Since this whole situation seems to rest on assumptions and flimsy premises, let's try to jump along with the timeline of events.

Leap One: The Correct Course of Action is to Blame a Politician's Wife For His Actions In the Senate

Firedoglake has an action item up asking readers to petition the Susan G. Korman For the Cure Foundation, and associated celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, to ask Hadassah Lieberman to step down from her paid position as a Global Ambassador. Conservative sites are crying foul, pointing out that she is nothing more than the wife of Lieberman. Her job should not be at risk because of his actions. And most rational people are inclined to agree.

While it is true that political spouses can and do influence matters of policy, a direct action by Joe Lieberman should lead to a direct action against Joe Lieberman. If Hadassah Lieberman was up on Capitol Hill last week railing against health care reform, I could understand - but at this point, her beliefs and actions as they relate to Lieberman's vote withdrawal are not known. So this is bad form.

However, this brings us to issue number two.

Leap Two: Who Made This About Pulling Women Out of the Workforce?

Kathleen Parker's article starts out with a debunking of the connections between Hadassah Lieberman and big healthcare, and points out that her position with Komen is unpaid. However, the logic train quickly derails (emphasis mine):

Whether one agrees with Sen. Lieberman's opposition to certain elements of the Senate health-care bill is a matter of legitimate debate. Democrats are understandably furious with the Senator Formerly Known as a Democrat, now an independent and sometimes a Republican sympathizer. Thanks largely to Lieberman, progressives have had to watch as their single-payer dream became a public option and, now, something closer to a nightmare.

But again, what has any of this to do with his wife's work for a nonprofit organization that has raised breast cancer awareness and saved countless lives around the world? There is no conflict of interest unless you think that a wife should stay home and be her husband's silent partner.

Huh?

In that light, the attack on Hadassah Lieberman has been fantastically anti-feminist. In what American century is a wife's job in jeopardy because of her husband's politics?

Hamsher's call to action against Lieberman was not based in some reactionary idea that women should stay in the home. Her action was because she believed Hadassah Lieberman played some kind of a role in Joe Lieberman's vote, which would constitute a conflict of interest given her position. These are tenuous connections, but easily traceable. But Parker isn't finished just yet.

Leap Three: Blame One Person's Actions on All of New Media

Parker, after halfway making her last point launches into the real reason for her two page crusade:

Ultimately, this may prove much ado about nada. But there is a larger issue embedded herein concerning the damaging effects of viral warfare on individual reputations, not to mention democracy.

Hadassah Lieberman is but the most recent victim of new media that owe no allegiance to facts or to the goal of an informed citizenry. In such an environment, anyone's reputation is subject to the whim of any other person armed with an agenda and a random selection of disputable facts, and unencumbered by standards.

Firedoglake is one blog. And influential blog, but one blog out of millions. And to slander all of new media as a group of individuals who don't believe in facts discounts why much of new media got popular in the first place. Some blogs and organizations play hard and loose with factual information. So do outlets like Fox News. So do mainstream media outlets, who often have to print retractions and corrections, and often propagate rumors or fail to report on important information.

Bonus WTF: Are All Confrontations Between Women Catfights?

Note to the Reliable Source: Two professional women beefing does not equal a cat fight. Two women should be allowed to disagree with each other publicly and not have that dismissive and gendered term apply.

When Bloggers Attack: Jane Hamsher Has Some Choice Words For Hadassah Leiberman [Reliable Source]
The Anti-Feminist Attack On Hadassah Lieberman [Washington Post]
Tell Susan G. Komen For The Cure To Remove Hadassah Lieberman [FDL Action]

Witness – just for example – Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, who have recently come under fire for their use of the R-word. Here, according to Media Matters, are a few of the people or things they have recently compared to rapists: healthcare reform; the government of the state of New York; the Democratic party; the media; Nancy Pelosi; President Obama (frequently); and "the homosexual mafia".

Here is a partial list of the people or things these entities are said to be raping: America; American values; the American war in Iraq; the American private sector; Americans in general; the American residents of New York state specifically; and "children's minds". One assumes they are American children. Also, yes, since you asked, the "children's minds" are in fact what is being targeted for rape by the "homosexual mafia", at least according to Michael Savage, because there's really no point, apparently, in defending the age-old stereotype of gay men as child molesters – that might get you in trouble, seeing as how it is blatantly hateful and untrue, when you can just slip it in subliminally with a quick metaphor. (This isn't exactly new ground for Savage: in 2004 he quipped: "When you hear 'human rights,' think gays. When you hear 'human rights,' think only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son.")

Charming. Doyle explains that while Savage, Beck, and Limbaugh generally are not motivated to discuss the prevalence of violence against women, overuse of the rape metaphor ensures that their target audience continues to feed on fear and feel constantly under attack. However, Doyle warns against writing off the commentator's understanding of the seriousness of using rape to describe events outside of a sexually violent context:

It's customary to say that people who misuse "rape" as a metaphor for general unpleasantness don't take rape seriously. But I think Limbaugh, Beck, and Savage take it very seriously. They may not have educated themselves on how rape actually happens; they may not engage in anti-rape activism, and they may not make a point of raising audience members' awareness of actual rapes in the world; they may have less than no time to spare for discussing actual sexual assaults, in their catalogue of imaginary figurative rapes. Still, they trade on the public's terror of rape, and apparently respect the word's power to shock and horrify, if nothing else. Which is why these three leaders of men are working, as hard as possible, to create a mental link between that kind of gut-level fear and any or all progressive initiatives and figures.

In essence - they are very, very aware about how their words can be used to incite fear and revulsion by using a rape metaphor.

Thankfully, these pundits are starting to come under fire for their overuse of the term. Media Matters' video compilation from late last month was damningly to the point, illustrating how rape metaphors are trotted out for their verbal impact. Note all the carefully considered pauses and word stresses:

And, as Doyle points out, they've figured out a loophole:

It only becomes ineffective, really, if you use the word "rape" so often that it loses all meaning or power to shock. Which should be easy for Limbaugh, Beck, and Savage to avoid, given that they rarely speak with as much fervour about actual rapes that happen every day.

Trading On Our Fear Of Rape [The Guardian]

Earlier: Figure Of Speech
Why Do Republicans' Fantasies Involve Sex They Supposedly Abhor?

Todd and Munley appeared together on Oprah yesterday and on the Today show this morning (clip above), and both made clear that Sgt. Todd was the one who disarmed shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan after Sgt. Munley was injured. An eyewitness who spoke with the New York Times concurred with their account. The Times's James McKinley Jr. explains,

The witness, who asked not to be identified, said Major Hasan wheeled on Sergeant Munley as she rounded the corner of a building and shot her, putting her on the ground. Then Major Hasan turned his back on her and started putting another magazine into his semiautomatic pistol.

It was at that moment that Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, a veteran police officer, rounded another corner of the building, found Major Hasan fumbling with his weapon and shot him.

But initial reports said that Munley's shots had stopped Hasan, and some news outlets were continuing to report this version of the story as recently as yesterday. Ewan McAskill of the Guardian wrote,

Although there is still some confusion about which shots brought down the alleged gunman, officials have attributed the bullets that brought him down to Munley.

The commander of the base, Lieutenant-General Bob Cone, said of Munley: "It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer."

Note the singular "officer." Cone also told CNN that Munley was the one who stopped Hasan, and that "the critical factor here was her quick response to the situation." Initially, the military appeared to be holding up Munley as the sole hero of Ft. Hood, a story which gained enough media credence that Gawker used it to argue that more women should be in combat positions (they've since published an update).

