Supposedly, "The best comebacks to sexist comments."

In The Guardian, via Metafilter, where people seem way more impressed than makes any sense. It seems to me, if the "sexist comments" are actually harassment — especially on the street — any response functions as a reward. If you banter, you're downgrading it to banter, and as banter, this stuff just isn't funny enough.

Examples at The Guardian:

Managed to stop white van full of men mid-catcall by shoving a big powdery donut into my mouth then smiling with mouth full.

Guy on train after I asked him to move his bag off seat: "Why don't you grab my cock?" Me: "I didn't bring any tweezers."

A friend heard a guy shout 'Sit on my face!' at a girl who replied 'Why, is your nose bigger than your dick?' AMAZING!

In my view, the best response to anything involving a stranger on the street is to absolutely ignore it, and in most social situations it's a look of pity or a glance upward with the half shake of the head that means I'm going to pretend you didn't say that.

The Cap Times reporter Jack Craver refers to me as a "Walker fan."

He is such a weasel. Craver I mean. Not my darling Scottie.

"Crazy, I know, but I've actually been encouraging my son and his friends to use sexting — minus the lewd photos — to protect themselves..."

"... from being wrongly accused of rape. Because just as damning text messages and Facebook posts helped convict the high-schoolers in Steubenville of rape, technology can also be used to prove innocence."

Writes Roxanne Jones of ESPN. She's getting some attention for this, notably from Melissa McEwan, who's the type of blogger who, approaching this topic, begins with "[Content Note: Rape culture.]," which is — if I understand the culture of people who say "rape culture" —an enactment of the belief that encountering the topic of rape triggers a post-traumatic experience. Why doesn't the warning itself cause alarm? Isn't that the nature of warning? I suspect that the message isn't so much to the individuals who experience post-traumatic stress but to everyone: Never forget how deeply rape hurts.

After the warning, McEwan writes:

This is an actual fucking article authored by former EPSN [sic] vice president Roxanne Jones and printed at CNN in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and thirteen: "Young men, get a 'yes' text before sex."

Hey, why didn't we get a warning that you were going to use vulgar language and mock Jesus? Because McEwan is selective about which sensitivities to pet and which to kick in the ribs. It's a way to be funny, and fuck you if you don't laugh. Plus, some people like Jesus Jones. I kinda do. Saying "Jesus Jones" is like saying "Jiminy Christmas" or whatever cornball/hip substitution for "Jesus Christ" amuses you.

[Roxanne Jones] actually posits that a text message can verify consent, as though it's not possible to ask "Do you want to have sex with me?" followed by a series of any other conceivable questions that might elicit a yes, and then delete the interceding messages to make the "yes" look like a direct reply, irrespective of what the actual reply was.

But what Jones — Roxanne, not Jesus — wrote was: "Never have sex with a girl unless she's sent you a text that proves the sexual relationship is consensual beforehand." All McEwan is saying is that some efforts at concocting text evidence could be fake. But Jones said "a text that proves," without elaborating what text would be adequate proof. And McEwan doesn't seem to realize that deleted interceding messages would be recoverable, and the deletions themselves would be evidence against the accused. If Jones's idea is any good, it's because she's encouraging building relationships — however minimal — around sexual encounters and doing so in writing so you can defend yourself if you are falsely accused.

Give Jones some credit for saying "relationship." She also recommends "follow[ing] up any sexual encounter with a tasteful text message saying how you both enjoyed being with one another — even if you never plan on hooking up again." That's also about maintaining relationships. If your concern is avoiding accusations — false, true, or true-ishly false — don't do things that provoke the person who might go on the attack. Telling males to send some nice texts is interestingly similar to telling females not to go traipsing about in short skirts. It's don't-be-a-victim advice that some people find aggravatingly close to letting the victimizer off the hook.

But, of course, McEwan doesn't want to talk about the potential for false or false-ish accusations. She rails at Jones for talking about "stupid girls" who get drunk, throw themselves at young men, and then accuse them of rape:

Ms. Jones, I was not raped because I am stupid. I was raped because I had the misfortune of being in the presence of a rapist who was determined to rape me. Fuck off.

McEwan is an enforcer of the doctrinaire position that the issue of false accusations is such a distraction from the real problem that anyone who mentions it should be slammed down hard. Isn't it odd that extreme sensitivity about rape is expressed by telling another woman to "fuck off"? Why is fucking used as the metaphor for the expression of extreme hate? It sounds as though, in the mind of the person deploying the metaphor, fucking equals rape. It's a violent hateful action directed at the woman's body.

