Reason Morning Links: Earthquake Hits Haiti, Congressional Hearings on the Financial Collapse, Google May Leave China

• Haiti devastated by 7.0 earthquake.
• Google threatens to leave China over alleged hacking by Chinese authorities.
• Congress prepares to grandstand take a very serious look at causes of the 2008 financial collapse.
• Some U.S. troops have now spent 3-4 cumulative years at war in Afghanistan or Iraq.
• The personal economics of economists.

Comments

[Johnny Longtorso]

...The hearings come at a sensitive time for the banking industry. Congress is writing a full-scale overhaul of financial regulations, bankers are about to announce huge bonuses for their executives and the Obama administration is considering extracting a fee from banks to cover about $120 billion in taxpayer losses from a government Wall Street bailout fund....

So the bankers know to say "we weren't regulated enough" or else Congress will gut them, so Joe/MNG/Chony can say "AH HA! Even the bankers agree with us!!!"

I'm finding new depths of hatred for all things leftist.

[Reformed Republican]

Haiti devastated by 7.0 earthquake.

Wow. What a boon to their economy. Think of all the jobs this will create!

[Naomi Klein]

SEE? I told you!

[ed]

Talk about shovel ready.

[Rich]

Until Barney, Chris, etc. etc. are "grilled", the Committee is not worth much.

On a *possibly* brighter note, Phil Angelides has secured the ability to grant whistleblower status to witnesses, a move that may get some surprise testimony.

[P Brooks]

Haiti devastated.

How can they tell?

[brotherben]

(You have to, out of common decency, offer a moment of silent reflection on such a tragedy before making such truthful observations.)

[John]

All of the dead bodies.

[Rich]

Milton Friedman, the late Nobel laureate, routinely returned reporters' calls collect.

** grins **

But, seriously, Dr. Bernanke, how much gold *do* you own?

[SugarFree]

The male gaze as enemy of women's freedom

FW said:
Maybe "modest dress" is the way to go, maybe burqas?

FW replied to FW :
sorry, I was being a snot. It's just that lately I've been watching a series of vids in class all about sharia law and then when I come home and hit the fem-o-sphere and see "male gaze" I start feeling sort of stabby.

kandela replied to FW :
Your point isn't completely without merit though. You are asking how should women present themselves to break down the beauty standard? How do they avoid the male gaze?

The Male Gaze

[Kyle Jordan]

"How do they avoid the male gaze?"

Always wear a wedding dress.

[SugarFree]

Sometimes that doesn't work

[Persephone]

HUSSY!!

[Ska]

My firm's web filter must know you well; that link is being blocked because it's "tasteless."

[SugarFree]

I will punch that filter in its electro-taint if it keeps fucking with me.

[NeonCat]

That site is actually full of win. Okay, fail, but really win.

[NeonCat]

Get [them] to a nunnery?

An anarchosyndicalist womyn's commune?

Better put up some kind of netting, wouldn't want the spy satellites of The Patriarchy looking down on them as they frolic in the forest?

[Rich]

A fantasy is something the male can control.

Gee, thanks!

[Timon19]

I was wondering when the some in the feminist community would start down the path of an uneasy alliance with supporters of the hijab. One of the most common arguments in support of the hijab among Muslim women is pretty much exactly what she's saying.

This oughta be good...

[brotherben]

Hey, if the uggos and the fatties wanna cover up more, I certainly support them in that choice. Think of all the fabric industry jobs that could create!

[BakedPenguin]

They're usually not the ones getting gazed at.

[yet another dave]

Yes but THEY are the ones who feel OFFENDED when men gaze at those shapely womyn(s) in the short skirts and see through tank tops... It bothers them because of the looks those women give them when THEY gaze at them...

[John]

Both feminist and Islamist share a common goal of controlling and oppressing women.

[affenkopf]

Moral relativism FTW!

