Wednesday, February 28, 2007
BobbyLynn-Jo VS Dave Sim and The 14 Impossible Things to Believe before Breakfast AKA The things I do to try and win a $@!#$*&!!! Diamondback Deck. AKA Fun with Pheminiszm
1. A mother who works a full-time job and delegates to strangers the raising of her children eight hours a day, five days a week does just as good a job as a mother who hand-rears her children full time.
I reckon, them strangers that dun take care o’ Aunt Britney’s childs ‘n critters is a good thang, cuz iffen Aunt Britney takes ‘em out with her to them raves’ n’ such they just git plunked on the bar while she runs offen ter look for her underthangs.
2- It makes great sense for the government to pay 10 to 15,000 dollars a year to fund a daycare space for a child so its mother – who pays perhaps 2,000 dollars in taxes – can be a contributing member of society.
My third cuzzin (twice divorced), Elvirene says daycare is a bad thang, cuz iffen she stays home instead and keep squirting out anklebiters, then she makes way more than 10g’s cuz she then gits the welfare money and the baby bonus money and all her perscripshun drugs and thangs fer free. This way she kin stay home all day and watch Dr. Phil and have ter work at all.
3. A woman's doctor has more of a valid claim to participate in the decision to abort a fetus than does the father of that fetus.
Elvirene used ter think she had one of them immaculation conniptions, but the doc figured she must got knocked up after she borrowed her brother’s washcloth. She dun told her brother and he dun got the shotgun and went out ter the Quagmire Hollar town limits and shot up the first stork he found.
4. So long as a woman makes a decision after consulting with her doctor, she is incapable of making an unethical choice.
Well, the doc arranged fer Elvirene to give up her baby ter a nice lady that were barren and wanted a rugrat o’ her own, so it all worked out fine.
5. A car with two steering wheels, two gas pedals and two brakes drives more efficiently than a car with one steering wheel, one gas pedal and one brake which is why marriage should always be an equal partnership.
My pappy dun had a car jest like that! Cuz with him being dyslexic and all, it were up ter Ma ter see that he went right when he meant ter go right and left when he meant ter go left. One day his dyslexia dun got cured after he got kicked in the head by our mule, Paris. Then they traded that old car in fer a Ford truck with only 450,000 miles on it.
6. It is absolutely necessary for women to be allowed to join or participate fully in any gathering place for men, just as it is absolutely necessary that there be “women only” environments from which men are excluded.
My funny cousin, Otis-Ray, the one with all them Liberanchy records, once tried to join the Ladies Auxiliary down at the Legion but the Menfolk didn’t think that were quite right and not long after Otis-Ray got all them feathers ‘n tar offen his head, he moved his bony ass to San Francisco.
7. Because it involves taking jobs away from men and giving them to women, affirmative action makes for a fairer and more just society.
I remember when my sister, Bobby-Laura beat out old Sam Cooter fer a bouncer job at the bar by arm wrestling him fer it. It worked out purty good, cuz when folks got drunk during the full moon and were particularly ornery, Bobby-Laura would be PMSing purty bad and nobody dun wanted ter piss HER off, so folks now act way more civil-like during the karaoke.
8. It is important to have lower physical standards for women firepersons and women policepersons so that, one day, half of all firepersons and policepersons will be women, thus more effectively protecting the safety of the public.
The Quagmire Hollar police chief jest gave a medal to Bernadettene Earle for outstanding bravery. See, the chief dun spent the last few years eating sugar pie down at the roadside café, and he can’t move so quick no more. So when them bikers came ter town, Bernadettene (Three time kick boxing champene of Lanark County) asked them ter leave and they didn’t wanna, she asked them not so nicely by introducing her steel toed boots to their teeth a few times and then they all said they was really sorry and it wouldn’t happen agin, n’such.
9. Affirmative action at colleges and universities needs to be maintained now that more women than men are being enrolled, in order to keep from giving men an unfair advantage academically.
My Gram ran off with a college boy once but Gramps found him and beat him up purty bad. But Gramma learned ter read and write from the college boy and taught Gramps how to read and make a fancy “X” on papers ‘n such, so it all worked out.
