Cartoonists With Attitude

Because why not?

Consider this an open thread. I’d love to hear about people’s plans for the new year.

My thanks to everyone, blogger or commenter, who has participated in “Alas” in 2011. For all the flaws, frustrations, and occasional lost temper or passing troll, I think “Alas” has one of the better comment sections I’ve seen on any blog. (But then, the comments section here has been to a large degree shaped by my preferences, so it figures I’d think that, doesn’t it?)

I wish each and every one of us a happy 2012!

1. No, You Aren’t Amber Cole’s Father
2. An Open Letter to the Left
3. Never Argue With an Idiot. They Drag You Down to Their Level.
4. Cartoon: The Ten Stupidest Objections to the Occupy Wall Street Movement
5. Do They Really Believe Abortion Is Murder?
6. Psychology Today Publishes “Scientist” Who Claims Black Women Are Ugly
7. We Are The 99 Percent
8. Why Choice For Men is Wrong
9. Cartoon: The Wage Gap and Women’s Choices
10. A world without unions
11. Fair is fair: Kindergarten and the American Dream
12. More On The Boundaries Of Feminism: Can You Be Pro-Life And Feminist?
13. Mandolin on Sex Neutrality and Call-Outs, with Lots of Decorative Swearing
14. Political cartoon: Unemployment, Democrats vs Republicans
15. Uterus? You Hardly Know Us!

Impressively, Maia’s recent post “On Change And Accountability” nearly made the list, and doubtless would have if it didn’t have the statistical poor fortune to be posted in late December.

Congrats to Jeff for being so well-read! And to the rest of us, too.

The Agitator is essential reading, one of the best political blogs anywhere. Still, Radley Balko sometimes uncritically parrots libertarian tropes. Government Evil! Liberals Stupid!

For instance, today he posted this libertarian boilerplate:

Alternet publishes article calling for government monitoring of doctors and their pain patients, a crackdown on prescription painkillers, and generally expanding the drug war, all because . . . corporations are evil. And Florida’s governor loves the Tea Party. Or something.

So I followed the link, and the reason the Alternet writer, Kevin Gray, gave ad nauseum for wanting stronger government regulations of pain pills is to prevent accidental deaths. Not because corporations are evil (corporate power is mentioned once). Not because Florida’s governor loves the tea party (again, one mention). This is an article that is clearly and overwhelmingly about deaths caused by prescription drugs. Here, for example, is Gray’s first paragraph:

For the first time in nearly a century, automobile accidents are no longer the nation’s leading cause of accidental deaths, according to a major report released Tuesday by the National Center for Health Statistics. The new number one killer is drugs—not smack, crystal meth or any other stepped-on menace sold in urban alleyways or trailer parks, but bright, shiny pills prescribed by doctors, approved by the government, manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and sold to the consumer as “medicine.” Yet of the billions of legit pills Americans pop every year for medical conditions serious and otherwise, the vast majority of lives are claimed by only a select few classes—painkillers, sedatives and stimulants—that all share a common characteristic: they promote abuse, dependence and addiction.

Gray goes on that for paragraph after trite, overwritten paragraph (“pill mills and doctor shoppers are not just creating a land of bathroom-cabinet addicts—their bodies are packing morgues.”) Balko is either the least competent reader of English in the world, or he just flatly lied to his readers about what Gray’s article was about.

That said, I hated Gray’s article. For one thing, the factoid that he builds his article around — his claim that “The new number one killer is… pills prescribed by doctors” — is wrong. According to the CDC data brief Gray cites (pdf link), in 2008 there were over 41,000 deaths by poisoning, compared to 38,000 auto accident deaths. But “deaths by poisoning,” although mostly pill-related, includes some other deaths; the CDC says that in 2008 there were about 36,500 pill-related deaths, about 1,500 fewer than auto-related deaths.

That’s not a big deal – given the trendlines, pill deaths will soon overtake auto deaths, if they haven’t done so already – but it’s still annoying that Gray couldn’t be bothered to correctly understand the leading statistic in his article, which he wrongly hypes again and again.

