All I set out to do was hype the Rabbit Blog. Quirky little site, loads of fun, which you probably heard of ages ago, but it's relatively new to me, so I'm sharing. (And wondering how she ever grabbed the url tinylittlepenis.com?)  

I was going to make her the second blog added to my blogroll since I started (that's not counting Scott and Sullywatch), and figured she deserved a little intro. (You may also remember her from the Filler cartoon on the late great Suck.com). But just as I was doing it . . . 

she posted another hysterically scathing story on Salon tonight, on the latest permutation of reality TV: "Video killed the game-show star."

I already said Joan Walsh was the most insightful writer at Salon, and I meant it--at least on matters of "importance" in the political world--but for sheer writing chops, nobody could touch Carina Chocano. (Joan's a great writer, too, but I'm sorry Joan. I wish I could write like Carina.) Until she left a few months back. Ugh. (I think she went to Entertainment Weekly--I'm not about to start picking that up.)

Oh God. I've slipped on over to the dark side. 

Normally I believe there are more than enough nasty rascists to combat minorities groping for parity, but this is too much. (And too freaking funny): 

The first part may or may not be legit: Abercrombie & Fitch slapped with an employment discrimination lawsuit for cultivating an all-white sales force. I hate to shop and can't afford $70 for a pair of shorts anyway, so I only cruise by A&F stores at Christmastime, when I'm forced into the mall and seek the sublime comfort of their delicious 30-foot straightboys acting like hungry homos who've misplaced their shirts. I don't remember actually seeing any dark folk around there, so they may well have a point, though I lack the data to support it.

But here's where the story turns screwy. From AP:

The company promotes the policy by recruiting from overwhelmingly white fraternities and sororities, and producing catalogs and store promotional materials with mostly white models, according to the lawsuit.

...

"If you look at the material they put out, they are cultivating an all-white look," said Thomas Saenz, vice president of litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. "It is difficult to understand why, given that their target age demographic is even more heavily minority than the rest of the population, they would choose to do this."

Yeah, it is kinda wierd that they're selling to lots of minorities (and surely hoping blacks and homos sport their stuff so that all the whiteboy breeders follow). They're selling to self-loathing blacks, asians and latinos? I don't know. It's not half as wierd as the constant stream of homo imagery they put out to attract all the straight young jocks.

But since when do you not have the right to cultivate an all-white image? If you're refusing to hire blacks and sticking them in the back when you do, that sucks and that's illegal. But you can create any freaking image you want, can't you? (Saturn is free to cultivate an image of aggressively annoying dorks aren't they? And Touched by an Angel is free to cultivate an image of one-dimensional simpletons attracted to wooden dialogue and Baywatch acting.)

I thought an image was the one thing we all had complete freedom to shape any way we want--it's all a matter of whether someone's buying it (first the image, then the product). The main pitfalls with image management are failing to pull it off, and succeeding in pulling it off.

A&F has totally got its image down. No fatties, no homelies, no misfits, no post-pubescents, no straight people. (I'm sorry. I meant, "...no gay people and no straight people not posing as a gay people.") And all models must possess the ability to impersonate athletic skill in a still photograph. It's strictly The World According to Bruce Weber. Apparently, he has no interest in having sex with aging klutzy fat black queens. Well, it's his world.

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. (Today.)

I'm feeling meloncholy after I churning up all that stuff about my "friend." I thought I was just going to write a one-line link to the WWR post, but my fingers started moving and it all spilled out. Didn't realize how much had built up inside.

So I need something to cheer me up, and this song does something powerful to me. Not entirely sure why (note on lyrics at bottom):

Dere's an ol' man called de Mississippi;
Dat's de ol' man dat I'd like to be!
What does he care if de world's got troubles?
What does he care if de land ain't free?
Ol' Man River,
Dat Ol' Man River
He mus' know sumpin' But don't say nuthin',
He jes' keeps rollin',
He keeps on rollin' along.
He don't plant taters,
He don't plant cotton,
An' dem dat plants 'em
Is soon forgotten,
But Ol' Man River,
He jes' keeps rollin' along
You an' me, we sweat an' strain,
Body all achin' an' racked wid pain -
Tote dat barge!
Lif' dat bale!
Git a little drunk,
An' you land in jail...
Ah gits weary
An' sick of tryin';
Ah'm tired of livin'
An skeered of dyin',
But Ol' Man River,
He jes' keeps rollin' along

Lyrics based upon those from the libretto for the recording of Jerome Kern's Show Boat, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein 2nd. Hayes Middlesex England: EMI Records Lmtd.1988

He comments on the futility of turning gays. That's for sure. But it's so much worse than that.

A guy extremely close to me was tortured by the ex-gay movement most of his adult life. In his early 20s, his mom was born again, and coaxed him to do the same. He discovered Jesus, decided to make Him his special man, and forsake all others.

Oh my God. He spent three years torturing himself inside an ex-gay group, but the real trauma still lied ahead. He stuck with it, gave up sex, even engaged to be married to a woman--who knew all about it, had loved him for ages and was excited for the opportunity--and also was "there to help." He would have gone through with it, too, but she finally grasped the deal she was making with the devil when they reached a certain crossroads. She fled, he was broken-hearted, but finally came to his senses: However or whyever God made him this way, there was no way he could unmake himself and reconstitute as something else.

So he went back to men after three years, but he's never really recovered from it. He believes he's probably going to hell. He said he expects one thing if he is sentenced to eternal damnation: an explanation. Why would You make me into one thing and then cajole me into being something else? He just doesn't know how to make himself into that something else.

Of course he can't. I goof around a lot about how great life would be as a dolphin, and given the choice, I think I really might make the switch. But I don't have that choice. No matter how much I want to be a dolphin, it's just not going to happen. I was not created in that image.

And so, my guy is really fucked up. The level of self-loathing in that boy ... He's nearly 40 now, and still despises himself at the core. He's come a long way in the past decade or so, and the disgust is buried much deeper now, but it's still in charge down there, undermining everything he does, every relationship in his life. And until you love yourself, there's really very little progress you can make on the rest of your mission, whatever else it was that God dropped you down here to do.

The Southern Baptists better hope to God they're right. They better hope God wants them to torture gays and destroy millions of lives in the hope of coercing them into attempting something probably impossible. They better hope a few fellow humans a few thousand years ago got every nuance of God's message right--because Jesus never said one word about it, so they're not taking His word for it. They better hope that message implied they should persecute the alleged sinners. Because they may not see it as persecution, but I have seen first-hand what they're "help" can do to a person. They better open their eyes and take a good sober look at the actual effects of their crusade. And if they still think they're doing The Lord's work, they better hope and pray they're right. Because they're got one hell of a human nightmare to answer for.

That title is in quotes because it's stolen (I mean "stolen") from The World Wide Rant. You'll have to go there to read it--that way I don't think they'll get mad at me for stealing it. (Andy: let me know if this is breaking the rules and I'll take it down.)

(There isn't actually all that much at the post, but some really wonderful use of language--if you're familiar with some of the evangelical Christian terms. I sure enjoyed it. Pithy little post, it is. I could learn something from that.)

This is officially the first blog I've ever fallen in love with. Didn't think it would happen so soon. I'm going to add their link to my left side column, but I have to do some work first. (Congratulations WWR: you are the first contestant selected for that honor (not including the Scott's which I've been following for a year through Salon, and Sullywatch, just because SOMEthing needs to be done about Sully's penchant for distortion. Those were up there before I even started.)