If the military actually knows whose gun brought Hasan down, they aren't talking — Lt. Col. John Rossi said at a press conference, "These questions are specific to the investigation and I am not going to address that." And when asked whether Sgt. Todd was the one who stopped Hasan, Lt. Col. Lee Packnett said, "It could have been, but the final outcome will be determined by the results of the ballistics tests." So if military sources are so reticent now, why were they so quick to hold up Munley as a heroine.

One possibility is that the initial version of the story is, as Gawker's Ravi Somaiya puts it, an "Oprah-friendly narrative." Munley is the mother of a young daughter who once stopped an intruder in her home, and this "petite police officer" may have seemed to both military and media like a compelling hero. Curry too harps on Munley's small size, saying, "you're 5'2", 125 pounds, why didn't you call for backup?" It's possible that officers and reporters reeling from the violence at Ft. Hood simply settled on the cliche of the feisty little woman who saved the day. A more upsetting possibility is that Munley was given more credit and media attention because she is white and Todd is black. I would hope this isn't the case — Munley described the scene as "confusing and chaotic," and it's certainly possible that Cone and others were simply mixed up as to who did what. But because of this mix-up, as Somaiya points out, conspiracy theories are bound to fly.

At Fort Hood, Witness Credits Second Officer [NYT]
Heroine Officer Tells Of Fort Hood Shooting [Guardian]
Full Interview With Ft. Hood Witnesses [Today]
The Heroes Of Fort Hood [Oprah.com]

The confessional-style documentary, which premiered on HBO last night (schedule of upcoming screenings can be found here) follows McCabe (who narrates the film) n her quest to uncover why so many people will subject themselves to injections, surgeries, and peels to regain the appearance of youth. It is a siren song that McCabe is well aware of: At the age of 38, she reveals she has been scrutinizing her body ever since she came across her father's slides from his plastic surgery practice.

Refreshingly free of moralizing, McCabe establishes early on that she, too, struggles with the idea of aging. Setting a precedent for the rest of the film, she begins by analyzing how much money she dedicates to the pursuit of youth:

I found it amazing to watch her dollar costs unfold. McCabe, a smart woman who acknowledges up front that she is not making a wise decision, still cops to being close to $70,000 in debt, makes about $30,000 a year as a temp, yet finds $200 every six weeks to keep her gray hairs at bay.

As the viewer is reeling from the cost, McCabe says, "I may drop my health care coverage, but I'd never stop covering my gray. It may be insane, but it's the truth."

And...it is. Covering gray isn't something I am currently dealing with (and I think a silver afro would be kind of fierce), but I could completely relate to making bad financial decisions in the pursuit of beauty or fashion. How much money have I given to Zappos that could really be earning interest in my Roth IRA? Yet and still, I find myself trading long term financial security for a series of short term beauty boosts.

Looking specifically at the dollars and cents of it all, I am reminded of a series called the Cost of Beauty. PHDork examines the price women pay in pursuit of prettiness, noting:

[W]e can fairly surmise that the majority of harpies–70%–spend between $101 and $1000 per annum on beauty costs. Those numbers fit with both the mean and the median.

As to what sucks up all of those HarpyBuxx (they're not just good for abortions anymore!): our lovely, lovely tresses: 43% of expenditures go towards hair cuts, coloring, or other services. Make-up takes up another 29%. The rest:

Hair removal: 8%
Nails: 7%
Other products: 7%
Spa: 4%
Appliances: 2% [...]

A number of you expressed surprise at your spending, comparing it to X months of rent or groceries. It does add up: what else you might spend $613, or even nearly $800 a year on?

What else indeed? Most of us will never know. We're too hooked on beauty pimps and their products.

One person, who comes to illustrate how far people will go in their quest to find the surgical fountain of youth is Sherry Mecom from Texas.

(Is it just me, or does Sherry sound a lot like Ruby from the Style network?)

Sherry seems determined to use money to correct the past. She was once overweight until she had gastric bypass; she continually works on her body; and she is obsessed with the waterfalls and LG dishwashers she procures for her home. She alludes to a poor upbringing and being unhappy, but it feels like she is unsatisfied. Instead, she plans the next big purchase in her quest for a total life upgrade.

In the course of her travels, McCabe meets another daughter of a plastic surgeon - Erica Rose. However, the things that Erica has internalized about self-improvement differ dramatically from Mitch's low key messages from her father:

The quest for perfection is punishing, and not just for women. Youth Knows No Pain also reaches out to men in pursuit of camouflaging their ages. Men have their own hang ups, that just manifest differently and at an older age. The focus is more on hair transplants, face lifts, and lipo, less about botox and wrinkle creams. In an interview with New York Magazine, McCabe discusses some of the more obvious gender differences:

The women in the film were self-critical, and it was the men who were judgmental of others. What other gender differences did you notice?

We asked women why they were scared of aging, and everyone said, "Being alone. Being alone." You never heard that from men. Society is changing so much, and it's becoming more competitive and we have to stay in the workplace longer. Aging is affecting men in different ways, especially if they're in sales or something. When it comes to aging, men are concerned about being destitute, or in a nursing home. And being alone, but more in the sense of not having someone to take care of them.

However, it is interesting to note that the men seem more invested in critiquing the looks of others. While the women show a lot of competitiveness over beauty and aging (there's a great scene where McCabe asks the doctor if she has less wrinkles than one of his other, slightly obnoxious clients (cough, Mary Rambin, cough), and then cheers when he agrees), the men see no problem with informing women exactly what is wrong with them. Gary Baldassarre, one of the patients profiled, is documenting his own journey to regain his hair through a really graphic hair transplant operation. Yet, he sees no issue armchair analyzing women on television:

Another man, Norman Deesing, is an interview subject because he paid more than $50,000 to essentially look like Jack Nicholson. However, he has no qualms about turning to McCabe at some point during filming and pointing out to her that she's "let herself go [...] from the neck up." Admirably, McCabe brushes off the comment.

After the first hour of the documentary, the focus shifts a little from exploring what is happening to exploring why we seek these remedies. Who wants to go to a Botox party, being injected by a dentist who carries around the toxin in a cooler? Why do we pay so much money to distort our faces? Part of the answer lies in our need to conform to what society says is appropriate:

While most of our issues may stem from low self-esteem, "internet celebrity" Julia Allison's offhanded comment about "having an expiration date" struck hard. While she doesn't seem inclined at all to fight this idea of disposable women, it accurately summarizes the feelings of a lot of women in the documentary. They want to stay young in order to be relevant, to be seen as beautiful, to have access to society. It is this fear of obsolescence that drives the industry, which goes hand in hand with a fear of mortality. Some women, like How Not To Look Old author Charla Krupp, have acknowledged their enemy and have committed to fight literally to the death:

I laughed when I heard Dolly Parton unabashedly admit she was going to "get nipped and tucked until [she] is in a pine box," but for some reason, every time I watch this clip of Krupp, chills run up my spine. Are we really moving toward an era when it will be unacceptable to show any signs of aging?

And what happens when the potions and creams and procedures stop working?

Near the end of the documentary, McCabe sits down with Sherry. It has been three years since they first met, and Sherry went through a rough year. Sherry often uses plastic surgery as a mood boost, and after a bout with depression is actively planning her next procedures. McCabe switches between the first and third meeting to provide some insight into Sherry's development, while Sherry openly discloses her fears about not having the money to keep up the fight against time:

Youth Knows No Pain was engrossing, depressing, and thought-provoking, made even more poignant by the candid self-examination of its creator. After chronicling her memories of her father and her longtime fascination with mortality, she ends the film with an astonishing admission: after all that she's seen during filming the documentary, McCabe decided to take the plunge and start on injectables like Botox herself.

"What about spirituality? Inner peace?...Well, that didn't work." After struggling to make sense of why women subject themselves to beauty treatments instead of aging gracefully, she succumbs to the promises of younger looking skin and a small chance at cheating time.

