Susan Rice

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THE QUOTE

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” — Rebecca West

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NYAH, NYAH

So, the Republicans now have their pound of flesh.

Feeling all sissified by the results of the November election, the political decision makers within the Party of God racked their brains for a few days and then hit upon a forward course.

Does it include becoming more inclusive toward black and brown people, women, gays, the poor, and those whose IQs are north of 30?

Republicans

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Well, no. At least not yet.

How about a concerted effort to purge the party’s ranks of antediluvian racists — both crypto- and overt? Or accepting the fact that geologists, zoologists, biologists, and other learned souls just might know a little bit more about the nature of our physical world than do bizarrely-coiffed backwoods Bible-thumpers?

Nah.

Our friends the Republicans have decided their best first step forward was to stand firm against that greatest threat to our nation’s very existence: the putative nomination of Susan Rice to the post of Secretary of State.

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And whaddya know? They scored big time!

Rice, the current Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the United Nations, has informed her boss that she’s withdrawing her name from consideration to replace the outgoing S of S (and 45th President of the United States-in-waiting), Hillary Clinton.

Rice’s boss, the anti-Christ Barack Obama, was in for a bruising mud wrestling match had he tabbed Rice to don Clinton’s sash. And when all is said and done, even if Rice’s nomination were indeed approved by the Democratic-majority Senate, she’d have been viewed around the world as a weak PR agent for this holy land simply because so many fought against her.

Woo-hoo, we showed him, the Republicans are now telling themselves.

And guess what — the likely rebound nominee is said to be John Kerry.

Imagine that! The Republicans have indicated they’d be four-square in favor of approving Kerry. You remember him, don’t you? The traitor who protested against the war in Vietnam, only after he’d committed fraud to gain a pile heroism medals while there? The Republicans saved us from him in 2004.

Dangerous Johns: Kerry & Lennon

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Now they love him. And why not? He’s a white male.

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ANNIE’S LITTLE SECRET

The republic has survived yet another threat to its very existence. We’ve awakened four mornings in a row and discovered that the Earth remains in its orbit even after actress Anne Hathaway’s cooter was viewed by all concerned Monday night.

The temporarily-gaunt star of Les Miserables wore a gown made of coffin lining as well as some S&M accoutrements, all of which pass for haute couture, to the premiere of her big new blockbuster in New York.

She arrived at the red carpet in a positively presidential-looking SUV limousine. Her bodyguard leaped out and helped her exit the vehicle. She swung her legs out in an oh-so-ladylike fashion. Sadly (or not, depending on your level of sexual and emotional maturity) her knees separated and, thanks to a strategic split in her gown, her external reproductive organs were exposed and, within a nanosecond, were illuminated by a camera flash.

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Naturally, the image of her fancy bit immediately flashed around the planet.

Just as naturally, Anne Hathaway is aghast even as tens of millions of adolescent boys are furiously masturbating to the point of pain.

“It was devastating,” she told Vanity Fair’s Ingrid Sischy.

Fair enough.

Hathaway — whom, by the way, I intend to marry should The Loved One ever come to her senses and throw me overboard — went a step further on NBC’s Today Show: “… I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and rather than delete it and do the decent thing, sells it. And I’m sorry we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants….”

Fair enough again. I guess.

Only we’re not talking about powerless young girls being bought and sold in the Middle East (see chart). Nor are we talking about someone pointing a camera through a hotel room peephole so he can peddle nude pix of an unsuspecting sports reporter.

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Yes, it’s a crying shame that pix of Hathaway’s Little Secret should turn out to be such a valuable commodity but isn’t she being a tad disingenuous here?

I mean, I love the woman. She’s well on her way to becoming the Meryl Streep of the 2030s. She’s generally considered dignified.

But she has a knockout body and she knows it. And she trades on it. Google images of her and you’ll see tons of her flesh. Nothing tasteless, mind you. But anyone who cares to can examine her breasts and other parts of her anatomy.

Again, she’s no Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan but, still, she understands what exposed female flesh means in Hollywood. It’s like a being a lawyer and having been a member of the right fraternity in college.

Anyway, it was Hathaway herself who went commando. Which is usually harmless, except when you’re wearing a gown that’s slit some eight and a half yards from talus to ilium.

Hindsight is 20/20 but from this outpost, her best bet would have been to ignore the breathless and puerile questioning of the likes of Matt Lauer and let the incident pass without comment. She should have let the whole issue die a deserved death.

Matt Lauer Grosses Out The Universe While Interviewing Hathaway

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And maybe — just maybe — we’ll all grow up and stop tee-hee-ing when somebody’s business gets exposed.

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A LADY LEXICON

The fun gals at feministing.com have provided us with an invaluable guide to the euphemisms for the human vagina.

That’s the technical term for it, of course. Vagina comes directly to us from the Latin, meaning a sheath for a soldier’s sword, which our old pals the Romans called a ferrum — literally, iron — but commonly used the word to refer to the penis.