‘Cept fer the college boy, who spent his educashun money on new dentures.
10. Having ensured that there is no environment for men where women don’t belong (see no.6) it is important to have zero tolerance of any expression or action which any woman might regard as sexist to ensure greater freedom for everyone.
My uncle Bobby-Bob is in the army and he dun told me the US Military won’t need ter have the draft no more now that wimmin kin join up. That’ll make up fer all them draft dodgers and Quebec I guess. My Gram flew fighter planes ‘cross the ocean fer the Air Force back in the day. She thunk that purty funny, since legally she’d only be thunk o’ as a ‘human’ for a couple o’ decades.
11. Only in a society which maintains a level of 95% of alimony and child support being paid by men to women can men and women be considered as equals.
My brother sued his ex-Woman fer child support and won. Now him and the boy gots a nice trailer, and a pet wolf and a Sherman tank o’ their own. My brother says all his friends kin do the same and he hands out his lawyering man’s card’s cuz I guess he gits a finders fee ‘r something. Guys kin be a bit shy ‘bout this at first but once they gits on ter it, things’ll it’ll be 50-50 again in no time.
12. An airline stewardess who earned $20,000 a year at the time that she married a baseball player earning $6 million a year is entitled, in the event of a divorce, to $3 million for each year of the marriage and probably more.
My Uncle Kevin and Aunt Britney jest had a whopper o’ a fight over this very thang. Uncle Kev sez her needs that money fer raising the kiddies ‘n ter pay fer therapy n’ all.
13. A man's opinions on how to rear and/or raise a child are invalid because he is not the child's mother. However, his financial obligation is greater because no woman gets pregnant by herself.
A woman kin so git pregnant by herself! Jest never never borrow yer brother’s washcloths after he been using it, is all.
14. Disagreeing with any of these statements makes you anti-woman and/or a misogynist.
I met this guy once who said I were a Theorectical Feminsist and I dun TOLD him I were Pentacostal and no mistake ‘bout that.
I once saw a misogynist once fer a pap smear and swore I’d never do back until he warmed that dem thing up first.
I guess I agree with them statements above. Kin I git my cards now?
For the record, SL wasn't buying it.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Over at Dave Sim's Blog, Dave responds to one of my letters.
Elizabeth A. Bardawill hits the ground running:
Dear Dave,
Okay. I'm pissed. Not in a "too many fermented beverages in too short a period of time" sort of way, but in an "I'm fed up to the teeth with this" sort of way.
(I'll try to keep this relatively unemotional and blessedly short.)
This whole "Pariah King" thing? It's over. You've been usurped. Big time. Rick Olney has now taken that title and it looks as if he's going to be hanging onto it for many, many years to come. You're deposed, Dave. It's over. I mean…honestly! That was ten years ago, okay? Did you hear me, young man? You. Are. No. Longer. The. `Pariah. King'.
My point is—go ahead and write the introduction for Troy Little's Chiaroscuro. The first edition. If comics were kids, Chiaroscuro would be your artistic grandchild. That introduction belongs to you and to no one else. Where comics, and the quality thereof, is concerned, you have plenty of hard-won street cred. Respect for you as a comic artist and advocate far outweighs any negative sentiment still lingering. (Trust me on that. I Googled it.)
So. Write the introduction for Troy…please.
Yours respectfully,
Well, nice TRY, Elizabeth (I was chuckling pretty good when I came to the end of your letter) but I'm afraid it just doesn't work that way here in the real world. I can certainly understand you comic-book feminists wanting to change the history of the last twelve years and "wish away" or "declare null and void" the idea that Dave Sim is a pariah (now that I'm here to hector you all on a daily basis so that the feminist choices of the last decade or so vis-à-vis Dave Sim are starting in retrospect to look a little…shall we say…tactically inopportune?), but I'm afraid the evidence just doesn't back you up. The historical record is there of how I was treated prior to 1994 and how I have been treated since 1994—all shunning, all vilification and all without one single feminist addressing or refuting a single one of my ideas whether in issue 186 or in "Tangent" or Collected Letters or any of my other writings on feminism.
