Lemon Fresh

From left, Margarita Zavala, wife of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Michelle Obama, and Filippa Reinfeldt, wife of Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, are seen during a visit at the Capitoline Museums in Rome, Wednesday, July 8, 2009. The wives of leaders attending the G8 (Group of Eight) Summit in L'Aquila visited the Capitoline Museums and on Thursday will travel to the quake-hit areas in Abruzzo. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)

Crazy Christian Lady Thinks Sarah Palin is Wicked, Needs to Retire Some More

(AP Photo 10-14-08)

OMG if you want to read the funniest, meanest Sarah Palin bashing ever, forget the Americablogs and the Koses and the Daily Dishes, y'all, and head on over to, believe it or not, World Net Daily and marvel at the venomous Olivia St. John's merciless scorn:

Palin's history over the past 17 years tells another story. Three years after the birth of the first of her five children, she entered the rough-and-tumble world of Alaska (and eventually national) politics and has never looked back.

Has America become so emasculated that our only hope of getting another Ronald Reagan into the Oval Office is to idolize Palin as a political Madonna? Hardly.

Do we have no men who can match her intelligence, charisma and leadership skills? To the contrary, we have better.

Have conservatives become so desperate for a passionate leader that they forsake their most basic values of home and hearth? Yes, but it's more than that.

Sarah Palin represents the empirical self of millions of women working outside the home. They live vicariously through her supposed success. Seeing such a woman extolled gives credibility to their frantic lifestyle juggling job, children, husband, church, and housework.

It has been said that part of Palin's appeal is that her family is like so many other families. She is today's American woman, who works outside the home and does it all. Whose daughters get pregnant out-of-wedlock. Whose husbands wear the aprons.

Have we gone insane? Is this something to celebrate?

YES, PLEASE. Sarah Palin is indeed something to celebrate. She is pure poison, spreading inanity like a virus, tainting everything she touches with ridiculousness, and I will always love her for that.

Speaking of which, I recently enjoyed taking a stroll down Palin Memory Lane (see photo, above), and was struck again by the ferocity of her banality. Everything about her is always so obvious, I was hardly surprised to see that that all my observations of her over the last ten months have held up. Here are some of my favorite revealing older Palin posts:

• 06-09-09: Uncooperative Sarah is unable to attend a simple fundraiser without causing problems for everybody involved, resulting in much animosity.
• 12-10-08: Media-starved Sarah has open house for the press to discuss her disdain for politics and the press and then is photographed with her kids by an AP photographer right after complaining about the invasive press. Phew! See? This is what happens when Sarah is around. She's like a magical banality vortex.
  
• 11-13-08: Inept Sarah is unable to attend a simple meeting of the Republican Governors Association without causing problems for everybody involved, resulting in much animosity.
• 11-12-08: My take on post-election Sarah: "Sarah Palin remains utterly, completely self-obsessed, and she will never, ever admit that she did anything wrong or even that she could have done anything better. Never once was there a moment of self examination apparent in these TV appearances, neither a whiff of regret for a stumble nor an acknowledgment that, you know, maybe she should brush up on a thing or two so as not to look like an overreaching cheerleader trying out for the debate squad. This magical combination of personality flaws guarantees that Sarah will continue to be entertaining for years to come."
• 11-10-08: Picture of unhappy, uninterested Sarah sitting at a table with non-glamorous Alaskan politicians inspires this advice: "Girl, you have GOT to get out of that den of balding bores."
• 11-08-09: More-trouble-than-she's-worth Palin's return to Alaska is celebrated by her staff's purchase of one (1) flower and a bunch of balloons which aren't even filled with helium.

Sarah Palin Namechecks Obscure 80s Irish Goth Classic

KOTZEBUE, Alaska (AP) - Sarah Palin says she's not a quitter, she's a fighter, but adds that, politically speaking, "if I die, I die. So be it."

Sarah, to quote the song "Baby Turns Blue" from the album shown above, you don't seem to make much sense.

