No Girls Allowed!

This meeting of the He Man Woman Haters Club shall come to order!

We have a busy agenda this month, so let's get right down to business. First up? We'd like to congratulate our members from the state of Virginia for passing legislation requiring that women seeking an abortion be vaginally probed against their will. There are some questions as to how we'll manage to get around the fact that doing so basically constitutes rape, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

On a similar note, everyone should take a moment to thank future He-Man Woman Haters Club President Rick Santorum for taking such a brave stance when it comes to the evils of this nation's real problems, most of which involve silly women not knowing what's good for them. He knows that birth control is only used by sinners "seeking license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be" and that if women are put on the front lines of a military operation we He Men, despite hating them, might get all ooey-gooey inside and feel the need to protect them. We are, after all, only human!

We also need to give a big shout-out to all of our members who've been out there doing their darndest to advance the "personhood" agenda (which would basically outlaw all abortions and most contraception), which will go a long way toward making sure that gals stay barefoot and pregnant, the way God -- who is, after all, a man -- intended them to be.

Next, we need to give a big shout-out to some of the little ladies who have helped drive up our membership numbers even while they sabotaged their own kind. That includes Callista "Stand By Someone Else's Man" Gingrich, Michele "I Set The Idea Of A Female President Back A Century" Bachmann, and Arizona Governor Jan "Off With Their Heads" Brewer.

Last, but far from least, we want to give a special welcome to our first Honorary Dude, Ann Coulter, for her recent comment that “all pretty girls are right-wingers.” She does the GOP… er, I mean the He-Man Woman Haters Club proud. 

Oscar’s A Grouch!

When you realize that this article is taking the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to task for barring the Muppets from performing at this year’s Oscars, I know what you’ll be thinking. You’ll be thinking, “But is that rude? Keeping them from performing their Best Original Song nominee, ‘Man or Muppet,’ is stupid, sure, and a real buzzkill. But I don’t know about rude.”  

Well, it is rude, and I’ll tell you why.  

The world is a crappy, unpleasant, dreadful, damn near altogether rotten kinda place. (Don’t believe me? Ride a subway. Ever.) There is good in the world, sure. But there is bad, too, and it isn’t passive aggressive, it’s aggressive aggressive. It seeks at every turn to stink up any good that crosses its path and/or knock it down. And that’s rude. (To the nth degree, in fact.)

But you know what’s ruder still? Making a conscious, calculated decision to keep that which is good — like, say, a wonderful, sweet, funny song like “Man or Muppet” — from people who could really stand to see and hear some good. (That would be us.) And that is what the powers that be behind the Oscars are doing. They say they are worried about time constraints (at the Oscars?!), and making the telecast the most exciting three hours possible (exciting?!). But I ask you, what are they planning that would — that even could! — be more enjoyable than a musical interlude by the Muppets?  

There is nothing.  

Yet they want to dim the bright lights and broad smiles that the Muppets represent — and turn away their fans young and old. They don’t want to take away from even a moment of Hollywood self-aggrandizing to just make their audience happy. To make us happy for less than three minutes, for Pete’s sake. (The whole song is only 2:57! Although who would object to a “Me Party” mash-up? Oh, right, the Academy.)  

You know what? On second thought, you were right from the start. This boneheaded decision by Team Oscar isn’t rude. It’s just plain evil. Go ahead and say it, fancypants telecast producers. I know you want to. Maniacal laugh. Maniacal laugh. Just know, we are not laughing with you.

Want to join the cause? Head over to the Facebook page MONO: Muppets Or No Oscar to voice your opinion!

Words Are Cheap… Own 'Em!

Over the course of any given day, I'm responsible for a lot of words.

As the executive editor of a magazine, an author, the owner of numerous Twitter accounts, a semi-regular Facebooker and an over-enthusiastic gabber, I create a whole lotta words. And for better or worse, I'm responsible for each and every one of them. If words have consequences, and they often do, I believe it is my responsibility to face them.

Which is why (or at least one reason among many) I could never go into politics.

See, a funny thing happens when you run for office, as evidenced by recent events that have unfolded around the various candidates hoping to become the Republican nominee in this year's presidential election. At least three of the people wanting to lead the free world have spent a lot of time denying words that they (or someone on their behalf) have put out there.

Ron Paul would have us believe that he never read his own newsletter, and that he's now shocked -- positively shocked, I tell ya! -- to find out it regularly contained racist, offensive material.

When asked about an ad bashing occasional front-runner Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney denied any knowledge of the spot... despite it ending with the words, "I'm Mitt Romney, and I approved this message."

This week, in the days leading up to the Florida primary, folks in that state began receiving a robocall informing them that Mitt Romney had, while governor of Massachusetts, voted to cut funding for kosher meals in nursing homes... meaning some Holocaust survivors were, according to the ad, forced to eat non-kosher food for the first time in their life. When Gingrich was asked about the ad, released by his campaign staff, his response was to say, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Not that anyone believed him.

Further pressed to comment on the ad, which addresses a claim Gingrich first made earlier in the week when talking to a crowd in Jacksonville, Florida, he refused to comment on the grounds it was "something I don't know about."

