Even Less Admirable (The Chairman’s Daughter’s Whatnot)

This is not what we would ordinarily call a profile in courage:

Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz again reversed his position on Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy on Wednesday night, saying he’d vote for the Republican nominee but wouldn’t endorse him.

“I will not defend or endorse @realDonaldTrump, but I am voting for him,” Chaffetz tweeted Wednesday. “[Hillary Rodham Clinton] is that bad. HRC is bad for the USA.”

The House Oversight Committee chairman had previously backed Trump’s candidacy before withdrawing his endorsement on Oct. 8 following the revelation that the Republican nominee had made lewd and sexually aggressive comments while filming for an “Access Hollywood” interview in 2005.

(Lima)

Then again, this is Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT03) we’re talking about, so it’s not like anyone expects a lot. To that end, we should at least note the accomplishment, the e’er graceless flip-flop-flip.

One Thousand Five Hundred Three Years

This is the short form:

A 41-year-old California man has been sentenced to 1,503 years in prison for raping his teenage daughter over four years.

(Goglowski)

The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office detailed the harrowing numbers:

On September 22nd, Mr. Lopez was found guilty of one hundred eighty-six (186) counts of sexual assault; including twenty-two (22) counts of Rape of a Minor, one hundred sixty-three (163) counts of Forcible Rape, and one (1) count of Forcible Oral Copulation. These crimes were perpetrated on a single victim over a period of five (5) years from 2009 to 2014.

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Fresno County District Attorney’s Office. “Rene Lopez Sentenced to 1,503 Years for Sexual Assaults”. News Release. 21 October 2016.

Goglowski, Nina. “California Man Sentenced To 1,503 Years For Raping Teen Daughter”. The Huffington Post. 24 October 2016.

Unsettling

“Most girls do not really understand how horny guys are, how much stronger guys are, how guys will rationalise what they do.”

―Anonymous

Be as horrified as you feel appropriate:

It is, of course, uncommon for people, mostly men, who take advantage of passed out roommates or routinely anally rape their wives to come out and give a no-holds-barred account of what they know to be a horrific act.

So when a reddit thread began in 2012 asking perpetrator of sexual assault to tell “their side of the story” — attracting more than a thousand responses — researchers pounced on the opportunity.

It’s the first time the viral social media site has been used as the basis for an academic study, and the results are as fascinating as they are disturbing.

The result, to the one, is about as morbid as we might expect; to the other, neither is it unfamiliar. This is what a rapist says:

The same respondent, who admitted to raping a woman while “extremely horny”, even after she “realised what was happening and tried to clamp her legs shut”, disturbingly describes how he plans to educate his own daughter about the dangers of men’s uncontrollable sexuality.

“When my daughter is old enough, I’m going to have a very frank conversation on male-female relations of the sort that I do not think most girls get,” he wrote.

“Most girls do not really understand how horny guys are, how much stronger guys are, how guys will rationalise what they do.”

And it is not, by any measure, unfamiliar. Chicken or egg; art and life. Liz Burke notes that researchers “found the motivations the responses illustrated were consistent with what is commonly described as ‘rape culture'”; we ought not be surprised. The rapist is, after all, the living manifestation of rape culture.

Unsurprising, to be certain, but how can that familiarity not be unsettling?

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Burke, Liz. “Victim-blaming, hormones and objectification: Reddit-based study reveals why men rape”. News.com.au. 22 January 2016.

Another Memo to the Huffington Post

MEMORANDUM

To: Huffington Post, Michelle Persad (Fashion Editor)

re: Please stop objectifying women

This is not an occasion on which I get to say, “You might have noticed”, because, in all sincerity, why would you?

Still, it is to some degree worth mentioning that a particular frustration with the Huffington Post compels me to give your organization some shit, because, quite frankly, I just don’t get HuffPo’s obsession with bulwarking misogyny.

The Duchess Effect is real. And this year, it was stronger than ever―probably because the Duchess of Cambridge’s style keeps getting better.

