It's 11 a.m. on Tuesday, and anti-abortion activist Reverend Pat Mahoney has arrived at Washington, D.C.'s downtown Planned Parenthood health center with the intention of getting arrested. But first, he has to warm up the crowd.

"For the first time in the history of Washington, D.C., they have banned and prohibited prayer on a public sidewalk,” Mahoney announces to the crowd of television cameras, microphones, and note-pads jockeying for position around him. "Men and women who have prayed here for years have been threatened with arrest. . . We're going to pray here today! And if it means going to jail, then we're going to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against D.C. in order to keep praying!"

Commander Hilton Burton, of the D.C. police's Special Operations Division, has been dispatched to handle Mahoney's public display—and if necessary, arrest him. Mahoney agrees to give Burton ten minutes to confer with his supervisors before the Reverend attempts to perform the stunt that will likely get him handcuffed. Mahoney is happy to claim some extra time to play to his audience.

"As I just informed the Commander, this is just as much a disgrace as the 'White-Only' signs put up during the civil rights movement," Mahoney announces. As he stalls for the cops, additional press file in to jot down his statements and assemble more video recording equipment. Local anti-abortion activists file in with cameras of their own. Several more police officers report to the scene. A reporter fits a microphone into the pocket of  Mahoney's brown jacket. He grins. "If you speak to me,” he informs the crowd, “Just remember, I’m miked!”

The spectacle was two months in the making. It started with a fence. On April 2, the Planned Parenthood Association of D.C. was granted a fence permit to build a "42'' wrought iron steel fence" in front of its clinic at 1108 16th Street NW. Once Mahoney got wind of the construction, he sensed an opportunity to make himself heard.

Mahoney, who heads up the Christian Defense Coalition, doesn't take issue with the fence itself. He's more concerned with what lies beyond the gates: A 40-foot-long grassy entranceway with a paved center walkway that women must traverse in order to receive Planned Parenthood's reproductive health services, which include abortions. For years, anti-abortion activists have come to the turf to pray, confront patients, and attempt to convince pregnant women not to abort. The fence, equipped with signs reading “Private Property. No Trespassing. Violators Will be Prosecuted,” threatens to keep the activists at a distance. And D.C. police officers threaten to arrest anyone who dares protest inside the gates.

Mahoney contends that the space is public property, and he's had James Henderson, an attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice, investigate the issue with the Office of Tax and Revenue,  the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, and the District Department of Transportation in order to prove it. Planned Parenthood reps maintain that the property is theirs to police. “ At the 16^th Street health center, where Planned Parenthood also provides abortion care, our patients are typically met with and often harassed by people opposed to legal abortion," Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington CEO Laura Meyers said in a statement. "The fence serves to protect the health center and our patients from violations of DC trespassing laws while still allowing those who are opposed to legal abortion to exercise their First Amendment rights and express their views along the sidewalk." (The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs did not return calls for comment).

So, why not just pray on the sidewalk outside the fence? "It’s better access,"explains  Erik Whittington of Rock for Life, an anti-abortion initiative targeted at teens. Whittington says he's prayed outside the clinic “at least once a year" since 1995. “I’ve been up there next to the door, I've been up on the grass leading prayer circles," he reminisces. "For women who are coming here to have an abortion, they're walking up on that public property for about 15 seconds. . . Forty feet is a long way.”

Now, D.C.'s anti-abortion activists are forced to set up shop on the main 16th Street sidewalk, where it's difficult to even identify women seeking clinic services until they're already out of earshot. "You don’t really have enough time to talk to them that way," says Dick Retta, an anti-abortion activist who is familiar with the disputed terrain. "Outside the fence, you've only got maybe three to four seconds."

The fence may have been a bust for local sidewalk counselors. But as Mahoney knows, having your speech rights curbed in even a tiny section of the District can get a lot of people to pay attention to what you have to say.

In her online "The Barras Report" column this week, Jonetta Rose Barras accused "undercover gay reporters" of undisclosed bias in their coverage of the D.C. same-sex marriage bill.

"Some opponents of same-sex marriage wonder why they couldn’t get coverage in the press similar to proponents," Barras wrote. "Stand4Marriage coalition members . . . have been cast as backward, homophobic, discriminatory crew."

