Bottomlining the Rev

WHY do "women prefer the mommy track"?

2011-08-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

Hey look: more anti-feminist crap from the author who brought you Manning Up: How the Rise of Women has Turned Men into Boys.

Hymowitz' critique sheds some light on the statistical details behind sometimes-misleading about the pay gap, but her thesis isn't supported unless you assume a priori that the differences in work hours, career choices, family priorities, and negotiation skills are inherently biological.

WHY within a broad occupational category do men hold higher-paying jobs? WHY are women more likely to work fewer hours "full-time"? WHY do women have somewhat different choices of major in college than men? WHY might women, on average, be less assertive in salary negotiation than men? These questions need to be answered, and unless they are biological than the pay gap is still based on a sex-discriminatory society.

Why would Hymowitz arbitrarily assume that after all the advances of women in the last century due to feminist struggle, we have now reached some biological threshold of inequality that can't be passed?

Head versus heart

2011-06-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

Death Cab for Cutie's song "Crooked Teeth" mentions a war of head versus heart. I find that my head and heart are in agreement about the fundamentals. They both tell me:

1. Love one another
3. Life is grand.
4. Don't trust Whitey.

As of late my head is in a war with my liver, and my heart is stuck in between.

Trump and "the Muslim Problem"

2011-04-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

[Stolen directly from Real Clear Politics]:
"Well, I'll tell you what. The Koran is very interesting. A lot of people say it teaches love and there is a very big group of people who really understand the Koran far better than I do. I'm certainly not an expert, to put it mildly. But there's something there that teaches some very negative vibe," Potential 2012 GOP candidate Donald Trump told CBN's David Brody.

What a goofy fucking statement.

Trump seems to have an admirably accurate perception of his situation:

1) He doesn't know shit about the Koran, Islam, or world politics, but he knows he can't say this because
2) Mere indifference to the Islam would not satsify the ignorant bigotry his supporters, YET
3) Outright Islam-bashing might marginalize moderate supporters and even alienate potential business partners after his presidential bid inevitably fails.

So he's got a major problem. The only solution is ridiculous hedging. He whines about political correctness, confuses religion with nationality, then goes:

Well, I'll tell you what. The Koran is very interesting.

"Interesting" is a good word for non-comments about controversial issues. "Complex" also works. It implies you've studied the issue and have come to a nuanced conclusion.

A lot of people say it teaches love and there is a very big group of people who really understand the Koran far better than I do. I'm certainly not an expert, to put it mildly.

Humility, that's good. But ultimately he has to say something. What is the vaguest way you can possibly criticize something?

But there's something there that teaches some very negative vibe

Bad vibes! Islam just gives him the heebie-jeebies sometimes. You dig?

Rating the State Mottos

2011-04-08T23:02:00.001-07:00

Each state of the United States has a motto. Some are better than others.

I'm rating on an A-F scale:

A = Excellent
B = Good
C = Eh. Either boring or good with a significant flaw.
D = Poor
F = Shit. The state would be better off without a motto.

Alabama: Audemus jura nostra defendere (We dare defend our rights)

It's bold rhetoric, but given Alabama I'm afraid to ask what rights they're defending. (B)

Alaska: North to the future.

Alaska is not the future, but it is, in fact, north. (C)

Arizona: Ditat Deus (God enriches)

I like the spirit of gratefulness and focus on the environment, but I'm an atheist. (B)

Arkansas: Regnat populus (The people rule)

Hell yeah we do. (A)

California: Eureka (I have found it)

I give it points for being one word, a neat word at that, and a nod to the history of the state. (A)

Colorado: Nil sine numine (Nothing without the Deity)

This motto is practically unconstitutional, I don't care how cool the Latin sounds (F)

Connecticut: Qui transtulit sustinet (He who transplanted, sustains)

Another one about God, but at least it's almost interesting (D)

Delaware: Liberty and Independence

Yawn. (C)

Florida: In God We Trust

My state can't eventhink up its own motto, so we use the federal one. And not even the good federal one (E Pluribus Unum). (F-)

Georgia: Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation

Oh look, a list of principles. (C)

Hawaii: Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono (The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness)

Positives: It's from Hawaiian history and it's in something other than English or Latin. Negatives: Long, sounds like a Bible verse sent through Babelfish. (B)

Idaho: Esto perpetua (Let it be perpetual)

Let what be perpetual? I like the air of mystery around the motto, like the state's founders had some secret society based around some hidden crystal and this is the chant they sing to maintain the state forever. (B)

Illinois: State sovereignty, national union

This sounds like a sub-heading in a civics textbook. (C)

Indiana: The crossroads of America

This could be the motto the state tourism board uses, but it's not dignified enough for the real one. (C)

Iowa: Our liberty we prize and our rights we will maintain

Probably the worst "freedom isn't free!" motto. It's just too long. But it's not bad. (B)

Kansas: Ad astra per aspera (To the stars through difficulties)

Short, mellifluous, inspiring. (A)

Kentucky: United we stand, divided we fall AND Deo gratiam habeamus (Let us be grateful to God)

The ho-hum 1948 motto was just too inclusive for Kentuckians, so in 2002 they poked atheists in the eye with an even duller one about God. I award these B, D respectively. That technically averages C, but indecisiveness is anathema to sloganeering, so I'm going with (D).

Louisiana: Union, justice, confidence.

Louisiana rounded out its mediocrity with additional Cs in phys ed and music appreciation. (C)

Maine: Dirigo (I lead)

Confidence is attractive in a state, and brevity in a motto. (A)

Maryland: fatti maschii, parole femini (Manly deeds, womanly words)

Good, unique message and bonus points for being in Italian. But points off for stupid gender essentialism. Should I give it a pass, as it was written in 1874? Nope. (B)

Massachusetts: Ense petit placidam, sub libertate quitem. (By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty)

Bonus for being the oldest motto (1775), but it's a bit long and if you think about it, the second phrase is sort of a non sequitur. "Liberty" does not fully solve the contradiction between "sword" and "peace". (C)

Michigan: Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice (If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you)

Can you imagine being a Michigan second-grader and hearing that this is your state motto? Pathetic. It's worse than Indiana's in the "sponsored by the state tourism board" category. (D)

Minnesota: L'étoile du Nord (The star of the North)

Like Alaska's but truer. (B)

Mississippi: Virtute et armis (By valor and arms)

I admit this is pretty badass, even though it's probably celebrating the Confederacy. (A)

Missouri: Salus populi suprema lex esto (Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law of the land)

If Arkansas and Missouri became one state, its combined motto would be lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path every nation on the earth. (A)

Montana: Oro y plata (Gold and silver)

Fuck principles, we're just going to list precious metals. Somehow more interesting than lists of principles. Plus maybe it's a metaphor or something. (B)

Nebraska: Equality before the law

The motto was due in ten minutes, but the committee hadn't come up with anything! What would they do? State assemblyman Tobias Smyth threw a desperate glance out the window towards the courthouse. Engraved upon its marble exterior was EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW. "It'll do," he thought. Tobias Smyth is now known as the Father of Nebraska. (B)

Nevada: All For Our Country

Hey goofus, it's a state motto not a national one. (F)

New Hampshire: Life Free Or Die

Four short words that sum up the ethos of the state. (A)

New Jersey: Liberty and Properity.

Dull and inaccurate. (D)

New Mexico: Crescit eundo (It grows as it goes)

This is the inside joke in the back of a high school yearbook. (D)

New York: Excelsior (Ever upward)

One word? Predicting skyscrapers in 1778? (A)

North Carolina: Esse quam videri (To be, rather than to seem)

State motto...or eighteenth century philosophical tract? Either way, North Carolina is the real deal. (A)

North Dakota: Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable

Motto, North Dakota, not manifesto. (C)

Ohio: With God, all things are possible

As an if-then statement I guess this is true. (D)

Oklahoma: Labor vincit omnia (Labor conquers all)

What is it with these South-central states and their commie mottos? (A)

Oregon: Alis volat propriis (She flies with her own wings)

Like its neighbor Idaho--cryptic, in a good way. (B)

Pennsylvania: Virtue, Liberty, and Independence

Imagine global egalitarian democratic revolution breaking out, raising the prospect of a just peace for all humanity. Imagine how any person of good will would feel. That is how excited this motto doesn't get me. (C)

Rhode Island: Hope

In the unlikely story of America, there's never been anything false...about Rhode Island. (A)

South Carolina: Dum spiro spero (While I breathe, I hope) AND Animis opibusque parati (Ready in soul and resource)

The first motto gets an A, the second a B. The lowest grade counts; otherwise states would hand in like fifty mottos and hope one was good enough to pass. (B)

South Dakota: Under God the people rule

Arkansas' but with more God and less Latin. (C)

Tennessee: Agriculture and Commerce

No, no, no. I know what you do, Tennessee. What do you believe? (D)

Texas: Friendship

I really like one-word mottos. (A)

Utah: Industry

You have to pick the right word though. Either this is lauding Utah's pitiful industrial sector, or encouraging the awful Protestant work ethic. (C)

Vermont: Freedom and Unity

"Ben and Jerry" would have been more interesting. (C)

Virginia: Sic semper tyrannis (Thus always to tyrants)

Tyrannicide is for lovers. (A)

Washington: Al-ki (by and by)

It gets points for being in an indigenous language, but I don't even know what the English version means. (C)

West Virginia: Montani semper liberi (Mountain men are always free)

Love it! Sums up both the (aspirational) character and the topography of the state. (A)

Wisconsin: Forward

Add an exclamation point or Latin it up and it might work. But as is, it's dull as shit. (D)

Wyoming: Equal Rights

Wyoming is still bragging about being the first to grant suffrage to women. But then again it's not bad thing to brag about. (B)

Observations:
-Only a fraction of state mottos truly inspire.
-The quality of the motto has little to do with the quality of the state.
-I am a sucker for populist rhetoric.
-My repulsion to the mere name of God indicates I may be either a demon or a vampire.

-----
A while back I got a kick out of this rating of the national flags. Re-reading it now, I may have borrowed more than I thought.

TRUMP?!

2011-04-07T21:53:00.001-07:00

I don't fucking get it. Who the hell is supporting Donald Trump? This is unfathomable to me.

It's a comparable breeze to understand why someone would want Huckabee or Ron Paul. I even sort of understand supporting Rudy Giuliani. He's the kind of guy you trust to round up the undesirables and make them disappear. Trump, on the other hand, simply isn't credible. He can't muster Guiliani's authoritarian technocratic menace or the good-old-boy chuckling "charm" of a racist Southern sheriff like Joe Arpaio. I despise those men and the motivations anyone has in voting for them, but at least I sort of understand.

But Trump is a joke. He is a character created for television. A squinty asshole beloved--as a television character--by lesser assholes. How can anyone look at him and think Let's put him in the White House ?

Excerpts from the Gospel's

2011-03-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man
There was a poor man Lazarus, a rich man Dives, and a dog who licked Lazarus' festering sores. And the disgusting man was cast into an eternal hell of literal fire.

Jesu's and the Adulteress
Jesu's found a woman who had committed adultery. After giving an angry lecture, He said to her, "Go and sin no more."

The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats
There were sheep, and goats, and the wicked were cast into an eternal hell of literal fire.

Disturbance in the Temple
Jesu's came to the Temple, and saw that people were interacting with each other instead of concentrating on God, so Jesus used a whip to cast out the sinners from the holy place.

Jesu's and the Rich Man
Jesu's was approached by a very wealthy man who had kept the Commandments, asking "what else must I do to be saved?" Jesu's told the rich man what he must do, and the rich man went away, requiring no more advice.

Why do you love the devil? explains the apostrophes
H-E-double hockey sticks, explains some ideas I borrowed.

I went to Walmart recently

2011-03-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

It was sterile and cold and big. It was unnaturally bright, like heaven. But bad. So hell.

Walmart is like hell. If you think I'm being dramatic, go there at night. There are fewer people then, most of them clinging to the entrance near the plastic ring machine and the scratched-up horsey ride. The plastic horse on the ride cannot leave. Like Satan, aware of his eternal fate, the horse's only pleasure is in corrupting mortals to join him in his suffering. "Come in," the horse beckons, his iris paint chipped, his teeth bared in garish grimace, "Every Day Low Prices. Always." The horse has eaten the externalities. The horse is carnivorous.

Past the horse is the main chamber, the planeless hangar. The bright white pipes and metal support structures converge at some distant point in what should be the horizon; this point is in fact the restrooms. The vaulted heights humble. Have you ever been humbled beneath stars unsullied by city lights? It is nothing like that. It is the humility of standing before a thousand furious horse-headed judges. Look down! Head down! Look too long and the sentence will be pronounced.

Products are found easily and at a suspiciously low price. Rest assured that a small part of your purchase will go to underprivileged children.

Move toward the checkout, the dinghy floating in a sea of tile. Jutting from the walls is Old Glory. Do you feel patriotic? Yeoman farmers once worked this land, and sharecroppers, and slaves. But they are no more. Now they work in this warehouse. The person at the checkout will scan your product. Does this person appreciate living under the warehouse? If this person does not, there are plenty of other persons to take this person's place. There, there. Do not cry. It is only logical.

With your newly acquired goods, move toward the exit. To the warm night air! You do not notice the horse on the way out, but he notices you. He will be waiting for you.

At Walmart.

