In the fall issue of futurist magazine H+, Kristi Scott tells us (on page 14) that "Andy" the sex droid (geddit?) "can hold multiple sex positions, be ordered to simulate breathing, perform oral sex acts, have a pulse, be equipped with a g-spot that responds to orgasm, and much, much more." Another First Androids doll, says Scott, "has the most realistic fake areolas I have ever seen, and I've seen my fair share." Hooray for technology!

Back when Real Dolls were the freakishly realistic sex toy of the moment, I heard a lot of people make the argument that there's no harm in helping lonely, awkward men have someone — something — to curl up with at night. (And fuck. And sponge-bathe. And repair, when their nipple paint wears off.) Megan Laslocky, writing in Salon, said, "[Real Dolls founder Matt] McMullen believes that, for the most part, his dolls are therapeutic transitional objects for men" — just something to get them through a dry spell, before they resume human dating. Laslocky herself, having immersed herself in the world of sex doll enthusiasts, wasn't too concerned, either: "By the end of my reporting... I just saw the men as pathetic and the conversations so packed with false bravado as to be ludicrous." But then she explains how that false bravado is expressed. In an online chatroom, she found "the men were bragging about their success getting 'pussy' using strategies from the likes of Seduce and Conquer and Speed Seduction" — i.e., the patently misogynistic training in manipulation and aggression marketed to lovelorn "nice guys" like George Sodini.

Are we really supposed to believe the overlap in the markets is a coincidence? The whole pickup artist industry is based on the premise that women's bodies are the "nice" guy's Everest, to be conquered by overriding the pesky parts of our brains that naturally produce a "Fuck off, creep" reaction. If you just remove the brain entirely, the Sodinis of the world get everything they want: A warm body with pretty hair, squeezable tits and assorted holes to penetrate, minus that damnable free will.

If I actually believed that sex androids would keep guys like that at home and out of the bars permanently, I might be in favor of them. Unfortunately, I fear they'll only contribute to a thriving culture of misogyny that reinforces unhinged lonely dudes' belief that women's ability to refuse sex is an abstract problem to be solved — not to mention that the solution, when one can't afford a doll, is to stop being so "nice." The thing about the "transitional therapeutic object" theory is that an object is not really an appropriate transition between relationships with actual human beings — unless, of course, you're confused about the distinction there in the first place. Which I would argue is the "nice" guy's fundamental problem.

There's nothing inherently wrong with banging an inanimate object — who among us hasn't? But there's a lot wrong with blurring the line between inanimate object and female human being so aggressively that the primary distinction becomes her capacity for consent — and the lack thereof becomes the fake version's chief selling point. There's a big difference between wanting to simulate the bullet points of real sex, and wanting to simulate every last detail save the humanity of the person you're screwing. Guys who already believe they're entitled to sex with any woman they find attractive, and that those women's brains represent an unjust obstacle in the way of their goal, do not need a coldly pragmatic solution to their perceived problem. They need some fucking therapy, before they open fire on a gym.

Andy Droid: Your Sex Doll Has Arrived [H+]

Related: Just like a woman [Salon]

Earlier:All Dolled Up With No Place To Go
How Not To Cure Shyness: Misogyny, Sodini, & The Plight Of The "Love-Shy"

LA Times writer Mark Olsen says that Doris Wishman, who made the 1965 flick Bad Girls Go to Hell, was in many ways the forerunner of the feminist exploitation genre. The movie involves a woman being raped by her janitor while her husband is at work; she kills him with a bowl. But fearing the consequences of the murder, she flees the city and travels to New York, where she changes her name and has a tryst with a woman, then gets raped by some other guy, then eventually wakes up to find it has all been a dream. Then her husband leaves for work… And the janitor comes in and rapes her. Uplifting? Here's the trailer:





Then there's Terminal Island, directed by Stephanie Rothman. The movie revolves around a an island penal colony where the male and female prisoners fend for themselves without guards. But the subtext is all about power, sexism and social upheaval. Critic Dave Kehr claims the film can be seen as a "lurid exploitation subject turned into a crafty feminist allegory… It's difficult now to believe there was a time when such progressive politics could be expressed in a drive-in movie." This is not the original trailer, but a remix that might not be safe for work, view with caution: (And check out the trashtastic poster!)





