After a silly press conference in Cannes to promote his new film, Director Lars Von Trier has been  officially  banned from the film festival for his absurdist remarks about Hitler.

Reading his “10  most controversial statements” I think it should be clear to most grown ups that Von Trier was in a goofy mood and mildly attempting to be  provocative.   There was no hint of genuine bigotry or antisemitism. He was just fucking around. He talked about making a hardcore porn film with Kirsten Durst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, blaming them for goading him into it.

I thought he was funny, not a funny as Bill Hicks but still funny. Unfortunately, now there is no room for humor about Hitler and that’s just sad. I loved hearing comedian Louis CK referring to Mrs. Palin as “Hitlering up the place.”

Listen, I’m no friend of Hitler, but neither is Lars Von Trier. It’s a shame that a genuinely original artist is being penalized for being offbeat and sarcsatic, while idiots in Cannes to promote the same old derivative crap are free to do so. I’d like to see his new film, as long as no one is castrated on-screen, like in Antichrist.

Read an enlightening interview with Von Trier here.   Read my other posts about him here and here.

Looking for photos by Serge Lutens, I came across a beautiful blog, Strawberige.   It’s a wonderland of lovely images.   No blogger crap, just pleasure.

Then, I ended up at a blog called Fashion Heroines, by someone who says she loves being a woman and hates feminism. Hmm. The photos are arresting, like the ones of Liu Wen below:

Feminism sheminism. If it transports me from the hell of Sarah Palin and sentences that begin with “Umm,” I am grateful.

Sarah Palin gets her hair fixed during a visit to a cholera treatment centre in Haiti. Photograph: Dieu Nalio Chery/AP

Palin emerged from one of the refugee camps housing the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who are still without homes after the earthquake, and said: “They are so full of joy. We are so fortunate in America and we are responsible for helping those less fortunate.”

Palin arrived at the invitation of Franklin Graham, a leading evangelical preacher whose organization, Samaritan’s Purse,   has been accused during other humanitarian crises of putting its evangelical mission ahead of more tangible assistance to those in need.

Oh god, don’t make me go on. You get the drift. Is there no move too cynical or shameless for this bitch? After watching her snuff film, I mean her Reality TV series, where she kills a caribou “for food” even though she lives 4 miles from a Walmart, and where she forces Bristol to club a fish to death, I thought we had hit some kind of bottom.

But as they say, beneath every rock bottom, there’s a trap door. I can’t wait till she runs for president. It will be like one big party on the Titanic.

If you’re an active member of PAP Smear, you already know about the newest evidence concerning Trig-gate. If not, you can check it out here and here.

The original Trig has a deformed ear. The current Trig does not. Nobody is saying where Mrs. P procured those Trigs, or even how many Trigs there might be. Nobody has yet seen a copy of any birth certificate.

Real Americans want Real Trigs, goddammit!

* cartoon from here.

Mrs. Palin is calling for Obama to fire his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, for calling a group of liberals “fucking retarded” during a private meeting.

How dare that big Jew use this hateful slur in a private meeting?!?

In a sanctimonious rant on her Facebook page, entitled “Are You Capable of Decency, Rahm Emanuel?”, Mrs. P compares his use of the word retarded to the use of “the N word.” She goes on to say: “Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities — and the people who love them — is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking.”

Jesus, this woman is a piece of work. She is beneath shameless. Is there a word for that (besides “cunt?”) She even asks in her idiotic Facebook screed, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”   I know that she employs a ghostwriter for her Facebook communiques, but what do you think the chance is that Mrs. Palin knows who made that phrase famous, and in what context?   If she did know, would she be stupid enough to compare Rahm Emanuel to Joseph McCarthy?

I don’t like the way Mrs. P has positioned herself as the public defender of the disabled. Just because she happened to get herself a Down Syndrome baby, she doesn’t get to represent Down Syndrome. Her exploitation of her child’s disability is deeply immoral. This photo of her, posing with a “constituent,” is what’s heartbreaking.

Sometimes, in private, we use words that others might find offensive. I know I like to scream “you fat pig” at people on TV, for example.   The first time I heard Bob Woodward on television, I asked my husband, “Is that guy retarded?” It was a real question: Woodward speaks very slowly. Every time he’s on TV now, my kid or my husband calls out, “There’s that retarded guy.”

Big fucking deal. I am a special needs mom, and I know where my heart is. I don’t need some self-appointed Queen of the Disabled Community to scold me or Rahm Emanuel.

Does that retarded bitch have no decency?

So much fuss over words! And yet, what else do we have if we want to communicate? I am constantly amazed by how often people complain when you expect them to either say what they mean or mean what they say. I am accused of nitpicking if I repeat a word someone used when they don’t want to take responsibility for its actual meaning.

In a comment thread about Sarah Palin, I was upset by the misuse of the word nonplussed. But apparently, usage experts are beginning to acccept its use for the OPPOSITE of its definition. Nonplussed does not mean “nonchalant” or “not bothered!” It means the FUCKING OPPOSITE! Negro, please! It’s like when people think they can use the word “literally” to mean “figuratively.” Or “I could care less” when they mean “I couldn’t care less.”

No no no no no no. Words don’t, and never will, mean the opposite of themselves.

