Willa, I tried clicking through that Costume Institute Gala slide show, and got ... bored. You'll be shocked (shocked!) to learn that I am no one's idea of fashionable. There are many reasons I live up here in the land of the bluestockings. Among them: Here, I can get away with dressing in a combination of Goodwill, Gap, and Ann Taylor (that last saved for my high-end items: black pants).

But flipping through the frippery did make me think of a film event I attended this winter at Brandeis, featuring Alan Alda and Kate Beckinsale—who, you will also not be shocked to know, is the opposite of my type. (Cf: Rachel Maddow.) It drove me crazy how Beckinsale kept wriggling in her seat, showing off her death-defying heels, legs, and all-but-exposed breasts from first one angle and then another. We've got the point, I texted dryly to my prosecutor. She should sit still now and let my hero Alan Alda speak. My gal texted right back, "Your job is being smart. Her job is being beautiful. Let her do her job."

Tags: bluestockings, Costume Institute, fashion, Rachel Maddow

Oh joy! I have discovered another reason why I love Rachel Maddow. The totally original MSNBC news anchor and XX Factor heartthrob twittered a link yesterday to Minnesota Zoo's interactive game highlighting their new Africa exhibit. (Maddow's tweet: "My inner 8 year old will not let me do anything today that does not somehow involve this website: http://whopooped.org/.") The game called "Who Pooped?" features cartoon images of zebras, ostriches, and giraffes eating and then ... yes, pooping, to educate players on how scientists examine wild animal scat in order to study the creatures' consumption habits.

Tags: animal behavior, poop, twitter

I'm deep in unpacking hell right now, and yearning for some entertaining stuff to play on the computer to divert me while I empty boxes. Thank the powers at MSNBC, therefore, for this interview Rachel Maddow did with professional "ex-gay" Richard Cohen. Under Rachel's steady but fair line of questioning, Cohen seems increasingly bizarre, jackhammering in plugs for his Web site and trying to avoid admitting that he's not only been discredited as a professional, but that he had sex with men after he married. The comic highlight may have been when Cohen described being expelled by the American Counseling Association as a "hate crime" against him for being "ex-gay." The segment was funny but also incredibly enlightening for an 18-minute segment of cable news.

Many, if not most, Americans have probably heard of and laughed at the "ex-gay" movement, but as the segment shows, most of us probably don't know much more about them other than that they attempt to pray the gay away and usually fail. But you can't enjoy the true absurdity until you start digging in, as Maddow did. The world of ex-gays is one so thick with bad-faith rationalizations that it might constitute a whole new level of right-wing nuttery. And the fact that they offer a theory for the "cause" of homosexuality that they made up whole cloth is just the tip of the iceberg.

Ex-gay therapists claim to be apolitical, for instance, and feign shock whenever someone points out that they wouldn't exist if it weren't for right-wing opposition to gay rights, specifically the need for some pseudo-evidence that homosexuality is a choice. (I'd argue the choice that homophobes are thinking of is whether or not to be in the closet, not whether or not you're gay.) Indeed, a cursory glance at the reality of ex-gay therapy demonstrates that it does nothing for the very few people who even look at it, and so, really, the ex-gay movement exists strictly as a political beast. But try getting any of the spokespeople to admit the truth. In this clip, Cohen denies a political bent even as Maddow demonstrates that he sends his book to Ugandan anti-gay activists who are behind a bill to institute the death penalty for being gay.

Ex-gay spokesmen like Cohen also use the sophisticated political technique known as the "I know you are, but what am I?" method. The overwhelming evidence demonstrates that they exist to give a smiley gloss to vicious bigotry against gay people. Even the suggestion that being gay isn't a real sexual orientation is offensive enough, but they usually go way beyond that, as Maddow demonstrated when she pointed out the phony statistics about how gays are child molesters in Cohen's book. But according to ex-gays, they aren't the real bigots just because they promote the idea that being gay makes you a child molester who will die alone at 30 before going straight to hell. They claim that they're actually the victims of bigotry, apparently at the hands of the homosexual mafia. That's why Cohen was quick to describe his expulsion from the ACA as a "hate crime." It's a tactic to minimize the ugly reality of real hate crimes, ones that involve physical assault and bona fide bigotry.