"No She Didn't" will also look at Gator Bait, what's called a "hicksploitation" movie directed by Beverly Sebastian. Kathleen McHugh, director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women says: "Even in the mid-'70s, the kind of proto-feminist element was being written about… you have these powerful, self-assertive, one might even use the term 'extremely aggressive' women who are wreaking vengeance against forces, people, men who are trying to keep them down." Gator Bait, looks, in a word, awesome:





Of course, all of these films are still part of a genre which is deemed "exploitation." So you'll find gratuitous nudity, violence and general sleaze. But the female filmmakers were following what was — at the time — a viable career path in Hollywood. Notes Olsen: "Where many male filmmakers who worked the same route moved on to more respectable projects and acclaim, their female counterparts largely faded into obscurity." Still, the women making these movies injected their point of view. McHugh points out: "A significant part of feminism was women taking charge of representations of sexuality. And you clearly see, albeit in an extreme and sort of trashy way, you do see it in these exploitation films." Paul Malcolm, who is the programmer of the UCLA series, puts it this way: "The films are really flat-out fun genre films, but there's something else at work."

Female-Exploitation Films Seen In New Light [LA Times]
Bad Girls Go To Hell [YouTube]
Gator Bait [YouTube]
Terminal Island [YouTube]

[Image via MovieGoods.com]

"Twelve women are winding up five weeks of medical tests at NASA's Ames Research Center In Mountain View, Calif., in which they have been spun, examined, and studied in a research project to help set medical standards for candidates for flight on the Space Shuttle scheduled for operation at the end of this decade."


All twelve women involved in the study were Air Force nurses; the study was intended to test the stresses of space flight during "the time when persons other than pilot-trained astronauts will be making these flights."


Bedrest was an essential component of the study, which I'm assuming is where all of these cheesecake astro-babe pictures came from: "During the bedrest period, the subjects had to remain horizontal at all times, except during meals when they were permitted to raise themselves on one elbow."


"Television, stereo, books, other entertainments, and a lot of needlework by the participants helped make non-testing periods less wearing."


One of the Air Force nurses is strapped down to be tested during a simulation of reentry acceleration forces.


This woman is wearing prismatic glasses, which allow her to read her Cosmopolitan while remaining completely horizontal. Which is good news for future astronauts who hope to trap an alien lifeform with 10 Sexy Tricks.


And this, of course, is Sally Ride, who became the first American woman to travel into space, nearly 10 years later.

[Sally Ride pic via Getty.]

Because, hello, the late nineties and early oughts was not a period characterized by a high level of taste.

A decade after the party ended, the LumiGram company of Gif-sur-Yvette, France, has finally harnessed fiber-optic technology in pursuit of the noble goal of making everyday shit emit an unearthly glow. (In five different colors!)

The Fiona costs € 69, which is really a modest price to pay for "An amazing piece of clothe, that will light up your nights and make you shine !"

More expensive — and yet, also more luminous — is the Marilyn, at € 199.

The menfolk can keep it real with the € 139 Euro Matrix.

But the real show-stopper is the Sophia. The dress — which, with the removable sleeves on, would double as the most insane Princess Leia costume ever — comes with an optional belt in a contrasting color. Which it should, for € 1599.

All LumiGrams clothes are hand-washable — remove the battery pack first — and glow for up to 12 hours per charge.

The sci-fi raver is looking so Fall 09!

LumiGram, Luminous Clothes, Fiber Optic Clothes [LumiGram]

Related:
Is The Fashion Industry The First Step In Robot World Domination? [io9]

"I cannot look at Matthew Fox… We cannot keep a straight face." Since the show is shot in Hawaii, outside of the L.A. "scene," Jorge says he thinks of Lost "a show that just me and my friends do out in the jungle." He also said sometimes the cast will be distracted by whales or seals when filming (he totally used the word pinniped!). Jorge is an avid gardener, and showed Bonnie pictures of his heirloom tomatoes and his "salad bar." In addition to having a green thumb, Jorge is also crafty; he loves making Halloween costumes and has been an oyster and a fish in a fishtank. Verdict: He is awesome. Clip above.

According to Breitbart, the "girlie-faced humanoid" has "slightly oversized eyes, a tiny nose and a shoulder length hair-do." Her face was inspired my manga on purpose:

"If we had made the robot too similar to a real human, it would have been uncanny," said one of the inventors, humanoid research leader Shuji Kajita. "We have deliberately leaned toward an anime style."

Supermodel Linda Evangelista famously said she wouldn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. HRP-4C cost $2 million to develop, but seems to be working for free.

While this seems to be the same robot that has done other gimmicks before — teaching and housework — it does raise some interesting questions about the nature of a fashion model. Some people are of the opinion that a model is merely a hanger, a faceless rack for the clothes to hang on. Others believe that a model is what makes clothes come alive, shows their attitude, potential and allure. Is a robot capable of imbuing a garment with emotion? Can a computer be programmed to do this? Would models ever be replaced with robots? And do people really still think that being a model is just about "robotically" following orders?

