For a change of pace - a fun link dump. Then I’ll return to my regularly scheduled Bush bashing.

Happy birthday to Peedee (yesterday) and Ozzy (today). Oh, yeah, and my little sis (also yesterday).

“A pit bull and a basset hound did WHAT?” - Found on Petfinder while looking for a pair of furry orphans to adopt. FYI: the landlord has cleared us for parenthood, and we’re set to meet a mother-daughter pair of rat terriers tomorrow afternoon. I guess five canines officially makes me the crazy dog lady. So be it. Can I get a, “Yay, doggies!”?

From the makers of such classics as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, three new installments of the heavy-on-truthiness P.I.G.s.

Speaking of books, Wal-Mart’s made a valiant effort to purge their shelves of any offensive materials (the chillun’, the chillun’, deah lawdy, think of the chillun’!). Try as they may, they’ve overlooked the worst offender of them all. Via PZ, a petition to help our poor, overworked Morality Police ™ out.

John McCain ♥s GW. In a totally un-Biblical way, from the look of things.

Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek reviews This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a documentary that takes on the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings board - and received an NC-17 for doing so:

On its Web site, the MPAA comes off as a folksy little organization dedicated to serving the greater good by helping parents “make informed decisions about what their kids watch.” The MPAA ratings board doesn’t want to spoil a good time, it just wants to make sure little Johnny isn’t warped for life by hearing the F-word or catching a glimpse of pubic hair. And what’s so bad about that?

Plenty, if you’re a thinking adult who cares even remotely about the vast artistic possibilities of moviemaking, both within the mainstream and outside it. That’s the driving concern behind “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” filmmaker Kirby Dick’s exploration of the MPAA ratings board, a mysterious and anonymous group of individuals who distract us by carrying out the seemingly harmless task of providing guidelines for parents, even as they wield a disturbing degree of control — control that’s only growing and deepening — over what adults can see.

How, you ask?

An NC-17 rating — or, for that matter, no rating, if a filmmaker refuses to submit to the ratings board at all — can be the kiss of death for a small picture, or even a big one, since it severely limits how a movie can be advertised. Many news outlets won’t run advertising for NC-17 or unrated pictures, and most theater chains won’t show them. As box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian points out in the film, the difference between an R rating (which means children under 17 can be admitted with a parent or guardian) and an NC-17 one (which means no one under 17 can be admitted at all), can be millions, or even tens of millions, of dollars. That’s a potent and direct refutation of Valenti’s [Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA from ‘68 to ‘05] claim, documented in the film, that ratings make no difference at the box office.

So a film’s rating can make it or break it; it’s all about marketability. Got it. But the ratings board just wants to look out for the chillun’, right? Surely we can trust them to slap ‘adult’ content with an R and leave it be. They’re happy because their babycakes won’t see unwanted boobies (or devil titties, in fundie parlance), yet we can still have our sex and violence - everyone wins.

Eh, not so much. Seems the ratings aren’t see much about protecting vulnerable children, but enforcing morality and crushing the little guys:

The identity of these individuals is kept secret, “to protect them from influence,” Valenti has said. But according to MPAA rules, they are always parents, or people who have raised children. In stock footage used in the film, Valenti intones that they’re “neither gods nor fools,” although they throw their weight around like the former and collectively seem to have about as much sense as the latter.

In pursuit of these mysterious creatures of darkness, Dick decided to hire his own private detective to smoke out the identities of the board, and the most entertaining and exhilarating sections of “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” are the ones showing how she painstakingly located and identified each member of the group. Her name is Becky, and she’s appealingly straightforward even when being sneaky, as when she goes about collecting pictures of all but one of them, caught unawares as they go about their everyday business.

