Dear John

Found on Imageshack, via PopUrls:

Beyond the pale

Trying not to take this personally ...

Smackdown

Via Feministe:

Oh, here's a brilliant marketing strategy to promote awareness of violence against women: Design a website that allows you to manipulate a giant hand -- via your mouse or your very own hand via your webcam -- to beat up a woman.

Call it "Hit the bitch!'' Score points with every punch. Don't be a ''pussy!'' Be a ''gangsta!'' Hit her again! Look at her face bruising and bleeding! Yeah. Smack her again ...

Bet all the woman abusers just love to play.

I kid you not.

This Danish website, which pretends to be about getting young men to stop battering their girlfriends, uses abuse to get them in the tent. Bet that part at least works -- all too well.

As for stopping the violence, don't make me laugh. Or cry.

Putting up a few statistics after you've knocked her to the ground just doesn't cut it.

I don't speak Danish but the good people over at Sociological Images did get some translations via their readers, which I've emailed to Stargazing's Malene Arpe for confirmation.

In the meantime, here's what the commenters at SI say:

In a comment Jillian ads,

A Danish friend just told me what the woman is saying.  Two of the quotes are as follows:

“why would I f**k your best friend he’s just as ugly as you”

 “I’ll dance with anyone I want to dance with”

UPDATE: Reader Jacque provides a more complete translation:

In the beginning when the girl comes in she says:

“You don’t get to decide if I dance with people or not.”

Then the voiceover says “What are you doing? You cant even control your bitch. A couple of slaps will help…in the end the voiceover comes in again stating: “It’s not f**king gangstar to hit bitches, you lost the game when you lifted the hand the first time. There is no excuse. None!”

Then comes a womans voice: “In Denmark every third girl in college is in an abusive realtionship. If you are one of these seek help … etc…”

If that's not enough, here's a rather sick joke about a sick joke:

The game isn't that hard. Dayum, I knocked her around so well I scored 100% Gangsta first time out. Not quite as challenging as PacMac. But she mouths off so much, it makes it at least somewhat enjoyable.

Here's the organization that sponsored the website.

There's an email link. Use it.

Remember. Your kid can find this.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Malene confirmed ''the gist'' of Sociological Images' translations. Most of them I can't really repeat. Suffice to say that what the woman says is very provocative, and even insulting. Some people might call it verbal abuse.

Not that any of that justifies the website. But that may justify, at least in the mind of the batterer, that it's fine to hit somebody when they comment on the size of your, um, manhood.

It doesn't.

And it doesn't make this website any more acceptable.

Dogomundo

Because you can only take so many cat videos, you know?

Date squares

Via Buzzfeed, ''13 Tips for Single Dames.'' Classic and timeless.

Here's a couple of them.

From the February 1938 issue of Click Photo-Parade magazine.

Lay Lady Lay

Talk about a backlash. Here's an oldie but goody found on Facebook tonight, via the MediaWatch fan page.

Ah Women. If they're not on their knees, they're on their backs.

Why does the corporate world want us so off-balance?

Why, the easier to sell us stuff we think we need, my dear!

I gotta feeling that this is gonna go viral!

Awesome, awesome, awesome!

This is a one-take video, 4:54 long, starring 172 communications students at UQAM (l'Université du Québec à Montréal) during ''frosh week'' -- or whatever they call it nowadays -- this month.

The tune is the Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling.

H/t to deBeauxOs of Dammit Janet!

And the breast film award goes too ...

I just adore this logo.

It's for Breast Fest 2009, the second annual film festival dedicated to breast cancer awareness.

Breast Fest uses the versatile medium of film to frame and explore the spectrum of issues surrounding breast cancer. This annual festival uses films, panels, workshops and speakers to connect people to the breast cancer cause, inspire dialogue, facilitate learning and foster community.

There are long films plus shorts -- and you can vote on the latter here.

This is one of my faves, edited from a series by the Chem-Ho, by the ''hot and single'' (she wants you to know) Calgary comedy writer and performer Allison Lane, aka The Bizzy Beaver. I just love her spirit.

Show her some love.

Breast Fest takes place Nov. 20-22 at the Royal Ontario Museum. Get your tickets here.

Model Behaviour

Not.

Seems to me that, if you're an interviewer who expects people to answer your questions, you should answer questions from other interviewers -- especially if you consented to the interview. 

Bill Walker, former Star journalist turned PR VP at Veritas Communications agrees:

Banks and her PR handler committed one of the worst communications Fumbles in recent memory. She was asked by McFadden about being criticized by former models Paulina Porizkova and Janice Dickenson, both of whom were once cast members on Banks’ show America’s Next Top Model. Porizkova, for example, claimed she was fired from the show on her birthday, that Banks ignored her off camera and that Banks was up to 6 hours late at times for the show’s judges’ panel. The video, click here, is worth watching. Banks’ response to McFadden’s question was silence. She smiled and arched her eyebrows. Meanwhile, off camera, her publicist, Lisa Israel, is heard telling McFadden: “Lets not go there.” ABC chose to identify Israel by name on screen, although she is not seen. And with the cameras still rolling, McFadden looks over angrily and tells Israel: “Well, I am going there. I am going to go there.”

But what really bugs me about this clip is not what Tyra Banks says by not answering but what the entire sequence suggests ... but not in so many words.

Cat fight!

This is what rape looks like

So, down in the comments here, where regular reader and ''men's rights activist'' ''feminazis ruined my life'' Keith insinuates that a woman who ended up with a broken nose and teeth, drugs in her system and in the bed of a bartender she barely knew, was having fun and games consensually. Good times.

The thing is, any guy looking to avoid sexual assault charges should be extra careful to have actual consent. It's not ''No means no.'' It's ''Yes means yes.'' And that yes better be delivered by a woman in a conscious state. The kind of state that would pass juducial muster.

Not that it mattered much in BC, where Fernando Manuel Alves, 46, walked after drugging, beating and raping a woman. A ''crime of opportunity'' the Honourable Justice Gregory M. Rideout called it.

With the hope that that obscene decision gets appealed, I am providing Keith and his pals this handy-dandy chart, courtesy of This is Rape.

It seems to have originated here earlier this month, when it was greeted with much enthusiasm. Charming comments.

The bottom line is, ''sober enough to stand up'' may well be ''crime of opportunity'' land.

At least in my books.

I wonder how many young women get that.

H/t The UnDomestic Goddess and Tweep @riotnotquiet