While HRP-4C has 42 motion motors programmed to mimic the movements of flesh-and-blood fashion models, she — like real models who stumble on the catwalk — is not perfect. She messed up her debut "performance" by getting some facial expressions mixed up. The inventors blamed camera shutters, but HRP-4C is getting her first important life lesson: the spotlight can be cruel.

Fashion Robot To Hit Japan Catwalk[Breitbart]

First, the much-anticipated Nan Goldin shoot. Goldin almost never shoots fashion these days — I think I saw an editorial for a German children's magazine included in the International Center of Photography's current "Weird Beauty" fashion photography exhibit, which probably comprises, along with this story, her total fashion output of the last five years — so seeing her work with such a versatile model is special.

The shoot is raw and the colors are saturated. The whole thing looks moody, like stills from some slightly bygone film.

Excuse the prominent gutters in these scans; I was selfishly trying to keep the issue intact, because it's so beautiful.

I want this Alexander Wang sweater. And the attitude to wear it. Unfortunately my prospects of developing the wherewithal to fund or develop either are slim.

Now, the Steven Klein editorial, entitled "Lara Fiction Noire," is intense. It's set in some kind of dingy concrete warehouse, and opens with a shot of Lara Stone in Dolce & Gabbana underwear, handcuffed by her ankles to a bedframe. (It might refer to an earlier shot of Jane Birkin in the same pose, apparently by Steven Meisel, provenance unknown.) The male model co-stars (Lara's victims? kidnappers? playmates?) are Travis Hanson and Doug Porter.

It gets ever more disturbing as the disguises come into play.

And then the weapons.

Not to mention the disturbing sense of observing a ménage-à-trois taking place amidst an air of violence.

The ambiguity of the locus of control here, my own uncertainty as to which person has the power, gives me a strong feeling of unease.

The above five images were all included in the magazine itself — but they do not comprise the entire story. Another three pictures were apparently spiked by French Vogue. Klein put them up on his website, with the helpful legend "UNCENSORED" in big, red type.

And the out-takes are doozies. I am almost too disturbed by this violent flesh-eaten zombie model car-crash event that Lara, in the driver's seat, is taking totally in stride, to frame my thoughts into words. But I also feel like this is the most affecting and thought-provoking editorial in the entire issue.

This is in the register of a David Lynch film, full of frightful imagery and the barest hints of a plot more horrifying than any slasher flick. What does it mean? Who has the power? Why is that man's face covered in blood?

For some reason, I find this one scarier than the one with the male model who might as well be a burn victim or someone Lara recently flayed and ate. Lara just looks so serene, so at peace with the hell around her, it's chilling. (Also, what happened to her stocking?) This is like a nightmare, come to life inside a magazine, and it's some of the most moving work I've seen from Klein in years. I'm transfixed and appalled and exhilerated and exquisitely, perfectly disturbed, all at once. Like any art form, I suppose it's not the role of fashion to make anyone comfortable. Luckily it's almost the end of the day; I need a drink after all that.

I might nurse it as I rewatch this behind-the-scenes video, which Klein also just uploaded to his site. Seeing the bloodied male model stirring slightly as Klein shoots is somehow all the more disturbing.












Earlier: French Vogue: All Lara Stone, All The Time

Related: Steven Klein [Official Site]

Lost fans are the best/geekiest. [Lost Spoilers]

While the essay covers pretty much every facet of girlhood - and does a good job of capturing a lot of adolescence's pain and rapture, Flanagan's ultimate take on Twilight's appeal is in some ways reductive:

If Edward fails—even once—in his great exercise in restraint, he will do what the boys in the old pregnancy-scare books did to their girlfriends: he will ruin her. More exactly, he will destroy her, ripping her away from the world of the living and bringing her into the realm of the undead. If a novel of today were to sound these chords so explicitly but in a nonsupernatural context, it would be seen (rightly) as a book about “abstinence,” and it would be handed out with the tracts and bumper stickers at the kind of evangelical churches that advocate the practice as a reasonable solution to the age-old problem of horny young people. ...That the author is a practicing Mormon is a fact every reviewer has mentioned, although none knows what to do with it, and certainly none can relate it to the novel...But the attitude toward female sexuality—and toward the role of marriage and childbearing—expressed in these novels is entirely consistent with the teachings of that church...The series does not deploy these themes didactically or even moralistically. Clearly Meyer was more concerned with questions of romance and supernatural beings than with instructing young readers how to lead their lives. What is interesting is how deeply fascinated young girls, some of them extremely bright and ambitious, are by the questions the book poses, and by the solutions their heroine chooses.