The reason for the revolutionary season

2011-02-24T13:25:00.000-08:00

Revolutions involve a lot of anger, a righteous rage that smashes oppression and dances at the downfall of tyrants. But this anger is a tool, not a goal. The goal is happiness

That's why reading "Laugh, O Revolution: Humor in the Egyptian Uprising" is pure joy. Freedom brings out the best in human nature, a nature long suppressed under dictatorship.

Carr reflected, "Interestingly, the tougher circumstances get, the more the jokes increase, which explains why Tahrir Square was essentially a comedy explosion."

I don't speak Arabic, but I think I get the gist of the song "Laugh, O Revolution":

"To the Tyrants of the World"

2011-02-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

--Tunisian poet Aboul-Qacem Echebbi (1909-1934)

Hey you, the unfair tyrants…

You the lovers of the darkness…

You the enemies of life…

You’ve made fun of innocent people’s wounds; and your palm covered with their blood

You kept walking while you were deforming the charm of existence and growing seeds of sadness in their land

Wait, don’t let the spring, the clearness of the sky and the shine of the morning light fool you…

Because the darkness, the thunder rumble and the blowing of the wind are coming toward you from the horizon

Beware because there is a fire underneath the ash

Who grows thorns will reap wounds

You’ve taken off heads of people and the flowers of hope; and watered the cure of the sand with blood and tears until it was drunk

The blood’s river will sweep you away and you will be burned by the fiery storm.

(Arab Literature in English)

Glimpse of a future

2011-01-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

The cities are lush with gardens and people can pick fruit whenever they're hungry. They eat lunch with their friends in the grass or on a bench in one of the little honeycomb alcoves built into public structures. At night people enjoy their neighbors' performances in concerts and plays. They drink and talk and laugh. Later, drunk women walk home alone at without fear, no matter what they're wearing.

The next day, those who aren't working might listen to a lecture or a debate, or study at the library. College is free, lasts fifty years, and there are no grades.

Others tend the gardens, or sew, or care for children, or fix computers. The majority of people enjoy their work on a majority of days. People dread their turn in the sewers, but savor the extra vacation afterward and the chance to make a lot of vulgar jokes. In the factories, workers can fire their managers.

Voting is rarely done in a booth.

There are bits and pieces of this future world hiding in our own, waiting to connect and explode.

Man-haters

2011-01-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

Joseph Weiner, whose claim to fame in the 1970s was stock market fraud, now runs a "Czech bride" business. He was interviewed for Business Week:

“Ask any male what he’d like -- most men don’t want a feminist” Weiner said when I spoke with him. Rather, men in America and western Europe want a beautiful younger woman -- “someone like their mother and grandmother” -- who can put a meal on the table and iron their shirts. “That’s the way men are, Susan,” he said. “You’re not gonna change that.”

Men, did you get what Weiner just said? He said heterosexual men want a partner who labors endlessly without complaint and without asserting her dignity. He's basically calling us tyrants who seek sex slaves. What a fucking insult.

Blogger Fannie talks about this, how anti-feminists take a really dim view of men. Some feminists agree that "That's the way men are". But unlike man-hater Joseph Weiner, they've usually got hope that it's not the way men have to be.

Neil Cavuto

2011-01-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

I'm angry today.

Neil Cavuto is the worst anchor on Fox. Not in terms of the harm he causes--Glenn Beck probably confounds political discourse more terribly--but in terms of how creepy he is. His program is called "The Cost of Freedom", a perfect title for a show hosted by a economistic robot.

Like if he were reporting on

PEACEFUL DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OVERTHROWS CHINESE GOVERNMENT

He'd ask "How will that affect the markets?"

1/5 HUMANITY LIBERATED AS LARGEST DICTATORSHIP IN HISTORY CRUMBLES

"But Chinese investors may have to deal with stronger unions."

Cavuto seems so soulless, like 1990s Russia as depicted in the Tetris History of the Soviet Union

"The markets are free!
So much money for me!
Tell me why should I care for peace and love?"

I am angry today and do not like my economics class.

-----
Edited 19 January to correct song lyrics

The Pope? Catholic.

2011-01-09T02:23:00.000-08:00

God was behind Big Bang, universe no accident: Pope

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – God's mind was behind complex scientific theories such as the Big Bang, and Christians should reject the idea that the universe came into being by accident, Pope Benedict said on Thursday.

Who is Pope Benedict speaking to? Who are these Christians who think the universe came into being by accident? Why is this a news story?

Some atheists say science can prove that God does not exist, but Benedict said that some scientific theories were "mind limiting" because "they only arrive at a certain point ... and do not manage to explain the ultimate sense of reality ..."

Put aside the idea that scientific theories are "mind-limiting" if they don't explain life, the universe, and everything. I want to know who these atheists are who say "science can prove God does not exist".

This article is talking about imaginary people.

Thought o' the day

2011-01-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

The Bill of Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Man will one day be as quaintly irrelevant as the Magna Carta is today, and for the same glorious reason.

How not to apologize for racial slurs

2010-12-22T15:42:00.000-08:00

So some football coach in Georgia named Frank Samuelson said some racist shit. After he was called on it, he gave an "apology". His apology is vague and muddy though, so I did him the favor of editing it to clearly state his meaning:

The things I remarked about were meant to be humorous

I am not racist. I just like racist jokes.

or at least thought provoking

I think I really added to the discussion when I proposed murdering immigrants.

in front of the eyes of my friends who make up a variety of different people of from every walk of life, race and many national origins.

Some of my best friends are non-white!

It really, really bothered me to think that people were offended by any of this

In fact, you should be apologizing to me.

because if anything, it was meant to either respond to some of my friend’s posts or poke at them in turn.

It’s not like I randomly shout racist things—I only say racist things in conversations with others.

It was never the intention of mine to make anyone feel offended.

In conclusion, intent is fucking magic.

Liberals can't even DIE right.

2010-12-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

Here is Elizabeth Edwards' parting message to the world:

You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces—my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined. The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And, yes, there are certainly times when we aren’t able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It’s called being human. But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful. It isn’t possible to put into words the love and gratitude I feel to everyone who has and continues to support and inspire me every day. To you I simply say: you know.

With love,

Elizabeth

This isn't not good for Donald Douglass, blogger at American Power.

[...] Being anti-religion is cool, so Edwards' non-theological theology gets props from the neo-communists. Still, at her death bed and giving what most folks are calling a final goodbye, Elizabeth Edwards couldn't find it somewhere down deep to ask for His blessings as she prepares for the hereafter? I guess that nihilism I've been discussing reaches up higher into the hard-left precincts than I thought.

Got it? Being non-Christian means you're anti-religious. Modern liberalism is neo-communism. And having "faith in the power of resilience and hope" doesn't keep you from being a nihilist.

-----
edit: Politics Daily, from which I borrowed heavily, has a more in-depth of this embarrassing bullshit.

Darwin on on sweatshops, bootstraps, and waterboarding

2010-11-01T12:59:00.000-07:00

Charles Darwin was not a social darwinist.

It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. (The Voyage of the Beagle, 1839)

Look how awesome this quote is. The aside nested within the main argument ("if the misery...great is our sin") is a profound indictment of Victorian capitalism. Darwin hadn't proposed evolution by natural selection yet when he wrote this, but it's almost like a farsighted warning to those who would skew his scientific theory to justify laissez faire.

His main point seems obvious, but it's worth repeating: even if the other side is worse, it doesn't mean your side can't do wrong. I'm reminded of justifications for torture of War on Terror detainees involving "Well, they cut our heads off."

The 19th century argument over the conditions of slaves compared to their "free" factory worker contemporaries mirrors the modern debate over sweatshops. Today it's the industrial barons arguing that sweatshops provide a higher quality of life than the available alternatives of subsistence farming, prostitution, or begging. This may be true, just as in Darwin's time, slavery sometimes provided a higher quality of life than Victorian factory work. But the past century and a half have proven that neither are good, and neither are necessary.

There's enough wealth to provide for everyone in the world, and enough genius to figure out how to do it. We don't need slavery, wage or chattel. We can be both healthy and thumbscrew-free.

-----
In the extended quote, he reveals he's part of the blame-America-(and England)-first crowd:

"Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children — those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own — being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty..."

I want to vote for Harry Reid

2010-10-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

His opponent, Sharon Angle, released an ad calling him "the best friend an illegal alien ever had".

It is somehow an attack to say your opponent supports the disadvantaged. Angle is calling Harry Reid a benefactor to those living on the margins. She is slurring him with accusations of humanity.

"My opponent is a stalwart ally of the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. He lifts his lamp beside the golden door. You won't get any of that from me though!"

(If it matters, Angle's claims aren't entirely true anyway.)

-----
Post-election update: Yay!

This wouldn't even be funny twenty years ago

2010-10-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

The satirical geniuses at Campus Talk have directed their wit against that most frightening specter in the conservative mind--no, not that one--or the other one--no--closer---not quite--there you go, political correctness! This wannabe Onion article is supposed to mock "political correctness" but ends up confusing sensitivity with wordiness and presenting a half-good idea as if it were self-evidently absurd.

In an effort to cater to America’s ever-growing need for “political correctness,” Rutgers University has undergone some drastic changes that school officials hope will end the constant debate over the subject.
[...]
At the start of the fall semester, the body of educationally oriented persons returned from their summer vacations (now “vernal absence period”) to find a whole new school.

Do anti-PC people really think PC liberals just want to make words longer? It's like they hear someone saying "flight attendant" instead of "stewardess" but don't think about why "stewardess" is problematic. They just see that "flight attendant" is longer, and assume liberals want to ruin English.

I love simple, short words. I just don't like it when those words obscure reality by excluding people. Gender neutral language lets us invent more accurate, inclusive occupational words. I don't really like the construction "-person" in place of "-man". But you usually don't have to use it! My favorite gender-neutral job title:

FIREFIGHTER
That's more descriptive (and ten times more badass) than plain old "fireman". A fireman might be a male arsonist, or a Boy Scout's dad who's teaching campfire safety to the troop, or the guy in charge of layoffs. But a firefighter? A firefighter is a fucking hero.

Perhaps the most noticeable difference is that the male and female bathrooms, which Larson states were “discriminatory,” have all been converted to unisex. “Sometimes I’ll walk into a bathroom and a girl will scream,” said junior Mike Sammons. “I never know which one to use.”

There actually are people who are unable to walk into a gendered bathroom without fear. Transgender people face trouble every day just taking a piss, and would benefit from additional unisex bathrooms. But they're less common than cisgender people and they make us think about complicated things like gender performance and spectrums and that's hard. Back before things got all PC, they'd have learned to just deal with being a tranny freak. If liberals are offended by that kind of language, just remember that the 1st Amendment means liberals aren't allowed to criticize ignorant retrofuck statements, because that's censorship.

Countless educationally oriented persons have become outraged, especially John Petersen, whose full academic scholarship was revoked when he uttered “blackboard” in class. “It’s a board of African-American descent,” Larson told him. “There is no need for such bigotry.”

Politically incorrect complainers love talking about black people. They'll make a big sarcastic deal about saying Excuse me, African-Americans because they think it's just absurd that an oppressed group of people have a right to decide what they want to be called. To quote Kai Chang's fantastic (if wordy) essay on political correctness,

It's no coincidence that "PC"-snivelers are for the most part white men who are essentially saying, "Who the hell do these marginalized groups think they are to tell me how I should or shouldn't portray them? I'm not going to say 'mentally challenged' when it's my right to say 'retard', goshdarnit there's only so much abuse I'll take!"

And black students' objections are more likely to be "I don't like people hanging nooses" and "Stop mocking black people with 'ghetto parties' you entitled brats" than about the term "blackboard".

I'm for accurate language and for helping all students feel welcome at my university. Ha...ha? The joke's on me I guess.

Campus Talk is stupid

2010-10-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

UCF distributes a free magazine called Campus Talk. They claim,

We provide your daily dosage of humor, entertainment, sports, and everything in between. Whether you're looking for a good laugh, the hottest new gadgets on the market, the latest Hollywood scoop or the sexiest wardrobes on the racks, Campus Talk has got you covered from top to bottom.

This entendre-filled summary basically means they're relentlessly misogynist and stupid in a host of other ways.

In "5 Ways to Beat the House", they tell you how to have fun without getting swindled in Las Vegas. One of their suggestions is illegal prostitution:

Contrary to popular belief, prositution is technically not legal in Las Vegas. Then again, neither is jaywalking [...]

In "CT's Guide to Being a Wingman", you learn to be

a martyr at the altar of friendship, a selfless soul who doesn't bat an eye at the prospect of sleeping with a fat girl because "bros before hoes" is more than just an overused adage to you.

The menace of "FAT FRIENDS " gets its own sub-header, which explains

While this will probably be unspeakably awful for you, there is nothing more valuable in a friendship than taking one for the team with a fat girl.

I can't tell whether this means going through the excruciating experience of talking to a fat woman, or encouraging you to have sex with someone out of a feeling of obligation to your friend. Either way it's ridiculous and hateful and unhealthy.

----
Edit 2 January 2011: I removed the last couple sentences because they were lazy and annoyingly snarky.

Perfect for Renaissance globalist stormtroopers

2010-09-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

via Strange Maps :

The map [from the 1580s] shows the world ‘dressed up’ in the traditional garb of a court jester: the double-peaked, bell-tipped cap (1) and the jester’s staff (2). The face is hidden (or replaced) by the map, giving the whole image an ominous, threatening quality that feels anachronistically modern.

