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?