Rain and Roses

I'm a bit confused here. I mean, if Glenn Beck is despised by people on the left or in the center because he's a paranoid, lying scumbag who's off his rocker, and people on the right don't like him because they think he's a careerist phony...

...who is it that's actually listening to him?

(And who do we petition to get them shipped to Mars?)


*Full title: "An afternoon thought; or, If You Rant About Politics On Cable Television And Nobody Believes You, Do You Still Get Ratings?"

Obama: "No one should go broke because they got sick."

I applaud our President for attacking the health-care issue head-on, and especially for calling out the liars who have been spreading misinformation about the health care reform efforts in order to prey on people's fears. Whether or not his effort will have any effect remains to be seen, and I'm sure plenty of other blogs will pick apart the rest of his speech for any possible meaning or contradiction, so I'm not going to go into that here.

But I would like to express my utter and total amusement at his choice of words. How hard do you think it was for him to stop himself from saying, "If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day"?

So the rumor mill has it that Dick Cheney, Angel of the Bottomless Pit of Governmental Cronyism and Lord of All That Is War Profiteering, was not only in town a few days ago, but used a paltry percentage of his Halliburton-gotten gains to buy a house here on Douglas Island. I have no idea if he'll actually be living here, but given his fondness for staying in Undisclosed Locations, a house on an island in Southeast Alaska that's completely cut off from the major road system does seem a likely candidate.

Obviously the rumor mill wasn't specific as to which house that might have been, but I've come up with a pretty foolproof plan. See, I'm thinking I'll invent a little gizmo called a Demon Finder. It'd work kind of like a Geiger counter, except that it measures the free-floating particles of villainy in the air. Up until now there wouldn't have been much use for it locally - there are a good few folk in town who've become moderately wealthy by committing petty evils like building and renting out poor-quality housing or running no-tell motels - but I'm pretty sure the amount of pure, unrefined turpitude left by Mr. "I'm very proud of what we did" would drown out those remora fish in a second.

So, who's up for a good old-fashioned angry-mob-raising? I'm pretty sure Don Abel's has a supply of pitchforks, and we can improvise some torches. Given Juneau's plethora of musical talent, we might even be able to get a chorus to sing "Kill the Beast" - any volunteers?

...Yes. I would vote for this. If only because it would make C-SPAN far more entertaining (not that that takes much):

The NYT has a story today of a Frenchman's "harrowing escape" from Muslim extremists who'd captured him.  I've only been skimming bits and pieces in between working, but a couple of things stuck out:

1.)  He "escaped" because his captors failed to lock the door to his cell and then went to sleep.  No, seriously.  (Admittedly, tiptoeing past heavily armed folks liable to shoot first and ask questions later probably counts as "harrowing", but still.)

2.)  This bit:

Mr. Aubrière insisted emphatically, several times in an excited voice, that his half-dozen heavily armed captors treated him like a gentleman, never hitting him, always feeding him and making sure he had plenty of water.

“They were young guys, but good guys,” he said.

He talked about what he ate — “spaghetti, rice, meat from sheep, you know, the normal Somali stuff” — and how he trained for weeks in his cell, cranking out push-ups and walking for hours back and forth, always barefoot, “to toughen up my feet.” To kill time, he read the one book he could get his hands on, Dan Brown’s “Deception Point.”

“I read that book eight times,” he said. “I hate this book now.”

I'm sure his situation was far better than any number of other political prisoners around the world, but seriously, dudes - you hold the guy captive for more than a month and give him one UND EXACTLY VUN book to read, and it's a Dan Brown novel?  That probably counts as cruel and unusual treatment in and of itself.

The good, or at least less-sucky: Between getting married and Brian turning 25 over the last year, our auto insurance has gone down almost $250 per six-month premium. So that's nice, even if it's still a mandatory large expenditure. Sigh.

The wince-inducingly awful: Word is the health insurance industry as a whole is rejoicing - not only is it looking like healthcare reform as a whole is going to bring them millions of new customers (including government subsidized lower-income people), but the one bargaining chip the government had planned in order to keep them from taking complete and total advantage of their customers (the creation of a public option to compete with the private sector) is losing support, and there's talk of only requiring them to cover 65% of costs on cheaper plans. Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. I didn't honestly think things could be any worse than they are, but pass this "reform" and the poorer folk are going to be even more screwed - not to mention the taxpayers who'll be subsidizing their worthless "plans". But the insurance industry gets richer, so everybody who matters wins!

As a sidenote - I particularly love this bit: "In the first half of 2009, the health service and HMO sector spent nearly $35 million lobbying Congress, the White House and federal healthcare offices, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics." And how much of that $35 million came from/is going to be offset by denying paying customers' claims for bullshit reasons, thus sticking them with even more bills?