How They Think

It's funny and sad to see people trying to defend Sarah Palin. Here's some hack from the Heritage Foundation giving it a go. You have to read the whole thing:

Governor Palin gives every elite East Coast or California liberal the ability to openly mock middle American values while acting like they are above the fray. They point at her and say she wasn’t qualified, because apparently in 2008, the election was about experience. Senator McCain had decades; President Obama…did not. They point at her family, and laugh at how they wouldn’t fit into their country club. They point at her daughter, and somehow draw a conclusion that Palin is a hypocrite because life experience doesn’t always match our prayers. They nudge their buddies at the MoveOn meeting, and snicker that she doesn’t speak like them, didn’t go to Harvard, never interned for a Senator. Unfortunately for the elite liberals, America is comprised of a majority of people who relate to Palin. She is their next door neighbor. Liberals will laugh, and look at the November election results, and say never. America is like them, they voted so. They want big government, big taxes and international apologies. But this dismissive hand wave of the American heartland from the shores of Martha’s Vineyard will come back to bite them.

I love how his only defense of Palin is that, basically, Democrats are assholes, forever pointing and laughing. Note that he offers not one example of Sarah's positive qualities other than her ability to be disliked by liberals. His portrayal of us as Harvard-educated country club members in Martha's Vineyard is so hurt sounding. And, um, so Republican sounding, really. Who, for instance, is more likely to belong to a country club, me or the Heritage Foundation's director of strategic communications, hyper-insidery Rory Cooper? It's ridiculously easy to imagine Cooper complaining about "elitists" with his golfing buddies.

Also: Most Americans love Sarah so much, and that's why she won!

Richard Cohen is Concerned About This Sarah Palin Lady

It's Tuesday, Richard Cohen day! This week's column is weird, because I agree with every last thing in it, and you probably will, too. What's noteworthy is just how badly composed it is even by our admittedly low standards for Cohen's writing.

First, Richard introduces us to the concept of "alternative reality" fiction, and then announces that he's going to give it a whirl: "Here is my contribution to the genre: Sarah Palin becomes president of the United States."

And then... well, no, that's it. That was his contribution. The rest of the column is filled with revelations of Sarah Palin's inadequacy and a rambling have you heard? Republicans are in disarray observation. This thing is so lightweight that I'm pretty sure Cohen composed it on his cell phone while sitting on the toilet. So we don't actually get to hear what would have happened if Sarah 'n' John had won; we'll have to wait for a less lazy writer to tackle that one*.

There is one tiny little thing that makes it hilarious:

Almost as interesting as Palin is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Never mind his affair. These things happen.

Haw, these things happen! They do, don't they, Richard?

*As will happen, inevitably. My version of "What if McCain/Palin had won?" would feature, like, John starting eight more wars and Sarah getting interviewed by Ladies Home Journal for two years straight.

Same Subject, Same Response, Only the Cast Has Been Slightly Changed

Quickie: Too Late

Politico's Mike Allen has some advice for Sarah Palin:

Danger: She has to be sure she doesn’t become a self-caricature.

OMG, Mike, that ship has so totally sailed!

Real Food: Hallucinatory Candyland

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Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging: Indian Blue

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UPDATE: These Whorses are Ready for the Glue Factory

Of all the things I've written about on this blog, none have had as much longevity, gravitas or lasting impact as the discussion of Struts, the fashion-forward toy ponies which combine little girls' love for horses, shopping, eating disorders and sexual availability. These whorses, it turns out, really had legs.

I first wrote about these creations last March, shortly after their debut, and pondered whether maybe they had been designed to intentionally instill neuroses in budding young minds (they were). A few days later, I posted four full frontal shots, if you will, of the individual models, and we all rocked back and forth in the corner for a little bit. At the end of the month, I noted that accessory packs of new slutty outfits were available and that the disturbing polyvynl chloride fillies had acquired quite a following on the interwebs, but the reaction was not quite the delighted response, I imagine, that Playmates (seriously!) Toys had hoped for.

