I Predict Obama Will Go 7-5 in His First Year

Now Serving Football Politics

Hey, football fans. Remember this bum?

Ah, John L. He was the kind of man with the integrity and class to switch schools before his squad's bowl game (he took the MSU job right before Louisville's bowl that year, which they lost without him), blame a kicker for his own shortcomings, and make the occasional slip-up when talking to reporters.

He was known as an aggressive coach, keen on the spread offense and an adventurous, risk-taking attitude - a "cowboy" in many respects. Known for sky-diving and mountain-climbing, he was also quite fit for his age (if not his job). He once started a second half with an onside kick, in a game he was winning. (In stark contrast to most of his time at MSU, he won that one.)

Enter Mark Dantonio. After their horrific experience, MSU figured it was time to bring change to their football program. They hired a man who couldn't have been more different from John L. Smith. Dantonio is known for being a calm coach, who instills caution and discipline in his team. Under his tenure, MSU's strength has become its ground game, and their coach has conducted himself with a class that Spartan fans find refreshing.

Once unable to experience any emotion other than despair, there's now a cautious optimism among Michigan State fans, who while excited, certainly don't think that Dantonio is some kind of football messiah. They're just glad they didn't end up with that coach who's eerily similar to John L. Smith, Rich Rodriguez...

You Hypocrite!

Now Serving The Latest Episode Of: When Baldwins Attack

And you thought the Al Smith dinner was edgy.

News is good these days - you might even say hopeful. But it can still be a shocking experience to read through the letters section of any given newspaper these days.

Letters to the editor have a bitter humor about them. It's not that they mean to be funny, it's that they're packed with suspiciously-similar-to-campaign-talking-point opinions, which the author often argues as though he or she came up with them. This is something that we're probably all guilty of to some degree.

It seems especially true with letters for McCain. In their case, the phenomenon has been highlighted by his "lurching" campaign: when it's about celebrity, the letter-writers cry "celebrity;" when it's Bill Ayers, they cry "Bill Ayers;" when it's socialism, they cry "socialism;" when it's about being like Osama bin Laden, they cry nutty things at rallies. If McCain actually had a central message, it wouldn't be so obvious; if Obama's campaign had been as erratic, I regret to admit that his letters would likely have been just as bad.

What makes it so disturbing is the presumed independence of these letters. "I am concerned over what I've seen; I could tell so-and-so was lying during the debate; I don't let the media tell me how to think." Less and less people say things like "as far as I know" or "I am convinced when X campaign says..." We could at least admit that we're repeating talking points.

Another disturbing element to these letters is just how many are still rabidly supporting McCain. It's incredible that a solid 40% of the electorate will always support one side - even ideologically, since we've narrowed ourselves down to two opposed camps. But it shouldn't be such a surprise. One of the most "left-leaning" (read: Democrat-supporting, which isn't quite the same thing) papers in the country helps explain why.

No, Obama Bucks aren't responsible for this perpetual symmetry. Much has already been said about this ridiculousness - including Diane Fedele's flat-out lie that she didn't intend KFC, watermelon, kool-aid and ribs as racist imagery - but what's incredible is the way the LA Times reports it. The second half of the headline is "while Democrats rib Palin." In the second half of the article, they say that "Obama supporters have been getting a bit naughty themselves," as if this is equivalent to essentially rousing a national lynch-mob.

False equivalencies are what keep Republicans from getting smothered by the hordes of poor and middle-class people who vote their way. It's become an unquestionable truth that our parties are symmetrical; that every bad move by the GOP supposedly has an equal by the Democrats. Each party is essentially seen to represent the status quo, which is somewhat true, but they're also both seen to be ideological representatives, which is less true (and directly contradicts the idea that they both represent the status quo). Democrats are absolutely not "liberal" in the sense that Republicans are "conservatives."

We've forgotten what those ideological terms even refer to. We've gotten to a point where we can somehow believe the conceit that "elitists" of the left - not the Democratic party specifically, but the left - are going to raise poor people's taxes. In other words, we somehow believe that the ideological position that by definition opposes the status quo is going to reinforce it.

Some of us only see "liberal" and "conservative" as defined by the differences between Democrats and Republicans - effectively the difference between a hybrid Escalade and a normal one (a difference real enough to be worth voting, but slim enough to be significantly weaker than portrayed). This is reinforced every time a mainstream media outlet uses "on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand" reporting; every time David Frum spews out logical garbage like this. We're letting ourselves think that Obama's subtle jabs at McCain's old age are equal to McCain riling up his base and letting them run amok. Nobody's going to assassinate McCain because they don't like how old he is.

When Michael Moore said that he thinks most Americans are liberal, I don't think it was too hard to understand what he meant. When you listen to a lot of Republican voters, they're not always talking about law and order or fears about subversion. They often complain about the intrusion of government, taxes, gun control, or anti-smoking laws. They're complaining about the Man.

We just don't know who "the Man" really is.

I Hear the Lark of a Heavyset Woman

GG

Edit: GG #2 - don't mess with the AARP

"Who's Watching the Watchmen?"

[EDIT: Boy, is it nice to be wrong. I like to think of myself as a political version of a Lions fan - with a 14-point lead and a minute to go, we'd still expect them to lose.]

The people running the McCain campaign are political geniuses. No one knows how America's going to vote better than they do.

Consider what we've seen in the Justice Department recently; consider eight years of dominance by one party over appointed positions.

Now consider this:

"FBI looks into possible Va. voter intimidation"

A little bit about Diebold, whose ATMs I sadly use...

"Voter Caging" (And you thought it was just an innocent slip of the tongue when McCain addressed "my fellow prisoners!")

"Battleground States See Pervasive Effort to Block the Vote"

"Ohio Republicans Use Lawsuit to Fight for State's Crucial Votes"

"Michigan Democrats file lawsuit against Macomb Co. GOP"

So who's ready for posters to pop up in black neighborhoods - from anonymous sources, naturally - providing the wrong date for the election [EDIT: Who called it?], or suggesting that any outstanding fines (such as money owed for traffic tickets) will get you arrested at the polls? Who's ready for a repeat of the shredded registrations debacle from 04? Who's ready for epic, discouraging lines (that remain hours long until the moment the polls close) to vote in poor neighborhoods, while wealthier districts have surplus machines sitting in storage (another 04 story)?

Who's ready for a super-narrow, one-digit-margin victory for President John McCain?

Sarah Palin: Fighting for Women's Rights!

Now Serving HeroBuilders Action Figures


YEAH! That's a plaid skirt of GENDER JUSTICE!

That's the Way the Ball Bounces

To everyone who's called on the American people to make a sacrifice,
to everyone who's bemoaned our decadent and soft lifestyle,
to everyone who's lamented that today's children haven't faced real hardship,
here's what you've been waiting for.

I expect shortly to discover just what I've been taking for granted. It will be a growth experience, I'm sure.

Either that, or it will all have been an embarrassing false alarm. Right? That could still happen, couldn't it?

A Mark Hunter wrote in to the Detroit News, saying "I keep waiting for Orson Welles to appear, explaining that, like the fictitious 1938 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast, this financial calamity is pure fiction."

I think that's wishful thinking.

It's Not My Real Father

I'd like to meet Susan LeFevre and ask her what her opinion is.

I wouldn't specify a topic - I'd ask just that. "Hello, Susan. My name is Joel, one of thousands of people who impersonally know you. What's your opinion?"

Still waiting on that pardon from our Governor, if in fact she really is that. I begin to suspect that we are not governed by Jennifer Granholm, but rather a poorly-designed robot incapable of taking action outside its narrow and limited programming. It's definitely trying to do a good job - but it's a robot.

As I've said earlier, I pray we never have to depend on Susan LeFevre's faith in humanity. And I'd really like to meet her, to apologize for something (I don't know exactly what), and ask her opinion.

What does Susan LeFevre think of the energy crisis? Who does she favor in the presidential election? Does she prefer PCs, or Macs? Does she think I look like Bill Murray?

I think the only reason she's still in jail, really, is because she has a French last name. The French are right there in third place, behind Arabs and non-Arab Muslims, just above Indians-who-are-commonly-mistaken-for-Arabs, on the list of prejudged people in America.