What does bother me most about Gray’s article is that he never acknowledges that untreated pain is a serious problem in the United States and worldwide, even while he endorses policies that could make matters worse. For instance, the Florida “pill mill” law:

…mandates the creation of a statewide prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP), delineates narrow conditions to establish a pain management clinic, limits the amount of controlled substances physicians can prescribe, imposes harsh penalties on physicians who violate the law ($10,000 minimum fines, six-month suspensions) and restricts advertisement of pain treatment centers, among other measures.

Gray’s article favors this law, and certainly saving lives is important. But the life-saving aspects of restrictive laws (if they really save lives — I’d like to see some research on that) should be balanced against the loss of freedom involved when the government decides for me how much medicine my doctor can prescribe me; and it should be balanced against the truly incredible suffering caused when people can’t get pain medication they genuinely need.

But you’d never know that reading Gray’s article. Is he even aware that there are millions of people with chronic pain? Does he consider providing them with relief worth even a moment’s consideration? I assume so, but he doesn’t allow any such compassion to come through in his article. And that’s unfortunately typical of how this issue is discussed.

***

Couple of side notes:

First, I should acknowledge that libertarian writers are a zillion times better than progressive writers when it comes to pain management. If I could put our country’s pain management restrictions under either liberal or libertarian management, I’d opt for the libertarian in a heartbeat.

Of course, the same libertarian whose heart is broken if Lucy is suffering because badly-written laws keep Lucy’s chronic pain untreated, might not care if Lucy’s pain is untreated because Lucy is poor. So although I’d put a libertarian in charge of the restrictions, I’d put a liberal in charge of guaranteeing access.

Second, I’d really like to see those pain-pill-related deaths broken down by cause. Specifically, I want to know what percentage of pain-pill-related deaths are related to liver failure caused by acetaminophen in prescription opiates. Acetaminophen — which is not hard to accidentally take deadly amounts of, and is available without a prescription as Tylenol — should be banned from prescription opiates altogether. No one’s freedom is substantively reduced if they have to take a Tylenol with their prescription pain med rather than having the acetaminophen built-in, and it’s much safer for consumers to be aware of how much Tylenol they’re taking.

Third point: Off-topic, but I was amused by this paragraph of Gray’s article:

“This is just the tip of the iceberg of the prescription drug abuse problem,” says Dr. Margaret Warner, the federal report’s lead author. “The take-home here is, this should be a wake-up call.”

Dr. Warner reportedly went on to say, “if we keep our nose to the grindstone and take the bull by the horns, then when the dust settles there’ll be a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Let me say, first, that I’m confident this is not a choice we’ll ever face. It’s going to be Romney versus Obama. (Unless Ron Paul decides to run as a third party candidate, which, from a Democratic point of view, would be delightful).

Let me say, second, that I agree with pretty much every progressive critique of Ron Paul I’ve read. As Jeff has written, Paul’s positions on reproductive rights are abominable — and shows how truly shallow many libertarians’ commitment to liberty is. I think it’s clear that Paul is a racist; the only question remaining is if his past embrace of racism was heartfelt or cynical.^a

He’s quite possibly antisemitic and homophobic as well. His economic ideas are to economics what creationism is to biology. And in the White House, Ron Paul could do a hell of a lot of real damage to the country.

There are domestic issues where I agree with Paul — particularly his opposition to the drug war — but I just don’t think that as President, Paul would have much power to end the drug war. And although I think Paul is better than Obama on many civil liberties issues, in many cases those issues don’t actually effect many people.

But.

I just don’t trust Barack Obama to keep us out of war with Iran.

And that’s huge. It should be huge to any progressive.

I pretty much agree with Srdja Trifkovic when he writes:

The Iranians are undoubtedly enhancing their enrichment capability and seeking control of a full nuclear-fuel cycle, but there is nothing in the recent International Atomic Energy Agency’s report to indicate that they are building a bomb. Nonetheless, the drumbeat has returned to Washington, and its objective is to present a military attack against Iran as a legitimate policy option to deal with a major threat to the United States. This campaign is reminiscent of the propaganda barrage over the 18 months preceding the war against Iraq in March 2003: It is based on an exaggerated threat and on the bogus claim that diplomatic solutions have been exhausted.^b

We definitely seem to be moving towards war with Iran, and the Obama Administration is part of that movement. I have little confidence in Obama’s interest or desire in keeping us out of war with Iran.

