Amicus Curiae

Why, on earth, are men offended merely because hotels regard them as potential rapists?

2009-02-13T04:42:00.000-08:00

Men are getting second class treatment, solely because they are men, in some of America's most prestigious hotels: "Women-Only Hotels Heat Up." The Premier Hotel in Times Square is one of several major hotels with "women-only floors." The double "X" chromosome rooms are replete with oversized bathtubs, curling and flat irons, bath salts and loofahs, nail files, a vanity kit, yoga mats and women's magazines (O, Self, Cosmopolitan) -- all at no additional cost.

Nice, eh, guys? Women get their own private "no men allowed" floors with rooms that have more amenities than the rooms men are permitted to stay in -- at no additional cost -- just because they are women. In places of public accommodation. Hmm. I wonder how that works from a legal perspective . . . .

"'These women work very hard, and this might be the only time they will get to soak in a big tub and read a magazine,' says Premier marketing director Maureen O'Brien."

Of course men don't work very hard, do they, Ms. O'Brien? And no man in America likes to take a bath, especially in a big tub; nor do we read magazines, especially magazines geared to men. (In the rooms that are not for "women-only," do they have Popular Mechanics, or Maxim or any number of car or men's health magazines? Oh, I would bet a sizable sum of money they don't.)

It gets better: "That doesn't mean safety doesn't play a factor. Most female-only floors have added extra security--usually a key-card door and a female-only staff. 'It's nice to know that you won't have a gentleman walking on the floor, and, if you do, you know he's not supposed to be there,' says O'Brien."

Thank you, Premier Hotel, for stereotyping all men as potential rapists. She might as well have said "it's nice to know that one of them isn't walking on the floor . . . ." You know, one of us sub-humans.

Let's think about this critically. When was a rape last reported in the Premier Hotel? Or any of these other hotels? I suspect . . . never. Even the article concedes that the hotel "wasn't getting too many requests from female solo travelers looking for protection from male guests . . . ." (Which, I would guess, means that the hotel has never received any such requests.) In any event, we're constantly told that the vast majority of rapes are of the acquaintance variety, so isn't it fair to assume that the women who are in the most danger in these hotels are the ones who happen to be staying with -- oh, no! -- a dreaded male? Perhaps that's the real solution here: erect cages in the rooms where women can lock up their men -- you know, while the women enjoy all those free feminine amenities.

I'd like to hear a mother explain to her son why some places are off-limits to men, his daddy included. "Well, Timmy, you see, men can't all be trusted around women, and people like your sister, Susie, and I need to be protected from them." Wow! I mean, do we care at all what message we send to our sons? Or our daughters? Or do we delude ourselves into thinking that maybe they won't notice things like this?

If you're not convinced that this apartheid for women is unnecessary, unfair to men, and a step in precisely the wrong direction for women after all the progress they've made kicking down gender barriers, then ask yourself this: how far must society go to placate the members of one group who harbor fears -- irrational though they may be -- about another? Suppose, for example, that whites insisted on "whites-only" floors in hotels for security reasons -- since we're constantly told that blacks commit more crimes than whites on a per capita basis. What do you imagine would be the reaction to that? Or suppose women wanted to ban Mexican housecleaning personnel from their "women-only" floors -- due to fears that Mexicans supposedly steal more than whites. Wouldn't it be nice to know that "one of them" isn't walking on the floor?

Ridiculous you say? Unfair? Of course it is. And wholly unAmerican, too. It attributes to individuals the worst traits of the class he or she was born into; it's the worst kind of bigotry.

But it's no more ridiculous, no more unfair, and no more unAmerican than segregating the genders in a place of public accommodation due to exaggerated -- and, yes, dare I say it, irrational -- feelings of insecurity. One group's irrationality should never trump another group's right to equal access -- even if the former are women and the latter are men.

And, seriously, what other group in America, aside from males, would tolerate being unfairly stereotyped in this manner with hardly a complaint? For now it's relatively isolated things like hotel rooms, but many cities of the world already have women-only buses and train cars. Maybe that's what's needed to wake up those chivalrous men who have no problem with women-only segregation: just wait to see their reactions when they are forced to stand at a freezing bus stop for twenty minutes while two or three women-only buses stop to pick up the -- ah -- more deserving passengers.

