I will be buying this book...

I haven't blogged about my love of Sassy magazine before, and I'll spare you all my gushing about how great it was, how I wish there were something like it today (for teens and those of us no longer teens) and how I've met the first Sassiest Boy in America. Instead, I'll just link to this article by the authors of How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time:

Vapid celebrities, too-skinny models, coverlines that promise girls their best bikini bodies: there are plenty of things about teen magazines to criticize. (And plenty of places that do, Gawker and Jezebel among them.) But if you think today's teen magazines leave much to be desired, you should seek out copies of teen magazines from the '80s, when Seventeen still pushed multiple diet stories per issue and college was seen largely as a means to getting a Mrs. degree.

Sassy magazine changed all that. Launched in 1988 by Jane Pratt, who later went on to start Jane magazine, Sassy tried to not make girls feel bad about their bodies or their sexuality; in fact, it was boycotted by the religious right for running informative --but not pedantic-- sex stories. It was also unabashedly feminist and resolutely liberal, with one infamous article bashing Bush Sr.'s drug war. It even had a sense of humor! (A one-star record review meant "I'd rather work for Clarence Thomas" than listen to this CD).

Read the rest...

Daily Kos to DCCC: "Go to hell."

As many of my friends and family already read in an email from me today, I could not believe the gall of the DCCC in trying to use yesterday's retreat as a fundraising opportunity. I'm now starting to read other blogs and see that I'm not the only one who was disgusted.

You can read all about it on the Daily Kos.

UPDATE: Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is the chair of the DCCC and he even voted against the legislation...I am so confused...

Why history class is important

It really is like 70+% of us live in one reality, while Bush and the Bushies live in another. From Josh Marshall:

President Bush, yesterday: "Now, many critics compare the battle in Iraq to the situation we faced in Vietnam. There are many differences between those two conflicts, but one stands out above all: The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland. The enemy in Iraq does.”

There are so many problems and distortions with this statement that it is difficult to know where to start. But here's one place. Can we review the main arguments for why we were in Vietnam? Or at least try to distinguish them from the ones for getting out?

President Bush appears to be embracing the argument that the Vietnam War was a fight against Vietnamese nationalists who wanted to kick us out of Vietnam but had no interest in us one way or another beyond that. Certainly they weren't going to launch attacks against the US mainland. But that was the Doves' argument. The premise of the war was that it was a battleground in the larger Cold War struggle, one against the Soviets (who certainly had the ability and arguably had the intent to attack us), the Chinese (though that's much more complicated) and international communism generally.

In any case, the arguments for staying in Vietnam and staying in Iraq are actually quite similar -- and the arguments for leaving actually have a degree of parallelism too.

Of course, if we're worried about armed jihadism, which we certainly should be, it's really difficult to think of a better way to exacerbate the problem than to permanently occupy a country at the literal and figurative heart of the Muslim and Arab worlds.

Amateurs

It makes my head hurt to not be able to support my own party, but after reading this article in the NYT this morning, my head also hurts from confusion...Neither Pelosi nor Reid will vote for the Iraq spending bill? If they don't support it, who exactly is in charge on the Hill?

The decision by the Democratic majority to strip the measure of a timetable for troop withdrawal has raised the prospect that it could be approved mainly by Republicans with scattered Democrat support. The idea that many Democrats would be left on the losing side in a consequential vote has exposed a sharp divide within the party, drawn scorn from antiwar groups, confused the public and frustrated the party rank and file...

...But scores of other Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, say they have no intention of voting for the more than $100 billion sought by the White House for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan because Mr. Bush refused to accede to timelines, readiness standards and other conditions. They have said repeatedly since taking control in January that they will not turn over more money for the war without some movement toward a withdrawal...

...And Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader and Ms. Pelosi’s partner in negotiating with the White House, had also not revealed how he intended to vote.

Should Mr. Reid decline to support the final bill, it would mean the approval of the war money over the personal objections of the top Democrats in both the House and Senate.

What is going on???

Congrats to the Cheneys

And here's to hoping that his daughter and her partner can some day enjoy the same civil rights as Britney Spears and BOTH of her ex-husbands!

You can read about Cheney's sixth grandchild here.