Well this crew of forward-thinking non-homophobes need wonder no further! According to Barras, "undercover" gay reporters engaged in a gay media conspiracy to unfairly characterize people who oppose civil rights for gay people as homophobes.

Okay. But where's the proof? Who are these closeted gay saboteurs? Oh . . . "they know who they are":

Opponents believe they have received the raw deal in the media because the deck was stacked against them. Several of the individuals who reported on the legislation are themselves gay. None revealed their status in the gay community, which surely created in TBR’s mind a bias. TBR doesn’t want to out anyone. They know who they are.

So if you're a gay reporter who has failed to out yourself as gay in every story you write that concerns gay people, Barras thinks you're a "disgrace" to the profession:

Standard practice in journalism is for reporters to publicly announce, whether in print, on the radio, on television, on the Internet, when there is a conflict of interest. But not one of the reporters made such an announcement. And that is a disgrace.

If gay reporters are expected to publicly announce on television that they're gay whenever they're involved in reporting out a story that concerns gay marriage in D.C., I'd hope that Barras would pepper every absurd column she writes about undercover gay media conspiracies with unneccessary disclaimers concerning her sexual orientation, and any other possible conflict of interest. Here's what Barras' column would look like, with the necessary modifiers:

UNDERCOVER GAY REPORTERS [Full disclosure: TBR is not an undercover gay reporter, but then again, if she were, how would you know? The whole point of being an undercover gay reporter is that you don't tell people you're an undercover gay reporter!]; IS IT FAIR? Some opponents of same-sex marriage wonder why they couldn’t get coverage in the press similar to proponents [Full disclosure: the TBR story you are reading is published in "the press"].

The press [Full disclosure: Again, TBR constitutes a member of "the press," but will nevertheless excuse itself from the following judgment it has made on other members of "the press"] repeatedly referred to Rev Harry Jackson as an outsider come to the District to create trouble. Hundreds of District residents are involved in the movement. But few in the press made an effort to reach out into the city to discern what are the real concerns of opponents. Instead, Stand4Marriage coalition members, who continue to fight District officials on the marriage equality bill [Full disclosure: TBR has been married and divorced] even after the DC Council approved it last week (11-2) and after the mayor signed it into law, have been cast as backward, homophobic, discriminatory crew [Full disclosure: TBR was later accused of being homophobic itself in the comments section of this column].

Opponents believe they have received the raw deal in the media [Full disclosure: TBR is a member of the media] because the deck was stacked against them. Several of the individuals [Full disclosure: TBR is an individual] who reported on the legislation are themselves gay [Full disclosure: TBR is not gay]. None revealed their status in the gay community [Full disclosure: TBR has no status in the gay community], which surely created in TBR’s mind a bias. TBR doesn’t want to out anyone. They know who they are [Full disclosure: TBR is not a member of the closeted gay media conspiracy].

Standard practice in journalism is for reporters to publicly announce, whether in print, on the radio, on television, on the Internet, when there is a conflict of interest. [Full disclosure: TBR is disclosing something]. But not one of the reporters made such an announcement. And that is a disgrace.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Yesterday, career Web guy James Chartrand admitted that "he" is a woman, actually. Chartrand said that after she adopted the male pseudonym several years ago—one that sounded like it "might command respect"—she did command respect, and began to ascend from struggling single-mom writer to respected male Web entrepreneur.

In light of the news that Chartrand is a lady, I am struck by some of the more masculine touches Chartrand inserted into her crowning achievement as James Chartland: The Web development team "Men With Pens."

But first, a bit of feminist review. Upon reading Chartrand's coming-out piece, The Frisky's Jessica Wakeman took issue with Chartrand's decision to obscure her gender to get ahead: "Honestly, there is something rather Uncle Tom-y about Chartrand hiding behind the opposite gender," she wrote. "By assuming the identity of a male writer, she skirted the discrimination against women entirely while doing nothing to change womens’ lot. She just left the glass ceiling standing there, rather than shattering it." Meanwhile, Broadsheet's Kate Harding saw Chartrand's pseudonym as a reminder that some old-school feminist battles have not been laid to rest: "I get furious when people insist that western women have achieved full equality," Harding wrote. "But even I've bought into the myth of meritocracy enough that my first thought upon learning a female writer massively increased her success by adopting a male pseudonym was, 'Wow, how retro! How Brontë, how Eliot, how Sand.' Certainly not 'how Rowling.'"

