News of the Restless

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Lula and Kirchner come to Chavecito; Piñera comes to Quito

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Sabina Becker

Nope, Chavecito’s not coming to the inauguration of that peasant-killing thug Santos in Colombia. He’s got bigger fish to fry, and two of them were in Venezuela today:

And there they are, right behind him. Néstor Kirchner, former president of Argentina, and Lula, outgoing president of Brazil, attended a summit today at the Yellow House in Caracas. The theme: south-south integration, as South America and Africa forge closer political and economic ties. Other topics on the table: Colombia and the shit it’s been pulling with Venezuela of late. Because if there’s one fly in the ointment of integration, it’s bound to be Colombia…

Here’s another nice shot of the friendly trio:

And here’s a third, just for good measure (and because I couldn’t resist the jollity):

And that’s not all the meetin’ and greetin’ going on. The president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, was in Quito, Ecuador today, meeting with his local counterpart, Rafael Correa:

This photo is just begging for a caption. Anyone care to have at it?

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Posted in Brazil is the Bomb!, Chile Sin Queso, Ecuadorable As Can Be, El NarcoPresidente, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito | 2 Comments

What I learned about Christopher Hitchens’s mental health when I visited Slate.com

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Sabina Becker

For starters, he really needs to be waterboarded again. Or something that will sober him the fuck up. He’s drinking so much, it’s embarrassing to watch his brain deteriorate like this…

Recent accounts of Hugo Chávez’s politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement. In the early hours of July 16–just at the midnight hour, to be precise–Venezuela’s capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón Bolívar, leader of Latin America’s rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830. According to a vividly written article by Thor Halvorssen in the July 25 Washington Post, the skeleton was picked apart–even as Chávez tweeted the proceedings for his audience–and some teeth and bone fragments were taken away for testing. The residual pieces were placed in a coffin stamped with the Chávez government’s seal. In one of the rather free-associating speeches for which he has become celebrated, Chávez appealed to Jesus Christ to restage the raising of Lazarus and reanimate Bolívar’s constituent parts.

Okay. That’s a lot of fucking crazy to pack into just one introductory paragraph, but let’s have at it.

“Recent accounts of Hugo Chávez’s politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe…”

That’s because they ARE. They are too lurid to be called anything other than rank speculation. There is no “politicized necrophilia”. This was a scientific invesitigation, attended (among other august international scientific institutions) by the Smithsonian and the National Geographic Society. Its purpose is twofold: to determine if it is indeed the Liberator in Bolívar’s crypt (and not the bones of some random impostor), and, if it is he, what he died of, since historical accounts are troublingly vague. The general consensus seems to be that he died of tuberculosis, but it was strangely sudden; it happened before he could journey into the exile imposed on him by the oligarchy. Therefore, there is reasonable grounds for suspicion that Bolívar may have been murdered. It is by no means settled fact that he died of natural causes. Hence, the need for an investigation. The samples were taken so that two sets of tests could be run on them: one for the DNA markers found in the blood of the descendants of Bolívar’s sister (the Liberator himself had no children), and the other, for evidence of disease, and possibly the presence of arsenic and other poisons in abnormally high quantities.

This is “politicized necrophilia”?

“I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement.”

No, you bloody fucking can’t. You don’t understand Spanish, so you had to rely on the burblings of Thor Halvorssen…an oligarch and fascist putschist posing as a human-rights advocate and freedom-loving concern troll. Bad mistake there, Hitch. LSD hallucinations have more veracity than anything Thor dreams up. The poor widdle rich boy is a disociado who can’t do an honest day’s work for the life of him, so he has to make clumsy, obscure crapaganda films and run a bogus foundation dedicated to preserving the privilege of the least deserving. And its work is to provide a pretext for future coups against democratically elected leaders whom the Latin American and Washington elites can’t stand.

“In the early hours of July 16–just at the midnight hour, to be precise–Venezuela’s capo officiated at a grisly ceremony.”

“Capo”??? You make him sound like a fucking mafia boss, Hitch. He’s precisely the opposite. Unlike your little pal Thor, whose technicolor hallucinations you take for gospel…

And no, he did not “officiate” at a “grisly ceremony”. The opening of the Liberator’s tomb was conducted by scientists, working with the utmost care. It took about 24 hours to complete, so there was not only a “midnight hour”, but a noon hour, a sunrise hour and a sunset hour, too. Chávez was not present by the graveside. He was respectfully out of the way, to allow the scientists to do their work. There’s a video here, if you’re interested. The pictures speak for themselves: Chávez is not even in the room. There are only the scientists, opening the sarcophagus and cutting the metal casing around the Liberator’s bones before carefully opening it up. You’ll see nothing grisly, other than maybe the respectful removal of an old seven-star Venezuelan flag. But you’ll have to learn Spanish if you really want to understand what’s going on.

“According to a vividly written article by Thor Halvorssen in the July 25 Washington Post, the skeleton was picked apart…”

No, it was not. And shame on you for mediumistically relying on such blatant crapaganda instead of bothering to see and learn the facts for yourself, you pathetic drunken ass. A camera placed directly above the work area where the scientists cut open the metal casing reveals that the skeleton was left–very respectfully–almost entirely intact, other than the removal of a few small, unobtrusive samples.

“The residual pieces were placed in a coffin stamped with the Chávez government’s seal.”

Uh, that would be the official coat of arms of Venezuela, you fuckwit. And those “residual pieces” comprised almost the entire skeleton.

“Chávez appealed to Jesus Christ to restage the raising of Lazarus and reanimate Bolívar’s constituent parts.”

