Skepchick Quickies 9.2
- Fan service: On losing patience for women kissing – “Somewhere in the last sixteen years, the two-lady kiss has become so over-used [in television] that any time we see it, we instantly cry “FAN SERVICE!””
- Vandals deface Edmonton salon ad in controversy – A graffitied conversation on art and violence against women. From Ric. (And here’s some more coverage, from Angela.
- Help protect tigers from being killed for alternative medicine – Tell the US Fish and Wildlife Service that you want all tigers in the US to be regulated the same way. From madfishmonger.
- Free schools allow religious groups to carry out state-funded brainwashing – From w_nightshade.
- Cute Animal Friday! Adorable tiny baby crocodiles from Jaz.
And for this week’s cute animal you may not have heard of before, an oncilia cub – which is a relative of ocelots.
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24 Comments
Improbable Joe
09.02.2011
Yeah, I’ve lost patience with women kissing on TV too. It usually feels like a stunt rather than part of the storytelling. BTW, I hate “Gay Captain Jack” on the current Torchwood series. I miss “Omnisexual Jack” that made more sense and felt more organic and part of his story.
Also, vandalism is wrong but so is battered woman advertising. Killing tigers for woo-woo medicine is wrong. Religion bad! Baby alligators good!
And I want an oncilia for my birthday!
butisittrue
09.02.2011
You’re aware that “Free schools allow religious groups to carry out state-funded brainwashing” is an article from Newsthump.com – a “UK spoof news and satire” website similar to the Onion, right?
Amanda
09.02.2011
Who, me? Yes, I’ve posted links to it before.
teambanzai
09.02.2011
Funny thing about the DS9 episode is that it originally aired around the same time as the episode of Rosanne when a woman kissed her, which turned out to be nothing more than a quick peck for comedy.
Every conservative group went apeshit about the Roseanne kiss and never even noticed DS9 which would have caused the conservative protesters heads to explode.
mrmisconception
09.02.2011
At the time Roseanne was in the top ten shows and DS9 was syndicated so had a fraction of the audience, plus science fiction isn’t exactly normal viewing for the “Moral Majority”.
weatherwax
09.02.2011
Love the kittens. Oncillas are one of those cats I know of, but don’t know much about. They’re also called tigrinas.
Amanda
09.02.2011
Tigrinas?! Seriously? Oh god, the cute, the cuuuuute!
weatherwax
09.02.2011
I had to go back and look it up in Sleeper and Wolfes ‘Wild Cats of the World’. Yes. The tigrina, or ocilla (Felis tigrina). At just over 5 lbs one of the smallest of neotropical cats.
weatherwax
09.02.2011
I spend alot of time with people much younger than myself, and I noticed the facination with women kissing years ago. I don’t get it myself. The idea of a woman kissing someone other than myself just doesn’t turn me on.
mrmisconception
09.02.2011
I believe that NEWS Thump is a UK “Onion” style website.
The “articles” that flank the one about religious schools are titled;
“1 in 4 primary school teachers to be issued with fake beard and hip flask” – About how there are not enough male teachers so female teachers are being given false beards and being taught how to belch the alphabet.
and
“Dog walkers and cows urged to undergo urgent peace talks” – Which is self explanatory.
Sometimes it hard to spot the Poe, especially ones we believe, or want to believe, to be true.
mrmisconception
09.02.2011
Well, it appears that you did know this and that I’m the one who has been had.
C’est la vie.
Amanda
09.02.2011
Or you could see the lovely header that proclaims it “UK Spoof News and Satire”
mrmisconception
09.02.2011
Well yes, there is that.
*slinks away*
mrmisconception
09.02.2011
Although their article with the title God plans pestilence in hope of making Michele Bachmann shut the hell up is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.
banyan
09.02.2011
Interesting. I had noticed the lesbian kiss for ratings thing, but never realized how conscious and formulaic it is. Take a primarily heterosexual female regular and have her kiss a female guest or semi-regular once–but never more than once–and then make the female regular sexually available to men again shortly thereafter. Alternatively have a “bisexual” female regular who forms relationships exclusively with men while occasionally kissing women.
The author seems disappointed that audiences are over it, as though it means that now we’ll be back to exclusively heterosexual relationships without any recognition of same-sex sexuality at all. I think it’s more likely that audiences are over it as a oh-so-shocking gimmick and are ready to accept a same-sex relationship for real.
Game of Thrones is an interesting one to watch for this. It has an overtly homosexual relationship among minor (for now!) characters. Nonetheless, it included an all-nude girl-on-girl scene that bordered on pornography, apparently as an eye-candy distraction from the incredibly dull exposition that was going on simultaneously. Apparently viewers are now prepared for homosexual relationships, and if you want to use sex for ratings, you have to ramp it way up. Granted, that could arguably be the producers staying true to the explicit nature of the books, but the gay relationship was never overt in the books, nor did two female prostitutes ever get it on while a man watched.