The good news is that the sheer weirdness and strained logic of the ex-gay movement demonstrate how thoroughly the right is losing this battle. Pointing to ex-gays and claiming there is a "cure" is all they've got left, and it reads like a joke in the United States. The bad news is that defeated right-wing nuts in the United States are taking the hate parade to places like Uganda, where their message of bigotry is taking on genocidal proportions.

Tags: ex-gay, gay rights, richard cohen, uganda

I watched the Rachel Maddow Show during the 2008 primaries but slowly stopped once election-mania petered out. I was reminded of her great style in interviewing people whose beliefs she disagrees with yesterday in this thorough interview of Rand Paul, Ron's son and, as of this week, the winner of the Republican primary in the Kentucky Senate race. She is both respectful and unrelenting in probing Paul about statements he's made that imply he is against the Civil Rights Act on the grounds that it interferes with the rights of business owners. Maddow asks Paul if he thinks that private businesses have the right to put up a "blacks not served here" sign. Paul attempts to dodge the question by saying that he is against discrimination in any form, and that he would "not belong to any club that would exclude anybody because of race." But then he adds, "It's important not to get into any 'gotcha' on this," before launching into a defense of free speech, which is a tricky way of saying yes, he does believe that private businesses should be allowed to discriminate against other races if they'd like.

The Atlantic Sentinel has a good roundup of commentary on Rand Paul from yesterday, and RH Reality Check's Jodi Jacobson discusses why she thinks that Paul is a libertarian in name only (basically, because he is ultra-anti-choice). Jacobson also brings up some truly boneheaded comments that Paul made about the Americans with Disabilities Act. And Gawker has some nice commentary on the Maddow interview (from former Slate intern Adrien Chen), which can be seen in its entirety below.

Tags: abortion, civil rights, libertarianism, Rachel Maddow, rand paul

—Northern Ireland’s Channel 4 blocks an ad for abortion services. [Guardian]

—Does the new film Mother and Child dispel insulting myths about adoption or perpetuate them? [Salon]

—A new book explores the whether we need laws to protect us from discrimination based on appearance. [Christian Science Monitor]

—If questions about Internet porn consumption are off-limits for Supreme Court nominees, why do we ask about sexuality? Elena Kagan’s critics wrongly equate sexual orientation with sex life. [Salon]

Tags: abortion, adoption, beauty, discrimination, Elena Kagan, europe, film, law, northern ireland, politicis, Rachel Maddow, rand paul, sexuality, tea party

With a sleek hardcover boasting an introduction by Rachel Maddow, Batwoman: Elegy speaks to the inner-geek girl looking for an edgier alternative to Wonder Woman. The new anthology by writer Greg Rucka and artist J.H. Williams maps the origins of Gotham’s female protector, a brazen redhead vigilante named Kate Kane. A kind of Nancy Drew/Olivia Benson hybrid, Kate occupies her underdog roles with the bold-as-brass attitude that's de rigueur among the superhero set. We learn Kate’s pre-Batwoman history in fragments: She was once a West Point cadet well on her way to becoming an army officer but bowed out of the service in response to a "don’t ask, don’t tell" allegation.

Williams’ illustrations flare across each page in rangy, splintered sequences, rendering the drama of Batwoman’s escapades with cinematic élan. The novel’s present action shows Kate-as-Batwoman fighting covens of malfeasant underworld types, chiefly “Alice,” a doll-faced villain of Lewis Carroll provenance. Overdrawn both visually and textually, Alice appears in each graphic sequence framed by spiraling red borders, looking like an uncanny cross between Shirley Temple and Marilyn Manson. Her hallucinatory dialogue and absurd costume add to Elegy’s undeniably campy feel (a side effect that is sometimes grating but mostly satisfying, like watching your favorite old-school horror flick).

Campiness notwithstanding, the drawing power of Batwoman: Elegy—and the reason for Maddow’s stamp of approval—lies in Kate Kane’s continued quest for moral justice in spite of her dismissal from the military. When confronted by the accusing colonel, the gay cadet refuses to lie as a condition of "don’t ask, don’t tell", reciting her school’s code of honor: “A cadet shall not lie, cheat or steal, nor suffer others to do so.” That a young woman should want to don the Batwoman mask and serve her country even after being told she couldn’t do so on the basis of her sexuality—doesn’t that in itself make her worthy of superhero status?

Tags: batwoman, book of the week, don't ask don't tell, Rachel Maddow