Hitch, do you know what metaphor is? If not, now would be a good time to learn. Chavecito was NOT praying for Bolívar to literally rise from his grave. He was, rather, reciting a famous poem by Pablo Neruda whose most famous line, uttered by Neruda’s imagined Bolívar, is “I awaken every hundred years, when the people awaken.” THAT is what Chavecito was so mystically reciting over a compilation of key snippets from the exhumation! He was appealing to the spirit of Bolívar, not the flesh.

And the spirit is very much alive in the revolution; it was invoked, in fact, long before Chavecito staged his first rebellion against the puppet-democracy of Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992. During the Caracazo of 1989, protesters didn’t merely loot the shops when everything shot up in price and became unaffordable; they did so waving the flag, singing the national anthem, and chanting verses glorifying Bolívar, signifying that their struggle was patriotic in nature.

This is something that the idiots who screamed about the “sacrilege” of the exhumation obviously didn’t grasp. Given that Hitchens positions himself as an iconoclastic atheist, he ought to at least understand that this was not religious literalism here, but the language of poetry, recited to honor the memory of Bolívar most fittingly, in the words and cadences of Latin America’s best loved poet. But of course, he chooses deliberately not to, going instead for the superstition-and-mumbo-jumbo angle. An easy, ugly, and breathtakingly stupid smear.

Of course, Hitchens doesn’t let his loopy stupidities end there; he goes on:

As if “channeling” this none-too-subtle identification of Chávez with the national hero, Venezuelan television was compelled to run images of Bolívar, followed by footage of the remains, and then pictures of the boss. The national anthem
provided the soundtrack. Not since North Korean media declared Kim Jong-il to be the reincarnation of Kim Il Sung has there been such a blatant attempt to create a necrocracy, or perhaps mausolocracy, in which a living claimant assumes the fleshly mantle of the departed.

Again, very cheap, very easy, very stupid, very smeary. Hitchens is reduced here practically to babble–to inventing words for what doesn’t exist. Chavecito could not be further removed from Kim Jong Mentally Il, whether geographically or politically. Hitchens obviously needs a fat slap up the head to remind him that this man is democratically elected and re-elected, and more popular than any of his predecessors since…well, since Bolívar himself. And of course the national anthem would be played–it was the exhumation of the national hero of not one, but half a dozen Latin American nations! Duh!

There follows a paragraph in which Hitchens pays a sop to the Liberator–one that he doesn’t have the moral right to, since he just spent all the foregoing slamming the respectful, scientific exhumation of Bolívar’s bones. I’m gonna skip that–it’s boilerplate anyway–and go on to the next bit of sleazy slamming and smearing:

In the fall of 2008, I went to Venezuela as a guest of Sean Penn’s, whose friendship with Chávez is warm. The third member of our party was the excellent historian Douglas Brinkley, and we spent some quality time flying around the country on Chávez’s presidential jet and bouncing with him from rally to rally at ground level, as well. The boss loves to talk and has clocked up speeches of Castro-like length. Bolívar is the theme of which he never tires. His early uniformed movement of mutineers–which failed to bring off a military coup in 1992–was named for Bolívar. Turning belatedly but successfully to electoral politics, he called his followers the Bolivarian Movement. Since he became president, the country’s official name has been the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. (Chávez must sometimes wish that he had been born in Bolivia in the first place.) At Cabinet meetings, he has been known to leave an empty chair, in case the shade of Bolívar might choose to attend the otherwise rather Chávez-dominated proceedings.
It did not take long for this hero-obsession to disclose itself in bizarre forms. One evening, as we were jetting through the skies, Brinkley mildly asked whether Chávez’s large purchases of Russian warships might not be interpreted by Washington as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. The boss’s response was impressively immediate. He did not know for sure, he said, but he very much hoped so. “The United States was born with an imperialist impulse. There has been a long confrontation between Monroe and Bolívar. … It is necessary that the Monroe Doctrine be broken.” As his tirade against evil America mounted, Penn broke in to say that surely Chávez would be happy to see the arrest of Osama Bin Laden.
I was hugely impressed by the way that the boss scorned this overture. He essentially doubted the existence of al-Qaida, let alone reports of its attacks on the enemy to the north. “I don’t know anything about Osama Bin Laden that doesn’t come to me through the filter of the West and its propaganda.” To this, Penn replied that surely Bin Laden had provided quite a number of his very own broadcasts and videos. I was again impressed by the way that Chávez rejected this proffered lucid-interval lifeline. All of this so-called evidence, too, was a mere product of imperialist television. After all, “there is film of the Americans landing on the moon,” he scoffed. “Does that mean the moon shot really happened? In the film, the Yanqui flag is flying straight out. So, is there wind on the moon?” As Chávez beamed with triumph at this logic, an awkwardness descended on my comrades, and on the conversation.
Chávez, in other words, is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap. Even his macabre foraging in the coffin of Simón Bolívar was initially prompted by his theory that an autopsy would prove that The Liberator had been poisoned–most probably by dastardly Colombians. This would perhaps provide a posthumous license for Venezuela’s continuing hospitality to the narco-criminal gang FARC, a cross-border activity that does little to foster regional brotherhood.

Actually, it sounds like Hitchens is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a baked cowflop, and that he needs another gin and tonic before he can pass the fuck out. This is really scraping around the barrel for evidence of nonexistent insanity on the part of Chavecito, and deserves no further dignification, other than to note that Hitchens really is a pathetic old drink-soaked twat who will stoop to anything, including willful misinterpretation, or even putting words in someone’s mouth that he obviously never said. Projecting, are we?