Follow the Strange Maps link to find out what it means.

Handshakes

2010-09-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

I often get told I have a strong handshake. I don't know what to make of this.

Is it a compliment? It's not something I work particularly hard at. If you like it so much, why don't you squeeze harder?

Is it a criticism from someone who was injured by my handshake? I don't shake that hard.

I assume it's a neutral observation, an excuse for small talk. How about we start talking about our political views instead? It's a lot more interesting than handshakes.

Patriot Day 2010

2010-09-11T19:16:00.001-07:00

I liked President Bush when I was twelve.

The 9/11 attacks had just happened last year, and I was watching Bush give a speech on television. I remember telling my mom that I felt patriotic listening to Bush. She gave me a skeptical face and snorted "I'm don't." This got me thinking.

Thanks, mom.

Forgetting 9/11

2010-09-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

Why should we remember September eleventh?

What did it change? I've heard 9/11 compared to the attack on Pearl Harbor, but that goaded us out of isolation and into the biggest war in history. I've seen it compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall, but that signified the collapse of global Communism and a new world order. The terrorist attacks nine years ago didn't really change the world at all.

The "9/11 Was Momentous" arguments portray 9/11 as a national wake-up to the existence of the outside world, and an end to our sense of security in our nation's unassailable world dominance. But those are changes in awareness, not facts. The United States government is still widely resented. The USA is still the greatest global superpower. Americans are still ignorant about the outside world. Hell, I still don't even know what bin Laden really wanted.

We will never forget September 11th, because there's really nothing to remember.

Dear "Undateable"

2010-09-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

Dear "Undateable",

Women are mocked for every part of their physical appearance, no matter what they do or how they look. Men have significantly more social leeway. This isn't fair.

However, your "hold men to ridiculous standards too" idea is the wrong solution. It's like a movement to equalize crack/powder cocaine sentencing by making them both punishable by guillotine.

No gods, no fashion,
--Dylan

All issues are social issues

2010-09-06T00:31:00.000-07:00

The safety net is for the benefit of the rabble: single women, filthy useless children, the unemployable, the people in ghettos and trailer parks and art schools. Austerity is the culling of undesirable people on the edges. Bums who should work or starve.

Should people who are different from you enjoy the fruits of our wealth? Or are captains of industry the Real Americans? Are we all in the same boat or am I barred from your yacht because I was born in a dinghy?

You can't be socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Socially permissive, maybe, but not liberal. Because all issues are social issues

New on the blogroll: SDS at UCF

2010-09-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

Students for a Democratic Society promotes participatory democracy: the idea that you should have a say in all decisions that affect you.

The UCF chapter's blog is new. It will have updates once we do something worth sharing.

In the meantime, enjoy this little ditty I learned at the 2009 National Convention in Murfreesboro, Tennessee:

Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
But today we kick your ass.

There were a lot of Marxist/anarchist debates at that convention and the debate got a little heated. Luckily there was plenty of good will and common purpose so democracy and tolerance prevailed. I'm not sure how helpful the alcohol was.

Political incorrectness.

2010-08-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

This is a short thought but it's important.

If someone calls themselves "politically incorrect", I take them at their word and ignore their political opinions. It's very polite of them, actually, to warn me in in advance how incorrect they are politically.

If you find yourself about to say, "This may not be PC, but", please reconsider. There are usually good reasons that something is "un-PC". Like maybe it's a racial slur or a sexist stereotype or some other sort of irrational bigotry. Being politically incorrect doesn't make you edgy in a cool way. It usually just makes you an insensitive ass.

If you're interested in why this is, there's a good essay called "The Greatest Cliche".

----
P.S. There is never a good time to say "I'm not racist, but...".

Why I am not a conservative

2010-08-08T17:19:00.000-07:00

Conservatives are the people who want to bring back orphan workhouses and execute atheists. They're either bigoted saps or just plain evil!

Or so I thought, until I befriended some College Republicans at UCF. They're clearly intelligent. They don't seem evil. So why are they conservatives? It turns out conservatism makes a lot of sense, if you look at it as an attitude toward social change and human nature.

Conservative Alex Knepper ("What the Angry Right Has Lost") says

Conservatism proper is a disposition. ... it is skeptical, wary of claims to alter and improve the human condition...

Since radical upheaval is more likely to lead to chaos than utopia, change should be slow and cautious. Our institutions have gotten us this far, so why risk destroying them?

This conservative disposition seems so reasonable that it's a wonder anyone isn't a conservative. So why aren't I?

1) Conservatism is a good way to moderate the pace of change, but unopposed conservatism is just stasis. Stasis is bad because the world isn't perfect. "Our" institutions aren't working for everyone and they need to change.

2) Some institutions (like global capitalism) are working so badly that radical change is worth the risk.

3) I just don't share the the conservative skepticism of human nature. My own society has more or less abolished kings and titled nobility and state churches, and outlawed chattel slavery and company towns and marital rape. These "natural" human institutions weren't necessary for civilization. Maybe prisons and corporations and standing armies aren't either.

Let's find out.

-----
I'm always inspired by these words of Gustave Hervé, from 1905:

I know very well that our collectivist or communist conception is repugnant to you; that, at the very least, it seems to you a mad Utopia. Utopia? It is thus that Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI described the pretensions of your ancestors, the bourgeois revolutionaries, who dreamed of a society in which there would be no absolute king, no privileged nobles, and no state religion.

Hervé later became a fascist, but you can't win 'em all.

Last edited 28 August: It's "company towns" not "factory towns".

My Country 'Tis of Thee

2010-08-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

In the 1700s, the British concocted a pathetic hymn to their monarch called "God Save the Queen". Some Britons are still deceived into singing it by the wickedness of the throne. Worse still, it's used in other "independent" states that should be republics by now, and is even one of New Zealand's national anthems.

Cowards.

In 1831, some Americans reclaimed the tune from their former oppressors and wrote new lyrics dedicated to a rather vague notion of "liberty", mostly involving "hills and dales". We know it as "My Country 'Tis of Thee". It's not particularly interesting, but at least it's properly republican.

About a decade later, an American named A.J. Duncan decided that America wasn't living up to its founding promises, what with the oppressed underclass created by racial slavery. So he added his own twist to the patriotic song with his abolitionist version:

My country,' tis of thee,
Stronghold of slavery, of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Where men man’s rights deride,
From every mountainside thy deeds shall ring!

My native country, thee,
Where all men are born free, if white’s their skin;
I love thy hills and dales,
Thy mounts and pleasant vales;
But hate thy negro sales, as foulest sin.

Let wailing swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees the black man’s wrong;
Let every tongue awake;
Let bond and free partake;
Let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong.

Our father’s God! to thee,
Author of Liberty, to thee we sing;
Soon may our land be bright,
With holy freedom’s right,
Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King.

It comes, the joyful day,
When tyranny’s proud sway, stern as the grave,
Shall to the ground be hurl’d,
And freedom’s flag, unfurl’d,
Shall wave throughout the world, O’er every slave.

Trump of glad jubilee!
Echo o’er land and sea freedom for all.
Let the glad tidings fly,
And every tribe reply,
“Glory to God on high,” at Slavery’s fall.

There's a pattern here, and I'm afraid that if the tune got yet another set of lyrics, listeners would be overwhelmed by the sheer magnificence of its call for universal liberation.

Goddamn.

----
God Save the Queen
My Country 'Tis of Thee
Video of abolitionist version

Edited 5 August

TPP 6a: No Creed But Crap

2010-07-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

Tea Party Patriot Chapter 6a: No Creed But Crap

Chapter 7 is an actual Tea Party, set mostly in the real world of today, before Obama takes over everything. I feel spoiled here, because it's brimming with bullshit.

After a page of street directions useless to anyone who isn't familiar with downtown Orlando, and some chat about the weather, Jenny and Jerry get to the important question: Is Obama the Antichrist? Jenny asks

"So many people actually seem to worship the President. Do you remember that music video of those little kids, making that praise song about him during the campaign?"

A question for readers: How do you choose to worship Obama? I've got a Shepard Fairey "HOPE" poster enshrined with Michelle-shaped candles, but I can't figure out the right incense. How does arugula burn?

"Well, if he is the Antichrist, we need to be doing more than just holding signs up and chanting 'stop spending money,' or whatever it is they have planned for today."

This is true even if Obama is just a secular tyrant. If he's a threat to American democracy, you probably shouldn't be postponing a Tea Party Convention because it's hot out and you've got family vacations. But Tea Partiers don't actually believe that kind of rhetoric, or else they're the laziest patriots in history.

Jerry brings up the best argument: Obama is too incompetent to be the Antichrist.

"I wondered the same...but look at the first summit he went to. ... He just seemed to make a buffoon out of himself, an absolute ass, falling all over everyone, bowing and apologizing for everything. The Antichrist would have had them eating out of the palm of his hand, but our President got zero results out of that whole stupid debacle. I think he's just an idiot in wolf's clothing."

No time to explore how matter-of-factly Jerry talks about what "the Antichrist" would do despite there being no biblical basis for it (see Fred Clark for that)--I have a more reality-based beef with this passage: the right-wing idea of how America should act.

If you met a man who took pride in his refusal to apologize for his many mistakes, you might call him any number of colorful names, but "world leader" won't be among them. Tea Partiers want America to be this man, on the world stage. They think that apologizing for our more shameful moments makes us weaker. This is just alien to me. Pretending you're perfect when everyone knows you aren't doesn't make you perfect. It makes you an asshole. I don't want America to be an asshole.

There's some more irrelevant crap about how Jerry thinks they're in the End Times. He makes a joke to his wife that's subtle and even funny if you ignore everything wrong about it:

"If they want to get my Bible, they're gonna have to take my gun away first, and you know how I feel about that!"

See that's funny because it doesn't explicitly--

"...Cold dead hands. That's all I'm saying honey. From my cold dead hands."

:(

After a few line breaks, there's two paragraphs of an imprisoned Jerry wailing about how he should have listened to his wife, set in the book's "present" (our future). I can tolerate chapters alternating between past and present, but these pointless viewpoint switches are distracting*. I'm a simple man Quintana. Give me a simple book. I know you're capable of it.

After the paranoid heat-packing Jesus chat, the Tea Party starts coming together. The crowd is being urged to protest inside a tennis court.

"Look at the fences!" Jerry whispered loudly at her, "They're at least twelve feet high and are covered with that green material. You can hardly see what's going on outside! You know, it looks like a concentration camp. I'm not going in there, even with these people." He turned around to see everyone else coming after him. "They're not gonna trap us in here! It's a cage."

Jerry has apparently never heard of "Free Speech Zones", the bullshit cages protesters are sometimes forced into. Jerry is understandably angry about this, and joins a bike-riding woman in chanting,

"Hell no, we won't go!"
"I never thought I'd be yelling that," Jerry said.
"I suppose she had a change of heart some time in the last forty years," Jenny replied.

Forty years ago, the chanters were refusing to fight a war they believed was unjust. Today, they're chanting it because tennis courts remind them of Auschwitz.

A "heavy-set young woman with long blond hair, wearing a grey pantsuit and pink blouse" is organizing the crowd.

The girl, very official looking looking with her walkie-talkie...

Wait who let a little girl take over? Oh it's the woman. The adult woman who for some reason is being called a "girl" here. And apparently she's adorable trying to be all official-like.

So the pantsuit woman is swayed by the "Hell no" chanting much more easily than Lyndon Johnson was, and they find a better place to protest. Here comes a great big lie:

There seemed to be no majority of any one kind of people. Despite the best efforts of some^[who?], the protesters couldn't easily be put into a box and labeled White, Brown, Rich, Poor, Christian, or coming from any particular ancestry, ideology, creed, or organization. It was a microcosm of America.

No.

The Tea Parties are not a microcosm of America. To claim they don't come from any particular ideology or creed is absurd. You don't see communists or socialists or many liberals participating in Tea Parties. And that's OK! If the protests are issue-based and not just "I'm angry", certain ideologies should be overrepresented. It's alright to be on the fringe. Sometimes radical minorities are right.

So please don't claim to represent the majority of Americans.

Ahead to Chapter 6b (coming soon)
Back to Chapter 5
Back to Tea Party Patriot Index

-----
*TV Tropes says Dune does this but warns "Don't Try This At Home". Does Dune pull it off? As you might have guessed, I'm not a connoisseur of fine literature.

Edited 29 July

TPP 5: Reagan's Birthday

2010-07-22T12:28:00.001-07:00

Tea Party Patriot Chapter 5: Reagan's Birthday

Chapter 5 is one last rest stop of calm before the breakneck highway of terror that is Chapter 6. The most pressing crisis: Jenny has no idea what gift to get David for his birthday. She asks God what to do. His apparent advice: try the garage. God's pretty smart.

She searches the garage for the boxes she saved years earlier, which she hasn't explored yet because if she had the plot wouldn't work. And she finds

"Jerry's keepsake toys." It was a model railroad.

It's wrapped in newspaper, which allows a neat little anecdote based on a coupon:

Foodway? "Expires on November 13th, 1984. This week only, milk 89 cents a galon. Ruby red grapefruit 33 cents each." The last time Jenny saw an entire gallon of milk, they wanted real money for it, $32.00 in fact...

and then this:

...and she had less than a dollar to her name.

Heroic Jenny, lacking employment, is a single mother living on government benefits. But it's OK, because there's high unemployment and she has no choice, unlike today's deadbeats.

