Arr! What’s your pirate name?

As you can tell, I’m going through a Pirates of the Caribbean “thing” right now. It’s like my 11 year old self has taken over. Anyway, I found a rather fun quiz that asks you a bunch of questions then finds your pirate name for you. Here’s what I found out about me:

Your pirate name is:

Dirty Jenny Flint

You’re the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean — not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. Like the rock flint, you’re hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you’re easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Proof of my sad sense of humor

So, Larry Flynt is going to run for governor of California, is he?

I find this funny because:

1. I’d LOVE to see cheap-labor conservative Issa’s face if his bid to oust Gray Davis led to Flynt coming into power…ha! ha!

and

2. I’ll be far away in Michigan the day of the election, celebrating my birthday and pretending I don’t know any of you weird Californians.

Cheap-labor Conservatives

Oooh, Deb’s going to love this one: Defeat the right in three minutes.

Be sure to read it all the way through. The argument may seem oversimplified, but it provides a lever to achieve some really astute observations. The author’s weblog takes the discussion further.

If you’ve ever found it difficult to understand the behavior of Cheap-Labor Conservatives (and I have), this may just shed some light.

Oh to live on “O” . . .

All hail Ursula K LeGuin, one of this (and last) century’s foremost writers. If you haven’t read any of her work yet, you should!

LeGuin’s (later*) work tells the truth with clever lies that strip western social norms to their roots in order to better shake the tree. You’ll never look at the world in the same way.

(*Interestingly enough LeGuin started as a fairly conservative Sci Fi writer.)

Then, when you’ve cut your teeth on that, you can move on to Octavia Butler . . .

Breastfeeding man = risque?

OK, who can explain to me why a poster of a man breastfeeding at work would be controversial? I just can’t see it.

Let’s tick off the elements:
A man in a suit with his chest exposed. If this was a problem, most Guess ads would be banned.
A man holding his child. Can’t even imagine a problem there.
A man with his child on his chest. I’ve seen that in Sears catalogs, for cryin’ out loud.
A baby in a diaper. Um, yeah.
An office. Uh-huh.

I got it. It must be the poster of Lucy Lawless’ legs on the wall.

Seriously, though, the real reason it was pulled was the same reason it was made: it makes people think about the double-standard we still have. If men needed to breastfeed at work, do you think there’d be any problem?