Many people laughed when Chávez appeared at the podium of the United Nations in September 2006 and declared that he smelled sulfur from the devil himself because of the presence of George W. Bush. But the evidence is that he does have an idiotic weakness for spells and incantations, as well as many of the symptoms of paranoia and megalomania. After the failure of Bolívar’s attempted Gran Colombia federation–which briefly united Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and other nations–the U.S. minister in Bogotá, future president William Henry Harrison, said of him that “[u]nder the mask of patriotism and attachment to liberty, he has really been preparing the means of investing himself with arbitrary power.” The first time was tragedy; this time is also tragedy but mixed with a strong element of farce.

No, Hitch, there is NO “evidence” that Chavecito has anything of the sort. I’ve been watching his broadcasts almost daily since well before he made that joke at the UN (and I have pictures of the laughing audience to prove that it WAS a joke, intended and received as such.) He is most emphatically NOT a mumbo-jumbo man. He is more lucid when out of coffee than you are when stone sober (which I’m guessing is not very often, by what you’ve written.)

But thanks, all the same, for including that bit by William Henry Harrison. It’s proof of one thing that Chavecito, and every other leftist in Latin America, has long said: that the US is out to undermine them, and make sure that they never have true, full self-rule. Yes, the conspiracy against Latin America is that old. And no, its form hasn’t changed a hair in 200 years. Bolívar may be a skeleton now, but the ghosts of the past are alive and well, and they are still chasing his successor to this day. Just remember how often a moan arises in Washington about the latest imaginary way in which Chávez is “investing himself with arbitrary power”–strangely, always involving a popular vote, which can always go against him (and on occasion, has done just that. In which case Washington gleefully rubbed its collective hands, predicting a downfall that never came. Venezuelan democracy is more resilient than that, and so is Chavecito’s leadership.)

And if anyone is being a necromancer, it’s Hitch, chasing the spirits in the bottle to persuade himself that he heard something he did not. I hope Sean Penn punches his lights out for this load of pseudo-intellectual drivel–assuming Hitch hasn’t fallen face down in a puddle of his own piss already, mumbling something incoherent about voodoo and necrocracy and mausolocracy.

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Huguito Chavecito, The WTF? Files | 4 Comments

I love you, Lula!

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Sabina Becker

That is all.

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Posted in Brazil is the Bomb! | Comments Off

Teh Heterostoopid: “Sugarbabe” needs an insulin shot–and a dose of hard reality

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Sabina Becker

So there I was, this dark and stormy, just bopping around the web, when I chanced on this interesting little interview at Lemondrop. Seems that some cute young bit of fluff, supposedly a psychologist, has written a book saying that “women who cross their legs deserve to be cheated on”, and arguing in favor of “negotiated infidelity”. Also that young women should screw their way ahead at work! (I really wish I was kidding, but I’m not. She went there.)

Oh yeah, and did I mention she is, or rather has been, a professional Other Woman? Anyhow, her sugar-coating of the awful world of hurt that is a cheating husband really could put you into a diabetic coma.

So, here goes. Doctor Bina is gonna put on her white lab coat, snap her rubber gloves, dissect the argument, and inject some reality here, before anyone swallows too much of this latest trend in junk-food psychology…

Lemondrop: Define what you mean by the term “sugarbabe.” And what does it take to be a successful sugarbabe?
Hill: For me, a sugarbabe is like a sex worker in many ways, except she only has a single customer. She also provides a lot more services, such as the three C’s: cooking, counseling and conversation. The most successful sugarbabes are those who have the wives’ permission! It would be lovely to negotiate with “Mrs. Sugar Daddy” and find out how you could complement each others’ efforts to ensure the (common) man in your lives is happy and healthy. Personal attributes [of a sugarbabe] should include generosity, high self-esteem, excellent conversational skills, reasonable looks — if you’re a “stunner,” you’re at a disadvantage, because sugar daddies don’t want to attract too much attention — and you need to be a good lover, of course.

I see. A “sugarbabe” is basically a one-man prostitute who cooks for her one man and provides counselling on the side. But if he already HAS a wife, what does he need another one for? And why does the real wife’s permission make the prostitute (let’s not mince words here) successful? And if it’s counselling he needs, why mix sex into it–why not pay a conventional therapist and get more direct results? This isn’t explained in the interview. I should hope that the book goes into much more depth than this, but somehow I doubt it.

Now, as to the attributes of the prostitute: “Generosity” is an interesting term, considering that she’s being paid for her favors. Real generosity is about giving it away for free, as the actual wife has been doing (apparently unsuccessfully, if her man feels he must cheat on her) for years. A woman taking money (and other favors) for sex isn’t being generous, she’s being PAID. The only thing to distinguish her from a callgirl is that she doesn’t keep a trick-book.

“High self-esteem”: Again, interesting use of words, considering that women who sleep with married men, knowingly or not, generally suffer the opposite. Many of them say that they feel like nobodies unless they’re stealing moments with someone already spoken for. Some feel like nobodies FOR stealing moments! But maybe being paid to do it boosts your sense of worth in some perverse way. I dunno. Personally, I’d feel creeped out…and even cheaper if I had to negotiate with his poor, sad, teeth-gritting wife. No, thank you, my self-esteem is high enough that I’d settle for nothing less than a man without marital baggage. Too high, in other words, to be a “sugarbabe”. (Or to negotiate with one, come to that.)