What is the true scope of this "rape culture" we are being warned about?

Who killed Alec Baldwin's TV show?

Alec offers some clues:

"People who I worked with that I cared about—these people were all very supportive of the show. Now there was somebody on the staff who I did not want to work with. There was somebody on the staff who I thought wasn't a good fit for me. And I wouldn't rule out if that person went to the Post and gave them that story."

The story that he called a paparazzo a "cocksucking faggot."

"These stories with the Post, the way they work, they have to have some kernel of truth. So if I complained, as I did, I said to them... I didn't ask for a humidifier, I asked for humidification. So we had a day where... my voice would crack, it was heavily air conditioned, I found it tough to talk. I did not demand someone put a humidifier in. And the woman using that dressing room, I was told she's allergic to some chemical, no one ever ever ever said to me that somebody had cancer, and I never said 'I don't give a fuck...'"

So, it wasn't just the use of the epithet on the street, it was inside stuff, staff versus star. The star felt entitled to use hairspray, and the staff member trumped him with her cancer. Her sensitivity, premised on cancer, is obviously — in the larger scheme of things — more important than his frivolous vanity over his hair, but in the production of a TV show, getting the on-camera talent to look right is actually more important than accommodating a particular employee's needs. If she can't work around hairspray, she shouldn't have a job in the room where the hair is being done.

Baldwin was hired because of his manly good looks, which includes his full head of hair, and there's pressure on him to live up to that image. He was also hired because he exudes passion, and that means he's not perfect at dealing with the pressure. He's got his sensitivities too, and they are intrinsic to the excitement that's supposed to make the show, a show centered on him. That's what MSNBC bought when they hired him.

Yes, kick him around for having "cocksucking faggot" in his head where it could pop out when he was trapped and fighting on the street, but don't fire him. We're left with the most boring and bland people blabbing on TV, including MSNBC's own little snake Martin Bashir.

Despite his public support for gay rights, Alec Baldwin is punished for uttering an anti-gay slur.

And he even apologized. ("I did not intend to hurt or offend anyone... Words are important. I understand that, and will choose mine with great care going forward.... Behavior like this undermines hard-fought rights that I vigorously support.")

Is that fair?


Baldwin — like many celebrities and assorted other humans — wants esteem from those whose esteem he's decided he values, those in the entertainment industry and among the American cultural elite, and these days, it's easy to see that this means that he ought to support gay rights. But that doesn't tell us how he really feels at a gut level. What pops out when he's angry and looking to express hatred shows us what he hides when he's doing his mundane PR.

Who knows how much hatred against gay people there really is out there and to what extent it's apportioned among people who support gay rights on the one hand and people who oppose gay rights on the other? I don't find it hard to imagine someone who hates a particular type of person nevertheless believing that those people deserve equal rights — because it makes sense philosophically or it fits a political ideology. I also don't find it hard to understand someone feeling no hostility for gay people and still rejecting same-sex marriage and thinking that all non-procreative sexual behavior should be discouraged.

Eagerness to support gay rights may stem from a desire to compensate for strongly felt aversion to gay people. Baldwin's problem is that this compensation cannot stand up to his intense emotionality, and paparazzi who know this have made a game out of provoking him to the point of explosion. It's actually kind of sad. He's a great actor, and since he tends to play villains — wonderfully — he doesn't even need us to think that he's a good person.

But should he have a political talk show on MSNBC? That's for MSNBC to decide, and obviously they have. MSNBC has chosen to be more genteel and respectful toward the cultural elite. It doesn't seem to know how to foster vibrant discourse about politics, and the gambit of putting on the over-passionate Baldwin was always lame, even before he embarrassed them.

"That's an incredibly annoying song. Why are you playing that?"

I ask, and Meade says: "This is 'A Song To Play Every Time You See A Sexist, Racist, Or Homophobic Comment Online.'"

Me: "I would rather be called a 'fucking cunt' than have to listen to that song."

If you want to hear the chirpy irritatingness that I heard, you'll have to go — warning: it's Upworthy — here.

"Ted Cruz goes pheasant hunting in Iowa and says government shutdown was good 'because it got people talking.'"

Because Iowa's where you go to hunt pheasants.