...the bottom layer of newspaper got her attention...She held it up.

'November 7th, 1984. Reagan Wins in Landslide. GOP Sweeps the Country with 60%.' What a relic! She looked at the man's face, his hopeful smile, stern eyes and jolly cheeks. His tie was red white and blue. Nancy had on a black polka-dot dress. Jenny carefully held it to her chest. "Thanks Jerry. Wish you could be here. Maybe this tells me that you are, in spirit."

Later in this book, Obama supporters are accused of being brainwashed zombies. To be fair I do frequently see images of Obama as signs of astral connection to departed relatives.

She manages to scrape together a modest cake and puts the train next to it. John Adam's birthday better not be soon, because Jenny really went all-out here.

The next day comes a scene that initially seems like filler about John Adam and David fighting with plastic swords. Until the big reveal:

[John Adam] came at his brother with a plastic sword and stated hitting him with it.
"Get in line! Get in line!"

John Adam was imitating the Peacekeeper from the last chapter! This is a genuinely frightening scene in which we see children growing up to see tyranny as normal.

They settle down and David gets his birthday food and the train set Jenny found.

"Hey who is this old man? Is this your Daddy and Mommy?" David asked his mother.

Jenny chuckled. "No dear, that's a newspaper. His name is Reagan. Ronald Reagan, and Nancy. He used to be the President. He was a wonderful man."

"There used to be another president?" David frowned.

"Yes," Jenny replied, "and some day I'll tell you all about him."

I voted for Obama. I volunteered for the Obama campaign. I proudly own an Obama "Hope" poster. But I don't worship Obama the way some people do Reagan. In fact I think Obama's kind of a jackass--can you imagine the gall it takes to accept a Nobel Peace Prizq and then give a pro-war speech to the Committee? Can you imagine a Jenny or Jerry or J.T. Quintana criticizing Reagan like I just criticized Obama?

They hook up the train and it works, so a good time is had by all*. It's a hope spot in Jenny's often bleak life, but author Quintana ruins it for us by ending with:

"She kissed him on the forehead. "Thanks Grampa."
He sat in his wheelchair and stared.

Grampa has seen the next chapter of the book, and all its horrors. While this chapter provides some neat glimpses of world-building, the next induces anger with every stupid page. For there we shall enter a world where reason is swept away. We shall visit a Tea Party.

Ahead to Chapter 6a
Back to Chapter 4
Back to Tea Party Patriot Index

-----
*My favorite passive phrase.

Fun lies about America!

2010-07-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

Real fake facts about my country's history:

George Washington was so moved by Betsy Ross' flag design that he freed his slaves the day he saw it.
Thomas Jefferson convinced a Unitarian minister to let him marry an apple tree.
Benjamin Franklin died while testing his experimental "electric musket".
Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a device that extracted alcohol from cotton fibers.
The culture of the antebellum South was based on chivalry, elegance, and a principled respect for state's rights.
Only fifteen citizens of New Hampshire died during the Civil War, twelve of them fighting for the Confederacy.
Mark Twain lost an eye saving Susan B. Anthony from an out-of-control riverboat.
Andrew Carnegie died sailing in a canoe made out of a giant sequoia.

And three extra-special extra-stupid lies:

America is a republic and not a democracy, and people who claim this aren't just annoying pedants using outdated terminology.
America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Popular sovereignty and separation of powers are right there in Leviticus.
America is the root of all evil in the world, the Great Satan, etc. etc.

------
I don't actually know why people make up lies about Washington and the cherry tree and such. That's so boring compared to the simultaneous deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (on 4 July 1826, America's fiftieth anniversary!) or the way Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech after being shot. Historical mythology is dull compared to reality.

Happy birthday USA! Ya big lug.

Mercator the traitor

2010-07-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

It'll be a cold day in hell before I support the Mercator projection.

Over four centuries ago, Flemish fraud Gerardus Mercator foisted this monstrosity upon the world. It's the one that still hangs in many classrooms, lying to children about the relative sizes of the continents.

I interviewed a straw-defender of this vile projection

It's useful for navigators on the high seas.
Are we sailors? No? Then take your ridiculous map and shove it.

Well we've always used it.
Argument from tradition is nonsense and has always been a ruse by the powerful to defend their privilege.

You're making a really big deal about it.
You're damn right I am. Because Greenland isn't as big as South America.

Calm down, you're such an extremist
Oh you want extremist? How about the upside-down Peters? It's just as correct as a North-up map.

My God...
Dr. King isn't so radical after you've met Malcolm X, is he?

What?
So you see how the Mercator is a disgrace to cartography?

OK. I admit it. I supported Franco's Spain. I want to bring back orphan workhouses. I love the Mercator projection and there's nothing you can do about it.
See folks? That's Mercatorites for you. Their moral compass is skewed straight to hell.

Or maybe to Greenland.

----
Edit 10 July: Oops! It's Peters Projection not "Peterson".

TPP 4: Editing is for chumps

2010-07-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

Tea Party Patriot Chapter 4: Editing is for Chumps

READER EXERCISE: Read the following passage and note all unnecessary detail:

They passed through the entrance, stopped to pay the parking fee, and continued into the Goofy lot with everyone else. They evacuated the van within five seconds of Jerry putting the gearshift into park. He opened the back hatch and pulled out the double stroller. They filled it with snacks, water bottles, and an emergency diaper bag.

They made their way down the row of cars and climbed on board the people mover. It was quite a contraption; powered by a large propane fueld engine, it towed several cars, with several rows of benches per car, and looked like a giant caterpillar. After a short ride, they passed through the ticket booth and walked hurriedly up the ramp to the Monorail Station. They only had to wait two minutes for it to arrive. It was a streamlined electric train, trimmed in yellow, and shot over the woods and lakes of Central Florida on a single steel and concrete track, arriving at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom in just a few minutes. Both boys glowed silently during the entire journey."

Jesus that's a lot of filler. If I were asked to edit this--and keep as much as I could--I would keep:

Their quick exit from the van (to show they were excited)
The stroller (so you can infer the boys' age and the physical stress of moving them)
The boys' reactions (to show character)
A brief description of the monorail (in case you don't know what it is)
Their prompt arrival in the Magic Kingdom.

I would leave out:

Paying the parking fee
Their parking lot designation
Where the stroller was located
What supplies they put in the stroller
The people mover, a dull mode of transportation that adds nothing
Walking up the ramp
How long they waited for the monorail
The color of the monorail's trim
The physical composition of the track
The fact that they are in Central Florida

Why did J.T. Quintana make us slog through that? Did he ask for actual criticism before he published the book? Wait a minute--this book did have editors!

Editors: J.T. Quintana and D.C. Burdick.

Look I'm not in the publishing industry or anything, but I think the point of editors is to find mistakes or flaws that escaped the author, so I'm not sure why Quintana himself is listed as an editor. This does mean that D.C. Burdick is the laziest editor of all time.

We learn Jenny has fibromyalgia, which causes intense pain while she's trying to make David's Disney birthday a blast. There's a line break and then...

Jerry pressed his hands against his face again. "What happened next? Dear God what happened?"

It's a flashback from Jerry in his prison cell! So does this justify the mundane detail, since Jerry is trying to savor every memory of his free life?

No.

Jerry may want to remember every detail, but I don't. If you're going to include details, make them meaningful. Or interesting. Or give some indication that this isn't normal narrative. Fleeting glimpses. Fragments. Write something that doesn't sound like an poorly-rehearsed elementary school speech on "My Summer Break". Argh.

Jerry remembers what happened next: the teacup ride. That's where he had pestered Jenny into attending a Tea Party with him.

Back in prison, in the present:

He rubbed the store spot in the center of his chest, remembering the strange star-like scar that he'd woken up with when he first came-to in the cell.

Ooh a legitimate mystery! Why does he have the scar? He eats cornslop to stay alive, even though it makes his head and stomach ache since

Jerry had had a corn intolerance since birth

This goddamned family and their goddamned corn intolerance.

Jerry slips into another one of his memories, this time at his grandparents' house in Arizona when he was eight years old:

He couldn't understand at the time why [Nana] liked to call him Jorge, his given name, and not Jerry, like everyone else.

I'm not sure what this adds to the story. Maybe, "See, Tea Partiers aren't all WASPS. We have ashamed Hispanics as well."

There's one thing Jerry cannot remember in painfully unnecessary detail: the Bible verses he memorized in school. The only ones he recalls are a snippet from Psalms 19 ("my strength and my redeemer") and John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not parish but have everlasting life.

I can relate to this. From first to eighth grade, I memorized a Bible verse maybe every two weeks. John 3:16 is one of the few I still remember. But at least I remember that "perish" here is spelled with an "e".

D.C. Burdick: Laziest Editor of All Time

Ahead to Chapter 5
Back to Chapter 3b
Back to Tea Party Patriot Index

TTP 3B: God, Grampa, and Government Cheese

2010-06-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

Tea Party Patriot Chapter 3b: God, Grampa, and Government Cheese

Jenny's flashback ends, bringing us back to the dystopian present. Jenny is feeling guilty for her illegal garden, and later in the chapter, she thinks of Romans 13:

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God Consequently he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves...

This introduces introduces a genuinely decent character arc as she struggles with the meaning of law and justice. I can't help sympathizing with Jenny:

Sometimes she would go to sleep at night just sure that when she woke up, [her husband Jerry] would be there next to her, and everything that had happened since his disappearance would just be a bad dream.

We also learn about Giles "Grampa" O'Connor, Jenny's grandfather and multipurpose plot device. Long ago, Grampa worked at

Sandia Laboratories (now known as G.E.L., the government's new Green Earth Laboratories.)

But before Al Gore could sucker him into neopagan nature-worship, Grampa lucked out and got electrocuted. This fried his legs, so he gets a free wheelchair and a handicapped-licensed van. (Other vehicles are either Peacekeeper Suburbans or Smart cars.) So long as he's alive, Jenny and her sons will have a house and a van.

"What if they give me food that has soy or corn syrup in it?"

This is an early example of Tea Party Patriot's "corn syrup is evil" motif. I have to agree with author J.T. Quintana here: the corn lobby is evil.

But they'll be plenty of corn syrup demonizing later. Chapter 3 really shines by giving us a look into home economics in the new regime:

The government hands out food at Regional Distribution Centers (R.D.C.s) if you're on Government Depression Assistance ("a new program that combined the old TANF welfare program with food stamps.").
70% of government employee families and 95% other families qualify.
R.D.C. purchases work on a point system; qualified families get a number of points each month.
The government deducts some of Grampa's points

...to pay his property, income, and health insurance taxes, motor vehicle registration, gasoline ration, and insurance fees, as well as his electrical and water utility rations...Any utility ration overages...would be deducted from other government services, like G.D.A. and health insurance points.

So how does this economy work? We never see any cash (or hoarded gold, surprisingly). Did Obama institute a moneyless economy in the shoppinest nation on earth? Most--but apparently not all--families use the point system for shopping at G.D.A. Where does the government get these rations? Government farms? How are the workers paid, in points? THE RESOURCES HAVE TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE.

This doesn't work as a clever indictment of deficit spending, because for deficit spending you need to borrow: Americans are now unable to lend and I doubt foreigners would be willing to buy US bonds. It's just a lesson in how the government is evil and will make you suffer.

So there's GDA points, health insurance points, and

"The arrangement, once it was straightened out, worked well. Grampa's ration was set at a fixed 100 energy points, and Jenny's assistance, as long as they were careful, paid the rest of the electric bill."

As they approach the G.D.A., Jenny explains to her son John Adam:

"This building used to be called Wal Mart."

That's it. Obama's done it now. We could handle the secret police and sham elections, but now that sick bastard took our WalMarts.

The old WalMart (R.I.P.) hasn't opened, and the crowd around it starts getting antsy. But then around the corner speeds a couple of conservative fantasy persecution complexes:

Three Peacekeepers got out of each [of four] Suburban in full riot gear, sporting helmets, shields, and nightsticks. They typically wore black SWAT uniforms with a round silver and black patch on their left breast pocket. The patch was of a cobra with its tail swung up and then curled around itself.

A properly "Orwellian" police force might wear smiley face patches. But that's just not evil enough.

An official announces that they'll have to line up in the parking lot instead of going inside. Most people grudgingly comply, but one man continues to shout obscenities at the announcer woman, until two Peacekeepers throw him to the ground. They kick him, drag him, and beat him with nightsticks. When a woman rushes up to help, they knock her out with a baton to the temple.

Jenny praises Jerry's wisdom some more:

"Why? Dear God why? Jerry warned everybody about this too. Couldn't he have been wrong about something? Just one thing?

The actual Tea Party chapters make Jerry a dunce to any reasonable reader. But it turns out everything he said was true! Even the lies!

Remember our earlier lesson in the new home economics? Well the G.D.A. can't swipe the ration cards in the parking lot, so it doesn't really matter. They just give Jenny what they think she needs (flour, potatoes, and margarine). Thanks to this book I now know that margarine is made from the dreaded soybean oil.

When John Adam asks if they have apples, Jenny answers

"...Just because the people who give us food have the apple hanging in the circle on their uniforms, doesn't mean that they have apples."

Seriously Obama? You had one uniform with a serpent and another with a hanging fruit? Fuck it, just roll out the "666" tattoos.