As for looks and conversational skills, whatever. I’m sure they come in mighty handy no matter what you’re doing or with whom. But good at sex? Well, here’s where we hit a snag–and a sexist myth badly in need of debunking. I’ll get to that in a bit. I’ll just ask you to imagine how ridiculous this whole scenario would look if the genders were reversed, and it were a juicy young gigolo negotiating with a cuckolded husband for the favors of his sex-starved wife…

What about the other term you coin in the book, “negotiated infidelity”? What does this mean, and how many couples can honestly make it work?
Negotiated infidelity is about negotiating some sort of sexual alternative for your partner if you have unmatched libidos. It’s about formally establishing a set of rules and boundaries for your relationship. For example, I’m unprepared to share intimacy with other women, so my partner may sleep with every woman in the WMBA for all I care, but he’s not permitted to spoon any of them. For his part, I’m not allowed to wear any of the clothes that he’s purchased for me when I’m with other men. Every couple is unique and the rules don’t have to go both ways — unless we want them to.

Interesting argument in favor of double standards, eh? And yeah, there’s that sex thing again. But she still doesn’t go into it in depth, and this “negotiated infidelity” thing doesn’t convince me very much. Actually, it sounds like a terrible drag:

Asking all women to be comfortable with open infidelity is a tall order. What suggestions do you have for women not willing to go this route?
Start laying the foundations for negotiated infidelity instead. This means total honesty, open communication, and looking your partner in the eye and asking if they’re “getting enough.” If he/she says no, it does not mean throwing a fit, but instead saying something like, “I am not prepared for you to break our monogamy vows, but is there something else that could assist? Could we lift the pornography filter from the computer at night, or get some time away from the kids, so you can masturbate without fear of being seen?” If you love someone, you try and meet their needs, not scoff at them and deny they exist.

Okay. I’m all for trying to meet the other person’s needs, within reason. Letting him whack off now and then if he feels he must is fine. But suppose I have needs that HE is not meeting, and his whacking off (or worse) is the reason they’re not being met, hmmm? What “negotiations” does our “sugarbabe” suggest in that case?

Well, she doesn’t suggest any. At least none that I can see actually working for me:

Define “naughty feminism,” which also pops up in your book. And how can women who have a sugardaddy really be considered feminists?
Naughty feminism is about exchanging vulnerability for power, so it’s definitely a feminist concept! Let’s face it — if life gives you a lemon, you make lemonade. Genetic modification might be OK for fruit, but not for guys. That means we have to use men’s biology to work for us, rather than against us. Naughty feminism is walking the dog on a leash rather than letting it escape through a hole in the back fence. It doesn’t necessarily mean negotiating other lovers, either — it could be pornography, a lap dance, or even being allowed to perve himself stupid.

“Exchanging vulnerability for power”? WTF is that supposed to mean, exactly? It sounds to me like she’s suggesting that we all bow to the old sexist excuses–that guys have higher libidos than we do, that this is the reason they cheat, and the best thing to do is just bow to it and make fucking lemonade. How is bowing to sexism a “feminist” thing to do?

It isn’t. It’s not “naughty”, either. It’s just the flip side of the old “good girl” coin; it’s not a
whole ‘nother coin at all. You’re still doing what the man wants, not what YOU want. But I guess, if you can winkle a mink stole out of him in exchange, more “power” to you. Hope it keeps you warm when he moves on to the next one, dear.

Tell us about your tenure as a sugarbabe. How long did you do this, and do you now consider yourself one of those “sluts who make better lovers” you talk about in the book?
The sugarbabe experience lasted about 12 months and was condensed for the book. I’m proud to call myself a slut in that I’m now a sex writer. I couldn’t think of anything worse than getting sexual advice or reading sex scenes from someone who isn’t doing it a lot. Never trust an unpromiscuous sex writer, I say!

I can just picture all the happily monogamous sexperts out there rolling their eyes at this one. Please, somebody, tell this poor girl what fantasies are, and why you don’t have to live them out in order to be able to write convincingly about certain things. Does it take a fiction writer like me to explain imagination? I’m writing a novel about a former Marxist guerrilla, from a masculine point of view, and I certainly didn’t feel any need to put on a penis, much less take to the hills of Latin America and get myself shot at!

Why did you focus exclusively on wealthy men? What’s wrong with having a fling with a blue-collar guy?
Find me a blue-collar man who can afford $1,000 a week for a sugarbabe, and I’m his gal!

A mere thousand a week? By call-girl standards, that’s cheap, honey–just ask Elliot Spitzer’s paid “girlfriend”.

And please, don’t make me pull out my Marxist class analysis on your chirpy response, either. Your bourgeois butt wouldn’t be able to take it.

All right, let’s skip down a few questions (they’re a bit more cotton candy than I can stomach; you can click on the link to read them, and analyze them yourself if you’d like). Here’s the part that really set my alarm bells clanging. See if you can tell me why:

One of your statements, “Women who cross their legs deserve to be cheated on,” seems to intimate that women who aren’t sexually promiscuous are basically asking for disappointment. Do you really believe that?
Women who cross their legs — and most of us have every right to do this at some time in our lives — and don’t provide some sort of sexual relief for their men WILL be cheated on. We all make jokes about blueballs, but they are real. This means we must negotiate an alternative, which could be pornography — anything as long as it enables him to get his rocks off.
You say that women shouldn’t take infidelity too personally. Yet so many of us do. So, why is this the case?
Women have sex for things like love, cuddling, kissing and so on. Men have it for pressure relief, a cheap thrill or because their wives have crossed their legs. The problem lies in the fact that women project values onto men. Our cheating husbands don’t love the people they are having sex with. In fact, half the time, they don’t even want to know their name. Nature made men and women this way, and without thousands of years of evolution, we will continue to fail in marriage 50 percent of the time. If you don’t change the recipe, the end result will always be the same.

Can you see what’s wrong with this picture? If you said “bad biology and worse psychology”, pat yourselves on the back, kiddies. That’s exactly it.