Flanagan is not the first critic to make the explicit link between Edward's self-imposed restraint (he is afraid, to the uninitiated, that if he loses control with Bella he'll be overcome by the temptation to drink her blood, killing her) and the loss of virtue. In several reviews, critics called this out as a transparent bit of moralizing; or a whitewashing of teen sexuality. At the risk of lowering the discourse, sometimes a vampire is just a vampire. To my mind, such simplification — and co-option — does a disservice to the story's elemental appeal. Whatever the author's own inclinations, the book's moral universe is not a didactic one (except in the good/evil way, of course.) Parents advise using birth control; in a later book, characters aren't adverse to abortion. If Meyer had wanted to impose her moral views; she could have — the book was hardly undertaken as a commercial labor. More to the point, were sex actually morally wrong in this universe, there'd be no real tension to the story. That's not to say that the lack of sex isn't a driving force —vampires by definition conflate seduction and death, hence: conflict. Rather, what some critics describe as chaste and Flanagan as essentially puritanical is a return to the basic principle of the page-turner: make them wait for it. I'm passionate about this because I went into the movie without any particular investment, and found myself so swept up in the maelstrom of teen emotion that I fainted. (Yes.) Had this been rooted in a deep-seated puritanism I don't think this would have been the case. More likely, it was the result of a drama that came from something much more fundamental, tension.

Flanagan feels Twilight succeeds because it taps into the innermost wishes of teen girls — for comfort, for love, for reassurance. While we might disagree on the particulars, I won't argue with that: what I will say is that (based on my own humiliating experience) people generally — not just young girls — are moved by simple stories, well-told, and that is not something anyone grows out of. (And it's a pet peeve when teens are treated as a separate species with unfathomable motivations.) Restraints make for good stories (see: the popularity of Jane Austen adaptations) but as society loses them, usually the fictional substitutes we come up with are too lcking in urgency to really command much interest. We've lost a lot of the tricks of good storytelling, and if vampire love is the only way to make people realize that, bring it.

What Girls Want [The Atlantic]
Twilight Is The New Breed of Chick Flick [AP]

Earlier: 7 Vampires Better Than Twilight's Edward Cullen
Twilight At Midnight: Smells Like Teen Spirit

Ratings are out of a possible five bulbs of garlic.

Bill Compton, True Blood. While he's rather morose and generally humorless, at least he has fangs and doesn't glitter in the sunlight.
Rating: Three garlic bulbs

Claudia, Interview With The Vampire.
Forget Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt: The creepiest bloodsucker in the adaptation of the Anne Rice book was Kirsten Dunst's child monster, all curly hair and demon thoughts. Remember when she brought home the twins for Lestat, and they were poisoned? Evil!
Rating: Three garlic bulbs

Eli, Let The Right One In. You want awkward tweenage love story? You want blood? This Swedish art film delivers, beautifully. Eli is the mysterious girl-next-door; Oskar's a bullied kid who could use someone in his corner. This large-eyed little vamp is simultaneously sweet and unsettlingly menacing. (Check out the trailer here.)
Rating: Four garlic bulbs

David, The Lost Boys. Keifer Sutherland makes it look so cool. He's got chicks, a posse, and a cave hangout. He may or may not make you eat worms and drink blood — but that's the price you pay for hanging with the right crowd! Look, that's Bill, from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure on the far right! See how connected these vamps are?
Rating: Five garlic bulbs

Blade. So maybe he's half vampire. But Wesley Snipes was a badass VOC (that's vampire of color) with a Buddhist outlook, sharp weapons and the advantage of being a daywalker.
Rating: Three garlic bulbs

Selene, Underworld. Since she and her vamp vicious circle were so busy hunting werewolves, they weren't much of a threat to humans, and therefore not very scary. Kick ass and gorgeous, but not scary.
Rating: Two garlic bulbs

Spike, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Many BTVS fans worshipped Angel, Buffy's brooding first love, but Spike, the devilish, quippy, smart-ass, black nail polish-wearing vamp who once said, "I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it," was actually the better character. Part Billy Idol, part Bowie, part rabid dog, Spike's cuckoo mate, Drusilla, once asked him, "Do you love my insides? The parts you can’t see?" Answered Spike: "Eyeballs to entrails, my sweet!" This is how a vampire thinks: He loves you so much he may dine on you. We never quiet get that from Edward Cullen.
Rating: Four garlic bulbs

Special mentions: Laddie from The Lost Boys, The Count, Dracula, and, of course, Blacula.
Update/Addendum:

Box Office Report: 'Twilight' Sinks Its Teeth Into A Blockbuster Debut [EW]
Why Do We Love Vampires? [iVillage]
Earlier: Twilight At Midnight: Smells Like Teen Spirit
I Was A Teenage Trend-Hater: Despising Twilight Is Big For Fall
Twilight: "Questionable Casting, Wooden Acting, Laughable Dialogue And Truly Awful Makeup"
Breaking Dawn: What To Expect When You're Expecting... A Vampire

I can well remember the burning scorn for my next door neighbor and her overnight love for NKOTB, which included a wall of posters and a comforter. I have a clear memory of sitting on my lawn reading a Natalie Babbit book (doubtless in a sunbonnet) while she and a friend did an earnest a cappella rendition of "Step by Step" over the hedge. Around the same time, a hand-clapping game swept my second-grade class. I was, on principle, scornful and refused to play it: I remember arriving at school one day to find my best friend and lone ally clapping and singing along; that day, I sat by myself on the sidelines while the other 19 members of my class played "Em-pom-pi" in a big circle. At least I had my vague principles!

Even at the time, I would have been hard-pressed to define my objection to these seemingly innocuous phenomena. The fact that everyone else liked them — nay, had lost their heads over them — was enough. In later years, sticker books and Koosh balls and 90210 obviously also aroused my superior contempt . There were moments when I yearned for the tactile pleasures of a fuzzy sticker, the clandestine thrill of the Walsh siblings' G-rated antics; but nothing could provide the satisfaction that my principled individuality did — a thrill as compelling and all-encompassing as the trends that swept my classmates along. And obviously as the teen years advanced, my commitment to outsider status only hardened.

Twilight has made people think about the mass hysteria such phenomena can provoke in girls, just as matinee idols, the Beatles, boy bands , High School Musical actors and teen pop stars have done for decades. Hormones, burgeoning sexuality, issues of identity and assimilation are usually invoked. And everyone's aware of the trope of the teen outsider, defining him-or-herself against such conformity. We've all seen The Breakfast Club, after all, and experienced the rigidity of self-imposed youthful roles. But I don't think it's often said that mass hysteria and anti-establishment posing are two sides of the same coin, and to a teen it can sometimes feel like there is not much of an alternative. It can be hard to enjoy something without joining in, hard to reject it without making a self-conscious statement. It can be hard to just kind of like something when you're defining yourself, even though the bulk of a thoughtful adult life is in fact made up of gray areas and shades of opinion.

When I was talking with my young friend, I tried to be sensitive. "Really?" I said casually. "I'm kind of interested to take a look at Twilight, just to see what all the fuss is about." I could see, with that noncommittal response, that I had failed her. I should, I guess, have been railing against conformity, not joining the ranks of apathetic adulthood. After all, she had known me to be an "independent" teenager myself, back in the day. But the truth is, when I was her age, I know I would have secretly been curious to read Twilight — who doesn't like forbidden teen love?! — and even lose myself in pure hysteria for a change. One of the blessed reliefs of being a grown-up is that it's okay to admit that.

The Vampire Of The Mall [New York Times]

Those who prefer to defer reality:

• Our own Jessica Grose: "Psychotropics in large volumes. And volunteering at Planned Parenthood."
• Feministing's and The American Prospect's Ann Friedman: "Lunesta and High Life."
• Glamocracy's Fernanda Diaz: "I'll probably sleep for at least a week. My room is full of CHANGE posters, so if I open my eyes and see them, I'll just puke. Actually, I'll probably throw up anyway, due to the morning-after effects of the abuse of foreign liquors (I'm never buying American again!), Obama-themed cupcakes, and the nauseating vision of red states on TV. My life will turn into a giant cycle of sleep, cry, binge on Obama cupcakes and Russian spirits, repeat. Scratch that: Russian alcohol will bring too many painful Palin memories. I'll just stick to Cuban rum instead."
• Gawker's Alex Pareene: "I'll work on my impressions so that i can best join in on the new national pastime of crank calling the President of the United States. Or I'll begin my campaign to have Joe Liter of Bourbon' recognized as the true symbol of real American values." When I pointed out that a liter was elitist and European, Alex amended and said "It should probably just be Joe Entire Fucking Jug of Jim Beam,'" which, really, is what one would need weekly to get through 4 years of a McCain-Palin administration.

The über-realists:

• Moe Tkacik: "The trader [I'm seeing] is betting $15K on McCain to "hedge his grief" if Obama loses."
• Wonkette's Jim Newell: "I will hang a poster of Dick Cheney in my bedroom to commemorate the last time we had a good vice president."