[kinnath]

"Free will" is completely incoherent - we do not have 'agency' as we like to think. Of course people get hearded into ideas. That's how patriarchy (and societies in general) work. To realise this does not diminish women at all, it just gets you a step further to realising the realities of the exact situation we're in.

Victimhood at its finest.

[Mad Elf]

Those women are giving themselves too much credit. Men aren't staring at them because they are thinking about sex. They staring at them in the same way they would stare at a bad car wreck.

Note to hardcore feminists:
You may consider your size 14 body to be sexy and curvy, however, the rest of us do not.

[BIG GIRL]

I beg to differ

[hmm]

If this was no longer true think of all the poor strippers that would be jobless. Think of the strippers you heartless harpies!

[DRATER]

Congress prepares to grandstand take a very serious look at causes of the 2008 financial collapse.

re-corrected.

[John]

I guess Google hasn't talked to Tom Friedman and had him explain how reasonably enlightened the Chinese autocrats are.

[poo - tee - weet]

Obama wants record $708 billion for wars next year:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100113/D9D6RFGG1.html

CHICKENHAWK!!!

[affenkopf]

Obama is a war monger just like Bush.

[Rich]

It's worse than that, poo:

Obama will ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of a record $708 billion for the Defense Department next year

And we haven't yet factored in the cost of *popular* wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ;-(

[John]

I love asking liberals when they plan to join up to fight in Obama's war.

[franz kafka]

Let's nation-build in Haiti!

[P Brooks]

"How do they avoid the male gaze?"

I would suggest muu-muus, in muted colors; like that shade of green they use on the walls of mental hospitals. That should do the job.

[Muu-muu Mama]

Something like this?

[P Brooks]

Bigger. Much bigger.

[P Brooks]

The color is pretty much dead on, though.

[SugarFree]

The site where I got the trashy bride photo has an absolutely brutal video on it.

[BakedPenguin]

Wow. That's rough, even if it's fake.

[SugarFree]

Yeah, that's when you go home and start googling "painless suicide."

[BakedPenguin]

But that's what he gets for having her become the subject of 10,000 male gazes.

[SugarFree]

Why... That's nearly 20,000 eyes!

The mascot was the best though.

[Warty]

He appears to have gotten a free beer out of it, though, so it's a win-win for him.

[Mike M.]

In another sign of the American left's descent into madness, Oliver Stone makes his version of history and refers to Adolf Hitler as an "easy scapegoat".

[Pro Libertate]

Stone is a complete moron, and his attempts to whitewash leftwing tyrants is pretty evil

[Kyle Jordan]

What in the fucking name of Odin...

[John]

Stone is just auditioning to take Gore Vidal's role once the old bastard dies.

[SugarFree]

The Male Gaze, part 2

grace darling
01/12/10
This is going to sound bizarre, but sometimes I fucking hate being embodied. I mean, it's great when I am dancing, cooking, having sex or whatever, but when I'm having a conversation or in a professional setting, I often just want to float out of myself and exist on a different, purely mental plane.

I can't express it more articulately than that, but I get the feeling that the reason women shut down a little when our bodies are surveyed during a conversation is because we're being tacitly re-embodied. It feels like a subtle power play, as though men are bringing you down from a purely abstract place into your physical being, which, being woman-shaped, is scrutinised, belittled, and implicitly threatened every day. And it sucks, in the middle of a passionate argument or just chatting to someone at the post office, to be reminded that no matter what your other attributes, you are a woman and will always be treated as such - whether you like it or not.

When does paranoia become a political movement?

[Pro Libertate]

Same chicks usually go out with their bosoms presented for maximum exposure. Don't objectify me!

[Bingo]

I hardly think imagining giving some decent girl a mustache ride is belittling or threatening!

[Probable Feministing Response]

Oooh, you evil member of the Patriarchy, you want to steal the essence of her power for your disgusting sexual gratification!

[hmm]

That site is full of people with some serious self image issues.

