News of the Restless

Stupid Sex Tricks: How NOT to advertise anything

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Just think how silly it looks when guys are made to do what women in advertising are made to do…all the fucking time.

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Radical breast cancer preventive surgery common in Brazil

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Sabina Becker

rita-lee

Brazilian pop star Rita Lee knows what Angelina Jolie is going through; she’s been through it herself. And so have many other Brazilian women:

Actress Angelina Jolie caused a great sensation on Tuesday when she announced that she had undergone a double mastectomy to prevent breast cancer. But the procedure is common in Brazil as well. In 2010, singer Rita Lee had her breasts removed, on the advice of her gynecologist. Her mother had died of cancer, and the risk of developing the disease was very high.

“My gynecologist advised me to have my breasts removed, which didn’t make much difference, since mine were already small,” said the singer, interviewed by Istoé magazine, in September 2010. “I prefer to be without breasts and at peace, rather than still have them and be paranoid,” said Lee, who decided not to have reconstruction surgery.

Plastic surgeon and breast specialist João Carlos Sampaio, director of the Brazilian Institute for Cancer Control, said that he performs at least one preventive or prophylactic surgery a week. According to the specialist, the number of such interventions has grown in recent years, as a result of improved surgical techniques and of early diagnostic procedures.

“I recommend it. The result is the same as a breast enlargement,” Sampaio explained, stressing that the scar would be quite small. Before, the patients would ponder more, with fear of suffering some type of mutilation or for esthetic reasons.

João Carlos Sampaio says that he knows of other cases of famous women, including patients of his, who opted to have their breasts removed. He refused to give names for ethical reasons.

Before recommending a preventive surgery for breast cancer, the doctor performs genetic analyses, a genealogy, and pathologic exams to determine if there are pre-cancerous cells. With results in hand, a patent can decide whether to have her breasts removed, take hormone treatments, or only medical follow-ups.

“It’s not obligatory. It’s one option. I always converse with my patients. It’s very important that she understand the risks and the options. Any choice needs to be conscious,” Sampaio emphasizes. “If she has an 87% risk, it’s almost certain that she will have breast cancer,” he says, speaking of the case of Angelina Jolie.

João Carlos Sampaio has developed, and uses in Brazil, a technique more modern than the one used on Angelina Jolie. The actress’s procedure was performed in two phases: first, removal of the breasts, and second, nine weeks later, reconstruction.

Sampaio’s patients have preventive surgery in just one phase. Instead of using an expander, as in Jolie’s case, for weeks, to create space for silicone prostheses, the surgeon lifts the patient’s muscle partially and inserts a type of screen. Then, he implants silicone prostheses and adjusts the size so that the breasts have a natural appearance.

“I was surprised to read that she used the older technique,” Sampaio says, adding that many doctors in the United States use the technique created in Brazil.

The method developed by the Brazilian specialist was published in the 1990s, and has been refined since then.

“I’ve haven’t been using the expander for nearly 20 years. There is no more need for that type of surgery.”

Angelina Jolie’s mother died of cancer at age 56, after nearly a decade of fighting against the disease. The actress had an 87% chance of developing breast cancer, and a 50% chance of contracting ovarian cancer.

Translation mine.

Like Angelina Jolie, Rita Lee lost her mother to breast cancer. Unlike her, she chose not to have reconstruction, as there wasn’t much to rebuild in the first place. Here she is as a teenager in the late 1960s, with her then boyfriend and his brother, as the wildly popular rock-tropicalist trio, Os Mutantes:

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The ironies of the Venezuelan opposition, part 25

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Oh dear. Looks like MariCori has been pwned again in Colombia, this time very nicely and politely by a member of the local opposition:

Here’s the story, courtesy of Aporrea:

Last Wednesday, Venezuelan deputy María Corina Machado won the right to speak in the Colombian senate chamber. Very dramatically, she told her version of what happened during the brawl in the National Assembly, which was provoked by right-wing deputies, and how the parliamentary president, Diosdado Cabello, refused them the right to speak for not recognizing the president of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro.

During her talk, presented with a bandaged nose to show how democracy is under attack in Venezuela, the senator from the Democratic Pole, Alexander López Maya, told her that in reality it was she who was attacking democracy, and countered with the tragic history of political assassinations in Colombia.

