded that “I get into these days sometimes when the only thing I can think of to post about is either a) Too trivial to post about without it being folded in among some more serious items, or b) Way too heavy and involved to embark upon on a busy day.
I had both kinds on my mind yesterday, and didn’t get to either. Here’s the one from category A…
I’m thinking about starting a new category of posts, called something like “What I Googled today,” or “Google of the day,” or just “Googling.”
Here’s the first entry.
Yesterday, after I found myself once again deliberately ALT-TABbing to and watching the Lumosity ad stuck between songs on Pandora (instead of hitting the “mute” button as I do on some of them, because they’re pretty jarring, especially when they occur on my Erik Satie station, as opposed to my Weezer station), I wondered who that unbelievably cute girl is — the one who makes me want to see the ad. I was pretty sure I was not the only one who had searched to find out, and I was right.
First, let’s pause to consider terminology. Some people misunderstand the word, “cute.” (Some also misunderstand the word “girl” when applied to someone of child-bearing age, but those people aren’t as old as I am, and/or don’t have children who are most likely older than this girl.) “Cute” does not mean pretty (although it often overlaps), much less beautiful, sexy or hot. It refers to a form of appeal, but it is not (necessarily) sexual, or related to pulchritude.
To explain: Zooey Deschanel is cute. She’s also pretty, but that’s a slightly separate thing. Ingrid Bergman was beautiful, which is not exactly the same thing as pretty. Carrie-Anne Moss is hot, especially in “The Matrix” — the first one, in which she wore the leather catsuit, which reminds us that Diana Rigg was hot in “The Avengers,” and this is not a leather thing. Speaking of cat suits, as in Catwoman, Sean Young was in her heyday sexy, hot and beautiful. Just kinda batty.
Anyway, the young woman in the Lumosity ad is unbelievably cute. This does not mean I want to have an illicit relationship with her. It just means that I look forward to seeing the ad. I am not alone, either in this, or in thinking the right word for her is “cute.” Here are some YouTube comments about her:
“For some reason,I think that this woman is really cute. And I’m a female.”
“Shes so f___ing cute”
“Emily Greco is so cute! She’s so cute I get happy just knowing the Luminosity commercial is starting. Whatever Luminosity paid her – it’s not enough now that hearing Luminosity puts me in a happy mood because I connect it with the cute woman in the commercial. I’m sure she has the same affect on most viewers.”
Those are sandwiched among some grossly negative comments, from the kinds of people who live to make negative comments. We all know the sort.
Anyway, as you see, her name is Emily Greco, and no, she’s not just some super-cute person who happened to be a Lumosity customer. She’s an actress. That naturalness is art. Here’s her agency’s page about “Our Rising Star — Emily Greco.”
What is it that defines her appeal? What is the “it” here? Well, it involves the fourth dimension, because it doesn’t come across in a still photo (although this isn’t bad). You need the video. You need to see the thing she does at the end (25 seconds) when she bats her eyes and smiles that crooked smile (proof that she’s not beautiful, since technically “beauty” is a function of symmetry, or so I’ve been told). All in one split second. And if you’ve seen the ad before, waiting to see her do that again is what keeps you watching the ad through the boring 10-second sales-pitch part, with the graphics.
Anyway, I haven’t seen an individual in an ad with that much appeal in years and years. So I take a professional interest in this. I also want to see the ad again…
One of our readers shared a link to the above in the comments thread of last night’s Virtual Front Page. I didn’t click on it until today, and lest you miss out entirely, here’s what she linked to.
(And yes, my headline is based on the famous John Mitchell quote about another powerful woman in Washington.)
You should follow the link yourself to check out the comments, some of which are pictured below:
Just saw this fund-raising appeal from the Democrats:
ROLL CALL: Conservatives Buy Airtime for Mark Sanford
If you think Elizabeth Colbert Busch has a clear path to victory on Tuesday, think again.
She’s neck and neck with Mark Sanford — 46-46. And now, right-wing groups are throwing everything they’ve got at keeping this seat in Republican hands.
Brad — We can’t allow Elizabeth to be pummeled like this if we want to win on Tuesday.
There are only 4 days left. Will you dig deep for Elizabeth and Democrats in tough districts like hers?…
… and want to quibble with the wording.
Yeah, I get why the DCCC would want to say “right-wing.” Because it pushes their peeps’ buttons.
I looked up the group that Roll Call said was backing Sanford. It’s called “Independent Women Voice.” (Note that the Dems did NOT mention the name of the organization, because it might have provoked a positive response in their target audience, which of course is why the group calls itself that.) The organization describes itself this way:
IWV is dedicated to promoting limited government, free markets, and personal responsibility
Note that there’s no mention of traditional values, or a strong defense, or any of the other traits associated with conservatism, much less the “right wing” — only the libertarian values are mentioned.
