Reason Writers Around Town: Katherine Mangu-Ward on Bloggingheads Talking About Aqua Buddha and Fat Girls

In the latest Bloggingheads, Senior Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward talks Aqua Buddha, fat girls and their school lunches, teachers unions, and summer reading with Daily Beast writer Dana Goldstein.

Comments

[Warty]

I know I say this a lot, but the news cycle gets dumber every week. This Aqua Buddha thing is just a bunch of talking heads pretending to be shocked that college swimmers love to party. Can we have Shirley Sherrod back, please?

[Episiarch]

Wait, what the fuck is Aqua Buddha?!?

[Warty]

I had to look it up. Apparently, it's the name for the "Rand Paul kidnapped a girl and forced her to take bong hits" story. I don't care enough to find out why it the name.

[Mr Whipple]

Wait, what the fuck is Aqua Buddha?!?

Aqua Velva with a fat belly.

[Pro Libertate]

Aqua Man but with super powers.

[SugarFree]

Instead of the bodhi tree, he sits under a leaky shower head.

[Waterhouse]

Aqua Buddha is weed smoked through a bong, duh.

Buddha: Weed
Bong: Filled with water

[hmm]

I'm quite pleased with myself. I have no fucking clue what Aqua Buddha is and I think I'm going to keep it that way as long as possible.

[hmm]

This Reason Bloggingheads post is one of the more aesthetic Bloggingheads posts yet.

Is that racist?

Or sexist?

[Warty]

I was determined not to be the first one to mention all the pulchritude on display.

[hmm]

Have no fear. I'm willing to charge head first into just about any situation. It's a dangerous combination of stupidity, ego, stupidity, and testosterone.

Plus I have a knack for stating the obvious, and that was obvious.

[DG]

Do you consider Kathy and/or Dana a HOPA?

[Warty]

Well, neither has a FUPA.

[Dagny T.]

Jezebel is sad that FUPAs are not attractive. (They say mildly NSFW, but all FUPAs, camel toes, and other curiosities are fully clothed.)

[DG]

I'm sure when Jezebel posters rub one off, they are dreaming of a guy that looks like Drew Carey. They couldn't possibly be hypocrites who salivate over physically fit men while believing that men who don't find their overweight asses attractive must be sexist pigs. Right? Right?

[dbcooper]

Isn't a disproportionate FUPA a warning sign of an earlier pregnancy? i.e. Solo mom in the bar.

[BakedPenguin]

Yes, I'm sure all of the women who write for Jezebel would be willing to date obese men who aren't rich.

Because they couldn't be hypocrites, could they?

[BakedPenguin]

Or what DG said.

[Dagny T.]

The usual WTF-ery aside, their earnest use of phrases like "pudendal cleft" and "bigger, more delineated mons" are worth the price of admission.

[BakedPenguin]

Tangential, but I once replied to a feminist who was decrying the phallicism of our patriarchical society's landmarks to design land-use efficient skyscrapers that were shaped like vulva.

She didn't respond.

[anomdebus]

You could build underground.. That is close..

[mr simple]

From the comments:

I think it's also an issue of the female body as currency, and of rape culture. When we're constantly told that some women are "asking for it," why are we then surprised to find that we're cautious of displaying evidence of our sexualized bodies?

There you have it. Women are afraid to show camel toe because of rape culture.

[Coeus]

Better one:

08/03/10

As a female positive website I really wish you would lead by example and refer to it as: A Woman's Vulva as opposed to Vagina...Referring to our beautiful genitalia as 'vagina' reduces us, as it is not just the canal which receives penis/dildo/etc or produces all manner of delightfulness that defines us. There is clit, lips, folds, flesh and many other things to consider. Let's not continue to ignore this form of misogyny!

Immediately followed by:

08/03/10

@@rubyespresso: Thanks for expressing this so well. I think reducing all a woman's genitalia to the vag(ina) is not unlike referring to a woman as a cunt.

[Timon19]

Hot Of Piece Ass?

[village genius]

Dana goldstein is a bitch in the Weigel vein. If Reason is looking for another sanctimonious fake prude, they should snap her up.

[BakedPenguin]

She's a liberal. Frankly, while I disagreed with a fair amount of what she said, she had a rational conversation with KMW, and she avoided being insulting or condescending.