Between her red carpet gowns, dashing coats and whimsical hats, we were gushing over her sartorial choices for basically 12 months straight.

(Persad)

The Huffington Disgrace

MEMORANDUM

To: Jamie Feldman, Huffington Post

re: ¿Thank you for your contribution?

It is hard to know where to begin, so let me please start with a question: Are you joking?

No, really, are you pitching for a Christmas card from MRAs?

All hail Serena Williams, Sports Illustrated’s first female “Sportsperson of the Year” since 1983 and the sexiest woman alive―if her latest red carpet look is any indication, that is.

(Feldman)

No, really. Please tell me this is a joke.

Why are you taking part in gendertyping? Why are you reinforcing stereotypes about women’s apperances?

Just Some Dude Asking a Question

MEMORANDUM

To: Huffington Post, Jamie Feldman (Associate Style Editor)

re: Stylish sexism

In the first place: Why do I care?

The Huffington Post sidebar is, of course, notorious; I can discover all manner of fascinating insights about how you think of your readers, because, you know, some of us just so want to know about Martha Stewart’s sex life, or what slits were too high for comfort. Something about cherries, and something about sex toys; yeah, that was the sort of moment I would never experience without the Huffington Post.

It is not so much a question of why I care about the notoriously obnoxious lack of decent character shown by the HuffPo sidebar; it is, after all, merely software.

But the question persists why I care what Kate Middleton wore yesterday. Nor was this merely in the sidebar; someone chose to put the article about the Duchess of Cambridge being an “outfit repeater” on the front page of the Huffington Post.

Royals: They’re just like us―when it comes to recycling outfits, that is.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge took her new haircut out to a holiday party at the London’s Anna Freud center Monday, a charity she has visited before as part of her ongoing work for children’s mental health.

Dressed for the holidays, Kate opted for an all-red Alexander McQueen outfit that she has worn not once but twice before

Perhaps Jamie Feldman, associate style editor for HuffPo, might explain if this is one of those moments in which I am suppsoed to squee! uncontrollably.

Maybe weep?

Fall to my knees in prayer? How about just shake my head sadly?

“Outfit Repeater”? Really? Yeah, okay, I can shake my head sadly at that.

The Ben Carson Show (And Your Mother, Too!)

So, you know, we finally got around to making up a quote image for Dr. Ben Carson’s wonderful war inside women gaffe.

Because, like, you know. You care. Or something.

And, you know, because if people are going to read, they tend to need pictures, too, these days. I mean, seriously, if you’re going to socmed another freaking cat video, why not this?

Because, you know, sure, why not? I mean, look, I’m not going to knock sports fans. But in truth, if most of the sports fans I know paid half as much attention to, you know … er, look, okay? I know. I come from a football family. And I get it. Sports really do affect our lives.

But compared to elections? Yeah, I know, maybe the trade seems inexplicable, giving up prospects when there’s no way it’s going to pay off five years down the road, but I am a father, goddamn it! Yeah, I like championship trophies and hoisting pints to victory as much as the next, but you know what I like even more? A world in which creepy old men aren’t declaring war on my daughter’s insides.

And by the juxtaposition, it is worth pointing out that those of us who have better awareness of the political farm leagues than, say, the baseball version from which we take the term, are slightly awestruck today as more evidence emerges that the Republican establishment is afraid of what might be about to happen. But that also throws the political calculus of what happens when and if Donald Trump actually does crash and burn the way the conventional wisdom once believed he must; Dr. Carson would, given the apparent mood among Republican voters at this moment, be a more likely nominee than, say, Jeb Bush.

And in the time you wasted reading my halfwitted justification for wasting it, you could have grabbed that image and sent it to a friend who probably needs it either for their own benefit, or as something to send to someone they know.

I mean, really. I have a daughter. And, you know, a mother. And lots and lots of friends and neighbors who just happen to be female. And not a one of them needs Ben Carson’s goddamn war inside their bodies.