Whether you think Chartrand's choice to adopt a male name was anti-feminist or illuminating, you should know that adopting a male name is not all Chartrand did.

* She also adopted a male persona—her biography refers to her repeatedly as "he."

* She also named her company "Men With Pens."

* She also crafted a company logo (above) that looks like it was directed by Michael Bay.

* She also slipped this line into the bio of one of her employees, copywriter Taylor Lindstrom: "She’s the team’s rogue woman who wowed us until our desire for her talents exceeded our desire for a good ol’ boys club."

* She also introduced Lindstrom to the blog as "perky," "adorable," and capable of cooking and cleaning. (In introducing a male employee to the blog, Chartrand described their relationship as "bromantic," one in which the Men With Pens "could be laid back together, chink beers and not argue over the remote control").

* She also regularly used photos of naked women to illustrate her posts.

* She also occasionally essentialized women—"all the women" loved Jerry McGuire, Chartland wrote—while conveniently placing herself outside of the gender categories she set for them.

* She also used a photograph of a man silencing a woman with his hand as the logo for a "Men With Pens" role-playing game. When a few commenters noted that the photographed failed to create an "inviting community for women," Chartrand replied: "Photography is very subjective. You see a woman being terrorized. I see a man helping a woman stay quiet so he can save her life."

* She also penned this post—amazing, in hindsight!—which instructed "mommy bloggers" to stop "whin[ing] about being stereotyped" and begin welcoming male commenters in their spaces:

On the few occasions that I’ve risked my balls to post a comment on a mommy blog, I noticed my comments were skipped over as if they (I?) didn’t even exist. Sometimes my comments get a sharp, snappy, “piss off” kind of remark in reply. Sometimes I’m absolutely bashed, and I have a hard time figuring out why.

. . . I don’t understand making male readers and participants feel unwelcome. I know plenty of mothers who blog and who come off as. . . . well, bloggers who are mothers. They don’t perpetuate the stereotype of a frazzle Mom trying to work in a household of chaos. They don’t try to shave the balls of all males who dare to visit the blog. They don’t discount opinions from men. Everyone is equal. They blog, they work, and they raise their children.

So . . . Chartrand claims to have testicles in order to avoid being lumped in with all those whining, stereotypical mommy blogs, and then she has the nerve to insist all the lowly female bloggers let her into their club? Chartrand, of all people, knows that everyone is not equal on the Web. Chartrand herself pretended to have a pair of balls because she found her work perpetually discounted, insulted, and ignored by men. Men (and people who assume masculine identities) get to have the rest of the Internet. Women get their own tiny little part of it, where women's voices are actually valued. In those spaces, comments about how these women "wield their feminism like a spiked mace" from the one man valiant enough to "risk his balls" to wade into the comments are not welcome. Obviously.

* She also made some shit up! Unlike Brontë, Eliot, Sand, or Rowling, Chartrand didn't use a male pseudonym to get her works of fiction published—she parlayed her name into a successful blog which regularly touched on her life . . . except as a man. Every post that tried to recast Chartrand's personality into a male persona—like this one about how "he" learned to knit back when "little kids don’t know that boys shouldn’t do girl things"—is pretty much untruth. If the sexist blogging world made Chartrand change her name, did it also make her throw in some defensive gender posturing to explain why she—a man, of all people!—would ever take up the feminine pastime of knitting? This is where Chartrand's gender play goes beyond necessity and enters the realm of professional responsibility. Isn't a habit of spinning absurd white lies a bit of a liability for any professional writer?

Of course, "Men With Pens" isn't all gender stereotypes and objectification—mostly, it's just straight-up professional advice for 'net writers. But in light of Chartrand's admission, the more sexist aspects of the Web site are hard to ignore. Are Chartrand's hyper-masculine touches in "Men With Pens" tongue-in-cheek inside jokes? Are they defense mechanisms meant to ward off suspicion that she wasn't really a man? Are they yet another way for Chartrand to use sexism for her own career advantage? Or is this just how Chartrand truly sees herself—as a "man with a pen" who enjoys jokingly categorizing her employees based off rigid gender norms, feels the need to bash mommies, and thinks that naked ladies best illustrate her points?

