In the Name of the King
From the Washington Post:
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.In other words, poking, prodding, and slapping are okay as long as it doesn't get kinky.
[...]
Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers.
"If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network," Yoo wrote. "In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions."
Interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a "national and international version of the right to self-defense," Yoo wrote. He also articulated a definition of illegal conduct in interrogations -- that it must "shock the conscience" -- that the Bush administration advocated for years.
"Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification," Yoo wrote, explaining, for example, that it would have to be inspired by malice or sadism before it could be prosecuted.
In spy movies, there's always some hard-bitten character (Bruce Willis) who tells the idealistic and usually younger trainee (Keanu Reeves) something along the lines of "if you knew the kinds of things we did in the name of our country, it'd curl your hair." Then he proceeds to beat the crap out of some swarthy-looking bad guy who finally fesses up to planting a bomb or something just in time to save the world. It's the stuff of Spike TV movies and 24, and it never fails to gin up the audience -- usually males between the ages of 14 to 24 -- to cheer on the good guys.
That's the movies, and it sounds like John Yoo has seen too many of them. There probably are things that black-ops forces within the military and the spy agencies do in the conduct of war and intelligence gathering that would shock the conscience, and there are always people who will frame it in the stark terms of "it's us or them," or wrap it in patriotism so they can say that if it wasn't for the dirty little secrets, we wouldn't enjoy the freedoms that we take for granted, all to the undercurrent of stirring Sousa marches and waving flags and all that. But when you get right down to it, amoral people have always used those reasons as the excuse for their excesses, and the people who really know what really goes on say that the excesses don't work -- a suspect will confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby if he thought it would spare him a waterboarding. It's only the neocons, the Jack Bauer wannabes, and the legalistic Torquemadas who have relied on the Nixonian excuse of "if the president does it, that means it is not illegal."
Do I have to say that permitting the techniques that Mr. Yoo advocates basically reduces us to the same level as the terrorists we're trying to stop? Do I have to say that supposedly one of the things that makes our democracy and civilization better than the others is that we know that this sort of thing is wrong? Do I have to say that justifying terrible things in the name of the president or the Constitution is an assault on reason and the rule of law, and that one of the reasons this country had a revolution and fought for independence was because of the cruel tyrannies that were being done in the name of the king? At what point will these people who justify these crimes in the name of a higher calling or principle realize that no principle is worth fighting for if it has to be sustained by illegal and immoral means?
I think we already know the answers.
(Cross-posted.)
Question of the Day
[In honor of Mr. Roger Ebert's upcoming return to reviewing, I thought I'd recycle this QotD from October 2006, in which he featured prominently.]
Famously, movie critic Roger Ebert did not like the movie The Usual Suspects. When he found himself in a distinct minority, he said, approximately, "It's obviously just me. I didn't get it."
Sometimes, you don't think it really is you. Sometimes, you truly believe everyone else is nuts. But then there are other times that you think, no...I think I'm the one who's nuts this time, though I'm not sure why.
The discussion in an earlier Borat thread, in which some people said though they don't find it offensive, they also just don't find it funny, made me think about the things that aren't generally considered an acquired taste (even though Borat probably is an acquired taste), but that I just didn't "get." Things that were popular, and I couldn't bloody understand why I didn't see what everyone else seemed to see...and I found myself channeling Ebert. It's obviously just me.
The first of these was Michael Jackson. When I was in grade school, everyone I knew was mad for him. Thriller was everywhere. We had a jukebox in the lunchroom, and it played MJ almost nonstop (or so it seemed). I thought the video for Thriller was cool, but the song I couldn't have cared less about, and even less so the man who sang it. I liked Culture Club, and The Eurythmics, and David Bowie. But those fags were totally weird, man.
Unlike Michael Jackson.
Anyhow, so here's the Question of the Day: What popular person, song, movie, fashion, or whatever else has failed utterly to capture your fancy, but you're pretty sure it was just you?
Yayyyyyyyyyyy!!!
Ebert's back, bitchez! (Well, almost.)
Roger Ebert will resume writing reviews later this month, but will not rejoin his syndicated TV show because he's still unable to speak.I adore Roger Ebert, and my movie-going experience is not the same without his input; it really isn't. He's more important than popcorn!