Does Esquire still do its Dubious Achievement Awards? (I ask because, though I was a subscriber back in the ’70s, I haven’t picked up a copy in many a year.)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced today that it has named Joanne Chesimard to its “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, with a $2 million reward being offered for her capture. Chesimard has the dubious distinction of being the first woman on the list, which has existed since 2001 and featured such notorious names as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Adam Gadahn. Chesimard, who was a member of a group called the Black Liberation Army, was named to the list 40 years to the day after she allegedly shot and killed a state trooper on the New Jersey Turnpike. “Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution-style,” FBI Special Agent Aaron Ford said in a press release. “Today, on the anniversary of Trooper Werner Foerster’s death, we want the public to know that we will not rest until this fugitive is brought to justice.”…
Congratulations, ladies. Another barrier has fallen.
But I have to say, this smacks of tokenism to me. Talk about your diligent affirmative action — reaching back 40 years? There must be scores of deserving, better-qualified male terrorists out there who would just love a crack at this kind of recognition, guys who’ve been very busy keeping their resumes current with far-more-recent acts of mayhem, but they’ve been passed over.
I’ll bet some of them are really going to be ticked when they see this.
An odd sort of ad has been cropping up on my Facebook page, over and over. In the screengrab above, you can see two versions of it at once.
I don’t know why I’m getting that. I haven’t searched for language lessons.
But the really puzzling thing is the photographs with the come-ons. I mean, what do large-breasted women (and if there’s something else those photos have in common, please point it out to me) have to do with language lessons?
And I haven’t been searching for pictures like that, either…
… oh, wait. I tell a lie… I did search for “breasts” on the Tapiture and Pinterest sites for this post earlier, to illustrate a point I made about their content policies. Pinterest admonished me for searching for that, by the way, as follows: “Reminder: Pinterest does not allow nudity. Pinning or repinning photographs displaying breasts, buttocks or genitalia may result in the termination of your Pinterest account.”
So that explains the pictures. What it doesn’t explain is what that has to do with learning a language.
The national Republican Party has washed its hands of Mark Sanford — but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is firmly in the corner of his opponent, Elizabeth Colbert-Busch,
As evidenced by the ad above.
Meanwhile, some Republicans seem to be worrying about their association with Sanford even if he wins. The concern seems to be that he would further damage their reputation with women, either way.
In that vein I share the below interview with Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.
Probably everybody else out there saw this last year, but since I’m not much of one to follow sports, I missed it.
The way I ran across it was… bizarre. Trying to do research for this previous post, I was watching this excruciatingly boring video, and when it was done, YouTube took pity on me and suggested the Michelle Jenneke clip.
At first, I thought it was just a music video. Then, I realized that it was actual footage of an actual athlete warming up.
It really made me smile. And I don’t mean in a dirty old man way. After all, this girl is younger than any of my daughters.
No, I shared it with my wife, and she saw it, too. What an amazing endorsement of life.
The only bad feeling it engenders is envy. Look at her. What would it be like to feel that good, that young, that fit, that strong, that ready — even for a moment? I don’t think I ever felt like that, including when I was her age.
But setting the envy aside, she’s inspiring. Makes you want to embrace life. I may actually get on my elliptical trainer (which sits, neglected, a few feet away as I type this) before the day is out, and see it I can get enough endorphins flowing to feel one fraction of the way she seems to feel in that video.
But I’m not going to try to warm up like that first. I would probably hurt myself. Besides, it wouldn’t look as good on me…
I’m really not terribly interested in whether President Obama’s compliment about California Attorney General Kamala Harris was “sexist.” After all these years, I’m still trying to figure out an accurate, consistent definition of the term. It seems to shift, depending on context.
Speaking at a fundraiser in a wealthy San Francisco suburb, President Obama praised the looks of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake,” Obama said. “She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.”
“It’s true! C’mon,” he added, to laughter from the crowd…
And why did they laugh? Because most of the people in the crowd, male and female, had probably had more or less the same thought.
Coming from Obama, I take the remark as pretty benign. If it had come from Bill Clinton, I might react differently. Poor Obama — he’s seen as so aloof, so one time he tries to be a regular guy, to give an honest human reaction, even be gallant, and he ends up having to apologize for it. With Bill Clinton, the remark would be superfluous because we already knew he was a “regular guy” — and not in a good way.
And really, I want to hear from everyone on this. I’m not looking for the male reaction. Women are equally fine judges of pulchritude. I’m not looking for anything salacious or lascivious. I’m thinking more on the level of that episode of “Seinfeld” when George said of Joe DiMaggio, “Now that is a handsome man.”No, for once, I’d rather stay away from the value judgments, and ask a simple question: Was the president’s observation accurate?
When I started writing this post, I meant to link to a site that would show us all of the attorneys general. Unfortunately, the only link I’ve found that looks like it would enable us to do that doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe a lot of other people had the same thought, and overloaded the site — I don’t know.
