Yes.

13/1/14

if you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my feminist ideologies

Remember a few months ago when Marine Captain Matthew Phelps proposed to his boyfriend, Ben Schock, inside the White House and he said yes?

Well, they tied the knot this past weekend!

Julianne Moore as “Famous Works of Art” by Peter Linderbergh - for Harper’s Bazaar

Seated Woman With Bent Knee by Egon Schiele, La Grande Odalisque by Ingres, Saint Praxidis by Vermeer, The Cripple by John Currin, Les danseuses by Edgar Degas, Madame X by John Singer, Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer, Woman With a Fan by Modigliani, Man Crazy Nurse #3 by Richard Prince, Adele Bloch Bauer I by Gustav Klimt.

I really enjoyed this book as a light, summer quickie (that's my term for books I don't get too emotionally invested in), until I googled the author and read that she started a "princess camp" for 8 to 11 years olds.  At 4,000 bucks a pop your little Cinderella can travel to London and walk the royal wedding procession and learn a proper curtsy.  I shudder to think what Peggy Orenstein would say.

Can I have your boots, Kate Moss?

Okay, one last summer reading review (for now).  This one was hilarious, and I read it in my local B&N cafe in one sitting while waiting for a wedding reception. (It was one of those things where the wedding is in the afternoon, and the reception is at night, don't you hate those things?)  Anyway, sorry B&N, I didn't pay for this one, but I bought lots of other books, and had a soy milk latte, grande size.

Winston writes short essays mostly about her ex-boyfriend, who said she has a fat ass, actually the largest one he has ever seen, and then he wrote a book about it.  Obviously an ex.  Of course I googled who her ex is, his third book is about to be published.  None of his work appears to be my cup of tea.  

(C)

Met Edith Windsor: The 83 year old woman who is fighting to strike down DOMA With the Supreme Court hearing arguments for and against DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) in the case Windsor v. United States, I thought an info post about the woman who brought suit against the U.S. federal government was necessary. If the Supreme Court strikes down DOMA, her last name will live forever in constitutional law, but her life with the woman she loved for over 40 years, is really the heart of story. — Edith Windsor was a top IBM programmer in the 1960’s… in other words, bad-ass! Windsor moved to New York City after divorcing her husband to work as a secretary while earning a master’s degree in mathematics from NYU. She also had a a fellowship at Harvard University, you know, just because she was awesome. — Edith Windsor didn’t know how to get a date with a lady Like a lot of lesbians who move to a big city to be free, gay versions of themselves, Edith didn’t know exactly how to pursue a dating life (sound familiar, Tumblr?). She asked friends, “If you know where the lesbians are, please take me.” Her friends took her to a Greenwich Village restaurant called Portofino where she caught the eye of Thea Spyer, a psychologist. They danced. “We immediately just fit, our bodies fit,” said Thea. — Edith Windsor was engaged to Thea Spyer from 1967 to 2007 Thea proposed to Edith with a round diamond pin. She got down on one knee during a drive to the countryside in 1967. “She was beautiful,” Edie said in a recent interview. “It was joyful, and that didn’t go away.” At 45, Thea was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and in 2007, the doctors gave Thea the grim news that she didn’t have much time left. Edith and Thea flew to Toronto and on May 22nd, 2007 they were married. — Edith Windsor’s case is about estate taxes, but about so much more Despite being together for more than 40 years, in a relationship that most of us can only dream of and having a marriage that is legally recognized in Canada, when Thea passed away in 2009, Edith was saddled with a tax burden of $600,000 in state and federal estate taxes because her marriage isn’t legal in within the borders of the United States. This is one of the 1,138 benefits afforded to couples who are married in the United States. DOMA only recognizes a legal union between a man and woman and thus these benefits do not extend to same sex couples EVEN IF their marriage is legally recognized by the State. But in reality, this case is about so much more than just benefits and protections. Edith Windsor says, “The fact is, marriage is this magic thing. I mean forget all the financial stuff, marriage symbolizes commitment and love like nothing else in the world. And it’s known all over the world. I mean, wherever you go, if you’re married, that means something to people, and it meant a difference in feeling the next day.”