The Standard Review

March 10, 2013

"However, Larry the Cable Guy does delve into taboo subjects, but when criticized for being racist or homophobic, Whitney shrugs it off, claiming society has become too sensitive and too politically correct for its own good (one of his comedy heroes is Don Rickles). Honestly, I am often torn when the subject of political correctness in comedy comes up. I often err on the side of being too politically correct as I feel that it’s only right that we respect all cultures in our society, however after the controversy that sprung up after last week’s Onion tweet and Seth Macfarlane’s Oscar hosting gig, I wonder if there isn’t some truth to Whitney’s claim that we have become overly sensitive today. Whatever the case, the conversation is worth having, but it is doubtful that a politically correct Larry the Cable Guy is going to end prejudice in America."

—

Every now and then I like to check in to see if Splitsider is any less shitty. Don’t worry, it remains shitty.

Full disclosure: A good friend once wrote an article for Splitsider that I didn’t think was shitty.

4:20pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyf_4lA_

December 26, 2012

Pro Choice Teddy Bear: Equating Pro-Choice with Pro-Abortion makes no sense.

fuckyeahabortions:

stfuhypocrisy:

If you’re gonna call Pro-Choicers “Pro-Abortion”, then you’re also gonna have to call us “Pro-Adoption” and “Pro-Parenthood”. Because we don’t care which option you choose, as long as it’s your decision.

See, the thing about being pro-choice, is we…

Yeah, I’m totally down with this, but I’d like to state for the record that I’m completely comfortable being called pro-abortion, in the same way I’m comfortable being called pro-appendectomy. It’s not right for everybody but I’ll gladly say that I am for this amazing medical procedure that saves lives. Let’s never cede any ground to anti-choicers: Abortion is a good thing.

(Source: stfueverything)

1:16pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyaEDnrD

(Notes: 1,186)

Filed under: Muffin abortion pro-choice

December 17, 2012

"Knowing the real facts—the ones that led the European Court of Human Rights to condemn America for torture this week—I had trouble enjoying the movie. I’ve interviewed Khaled El-Masri, the German citizen whose suit the E.C.H.R. adjudicated. He turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, an innocent car salesman whom the C.I.A. kidnapped and held in a black-site prison for four months, and who was “severely beaten, sodomized, shackled, and hooded.” What Masri lived through was so harrowing that, when I had a cup of coffee with him, a few years ago, he couldn’t describe it to me without crying. Maybe I care too much about all of this to enjoy it with popcorn. But maybe the creators of “Zero Dark Thirty” should care a little bit more."

— Why I won’t be seeing Zero Dark Thirty.

9:13am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyZYBBHA

Filed under: Muffin Zero Dark Thirty Torture

December 11, 2012

"Ice T: All guys are kind of on the fence about that. When your woman models or becomes famouse she’s being seen by more people. That raises the odds that she could leave you. Of course when you get something you love you want to lock it away. Hopefully your wife can make you comfortable enough and keep you confident enough. Jealousy has a lot to do with how your wife handles it. If she models then wants to go and hang out it might add to your insecurity. Sure you get butterflies in your stomach because every guy in the world gets to see it; every baller, every millionaire. A motherf*cker might come from Arabia and kidnap her. But if you don’t care you ain’t sh*t either. You gotta have a little bit of insecurity. But Coco makes me feel secure, makes me feel like she’s happy. She doesn’t give me any reason to doubt our love. It helps."

— Hi! Actually, these ideas are super toxic! Women are human beings and not possessions.

8:49am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyZ8Gs44

Filed under: Muffin Ice-T Coco A motherfucker from Arabia

December 10, 2012

"I subconsciously based the idea on my dad, who grew up in Natrona Heights, a small town just outside Pittsburgh. I remember him telling me his dad held multiple jobs and they didn’t have much. As an ignorant 8-year-old I remember asking, does that mean your childhood was awful? He said no, that it was the opposite. He said it was a phenomenal way to live; they had each other and a tremendous sense of community, and faith that tomorrow was going to be a better day. That pure ideal is so inspiring it has stuck with me my whole life. So as this country in my opinion has moved farther away from that ideal, I thought it was important to tell a story of how it once was, and how we can be again."

— John Krasinski sounds really stupid in this interview.

11:00am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyZ48fE8

(Notes: 1)

Filed under: Muffin John Krasinski Promised Land fracking

November 19, 2012

This Is Not Jewish: How to Support Israel Without Being Racist

this-is-not-jewish:

Please note up front that I am not Palestinian, or Arab, or Muslim. I am an American Jew. So any list I draw up with this title is doomed to be incomplete, because there are a lot of facets of the Palestinian experience that I just don’t see.

HOWEVER.

I’ve seen a shocking amount of orientalist…

“People who are poor and oppressed, on the whole, engage in more violence and subscribe to more extremist forms of religions—regardless of what religions they practice, because the real problem isn’t the religion, it’s the poverty and oppression.”

Just to nitpick in this otherwise excellent post: We have a tendency to see the way oppressed people behave as violent in a way we don’t see capitalism, hegemony, and political power as violent. I get this, and I appreciate that this post understands the roots of that kind of violence, but rhetorically I’d like us to move away from it. Oppression is violence. Capitalism is violence. If you use a ballot measure, or a vote, or a dollar to fuck someone up, that’s violence. Using police to quell protests is violence. Even if we think of violence as value-neutral, as just a tool to be used on the side of right or wrong (I don’t feel this way, but…), sitting in an office wearing a tie and signing a piece of legislation that takes away rights like health care, or someone’s home, or the right to move freely from one town to the next is an act of violence. So when we turn on the TV (I’m for a moment going to talk about my experience in America, even though this post was originally about Israel, because most of this blog’s readership is in America) and see that someone poor robbed a convenience store, we must not forget the acts of violence committed by rich people, constantly, that give the poor no options.

(via amaliadahlia)

9:50am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyXcAEKe

(Notes: 248)

Filed under: violence Israel Muffin poverty capitalism

October 15, 2012

"When Mr. Jarmusch began making his own films, he found that the process, like his stories, was informed by the unexpected and the innocuous. While he was filming “Permanent Vacation” in an apartment on East Third Street, the late painter Jean-Michel Basquiat took to using the set as a crash pad. “Every time we did a reverse angle, I’d have to drag Jean-Michel in his sleeping bag under the camera so he’d be out of the shot,” he says. “He’d grunt and go back to sleep."

— I am obsessed with this 1992 article about Jim Jarmusch. Sorry for being a self-parody?

10:07am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyVLYXap

(Notes: 1)

Filed under: Muffin Jim Jarmusch Jean-Michel Basquiat Permanent Vacation The New York Times

September 22, 2012

"I believe that if I tell my story as honestly as possible, we can all relate to the broader truths of things I experienced. That was the theory. If it failed I hoped it would be funny enough to make up the difference."

— Stephen Tobolowsky accidentally just straight-up explained good storytelling on his blog.

9:31pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyTvQsDE

Filed under: Stephen Tobolowsky storytelling Muffin

September 12, 2012

"The DNC convention in particular, with its empty paeans to the common good and the economic security of the “middle class,” was received with mind-numbing euphoria, yet when a strike broke out by workers actually defending decent public services and middle-class standards of work, the response was a mixture of embarrassed silence and know-nothing hostility, peppered with contempt for overpaid teachers."

— http://jacobinmag.com/2012/09/the-liberals-and-the-teachers-an-examination-on-the-merits/

10:56am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9_IVyTG1lzk

Filed under: Democrats DNC Rahm Emanuel unions labor liberals Muffin Jacobin

September 4, 2012