word play=funny; play about gender performance and race=uncertain.

I just watched the first season of 30 Rock. It has actually made me bust out in a full on LOL. I think it's only been for jokes that are about words, though. Such as the Rural Juror part (the main actress-character stars in a movie called the Rural Juror, but no one in the office can understand her because those words are so stupid. Especially when said next to eachother. Rurrr Jurr is what it sounds like. Hilarious!) and the fake Barbara Walters part with silly words.
And youtube has made it possible for posting:


This bit had me in stitches, I tell you. Even days after I watched it.

Here's my however:
I get that Tina Fey's character is supposed to be super-frumpy and not at all glamorous, which I absolutely appreciate. But I don't appreciate that she's all eats-5-donuts and just loves to eat and omg-where's-the-hot-dog-stand and you-ate-my-blood-donor-cookie-geez. Oh, and she's f'ing teeny-tiny. I find this obnoxious. I think Bitch magazine had an article about this phenomenon a couple years ago actually. I think their article was about how the media love to show pictures of models stuffing their faces to show that hey-this hot lady likes to stuff her face with pizza! She's not afraid to eat! That's great! And that is great - to an extent. What's great is the eating part. Not so much the size 2 part. Not so much the message that eating junk food is awesome unless it turns you into a hippo-you-lazy-fatso.
I don't necessarily think that Tina Fey's character is doing that, exactly, but that's part of it.
She's supposed to be someone who can't perform femininity very successfully. And people say inappropriate things to her all the time about it. And that's what's supposed to be funny. I think that the audience is supposed to be laughing with her character (even though she's often not laughing - more like eye-rolling) instead of laughing with the other people throwing insults. But the thing that bugs me is that I just wish A) that she would actually be performing femininity less-successfully than she is and/or B) that her character would be more feisty about the insults. I realize that this is just a sitcom, but I wish it were smarter.
Secondly, there is an episode with Wayne Brady staring as a romantic interest of Tina Fey's character, but it turns out that he is super boring and nerdy (in a boring way) when they actually go on a date, so she breaks it off. Okay. I'm just going to give you a second to think about what happens next. Go ahead. Guess. (first clue: Wayne Brady is a Black actor) (second clue: White lady wants to break off date with Black man.)
If you guessed that he accused her of ending it because he's Black, you're right!!! I know! So unpredictable! And it's funny because black people always play the race card when everyone knows that the situation isn't even racist!
Is there an emoticon that can express my lack of enthusiasm? : |
Lessons learned: Women can still be hot even if they aren't dumb and petty (like normal women) and awesome if they like donuts (but aren't like those lazy, unhealthy fat ladies). Black people imagine racism. Oh, and word games really are funny.

Prop 8: The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

I heard this on NPR last night, and then watched it today (thanks Meridith!). It's pretty great. I enjoyed that they normalized gay marriage so nicely. First appealing to the fundies' bible argument, and then arguing that gay marriage is good for capitalism, too. Great argument for exactly why gay marriage isn't a radical move (exactly like hetero-marriage) at all, even if that wasn't the central message of the piece.

Speaking of marriage, this post was up at Racialicious (although originally posted elsewhere) about the state of marriage for Black women. Instead of framing the question in a 'what-is-wrong-with-the-black-community' way, the question of "do Black women even want to get married?" is proposed (punny!). I like it.

Speaking of all-things-great, I just went into the Women's Resource Center for the first time in years, and A) one of my students works there and B) they have an awesome lending library. My office-mate picked up Beyond Beats and Rhymes from there earlier this week. After I turn in my exams, I'm going to go check out (punny again!) what other DVDs they offer.

Oh, and an update from my last crab-ass blog from a couple days ago: Joy Cardin had a guest on today from the Freedom From Religion Foundation who apparently put a plaque up near the state capitol's Christmas tree about the separation of church and state. I only caught the last part, but still there were callers complaining that "no one can celebrate Christmas anymore..." But at least the guest was awesome and responded that their claims were ridiculous.

I'm excited for wine tonight!

i am soooo crabby.

This is what I woke up to listen to:

For Program On: Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 6:00 AM Is there really a War Against Christmas? Joy Cardin's guest, after six, says there is... and we lose a lot when we celebrate a generic holiday at Christmas time. Guest: Tom Piatak (PIE-uh-tack), Contributing Editor, Chronicles Magazine. His piece on the War Against Christmas appears in the December edition.

Okay. Here we go.
1. You have got to be fucking kidding me. You are seriously up in arms about schools not having their students sing Christmas carols? Can you not sing them at home? Or in church? Does everything you do need to be validated in public spaces?
2. You're going to call it a war when there is an actual war going on? How fucking insulting.
3. Is it about Christ or not? Because I'm getting mixed messages. I keep hearing about how we need to keep Christ in Christmas, but then I hear that people, regardless of their religious beliefs, often still celebrate Christmas. If you want to keep it religious, then No. You cannot have public dollars funding this crap. If you want to get rid of the Christ, then that's another story. Which do you little bastards want?
4. If what you're concerned about is the "true spirit" of Christmas (and by this I mean Jesus, even though the actual date has more to do with the solstice than any virgin birth), it seems to me that the most effective method would be to limit this celebration to those who really believe in it, as opposed to wanting everyone of all religious faiths to celebrate it and taint it with shit like mindless consumerism. But what do I know?