Senator López Maya ran out of speaking time, and, in the interim, said that it negated the possibility of expressing himself. He got a colleague to cede his time to him, but there, before Machado, the president of the senate ordered López Maya to say that there was indeed freedom of expression [in Colombia], or he would not turn the microphone on.

Senator Alexander López (AL): The first order of business is that we approve a proposition that a member of the Venezuelan opposition be allowed to speak, but also the ruling party, so we should speak clearly and concretely to the country.

Secondly, Deputy Corina, neither do we share the belief that differences and discussions can be resolved by physical aggression. We lament that that has occurred, and we wish that this had not happened to you and your eight comrades. We are the opposition here in Colombia and, luckily, that is all that happened to you. I want to tell you, Dr. Corina, that we leftists have had four of our presidential candidates assassinated. They have assassinated an entire political movement of ours, the Patriotic Union, more than 3000 political directors, senators, representatives — assassinated, Dr. Corina, totally wiped out of the politics of this country. Today we, who represent the left in this land, have seen the previous government intercepting not only our mail, but our telephone calls.

The previous government persecuted us all the time. I and several of my comrades were victims of montages organized by the Army in this land. From that “democracy” my colleagues speak of came the fact that a director of the DAS, named by President Uribe, handed over to the paramilitary groups lists of union leaders so that they would be assassinated, and from that same “democracy” they speak of here, have come the murders of thousands of Colombians. Some, not all, were members of the Public Force, and termed “false positives”. In this “democracy” you speak of, the union movement has minimal rights, minimal guarantees, and every day, labor rights are violated here.

President of the Senate (PS): One minute remaining, Senator López. Remember, this is a debate.

AL: Mr. President, this is a guarantee to the opposition and to democracy.

PS: Senator Camilo Romero has the floor.

AL: President, I need more time.

PS: Senator Romero, do you cede your time to your comrade?

Camilo Romero (CR): I will speak, of course, Mr. President, but I believe it is necessary to hear out Senator López, so I ask for my time, and for more time for Senator López.

PS: Do you plan to take the floor, Senator Romero?

CR: Of course, President, as I was telling you.

PS: Senator Alexander, I will give you the time you need if you affirm truthfully that we have all democratic rights guaranteed here, but if you plan to affirm that we do not have them when you have used them so that someone will have a false image of this Congress, it seems to me that you are lacking in truth. And the Senate also has the right to rectify that. Turn on Senator López’s microphone again so he can make free use of the speech as has always been done in this chamber.

AL: That’s how it must be for the opposition. So, Dr. Corina, I told you that every day they were violating workers’ human rights here. Here, they permanently violate human rights. The defenders of human rights are permanently persecuted, attacked and assassinated, not all of them. Those who reclaim the land, in the name of thousands of campesinos, are also assassinated in this country.

So, Dr. Corina, I too lament having to tell you these particulars about my country. I hope that in other congresses they allow that we divulge all that occurs in Colombia, which is sometimes much more grave than what happens in your country. I hope that this does not occur in your country or mine, because we too love the Venezuelan people. We are Bolivarian peoples, we are peoples who are called to freedom, and for that reason, we consider that in every scenario and discussion that presents itself, everyone interprets democracy in their own way, and the democracy in this country is not such as they want to reflect in this Congress.

Just because we talk here doesn’t signify that there is democracy, not because we do our activities or have a sector of Colombians accompanying us does it signify that we have democracy here. For that reason, I too demand on behalf of this opposition, the democratic opposition of the people, I demand guarantees, not of speech, but that we can accompany the people of Colombia in their tragedy, a people of whom more than half are living in poverty, a people of whom more than a quarter are mired in indigence, a people who currently receive from their government decisions absolutely contrary to the social reality of this country.

In this way, Dr. María Corina, I want to express to you our concern for what is occurring in Venezuela, and we hope that in a spirit of conciliation, you will be able to resolve your political conflicts of this moment.

Translation mine.

Recall that the last time we heard about MariCori, she was shut out of an audience with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos — who, unlike his predecessor, El Narco Uribe, is on good terms with the Venezuelan government, and seems disposed to want to stay out of the neighboring country’s internal affairs. MariCori wangled an invite to address the Colombian congress instead, no doubt hoping to find a totally captive and sympathetic audience there.