I was going to write "Because Iowa's where you go to hunt peasants pheasants," on the theory that "peasant" isn't really an insult. It just means rural folk, but I looked it up in the (unlinkable) OED and changed my mind. It's been a term of abuse since the 1500s. My favorite abusive and old quote from the OED is:

1612 J. Taylor Laugh & be Fat sig. D7, Thou ignoble horse-rubbing peasant,..being but a vilipendious mechanical Hostler.

Horse-rubbing! I think I know know what that means. But how about vilipendious? It means contemptible. I looked it up in the OED and the only example of its ever having been used was "Thou ignoble horse-rubbing peasant,..being but a vilipendious mechanical Hostler."

Anyway, that ignoble, vilipendious, horse-rubbing peasant Ted Cruz seems to be running for President.

What not to do when telling women what not to do.

A memo to women lawyers is a good negative example:

Last night, we started receiving reports of a memo entitled “Presentation Tips for Women” that was distributed by a member of the Women’s Committee to all women associates across the U.S. offices of Clifford Chance.

I haven't worked in a law firm since the 80s, so you tell me: Why is there a "Women’s Committee" in the first place?

Our tipster was correct in that the vast majority of these words of wisdom aren’t tips for “women,” but rather, tips for “human beings.”

Yeah, but there's a "Women’s Committee." These are women helping women. Either you like that or you don't. Pick one.

We’ve listed some of the most ridiculous “tips for women” here, along with our commentary...

My link goes to an Above the Law post by Staci Zaretsky, which has the text of "the full memo," but I don't see the title "tips for women." Is that the title, or is the "for women" simply a characterization that arises from the fact that there is a "Women’s Committee" and it communicates with the women? In any event, the demeaning that the recipients experienced came, it seems, from the special effort at mentoring the women.

Anyone might benefit from most of these tips, but some address problems only women have, such as whether a little cleavage is ever okay or even good, whether to leave off the high heels if you're not expert at walking in them, and whether you need to make a point of wearing something with lapels if you're going to have a clip-on microphone, and whether you're doing something that might be termed "the urinal position" (which I'm guessing — Google didn't help — is a hands-around-genitals position that men are more likely to realize looks unprofessional).

How would you like to be an older woman at the firm trying to help the younger women present themselves in a way that won't have clients talking behind their back about their uptalking and creaky voice and so forth? It's not easy! We could reverse-engineer that badly received memo to come up with some Tips for Senior Women Advising Junior Women.

1. Don't affect "girltalk." You have power and authority. Acting like you don't fails to create the sense of warmth and intimacy you want and, ironically, sets a bad example of how to sound professional.

2. Make it gender-neutral. Everyone involved already knows you're women mentoring women. Continually pointing it out creates anxiety about whether it really is a special problem to be female.

3. Don't attempt humor, even when — especially when — you're talking about seemingly lightweight things like vocal quirks, hand gestures, hairstyles, and fashion. Even if you were a gifted comic writer — and you're not — it's best to be utterly dull when conveying advice that will be received as personal criticism. Remember the old punchline: That's not funny.

Politico's Todd Purdum goes on an inane rant against a statement that was apparently never made...

... but which would have been so terrible if it had. 

Purdum — referencing the TV show "The West Wing" — informs us that "the White House is a pretty awesome place." So it would really be immensely nervy if someone were to say something contemptuous to the President of the United States in the White House.

[T]he alleged dis words are so personal, so passionate, so disaffected-high-school-sweetheart in tone — “I cannot even stand to look at you” — that it’s hard to imagine any grown man saying them to another — much less to the president. 

Know what's true of many things that are hard to imagine? The way they don't happen.

It boggles the mind to think what, if anything, Obama could have said in reply....

Imagine if Boehner said X to Obama, then what would Obama say? As long as we're sojourning in Imagination Land, why aren't we imagining what Obama might have said to Boehner that would have caused Boehner to say "I cannot even stand to look at you." But Purdum's World of Imagination doesn't include concocting a context for things that weren't said that would make things that Republicans say seem any more justified. He's more about crushing comebacks that Obama could make if any GOP person had the nerve — especially in the awesome setting of the White House — to dis Barack Obama.

Purdum came up with — as a riposte to "I cannot even stand to look at you" — "Funny, I can’t even see you!" Oh, that's good, Todd. That's good. A lesser politico-journolist might have had Obama stick his fingers in his ears and say "La la, I can't hear you." But you stayed on-track with the vision trope and came up with I can’t even see you.

Purdum concedes the unlikelihood that Dick Durbin's account of the story is true:

It’s worth noting that the only face-to-face meeting between Obama and House GOP leaders was on Oct. 10, and Durbin [who reported that the remark was made] was not present.