And, you know, “Some of my friends are women!” hardly makes me special. Indeed, for the most part it makes me just like you.

Admit it. You know someone who needs to be paying attention right about now.

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Image note: Source photo by Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call, 2015.

Johnson, Eliana. “The Establishment Thinks the Unthinkable: Trump Could Win the Nomination”. National Review. 19 October 2015.

A Note to the GdC

It is my deepest honor, my lady. My greatest privilege. My ineffable pleasure. Thank you.

You are a treasure, you’ll never be found; gathering coral in a galleon. Seeding anemones, feeding the reef in some lagoon in Barbados. And I must retrieve you, for I will get paid and build a big house in Vancouver town. Living in castles a bit at a time. Walking the borders of countries. You be in these shoes, and I’ll be in those―do you see dots when I’m talking to you? One lemon, two lemons, one rosy peach; six lonely souls and a moron. My mind is a porpoise alone on a beach, counting the waves as he’s dying.

―Rheostatics, “You Are a Treasure” (1994)

The O’Reilly Spectacle

There are so many unfortunate things about this rising scandal:

Three weeks ago, a Nassau County Supreme Court justice ended a bitter three-year custody dispute between Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly and his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy, by granting custody of the couple’s two minor children to McPhilmy. Though nearly all documents pertaining to New York family court cases are sealed, Gawker has learned that the justice in the case heard testimony accusing O’Reilly of physically assaulting his wife in the couple’s Manhasset home.

According to a source familiar with the facts of the case, a court-appointed forensic examiner testified at a closed hearing that O’Reilly’s daughter claimed to have witnessed her father dragging McPhilmy down a staircase by her neck, apparently unaware that the daughter was watching. The precise date of the alleged incident is unclear, but appears to have occurred before the couple separated in 2010. The same source indicated that the daughter, who is 16 years old, told the forensic examiner about the incident within the past year.

As J. K. Trotter explains for Gawker, this is the latest sordid chapter exposed in an ongoing ugly dispute between FOX News host Bill O’Reilly and his ex-wife.

A Conservative Outlook on Parenting, or, Why Your Daughter Is Weak

“Right, so drill that into your daughter and say ‘You’re weak. You’re vulnerable. You’re not a superhero. You’re in danger.”

―Gavin McInnes

They are certainly getting louder, and shouting more clearly. To the other, it is hard to see how this is helpful.

Apparently, though, this is Gavin McInness explaining to FOX News how to be a good parent.

McInnes argued that liberals who promote gender equality have made women who choose to go on spring break “more vulnerable.”

“I think this is a perfect example of liberals’ cognitive dissonance where they say ‘Everything’s cool. Hey, it’s spring break. People party. Women are the same as men,'” McInnes said. “When you have that stupid lie in your mind you end up making women more vulnerable. These women are not as strong as men.”

“When you let them go down there, you’re a terrible parent,” he added. “If you let your son go down there, you’re a fairly bad parent. But sons are different than daughters.”

Hannity later asked McInnes whether that was a double standard.

“Of course it is,” he responded. “We’re different. Sorry. Equality is a myth.”

We should also note, as Catherine Thompson pointed out in her report for Talking Points Memo, that this might become an annual FOX News event:

Clearly little progress has been made since last year’s “Hannity” spring break investigation, when McInnes and Earhardt got into the exact same argument.

Real quick, please, a show of hands: Is anybody actually surprised?

No, seriously, rape culture advocacy and FOX News? Does the day end in —y?

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Image note: Actor Gavin McInnes and director Chad Harbold attend [the] Shorts Program II during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival at Racquet Club Theatre on January 16, 2009, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Kristin Murphy/WireImage)

Thompson, Catherine. “Fox Guest: Liberal Myths Are Making Spring Break Dangerous For Women”. Talking Points Memo. 25 March 2015.