‘Ifeminists’ have no problem with sexual harassment, oppose affirmative action, and think there’s nothing sexist about porn. Meet a new women’s group that seeks to prop up male power.

Who’s Co-Opting Feminism?
By Christy Burbridge

Are you an ifeminist? Take this quiz to find out.”

I click on the link. ‘Interesting,’ I think to myself. ‘This will be an entertaining yet informative way to kill an idle ten minutes before my class.’

But what is “ifeminism,” anyway? More than likely, we are all at least somewhat familiar with liberal feminism, radial feminism, ecofeminism, and a whole host of others. But I for one had never even heard of ifeminism. Curious to learn about it, I happened upon a website called ifeminists and read the introduction.

I came to discover that Ifeminism, formally known as “Individualist Feminism,” premises itself on the goal equal rights between the genders. That makes perfect sense to me. After all, isn’t that our goal? So does that make me an ifeminist? I didn’t see why not.

But as I continued to read, I began to feel less and less sure. States Wendy McElroy, the founder of ifeminism.com: “Ifeminists believe that freedom and diversity benefit women, whether or not the choices that particular women make are politically correct. They respect all sexual choices, from motherhood to porn.”

According to ifeminism, “freedom and choice do not threaten women. Government and orthodoxy do.” Functioning within a libertarian, post second-wave politic, ifeminists propose that women are both intelligent and empowered enough to know what is right for them. They believe that telling women what is or is not best for them by enacting legislation against pornography is “paternalistic” to women who choose to work in the sex-industry, and affirmative action only “embeds gender privilege” for women in the law.

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Today’s video comes from the walls of the New Black Church, where a preacher tells his congregation that Jay-Z is secretly transmitting the messages of the anti-christ through his music. Unfortunately, many people will read/hear this garbage and believe it.

“If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism.” – Fidel Castro

As I mentioned last week, I’m tired of the show so my observations will be brief:

• New York’s schtick never gets old to me. Everytime she tries to sound hyper-intelligent but mispronounces a word, I find myself laughing out loud. Also, after examining the remaining contestants closely, she seems to be the only one delusional enough to really be in love with Flavor Flav.
• Even though she is borderline psychotic, the way that Flav treated New York at the dinner table was ridiculously disrespectful. The fact that she came back after a half-assed apology makes me think about the very real self-esteem issues that she’s wrestling with.
• Is it me or is Flav’s ego growing by the minute? The arrogant smirk that he had on his face during the dinner scenes mwas disgusting.
• Am I the only one that thinks that Deelishis looks much better when the camera’s not close to her face?
• The makeout sessions with Flav and multiple women are getting more and more disturbing. The scene in the winery with him, New York, and Bootz made me sick to my stomach.
• Krazy’s desperate attempts at securing a record deal are so pathetic that they’re funny. When she broke out into a clearly rehearsed song at the dinner table, even Flav started laughing.
• Given the show’s fan base, I found the representation of Bootz’ celibacy to be particularly disturbing. Although Flav didn’t explicitly say so, Bootz was obviously eliminated because she made it clear that she wouldn’t have sex before marriage. This sends a terrible message to young girls about the value of their bodies.

Fidel Lives
By Ned Sublette 

On July 29, 1953, three days after the failure of the audacious assault on Santiago de Cuba’s Moncada barracks, Fidel Castro was dead. The Cuban newspaper Ataja said so.

His obituary has been at the ready ever since. Editors have reached for it over and over, only to put it away again. With each premature burial, the obituary gets a little longer. Another sentence was added to it on July 31, 2006, when the world’s longest-running head of state temporarily transferred various administrative functions to his brother Raúl and to other officials, as provided by Cuban law, while he underwent and recuperated from surgery for intestinal bleeding.

Until they can run Fidel’s obit, the editors don’t know what to print.

They want him dead.

They really want him dead in Miami, where he is deeply hated in an extraordinarily personal way. For decades the headlines there have read: Castro will fall in six months. Castro has cancer, he has Parkinson’s, he fainted, he’s dying, he’s turning 60, he’s turning 70, he’s turning 80.

As the post-July 31 honking and waving died down, Republican Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart of Florida threatened the Cuban military with a hit list. “The military in Cuba is going to have a choice in the upcoming days and weeks and months,” Oscar Corral of the Miami Herald quoted Díaz-Balart as saying. “They either stand with the Cuban people or their names will be on a list of infamy that the Cuban people will have access to in the future…. It’s very important for the military to know that it’s certainly not on [sic] their interest to get on that list.”

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