As you can see above, she didn’t get exactly what she’d been counting on. She got a very polite, but very to-the-point dressing-down from a Colombian oppositionist who faces a great deal more political persecution than she could ever claim, legitimately or otherwise. And with that, she got a timely reminder of the tremendous irony of her own position, and of how silly she and her comrades are to come whining to the Colombian government about matters which obviously are of no concern to it.

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Posted in El NarcoPresidente, Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic? | Comments Off

More Music for a Sunday: This is Major Tom to Ground Control…

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Actually, that’s Colonel Chris Hadfield, proving once more why Canada rules…the skies. For now, anyhow. He’s coming home tonight, so here’s a little more music to see him safely back:

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Music for a Sunday: Well, who would have guessed?

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Well, I guess I should:

The second night was just as good…

Where is the tenderness? Right here, baby:

The world watched as the story of the three missing women found after a decade in captivity unfolded in Cleveland this week. Now people near and and far are reaching out to help Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight.

The news struck a chord with English pop star Dave Wakeling, of the chart-topping New Wave band English Beat. Wakeling is donating his time and talent to help Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. On Friday, Wakeling approached friends at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum about doing something for the women. He was going to be in the area on a tour that had him playing Toronto and Rochester, though not Cleveland.

The Rock Hall then approached Beachland Ballroom & Tavern owner Cindy Barber, who said the ballroom space at her club was free Tuesday night. Wakeling and Barber quickly assembled a show headlined by the English Beat, best known for hits “Save it for Later” and “Tenderness,” for 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Tickets are a $10 donation. All proceeds from the show, presented by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland Courage Fund and The Cleveland Music Club Coalition, will go to the Cleveland Courage Fund in honor of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight.

In a statement, Wakeling explained “Cleveland reminds me of my home town of Birmingham in UK, a tough city with a big heart, and I have many friends there. Like everyone else, we were stunned by the news, and it is great that as we are in the neighborhood, we can add our support to the Survivors and to the shocked city. We can get through anything, if we stick together.”

Dang, I wish I were in Cleveland right now. Dave, you’re the best.

And since they mentioned the English Beat, here’s one of my faves of his from then:

Ska really needs to make a comeback. That was one of the best sounds of the ’80s…

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Compare and Contrast: Ronald Reagan vs. reality

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Back in the day, a certain senile US president had this to say about a certain thug who was then in charge of Guatemala:

reagan-on-rios-montt

Well…today, a leading Mexican newspaper had this to say about the same thug:

rios-montt-genocida

I trust I don’t need to translate that.

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Posted in Compare and Contrast, Fascism Without Swastikas, Guatemala, Guatebuena, Isn't It Ironic?, Mexican Standoffs, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Barbecued Ratkabobs

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! So, how is everyone enjoying their rat — er, mutton — dressed up as lamb? Gamey enough for ya? Gross enough for ya? Don’t worry, I’ve got a list of pungent stinkers this week that’ll make even the rattiest of ratkabobs seem downright appetizing. And here they are, in no particular order:

1. Mark Fucking Sanford. Has somebody got lady problems? I’m frankly amazed that South Carolina was dumb enough to vote for this loon. What are they, chicken?

2. James Fucking Carville. Dude, what are you smoking? Ted Fucking Cruz isn’t talented OR fearless. He’s a carbon copy of Tailgunner Joe McCarthy, and we all know how pants-peeing paranoid HE was.

3. Nina Fucking Easton. Lady, are you on crazy pills? Teen pregnancies should NOT be celebrated; they should be prevented and, more to the point, discouraged. And good luck trying to usher in another Baby Scoop Era. Almost no one voluntarily gives up a child, even when she can ill afford to keep it. Birth control and abortion on demand may not be “heroic”, but at least they don’t consign a girl to motherhood before she’s done with childhood.

4. Newt Fucking Gingrich. This just in: Catholics are oppressed! Well, of COURSE they are. But the oppressor is the church hierarchy, which demands the ridiculous from adherents, and the impossible from the clergy. So spare me the pious bunkum about how the LGBTs are the oppressors. Considering that at one time the church would have burned them at the stake for heresy, there is simply no fucking comparison.