This morning, I went for a run around the block. Upon my return, I had pastries, green tea and ice-water. At my own pace, I took my breakfast with me to the computer. I now sit in front of it, idly thinking of what to type next as I stare out the window. At this time of morning, the sun reaches gently through it, making solar glare the most significant difficulty I currently face.

From this point, it would be ignorant and naive to say that I have an abusive father. I'm rather one of my father's favorite sons, for whom scorn is unknown, and gifts abundant. At Christmas time, Daddy doesn't want me to look in the corner at my sister, clad in rags and idly staring through black eyes at her happy meal toy. He shows me shiny new iMacs and video games, and then despairs as I can't take college seriously.

Barack, You Should Have Practiced With My Grandpa

Debates are awesome.

Is there any competition so subjectively judged, with such bias in virtually every spectator (other than figure skating)? Is there any other kind of struggle, whose victory conditions are not only amorphous and vague, but even unpredictable and as fickle as public opinion?

My day could have ended with the sad knowledge that my candidate lost the debate - even got trounced and laughed at. Fortunately, I stayed up late enough to see the poll numbers.

Wow. So after my initial surprise, and soberly acknowledging that unscientific polls are severely flawed, my question is this: with most pundits saying the debate was a tie, how is it that only 6.4% of those polled think so?

I think this tells us something about what kinds of people respond to post-debate online polls - people like me, who thought McCain won, but will gladly claim the opposite for a poll. Bwahahahaha. Ugh.

Is it just me, or does all of this hoopla seem like insubstantial fluff, more like an inconsequential sports match than a debate over the future of our country?

Expensive Stuff

I was at dinner with my extended family, unable to relax or take more than an obligatory part in the conversation. I was hiding scraps of weed in one of my hands, desperately searching for a safe way to get rid of the stuff.

Opportunity seemed to present itself: a bowl of pesto afforded my schwag the finest camouflage one could ask of an Italian dinner. Deciding that I would sort it out later, I deposited my forbidden valuables in the bowl.

It was only then that I realized: pesto isn't usually stored in liquid. In this particular case, it was. I saw then that it wasn't just any liquid, either - it was my sister's perfume.

As she began to look at me, aghast, I insisted that I would sort the pesto out from her perfume, promising to lose as little perfume as possible. She seemed unconvinced.

What my extended family thought, I have no idea. That was when I woke up.

My Friends...

"He won that election, right?"

The Real Reason She Got Fired

Now Serving Crispy Bruschetta with Scapegoat Cheese

Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett-Packard and until recently advisor to the McCain campaign, caused a small stir when she said that Sarah Palin did not have the experience to run a major company. She later qualified this comment by adding that John McCain didn't have that kind of experience, either. Finally, she added that Barack Obama and Joe Biden couldn't run a major company either, before promptly being fired.

Here's my quick, irrelevant question, before we get on to the big beef here: Should we expect candidates for president to have the experience necessary to run a company - not just the ability or leadership qualities, but the experience? Hilariously, Fiorina's defense of her statements, something to the effect of "But Palin isn't running for CEO," was a legitimate point. It's absurd to expect our presidential candidates to be qualified for a very different job, but this obvious truth was lost in a world where nuance is largely ignored, and oversimplification is the order of the day.

We shouldn't be talking about who can and can't run a major company. CEOs are accountable to shareholders; Presidents are accountable to everybody. CEOs don't veto legislation, engage in diplomacy with other countries (oh sure, "diplomacy" with other CEOs. Must a CEO study the cultural practices of other companies before going abroad to speak with them?), or have to deal with anything resembling Congress and the Supreme Court. CEOs manage companies; presidents manage economies. CEOs don't have any kind of authority over war (well, at least in theory), over "hot-button social issues" like abortion or gay marriage. CEOs are not expected to perfectly execute that most vague and difficult of tasks, "being a leader" to an entire nation of people.

Anyway. The real reason Carly Fiorina got fired was not for her candid statements about her boss, which should not have (but probably has) hurt his campaign, but because of her very un-hip reaction to Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. There's nothing John McCain hates more than to be portrayed as uncool and behind the times. (All those celebrity ads about Obama? As MSNBC's liberal talking heads suggested, I think he's jealous of Obama's coolness.)

Even as Johnny Mac and Sarah P were saying nice things about the SNL skit, Fiorina derided it as "sexist." (In what way, you ask? Because she thought it made Hillary Clinton, who incidentally is a woman, look better than Sarah Palin.) Ooops.

The Campaign: "Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain, and almost all the campaign staff, watched it and thought it was hilarious. Carly is speaking for herself."

Warrior Culture

Can we just stop pretending that we like peace, for just a minute? Because we don't.

We've got a war on drugs, a war on terrorism, a culture war and a class war. We're proud of our military, proud of our military history, and proud of our competitive spirit. We love politicians who say they're going to fight - for our rights, for our families, against corruption, etc. It's no coincidence that football is our favorite sport; that it defeated docile baseball for that title. We're pretty excited about guns, too.

Much has been said of our love for violent film and television. Much has been said of human nature being violent at its core; if that's the case, we're not doing much to collectively resist that impulse.

Much has been said, in fact, about all of these things. Many commentators have pointed out that ours is a violent culture, and that's the most telling sign of all: we haven't changed. Brought to face our love of violence, our response has been "So? What's wrong with it?"

In public, we certainly speak of peace. Certainly it would look bad, in public, to support a statement like this: "Trample the weak, hurdle the dead." But the world in which we purchase goods is private, and here is where we show our true colors.

Old People Love to Argue

Dear Barack Obama,

Hello. My name is Joel, and I'm a canvasser working for your campaign. I'd like to talk to you a little bit about my grandfather.

My grandfather is 94 years old. He's had several strokes, and is now afflicted with a debilitating dementia that renders him barely able to communicate, let alone remember most things. He has military experience, and rose to the rank of staff sergeant; today, he'll confusedly report having been a staff sergeant at his local synagogue.

Three times a week, I go to his house to help take him to an adult day-care center. As he's in a wheel-chair, it takes two people (myself and a hired helper) to get him out of the house, into a car, and back again later in the day. What little time he has at this center is all he has to look forward to, other than his favorite food, White Castle hamburgers. (Ironically, he was once president of the Michigan Public Health Association.)

I'm writing you not about any particular seniors' issue, or about any particular disease. I am not advocating for federally funded programs for old people or anything relating to social security. I am, in fact, suggesting my grandfather as a possible practice-opponent to help you prepare for your upcoming debates with John McCain. With Jennifer Granholm playing the part of Sarah Palin for the sake of honing Joe Biden's debate skills, I figure you need someone who somewhat resembles John McCain. My grandfather has experience in the military, was engaged in politics through his public health career (where he was even a president!), and most importantly, will present you with an intellectual challenge similar to what you'll face in the real debates.

Thank you for your time,

Me

P.S. - I can't believe you're in favor of charter schools! You can be a real schmuck sometimes, you know that?

Right From the Heart

Now Serving Thuggery

Hunter S. Thompson Rides Again!

I should do some submersion journalism, from the perspective of a door-to-door canvasser. Man, do I have some stories.

"Can I just say this?" began the staunch Democrat. She had informed me that she hated McCain, but couldn't vote for Obama. I didn't ask why. "This is from the heart - I really just want to say this: to have a black man in the White House, it's just un-American. I really think that." Maybe she was more of a pre-1960s democrat.

When I played World of Warcraft, I had a guild-leader who said "Everybody who's white is white trash. If you think you're not, that just means you're trashier." I've since discovered that he was right; I was living in willful ignorance of my own trashy tendencies. Not only have I sat in a sofa that was on a front lawn, it was an inclined lawn, and I was smoking cigarettes. I've drunk Budweiser - and liked it. I have shot off a firework while it was in my hand (it was a really small one). I've never eaten squirrel, but I did room with a guy who had. So when I met a woman who'd hated Obama until two weeks ago, which was when she discovered he's a democrat, I took it in stride and signed her right up as a supporter. Hell, I myself didn't know who Sarah Palin was until August 29th.

Itchy Itchy

Now Serving Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Latex and Leather Flavors

This place smells like dryer sheets.

