Old School Sexist Ads...

They say they just don't make 'em like they used to anymore. Usually that statement is for the worse. But, sometimes it is for the better.

I wonder how many amphetamines are in these "vitamins"?

Relatedly, I'm pretty sure she's actually really sporting a post-O glow judging by the grip she has on the business end of that duster.

 * * *

Subtle sexism. Oh, 1975, you cad. 

Also, I'm pretty sure you'd never get laid, even in the 70's, kicking around in one of these.

* * *

As understated as the Subaru ad was, the Midol ad from 1974 is definitely lacking in subtlety. 

The entire ad screams "DON'T BE A PSYCHO! DO IT FOR YOUR MAN!"

I was going to comment that this might be an effective post-feminism ad today, but I really don't want to get bitten by a certain woman who may or may not read this, and may or may not be a hormonal terror machine when she does. 

* * *

This may look sexist, but really, what special broad in your life doesn't want a nice electric mixer?

Empirical fact: The skirts make better bread than just regular ole' guys.

Bonus points to this one for cliched emotional warfare, as well.

* * *

The Del Monte ad from 1962 is tits-out awesome. Simple in its message, sparse in its verbiage, and 100% "chicks are weak" screaming out at you from the decades gone past.

I give hippies a lot of shit, and I give self-serious doctrinaire liberals even more shit (despite being lefty, go figure), but reasons like this are absolutely why our mothers lost their fucking minds in the '60s and '70s. They had a pretty good reason to.

-d.s.

Something for your weekend: Miss Mosh

From "Rod and Culture" Magazine and Ms. Mosh's site, the MoshRoom.

Mosh, latex fetish, pinup gal. 

The Shadow is not normally a fan of blondes, but she is absolutely adoreable, and really does it for me.

Anyway, enjoy your weekend, and I'll see you sporadically over the coming week: I'm taking a real life vacation which will include reading a lot of excellent books, lounging by the pool, some kayaking and paddle-boarding, playing my guitar, and getting caught up on sleep. 

It's a hard life, I know, but someone has to do it.

-d.s.

Shadowy Bookshelf: The Nine

Every so often, I whip it out for you guys.

Literary Critic, Spider Monkey, says "Put that away. You'll put your eye out".

By "it", I mean of course the latest book I've read, or one that I particularly enjoy/detest, and wish to share with you. Today brings us Jeffrey Toobin's "The Nine". I have read many legal nonfictions, as well as novels, particularly those emphasizing the High Court and the personalities which comprise the most powerful body in the world. I must say, however, that I don't think any of them captures the  unique humanity of the Justices and the institution quite like Toobin's book does.

  Now available in paperback, minions.

While the book technically addresses the "nine", it is much more a critical look at the crucial role that Justice O'Connor played as the all important swing vote, and politico on the Bench. Much treatment is given to waning days of Chief Justice Rehnquist's last years as well, including his administrative touch, the substance of his rulings, the Federalism revival which fell flat, and of course his death. The rest of the gang is here, as well: Souter's quiet discomfort as a 21st Century Jurist; Thomas' self-proclaimed victimhood and fringe ideology, Breyer's unique humor; Scalia's acerbic wit, etc. It is a great read for court-watchers, for dedicated law nerds, and for lay persons wanting a better understanding of how the seemingly-baffling pronouncements from on-high become governing law. There are some criticisms though, namely, the exceptional deference shown to the Chief, despite him being one of the most conservative, paleoconservatives since the Four Horsemen of FDR's era.  Still, I can't complain too much.

Publisher's Review Thinks:

It's not laws or constitutional theory that rule the High Court, argues this absorbing group profile, but quirky men and women guided by political intuition. New Yorker legal writer Toobin (The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson) surveys the Court from the Reagan administration onward, as the justices wrestled with abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, gay rights and church-state separation. * * *  His savvy account puts the supposedly cloistered Court right in the thick of American life. 

 Not in the book, but did you know that a federal judge once made a ruling a la "Green Eggs and Ham?"

A Critic Digresses:

THE WRITER IS SO LIBERAL THAT HE THINK THAT IF THE "NINE" DO NOT AGREE AND DO AS HE THINK , THEY ARE BAD OR EVIL . FOR CONSERVATIVE IT IS A WEST OF TIME TO READ IT AND FOR LIBERAL IT IS WHAT YOU BELIVE IN NO METTER WHAT ...SO WHY READING THIS JUNK 

Shadow's Take:

You could do far worse than this entry into the court-watcher catalogue. Author's undoubted liberalism will annoy some, but even moderates would have to agree that Justice Scalia is a bitter old hypocrite and Justice Thomas is a fringe idiot. Nice pace, nice mix of the personalities with the political saga playing out, especially in the religion and Bush v. Gore cases. All things considered, not a bad effort.

 

Three and half out of Five Spider Monkeys

-d.s.