As if her ferreting out of the ratings board members weren’t enough, Becky also uncovered the makeup of the MPAA appeals board, a separate group whose identities are also kept secret. The appeals board is the group a filmmaker must submit a film to if unhappy with the rating granted by the ratings board. And as Dick shows us, the appeals guys are an even more insidious bunch of operators than the ratings crew: They include a buyer for Regal Cinemas, a vice-president of sales for Sony Pictures, the CEO of Fox Searchlight, and vice-presidents from both Landmark Theaters and Loews, as well as two representatives of religious groups, one Catholic and one Episcopalian. That means if your film doesn’t survive the MPAA’s moms and pops, those self-appointed guardians of our moral standards, you’re really in trouble, because then you have to go up against the suits and the cassocks. In other words, this is a case of big business and organized religion putting their heads together to render a moral judgment on a filmmaker’s work — a judgment that could affect how much money a movie makes, or whether it even gets released at all. That’s a nightmare at worst, and at best the punch line to a very bad joke.

Zacharek takes filmmaker Kirby Dick (as well as a few of his interviewees) to task for some silly statements, but overall it looks like a kickass film. Like most people, I assume, I’ve never given much though to the MPAA. Same with the video game ratings: I always figured, if they help parents make more informed buying decision for their kiddies, it’s fine with me. Because - or so my theory went - if they filter little Johnny’s viewing/gaming/reading/listening material, and restrict it accordingly, then there’s no good reason they should come after me.

Only, that’s exactly what the MPAA is doing. And their silly ratings system, which is both vague and subjective, really doesn’t provide information, but rather acts as a form of censorship:

“This Film Is Not Yet Rated” takes on the MPAA ratings board as no other documentary has done. But it fails to ask the most important question: Why should there be a ratings board at all? Parents may claim that they need the MPAA’s guidance. But is it really such a good idea to blindly accept the so-called recommendations of a group of people whose identity and motives are unknown to us? Does that qualify as good parenting, when many newspapers (and certain online magazines) contain more specific information on a film than the MPAA provides? Shouldn’t it be part of a parent’s job to find out for him or herself what a given movie might contain, instead of allowing a faceless organization to decide what’s objectionable?

One of the arguments often made against the abolishment of the ratings system is that if we didn’t have it, we might then have government censorship. But if that were the case, as First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus points out in the film, at least movies would then be subject to judicial review, instead of the moral whims of a bunch of allegedly average parents.

The MPAA has somehow gained the trust of parents without earning it. If the MPAA had its way, we’d achieve a completely watered-down, desexualized culture, approved for a general audience. Our kids would grow up to be perfect creatures who never swore, touched anything harder than lemonade, or had anything but heteronormal sex. We could take pride in the way we protected our children; maybe we’d eventually forget how we robbed ourselves.

Yes, yes, YES!

To those parents who keep crying out for censorship in the name of Teh Children: you have bypassed my On Notice board and are officially Dead to Me! If this country is really too risqué for you, pack it up and move to China.

…promise.
 
 

 
 

Reason #8,561,951 to love Stephen Colbert?
 
 

 
 
He totally puts the smackdown on animal abusers!
 

Via spb:
 
 

 
 
I was going to create my own board…but Shane rocked it.

Get your own here.

1836 people dead (and counting). 705 missing. 770,000 displaced. An estimated $96 billion in property damage. Approximately 100 square miles of coastal wetlands destroyed.

Hurricane Katrina was the third-deadliest storm in U.S. history. In hours, it transformed New Orleans from a multicultural mecca of 485,000 into a Third World city, and created the “biggest refugee crisis since the American Civil War.” A year after the fact, I’m still horrified by the images borne of Katrina. It’s a scene you’d expect to see in Sudan, maybe, or perhaps India. Not in a developed nation, a world superpower.* Not here. Surely not in 21st century America.

Gross negligence and utter incompetence at all levels of government - local, state, and federal - helped transform Katrina from a destructive force of nature into the shame of a nation. Evacuation efforts were long overdue and woefully deficient. While a city drowned, our FEMA director set dinner dates, mulled his media appearances, and admired his Godly wardrobe. While a city drowned, our Dear Leader talked Medicare, strummed a gui-tar, and had him some cake. While a city drowned, 20,000 residents packed the Superdome, the “refuge of last resort.” While a city drowned, evacuees were given an impossible ultimatum: leave the city without your animals - or don’t leave at all.

