This just in from the home office in Atlanta, Georgia...

Pluto has been declared no longer a planet.

I know whose fault this is...




Seriously, if this is the best a planet can do for representation, maybe it shouldn't get to be a planet.

Is this really what we've come to?

I'm sure by now you've all already heard about the Forbes article exhorting men not to marry career women. I don't know if I'm even going to bother saying anything about it because other people have already said it all better (this article at Salon does it nicely, as do many LJ postings), other than perhaps to point out that the author's criteria for "career women" -- working more than 35 hours a week and making more than $30,000 a year -- hardly describes the type of workaholic executive he seems to be referring to, and furthermore very few families can survive on one income these days, making a "career woman" pretty much a necessity for most families. Most of the men I know would be offended at the article's presumption that men cannot take care of themselves and must have wives who function as mothers (not to mention queasy at the thought of sex with Mommy-Wife). In addition, many of the virtuous housewives Michael Noer extolls probably stay in rotten marriages because they cannot afford to leave. But I digress.

After some thought, I've decided that the thing that troubles me the most is not the article, which is asinine, condescending, and under the impression that marriage and other institutions are solely for the benefit of men, or even the fact that Forbes published it, apparently in an attempt to get female readers to cancel their subscriptions.

No, it's the message boards.

Yes, I know. Arguing on the intarwub is the Special Olympics and all that. But even a casual perusal of the reader comments at Forbes shows scores of men gloating and screaming at any women who attempt to post.

( Examples )

And I'm just aghast... it's not that I'm shocked that there are men like this, but that there are so many of them, and they're just dripping with anger and looking for people to take their aggressions out on, and never considering that they're a part of the equation too, no, they're just persecuted... and I want to give up.

What's the point in even trying to interact with people when they're not going to listen to a goddamned word I say, just because I'm a woman, or liberal, or Not Them? Of course, they'd say I'm the closed-minded one because there's no way they can convince me that George W. Bush is a good man and I need to get in the kitchen and make them some pie. And these people are everywhere. I feel safe and insulated in my little world with my friends... but am I? Rather than giving myself ulcers, shouldn't I just retreat into that world and be grateful for it?

(I'm going to interrupt myself to say: I know some of you like Bush. And I'm stating here for the record that while I might be fine with you as a person, I absolutely consider supporting George W. Bush and his policies to be an immoral act. If you can't deal with me thinking that, fuck off.)

I just feel so frustrated, and useless, and fucking helpless when I see shit like this and know there's not a goddamned thing I can do to change it.

But since Michael Noer wants to send us back to the dark ages, let's do him one better and go back even further -- to a little play called Lysistrata. Ladies, I challenge you to join me. Let's make sure that Michael Noer never gets a piece of ass he didn't have to pay for for the rest of his sniveling life.