The point that your team missed and which your team continues to miss is that the net effect of shunning and ostracism when it is used in place of reasoned discourse and refutation—especially over a period of years—is cumulative. It would certainly be nice for your team if your recent Google search could completely undo the last twelve years like some weird feminist magic wand but, again, it just doesn't work like that. Want me to refute your charge that I'm no longer the Pariah King of Comics? No problem. How about this from Carla Speed McNeil's interview in the latest Comics Journal (how's that for up-to-date?):
NASO: That reminds me of Cerebus. A lot of people complained about the way the story turned out. But it is Dave Sim's story.
McNEIL: Yeah, it is his story and the man's work is still worth poring over for technique. He's one of the most skilled people we've ever had. It's just that at some point he merged face-first with his own work and everything that popped into his head ended up on the page, however bizarre and obsessive.
See: "bizarre and obsessive". Those are not terms that denote respect or "street cred", Elizabeth. Those are terms of ostracism and shunning, patronization and condescension—the exact way that you treat a pariah and the core of the Feminist Party Line in the comic-book field relative to Dave Sim. If anything, any "street cred" that I have comes from the fact that a certain number of guys—still cowed and intimidated by your team and the implied threat that ostracism and vilification can be used on them as well and consequently still silent on the subject of Dave Sim—are starting to realize that you can tell feminists that they're full of s**t even if there's only one guy doing it. In a democratic society, freedom of speech is (at least theoretically) for everyone, not just for feminists, homosexuals or those who believe the genders are interchangeable. I assume that there will be more support for my views as we go along and people clue in that feminists have never been able to refute anything that I've said about them and their movement. In fact, Craig R. Johnson, managing editor of www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com actually went public with challenging the Friends of Lulu for ignoring both me and him and the points that we're making (as we will see when we get to February 25 and the next instalment of "free rides for feminists in our society" here on the Blog & Mail). That was unexpected, very gratifying and a lot sooner than I would have thought possible considering the implied feminist threat against anyone speaking out against feminism. Back at the CSM interview:
NASO: It stopped being about Cerebus.
McNEIL: Very much so. Cerebus was one of my formative experiences. It will always be in the back of my head how brilliantly [Sim] pasted a conversation how many nuances he was able to get out with his approach to lettering. The man is incredibly expressive, but we're leaving aside what he chooses to express…
Well, of course you are, Carla, because you can't even begin to refute what it is that I'm saying and have been saying for twelve years. Instead of "leaving aside what he chooses to express" why don't you (oh, I don't know) refute the "Fourteen Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast"? Why don't you refute seven of them? Five of them? Three of them? Pick one, Carla, and refute it: "This is not an impossible thing to believe, this is the sole sensible and legitimate way to conduct our society." Well, you can't. So all you can do is toe the Feminist Party Line in the comic-book field and treat Dave Sim and his work (like "The Fourteen Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast" as contained in "Tangent") as if both are self-evidently clinically insane. It's the only feminist recourse. "This guy has us nailed dead to rights so all we can do is establish that shunning him, ostracizing him and treating him and his work like a colossal failure is the only sensible way to behave and hope he kills himself or he just gets forgotten on our say-so." So far, it's working like a charm. Everyone has fallen into lockstep and gotten with the program. Even the people who disagree just shuffle nervously on the sidelines and don't dare utter a single word in my defence. Hey, I'm completely at peace with that. I've got twelve years of historical record to back up my version of reality: feminism is indefensible so all they can do is attack someone personally who dares to question feminism. Twelve years so far and I assume there'll be another good twelve years of this. "Poor, sad, failed Dave Sim" being the enunciated universal consensus and everyone else shuffling nervously and silently on the sidelines. But, let me ask you this: How do you think that's going to make your team look in the long run when the historical record actually gets examined and men discover that in a democratic society they have a right to free speech and to express an opinion on what was done to Dave Sim, Elizabeth? Exactly the way you'll deserve to look, is my guess.
