Really, CNN? Really?
Hefner hated women
Sep 28th, 2017 9:48 am | By Ophelia Benson… Read the rest“The notion that Playboy turns women into sex objects is ridiculous,” said the sadistic pimp in 2010. “Women are sex objects… It’s the attraction between the sexes that makes the world go ‘round. That’s why women wear lipstick and short skirts.”
Hefner was responsible for turning porn into an industry. As Gail Dines writes in her searing expose of the porn industry, he took it from the back street to Wall Street and, thanks in large part to him, it is now a multibillion dollar a year industry. Hefner operated in a country I live in, a country where if you film any act of humiliation or torture – and if the victim is
Everything is broken
Sep 28th, 2017 8:50 am | By Ophelia BensonContainers are piling up on the docks in San Juan because there’s no way to drive them to where they’re needed.
… Read the restDistributors for big-box companies and smaller retailers are unloading 4,000 20-foot containers full of necessities like food, water and soap this week at a dock in Puerto Rico’s capital operated by Crowley Maritime Corp. In the past few days, Tote Maritime’s terminal has taken the equivalent of almost 3,000. Even with moves to ease shipping to the island, like the Trump administration’s waiver of the Jones Act on Thursday, the facilities have become choke points in the effort to aid survivors of Hurricane Maria.
“There are plenty of ships and plenty of cargo to come into the island,” said
Our most influential pimp
Sep 28th, 2017 8:06 am | By Ophelia Benson… Read the restPLEASE SHARE!
Article I wrote with colleague and friend Robert Jensen to “celebrate” Hefner’s 80th birthday 11 years ago. What we said then holds true today. But now he is dead! Hopefully this is an antidote to the all the fawning over Hefner you are likely to be subject to by mainstream press.Hugh Hefner is 80 today. America, say happy birthday to our most influential pimp. Houston Chronicle, April 9, 2006
By Gail Dines and Robert JensenHefner, the legendary founder of Playboy magazine, a pimp? Yes, if we told the truth about Hefner’s “contribution” to society, we would refer to him as a pimp, as someone who sells women to men for sex.
It is very bad down there right now
Sep 27th, 2017 4:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonInside Climate News on the depth of the disaster in Puerto Rico:
… Read the rest“It is very bad down there right now,” said Sven Rodenbeck, chief science officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2017 hurricane response. “For the vast majority of the island, there is no power. They have had flooding, and the health care system—many of the clinics and hospitals are closed. A lot of the drinking water systems are not operational, along with the waste water systems.”
Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, gave a blunt assessment of the situation.
“People are dying,” Cruz told CBS news on Tuesday. “This is the reality that we live in, the
Socially approved
Sep 27th, 2017 11:42 am | By Ophelia BensonSunday we read a piece by Gaby Hinsliff about the disproportionate rage directed at BBC reporter Laura Kuenssberg.
Yesterday I read this in the Guardian from last July: Yvette Cooper ‘sick to death of vitriol’ directed at Laura Kuenssberg.
… Read the restThe Labour MP Yvette Cooper has launched a staunch defence of the BBC political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, as she called on Labour to be a “broad-based party” and its supporters to stop engaging in “vitriolic abuse” online.
Cooper defended Kuenssberg, regularly under fire for perceived political bias, as she set out a potential strategy to put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street and attacked the US president, Donald Trump.
She said Trump’s approach to politics and social media was “normalising
Lost in the supply closet
Sep 27th, 2017 10:33 am | By Ophelia BensonTrump loves him some private plane status symbol.
“The plane is very much an extension of the Trump brand,” Donald Trump toldThe New York Times of the Boeing 757 he took to calling “Trump Force One” during the 2016 presidential campaign. It was an outdated model, and, as the Times drily noted, “an odd choice for a man who put his net worth at $11 billion.” But the plane was huge, and lined with gold on the inside, communicating to his supporters both might and prestige.
Well besides, it’s a giant flying penis-shaped thing – what’s not to love?
He sets the tone.
… Read the rest[A]n astonishing number of his cabinet members are ensnared in scandals involving air travel, whether
You can’t just drive your trucks there
Sep 27th, 2017 9:27 am | By Ophelia BensonDon explains why he’s been talking so much more about football players not standing up because Flag than about the disaster in Puerto Rico: it’s because of the little-known fact that Puerto Rico is an island. An island, people! Water all around. If you try to drive to it your truck gets too wet.