McCabe's documentary ends with her undergoing different bizarre treatments. Watching her take a needle through the mouth in order to puff up some flesh in her cheek, I kept coming back to her opening admission: It may be insane, but it's the truth.

Youth Knows No Pain [HBO]
Youth Knows No Pain - Full Schedule [HBO]
The Cost Of Beauty, Part 1: The Research [The Pursuit of Harpyness]
The Cost Of Beauty, Part 2: The Numbers [The Pursuit of Harpyness]
The Cost of Beauty, Part 3: The Alternatives [The Pursuit of Harpyness]
Youth Knows No Pain Examines Anti-Aging Industry [New York]

Earlier: NonSociety Nincompoop Mary Rambin: Abortion Is Just Like Botox
How Not To Look Old Author Doesn't Look Old, But She Does Look Stupid

Angyal neatly sidesteps the ever popular "catfighting women!" angle and instead shifts the focus on why so many conversations about prominent women in the public eye revolve around their physical appearance. She writes:

It's notable that in both of these cases, women were attacking their own. In an age where "bitchy" women make for big news and big box office, it would be easy to imagine that women are to blame for their own double-bind. But the truth is, America has a widespread cultural discomfort with women in positions of power. Sexist remarks about Clinton's appearance and demeanor, made by Chris Matthews and other pundits, were infuriatingly frequent during last year's primaries.

Indeed they were. As you may remember, the Women's Media Center put together a video for their campaign Sexism Sells, But We Aren't Buying It, released during the height of the election season:

Sadly, this can't just be blamed on the crush of the election cycle - the gendered attacks on women working in and around politics have continued to this very day.

I fully cosign with Angyal when she concludes:

The time has come for America to decide: are we going to be a nation in which any person, regardless of their appearance, can contribute their valuable ideas to our public debate? Or are we going to continue to waste time, and women's talent, chatting about lipstick, hairstyles, shorts and pantsuits?

The Female Journalists Who Weigh Down Political Discussion [Splice Today]

Related: Sexism Sells —- But We're Not Buying It [WMC]

The list reinforces some familiar tropes: Men are the innovators and trailblazers of industry. Women, well, we're generally entertainers or being lauded for our social skills.

I must admit, I am perplexed at a lot of this list. Glenn Beck made the list alone, Angelina Jolie had to share the spotlight with Brad Pitt. There were more women of color on the list than I expected (normally, we only see Oprah) but the Obama Administration is directly responsible for the two new entrants. And while many of the listmakers are grouped together by what they have in common, it seems that women are disproportionately tied to men.

Here are the women on the list:

At number eight, Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie. She is technically the first woman to appear, but she and Brad's accomplishments are bundled together, Bill and Melinda Gates style.

At number fifteen, we have David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse. Again, in a bundle with the other politicos.

The first woman to get her own entry was Desirée Rogers.

28. Desirée Rogers
White House social secretary

NEW ENTRY.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Bringing glamour and energy to her role as White House social secretary, the Harvard M.B.A. sees herself as keeper of "the best brand on earth: the Obama brand." She has infused what she calls "the people's house" with a younger, hipper, and artsier spirit through a flurry of events such as its first-ever "poetry jam." She made room for a dance floor in the State Dining Room so the nation's governors-and the president-could join a conga line as Earth, Wind & Fire performed.

FASHION SENSE: Elegantly attired in Chloé, Jil Sander, or Thakoon, Rogers, 50, was profiled by Vogue-and sat next to its editor, Anna Wintour, at New York's runway shows.

FITNESS REGIME: Jumping rope, yoga.

WOMAN-OF-THE-PEOPLE MOVE: Using the Internet to distribute more than 30,000 tickets to the White House Easter Egg Roll instead of forcing the masses to wait on line outside for hours.

ROOTS: The New Orleans native is a descendant of a Creole voodoo priestess-and she has been queen of the Zulu Mardi Gras krewe.

(Side note to Vanity Fair: Don't encourage the birthers!)

Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg clock in at number 36.

The next woman to get her own billing is the ever-formidable O.

38. Oprah Winfrey
Harpo

LAST YEAR: 43.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Oprah is still the single most popular, and powerful, TV host in the world, able to steer millions toward whatever book, diet, or self-help philosophy she embraces. Her highest-profile endorsement to date: fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama. Its partial payoff: she scored lots of camera time during his Election Night victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park. And while there is continual chatter that her appeal may be dimming, no challenger has come close to catching her.

COOL NEW PAL: Former Viacom C.E.O. Tom Freston, whom Oprah, 55, describes as her "business soul mate" and who has been helping her staff the new Oprah Winfrey Network, with hires like Christina Norman, the former president of MTV (and former Freston employee).

LATEST BIG GET: The Queen of all Media will open her 24th season with pop diva Whitney Houston, in what is being billed as "the most anticipated music interview of the decade." The singer, who's had a tumultuous several years, hasn't given an interview since 2002.

LATEST ENTHUSIASM: Oprah gave trendy Web service Twitter a boost in April by signing up and introducing her audience to its co-founder Evan Williams. (She had a million followers in 28 days.)

THORN IN HER SIDE: In August, Oprah and her medical guru, Dr. Mehmet Oz, filed suit against more than three dozen companies to stop them from using the two's images to sell dietary supplements online.
YEAR AHEAD: ↗

And the rest of the women are as follows.

40. Meryl Streep
Actor

NEW ENTRY.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Everyone adores the regal Streep, who at age 60 is undeniably Hollywood's most skillful actress (her performance as a tough nun in Doubt earned her a record-breaking 15th Oscar nomination and 23rd Golden Globe nod) as well as one of its top-drawing female stars, as witnessed by The Devil Wears Prada ($325 million worldwide gross) and Mamma Mia ($600 million). The Wall Street Journal described her buoyant turn as Julia Child in this summer's Julie & Julia as "a grand comic performance" from "a fearless actress," and The New York Times wrote: "By now this actress has exhausted every superlative that exists, and to suggest that she has outdone herself is only to say that she has done it again." Critics and audiences alike felt Streep's culinary giant upstaged Amy Adams as the present-day blogger Julie Powell.

FAMILY RELATIONS: She took a year off after the birth of each of her four children, who are now aged 18 to 29.

LEGEND HAS IT: She was a mousy teen before she dyed her hair blonde, switched to contact lenses-and was named homecoming queen of her New Jersey high school.

YEAR AHEAD: ↑

44. Miuccia Prada
Prada

LAST YEAR: 30.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: After opening 34 new stores in 2008, the famed designer and her C.E.O., husband Patrizio Bertelli, negotiated an extension on payment of some $650 million in debt, a move which will aid her burgeoning fashion empire's ongoing expansion. (She now has 238 stores worldwide.) Last September, the awful economy forced the company to call off its long-in-the-work plans for an initial public offering of stock. But Prada reportedly turned down investors who were interested in taking minority stakes, and is still looking to go public eventually.

BOLD MOVE: Despite the pressures of the economic recession, Prada, 60, has remained committed to her patronage of the arts beyond her work in fashion. April marked the debut in Seoul of her new exhibition pavilion, "Transformer," a 180-ton, 66-foot-tall structure of steel supports and translucent polyvinyl skin, designed by starchitect Rem Koolhaas.

69. Maria Bartiromo and Erin Burnett
CNBC

NEW ENTRY.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Bartiromo, 42, is still the queen bee over at CNBC, but Burnett, 33, is coming on strong. The women are the only two CNBC personalities who anchor solo hours while the stock market is open. A new, five-year deal Bartiromo inked with her bosses at the end of 2008 means the original Money Honey isn't ready to relinquish her crown yet, so Burnett had better steel herself for a long fight. (Burnett signed a three-year deal in mid-2008.)