[alan]

I was going to say the same thing, but then I realized it was coming from the fact I want to have sex with her, and the words she said could have been anything.

'Sexist', just another word for horny.

[alan]

Of course, that being a rhetorical horny, given I'm spoken for.

[BakedPenguin]

alan, I know what you mean, but I know that I'm probably never going to meet her, let alone have a chance to sleep with her.

It's kind of sad, but it actually impresses me when people don't use straw men, don't assume bad faith, etc. etc. in political discussions.

[alan]

You could be right, but I think she was just high.

[Tb]

Um, almost 4 minutes to ask the first question. Dana needs to get to the point.

[Woodrow]

I'd like to see their Aqua Buddhas!

[Kevin]

Dana is hot, but she sounds like a 14 year old.

[Mr Whipple]

Is she stoned?

[hmm]

She doesn't think people will change if given a choice. So what do we do? We hijack children from their parents send them to school for 20 hours and let the state, feed, raise, and educate them.

FUCK ME. Are people really this fucking stupid?

[hmm]

I should note by hijack them I mean legally require them to go to school for the programs she mentioned. Boarding schools already do this, and guess what, there are fat kids at boarding school.

[hmm]

That said, I want to stab her in the face with a spork. Teachers unions will raise your kids. Great idea.

[kilroy]

+1 for "spork"

[? ?]

Are people really this fucking stupid?

Yes. Take me for instance. I'm answering a rhetorical question.

[hmm]

We can smell our own.

[hmm]

There was no small talk or rapor because you are borderline annoying as hell. I would chew my arm off to get away from a dinner date with Dana. The baby voice is bad, but the "like I know" "that said" and general nature of her talking would drive me to homicide.

Couple that with some seriously retarded fucking logic and I'd be ready to kill cute fuzzy kittens.

[BakedPenguin]

Actually, one thing I was thinking about (for private schools) was to expand hours of operation. Only instead of having teachers there, have TA's. Depending on the curriculum, they could have kids watch educational videos, get on the Intranet, watch foreign language cartoons, work on their "homework", etc. The same with after school.

[hmm]

It's already done. I know two schools that offer after hour tutors and activities usually handled by students working on teaching degrees.

[BakedPenguin]

I didn't think it was a completely original idea, since it seems so obvious. If more and more private and charter schools can start doing this though, it might change public schools.

Not that I'll be holding my breath, but I will say that the Post Office is much better now than prior to UPS & FedEx.

[SugarFree]

I think it's cool that Katherine decided to get stoned out of her gourd and record her side of the conversation in an copper garden shed.

[Pro Libertate]

It does seem that way. Interesting.

[hmm]

She seems more sober than Dana. The copper shed is a nice touch, you're right.

[SugarFree]

I think Dana is just drunk on her own stupidity.

[BakedPenguin]

Damn, you people are harsh. Frankly, for a liberal, I was impressed that she didn't pull out the "OMG you want poor chilluns not to have an education and be slave labor". When they're willing to address our actual arguments, I think we should cut some slack.

[SugarFree]

I think making Katherine justify Rand Paul's actions in college started Dana off on a very wrong foot with me. By the time she got to dawn-to-sunset school schedules, I got sick of listening to her squeaky Moon-Unit-Zappa-esque voice.

[BakedPenguin]

I thought it was more of a "what's your take on this?" than "defend your ideological brethren!" Then again, maybe the fact that she's cute is coloring my perceptions (Feministing will have my head). I wasn't bothered by her voice, for one thing.

[SugarFree]

Well, I will admit that the bloggingheads format doesn't do anyone favors for me.

[j r]

I really wish that KMW would have challenged this spurious notion that poor people are fatter because healthy food is so expensive, or that there is some conspiracy to keep vegetables out of poor neighborhoods.

People get fat because they're making decisions on a shorter time horizon. That's it. Give that all the sociological window dressing you like, it still doesn't change the rather simple truth.

[anomdebus]

cf: Orwell

[SugarFree]

Bloggingheads with one of the Feminisiting gals.

Her deep, manly voice is the only highlight.

