I am psychic
Guess what got nominated for an Independent Spirit Award? Dog Sweat, that’s right. You heard it here, first, folks. Read my review of the immensely deserving film here.
November 2010
28 posts
Yoga, my college Professor, make the front page of The New York Times
I found the article, “Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga’s Soul,” on the front page of today’s Sunday Times to be noteworthy for a number of reasons.
1) Yoga made the front page of The New York Times! Yay! Yoga changed my life for the better when I started practicing, and while it hasn’t always been a straight trajectory of growth, beginning a yoga practice is hands down one of the best decisions I ever made.
2) Debating what’s real yoga and what’s not is pretty much the antithesis of the first of the Yoga Sutras,* Yogash Chitta Vritti Nirodhah, which translates to “Yoga is the control of the thought patterns of the mindstuff.” I’m not being a yoga snob, I debate it all the time (and will again in a moment!), but it’s a point worth keeping in mind…
3) Lately, I have been thinking about the issues raised in this article. I practice asana (poses), chant, and meditate- at what point, am I practicing Hinduism (which I have nothing against)? To which my brother replied, why do you have to label it? Touche, Ben. I would like to add, however, that Yoga can be a part of practicing Hinduism, but it doesn’t have to be. But if you completely separate it from Hindu roots, or elements of spirituality, you are more exercising, than really practicing yoga, of which the physical postures are 1/8 of the practice. That said, as long as you’re following your breath, you will reap benefits beyond toned muscles.
4) Religions of South Asia was one of my favorite classes in college, and my professor, the brilliant Dr. Loriliai Biernacki is quoted in the article: “All these ideas are Hindu in origin, and they are spreading. But they are doing it in a way that leaves behind the proper name, the box that classifies them as ‘Hinduism.’”
Not to be repetitive but, Yay! The Sunday Paper is fun again! (Okay, it’s always fun.)
*The Yoga Sutras are a systematic, foundational Yogic text-though not the first written account of Yoga.
“
We’re all—especially those of us who are educated and have read a lot and have watched TV critically—in a very self-conscious and sort of worldly and sophisticated time, but also a time when we seem terribly afraid of other people’s reactions to us and very desperate to control how people interpret us. Everyone is extremely conscious of manipulating how they come off in the media; they want to structure what they say so that the reader or audience will interpret it in the way that is most favorable to them. What’s interesting to me is that this isn’t all that new.
This was the project of the Sophists in Athens, and this is what Socrates and Plato thought was so completely evil. The Sophists had this idea: Forget this idea of what’s true or not—what you want to do is rhetoric; you want to be able to persuade the audience and have the audience think you’re smart and cool. And Socrates and Plato, basically their whole idea is, “Bullshit. There is such a thing as truth, and it’s not all just how to say what you say so that you get a good job or get laid, or whatever it is people think they want.
— David Foster Wallace (via teachingliteracy) (via collectedquotes)
(via avenyc)
“And to think he is President - what a embarressment!”
—
commenter mrdave over at Fox Nation. Is that the embarrassment here, mrdave?
Also embarrassing, Fox Nation posted an article about Obama from The Onion without knowing it was fake. I’d say you can’t make this shit up, but it does all feel like a big Onion article is this weird meta way. Unfortunately, it’s not.
“
A man grabbed my ass around Herald Square yesterday. I told him off in front of the holiday crowd, but after I left I was very shaken up. The notion that men somehow groping me is okay and maybe I should just loosen up after I’m sexually harassed in public, grab a beer and go to bed with the guy is absolutely absurd. I’m a liberated woman who loves sex- with men who respect me.
Read more: http://jezebel.com/comment/33063811/#ixzz16QDuXaGo
” —My comment on the Jezebel-posted, Rape Apologist article, American Guy in Paris Freed From the Idea of Consent. I am loathe to direct any more traffic to this awful article that has no place on a feminist website, but the comment section is certainly worth reading because of the amazing, smart, and inspiring community of women (and men). Many readers quit Jezebel over this article, and I’m tempted to, but I’d lose a major sense of belonging to a feminist community (and continuing education) due to the loyal commenters.
I read this article once and slammed my computer shut. I read it again and further cemented my belief not only in the major logic fail of the author, but also in my shock that a feminist website would publish a guy defending rape. Any suggestions on where to get my feminist news on if I take a leave of Jezebel (a decision I would not take lightly)?
I wish the Jezebel editors would just apologize because being human and all, mistakes happen, even though this is one of those huge mistakes that would totally cause me to stop being someone’s friend if he or she held views such as the ones presented in the article.
UPDATE: Jezebel issued a half-assed apology that basically said sorry we posted this over a holiday. All the intelligent commenters seem to have left the site.
“The first Thanksgiving Day did occur in the year 1637, but it was nothing like our Thanksgiving today. On that day the Massachusetts Colony Governor, John Winthrop, proclaimed such a “Thanksgiving” to celebrate the safe return of a band of heavily armed hunters, all colonial volunteers. They had just returned from their journey to what is now Mystic, Connecticut where they massacred 700 Pequot Indians. Seven hundred Indians - men, women and children - all murdered.”
—
Richard Green
Any day that is set aside to be thankful is an important one, and I love coming home for Thanksgiving. I run a 5K in the morning with my brother and thousands of others and then eat wonderful food with family and friends. Cultivating gratitude is one of the best things you can do for yourself and others, but it can be easy to get caught up in the day to day and forget what you have to be thankful for. Thanksgiving is a national days set aside to do just that, and yeah, eat yourself into a food coma.
But the truth is important, and there were no Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving. Like most countries we have troubled history, and that’s not an excuse, but a point worth remembering if we are capable of forging a better future.