And ever since, over and over, like clockwork, new people discover the story of the sexy toy horses: here a feminist blog, there a livejournal page, here a tsk, there an indignant rant about juvenile sexualization, etc. Each month or so there's a new little flare-up of alarm over the poor Struts Runway Magic line; there's one zipping around the web right now.

So I just want to say to you all: they are totally ew, right? I mean, OMG. But get this: they are gone. Don't worry. It's over. Playmates Toys has abandoned the line and I believe that very few actual little girls were exposed to the forbidden sexy whorses. Most of the projected products in the line were never even made (I kept checking for the boudoir set), as far as I could tell. In fact, it seems to me that it wasn't just on the web that the toys flopped; it flopped on the shelves, too.

The crisis is over. The failure of Struts should be celebrated with a sigh of relief.

(There are still a few around, here and there, so get 'em while they're still totally hot.)

Mark Sanford Family Circus

Is It Still Pride Month?

I was so inspired by John McCain's brother's hilarious attack on erstwhile PSP employer Wonkette that I decided to commemorate the strangely-chosen "insult" (is it really an insult?) with a thrilling new range of products on Café Press. Wear your pride:

How to Get a Headache

René Magritte: La Reproduction Interdite (Not to be Reproduced), 1937, oil on canvas, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

I just had to explain to a client that I do have a photograph of the photograph they wish to reproduce, but the photograph I have is a photograph of the photograph which was lent to our 2002 exhibition but is not in our collection, and not a photograph of the photograph which is in our collection, which was printed in 2006 and which hasn't been photographed.

Richard Cohen's High School Yearbook is the Closest Most People Will Come to Evil

Fun! I wasn't expecting a second chance after my dismal failure to predict the content of yesterday's Richard Cohen column, but here it is, Wednesday, and we've got a bonus, a second round! Yay! And this one is really great, because it features what we love, a glimpse at Li'l Dickie's sad high school years. Truly we are blessed.

It turns out that Cohen went to high school with Bernard and Ruth Madoff (and Dr. Joyce Brothers and Richard Feynman), and one gets the distinct impression that they were the cool kids who didn't really want to be friends with him:

I remember her only as really cute, an object of desire across a classroom or another. But in the yearbook she wrote a long inscription. It seems I teased her. It seems I kidded her. She forgave me all that and ended by writing that I would "meet Bernie at the prom -- and I guarantee he will say hello."

Are you getting the subtext? Li'l Dickie had a big crush on Ruth and so he pestered her and, I don't know, stuck her pigtails in the inkwell or whatever. Bernie was one of the cool kids he longed to be friends with. There's something so pathetic about "I guarantee he will say hello" that it almost makes me feel sorry for him. But who's saying hello now, huh, Bernie? Richard Cohen is! And goodbye, too! Ow! At last, the snub is reversed.

So now, what, eighty years later, Richard can finally take out that sad yearbook and show it to anybody who will look and finally, finally feel superior to older, cooler Bernie:

When I tell people about my relationship with Bernie and Ruth, they sometimes gasp. When I show them the yearbook, they hold it as if it's a poisonous snake. My yearbook is the closest most people will ever come to evil. Bernie is evil, which is what the judge said Monday in sentencing him to 150 years in jail. The yearbook has become like a Nazi artifact. It is compelling. It is repulsive. It is about evil.

Are you picturing Richard running around, frantically trying to push his yearbook into people's hands as they nervously back away?

Once a pest, always a pest.

Prediction: Tomorrow's Richard Cohen Column Will Be About Michael Jackson, and It Will Be Painful

My prediction record has been dismal lately, but I'm feeling good about this one. He will also mention Farrah, but not Sky Saxon. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Fail. I'm so totally through with the prognostication game.

Even more startling is that Richard wrote, instead, a perfectly good column about lifting the ban on hairdressers in the military.

Excuse Me?

All photos: Getty Images

I'm a thin guy. I'm a VERY thin guy. Basically, I look like a normally proportioned 5'8" person who somehow got stretched to 6'4". I'm not sick (thanks for asking!); I'm not anorexic (thanks for asking!); I'm not a junkie or speed freak (no, really, thanks for asking!); I'm just really, really, abnormally thin. So anyway, you'll have to excuse me, ladies, for not being delighted by this conversation, one which I've had approximately ten gazillion times (usually in the cafeteria):

Female* friend/coworker: Oh my god, I HATE you, you're so SKINNY!
Me: Um... thanks?

