Dear Entertainment Weekly,

In your most recent issue, you published a list of the “50 Sexiest Movies Ever.” By your estimation, the sexiest movie ever, Stephen Soderberg’s Out Of Sight, outranks the next Soderberg film on the list, sex, lies, and videotape, by 35 films. One of these films is Cruel Intentions.

As a longtime non-subscriber to Entertainment Weekly who sleeps on a mattress on the floor beneath a stunning portrait of James Spader in the 1985 vehicle Tuff Turf (also, strangely, omitted from your list), I am appalled. [S]ex, lies, and videotape is far sexier than Out of Sight for the following reasons: It (a) has “sex” in its very title, (b) stars James Spader, and (c) does not star Jennifer Lopez.

As you are clearly not familiar with the Spader canon, please admit this fan-edited promotional Internet video as evidence.

I await a correction in your next issue.

Sincerely,

Amanda Hess

Michael Phelps is to Speedo as Anderson Cooper is to board shorts. Via Daily Intel via 60 Minutes, the Silver Fox takes on the Baltimore Bullet:

Duh. Here’s what Obama had to say:

I have known Hillary Clinton as a friend, a colleague, a source of counsel, and as a campaign opponent. She possesses an extraordinary intelligence and toughness, and a remarkable work ethic. I am proud that she will be our next Secretary of State. She is an American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence; who knows many of the world’s leaders; who will command respect in every capitol; and who will clearly have the ability to advance our interests around the world.

Hillary’s appointment is a sign to friend and foe of the seriousness of my commitment to renew American diplomacy and restore our alliances. There is much to do - from preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to Iran and North Korea, to seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, to strengthening international institutions. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the right person to lead our State Department, and to work with me in tackling this ambitious foreign policy agenda.

Obama appointed two other women to his national security team: My home state of Arizona’s Governor Janet Napolitano will be Secretary of Homeland Security, and Susan Rice will serve as UN Ambassador.

Today, in recognition of World AIDS Day, panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display at two D.C. locations: the George Washington University’s Great Hall and the American Psychological Association’s lobby.

George Washington University
Marvin Center, Great Hall
800 21st Street NW, Suite 427

The American Psychological Association lobby
750 First Street NE

Flickr user dbking has some great shots of panels on display on the ellipse in 2004, including this righteous Freddie Mercury memorial panel:

More after the jump.

Read the rest of “AIDS Quilt in D.C.” »

Things got heated in the manliest workplace in D.C. tournament last week, as the District’s unions and guilds faced off to go on to the finals. Things are still undecided here as three workplaces scored perfectly on the manly index—all men in the highest jobs, all the time. Here’s a recap:

Game 1: United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers (PERFECT SCORE) Vs. Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild
Game 2: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (PERFECT SCORE) Vs. AFL-CIO
Game 3: International Brotherhood of Teamsters (PERFECT SCORE) Vs. United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
Game 4: National Association of Letter Carriers Vs. Service Employees International Union

We’ve got a three-way perfect-score tie here between the roofers, the electrical workers, the Teamsters. Those workplaces will face off against our other perfectly scored employer—the U.S. Senate—in the finals. Later this week, D.C.’s think tanks and universities go under the man microscope.

Pro-life advocates expressed outrage last week at reports that Planned Parenthood of Indiana would be offering gift certificates for health care this holiday season. Then, pro-choice advocates expressed outrage at the outrage. From Ann at Feministing:

Conservatives are freaking out because Planned Parenthood in Indiana is offering gift certificates. Granted, a pap smear is not the most exciting Christmas gift I can think of, but it sure is practical. Oh, wait—you mean they’re claiming these are going to be used for abortions? As if that’s all Planned Parenthood does? I’m shocked.

This is a common response to pro-life folks who protest outside women’s health centers, shaming all who enter—hey, not everybody here is getting an abortion. It is tempting to try to explain this to the dude trailing you on your way into the clinic, shaking rosaries in one hand and ultrasounds in the other: I’m going to Planned Parenthood for convenient and affordable lady part care, not to abort no fetus! At the same time, this argument can be destructive to those women who are going to Planned Parenthood to have abortions.

Read the rest of “Abortions for Christmas!” »

* Alex Kuczynski has a surrogate mother bear her biological child, writes ten pages for the New York Times on her physical and psychological battle with infertility:

Celebrities offered hope, and still do. Halle Berry had her first baby at 41! So did Nicole Kidman, and two weeks later there were pictures of her wearing skinny white jeans. Not only fertile, but fit. Salma Hayek was 41. Marcia Cross, from “Desperate Housewives,� was 44. John Edwards’s sometime mistress had a baby when she was 44. Or was it 43? Who cares? That’s way older than I am!

* Also in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof details the phenomenon of Pakinstani acid attacks: “flinging acid on a woman’s face to leave her hideously deformed.”

* Today is World Aids Day.

* So, what’s up with Hitler’s missing testicle? Ron Rosenbaum for Slate:

There’s no excuse now for this incessant dwelling on Hitler’s sexuality, as if it tells us anything about the true nature of his evil. No, all the obsession can tell us about is the way the culture as a whole exhibits a refusal to face the profundity and complexity of evil and instead—with some honorable exceptions—prefers to escape responsibility for Hitler and the Holocaust by blaming it all on ludicrously unserious and ahistorical sexual mythologies, and the Freudian-influenced notion that all behavior has a sexual explanation at heart.

Oh. Okay.

Photo by trialsanderrors.

The week in the Sexist:

1. Good Guys Trial: What Graure Could Face
2. In Defense of Abstinence-Only Vampirism
3. Capitol Pill: Rite Aid
4. Pro-Choice? Would You Perform an Abortion?
5. Sarah Palin Thanksgiving Video Corner

Photo by jpcolasso

Beware the consumer impulse. From the New York Times:

A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York died after being trampled by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a frenzy.

The 34-year-old employee, who was not identified, was knocked down by a crowd that broke down the doors of the Wal-Mart at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y., and surged into the store. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 6 a.m.

Anyone heard any local shopping horror stories?

Today, we wrap up the union division of the Manliest Workplace in D.C. tournament (see the full 64 workplace bracket here). Three unions (the Teamsters, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers, and Allied Workers) have already registered perfect scores on the manly index, staffing all men in the highest positions all the time. Of the tournament’s non-union competitors, only the U.S. Senate has managed that feat. Will the National Association of Letter Carriers or the Service Employees International Union have what it takes to compete for perfection? Let’s find out!

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS: Conveniently, the NALC has ten National Resident Officers. But how many men can it deliver?

Read the rest of “Man Madness: National Association of Letter Carriers Vs. Service Employees International Union” »