So why are you doing this, Todd? What good are you attempting to do, for yourself or anyone else? His last paragraph is a fascinating puzzle:

But given the bitter state of relations between Obama and the House Republicans, it’s easy enough to imagine that more than one of them went into their meeting in the Roosevelt Room feeling like the distraught Aunt Em in “The Wizard of Oz,” who told the Toto-taking Miss Gulch: “For 23 years, I’ve been dying to tell you what I thought of you. And now, well, being a Christian woman, I can’t say it!"

Even in Washington — especially in Washington — it may be best to let some thoughts rest — unexpressed.

This notion of morality, impressed deeply onto the brain of Purdum in childhood — the lesson of Auntie Em — somehow is not enough to stop him from writing this column about a statement that was never made. Or is it that Todd's no Auntie Em? He doesn't repress his unkind thoughts, and one of them is that he thinks Republicans — if they fail to say the mean thing that he'd like to skewer them for saying — surely must have thought those mean things and the only reason they didn't say them was because they're a bunch of ludicrously over-virtuous Auntie Ems.

***

I was going to say what kind of grown man has "The Wizard of Oz" as his go-to reference, but damned if Instapundit didn't just whip out a "Wizard of Oz" quote. We're all Friends of Dorothy now.

Taunting the litigious.

Seems dangerous.

"What kind of uncultured cretin puts ice in scotch? Do you people all live in trailer parks?"

I am asked at last night's "Hand-Carved-Ice Café."

I answer: "This is actually a mixed drink with the ironic name 'Expensive Scotch'... so, I have to say that you are the one not keeping up with the culture. The concoction is an intentional and comical performance."

"Utterly unqualified partisan politicians will look at what utterly unqualified citizens have said..."

Begins a criticism of [guess what] that could work pretty much across the board as a criticism of representative democracy.

"Did Allen West Lose Media Gig Over Politically Incorrect Statement?"

"The fiery Republican reportedly called a colleague a Jewish American princess."

The alleged incident isn't West's first un-PC "exchange" with a female colleague. In a scathing e-mail sent in 2011, West told Florida congresswoman and Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz that she was "vile, unprofessional and despicable" and not a "lady."

I'm noticing this because I saw I was getting traffic this morning to a 2011 post of mine about the Wasserman Schultz incident.

The "media gig" West lost was at Breitbart. Too bad there's no Andrew Breitbart around to manage the reputation and practices of the media enterprise that carries on under his name. Why some internal dispute goes public like this, I don't know, but everyone connected with it gets hurt.

Is it sexist to call a female politician an "empty dress"?

The insult "empty dress" brought the unsurprising return insult "sexist."

I'd say, given the long-time insult "empty suit," "empty dress" gets us to equality.

"You're short, fat and white. Don't talk to me like that."

Said the Waukesha bus driver.

And the award for Getting to the High Ground While Ditching Your Spouse Who Got Cancer goes to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

"The Welsh actress, 43, split from [Michael] Douglas, 68, after he claimed that his throat cancer was caused by the HPV virus, which he contracted from giving oral sex. Douglas did not make it clear he was exposed to HPV BEFORE meeting his wife, who felt this was the last straw."

Hey, old man, while you're busy dying of cancer, how about making it clear whose parts you were tonguing at the time you contracted that damned cancer that's screwing up my life too. Huh? Would it be too much trouble?!

I'm dying and you're going to needle me about the precision of speech?! The precision of the speech coming out of my CANCEROUS THROAT??!!!!

This is the last straw!

The last straw? The last straw?! Like there were all those other straws?

As a matter of fact, yes. There's the straw that's the fact that you are 25 year older than me and the straw that's me being so much prettier than you. Especially now that you've got throat cancer.

You monster! You won't look so pretty when the whole world sees what a monster you are.

The world will see one thing and one thing only: You said you got throat cancer from cunnilingus with me.

"As you are too thin, I am too white. I am so white I literally appear to glow in the dark."

"'Get some sun,' I'm often told. 'Haven't you ever heard of a tanning bed?' It's hurtful, and neither of us should be shamed by anyone for our bodies. HOWEVER. I do not write nonsense comparing myself to long-oppressed people of more pigmented ancestry and taking cheap shots at their intelligence, will-power, and self-discipline just because someone who saw me on the beach failed to understand that my skin color options are white, pink, or red. This piece you've written? It is ridiculous."

