2008 Elections: Vanity Fair Does A Cover!

By now everyone's heard the kerfuffle about the New Yorker's cover of Barack and Michelle Obama in the White House. We did not want to touch that cover. We at this blog believe very deeply in freedom of speech. What the New Yorker cover did, though, was unacceptable to us. Nevertheless, we're not going to fling abuse at them for exercising their right to pursue irony, satire, caricature, political speech, whatever. We felt the image failed to achieve any of its goals and succeeded only in directing negative feeling towards two relatively powerless groups.

Here we want to say something about humour. Humour is the weapon of the defenseless. When you're powerful, you bomb or shoot or stab your enemies to death. You jail them. Torture them. Blacklist them. Because you have the power to do so.

When you're powerless, you laugh at your enemies. You make silly cartoons of them, or write doggerel mocking them, or make music pointing out their bullying behaviour.

The New Yorker chose to turn their mockery on Muslims &mdash a small minority of the population in this country, and one that historically has been excoriated and abused in this country, especially since the events of 9/11 &mdash and against Black Americans. As a group, Black Americans have historically suffered enslavement, lynching, stereotyping, ghettoization, poverty, torture, joblessness, and abuse, and continue to suffer much of these in the present. It wasn't that long ago that realtors would not sell houses to Black Americans. It wasn't that long ago that Black Americans had different (and worse) of everything from water fountains to schools. So we did not appreciate the humour in the New Yorker's cover.

Today, Vanity Fair, a magazine we love and not just because the Lord High Emperor of Snark himself writes there, decided, in the interest of friendly rivalry, to satirize the New Yorker's cover - with this:



We found it funny, and hope you do too. As a Person of Gimpitude, we see nothing wrong with making fun of gimpiness, by the way. We used to be much more sensitive about it, but yaknow? If you can't laugh at this shit, yer gonna cry. The hell with that.

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Health - ARRRGH!!

Like I need to hear yet another diatribe about how unhealthy it is to be overweight:

A chemical produced by fat cells makes colon cancers grow faster, a US study has suggested.

The British Journal of Surgery study could help explain why severely overweight people appear to be at far greater risk of the disease.

A team at the University of California, San Diego found that the hormone leptin triggered increased growth in human colon cancer cells.

In my own defense, I spent most of my life carrying around a reasonable amount of weight - I've been very scrawny a few times in my life, but never very fat, just fatter than I want to be. However, since the damage to the knee and the resulting surgery, I have been at least 20 lb over a healthy weight. Right now, I'd like to lose about 50 lb., but if I lost 30, I'd be doing fine. I just think being skinny is better for damaged knees than being average.

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Health - Asthma

Have I mentioned that one of the outcomes of the recently diagnosed pneumonia bout was the prescription of an inhaler? With some nasty stuff in it? Apparently, asthmatics and other allergics have to suck on this stuff fairly regularly. Ugh, I say.

Here's some info about how to control asthma without medication.

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Books Read in March

Well, this was a piss-poor showing. I guess I need an excuse factory for all the books I failed to read!

Excuse of the Month:

1. Pneumonia - delirious and uncomprehending for ~2 weeks; and
2. Gardening - the weather is beautiful and I have to get all the weeds gone before the annual fire inspections.

Books of the Month:

• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
  
  Borrowed? Yes. I blame Smokey.
  

  This book got rave reviews from many well-respected authors and reviewers. Mr. Eggers, when it comes time for you to review my work, I hope you'll develop the same convenient amnesia that appears to be plaguing the entire current administration. This book is very clever.
  
  Recommended? For readers who enjoy cleverness.
  Reread? No. I prefer books that either move me or teach me.
  
  

• The China Study - Thomas M. Campbell and Colin T. Campbell
  
  Borrowed? Yes. Thanks, Jay.
  

  This book has changed my life. The Campbells have put together an excellent and much-needed epic on nutrition and human disease. The epidemic of diseases that faces the 21st century human is very different from the previous century. Our worries center around obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, heart diseases, cancer. Diseases of affluence and longer lifespans. Except, according to Dr. Campbell, it ain't necessarily so. Why are the wealthiest not the healthiest? Don't we have all the science, the research, the necessary tools? Let Dr. Campbell tell you why. If this book doesn't change your life, I'll eat my hat. Or you'll eat yours, or something. It'd be better for you than that hamburger, in any event.
  
  
  Recommended? Highly.
  Reread? Yes, as soon as I notice any evidence of slackment.
  
  

• The Easy Way To Stop Smoking - Allen Carr
  
  Borrowed? No.
  