I dunno about you guys, but I'm headed straight to the city of Headdesk in the great, time-honored land of Political Demoralization. Anyone else want to come along?

I wrote this as a reply to a syndicated column in the newspaper today regarding the distressing rise of comparisons to Nazism in political discourse today. I'm reposting it here, because I think it's something we should all seriously think about.

Back in the early days of the Internet, comparisons to Nazism as an insult for some trivial offense were so common that an idea spread to combat them. Referred to as "Godwin's Law", it stated that in any argument, as soon as someone brought up Hitler or the Nazis they lost and the discussion was over. This idea came about in large part for the reasons Mr. Pitts describes - because the evil that the Nazis perpetrated was so vast that trivializing it for the sake of an argument was an insult to the millions upon millions of their victims.

Godwin's Law was (and is) necessary because, in this new world of cyberspace where people were represented by strings of characters, participants had little reason to be civil to each other during arguments. Sure, there was a certain level of social conditioning, but once people realized the true extent of their anonymity they had no reason to pull punches - there was nobody to make them take real-life responsibility for their words, and they couldn't see the hurt they'd caused in the other person with their remarks. So in many places discussion on the Internet devolved into vicious, nasty, personal attacks against people with ideas others didn't like. (Sound familiar, Empire board members?) Godwin's Law, and a few other basic rules that are nameless but equally universal (don't post personal attacks, don't "troll" - post inflammatory statements specifically for the purpose of getting a rise out of people, etc.) began to be enforced on various boards, sometimes unofficially by group members, sometimes officially by moderators. While there are still dark corners of the Internet where flamewars continue, in most places online discussion stays on a certain level of civility, because the alternative is chaos.

Here's what scares me. As stated above, nastiness was a problem in the early days of the Internet due to anonymity; in the real world, people remained at least moderately polite to each other because they could be taken to task for their words. But now, the level of discourse among people in the real world is quickly degrading to early-Internet levels. People call in about Nazism on talk shows as if they've never heard of Godwin's Law (which, to be fair, they may have not), pundits make completely false declarations without offering any supporting evidence whatsoever, normal people interrupt town hall meetings (which are supposed to be a forum for rational discussion) to scream about how Obama wants to kill your grandmother, etc. Once upon a time you didn't want to be known as the guy who was on television (or YouTube) saying all that crazy conspiracy stuff; these days, people wear it as a badge of honor.

What's changed? I honestly don't know. Certainly our celebrity-obsessed culture has done its fair share of encouraging behavior like this; when your entire goal is to be recognizable, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Undoubtedly, the aforementioned pundits and the billionaire neoconservatives bankrolling the town-hall protests share some responsibility as well, for encouraging extremist thought. Perhaps even the Internet has played a role - it used to be that you didn't want to offend people who lived near you, but now that literally anyone can go online and find a subset of folks who think exactly like them, their ideas are reinforced and their motivation to avoid stepping on others' toes is reduced.

Whatever the reason, we're rapidly becoming a nation of trolls starting flamewars over politics. How ironic would it be if the moderated Internet became the last bastion of rational, civilized argument?

The NYT Magazine has a pretty cool article on "The Gay Generation Gap", which talks about some of the issues that younger gay men have been sniping at older ones (and vice versa) about - "You're cocky and entitled, you're sexually careless, you heedlessly take advantage of the benefits we spent our youths fighting for" vs. "You're obsessed with your own victimhood, you go on about AIDS like your parents went on about WWII, you think the only way to get anything is to get angry about it", etc.  It's interesting from a cultural perspective, but also oddly heartening - especially after watching Milk and realizing that it wasn't that long ago that being openly gay really was a serious liability.  Intergenerational sniping aside, the fact that we've gotten so far in the space of one generation is pretty astonishing in and of itself, and I only hope it continues to get better.

I realize that abortion is a hot-button issue and everyone's got an opinion on it, and that's fine, but...

...when one posts a link to an article relating to a very specific aspect of the whole debate, is it completely bollocks to think that people might read and think about the content of that article, and respond to the content of the article rather than just posting their opinion about abortion in general?

There are plenty of forums to express opinions on abortion, and I'm more than familiar with most of the arguments one way or another. Frankly, the reason I posted the link was because I was interested in getting people's thoughts on the specific subject of the article, which brought up an idea not often seen in the debate. Instead, it seems everyone just saw the word "abortion" (and maybe "Tiller") and gave a knee-jerk Pavlovian reaction.

Maybe I'm expecting a bit much from folks on the Internet - I know a lot of people don't go to LiveJournal to think. But still, it's a bit discouraging seeing how easily manipulated people's feelings can be (and I'm including myself here, I know I'm prone to it too) just by bringing up one or two loaded terms. It's why I always make doubly sure to rethink anything I might say regarding a subject I feel strongly about, because it's so very easy to get wrapped up in your feelings and completely miss the actual point someone might be trying to make.

