Posts by Katie Halper

Katie Halper is a co-founder of Laughing Liberally, a political comedy group, with whom she performs regularly. Katie is also an Artistic Director and Comedy Curator at The Tank, a non-profit performing arts space for emerging artists.

Top Ten Earth-Friendly Sex Toys
Posted by Katie Halper, Scanner on April 23, 2008 at 11:52 AM.

Nobody wants to celebrate Earth Day by getting down with sex toys that are bad for the earth or bad for your body. A wise woman named Cher Horowitz (from Clueless) once explained that she was still a virgin becuase "You see how picky I am about my shoes and they only go on my feet." So be picky about penises AND your sex toys with the following sex toys which let you celebrate the earth and your body. Many sex toys contain phthalates, a plastic softener, which is so hazardous the European Union banned its use in children's toys.

Ironically, since phlatates have been linked to cancer and damaging sperm, we are putting things in our nether regions, that may be bad for our nether regions. Luckily, many sex toys stores are phasing phthalates-containing products. But until the war against phthalates is won, and until phthalates are stamped out around the world, you can use this top ten list of phthalate-free toys.

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Porn Poll: What's Most Popular?
Posted by Katie Halper, Nerve.com on April 10, 2008 at 1:30 PM.

The other night I was having dinner with some friends. Three were straight women and two were straight men (exciting, I know! Only in New York kids, only in New York!). Thanks to my obsessive frequent L Word references, the subject of filmed lesbian sex came up. I thought I knew about what kind of porn straight women liked. But I quickly learned that I had been wrong. I knew as much about what straight women want in porn as straight men know about what straight women want in general.

I had, up until this dinner, held the following porn preferences to be self-evident: 1) most straight women enjoyed lesbian porn 2) most straight women did not enjoy gay porn. Now, I am not saying these are innate porn preferences. In fact, I think that they reflect, to at least some extent, the way society sanctions performative lesbian sex within a hetero-normative context, which ultimately appeals to straight men; and the way gay homosexuality has not been incorporated into an acceptable heterosexual framework.

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Dear Iraq: I'm Just Not That Into You -- Sincerely, America
Posted by Katie Halper, Scanner on March 21, 2008 at 5:08 AM.

Hey Iraq,

What's up? It's me, America. I'm sorry I didn't really plan anything for our five-year anniversary Wednesday. You know I was never good with dates, or making plans, or remembering anything, especially when it comes to your needs. I mean I could barely keep your family members straight, you know like your Shia/ Sunni thing? That was really confusing!  Wow, five years is a long time. You know, when I brought you democracy five years ago, I was really into you. In fact, I had had my eye on you for a long time. I was just waiting for some excuse to pursue you. So when that whole 9/11 thing happened, it seemed like the perfect ice-breaker. And I made a move.

But I think I was maybe into you for the wrong reasons. I've been doing a lot of processing lately. Remember how I used to tell you how badly I wanted to "invade you" and "liberate you" from that abusive dictator? Well I did. And after I freed you from Saddam, I ravished you; I ravished your oil fields, and I privatized your industries and and I drilled you long and hard until you didn't have any oil left to give me... and it was great.

But I have a knight-in-shining-armor savior complex. Or really more like a knight-in-insufficient-body-armor complex. And added to that was my Oedipal pathology and the weird issues I had with failure and impotence over the fact that I had gone after you in the 1990s but wasn't man enough to seal the deal.

Anyway, there was just a lot of baggage involved. And honestly, the thing I was most interested in was your booty. I mean, after I removed Saddam and got your oil, I didn't really have a plan or anything, because I guess I was thinking with the wrong head. I guess, I didn't really think about what it would be like between us once Saddam was gone, whether we'd still be into each other, what your friends and family would think of me and how they'd respond to me. I didn't even bother learning Iraqi, so I couldn't even communicate with you. And I fired all my translators because they're all gay. 

And so I've been kind of going through the motions with you. I'm still with you, sure, but I don't really care about you as much as an occupying power should. And I guess I'm just not that invested in my relationship with you (I'm talking emotionally here).

And before you say anything, I know I've sent you mixed messages. And I apologize for the drunk dials and texts about your weapons of mass destruction and yellow cake and all that. I was just really trying to get into you oil fields.

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St Patrick's Parade: Gays, KKK, and Neo Nazis Need Not Apply
Posted by Katie Halper, Scanner on March 17, 2008 at 4:21 PM.

Nothings says Happy St. Patrick's Day like telling Gays and Lesbians to step aside, which is why, since 1991, the New York City Saint Patrick's Day Parade has excluded "the gays" from the festivities. But before people get their shamrock-pattern panties all up in bunch, you should find out why having gay-free Gaelic activities is so important.  John T. Dunleavy, Chairman of the New York City Saint Patrick's Day Parade, explained "If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem*, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?"