So, back to “Negro.” I was just testing you when I used it. Is it offensive? If so, why? Everyone is up in arms over the Harry Reid quote about Obama, characterizing him as a “light-skinned African American….who   doesn’t use Negro dialect..” I swear to god, I don’t see the racism. Reid was just explaining why Obama was electable as President. He was an early Obama supporter and to me, it sounds merely factual. To many normal people (i.e. not Republicans) Reid’s language was decidely racist, even if forgivable.

John McWhorter, a linguist and journalist who is black, explains why he doesns’t find Reid’s comment racist.   And he is quoted by Andrew Sullivan, who adroitly compares the greater acceptability of light-skinned Blacks to society at large to openly gay men who don’t seem effeminate.

Is it racist to even be aware of race? Do we have to be color-blind in order to escape being accused of racism?

Here’s a disagreement I just had with one of my nephews, who insists that Reid’s language is racist. Years ago, I was mugged on my doorstep by a big Black guy who grabbed my bag, knocked me down, and ran to a waiting car. When recalling the incident that’s exactly how I describe it. Am I racist for noting that the guy was Black? My nephew asked how I’d feel if someone described their mugger as a “big-nosed dirty Jew.” I’m pretty sure I’d laugh, as I am while typing this. Although I guess I’m a little annoyed by the nose reference, which I find size-ist, if not nose-ist.

*

Haha Sarah, you ignorant slut! Never change; you are perfect just the way you are.

I saw this photo the other day in juxtapoz, a stupid art magazine that my adopted son* Chris brought over.   I was stunned by the glory of the poster on the wall: NO YOU SHUT UP is the single most brilliant statement anyone could possibly make. I think it may be my next tattoo.

The photo is a still from a new movie called (Untitled), a satire about the contemporary art scene. Sign me up! Not that I’ll ever get out to see a movie, but, you know, theoretically.

Adam Goldberg is making a real comeback in my life after maybe being the guy in the Sarah Palin is a Cunt shirt. Last night, my kid got us a copy of The Hebrew Hammer and we laughed our heads off until the disc got screwed up in the last act and froze.

* If you don’t know about my adopted son, we became friends on MySpace through our shared appreciation of Deadwood. Chris lost his mom many years ago and I volunteered to adopt him. My family has accepted this situation very graciously, and why shouldn’t they?   I also have an adopted daughter, but we haven’t been able to meet yet.   If you need to be adopted, let’s talk when I’m not so overwhelmed.

After initially dismissing the HBO vampire series “True Blood” as cartoonish, I am now completely hooked. The most recent episode was truly disgusting, wasn’t it?! Watching Tara and Eggs eat the you-know-what (not a spoiler!!) I was close to gagging.

What a great show! All the hunky gayness and intensity of Six Feet Under without the painful insights and lingering grief.

One of the scariest aspects of True Blood is its portrait of crazy, fear-mongering Christians. The characters are over the top, yes, but no more so than the lunatics we are seeing on the news every day, warning about Obama’s “Death Panels” and killing innocent children and grandmas.

Mrs. Palin has been one of the most vocal of the right wing fear-mongers, once again exploiting that poor little Trig instead of getting him the services he needs. Her ceaseless squawking about Death Panels and euthanasia has prompted reporters to look into her own policies on health-care as Governor of Alaska. Sure enough, Mrs. Palin was in favor of providing ‘end-of-life’ counseling, the very same measure she now finds so deplorable.

Sarah, you ignorant slut, when will you learn to keep your mouth shut and stop makin’ things up?!   The video below reminds us how art imitates life in the case of True Blood’s fanatical Fellowship of the Sun.   It also reminds us to fear ignorance more than hunky vampires.

Fashion Herald is expecting her first baby and I’m so excited for her. I believe she is still searching for the perfect name, so here’s our chance to step up and offer suggestions. I found a nice source of names in the archives of the US Social Security Department, where you can search the most popular names of every year since 1879.

The most popular baby names of 2008 are ones to avoid if at all possible. We dont need any more boys names Logan, Aiden, Jayden or Ryan. I’m a little suspicious about the lack of Hunters, Austins, Jacksons, and Dylans. Maybe they’ll show up in the list for 2009.

The 2008 girls include Madison, Ava, Chloe, Mia and god help us, Sarah.

It’s tough to find a name you want to be saying for the next 60 years, often yelling it at the top of your lungs. It has to be a name that doesn’t seem pretentious even to you, and that won’t traumatize your kid.   I remember trying to find a good name for my youngest. I liked Otto, because it’s a palindrome and I could imagine a great kid named Otto! Even more than Otto, I liked the name Gus. It would go well with “Max,” my older boy. They could be Max and Gus, like two old Jews in a Delicatessen. But my husband wouldn’t go for it.

A name is a big deal! Try asking your mom if she had another name in mind for you that she almost used. It’s often quite a shock to discover you could’ve been “Nancy” (in my case.)

Okay, so please suggest a couple of great names for Fashion Herald! She doesn’t have to use any of them, of course, but she will get to select her favorite submission.   The winner will get a nice prize that I haven’t figured out yet. It will be something unique if not actually good!

Okay, time is running out so get to work.

And by the way, Lauren wants a nice Cunt Badge for her blog, so here it is.   Let me know if you need me to re-size if for you.