[Kyle Jordan]

"This is going to sound bizarre, but sometimes I fucking hate being embodied. I mean, it's great when I am dancing, cooking, having sex or whatever, but when I'm having a conversation or in a professional setting, I often just want to float out of myself and exist on a different, purely mental plane."

......

What the hell do you say to this?

[Urkobold?]

"HEY, I WAS LOOKING AT YOU, AND I FELT LIKE YOU HAD LEFT YOUR BODY AND WERE ON SOME OTHER MENTAL PLANE. THAT IS SO COOL. WANNA GO BACK TO MY PLACE TO TALK ABOUT PHILOSOPHY?"

[SugarFree]

"Double your Prozac and get the fuck over yourself."

[BakedPenguin]

"I bet you'd look like shit there, too."

[Kyle Jordan]

Win.

Fucking, WIN!

That was beautiful BP.

[brotherben]

You ask her if she ever, Ever, grabs a glance at a man's ass or his package when she's at work. Does she check out the UPS dude in his summer shorts and notice his muscular physique? If she says yes,you tell her to STFU. Those men can't change bodies either and her objectification is sexist and demeaning.

[NeonCat]

That she should claim to be agoraphobic and telecommute. If she's never seen, she can continue to see herself as ethereal and not be victimized by Male Gazes.

[alan]

What the hell do you say to this?

Sorry you missed your comet.

[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]

So male privilege is the only thing that's keeping us from the singularity?

[alan]

I can't express it more articulately than that, but I get the feeling that the reason women shut down a little when our bodies are surveyed during a conversation

Grace Darling,
Do you find other people attractive?

Do you meet new people daily, or weekly, who you never previously met and you find them attractive? Is this a continuous happenstance?

What sense do you use when you are making this evaluation, is it sight?

Please follow through, self awareness is just around the corner, and if your answer was not in the affirmative to any of those questions it just means that you are so self absorbed you don't even take time to see what is going on around you.

[P Brooks]

Don't objectify me!

It's a TEST. And you, my hardy lad, have obviously flunked it.

Now, go sit in your corner.

[P Brooks]

It feels like a subtle power play, as though men are bringing you down from a purely abstract place into your physical being, which, being woman-shaped, is scrutinised, belittled, and implicitly threatened every day.

Sheer

fucking

poetry.

[hmm]

Haiti and Dominican Republic, Ying and Yang. A back to back example of how to fail and how not to fail.

That country is now fucked, not that it wasn't fucked to begin with.

[brotherben]

Anybody else having trouble with the comments? Missing names and can't reply?

[Chris]

That happened to me the other day. Right now it's fine, though.

[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]

Its happening to me too. Can't post links either.

[hmm]

It's a Feministing cyber attack.

[Slut Bunwalla]

Not happening right now, but it happens to me a lot. Very annoying.

[Pro Libertate]

How horrible for Haiti. Like things weren't bad enough there already.

[rho]

"Male Gaze" makes me feel like I have a superpower.

I'm getting a cape.

[Kyle Jordan]

Don't forget, we can also project overhead forcefields called "Glass Ceilings" also.

And we can use that one on women AND minorities.

[Bingo]

I'm going to make it a point to openly leer at every good looking woman from now on.

[Pro Libertate]

Did you get that from touching a moon rock?

[P Brooks]

That proposal video was pretty good, but it would have been much more satisfying if the camera had cut back to the suitor lying face down in a rapidly expanding pool of blood.

[hmm]

Reason needs to just give sugar a guest morning link, he hijacks every other one anyway. It would only be reasonable.

[Kyle Jordan]

Actually, I'd love to see them have a few spots open up on Fridays for some of the regular commenters to post something of their choosing.

Showcasing the pulse of the Reason nation. Or some bullshit like that.

[R C Dean]

Nah. Half the fun is getting ambushed.

[Urkobold?]

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

[robc]

I just wish we had friday open threads still, with proggy goodness.

[Fluffy]

Sugar performs a critical service. He reads Feministing so we don't have to.