Americans tend to vastly overstate the president’s power. A president is not a dictator, and cannot singlehandedly decide on policy.

But there are areas where Presidents have more influence. When it comes to foreign policy — and the decision to make war — no one is more powerful than the President. When it comes to the decision to go to war or not, the President has as close as he (or she) ever comes to dictatorial powers.^c

How many hundreds of thousands of people will die if the US pursues another “war of choice,” this time with Iran? Is there anything wrong, from a progressive point of view, with considering that an overwhelmingly important issue?

I really don’t like Ron Paul. But preventing another needless war might be worth having an ignorant, racist, sexist, asshat like Ron Paul in the Oval Office.

I think that people who consider a vote for Paul impossible to justify from a progressive point of view are either undervaluing anti-war as a progressive principal, or are underestimating the danger of war with Iran under President Obama.

I’m not saying that war with Iran is certain if Obama is re-elected. But Ron Paul is far more war-adverse than Barack Obama, and for me, being war-adverse is very possibly the single most important trait of a good President.

Of course, in the real election, we’ll be faced with a choice between Obama, who seems to be leaning somewhat towards war with Iran, and Romney, who is leaning even further in that direction, although of course being Romney his actual views are hard to pin down. Despite the fact that Americans in general are fairly war-adverse, there will not be a viable candidate for President who is firmly committed to keeping the US out of war with Iran if at all possible — another sign of the failure of US democracy to produce genuinely democratic choices for citizens to vote on.

1. That Paul may have merely appointed racists to speak in his name is not a good excuse; the ability to delegate authority competently is not incidental to being a good President.
2. Quoted from the excellent Eunomia blog. I really think that lefty bloggers who don’t read right-wing blogs are missing out on one of the best bloggers writing by skipping Daniel Larison.
3. I know that the Constitution gives Congress the job of deciding when the US goes to war. But Congress seems as eager to give up that power as the White House is to acquire it.

A Knitter’s Home Companion is running a contest for a free copy of Hereville. To enter the contest, just follow the link and leave them a comment!

So far no comments have been left, so the odds of winning are looking good. The contest runs until January 22nd. Thanks, Knitter’s Home Companion! KHC is a blog about knitting and kid’s books, so you can see that Hereville fits right in with their themes.

I’ve been reading Sondheim’s second collection of his lyrics, Look I Made A Hat, which was a Hanukkah gift from my wonderful mother. Here’s a bit of trivia I didn’t know: in 1995, Jim Henson was making a movie of Sonhdheim’s “Into The Woods,” with human actors but with Henson creators playing Jack’s cow and Cinderella’s birds. A screenplay was written, Sondheim wrote two new songs for the movie, they did readings of the screenplay featuring stars who probably would have been wrong for the actual movie, but some who would have been great, like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Baker’s Wife), Neil Patrick Harris (Jack), and Rob Lowe (Cinderella’s Prince Charming). Then Columbia Pictures changed management, and the project was killed. The thought of what might have been could easily keep this blogger up at night, staring at the ceiling and periodically yelling “Why, Columbia Pictures, why?”

Anyway, consider this an open thread. Self-linking, selfless linking, and shellfish linking are all welcome.