5. Thomas Fucking Tobin. And speaking of Catholics and the oppression of the LGBTs, how about this bishop? Apparently, merely attending a same-sex wedding will harm one’s relationship with God. Well, Bishop, I happen to have attended the first same-sex wedding the Queen’s University chaplain ever performed, 23 years ago. And strangely, I don’t get the feeling that God hates me for it at all.

6. Rick Fucking Santorum. The Second Amendment comes from God? No, it comes from the pen of someone who didn’t know how to use commas correctly. And it’s been fucking with stupid heads ever since. Where’s the dignity in that?

7. Jeff Fucking Krusinski. Talk about conduct unbecoming: Can you believe he was put in charge of sexual assault prevention for the entire USAF? And then he goes and gets drunk, and gropes a woman in a parking lot, who fortunately has the presence of mind to beat the shit out of him. Maybe they should put HER in charge of that program; she’d do a far better job than he ever could. PS: Holy fucking shit.

8. Ari Fucking Fleischer. Yes, that’s right, Dubya’s own Baghdad Bob is back in the news, and just as full of shit as we remember him. He was full of shit over Iraq; he was leaking it out the ears over Chavecito. Is it such a shock that he would also not know what the fuck he was talking about when it came to the Nazis? But oh, what a telling Freudian slip that is, because the Nazis and their utter disregard for international law are always the first things that come to MY mind when I think of BushCo!

9. Geoffrey Fucking Portway. Hannibal Lecter he ain’t, and maybe that’s just as well. “Fat Longpig”, as he used to be known on the kiddie-porn circuit, couldn’t pick on someone his own size, and didn’t even have the guts to do the deed himself. Memo to all you pedophiles, wannabe cannibals, and dungeon-masters out there: If you can’t even kidnap your own victims and have to hire an accomplice to do the dirtywork, you have no right to your sick delusions of grandeur. (Actually, you have no right to them regardless. You sick, sick fucks.)

10. Nancy Fucking Brinker. In case you were still in any doubt as to whether the Susan B. Komen Foundation was about finding a cure for cancer: It’s not. It’s all about the lining of the CEO’s already huge pocketbook. You might want to donate directly to your local Cancer Society instead. In fact, you SHOULD.

11. Rush Fucking Limbaugh. Oh, now he’s threatening to leave a radio network because the advertisers are deserting him? Yeah, Rusty, that sounds real scary. Why don’t you just follow through and see what happens? I bet you dollars to doughnuts that you’ll never be missed. PS: And this is just one more reason why you won’t be missed. Those girls were kidnapped when Dubya, NOT Obama, was president. Your argument is shit.

12. Rick Fucking Perry. Yeah, gay people are exactly like slavers. Say, Crotch…just when do you plan on giving up that ol’ civil war and coming out of your own closet, already?

13. Pat Fucking Robertson. No, Patwa, God can’t “change” murderers or rapists, much less LGBT people (who don’t deserve to be in that kind of company, BTW). After all, he’s apparently powerless to keep YOU from lying! PS: And also, making weird shit up. PPS: Oh yeah…and THIS:

14. Cody Fucking Wilson. Next time your precious widdle 3D-printed gun misfires, I hope it kills you. After all, “liberty” is more important than life! PS: Don’t be too surprised if you’re arrested for illegal gun trafficking…and the NRA does nothing to bail you out. After all, you’re threatening to cut in on their corporate sponsors’ profits…

15. Joe Fucking Francis. So, Botox Boy Gone Wild has been busted, yet again, for assaulting women. And this time, it could be Guy Gone to Jail. For five years. Let us pray…

16. Patrick Fucking Brazeau. So, he has to pay back $30,000 of taxpayer money. Well, it’s a good start. I wonder when his boss, Big Chief Shit Head, is going to pay back the $3 billion that “went missing” on HIS watch…

17. Stephen Fucking Woodworth. Disingenuous antichoicer is disingenuous. Of course no pro-choice group will support any of the motions this imbecile puts forth in Parliament! What was he expecting? This isn’t rudeness on their part, it’s deliberate, transparent trolling for attention on his. And yet another epic fail in the battle to corral women by stripping away their rights. PS: Ha, ha. Also, SIGN.