Chartrand thinks that adopting a male pen name was necessary to make her career. "Truth be told, if just a name and perception of gender creates such different levels of respect and income for a person, it says a lot more about the world and the people in it than it does about me," she wrote. But Chartrand's ruse went well beyond the public's mere "perception" of her gender. She named her company "Men With Pens," for Christ's sake. Are we really expected to believe that financial necessity forced Chartrand not only to take a man's name, but to actively define her career around the fact that she's a male with precious balls she's got to protect from vicious ladybloggers? Or that by doing so, Chartrand was in any way elevating her voice as a woman?

More likely, Chartrand owes her career to a willingness to play into the "boy's club" mentality, not only in the name but in the content of her work. Chartrand responded to Web sexism by becoming a bit of a male chauvinist herself. She created a male space that—while welcoming to female commenters and clients—is, let's be honest, more welcoming to men. That act may have been necessary when she was a single mom scraping by on welfare checks. But now that she's a Web presence of her own, complete with clients, employees, and substantial readership, does she really have to keep perpetuating the guy thing? After all, Chartrand has now managed to shore up more recognition as a woman than she ever could as a man.

Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics (by hormone therapy, body modification, or surgery) of the opposite sex and present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

So why does Jessie L. Bonner's recent AP profile of transgender mayoral candidate Melissa Sue Robinson keep zig-zagging between male and female pronouns? Robinson has acquired female physical characteristics, and prefers the female pronoun. And yet, Bonner's story refers to Robinson with female signifiers (she, her) 17 times, and male signifiers (he, him, his) six times.

Perhaps the AP standard isn't so helpful after all. In the piece, Bonner applies the rules differently to Robinson before and after her gender transition. Each current reference to Robinson refers to the candidate as female; each reference to Robinson before she "legally changed his name and underwent surgery in 1998" employs the male pronoun. There's some AP style hidden beneath the awkward usage: technically, Bonner refers to both Robinson and her former legal identity, Charles Staelens Jr., in a manner that's "consistent with the way the individuals live publicly." Staelens lived publicly as a man, so gets a "he"; Robinson lives publicly as a woman, and earns a "she."

Bonner's usage may be technically correct, but it also borders on the offensive. (First, let's overlook the fact that nine-tenths of the story is entirely fixated on the fact that a female mayoral candidate "previously lived as a man.") As Bonner switches between "his" and "hers" in order to hew to AP style, Robinson comes off looking confused:

The 58-year-old was born male and still carries the slightly larger-than-an-average-woman build of Charles Staelens Jr., who legally changed his name and underwent surgery in 1998 to become a woman.

She also kept his voice.

He was married for 17 years, owned a construction company, and was a Republican when he ran for city council in Lansing, Mich., where he was raised with his identical twin brother until their parents divorced in the 1960s.

Now she says she is celibate, a telecommunications worker who is "just another cog in the machine," and a Democrat who in 2004 became the first transgender to run for the state legislature in Michigan.

Later in the story, another component of the AP "sex changes" rule comes into play—the part that instructs reporters to use the pronoun "preferred by the individuals" in question. According to Bonner's story, Robinson has never personally identified as male. Sure, that preference wasn't publicly known before 1998, but it's now been out in the open for 11 years. And yet, Bonner still churns out phrases like this one:

"as an adult, [Robinson] always thought of himself as a woman but waited until his late 40s before undergoing the gender reassignment surgery."

Actually, Robinson has always thought of herself as a woman. And yet, to the Associated Press, Robinson's forever gender remains male. Why? Because to the AP, you only get to be referred to as female after you undergo intensive surgery—and even then, your gender only applies to the years you've spent since going under the knife. That sucks. No person should be forced to invest in a legal name change and live up to a set physical standard—according to AP style, "hormone therapy, body modification, or surgery"—to be identified by their true gender identity.

No matter what the AP treatment suggests, Robinson didn't become female when she changed her name and underwent surgery. That's just the point at which the Associated Press learned that Robinson was female. With any other developing story, the AP will update its outdated, incorrect narrative when new information comes to light. Why should a transgender person's story be any different?

On July 3, Alaska Gov. Sara Palin announced her impending resignation from the Governor's seat, citing "a higher calling." In the wake of the announcement, Palin hasn't demonstrated much interest in unsolicited advice from newspapers, bloggers, and Tweeters. But with all of the contiguous United States now at her fingertips, Palin could use our help more than ever. As Anne Applebaum wrote in today's Washington Post: "what is that higher calling? If you don't tell us, we have to guess—or make jokes about it."