1. Matthew Rodney draws Wonder Woman with the word “wonder.”
2. Stunning photo of NYC’s Central Park.
3. New Reports Track Devastating Impact of Alabama’s Extreme Immigration Law on Residents » Immigration Impact
4. Philippe Legrain on the case for open immigration laws.
5. Probably my great-grandparents would never have been let in if they had come to America today.
6. David Romer: Evidence for the Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy
7. Highdeas, a collection of people’s ideas thought of while high. “The word OK looks like a sideways person. I’ve said OK my whole life and never noticed him. What’s up little guy?”
8. There really is no difference between men and women’s math abilities: “None of our findings suggest that an innate biological difference between the sexes is the primary reason for a gender gap in math performance at any level. Rather, these major international studies strongly suggest that the math-gender gap, where it occurs, is due to sociocultural factors that differ among countries, and that these factors can be changed.”
9. QUOTE: “Want to know what’s evil? Nice people’s lies.” –Stephen Sondheim. The speaker is the character of the Witch in “Into The Woods,” in a song that got cut and replaced with “Last Midnight.”
10. Why Biased Refs Are Good Business
11. Double Standards Galore: Differences in how ordinary Americans and corporations are treated by the government.
12. “The results were surprising. Women in the study who were told they had a serious illness were seven times as likely to become separated or divorced as men with similar health problems….”
13. I’ve long been fond of the two-time Tony award winning actor George Rose, whose has a brilliant career in his day, and whose turn as the Major-General in Pirates of Penzance is one my earliest theater memories. Earlier today I was indulging in “whatever happened to…” browsing and looked up Rose. I was shocked to read out Rose was brutally murdered in 1988, and his murderers (including his adopted son) got off nearly scott-free.
14. FYI: 100% of Your Body Fat Should be in Your Boobs
15. This infographic about Harley Quinn may arguably be inaccurate (her new, much more skin-baring costume has technically gotten a lot of fan interest, if interest includes “disgust and derision”), but you can’t argue with its elegance.

Happy holidays, no matter what holidays you enjoy! (If you enjoy any at all, of course. No pressure. It’s cool to pretty much coast by ignoring the holidays, if that’s what you want. Me, I tend to work through them.)

This is an open thread — post what you like. Don’t post what you don’t like. Wiggle your bare toes in the pond. And feel free to self-link.

1. Prison Rape in Popular Media « Law Journal for Social Justice A good post by our old “Alas” friend Raznor.
2. It’s neat how the Onion did a perfect satire of Gene Marks’ incredibly clueless “if I were a poor black child” piece so many years before it was published. An Open Letter To A Starving Child
3. But if you read just one response to that piece, make it this one: A Muscular Empathy – Ta-Nehisi Coates
4. The Poor Black Kid Tumblr is also pretty funny.
5. “The border wall now stretches across Arizona in the easiest places to cross, so that migrants are purposefully funneled into the most treacherous conditions. The remains of over 6,000 human bodies have been found in the desert since militarized immigration policies started in the mid 1990s.”
6. Rich People Create Jobs! And five other myths that need to die for our economy to recover.
7. The Non-Problem Of Online Piracy “In the absence of serious evidence that the public is suffering from some kind of content drought, I think we have ample reason to oppose new strong IP rules…”
8. The Gender Ternary: Understanding Transmisogyny | Gender Agenda
9. QUOTE: “I heard a speech by Noam Chomsky who said that corporations are like super humans. They cannot be hurt like a human can and they never die. They are not susceptible to scrutiny or accountability. This makes them more profitable. If companies want to enjoy these benefits to some degree they have to live with what else comes with being not human. You miss out on compassion, forgiveness, comraderie, empathy, trust — all kinds of shit.”
10. 50 best photos from The Natural World – The Big Picture – Boston.com
11. Natural Hair Group Gives Away 40 Barbie Dolls with Natural Hair Makeover – COLORLINES
12. Which Countries Fail the Most at Climate Leadership? | ThinkProgress
13. The evidence on Unemployment Insurance | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy
14. Supreme Court Could Tilt US House Majority
15. The Civil War happened, in part, because people on both sides couldn’t picture what war would be like.
16. Boycotting the All-American Muslim, and why we should boycott boycotts in general.
17. Search “let it snow” at Google
18. I didn’t really get the point of this video until about 30 seconds into it, and then I went “whoooa!”

The Obama administration has chosen to keep the status quo on Plan B, overruling the FDA’s science-based decision. This means that girls 16 and younger will continue to need a prescription from a doctor to buy Plan B, while girls and women 17 and older will continue only having access to Plan B through a pharmacist.

