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November 2004

November 30, 2004

It's amazing what nine hours of sleep can do.

True, I'm quite tired now, as I write this, but it's also been a long day full of accomplishments, so I have no complaints. Once I get this done and uploaded I'm going to bed, in fact, so it's that simple.

The big deal for the day was this Reading Journal for my Poetry Workshop. I've been supposed to be working on this thing every week all semester, basically analyzing one or two poems from a compilation of various poets and writing about the poem at length - good points, useful ways to develop images or story, interesting rhythmic patterns ... whatever. Needless to say I have not been caught up with this, and it's due a week from tomorrow along with my final portfolio of poems, plus that's the same day my last big paper is due, for the Modern Latin America class, so that leaves me a lot to do for that day, even without worrying about all of the other stuff that's due between now and then. But I worked on it and actually got caught up and finished, so outside of some minor revisions before the final printout, that bitch is done, and that is a major reason for happiness.

Tomorrow looks to be another busy day, but it holds promise as being the last day of quizzes for the semester, one in Classical Myth and one in Modern Latin America. That just leaves papers, portfolios, journals, and exams. Oh joy.

Well, at least I'm getting some of it done.

Posted at 12:25 AM

November 29, 2004

The Film paper is done, turned in, and the huge stack of books I used as sources are off of my desk and back at the library - and none too soon.

I worked on threat damn paper quite long hours on Saturday then worked all day yesterday, without break, until about 1 AM, when the letters of so many books and so many outline bullets on the computer screen were floating before my eyes. I slept for all of four hours (maybe a bit less) and got shaved and showered showered and back to work. I was fueled by aspirin and adrenaline, surely, because less than five hours of sleep has never been enough for me. Somehow, though, things started taking shape and I was able to get a final version that I could accept, get it printed out (and my poem, too), and get on the road by 1 PM. I even had just enough time to get to the campus library and drop off the books before heading to my first class, so I guess it worked out okay. Needless to say, though, I'm quite tired after four straight days of five or less hours of sleep each. I'm quite certain I'll drop off any time now.

Before I do, though, I'll finish up this Journal entry. I found an interesting beginning form one of the articles I read for this paper, and although I didn't use it in my paper, I wanted to quote it here. It's from a collection of essays that's calledQueer (Un)Friendly Film and Television by James Keller (2002). Here's the quote:

The family values campaign of the past ten years has alternated between a source of amusement and a cause for outrage in the gay community. Seldom has there been a more ideologically incoherent and illnamed alliance, particularly since the movement has nothing to do with family or with values, and its ostensible source (scriptures) offers little consistent and credible validation for its principles. The family values campaign is a cynical and misdirected effort on the part of a large group of unprincipled preachers to deflect the blame for problems of the American family onto the single group who is, arguably, the least responsible. Gays and lesbians are condemned for destroying an institution from which they are legally and systematically excluded. It takes a rational person only a moment to conclude that the problems of the family emerge almost entirely from within that institution, i.e. absentee fathers, divorce, spouse abuse, child abuse, poverty, etc. Instead of facing the problems of the institution directly, the family values advocates have concluded that movies and queers, and particularly movies about queers, are the subversive threat. The projection of blame onto gay men constitutes an effort to condemn a particular version of manhood, to demonize male absenteeism (emotional or physical) by associating it with that indefatigable devil, the feminized man.

Posted at 12:17 AM

November 28, 2004

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Only one of us will come out of this alive! It's the film paper or me!

Posted at 12:36 AM

November 27, 2004

It will be such a miracle if I can get this Film paper done in time to turn in on Monday. Ugh!

Posted at 12:34 AM

November 26, 2004

Elizabeth Vargas of ABC's 20/20 should be ashamed of herself. It's bad enough that she should practice poor journalism - not telling all of the facts in order to make a story more sensational, even at the expense of the truth - but it's even worse that she has the nerve to try to create a story where brutal killers are portrayed as victims of circumstance and their murder victim is portrayed as suicidal and asking for death. It makes me sick that anyone could present a story like this, even in some trash source like the National Enquirer or some other rag not worth the paper it's printed upon, but for a supposedly-reputable source like 20/20 to report the newly-fabricated stories of the murderers who hope to find a way out of life in prison ... it's all just disgusting.