There's a subtle, realistic little passage when Jenny passes the Government Greens store on her way home, which is only for "the more wealthy government employees" and "supposedly filled with fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs, and meat." I like this--dictatorships do give perks like this to loyal party members.

Jenny worries about David's upcoming birthday, and if she'll be able to make a special meal or get him a gift. Last, we get another glimpse into economics:

If she tried to sell something on the internet, she would be taxed exorbitantly as a small business and charged multiple green and healthcare fees,or she would be fined heavily for starting an illegal business. No one could afford to buy anything anyway and bartering was illegal unless you paid taxes on it.

So there is a private economy and even legal small businesses? Or is it just a sham? And how do you collect a tax in a barter system? And the Internet is up?!

Don't worry about it. In our next installment we're going to Disney World!

Ahead to Chapter 4
Back to Chapter 3a
Back to Tea Party Patriot Index

Review of "Dead Snow"

2010-06-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

(warming: spoilers)

It's a movie about college students fighting zombie Nazis. I saw this the same night I saw The Godfather for the first time, and I noticed a distinct difference in the quality of the two films.

Things "Dead Snow" Failed to Include:

an ideology of undead anti-Semitism and hypernationalism.
zombie Nuremburg laws
zombie death camps.
braindead appeasement
zombie fucking Hitler.
zombie Stalingrad
occupation and partition of Zombieland
zombie Nuremburg Trials
reevaluation of zombie medical ethics, political psychology, and the nature of evil.

Things "Dead Snow" DID Include:

a character using a hammer and a sickle to fight Nazis
a medical student amputating his own arm and cauterizing the stub, only to be bitten in the crotch by another zombie.
sex on the toilet.

A cinematic tour de force. If you haven't seen it, you should. The Godfather, I mean.

Marmaduke: A play in three acts

2010-06-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

ACT I
Two men sit on a couch in a dank and smoky room, director TOM Dey and writer VINCE Di Meglio.

TOM: Dude.
VINCE: Yeah?
TOM: You know Marmaduke?
VINCE: The jelly stuff?
TOM: No, Marmaduke. The giant dog comic.
VINCE: Oh yeah, my grandma has a bunch of those taped to her fridge.
TOM: Yeah that. You know what would be awesome?
VINCE: What?
TOM: If the comic was like an hour long, and with real actors, and Owen Wilson.
VINCE: Duuuuude.

ACT II

TOM: Brilliant!
VINCE: A masterpiece!

ACT III
Three disgusted moviegovers walk out of a theater: a DOCTOR, a PRIEST, and a REVOLUTIONARY.

DOCTOR: What hath God wrought?
PRIEST: God is a lie! We must overthrow the wretched system that created this.
REVOLUTIONARY: No! If the workers have not risen up against this, there is no hope. We can only despair.
DOCTOR: The dog that spoke gopher was kind of funny though.
PRIEST: I'll give you that.
REVOLUTIONARY: Yeah the gopher gag was great.
PRIEST: God is still dead.

TPP 3A: The Press and the Gun

2010-06-21T10:48:00.001-07:00

Tea Party Patriot Chapter 3a: The Press and the Gun
The first part of Chapter 3 is Jenny's flashback to the day Obama took her house.

Searching for a distraction that morning, Jenny turned on the TV to watch the News Network. The President was having another bill signing ceremony.

This sentence gets one thing right and another thing very wrong.

The tyrannical President is signing bills into law, instead of making executive decrees. I like this, because an American dictator probably would maintain a semblance of constitutional government. If you complained, apologists could argue "Well, it's a free country. The Communist Party just happens to get 99% of the votes." It's important to maintain the illusion of choice.

That's why the single, government-approved "News Network" doesn't belong in this story. If I were an American Stalin, there would be plenty of cable news channels. On each of them you'd get mesmerizing footage of forest fires, frightening stories of missing children, and delightful videos of waterskiing squirrels.

Fair, balanced, and adorable.

Panels of political "experts" well within a narrow range of opinions would entertain the audience by yelling at each other. Election coverage would concentrate on personality and the minutia of campaign strategy. Those who weren't hypnotized by the flashy nothing would probably give up on politics altogether. It would be a frightening world, but a good one for dictate-ers who didn't want to be recognized as dictators.

Anyway, Jenny had to file for bankruptcy after Jerry was imprisoned. The government now owns all banks, so bankruptcy means "the government absolves you of debt and confiscates all your shit. "

They allowed her family two hours to vacate the premises. She was warned that any attempt to remove items from the premises could result fines and incarceration.

Since a person with no home and no possessions is unlikely to be a productive citizen, this bankruptcy law only makes sense if you believe that governments maintain power by making citizens suffer. The author believes exactly that.

Anyway she takes the Ronald Reagan turnpike (presumably that's its old name) from the courthouse to her Grampa's house to borrow his van. She rushes back to her house (in the same neighborhood) to illegally pack up anything she can. This includes photo albums, her children's toys, sentimental Christmas ornaments, and

...Jerry's copy of the Constitution that he proudly displayed on his wall.

Up on the wall, so that it's difficult to read but easy to worship. Like a Bible nailed to the ceiling.

She drops the van off at Grampa's and returns in her own car for a final check, and remembers the most important member of the family:

Enshrined in an old leather holster, she pulled down Jerry's prize possession, a Ruger Blackhawk .30 carbine, single-action revolver.

(That's a kinky dangling modifier!) Here's a variant of Chekhov's gun for right-wing hack novels: If a gun is introduced in the first act, it should ~~be discharged by~~ be glorified and drive much of the plot.

As she's leaving, the Peacekeepers arrive! One of them allows Jenny to take whatever she can carry in one load, using the bizarre logic

"You know they never take anything valuable, just sentimental."

Instead of using this opportunity to smuggle the gun out, Jenny takes a box of her husband Jerry's keepsake toys instead and hides the gun in the far corner of her attic. The Peacekeepers never check the "sentimental" box she takes, so she could taken the gun now and spared us a lot of nighttime sneaking. But author J. T. Quintana is a wrathful god, and would not allow it.

In the second half of this chapter, we get a glimpse of Obamanomics, as Jenny and her remaining family head down to Walmart...or what's left of it.

Ahead to Chapter 3b
Back to Chapter 2
Back to Tea Party Patriot Index

TPP Review: Chapter 2

2010-06-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2: Heroically Crashing

Chapter 2 opens with three pages of aeronautical chatter. That's three pages wasted. Look authors (and I mean all authors, not just Quintana): unless I need to know how a common machine works to understand the plot, don't tell me.

To me, it might as well be "Attidudinal adulators are fluctuating axiomatically toward critical longitude." And if someone does know what you're talking about, they might find mistakes! You can't win, so don't do it.

Keep it simple.

These pages introduce a new character, First Officer Tommy Manfretti. The plane crashes, and Tommy is never seen again. I don't think he died, since we later learn that Jerry the Pilot helped everyone get out alive. Tommy just disappears. Gets a full name and everything, then just disappears.

In fact, the whole plane crash is irrelevant to the plot. It's mentioned in one scene near the end of the book, to demonstrate Jerry's competence. Another piece of advice for writers: when people suggest you "show" character traits instead of "telling" the audience about them, they mean within the context of the plot. Jerry's later anti-government actions are actually plenty heroic on their own. You don't need to show him expertly crash-landing a plane, especially if you're going to make the plane crash boring.

"Dianne! Garrett! We have an engine fire! Tommy, what's taking them so long? Come on guys! Pick up!" Jerry said out loud as he was jolted back to reality by the sound of a large, secondary steel door slamming shut. Jerry watched the slot in his cell door screech open.

"Hey, hater, take your food now or you'll be licking it off the floor!" A blue plastic bowl appeared throuh the slot in the pale-yellow solid-steel door.

The jump back to reality is so jarring that I didn't understand the plane crash was a daydream on the first read-through.

Jerry rushes over to the slot in the door to get his gruel: a slop of corn, water, and some sweetener. He thanks God for his meal, drinks the slop, and

...then wiped down the inside of the bowl with his right index finger.

"Index finger" or even "finger" would work fine here. I'm not very good with directions, so take it easy, Quintana. I'm Mentally Taxed Enough Already.

Jerry had realized after about the first month that he was in solitary confinement, indefinitely

Guantanamo detainees get cellmates, at least.

This was presumably to inhibit the spread of his hatespeak to the other inmates, if there were any. (Hatespeak was what the tea party movement called hatespeech: It was a kind of warning, and a belated tribute to George Orwell's foretelling book, Nineteen Eighty-Four.)

That's Quintana's parenthetical note, not mine.

We learn Jerry is in a windowless cell, and the light is always on. He knows it's 12 x 20 feet, because

"his feet were nearly an exact unit of measure--an actual foot long".

You know what they say about men with big feet...
(That's right! They spend a fortune on shoe leather.*)

Jerry sat back down, covered his eyes again, and wished he could be at his son David's birthday party. If his wall-scratch calendar was correct, this would be the first one he had ever missed. Even though he's a Tea Partier, I feel sorry for him. No one deserves indefinite detention without trial. It's wrong, and maybe even unAmerican.

Ahead to Chapter 3a
Back to Chapter 1
Back to Tea Party Index
_ _ _ _
*In which to wrap their enormous penises.

TPP Review: Chapter 1

2010-06-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1: The Secret Garden
(You can read most of Chapter 1 online in the Amazon.com preview)

Jenny stood at the tall gate and listened. A thick cushion of dead St. Augustine grass crackled under her bare feet as she stepped back against the side of the house--her house. The clouds had drifted off, leaving her exposed in the moonlight.

Jenny is breaking curfew. We later learn that it isn't exactly her house anymore.

The Peacekeepers, though usually quite ignorant, patrolled the streets regularly.

The Peacekeepers are the President's police, constantly patrolling in their black Suburban vans--presumably in every city in the nation. Their ironic name isn't the only indication the writer likes Orwell. The back cover declares: "In his freshman novel, J. T. Quintana envisions an Orwellian future for his beloved United States." The novel explicitly notes the parallel between Orwell's crimethink and its own hatespeech. The Peacekeepers arrest a neighbor who owns dangerous works like Nineteeen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Does Quintana know about Orwell's own politics?

There would be no mistaking her, the long-locked redhead from Oakwood Drive.

She got red hair.

Waiting for another cloud to drift over and shroud her quest, her mind went to what her husband Jerry had always told her: that everyone could recognize and admire her from miles away, all because of her big beautiful smile and fiery-red hair.

Fiery red hair.

One again, she hoped against hope that he was wrong, or was at least exaggerating about how easy it was to spot her in a crowd. Jerry had been right about so many other things, she reckoned she could never be too careful.

Jerry had been right! Blogger Fred Clark at Slacktivist argues that the Left Behind books are an attempt to "prove" the authors' bizarre End-Times scheme simply by depicting it. Tea Party Patriot is a vindication of Tea Party fantasy: "Sure, you laugh when I say Obama is a communist. But he is. Just read the book!"

Jenny quietly opens the gate to her old yard, and looking in through the sliding glass door she remembers a Christmas years ago. Her son David had done an adorable kid thing, and the thing became "an instant tradition." Anyway, her quest:

Jenny immediately spotted her alibi, a black and white soccer ball that had landed a few feet from the back fence.

Aren't soccer balls usually black and white? Quintana loves unnecessary detail. The reader always knows which hand, right or left, a character used to do something.

Getting caught for breaking curfew was one thing, but getting arrested for possession of contraband or un-inspected [sic] food was something else entirely.

The First Lady's gardening obsession? All a lie. The government controls all food. A curious dog starts sniffing on the other side of the fence, and smells a rogue gardener:

"Hurrrrrrr"

But the owner calls the dog inside. Jenny thanks God for that, then stuffs some garden greens into the soccer ball. Charley horses strike her arms and hips:

She likened them to little Lilliputian horses

"Little" here probably isn't necessary, since it's a well-known--

(from the book Gulliver's Travels)

Argh.

She turns on the hose to water her garden, and as she's waiting for the cloak of cloud cover, her thoughts turn to her missing husband Jerry. The One Who Was Right All Along. We'll meet Jerry in the next chapter, as he heroically crashes an airplane.

Ahead to Chapter 2
Back to Index

Tea Party Patriot Review (Index)

2010-06-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

Imagine 1984, except Obama is Big Brother.

The Tea Party Patriot is a frustrating mess. The ridiculous setting is purported to be an all-too-possible future. Liberals are universally cowardly, stupid, or evil. The speeches made by the author's stand-in character are strung together out of lies and nonsense. There was clearly no copy editor. It seems like a perfectly awful book.

But it's frustrating because parts of it are truly engaging. I can't hate this book, because it told a decent story and had me rooting for the protagonists. The novel is poisoned by the author's politics, but the poison is just weak enough to leave it alive. I invite you to examine this barely breathing body in the coming weeks, and help me explore the dystopian world of J. T. Quintana's The Tea Party Patriot: A Tale of American Tyranny.

Buy the book and read along!

Chapter 1 -- The Secret Garden (18 June 2010)
Chapter 2 -- Heroically Crashing (19 June)
Chapter 3a -- The Press and the Gun (21 June)
Chapter 3b -- God, Grampa, and Government Cheese (27 June)
Chapter 4 -- Editing is for Chumps (1 July)
Chapter 5 -- Reagan's Birthday (22 July)
Chapter 6a -- No Creed But Crap (27 July)

Facebook suspects I'm conservative

2010-06-09T19:11:00.001-07:00

Specifically, a conservative who isn't quite sure of the date. One ad is straight from the 90s:

They forgot to mention Waco and Memogate and Vince Foster!