I can say that, based on the photos I’ve looked at, she’s the best-looking attorney general I’ve ever seen. (Henry McMaster may have been tall and well-coiffed, but come on…) But I may have missed some unusually handsome examples of both genders; I must admit that.
I’m just trying to help the president out here, on the theory that truth is an effective defense…
My final thought on the subject — and no story I’ve seen fully answers the question — was, What were they trying to convey about the car? That it had a roomy cargo bay (the copy mentions an “extra-large boot”)? And this was the best way they could convey that? It may be more prosaic, but I think the line I once heard from a Toyota salesman that the Camry had a six-golf-bag trunk was more effective.
The most controversial of three advertisements for the Ford Figo, meant to allude to the Indian hatchback’s spacious trunk, showed former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy flashing a victory sign while driving a vehicle with three scantily clad gagged women in the rear. Two other versions of the advertisement show the reality television star Paris Hilton kidnapping the Kardashian sisters and the Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher abducting three of his rivals.
The advertisements in question were never used for a Ford campaign, but were uploaded by JWT employees on Ads of the World, an international advertising Web site which gives awards for ads submitted by users. They have since been removed from the Web site. Soon after posting, they spread quickly through social media and attracted criticism for their sexist message, particularly as India grapples with numerous high-profile incidents of violence against women…
OK, one more question: Did they think the one with the guys in it made it OK? That would be from the David Brent school of political correctness: “‘Does this make my ass look big?’ It’s not sexist, that’s the bloke saying it – at LAST…”
Tourist in India jumps from hotel balcony to escape sex assault… drudge.tw/14bNnWo
Woman filing for divorce gang-raped inside lawyer’s chamber… drudge.tw/14bNnG7
Yeah, I know there are a lot of people over there, but to have three stories like that coming out at once? Here’s part of the BBC story on the second item, which happened in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal:
The Foreign Office recently updated its advice for women visiting India, saying they should use caution and avoid travelling alone on public transport, or in taxis or auto-rickshaws, especially at night.
It added that reported cases of sexual assault against women and young girls were increasing and recent sexual attacks against female visitors in tourist areas and cities showed that foreign women were also at risk.
Police arrested six people following an alleged gang rape of a Swiss tourist in Madhya Pradesh state last week.
So apparently things have gotten worse there since the horrific beating-rape that so infamously led to a young woman’s death a couple of months ago.
No nation is immune to this sort of thing, unless there’s one where men and women never come into contact. There’s evil everywhere. But I wonder why things are, according to accounts, getting worse in India?
Which, along with similarly kind plaudits I got from other friends and family, made my day.
While he had me, as a fellow RC he brought up Pope Benedict’s retirement, and asked whether I had read his “make a nun Pope” column.
I had not, but I went and read it immediately, and really enjoyed it. Excerpts:
In giving up the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI was brave and bold. He did the unexpected for the good of the Catholic Church. And when it selects a new pope next month, the College of Cardinals should be equally brave and bold. It is time to elect a nun as the next pontiff.
Now, I know this hope of mine is the longest of long shots. I have great faith in the Holy Spirit to move papal conclaves, but I would concede that I may be running ahead of the Spirit on this one…
Nonetheless, handing leadership to a woman — and in particular, to a nun — would vastly strengthen Catholicism, help the church solve some of its immediate problems and inspire many who have left the church to look at it with new eyes…
More than any other group in the church, the sisters have been at the heart of its work on behalf of compassion and justice. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times made this point as powerfully as anyone in a 2010 column. “In my travels around the world, I encounter two Catholic Churches,” he wrote. “One is the rigid all-male Vatican hierarchy that seems out of touch. . . . Yet there’s another Catholic Church as well, one I admire intensely. This is the grass-roots Catholic Church that does far more good in the world than it ever gets credit for. This is the church that supports extraordinary aid organizations like Catholic Relief Services and Caritas, saving lives every day, and that operates superb schools that provide needy children an escalator out of poverty.”…
Throughout history, it’s not uncommon for women to be brought in to put right what men have put wrong. A female pope would automatically be distanced from this past and could have a degree of credibility that a male member of the hierarchy simply could not…
And a church that has made opposition to abortion a central part of its public mission should consider that older men are hardly the best messengers for this cause. Perhaps a female pope could transform the discussion about abortion from one that is too often rooted in harsh judgments (and at times, anger with modernity) into a compassionate dialogue aimed at changing hearts and minds rather than changing laws.
Unborn children are vulnerable. So are pregnant women. In my experience, nuns are especially alive to these twin vulnerabilities…
There was a lot of other good stuff, about how consistent this would be with the church’s devotion to Mary, and other points. But I fear I may have exceeded the bounds of fair use already.
You might wonder, “Is Dionne kidding? He knows this can’t happen, right?” Yes, he knows it won’t happen, and no, he’s not kidding. At the least, he hopes “they at least consider electing the kind of man who has the characteristics of my ideal female pontiff.