In a letter published in Tuesday's Chicago Sun-Times, the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and co-host of TV's "Ebert & Roeper" said surgery in January ended in complications, and his ability to speak was not restored. He said the return of speech would require another surgery.
"But I still have all my other abilities, including the love of viewing movies and writing about them," Ebert said.
Ebert, 65, said he's looking forward to his annual film festival starting April 23. "I will resume writing movie reviews shortly thereafter," he said.
Btw, if you're ever in a shitty mood and need a good laugh, go to RogerEbert.com and do an advanced search for all his film reviews in which he bestowed zero stars. Priceless.
His Freddy Got Fingered zero-star review contains one of my favorite lines ever about sucktastic film: "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." Love it!
Caption This Photo
There's a country called Georgia, too? Huh. Never knew that!
* * *
[US President George W. Bush looks over at Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko during a to visit Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev. Bush pledged "solid" support Tuesday for Ukraine and Georgia's bid to join the NATO military alliance, despite French and German reluctance and staunch Russian opposition. (AFP/Mandel Ngan)]
Leno Apologizes
Nearly two weeks after asking Ryan Phillippe to give his "gayest look" to the camera, and after 386 gayest looks (and counting…), and after GLAAD requested an apology, Jay Leno has apologized for his insensitivity:
"In talking about Ryan's first role, I realize that what I said came out wrong," Leno said. "I certainly didn't mean any malice. I agree it was a dumb thing to say, and I apologize."Here's hoping Mr. Leno never has to apologize for another gay joke again—because he stops making them.
[For the curious, MyGayestLook will be updated and not abandoned…]
McCain Goes Back to School to Get Schooled
During a speech at his alma mater, Episcopal High School, Straight Talk McGee found out today that more challenges will be coming from the youngest demographic of voters:
“I think judging by the amount of press representatives here and also by the integration of your previous political endorsements in your earlier personal narrative, we can see that this isn’t completely absent – er political motivation isn’t completely absent,” she said. “Yet we were told that this isn’t a political event. So what exactly is your purpose in being here – not that I don’t appreciate the opportunity, but I’d just like some clarification.”I don't know about all of you, but I don't remember any classmates whatsoever that were as cool as the student quoted above, Katelyn Halldorson. Maybe there's hope after all.
Random YouTubery: Larry and the Republican
Petulant's QotD yesterday reminded me of this, one of my favorite ever moments from Curb Your Enthusiasm:
"Racism Fatigue"
So, everybody's talking about the Vogue cover featuring LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen in a pretty blatant, uh, homage (*cough*) to King Kong, which many are--zanily enough!--calling racist.
Young'uns out there who haven't taken film courses might not be familiar with the actual plot of King Kong, released in 1933 (not beyond "big gorilla climbs Empire State Building with woman in hand," anyway) let alone with any analysis of its racist imagery. For a primer on both, let me point you to David N. Rosen's article "King Kong: Race, sex, and rebellion." It doesn't require too great an exercise of the imagination to perceive the element of race in KING KONG. Racist conceptions of blacks often depict them as subhuman, ape or monkey-like. And consider the plot of the film: Kong is forcibly taken from his jungle home, brought in chains to the United States, where he is put on stage as a freak entertainment attraction. He breaks his chains and goes on a rampage in the metropolis, until finally he is felled by the forces of law and order.
The causative factor in his capture and his demise is his fatal attraction to blonde Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). As Denham says in the last words of the film, “Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.” If we look at KING KONG in terms of a racial metaphor, “Beauty” turns out to be “the white woman.” ...
Aside from the sexual aspect implicit in the question of race, there’s the more direct, and somewhat delirious, sexual imagery in the film. The ape often functions as a most appropriate anthropoid symbol of “lower,” “animal” instincts. In this case we have a giant ape (literally a huge, hairy monster) and his unrestrained, headlong pursuit of a “blonde,” that archetypical Hollywood sex-object, ending on top of the world’s foremost phallic symbol.(1) The sexual theme touches on the standard racist myth of the black male’s exaggerated sexual potency, and the complementary notion of his insatiable desire for white women.
Emphasis mine. Any questions? Good.
Now, let's have a look at that cover.