* * * *
Edit: I just realized by "Repeal the bill" they're probably talking about court challenges. This means it's not an ad from the past, but from the future, a future in which the government has actually taken over healthcare. Right now we're stuck with half-assed regulations.

Rand Paul: hypothetical hero

2010-05-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

And I like to think that, you know, even though I was a year old at the time, that I would have marched with Martin Luther King because I believed in what he was doing. [Rand Paul, on the Rachel Maddow show]

This means nothing. It's easy to say this now that MLK is popular and dead. Most people today, knowing what they know now, probably would march with King if magically transported back in time. It's easy to stick up for the right side of a long-settled debate.

In fact I'm a better hypothetical hero than Rand Paul. Not only would I have marched with Dr. King, I would marched for women's suffrage, and marched on the Bastille! My house would have been a stop on the Underground Railroad. I would have fired the first shots at Lexington and Concord, and forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, and killed Caesar to try to save the Roman Republic. I would have voted to acquit Socrates! I'm a way better imaginary time-traveler than Rand Paul.

Rand Paul's hypothetical heroism isn't just worthless; it's not even credible. I don't have any data on this, but it's real doubtful that someone who thinks whites-only businesses should be legal would have marched with Martin Luther King.

Seems pretty unlikely.

----
Edited 10 July

Muhammad versus the assholes versus me

2010-05-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

I'm both a leftist and a New Atheist, and when it comes to Islam those seem to clash. I don't think any theistic religion is true or necessary for human happiness. Religion can be a very bad influence on people, and deserves most of the criticism it gets. Fundamentalist Islam is particularly harmful these days.

But the anti-Islamic furor from atheists can get very close to the rhetoric of ignorant assholes. Like the assholes who wonder how Middle Easterners and North Africans could possibly resent poor innocent Europe. Or the Texans who started pig-racing every Friday to piss off the Muslims who were building a mosque nearby. Kicking people when they're down (like when they're an unpopular immigrant community) is generally an asshole move, and I don't want to be an asshole.

Then again, when radicals start trying to enforce their (only partially observed) internal religious customs on non-believers through death threats, it might be time to push back.

Today is Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. Greta Christina offers a good defense of this day. I especially like the Andrew Bernardin's Draw a Peaceful Muhammad Day. Here's my depiction of Muhammad:

He's entering the cave to meditate, and according to (my middle-school level understanding of) Islam he's about to be visited by an angel who will dictate the basics of Islam. My drawing is probably historically inaccurate in many ways, so sorry about that. If you're a Muslim, feel free to tell me if it makes a tempting object for idolatry. Microsoft Paint is generally underwhelming for such things.

Regicide is for cool people

2010-05-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

A Miſsive to the WORLD Reſpecting that so Noble a goal, LIBERTY

Dear Britain, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Canada:
I know you have a wide franchise and competitive elections and independent judiciaries all that. But what's with your heads of state? You didn't vote for them!

Dear Germany, Portugal, Botswana, South Korea, France, Italy:
Good job on the republic thing.

Dear Italy:
Just kidding.

Dear "Yellow Shirts" in Thailand:
My media says you're pro-coup and pro-monarchy. Either get better image consultants or start having better ideals.

Dear Saudi royal family:
Once my country gets public transportation, you're going down. Guess it wasn't a good idea to fund all those puritan Wahhabi and then live decadent lifestyles, was it?

My fellow Americans:
Stop getting so goddamned excited when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Henry or whatever visit. We fought one and a half wars to get away from the British crown--they should be pelted with rotten eggs when they mosey 'round these parts.

7/4/76 Never Forget.

Attention political cartoonists

2010-05-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

A good editorial cartoon:

1) makes a good point
2) in a way that an essay can't.

You can't just do one of those. Here are some failures:

This cartoon by Nate Beeler makes a coherent point in a humorous way, fulfilling #1. But you could turn this into a paragraph of text and lose nothing. There are no clever visual metaphors. The only action is Elena Kagan's barely-discernible change of expression. It's like the earliest television shows, when producers didn't know how to take advantage of the visual medium and just filmed radio hosts talking.

Just give me a visually exciting comic for--

Huh?

Mike Lester here uses an interesting visual metaphor to show...um...

No, that's impossible, he's--

Yep. He's arguing against civil liberties. The visual gag adds immediate absurdity that would be difficult to capture in text alone, so it fulfills Requirement #2. It works well enough that the jogger's word bubble is unnecessary. But the "point" isn't insightful or clever. It's horrible. I know I'm conflating artistic talent with content, but here it's justified. Editorial cartoonists in a democracy are part of the fourth estate, and have a duty beyond craftsmanship. They are obligated to promote liberty and justice. Or at least not argue against those values.

I disagree with Beeler's joke in the first comic, but Beeler isn't arguing against the whole "point" of America. Lester is. Since Lester's art is interesting I'll be lenient and give him a D-, and an indefinite detention at Gitmo. It's what he would have wanted.

Let Herbert Block (1909-2001) show you how political cartooning is done. Most of today's syndicated political cartoonists can't hold a candle to him:

("'Light, More Light!'--Goethe's Last Words" 1933)

Pundits like to announce the downfall of civilization, in response to apocolyptic terrors like sexting or media violence or youth slang. These cartoons usually feel like attacks: "I told you so. We're going into the dark ages and it's all your fault."

This doesn't. The artist isn't blaming you, he's crying with you.

("It's the same thing, without mechanical difficulties." 1949)

He was a staunch liberal, a hater of tyrants.

For its political impact, this is probably one of his weaker comics, since "The Soviet Union is bad" wasn't a very bold statement. In fact it strays a bit too close to Cold War propaganda.

But it's visually pleasing and genuinely funny. Look at the faces on the peasants, the corncob pipe of the Marshall Plan farmer, the hammer-and-sickle plow. I love it.

The above two Herbert Block cartoons are decent, but really just statements: "German civilization has fallen", "Stalin is a liar". The art is good, they're emotionally satisfying, but they're nothing great. The next one is:

("And remember, nothing can be accomplished by taking to the streets." 1963)

This cartoon is genius. It's a defense of the civil rights movement in less than 25 words, against the white moderates insisting on "patience" and "order". The visual metaphor depicts the movement as a defense of dignity against white aggression, and argues it more effectively than any essay could.

Aspiring cartoonists take note.

* * *
Take a look at Herblock's History, a journey from his first cartoon in 1929 ("The Forest Primeval") to his jabs at the 2000 presidential campaign. He was the first to publish the slur "McCarthyism", too.

Edit 18 June 2010: In the Beeler cartoon, Obama's expression ALSO kind of changes. It's still a worthless comic.

Prayer and me

2010-05-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

About a week ago I said my most earnest prayer in several years: “Dear God please let me pass this Spanish exam.” It started as a secular groan but I was desperate for help and I flung my head back to look at the ceiling (where God lives), so I think it counts. I felt stupid and immediately mumbled a retraction.

***

1998
They got me praying at Foundation Academy, the fundamentalist Baptist school I attended from first to third grade. In second grade I asked how God’s foreknowledge is compatible with intercessory prayer (I didn’t use those words). I didn’t get a good answer, but I kept praying. Largely because I feared hell and I had obsessive-compulsive ritual chants to avoid it, including:

Lord please forgive me of my sins. I’m sorry for them or if I’m not sorry I probably will be soon.

2002
The Christ School was a more moderate Presbyterian school, where I spent fourth to eighth grade. I was confused when the principal prayed something like “Let the weather be good if that is what you have planned.” Renegade (Gnostic! evolutionist!) science teacher Mr. Miller explained that Presbyterians believed in predestination. This made even less sense, but I kept praying whenever I was worried about something or someone.

2006
My friend Jenna let me borrow ATHEISM: The Case Against God by George H. Smith. Overnight I went from Jesusy deism to atheism, and stopped praying. It’s hard to break a prayer habit. If I learned a family friend was dying, I couldn’t do anything for them. I felt helpless.

***

Today, I’ll probably pray if someone asks me to. I’ve prayed with street preachers for wisdom, though it would be sort of embarrassing if God appeared to me now and I reconverted. I’m comfortable as an atheist and the theistic religions makes little sense to me, so it would need to be quite an experience. For now, I see no evidence that the world is influenced by prayer or anything beyond physical laws and human choices.

Happy National Day of Prayer.

P.S. It helps if you ignore the Establishment Clause.

Weaknesses of liberal morality

2010-04-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Haidt studies moral values. He says

...morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.

He and his colleagues have proposed five moral foundations:

(1) Harm/care, related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. This foundation underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.

2) Fairness/reciprocity, related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. This foundation generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [...]

3) Ingroup/loyalty, related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. This foundation underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one."

4) Authority/respect, shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. This foundation underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.

5) Purity/sanctity, shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. This foundation underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).

Haidt found that liberals (in the USA sense of socially permissive, economically left-of-center people) tend to value #1 (Harm/Care) and #2 (Fairness) exclusively. Conservatives tend to value all the foundations equally. Liberals argue for gay marriage since homosexuality harms no one and "marriage equality" just seems fair. Social conservatives oppose gay marriage because they think it sullies a sacred institution and homosexuality contradicts the commands of religious authorities.

I agree with Haidt that liberals should embrace the "conservative" values, because they aren't exclusively right-wing.

In-group loyalty is universal. On the left it's known as solidarity: we stand as one against oppression. It's the cohesion you need for a nationalist revolt against colonial occupiers. In-group loyalty asks: which side are you on?

They say in Harlan County,
There are no neutrals there.
You’ll either be a union man,
Or a thug for J.H. Blair.
Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can.
Will you be a lousy scab,
Or will you be a man ?

Don’t scab for the bosses,
Don’t listen to their lies.
Us poor folks haven’t got a chance,
Unless we organize.

Social conservatives at first seem to monopolize purity and sanctity, mostly the sanctity of hymens and men's anuses. But there's no reason sex should be the sole domain of sanctity. Haidt points out the anti-materialism in the environmental movement: the conviction that some things have spiritual value beyond their cash value. Historical and cultural objects have this worth as well. Even though I'm not a Muslim, I feel the Saudi regime is sullying Mecca by building shopping complexes adjacent the Grand Mosque. This foundation helps explain why many liberals see book-burning as an almost sacrilegious act.

Incidentally, right-libertarians value sanctity less than either conservatives or liberals do.

I cannot, however, endorse the Authority/Respect foundation, because I am frightened by people who see law and order as ends in themselves. Obedience for its own sake is a moral failing. Hierarchy is not a virtue. Authority/Respect is the code of slave masters and cult leaders, the morality I thought was discredited at the Nuremberg Trials: "I was only following orders."

I prefer the idea of Christopher Lipp, who argues that the Authority/Respect concept is just a means of promoting the other four, "a developmental behavior pattern that originates in pursuit of the other moral foundations and is not a self-standing foundation." Traditions are worth respecting but only if they promote compassion and in-group loyalty. Authorities can be legitimate, but only if they are just.

----
Edit 27 June: Greta Christina has an interesting argument that "liberal" values #1 and #2 are indeed closer to true morality, based on their universality. I'm not sure I agree.

(And I just learned it's Nuremberg, not "Nuremburg". Whoops.)

Next month's Wired Magazine (sneak peak)

2010-04-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me how, but I got a hold of the plan for next month's Wired Magazine. Thought you might like to know:

p3 Venn diagrams!

p14 A plan to stop climate change with massive, untested geoengineering projects...and one white billionaire's plan to profit.
(insert) A simplistic, highly implausible diagram of how the he'll save the world.

p17 Tech "journalism" that reads like ad copy.

p25 Nanobots. They're coming soon, I swear.

p31 Unsubstantiated hubris.

p48 Apple's war to free Bolivian lithium from the iron grip of Evo Morales.

p50 (Photoshop: Steve Jobs facing Evo Morales)

p51 (map of the precious, precious lithium deposits)

p52 Holy shit is that a woman? Oh it's an ad, nevermind.

p56 Radical life extension technology the poor will never see.

p60 Who the fuck could possibly need this product? You, dear reader. You need it.

p73 Another white billionaire and his quest to bring technology to darkest Africa, and save the world.

p78 Woah are those real women? Oh, they're video game characters. Next-gen rendering is pretty lifelike though.

p84 Is l33tspeak acceptable at a wedding? (Answer: It depends.)

p91 Techno-optimism so unwarranted that even pre-WWI utopian intellectuals would be ashamed of it.

p102 How microlending will save the world (this time the billionaire is Asian!).

p105 Cool new blogs that aren't Bottomlining the Rev

Back cover: Advertisement that will look ancient in three years.

Reflections on the Revolution in Russia

2010-04-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

The Soviet Union was a series of monstrous crimes justified by unbelieveable lies.

Many leftists supported the Soviet Union far longer than reason or conscience allowed. People should have figured out something was wrong by Kronstadt, or the purges, or show trials, or the Hungarian Revolution. I do not understand how people mouthing "liberation" could endorse a system that imprisoned people for telling jokes. But the anti-communist conservatives of the 1910s?

Lucky fucking guessers.