This is what I catch on TV when I watch stupid morning programs:


1. Did you see the look on your 17 OTHER kids' faces when you basically told them that you would have even less time for them?
2. Totally cool, man. I know that there is a limit on the number of offspring one can have in China because of overpopulation, but you're doing it for god, so that makes it okay. And that thing about the environment and how American's eat up the world's resources at a mindblowingly disproportionate rate? Whatevs. It's for god.
3. Your name is f'ing Jim Bob? Could you be more cliche?

as long as you're listening to things...

This is a short piece on Weekend America that I just heard. Imagine if Axl Rose was sending song lyrics to his editor. Hilarious! You can either listen (it's short - only a few minutes) or read the transcript here. I recommend listening so you can hear the song intertwined with the editor's notes.

Do you know what this word is?

I just listened to the most recent episode of Addicted to Race and it was amazing, as usual. A few things were brought up in this that I tried to make a mental note of, but because I didn't do it right away, my list has dwindled to only couple ideas. One was a new word that they used that was not aware of. And I can't figure out how to spell it. "Curiarchy"? I'm going to need to scour Racialicious to find their use of it so I can investigate further. The way that they described what it meant was something along the lines of the ways that marginalized groups hold onto an aspect of themselves that isn't marginalized. (i'm probably butchering this definition, but this is how I understood it as I was listening). They used the example of Black people who are homophobes. They used other examples, too, but that's the only one I can remember at the moment. Anyhoo, this word sounds like an amazing tool to frame the complexities of hierarchies. I'll updates this if/when i figure it out.
Another word they brought up that I was really only introduced to in my Social Psych class is "heuristic." Basically this is kind of like a "schema". Since i know how to spell this word and am able to look it up, I'll do that, instead of just guessing... Okay - technically it's the "availability heuristic" and here's the definition from wikipedia:

The availability heuristic is a phenomenon (which can result in a cognitive bias) in which people base their prediction of the frequency of an event or the proportion within a population based on how easily an example can be brought to mind.

Simply stated, where an anecdote ("I know a Chinese guy who...") is used to "prove" an entire proposition or to support a bias, the availability heuristic is in play.

This word was brought up when speaking about Michelle Obama, and how the fact that she is in the White House (well, soon anyway) looking the way she does (from skin color to the way she wears her hair) will bring about a new heuristic for people when they think about what a Black woman looks like or can be. I believe that the guest on ATR attributed this point to Michele Wallace. (I remember we sold a book or 2 of hers at BV. Also, wikipedia just told me that she's the daughter of Faith Ringgold, which leaves me with Hot Topic in my head.) I remember thinking that the concept of an availability heuristic was really useful, but this was the first time I've heard it used so well. It's similar to stereotype, but without the baggage that "stereotype" conjures up.

If you've got an hour to do something like washing dishes, i highly recommend listening to this one. So smart.

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/11/27/addicted-to-race-101-michelle-obama-homophobia-among-blacks/

I'm also thankful for this:

things i'm really thankful for (in outline form)

I. Public Media
---A. NPR
-----1. This American Life
--------a. Ira Glass's femininity
--------b. David Sedaris's rendition of Billie Holiday (it's on right now)
--------c. Sarah Vowell
--------d. Phil Collins
-----2. WPR
--------a. Joy Cardin
--------b. Kathleen Dunn
--------c. A Way With Words (aka A Way With Nerds)
--------d. Calling All Pets
--------e. All afternoon news programs
---B. PBS
-----1. Frontline (see also III)

II. My Family
---A. Immediate blood relatives
-----1. For being smart and political.
--------a. And for raising me to be politically-minded.
-----2. For making it possible to look forward to holidays.
---B. Dathan
-----1. For secret languages.
-----2. For being on the same page almost always
-----3. For the trust and honesty
-----4. For the silliness.
---C. PPC
-----1. For keeping me sane
-----2. For keeping me self-confident
--------a. I wouldn't have gone to grad school without friends that made me feel smart. I'm not kidding. Thank you.
---D. Charlie
-----1. Soft ears, specifically
-----2. Ongoing relationship with donut

III. Internet
---A. For information so easily accessible
---B. For allowing me to watch TV
-----1. Like The Office
-----2. And Frontline
---C. Blogs
-----1. To read
-----2. And write
---D. Email
-----1. To avoid phonecalls
-----2. To be able to converse with Kelly almost as much as I would if she lived here (minus wine)

IV. School
---A. Carrie Costello
-----1. Her avatar research is amazing which put her at the top of this list despite me not really knowing her
---B. Theory
---C. My awesome cohort
---D. Amazing students
-----1. For making up for the dumbasses.
---E. The Amy-Train
---F. For the rad classes I'll be taking next semester
-----1. (Statistics is excluded from this thank-you)

V. Coffee
---A. For waking me up
---B. For being sold in shops that allow me to study in public
-----1. So that I don't get distracted every 2 minutes
-----2. For allowing me to study with Shereen, Meridith, and Drew
---C. For being offered in "Mild" or "Strong" at many places
-----1. And actually being mild when you say you are

VI. Knowing how to drive stick shift
---A. Because last year at this time I was super stressed out about it.

VII. Obama
---A. Intelligent discussion of race that it has sparked (but no thanks for the people who are going to say racism doesn't exist now)
---B. The Jeremiah Wright "scandal" that really got me thinking about how f'ing racist this country really is
---C. For putting someone as rad and smart as Michelle Obama in the spotlight and the whitehouse.
---D. For running a good campaign
---E. For winning the election

VIII. Bulk Bins
---A. For rice
---B. And Nutritional Yeast

IX. Broader Vocabulary Co-op
---A. For trying to keep it alive.

X. Weekends
---A. Even if they do mean studying