There is so much unregenerate sexism in this so-called “naughty feminism”, and the use of the old blue-balls myth as biological backup is just plain reprehensible. (Especially in a trained psychologist, who should know better!)

Sure, an unresolved erection hurts momentarily (so does unresolved arousal on the part of a woman–surprise). But then it subsides. That’s right, it just goes away! It doesn’t keep right on hurting and raging until the poor bastard simply must stick it into something or die. This silly woman makes it sound as though committed women have tied men’s hands and forbidden their partners to masturbate. In reality, that’s not the case. If the guy really needs relief that badly and his wife has rolled over and gone to sleep on him, he can just close the bathroom door and have at it. But even if he doesn’t, it’s not as though his sperm will just back up on him and stagnate in his testicles. Those wily little wigglers have ways of getting out.

Worse, though, is the way she just wholeheartedly swallowed the myth that men cheat because women deprive them of sex. In fact, most cheaters are getting plenty of sex from their wives; “my wife doesn’t understand me” is in fact the oldest, hoariest and most bullshit-stinking pick-up line in the book. And the poor, long-suffering wives willingly cater to and feed the ego-monsters who are hurting them! I know; I was the girlfriend for five years, on and off (mostly off) of a mean drunk who flagrantly cheated on me even though I was more than willing to sleep with him. And, stupidly, I forgave him, and got my hopes up, time and again, for nothing. He was impotent where I was concerned. I guess willingness on my part wasn’t the real issue after all. Good thing sexual frustration doesn’t do real physical harm, or I’d have died before my 25th birthday.

But don’t take my word for it. Irish playwright Peadar de Burca did his homework on the matter. He wanted to write a play on infidelity, and he needed material. So he interviewed literally hundreds of cheating men (and dozens of cheated women), and his findings may surprise you…if you subscribe to the “sugarbabe” philosophy, that is:

I come from a long line of cheating men. Several of my uncles were womanisers and it destroyed their families. Their wives were always at loggerheads with them and their children grew up insecure. Similarly, many of the lads I grew up with have turned into womanisers.
But I wanted to be different. I knew I wanted to settle down and find what seems elusive these days: a happy, committed, faithful marriage.
So five years ago I embarked on my quest to find out what makes men cheat. Are some men programmed to be unfaithful? Is it something in their DNA, an overdeveloped sex drive or irresistible charm?
What I discovered was much more shocking. After meeting hundreds of adulterers, I’m convinced they cheat because they can get away with it.
I talked to more than 250 men from all walks of life – doctors, dentists, lawyers, bankers, footballers, teachers and the odd millionaire.
All had cheated on their wives but, incredibly, only 40 of them had been found out. The others got away scot free and are still at it – as are many of the men who were found out and forgiven.
I also talked to 60 betrayed women. All except three have stuck with their cheating husbands.
When women don’t have the courage to stand up for themselves, it’s virtually a cheat’s charter.
I’ve been left ashamed by the dirty tricks my fellow men get up to and horrified by the way women let them get away with murder. Quite simply, women deserve better.
[…]
The betrayed wives all had one thing in common – a
lack of confidence. They were at least as attractive as the mistresses and a great deal more intelligent. But they let their men walk all over them.
[…]
The male’s capacity to boast about his sexual prowess knows no bounds. Once they started reeling off their conquests, it was impossible to shut them up.
Aged from 25 to 65, some were handsome, some were downright ugly, but most were successful. I imagined they’d be living exciting, glamorous lives. But nothing could be further from the truth.
If one thing’s certain, affairs don’t make you happy. Once I’d dug beneath the boasting and bravado, I was stunned by just how insecure most of these love cheats were.
Most admitted they weren’t even driven by sex. They just wanted something to fill their empty lives.

Emphasis added.

Well. Doesn’t THAT just throw cold water all over the cotton-candy fluff from Ms. Sugarbabe? And we all know what spun sugar does when water hits it, don’t we, kiddies? That’s right…it melts. Just like the Wicked Witch of the West.

One evening, my research took me to a bar, where I met a married man in his 30s and his girlfriend. Like most of the mistresses I met, she barely had two brain cells to rub together. A decade younger, she was obviously attracted by the money and didn’t seem to care whether he was married or not.
When she went to the ladies, the man passed me his mobile phone to show me photos of his children. ‘I love my family. I know I’m ruining everything, but I can’t help myself,’ he sobbed.
He was so pathetic I almost felt sorry for him. But having spoken to all these men, I wonder if they’re capable of love — I’m not sure they even love themselves, so how can they love their wives? If they did, would they risk inflicting such pain on them?

And yet, Ms. Sugarbabe would have us believe that it’s the woman’s duty to cater to her man. Even through gritted teeth, she is supposed to “negotiate” his infidelities, put that dog on a leash, and walk him, lest he slip through the hole in the fence and find a bitch in heat on the other side.

Until I started this project, I hadn’t realised how devastating it is for a woman to know her husband has been unfaithful.
The wife of a serial cheat told me: ‘You see yourself for the first time through this unforgiving mirror. Suddenly every little fault and imperfection is exaggerated.
‘I used to feel good about myself because I thought I had a husband who loved me and was faithful. Now that’s all gone. Even though I know he’s to blame, I’ll never feel as good about myself again.’

Would anybody in good conscience tell THAT woman she should have “negotiated”? I wouldn’t. In any case, the man probably wasn’t interested in “negotiations”; there was another reason for the fillip, and it wasn’t sex:

It’s a cliché, but a lot of men start cheating when they hit middle age. They realise they’re never going to be David Beckham or Bill Gates, but they can have a fantasy life with another woman.
[…]
The simple truth is that most cheats are cowards. They are not brave enough to admit there might be problems in their relationship.
Instead, they embark on affairs that involve secrecy. When they are caught out, it’s normally down to something as clichéd as lipstick on their collar or a scratch mark they can’t explain.
And if their wife forgives them, they believe they’ve got carte blanche to carry on.
[…]
Having spent years trailing serial philanderers, I can’t believe why more women don’t read them the riot act. By and large, these men had fantastically attractive women at home who were prepared to be treated like dirt.
And that’s the problem. If men think they can get away with cheating, they will.