The pragmatists:

• Racialicious' Latoya Peterson: "I'll be telling people, 'Call your expat friends.' You know, the ones who are wondering if they need to re-up their Peace Corps enlistment or are considering going rogue on their student visas? See if they have extra space."
• Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar: "If Palin wins that will mean two things: That McCain has won, and that Obama has lost. (Or a third thing: That the voting system is very, very broken.) Either way, none of that makes ANY sense for people in a thinking nation. So I will have no choice but to go back to Canada and ostentatiously hug a moose."
• Bitch Ph.D.: "Oh dear god. If McCain/Palin win? I think I'll try to talk my boyfriend out of suicide and call my old job in Canada and see if they'll hire me back. Or no, wait, I'll cancel the offer we just made on a house and start looking into buying property in Mexico. I think my husband (who works for the military, after all—I mean, his job would be secure) can probably commute from Mexico. It's only about 4 hours."
• Firedoglake's Lisa Derrick: "If McCain and Palin somehow squeak into the White House—and even my marginal math skills say that from an electoral college count that's not gonna happen—I will be coping the way any good girl should: by redistributing the wealth. I'll be purchasing my Marc Jacobs bags and desginer swag used on eBay and giving the difference to grassroots groups to support separation of church and state, along with burning candles and praying (yes, I suffer from cognitive dissonance!) that the voice of the people, via Congress and our will, can overcome the next four years."

The sarcastics:

• Feministe's Jill Filipovic: "Cope with Palin winning? Shit, I'll be thrilled. We'll have someone with a vagina in the White House and that means it's feminism for the win. We can all pack up our pants suits, go home to our cats, and pay for our own rape kits. It'll be like a feminist Mecca without all that 'equality' business. Also with less armpit hair."
• Pushback's Kay Steiger: "I'll buckle down and prepare for a long war in Iraq, since the only pulling out Sarah Palin believes in is a form of contraception. Luckily her experience shooting moose means there'll be plenty of extra food around for all those unplanned pregnancies."
• Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte: "Well, I suppose after a proper period of mourning, I would resign myself to having my hair done in a bouffant on occasion to make parody videos mocking Palin. But I'd have to learn to do it myself, because the novelty will wear off for my hairdresser in short order. I suspect, though, there won't be much occasion to make fun of her, because she will disappear from sight after her usefulness to McCain has ended. She'll spend more time in an undisclosed location than Dick Cheney, except that location will be disclosed and called "'Wasilla.'"
• Political writer and comedian Katie Halper: "All the holier-than-thou supposedly Democratic purists who refuse to compromise their Clintonian principles by voting for Obama better be prepared to become expert abortionists and provide free abortions. Not because Palin is going to get rid of Roe v. Wade. She can't do that as VP — although she probably doesn't know that — I'm talking about Supreme Court nominees. I'm also going to be upset, honestly, because I find her dynamic with McCain utterly disgusting and Elektra complex-esque. Mostly, I'm concerned, not for myself or for women or for the country, but for Trig, who will never get any sleep. Oh yeah, I'll also be upset because obvi, the real VPILF isn't Sarah Palin— it's Joe Biden. How many white men can pull off Al Sharpton's hairdo?"

The depressives:

• The Washington Independent's Attackerman, Spencer Ackerman: "I'm writing this from a Days Inn off in Leavenworth, Kansas, the sort of town where gas costs $1.90/gallon and the economic drivers in people's lives are the Army base and the federal penitentiary. Ever stayed on the second floor of a Days Inn? They always feel as if they've been cased out by drifters or serial killers. I suppose my coping mechanism, such as it is, in the event of a Palin victory would be not to resist when someone of that ilk kicks the door in."
• Salon's intrepid temporary Pennsylvania political correspondent Rebecca Traister: "I just spent several hours trying to come up with an answer for this question, and in flirting with the honest ("crying") to the darkly inappropriate ("securing a prophylactic abortion") to the generically wise-ass ("buying up science text books") I'm forced to confront something I didn't realize: that despite my nuclear-grade panic today, my sky-high anxiety as I traveled through Pennsylvania this weekend, and my general aversion to everyone else's jinx-y overconfidence, apparently, I cannot actually seriously conceive of an Obama loss. So I guess the answer is: I won't be coping. I'll be trying to find a good therapist."

The mental health professional:

• "I won't be around to give them advice because I will have jumped off the Tappan Zee Bridge. But, ok. I guess I can look down from heaven and see if my advice was useful."