18. Bobby Fucking Jindal. Wow. This just hasn’t been your year, has it? Ha, ha.

19. Chris Fucking Brown. “Wife” is a noun, not a verb. The verb in question is “to marry”. And frankly, she is lucky you didn’t. She is luckier still to be rid of you.

20. Paul Fucking Ryan. Some people are born with a silver spoon; others, with a big ol’ foot in their mouths. If the Repugs ever hope to be relevant to immigrant Americans, and to overcome their racist image, they might want to rethink the use of phrases like “anchor baby”.

21. Stephen Fucking Harper. Well, I think I just found $0.1 billion of the $3.1 billion that was lost on his watch. He spent it on propaganda to convince us that our economy was working better than it actually was! And to make us think jobs were being created, when in fact they were not! Now, I wonder what else we’ll find between the sofa cushions…

22. Ted Fucking Cruz. See, I told you he was a weenie.

23. Buford Fucking Rogers. Sorry, Bucky, but if there’s a war going on, you just lost. How’s it feel to be a failed domestic terrorist? (And a spelling-impaired one, at that?)

24. Sylvia Fucking Browne. Sorry, Syl, but you are NO psychic. How’s it feel to be wrong, wrong, WRONG? I hope you’re feeling mighty guilty over contributing to the heartache that killed Amanda Berry’s mom. And I hope your books never sell another copy.

25. Tim Fucking Lambesis. Hiring a hitman to kill your estranged wife? Gee, dude, how Christian of you. Lucky for her the contract killer was a plainclothes cop.

26. Alex Fucking Jones. Satan, like the Illuminati, DOES NOT EXIST. It’s kind of hard to worship nonexistent things…unless you’re a nut like Alex, in which case you eat, sleep and BREATHE nonexistent things.

27. Dick Fucking Cheney. “We were always ready on 9/11.” Is that a bald-faced lie, or an inadvertent admission of BushCo’s responsibility for letting terrorism happen? Either way, it makes BushCo and the Big Dick look really, really fucking shitty. And not, as he was hoping, good in comparison to His Barackness.

28. Glenn Fucking Beck. Well, Biff, which is it? Are you a journalist, or not? I vote not, because you haven’t the first fucking clue what a journalist is, much less what the hell you’re talking about. Neither are you an entrepreneur, and you’re certainly not a thinker. You’re just a lunatic who managed, through some amazing malign coincidence, to be capable of landing yourself a TV gig. In another era, you’d be locked in a rubber room. Thanks for making me nostalgic for the Bad Old Days, motherfucker.

29. Gordon Fucking Klingenschmitt. So, a law forbidding workplace discrimination on the basis of religion will be “the end of the world for Christian employers”? Let us pray…

30. James Fucking Ebdon. Police brutality? Planting drugs on innocent people? All in a day’s work for Durham Region’s Finest, I see.

31. John Fucking Boehner. Biff is no journalist, and Boner is no economist. Surpriiiise!

32. Mike Fucking Randolph. True, blacks routinely get executed on the flimsiest of evidence in Mississippi Goddamn. So why should something as trifling as modern forensic science stand in the way of a good ol’-fashioned lynching? Is someone trying to drag that state kicking and screaming into the 20th century, or something?

33. Donald Fucking Trump. No, the presence of women in the military is NOT what causes rape. What does, is the macho warrior culture that gives guys a licence to do it and get away with it, because rape is often a sanctioned weapon of war. But hey, what did we expect of Da Donald…there is nothing under that hairpiece but a steaming load of dogshit.

34. Barbara Fucking Hewson. Yes, let’s lower the age of consent to 13 and give the poor persecuted dirty old men a licence to rape. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, I dunno…ask anyone who was ever sexually abused at that age, and never the same since. WTF, Red Scare BITCH?

35. Geoffrey Fucking Dear. Allowing same-sex marriage in Britain will provoke a backlash? Only among bigots, Dear. Here in Canada, on the other hand, the only outcome has been tolerance, tolerance and more tolerance. And a lot of happy gay couples. Oh, and a few irrelevant, ineffectual whinings from Charles Fucking McVety and his institute for un-Canadian values. And that’s about it.

