'Tis the season

Its that time of year again. The National American Miss people are sending out flyers. Last year's I really didn't like, and this year's I found more issues with, after a year of paying attention to feminist blogs. Lets examine this:



First, the cover



Typical Euro-centric ideal of beauty? Check. Airbrushing? Check. "Fashionable"? Check. Vaguely pained look? Check. "Sexy" Posing? Check. Looks old enough to be the mother of the audience targeted? Why is she even on this thing?



The inside



EVEN MORE European girls? Check. Posing? Check. Now onto the highlighted stuff. That's were it gets really insidious.

• "Makeup is not allowed on our participants ages 4-12 during the event." Well, that sure didn't stop you from airbrushing their pictures, did it?


• "The National American Miss pageants are dedicated to celebrating America's greatness and encouraging its future leaders." Apparently "America's greatness" is little pretty white girls. Also: to be a leader and a girl, you must be pretty. No two ways about it.


• "You'll gain... self-confidence...You'll feel good about yourself." Yes, I'm sure it will help boost the Hispanic girl from my old hometown who also received this flyer's self-confidence that the only girls pictured on the sides are clearly European and the overweight girl down the street will feel better about herself when all the girls there are thin.


• "If not accepted into the pageant..." Way to judge a girl on her looks when she's supposed to be a "future leader".


• "The total fee for the pageant is $440." Well, my goodness, that sure explains why there's pretty much just white girls on this! You only want people with half a thousand dollars lying around! Poor people, obviously, are ugly; and unfit to associate with you until they can cut food or utilities bills to pay for this.

And the back

Finally, some token racial diversity! Posing? Check. Airbrushing? Check. Ridiculously happy smiles? Check. People who are clearly models with their perfectly white teeth and shaped eyebrows who are surely not the sort of people who would actually be at this? Check.

One last highlighted thing:
"All you'll need is:

• A prom dress or evening gown
• A suit or dress for interview
• Official production number t-shirt outfit (available on pageant weekend for a nominal charge)"

Say it with me people: Hidden Costs! So lets say you manage to scrape up half a thousand dollars to go to this thing. Now they want you to buy a prom dress! And a suit! And a t-shirt for "a nominal charge"! Turns out you need more like another $430 there!

Total cost: $870. Way to raise the bar. Now they only want you if you've got about a thousand dollars lying around! Now I know why the popular pretty girls on TV are always rich whites! They're the only ones with enough money to be official.

Congratulations, National American Miss pageants. You have now officially sent the most racist and classist bit of mail I have ever seen.

Q: What People Should Really Learn From Student Government Elections?

A: How to learn when a politician is saying a whole lot of nothing.

My class's election for sophomore year officers could be a case study. Most of the speeches were uninteresting; but gave a good overview of what the person's goals and qualifications were. Then the speeches got to the presidential candidates and the only guy running for an office (significant or not?) got up. There was lots of cheering (he was a popular guy). But when he opened his mouth he had nothing to say. The summary of his speech is as follows:

"The other school thinks we suck! I don't think we do! We should show them we're not! I had fun doing this job in eighth grade! The other school thinks we suck!"

See? A whole lotta nothin'. There is a term for this sort of persuasion: pathos. This guy was trying to play off emotions and his popularity. Student government elections being as they are (popularity over competence), that was the guy who won.

Here's an idea: maybe if the SG elections actually matched what people learned in their government classes about how real elections work (and if the SG actually meant anything), people would be more invested in voting throughout their lives.

The Professors: The 100 Most Dangerous Academics in America

The author is David Horowitz.
A book review:

The author does manage to find some truly despicable people (mostly affirmed Jihadists, violent anti-whites, and convicted domestic terrorists). However, I find that most people in this book are not as extreme as those and a few choices are extremely laughable*. Also, most of the people in this book did not support the war on terror for various reasons; that coupled by the designation of nearly all the professors as liberals leads me to believe that the author is a dedicated conservative. Which, of course, would lead to bias on all cases, with the skew on people's views getting decidedly more negative the less extreme the case (in perspective).

Another thing that really stood out for me is that the author mentions feminism where applicable and fails to make any connection as to how this is relevant to the professor being dangerous. This lack leaves me with only the conclusion that the reader is to associate feminism with danger. The other thing was the lack of opposing viewpoints. If the author could find so may Jihadists, militant anti-whites, and domestic terrorists; surely he could locate anti-Muslims, anti-minorities, and American supremacists as well.


*Most of these people are proponents of Marxism or Leninism and/or take an anti-American stance. A continuing point made was opposition to the Vietnam war.

Cool website

Lexicalist- a demographic dictionary of modern American English

Let's look at some words real quick:

Sexism
Superheroes
Raven
Scholar
Books
Blog

I have more proof that Maine's politicians are the best.

Senator Olympia Snowe is highly respected (as we knew) and politicians should first serve the nation, then the state, then the voters (which my mother and I have known for quite some time).

Maine, I am proud of you.

EDIT: Video does not work, so I took it off. Here's the link.

Disappointed

I expected this minister to be more... open, I suppose.

Boys will be Boys- Women need to stop tempting men to sexual sin and society needs to be less accepting of this (just the title makes me feel a little sick. I've got a comment pending moderation on this one, so if you never see it, you know why).

Dad: Servant Manager- Wives are to submit to their husbands commands

Mostly it's just these posts and possibly a few others, Love of the Brothers is a good one, but these couple of posts make me even more wary of religion and just how hypocritical it tends to be.
Just makes me uncomfortable to read it and think that these are a minister's views.

Milwaukee County Superviser John Chianelli Endorses Sexual Assaults

Supervisors call for firing of county mental health chief
Milwaukee Offers up Mentally Ill Women as Sexual Bait to Soothe Violent Male Inmates- Candidate for Governor Supports

Let me outline everything that is wrong about this.

• One, rape and sexual abuse should never be a trade-off for anything. If Milwaukee has a problem with violence in male wards, then something should be done to curb the violence such as keeping the inmates away from each other.
• Two, essentially, what they are doing is allowing things such as rape and sexual abuse in state-sponsored facilities. I fail to see how this is in any way a good idea, as both rape and sexual assualt are illegal.
• Three, they are devauling women. They are telling women that they are expendable, tools, and it does not matter if they are hurt as long as it somehow helps men.
• Four, they are showing callous disregaurd toward persons with medical conditions. I am quite sure that people with psychiatric problems are covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act. Again, this is illegal.
• Five, sexual assault and rape are simply different forms of violence than beatings, scratching, biting, and whatever else the facility was having problems with. Trading one sort of violence for another sort solves no problem, it simply reinforces the pattern and adds even more to the things be fixed later.
• Six, it would seem that they are operating off the 1950s stereotype that women are somehow more docile or more likely to quell violence by their mere prescene. This is clearly wrong, as there are 100 men born for every 104 women and the world still has problems such as war, theft, and general violence.
• Seven, whatever causes the violence in the first place will not be magically cured, it will just be redirected. Again, this solves nothing.

Send an e-mail to Candidate Scott Walker at info@scottwalker.org, and one to John Chianelli at john.chianelli@milwcnty.com.