BRAGGING RIGHTS: Bartiromo scored the first post-firing interview with John Thain of Merrill Lynch. Burnett was invited inside Herb Allen's Sun Valley mogul retreat this year-which is notorious for forcing reporters to remain at arm's length.

MEASURING STICK: The currency of the television interviewer is the "get." Bartiromo is on a roll: then Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. But so is Burnett: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs's Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley's John Mack, and Bank of America's Ken Lewis.

WORLD-DOMINATION WATCH: In the never-ending battle for primacy among CNBC talking heads, Bartiromo was ahead in one noticeable regard for months: it was her face staring down from a giant billboard on the southbound side of Manhattan's West Side Highway. "I was flattered and honored by it," she says. "But it was a little Big Brother, considering how huge it is."

FOOT IN MOUTH: In November 2007, on MSNBC's Morning Joe program, Burnett, while looking at footage of then president George W. Bush flanked by two other world leaders, called him "the monkey in the middle."

YEAR AHEAD: ↗

82. Stephenie Meyer
Author

NEW ENTRY.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The Mormon housewife's Twilight teen-vampire romance novels sold nearly 29 million copies in one year, capturing the top four positions on the USA Today best-seller list for 2008, making her the first author ever to do so. (J. K. Rowling came close with Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 5 with her Harry Potter titles in 2000.) The movie version of Twilight grossed $191 million in the U.S., and the film adaptation of her second book, New Moon, opens in November. Meyer has also inspired hundreds of Web sites from fans who call themselves "Stephen-ites" or "Twi-hards."

MARITAL RELATIONS: Her husband, Christian, quit his job as an auditor to look after their three sons.

DAILY HABITS: Drives fast but doesn't consume alcohol or caffeine.

LEGEND HAS IT: Meyer, 35, began writing as a 29-year-old Phoenix housewife in 2003 after dreaming of vampires one night. She wrote 10 pages the next morning before driving her sons to swimming lessons. She moved a desk into the living room and finished her 130,000-word first novel in only three months.

THORN IN HER SIDE: Stephen King, who said that "Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn."

NEW THORN IN HER SIDE: Jordan Scott, who has alleged in a lawsuit filed in August that Meyer stole ideas from her 2006 vampire novel The Nocturne, and used them in Breaking Dawn, which Meyer published in 2008. Meyer's publisher has said that the claims are meritless.

YEAR AHEAD: ↑

86. Meredith Whitney
Meredith Whitney Advisory Group

NEW ENTRY.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Financial analyst Whitney's star continues to rise 17 months after her "sell" rating on Citigroup sent the market into a tailspin and helped cost Citigroup C.E.O. Chuck Prince his job. After more than 15 years of working for other people, she set up her own shop in February, the Meredith Whitney Advisory Group.

FITNESS ROUTINE: For several years, Whitney, 39, and her girlfriends have attended a fitness retreat in Mexico called
Bikini Boot Camp.

MOGUL RELATIONS: Despite the fact that Merrill Lynch and Wachovia were two of her biggest short positions in 2008, ex-C.E.O.'s John Thain and Bob Steel still came to a party she had in June to celebrate the opening of her new office.

THORN IN HER SIDE: The Wall Street Journal's David Weidner, who wrote in April 2009 that Whitney's reputation as a Wall Street oracle is overblown and undeserved.

MORTAL ENEMY: Whitney's 2007 "sell" rating on Citigroup put an end to Chuck Prince's career just four days later. She
says she has yet to run into him in a dark alley but keeps an eye over her shoulder just in case.

BRAGGING RIGHTS: In July, Whitney made a midday call to buy shares in Goldman Sachs, turning a down day into a feverish rally.

QUOTE: "The funny thing is, in your twenties you try and look serious, and after your twenties, you just try and look hot. I'm not an old white dude, so I stick out."

YEAR AHEAD: ↗

88. Arianna Huffington
The Huffington Post

LAST YEAR: 90.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Her eponymous Web site, which recently linked up with Facebook and launched sections devoted to sports, books, and technology, hit its stride during the 2008 election, when its mix of lefty bloggers and news stories culled from other publications resonated with an ever increasing audience. After Barack Obama's victory, it raised another $25 million from investors, then swapped out C.E.O. Betsy Morgan for venture capitalist Eric Hippeau.

SILENT PARTNER: Huffington gets the headlines, but Huffpo co-founder Ken Lerer, a P.R. hotshot who also put in time at AOL, has at least as much influence on the site's strategy.

LABOR RELATIONS: Huffpo pays nothing to the bloggers and publications it "aggregates." Huffington, 59, says her contributors should be pleased to get the exposure, and that other sites she points readers to should be happy to get the traffic. Very often, she's right.

QUOTE: "I did not single-handedly kill newspapers. I had a lot of help from Craigslist."

YEAR AHEAD: ↗

100. Lauren Zalaznick
NBC Universal

NEW ENTRY.

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: One of TV's most influential curators, Zalaznick runs NBC Universal's Bravo and Oxygen cable channels and fills both with highbrow takes on lowbrow reality shows: Top Chef, NYC Prep, Real Housewives. One show you can't see on her networks: Project Runway, which started out on Bravo but has been moved, against the network's will, to Lifetime.

PREVIOUS LIFE: The Brown semiotics major spent years in the indie-film world, producing serious fare such as Swoon and Kids.

CRIB: Manhattan's East Village.

PREVIOUS CONTRIBUTION TO MASS CULTURE: As an executive at VH1, Zalaznick, 46, championed Pop-Up Video, which helped pioneer a meta-commentary perspective that today's media consumers take for granted.

SIGN OF OBSESSIVE BEHAVIOR: Once had her family pose for a photo every day of the year.

YEAR AHEAD: ↑

In addition to the main feature, there were also two side articles. The first showcases hall of fame inductees, who are lauded for leaving an "indelible mark on the world of business". Women on that list include: Annette De La Renta (listed with Oscar); Diane Sawyer (listed with Mike Nichols); Melinda Gates (listed with Bill); and Barbara Walters.

Only one woman made the Pit Stop: Donatella Versace.

After reviewing the three lists, I am reminded of why I like to seek out niche publications like Black Enterprise and Pink to see what African-American and women entrepreneurs are doing. Whenever I read a list like this, or the Forbes Most Influential list, an island in their sea of financial power coverage, it stands to reinforce the view of the dominant power structures in society. Women and minorities still do not have a fraction of the power and influence that the men on these lists have attained. And, despite all of our advances over the last forty years, it is exactly as I said in the beginning of the piece: the New Establishment is still taking notes from the Old Establishment.

The 2009 Vanity Fair 100 [Vanity Fair]
The Hall Of Fame [Vanity Fair]
The Pit Stop [Vanity Fair]

Earlier: Why Does Forbes Measure Women's Influence, Not Wealth?

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the oversight of Stephanie Meyer and Meryl Streep at the original publication time.

Writes Marcus Jokela, the study's author,

Having your study publicized by the media is nice. Having your study misrepresented and misinterpreted in the process is not. The media coverage of my paper on physical attractiveness and having children had a bad start and even worse follow-up. The origin of the problem: Times Online news article sexing up the finding a bit too much (I wasn't interviewed for this article at all and heard about it only after it had been published). Then things got worse with other journalists copying & slightly modifying the Times Online piece...The main point of the study was to see whether attractiveness predicts fertility in a contemporary American population, not whether people are becoming more or less attractive over time.

And, he says, any larger evolutionary truths people derived from this were mere extrapolations. What's more, certain details were glossed over: that it was actually the second-most attractive women who scored highest, and that the study wasn't limited to women - attractive guys also had more kids, according to the finding. God, these scientists! So factual! Overall, Jokela's response is a pretty handy takedown of the media's handling of the findings scientists approach so precisely, and of the absurdity of that snowball. This should serve as a good reminder to all of us - yes, us too! - to take the time to read the source material and pay these researchers the compliment, at least, of reporting what they say accurately - even if it's not as fun. (Writes Jokela: "And please, do not refer to me as the "Ann Coulter-loving scientist", I hadn't even heard about the lady before the headline." Okay.)