Weighing the pros, cons, and probabilities of our best guesses for Palin's next steps, after the jump.

MAKE A RUN IN 2012.

Pros: May manage to successfully run all the raging feminists out of this country for good.

Cons: Couldn't handle the job if she somehow, miraculously snagged it; couldn't handle the campaign trail, either; with all the feminists gone, no one left to defend Palin and family from rape jokes.

Odds: 5 to 1

—

MOVE TO LOS ANGELES.

Pros: Inevitable, just get it over with.

Cons: Will be lost in sea of naive fame-seekers.

Odds: 10 to 1.

—

POSE FOR PLAYBOY.

Pros: Heff's already interested; anything to erase the memory of her resignation speech performance (above); Runner's World spread confirms knack for full-body modeling. Plus, money.

Cons: Icky; too obvious; would help print media, which she hates, stay afloat another month; move would lower Palin's stock to below that of reality TV show rejects.

Odds: 500 to 1 (Maxim is a different story).

—

STAR IN A REALITY SHOW.

Pros: Would allow First Dude Todd Palin's star to rise along with hers; money; helpful transition into posing for Playboy; punning opportunities for name of reality show endless ("Pallin' Around With The Palins"; "The Beverly 'Fuckin' Rednecks,'" for chronical of relocation to L.A.)

Cons: Constant camera access to Palin family would only confirm fucked-up-edness of Palin's life and world-view; would allow First Dude Todd Palin's star to rise along with hers.

Odds: 10 to 1

—

GET A FOX NEWS TALK SHOW.

Pros: Finally, a venue where Palin's mixed metaphors, folksy aphorisms, and refusal to listen to anything are encouraged; no one would be able to look away; would improve Palin's improvisational skills while greatly inflating her ego; could really mine a Democrat-bashing "Politics as Usual" segment.

Cons: N/A

Odds: 3 to 1

—

RETREAT FROM THE LIMELIGHT.

Pros: Hates media; already undergoing public nervous breakdown; retreating from celebrity would make process less public

Cons: Loves media.

Odds: 1,000 to 1

I've written a lot recently on who can successfully tell a rape joke and what targets are fair game for the butts of those jokes. One perennial source of rape humor, the Onion, gets the rape joke dynamic right a lot of the time. The format has a lot to do it: as America's leading source of fake news, the Onion is always skewering the media along with its make-believe subjects, and media treatment of sexual violence is often ripe for satire. Sometimes, its best and worst shots, after the jump.

EVEN SARAH PALIN WOULDN'T BOYCOTT:

5. "Police Sketch Artist Likes How Portrait Of Serial Rapist Turned Out"

TARGET: Amateur artists.

MONEY QUOTE: "'I like how she added a little white dot to the suspect's pupils to make his eyes stand out," Haines said. "It sent a little chill up my spine, I'll admit. And the shading on the face is nice, too. She's come a long way with skin tones. I remember how, when she first started working here, Lynn Marie would just rub the side of the pencil lead across the paper if she had to draw a black suspect."

WHY IT WORKS: The amateur artist obsessed with her own "work" at the expense of all reality? Classic.

—

4. "Brutal Gang Rape Gives Screenplay More 'Punch'"

TARGET: Douchebag screenwriters who think a rape is all it takes to make their product edgy.

MONEY QUOTE: "'The studio asked for a little more oomph, a little more edge,' Weichert said of the added scene, in which the sister of lead character Jack Fist is brutally raped in an alley by Fist arch-enemy Ivan Petra and a band of the Russian drug lord's thugs. 'So, to give Fist more motivation, I figured I'd put in a crime he'd definitely want revenge for. Only the sickest of freaks would fail to identify with the hero after seeing this rape scene.' Weichert also noted that the scene calls for female nudity, which 'has never hurt a film's box-office receipts.'"

WHY IT WORKS: "Edge" is the eternal excuse for the sexualized spectacles that pass for rape on the big screen—often delightfully devoid of consequence or physical and emotional impact (sometimes, there are boobs!). This eerily prescient Onion item predicted Jody Hill's much-maligned "edgy" date rape scene in Observe and Report by ten years.