Who were leftists supposed to trust in 1917? William Randolph Hearst? Woodrow Wilson? If would be criminal not to ignore their ravings. Imagine living in the US at the time of the October Revolution. The government is waging a war "to make the world safe for democracy" while arresting dissidents under the Sedition Act or expelling them from the country. The Supreme Court just ruled a law against child labor "unconstitutional" and a black man is lynched every week. Rumors are trickling in of a man named Lenin who is sweeping away the old world of kings and speculators and pie-in-the-sky parsons. Who would you support?

I don't at all blame that first generation for knowing that another world was possible, and believing that maybe Russia was the beginning of that new world.

As my friend Sean says--and thus I'm guessing, in turn, Slavoj Žižek says--there is a kernel of goodness at the heart of the communist movement. That core idea is that equality and justice are achieveable in this world. That There Is An Alternative. That one day--soon!--the first will be last and the last will be first. That we'll turn the world upside down tomorrow!

Paul Ryan is wrong about freedom

2010-04-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

In a speech on 31 March 2010, Republican congressman Paul Ryan outlined his idea of America by asking:

Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism ... or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free?

It’s captivating rhetoric, but Paul Ryan is wrong. I could go through individual lies, like his claim that in a European welfare state, the “government must be the sole supplier of everyone’s happiness” or that “Progressivists say there are no enduring ideas of right or wrong.” But that’s not the main point.

Paul Ryan is wrong because he doesn’t understand freedom.

Ryan’s conservatism makes limited government the entirety of freedom. In this view only the government can oppress, and God has already handed down the scientific formula: “As government expands, liberty contracts.” But the Gipper—and Paul Ryan—are wrong, because the government is not the only threat to our liberty, and in fact can be a safeguard against other threats.

Paul Ryan is wrong because freedom is worthless without the ability to exercise it. It doesn’t help me at all that there is no law against breathing underwater; I still can’t do it. Freedom is hollow unless people are empowered to use it. The right to counsel in a criminal trial is important, but poverty made that freedom worthless to the poor until Gideon v. Wainwright made that legal right a reality. Many right-libertarians still oppose the public accommodations laws that banned whites-only businesses, because they do not see that private bigotry can strip away freedom as effectively as a tyrannical government.

Your freedom of action is restricted just as much by material circumstance as by government regulation and taxation. A free society to me is one in which everyone has a good and equal opportunity to make full use of their talents and to pursue their dreams. One part of that is limited government: I fully agree with Paul Ryan that freedom is imperiled if the state decides your occupation or arbitrarily seizes your property. But a truly free choice of occupations is unattainable in a world of crushing student debt. You cannot follow your dreams if you are dying of a treatable illness.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. (Anatole France)

That’s why it’s laughable when conservatives claim to believe in “equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.” I don’t know of anyone who truly believes in equality of outcome, and I am friends with communists. I believe in an equality of opportunity: society should be structured so that innate ability and motivation are the only determinants of success. Equal opportunity means that everyone should have free access to excellent public schools, no matter where they live, including occupational training and postsecondary education. Equal opportunity demands that people have access to free or inexpensive healthcare, because cancer is not meritocratic. Equal opportunity requires that everyone has a place to live in a safe, clean environment. A society of equal opportunity is one in which any competent, intelligent, ethical person could actually be President when they grow up.

(Equal Rights Party, 1872)

Representative Ryan references the Founders of our nation, who “launched mankind’s noblest experiment in human freedom.” He explains, of course, how the Founders favored his political ideology:

The truths of the American founding can't become obsolete because they are not timebound. They are eternal. The practical consequences of these truths is free labor and free enterprise under government by popular consent.

People who idolize the Founders (I’ll admit it’s difficult to avoid—even I feel the need to capitalize the F) too often ignore how some of America’s greatest triumphs come when we do things that would make most of the Founders recoil in horror. Interestingly, Paul Ryan praises many of these very “mobocratic” victories:

Early Progressives wanted to empower and engage the people. They fought for populist reforms like initiative and referendum, recalls, judicial elections, and the breakup of monopoly corporations, and the elimination of vote buying and urban patronage.

Ryan believes thinks that the democratic process should be clean, fair, and open to everyone. He understands that the creation of America did not end in 1789, but is an eternal struggle to create a more perfect union. He also apparently believes that the system should be as ineffective as possible when it comes to promoting economic fairness.

Paul Ryan is wrong because he does not understand that freedom is more than limited government or even equality before the law. Promoting equal opportunity is not "paternalism", but freedom in the full sense of the word.

Why do you love the devil?

2010-03-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

I've had a startling revelation. There's a reason right-wing and left-wing Christians can't agree on what Jesus said: they're not talking about the same guy! It's been a simple misunderstanding this whole time.

Take a look at this sign from a right-wing preacher:

In the world reasonable English speakers inhabit, apostrophes are either placeholders for missing letters or a signal of a possessive noun. An apostrophe is not simply an ornament to hang on the "s". This is relevant in a moment so bear with me.

This comprehensive list of devil-lovers departs from the usual shortened "abortionists-gays-atheists-muslims" on similar signs. It admirably condemns racists and wifebeaters, for instance, and takes a strong stance against PKers (player-killers) in MMORPGs.

But none of that matters, because it also condemns "government recipient's".

Everyone in a modern state is a recipient of some kind of government service: student loans, small business grants, veteran's healthcare, Social Security, TARP money, police protection. So we have to assume he means the more specific "welfare recipient's".

That means the poor. He thinks the poor love the devil and need to repent. At this point he has clearly moved beyond Jesus of Nazareth's Christianity, and into "Chri'stianity". And you can't have Chris'tianity without Jesu's. This street preacher tries to disguise this by refusing to use the apostrophe in "Jesus", but he can't hide his message of poor-hating. That's not the message of Jesus, but of Jesu's.

Think how much this explains! Jesus of the Gospels repeatedly told rich men to give up their material wealth if they wanted to follow him. Jesu's (of the Go'spels) supports prosperity theology and wants Benny Hinn to have a $36 million jet. Chri'stian Coalition cofounder Ralph Reed was following Jesu's when he lobbied against federal minimum wage and workplace safety laws for workers in the Northern Marianas Islands, considering it's an American territory and probably shouldn't have sweatshops that force women to get abortions to keep their jobs.

Jesus of Nazareth preached a strict nonviolence: turning the other cheek and loving your enemy. Jesu's of Nazareth was the one who made the sign of the cross in the sky to Constantine, and commanded "By this sign, conquer." Jesu's is the one who inspires things like "Invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Chri'stianity."

My apostrophe hypothesis might sound extreme. But imagine the alternative: a world in which millions of people are so ignorant that they claim to worship apostrophe-less Jesus yet celebrate greed and mock the poor. That world would be terrifying.

Ten terrible liberal T-shirts

2010-03-25T16:12:00.000-07:00

Not all T-shirts are created equal.

I was visiting Radical Rags, which sells expensive T-shirts bearing liberal slogans. There are some good ones, but a few of these made me ashamed:

(1) "Take a look at what Bill-O the Clown said at the Fox NOISE Channel." I bet the wearer of this shirt goes around making "Special Comments" all the time and getting into a pointless feuds no one cares about. You hear that Keith? NO ONE CA-- forget it, it's a bad shirt.

(2) You shouldn't need a shirt to show you're a free thinker.

(3) From the "All Bush Memorabilia Must Go" collection. It doesn't even make much sense. If Bush's actions as president are killing soldiers, you should like when he takes time off. Unless you hate our soldiers.

(4) Please, my fellow honkies, I beg of you: do not wear this shirt.

(5) My best guess is it's a refrigerator magnet lazily slapped onto a T-shirt. Is there any non-awkward way to read a stranger's torso for thirty seconds?

(6) It's HTML for "End Racism", but if you aren't familiar with HTML it just looks like you're promoting racism. Or perhaps that you are racism itself, in an editorial cartoon.*

(7) This has the same problems as #6. It could almost be a "This is what a patriarch looks like" mockery of the feminist slogan. Now I'm wondering if other sloganwear uses the HTML thing. Like do Red Sox fans wear < /Yankees > gear?

(8) Do people wear this in front of the general public? Outside of a protest? Impossible! Unless you want to hear "You're damn right it's murder, with this humidity."

(9) In loving memory of Barry Goldwater. Regardless of whether it's correct, it's an assholish thing to wear on a shirt.

(10) Who am I kidding? This is a perfect T-shirt.

*(Edit 1 May 2010): The idea of real-life political cartoons comes from SomethingAwful's thread on terrible editorial comics, with people hanging signs on their bodies like GAY AGENDA and HEALTH CARE BILL.

I think posters that same subforum pointed out the stupidity of Shirt #1's joke: How do you say "Faux News"? Say it correctly and people won't get it. You have to mispronounce "Faux" for it to work. And then people think you're just saying "Fox"!

The view from London

2010-03-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

It's always interesting to see what Americans look like from the outside, so I loved the London Times article on the passage of the healthcare bill.

Some interesting parts:

It will also outlaw the worst abuses for which the US health insurance industry has become notorious, including dropping coverage when patients become ill and discriminating against those with pre-existing medical conditions.

Oh god we look like idiots:

The tactic had been condemned by Republicans as an insult to democracy, and by Glenn Beck, the influential talk-show host, as "an affront to God".

Democratic congressmen arriving at the Capitol for procedural votes on Saturday were spat on and subjected to racist and homophobic abuse which Republican leaders yesterday sought to disown.

During Mr Stupak's final speech, yells of "baby killer" from the Republican side stopped him short and drew a harsh rebuke from the acting Speaker.

But of course the reader comments are the best part:

david mackinnon wrote:

This is proof America can change. I am convinced Obama has gun control in his sights, and those two achievements alone will mark his presidency as one of the great ones - alongside saving the American economy last year. Bravo!!

I have no idea why David thinks that gun control is anywhere near Obama's next priority. Things just work different round here, I reckon.

The London Times is center-right in Britain. In American terms that means "dangerously sane":

M Taylor wrote:
To R.S.
Please explain to one who couldn't be less a socialist and who couldn't be more baffled: Why is it 'socialist' for a society to have safety nets that mean the sick get cared for come what may? surely that is one of the few genuinely benign benefits the State can offer its citizens?

Why is preferable that only those who can afford medical treatment be given it, and that healthcare be dominated by amoral insurance companies? surely that is as uncivilized as it gets?

Finally, online article commentor San Toi crafts a better argument than any Democratic leader has made in the last year:

One thing Americans don’t seem to realise is, when they travel abroad, no one is impressed by their Americaness – while they swank around with that – “Hey look an American,” look on their faces, most of we Europeans are thinking, “Why is that badly dressed nobody behaving like they’re important?”

Okay, we think, America is a superpower but they haven’t even got healthcare – it’s a superpower where ambulance drivers riffle your pockets for a credit card – and dump you dying on the sidewalk if they don’t find one – some superpower.

But now Obama has brought you into the 21st Century in terms of healthcare – we Europeans have one less reasons to be so smug. Though you’ll still dress abominably.

Violent anarchists

2010-03-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

This comic from 1919 is great because its message is "America welcomes the discontents of all nations, except you. You look a little too opprest."

In America, anarchists are associated with random violence. Why is that? Is there any truth to it? How about today?

What anarchists believe
(Because this post is mostly for non-anarchists. To actual anarchists: feel free to correct my mistakes in history and theory.)

Anarchism has Greek roots meaning "no ruler". Anarchists are opposed to rulers and to hierarchy, the idea that anyone should be formally ranked above another and made unequal. That means they are against the state. Even in representative democracies, the law is created, interpreted, and enforced by a small minority of the powerful.

The vast majority of anarchists throughout history (and all the real ones) have been socialists. The economic classes that develop based on wage labor and private ownership of the means of production form a hierarchy.

OK so violence...
At one point there really were a few bomb-throwing anarchists. Around the turn of the twentieth century, "propaganda of the deed" was in vogue in some anarchist circles. It was the idea that a deed (like killing a capitalist ruler or a businessman) would not only get rid of an individual who stood in the way of justice, but would also serve as propaganda to inspire the masses to revolt.

Turns out it doesn't work very well. In 1892, the Carnegie Steel Company plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania went on strike. When negotiations failed, supervisor Henry Clay Frick built a barbed-wire fence around the entire plant to lock out workers, and hired Pinkerton private police to get onto river barges and perform a sort of naval assault to end the strike. Armed workers fought off the Pinkertons, but couldn't stop the National Guard from bringing in temporary strikebreaker workers to keep the steel mills running.

The anarchist Alexander Berkman--who wasn't related to the steelworkers' union--shot Henry Clay Frick but failed to kill him. The assassination attempt, well-intentioned and probably well-deserved, helped turn the public against the Homestead strikers.

Even if Berkman had been a better shot (come on Berkman, two shots at point-blank range and you can’t kill a guy?) it probably wouldn't have changed much because Crick was not the entirety of capitalism. You can't defeat a dominant ideology just by killing people. The radical currents of organized labor, which got much of their support from anarchists, did far more good than assassinations ever could.

In modern times, the stereotypical anarchist has been demoted from a bomb-thrower to a brick-thrower, thanks to the "violent" fringe of anarchist protesters at things like the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization summit. It's pretty rich for anyone to describe the anarchists as the violent ones there. Innocent people were beaten with nightsticks, threatened with dogs, and sickened with tear gas, while protesting a system that encourages starvation wages and environmental destruction and child labor. But it wasn't the anarchists perpetrating any of that.