I was relieved to find red stains on my socks. I feel like having blood in your socks means you've truly made a sacrifice - like, you're so hardcore, you've done something until your feet bled. That something need not have been dancing, running, or a winter at Valley Forge. It can be something like scratching mosquito bites on your ankles way too much - it's still hardcore.

Here's a shocker - Comcast is appealing the FCC's recent pro-net neutrality ruling. And apparently, public interest groups supporting net neutrality are suing the FCC, for not requiring Comcast to stop its bittorrent-blocking immediately.

I'm not sure that's a useful expenditure of our energy, pissing off the organization that we're trying to influence.

If this is an economic issue, we should look at the economic side of it. It seems to me that without net neutrality, we will allow a monopolizing of internet business. As I understand it, monopolies aren't good for the overall health of the economy. It seems like a compelling reason to believe that the telecomm industry isn't looking out for the health of the market, as they claim, so much as the short-term health of their own businesses. (Another excellent reason - the many corporations that support net neutrality).

And, you know, there are those ethical reasons. And the democracy thing.

I Don't Get It

I'm sitting in front of my computer.

My parents paid for this computer, mostly. I paid for as much of it as I could, and the rest was covered by a generous, no-interest parental loan. A rare instance of my benefiting from inflation.

I feel spoiled. I don't want to call it "my computer," I want to call it "the computer."

This is one of the two activities that dominate my time in my room, which dominates the time in my life. I lie in my bed, or I sit in front of my computer. I listen longingly to the eccentricities and surprises of strange music, filling up with frustration. I feel like I can hear what I'm missing out on. I don't know anything about the creative process of this music, the people and relationships that make it, or the feel of the places where it comes from. They're inaccessibly distant, not just because they're mostly in Canada.

From where I lie on my bed, I used to see a Red Wings banner celebrating their 2008 Stanley Cup championship. I'd hung it up on the back of one of the bookshelves that forms a wall of my room. I'd never liked its layout, and it was beginning to resonate with the power of stir crazy monotony, so I took it off recently.

I think a lot, and very hard. I spend a lot of time staring. When I'm lying in bed, I see what looks like a shadow on the back of that bookshelf, a permanent sun-protected imprint of my Red Wings poster.

I also took away a medal I'd hung up, one of those you win just by being on the kids' soccer team. Looking now, I see that it too left an imprint, what looks like a scorch mark down the back of the other bookshelf.

I walk up and down the stairs a lot. Sometimes I don't have a reason. I plan on doing something just after I get back from the upstairs trip I need to take. I can't quite speak. I walk around. I look in the fridge. I can't quite speak. I dismiss what's on TV. I walk around. I look in the fridge. I dismiss what's on TV. I go back downstairs.

My soccer medal was on a necklace. I don't know what they're called, those things for hanging medals around necks (or keys, I often see). Some of them advertise for colleges, or the army. My soccer necklace looked like a party hat from Chuck. E. Cheese's.

Songs pop into my head with the appropriateness of network news. Lighting up a cigarette, I hear Stevie Jackson singing "...smoke another one..." When I'm overwrought, I hear "Take it Easy." When I realize that I need google to know anything about a song's context, I hear the Beatles' "Nowhere Man."

Is that actually the name of the song? I don't remember.

I've Got Your Submersion Journalism Right Here

Now Serving Gonzo's Haircut and Nose Job

Bad Media! Take a Timeout!

It's almost as though the McCain campaign thinks politicians are entitled to keep a leash on journalists, and not the other way around.

I don't understand how this can be spun into "bias." It was a textbook example of a disingenuous, slimy weasel dodging a question. He got called on the carpet for it, and yet somehow people come away from that thinking that the interviewer was "foisting her opinions on the public."

I guess a journalist is entitled to the opinion that truth has value, so long as that journalist remains objective and respects differing opinions about truth. If the facts heavily favor one side in a debate, fudge them until you've got a symmetrical difference of opinion. Don't make the flat earth society look stupid; don't have a story about Obama without an equal-length story about McCain right next to it; don't bully the brave souls who speak to you by asking them questions they weren't prepared for in advance. To rock the boat or hold public officials to any kind of standard is to completely compromise your journalistic integrity.

In other news, PETA fought for cops' rights by protesting at the ham factory. I saw it myself.

Routine Alarm

A star whose words are nightly ritual
lists nouns foreign in my own tongue.

Places without postcards
where people live
exist, and things are happening.
Here are some names for you.

I'm the only one listening.
I can't mark the patterns
or find context for my first
question. I wonder if I'm really listening.

With more strange gifts
left admired, unused and forgotten,
the words become bland,
filtered as I want
and not as I need -

a solo experience,
intimate time spent with
the dynamic world I never
meet in real life.

"Hot Damn" Indeed

Now Serving Raw Moose and Jack Daniels

With his selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate, John McCain has made it clear he's not above using cynical ploys to garner votes from horny conservative men.

Step Aside, Ann Coulter. Not only did Rush Limbaugh call Palin a "babe," his callers are chiming in: "...she's attractive, not in a superficial Hollywood way, she's just an attractive woman..." There is some speculation that Palin's selection may backfire for McCain, but Rush disagrees: "She's not going to remind anybody of their ex-wife, she's going to remind men, 'Gee, I wish she was single.'"

Fear not, men of America: John McCain has not nominated a nag to the White House.

Q: "What is it exactly that the VP does every day?"

A: Get the President a sandwich and a beer?

Oh yeah, and show up at funerals. That's the other one people are mentioning a lot, for some strange reason.

Personally, I'm concerned about this comment of hers: "But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all." Since Hillary was running for president, and Palin's only running for vice president, we're forced to assume that she's plotting to assassinate McCain - possibly by giving him a heart attack. (We know she's got his supporters excited.)

Seriously, though, as a male feminst, I'm very happy about this pick.* I'm proud to say I'll be voting for McCain/Palin, and I hope Sarah Palin will go on to be our next vice president. I can't think of a better role model for our daughters, and I'm confident that she'll inspire the next generation of American women to smile, wave, and look pretty at the side of old men.

And she's got the same independent streak McCain has. She may be foaming at the mouth with the reactionary policies of the status quo; she may be falling over herself trying to emphasize her traditional family and traditional values; she may oppose abortions even for rape victims or women whose lives are threatened by pregnancy, but she's a maverick. You can tell by the rebellious ways of her daughters - one is boldly challenging the patriarchal hierarchy by having a child out of wedlock, while the other can be seen courageously crossing her arms for the national anthem.

*The real reason feminists are happy about this pick: it appears that it might sink McCain's campaign. Not that it'll matter, of course - with men like these, institutions like this, and companies like Diebold around, who needs to win voters?

Stumbling

Now Serving More Interwebby Goodness

Pandora Radio had better Watch Out. So many new age projects! So many revolutions and bright futures! I can't see any more.

I think this confuses some things, but it's definitely interesting.

Dial a Human! Oh, man! That's classic! Before I go off mocking somebody for the fact that this thing exists, I'm going to bookmark it...what? I don't actually call those numbers, heavens no! I'm not a consumer, I swear...

Nothing new in this one, just kinda clever...

You could have a lot of demographic fun analyzing this gas-map. Is gas in higher demand, generally, in western states?

I wonder if this artist is affiliated with Depthcore at all? Either way, I've been led to Desktopography by him.

"We're the Same Capitalists as You"

Now Serving Survival Knowledge

And if you don't like it, talk to Alexander Litvinenko!

Everyone's talking about the western media bias regarding the war in Georgia. I'll admit it's not a clear-cut case of good vs. evil, but it's hard to ignore the massive quantities of evil produced by the Russian mob.

Meanwhile: which one is the Grand Oil Party again?

And You Can Safely Microwave Plastic, Too

Now Serving BPA, because it builds character

The FDA is Looking Out for You, but not really. They're drinking the kool-aid put out by the American Chemistry Council (read: the industry that benefits from BPA being legal) and their Lies, Courtesy of a Google Sponsored Link. I think the kool-aid has been spiked, with lots of dollars.

So...Failure Drug Administration? Food and Drug Approval? Fiscally Drugged Assholes? I can't settle on one.

Greater Chain of Bullying

Now Serving Savagery

United States
Russia
Georgia
South Ossetia
-------------------
"journalists"
me

The War on Terror: Railing hopelessly since 2001.