‘Women Are Getting More Beautiful' - Getting The Story Right [Markus Jokela]
Put Away Your Sneakers, Ladies. "Beauty Race" Is A Myth [Salon]
"‘Women Are Getting More Beautiful' – Getting The Story Right" [Feminist Law Professors]

Related: Ann Coulter-Loving Scientist Says Women Are Getting Hotter

First, of course, there's the wedding! Romance, wedding magazines, dress-shopping - why, look! The Wall Street Journal has a June-ready story on it! Oh. "Pre-Altared: More Used Wedding Gowns Go Back on Market." Apparently "the combined forces of the Web and the recession" are compelling a lot of women to sell their old dresses online. Obviously an expedient choice for the unsentimental or the space or cash-strapped, the success of the frankly-named PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com shows that in the new era of Modern Love, you can get your old/new/borrowed (and probably, blue) with minimal muss and fuss. And any sacrifice in sentiment is more than matched by the all-American pragmatism of the exchange.

Ms. Bulow found a dress online, tried on the $1,200 style at a bridal shop, then bought the dress for $450 from a young woman in Alabama whose wedding had been called off. "It's the way the free-market system should work," Ms. Bulow says. "She had something I wanted."

But not everyone's pinching pennies! Some people seem to still be splashing out on Fairy-Tale weddings that are all about love and romance! Oh, wait. "Forget saucepans, the modern bride is sparking controversy by demanding flashy gadgets and plasma TVs," says the Independent's "Wedding lists - self-indulgent or sensible?" It seems insolent newlyweds have no qualms about letting their loved ones upgrade them to the latest Gizmodo has to offer. Forget necessities; in the age of cohabitation and grown-up marriage, people have already got those. But you can get them nicer ones! "It seems the norm today for newlyweds to saunter from the altar into a home fully furnished with mod cons and designer furniture - all charitably paid for by their guests."

But now that you're married - either pragmatically or acquisitively - wedded bliss! Oh, wait. Here's the NY Times on "When Sex Leaves the Marriage."

It's estimated that about 15 percent of married couples have not had sex with their spouse in the last six months to one year, according to Denise A. Donnelly, associate professor of sociology at Georgia State University, who has studied sexless marriage.

Okay, that's worst-case scenario - Donnelly says that on average, couples make whooppee about 58 times per annum - but once the sex is gone? It's all downhill. Reanimating a stagnant sex life is "very hard" due to the many issues of communication, confidence, hurt and trust involved and, while it can be resuscitated, "people in sexless marriages were more likely to have considered divorce than those in sexually active marriages."

Well, those people are in luck, because as the Times of London story "With this website I thee divorce" tells us, online divorce sites are proliferating! Offering legal advice and resources, discussion forums, expert guidance and support, these sites may be teh wave of the future, cutting through some of the messiness of the inevitably painful process.

While online chats about divorce and marriage troubles are multiplying on sites such as mumsnet and iVillage, (as well as ) specialist sites ... appear to be proof that divorcing couples are increasingly seeking friendship and advice anonymously and online through chat rooms and the blogosphere.

And we know from web support in these parts! Or, as one site-user says, "The doctor has given me support but the web community has given me great emotional support, too. You either laugh or cry - but just to talk to someone who has also been married to an alcoholic and gone in search of bottles in the toilet is a big relief."

We'll be in the corner, weeping into our pile of invitations. And, no joke, "Pachelbel Canon" is actually playing on my LastFM "Antonio Vivaldi" radio. Also: who knew that "weeping bride" was a popular position in certain girl-on-girl porn genres? I wish I didn't!

Pre-Altared: More Used Wedding Gowns Go Back On Market [Wall Street Journal]
Wedding Lists - Self-Indulgent Or Sensible?[Independent]

When Sex Leaves The Marriage [NY Times]
With This Website I Thee Divorce [TimesUK]

We've written about this before, but Raina Kelly's piece in Newsweek this weekend sealed it: we are in a narcissism epidemic article epidemic. Spurred partly by several new books on the subject, and partly by whatever cultural forces conspire to name the human-failing-of-the-month, journalists all over the country are obsessed with narcissism. Despite the fact that scientists disagree about whether narcissism is on the rise, the disorder is the new ADD, or, as Sadie says, the new sex addiction. It's the latest way for writers to wrap all the ills of our society into a neat little package, give it a psychological name, and then diagnose everybody with it.

Most narcissism-epidemic articles have a few features in common. They identify the causes — usually permissive parents, grade inflation, and participation trophies. Because apparently we'd like to go back to the days when all 100 kids in the fifth grade had to try out for choir, and then only three didn't get in, and those three kids not only had to sit out while everyone else sang "Dona Nobis Pacem," but also got little "does not participate" marks on their report cards . . . what? No, that never happened to me. Anyway, the next step is to talk about the symptoms of narcissism. These are quite wide-ranging, from simply being confident (student Sharise Tucker tells Newsweek, "at the end of the day I love me and I don't think that's wrong") to "failed marriages, abusive working environments and billion-dollar Ponzi schemes." Apparently it's a slippery slope — one day you just feel kinda good about yourself, the next you're Bernie Madoff. Usually, these articles end up with a prescription for curing narcissism — usually by reminding the narcissist that he or she is actually not special.

We're willing to believe that for some people (the APA estimates 1% of the population), narcissism is a real problem. What we're not willing to swallow is the idea that our culture is caught up in some sort of narcissism maelstrom, with excessive self-regard causing all the ills of our society, from self-absorbed teens to the economic crisis.

First of all, a little self-absorption is pretty much a hallmark of adolescence. It's certainly possible to spoil your kid, but do we really want to return to a time (if such a time even existed) when kids felt they weren't special, that they couldn't do whatever they set their minds to, that they wouldn't succeed in life? Narcissism-epidemic articles tend to argue that people don't work hard if they think they're great, but actually believing that you can accomplish a task may increase your commitment to it. And while excessive self-regard has its problems, low self-worth can lead to bullying, bad relationships, and even abuse. The Newsweek article focuses on kids who think highly of themselves, but there are plenty of kids who are belittled at home or in school, who grow up full of fear and self-doubt, and whose lives are hobbled by lack of confidence. You might not always be able to tell by talking to them — an inferiority complex can look a lot like narcissism — but plenty of kids might benefit from a little more self-love.

All that aside, to blame social problems on psychological problems is to let society off the hook. If we say the economy crashed because people were greedy or grandiose, then we don't have to improve regulations, create a better safety net, or reform lending practices. We just have to stop feeling so freaking special. Blanket-diagnosing people with a psychological illness not only trivializes the difficulties of people who actually have it — it shifts the burden of reform from the community onto the individual. We'd probably be better people if we practiced "humility, [...] mindfulness and putting others first," but these qualities on their own aren't going to get families back into their houses or provide unemployed people with health insurance. For that, we need a new public policy — and if anyone can come up with one that solves our devastating problems, that person would be pretty special.

Generation Me [Newsweek]
Is Narcissism On the Upswing In The Young? Studies Disagree [USA Today]

Earlier: Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Everyone's Doing It
Hard-hitting Times Piece Tackles Narcissism, Shopaholics, This Thing Called "Hotornot"
Allure's "New Narcissist" Not New, Maybe Not A Narcissist

The article, an overview of the findings of a recent conference, actually outlines a number of problems, including the dearth of women in the higher tiers of British journalism, their overrepresentation among lower-paid reporters, the extreme youth and tininess of models in fashion magazines, and "the near-pornographic portrayal of women in what were supposed to be mainstream magazines." It also celebrates how far journalism has come since the days when female reporters were relegated to a "women's page that concerned itself with clothes, a spot of cooking, an occasional nod towards a bit of undemanding culture."