And at Kong:
And for good measure, check out this old U.S. Army recruitment poster (H/T Jill at Feministe):
Any questions? GOOD.
I first became aware of the Vogue cover the first time Jill blogged about it, two weeks ago, and like her, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything without having it pointed out to me. But as soon as it was pointed out to me, I saw the screamingly clear Kong echo--and since I did study King Kong in a film class many years ago, I was well aware of the racist underpinnings of that story and its imagery. So it didn't take long for the penny to drop.
Some people, though, are still not only not getting it, but insisting that those of us who do get it are hypersensitive, overreacting, "looking for racism everywhere," etc.--the usual, in other words. For the most part, I can just roll my eyes at that, because it's all so familiar. Anything short of someone saying on national TV, "If you see a black man, you should shoot him in the face, and let me be perfectly clear that I mean you should shoot him in the face because he is black," might not be racism after all, because some white people can't see it. And if not all white people can see it, then the benefit of the doubt should automatically go to whomever made the racist statement/took the racist action/produced the racist image, not to the people identifying it as racist--because there is NOTHING WORSE IN THE WORLD than being a white person unfairly accused of racism! You lucky people of color have NO IDEA how horrible that is!
Like I said, the usual. But Wesley Morris at Slate has thrown a new twist into that argument. He (sort of) lays out the argument in favor of the Vogue cover being part of a long tradition of racist imagery depicting black men as primal brutes coming after white women, so he obviously gets it, but then follows that up with, "But even typing that just gave me a headache."
The problem, you see, is not that it isn't racist--it's that all these discussions of racism are boring him.I, for one, have racism fatigue. I'm wiped out. Between the outrage over Obama's Jeremiah Wright problems and Bill Clinton's unbelievable mutation from American's first black president into Karl Rove, I don't have the bandwidth to fight Anna Wintour. Seeing that cover as purely racist doesn't give the people looking at it enough credit. It dates Vogue for relying on the allusion but it also dates us for going crazy over it. Racial hysteria is the old black.
Now, here's the other twist: Wesley Morris, despite sounding exactly like a textbook example of white privilege in that passage, is not white. Which means, of course, to some of his readers, IF HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT IT, IT'S NOT A PROBLEM! SEE! HA! TAKE THAT, ALL YOU P.C. HYSTERICS! (See also: Charlotte Allen and sexism.)
You know, on the one hand, I can actually empathize with Morris. There's a part of me that has "sexism fatigue" these days, because I am so fucking sick and tired of explaining to people why the attacks on Hillary Clinton, 9 times out of 10, are not just about her politics. 8 gazillion people sent me links to stories about Miss Bimbo this week, and I've chosen not to write about it because, well... maybe I just don't have the "bandwidth" to fight sexism in video games right now.
But do you see what I did there? I chose not to write about it--instead of choosing to write an article in which I dismiss other people's concerns and announce that I am tired of all this talk about sexism, and those who focus on the sexist aspects of sexist things are failing to give people enough credit. We can't all address every instance of bigotry in the world, and for those of us who are frequently asked to address specific brands of it, it can get fucking tiring. But when you get tired, the thing to do is take a break, not tell other people to shut up and focus on more important things. It's all important, from the most subtle instances to the most blatant and institutionalized.
And it can be especially important to talk about the subtle things, because that's where privilege reveals itself most clearly. Any white person who's neither an idiot nor an asshole can see and deplore the racism in, say, this image. But we can't all see it in the Vogue cover. So when we start talking about the Vogue cover as part of a long tradition of racist imagery that casts African-American men as aggressive apes, we get a much more useful conversation going. Instead of just a bunch of white liberals saying, "That's horrible!" and a bunch of white supremacists saying, "No, it's right on!" we get to see all the grey areas of privilege brought out in the open: those of us who try to be anti-racist and educate ourselves accordingly but still missed the racism there until it was pointed out to us; those of us who sorta see it once it's pointed out but still think people are making a mountain out of a molehill; and most importantly, those of us who missed it in the first place and, on the basis of that, continue to insist it is not there.