36. Nigel Fucking Farage. Maggie Fucking Thatcher was “open-minded”? To gays??? Um, NO. Any change of British heart since her time has happened in spite of her, not because of her.

37. Brian Fucking Fischer. What’s this about “gay impulses”? Well, that explains everything. Once more, a professional homophobe outs himself as a screaming closet case. This is getting to be downright boring.

38. Mike Fucking Jeffries. If ever you need proof that the corporate sector should NEVER be trusted to run the world, just remember this guy. He literally wants to relive his high school glory days (that’s when he peaked, poor thing), and force the rest of us to relive our years of hell, by making clothes that only the thinnest of the popular girls can wear. Meanwhile, guys do get a couple of larger sizes, but they’re aimed at burly jocks, not fat boys. Well, you know what? I hate his fucking guts, and I say this as one who was very slim (but still not popular) in high school.

Plus, he looks really fucking tacky. But I guess having been one of the “cool kids” in high school means never having to learn how to dress well.

39. Michelle Fucking Malkin. Finally, Ms. Maglalang lets her mask slip, and a little bit of truth leaks out from behind. She admits that she’s an old, rich, white guy who eats Chick-fil-HATE. Now, if she would only admit that her husband (who fits the profile, natch) ghostwrites her columns, we’d be getting somewhere…

40. Joe Fucking Scarborough. Benghazi is still a non-story, after all the right-wing efforts to MAKE it a story. So, what about Lori Klausutis? That’s still a story, after all the effort gone into making it a non-story.

41. Bibi Fucking Netanyahu. Condescending to Stephen Hawking just because he joined the academic boycott of Israel? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Bibi, honey, go study some diplomacy. You’re not good enough to push his wheelchair.

42. Alex Fucking Jones. Oh, crazydude. He totally fell for an Onion spoof! So far off the deep end, I would wonder who he’s fronting for. Except I already know…it’s the ultimate conspiracy of all time, and its name is CAPITALISM. (And he’s doin’ it wrong.)

43. Jeffry Fucking Mathis. So, he sexually assaulted a student in a quid-pro-quo offer of better grades (for sex, natch). He even admitted as much, when he wasn’t making the age-old “it was consensual” bullshit excuse. Or the age-old “SHE was the aggressor” bullshit excuse. And he wasn’t punished. And he’s still allowed to keep his job? Yeah, tell me all about how having a penis doesn’t come with an awful lot of perks.

44. Jack Fucking Burkman. 9-11! Benghazi! Benghazi! 9-11! Benghazi is 9-11! No, Benghazi is worse, because it happened on that black dude’s watch! It’s all that black dude’s fault!!!!

45. Alan Fucking Dershowitz. Oh look, another Hawking-hater for Israel. And he’s projecting! Isn’t that just so cute?

46. Jacques Fucking Nazaire. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks. And lawyers who chase the ambulance known as Internet porn have no business slandering California judges over same-sex marriage. But gee, how strangely appropriate that one who profiteers off porn would be a professional homophobe, at least when convenient. And a wanker all the time.

47. Peggy Fucking Scott. Oh, boo fucking hoo hoo hoo! Her “heart breaks” because same-sex couples will soon be able to marry in Minnesota? That’s funny, I was under the distinct impression that people who act the way she does don’t have any hearts.

48. Yoon Fucking Chang-jung. Jesus H., what is it with all these middle-aged right-wing crapaganda guys who grope women and generally make embarrassing boozy asses of themselves? You’d almost swear it all had something to do with conservatism, male privilege, and institutionalized patriarchy, eh?

49. Conrad Fucking Black. Yeah, I’m so shocked that Lord Blah-Blah would defend Tom Fucking Flanagan and his creepy kiddie-porn predilections. After all, these old conservative guys do love their power-hungry circle jerks…

50. Doug Fucking Ford. So, I guess bike-riding pinkos have no right to smell clean, then? Or is this some kind of homophobic aspersion on their manhood? Hey Dougie, women ride bikes too. And no, we don’t grope each other in the showers. That’s what closeted “straight” men do.

