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Archives for January 2009

Whereas Jason Bourne is a cold-blooded killing machine who… aw, never mind

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Matt Damon does not like James Bond…

Matt Damon has attacked Ian Fleming’s famous British spy James Bond, currently played by Daniel Craig, calling him “repulsive”.

He said: “He’s repulsive. Bond is an imperialist, misogynist, sociopath who goes around bedding women and swilling martinis and killing people.

“The movies have a formula, they stick to it, and it makes them a lot of money. They know what they are doing and they’re going to keep doing it.”

This is the same guy who plays Jason Bourne. A character I like almost as much as Bond. Oh dear; what’s a girl to do?

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Rebecca opines: This is great stuff. If this acting thing doesn’t pan out, Matt Damon can find employment as a third rate academic anywhere in North America. He’s got the spiel down perfectly.

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Brigitte agrees! And he briefly attended Harvard, too!

Why burn them?

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Because one should never pass up a good chance to blast crazy feminism. I especially like the last paragraph:

The whole point of feminism was to give women freedom to live their lives as individuals, whether it meant working, parenting, or having five days or five months of maternity leave. If I’d known it meant glowering angrily at each other, personally I would have saved my bra from the fire, and just gone back to the office.

At the risk of exposing myself as a bizarre person, I never understood what the point of bra-burning might possibly be. I mean, these things are expensive…

Prime Minister Harper–you listening?

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Cuz I know tomorrow is budget day, and apparently, funding birth control is actually economic stimulus. Can’t make this stuff up, better watch Nancy Pelosi yourselves:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFU_jE9WasM]

Fewer people, er, does indeed mean lower costs. I assume we’re all willing to get rid of one or two family members. After all, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Tough economic times, and all.

Seriously people. I don’t know whether Obama is behind this or not but that has to be one of the dumber statements I’ve heard from a top level leader in a long while. And they made fun of Sarah Palin. Yeesh.

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Brigitte is scratching her head: We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy, she says. So the federal government helps fund contraception. Because the downturn in the economy led to too much unprotected sex? Or not enough? Is the subsidized contraception meant to encourage more Americans to engage in the activity? They need encouraging?

Gosh. These nice sophisticated and educated folks are too subtle for me.

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UPDATE: President Obama may deprive the world of a good joke…

Obama’s doing it

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It didn’t pass me by that Obama is re-instating American dollars to international groups that support abortion. I just didn’t post about it because it was what he promised, furthermore, the Clintons also supported this. So it’s not surprising.

But here at home on the family front, Obama recognizes that fatherlessness is a problem and that marriage is a benefit:

Strengthen Fatherhood and Families: Barack Obama has re-introduced the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act to remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, ensure that support payments go to families instead of state bureaucracies, fund support services for fathers and their families, and support domestic violence prevention efforts. President Obama will sign this bill into law and continue to implement innovative measures to strengthen families.

And there, he is right–and I get the feeling these days that when Obama does something–people listen. So I just thought I’d highlight that.

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Rebecca adds: I haven’t read either of his autobiographies, and I don’t plan to. But I gather from those who have, whose judgement I respect, that fatherlessness was a big factor in shaping Obama’s character, values, and to a certain extent even his politics. Also, while the effects of an absent father, a flakey mother and an unreliable stepfather were hugely mitigated by Obama’s grandparents, who provided him with a stable home and an excellent education, he’s well aware that the vast majority of fatherless kids lack this kind of safety net. I look forward to the changes he will make to the American discussion about fatherhood.

Needless to say, the demographic that suffers most acutely from fatherlessness, both numerically and in the malignancy of its effects, are African Americans. Phenomenally high rates of delinquency, petty and serious crime, and dropping out of high school, as well as risk of imprisonment for boys and early pregnancy for girls, are closely connected to rampant fatherlessness in America’s black communities, as Kay Hymowitz and many others have documented.

“Feminist nonsense” versus “women’s rights”

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I do think it’s important to understand what pro-choicers are thinking. Incidentally, I use the term “pro-choice” to be conciliatory, though I think that term–all terms in the abortion debate, in fact–fall quite short of what is really going on. Or perhaps better put, they are themselves clichés that create tension and raise up stereotypical images. Ie. Not Helpful. 