Whitehorn also tells an instructive anecdote, about the coverage of a car expo for women:

One photographer immediately lined up several of the prettier ones gazing into the bonnet of a car. "Come on, dear, just hitch that skirt up a bit - yeah, thanks, that's grand." And the picture came out with a dismissive caption - that this was a day meant to interest women in the cars, but when something went wrong, they did what women always do - turn to a man.

We were all furious and I made a mental note that if the writer - Terry something - ever wanted a job on The Observer I'd do my best make sure he didn't get it. Only Terry turned out to be a woman. And you see the difficulty. If that's what the paper wanted and she didn't come up with it, the reaction would be that it's no good sending a girl, they never come back with the story you want.

She's trying to make a point about the need for more female higher-ups in journalism, but her own piece seems to suffer from the same problem. Although a good 75% of the article is totally nonsexual, somebody at the paper (maybe even her) has decided this is a story about sex, and given it a lead picture, headline ("Women on top"), and teaser ("An exposed bra. Skimpy hotpants. Does dressing like a soft porn star actually empower a woman, or is she simply exploiting herself, asks Katharine Whitehorn.") to match. Whether or not male editors are responsible for this choice, it's a little disturbing that someone felt the need to sex up an article whose only mention of sex is the complaint that women in the media are too sexed-up. Obviously we're no strangers to sex news here at Jezebel, but we hope we know the difference between "women in journalism" and "skimpy outfits."

Women OnTop [BBC News Magazine]

The odd thing about media blitzes like the 11 o'clock news furor surrounding teens exchanging sexually-charged texts and pictures is that they treat teenagers with an anthropological remove that seems laughable. The coverage I've seen has involved a lot of adults prodding students to claim a phenomenon is taking over their lives, when in fact it's one (small) element in existences as complicated and multifaceted as anyone else's. While a study says that an alarmingly high number of teens - one teen in five reporting he or she has sent or posted naked photos of himself or herself - have fallen prey to the phenomenon, was it really the sinister force adults claim? Having become aware of Red, a book in which teenage girls from a variety of places and backgrounds write intelligently about issues close to their hearts, I thought it would be interesting to query some of them them about the "sexting" panic. Which, from what they said, doesn't really impact them.

The vast majority of the girls we polled said they had no experience with "sexting," and were hardly aware of it until The Media caught on. Says 16-year-old Sarah Schelde from upstate New York,

Sure I've heard about it before; from Hollywood. The infamous 'Vanessa Hudgens sends Zac Efron racy pics' was a big thing, especially since she's a celeb whose fans are mostly kids. Even Miley, someone two weeks younger than me, has come under fire for racy pics, but it isn't something I've seen personally.

Adds Jocelyn Pearce, 17, North Carolina

It's overblown. People make stupid choices sometimes, regardless of age or technology used. If a girl is sending naked pictures of herself around, it's not a very good idea, to say the least. They could end up in the inboxes of people you really don't want to share with. It's definitely something that could end up being a huge regret after a breakup ...Embarrass the kids involved enough so that they won't do it again, but long-lasting, harsh consequences like being added to a sex offender registry (which can impact where you can live, where you can work, and just how people view you in the future) are beyond unnecessary.

Says Jordyn Turney,

It's kind of like how when I was in fifth grade we went through the DARE program that was supposed to teach us about the harms of drugs. By the end of fifth grade all the adults had made it seem like the world was a battlefield of drugs and as soon as we stepped into junior high we would have seedy older kids asking us to do drugs. It didn't happen that way. A lot of kids did (and still do) drugs, but the you-will-be-left-out-if-you-don't-do-drugs scare message wasn't all that true.

And for the one person who actually had first-hand experience with the phenom, it was hardly the end of her world. Says Californian Dani Cox,

I recently went through a situation where I was pressured to take part in this act and, when I didn't, was sent pictures of places I didn't really want to see. Instead of freaking out about it, giving in to their request, or ignoring it, I decided to talk to my parents and together we agreed that it would be best to inform his parents and allow them to handle the situation without getting the authorities involved. They main reason we decided on this was because I knew this person very well and knew that they had simply just made a stupid mistake and allowed their hormones to get the best of them. I didn't want to put that person in the situation of having "sex offender" labeled to his name for this one action. Plus, not only would he be prosecuted, but I would as well for simply having it on my phone! Then, if I had decided to get nasty with it and spread the pictures around, all those people I sent it to and everyone who they sent it to would ALSO be prosecuted as a sex offender. RIDICULOUS! Teens don't really understand how truly big of a mess this is until they are caught up in the middle of it. I can see how someone could take it over the edge and make sexting into a sexual harassment issue...and then maybe something should be in place after warnings to stop are not heeded. And if you make it a child porn issue...it's hard to get my head around the fact that your making the victim the criminal. Yet, in that gray area between hormones jumping and criminal intent...the concept of sexting is not necessarily as bad as the connotation it gives.

Thanks, ladies. You're tremendously reassuring - not that my local news anchor would probably agree.

Teens, Nude Photos And The Law [Newsweek]
"Sexting" Shockingly Common Among Teens [CBS]
Red The Book

The magazine was founded by a group of women who were tired of seeing the sexed up, airbrushed covers that were being marketed to young girls: Indigo has a strict no-airbrushing policy and uses non-celebrity girls for its covers, celebrating the "everyday" girl who reads the magazine instead of some 25 year old actress who somehow ends up on the cover of a teen magazine because she plays a 15 year old on TV.

Several other teen magazines in Australia are following Indigo's lead: Sarah Cornish, editor of Girlfriend says that her magazine now documents fashion shoots in order to show all of the work that goes in to making one perfect picture. "We try to be explicit in every way we can now about what's behind a fashion shoot," Cornish admits, "Even one photograph on a cover can take an entire day and we don't want our readers to ever think they could just look like that any day." Of course, part of this movement is involuntary: Australia requires magazines to label airbrushing, a result of the "National Media and Industry Code of Conduct on Body Image, which demands labelling of airbrushed images in women's magazines and the diversification of models' size and shape."

The fact that magazines like Indigo are realizing that young girls don't necessarily want to read about Britney's exploits or Paris' makeup habits is encouraging, and filling a void that has been left open for years. Those of us who grew up in the Sassy era still cling to memories of that magazine with a fierce fondness: it was the only magazine that really captured the teenage voice of the time, unlike its competitors, who insisted upon printing such things as "So like, I totally dropped trou in front of the rents! I was so totally bugged out! I could have died like for sure!" which they seemingly pulled from a book entitled How No Teenage Girl In The World Has Ever Talked, EVER or some such.

And so, by focusing more on everyday life and less on "OMG What Does V. Hudg Have In Her Closet?!," Indigo has found a dedicated audience of young readers, who are drawn to the magazines messages of self-respect, personal beauty, and positive body image. The magazine has also been endorsed by the Butterfly Foundation, an eating disorders awareness group. "When girls flick through the pages of the mag, they can see themselves," Indigo editor Freya Holland says. And what a beautiful thing that is: flaws and all.

Teens Turn A New Page [TheAge]

Whereas women are affected more adversely by same-sex images, men weren't bothered by the pics of strapping beefcakes they were shown. Rather, "the cultural expectation for men is not that they have to be as attractive as their peers, but that they need to be attractive enough to be sexually appealing to women." Hence, the men who were given magazines full of pictures of "idealized" women who were "out of their league" unsurprisingly ended up feeling less than great about their own bodies by the end of the study.