This is usually followed with a pronouncement that "You're so lucky, you can eat anything you want!"

Lucky! Oh, lucky me! How did I ever get so goddamn lucky?

Image via. OK, I'm not this thin.

Lately, though, I've gotten a tad militant in response to this conversation. I point out that the word "skinny" is never ever a compliment in our society when applied to males. Then I bring up that they combined the insult with a declaration of hatred. Nice. Next, if they haven't run away yet, I reveal that, in fact, being skinny –as skinny as I am– is hardly what is considered to be the masculine ideal.

I'm fairly comfortable with my renegade skinniness these days, despite the constant well-intentioned reminders, but it wasn't always the case. I used to be ultra self-conscious about it. I used to wear boxy, baggy clothes all the time in a ridiculous attempt at disguising the undisguisable, not unlike a 300-pound person wearing vertical stripes. Have you ever seen the movie Zodiac? In one scene, investigators puzzle over the fact that a male victim is wearing several shirts and pairs of pants in the middle of a heat wave (a true detail). They never explain it, but people like me nod our heads: we know what that's all about. In fact, cartoonist Dan Clowes, my physical near-twin, once told me that he used to do that.

I'm glad I got over the self-consciousness that used to practically paralyze me. And I'm pleased to report that, as a gay man, there are plenty of guys (even bears!) who actually find my freakish scrawniness attractive. But seriously, I would love to not be reminded of it on a weekly basis.

Oh, boy, there is so much more I could say about this subject! I'll spare you.

But anyway, do you know somebody like me? Are you tempted to tell them how "lucky" they are that they can "eat anything they want" and that you hate them because they're so skinny? Just don't, OK? We know.

*Sorry, but it's always a female. Men know that the word "skinny" isn't a compliment.

EDIT: Also, don't offer to "help" by suggesting dietary and/or exercise regimens in the comments section.

It's Never Too Early to Politicize Celebrity Death

Oh, hey, it's been a while since I've done a Michael Steele Roundup. Truth is, I've been a little upset about the recent death of a great musician, an influential man worshiped by some, reviled by others, a man who couldn't handle success and got increasingly bizarre over the years. I'm speaking, of course, of Sky Saxon.

I digress. Here's somebody explaining something to Michael Steele:

"Michael Jackson is dead. God rest his soul. I am not going to be the Michael Jackson of the Republican Party. You will not use me until I am dead."

Um, OK. Yeah, I'm not sure what that means, either. Steele's response? "We can watch good men and women leave. We can watch good men and women give up." Can we or may we?

Of course, my favorite piece of Steeliabilia from last week was his response to the Mark Sanford affair: "Here we go again." Haw.

Michael also did an interview in glamorous Grand Rapids on Friday, and he claimed that Republicans have "learned from our boneheaded mistakes," but neglected to identify what those mistakes were, which would have been hilarious. The best part, though, is where Steele tries to jump through a series of rhetorical hoops: we need to change but we must remain the same! See if you can make any sense of this:

"I'm a chairman who believes in multiplication and addition not division and subtraction. So I'm looking to expand and grow the party. I want Americans and certainly the folks in Michigan to know that this is a party that recognizes the importance and the value-added of individual initiative and ingenuity. This party wants those who can bring new, exciting ideas to the table. Yes we have some core principles and values that we have adhered to and supported that have branded us if you will as the Republican Party that are still important to us, but that doesn't mean that I can't reach across the table and talk to you and take in your ideas and welcome you to our table with those ideas to help us reflect more appropriately the changing demographics and dynamics of our country. We cannot stay static. I'm not afraid of expanding the party because I know I don't lose the value of my ideas and those values that I hold on to just by asking someone else to be a part of this."

Did you get through that whole thing? Me neither.

If you ask me, he's pushin' too hard.