DiscordianStooge
09.02.2011
Bordered on pornography? I’d like to see what makes your cut for actual porn!
Displaced Northerner
09.02.2011
I didn’t think the author was disappointed that people are over the lesbian kiss- I think she is looking forward to the lesbian relationship. She even writes that she would like to see more relationship and less kissing. She wants better characters and more inclusion- and I completely agree with her.
I don’t watch much tv and I especially don’t tend to watch shows in real time (I tend to find series late and watch the DVD) so I’ve been completely oblivious to the formulaic, attention grabbing sweeps week lesbian kiss. Interesting article.
Madfishmonger
09.02.2011
Thanks for sharing that link! I can’t stand the thought of people murdering these animals to use in their fake medicine. Just a note: you DON’T need to be American to send the notice via that site, anyone can. In the comments I said that I hoped America would change its laws and that it would inspire other countries to follow suit. Getting international support might be helpful too.
As an aside, I posted a link to some rad rock star scientist shirts, saying I like the Tesla one, and some spambot sent me to this: http://bz9.com/Tesla?=nduz
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Buzz Parsec
09.02.2011
I couldn’t read the whole thing because the stupid pseudoscience burned too much, but this appears to be electric universe* nonsense. 1) Cosmic rays don’t come from the sun. 2) The Sun does not have a charge of 200 billion volts. It has no net charge. 3) Neither does the Earth. 4) If any of this were real, every electric company in the world would be doing it. Screw the oil companies. My local electric company would certainly be doing it, since they are owned by the town, not by any big energy conglomerate.
[*] It is remarkably hard to find a coherent explanation the Electric Universe theory that isn’t promulgated by partisans who don’t link to any contravening information or allow comments. Every now and then, proponents pop up in comments on Bad Astronomy or BAUT, but I can’t find anything similar to the way AGW denialist arguments have been systematically demolished on realclimate.org. Any way, a couple of good places to start are the discussions on the BAUT forums and Tim Thompson’s site.
Buzz Parsec
09.03.2011
I don’t know if this idea could be applied to the trade in tiger parts, but several years ago, I had an idea I think would help endangered rhinoceroses. Many are killed for their horns, which are ground up and sold as a panacea and “all-natural male enhancement.”
Without DNA testing, I think it would be almost impossible to distinguish powdered rhino horn from powdered cow horn, which would be every bit as effective (i.e. not at all.)
1) get cow horns from slaughterhouses. (Probably almost free, certainly no more than a few dollars/pound.)
There is no step 8, which is usually “???”
2) Grind it up.
3) Tint as necessary with food coloring.
4) Adulterate with milk sugar (we want to be authentic!)
5) Compress into pills
6) Package in little glass bottles with labels in Chinese and whatever other languages are required.
7) Sell for 75% of wholesale price of rhino horn pills
9) Profit!
If the rhino dealers catch wise and start doing DNA testing, we could always denature the DNA in the powdered cow horn, PCR the hell out of a sample of real rhino tissue (a bit of toenail from a zoo or a giant Q-Tip swab of rhino spit), and add that to the powder.
What form is tiger usually sold in, and how hard would it be to fake it?
Remember, the placebo effect is our friend!
daedalus2u
09.03.2011
Buzz, I am pretty sure those who sell TCM are already doing that. They save the “real” stuff for their “important” clients where they charge 10x or 100x or 1000x more (and add a bit of viagra to make sure it works).
In many cattle, the horns are removed very early to reduce the danger of people and other cattle being gored.
The problem with any market for rino horn, even if it is 99.99% fake is that it perpetuates a market for “real” rhino horn. If you have an income of a billion a year, spending a million on a drug to give you a hard on isn’t a big expense.
Finn McR
09.03.2011
Ok, but some of us don’t have any problem with women kissing. In fact, you could even go so far as to say that two women kissing is fine,… or OK,… or awesome!! On the other hand, sometimes it is actually relevant to the story (as the link suggests).
Also, less frequently the door swings the other way (True Blood season 3, e.g.).
I’d like to see all kinds of kissing and affection-sharing between all kinds of couples, even ones that I am uncomfortable seeing. If we are not exposed to boundary-pushing scenarios, then we can’t grow. First there was the “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” then girl-on-girl kisses. Hopefully it is a step, not a stopping point.
jwray
09.04.2011
A Hermione/Luna kiss in the last movie would have been awesome. They retconned the Luna/Neville ship into it instead.
oakborn
09.04.2011
FYI, the school story was on a site that is sort of like a British Onion if you read the banner.
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