As Professor Jennifer Aubrey notes, "the exposure to objectified females increased self-consciousness because men are reminded that in order to be sexually or romantically involved with a woman of similar attractiveness, they need to conform to strict appearance standards." We're guessing men aren't devoting a lot of conscious thought to this, which already makes the phenomenon somewhat less severe. But even so, it does beg a question: Models make women feel bad. They make men feel bad. So who exactly are they supposed to be appealing to?

Surprisingly, Female Models Have Negative Effect On Men [PhysOrg]

Baynes explores how the media create a Missing White Women brand, "an echo effect across a variety of media platforms that actually sell these women’s tragic stories." (Interestingly, he cites People magazine as the "jump off" point between tabloid and "legitimate" news, because it is owned by Time Warner, which also owns CNN.) He links the phenomenon back to the Perils of Pauline, a serialized silent film with weekly cliffhangers in which its white heroine hung off actual cliffs. Baynes says that "the anxiety over white women resonates in our culture," perhaps because white women are put on a pedestal while women of color have historically been "exoticized and exploited." Baynes quotes Catherine McKinnon on "the white women stereotype":

The creature is not poor, not battered, not raped (not really), not molested as a child, not pregnant as a teenager, not prostituted, not coerced into pornography, not a welfare mother and not economically exploited. She doesn’t work. [...] she manipulates white men’s very real power with the lifting of her very manicured little finger…She flings her hair, feels beautiful all the time...can’t do anything, doesn’t do anything, doesn’t know anything…

Baynes argues that American culture feels the need to protect (or pretend to protect) such artificially pristine women, especially from "the threats of men of color." And this desire for protection equals ratings! Baynes cites speculations that the "soap opera" of the missing white woman allows us to escape from scary real news, like the war in Iraq. There's little question that focusing on Natalee Holloway rather than Abu Ghraib makes us dumber (unless of course we're her family, or the cops investigating her case). It probably also makes us more racist. So is the solution a return of the Fairness Doctrine? Do we need the FCC to step in and enforce important news? How will they decide what's important? And, raised on a diet of Missing White Girl Scout cookies, will we even watch it?

Leonard M. Baynes, “White Women In Peril On Broadcast And Cable Television News” [Feminist Law Professors]
White Women In Peril On Broadcast And Cable Television News [Full Paper]

The Argentinan journalists committed to 10 principles when reporting on gender violence, including a protection of the identity of the victim (something most U.S. news outlet do unless the victim agrees otherwise); an agreement not to use pictures identifying the victim; identifying the aggressor; and actively refusing to refer to the incident as a "crime of passion" or list the so-called mitigating circumstances that are likely to be employed by the defense at trial. Many times — both here and in Argentina (and elsewhere) — the circumstances surrounding the crime are laid out and couched in terms of jealousy or supposedly mitigated by drug or alcohol abuse. The thing is that there is nothing romantic about jealousy, particularly if it ends in violence, and nothing tragic for the abuser in the loss of his liberty or relationship due to his violent tendencies. Those are legitimate consequences for his abhorrent actions and the media needs to do a good job in de-romanticizing and delegitimizing the actions of abusers.

That said, Feministe's Cara thinks that the media should additional refrain from referring to "rape" as "sex" and from using the passive voice ("she was raped" instead of "This sick fucking asshole 'allegedly' raped her") to describe acts of sexual violence. I'm totally on board with that. Where can we go to get local reporters to sign this thing?

Argentinian Journalists Develop Plan For Non-Sexist Reporting [Feministe]

In the June issue of Glamour, under the heading “5 things to say no to,” item 1 is: “Any threesome in which you’re committed to one of the other two.” If you’re not committed to one of the other two, presumably, Glamour would say: “You go, girl!” Admittedly, this advice is mostly directed at single women, so they do have some respect for marriage, especially when in item 4 the magazine turns suddenly and mysteriously prudish by telling its readers to avoid “Married men. Seriously.”

Still, one has to wonder. At National Review we are often told that opinion journals contain so few ads because advertisers don’t want to be associated with anything controversial. Now, Glamour certainly has no trouble selling ads; its issues are as fat as its models are thin. Evidently, then, the idea that it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to have sex with two people at once, as long as they’re both strangers, is now considered entirely mainstream.

Not so! Chimes in Lisa Schiffren, who asserts that the Glamour editors just got that idea from an early episode of Sex & The City, which perpetuated the notion that threesomes were common because it was written by gays.

So…funny how the male conservative is:
1. the only one who will cop to reading Glamour
2. the only one who asserts that threesomes are, like, totally normal.

Which is to say: just like a gay/guy! Anyway I'll leave it to you guys to educate the nation's publishers as to how mainstream threesomes really are, because I'm personally neither really "mainstream" nor a veteran of such an act — I'd honestly rather be waterboarded, call me sentimental — and also maybe to Photoshop Maggie, Fred, and Lisa onto the cover of the new W.

Rules For Threesomes [National Review]

Public put-downs, of course, are not just directed at celebrities: Today's Wall Street Journal reports on "body snarking" and the way in which Generation Y uses Facebook and other social networks to critique frenemies' appearances. Lilly Jay, a D.C. 16-year-old, tells the Journal: "When people look weird or bad in pictures, they are often tagged with 'Hahaha'...the unflattering photos can't just be tucked away somewhere. They become the basis for publicly displayed ridicule."

It seems like it's the public part that's most damaging. Look: we've all privately snarked on others' appearances from the privacy of our own homes and our own minds, and I certainly cop to feeling secret glee when someone I hated from high school packed on the pounds in her post-college years. But these are private, shameful thoughts, and the public airing of such trash is possibly keeping women from breaking the glass ceiling — as the Journal points out, Hillary's appearance has been fair game from day one of her Presidential candidacy. Think of it this way: when we attack other women in the public sphere, we're ultimately only hurting ourselves.

Does This Picture Make You Angry? [BBC]
The Rise Of Bodysnarking [WSJ]
Misogyny I Won't Miss [Washington Post]

Earlier: This Year, Let's Call It Quits On The Nasty Nit-Picking

MOE: So I just had a thought. A strategist on Fox News used the word "fulcrum" and it completely tripped up the blonde, who was like, "I'm still fascinated by that word you used Rich, fulcrum." And then the other guy was like, "Yeah, fulcrum what the heck does that mean?" And the strategist laughed
MOE: And said, "It's physics, Bob, it has to do with the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum."
MOE: Which is not a law I particularly remember but it gave me this theory: I think that smart people become Republicans to feel smarter than all their friends.
MEGAN: Whoa, he even quoted that? I think today is a Big Word day because David Axelrod just used the word "potentate" on MSNBC talking about leaders in the Middle East and OPEC.

MEGAN: Okay, and now Joe Scarborough just called Tim Daly the Grand Poobah of the Creative Coalition.
MOE: What does that even mean?

MEGAN: Not that it's a definitive source, but Wiki says

Grand Poobah is a term derived from the name of the haughty character Pooh-Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. In this comic opera, Pooh-Bah holds numerous exalted offices, including Lord Chief Justice, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of the Buckhounds, Lord High Auditor, Groom of the Back Stairs, and Lord High Everything Else. The name has come to be used as a mocking title for someone self-important or high-ranking and who either exhibits an inflated self-regard, who acts in several capacities at once, or who has limited authority while taking impressive titles.

MOE: Hahaha so it's a more appropriate name for an MC than I knew when I began immediately associating it with this awesome party jam...
MEGAN: Dude, that guy on the TV sorta looks like Kid from Kid N Play...
MOE: Oh dude speaking of amazing segues, apparently Grand Puba holds Nation Of Islam beliefs. Which brings me to Michelle Obama, of whom we now know the same thing thanks to the Grand Puba of paranoid indiscriminate hateration. We should totally form a Hitchens-inspired hip-hop collective. I know some rappers who would dig it. We would get on Stuffwhitepeoplelike IMMEDIATELY.