Since there’s a 72 hour window for using Plan B, very few kids or even teens will have the wherewithal to arrange for a doctor’s appointment, get a script for Plan B, and order it from a pharmacy in three days time (and if the only pharmacist in town is an evangelical, then forget about it!). The majority of Plan B’s users are adult women — and the pharmacy-only rule can easily be a significant barrier. I take prescription medication, and it has happened that it’s taken days for my work schedule, my pharmacy’s open hours, and the bus schedule to align. It’s very easy for mandatory work and commute hours, and a pharmacy’s open hours, to fully overlap for a couple of days in a row — and when that happens, you can’t get to that pharmacy.^a

As I understand it, Plan B is more likely to be effective taken in the first 24 hours than (say) at hour 70. So even a day’s delay can be significant.

Supporting the decision to block Plan B, Obama claimed^b to be worried about 10 and 11 year olds buying their Plan B “alongside bubble gum or batteries.”

Scott Lemieux wrote:

…according to the most recent data I could find, of the roughly 758,000 teen pregnancies a year 212 of these involved girls 12 and younger. If you’re getting into a debate about Plan B and 12-year-olds you’re being played for a sucker. The relevant Plan B debate is about 15- and 16-year olds, and people who are bringing up the 0% of teenage pregnancies among 11-year-olds are trying to make paternalistic regulations seem more reasonable. (Which, of course, should not imply that making it more difficult for the infinitesimal number of 12-year-olds who get pregnant to get emergency contraception is anything but a terrible idea.)

The Guttmocher Institute writes:

Sebelius’ focus on 11-year-olds is specious. Fewer than 1% of 11-year-old girls are sexually active, but almost half of girls have had sex by their 17th birthdays, and most of these begin at age 15 or 16. Recent government data from the National Survey of Family Growth suggest that the age restriction on emergency contraception has limited use of the method among this demographic, even as use increased substantially among older teens and young adults. Continuing to restrict access will only increase the number of teens faced with an unintended pregnancy.

Even if we suppose that only 1 in 10,000 adult women who would use Plan B would have trouble getting Plan B in time due to having to get it from a Pharmacist, that’s still an enormous group compared to the incredibly tiny number of 10 and 11 year old girls Obama claims to be concerned about.

Regarding Obama’s “adverse effect” line, Aaron Carroll points out that there are lots of far more dangerous, far cheaper drugs that kids can buy over the counter, which have an adverse effect:

Just looking at kids 5 years of age and under, there were more than 130,000 calls [to poison control centers] for analgesics, 53,000 for vitamins, 48,000 for antihistamines, and 45,000 for cough and cold preparations. And yet, no one seems to be too concerned that these medications could be purchased “alongside bubble gum and batteries”. And, for the record, battery ingestions killed 4 kids in that age group that year.

Even if every single pregnant 10-12 year old takes Plan B and suffers an “adverse effect” — and there’s no evidence at all for that — shouldn’t the hundreds of thousands of children who suffer adverse effects from other OTC medicines be a more urgent priority? Why isn’t the Obama administration calling for Tylenol, which is far more deadly, to be sold to kids only with a prescription?

Well, we all know why. It’s about sex, and more honest defenders of the status quo than Obama admit this. In comments, Robert wrote:

Tylenol doesn’t enable the concealment of behaviors that reasonable parents really ought to know about their children’s participation in.

I don’t want my 14 year old stepdaughter to have sex at this point in her life. If she does have sex, I want her to use contraception and disease prevention, and I hope that she would come to her mother or I about the entire question. But she might not, and I understand that.

But understanding it, I do not want society to collude in her ability to conceal the behavior from her mother or myself. OTC Plan B permits her to engage in risky, unprotected, barrier-free sexual intercourse, and conceal the behavior from people who do have a legitimate parental role in her life and really ought to know about it.

There’s an odd and unjustified line Robert draws here. Why is it that it’s okay for a 14 year old girl to have protected, barriered sex secretly, but when it’s unbarriered sex suddenly things change? It’s true that a 14 year old using a condom is being marginally more responsible, but just because she’s using a condom doesn’t mean that she’s using it correctly (I’d suspect the average 14 year old is less likely to use a condom correctly than an average adult), or that the sexual intercourse is not still “risky.” There are many extremely substantial risks other than pregnancy, after all. What about a 14 year old who has been seduced by a 30 year old — don’t parents need to know about that, even if condoms are used?