Now, this rings a lot more true. Peadar de Burca isn’t a trained psychologist and Ms. Sugarbabe is, but I’d say he has her beat nine ways till Friday for solid insights. She experimented with the airy-fairy concept of “negotiated infidelity” for just 12 months; he went out and talked in an unsterile real world to hundreds of men and dozens of women afflicted by un-negotiated infidelity over a period of many years.

Who do you suppose understands the subject better?

The secret to keeping your man faithful couldn’t be simpler: be confident, demand attention and make it clear he is lucky to have you and won’t get a second chance.

Hard and cold as it sounds, this is the only kind of “negotiation” that I’d be willing to do. Why? Because it’s not cutesy, it’s not material-girly, it’s not classist, it doesn’t rely on perpetuating sexist patterns, there’s no pandering involved, and oh yeah, it just plain WORKS. When the mean drunk who slept around on me kept calling me his “future fiancée”, but still proffered no engagement ring and no commitment (and still no sex!), I got sick of his sugar-coated bullshit. I decided that I would be happier alone. And I was! I showed him the door and kept it shut to him, and found myself opening it again–this time to better men. I’ve dumped and been dumped several times since, but I’ve never had to hold my nose through another episode of infidelity–“negotiated” or otherwise.

And I am strong and confident enough to fully expect that I never will.

Music, maestro…

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Posted in Good to Know, She Blinded Me With Science, Stupid Sex Tricks, Teh Heterostoopid, The WTF? Files, Uppity Wimmin, Writer Lady Sings the Blues | Comments Off

Stupid Sex Tricks: No, that’s NOT how you get her preggers.

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Sabina Becker

Puts me in mind of a story I once heard (which may or may not be just a joke): “My wife and I prayed for a child for over ten years. Then we went to see our doctor, and found out that’s not how it’s done. We are now proud parents…”

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Posted in Stupid Sex Tricks, Teh Heterostoopid | 5 Comments

WTF is the matter with Alberta?

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Sabina Becker

Since I’ve been getting trolled all over the Internets by a disproportionate number of Albertans lately, I’ve been wondering what’s the problem with them. Apparently, I’m not the only one. (See Jymn’s comment here.) The Mound of Sound has also been inquiring into the problem, and offers the following insight:

Years ago the “Rest of Canada” had laws requiring properly installed, properly certified baby seats to be in all cars used to transport infants. Guess who didn’t? Full points if you guessed Alberta.
There was a movement in the Alberta legislature to mandate the use of babyseats but it was angrily resisted, with real indignance, by the Conservative government of the day. Their explanation? Why, forcing drivers to have proper car seats for infant passengers would intrude on their rights. Those sphincters actually stood right up on their hind legs and said that and said it again and again and again. Those uber-right mouthbreathers eventually relented but only after being dragged, kicking and screaming, through their own filth. If you ever needed a window into the dark, perverse mind of the far right, there it is.

They’re so pro-life out in Alberta, eh? They care so much about the unborn that they won’t strap in their already-born infants in car seats–or at least, they won’t require people to do so by law, although many of them would like nothing better than to see abortion outlawed. Consistency and logic: Two more things that alienate the West.

Well, that explains their mindset, but still not how it got that way. I wonder: could it be something in the water? Bovine feces has been ruled out; there are more head of cattle being raised in my home province of Ontario (where cowboy hats are, strangely, much scarcer.) That leaves either sour gas, or tailings from the tar sands.

Don’t worry, Alberta, science will deal with you yet. You will be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century–and even defunding universities in the Rest of Canada to your own advantage won’t help you.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch | 6 Comments

Music for a Sunday: People gettin’ high, people gettin’ low…

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Sabina Becker

…people gettin’ nowhere ’cause they don’t know where to go…

Some of the best damn instrumentals ever. And also some of the funniest, most poignant lyrics.

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Posted in Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Hunter S. Thompson tribute edition

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Sabina Becker

Happy Saturday night! Welcome to a special tribute edition of Wankers of the Week. This week, we pay tribute to an intelligent whackjob who said a number of interesting and quotable things. If only all the world’s whackjobs could be so worthwhile and entertaining. Alas, it’s up to me to MAKE them so, so here we go, with a little help from my friends, and occasional interjections from our late lamented honoree…

1. Tony Fucking Clement. No, he’s not REALLY a hero, as he did NOT pluck a woman out of a raging current. He stupidly jumped in fully clothed after her before she, wisely, decided to back-float until her real rescuers–Clement’s wife and father-in-law–threw her a lifejacket and hauled her in with a rope. Tony’s a wanker for trying to take the credit here.

2. James Fucking Jones. I’ve already listed Adrian Fucking Lamo, now see if you can spot the wank here in the last paragraph:

Meanwhile, military leaders far higher up the chain of command are contending with the fallout from Sunday’s massive document dump. National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones released a statement reaffirming the White House’s determination to stay the course in Afghanistan and Pakistan: “The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security. WikiLeaks made no effort to contact us about these documents — the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted. These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.”

Seen it yet?

