How is it possible that you can literally change your story in less than 60 seconds while on national television Well, thats exactly what happened this Wednesday morning when Rep. Steve King went on CNN!
Do you suppose the GOP takes special trapeze lessons to be able to straddle an issue that well? Or maybe it’s a special bottle of Congressal™. Congressal™ is a new drug that emulates schizophrenia. It helps elected officials be two people at once so they can be on both sides of an issue.
Congressal™ – never be wrong – always get reelected. Ask for it by name.
So everyone has been flipping out this month because all these online websites like Facebook(1) and OKCupid(2) have been experimenting on their users. To be fair, Facebook actually manipulated your newsfeed to try and alter your mood. Facebook literally emotionally manipulated you with what you were viewing in your newsfeed. As Chris Hayes pointed out, Facebook even did this for the purpose of their advertisers which helps them make money. OKCupid did their experiments for the purpose of helping their users find looooove.
So here’s what really happened. First, OKCupid took profile photos off their profile pages. Result: Their entire website tanked. Seriously. Check this out:
OUCH!!
The other experiment they did was about the match percentage based on the questions OKCupid asks you. So, let’s say Mindy likes NASCAR and TruckNuts – she gets 100% match with Darrell who LOVES TruckNuts and NASCAR but only 50% Match with his other brother Darrell who loves Monster Trucks and NASCAR but didn’t mention his affinity for TruckNuts because he didn’t want to scare the ladies off.
What OKCupid did was switch the percentages around. Mindy got 100% on someone she really only had about a 50% chance or 30% chance of liking. And you know what they found???? The percentages didn’t really matter. People still messaged people based on if they were hot or not.
And this one:
Via OK Cupid:
“As you can see, the ideal situation is the lower right: to both be told you’re a good match, and at the same time actually be one. OkCupid definitely works, but that’s not the whole story. And if you have to choose only one or the other, the mere myth of compatibility works just as well as the truth.”
This just in from our friends at RHRealityCheck.org who has done an outstanding bit of investigative journalism exploring further Hobby Lobby hypocrisy. RHRC reports that Flowood, Mississippi Hobby Lobby employee Felicia Allen was about to pop and not surprisingly asked for her medical leave. Instead Hobby Lobbycanned her after her baby was born and then tried to fight her filings for unemployment.
What would Jesus say, folks?
Not that it matters, but everyone in Ms. Allen’s Hobby Lobby store agreed this was messed up, as I’m sure many of us do.
Hobby Lobby believes it is totally fine to invest their pension plan in the pharmaceutical company that makes the birth control they oppose their employees using,
But, John Oliver wants to remind you about the 1950’s and the warm fuzzy optimism about how we’re all going to be ok when hit by a nuclear bomb because we can just hide under our desks or even a friendly picnic blanket! But what about things like ICBM’s (intercontinental ballistic missiles) controlled by computers that use floppy drives? Sorry, America, that’s been a little compromised.
If you’re afraid of the end of the world here’s a gif of a sleepy kitten whose belly is being rubbed:
Masters of Sex, Showtime’s envelope pushing show about the science of sex and sexuality in the 1950’s, addressed a very serious topic the LGBT community has worked to bring awareness to for years: Gender assignment at birth. I swear… this show is one of the most political shows on television today.
Season 2 Episode 3 trailer:
In Sunday night’s episode I watched as Dr. Masters explained to a new mother for whom he’d just delivered a baby, that the child had adrenogenital hyperplasia. The new father was angry and hysterical telling his wife they didn’t need to know anything about it because no one would never know and he was damn sure not going to “hold it” meaning the baby.
“It’s not ‘it’ Mr. Bomback… it’s a boy. The blood test conclusively shows the XY chromosome… understand the physical ambiguities are off putting, Mr. Bomback, but eventually a surgery will take care of it….”
The father became more hysterical – not wanting to take the new baby home.
“The baby is otherwise in good health, he’ll be released, and a surgical plan will be formulated” Masters began but the father demanded a surgery to assign the gender be done immediately hurling some unfortunate comment about a “freakshow on the boardwalk.”
The show takes place in the 1950’s so I it’s no shock that gender roles are a huge theme in the show from the idea of women owning their bodies and liking sex, to a gay husband subjecting himself to electroshock therapy to be able to have sex with his wife, to all sorts of marriage insanity. But Dr. Masters nailed it with one simple line: “Well there’s a very wide spectrum of ‘normal’ as far as genitalia is concerned.”
The father demanded the doctor “cut it off” claiming the child would “never be a man.
Dr. Masters, instead, smacked the father down “Let me tell you how this is going to go, Mr. Bomback. You’re family is going to leave here in a few days and you’re going to take some time to become informed. Let your mouth catch up with your mind. And you will come to accept that your son, YOUR SON, has a condition that can and will be corrected. And when you come back here for the surgery that will make sure that his outsides match who he is inside, you’re going to thank me for protecting your child from your own poor judgment.”
Damn.
Later in the show as Masters is describing the “condition” to his research partner (and mistress) Ms. Johnson who was shocked and appalled “That’s what they do they just make it a girl based on the issue of convenience?” she asked.
It is one of the entertainment industry‘s most endearing qualities that it helps to expand understanding of things different from ourselves, increasing acceptance and providing a glimpse at differing perspectives at life experiences. That effort is a component of the successes we’ve seenon LGBTequality.
So… I’ll admit that when we saw this story last week we laughed about it and rolled our eyes at yet another example of an overly prudish society that is clearly too uncomfortable with sex and sexuality to even conceive of visualizing someone’s lady parts. But then The Daily Show brought a whole new different understanding to this issue (brought to you by Decades of Deep Sexual Repression).
According to legend, a demon would have unhealthy hidden in the vagina of a young lady, and with the use of his sharp teeth would have castrated two young men on their wedding night. Following this, a blacksmith carved an iron penis to break the teeth of this demon. This object, ultimately, became an object of worship. This is why we celebrate the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki every year.
Why can’t we all just value each other …. genitals and all? And for once, not diminish one while glorifying another? It’s a silly fantasy, I know. Maybe it can be a reality before I die.
Genius TV news journalist Rachel Maddow has said exactly what we’ve said all along: Boehner and the GOP’s lawsuit against President Obama is going to end up hurting the GOP. To quote Charlie Young, “Voters aren’t stupid. People treat voters like they’re stupid during elections.”
America gets that this is a partisan political game, just like it was during the late 90’s when Newt Gingrich used Congress to attack the President for partisan purposes. We’ve seen this movie before. It ends exceptionally well for Democrats, particularly in a year where Congress is choosing politics and party over passing actual legislation.
Last night, The Daily Show took this confusion and controversy head on with a montage of Fox News clips talking about blowing Obamacare and a dismembered head… which some might argue are pretty much the same thing.
A new action adventure film is coming out, which means it’s yet another opportunity to ask the age old question of why there aren’t more women not only in leading roles, but in movies to begin with. The New York Film Academy asked exactly that question last year during the launch of the last Hunger Games movie which features another female lead (albeit some women take issue with whether or not she’s a real feminist). I could probably go off for hours on whether or not Katniss is a real feminist… but I’ll spare you.
I digress… The real question is… What’s up with the ratio of dudes vs. ladies in films? Here’s a friendly infographic that helps illustrate:
Last night our favorite news program, The Daily Show, talked about how Rupert Murdoch wants to buy CNN from Time Warner. There was a series of clips then talking about how Murdoch isn’t going to give up so Stewart is imploring the public’s help so that we can get CNN for our very own! He even launched LetsBuyCNN.com which leads to a kickstarter page with awesome prizes for major sponsors!