And finally, to all the hateful haters out there, hating on Stephen Hawking for daring to speak his mind on Israeli apartheid. You know that old saying, “The higher a monkey climbs, the more he shows his ass”? Applies to you. You are monkeys, and your asses are hanging out for the world to see. Shove a banana up your bums, for all I care. The truth is so blindingly obvious that it shouldn’t take an Einstein-level genius like Hawking to see it. And neither should it be a crime to say as much. And above all: You’re picking on a man in a wheelchair who needs a computer to help him speak? Didn’t your mothers teach you any compassion? Have you no fucking shame? Well, I do…and I’m ashamed that I have to share a planet with you fucking fascist freaks.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Dying to be beautiful in Venezuela (and elsewhere)

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Sabina Becker

butt-injection

This morning, I came across this particularly sad story out of Caracas:

Adriana Carolina Hernández, 26, died in the Pérez Carreño hospital on Wednesday, where she was brought by her mother, as a result of a pulmonary embolism after having biopolymers injected into her buttocks at the Metropolitan Clinic.

Adriana Carolina was a journalist, graduated from the Catholic University of Santa Rosa, and worked as a commercial producer.

Norys García, her mother, explained that on Friday, April 26, around 2:00 p.m., her daughter told her that she was going to the dressmaker’s, and that she had given her 200 bolivars to take a taxi, because it was raining. Later, she returned home.

The next day, the young woman began to feel nausea. Early on Sunday morning, she still felt ill. She fainted, and her family brought her to Pérez Carreño where she lay in a coma for 11 days.

García said that the doctors at the hospital explained to her that when biopolymers are injected into the gluteus muscles, there is always the risk of striking an artery or vein, and when that happens, the biopolymers could migrate to the brain or to the lungs.

Before they brought her to the hospital, Hernández told her mother that they had injected her in an office in the Metropolitan Polyclinic.

The homicide division of the CICPC is investigating.

Translation mine.

Sadly, this is not the first time something like this has happened in Latin America. Everywhere from the Río Bravo on down, culonas (women with well-rounded buttocks) are considered the most desirable. And those who aren’t as shapely as they’d like to be, go to extreme measures to get the kind of derrière their North American sisters would be only too happy to get rid of. If exercise isn’t enough to boost their bottom lines, and they can’t afford (or don’t want) silicone or saline butt implants, they do the next best thing: glute injections.

In theory, the idea is simple: inject some filler (typically medical grade silicone gel) into the buttock, between the layers of the gluteus muscles, to plump them up and make the buns rounder. If the injected substance is something that won’t biodegrade, theoretically it should result in permanently enlarged buttocks that also stay “lifted”. Sometimes these injections go off without a hitch; when they fail, they tend to fail catastrophically, causing nasty infections, deformities which can require corrective surgery, or worse. An embolism can result from accidentally penetrating a blood vessel with the needle, or from leakage of the filler into the surrounding tissues, where it migrates into the bloodstream. From there, it’s just a short time before a glob of the filler gets lodged in the lung and/or brain, causing loss of consciousness, and often, death.

A few years ago, this procedure made headlines when a former Miss Argentina, Solange Magnano, died of these very complications. It shed a much needed spotlight on the dangers of butt injections with silicone, as did a growing number of reports of “pumping parties” where women (often, transgender) have an unlicenced practitioner inject them with silicone which is often NOT even medical grade, but industrial grade (which carries with it a higher risk of infection due to contaminants in the gel.)

Some of these women are lucky to get off with “only” horrific deformities. More often, they end up developing chronic health problems. Some die just like Solange Magnano…or Adriana Carolina Hernández. In Lupita Domínguez’s book, The Table Dancer’s Tale, which I translated (toot toot), there is one notorious quack known, aptly, as La Matabellas (the Beauty Killer), who went to prison for injecting several strippers with cooking oil, causing similar illnesses, deformities…and death.

But even legitimate cosmetic surgeries can go wrong, as this butt implant patient found out to her chagrin:

Venezuela is renowned for its beauty queens, and sadly, also for its obsession with “touch-up” surgeries. When ordinary women — not models, not pageant contestants — feel that their own looks are no longer “good enough”, and when cosmetic medical and surgical procedures become this commonplace, a lot of unworthwhile consequences result. And one of them is precisely this sort of senseless death.