Anyway (I'm still chuckling gleefully away to myself, Elizabeth) feel free to give it another Orwellian revisionist try anytime the mood takes you and I'll bet I'll have a half dozen "poor, sad, failed Dave Sim" Feminist Party Line examples of ostracism and vilification to match whatever you happen to come up with to prove that I've only been imagining my "pariahdom". Thanks as always for writing. I look forward to writing the introduction for the second edition of Chiaroscuro and (please try not to take this personally) I really don't give a tinker's damn what you think about my decision to pass on the first one. How about that, eh? A man who doesn't care what a feminist thinks of his choices.
What if it catches on, Elizabeth? Won't THAT be fun?
Ah well.
I tried, Troy.
Sorry, Dude.
Elizabeth A. Bardawill hits the ground running:
Dear Dave,
Okay. I'm pissed. Not in a "too many fermented beverages in too short a period of time" sort of way, but in an "I'm fed up to the teeth with this" sort of way.
(I'll try to keep this relatively unemotional and blessedly short.)
This whole "Pariah King" thing? It's over. You've been usurped. Big time. Rick Olney has now taken that title and it looks as if he's going to be hanging onto it for many, many years to come. You're deposed, Dave. It's over. I mean…honestly! That was ten years ago, okay? Did you hear me, young man? You. Are. No. Longer. The. `Pariah. King'.
My point is—go ahead and write the introduction for Troy Little's Chiaroscuro. The first edition. If comics were kids, Chiaroscuro would be your artistic grandchild. That introduction belongs to you and to no one else. Where comics, and the quality thereof, is concerned, you have plenty of hard-won street cred. Respect for you as a comic artist and advocate far outweighs any negative sentiment still lingering. (Trust me on that. I Googled it.)
So. Write the introduction for Troy…please.
Yours respectfully,
Well, nice TRY, Elizabeth (I was chuckling pretty good when I came to the end of your letter) but I'm afraid it just doesn't work that way here in the real world. I can certainly understand you comic-book feminists wanting to change the history of the last twelve years and "wish away" or "declare null and void" the idea that Dave Sim is a pariah (now that I'm here to hector you all on a daily basis so that the feminist choices of the last decade or so vis-à-vis Dave Sim are starting in retrospect to look a little…shall we say…tactically inopportune?), but I'm afraid the evidence just doesn't back you up. The historical record is there of how I was treated prior to 1994 and how I have been treated since 1994—all shunning, all vilification and all without one single feminist addressing or refuting a single one of my ideas whether in issue 186 or in "Tangent" or Collected Letters or any of my other writings on feminism.
The point that your team missed and which your team continues to miss is that the net effect of shunning and ostracism when it is used in place of reasoned discourse and refutation—especially over a period of years—is cumulative. It would certainly be nice for your team if your recent Google search could completely undo the last twelve years like some weird feminist magic wand but, again, it just doesn't work like that. Want me to refute your charge that I'm no longer the Pariah King of Comics? No problem. How about this from Carla Speed McNeil's interview in the latest Comics Journal (how's that for up-to-date?):
NASO: That reminds me of Cerebus. A lot of people complained about the way the story turned out. But it is Dave Sim's story.
McNEIL: Yeah, it is his story and the man's work is still worth poring over for technique. He's one of the most skilled people we've ever had. It's just that at some point he merged face-first with his own work and everything that popped into his head ended up on the page, however bizarre and obsessive.
See: "bizarre and obsessive". Those are not terms that denote respect or "street cred", Elizabeth. Those are terms of ostracism and shunning, patronization and condescension—the exact way that you treat a pariah and the core of the Feminist Party Line in the comic-book field relative to Dave Sim. If anything, any "street cred" that I have comes from the fact that a certain number of guys—still cowed and intimidated by your team and the implied threat that ostracism and vilification can be used on them as well and consequently still silent on the subject of Dave Sim—are starting to realize that you can tell feminists that they're full of s**t even if there's only one guy doing it. In a democratic society, freedom of speech is (at least theoretically) for everyone, not just for feminists, homosexuals or those who believe the genders are interchangeable. I assume that there will be more support for my views as we go along and people clue in that feminists have never been able to refute anything that I've said about them and their movement. In fact, Craig R. Johnson, managing editor of www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com actually went public with challenging the Friends of Lulu for ignoring both me and him and the points that we're making (as we will see when we get to February 25 and the next instalment of "free rides for feminists in our society" here on the Blog & Mail). That was unexpected, very gratifying and a lot sooner than I would have thought possible considering the implied feminist threat against anyone speaking out against feminism. Back at the CSM interview:
NASO: It stopped being about Cerebus.