Friday loves it some Chris Pohl

Cheesy he may be sometimes (See e.g., Blutengel's Bloody Pleasures), but I still dig some Chris Pohl. Admittedly, I don't like Terminal Choice as much as Blutengel, but, for this Friday at least, it has its place.

-d.s.

Global Law/Politics Dump for the Hoi Polloi

In Japan, a Justice Minister is in trouble for joking that his job is not that difficult, especially given that all he says is  "I won't comment on individual cases" and "I'm acting in accordance with the law and the evidence".

Shadow's Reaction? LULZ. Pretty funny shit, and, as it happens, pretty true as well. Who cares the guy fessed up to speaking Bureaucrat-ese? He's not hired to try the damned cases, rather to be an administrator. And, they all speak like that.

Get that paper, lawya'

 * * *

In Iowa, the ethanol subsidies are set to expire Dec 31st of this year, all but ensuring the tens and tens of billions of dollars we spend subsidizing ADM and the Corn Belt will become a heated political topic. My take, after spending 6 years in the flyover? We don't need to subsidize large argri-businesses. Family farms are all-but over. Moreover, ethanol is carbon +, and requires more energy to make a gallon of gas than actually is yielded back. Finally, why on god's green earth would we pay tens of billions of dollars to actually raise our food prices (which ethanol subsidies do, by artificially inflating demand)?

Shadow's Reaction? Expand to crops we can use, have actual demand for, and which show the most promise for maintaining the integrity of the family farm. E.g., hemp, wineries, wheat, soy, etc.

Sorry, Great Plains. Time to get another job.

 * * *

In Illinois, Outgoing Republican Ingilis (R-Ill) absolutely blasts the tin-foil climate change deniers. And, according to Think Progress 86% of the incoming freshman GOP are full-on Climate Deniers.

Shadow's Reaction? These guys aren't going to listen. They never have; never will. The same 23% of the American population has been fucking it up for the rest of us since 1776. Hopefully, the first famine reaches them and theirs.

* * *

Finally, a moment of sadness please, for all American High-Schoolers who ever dreamed of going to Amsterdam for a tour of the Hash cafes.  Sad, sad story here "The Dutch government said on Wednesday it wanted to ban tourists from buying cannabis in "coffee shops," where hash is on sale legally, as part of a national crackdown on drug use."

Shadow's Reaction? Visit the Deep South or Hawaii, where the stuff is strong, feral, and literally a weed. Smoke your brains out while you're in college, because I guarantee by the time you're 25, reality sets in, responsibility flourishes, and you just don't have a whole day to hit the honey bear, eat Doritos and play XBox.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

d.s.

Thursday just got off the roller coaster.

So, just woke up from a dream about 15 minutes ago, where my life had been played out like a pilot of a particularly fast, unstable jet; wherein, I was wholly unprepared to deal with pulling the massive G's required to manuever. Nevertheless, I clung to the joystick of the jet in some vain attempt at control.

If that's not a metaphor for life, I'm not sure what is. 

The entire dream sequence was set to this, J.S. Bach's "Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor".

Somehow, I think that Stanley Kubrick would have been pleased.

-d.s.

Kind of a big deal, really: Captured Anti-Matter

Large Hadron Collider: Not just for destroying the Earth anymore!

Really, this is  a very big deal, and exceptionally cool. Seems scientists at Lucerne have pulled off the impossible feat of isolating, and then containing anti-matter. Anti-matter is destroyed when it comes into contact with regular ole' universe matter. That they were able to isolate it, and then contain it for a a period of time is remarkable. 

One of the holy grails of particle physics, in fact.

Per the BBC:

Researchers at Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider, have held 38 antihydrogen atoms in place, each for a fraction of a second.

Antihydrogen has been produced before but it was instantly destroyed when it encountered normal matter.

The team, reporting in Nature, says the ability to study such antimatter atoms will allow previously impossible tests of fundamental tenets of physics.

The current "standard model" of physics holds that each particle - protons, electrons, neutrons and a zoo of more exotic particles - has its mirror image antiparticle.

The antiparticle of the electron, for example, is the positron, and is used in an imaging technique of growing popularity known as positron emission tomography.

However, one of the great mysteries in physics is why our world is made up overwhelmingly of matter, rather than antimatter; the laws of physics make no distinction between the two and equal amounts should have been created at the Universe's birth.

This still doesn't mean that I trust the LHC, or that it won't devour our world like Galactus; nevertheless, this alone would be a pay-off for the long-delayed, over-budgeted, controversial particle collider.

Yea, science!

  Ignore this guy. Really, he's just here for the refreshments.

-d.s.

Wednesday's Got You On My Mind

Don't know why this was in my head this morning, but it was. And,  I thought --it being unexpected and all-- that you wouldn't mind a little Willie Nelson for breakfast.

Happy Humpday, World.

-d.s

Today's Nuclear Immolation Fantasy: Miss Crash

Nothing really left to said: I dig the Lynch-thing going on here. Also, you should note, that at Miss Crash's Flickr album there are several NSFW, but tastefully done, nudes and other erotica.