We've been talking a lot around here recently about that last category of people, with regard to sexism. And as a woman and a feminist, I can tell you those people are FUCKING INFURIATING. The people who actually live as the subjects of discrimination and hatred are not oversensitive; we are sensitized to the more subtle manifestations of those things, because we've seen how they're wielded against us, over and over and fucking over. So many people have trouble grokking the concept of "privilege" and will respond to having their own pointed out with laundry lists of the disadvantages they've experienced in their lives. But privilege, in this sense, is not just about obvious advantages. It is about the luxury of not seeing the subtle shit.
As a white person, I haven't been sensitized to covert racism by a lifetime of experiences. Unlike a person of color who has no choice but to see and feel it every day, I actually do have to "go looking for it"; my privilege could otherwise allow me to go through life believing it doesn't exist. Because I care about being anti-racist, I do go looking, do make an effort to educate myself about patterns of racism I wouldn't automatically recognize--and to question myself when my kneejerk reaction is, "Oh, come on--I'm supposed to believe that's racist?"
But because I'm white, I also have the option of not looking any time I don't feel like it. That's what privilege is. It's the option to ignore nasty shit that doesn't directly affect my own life, my career, my relationships, my bank account, my social standing, my housing situation, etc. And I won't lie to you--I take that option plenty. I have not publicly flipped out about racism directed at Obama the way I have about sexism directed at Clinton. I had not given all that much conscious thought to making sure people of color feel welcome at my blog or within the movement it partially represents, until it was pointed out to me that many didn't. I haven't written jack shit about LGBTQ issues in I don't know how long, despite being an ally in my own mind. I spend most of my activism energy on feminist issues and fat issues, things that affect me directly.
And you know, I don't even feel guilty about some of that. Each one of us can only do so much, and I'd wager most of us spend more energy on things that affect us directly than on things that don't. Even among those things, we pick and choose. I blow off Miss Bimbo. Wesley Morris can't be arsed to care about King James as King Kong. Charlotte Allen neglects to think about... anything. In the big picture, that's fine. No one has to save the world single-handedly.
But those of us who care about social justice have no excuse for not being aware of issues that don't affect us directly, or for not taking people seriously when they tell us something that's hidden behind the screen of our own privilege really is there. None of us has an excuse for wanting to maintain that privilege regardless of whom it hurts. And for my money, there is no better education in privilege for those who need one--and that includes all of us who have it, no matter how many times we've read "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"--than these heated conversations about the more subtle forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, sizeism, ableism, what-have-you. Because that's when it really comes out. That's when people start making the "I don't see it, so IT IS NOT THERE" arguments, and the "You people are just looking for things to get pissed about!" arguments. There's a lot to be learned from those.
I don't have to go looking for instances of sexism and sizeism to get pissed off about; I'm a fat woman, so they find me. But I do look for instances of other forms of bigotry, because in so many cases, if I don't look, I won't see them. And those of us with privilege need to look. So the problem with a Wesley Morris telling us certain instances of racism should be beneath our notice, or a Charlotte Allen telling us pretty much all of sexism should be, is that it gives those who really need to look a handy excuse not to. And it's a hell of a lot easier to look for excuses not to care than to look at experiences outside our own.
That Vogue cover is bloody well a call-out to King Kong, and Kong himself is bloody well a profoundly racist metaphor. And it bloody well matters, even if there are more important things to think about. Even--especially--if you "just don't see it." I can totally understand Morris being too worn out to challenge Anna Wintour, but for fuck's sake, dude, if the rest of us aren't? Don't tell us to shut up about it. Because one thing a lifetime of experience as a white person has taught me is that a whole lot of white people love little more than being let off the hook by a Bona Fide Person of Color. You don't think I need to care about this? And you're not white? HALLELUJAH! Hey, I've totally got racism fatigue, too, my brother, let me tell you! Nobody's got it worse than me!
It's one of the many ways our privilege gets reinforced. And that matters in the big picture, even if one stupid magazine cover doesn't.
Obama and the Anti-Gay Preacher
Another homophobic skeleton comes tumbling out of Obama's closet. (Okay, sure, that last one wasn't so much in the closet as up there on stage, but, whatever.) Today we get to hear about Rev. James T. Meeks who the Southern Poverty Law Center labels as one of the "10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement."