—

3. "Candidate Turns to Focus Group for Position on Rape"

TARGET: Spineless politicians.

MONEY QUOTE: "Wanting to 'feel out the popular attitude before committing to a position,' Virginia House of Delegates candidate Mark Earley turned to focus-group analysis Monday to determine Virginians' stance on the hot-button issue of rape."

WHY IT WORKS: Focus groups always deserving of satire. Bonus points, because so many politicians have made unpopular comments about rape that the situation isn't entirely inconceivable.

—

2. "Neighbors Believed Murderer Only Capable of Rape"

TARGET: Those who secretly think of rape as a more understandable offense than other violent crimes.

MONEY QUOTE: "I've known John Smith since grade school," said Deborah Sykes, 38, Smith's next-door neighbor. "I'd never have suspected for a second that he had it in him to murder two innocent girls. Rape them, sure. But murder? No way."

WHY IT WORKS: This story recalls the recent murder trial of a Vancouver, Wash. man who would admit to killing a 13-year-old girl but not to raping her. He insisted instead that he "killed her after having sex with her." The Onion joke, similarly, plays off the misconception that rape is a less-than-violent crime because it involves sex. And everyone likes sex—and can understand why a person would want it so bad they'd force it out of a victim.

—

1. "Raped Environment Led Polluters On, Defense Attorneys Argue"

TARGET: Anyone who has ever said, "she was asking for it."

MONEY QUOTE: "While, obviously, it is extremely unfortunate that this forest was raped, it should have known better than to show off its lush greenery and tall, strong trees in the presence of my client if it didn't want anything to happen," said lead defense attorney Dennis Schickle, speaking before a courtroom packed with members of the media. "It's only natural for any red-blooded American developer to get ideas in its head when it's presented with that kind of untouched beauty."

WHY IT WORKS: The Onion at its best: Revealing the absurdity of the most annoying character defamation defense by re-framing it in a different context.

—

MORE OFFENSIVE THAN AN A-ROD AND WILLOW QUICKIE IN THE 7TH:

5. "J.K. Rowling Hints At Harry Potter Date Rape"

J.K. Rowling Hints At Harry Potter Date Rape

TARGET: J.K. Rowling; Scholastic Books.

INSULT TO INJURY: From a fake Scholastic VP of PR: "[The date-rape] is a beautiful moment in the book, full of raw, raw honesty, and I think I would be doing you a disservice by not letting you discover the magic yourself."

WHY IT FAILS: At first, I thought that this video targeted Rowling's announcement that Albus Dumbledore was gay, and made jokes out of comparing homosexuality to rape. My bad: The video was released four months before Rowling announced that the functionally asexual wizard was gay. As commenter W Allison points out, the joke is, in fact, targeted at "how the whole time before the last books, Scholastic was teasing like all these terrible things were going to happen—death, ruin etc." to the books' beloved adolescent characters. So, it's actually a lot funnier than I thought. Still, the Scholastic VP of PR character makes my skin crawl, and not in a ha-ha-makes-my-skin-crawl kind of way.

—
4.: "Missing Girl Probably Raped"

Missing Girl Probably Raped

TARGET: The media, which blows all missing white female disappearances out of proportion; but also, missing girls who were probably raped.

INSULT TO INJURY: "The worst case scenario remains that she is dead. Raped to death by her merciless assailant."

WHY IT FAILS: Kinda funny, but relies completely on shock value. . . . which begins to fade after 2 minutes 33 seconds.

3. "Israeli President Accused of Rape"

TARGET: Jews; Palestinians; Jews

INSULT TO INJURY: "Well, at least he'll have Palestinian support behind him for having raped a Jew."

WHY IT FAILS: Subbing in Jewish jokes for rape jokes is kind of a rogue move, but this offensive bait-and-switch doesn't produce the hilarious punchlines to overcome the overall queasiness.

—

2: "Report: Almost Nobody Raped During Duke's First Lacrosse Match"

TARGET: The three Duke Lacrosse players accused of raping a woman in 2006 (the charges were dropped in 2007).

INSULT TO INJURY: "'The Duke lacrosse program plans to uphold its proud tradition of winning and barely raping anyone,' first-year coach John Danowski told assembled reporters and law-enforcement officials after the match. 'And it was great to see the record number of 6,485 fans in attendance, all of whom really showed their support except the two female undergraduates seated in Section 8A and [Blue Devils cheerleader] Chrissy [Heinman], who were being sexually assaulted.'"