Just a warning for those of you whom are offended by our humanity laid bare.

"A travesty gross enough to make a blind statue cry"

So, spoke the 20 y.o. sexual assault victim, "Ashley". Ashley had been raped by a youth counselor, inside a courthouse, when she was 15 years old.

The perp, Tony Simmons, got ten years probation, and no jail time for sexual assault on teenage girls under his supervision. "Ashley", however, received a 12 month sentence on an unrelated charge of falsifying a police report.

The NY Daily News has the horrifying details.

[Ashley] expected Tyson, as Simmons was called, to bring her up to the courtroom where she was scheduled to be sentenced for filing a false police report

Instead, the elevator descended to the basement. The 42-year-old counselor pulled down her pants and raped her with calm, practiced precision that made him all the more terrifying.

When he was done, Simmons pulled her pants back up and the elevator ascended to the courtroom. He raised an extended index finger to his lips in a mute command for her to say nothing.

Just moments after being violated, Ashley was seated next to her mother and before the judge. She was too shocked and terrified to report the attack.

 

Now, however, the judge is rejecting Simmons' plea: A humane first step. And, if there were any justice, he'd be behind bars:

[Judge] Mullen said she could not go ahead with the promised sentence of probation she made in September because a Department of Probation report showed Tony Simmons showed no remorse - and even blamed his underage victims.

Calling Simmons' comments in the report "nothing short of appalling," Mullen said he "seems to suggest he did his [rape] victim a favor."

Usually it's really better if she's blindfolded. This probably wasn't one of them.

-d.s.

Tuesday? Somebody smack me...

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "Heroin"

Smack, of course, being heroin. 

I love this song, if not the drug (too frightening for my tastes, thanks. Besides, if I were inclined to do drugs, I do happen to live in a state where pot is all but decriminalized, it grows readily and easily). I'l just take advantage of the nation's laxest booze laws.

Enjoy your Tuesday.

-d.s.

Dolphins: Now with less rape...

So, dolphins, those incredibly evil, malign, ruthlessly intelligent, rape-y creatures of the deep apparently do more than blast fishies with underwater sonar, kill for fun and rape anything that gets near them...

Swimming with the dolphins: Coordinated aquatic sexual assault.

What else, you ask, might our e'er smiling friends of the deep do that could possibly be of benefit to our species. For one, you could thank them for saving the life of Dick Fucking Van Dyke.

And, no, I'm not making that up.

According to many sources (most of them suspending credulity, I add), the following occurred:

According to a report in the Guardian, he fell asleep on his surfboard out at sea near where he lives. When he woke up, far from the beach he began to paddle his way to shore. Suddenly, fins appeared to surround his surfboard and he was afraid for his life.

But then they turned out to be porpoises. And they pushed him to shore! This is the kind of stuff dreams are made of. Mr. Van Dyke also saved some of his fortune because that kind of frolicking with sea creatures costs a lot of money at Sea World.

They were saving you, Mr. Van Dyke...For next time.

I'd love to add something to this, but I think the National Post summed it up best:

A Google search of “Dick Van Dyke” and “drugs” results in a whole lot of random celebrity sites and no real answer.

Which is good. Because you want stories that involve incredible porpoise rescues involving 84-year-old classic actors to be real.

Touche, National Post. Touche.

-d.s. 

So, you went to law school...

Last week, I repub'd Wahoo Corner's excellent YouTube video "So, you want to go to law school". To say this video has gone viral in legal circles is just a slight underestimation, and -frankly- does no justice to the word viral.  The power of the simple 5-minute snark is that it is painfully true, as well as darkly satirical, as we explore Carrie-Ann Fox has her questions answered from the jaded, legal veterans about the career and interpersonal toll of the law.

The Corner's newest effort, I am very pleased to report, has Suzy in law school. Thus far, there are two installments of "So, You Want To Go To Law School: The Series".

Episode One: Wherein Carrie-Ann Fox meets with her 2L mentor and is told the hard facts of life as a 1L.

* * *

Episode Two: The first day of 1L, wherein Carrie-Ann discovers the malevolence of the Socratic Method, and makes a nemesis of Prof. Walker in Civ Pro. 

This video will likely be republished tomorrow. It relates to my own nemesis, also a Civ Pro professor, and the enmity which included several nasty words and almost came to blows.

.d.s. 

Monday trusts you had a great weekend

A lot went on this weekend. I had a social meeting with a client at a yacht club. I didn't realize that half of the "other half" hate the other half of the "other half", but it was enlightening, especially for upjumped trash like myself.

There were some exceptionally strange news items, which I hope share with you as I get the time later this week. And, finally, it seems that I may have finally dug myself out of my three-month hole. Just in time for the Holidays, too!

I'll be along shortly, but, until then, enjoy some old school King Missile, won't you?

So, that's what happened to it? I thought it was just law-related atrophy.

Sadly, one's penis becomes less used about the same time one's metaphorical balls grow.

Sick, sad direct inverse correlation, no?

-d.s.