In the chaos of last-ditch mandatory evacuations and rising floodwaters, tens of thousands of companions animals were left to fend for themselves. Some never had a chance: cats trapped in crates and dogs tied to fences drowned, alone. We’ll probably never know how many animals perished in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Louisiana SPCA estimates that 15,000 companion animals were rescued in the months after the storm. The lucky ones - 20%, at most - have been reunited with their families. Others found new homes, scattered across the nation. A significant number sit in foster homes and shelters, waiting for their new lives to begin. On this one-year anniversary of Katrina’s landfall, hundreds of stray and abandoned dogs and cats still roam the streets of New Orleans.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Concern for animals does not negate one’s concern for humans, no more so than does recognizing the equality of women to men lessen the lot of males. Rather, the recognition of the intrinsic worth of all beings elevates our moral status. By protecting and caring for the most vulnerable among us - children, the poor, the mentally ill, the elderly - we’re showing our humanity. It’s easy to make a beneficiary of one who is (or will some day become) your benefactor; harder still to extend your circle of compassion to the weak, the vulnerable, the powerless. And there is no group more vulnerable than non-human animals.

They are our guardians, our protectors, our confidants. Our friends and companions. For many, they are family.

Yet, more than any other disenfranchised group, animals were tossed aside like so much property. Along with bikes and toaster ovens and television sets, they were left to Hurricane Katrina. They were sacrificed so that their “owners” might live.

To anyone who’s ever loved an animal, it’s a foolish proposition: either abandon your animal, or die with him. Many New Orleanians chose to stay. Perhaps Katrina’s death toll would not have been so devastating had people been allowed to evacuate with their “pets.” Besides, it’s not as if the Snowballs of New Orleans would have taken seats that otherwise would have gone to human evacuees. No, there’s no excuse for our government’s cruel and inhumane “no pets” policy. To abandon an animal in any other situation is a crime; in the state of Louisiana, such neglect is considered cruelty to animals, punishable by up to six months in jail. Yet, for the United States government, it is a matter of policy.

Almost a year after Katrina, and shortly before the passage of the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act, evacuees were again forced by the US government to leave their animals behind. The setting: the war zone of the Israeli/Lebanese border. Though other nations allowed their citizens to flee the bombing with their beloved animals, Americans were told to leave their furry family members behind. To this. Clearly, talk about “lessons learned from Katrina” is so much lip service. Our politicians** have learned nothing.

If it’s true that “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” - and I believe it is - then the US has a long road to travel before we can rightly call ourselves a “civilized”, “developed” nation.

———-

On this anniversary of Katrina, I’ll be spending the day with my four furry “children,” tossing the tennis ball, tugging on a knotted sock, maybe reading in the North field while the red one digs for moles. In the months after the storm, Shane and I volunteered to foster a few displaced animals, but Best Friends never took us up on the offer. I suppose two open spots in Kansas wasn’t terribly helpful. If our landlords allow it, though, we’d love to open our home - and our hearts - to one or two dogs, permanently. Every adopted animal opens up another spot; maybe for a Katrina survivor, maybe not. It doesn’t matter to me either way - even your run-of-the-mill abandoned, abused, and neglected strays need a family of their own.

And hey, if they say no, the least we can do is donate the money we’ve budgeted for adoptions fees and rental deposits to a Gulf Coast animal rescue group. Or two or three.

It’s time for me to wrestle up some sloppy wet kisses from my animals. If you’d like to make a donation of time, money, or supplies, skip to the end of this post for a list of candidates. Otherwise, read on.

———-

* This isn’t to suggest, of course, that such a tragedy is acceptable when it happens to The Other. Suffering is suffering. Rather, the failure of our government to protect its own citizens is, well, shocking. And disillusive. Shockingly disillusive. I’d never call myself an optimist, but even I was taken aback by the massive failure of our politicians in the face of Katrina. How are we supposed to help other, less fortunate countries when we can’t even protect our own from a foreseeable disaster? Clearly, we can’t, as evidenced by the current mess in the Middle East.

