Shakesville

Gibson Cameo Cancelled

It's a tough week for racist d-bags, I guess. It looks like Mel Gibson's upcoming appearance in Hangover 2: Bangkok Boogaloo has been scuttled. Sad face for old hatebag Mel. (Not really.)

Thank Zach Galifianakis for this one. Earlier this week he was quoted as saying:

"A movie you're acting in, you don't have a lot of control; you just show up and vomit your lines out. I'm not the boss. I'm in deep protest right now about a movie I'm working on, up in arms about something. But I can't get the guys to [listen]. ... I'm not making any leeway."

The allusion was widely believed to be about Gibson's cameo in Hangover 2. Gibson was canned shortly thereafter. Director Todd Phillips had this to say:

"I thought Mel would have been great in the movie and I had the full backing of Jeff Robinov and his team. But I realize filmmaking is a collaborative effort, and this decision ultimately did not have the full support of my entire cast and crew."

Good on Zach and company for protesting. Sad face for Todd Phillips and whomever thought the choice of Gibson was a good idea.

Hobbit Casting Finalized

Heads-up, fellow nerdlings: Martin Freeman, who you may know as Tim from The Office (UK) or as the naked stand-in from Love, Actually, has been officially cast to play Bilbo Baggins. Yay! Good casting.

Interestingly, Ian McKellen is reportedly returning as Gandalf and Andy Serkis as Gollum, but the item notes that Elrond is still being cast. Huh. I wonder if Hugo Weaving declined, or if he wasn't asked, or if that discussion hasn't even happened yet. Curious.

[TW] Now that Free Polanski signatory Guillermo del Toro is off the project and Peter Jackson back on, I'm really excited about the film(s) again.

Grumble Growl Grumble Grumble Growl

Clint Eastwood says he thinks President Obama is a "nice fella," but he's "not a fan of what he's doing at the moment."

Maybe some crusty, narrow-eyed, weathered-but-wise, no-nonsense, old straight white conservative dude, half patriot, half reluctant hero, can grit his teeth, get his scowl on, and go rescue the black president from himself, eh, Clint?

(If you've not seen a lot of Clint Eastwood films, you'll have to take my word for it that that's pretty damn funny, in a lolsobby sorta way.)

[Previous Clint: Creepy, Mancentric.]

Open Thread

Hosted by the Car Horn Organ.

Question of the Day

What the fuck?

Headline of the Day

"Fearing Rout, Obama, Dems Reach To Female Voters." Good luck with that.

In Case You'd Missed Being Called Stupid by the Obama Administration...

Igor catches White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett noting, with regard to the repeal of DADT, that the "members of the gay community who actually understand [that the Justice Department is required to defend the law of the land are] working with us to try to put pressure on Congress to repeal it."

So, if you're not behind the White House interminably delaying the repeal for bullshit reasons, it's because, as per usual, you're too stupid to understand (or too hysterical to care) How Things Work.

Whoooooooooops.

Daily Dose o' Cute

The Mayor of Dudlington

Savage Advice

[Trigger warning for sexual violence and victim-blaming.]

I'm asking this not to be snarky, but because I truly want to know: What qualifies Dan Savage to hand out advice in a nationally syndicated column on sex and sexuality?

Because after reading today's column, he seems woefully, and dangerously, deficient in that capacity.

The long and the short of it is this: A woman in an open marriage wrote in saying how, since a former partner sexually assaulted her five months ago, she's been unable to be intimate with her husband, but has no problem being intimate with her boyfriend. Specifically, when her husband "tries to initiate sexual contact [her] skin crawls," but sex with her boyfriend "is amazing and leaves me feeling loved and whole and wonderful." This has left her husband feeling "incredibly jealous," "depressed," "angry," accusatory that she no longer loves him, and demanding that she "stop sleeping with [her] boyfriend until [their] marriage is back to normal."

She wants to know what to do. She signs her letter "Potentially Traumatized Sexual Deviant," the acronym of which is PTSD, also the acronym for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Dan Savage tells her: "You're being a total shit."

That is not a paraphrase. That is a direct quote.