[j r]

It is interesting listening to Dana Goldstein extol the virtues of the European "set it and forget it" model of childcare.

Ostensibly, she supports this sort of thing because of the equalizing effects it can have for poor brown kids. I cannot, however, help but think that much of her approval stems from a personal preference for this arrangement. Having the kids looked after by the (literal) nanny-state supports her own version of cosmopolitan feminism.

With the kids off at school for most of the day she won't get bogged down with mundane concerns like what to make for dinner or helping Skylar with her math homework. Instead she is free to meet up with fashionable friends or architect husband for a happy hour glass of wine.

I suggest that all readers make themselves familiar with the term bureaugamy. If you ain't living in it already, you will be at some point in the future.

[Thank God]

I am so pleased with my choice not to have children, that I almost want to gloat. Because if my menstruating 10 year-old daughter was spending 12 hours a day in a DC public school, my drinking problem would be a lot worse...

[Tulpa]

As soon as I saw two young women pictured in the post, I could predict the topic of about 50% of the comments in the thread. You guys didn't disappoint.

[mari dupont]

Of course not. We need to ensure the brand stays consistent.

[Warty]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_scold

[Tulpa]

I only scold because I care. One day you'll want to thank me, but it will be too late because I'll have changed my handle again.

[alan]

Tulpa, I love you and everything, but you sound like a jealous fat chick, and you know what my bumper stickers say, 'I might not go down in history, but I'll go down on your little sister', 'ass, gas, or grass, nobody rides for free', and 'no fat chicks.'

[Isaac Bartram]

alan, that was disgusting and it made me laugh out loud. 😮

[Disappointed at You People...]

KMW:

I am fairly certain that you could have chopped her off at the ankles if you wanted to, so nice restraint. It's not easy being the intellectually superior ideology, even harder when people hate us for rubbing it in their faces.

Having said that, you might not want to concede quite so much ground next time. The assertion that preteen sexual maturity is caused by obesity is spurious at best.

Also, I could have sworn she was baiting you into suggesting that libertarians would approve of forcing someone to smoke pot, because hey man that's just how militant we are about our drug policy.

Oh, and a summer reading list as per Tyler Cowen is soooo not wonky at all...

[joshua corning]

Having said that, you might not want to concede quite so much ground next time.

Compared to Peter Kathrine was the 85' Bears to his 4th grade school play of Peter Pan.

[I, Kahn O'Clast]

Could not make it through the whole things... But this Aqua Buddha thing seems overblown. It's a long time ago, when he was in college, and (since I don't know all the details I'll wing it) could have been more of a prankster kind of thing and not all that threatening. Most of us have had at least one episode in our lives that if given the media treatment could sabotage any budding political career.

[Nash]

Of course now details are coming out that the woman has admitted she wasn't "kidnapped" nor was she "forced" to smoke pot.

So basically the story was mis-represented, supplemented with false facts, and now that the damage is done, has been mostly rescinded to save face.

[Tulpa]

Careful what you write on this website, guys. Ben Quayle, running for an AZ House seat, has gotten into trouble over stuff he posted on a website years ago:

Recent controversy over the racy website, which was aimed at detailing Scottsdale's nightlife, has livened up the race, with Quayle's campaign this week calling allegations that he once was heavily involved in the site a "smear of the sort that has been trafficked by several of the candidates in this campaign for months." The campaign suggested the allegations, first reported by Politico, might have come from a publicist for one of Quayle's competitors.

...

Quayle said he couldn't recall what his posts involved or when he made them.

Richie said Quayle contributed items in 2007 under the alias "Brock Landers."

"He was the guy, that you know, people would send pictures to of hot chicks, and he would put together who he thought was that hottest girl and why," said Richie, whose legal name is Hooman Karamian.

[joshua corning]

Obligatory sexist reason commenter pig post:

I would like a one night stand with Dana.

Katherine I would like to marry and love and raise children with.

But in general would simply want to have a threesome with both.

Note: Did Katherine even drink from that Reason coffee mug or was she just showing off the swag?

[Joe R.]

Oh Jesus F. Christ, can Goldstein not admit that she's only harping on this because she hates Team Red and wants Team Blue to win? Rape rape rape, rape rape rape...hey no one got raped. Shut up, moron.

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