Actually, there are several wanks embedded here: “Could put the lives…at risk”–like going to war in a place they have no business being hasn’t done so already? Please. How can they be any more at risk than they are already? “Could threaten our national security”–US generals have a nasty ingrained habit of saying that about everything. They said it, I’m sure, when the Bonus Army marched on Washington to claim their unpaid bonuses for fighting World War I. “Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents”–as though it were Julian Assange & Co.’s job to say “Mother, may I?” Why do you think they call themselves Wikileaks? (Strangely absent from this “national security” discourse: Any criticism of Assange and friends for “leaking” the supposed contents of Raúl Reyes’ “magic laptop”, which mysteriously survived a Colombian army bombing in the jungles of Ecuador. Colombia had help from Washington, remember.) And the crowning wank of all, which I’m sure must have made him jizz in his pants: “These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment…” …to keep fighting a war that they had no business even starting. That was the whole point of the leak, as Bradley Manning himself has said–to compel an end to this stupid war. Only a pluperfect wanker would be committed to continuing what should never have been started in the first place.

And actually, as you may have guessed, the general’s wank is wankier than you think.

3. Ron Fucking Ramsey. Sez Islam is “a cult”. What church doe HE attend, again? Guaranfuckingtee you it comes up “cult” on the Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame.

4. Zachary Fucking Chesser. Well, at least now we know whom to blame for that Draw Mohammed Day bullshit and other meaningless exercises in pretend free speech. Thanks a lot, asshole.

5. Vera Fucking Kobalia. A privileged oligarch getting unearned privileges (that is, MORE of them than she already enjoyed) from a tie-eating wanker (also of unearned privilege) from Tblisi–after meeting him at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver? Color me so shocked. And pissed off, too, that this spoiled foreign bimbo gets to spend her “college” years dancing on tables in nightclubs, with buckets of champagne at her feet, while so many of us common plebes, myself included, did NOT party our educations away in designer dresses but kept our noses to the grindstone, and all for nothing.This is the “democracy” the media told us to clap for? Rose Revolution, my ASS.

6. Marcel Fucking Avraham. Brings big acts to Israel out of “a sense of Zionism”. And an eye toward the shekels, perchance? Oh, perish the thought! No, srsly, he’s a brown-noser! Really!

7. Kenneth Fucking Klassen, AGAIN. Yeah, those underage, prostituted girls were really “willing”. When you’re starving and there’s a pimp twisting your arm and you’re too small and young to fight back, that’s willingness, innit?

8. Ian Fucking Mulgrew. Most. Ignorant. Fucking. Wingnut. Columnist. EVER. Yeah, corporations collecting and selling our personal data is a GREAT idea. Shoot, who needs an impartial agency like StatsCan collating anonymous data on the populace at large and making it available to researchers who actually serve the public good, when you can have people trying to sell you crap you neither want nor need, based solely on your “demographic”–and whatever hackers can glean off of FACEBOOK? I mean shit, what’s a public good, anyway? Privatize the fuck out of everything–why should the Third World have all the fun?

9. Christopher Fucking Stone. The fact that this obvious douchebag made it as far as USC law school is absurd enough, but he claims he did it on the basis of his obviously hinky (and I suspect, owing to their rapey content, highly illegal) porn sites. Doesn’t say much for USC if it’s true. And if he does manage to make it as far as the bar exam, let alone passing it, all those jokes about sharks not biting lawyers out of professional courtesy might find a whole new basis in fact.

10. Ann Fucking Coulter. Her smile is starting to look a little photoshopped; they had to get rid of that rabies-froth around her mouth somehow. Now, if only they would do the humane thing and take her to the vet to be put to sleep. Obviously the poor bitch is in misery, because nothing she says is making even a subatomic particle of sense anymore. Did no one at Subhuman Events Onwhine get the message that rabies is a disease of the central nervous system, and that it is incurable and fatal? Clearly none of those jackanapes have had THEIR shots, either. Put ’em all down, I say.

11. Baruch Fucking Marzel. Going too far? Yeah, I should say so. Telling others whom to marry (or not) is creepy enough (and what does it concern HIM, anyway?), but calling for the murder of Israeli peace leader Uri Avnery is just plain criminal. Why is this man not behind bars yet?

12. Phylis Fucking Schlafly. Why has this dinosaur not gone extinct yet? Has she, like the Coultergeist, discovered the secret to surviving with a bad case of rabies-induced brain rot? Or she just an embalmed corpse with an embedded tape recorder, playing tinny recorded messages to the world? Either way, this one’s past her expiry date too.

13. Mike Fucking Duffy. A conflict of interests? Say it ain’t so. The question is, when will Puffy’s family loyalty (never to mention good sense, because he frankly hasn’t got any) finally overcome his creepy attachment to partisan ideology? Because in the case of the Incompetent RCMP Commissioner, something’s gotta give in the end…

14. Glenn Fucking Beck. Yeah, he’s going straight to hell. Love of money really IS the root of all evil. And if you wonder how he managed to rake so much of it in when his advertisers are dropping him all over the place, wonder no more. His biggest one is the one he’s still relentlessly shilling for by talking up Goldline–and a lot of revisionist history. I just pity the fools who fell for this barely-legal scam.

15. Robert Fucking Pickton. The only new trial he’s going to get is for any additional victims the police may uncover. In any event, I doubt he will ever be found innocent. A guy who is best known for feeding chopped-up women to pigs is just not gonna stand a snowball’s chance. Funny dat.

16. Terry Fucking Jones. Anyone who says “Islam is of the Devil” (and has written a book by that title!) is not credible when he claims to have “nothing against Muslims”. Dude, you’re advocating the burning of their holy books. If that’s not something against them, what is? Can you not just smell the brimstone of your own hypocrisy? Well, maybe I should get together a group of my pagan friends and come burn down your church, then tell you it’s nothing against you, we just think your religion is of the devil. Would you like that?