Stay away from sharp objects. Allow yourself to have a mourning period. You're probably going to be depressed for a while, so give yourself space to grieve. However, you shouldn't stay in bed all day. Try to go about your life the same way you did before the election — go to work, see friends, etc. There will probably be stages of grief, but eventually you'll be able to get on with your life.

If you're really having trouble moving past your pain and anguish, volunteer for a cause you really believe in. Even if the government doesn't reflect your beliefs, you can find and support an organization that does.

Actually, that last bit is good advice regardless. If your interest in politics ends today, then so does the momentum for change. Every one of you voted for a Congressional candidate, many of you voted for a Senator, for state and local officials and for ballot initiatives. There will be an election next year, and the year after that, and the year after that for the rest of your life. The time, effort, energy and emotion that everyone put into this race — regardless of the actual outcome — can be channeled into doing positive things for your community and your political system. And, if you don't stay active and engaged in politics and your community, in 4 years and one day, I might have to email these people back and ask if they want to all go in on a rental somewhere where abortion is legal, alcohol is cheap, anti-depressants are covered by the national health insurance system and the citizens elect politicians we all don't have nightmares about living under.

Aliens that resemble "little people who look strange to us" and possess technology that is much more "sophisticated" than ours and if they weren't so goddamn peaceful "we'd be gone by now." Which me wonder — and here's your "Jezebel angle," dykes! — are women more or less likely than men to believe this guy. Surely someone has polled them!

Okay, if you said "men" you can pat yourself on your surface area because 69% of men believe in life on other planets, to 51% of women, which reminded me I recently got an email from my uncle, an uncle who used to work at NASA, because he has a daughter who is somehow involved in this whole John Edwards love child scandal, and he thinks it is a shame that the mainstream media is not paying enough attention to it, not because it is so epically important but for the fact that he gave up on the space program a long time ago; decided it was a waste of money, that it was always going to be struggling for funding and relevance because too large a portion of its purpose was devoted to the investigation of Unknown Unknowns as they say, and people — women especially! I have the data to prove it! — don't really care much for investigating things they can't really control, which one one hand is fair enough, but on another hand, leaves us wasting time gossiping — oh my God, when in the UK I read this survey that said 80% of British women's workdays is spent somehow on gossip, which sounds doubtful to me but I can't prove it either way — about people and things we cannot control but at least know to be real, because they are incessantly being photographed, to the point that when some piece of gossip occurs like the Edwards scandal, whose credibility as I see it is primarily being undermined by the fact that we do not want it to be true, for the sake of Elizabeth or the children or whatever — we ignore it as part of an interesting new tradition I might call "Original Cynicism." We ignore it because we do not want to believe human nature to be that bad, even though we fully know it to be capable of far crueler, so we shut it out I guess and move on to the next animal picture, which is fine, sure, but puppies are not the beings with the far superior technology which could be deployed to obliterate us in a millisecond! Were their intentions malevolent. Which the aliens', apparently, are not! How interesting, right? That they are superior to us, and at the same time also possibly kinder! But Moe that is so sappy, you say, is that how you are going to end this post? But what can I say folks, if you have gotten this far into any of my posts without saying "I call bullshit" or "This makes no sense" you have made everything worthwhile for the past year and a half.

Aliens Exist, But NASA Covers Them Up, Says Astronaut [Telegraph]
Ed Mitchell Apollo 14
Edgar Mitchell [Wikipedia]
Do Americans Believe In Life On Other Planets? [Cosmic Paradigm]

While feminist blog The F Word wonders if the study is a bit simplistic, Catherine Price writes on Salon: "Many U.S. science, engineering or technology companies are complaining about an overall lack of American talent — a situation that will only get worse if the Bureau of Labor Statistics is correct in its prediction that from 2006 to 2016 jobs in these fields will grow 'five times faster than other sectors.'" Are we regressing to a time where science and technology are fields solely for men? Do we need more women like award-winning neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, whose delightful profile in the Independent is worth taking a moment to read. ("Many people like downhill skiing, or dancing, or wine, or sex, or food," says Greenfield. "Up until now, [pleasure seeking] has always been part of our lives but a polar opposite to seeking meaning. I fear we are shifting too much in favour of the literal, the hedonistic, the here and now, and losing meaning, context and content in favor of process... There's no point of living life if it's not fun.")

But part of the problem could be the image that scientists have in our collective unconscious. Researchers have found that the stereotype of mathematicians as geeks discourages students from studying math. A study by the Institute for Policy Studies in Education at the London Metropolitan University discovered:

Nearly all participants, both math-friendly students and those who steer clear of equations, think of a mathematician as a white male with white hair, who is obsessed with the number-laden subject to the exclusion of any social life. For instance, participants labeled Albert Einstein and John Nash (portrayed in the movie "A Beautiful Mind") as lacking social skills and as weird or not normal.