Perhaps such segregation is needed in some cultures, I don't know. I do know that in this country, it is an hysterical overreaction based on irrational fears, and that it manages to accomplish the improbable by slandering two genders at once -- it unfairly says that men can't be trusted around women, and that women are defenseless and need to be protected from men. Mainstream feminism doesn't like these segregation attempts, either, precisely because they tend to reverse the gains women have fought to achieve tearing down these very barriers.

For those less progressive women who just want to keep the menfolk at bay, be careful what you wish for, because you can't have it both ways. Sometime, somewhere, some men are going to decide to exclude you from some place or event, like they used to, based on rationales every bit as hysterical or silly or irrational as the ones posited by these hotels. We all know how you'll react to that. And rightly so.

This article has been referenced at various sites -- check out the comments here and here and here.

Eight years ago today, Brian O'Neill missed the implosion from my office

2009-02-11T05:53:00.000-08:00

Oops! Another photo op bites the dust

By Brian O'Neill
Thursday, February 15, 2001

Take an intelligent woman and a reasonably intelligent man, marry them, and you have the dumbest person on Earth.

That's my experience anyway. Take this past Implosion Sunday. A friend of mine has an office in the Trimont. (I'll pause here while you say "Well, lah-dee-dah.") He was nice enough to invite my whole family up to see Three Rivers Stadium go down.

So my wife and I were up at 6 a.m. and had the girls in the station wagon by 6:50 a.m. We took the back way up Mount Washington from the West End and drove past thousands of hardy souls lining Grandview Avenue, desperately looking for a perch, any perch, from which to see the big boom.

The poor cold saps, I thought, as I beeped the horn at the Trimont garage to open the doors for me and mine. Heh, heh.

I didn't know anyone at this party besides our host, but everyone was nice, the coffee was hot, and they had my favorite breakfast pastries: free. I went out on a balcony off the kitchen to take pictures of Three Stadiums River in the last moments we could still call it that. Then I came back inside and planted my freeloading butt in a warm conference room with more than 1,000 square feet of windows facing Downtown.

I was justifiably proud. After many e-mails back and forth, here I was, in the perfect location for the memory of a lifetime.

Then, with about five minutes to go before the blast, my wife asked where she should be if she was to photograph this thing. I'd asked that she bring her camera, for reasons that escape me now. At this point, I'd rather see a proctologist than another implosion photo.

Anyway, she said she needed to be outside if we wanted to get a good shot. That sounded right, but I said we should all stick together. So we went to find what our host had done with our coats. I tracked those down and then came the customary struggle of getting them on the 16-month-old and the nearly 3-year-old. That done, we started carrying them toward this overlook outside the kitchen.

That's when the implosion began. In an office where there were 30 windows, eight rooms and three balconies facing Downtown, we were somehow near none of them.

When we got to the balcony, we saw smoke. We saw what appeared to be a stadium under that smoke. But we missed the quintessential moment when Three Rivers made its cataclysmic shrug.

"All this hoopla for 18 seconds," some woman said.

What was she talking about? As a man, that makes perfect sense to me.

I stood in the cold and watched the enormous cloud of concrete dust blow across the people in Point State Park, but even that didn't cheer me up. Why couldn't we have left well enough alone?

We screwed up because we're married with small children. We're so busy presenting a united front we don't notice or care that we're making less sense than Dr. Seuss. If either one of us had been alone, or even alone with the children, we wouldn't have missed the implosion, because we would have realized how dumb it would be to move from a perfectly good spot. But together, we managed to reassure ourselves into idiocy.

My wife went out later that afternoon to the video store to feed our older child's Disney addiction. She also rented, at my request, "The Bridge on the River Kwai." She'd never seen it, so we sat down to watch it Sunday night after putting the kids to bed.

I thought it would be nice way to wind down from the day, watching a bridge blow up and a train fall into the river as a bunch of soldiers shot at each other. But we never made it to the end of the movie. I guess we're just not the imploding kind.

Sunday is Chad Hermann's birthday -- Chad, this was the only card I had

2009-02-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

"Did anyone see my other glove? I dropped it somewhere along the parade route."

2009-02-03T20:42:00.001-08:00

Ladies, don't judge all men by this -- most of us had no difficulty keeping out shirts and pants on during the Steelers celebration

2009-02-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

Go Steelers!

2009-01-31T05:35:00.000-08:00

Carbolic Smoke Ball featured in the February edition of Pittsburgh Magazine

2009-01-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

Could it happen again?

2009-01-30T12:02:00.001-08:00

Anticipation: Carbolic Smoke Ball's own Chad Hermann joins the Post-Gazette on-line starting Monday!