Anyhoo, so I read blogs like this with interest. Not to make fun, which admittedly would be easy enough, but with an acceptance that this view is out there–and it makes sense to some women. And I really do wonder why. Because it makes no sense at all to me.  

Anti-choicers like to defend themselves against the charge of misogyny by saying they simply believe that life begins at conception.  What they fail to understand is that “life begins at conception” is a misogynist statement. It’s the erasure of a woman’s role in making new people, and a claim that the only effort that counts is the effort a man put into ejaculating. 

I’ve been invited to talk at a university campus in the fall about why abortion is an injustice for women–will be a sceptical, if not outright hostile audience. But that’s what I believe–not only is abortion not a right, but rather marks a grave injustice in particular for women. So I plan on putting a lot of effort into that paper–it’s months away but I’ll post it when I’m done.

Will you stay with me awhile?

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Andrea has a fine op-ed in this morning’s Montreal Gazette about the heart-wrenching case of a woman left behind with her children by a wealthy ex-partner who only sends her $35,000/month in child support. Actually, that’s just the hook. The serious point is that marriage isn’t the same as living together, and should therefore be treated differently by the state.

And a splendid point that is. I have had my share of failed relationships before meeting Dear Husband, and I can tell you that there is, indeed, a very big difference between shacking up with someone and making a life-long commitment to stick with them through the good and the bad. The piece of paper, it turns out, matters a great deal. I remember my hand shaking as I signed it (now of course I’d be hard-pressed to tell you exactly where, in my house, said piece of paper is stored, but that is NOT the point).

Marriage isn’t for everybody, and that’s fine. Nobody should be forced to marry who doesn’t wish to. But to pretend that drifting into shared domesticity is the same as getting married is wrong, and not just for those who can’t get more than $35,000/month out of their ex-boyfriends.

Doing the Lord’s work

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doingthelordswork

Tee hee. These atheists are going to get all kinds of busy people thinking about God where they would not have before. It’s that niggly little word “probably” that will leave just enough room to ponder the reality of God rather than the opposite.

“God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.” –Francis Bacon

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Brigitte wonders: I’m not religious, yet I worry. I know plenty of religious people who don’t (some who do, too). Most of the time I enjoy my life. So do many religious people I know (some who don’t, too). I guess my question is: What the heck are you trying to say, and why can’t you say it better, you silly bunny?

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Tanya adds: They’re trying to counter what seems like such a morbid message with brightly coloured lettering. Not enough can be said for Helvetica BOLD in hot pink.

Late term abortions just never happen…

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…except when they do. From the UK:

Almost 3,000 were carried out on women who were at least 20 weeks pregnant, according to the latest annual figures in England and Wales, representing a 44 per cent increase in less than a decade. The vast majority were for “lifestyle” reasons; less than a quarter were because of a risk that the child would be born handicapped. 

David Frum isn’t done – and neither am I

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He’s baaaaack, with his ‘college education’ fetish (why does he care so darn much how the degreed vote? do people with university education count more than those without?) and his gosh, no, we can’t possibly even think of pretending we hold anything resembling conservative-esque values. I mean, ick.

I am annoyed. Perhaps it’s me who has no business anywhere close to his tent. Or perhaps he needs to go someplace else to pitch his. I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure we can’t agree to disagree on stuff like this:

We need to modulate our social and cultural message. Not jettison. Not reverse. Modulate. For example: We are a pro-life party, but every Republican platform since 1980 has gone much further, calling for a federal constitutional amendment to ban all abortions in all states under almost all circumstances. We don’t mean it. We don’t act on it. Yet we keep saying it.

That’s just one way in which we’re confusing voters. We don’t intend to police every single one of the millions of deathbeds in America, either. So why did we obsess over Terri Schiavo?

So if you’re pro-life you can’t, for instance, call for an end to abortion? You’re not allowed to ‘obsess’ over end-of-life issues? What, pray tell, are pro-lifers allowed to do? Pretend they’re not so they can look more with-it at fashionable cocktail parties?

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