September 2010Monthly Archives

I have much to atone for. You see…

I. Am. A. Feminist.

And as Virginia Haussegger so helpfully pointed out, I am therefore partially responsible – guilty! – for the continued horrific oppression and murder of millions of women worldwide.

I have written countless articles about the oppression of women in developing and non-western countries in my time as a freelance writer and blogger, marched on streets and signed petitions but it was apparently all for naught. As a feminist, I have failed to collectively form a massive surge to fight back the tides of anti-woman sentiments across those international borders.

And I know all this, because Virginia Haussegger wrote a deeply flawed, rhetorical article and told me so.

As CBS put it, “it’s hard to know where to start with this one.” James O’Keefe, the conservative crusader whose videos brought down ACORN, attempted to lure a CNN reporter onto a boat filled with lube, dildos, and other products associated with sex, in order to capture her on hidden camera capitulating to his sexual charms (or something like that).

Try and imagine that, this weekend, I plan to stage an elaborate “prank.” Because I disagree with her politics, I’m going to coax Ann Coulter out from Connecticut under the pretense that I’d like to interview her. When she arrives, alone, she’s encountered by me and a couple friends, who tell her we’d like to do the interview on a boat. She concedes, probably hesitantly, but off we go.

Once we’re out at sea, far away from land and decent cell service, I pull out dildos, condoms, hardcore porn magazines, handcuffs and a blindfold, and I begin to aggressively hit on Coulter. I compliment her sex appeal and then tell her the thesis of my ruse:  I’m going to screw her like she screws liberals.

Imagine one of my friends is videotaping this, and that, while I don’t physically harm Coulter, I relentlessly pursue this intimate humiliation until I feel like we’ve got all the tape we need for our “joke.”

Two things would happen once we’d returned to shore, with Coulter embarrassed and scared: 1. My friends and I would be rightfully arrested for kidnapping and assault and 2. I’d never find employment ever again.

If this scenario sounds farcical, it’s not. It’s exactly what conservative prankster James O’Keefe—he of the ACORN pimp fiasco—had planned to do to CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau, right down to the “condom jar” and “lube.” In a document he titled “CNN Caper,” O’Keefe says his ultimate goal was to turn the tables on CNN: “Using hot blondes to seduce interviewees to get screwed on television, you are faux seducing her in order to screw her on television.”

Get it? He fakes trying to date rape you because you’re more liberal than him.

As a woman in the news industry you have to be tough. I have always had to work harder than my male counterparts to be taken seriously and to be treated with respect. As a woman in the news industry you have to ignore all of the silly talk from your managers about the clothes you should wear on-air or what color your hair should be. I have had my share of conversations like that, and to be honest, it stings. I’m left wondering, “When will my work stand on its own? Why does this always have to be part of the conversation?”

Recently, I was the target of a failed punk. James O’Keefe, the so-called “pimp” in the ACORN expose videos, was participating in a detailed plan to “faux” seduce me on his boat. For months, I had been working on a documentary about the young conservative movement. James had called me about concerns he had regarding an upcoming shoot. He asked me to meet him to talk about the shoot. I agreed to fly to Maryland and then drive to his “office” for a face-to-face conversation with him.

so I talked about the importance of daydreaming and why you should stare out of the window sometimes or actually a lot.

A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can’t imagine it.

We’ve learned the background of some children’s book characters here on the _floss (Eloise may have been based on Liza Minnelli, for example), but today we’re uncovering the inspiration for some characters in more adult novels.

No 7 was one up on me, and oddly apt…

In some parts of the world, not only do fathers, brothers and husbands own a woman’s body, they own her virtue. Their identity and manliness is embedded in it.

This, of course, is an impossible burden for any woman to carry.

The means of mass communication now fit in your pocket. Salient commentary on events can now be written by anybody and – zeitgeist willing – read round the world in an instant. This threatens the traditional hierarchy of information and power.

But maybe we should not be alarmed. Maybe we need not conflate the threats to the craft of journalism – real – with a sense of threat to the quality of public information – imagined. They may not be one and the same. Indeed, journalism has done little in the past decade or three to build trust in its audience, enhance its reputation or secure either its future or a sense of its necessity. As a million voices find an audience through the internet we have never been more blessed by intelligent analysis of events. And you don’t need journalists to do it.

Reporting the breaking facts may also soon shake free of the journalistic stranglehold. Information is increasingly available through the same online revolution that has boosted the stocks of analysis and public discussion. The tools of coherent investigation are hardly unique to the craft of journalism.

The earth is shifting.

You may not realize it, but you’ve got quite a few proper names in your toolbox or hanging above your workbench. Let’s take a look at a few of the names that have helped make drilling, screwing, cleaning, and tightening a bit easier for all of us.