So why is it okay that condom use by 14 year olds is “conceal[ed]… from people who do have a legitimate parental role in her life and really ought to know about it”? Don’t the parental rights of people whose 14 year olds use condoms count? By allowing condoms to be bought outside a pharmacy (and — gasp! — from vending machines), isn’t society colluding in the ability of 14 year olds to conceal their behavior from their parents?

But no one would go for treating condoms like Plan B. No politician would dare propose that adult men should only be able to buy condoms from a Pharmacist, in order to protect 200 kids from the horrors of condom use. Because even if, for the sake of argument, we say that it would be better if 14-year-olds didn’t have access to condoms, our society would never sacrifice the needs of adult men to have convenient access to contraceptives. We’d recognize — correctly — that our society includes both children and adults, and we should be extremely hesitant to take rights away from grown-ups.

It’s not enough to say that we should restrict kid’s access to Plan B (or condoms) in order to, in some Bizarro universe, make kids more likely to talk to their parents about their sex lives. Because those kids and their parents aren’t the only ones effected. We need to ask, instead, is it worth inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of grown-ups who need to use Plan B, in exchange for making it marginally more likely that Robert’s 14 year old stepdaughter will talk to her parents?

With condoms, we don’t think it’s worth it. With Plan B, we do.

So why the double-standard? I think there are two things going on here. First of all, our society just doesn’t value ladies’ rights to take care of lady parts as much as we value dude’s rights to take care of dude parts. And second of all, Plan B is relatively new technology, and new means scary and frightening, and people just generally lose their shit and stop thinking logically when there’s scary new technology being discussed. (When I was a kid, there was a lot of concern over the new trend of separate phone lines for kids — wouldn’t that make children more accessible to sexual predators?)

The case for helping minors by restricting Plan B is extremely speculative, to say the least, and the likely number of minors helped would be tiny; that’s not something we should sacrifice the rights of hundreds of thousands of adult women for, any more than we’d sacrifice men’s rights were the position reversed.

As for Plan B and minors, my views are admittedly extreme. I think we should provide it, free, in schools, to any girl under age 18 who requests it, to have it preemptively. So that way, instead of having to go to a store if she has sex without protection, she already has it available in her sock drawer. A study in JAMA found that giving girls Plan B in advance did not increase the odds of them having unprotected sex, but almost doubled the odds of them using Plan B after unprotected sex. Reducing the rates of unwanted teen pregnancy is something that we can and should do. I can’t help but notice that most (although not all) of the support for the Plan B status quo is coming from folks who are “pro-life”; you’d think pro-lifers would be the very first to prioritize preventing unwanted pregnancy over other issues.

1. In my experience, this is especially likely to happen on weekends, when many pharmacies keep shorter hours. Good thing no one ever has sex on a Friday night!
2. I suspect President Obama was more worried about seeing attack ads on TV accusing President Obama of enabling 10-year-old girls to have secret sex behind their parent’s back.

Jezebel reports on a British study which showed people quotes from convicted rapists and from men’s magazines, and asked them to tell which were which, as well as which they agreed with.

The University of Surrey reports on the study, to be published in the British Journal of Psychology. Researchers gave a group of men and women quotes from the British lad mags FHM, Loaded, Nuts and Zoo, as well as excerpts from interviews with actual convicted rapists originally published in the book The Rapist Files. The participants couldn’t reliably identify which statements came from magazines and which from rapists — what’s more, they rated the magazine quotes as slightly more derogatory than the statements made by men serving time for raping women. The researchers also showed both sets of quotes to a separate group of men — the men were more likely to identify with the rapists’ statements than the lad mag excerpts.

I think it would have been useful had the researchers showed the quotes to women as well, to see which statements the women agreed with. (It’s not as if rape culture beliefs are never shared by women.)

One of the study authors said:

There is a fundamental concern that the content of such magazines normalises the treatment of women as sexual objects. We are not killjoys or prudes who think that there should be no sexual information and media for young people. But are teenage boys and young men best prepared for fulfilling love and sex when they normalise views about women that are disturbingly close to those mirrored in the language of sexual offenders?