When Obama ran for the U.S. Senate in 2003, he frequently campaigned at Salem Baptist Church while Rev. Meeks appeared in television ads supporting the Illinois senator’s campaign. Later, according to the same Chicago Sun Times article, on the night after he won the Democratic primary, Sen. Obama attended bible study at Meeks’ church ‘for prayer’ and ‘to say thank you.’The above suggests a pretty cozy relationship.
Since that time, not only has Meeks himself served on Obama’s exploratory committee for the presidency and been listed on the Obama's campaign website as one of the senator’s 'influential black supporters', but his church choir was called on to raise their voices in praise at a rally the night Obama announced his run for the White House back in 2007.
As Obama says on his website:
Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.But how does one reconcile Obama's pledge with this?:
[The SPLC] cites [Meeks] as both "a key member of Chicago's 'Gatekeepers' network, an interracial group of evangelical ministers who strive to erase the division between church and state" and "a stalwart anti-gay activist… [who]… has used his House of Hope mega-church to launch petition drives for the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a major state-level 'family values' pressure group…'"Because that isn't treating LGBT citizens "with dignity and respect." And buddying up with assholes like Meeks belies any sincerity you will.
The SPLC newsletter also noted that, "Meeks and the IFI are partnered with Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund … They also are tightly allied with Americans for Truth, an Illinois group that said in a press release last year that 'fighting AIDS without talking against homosexuality is like fighting lung cancer without talking against smoking.'"
Lookin' for Some Straight Answers from the Straight Talker
Elizabeth Edwards has a few questions for John "JFK" McCain about his healthcare proposal, like:
You say your plan is going to increase competition to the point that it actually lowers costs. Isn't there competition today among insurance companies? Haven't costs continued to go up despite that competition?And:
Isn't the type of competition you are talking about really a rush to the bottom? … Doesn't your plan really encourage insurers plans to compete to avoid people with cancer or other high-cost diseases? Don't you think that the kind of competition that starts with a decent level of required coverage, that doesn't exclude the care we actually need, would be better?And:
Doesn't the American voter deserve some straight answers to these questions?Is it wrong that I am picturing Elizabeth Edwards calmly and evenly repeating these questions as she backs McCain into a corner with the sheer force of her awesomeness, until he eventually has nowhere to go and slides down the wall into a heap where he softly begins to sob…?
Why I Am Insane: Volume III, Chapter 27
I jump on ur desk.
I lie on ur mousepad and push ur mouse away wif mine buttz.
I look at u plaintively: Pet moi, human!
I mark ur game mouse.
I offer mine headz for ur scratchin'.
I flop cute; show chubbly tumsel!
I scootchez forward.
I hang mine headz over edge.
I offer mine headz more.
What?
Then I grab her, snoogle her, and put her on the floor. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
If my hand is on the mouse, instead of the camera, she flops right on top of my hand. If my hands are on the keyboard, she'll try to flop down on top of them.
If I shut her out of the office, she cries and whines until I let her back in. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
Then, at last, naptime in the chair just beside me—and a moment's peace.
I just rechargin', crazy woman!
“You are hereby summoned”
"Aw, expletive."
Such was my reaction (somewhat redacted) to the familiar envelope from the local branch of the Missouri Circuit Court. "Time to put your civics pants on, citizen," the letter said, more or less. The actual wording of these missives is always verbose, the tone always stiff and imperious. Lots of sticks and no carrots at all.
In the course of jury service, you may well accept and appreciate your role in the legal system. You might even come away bearing the bright nimbus of pride, the glow of participation in a cause larger than oneself. This is the kind of halo that is also worn by most blood donors, a few idealistic voters, and one or two Ron Paul supporters. But it's a hard, stony walk from here to there. For most of us, jury duty starts off annoying and inconvenient and never progresses very far from that point. The hectoring tone of the summons doesn't exactly help matters.
For the sake of discussion, let's stipulate that I may not always have been as prompt to answer the civic call as I might have been. Let's say that there may have been one or two instances in the past where summonses may have gone unacknowledged. If such was ever the case, it was surely in part a negative response to the imperiousness of the call to service. Not exactly what the jury supervisor had in mind!
