Jezebel Sez...Fashion Models Should Unionize [Source]

Dear Models Of The World: Are We All Too Busy

Starving Ourselves To Form A Union Already?

It’s a common misconception that modeling is easy, safe and highly lucrative — the reality is that the girls with the million-dollar campaigns are so rare I wouldn’t believe they actually existed if I didn’t see them at night clubs during fashion week.

Most models I know are lucky if they are working at all; between agency commissions (70% in Paris, 50% in Milan, 20% in New York), travel expenses, and rent in the various pricey cities in which we are required to live, your eventual wages come so garnished I’ve known plenty of models who can’t always afford food.

Even the girls who are lucky enough to work every day are doing well if they break even, and can sneak off to Germany or Los Angeles or Hong Kong and make a quick buck shooting catalog jobs every once in a while.

A union offer the benefits of collective bargaining. The overwhelming counterweight of the fashion business class’s wealth give models an unacceptably weak negotiating position.

A union could help insure models’ best long-term interests are served by their jobs — a union could argue for retirement benefits, and, in the USA, health insurance coverage.

A union could mandate that sufficient time be given for models under 16 to attend school, without setting back their careers.

A union could also serve as a voice for models’ interests in the ongoing debate over what is perhaps our biggest immediate health issue — the slightly-underweight physique we are required to maintain.

A union could protest and shame under- and non-paying clients, a union could mandate that appropriate food be available at every job, and a union could ensure that conditions on the job site always meet safety standards, so nobody has to pose covered in broken glass or eat dirt ever again. More...

"Hang 'Em High" Obama Supports Death Penalty

for Child Rape [Source]

Wow!

Barack Obama says he disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of people convicted of raping a child.

Obama told reporters Wednesday that he thinks the rape of a child, ages six or eight, is a heinous crime. He said if a state makes a decision, then the death penalty is potentially applicable.

What legal principle does that fall under I wonder?

I think those who rape children are truly heinous individuals, for sure. But once you start saying the the death penalty is for "heinous" crimes rather than the specifically heinous crime of taking another life, you open up a whole new world of execution worthy categories.

There was a time when stealing a horse was considered so heinous that it deserved the the death penalty. Should we go back to a time when the state could pretty much decide to execute anyone it wanted?

I get why he said it. Everybody's petrified of being "gotcha'd" like Dukakis on the rape question. But this one isn't hard.

All he had to say was that as a father he would certainly want to kill anyone who did such a heinous thing with his bare hands, but as a public servant and legal scholar he knows that the death penalty should be reserved for people who kill.

Child molesters should be locked up and never allowed near children again. Nobody would think he was soft for saying that he would support the Supreme Court decision on this.

Jesus, it wasn't that long ago that being against the death penalty for any crime was an established liberal principle --- and the Supreme Court agreed!

But hey, I guess that's what makes it a nice political freebie. A chance to side with Scalia and Roberts without any consequences is a welcome gift when you are trying to shed the liberal label.

I get that. But I don't see how that is good for the country. With a corrupt and imperfect legal system run by members of the human species, we shouldn't be executing anyone. Raising the ante, even rhetorically, is not helpful.

Bill Clinton raced to Arkansas to sign a retarded man's death warrant in his run in 1992 and now Barack Obama says that he believes the death penalty should be expanded to non-murderers. Not much "progress" on this one, that's for sure.

Fuck Media Sexism! [Source]

Many news execs have denied the existence of sexism in the coverage of the presidential campaign, insisting that they have covered the primary fairly and without bias.

We will be delivering the second round of letters to executives at CNN, MSNBC and Fox News on Friday, June 27. Make sure your voice is heard -- sign the letter below.

I was stunned to read that you did not believe that sexism existed in the coverage of the presidential campaign; that you truly believed that you covered the campaign fairly and without bias.

We will not stand for blatant misogyny -- or offensive stereotypes -- aimed at Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Katie Couric, or any other woman.

We demand a higher level of discourse from your organization.

Sincerely,

[Click here to add your signature]

Obama Wins "Wanker of the Week Award [Source]

if you're a liberal Obama supporter, this past week or so has sucked pretty hard. We've seen Obama move sharply to the right on a number of fronts, including:

--  hiring the centrist, pro-Walmart economist Jason Furman as his economic policy director (and yes, I know that Furman's done good work on issues like Social Security privatization, but if you're truly committed to a progressive economic vision, he's not the guy you'd be hiring);

-- naming, as his campaign chief of staff, Jim Messina, who served as chief of staff to Max Baucus, and who appears to strongly support Baucus's pro-corporate agenda;

--  forming a Working Group on National Security that consists mainly of reanimated corpses from the 80s and 90s (Warren Christopher, Sam Nunn, David Boren, Madeleine Albright) rather than fresh, bold new thinkers like Samantha Power;

-- making statements

that are strongly supportive of NAFTA and that conflict with his position during the primaries (Obama is now saying he won't unilaterally re-open NAFTA);

--  releasing a campaign ad, his first of the general election, which hits on right-wing rather than progressive themes (it emphasizes "cutting taxes" and "moving people from welfare to work" -- why not "universal health care" and "getting the hell out of Iraq"?);

-- and, finally, throwing his weight behind the FISA "compromise," which deservedly earned him Atrios's dreaded "Wanker of the Week Award.

George Carlin Roasts in Feminist Hell [Source]

George Carlin can go to feminist hell for all I care. I know we're supposed to speak well of the dead. (Unless you're Bob Somerby talking about Tim Russert.)

But the very fact that someone is down --and DEAD -- makes it a lot easier to kick him. (I can't recall where I stole that joke; maybe it's from Carlin himself.)

Check out Carlin on the hilarity of rape jokes, including the idea that men commit rape because they're horny and can't get sex any other way.

He also got laughs about “Eskimo rape,” before the recent publicity over the high rate of rape among indigenous women in Alaska.

In his popular bit named "Feminist Blowjob," he says: "It doesn't take a lot of imagination to piss off feminists."

He says we attack "fat-ass housewives." We attack men and yet act like men with our "pointless careerism." We are mostly white, middle-class women who "don't give a shit" about women of color.

We blow stuff out of proportion, and we take ourselves too seriously. (Did I hear "Bingo"?)

Like a lot of people, Carlin confused state censorship with individuals who prefer not to be maligned or misrepresented.

He criticized feminists for wanting to control language and to tell people what to think. But he had strong opinions, and he used language in hopes of getting people to believe as he did.

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