He lectures her that she should be reporting the crime, tells her he hopes she knows "that being the victim of sexual assault is not a Get Out of Being a Human Being Free card," accuses her of "emotionally assaulting" her husband, and tells her, as I mentioned above, that she's "being a total shit."

Yeah.

I don't have PTSD (although I am close to someone who does), but I do understand that, especially when one is first learning to live with it, it can be hard to know exactly what will and does trigger it, including what could be causing an aversion to sex. It's entirely possible her husband (her currently jealous, depressed, angry, accusatory, demanding husband, mind you) may be unintentionally doing something as part of their sex routine that's triggering her, and the only language she has for it right now, even in her own mind, is "I don't want to have sex with him."

That's a possibility that anyone who professes to be a sex expert should recognize, if they're going to respond to survivors' sex questions.

It's unconscionable that Savage would advise this woman, a sexual assault survivor, to, essentially, get over it, and fuck someone she doesn't want to.

Oh, not that he says that directly, of course. She should just stop being "cruel and selfish," and get her "ass into therapy," if she "truly" loves her husband and values her marriage. Savage isn't telling her to fuck someone she doesn't want to; he's just telling her to figure out a way to fuck someone she doesn't want to. Or end the marriage.

Because it's cruel and selfish, it's downright "emotional assault," to not have sex with her husband while she's having sex with the boyfriend her husband was totes okay with her having, as long as she was fucking him, too.

As Liss said in an email exchange about this: "Yes, it's difficult to understand why, after being sexually assaulted, she doesn't want to have sex with someone who considers her autonomy a negotiable item, contingent upon whether she's sexually servicing him."

How "cruel and selfish" she is. What a "total shit."

Savage's response is incomprehensibly callous. And if it weren't bad enough on its own, it's accompanied by this positively adorable cartoon of a man trying to woo a woman who's crying.

[H/T to Shaker Jill.]

Pop Quiz

Which one of these things is not like the others?

Conan O'Brien's Nov. 8 TBS debut is drawing ever-closer, and boy, what a doozy of a first week he's lined up.

Deadline Hollywood reports that within four days, Coco will host Tom Hanks, Seth Rogen, Michael Cera, 'Mad Men' hunk Jon Hamm, 'Modern Family' star Julie Bowen and '30 Rock' comedian Jack McBrayer. White Stripes rocker Jack White will hit the stage as the first musical guest on 'Conan.'

O'Brien is hosting a poll online for another special guest, with personalities ranging from (we think) jokey -- Pope Benedict XVI, Vladimir Putin -- to probably serious, like Jack Nicholson and Justin Bieber.

If you answered: "Ten of the 11 names are white men, and only one of them is a woman, also white," give yourself 1,000 points.

Team Coco 1, Diversity 0.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Pet Shop Boys: "It's a Sin"

WHAT. THE. EVERLOVING. FUCK.

[Trigger warning for suicide, homophobia, and Christian supremacy.]

Officials on college campuses across the nation are alarmed at a wave of recent suicides involving Christians who have been harassed by homosexual activists. The main stream media isn't covering the story so, as usual, I have taken it upon myself to do their jobs for them. None of the following eight cases have been covered by any of the three major news networks.

Thus begins an article titled "Eight Straight Suicides" by conservative writer Mike Adams at the cesspool known as Townhall.com. He then goes on to describe the details of these cases, in which straight Christians purportedly killed themselves after being "harassed by homosexual activists." The details, I assure you, are not important, because this is the final paragraph:

These eight cases are all true except for one thing: The Christians who were bullied by gays and gay activists are all still alive. Not a single one has committed suicide. That is because they have centered their lives around Jesus Christ, rather than their sexual identity. And no amount of bullying can change my mind about that.

Psych! They didn't kill themselves after all! And it isn't because the entire culture in which they reside is structured to assure them in every conceivable way that being straight and Christian is superior to being not-straight and not-Christian; it's just because they're inherently better people, stronger, blessed.

This is vile even by Townhall's execrable standards.

