Stop Oprah, just stop.

I'm really tired of hearing about how Oprah weighs [gasp] 200 pounds and is so embarassed to have "fallen off the wagon".

Oprah could be an amazing voice for the Fat Acceptance movement as well as helping to push back at our current idiotic and unrealistic body ideals. Yet she chooses to whine about the horror of looking fat next to Cher. Can you imagine letting something like that bother you when you're as freaking successful as Oprah?

I think she looks fabulous. It's a shame she doesn't think so too.

Edited to add: Oddly enough, I hadn't read Shapely Prose when I posted this, but as usual, Kate Harding says it better.

"I just wish, for your sake as well as for the millions of women who look up to you, you could find a way to reframe your struggles with your weight, to practice and promote Health at Every Size, to believe that you are a beautiful woman — you so are! — who does not need to keep apologizing for what she eats or what dress size she wears. I wish you would choose to be the role model you’re perfectly suited to be, instead of trying to be one you’re not"

'Twilight' the movie. Part 2

"Attention, all 13-year-old female readers of this newspaper: Run, do not walk, to the nearest multiplex playing "Twilight," the screen version of Stephenie Meyer's best-selling potboiler about a principled vampire and the teenage girl who loves him. Others needn't run. Or walk."
-Wall Street Journal

Okay, so here's the thing.

This movie was made for people who read the books and became completely obsessed. If you’re not one of those people, this movie isn't really for you.

And of course, if you loved the books, you aren’t going to love this movie. But when is the movie ever as good as the book? And when we’re talking a 544 page novel, in which the main characters talk and talk, and then talk some more, in between rhapsodizing over how wonderful the other one is, the movie will lose something in translation.

I thought the casting was pretty good. The Edward and Bella characters especially worked really well for me. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are pretty much exactly as I pictured Bella and Edward. The sullen and reserved Kristen Stewart had no problem playing the sullen and reserved Bella Swan. And Robert Pattinson obviously benefitted from Stephenie Meyer letting him read the early chapters of Midnight Sun. It really seemed like he got Edward’s sense of humor. And let’s face it, the boy actually can smolder. The supporting casting wasn’t bad either. I was surprised by Taylor Lautner (Jacob). From earlier photos, he didn’t seem quite the right fit for Jacob (too short and too young). But with the appropriate wig, he worked out fine. However, considering the growth spurt Jacob is supposed to start experiencing, I’m not quite sure how the same actor would be able to play the hulking huge Jacob of New Moon.

The scenery was beautiful. The lush green and the constant overcast and wetness of the Pacific Northwest play an important role in setting the mood of the Twilight books, so that came across perfectly.

Now the bad. Half of the vampire makeup was ludicrous. Considering the Cullens are supposed to blend in with humans somewhat, the idea that anyone would be able to look at Carlisle under florescent lights without thinking “what is wrong with that dude?” pushes the limits. I was also highly distracted by the fact that Edward constantly wore more lipstick than Bella. And don’t even get me started on Jasper’s hair. How is that the hair of a Civil War solider?

And the special effects. To be fair, the vampire sparkle was going to be difficult to achieve under any circumstances, and this was a fairly low budget movie. But I think there could have been a better way to handle it that involved less soft focus. I thought they did a really good job with the vampire speed effects. Some reviewers complained that it’s cheap to go with a simple blur effect, but that’s exactly how their speed is referred to in the books, so that worked for me. However, they overused it and it became tiresome. In the meadow scene alone (badly handled all around) Edward blurs out of the frame about a dozen times. The climbing effect was a little too Spider-man for me, and of course not really true to the book, but you have to admit the view from the top of the trees was awesome. Though I spent the entire time thinking the Bella we know, would have fallen off the limb in a heartbeat.

The biggest problem I had was the screenplay. There’s of course no way to make a two hour movie about a 544 page book without losing some big chunks of the story, but I object to the chunks they chose. By cutting so much of Bella and Edward’s dialogue, we pretty much miss how they fell in love. The actors were left to convey everything with intense looks and nostril flaring, which just elicited giggles in theaters throughout the country. Relationships were forsaken (example: Alice and Bella’s blossoming friendship) and dialogue was rewritten when the original dialogue said it much better. Changing which characters spoke specific lines also seemed to serve no purpose and just ruined the original emotional impact. Oh! And what up with Bella wearing Converse to prom?