** Democrats and Republicans alike, because speciesism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and “ism” in general, are all non-partisan failings.
 
 
 
Hurricane Katrina: In Pictures
 

Hurricane Katrina on August 28, 2005, 1:00 PM EDT.
 
 

August 29, 2005 - Aerial of a flooded N.O. neighborhood.
 
 

August 29, 2005 - President George W. Bush joins Arizona Senator John McCain in a small celebration of McCain’s 69th birthday, after the President’s arrival at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix. The President later spoke about Medicare to 400 guests at the Pueblo El Mirage RV Resort and Country Club in nearby El Mirage. *
 
 

August 30, 2005 - Stranded.
 
 

August 30, 2005 - Our Dear Leader.
 
 

August 30, 2005 - The American Flag remains in front of a home flooded by Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans is being evacuated as a result of floods caused by Hurricane Katrina.
 
 

August 31, 2005 - Three dogs waited for rescue in Pass Christian, Mississippi, one day after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast town. The dogs were later saved by a local police officer.
 
 

September 2, 2005 - A fire burns in the distance in a neighborhood impacted by Hurricane Katrina.
 
 

September 3, 2005 - A dog swims through flood waters in a neighborhood affected by Hurricane Katrina.
 
 

September 3, 2005 - Surrounded by litter left by refugees, a dog remained tied to the railing of a highway ramp in New Orleans six days after Hurricane Katrina. Like many of the city’s newly stranded pets, the dog may have been refused passage by rescuers as they evacuated its owners.
 
 

September 3, 2005 - A giant message board helps people locate friends and loved ones at the Reliant Center in Houston, Texas.
 
 

September 4, 2005 - This man refused to evacuate the French Quarter because nobody would let him take his 40 chickens into the shelters. New Orleans is being evacuated as a result of flooding from hurricane Katrina and is still 60% under water.
 
 

September 4, 2005 - A lost pet receives care from the V-MAT at New Orleans airport where FEMA’s D-MATs have set up operations.
 
 

September 5, 2005 - People who were trapped in their attics by floodwaters had to kick out the windows in order to escape and call for help.
 
 

September 5, 2005 - FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force members and local rescue workers and US Coast Guard, search for residents in neighborhoods impacted by Hurricane Katrina. **
 
 

September 5, 2005 - This part of Slidell was flattened by Hurricane Katrina.
 
 

September 6, 2005 - Near New Orleans, a small oil-slickened dog was seen wandering in Chalmette, Louisiana, as cleanup crews recovered oil from a ruptured refinery tank. Tens of thousands of barrels of oil had spilled and mixed with receding floodwater from Hurricane Katrina.
 
 

September 8, 2005 - A pig and a dog displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
 
 

September 8, 2005 - Some residents were convinced by troops to evacuate ten days after hurricane Katrina. ***
 
 

September 8, 2005 - Stray dogs found in areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina are placed in carriers to be brought to a main location by the humane society. The FEMA Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams are helping out.
 
 

September 9, 2005 - Many animals lost during Hurricane Katrina were taken here to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center where they will be looked after by veterinarians. Hundreds of lost dogs are among the animals sheltered here, and many need medical attention. Every attempt will be made to locate the owners before they are adopted out.
 
 

September 10, 2005 - Rescued animals from New Orleans arrive at New Orleans airport where FEMA’s DMATs have set up operations.
 
 

September 16, 2005 - This neighborhood remains flooded two weeks after the storm came through. The foul smelling flood water is contaminated with petrol chemicals, house hold chemicals and biological hazards.
 
 

September 16, 2005 - Roy Krueger from the “Missouri Boon County Urban Search & Rescue Task Force 1″ rescued this kitten from an empty house. It’s now on the way to animal rescue.