A comment on this Daily Beast piece which I got to via this Kate Waldman item that began: "I must yawp my indignation after hate-reading the Daily Beast’s Emma Woolf bemoan the scourge of 'thin-shaming' in Western society."

Hate-reading. I like that. I looked it up in Urban Dictionary and saw it had an entry from January 2012, but only one person had voted on it. 

hate-reading

(n.) -- an online activity in which one visits a website, Twitter feed, or Facebook page for the express purpose of ridiculing -- or indulging one's disdain for -- the author and/or the content on the site

"Okay, I'll be honest: I indulge in hate-reading from time to time, sure, ever since I discovered the Internet in junior high. It's something I usually do alone, late at night, when I'm procrastinating or drunk or bored."

overheard at an office watercooler in Modesto, California, December 16, 2011

The vote was thumbs-up. I agree.

Now, some questions:

Do you hate-read?
	Of course. It's my raw material for blogging/commenting.
	To some extent. For exercise and recreation, but I get back to stuff I like.
	No. Life's too short and negativity is bad. I read only for work or for pleasure.
	I only hate-read Althouse.
pollcode.com free polls

Is it OK to say to someone: You're so thin/You're so white?
	No, it's wrong because you wouldn't say You're so fat/You're so black.
	Yes, because it's usually an advantage to be thin/white.
	You're so thin is okay unless the person looks ill, but You're so white is insulting.
	You're so white is OK if you think the topic is tanning, and You're so thin is OK if you're envious.
	Don't say You're so thin because there is anorexia in the world. Feel free to antagonize a whitey.
pollcode.com free polls

When Phillippe Reines — the man behind Hillary's "reset" button — said "fuck off" and "have a good life" to Michael Hastings — the reporter who died recently in a mysterious car crash.

In the comments to the "Snowden is like a hot meat pie in your hands" post — about what leaker Edward Snowden means to the Russians — David said "So much for reset. Apparently Obama and Clinton have not improved relations [with Russia] much." Which got me looking up articles about Hillary Clinton's foolish "reset" button. I found "Hillary’s Aide Really Half-Assed That ‘Reset’ Button Thing" from March 2009:

[F]ingers had to be pointed at someone, and, for the most part they were conveniently targeted at a guy everyone hated already anyway, Hillary's senior adviser Phillippe Reines, who was nearly fired during the presidential campaign for making a tactless comment about John McCain's torture experience. He's also been agitating some in the State Department press corps by restricting their access.

(I think the referenced comment about McCain is here.) Now, we talked about Reines last fall in connection with this story: "Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To 'Fuck Off' And 'Have A Good Life.'" And I'm surprised to see that the reporter is Michael Hastings, who died in a fiery single-car wreck on June 18th:

He had emailed a warning to colleagues on June 17 saying the "Feds" were interviewing his close friends and associates. He added: "I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the radat (sic) for a bit." BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith confirmed that he had received the email....

The circumstances and rumors surrounding the death led the FBI to issue a statement stating that Hastings was never under investigation.

In this light, you might want to read that Phillipe Reines/Michael Hastings email exchange again. Hastings was asking questions like "Why didn’t the State Department search the [Benghazi] consulate...?" and "What other potential valuable intelligence [besides Ambassador Stevens's diary] was left behind that could have been picked up by apparently anyone searching the grounds?" Reines became extremely defensive and abusive:

I now understand why the official investigation by the Department of the Defense as reported by The Army Times The Washington Post concluded beyond a doubt that you’re an unmitigated asshole.

How’s that for a non-bullshit response?

Now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems, have a good day.

And by good day, I mean Fuck Off.

ADDED: From 4 days ago: "Was Michael Hastings Murdered? Internet Conspiracy Theories Are Rife."

First, it's obvious that Hastings was working on a big story, though the exact subject is under debate. Considering the title of his email ["FBI Investigation, re:NSA"] and his last article on BuzzFeed, many (including the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald) think it may have been a piece on PRISM. The Huffington Post thinks he was writing about General Petraeus, while the Los Angeles Times stated that it was on a privacy lawsuit against the Department of Defense and the FBI. They are all big, government-related cases that many would prefer go unexamined.

Second, Hastings reached out to the legal team at Wikileaks for assistance, claiming that that FBI were investigating him. Wikileaks has also claimed that there is a "non-public complication" in Hastings' death, though they have not released more information.

Third, while is it ordinary protocol for police departments to issue a statement that there was no foul play (as the LAPD have done), the FBI hardly ever responds to media attention. However, in this case, they have made an exception. The FBI has released a statement denying that they were ever investigating Hastings, which is interesting considering that after years in his field, Hastings is well aware of what being investigated by the FBI looks like.