MEGAN: Oh, Christ, Hitchens takes so fucking long to get to the point, which is him calling Barack, basically, pussy-whipped. Which, obviously, any man that doesn't indiscriminately cheat on his long-suffering wife the way Hitchens does obviously is.
MEGAN: Did I ever mention that I once watched Hitchens leave a party with a really pretty 18 year old? She might've been 20. She had some crazy hero-worship in her eyes, but I'll bet he sweatily fucked that out of her with his stale cigarette smell and tiny British ween.
MOE: Man I was checking TheRoot for some response to the Hitch and the lead story is on "Why The Summer Of '88 Was My Generation's Greatest." The late eighties were so rad in a lot of ways, I'm just remembering. The End of History and the like. But it was also, like, one of the bleakest eras for American cities, which I kind of think represent the future of American pluralism, which apparently Michelle Obama didn't believe in in 1985, which is why we are now wondering if she isn't a radical bitterfascist.

MOE: And that is a very good read on the situation. I was honestly disgusted he chose to go after her fucking college thesis which is basically about how alienated and inferior she felt on account of all the elitist assholes at Princeton.
MOE: And he writes:

To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be "read" at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language.

MOE: Which is true of most academic papers.
MEGAN: Man, I sort of wish I could've written about that for my college thesis. I had to write about the role of ideology in determining women's status in the labor market in Germany before and after reunification.
MOE: But not even of hers.
MOE: I dropped out, yay. I don't think I wrote a decent paper ever in my life after my treatise on the collapse of the Weimar Republic in tenth grade. After that it was all an alcohol haze. I wrote some good stories for the Journal that were better researched than any of my papers, however.
MEGAN: I picked a graduate school based on where I didn't have to write another thesis, which is why I ended up chucking my completed SAIS application in the garbage rather than sending it.

MOE: : This was Christian's take on Hitchens which sort of nicely unpeels the layers of disingenuousness:

What he's really saying is, I, the Hitch, know that people must necessarily allow contradictions into their lives, especially politicians, who typically do so cynically, but I am cynical enough myself to pretend that I don't know that, and so I can write a column that honestly admits that Obama really has nothing in common with his Reverend (did I mention that I, the Hitch, hate all churchees—I know politicians are only pandering to them, but it's fun to pretend they're not) but that his wife is a menace.
7:14 PM asserts that his wife is a menace anyway.

MEGAN: Also, I am not going to click that again because it is more than I can handle imagining Hitch having his taint waxed AND NOW I HAVE IMAGINED IT AGAIN and I think I might hate you a little, give me a second to wash the taste of bile out of my mouth and then let's change the subject.
MEGAN: Here, let's talk about Clinton saying that OPEC can no long be allowed to exist so she's going to file a WTO complaint even though, like, she's not so keen on free trade policies or something and I'm pretty sure there's no way it would succeed.
MOE: Ah, yeah so there is a bill to amend the Sherman Act to make oil-producing and exporting cartels illegal.
MOE: God, remember the fucking Sherman Act?

MEGAN: Which means, what? That we won't buy oil from OPEC anymore? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
MOE: Well, if the Heritage Foundation and major trade unions can agree on something...

Indeed, the only serious challenge to the organization came in 1978 when a U.S. non-profit labor association, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), sued OPEC under the Sherman Antitrust Act, in IAM v. OPEC. But the case was rejected in 1981 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. OPEC, the court affirmed, could not be prosecuted under the Sherman Act due to the foreign sovereign immunity protection it claimed for its member states. That decision was wrong. Government-owned companies that engage in purely business activities do not warrant sovereign immunity protection according to prevailing legal doctrines

MOE: Apparently the effort was led by William "Wimpy" Wimpsinger. I like that he took that "wimp thing" and sort of owned it. Do you think Hitchens cynically wants the Clintons back because it makes his job easier?

I have the distinct feeling that the Obama campaign can't go on much longer without an answer to the question: "Are we getting two for one?" And don't be giving me any grief about asking this. Black Americans used to think that the Clinton twosome was their best friend, too. This time we should find out before it's too late to ask.

MEGAN: Wait, so white man Christopher Hitchens would like Black America to know that the Obamas will... what exactly? Betray them like the Clintons? I think this is why I only read stuff he writes about him waxing his back, sack and crack.
MOE: Oh man hip-hop reference segue time #2 of the morning. Let's give a shout-out to Khia. Dude, the Hitchens inspired DJ collective is a total gold idea. I know these dudes Plastic Little who could get into it. They're biracial like Obama. But I think we've gotta address the notion of Burma, and how this cyclone hit just as Hollywood celebs were getting in on the action.
MEGAN: So, am I right that the appropriately white guilty thing to do is not talk about the oppressive government for a bit?
MOE: Here's the latest "That's So Jane's!" on the matter, God I love this graphic...Apparently you likened Burma to Katie Holmes.
MEGAN: Oppression shows its face in all kinds of dark ways.
MOE:

It's an Orwellian nightmare that makes China look like a liberal paradise by comparison. For twenty years there has been nothing on this scale and when protests have been staged they have been in the order of hundreds and have been easily dealt with. The monks posed a huge dilemma for the military since they initially felt that they could not simply resort to smashing skulls and opening fire indiscriminately. Buddhists believe that what you do in this life will determine how you come back next time. So massacring a few monks is more likely to see you come back as a cockroach than achieving nirvana.

MEGAN: Well, but they'll be born in China or India more often than not, so it's like they get reborn into a less oppressive regime?
MOE: Okay here's another thing. The last sentence of that Times story.

If you talk to Vaclav Havel, he'll say that Lou Reed's support for human rights in Czechoslovakia was very important to the cause."

MEGAN: Um, I guess the cool factor is really important?

MEGAN: But neither Ellen Page or Jim Carrey is Lou Reed.
MOE: Okay so there's a primary tonight and I'm sick of primary nights but I suppose we ought to address it. Hillary Clinton will win in Indiana because she's "not going to put my lot in with economists." Obama will win North Carolina because Petey Pablo is from there. Oh man, hip-hop foray part III. Do you remember when Petey Pablo did that remix of "North Carolina" on the USA after 9/11? I'm sure you won't, but some commenter might. I think he also went to Afghanistan. Okay. Any predictions?
MOE: Terry McAuliffe is on Fox right now. His prediction is that "people will be saying she did better in both states than they thought she would." Jesus Christ.
MEGAN: I predict me and a lovely bottle of Petite Sirah will be blogging it tonight for Glamocracy. And that I hate being wrong so I don't make predictions but it does seem like the polls are saying that Hillary will take Indiana and Obama will take NC.
MEGAN: Whoa, talk about managing expectations there, Terry Boy. I didn't think the polls in Indiana were that close, plus she's been standing in pickup trucks! Pickup trucks are like electoral gold in Indiana.
MOE: I'm going to leave us with a passage from David Brooks, because I found it calming, sort of like certain candidates.

This wasn't just shameless spin, it was shamelessness with a purpose. Clinton signaled that she wasn't going to concede even an inch to the vast elitist conspiracy. She wasn't going to feel guilty about ignoring the evidence. She was going to stomp on it, flay it and leave it a twisted mass of jelly quivering on the ground. She was going to perform the primordial duty of an alpha dog leader — helping one's own....But, as Sunday's contrast made clear, Obama still seems like a human being. He still seems to return each night to some zone of normalcy where personal reflection lives.He wasn't fully candid when answering questions about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but there are some inner guardrails that prevent the spin from drifting too far from the truth. Thoughtful and conversational, he doesn't seem to possess the trait that Clinton has: automatically assuming that critics are always wrong. Obama still possesses his talent for homeostasis, the ability to return to emotional balance and calm, even amid hysteria.

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