“It’s the most difficult job because it’s on the island, it’s on an island in the middle of the ocean,” Trump said at a joint press conference with Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. “It’s out in the ocean — you can’t just drive your trucks there from other states.”
Seriously. It’s thousands of miles from anywhere, out there in the middle of the ocean, like … Read the rest
Nice guys
Sep 26th, 2017 3:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonOf course.
Louise Brealey tweets a Guardian article about the misogyny aimed at women who say or do things.
Missed this from @suzanne_moore on the grim misogyny trying to silence women in UK politics. https://t.co/EaufI27lIS
— Louise Brealey (@louisebrealey) September 25, 2017
Then she makes an observation about misogyny in history.
Men have been trying to shut us up since 2350 BC: punishment for a woman speaking out of turn was having her teeth smashed by a burnt brick.
— Louise Brealey (@louisebrealey) September 25, 2017
So of course a man dives in to say you’re calling us evil. Brealey says no she’s not, she’s saying men have silenced women throughout history.
… Read the restWhere is your proof and don't say that
Cover up
Sep 26th, 2017 10:38 am | By Ophelia BensonThe NSS points out that several schools in the UK are requiring girls to wear religious dress as part of their school uniform.
… Read the restGirls in dozens of schools in England are forced to wear hijabs, according to National Secular Society research published in the Sunday Times today.
The NSS examined uniform policies on the websites of registered Islamic schools in England and found that girls potentially as young as four are instructed to wear the hijab as part of the official uniform policy.
Out of 142 Islamic schools that accept girls, 59 have uniform policies on their website that suggest a headscarf or another form of hijab is compulsory. This includes eight state-funded schools and 27 primary schools – three
Trump’s mattering map
Sep 26th, 2017 9:54 am | By Ophelia BensonPhilip Bump at the Post also notices Donald’s slightly out of proportion obsession with The Flag while Puerto Rico runs out of oxygen and everything else.
Since last Friday, he’s tweeted about anti-police violence protests at NFL games some two dozen times — far more than he’s tweeted about North Korea or about health-care revision or about the special election in Alabama. It has consumed him. Four tweets on Saturday. Seven on Sunday. Eight on Monday. Four before 9 a.m. on Tuesday.
It’s astonishing to behold – that someone in his position can be that petty and childish, and proud of it.
… Read the restAfter the contrast between his eager tweets about the NFL and apathy about Puerto Rico was raised by
Food and medicine are dwindling
Sep 26th, 2017 9:26 am | By Ophelia BensonCNN on the current situation in Puerto Rico:
Nearly a week after Hurricane Maria slammed Puerto Rico, the US commonwealth looks something like this: Most are without power and phone service, with little hope of having it restored soon. Food and medicine are dwindling, especially for those isolated by impassable roads. And rescuers still are finding and removing desperate people from their demolished communities.
It is, in short, a humanitarian crisis, San Juan’s mayor told CNN on Tuesday.
You put all those together – roads impassable, power out, communications down, food and medicine running out – and you can’t help but have a humanitarian disaster. Emergency services are finding dialysis patients near death, people running out of oxygen.
… Read the restResidents
Celebrity Big Asshole
Sep 26th, 2017 8:21 am | By Ophelia BensonLet’s start with something funny for a change.
Kate Smurthwaite did a tv chat thing this morning along with “Celebrity Big Brother star” Kim Woodburn where they discussed whether or not it’s annoying to be called “darling” in shops.
It wouldn’t be all that funny/interesting perhaps were it not for the fact that Kate reports that Kim Woodburn pitched a fit at her in the corridor afterwards.
… Read the restI’m not even joking. Kim Woodburn (from How Clean Is Your House who I was just on This Morning with) completely flipped out at me in the corridor as we left the studio. Got right in my face. Called me “crazy”, “a nutter” and all sorts of other not-very-PC terms. I was like
Don has a flag kink
Sep 25th, 2017 4:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonTrump’s people are trying to pretend he’s not picking a fight but actually reaching out to embrace us all.
The White House on Monday sought to soften the president’s controversial comments.
“Celebrating and promoting patriotism in our country is something that should bring everybody together,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “This isn’t about the president being against something. This is about the president being for something.”