Reach Richard Green’s full essay The True Story of Thanksgiving
“A Thankful Heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.”
—Cicero
“I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism, who, what, where, when, and why of reporting. I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy, that expectation that the public has for truth to be reported. And then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us.”
—
Sarah Palin, she may or may not have also said…
” I will report to the Real America by, for, and to the Real Americans who the liberal elite are not because the liberal elite are the insiders of the Washington with their terrorist love of grammar, and I am just a Mamma Grizzly with cubs instead of babies…I love babies and such.”
What's Red and White and Misogynistic all over?
I was looking at massages at the Red and White Spa, and I clicked on Medical Spa because I have been thinking about a sports massage since shin splints have sidelined me from running and Holy Fear Tactics Batman!!!
This almost sounds like a commercial for a psychic hotline that comes on at 3 in the morning on a Friday night. I want money! I want love! I want fun! What was that 900 number again?!
So, Red and White Spa has two plans of attack for getting you to spend your money on their medical treatments. Telling you a younger, prettier person is going to take your job, but then she’s ALSO GOING TO STEAL YOUR HUSBAND! Because people, like a bike or my wallet one time in college, are your property UNTIL STOLEN.
Look, I live in New York and beauty does get you things, like admission into douchey clubs in the Meatpacking District! But snark aside, yes our society tends to value looks over smarts, and while both pop psychology and actual studies have shown links between salary and attractiveness, a recent study in The Journal of Applied Psychology concluded that “a person’s intelligence affected their income more than their looks did.”
However, my biggest problem with this advertisement is not just that they suggest if you don’t enhance your looks your husband will not want to have sex with you and you will lose him to your “competitor” (does every person have this one competitor that stands in the shadows until we get our first wrinkle, at which point she emerges to go after our jobs and then our lovers?!).
Do you want to make love to your husband? Well, it doesn’t matter because if you are not having sex at least three times a week, you are endangering his life and he will have to take on a mistress for health purposes, woman! Sex is great, and I have no qualms with the general population getting laid three times a week (or more!), but are there any health benefits for women? What about lesbian women? Why is the Ad aimed only at straight women? Why will botox make your kids happier? Why do they keep spelling sex “s.e.x.”?
So many questions and only so much time in the day to shake my head and sigh “No, No, No…”
And yes, I fully understand this might have been written by a woman or many women, we can be misogynistic too. Or maybe the proprietor of this spa wrote what her or she thinks people want to hear, or what they know people to believe, which no matter which way you look at it, is just sad. Regardless, I took my business elsewhere.
“If you’re an adult woman you should be trying to put everything you can up your vagina!”
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Jenny Slate, genius/comedienne, on Pads vs. Tampons at last nights Big Terrific Comedy Show in Williamsburg. I spent the evening laughing my fucking ass off, so much so that saying LMFAO just would not have sufficed.
Big Terrific. Hosted by Hilarious People, Max Silverstri, Jenny Slate, and Gabe Liebman. 8pm. Wednesday. Cameo Gallery (behind Loving Cup on N. 6th and Wythe). FREE.
Be There or Be Square.
But don’t be there next Wednesday, Nationalist Day of Glutton’s Eve, as the show is cancelled*. You would probably feel pretty damn square standing there all by yourself.
*Yes, I HAVE been typing in a British accent all morning, how did you know?
Who Needs a Porn Star Name? Not me.
So remember a couple of years ago, when everyone was all into making their porn star names? It’s your first pet plus the street you grew up on, and inevitably you’d walk into someones giggly conversation, and you’d be like “What? What!? Guys! Tell me!” And someone would be like, “OMG, my porn star name is Fluffy Montague,” and really, not that funny. But who am I to judge? My first pets were a pair of hamsters named White Milk and Chocolate Milk, so my porn star name is either White Milk Smith or Chocolate Milk Smith, which sounds either racist or just misleading, yet still boring.
The good news is, however, I ALREADY have the name of a porn star. When I was 20, my college boyfriend said, “Oh, Rachel Steele (we’d just met), like the porn star,” to which I replied, “huh?” (I should have said and/or thought “warning sign!”) So, yes, there is a relatively famous internet porn star with whom I share a name. She comes out on top of me in Google searches, and yes, I have many more where that came from. Suffice it to say, her thing is being a MILF, and her on-going storyline is that she fucks her son. [Commentary edited out to keep this blog sex-positive]. BUT, guess what? There’s also a porn Woman of Steele!
She, Jordan Steele, is “a sexy pre-op Transsexual in Indianapolis, Indiana.” What’s that you say? The Indianapolis Steeles? You see, my Dad’s entire family is from Indianapolis. We might be related. Her blog name is Woman of Steele (though not the domain name), and get this, she just bought www.tranny-milf.com. So there’s me, the feisty feminist blogger, and then there’s the MILFs, one’s a tranny (her words, not mine), one’s not! But seriously, doesn’t Jordan look like Agrado from Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother in this photo? Too cute! I love Agrado.
“It’s not rape after the first 5 minutes”
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Vincent Kartheiser, Mad Men’s, Pete Campbell “musing on the type of women he attracts.”
Ummm…WTF?! Is this method acting? This is such a deplorable comment and attitude, and still defenseless even if it’s a joke.
I sincerely hope that these words were taken out of context, and the sentence was preceded by, “So I was reading old court documents, and do you want to know this truly awful thing a rapist said in is own defense? It’s so wrong, here let me tell you…”
But since that’s unlikely, let’s take a look at this sentence here. So what you’re saying Mr. Kartheiser, is that for the fist 5 minutes, you are forcing a woman to have sex with you against her will, but then she realizes it’s sex with you and your virility is so awesome, she now totally wants it?
No, no, no, no, no, that is not an okay thing to say (or do).
