ubernoir wrote:

Look at Michelle Obama: She has segued seamlessly from an active professional life as a highly paid hospital executive to her current incarnation as fashion plate, doting mom and demure sex object, posing for Vogue in a hot fuchsia frock that shows plenty of skin. What's most surprising about this metamorphosis? How few people are objecting to it.
...
And guess what? In the long battle between the two styles of feminism, Brown, for now, has won. Just look at the culture around us. Ms. Magazine, the earnest publication that defined feminism in the 1970s and '80s, has been replaced on college women's dorm room shelves by sexier, sassier updates such as Bitch and Bust. The four talented, smart -- and feminist -- women of "Sex and the City," who are intent on defining their own lives but are also willing to talk about Manolos and men, look more like Brown's type of heroine than "Sisterhood Is Powerful" readers. The stereotype of feminists as asexual, hirsute Amazons in Birkenstocks that has reigned on campus for the past two decades has been replaced by a breezy vision of hip, smart young women who will take a date to the right-on, woman-friendly sex shop Babeland.
...
Then third wave feminism came along, critiquing its staid mothers and reinvigorating -- while simultaneously giving some political heft to -- the kind of gestures Brown had set out in her 1962 manifesto. Third wave feminism is pluralistic, strives to be multiethnic, is pro-sex and tolerant of other women's choices. It has led to an embrace of what was once so politically suspect -- the notion that you can be a "lipstick lesbian" or a "riot grrrl" if you want to be, that you can choose your persona and your freedom for yourself.

But that very individualism, which has been great for feminism's rebranding, is also its weakness: It can be fun and frisky, but too often, it's ahistorical and apolitical. As many older feminists justly point out, the world isn't going to change because a lot of young women feel confident and personally empowered, if they don't have grass-roots groups or lobbies to advance woman-friendly policies, help women break through the glass ceiling, develop decent work-family support structures or solidify real political clout.

Feminism had to reinvent itself -- there was no way to sustain the uber-seriousness and sometimes judgmental tone of the second wave. But feminists are in danger if we don't know our history, and a saucy tattoo and a condom do not a revolution make.

The fact is, we know the answers to Western women's problems: The way is mapped out, the time for theory is pretty much over. We know the laws and the policies we need to achieve full equality. What we lack is a grass-roots movement that will drive the political will. "Lipstick" or lifestyle feminism won't produce that movement alone.

review by Naomi Wolf

This is common amongst any "movement" or "revolution". It's been co-opted by capitalism. "Hey there hipster, wanna join the trend in [insert counter-culture meme here]? Well, come by the shop and get outfitted." This is my complaint about the 60's Baby Boomers. If you ever strike up a conversation, apparently everyone back then was a hippie and went to Woodstock. Of course, the numbers tell differently. But ahh... romantic reminiscence. We were all cool in high school. We were all heavy and deep. It makes me sick.

flynn23 wrote:
It makes me sick.

Complete non sequitur, but this CNN story is like a poster child for news media hypocrisy. They talk and talk about all the myths that were born of news media sensationalism of the incident and then they engage in exactly the same sort of sensationalistic tone:

I referred to him — and I'm dating myself — as the Eddie Haskel of Columbine High School," says Principal Frank DeAngelis, referring to the deceptively polite teen on the 1950s and '60s sitcom Leave it to Beaver. "He was the type of kid who, when he was in front of adults, he'd tell you what you wanted to hear."

When he wasn't, he mixed napalm in the kitchen .

Was that comment about napalm really necessary? Does it help promote a better understanding of why this happened?

The bottom line is that Harris was a psychopath. He had mental illness that is most likely biological in origin that made it impossible for him to feel empathy. No external factor made him what he was. The story dances around this subject but does not hit it head on. This is a clinical disorder that effects a large number of people. It cannot be treated and it has terrible consequences.

If you want to reduce the risk of this kind of thing happening, the best way to do that is to advocate more funding for psychiatric research. I don't understand why all of the people who have been motivated to do something about Columbine never zeroed in on that simple answer. We are not spending enough money on understanding and treating these illnesses, and they are baddly misunderstood by the general public.

Donate to NARSAD, the International Mental Health Research Organization, or the American Mental Health Foundation.

Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:
It makes me sick.

Complete non sequitur, but this CNN story is like a poster child for news media hypocrisy. They talk and talk about all the myths that were born of news media sensationalism of the incident and then they engage in exactly the same sort of sensationalistic tone:

I referred to him — and I'm dating myself — as the Eddie Haskel of Columbine High School," says Principal Frank DeAngelis, referring to the deceptively polite teen on the 1950s and '60s sitcom Leave it to Beaver. "He was the type of kid who, when he was in front of adults, he'd tell you what you wanted to hear."

When he wasn't, he mixed napalm in the kitchen .

Was that comment about napalm really necessary? Does it help promote a better understanding of why this happened?

The bottom line is that Harris was a psychopath. He had mental illness that is most likely biological in origin that made it impossible for him to feel empathy. No external factor made him what he was. The story dances around this subject but does not hit it head on. This is a clinical disorder that effects a large number of people. It cannot be treated and it has terrible consequences.