2009-01-30T05:28:00.000-08:00

Blagojevich Ousted by Illinois Senate 59-0; Ex-Governor Rips Legislators for Running Up the Score, Not Invoking Mercy Rule

2009-01-29T05:37:00.000-08:00

More on http://carbolicsmoke.com/

Geithner Sworn In Using Bible of Tax Cheat Al Capone

2009-01-27T05:39:00.000-08:00

More on http://carbolicsmoke.com/

Pope Accused of Adding Fake Comments to Holy See’s YouTube Site

2009-01-23T05:41:00.000-08:00

VATICAN CITY - Hours after launching a slick You Tube channel in an effort to use technology to reach a younger audience, Pope Benedict XVI came under fire for adding fake comments to the site using made-up names. The comments praised both the site and the Pontiff.

Experts say seventy-one of the seventy-four comments posted within two hours of the site’s launch emanated from the Pope’s personal IP address.

One of the fake comments, signed by “Axel,” said: “Bravo! You are the greatest Pope ever! Rah! Rah! Rah! Much better than the Polish one.” Another comment, purportedly posted by “Buffalo, U.S.,” said: “Now, finally, I, a young person of the Faith, will become holy and will start going to Mass each and every Sunday because now, finally, the church is speaking to me, dude.”

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Pope was “very sorry” that he posted the fake comments. “Pope Benedict did not understand” that comments are supposed to be legitimate, Father Lombardi explained. “The Pontiff became so caught up in the fun and mischief of the Internet that he assumed it was commonplace to take on fake identities and enter into a world of pretend.”

Political Commentators Rapturous Over Obama’s Speech, Find “Profound Symbolism” in Portions Where He Exposed Self, Defecated

2009-01-20T17:49:00.000-08:00

Read it here

First of Gitmo Detainees Transferred to Rep. Murtha’s Basement

2009-01-20T05:45:00.000-08:00

Read it here

Hero Pilot’s Shopping Cart Careens Out of Control, Injures Five

2009-01-16T05:47:00.000-08:00

Read it here

Another Wonderful Event

2009-01-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the great Erik Fry, to his colleagues at the Pittsburgh Mills Borders, and to all of the folks who came out to chat and have us sign copies of Zombies Ate My Headlines. We had a wonderful time yesterday, and we're already looking forward to coming back out to the Mills later this year for another event. Stay tuned for details.

If you missed yesterday's event, you can still swing by the Pittsburgh Mills Borders and pick up a signed copy; they have several in stock and on display. And remember -- you can also get a signed copy of Zombies right here, and have it shipped straight to your door

Our college campuses: where free speech and dissenting ideas are not allowed

2008-12-23T04:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo161.html

Another chilling article about the modern college campus, where administrators and professors practice a "double standard by combining effusive praise for free speech with an eagerness to suppress unwelcome views."

Where political correctness runs amok, where young minds are not challenged but indoctrinated, the "learning" experience is useless.

Is it any wonder that young men especially are deciding not to go to college?

Tune in: Carbolic's own Chad Hermann on the radio today at 4 p.m.

2008-12-22T04:23:00.000-08:00

Today at 4 p.m., the great Chad Hermann will be a guest on 1360 am, WMNY.

A tale of two vacant senate seats

2008-12-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

Illinois has a vacant Senate seat and New York is about to have one.

The Governor of Illinois apparently attempted to sell that state's vacant seat for money. The Governor of New York apparently is considering awarding that state's vacant seat to Caroline Kennedy.

Offering a senate seat to the highest bidder is wrong, by any measure.

Offering a senate seat to someone whose principal qualification is that she was the daughter of a beloved slain president, many people seem to feel, is to be applauded.

The principal difference between the two scenarios is that in the Illinois scenario, two people would benefit from the appointment -- the governor and the appointee; in the New York scenario, only one would benefit -- the appointee.

The appointment in the Illinois scenario would be justified by lies. The appointment in the New York scenario would be justified by lies.

Both scenarios are wrong, by any measure.

Only dewey-eyed ideologues, longing for the return of "Camelot" (fittingly named after a third-rate musical about a kingdom that never existed), would think the New York scenario is acceptable.