I will leave it to you to dissect in comments everything that is wrong with this pile of fetid shit, from disappearing gay Christians, to pretending there's no such thing as straight or Christian privilege, to appropriating the suicide of bullied teens for a breathtakingly inappropriate literary conceit all in the name of playing another round of Poor Persecuted Christians. (See also. And here. Among many others.)

I will instead just make this one observation...

You know, I know a lot of straight people and a lot of gay people (and a lot of people who fall somewhere in between), and no one—but no one—centers their lives around their sexual identity more than straight conservative Christians, whose identities as man/husband/father and woman/wife/mother are inseparable. They speak of procreation as their purpose, and assert that procreation must be between one man and one woman, only, ever.

Being straight, getting married, making babies, raising those babies to be straight, get married, and make more babies, quivers full of them, is the essence of conservative Christianity.

To assert that it is gay people who "center their lives" around their sexuality is just another example of conservative Christian projection. (See also. And here. Among many others.)

And their genuinely pathetic campaign of self-pity would be thoroughly hilarious, if only it weren't contributing the the environment in which the suicides of gay youth really, actually happen.

[H/T to Shaker Rachel.]

Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"

See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

Immediate Action Item

An Anonymous Shaker emails (which I am publishing with permission):

Liss:

NPR fired Juan Williams this morning [after he made negative comments about Muslims on Fox]. The right wing response has been immediate, intense, and cruel. I answer the phones at Listener Services, and we answer emails, too; so far the names I have been called are very similar to what I imagine trolls call you daily. I have no idea how you stand up under constant abuse from screaming people (textually or telephonically), but I'm drawing a lot of strength from your example.

If you have the ability or energy, I'd really appreciate it if you could ask Shakers to either call 202.513.3232 to give me and my colleagues some idea that there's someone in the universe out there that thinks journalists following an ethical code is a good idea. We have received so many angry, vitriolic, and vicious comments that our email system has collapsed; and I myself have received over fifty furious calls from self-described conservatives who believe that Mr. Williams' comments were protected under the Constitution and that we are evil liberal censors.

We have received zero positive calls. The phone is ringing off the hook. We'd really, really, really like the support.

Please pick up the phone and make a call to let NPR know that you support their decision to require their employees to refrain from engaging in overt bigotry against marginalized populations.

DADT Update

Another setback in LGB equality, but a big win for the president who once claimed to be a "fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans," which would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic:

A federal appeals panel on Wednesday temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that halted enforcement of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning openly gay and lesbian soldiers from the military.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave the government the delay it sought in challenging a federal judge's order last week to stop enforcing the policy around the world.

"The order is stayed temporarily in order to provide this court with an opportunity to consider fully the issues presented," said the appellate panel's ruling, which gave parties in the case until October 25 to file further documents.

Aubrey Sarvis, an Army veteran and executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said the appeals court panel's ruling "means that 'don't ask, don't tell' is once again on the books, and is likely to be enforced by the Defense Department."

...The administration argued that changing it abruptly "risks causing significant immediate harm to the military and its efforts to be prepared to implement an orderly repeal of the statute."

Such bullshit. If they were arguing that "changing it abruptly" (as if this hasn't been coming for nearly a year now, anyway) could put LGB soldiers at risk, that would still be bullshit, but at least it would put them on the bullshit side of the bullshit angels. But they're just going full-tilt garbage.

The military reportedly wants time to consider, and possibly implement, sexuality-segregated housing into which straight soldiers can voluntarily opt-in, if they don't want to live with gay soldiers. Personally, I believe that housing already exists: It's called civilian life.

After hundreds of years of LGB soldiers not being allowed to serve openly, the least they're owed is the requirement from their fellow soldiers to like it or lump it. LGB soldiers shouldn't be required to fight for separate but equal.

Top Chef: Just Desserts Open Thread

[Image from last night's episode: Pastrytestant Danielle, taking the elimination challenge a bit too literally, plates cat turds for her dookie pie.]

Last night's episode will be whipped and folded, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, pack your liquid nitrogen and go...