I think the kicker, for me, has been watching Sean Hannity tell a woman from the Westboro Baptist Church that she was "soulless, thoughtless, mean human being." Man, that's a hoot. That's Daily Show material, right there.

If you're like me, and you like laughing, watch Louis Theroux's time with them.

This is Why I Don't Trust Barack Obama

Now Serving Betrayal, Again

I'll Stand By This Accusation With a Straight Face, Thank You Very Much.

Extra Bonus Game Time - Courtesy of the Political Compass' "Iconochasms" quiz!

"Who in 1997 championed the privatization of California's National Oil Reserve, and the subsequent drilling by Occidental that resulted in serious environmental damage, destruction to a sacred Indian burial ground and a windfall for his family trust's Occidental stocks? (Occidental also put a pipeline through the Colombian rain forest.)"

a) Robert Redford
b) Al Gore
c) Ralph Nader
d) David Cobb

"Who said that the introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals?"

a) Henry Kissinger
b) Dick Cheney
c) Paul Wolfowitz
d) Donald Rumsfeld

"Who
(1) worked for Senator McCarthy during his red witch hunts and
(2) permitted J.Edgar Hoover to wiretap Martin Luther King?"

a) J.K. Galbraith
b) Robert Kennedy
c) George McGovern
d) Ted Kennedy

For answers (and the entire quiz), I again direct you to The Political Compass' "Ichonocasms" quiz.

Now, I know what you're saying. "Tell me about something that actually has to do with Obama." Alright, okay - if you insist.

Chasing My Tail

Today I smoked Al Capone's operations in Honduras.

Optimists forge ahead, pleasing everyone. T. Boone Pickens and Steve Jobs buy clothing from American Apparel. The miracles we impatiently wait for eventually arrive and we all celebrate, hugging enemies with growing warmth and good cheer. Everyone has a beer.

...I'm out of beer.

One of my friends thinks that Vladimir Putin is the antichrist. I wonder what these past few days have been like for him? I wonder how this relates to his motivations, desires, and long-term intentions?

Pink Autumn Hero Dream

Now Serving Peanuts and Water

-

One drug two drug three drug blue drug,
four fever five fever six fever jive fever,
seven drug eight drug nine drug late drug,
ten fever eleven fever twelve fever heaven fever.

It's crashing across the mind
unlooked for and welcome
and with great strain grasped
before slipping,

and falling,

and breaking its hip, then

stuffed and looked upon longingly.

-

I'm sober. These have just been whirling around my mind, and I caught them while sleep-fishing.

And, I just heard Pat Carrabre say "You can guess that the pattern music is about to continue" for the second time tonight. I heard it first an hour ago.

My Everything Hurts

Susan LeFevre is still in jail.

Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. Sure, it's an unethical and unnecessary waste of the state's money to incarcerate a harmless woman for a non-violent drug-related crime she committed several decades ago, but when you really think about it...never mind.

Turned into a rhetorical battleground and forgotten, I sure hope we never have to count on Susan LeFevre's faith in humanity for anything important.

...or our government.

The "War on Drugs" has really become a punch-line, in and of itself. Why'd the chicken cross the road? The War on Drugs! Ahahaha. Ahaha. Ugh.

Anybody got a light? No? Alright, I'm out.

Gone Digging

But Then What Happened? (The citizens were arrested for trespassing and released without charges.)

Where Were You Four Years Ago? (Working on this?)

You know, they say China is finding authoritarian stability by providing a cozy middle-class lifestyle in place of human rights. "Now it seems possible," Perry Link tells Ken Silverstein of Harper's Magazine, "that Chinese leaders will establish a model - not just for China itself but for other countries around the world that admire the way the Chinese government is structuring its society in an authoritarian manner but also making money, so that the populace is kept happy without democracy or civil liberties."

Bring It On, we've got New Yorker reporters ready to take you. (Where was Seymour Hirsch four years ago? Receiving a Menorah Award. He was on the bandwagon before it was the bandwagon.)

Diggers Dig Nancy Pelosi; forget that turning off the lights and killing the microphones saves energy (as opposed to congress talking about gas prices, which is a waste of energy).

No one's willing to admit that they have it in for female politicians. One can speak truth without maintaining an honest focus; if the President started talking about how grass is green and 2+2 is 4, we'd say that real issues are being ignored, wouldn't we? How hard is it to prove that a politician is dirty?

Carl Pope Thinks This Man is a Hero.

Also, did you know that MoveOn.org resorts to the same slimy partisan-non-profit fundraising tactics as the College Republicans? (Did you know that Jack Abramoff used to lead the College Republicans, and turned them into the Republican farm system they are today? Did you know that he and other Republicans of the era were stalwartly behind apartheid South Africa?) Now who do you trust, eh?

Are you like me? Do you only trust Hunter S. Thompson and a few other dead people?

Spitting Blood

Edit ~ I was sleep-deprived and slightly inebriated when this came spewing out, speaking volumes to the danger of that combination. I think I was wrong, but I'm leaving this post up for posterity, or something like that.

My family was watching the old TV show "The Fugitive" together, on the computer I'm currently staring at. My dad got it on DVD. When we'd finished the episode we were watching, my sister happily announced that she was done with musical theater.

Surely, she meant that she was finished with some specific musical-related obligation. She didn't mean she was giving up on her dream of many years, a dream spoken of in the music I constantly heard her listening to and singing around the house. At this point, you've probably realized that, in fact, she meant just that.

I don't remember much of what happened next. There was something about it being cutthroat, bringing out a side of her that she didn't like, stress and general misery, the line "I just don't want it badly enough to put myself through that," and my lip being vigorously bitten. No, I seem to recall mentioning, it wasn't that I disagreed with her decision.

The next thing I knew, I was crying outside. I heard my name called, and fled to the side of the garage. Thinking my sister was coming for me, I snuck around the back, and peeked back at the house, to see that she in fact wasn't. I shot hoops, and thought about the fact that I had never dreamed of being a basketball star, or ever had any interest in playing the game other than for fun.

I have also never dreamed about doing steroids, stabbing my friends in the back, making myself miserable, taking ADD meds before a test, becoming a consultant for the state-side lobbying group of an authoritarian state, sucking up, dying of heat exhaustion, using secret video footage to decipher the opposing team's hand signals, or becoming an inspirational speaker. I have daydreamed about punching one in the neck.

My sister's announcement was happy. It signified the end of a period in her life in which she was subjected to the savageries of a dog-eat-dog line of work. (This is where I bit my lip.) It was a decision she'd already made, with the melodrama behind her, or at least behind her relieved face. And I wasn't lying when I said I didn't disagree with her decision.

I have this unfortunate tendency to imagine things as they couldn't be - to imagine a world where we didn't commodify people, or at least one where my sister didn't think she was too fat to deserve happiness. ("Doesn't she know better?" Of course she fucking knows better, and it doesn't help.) I also have this unfortunate tendency to, after writing "cynical" things like that, imagine assholes telling me "That's an ignorant, self-defeating conceit."

The conceit is the inspirational poster placed to improve productivity. The conceit is in human interest news; in the miraculous recovery of the Major League Baseball player addicted to drugs. While a stadium worships him for his strength, millions die alone with bitter final thoughts and no happy ending. Other millions wish to death that they could be that MLB player, and would do anything to be there. These wishes are something we're proud of; the burning desire something we glorify. I'd say we've forgotten what "would do anything" really means, but I don't think that we've forgotten.

No, I'm not an expert on musical theater. Yes, I'm a child of privilege. No, it isn't the end of the world for my sister, who isn't even in college yet. Yes, I understand that I don't know everything, and that I'm inexperienced. And finally, no, I don't pretend that I'm innocent of all the things I criticize our values for. I'm a human being, too; specifically an American human being.

There's something strange about the words "cynical" and "optimistic." They sometimes seem to imply that the people they describe don't believe in objective truth, which is somehow magically in the middle; cynics and optimists are deluding themselves. That makes no sense to me. It makes no sense to me when a "cynic" or "optimist" uses such a word self-referentially, as though they themselves are saying "I warp the truth in a particular direction." Don't they believe what they believe?