Cicero and Co. had a way with words, no?

“Sheathe Your Swords, Men Of Rome.”

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So do we. Our words reveal our fears and distastes. Apparently, the vagina is scary and distasteful to far too many sword-bearers around this funny globe. Dig how many terms confer frightening, weird, and/or disgusting connotations on that place we’ve all passed through.

Study this. There’ll be a pop quiz later this semester.

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SHE’S A BAD MAMA JAMA

By Carl Carlton, this song rocketed up the Billboard soul chart in 1981.

She’s poetry in motion/

A beautiful sight to see.

I get so excited/

Viewin’ her anatomy.

At least he wasn’t being a sneak about it.

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THE QUOTE

“Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.” — Karl Kraus

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SERIAL VIRGINITY

Humanity has accomplished many great things. We’ve built spaceships and traveled to the moon. We’ve mapped the human genome. We’ve cured diseases. We’ve painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We’ve written “An American in Paris” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

We’ve even almost forgotten who Paris Hilton is, although that supreme triumph will take much more agonizing labor. Still, I have no doubt we can do it.

We’re Trying

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That all said, we’re really a bunch of idiots.

Here’s proof (and h/t to funnyman Aaron Freeman for pointing this out): there exists a website selling a product called the Artificial Hymen.

That’s right, for all you gals who wish to position yourselves as virgins — even long after your first bonk has taken place — there is now a simple, inexpensive device designed to snow any proud man who values such things, as long as he doesn’t peer too closely at your nether geography (which, by the way, virtually no such man would be wont to do, if you get what I mean).

The Hymen Shop (No, This Is Not A Joke)

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We forget that even in this modern day many of our brethren and sisteren still live in a fantasy world, circa the year 1437. You know, where men bashed each other over the head with maces and a young woman’s virginity was her most cherished possession.

One might suspect that even though certain men might demand their future wives be pristine, the females among us might simply laugh those benighted souls off.

Uh uh.

Many a woman, apparently, is buying the Artificial Hymen, inserting it into her previously visited special place, and neglecting to disabuse her current man of his smug assurance that he is the first guest to enter the vestibule in question.

I mean, honestly.

Along with Colm Tóibín‘s new book, “The Testament of Mary,” the Artificial Hymen just might signal a new fascination with virginity.

Weirder things have happened.

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THE DNA OF POLITICS

Speaking of sexual displays, both surreptitious and flamboyant, our cousins the bonobos, who reside in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are masters of the art. At least the males are.

Sex is a big part of bonobo socializing. Apparently, they dig sex the most, rather like the characters in a late-70s Woody Allen movie. Their social groups are among the most bonhomous in nature, with sex being a primary mechanism by which they convey to each other their neighborliness.

Bonobos, Happy As Usual

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Bonobos are among the rare primates (residents of Monroe County and most of the rest of humanity being the others) who engage in face to face kissing and coupling, oral sex, male and female homosexuality, tribadism, and — hold on to your hats, Hoosiers — “penis fencing,” performed by two males, each of whom is hanging by his arm from a tree branch. (I’m confident I don’t have to draw a picture of this little pastime for you.)

Anyway, bonobo dudes often walk around their social groups waving their bright red erections hither and yon. As in any animal’s social group, showing off the real Man’s Best Friend not only signals a willingness — nay, imperative — to begin humping but it is an advertisement of their rank, vigor, and power.

We’re told by geneticists that human DNA differs only minutely from that of the two Pan species (bonobos, Pan Paniscus, and chimps, Pan Troglodytes). This must be true considering the fact that certain members of a subspecies of Homo Sapiens sapiens — GOP Reaganensis or “Republicans” — are currently strutting around Washington DC waving their own bright red erections.

In Their Natural Habitat

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See, Republicans earlier this month suffered a humiliating embarrassment. For the better part of more than three decades, Republicans have owned DC. But after the 2012 election, their philosophies, pronouncements, and shrill alarm calls don’t seem to impress much of the pack anymore. Heck, even one of the Republicans’ own dominant figures, Pat Robertson, recently has announced that the Earth is much, much older than that portrayed in the Bible.

His flock, it is presumed, sat slack-jawed in front of their TV screens as Robertson uttered this radical idea. The non-fundamentalist Christians among us are staring at this tableau in a state of shock.

It’s the equivalent of researchers peering through foliage at the sight of a bonobo teaching juveniles the basics of differential calculus.

In any case, many other members of GOP Reaganensis must adapt to this new environment as well. But first they must reinforce their standing within the social group. And, as I’ve indicated, they’re waving their bright red erections around.

How else can we explain the flap over Susan Rice?

Ayotte, McCain, & Graham (Not Pictured: Their Bright Red Erections)

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LIKE A VIRGIN

Do you realize Madonna Louise Ciccone is now 54 freaking years old?

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