Tea Party Racism

The Tea Partiers continually deny that they are motivated by racism, that their leadership promotes or facilitates racism, that their members are disproportionately racist, that racism has anything at all to do with their movement.

Well.

David Neiwert reports: "The NAACP has now fully backed up its accusations of racism within the Tea Party movement with a meticulously documented report on the Tea parties' multifarious connections to racists and various far-right extremists."

The report, "Tea Party Nationalism," looks at the relationships and differences between the six major Tea Party organizations -- FreedomWorks Tea Party, 1776 Tea Party, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet, and Tea Party Express -- and the various ways that each group has established connections with, and empowers, outright racists and white supremacists, as well we far-right "Patriot" extremists of various stripes.

"In these ranks, an abiding obsession with Barack Obama's birth certificate is often a stand-in for the belief that the first black president of the United States is not a 'real American.' Rather than strict adherence to the Constitution, many Tea Partiers are challenging the provision for birthright citizenship found in the Fourteenth Amendment," write authors Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, which produced the report for the NAACP.

The heart of the report is the section titled "Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Militia Impulse," which includes some previously overlooked facets of the movement and revealing details:

-- James von Brunn, the white supremacist who killed a Holocaust Museum guard last year, posted on Tea Partner Express partner websites.

-- Mark Williams, former chairman of the Tea Party Express, not only wrote racist screeds, he made death threats against President Obama,

-- Billy Joe Roper, a member of the ResistNet Tea Party who also happens to be the founder of the overtly racist White Revolution organization, indulging in "Nazi glamorization" with his eulogy for William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, the notorious race-war blueprint.

There's more at the link.

Naturally, the Tea Partiers are dismissing out of hand the demonstrable proof that there is an ugly thread of racist extremism running through their "we're just good patriots and totes condemn racism, we swears" quilt:

"Here we go again," said Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation. "This is typical of this liberal group's smear tactics."

Yes, "facts" are indeed typical of the NAACP and the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.

The Overton Window: Chapter Eighteen

Chapter eighteen is notable for two reasons. First, it opens with a single word. A paragraph unto itself:

Bacon.

Secondly, Noah and Molly get their first kiss:

Molly looked into his eyes, and what he saw in her was a perfect reflection of a wanting that he also felt, so there was no delay of invitation and acceptance. It was a different sort of desire than he'd known before, an understanding that something now needed to be said that no language but the very oldest could possibly convey. He bent to her, closed his eyes, and her lips touched his, gently, and again more urgently as he responded. He felt her arms around him, her body yearning against his in the embrace, a knot like hunger inside, heart quickening, cool hands at his back under the warmth of his jacket, searching, pressing him closer still.

Still with us? Good. I wouldn't blame you if you'd given up after that. My only hope here is that there is no sex scene waiting for us down the road. Because if it's anything like the kiss, it's going to be brutal. I promise you, if there is a sex scene, I will warn you ahead of time. You've my word on that.

Anyway, back to the opening paragraphs.

Bacon.

Scent appeals to the most primitive of the five basic senses. Unlike a sight or sound or even a touch, an aroma can rocket straight to the untamed emotions with no stops required at the smarter parts of the brain. You like it or you hate it; that's the designed-in depth of raw stimulation the nose is built to deliver. So amid all the other deeper thoughts that should have come to Noah's mind upon awakening, it was bacon that crowded them out to come in first across the finish line.

I'm going to need your help here. I can't make heads or tails of this sentence: "Scent appeals to the most primitive of the five basic senses." What is the author saying here? That scent appeals to our sense of smell? I'm pretty sure most of us know that. Even if I didn't know that, I think I'd pretty easily deduce that scent does not appeal to one's sense of hearing. Or is he saying the sense of smell is the most primitive of the senses? If that's what he meant, maybe that's what he should have written. Because "scent appeals to the most primitive of the five basic senses" is nonsensical, no pun intended.

The rest of the paragraph ain't exactly Dostoevsky either, what with all the rockets of raw stimulation and whatnot going on there.

So, Molly has made Noah breakfast and the two of them sit in the sunroom (huh?) and enjoy a moment with the NYT Sunday crossword. Noah knows lots of big words and Molly soundlessly mouths letters as she writes. I guess this is characterization.