Here are some of the quotes that were used in the study:

1. There’s a certain way you can tell that a girl wants to have sex . . . The way they dress, they flaunt themselves.

2. Some girls walk around in short-shorts . . . showing their body off . . . It just starts a man thinking that if he gets something like that, what can he do with it?

3. A girl may like anal sex because it makes her feel incredibly naughty and she likes feeling like a dirty slut. If this is the case, you can try all sorts of humiliating acts to help live out her filthy fantasy.

4. Mascara running down the cheeks means they’ve just been crying, and it was probably your fault . . . but you can cheer up the miserable beauty with a bit of the old in and out.

5. What burns me up sometimes about girls is dick-teasers. They lead a man on and then shut him off right there.

6. Filthy talk can be such a turn on for a girl . . . no one wants to be shagged by a mouse . . . A few compliments won’t do any harm either . . . ‘I bet you want it from behind you dirty whore’ . . .

7. You know girls in general are all right. But some of them are bitches . . . The bitches are the type that . . . need to have it stuffed to them hard and heavy.

8. Escorts . . . they know exactly how to turn a man on. I’ve given up on girlfriends. They don’t know how to satisfy me, but escorts do.

9. You’ll find most girls will be reluctant about going to bed with somebody or crawling in the back seat of a car . . . But you can usually seduce them, and they’ll do it willingly.

10. There’s nothing quite like a woman standing in the dock accused of murder in a sex game gone wrong . . . The possibility of murder does bring a certain frisson to the bedroom.

11. Girls ask for it by wearing these mini-skirts and hotpants . . . they’re just displaying their body . . . Whether they realise it or not they’re saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got a beautiful body, and it’s yours if you want it.’

12. You do not want to be caught red-handed . . . go and smash her on a park bench. That used to be my trick.

13. Some women are domineering, but I think it’s more or less the man who should put his foot down. The man is supposed to be the man. If he acts the man, the woman won’t be domineering.

14. I think if a law is passed, there should be a dress code . . . When girls dress in those short skirts and things like that, they’re just asking for it.

15. Girls love being tied up . . . it gives them the chance to be the helpless victim.

16. I think girls are like plasticine, if you warm them up you can do anything you want with them.

Answers. 1. Rapist, 2. Rapist, 3. Lad mag, 4. Lad mag, 5. Rapist, 6. Lad mag, 7. Rapist, 8. Lad mag, 9. Rapist, 10. Lad mag, 11. Rapist, 12. Lad mag, 13. Rapist, 14. Rapist, 15. Lad mag, 16. Lad mag

To tell you the truth, I don’t read American “lad mags” — when I was a teenager, all my reading money went to comic books, which preached a different sort of hypermasculinity. Are these sort of sentiments common in the US guy magazines, anyone know?

This is an open thread. Please post or discuss whatever you’d like, including self-linking.

MSNBC’s photoblog has an excellent feature on Pearl Harbor, including this photo of a group of women of color fighting fires after the attacks:

(Click through to see a big version of the photo).

There’s been a lot of interest in this photo, and I hope some or all of the women in it are identified and their stories told.

I’m in a hurry to get to the studio and draw, but here’s a few other links:

1. Politics Over Science: HHS Keeps Emergency Contraception From Store Shelves | RH Reality Check
2. Social conservatives everywhere sure do love their slippery slopes: Saudis fear there will be ¿no more virgins¿ and people will turn gay if female drive ban is lifted | Mail Online
3. Extremely well-written essay by a gay marine: On Marines, equality, and my date to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball
4. Why Do We Make Movies For A Sex-Segregated World? | ThinkProgress
5. The Myth of Profligate Euro Zone Countries | Beat the Press
6. Longshot GOP Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson Comes Out For Marriage Equality | ThinkProgress
7. What is a representative sex worker? — Feministe
8. OWS Success: Even Obama Is Talking About Income Inequality
9. The Debate Link: Mis-Match Mish-Mash, Part II