Yeah, for everybody doing what he says, and for his absolute power to tell us all what to do and make us obey. He’s down with that.
… Read the restAt a campaign rally for Sen. Luther Strange (R) on Friday in Huntsville, Ala., Trump previewed the gains he foresaw by denouncing players who
She was asking for it
Sep 25th, 2017 11:19 am | By Ophelia BensonGaby Hinsliff on the abuse aimed at BBC reporter Laura Kuenssberg.
… Read the restSNOWFLAKE. Pathetic. Fake news. “Not exactly Kate Adie in a war zone.”
And that’s just a flavour of the way some people on social media greeted the news that the BBC’s political editor has been assigned a bodyguard to protect her at Labour party conference: by blaming the victim, not those who threaten violence against her. She’s making it up for attention! She was asking for it, what with her wilful refusal to report the news in a manner more to people’s liking! She should have known it was provocative even to set foot there!
Evidently many Labour supporters will be as horrified as any other sane
On a war footing
Sep 25th, 2017 10:11 am | By Ophelia BensonI’m sure this will work out well.
North Korea’s foreign minister has accused US President Donald Trump of declaring war on his country.
Ri Yong-ho told reporters in New York that North Korea reserved the right to shoot down US bombers.
This applied even when they were not in North Korean airspace, the minister added.
This is not the first time that North Korea has used the phrase “a declaration of war” in relation to the United States.
But Mr Ri’s comments are a response to the US president’s tweet that Mr Ri and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would not “be around much longer” if they continued their rhetoric.
Trump needs to be removed from office because he’s … Read the rest
Every rightwing suspicion was confirmed with suspicious ease
Sep 25th, 2017 9:29 am | By Ophelia BensonRecently a student at Edinburgh, Robbie Travers, made a lot of headlines over his claim that EU was investigating him for mocking ISIS. I saw several friends of mine pressing him on this claim on Facebook, and I saw him blowing smoke rather than answering.
Now Nick Cohen has found out what really happened.
… Read the restOn 12 May, Robbie Travers sent Esme Allman, a fellow student at Edinburgh University, a Facebook message.
“Hey Esme, just to let you know multiple news agencies have been delivered [sic] your comments on calling black men trash. You might want to think about saying that in future, some have been linked it [sic] to neo-Nazism.”
The ill-crafted words were at best half-truths and at
Tantrum in the West Wing
Sep 24th, 2017 5:08 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh look, now Donnie is really pissed off and he’s not going to take it any more.
He’s changed his Twitter header from that stupid photo of him doing a thumbs up at a table full of his fans to a Great Big Awesome Rippling American Flag.
So patriot!
Plus he’s splatted out a rash of angry “you have to worship the flag!!” tweets. Nope we don’t Don, and you can’t make us.
Great solidarity for our National Anthem and for our Country. Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017
Wut? What does that even mean? What solidarity, whose, where? And how do you have solidarity “for” … Read the rest
U Bum
Sep 24th, 2017 11:12 am | By Ophelia BensonDavid Remnick is lucidly disgusted at Trump’s racist demagoguery.
… Read the restIn the midst of an eighty-minute speech intended to heighten the reëlection prospects of Senator Luther Johnson Strange III, Trump turned his attention to N.F.L. players, including the former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and asked a mainly white crowd if “people like yourselves” agreed with his anger at “those people,” players who take a knee during the national anthem to protest racism.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired!’ ” Trump continued. “You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy
Creeping nationalism
Sep 24th, 2017 10:05 am | By Ophelia BensonThe AfD has done better than expected in the German election.
… Read the restGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel has been re-elected for a fourth term in federal elections, exit polls suggest.
Her conservative CDU/CSU alliance has won 32.5% of the vote, remaining the largest party in Germany’s parliament, according to the ARD poll.
Its coalition partner, the social democratic SPD, has gained 20%.
Meanwhile, the AfD, a right-wing nationalist, anti-Islam party, was on track to win 13.5%, emerging as Germany’s third-strongest party.
…
AfD’s performance, better than what opinion polls had forecast, means that the right-wing party will have a seat at the Bundestag for the first time.
The party’s leader, Frauke Petry, said on Twitter (in German) that Germany has experienced an