I'm not looking at the glass and saying "It's half empty." I'm looking at a glass that doesn't have enough fucking water for all the people who need it - perhaps because "that's the way it is," or perhaps because someone took more than their fair share. Either way, I think I'm allowed to be upset by this - especially after being lied to about it.

I don't claim to know everything, and I guess there's some hope in that I could have things wrong. Maybe it's just as simple as me being really angry.

Thanks for the Confusion, Pop Psychology

Extra Bonus Game Time!

Which of these statements are positive, and which are negative?

a) "You did a bad job."
b) "You didn't do a good job."
c) "You did a good job."
d) "You didn't do a bad job."

If you're confused, don't worry. I am too.

Blowing It Out My Blowhole

As some may have noticed, I'm on a serious Electric Six kick.

"Now you see, the unavoidable is hard to avoid. Wake up in your own drool to find that your future is destroyed."

After that, he talks about minds being lost. And this is the part where I earn a gold star next to my name on the list of suspected terrorists.

I think I've got a new version of American History:

1) David slings Goliath in the face. The peasants rejoice.
2) David decides that next time, his enemy will probably have a forehead-protector. David does steroids.
3) David develops rippling muscles and small non-manly boobs.
4) David sheds all pretension to innocence and pulls a Robert Mugabe.
5) David, now a big mean tyrant, is almost killed when a small shepherd hits him in the face with a rock. The steroids made him susceptible to injury, but fortunately this shepherd had smoked too much of the hashish that David had given him, and couldn't hit hard enough for a killing blow.
6) David gets a forehead-protector, and doses up on medication that offsets his higher-risk-of-injury from steroids. (Side effects include losing his last shred of humanity.)
7) David returns to the shepherd that tried to hit him, bends him over, rapes him, decapitates him, and puts his head on a pike as a warning to other shepherds.
8) Bored, David goes around stabbing people who refuse to buy his steroids (or, if they have their own steroids, who refuse to give them to David for free).
9) Hearing that there are fellow-Judeans in China (true story!), David heads east and meets some Chinese people. When they seem to have some steroids of their own to sell, a confrontation develops.

Which asshole will win? Tune in next century for the exciting next chapter (and possible conclusion?) of American history!

Now, let me be absolutely clear here. This is not a story of an innocent tyrant-slayer turning into the same thing he once hated. This is a story of an out-of-work tyrant getting a job.

Our founding fathers had more than just "small character flaws," such as having slaves. They had huge character flaws, such as having slaves. They were Englishmen in an era of English Imperialism. They figured "We can do this empire bit better, so let's pull some shit about 'freedom' out of our asses, only give it to white male land-owners who aren't whiny pinkos, and get down to the business of killing brown/red people and taking all their stuff."

Sound like anti-American propaganda? I ask you: who can tell a story of himself and not be biased? "David" told us all his version of these events, and that's the only version we're raised to see as credible. "If you don't like it, you can blow it out your blowhole," like I'm doing.

By the by, I never said that I hated my own country. I don't. How can you hate the place whose people are most similar to you? How can I hate people who were essentially raised in the same way I was, in the same place and speaking the same language? Neither "My country, right or wrong" nor "My country, always wrong" are really going to get the job done for you. If you can't see the difference between what I'm saying here and what I've said previously in this post, scrutinize it more carefully.

French Underground

Well! The Daily Show has leapfrogged The Huffington Post in my imaginary list of favorite political commentators.

Unlike the Huffington Post (take a first glance here, here, here, here, and in the minority opinion, here), they had the balls to ask: should we be mad at the New Yorker, or every other American south of the Mason-Dixie line? The kind of people who produce and buy these?

I wonder if they ever got around to suing that schmuck?

"Norman acknowledged the imagery's Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey.

'We're not living in the (19)40's', he said. 'Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears -- he looks just like Curious George.'"

Extra Special Bonus Game Time - Some people say things like "I thought George Bush was depicted as Curious George several years ago. Was that a racist statement too?"

Ah, those silly ignorant liberal hypocrites. Always so selective with the truth! Always making such harsh generalizations about the south! I daresay they're racist against white people. Shit, I know I am.

Frankly, it's a question of sports. Replacing hockey with NASCAR is enough for me to judge you as a people. And I do.

In keeping with my status as a racist liberal, I'll say "Many of my friends are from the south! Don't worry!" Shoot, I even have an aunt from Texas. But guess where she doesn't live any more? (Admittedly, it's not because she hated it there at all; she's quite proud of her home, and all this silliness aside, I say good for her.)

Let's talk about hate crimes. My good friend, a deliverer of pizzas, was locked in high-speed car-to-car battle with a gentlemen who had a "Don't Mess with Texas" bumper sticker. My friend triumphed when he tossed a burrito, Anchorman-style, through two open car windows straight at the guy's face. He even preceded it with a one-liner: "Hey Tex - Mess with This!" His only regret is that he didn't speed away screaming "AWWWW, SKEET SKEET SKEET MOTHERFUCKER."

Sounds like a hate crime to me. (Why did he get pissed, you ask? Our friend the Texan opted to drive slowly in front of him, put on his turn signal and slow down at every turn, only to continue going straight. Our hypothesis is that he knew a pizza delivery boy was behind him by his incredible powers of deduction - there's a "Mr. Pizza/Burrito Joint" sign on top of my friend's car - and was from Texas.)

Meanwhile, I oppressed college conservatives. There was a poster on a bathroom door, placed there by two conservative professors (one of them the sponsor of MSU's YAF, a group whose leader wears a ten-gallon cowboy hat the size of his entire body, and which opted to use music from the video game "Command and Conquer" for one of their videos) who felt that conservative voices on campus are unfairly silenced. They were half right, as I tore off the poster and took a long, satisfying dump on it.

I'm really not ashamed. To paraphrase a conservative argument, when someone declares war on you, you don't just sit back and respect their free speech. You shit on their posters. Yes, I understand that cooperation provides a much better chance for progress, and no, I don't think that culture war polemics will help our situation. The difference is, I recognize that "You can play your electric guitar, but it ain't gonna change the wo-h-h-horld."

I don't know about you, but I'm going down fighting.

It's Not Flip-Flopping if You Never Flipped Before You Flopped

After night comes mourning.

My friend attended a mourning, in which the chauvanist bitches and womanizing cunts in his family were too good for diners. He was heartened to see a "Coexist" bumper sticker, which in fact turned out to be an ad for a car dealership.

What's the difference between a Fleetwood and a Denny's? My friend says Denny's is more upscale. I say, Barack Obama is more liberal. (That's not a reference to Denny's infamous history with racism.)

Yes, that's the thing on our minds. I wonder if his supporters find something symbolic in the etymology of his first name? Google produces answers to my question.

I also found some answers here. The post about "chimerical," criticizing Clinton, caught my eye. Are not these same criticisms leveled against dreamers and idealists? With that in mind, we can at least note that the post about "chimerical" isn't hypocritical.

Dead-End Machine

At the outset, I lied and said that I understood how funny it all was. You would too, if you were me. But now, I think I really get the joke. Maybe.

When it got really bad, I used to scream my lungs out. I don't any more.

I used to deceive myself. I don't any more.

I used to cycle. I don't any more.

I used to eat pancakes for dinner. I don't any more.

I used to sit for the national anthem. Now I stand.

I used to look forward to things; now I live in the present.

I used to like every movie I saw. I don't any more. (Blame formulaic father-son movies.)

I used to think my youth was in the past. I don't any more.

I used myself up.

Perhaps that judgement is arrogant, ignorant and hasty - but there it is. When I was little I used to try to convince my mom that I was stupid; she kept saying I was wrong, and I countered that if I was wrong, wasn't I stupid? I guess that was arrogant, ignorant and hasty.

Yes, I see the irony. Maybe.

It's Time for Fight

I shared my arrangement of a bowl, a plate, a moist tea-bag, four beer bottles, three bottle-caps, and something else I can't remember with those of my friends who are generic. They deemed it a fine retirement fund.

We are all secretly afflicted with a fatal disease. It's a unique secret in that everyone knows it, but it's still a secret. Hiding in plain sight, it explains - with startlingly mechanical simplicity - every finest detail of our culture, encompasses the whole of our soul-searching, and can be tangibly identified. It is a premise upon which virtually all wisdom is based, and the reason for which wisdom is sought.