[P Brooks]

"Does this alternate universe make my ass look fat?"

[Fluffy]

Has Reason covered the Venezuelan devaluation yet?

Next stop: Zimbabwe.

[hmm]

ya

[Fluffy]

The real motivation for every - and I mean every - argument dealing with Da Male Gaze is the old aristocratic impulse to force the serfs to bow their heads and not look directly at their superiors.

The act of looking directly at a person is only an insult to those who think that they are the superior of the folks doing the looking.

If they approved of the male in question, it would not be Da Male Gaze. And unapproved males should hold their hats in their hands and bow their heads to avoid insulting the dignity of their status betters.

Note that you don't hear a lot about Da Male Gaze from poor women or women of color. This is an upper middle class white chick thing. It's largely a class tool and not a tool of feminism at all - "How dare that low status male look at me! Only high status males may look at me! And only when I permit them to do so!"

[NeonCat]

I get the feeling that even if we grovelled before them some of them would claim it was just a new tactic of the Patriarchy. "They're just trying to get you to lay down your guard! They're really trying to look up your skirt and fantasize about raping you!"

If feminist paranoia about the Patriarchy could be turned into electricity, we'd have all the green power we could ever use.

[BakedPenguin]

Or they only want good looking (or whatever their value preference is) guys to look at them.

As broben pointed out above, it's rank hypocrisy, since women "gaze" as well. The fact that they are more subtle about it does not mean it's not there.

Finally, why do they assume that a man cannot want to (or not want to) have sex with a woman and still evaluate her other capacities?

[Slut Bunwalla]

Because for 40+ years they've been told by movies, sitcoms, and colleges that men are only ever interested in sex and nothing else.

[dhex]

The real motivation for every - and I mean every - argument dealing with Da Male Gaze is the old aristocratic impulse to force the serfs to bow their heads and not look directly at their superiors.

i know the mra/the game memeplex pushes this whole alpha/beta dichotomy*, and fixates on the idea that it's all about some uppity bitch status play on lower-class men and all that, but it's kinda retarded. then again, it's a cottage industry that preys on bunch of sexual access welfare queens.

perhaps, as some have averred, it does serve as a kind of "gimp boot camp" in that it can teach people to, like, wash and stuff.

it's a highly amusing/disturbing subculture. amusing in that it's about as kooky as feministing's commentariat (especially the religiously-oriented sub-subcultural pickup on "the game" as it applies to finding virgins to marry), but disturbing in that i find it hard to believe anyone buys that shit. then again, it's hard to package "grow a personality worth engaging with" into a feasible business model. you work with what you've got.

[brotherben]

As broben pointed out above,

Me? Right? Again?

Just call me butter.

Cause I'm on a roll; }

[hmm]

If the gaze is bad I guess the slap on the ass is probably not a good thing. Unless we are playing baseball of course.

Time to start a company league!

[R C Dean]

The male gaze has nothing, nothing, on the once-over two women always give each other when they meet.

That cold, calculating inspection, ferreting out every imperfection with glee, is completely beyond the capability of the primitive, happy-go-lucky male.

[sage]

Hoo, truer words were never spoken. Well done.

[BakedPenguin]

Very cogent point. This also applies to the modeling "beauty standard" from the fashion design industry. Where hetero men are so notoriously abundant.

[Haiti pride]

I always like sports blog specially when it carres valuable info like yours.
any way i wanna tell an important thing for which we all should be concerned.
After an Heavy natural disaster It's become back dated. And bearing unmeasurable sufferings. Still now it's facing crisis from all sides, created from the Earth Quake as well as by nature. But It's time to change the day, So request all of you to come forward to make tha days ahead distinctly.
I think at this moment HAITI really needs help to be rebuild.Outgoing Haitian President Ren? Pr?val has set the presidential elections for Nov. 28, 2010.
According to ma justification,
Haiti Election Candidates should be under consideration as a deserving personality,
who can supply the best support and leadership
Thank you.

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