Word is tearing through Facebook and other venues that RockStar Energy Drink was invented by conservative talk show-host/hate-monger Michael Savage, and therefore should be boycotted by anyone who cares about little issues like GLBT equality, religious tolerance, human rights, etc. I certainly agree that that's a good course of action, assuming the claim is true, but so far all the sources I'm finding point back to a single website for reference (www.thetruthaboutrockstar.com). And considering that anyone with a grudge can put up a decent-looking website, this strikes me as the sort of situation ripe for a Snopes-ing. (That said, the boycott's been going on for a couple of weeks now with no response from RockStar, Inc., which lends some credence to the claim - you'd think that they'd want to immediately distance themselves as far as they could from such a repugnant figure.)

In any case, it's something to bear in mind. I've never tried the stuff myself, but I'm sure some of my LJ friends drink it, and what with the glut of energy drinks on the market right now it might be worth considering making a switch. Meantime, if anyone finds stronger evidence for or against the claim, let me know - I'll probably do some digging myself, once I'm off work.

ETA: The person who originally pointed me in this direction has dug up the link to RockStar's articles of incorporation, as filed in the state of Nevada, which do list a Janet Weiner as the CEO. Considering that Michael Savage (née Weiner)'s wife is named Janet Weiner, that seems a pretty strong connection. Whether or not the drink itself was "invented by Michael Savage" or he "founded the company for his son to run" (as a number of places have claimed) is true, there's certainly a strong enough connection to (in my opinion) warrant a boycott.

After the "OMG TERRORIST FIST BUMP" debacle, I really, honestly, truly thought there wasn't a thing the right-wing pundits could scream about that was more ridiculous.

Apparently, I was wrong.

What I love best?  The Canadian Press are the only link that came up on Google News who were reporting this with anything resembling the appropriate level of amused disbelief.  The American media conglomerates are all too busy reporting the seriousness of the situation, or getting the opinion of a Real Live Mustard Grower.  (Grey Poupon, however, gets points for making a brand-promoting joke out of the swamp of ridiculousness.)  And yes, the links are for any visiting aliens who may not yet be convinced that humans are capable of this kind of thing.

Oddly enough, however, I just recently came across an article that may explain how and why the aforementioned pundits start these kinds of things.  They can't help it.  It's their programming.

Want to stay informed as to what's happening in Washington, but find lengthy political analysis too taxing to read?

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David Frum, an acknowledged neoconservative who is probably best known for having written Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech, has a piece in Newsweek decrying the way Limbaugh has become the public face of the Republican party.  While I disagree strongly with his baseline (he claims that Rush and his followers are important to the Republican cause and deserve respect, despite any number of truly reprehensible things the man has said and done), he has a remarkably lucid grip on what, exactly, is wrong with letting a media blowhard who lives to stir up controversy be the bearer of your political philosophy.  He also seems to have a good concept of how the Republicans need to change their platform to become more relevant to today's world (he claims, quite rightly, that their philosophy was developed to govern the world of the 1970s and hasn't changed since then).

The great bit?  He's absolutely convinced - probably accurately - that his piece will provoke a cascade of "If you don't like Rush, leave the party and stop calling yourself a conservative!" vitriol.

On the one hand, it's a bit sad to see the one (somewhat) rational voice get buried like that.  But on the other, it's sort of inevitable; for a long time the neocons have identified themselves by their disdain for "elitist intellectuals".  So what happens when things start to go wrong for them and someone makes some intelligent points about what needs to change?  They fall on him like wolves on an injured caribou.

Human nature just ain't a pretty thing.

Bristol Palin, the much-scrutinized pregnant teen daughter of a (former, thankfully) VP candidate, has given birth to a healthy son.

And named him...Tripp Easton.

Odds that she picked that one out from the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator? Anyone...?

(At least she's keeping up with family tradition. Le sigh.)

A new version of Nas' "Black President", with the "Yes we can" refrain changed to "Yes we did...change the world..."
...followed by The Cars' "Let the Good Times Roll". Possibly coincidental, although I doubt it.

For all that I'm cautious about expecting Obama to live up to his promise, it's hard not to get swept up in the excitement. Especially when I'm driving to work on approximately the fifth sunny day we've had since January, and it's a gorgeous sunrise.

I do not envy President-elect Obama in the least; he's got a hell of a lot of work ahead of him, and a number of falls to take that he likely can't do anything about. But I'm very happy that he's won, and I sincerely hope he turns out to be even a fraction as different and special and wonderful as he promised during his campaign.

But if nothing else, he's intelligent, calm, measured, and rational, and that puts him miles ahead of most potential candidates. And charismatic. I won't have to instinctively wince every time someone turns on the television.

And for the first time in years, I finally have some hope for our country's future.