I think it important to hastily add here that I have responded quite diligently to the needs of the court over the last six years, making myself available for voir dire twice and serving once as an alternate. Now yet another opportunity for service presents itself. Do I really have to wait three weeks? Can't I just scamper down to the court house right-friggin'-now? Yeah, that's how excited I am over demonstrating my good citizenship, and don't forget it.
As an invitation to service, however, the summons still sucks. A revision is in order. More flies with honey, and all that.
Whenever you get the call, the question that always comes up among friends and coworkers is "What, again?" Living in the city of St. Louis seems to mean never being terribly far from the next period of service, while citizens outside the city limits seem to more easily evade the civic dragnet. "I've lived in the county for decades," boasts one coworker, "and I've never been called." Before I could properly upbraid her for mocking me, she added that she had served twice while living in the city.
It seems to come down to a numbers game in terms of both population and cases to be judged. Not a whole lot has changed since this 2000 Riverfront Times piece on jury duty.
If you live in the city, chances are you'll be summoned for jury duty once every three years. (Though it's called justice, believe this: A lot is left to chance.) If you live in the suburbs in St. Louis County, a summons will be issued about once every 10 years. In rural Missouri, citizens might get called once in a lifetime. The reason city folk are in such demand is simple: There are more crimes and more civil suits per capita. There are jury trials for more than 200 felonies a year in the city and for more than 200 civil suits. Those numbers are way ahead of Jackson County's and St. Louis County's, and they're for a smaller population (about 340,000) with higher proportions of juveniles and elderly.
So this being the case - a smaller pool on which to draw, more occasions to press them into service, we're all in this together, so on, so forth - and it being unlikely that anything will change soon, the least the local court could do is find a way to ask just a little more nicely. Cheerier jurors are - I think - more disposed to be just. Of course, I have no evidence to support that.
Well. I gotta go find my civics pants. Hope they still fit.
(Cross-posted.)
Yet Another in an Infinite String of Reasons Why We Need Federal Marriage Equality Now
Nancy Pelosi has better things to do with her time:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was recently "forced to intervene with Defense Secretary Robert Gates" in order to get Rep. Tammy Baldwin's (D-WI) "domestic partner on a military flight for a congressional fact-finding trip to Europe." While House rules allow spouses to travel with members of Congress on such missions, "military officials were apparently unwilling to consider" Baldwin's partner "a 'spouse' within the meaning of the House guidelines." Pelosi's effort was successful, but the Politico reports that "[t]he Pentagon appears to be self-conscious about transporting gay domestic partners at a time when it continues to enforce a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy in its own ranks." Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), another openly gay lawmaker, suggested the military is perhaps "following orders" because "the [Bush] administration disapproves of same-sex marriage."Domestically, how ignorant and bigoted. Internationally, how embarrassing. Other industrialized nations are legalizing same-sex marriage with hardly a fight, and we're still bickering over this ridiculous bullshit. It's so juvenile. When the hell is America going to grow the fuck up?
Nerdz Update: Guild Wars
Some of you might recall my post from a few months ago, where I described in full detail how Mr. Shakes led me into the World of Warcraft, with saber mount and all.
Since then, we have certainly done our share of questing. I had three characters going, with my hunter (and his trusty wolf companion) having leveled up to 45. At some point, however, we started to get bored with this world. There wasn't really anything exciting going on anymore. I even found myself looking for a new game just to mix things up a bit. So, I went and got Mass Effect for the Xbox 360 to give the PC a break. It turned out to be a good idea, since I was able to really get into that game and deal with something new.
Still, a MMORPG it was not. So, what to do?
Well, I had done some more investigating and actually came across a game called Guild Wars, which appears to be the main competition to WoW. The game's biggest selling point is no monthly subscription, at least for the time being. So, I sent a carrier pigeon to Mr. Shakes to see what his thoughts were on the game and whether or not it was worth a try. Call it coincidence or shared instinct, both of us purchased Guild Wars on the exact same day without even communicating. After installing the game, our new obsession was underway. I went the way of a Ranger/Elementalist and Mr. Shakes thought best of beating up people without regret as a mohawk-sporting Warrior. It took us a little while to get used to the differences from WoW, but with the help of a friendly guild we were good to go.