It's disturbing to me that three different people running for the most important job in the United States are acting as if their words should be treated about as seriously as those of someone posting from behind the anonymity of a made-up name on Twitter. More unsettling is their complete lack of accountability. I assure you, were I to be running for dog catcher — much less president — I would be sure to personally approve every single poster, press release, commercial or skywriting stunt being sent out into the world by my campaign staff. (We’re not talking aobut Superpac-funded ads here, where there is a supposed disconnect between the candidate and those acting on his behalf.)

We have become a nation that loves nothing more than to lash out from a safe distance. Whether on Facebook or in the comment section of an article posted on the New York Times webpage, we anonymously say things we would never say to the face of the person we're talking about or responding to. Any actor brave enough to venture onto Twitter will quickly learn that the old phrase "If you don't have something nice to say, say nothing at all" has morphed into "If you don't have something nice to say, create a Twitter account using a fake name and say it with out a thought as to pesky things like decency, empathy or even personal responsibility."

Or just launch a political campaign. Same diff.

The Case of the P.O.'d Plaintiff

You don’t have to be a legal eagle to spot a turkey of a case. And man, is the one Claudia Evart has filed against THE PEOPLE’S COURT for the birds! 

According to the New York Post, Evart — of the Murray Hill section of New York City — took her smal claims case against a local business to the courtoom of television's Judge Marilyn Milian in the hopes that THE PEOPLE’S COURT barrister would rule in her favor. Having lost the case, Evart is now fighting to keep the episode from ever hitting the airwaves because she's got regrets about having gone public. “It was a nightmare, and I wish I never did it,” she told the paper. Instead of justice, the pissed plaintiff says she only “got aggravation and stress. It was uncalled for and unnecessary."

And, to be blunt, exactly what the show doles out on a daily basis. 

For the uninitiated, THE PEOPLE’S COURT is to justice what THE OFFICE is to drama. Folks agree to go on the show and basically be yelled at and humiliated in exchange for the producers paying not only any and all costs associated with the case but an appearance fee. Evart — who is, in an ironic little twist, a paralegal — displays her keen knowledge of the legal system by telling the newspaper, “I just thought I’d win, according to their letter.” The letter does not, of course, specifically say that... and goes on to indicate that anything can happen during the proceedings. 

What irks her most of all is that she felt as if the show painted her in a negative light and took away her sense of self-respect. “You have the right to be treated with dignity,” the article ends with her saying. “And I didn’t give that right up,” she adds of the documents anyone appearing on the show must sign before entering what is, in essence, binding arbitration.

Now, we’re not about to defend the actions of the judges who yell at, belittle and generally behave in a way that is about as far from civility as possible. However, folks who go on these shows — for whatever reason — aren’t innocent by any stretch of the imagination, whether they're guilty of the pending charges or not. They have their reasons for taking their small claims case to the airwaves. Some want their 15 minutes of fame. Some just want their legal fees and any penalties levied against them paid by the producers.

But it's unlikely that a single one of them is going into the proceedings without having first checked the show out, and that goes for Evart, too. She made the decision to air her dirty laundry in a very public format knowing full well what she was walking into.

Perhaps in the end, it’s us who will walk away from the courtroom winners. Because if one person reads about Evart's experience and realizes that actual court fees are a small price to pay to retain one’s dignity, our work here will have been done.

Wedded Miss

In defending Newt Gingrich against charges that he asked his ex-wife — the second of three lucky women to marry the former Speaker of the House — for an open marriage, Herman Cain (whose own presidential ambitions, you'll remember, went up in smoke shortly after numerous sexual harassment allegations surfaced) raised a question which has been heralded as valid in many circles.

“What,” asked Cain during an appearance on Fox News, “does something that happened 20 years ago relative to an ex-wife have to do with fixing America’s problems today?”

“Marriage is important! One should keep doing it until one gets it right! In fact, next time… ”

And while I won't presume to speak on behalf of all Americans — as both Cain and Gingrich have done in the past — I'll take a shot at answering for myself.

Here’s the problem, Newt: You want people to keep their noses out of your personal life, right? You think it’s inappropriate that anyone dare question the morals of a man such as yourself simply because you've chosen to try and run for the highest office of the land. And yet... you want to sanctimoniously and somewhat hypocritically say that your past, present and — let’s be honest — future marriages should be off limits even as you vow to prevent others from taking a single shot at what you’ve failed to accomplish twice now: happily ever after.

You've said repeatedly in the past that you believe “a marriage is between a man and a woman,” even going so far as to call the movement toward legalizing same-sex marriage  “a temporary abberation that will dissipate.”

Ironically, the debate during which your request for an open marriage was called into question was co-sponsored by... wait for it... wait for it... the National Organization for Marriage. Apparently, one is free to marry as often as one likes, have affairs during said union even while taking others to task for their own infidelities (as you did by leading the charge against Bill Clinton following the Monica Lewinsky scandal)... just so long as each of those marriages is to someone of the opposite sex.

The bottom line is this, Newt: Don't take us to task for judging you even as you're trying to put yourself in a position where you can not only judge everyone else but legislate their love lives. In other words, that glass house of yours may not be the best place from which to lob stones.