Then Molly drops the proverbial bomb. (Real bombs later.)

"I've been meaning to talk to you about something," Molly said. She got up and took his empty plate and silverware to the sink.

"Okay. Let's talk about it."

"I'm not going to be in town very much longer."

"Why?"

I'm just not. There were some things I wanted to do here, and I've done them now, so I'll be leaving."

What? What things did she have to do? Get arrested? Hang up flyers in Noah's office? Go to a Libertarian poetry slam? And she's been meaning to tell him since when? Since they got out of jail? Since he woke up and ate her bacon? Huh?

Nevermind.

Molly cleans up the kitchen and asks about something Noah has framed in the apartment. He describes it as "a penmanship exercise, from the fifth grade, dad's favorite poem."

It wasn't quite right to say it was his father's favorite poem; more like the old man's justification of his life set in verse. He'd directed his young son to study it so he'd always know the way things really worked in this world.

Noah picked it up, let his thumb brush the dust from the corner of the glass, and read each metered line aloud.

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled,
and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled
and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters,
and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up
to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future,
it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain
since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit
and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger
goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished,
and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing
and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us,
as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
with terror and slaughter return!

Ummm... Okay. I'm no poet laureate or anything, so I'm not going to pass judgement on the piece. Rudyard Kipling wrote it, and he's respected as a writer, and aside from that I know next to nothing about him. He wrote Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and that cartoon used to give me the heebie jeebies as a kid, so this poem seems to fit.

Noah and Molly discuss the poem.

"And what do you think he was telling you with this, your father?"

"He told me the poem meant that history always repeats itself, that the same mistakes are made over and over, only bigger each time. The wise man knows that if you can't change that, you might as well take full advantage of it. But to me it meant something else. It's a warning, I guess, about what happens when you forget common sense. I think it means that there really is such a thing as the truth, the real objective truth, and people can see it if they'll just look hard enough, and remember who they really are. But most of the time they choose to give in and believe all the lies instead."

I see. Really. I do. Darthur's philosophy is that history repeats itself. Not exactly profound or anything. But Noah is sure there is more to the world than that: there is Truth to be seen, if only everyone would look. I guess there are worse philosophies to adhere to.

I think my favourite part here is how Molly's sole purpose has developed into facilitating Noah's Awakening. And cooking bacon. Nice. She's there to serve. Perfect, Beck, just perfect.

After breakfast, Molly and Noah go for a walk in Times Square. Like they're in a Meg Ryan movie.

They'd talked some along the way, though for the most part it had been a quiet walk. But there was nothing tense or self-conscious in those wordless stretches. He found himself at ease in her company, as if a conversation was always in progress, only spoken in other forms. She stayed close to him, at times with an unexpected gesture of casual intimacy: an arm around his waist for half a block, a finger hooked in his belt loop as they crossed a busy street against the light, a palm to his cheek as she spoke close to his ear to be heard over the din of the traffic.

See? Just like a Meg Ryan movie. And like a Meg Ryan movie, the two kiss in Times Square. (EIther there or Central Park, right? Because those are the only two places in NYC.) See above if you'd like a replay.

If this were a movie, do you think Molly would be played by Meg Ryan? The role seems against her type, but I bet Sarah Michelle Gellar would be up for it. That being said, I am positive Tom Hanks would not be Noah. Maybe Hanks' weird little cousin, Colin.

With everything to see and hear around them there at the very crossroads of the world, soaring billboards, scrolling news crawlers, bright digital Jumbotrons that lined the tall buildings and blotted out the whole evening sky, it all disappeared to its rightful insignificance, flat as a postcard. That place was left outside their small circle, and if asked right then he might have stayed there within it forever.

It was a really good kiss. I think that much can be said. Noah really really likes Molly. I really really dislike the author of this dreck.

Then it starts raining again and the couple ducks into a coffee shop to warm up. As they are sipping their Folgers Gourmet Selections (with Flavor Crystals™), Molly asks Noah for some advice. She wants to know what the PR whiz would do if the teabaggers were to hire him.