17. Leah Fucking Durant. What the hell is a black progressive woman doing in bed with white supremacists? Oh, I see–it’s called “immigration reform”. Immigration deformation is more like it. How can she have failed to do her homework on these co-opting weasels? Suddenly, I see where that saying about what the road to hell is paved with came from.

18. Andrew Fucking Breitbart. Yeah, I’ll just bet that was hard for you, asshole. Hard to take time out from drinking to make racist shit up and smear an innocent, hard-working government employee who saved a white man’s farm whether he was initially polite to her or not. You want to speak to Shirley Sherrod in private? Fine. You can do so after apologizing in public. PROFUSELY. And quitting your hackwork and getting an HONEST job for a change. Can you do that?

19. Edward Fucking Davenport. With a moat full of cognac so big “you could row across it”, you could get drunk as a lord, all right. Too bad the neighbors don’t care for this professional “lord” brown-noser and the noise his star-studded parties generate.

20. Rob Fucking Anders. That’s right, point the finger at China and ignore the real elephants in Canada’s living room: Israel, and the US.

21. Brian Fucking Sandoval. Why does this word “apátrido” keep worming its way into my head, and whatever could it mean? And these other two words, too: “racist” and “hypocrite”.

22. John Fucking Solomon. Yeah, I can see why he writes for the Washington Moonie Times. With mad obscurantist skillz like those, I’m surprised he’s not writing BP’s press releases for them!

23. Mike Fucking Mullen. Oh yeah, the Taliban are all scouring Wikileaks for current information on people to kill. As if their own eyes and ears in the field weren’t quite up to the job. Who believes this hokum, seriously? If you really care about soldiers dying in Afghanistan, the solution is simple and doesn’t involve censorship; it involves ENDING THE DAMN WAR.

24. Richard Fucking Stengel. Talk about defending the indefensible: A grossly exploitive picture of an Afghan woman with only half her nose is being touted as “what happens when we leave Afghanistan”. And TIME’s managing editor seems to sincerely believe that is the case. Only problem is, it happened while “we” were IN Afghanistan. And it undoubtedly happened BECAUSE “we” were in Afghanistan. Remember, the Taliban are the mutant form of the mujahideen promoted by Reagan (and financed and trained by the CIA) in the 1980s to get the “godless communist” Russians out of Afghanistan. How do you like your Vietnam now, USA?

25. Raymond Fucking Learsy. Actually, that oil cutoff Chavecito is “threatening” won’t happen, IF the US stops interfering politically in Venezuela and starts doing business honestly with him for a change. Therefore, that’s not “foolish” on his part, it’s damn smart of him to serve his would-be overlords due notice. What’s foolish is expecting him to go on tolerating the State Dept.’s nonsense indefinitely, or hoping that the opposition (a bunch of spoiled, corrupt, charmless assclowns with not one whole working brain divided among them) will somehow prove capable of winning against him democratically, or succeeding in a coup. So far they’ve done nothing of the sort. Nor will they ever, as long as he’s around–and even if he’s NOT around, they still won’t succeed at anything other than toadying to foreign empires. Which is exactly what the grand majority of the Venezuelan people DO NOT WANT. Who’s the fool? Learsy, and whoever’s paying him to write crapaganda defaming an elected and justly popular leader. Hey Learsy, remember the winter of 2002-3? Obviously you don’t, but Venezuelans do. That’s when the oil industry was paralyzed by the corruptos toadying to the US within it. Venezuelans didn’t exactly eat rocks then, but they did tighten their belts and bunker down. Who caved? The merchant class, not the common folk. Meanwhile, the crooks who locked the rank-and-file oil workers out of their jobs were dismissed for dereliction of duty, and retired managers stepped in to take their place and get the oil flowing again. The best weapon the US had against Venezuela–its stranglehold on the oil industry–FAILED! What makes you think it’s gonna be any different if Chavecito decides to stop selling to you because you keep trying to kill him? He’s got other economic heavyweight customers lined up and deals already signed–with India, China, Japan, etc. It’s not as if he’ll miss your greenbacks all THAT much. You think the US is the only game in town? The more fool you. So you can stop threatening him with economic ruin; Chavecito knows you ain’t all that. (And so do the many commenters taking you to task below your stupid hit-piece, happily.)

26. Werner Fucking Patels. Wow, who knew that an empty barrel could make so much goddamned noise? (Check out the banner at the top of his page if you don’t believe me. Self-important much?)

27. and 28. Lucy Fucking Viner-Mood and Lois Fucking Gibson. Shouldn’t you be torturing the guy who had sex with your friend, not your friend for having sex with him? With friends like you, the women of the world sure don’t need any more enemies.

29. The Fucking ADL. They started out with a decent-enough purpose–protecting Jews from the bigotry of others. Now they’re apparently nothing more than a crapaganda organ, churning out the same old hateful music as the Palinesque fundies of the Religious Reich, only minus the Christ. If they were truly against defamation, wouldn’t they refrain from doing it themselves? It’s worth noting that the Jewish Community Centre of New York, the United Jewish Federation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Jewish himself, obviously) and 250 9-11 victims’ families all support the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” that the ADL is at such pains to call “painful to some”.

30. Oh yeah, and lest we forget Sarah Fucking Palin–fascism has come not only carrying the cross and wrapped in the flag, but all blinged out in it. Literally.

And finally, on a personal note, to “Jamie”, who chose last week’s wankapedia to out himself as what he is: Nice job, dude. Saved me the icky slimy work of having to winkle you out. Would that all wingnuts were so co-operative.

Good night, and get fucked!

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