Got my Christmas card from the City of Pittsburgh

2008-12-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

American print media looks to remove Obama's Teflon

2008-12-18T08:06:00.000-08:00

Remember when Ronald Reagan was referred to as the Teflon President, usually in a derisive manner by journalists hoping something negative would stick to him so that they'd have something juicy to write about? Well, it looks like the Fourth Estate is up to its old tricks already with Obama, this time hiding behind segments of liberal interest groups -- Obama's most loyal core supporters -- to make it seem that the left is "unhappy" with something or other he or Biden are up to.

Gay leaders are said to be furious with Obama over his choice of a prominent evangelical minister to deliver the invocation at his inauguration because of the minister's support for the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Never mind that Obama himself does not support gay marriage. Never mind that barring this preacher from participating in the inauguration would mean that any traditional Catholic priest -- a faith shared by 23% percent of Americans -- not to mention any traditional minister from the huge Evangelical community, would be similarly barred. Let's be perfectly candid: the gay community as a whole realizes that it has the best friend coming to the White House that it has ever had. Yet the news reports make it sound as if Obama has turned his back on the gay community. The fact is, Obama is a smart guy and he understands that a president is president of all Americans, not just a portion of his political base. By having an Evangelical participate in his inauguration, Obama is reaching out to a vast percentage of Americans who would not appreciate being excluded -- and on this issue, the minister in question is closer to the political mainstream than are the gay leaders supposedly furious with Obama.

In addition, some feminist writers are picking a fight with Obama over his proposed stimulus package. Understand that the recession has hurt male workers much worse than female workers: "The nature of the recession and the long-term shift in the American economy has caused more men to lose than jobs than women. According to the Labor Department, 1.1 million males lost their jobs the past 12 months while 12,000 women found employment during the same period." Did you get that? Men are being tossed out of jobs in record numbers while more women are actually finding work. But that doesn't stop some feminists from bellyaching that Obama's stimulus package is ignoring women. Giving money to stimulate construction is akin to giving money to men, they insist with a straight face: "A just economic stimulus plan must include jobs in fields like social work and teaching, where large numbers of women work. "

Hmm. Must be nice to insist on looking at complex issues of critical importance to our nation through a simplistic, unnuanced gender lens that admits of no grays and where every act is either a subjugation or an empowerment of women.

It is unfathomable that most women share the inane view of that op-ed piece. Infusing money into construction will jump-start the economy, not to mention employ more people who've lost jobs, far better than tossing money into, for example, schools, where teaching jobs are rarely ever in danger and where infused money has far less ripple effect on the economy. More men than women are the primary support of families, and when an out-of-work father gets a good construction gig, his wife and daughters are more likely to say, "Thank you President Obama" than "President Obama, your policies are misogynistic." So to the feminist writers who like to stir up gender divisiveness in op-ed columns, leave the man alone -- it's going to be difficult enough to jump-start this moribund economy without whiny catcalls from the bleachers of ideological politics.

Some environmentalists are supposedly unhappy with Obama's choice of Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior because Salazar has worked to allow more offshore oil exploration.

And PETA is unhappy with Joe Biden because his new dog isn't a pound puppy.

I could go on and on, but here is the reality: American print journalism is in trouble. Newspapers can't figure out how to make a profit from publishing on-line, and readership and ad revenues for the print editions of America's leading dailies have plummeted. To generate readership, journalists need to generate sparks, so they latch onto anything with even a whiff of a conflict. The problem is, by highlighting, by underscoring, and by over-emphasizing conflict -- by injecting a New York Post mentality into their publications -- the print media is creating a false impression that there is more conflict than there really is.

The really scary part is that some in the print news media have already declared the honeymoon over even before it has begun.

Thursday night: Carbolic Smoke Ball will be at DVE's Christmas Party at Diesel (South Side) selling 'Zombies Ate My Headlines'

2008-12-17T04:30:00.000-08:00

Carbolic crew performing at a past DVE Christmas party

The perfect gift

2008-12-17T04:27:00.001-08:00

Check out the rest of the greatness at Carbolic Smoke Ball

What are those women looking at?

2008-12-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

Naked members of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity offer red roses to students as they weave through a crowd during the fraternity's annual naked run dubbed 'The Oblation Run' at the University of the Philippines, the country's premier university, Tuesday Dec. 16, 2008 at Manila's Quezon city. Thirty nine fraternity students joined in the annual naked run Tuesday which turned out to be a protest against recent moves by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's allies in Congress to effect charter change which they claim will extend Arroyo's term beyond 2010.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Our Greatest Honor Yet

2008-12-15T09:33:00.000-08:00