After a couple of good sessions, I had the pleasure of joining Mr. Shakes and his best mate MWS for some transatlantic Guild Wars questing. Mr. Shakes created a new character to help out MWS on getting his feet wet within GW. With all of us on a Skype conference, I was able to lend some assistance with some tips I've been picking up along the way. While working on my own quest, I mentioned in passing that I was considering getting the Factions expansion so as to get access to creating an assassin. Specifically, I knew all along I was cut out (no pun intended) to be an assassin/necromancer.
With a pause in gameplay and conversation, we all stared at one another across the Skype table and decided that all of us needed to immediately purchase and download Factions so we could be a remorseless gang of assassins.
In record time, our assassins were created and running through our trial missions prior to grouping up. As a bonus, I convinced my guild to bring Mr. Shakes and MWS into the fold, for the sole purpose of giving our assassins ridiculously bitchin' capes (like WoW guild tabbards, but for free!). Even though we looked really cool and evil, there was the issue of our starting careers in assassination with the equivalent of backyard BBQ plastic cutlery as our initial knife weapons. No matter, though. We took our plastic utensils and ganged up on many a foe to show off our impression of a caped Cuisinart!
And while all this was going on, I had to step back for a second and revel in what was happening. Chicago, New York, and Edinburgh were able to converge with a common goal in one area and represent. I realized that this is exactly why the internet was invented.
I really have to thank Al Gore for that.
McCain for President
I've had an epiphany on this first day of April.
As much as I admire Senators Clinton and Obama, it's obvious this country will never elect a woman or a black man as president. We're just not ready yet. So let's elect John McCain as a stopgap measure until we get our act together. Maybe another four years of the war on terror, economic stagnation, and putting non-activist justices on the Supreme Court will convince us that the kind of change we really need was embodied in the spirit of Ronald Reagan, whose shining city on the hill was really a small town on a spring morning where neighbors helped neighbors and the best things in America came about without the "help" of the federal government. Although President Reagan is lauded for outstanding optimism, let's appreciate practical, realistic ideas like finding our opportunities locally.
So let's just get ready to keep on doing what we've been doing and find joy in the little things in life, like friends, family, and doing the acrostic in the Sunday New York Times.
Made you look!
Before you go balistic in the comments, read the last sentence in the first paragraph and the highlighted word in the next sentence and...
(Cross-posted.)
Sweet Jesus, I Still Hate Chris Matthews
Chris "Paleface" Matthews, on yesterday's Hardball, discussing with Howard Fineman and Michelle Bernard the very, very newsworthy and important fact that presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama isn't a fantabulous bowler (about which Spudsy posted yesterday):
FINEMAN: … He definitely needs some bowling lessons. He should do what we used to do in Pittsburgh, which is all-night bowling for a dollar, you know, really work on your game. I think he did get [former Pittsburgh Steelers football players] Franco Harris and he did get Jerome Bettis, the Bus, to endorse him. And he's traveling around on the bus with the Bus. But if you can't do something like that, you shouldn't do it. He should have stuck to shooting hoops—But how does he smell, Chris? HOW DOES HE SMELL???!!!
MATTHEWS: Yeah, I know.
FINEMAN: —which he's very, very good at, by the way, and which translates racially, too, especially during the NCAA basketball tournament. Don't do something you've never tried before in front of a national television audience, OK?
MATTHEWS: You know, Michelle—and this gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody, but the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder—
FINEMAN: That doesn't surprise anybody either.
BERNARD: Well, it certainly doesn't surprise anybody black, I can tell you that.
…MATTHEWS: [Watching video.] This is a killer. Look at this killer. Because it isn't the most macho form there, I must say, but who knows?
Thanks
A year ago Melissa invited me to become a contributor to Shakesville. And what a year it has been.
I can't begin to list the friends that I've made and the insight I've gained from being a part of this community, and I feel very honored and humbled to be included in this wonderful mix of voices and images that have never failed to astonish me in so many ways.
So, thanks, Melissa and all the rest of the Shaker community; contributors, commenters, friends, allies, and even the occasional troll that's good for a laugh. You have kept me sharp, called me out when I screw up, and been there for support and friendship in good times and bad.
As I say at Bark Bark Woof Woof at every milestone, "What's next?"
