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So you might have heard that Bic has introduced a line of pens “For Her.” As you can imagine, they are pink and they sparkle. Well, that rightly pissed off a lot of people, and people have been stuffing the product pages on Amazon with funny “reviews.” Here are the most popular pages:
Check it out if you have some time (or a lot of time), they’re hilarious. And yes, those official serial numbers actually start with “FHAP,” I shit you not (what the hell is wrong with those morons at Bic? Not getting any?).
Here is another BIC product that deserves derision but isn’t getting any: the Susan G. Komen ballpoint pen. We love boobies, y’all! But we hope you’ll be dumb enough to buy “For Her” pens that are more expensive than our regular pens! Because women are dumb!
They could have spared themselves the headaches if they had named their line of pens, you know, pretty much anything else but “Bic For Her.”
There is a world hunger problem and sadly the institutions and economic system that caused the hunger problem in the first place are the ones that are sitting round that table discussing how they can gain from the situation. What ever answer they put on the table must involve the corporate world profiting and the tax payer paying. It is the only philosophy they know. Human suffering can only be resolved if there is profit for the corporate world in the operation. That's corporate capitalism.
Because of the global crises, taking control of the earth’s remaining resources – land, water, forests, biodiversity – has become crucial to the survival of capitalism and the corporations. At the recently concluded Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this resource grab has been institutionalised under the label of ‘green economy’.
The United States is a county run by plutocrats and industry lobbyists where last generation’s promises don’t stand up to today’s reality, where much of the population is either overworked or out of work or sees little hope of basic economic security, as debt and expenses keep piling up. American culture is strongly framed by reverence for militarism and conquest, while soldiers who return from the latest projection of Washington’s power are often on their own when it comes to adjusting to a new life. Innocent victims of military violence are uncounted collateral damage or redefined as militants. The country is still burdened by centuries of institutionalized racism, which manifests itself today in the course of the drug war, in the scapegoating of people born across certain borders for trying to improve their lives, and in the devaluing of ideological foes.
But the serious people who refuse to ask serious questions will say either that America is violent because guns are easier to attain here than they are in most wealthy countries, that constantly being ready to shoot attackers is a good long-term solution, or that it’s necessary to force stronger reverence for the traditions that have failed to bring peace and liberty to millions.
Real long-term solutions require rethinking and restructuring things often taken for granted. Authoritarian methods can only cut down on violence through subjugation, which typically means peace at the point of a gun or at the brandishing of a bludgeon. Acting towards more liberty, solidarity, and cooperation is the way out. In the meantime, being armed and alert is a reasonable back-up plan.
What do a nineteen-year-old lesbian from New Jersey, a 23-year-old trans woman in Minneapolis and a 31-year-old mother in Florida have in common? All three were attacked, all three fought back and all three were arrested. All three are currently in prison while their attackers remain free. Oh, yes, and all three are black women.
hippie bluegrass. the sound is remarkably traditional. every player here is just a master, though they might be under-rehearsed as a unit. richard greene is the best fiddler i ever saw: astonishing: halfway between squaredance and hard bop. but bill keith, grisman, clarence white: they are all entirely fundamental.
i went back and actually watched the full 1992 buchanan speech, embedded below. everyone might think the republican party is moving right, but this speech would be unimaginable this year. he just goes straight at gay rights, for example. it's quite disturbing from this angle. it's also remarkably gracious to bush, a model of the heal-the-party genre.
however, it is a remarkable text and a remarkable performance. this was one of the few times in this era that the speechwriter emerged from behind the curtain. certainly buchanan had minted priceless phrases for agnew and nixon. here he issues an incredible string of alliterative aphorisms. and he wrote them all himself: that's why he delivers them with such ownership and conviction. i'm sure obama is capable of writing a speech; i don't know how frequently he does. they certainly have that collaborative feel these days: written by committee, though no doubt a better committee than romney's. we'll see next week.
to a large extent, the american presidency is an expressive office, and to a large extent the expression consists of words, though of course it is multi-dimensional. but the words are too rarely his own, so the role and the person come apart in a disturbing way: a form of pervasive inauthenticity.
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