WHY IT FAILS: This item may be attempting to skewer the overblown media reports of the infamous Duke lacrosse scandal. Instead, it adds fuel to the fire by playing off the lacrosse players' perceived insatiable rapiness—helping make this "she cried rape" case more high-profile than any case involving an actual rape.

—

1. "Fellow Cheerleaders Rally Cheer Of Support For Recently Raped Teammate"

TARGET: Those pesky high-school cheerleaders with so much school spirit; rape victims; rapists.

INSULT TO INJURY: "'R-A... P-E-D, nothing's gonna stop Su-zie. Yay, Suzie!' the squad cheered before the 1,500 students who filled the gymnasium to celebrate the victim's return to school. Rapist Fritz Hent, an East Hawks linebacker, will sit out the first game of the season as punishment."

WHY IT FAILS: Not enough shock value to soothe the cringe on this one. Working in a rape reference to make fun of cheerleaders? Why?

—

Related Posts

Who Can Make a Rape Joke?

How Sarah Palin Confuses Liberals Into Arguing Against Feminism

—

CORRECTION: Originally, this post shamelessly accused the Onion of homophobia for playing off Rowling's Dumbledore-is-gay announcement in its rape video. But as W Allison points out in the comments, the Harry Potter joke video was released on June 4, 2007, a full four months before Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was gay. It turns out the video only appears homophobic after the fact!

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The media's short-shrifting of gay inaugural events didn't stop at Rev. Gene Robinson's untelevised prayer at Sunday's Lincoln Memorial concert, says AMERICAblog's John Aravosis.

"There seemed to be a dearth of coverage about the gay and lesbian side of the inaugural festivities. Our readers reported that a number of networks oddly cut away from the inaugural parade the moment the gay band showed up," he writes.* "And not much mention of the gay ball the Human Rights Campaign held Tuesday night."

Ben Finzel, who reviewed the HRC event for Gay.com, filed a similar gripe with what he refers to as the "so-called 'mainstream' press"; he called the coverage of the event a "seeming press blackout."

Washington City Paper, for one, did not attend the HRC's star-studded fete (Melissa Etheridge, Cyndi Lauper, and Rufus Wainwright performed)—not that we were invited. Stretched pretty thin during the four-day inaugural gauntlet, this paper's GLBT after-hours coverage amounted to a couple scenes from the People's Inaugural GLBT Gayla, held last Sunday night at the Historical Society.

But was the press biased in its lack of extensive coverage of Tuesday's HRC ball? I'm not sure how the HRC coverage stacks up against that of all the other mainstream balls, but when it comes down to it, I can't really care too much. After all, it was just a party on a night of a thousand parties, and one that President Obama was unlikely to be attending (his dance card was pretty full that night). Sure, I would have loved to hear Lauper serenade Barack and Michelle with "At Last," too. But arguing that your ball didn't get enough recognition on Tuesday sounds like sour grapes. It's a party. Just dress up, get a little drunk, listen to Melissa, then get up on Wednesday and get ready to fight real injustice.

* Not locally, it seems: Metro Weekly has footage of Fox 5's announcement of the Lesbian and Gay Band Association as they pass President Obama in the inaugural parade.

Photo by DDFic.

Week one of the Manliest Workplace in D.C. competition has come to a close. Let's recap the standings in the media bracket (first-round winners in bold):

Game 1: Washington Times, 52; Washingtonian, 17
Game 2: Congressional Quarterly, 40; Washington Post, 46
Game 3: El Pregonero, 48; USA TODAY, 50
Game 4: Washington City Paper, 36; Washington Blade, 45

In a non-stunning victory, first-seed media outlet the Washington Times proves it's the manliest of D.C.'s news orgs. The daily will continue on to our elite eight contest to face off against the manliest of D.C.'s law firms, cultural institutions, and government workplaces.

For those filling out the bracket at home, here's the complete media contest:

Next week, we see how D.C.'s cultural institutions measure up. WIll the Washington Redskins out-man the National Museum of Women in the Arts*? Will the Founding Church of Scientology muscle out the Smithsonian? Only our unscientific algorithm knows for sure.

* affirmative action notice: score adjusted for traditionally female institution