I used to think it was strange when I encountered comments that were openly obsessed with it. I don't any more. I've become obsessed with it, and I've come to understand this obsession as being more common than I previously thought. It goes beyond metal music and the morbid thoughts of twisted, depraved thinkers. Christian self-help writers are talking about it. Paul McCartney is talking about it. The elderly wrestle with it titanically, and show their age by keeping calm for our sake - the sake of those blissful many who don't really know what they know, who think that they will live forever.

So why is it a secret? That's the answer that can't be shared; I think I know it, and I think I could write my answer, but it would lose its truth. This answer can only exist internally; nothing external reaches that loneliest point to which it pertains. Besides, I'm not sure.

Country Girls and City Boys

I'm sorry, he just didn't see you.

You black women and white men
were out at work when
the light bard danced around us,

and drew our hearts gently
to the wonders of beautiful opposites.
Now your room is rented

to compliments, and
the coming children of
the most beautiful people.

There aren't songs enough for everyone -
for hard-working women and savvy gentlemen,
for lady-ballers and horses' riders,
but please be consoled:

Please understand he didn't mean it,
you weren't there to compete,
it was just time and place seeming wrong;
you were just ignored.

Column V

Now Serving What Will Hopefully be my Fifth Column for the Fifth Column

To grow up in America is to navigate a world where the line between scam and legitimate business is so blurry as not to exist.

Which is fine, because we're all educated consumers. Not only are we all “rational,” but every single choice we make in the market is made “in our best interests.” (Ask your economics professor.) We should be able to distinguish between a scam, a very sketchy but legal business, and a “legitimate” business. Those who can't make the distinction, well, that's our meritorious system weeding out the weak – indiscriminate of race, class or creed! I know I'm proud of it.

Now, one of the duties of the good consumer is not only to learn what is and isn't a scam, but also to share this knowledge with his fellow consumers. To that end, I've compiled a handy guide in this very column.

Many students here at Michigan State have come across excellent opportunities in poetry contests from the National Library of Poetry (or the “International Society of Poets,” “Poetry.com,” etc...). This is a real organization, and they don't lie to you! When you submit a poem to their contest, you will become a semi-finalist eligible to purchase a book with all the semi-finalists' poems! Not only are they truthful in this, they even heighten the accomplishment by implying (but never explicitly saying) that some applicants won't reach the semi-finals.

Consumers, don't be fooled – this is not a scam! Most Better Business Bureaus around the country have no problem with the National Library of Poetry (and its many affiliates); many rate it quite highly! Just do a nation-wide search on their website, www.bbb.org, where they urge you to “Start With Trust.”

It's also a common misconception that dieting products - like the kind you see advertised between “Girls Gone Wild” ads on late-night cable - are sometimes illegitimate. My fellow consumers, this is merely paranoia sparked by sleep deprivation. We must be rational consumers and base our decisions on research, which diet pill providers have generously provided us with.

Take, for example, the “Go Girl” line of energy drinks, by the Nor-Cal Beverage Company. From their site: “Go Girl is a great tasting energy drink made especially for today's active female. It has all the benefits of an energy drink plus it's low calorie, low in sugar or sugar free, and has a mild herbal appetite suppressant.”

Citrimax, the “mild herbal appetite suppressant” in Go Girl, has been found to have no negative side effects (unless you look at citrimax pills on www.webmd.com), and is proven to possibly actually reduce appetite! The research was done mostly on animals prior to 1988, according to a site that sells citrimax, www.bodyandfitness.com. If you're concerned about the legitimacy of that research, let me remind you that research is like a fine wine - it can only get better with age.

Despite the available facts, some are still concerned about Go Girl. Put to rest your fears – what scam would charge a mere $44 per 288oz case? And with such reasonable prices, there's still money leftover for Go Girl to “passionately support Breast & Ovarian Cancer research and awareness. A portion of the proceeds of each case sold is donated to affiliated foundations.” They don't say how much on their site, but the educated consumer must also utilize the telephone! I learned that they donate 25¢ per case, and that they estimate they've donated over $40,000 in total, including sponsorships of fundraisers. How could such a noble enterprise be a scam? Why, they'll probably start donating to female body image and self-esteem programs next!

There are some who question the notion that we should rely on educated consumers – some who believe that the government should step in and unnecessarily regulate our economy. They say that the consumer is at an unfair disadvantage – or worse, they whine about the millions of people too poor to be consumers! For these people who don't see the folly of their own communist sympathies, I have an example of a scammer: Dick DeVos. His father's company, Amway, was involved in a soap-selling pyramid scheme that he routinely praised, and pyramid schemes are illegal. Yet the educated consumers of Michigan protected themselves when he ran for Governor – only 31% of Michiganders were willing to vote for a scammer! One might argue that the other 69% also voted for a scammer, but to that, I say Hey – that's politics.

Pride

Now Serving Psychiatry at its Finest (no sarcasm)


Maybe the difference between an addiction and a passion is that an addiction can jeopardize itself. Some people would play WoW through a lightning storm; some drug addicts would dope themselves broke.

Everything is a little diminished after a brownout, and moreso after the next. I think we went that way willingly, we of this community struck by brownouts. We got a little high off of our dazed electronic equipment, waking up in a stupor, only (on one occasion) to be smacked down before waking.

Without my computer, I'd be cut off from the ways of knowledge-gathering I know best. I'd be cut off from fascinating stories about people like Jerald Block, or things like this. I don't go out to buildings that house people and groups I'm interested in.

Everyone likes to talk about lightning storms as little microcosmic hubris tales, and I guess it's fitting. But I like it this way. I'm a human being, subject to the world I live in, who needs to know when and what to adjust in response to that world. I will die, after I've been a moving part of the world. This is something to be proud of.

Ow, My Poor Soul

Now Serving Values

"Do you feel safe with Bush as president?

[YES] [NO]

Answer now for a chance to win $50,000!"

We'll be selling tickets to our own funeral.

Where the Hell is John Hagee

If I told you that one of the major candidates in the 2008 Presidential elections has a fiery, insensitive, politically unstable miscreant preacher in his closet, would you think of John Hagee?

No, Reverend Wright hasn't changed his name any time recently. I'm talking about John McCain's pastor, who's disturbingly almost a mirror image of Wright - where Wright says inflammatory, silly things about America, Hagee says inflammatory and silly things about Catholicism and Islam.

Don't ask me why the press has almost completely forgotten to mention this schmuck. I'm sure it has nothing to do with any kind of wrongdoing or unethical journalism, and has everything to do with Obama just being more newsworthy.

Speaking of John McCain, watch the poor old bastard in this video. Listen to that nervous laughter! This guy just isn't cut out to be a filthy liar, and it's depressing to watch him try.

What Will We Do for Food?

I'm always shooting in the dark, but I'd have just as much luck in broad daylight.

Maybe this will be it: "We always take the good things for granted."

Generally, after a shot like that, I take for granted that the target's been hit. I had a hard time learning the difference between "You'll know when" and "You'll decide when," and so now I don't know anything. Maybe.

Maybe we'd have the warmth we only read about if we told each other the nastiest bits from the bottoms of our hearts. "We love the winter, it brings us closer together," said the Manic Street Preachers...but honestly, passion is just weird.

Not sarcasm. It is weird, and I'm creeping myself out.

All that aside, there's always something to do. Take some Jedi wisdom and don't trust your feelings, if you feel otherwise. In Watchmen, Rorschach was heroic. He may have been an inhumane foaming-at-the-mouth reactionary pig, but he would have noticed the neglected cat I failed to, and started helping it.

All the time I spend feeling bad about the world, I could have been cutting matted fur on a cat.

Sometimes, you just have to...

You just have to...

You have to not include the parenthetical dig at Nike, or some pun on the slogan. You really have to just do it.

Purposeful Assumptions

To age is to see magical barriers disintegrate before your very eyes. The unending genius and mystery of the world's artists become revealed, surprisingly finding limits and becoming flat.

The mystery I'm not so sure about.

I'M EMBARRASSED

What's the difference between a creator and a critic?

Maybe it's just me, and wouldn't that be embarrassing, but I wonder if every creator isn't just someone who pulls things out of their ass, criticizes it, and publishes the stuff that (by happy coincidence) could be mistaken for meaningful art.