Fourth, the car accident itself was pretty bizarre. When the car hit the tree, the engine ejected and was later found over 100 feet away. That kind of ejection is pretty unusual, especially for a Mercedes, and it also meant that Hastings would have had to be driving close to 100 mph, which is much faster than that section of road permits.....

What accounts for this sudden and shocking spike in bigotry?

"A year and a half ago, even the president of the United States opposes gay marriage.  President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed DOMA into law.  Now all of a sudden, after Obama changes his mind, the whole country supports gay marriage, and those who don't are bigots."

What accounts for this sudden and shocking spike in bigotry?

It depends on what the meaning of bigotry is. (To paraphrase that humanitarian, Bill Clinton.)



But — to quote Marbury v. Madison — as quoted in the DOMA case, United States v. Windsor, "‘[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ ” Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 566 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 7) (quoting Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803))." (I know, who quotes Marbury like that? And what the hell was Zivotofsky v. Clinton? Was there some insuperable urge to bring up Bill Clinton? The Clinton in Zivotofsky was Hillary Clinton, in her Secretary of State role, and this was the case about the State Department's refusal to list Israel as the place of birth on a U.S. passport for a person born in Jerusalem.)

So if it's the Court's duty to define the terms, and opposition to same-sex marriage is defined as nothing but bigotry, then its the Court's decision in Windsor that accounts for the sudden and shocking spike in bigotry.

But let's be clear about a few things.

1. The majority opinion in Windsor did not use the word "bigotry" (or "bigot"). That word appears in Chief Justice Roberts's dissenting opinion: "At least without some more convincing evidence that the Act’s principal purpose was to codify malice, and that it furthered no legitimate government interests, I would not tar the political branches with the brush of bigotry." Justice Alito also uses the word: "Acceptance of [Windsor's] argument would cast all those who cling to traditional beliefs about the nature of marriage in the role of bigots or superstitious fools."

2.  The majority's expression is "a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group," which might sound extreme, but it appears in the case law going back to the early 70s, and it's a stock phrase used to characterize the government's interest when the Court is applying minimal scrutiny and therefore needs to say that there is no legitimate governmental interest.

3. What that "bare... desire to harm" language really means is: We don't want to have to heighten scrutiny for this discriminated-against group — they don't want responsibility for what that would mean in future cases — but we do want to be able to strike this down while staying at the minimal scrutiny level.

4. This doctrinal maneuver produces the strange impression that the Court is calling Bill Clinton and the majority of the members of the 104th Congress a bunch of bigots.

5. Now lots of traditionalists have the raw material to whine and cry about being called bigots. I doubt if that will work out very well for them, but they've been stewing in their own juice for a long time, and they're going to find it hard to stop. Unfortunately, same-sex marriage was originally presented as a conservative idea, and traditionalists could have gotten out in front of liberals on this issue if they'd listened to the original argument and predicted the future better, and now they'll have to scramble to improve their image. If they think crying about being called bigots — when, again, the majority didn't even use that word — is going to help, I just have to laugh. You took the opportunity to oppress when it was there, and now that it's gone, you want to say you are oppressed. Man up, losers. You lost. And you deserved to lose. Now, stop acting like losers. If you can. (I bet you can't!)

"Gandolfini’s death prompts rampant fat-shaming."

Says Salon, displaying lots of tweets. I question whether that stuff ought to be called "shaming." What I'm seeing looks more like This should be a wake-up call to anyone who's fat.

[Fill in the blank]-shaming is a meme, and it includes defining shame downward. I get that. But let's think about whether we want "shaming" to be a commodious category or a narrow one. I'm inclined to recommend narrow, but I'm highly influenced by the time I spent at the Wisconsin protests, amongst angry people chanting "Shame, shame, shame."

In this "fat-shaming" example, we might say the death of a respected actor ought to be an occasion to praise him, and not to offer up ideas about what he might have done to avert his fate. But I don't hear shaming in that. I hear this wish to avoid death: If only he'd lost weight, he might not have died. And: Fat people need to lose weight, or they might die too. That's more fear than shame.

The person who calls the response "shame"... what's his motivation? He might think "fat-shaming" is a funny, trendy way to refer to any statement about anyone being fat. But I think it's more like: Don't you dare talk about how anyone is fat, because fat people now have a way to bounce what we hear as an insult right back at you.