Really, the best thing anyone can do with her butt is leave it alone.

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Posted in Don't Cry For Argentina, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't That Illegal?, Mexican Standoffs, She Blinded Me With Science, The WTF? Files | Comments Off

Festive Left Friday Blogging: A little salsa for Chavecito

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Porfi Baloa and his Adolescentes dedicate a song called “Memories” to Chavecito on a Dominican TV show called “Fun With Jochy”. Before launching into the song, he says, “I want to dedicate this song to the man who was our dear president. May God keep him in his glory, we love him very much.”

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Posted in Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito | Comments Off

Cuban “dissidents” get a taste of Spanish capitalism

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Sabina Becker

cuban-evicted-in-spain

A Cuban woman being evicted from her home in Spain. Scenes like this are becoming more common as Spain’s economic woes deepen. They’re also putting the bitter lie to the idea that a capitalist economy spells more freedom, as one Cuban family found out the hard way after no longer being able to pay their own rent:

A man and a woman have been detained by the Spanish national police after opposing the eviction of a family of five Cubans from their home in Alicante for not paying the rent as of last July.

Police sources indicated to the EFE press agency that the detainees, also Cuban, have been transferred to the Commissary of Benalua, accused of “assaulting agents of authority, resistance, and disobedience”, and state that two police officers have been “slightly injured” during the eviction.

The incident occurred when police intervened to speed up the eviction of a family composed of two dissident Cubans and their three children, two of them minors, from their home in the area of Gran Vía and Novelda Avenue.

At the time the police tried to enter the house, about a hundred people, most of them members of the group “Stop Evictions”, who had been gathered around the block, sat down on the ground to prevent them from entering.

The police began to remove the demonstrators, who had locked arms and legs for greater resistance, so that many of them had to be removed as a string.

There was a moment of heightened tension when the agents removed a disabled person who was participating in the demonstration in a small adapted vehicle. The demonstrators then began to advance on the agents, hurling insults.

The police also removed one of the daughters of the evicted family, a minor, by force, causing bruises to one of her hands.

When the agents gained access to the door, there was a struggle with the persons inside, resulting in several broken windows to the door.

Finally, the police entered the home of the family, who began to empty the house of their personal belongings and bring them to the street, assisted by members of the “Stop Evictions” group.

“We won’t stay in the street, nor will they take our children to Social Services, because I am a mother, and I didn’t come to Spain to have problems with the justice system,” said the mother of the family, Ismara Sánchez, to the media, minutes after having to vacate her home.

The family moved to Spain in 2011, thanks to a plan in which the Catholic church and the Spanish government collaborated to evacuate various political dissidents from Cuba.

According to a friend of the family, Juan Francisco Marimón, this plan brought 600 Cuban families to Spain, promising them a residency and work permit for five years, and economic aid of some 300 euros a month.

Marimón said that the family enjoyed subsidized protection in Spain as “political refugees”, since they belonged to a “national civic movement” in Cuba, for which they had been “incarcerated for seven and a half years.”

“When we came to Spain, the ambassador himself told us that as long as we didn’t find jobs here, they would give us economic aid from the European Fund for Refugees,” said Marimón.

However, the evicted family could not find work in Spain, and stopped paying the rent on their home last July, which was the reason for their eviction.

Translation mine.

The irony of the situation could not be more clear. These unfortunate souls were “evacuated” from Cuba after allegedly being imprisoned for belonging to an anti-communist movement of some sort (which one is unknown at this time). If they thought they could find more freedom (or at least, more money) in Spain, they have been harshly disabused of that notion by the bankers of the European Union, who, like their landlords, couldn’t care less that they were not able to pay their own way. In the end, these celebrated “dissidents” became just one more economic burden on the cash-strapped Spanish state. And so in the land of capitalist “freedom”, they once again find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Along with a great many Spaniards…who, ironically, may be taking a fresh look at communism and socialism now that capitalism has proved itself unable to keep its own promises. And who, if they still remember what Spain was like in Republican times, might well be feeling some nostalgia for those pre-Civil War days…or even eyeing Cuba with sighs of envy. Because the problems of Spain are threatening to become worse than anything Cuba has ever seen since the Revolution, and even the terrible Special Period is starting to pale by comparison…