If you want to reduce the risk of this kind of thing happening, the best way to do that is to advocate more funding for psychiatric research. I don't understand why all of the people who have been motivated to do something about Columbine never zeroed in on that simple answer. We are not spending enough money on understanding and treating these illnesses, and they are baddly misunderstood by the general public.

Donate to NARSAD, the International Mental Health Research Organization, or the American Mental Health Foundation.

That's precisely why I cited it. Things like this just fan the flame of fallacy and contribute to the mythos and errant memes about the event. Frankly, I think investigating the "cause" is stupid. They perpetrators are dead, and even though they left diaries and such, you cannot truly understand what the cause was. It's too simple to say it was mental illness or that it was Marilyn Manson. Nothing in life is that simple.

It won't surprise me when shooting up your school is cool.

flynn23 wrote:
It's too simple to say it was mental illness or that it was Marilyn Manson.

FWIW I don't think those two explanations are comparable. This article does better than that CNN piece in laying it out.

Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:
It's too simple to say it was mental illness or that it was Marilyn Manson.

FWIW I don't think those two explanations are comparable. This article does better than that CNN piece in laying it out.

I didn't intend them as comparable, but more like opposite ends of an equally ill-formed continuum. There's no silver bullet here. Even after reading the article, which actually convinces me more about my original theory that there was somewhat of a love affair between Harris and Kleibold, it's not as simple to say that Harris was a psychopath. He could've chosen many other methods of acting out on that, including going to Wall Street or running for public office. But they didn't. They chose a school.

I do agree with the Slate article that this was more about an art project. They were seeking to be the most horrific terrors with one master stroke. Their plan was brilliant to that end. But as many things, execution (no pun intended) is everything.

But none of these things were the "cause".

flynn23 wrote:
equally ill-formed continuum. There's no silver bullet here.

Sure, the totality of the circumstances that created this particular result is a complex milieu involving the intersection of Harris's psychopathy with Kliebold's depression, the firearm culture in Denver, the Internet, video games, KMFDM, American History, BMW, and bowling. But there is an active ingredient and there are flavorings. Changing the flavorings would not have prevented this, it just would have manifested differently, and the flavorings alone do not cause this sort of event. The active ingredients are necessary and the most important active ingredient here is clinical psychopathy. If Harris was capable of empathy the result would have been not just slightly different but dramatically different. If we had a better understanding of why that happens, how to identify it, and how to treat it, and we applied that knowledge systemically, we might have identified Harris. Changing KMFDM or video games or firearm availability doesn't get you near the same kinds of results.

Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:
equally ill-formed continuum. There's no silver bullet here.

Sure, the totality of the circumstances that created this particular result is a complex milieu involving the intersection of Harris's psychopathy with Kliebold's depression, the firearm culture in Denver, the Internet, video games, KMFDM, American History, BMW, and bowling. But there is an active ingredient and there are flavorings. Changing the flavorings would not have prevented this, it just would have manifested differently, and the flavorings alone do not cause this sort of event. The active ingredients are necessary and the most important active ingredient here is clinical psychopathy. If Harris was capable of empathy the result would have been not just slightly different but dramatically different. If we had a better understanding of why that happens, how to identify it, and how to treat it, and we applied that knowledge systemically, we might have identified Harris. Changing KMFDM or video games or firearm availability doesn't get you near the same kinds of results.

Me personally? I would never change KMFDM.

But I think you are missing the point. I don't think Harris was that far gone. He was just a typically isolated and frustrated teen. In the 50's, they smoked cigarettes and wrote naughty poetry. In the 60's, they did drugs and had premarital sex. In the 70's, they pierced their noses with safety pins. In the 80's, they shopped and dressed up like whores. In the 90's, they made music that was so obnoxious and gauling that it was practically inaccessible to themselves, let alone the parents they were trying to piss off.

It just so happens that today's form of rebellion is murder. There's nothing shocking enough anymore. Everything has already been done. So if you really want to break with convention and differentiate yourself, kill people. Fantastically.

flynn23 wrote:
But I think you are missing the point. I don't think Harris was that far gone.

That is my point - the FBI psychologists think we was that far gone. He wasn't just a disaffected youth. He was deeply unbalanced in a way that might relate to a physical brain abnormality. This isn't a fad. Later school shooters haven't looked anything like H and K from a fashion standpoint - but they have a similar psychological profile.

Nevertheless, thanks for the link collection. Atari Teenage Riot seems to suck less then I remember, but anyone who says things like "in reality the band.. was too avant-garde, too radical in its views and statements [for the electronica genera]" should really be hanging out on your last page with their girlfriends.

Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:
But I think you are missing the point. I don't think Harris was that far gone.

That is my point - the FBI psychologists think we was that far gone. He wasn't just a disaffected youth. He was deeply unbalanced in a way that might relate to a physical brain abnormality. This isn't a fad. Later school shooters haven't looked anything like H and K from a fashion standpoint - but they have a similar psychological profile.

Nevertheless, thanks for the link collection. Atari Teenage Riot seems to suck less then I remember, but anyone who says things like "in reality the band.. was too avant-garde, too radical in its views and statements [for the electronica genera]" should really be hanging out on your last page with their girlfriends.

Well, remember, one man's disturbed psychological profile is another man's genius.

And I **LOVE** ATR! Truly innovative. But I was trying to make a point, and I've taken to noteworthy's style to do so.