McNEIL: Very much so. Cerebus was one of my formative experiences. It will always be in the back of my head how brilliantly [Sim] pasted a conversation how many nuances he was able to get out with his approach to lettering. The man is incredibly expressive, but we're leaving aside what he chooses to express…
Well, of course you are, Carla, because you can't even begin to refute what it is that I'm saying and have been saying for twelve years. Instead of "leaving aside what he chooses to express" why don't you (oh, I don't know) refute the "Fourteen Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast"? Why don't you refute seven of them? Five of them? Three of them? Pick one, Carla, and refute it: "This is not an impossible thing to believe, this is the sole sensible and legitimate way to conduct our society." Well, you can't. So all you can do is toe the Feminist Party Line in the comic-book field and treat Dave Sim and his work (like "The Fourteen Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast" as contained in "Tangent") as if both are self-evidently clinically insane. It's the only feminist recourse. "This guy has us nailed dead to rights so all we can do is establish that shunning him, ostracizing him and treating him and his work like a colossal failure is the only sensible way to behave and hope he kills himself or he just gets forgotten on our say-so." So far, it's working like a charm. Everyone has fallen into lockstep and gotten with the program. Even the people who disagree just shuffle nervously on the sidelines and don't dare utter a single word in my defence. Hey, I'm completely at peace with that. I've got twelve years of historical record to back up my version of reality: feminism is indefensible so all they can do is attack someone personally who dares to question feminism. Twelve years so far and I assume there'll be another good twelve years of this. "Poor, sad, failed Dave Sim" being the enunciated universal consensus and everyone else shuffling nervously and silently on the sidelines. But, let me ask you this: How do you think that's going to make your team look in the long run when the historical record actually gets examined and men discover that in a democratic society they have a right to free speech and to express an opinion on what was done to Dave Sim, Elizabeth? Exactly the way you'll deserve to look, is my guess.
Anyway (I'm still chuckling gleefully away to myself, Elizabeth) feel free to give it another Orwellian revisionist try anytime the mood takes you and I'll bet I'll have a half dozen "poor, sad, failed Dave Sim" Feminist Party Line examples of ostracism and vilification to match whatever you happen to come up with to prove that I've only been imagining my "pariahdom". Thanks as always for writing. I look forward to writing the introduction for the second edition of Chiaroscuro and (please try not to take this personally) I really don't give a tinker's damn what you think about my decision to pass on the first one. How about that, eh? A man who doesn't care what a feminist thinks of his choices.
What if it catches on, Elizabeth? Won't THAT be fun?
Ah well.
I tried, Troy.
Sorry, Dude.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
It's 20 years since I met my Hubster. In the beginning there was a great deal of wooing on my part, since he'd had his heart stomped on, then stuck into a blender, then poured into a bucket of compose, then buried under a rock and then a tonne cement poured over top.
I had to woo him and woo him hard.
Cards, chocolates, flowers, shiny balloons with mushy saying on them, chicken soup, a lot of smooches, etc. etc.
I love Valentine's Day. I get to spoil him all over again. And it never fails to make him feel wonderful.
So listen, ignore all that "Valentine's day is so commercial" humbuggery. If you love someone, let 'em know it. Everyone likes to be romanced. Guys too.
I had to woo him and woo him hard.
Cards, chocolates, flowers, shiny balloons with mushy saying on them, chicken soup, a lot of smooches, etc. etc.
I love Valentine's Day. I get to spoil him all over again. And it never fails to make him feel wonderful.
So listen, ignore all that "Valentine's day is so commercial" humbuggery. If you love someone, let 'em know it. Everyone likes to be romanced. Guys too.
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