I could have done with less close-ups. We get it! They’re pretty, and intense.

In summary: silly, melodramatic, and cheesy. But so were the books. I was completely entertained.

'Twilight' the movie.

Hello sequel.

One and half days until "Twilight"!

The teenage girl inside me is totally hoarse from all the screaming.

The Times people, The New York freakin Times: The Vampire of the Mall

Apparently, girls all over the country are pretty much skipping school for the entire week. What with all the waiting all night in mall parking lot lines...

And if you're in the Austin area, Alamo Drafthouse still has tickets to Vampire Prom. Sadly, I have no prom date.

Arkansas and California

Rob and Nicole both posted about California and Arkansas choosing the day we elected America's first African-American president as the day that their states devolved and revoked basic human rights from their citizens.

California's Prop 8 passed and revoked the right for gays to marry. And in attempt to bar gays from adopting and with a total disregard for all of the children lingering in the foster care system, Arkanasas passed a ban to prohibit all unmarried cohabitating couples from fostering or adopting children.

Arkansas' ban reminded me of a story that's been in the news recently about a foster mother in Maryland. Renee D. Bowman was a foster mother to three young girls that she then adopted. On Sept. 27, her seven-year-old adopted daughter escaped from the house and begged assistance from a neighbor. When the police arrived, they found her to be suffering from extreme abuse and neglect and sought a search warrant for her adopted mother's house. In Renee Bowman's house, they found the murdered bodies of her other two adopted daughters in her freezer, where they'd been for at least seven months.

But at least Renee Bowman isn't gay.

Item for the Obama Administration

Fix FEMA please.

Thousands Of FEMA Trailers Sit Vacant

Tens of thousands of government-owned trailers are sitting empty and unused while many in our area need to a place to live because of the destruction caused by Hurricane Ike.

Billions of your tax dollars were used to buy these trailers. Yet, FEMA has denied requests to send the trailers to southeast Texas.

The storage yard in Purvis is not the only one. FEMA currently has 120,000 travel trailers sitting vacant and unused at 21 storage sites around the United States.

Hundreds of Gulf Coast residents who lived in the trailers following Katrina and Rita have filed lawsuits against FEMA. The lawsuits claim high levels of the preservative formaldehyde caused them to become sick.

The lawsuits and health concerns prompted FEMA to stop using the travel-trailers. That decision is costing taxpayers millions of dollars in storage fees. FEMA reports it spends roughly $115 million a year to store the unused trailers.

Oh! So this is what hope looks like.

abandoned

This may be the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Photos of ghost towns and abandoned cities from around the world.

It's here! Election '08

In Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, 100 percent of registered voters -- all 21 of them -- cast their ballots just after midnight in the first moments of Tuesday morning. For the first time in 40 years, the town voted Democratic in the presidential election, 15 to 6.

As Dixville Notch goes, so goes the nation?

Boo!

Happy Halloween!

Cindy McCain Will Break Your Fucking Neck

"So when you're in that election booth, ask yourself, do you want a president who believes in the strength of the American worker, or do you want me to rip off your limbs and use them to beat your skull to a bloody pile of skin and bone fragments? I think the choice is clear."


[via]

Don't you just want to eat him up?

"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."

Whether she flubbed the quote or not, can you believe Sarah Palin had the nerve to say that?

Can you believe that the woman who stood by while rape victims in her state were asked to pay for their own rape kits said that? The same woman who believes abortion should be illegal even in the cases of rape and incest?

I really can't wait to find out what more she's going to do to "help" her fellow women.

This is what 31 looks like.

Not Qutting My Day Job

I called four out of 13 categories. It's like I don't even own a television.

I'm completely baffled as to how Glenn Close beat out Holly Hunter for Best Actress in a Drama Series.

I've said it before, but seriously Emmys. You're dead to me.