Now, whatever you think about the gays, you have to admit, Dunleavy is on to something. Because, of course, long before the Nazis eliminated 6 million Israelis**, and the KKK  terrorized thousands of blacks in Jim Crow South, the gays starved one million Irish to death, during the great potato famine, stealing the staple crop, in a sinister plot to make the most fabulous rosemary-infused potato shallot souffle ever.

* Do the African-Americans have to keep their parade within the confines of Harlem? Or do they forfeight their right to a KKK-free rally once they step below 125th street? 

** I'm using the Dunleavian interpretation of "Israelis" in which Israelis signifies Jews. 

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Christopher Hitchens: As Right About Women As He Is About Iraq
Posted by Katie Halper, Take Part on March 10, 2008 at 5:46 AM.

Dear Hamilton Nolan & Gawker:

I want to thank you for your post supporting Christopher Hitchens' claim that women aren't funny. I also I want to apologize for not writing sooner, but between getting my bikini line waxed, shopping, trying, in vain to be funny, and dealing with PMS, I had no time -- and was in no shape -- to write anything. But I want to thank you for having the testosterone-drenched you-know-whats to say what nobody else, besides Christopher Hitchens and lots of men, will say: women comics suck! And Christopher Hitchens rocks! Responding to the unfunny and boring and (I know, this is redundant) female-written Vanity Fair article "Who Says Women Aren't Funny,"

The problem they [female comics] have is they often talk about things that women can relate to--relationships with men, babies, periods, shopping, love. As a man, I can't relate to all that. That puts women comics at a distinct disadvantage when trying to win over me and my fellow men. This is obvious day, right here.

THANK YOU! I can't STAND when Sarah Silverman talks about her babies! Oh, right she doesn't have any, but I bet if she did she wouldn't shut up about them. And Tina Fey, can you please stop talking about your period? I mean, I haven't heard her talk about it, but she's a woman and it happens once a month -- I know, TMI, sorry :( -- and when it does we're really emotional and irrational and out of control. So I bet even if Tina Fey didn't want to talk about her period, it would literally be biologically impossible for her to stop herself from talking about her hormones and her feelings.?And I too wonder why "girls," as you call us, bother getting their frilly pink panties all up in a bunch over Christopher Hitchens. I love your point that:

Chris [that is SOOOO cool that you call him by his nickname!] Hitchens is a brilliant, repugnant slob of a man, and any argument he makes should be taken as one from a male point of view. For him to say that women aren't funny is for him to say that they're not funny to him, a man.

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Texas to Execute An Innocent Man
Posted by Katie Halper on August 30, 2007 at 5:22 AM.

This post, written by Katie Halper, originally appeared on The Huffington Post

UPDATE: Perry commutes Foster's sentence, details here.

Dear Governor Perry,

First of all, happy belated 400th execution day! It seems like only yesterday that Texas reinstated the death penalty, and yet you have managed to execute 400 people since 1982. Oops, scratch that, you killed DaRoyce Mosley Tuesday night, so make that 401 people, right? Actually, by the time you get this letter, you may have killed your 402nd inmate, John Amador, scheduled for August 29th. Or you may even have killed the 403rd person, Kenneth Foster, scheduled to die August 30th.

As you know, Kenneth Foster's fate is in your hands. In 1996, when Michael LaHood was fatally shot, of course, the man who pulled the trigger was not Foster, but Mauriceo Brown. And sure, Foster was inside a car at the time of the murder. Sure, 80 feet away from the crime scene, he was unaware of what Brown was up to. And sure, Amnesty International says, "In essence, Kenneth Foster has been sentenced to death for leaving his crystal ball at home. There is no concrete evidence demonstrating that he could know a murder would be committed. Allowing his life to be taken is a shocking perversion of the law." The law of parties allows anyone involved in anyway in a crime to be found as guilty as the person who committed the crime. Texas is unique because it applies this law to death penalty cases. In other words, Texas is so special, it will execute you for a crime it admits you did not commit.

I know you have received letters from leftist anarchist wing bats like Archbishop Tutu, Jimmy Carter, and the European Union, who are trying to bully you into granting a stay of execution. So I wanted to write you my own letter, urging you to hold your ground. Stay strong Mr. Governor! I so admire how you stood up to those EU girly boys, telling them, "230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas."

Who cares what the EU pansies think? When it comes to the death penalty, you are in good company. Some of the most freedom-loving countries-- Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, Zimbabwe--have capital punishment. I, like yourself, am a traditionalist and love your argument that "the people of Texas decided a long time ago that the death penalty was a good idea." After all, Texas has a long proud history of old noble decisions going back to the War of Northern Aggression.

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