Or meaningful whatever-it-is, since not everything created is art. And before I start walking down the severely abused highway of ambiguity, I'm going to change the subject to pointlessness, which frankly I just don't talk about enough.

AS PROMISED: POINTLESSNESS

I'm pretty sure I spent this entire morning reading the vaunted tome of everything that's good in comic books, and all it said was "Life sucks, life sucks, life sucks!" I'm being unfair; Watchmen is everything it was cracked up to be, but I can't shake the notion that Alan Moore is just abusing nihilism as a cheap trick to be "deep." I mean, he pretty much admits it. One of the characters in Watchmen recalls this advice about writing: "Start off with the saddest thing you can think of and get the audience's sympathies on your side. After that, believe me, it's a walk."

BACK ON TRACK

So I guess some people are philosophically opposed to covers. I'm not so sure they've got it right. Nothing opens your eyes like a cover - even outside of music, penning quoted words forces you to "write" with a different rhythm and diction and all of that. It's not the same as seeing the world through someone else's eyes (which might be impossible, depending on how you spin it), but it's close enough to be artistically valuable. The act of stepping into someone else's artistic shoes doesn't have to be anti-creative, detrimental to culture, or unoriginal.

Yes, new music is good, but covers really are new music. If we can't find value in anything that's old, we're seriously up shit's creek. Life's too short, but it's also too long to be rushing around desperately trying to find new experiences - or, to highlight the oxymoron in this thinking, trying to find the same new experience that you enjoyed before. The euphoria of the fresh sound just isn't going to be around 24/7, no matter what you do.

STUPID WORDS

I don't get it when people complain about academic writing being too hifalutin, long-winded, or involving too many big words. Big words allow the writer to be more precise, which takes up less space, not more. I genuinely think this just the same as other anti-intellectual sentiment: a transparent rationalization by people who think they're somehow going to be lesser human beings if they say so much as "I don't get it." Not that I'm innocent of that kind of thing, mind you. Sometimes we're all like the boys from Southpark, pretending to know what "queef" means for the cool kids from New York.

Patience

Now Serving More Vitriol

If you think philosophy is bunk, you're crazy.

A strong worldview is as unique as a fingerprint, unfortunately. That's why tolerance isn't just a buzzword - it's a human social skill that we've depended upon for centuries to avoid tearing apart the fabric of civilization.

And tolerance is fucking hard. Here's an example.

That story might not be specifically about tolerance, but my point is that I would have a hard time tolerating the company of anyone who thinks that woman deserves jail. "Disagreement" sounds like such a civil word, but we disagree about ethical questions. Ethics are about good and evil. I can't stand to be around people who express, for lack of a better word, evil opinions.

Well, doesn't that just ring our free-speech alarms! But yes, there are evil opinions. If you don't like it, you can go respectfully disagree with me.

If you believe that homosexuals shouldn't marry, for example, you harbor an evil opinion. (I'm talking about objective truth, here: "evil" is a characteristic of that opinion, just as plain as an apple is red and an hour has sixty minutes.) And I don't want to hear any bullshit about subjectivity. I'm about as willing to believe that "gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry" as I'm willing to believe "the sun won't rise tomorrow." If someone tells you otherwise, they're not "expressing an opinion," they're fucking lying.

The same isn't true of every political dispute, but it is for many. Susan Lefevre, subject of the story I linked above, has become one such dispute. If I were so much as polite to the douchebags who think she should go to jail, I would be dishonest - but I'm usually polite anyway (in person, at least). And that's tolerance at work, ultimately in some ways a benevolent dishonesty, allowing me to function in society without getting myself into fisticuffs and probably jail.

My Inner Child Has a Fishing Line

Now Serving Hysteria

The wise old man lamented that technology prevents face-to-face communication, and replaces music with soulless digital beats. Meanwhile, Daft Punk played "Face to Face." Hot mackings ensued.

Gentlemen write songs for ladies who are past their prime.

Joe Jackson is a slick cat, jazz-handsing on crazy tip-toes with a cigarette in his mouth that replaces his middle finger. He's punk after all! He really, really is punk!

Clouds Filter Speech

When yellow and green
stroll into life,
clouds roll back
gates to words and skin,

sheltered thoughts of harmony
not too loud, or much
beyond "musing," slipping
past to safety.

You know, for dogs, sunny days are quiet days.

Fly

Somewhere
Jack begins to consternation,
and with his first night
is divinely sprinkled
by a feverish woman,

never to hear or know
that others will think on him,
and think on what he'll never think about,
but never think about him,

and the wealth of life
in a day that's compared to nothing.
For this champion of millions
of failed non-people, there's
the best excuse, the
fulfilled wish
of the torture-subject.

There was nothing he could have done.

-

In my class on Ethical Issues in Healthcare, one of our fictional (but probably based on truth) case studies involved a hindu baby that only had three weeks to live. One of the nurses secretly baptized the baby.

No, It's Not

Now Serving An Edit on April 27th*

Poison and crude joys
slid under living skin,
to steal our blessing
for their livelihood.

What's it worth when it's gone?
Hairier arms.
A little obsolute, but they'll
get the job done.

That's my kind of fear,
see, not your mongering
but my hairy arms.
Oh, God, my hairy arms.

Where I come from,
I have something to prove.
Homes are unceasing and enveloping
potholes from which

I'd been sheltered,
I'm overwhelmed,
poison and crude joys -
broken by this line.


*I have never, ever edited a Wikipedia article, in my life. This poem is also not about Wikipedia, at all, whatsoever, even in the slightest imaginably subconscious way. Incidentally, however, Wikipedia was founded by a Montessori graduate.

EDVGT III

...
Joan: It makes the game feel more immersive, you know, more real.

Balere: But it is real!

Joan: Okay, sure, there really is data inside this machine, data that correlates to what I see and hear from the computer as well as my input, but there isn't really this mansion peopled by terrorists and hostages, is there?

Balere: Now you see, for my ears there is a contradiction in what you say. Here have we sat for several hours working together in this game, both very obviously operating on the assumtion that the things we're working with are real! I have heard you refer to these terrorists and hostages and mansions plainly, as we communicate while playing. Were these fictional things that you referred to?

Faysal: I don't see how they aren't fictional.

Balere: Of course you don't, but take leave of your narrative stance just so that you can entertain my argument-

Joan: -as Aristotle says, “The mark of an educated mind-”

Balere: - to entertain an idea without accepting it, yes, right, please don't interrupt.

Joan: Sorry.

Balere: As I was saying, they are real on their own terms. The mansion of this game does not behave in the same way nor adheres to the same rules as a “real” mansion, and the same can be said for everything else that is a similar representation – the terrain, the guns and equipment, the human bodies, etc. But they are simply different real things, behaving differently, following different rules. They will still do so in a way that is explainable – even if something happens that should be impossible, it can be connected to a bug or glitch, an identifiable computer error. Data is, after all, what these real things in the game are composed of.

Faysal: If that's your stance, then let's clarify what we mean by “real.” Would you say that something can be “real” if its behaviors or properties are not arbitrary?

Balere: Are you suggesting that the world is an arbitrary place?

Faysal: I think what I'm pointing to rests on this: while it's clear that the game is meant to simulate “real life,” it can never represent it accurately. (Permit me to continue to use terms like “real life” and “reality;” under your theory they may serve as useful terms not meant to be taken literally.) There are so many factors affecting the physics of objects like guns and bullets, biologically unique individuals running around in armor in buildings of all kinds, it would be beyond the scope of all the world's game designers just to make a physics engine that represents it accurately. Ultimately the problem lies with the interconnectedness of things, and this is more than simply a cliché: one simply cannot accurately recreate one part of the world without creating the rest of the world it interacts with.

Balere: I think this much can be agreed upon without more words, but what's your point?

Faysal: My point is, at some point the designers have to break from reality and make anti-realistic decisions about the game. To some extent, every game tries to simulate reality, but this is cannot form the whole of decisions made about the game, no matter what. There are other goals: sometimes to make the game more commercially successful, or more entertaining. There are concerns with “balance” in some games; other games try to pioneer new ideas. Some games aim to appeal to a particular, "niche" taste. So, considering that some parts of the game's world were decided in this way, by human beings external to the game's world, does it still meet your idea of “real?”