Focus On The Female Talent In The Backyard [Financial Times]
Sexist culture drives Women Out Of Science [Times Of London]
Sexist culture drives Women Out Of Science [The F Word]
Where Are All The Women Going? [Salon]
Susan Greenfield: The Girl With All The Brains [Independent]
Mathematicians Still Seen as Einsteins [Live Science]

[That picture is not of Sylvia Ann Hewlett or Susan Greenfield. It's a Russian post doctoral student working with DNA samples. Finding an image of a female scientist was difficult. Google image "doctor" and you get tons of images of men in white coats and a few images of female porn stars dressed as nurses to "play" doctor. Go figure.]

Earlier: French (Photo Retouchers) Don't Let Famous Women Get Fat

Earlier: I Can Has Jeetann? C'est LOLVogue En Faux Français
LOLVogue: Teh Hare Toss & Teh Bunnee Hop
LOLLost: Srsly, Guiz, Dis Izland Is Weeerd
LOLVogue: Tard Moddles & Bahlinceeyagga
Mon Dieu! C'est French LOLVogue: Shoulders, Champagne and Cigarettes
LOL'Vogue': Scarves, Silverware & Scooters
LOLVogue: Starving Models & Marionettes

These "personalized viewpoints" of beauty are what seemingly makes the world go 'round, but for people with body dysmorphic disorder, their overly personalized/distorted thoughts about their own looks often drive them to obsessive plastic surgery, eating disorders, and other bodily harm.

As pointed out in an article in the current issue of Scientific American, doctors used to think that body dysmorphic disorder (when a person becomes "pathologically preoccupied with an imagined or barely noticeable defect in his or her appearance") was caused by a combination of nature and nurture. As S.A. puts it, "Psychological factors such as low self-esteem, coupled with society's restrictive definition of physical beauty, are likely to play a role in the disorder." But more recently, psychiatrists and psychologists have found that people with BDD might have "unusually acute perceptual abilities," specifically an "overemphasis on visual details," which helps explain why they "worry so much about minuscule deviations in their features." Maybe so, but whether anyone is pathologically focused on details or robotically-concerned with making a model of "universal beauty," they're missing out on the more intangibly human aspects of attractiveness: a sexy laugh, a sparkling eye, a warm demeanor.

[Image via Mathemetician's Pictures.]

Earlier: South Park Takes A Trip To Heavy Metal

The overall slant of this writing is moderately to the left, an indication of a person who is somewhat introverted. Unless the writer knows you fairly well, you won't get close. It appears that there is little stress shown in the writing, and it's likely that even if somebody gets too close too fast, the writer will fend off and not erupt.

Letters are rounded, the sign of a methodical thinker who likes to take time and does not like to be rushed. No fast deadlines for this writer or she will tend to get scattered in her pursuits.

Writer's goals are alternately high enough to stretch for and low enough to pick off the ground. There are signs of initiative (takes action without prompting by others).

Thinking can be accelerated somewhat by the writer's intuition (indicated by spaces between letters). This writer has learned to skip over many of the logical building blocks of thought and reach, almost mysteriously, a conclusion that turns out to work. The writer has come to trust this gut thinking. Nonetheless, if this writer starts thinking too fast, a lot of confusion results (intertwined lines) that slows everything down again. Better for this writer to be the turtle than pretend to be the hare.

There are buds of an imagination, but no apparent follow through.

Good attention to small details. The writer's usual approach to things is frank and very direct.

The writer probably works well (or could) with her hands, perhaps in the mechanical realms such as carpentry, pottery, glass blowing..

Lines and letters are pressed close together and the e formations are constricted, all indications of a mind with many preconceptions that clog up the arteries to new ideas.

There are also indications of a person who usually tells the truth (as most of us may see it) and is steadfast and loyal to people and institutions she believes in.

Earlier: Heroes' Hayden Panettiere Is An American Everywoman
Cosmo Girl Rihanna: "Solitary & Self-Involved"
Decoding Cosmo Cover Girl Katie Heigl: "She Refuses To Waste Time With Convoluted Crap"
Cosmo Girl Hilary Duff: Intuitive, Practical And Younger Than She Looks
Cosmo Girl Beyonce Knowles: Detail-Oriented, Thoughtful, Possibly Power-Hungry
'Cosmo' Cover Girl Ali Larter: Self-Involved, Stubborn, Easily Distracted

Related: Sheila Kurtz [Graphology Consulting]