"What is it you want to accomplish again?"

"We want to save the country."

Noah thinks for a while and basically tells Molly that the teabaggers need to get their shit together. And through him Glenn Beck basically tells the teabaggers to their shit together. Noah tells Molly they need a platform.

"Start with the tax code, since your mom is so passionate about that. How about a set of specific spending cuts and a thirteen percent flat tax to start with? Get that ridiculous sixty-seven-thousand-page tax code down to four or five bullet points, and show exactly what effects it'll have on trade, and employment, and the debt, and the future of the country. And I'm winging it here, but how about real immigration reform? The kind of policies that welcome people who want to come here for the right reasons, and succeed."

Ah yes. A flat tax! That'll fix everything. Know what else fixes things? Bullet points! And immigration reform. The kind that lets people into the country for the right reasons, like being white!

"And what did you mean, save the country, by the way? Save it from what?"

She looked at him evenly. "You know what."

Heh. Yooouu know! Seriously, these are adults? These are adults trying to save this great nation from the talon grip of the NWO? No. Adults don't talk like that. Has the author ever spoken to another adult? I don't think he has.

She clarifies, sort of.

"I know there was a meeting at the office yesterday afternoon," she said, lowering her voice but not her intensity. "I saw the guest list on the catering order. I know who was there. I know you were in it. And I think I know what it was about."

"Okay, yes, big surprise, there was a meeting, but I wasn't there for all of it. And do you want to know something else? I don't even know what it was all about, so how could you?"

"Then let's both find out."

Okay, so the NWO might be undone by a catering order? These are the people who have spent fifty years implementing a plan to take over the world, or whatever, and they can't keep the menus out of the hands of spies? "Oh em gee, John Aschroft ordered a tuna melt! Do you know what this means?!" Actually, I don't know what that means. He always seemed more the egg salad type to me anyway.

Molly demands Noah prove her wrong. What? Prove what? You haven't said anything!

"Let's go right now and find out."

"I can't do that."

"Yes, you can. We'll go to the office right now, and you'll show me that I've got nothing to worry about. If that's the case then that'll be the end of it."

Okay, this is straight getting on my nerves now. What the fuck is she expecting to find? The plans for the NWO right there in the offices of Doyle & Merchant? It's not like there was a Powerpoint and a hand-out explaining everything. Whoops! That's right, there was a Powerpoint and a hand-out explaining everything. Okay, so even if there was, why can't Noah just bring home a copy? And why can't a VP visit the office on Saturday? It seems like someone in his position would have run of the place, no questions asked. Oh well, not that it matters anyway.

Molly gets a little creepy too and tries to blackmail Noah. What the fuck is with everyone in the fucking book? What a bunch of manipulative, mendacious turds. Even the people we're supposed to like are assholes. This whole book is garbage.

"Do you want me to leave?" Her voice was tight and there were sudden tears in her eyes. "Do you never want to see me again? Because that's what this means."

So. Yeah. Molly. Blackmailing a man you know has feelings for you. A man you just kissed. Now you want him to break into the offices of the NWO, like Old Mister Bullet-In-The-Head Churchill, and do I don't know what exactly, or you'll split. Wow. Everyone in this book is a douche.

"That is so incredibly unfair," Noah says. And rightly so. But it's too late. She's out. And Noah is left alone in a Times Square coffee shop. (Bubba Gump's? I hope it was Bubba Gump's.) And it's then that Noah decides what he must do.

If he's going into the office on a Saturday, I'm not going to be impressed. I've done that very thing countless times, and I'm not even a VP trying to stop the New World Order.

Open Thread

Hosted by the Theremin cello.

Question of the Day

We've done this one before, but not for a long while, and it's always fun... How did you find Shakesville? (Or, if you're a long-time Shaker, Shakespeare's Sister.)

Space Cowboy's got a wonderful and very detailed answer to this one, btw. He even remembers the exact post that brought him here, via a link at Crooks & Liars!

Since I can't really give an answer to this question, instead I'll just say: However you got here, I'm glad you found your way.