Joan: I'm sorry, I think you completely lost me.

Faysal: Where at?

Joan: Well, I think I gather this from what you say: game designers make decisions about the behavior and properties of a game's world, and everything in it. Because it is impossible to perfectly simulate reality, and because that isn't the only reason we make games, some of these decisions must have a purpose other than “to simulate reality.” You want to know if Balere is willing to call a game “real,” acknowledging that some parts of the game world have transparent intent.

Faysal: So where did I lose you?

Joan: Why does it matter if there's an anti-realistic purpose to some parts of a game? How does that challenge its reality?

Faysal: What I'm getting at is that it's, in some ways, very obviously and uncontroversially true that a game is "real." A picture of a wormhole - a science-fiction idea that scientists don't believe could possibly exist - is a real picture of a wormhole, but that doesn't mean it's a wormhole, if we define wormholes as necessarily being sort of time-space highways connecting distant parts of the galaxy. The picture definitely doesn't do such a thing.

Balere: But, if that picture shows a galaxy, and the wormhole connecting two parts of that "fictional" galaxy, and that picture is part of a game in which the wormhole can be used, then it has its own kind of reality. But I think I can say you're right - this kind of "reality" I'm speaking of doesn't mean that things which bear the same names as the "real-world" items they simulate
are, in fact, exactly like those real-world items. I can see that a picture of a wormhole, for example, is a two-dimensional image, and I know that's because of the limitations of the two-dimensional image's media - canvas, computer screens, walls, etc. I suppose I consider it "real" because I think the world is not arbitrary, but has a purpose.

Faysal: Fair enough - I think that's a disagreement we can leave for another time. But nevertheless, you acknowledge this fallacy: of assuming that because games are "real" in some sense, that they can teach us about the things they simulate.

Balere: I don't think that's true at all.

Faysal: No?

Balere: Just because they're different from the "real world" doesn't mean they can't teach us - in fact, because they are different from "reality," they allow us to see alternative possibilities, and understand how things might be.

Faysal: A very philosophical idea, but tell me, do you think that a man who plays a roleplaying game on the internet with a female character will learn what it is like to be a woman?

Joan: Definitely! Guys always give gifts to girl characters, even complete strangers, and are a lot more likely to help them out with quests or missions or whatever the online game is about. Trust me, I know. It's a little bit obnoxious, but for the most part it's pretty funny.

Balere: Unfortunately, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Faysal: Alright, so in your experience, women are treated differently from men in online games. But Joan, you say it's "a little bit obnoxious, but for the most part it's pretty funny." How would you feel in real life if complete strangers were to give you gifts, or help you with things, for no apparent reason other than that you're a woman?

Joan: Well, I think that's a little weird and sexist. But not everyone agrees with that; some women like "chivalry."

Balere: I'm a traditionalist myself.

Joan: Blech.

Faysal: Maybe that's not the best example, but what struck me about your saying it's "obnoxious and funny" in video games was a certain similarity to another woman's reaction after an event in a MUD. She was at once mildly annoyed at a breach in "civility," and also extremely upset about what had happened; someone had hacked the game and effectively "raped" her character. It was a completely text-based rape, with no physical component or coercion of the victim's attention (one can always turn off the computer). I'm not saying it was okay, or a harmless act, but it certainly was nothing like real rape. So no one who is "raped" in a video game could ever claim to know what it's like to be physically raped. I'm basically echoing the arguments of this professor from MIT, Sherry Turkle.

Joan: So, returning to the idea of a man playing a female character online, no man can really understand the lived experience of being a woman just by playing a game.

Balere: Never fully, but I never claimed that games can provide us with a full, comprehensive understanding of what they simulate. Nevertheless, the difference in how male and female characters are treated can certainly provide a man with some insight into what it's like to be a woman - he at least knows something about the way people tend to treat both male and female characters. There's no way to do that in real life without...well...

Joan: Yeah, that might be a little weird.

Faysal: There's nothing wrong with cross-dressing.

Balere: Anyway, you see what I'm saying. Games aren't completely without some educational value.

Faysal: Certainly it's a very philosophical idea, trying to explore alternative possibilities, "stepping outside the cave" in a sense.

Joan: A lot of games have a cave-style plot, if you know what I mean. Bioware likes to do it in some of theirs; it's kind of a form-fits-content plot for a video game. The main character is submerged in an enveloping, environmental lie - real kind of Matrix, or Truman Show kind of stuff. And of course, those are both dug right up out of Plato's Cave, no pun intended.

Faysal: Well, I don't think I see as much potential as you seem to, Balere, but I'll acknowledge that some small insight can be gleaned from video games.

Die Sophists Die

I think the original poem here had a really faulty premise, which in some cheap sense is appropriate for a poem about sophists, but ultimately I opted to roll up that lousy poem and smoke it. This is what I saw in the smoke.

~

DIE SOPHISTS DIE

It's beyond chivalry for these stakes -
no gentleman's game to be babbled about,
nothing with rapiers or cravats or
camels or blonde hair,

my hair is brown as the night,
and my cares are nocturnal as well.
My nose and judgement are sharp
and I'm ready to drop you,

without a blink, to
the oblivious confusion of the
wrong happy ending.
You would be me in the fanfare of

our ever, ever so innocent culture.
You deserve to have it;
that's what it takes so long for us to accept,
that there is no privileged ground

upon which authority can stand,
nor upon which the true authority
can stand the vile stench of
deceit.

How to Float While Swimming

Now Serving Good Philosophy

Well, this is what I will think of, the next time I need an example of clarity, creativity, and/or precision. Who says we've run out of ideas?

EDVGT II

(cont. from An Exploratory Dialogue on Video Game Theory)

It's a Choose-Your-Own-Dialogue! To have your character begin playing a game at the LAN Center, click here (just as soon as I've written that part). To get up and purchase a drink from the LAN Center, continue reading!

This terrible, fantastical nonsense won't do at all. I require caffeine to function, and I'm willing to sell my soul to Coke for it...I feel dirty buying energy drinks at a LAN Center, especially when the games industry loves to partner with the beverage industry to insert "BAWLS Guarranaxx" as a cornerstone of the Liberated Nerd's identity...

"Excuse me, but don't I know you?"

It was a vaguely familiar face asking me the question, tentatively probing just as I racked my brain for a name. I was going to suggest "Valerie," but she beat me to recognition.

"Haven't we had a philosophy class together," she realized. "It was PHL 555, I think, 'How To Be a Living Embodiment of a Philosophical Point of View?' And I think your name is Joan?"

"That's right," I nodded, taking a bottle out of the fridge. "I remember your name, too, I think...Balere, isn't it? I didn't know you played video games."

Balere was a woman about my age, a lanky, pale woman with black hair and clear Spanish ancestry. "Play?" she asked. "I don't just play them, I study them."

We re-introduced ourselves as I paid for my drink, the way students do outside of classes. It can only be said to have to do with a kind of deception that goes on between students and teachers, or maybe only some students - or maybe between students and students, instead. She was actually a major in video game theory, which naturally I had never heard of. I was in the kind of stupor where one doesn't remember whether caffeine, alcohol, and/or sleep deprivation are the biological culprits, and at first I was a little bit confused.

"Wait, you study game theory? And what, come here to LAN centers to apply it or something?"

"No no," she said impatiently. "Nothing like that. I actually study video games themselves, and what they mean as a medium, with all the possible implications of that." As she said this, she paid for her own couple of energy drinks, a pair of absurdly massive "Monsters." I cringed a little, but then of course I was drinking the same crap...

An Exploratory Dialogue on Video Game Theory

3:00 AM. I had left the mirthless yellow light of the LAN Center's basement lobby, and was currently in a black booth in front of a computer. Somewhere in-between there must have been something about me walking in, or attempting to, but I don't remember any of it.

These places are terrible. You get the vile sense that maybe there's something else at work - yes, of course. It all makes sense now. That morbid buzzing light in the lobby sucks us in like a work of Kafka...and inside the shadowy basement, there are comfortable chairs, video games, the soft sounds of wanna-be soldiers lulling one softly to sleep over headsets...why of course, you can come play video games on credit, no need for cash up front...and if your liver is missing in the morning, it shows what a hardcore gamer you are...

TBC