2008 Emmy Picks

DRAMA

SERIES:
"Boston Legal (ABC)
"Damages" (FX)
"Dexter" (Showtime)
"House" (FOX)
"Lost" (ABC)
"Mad Men" (AMC)

ACTOR:
James Spader, "Boston Legal"
Bryan Cranston, "Breaking Bad"
Michael C. Hall, "Dexter"
Hugh Laurie, "House"
Gabriel Byrne, "In Treatment"
Jon Hamm, "Mad Men"

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
William Shatner, "Boston Legal"
Ted Danson, "Damages"
Zeljko Ivanek, "Damages"
Michael Emerson, "Lost"
John Slattery , "Mad Men"

ACTRESS:
Sally Field, "Brothers & Sisters"
Glenn Close, "Damages"
Mariska Hargitay, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
Holly Hunter, "Saving Grace"
Kyra Sedgwick, "The Closer"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Candice Bergen, "Boston Legal"
Rachel Griffiths, "Bothers & Sisters"
Chandra Wilson, "Grey's Anatomy"
Sandra Oh, "Grey's Anatomy"
Dianne Wiest, "In Treatment"

COMEDY

SERIES:
"30 Rock" (NBC)
"Curb Your Enthusiasm" (HBO)
"Entourage" (HBO"
"The Office" (NBC)
"Two and a Half Men" (CBS)

ACTOR:
Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock"
Tony Shalhoub, "Monk"
Lee Pace, "Pushing Daisies"
Steve Carell, "The Office"
Charlie Sheen, "Two and a Half Men"

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Jeremy Piven, "Entourage"
Kevin Dillon, "Entourage"
Neil Patrick Harris, "How I Met Your Mother"
Rainn Wilson, "The Office"
John Cryer, "Two and a Half Men"

ACTRESS:
Tina Fey, "30 Rock"
Christina Applegate, "Samantha Who"?
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, "The New Adventures of Old Christine"
America Ferrera, "Ugly Betty"
Mary-Louise Parker, "Weeds"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Kristin Chenoweth, "Pushing Daisies"
Jean Smart, "Samantha Who?"
Amy Poehler, "Saturday Night Live"
Holland Taylor, "Two and Half Men"
Vanessa Williams, "Ugly Betty"

OUTSTANDING VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SERIES:
"Late Show With David Letterman" (CBS)
"Real Time With Bill Maher" (HBO)
"Saturday Night Live" (NBC)
"The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central)
"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" (Comedy Central)

REALITY

OUTSTANDING REALITY PROGRAM:
"Antiques Roadshow" (PBS)
"Dirty Jobs" (Discovery)
"Extreme Makeover Home Edition" (ABC)
"Intervention" (A&E)
"Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List" (Bravo)

OUTSTANDING REALITY-COMPETITION PROGRAM
"American Idol" (FOX)
"Dancing With the Stars" (ABC)
"Project Runway" (Bravo)
"The Amazing Race" (CBS)
"Top Chef" (Bravo

Patriotism

I have a confession to make.

I am not always proud of my country.

When I think of the waste we produce, and how we deplete our natural resources and contribute towards global warming, I am not always proud. When our country stands by while atrocities are committed in the Congo and Darfur, I am not proud. It disappoints me that with our vast power and resources, we don't take more responsibility for protecting the least among us, in our own country, and the global community.

There has been a running theme at the Republican National Convention where the speakers all talk about how they've always been proud to be Americans, as if that makes them more patriotic. The definition of patriotism is love and devotion for one's country. Pride not required. I believe it's possible to love this country and all of the many things it offers, and to still feel that we can do a better job than we have done, of working towards a world where those advantages can be available to those who struggle.

From the earliest days of this country with the Salem witch trials, the forced relocation of the Native Americans, the practice of slavery, the war between the states, black listing during World War II, Japanese internment camps, the bombing of Hiroshima, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the KKK, the Guatanamo Bay imprisonment of persons who have not been charged with a crime, provided legal representation or a trial by jury, and every war we're ever fought in where we sent our willing soldiers off to certain death- I have trouble believing that people who lived through any of those events, have always been proud of their country.

The Founding Fathers began the Constitution by saying:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..."

Don't you see? They knew this country wasn't perfect.

They knew this country was a work in progress.

I believe that it still is.

Sarah Palin: Book Banner?

From the Time magazine article, "Mayor Palin: A Rough Record":

[Former Wasilla mayor] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

[via]

Midnight Sun

Stephenie Meyer's Midnight Sun, which is the first book in the Twilight series told from the male character's point of view, has been postponed indefinitely.

She's so devastated that the first 12 chapters of the rough draft were posted online illegally, that she can no longer find it in her heart to complete the novel.

Meanwhile, I'm so depressed by the fact that the rough draft ends right before the pivotal meadow scene, that I don't even want to talk about it.