------------------
Bonus: There are lots of anarchists in the Left groups at UCF if you're curious to meet one of them. I’ll warn you though—they tend to do a lot of the following:

-Feeding the homeless with dumpster-dived food.
-Talking about bicycles.
-Writing, distributing, and ocassionally reading zines.
-Not assassinating industrialists.

Fabricated Beliefs

2010-03-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

I hate disingenuous arguments: arguments based on premises the arguer knows to be false.

Everyone knows politicians lie—they say things they know to be false with the intent of making others believe those falsehoods. Flat-out lies are a form of disingenuous argument, but they're not particularly interesting to me because I can see why a politician would lie. I’m puzzled, though, by a different variation of disingenuous argument: the fabricated belief.

This is when a person makes an argument they know to be false, but that everyone else also knows to be false. Take for example the people who defend Don Imus by arguing that black people sometimes use race while mocking other black people (from Some Guy With A Website):

[W]hat matters is white guy said the N-word and everyone's angry but black guy said the N-word and everyone laughed and that's obviously unfair.

No one actually believes this. If they do…they're stupid.

And yet they say it because they simply need an argument. In some world that doesn't actually exist, if it was just conceded that Imus said something incredibly offensive and horrible and there's no excuse for it, they "lose." What they lose, no one knows.

This is happening with the “debate” over the importation of prescription drugs. Everyone acting in good faith wants to import the cheaper drugs to cut costs. Yet politicians like New Jersey senator Robert Menendez (D-Bayer) argues that importing drugs is a safety risk we “cannot afford to take.” Coincidentally, New Jersey is the home of many drug companies.

If Menendez' claim was remotely believable, it would just be a lie. But in this case, it’s a fabricated belief because no one actually thinks he’s concerned about drug safety. The plan would only allow imports from the EU, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand—hardly devious enemies or unsanitary shitholes. Everyone knows that he’s doing this to protect drug company profits. Why the charade?

It would be much more believable to just admit you want to protect the deal President Obama made with the PhRMA lobbying group.

For something dearer to me, take UCF’s Eco Advocates and their anti-nuclear campaign. There may be good reasons to oppose nuclear power. But I was shocked by one of their arguments against it: that Wall Street is reluctant to invest in nuclear, so why should we?

I don’t think anyone in that group honestly believes that something is only worthwhile if it can make a profit, the standard that most investors use. That kind of thinking is what environmentalism was born to oppose.

This is yet a different brand of disingenuous argument: arguing from a premise (projects should be justified by profit potential) one knows is false, but without realizing it. Or maybe it's just sloppy thinking, which is disappointing. I'm always disappointed when people from "my side" use bad arguments, because truth can stand on its own.

Spanish bombs

2010-03-11T03:43:00.000-08:00

The Spanish Civil War is a good heuristic for political sanity. If someone states they would have supported Franco and the Nationalists, that person probably has terrible politics. Pat Buchanan called Franco a "Catholic savior" and (surprise!) he's a racist, sexist, anti-democracy jerk. The opposite isn't true--Spanish Republicans and their allies attracted their share of losers (e.g. Stalinists)--but the SCW was a clear case where one side was morally superior.

That doesn't mean it was a "good war", though, because those don't exist. I've started to care about music recently, and I'm growing to like The Clash, particularly their song "Spanish Bombs", celebrating the leftists in the SCW. But there's this one part:

The hillsides ring with "Free the people"
Or can I hear the echo from the days of '39?
With trenches full of poets
The ragged army, fixin' bayonets to fight the other line

The more I thought about it the more it bothered me. It's just so damned romantic. It's practically sappy. Trenches full of poets? They were factory workers and farmers. A bunch of terrified workers in a "ragged army" readying their stabbing devices. To "fight the other line" is to stab one of their countrymen in the belly and see his intestines fall out. This soldier flying the black flag is likely to see all his best friend's head blown off, and then die from an infection of a shrapnel wound.

It does an impressive job ignoring the people in "the other line". Many of the other line are probably men who joined the Army for a solid income or out of a thirst for adventure or because of a misguided patriotism. Maybe this poet-soldier is getting ready to kill a Catholic teenager, who joined the Nationalists when he found out his church was burned down by Republicans. Luckily the poet-soldiers in this song aren't fighting people, they're fighting a faceless fascist "line".

It's immoral to whitewash armed conflict this way. There has to be a way to respect--even celebrate--those who take up arms for freedom and justice, without ignoring that taking up arms means killing people.

The Confederate flag is an insult to the south

2010-03-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

To fly the Confederate flag is to defame and degrade the South.

The Confederacy was a short-lived republic that seceded to defend slavery. Slavery! It's not that I'm opposed to the concept of secession for self-determination. In fact I think it's really bizarre that politicians can claim to love the founding fathers of the republic and then accuse one another of treason as if treason is greatest sin. But if you're going to secede you need good reasons. "We're afraid Lincoln will limit slavery" is not a good reason. And the institution of slavery was the primary reason.

See explicit defenses of slavery by the governments that seceded here. Compare the constitutions of the CSA and the USA, and note how one of the biggest changes was a beefed-up protection of slavery.

Assuming you believe that slavery is wrong, why represent Southern culture with the flag of a short-lived government that was founded to protect slavery? It's absurd to represent the entire region with the flag that flew during its most terrible four years.

Celebrate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway. Agrarian opposition to Northeastern wage slavery. The civil rights movement. Celebrate the homeland of nearly every American form of music. Jack Daniels and fried chicken, Cajun and Tex-Mex. Multiracial isolates like the Menlungeons. Celebrate Miami Beach and Nashville and New Orleans. Fuck it, celebrate NASCAR.

Every single one of those is a thousand times better than slavery. So let's get over the Civil War and concentrate on what's best about the South--pride and rebellion that don't involve keeping the black man down. I mean sure Robert E. Lee was chivalrous or whatever, but you know who really nonviolently kicks ass? Martin Luther King, a native of the great state of Georgia.

Three worlds, three maps

2010-02-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

The Robinson projection is like the Democratic Party: It's based on so many compromises that it doesn't really get anything perfect, but it seems OK and people are afraid of extremes so for now at least they've made it the default.

Given that a round world can't be transcribed to a flat map without some sort of distortion, the Robinson is a decent attempt. The National Geographic Society used for a while, and they're no slouch at cartography. (They now use the Winkel Triple projection, which probably shares a name with a burger or a sex act.)

Maps, though, can be political tools when they shape our perceptions of the world. In the Cold War our world was divided into three: the "First World" of Western, capitalist, (mostly) democracies; the "Second World" of Communists; and the "Third World" of developing nations that served as battlegrounds / dumping grounds / playgrounds for the other two Worlds. Here's a rough map of the three Worlds (respectively blue, red, and green) in the Robinson projection:

But the Robinson wasn't the map hanging in most Cold War classrooms in America. That would be the Mercator projection. And it has been a very naughty projection.

The Mercator is useful in sea navigation for reasons I don't quite understand. But for non-sailors, the map is a disaster. It enlarges areas close to the poles so much that Greenland looks as big as Africa, when in reality Africa's area is fourteen times as large.

That means the global North--most of the First and Second Worlds--looks bigger than it actually is. The Third World looks like maybe,well, a third of the world. The countries that matter are clearly Freedomland and the Soviet Menace, while the Third World is marginal. Africa and South Asia and Latin America don't look too important.

To see how big the Third World really is, look at the Peters projection:

This is an equal-area map, so the sizes of the landforms are accurate (but the shapes are distorted). On the Peters projection, the Third Word IS the world. Speculation time: If you looked at a Peters map instead of a Mercator from under your bomb-proof middle school desk, you might start to get awfully curious why your leaders are obsessed with the USSR but don't seem to care what's happening in the global South.

I live high off the spoils of death machines

2010-02-19T18:34:00.000-08:00

One of my friends, a neuroscience student named Max, just started a job at the Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab, with good pay in a great environment. Unfortunately 40% of its contracts are with the military, and he seems a bit disturbed by this.

I don’t want to disturb him further, but I also don’t want to extend my original hearty congratulations. He’s doing something wrong, I thought . The US military is the explicit muscle behind American hegemony, and America (like all other hegemons and empires before it) abuses that power terribly. And to help the Empire is to side against the oppressed, right?

Then I remembered that almost everything I have is there because my dad worked as a programmer for nuclear missiles and now sells computers to the military. So I have a problem of moral consistency.

I considered whether Max and my dad have a moral obligation to refuse their jobs. But that would basically deprive my family of a solid income and seriously damage my friend’s career, and for what? Who would notice that some replaceable salesman quit selling to the military? Would the establishment care if one budding neuroscientist quit, because a minority of his work would benefit soldier training exercises?

Next I started full-on justification. I mean it’s not like either of these men are killing, or advocating belligerent policy. In the words of another justifier, “If it makes you feel better, a strong military can prevent wars...and your work makes the military as efficient as possible, to minimize loss of civilian life.” * Heck, maybe our country’s global hegemony is good for world security. It’s certainly easier on my conscience to believe this. Maybe that’s why so many people do.

What’s weird is these people aren’t pro-war. Max, as far as I can tell, is roughly a progressive Democrat who just wants to discover what exactly consciousness is. My dad gripes about the ridiculous right-wingers he has to work with. Both would probably show more pity than hate towards “terrorists”. So I find their complicity in the war far more troubling than that of a true-believing soldier. The committed soldier isn’t drawing a paycheck from a machine he thinks is immoral. My dad, who seems to have no other moral flaws, is doing just that.

I have no conclusion except for a couple of questions:

1. If everyone had a basic guaranteed standard of living, would people factor morality into their choice of work more?

2. Is there any precedent for a more or less prosperous society collectively deciding that they won’t support war anymore?

3. Can protests and education halt war when the military is such a huge part of our economy?

- - - -
*This research might end this conflict more quickly, but it would also make every future conflict easier and more justifiable to the public.

Problem of Natural Evil

2010-02-03T05:35:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to Convergence Church for a Q&A for skeptics. I left unimpressed.

Someone asked about why natural disasters can occur. I'm satisfied with the Christian response to the problem of moral evil: God can do anything logically possible, but it's not logically possible to create free beings that never do each other wrong. That pretty much makes sense to me.

But I hadn't really thought about the problem of "natural evil". All of the possible answers the leader gave were bad:

1) Natural disasters came with the Fall. To his credit he dismissed this, as he noted it implies that there were no weather systems or tectonic activity before sin.

2) Natural disasters are bad in large part because of human choices--if we lived in tents instead of buildings, earthquakes wouldn't harm us. But this is ridiculous. There's no place on earth, and no way of living, that doesn't expose people to some natural calamities. It's just victim-blaming.*

3) Natural disasters are influenced by demons. I guess if you believe in God you could believe in angels and demons, but to an outsider blaming evil spirits makes you sound like a medieval peasant. It also brings up more questions about why God allows not just flawed humans but purely evil demons to even exist. It's ALSO unparsimonious. We know why hurricanes and earthquakes form. "Plate tectonics" and "pressure systems" are much better explanations than "demons".

4) Natural disasters bring us closer to God. Now he didn't say it exactly like that, but that's the gist of the final possibility: the sorrow and suffering of disasters can wake people up spiritually. If God's way of communicating is killing people we love, he's a mighty uncreative God. And probably kind of a dick.

I would have been much more satisfied if the group leader had just said "I don't know."

*He also mentioned that while he loved New Orleans, it was unwise to build a city below sea level. That argument is stupid. The mouth of the Mississippi River is a perfect place for a big port, and major ports require a population to keep it running. Instead of blaming the average New Orleanian for living there, blame those in power for not building strong enough levees, safe evacuation routes, etc.

Sluts!

2010-02-01T05:48:00.000-08:00

I was talking with one of my friends and for some reason he ended up saying that some feminist group on campus (NOW or VOX or something) were "sluts". I asked him what he meant and he basically said they have a lot of sex. I should have pushed him further.

This club gives out free condoms, so I'm pretty sure these women would use birth control. So he was basically criticizing the women for giving people [edit: and having] orgasms safely. It inspired me to write this sing-along poem:

THE SLUT SONG
That girl, she has more sex than I approve of (slut!)
And I don't like the way she dress
She has more sex than I approve of (whore!)
I hope she knows to me she's worth a whole lot less.

That girl, she has more sex than I approve of (slut!)
She gives out orgasms for free
She has more sex than I approve of (whore!)
So I ask why the hell, ain't she fucking me?

Only my opponents have basic human flaws

2010-01-24T23:10:00.000-08:00

Here are some common liberal tricks that many people fall for:

2. Inserting a liberal assumption into a question, as illustrated by the classic "when did you stop beating your wife?!"

3. Distracting and disrupting reasoned discussion, as in stating irrelevant claims, inconsequential tales of personal experience, or false outrage

4. Making arguments that have superficial appeal to the dimwitted, but are actually nonsensical and probably not believed by the liberal himself.

6. Exaggerating praise for fellow liberals.

12. everyone else supposedly believes in something so it must be right

17. Smearing your adversary with a highly offensive accusation or insinuation

26. Claiming expertise beyond one's area of expertise, as in a "Dr." or professor implying that he is an expert in an area beyond his specialty

Conservapedia: "Liberal Tricks"

I don’t get angry when I see these, or ridiculous equivalents from the left against the right. I just wonder if people are unable to see the other side—or their own side—as humans. No ideology has a monopoly on ridiculous debate tactics or logical fallacies. Politicians of all stripes are corrupt. People are people.