  Okay, what's with the self-helpalooza? I'll tell you what. It's time to quit smoking, once and for all. When your lungs feel like hot buttered knives are ripping through them with every breath it is time to stub out the last little stinker and say goodbye to that feeelthy habit. This is an excellent book. Really. The book can be repetitive at times, but repetition is needed when trying to get rid of an ancient and deeply ingrained - and life-destroying - habit.
  
  
  Recommended? To any smoker trying to quit. To families and friends of smokers who want to help their loved one kick the habit.
  Reread? Every time I need to.
  
  

• You Must Set Forth At Dawn - Wole Soyinka
  
  Borrowed? Smoke, again!
  
  

  What a wonderful book! It's so richly evocative of Africa, written with all the love that a person feels for their country and culture. It made me wish I was in Africa, it made me want to read a million books of African history and culture and language, and music, and art, and long for all Africana. It gave me hope. Africa can be the hope of the old world and the new world and the third world. It's funny, Jonathan Raban's book about Africana is the polar opposite of this, though well-written in its own way. Professor Soyinka has played a vital part in Nigeria's history, and is a writer of great talent and skill. I am glad he is still writing.
  
  
  Recommended? Oh, yes!
  Reread? Someday. After reading all the books on African history and culture.
  
  

• Women's Lip - TBD
  
  Borrowed? Gift
  
  

  An amusing little collection of feminist snark, which is going to feature on this blog sooner or later.
  
  Recommended? For amusement only.
  Reread? No.
  
  

• Pronatalism: The Myth of Mom & Apple Pie - Ellen Peck, Judith Senderowitz, Eds.
  
  Borrowed? Nope.
  
  

  This is an excellent collection of essays about the institutionalized pronatalism that has led the global population to increase by 50% over the last 40 years. Whatever happened to the ZPG movement? Forty years ago, governments concluded that the human population of the planet had grown too large and must be managed down to zero growth. Forty years later, we are seeing a vicious wave of pronatalism nearly unprecedented in previous history. Even as people endlessly whine about the rising cost of living, the pollution of the atmosphere, the water, the very earth, the crowded conditions of our cities, the lack of opportunities for young people entering schools and the workforce, we are breeding like cockroaches, with disastrous consequences, and no one is drawing the logical conclusion.
  
  Recommended? Highly. For anyone interested in women's studies, feminism, social studies, population studies, ecology, sustainability, and the fate of the world.
  Reread? As soon as ever I can.
  
  

I just noticed that four out of the six books I read this month were weighty and not a quick read. So there's that in my defense. I will stop beating myself up now and post an updated booklist to be read by July 1.

books

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Extralite

blogging this week because, believe it or not, I'm still SICK!!! And tired of it. Pneumonia (which is what I got) takes about six weeks from inception to recovery. Well, we're barely starting on week 3. Life sucks.

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Health - Managing Pain

Gee, what a surprise. Chronic pain can affect (shrink) the areas of your brain that relate to social interaction and decision-making. Who'd'a thunk?

Yoga can reduce and help manage chronic back pain. Well, we all knew that. Besides, most of my pain right now is in my lungs and knees. Argh. But I will I swear to deity start with the yoga again. As soon as I can breathe.

New drugs for chronic pain? I got gabapentin for mine right after surgery, but it didn't help much. Must find out more about this drug(s).

Using a gel to treat chronic back pain? Sounds interesting. Better than the spinal fusion approach. I wonder if the gel would be an effective replacement for hyaline cartilage? Or some gel, in the future, might.

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Seen any good movies lately?

Captain Pantaleon Pantoja
Foyle's War (it's a British TV series, so it's ongoing)
Little Rascals (the lot)
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Kung Fu Hustle
The Crime of Padre Amaro
Down By Law
Alphaville (Goddard)
Basket Case (Okay that wasn't good, except in the way that something is so bad, it's good)
Jungle Fever
UHF
Mystic River
The Baby
The Phantom Planet (MST3K)
To Live (Gong Li is THE MOST BEYOOTIFUL WOMAN EVER)
The Others (Nicole Kidman, dir. Tom Cruise - but it was good)
The Killer Shrews (MST3K)
Hollow Man (bleah)
V for Vendetta
Taking Lives
Batman (1943)
Five Thousand Fingers of Doctor T
The Shawshank Redemption
Triumph of the Will
Ruthless People
Amazon Women on the Moon

Okay, I may be a gimp and I may not get out much, but thanks to Netflix I got to watch me some movies.

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