I will be watching the news closely and hoping to see ABC and 20/20 slammed by their peers in the news industry and also hopefully see ABC and 20/20 attacked by Judy Shepherd and every gay person in the country. I'm the first person to try to be open-minded in light of new facts, but to disregard truckloads of already-established facts and focus upon the "new revelations" (or more likely new fabrications) of people who admit to having committed perjury and admit to murder and unparalleled brutality - that simply is inexcusable by anyone under any circumstances at any time. Check out some of the problems with this show that were listed in this article by GLAAD. Keep in mind that GLAAD actually only barely touches the surface. There is much more that is blatantly wrong based on established facts that were part of the investigation and the court case.

GLAAD Viewer’s Guide to 20/20’s “A Murder In Laramie: The Mystery And The Myth”

10 QUESTIONS ABOUT ABC’S 20/20 SHOW ON MATTHEW SHEPARD

1. SOURCES & FACTS 20/20 IGNORED

There are several important sources and pieces of information that the 20/20 piece ignores in its quest to undermine the notion that anti-gay bias contributed to the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson.

• There is no discussion of the details of Aaron McKinney's confession to the police, where anti-gay bias is central to his characterization of the events of Oct. 6, 1998. Nor is there any mention of Rob DeBree, the investigator who took that statement and was one of the key witnesses as to the investigation and the confession at McKinney’s trial.

* No mention of the plea bargain that spared McKinney's life, nor any mention of Judy and Dennis Shepard's role in that. And no mention of the provision of that plea bargain where McKinney and his attorneys agreed not to speak to the press about this case.

* No mention of the more than 200 interviews over two years conducted by Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project for The Laramie Project -- nor the fact that some of the accounts offered 20/20 conflict with those offered Kaufman.

QUESTION: Don't 20/20's decisions to turn a blind eye to the facts of this case, to not include interviews with those who can substantiate them, and to evade any discussion of the ethical issues involved in circumventing one of the key provisions of McKinney's plea bargain raise some serious doubts as to the credibility of this piece?

2) AARON MCKINNEY's LACK OF CREDIBILITY

20/20's piece relies heavily on the perceived credibility of Aaron McKinney, who is now claiming to have lied about the role anti-gay bias played in his decision to target and kill Shepard. Yet it also encourages audiences to view as untruthful McKinney’s claims that he did not know Shepard prior to the crime and that he did not have sexual relations with other men.

QUESTION: How can 20/20 rely so heavily on a source whose statements need to be seen by the audience as truthful in some situations and untruthful in others?

3) KRISTEN PRICE's LACK OF CREDIBILITY

Kristen Price, who now claims she made up the story about McKinney's homophobic rage against Shepard, not only shared her story with 20/20 back in 1998, but she also testified about it in October 1999 at McKinney's trial.

QUESTION: Assuming Price can be taken seriously when she says she lied back in 1998 and 1999, did she commit perjury in McKinney’s murder trial? Why does 20/20 not explore this? And why does 20/20 put forward as fact the statements of someone who’s admitted to deceiving and lying to them in the past?

4) THE CREDIBILITY OF OTHER KEY SOURCES

20/20's case rests on interviews with witnesses like:

* Doc O' Connor, who, according to interviews conducted for The Laramie Project and for Vanity Fair, met Shepard only four days before his murder (casting serious doubt on his claim, reported by 20/20 reporter Elizabeth Vargas, that “Matthew was a friend close enough to share some of his secrets, like Matthew’s worries about HIV”) – and who was viewed as so lacking in credibility that neither the prosecution nor the defense called him as a witness at McKinney’s murder trial;

* Tina LaBrie, who knew Shepard for only a short time and whose characterizations of Shepard have been questioned by others who knew him;

* "Jean", an anonymous bartender 20/20 does not identify by last name, who claims to have seen Shepard and McKinney together;

* Ryan “Bop”(phonetic spelling – actual spelling of last name unknown at this time), a former drug-using associate of McKinney’s who claims to have given McKinney a .357 Magnum (the same kind of gun used in Shepard’s murder) in exchange for drugs.

* Elaine Baker, who claims to have spent an evening in the back of O' Connor's limo with McKinney and Shepard months before his murder-- contradicting O'Connor's statements to Vanity Fair and to the Tectonic Theater Project that he first met Matthew only four days before his death).

20/20’s case also centers on the newly reinvented stories of a convicted murderer and a source who claims to have lied to 20/20 in the past and, if true, has potentially committed perjury as well.

QUESTION: Taken separately and together, how can a set of witnesses this unreliable be used as the foundation for any credible news story?

5) LACK OF EVIDENCE FOR DRUG MOTIVE

20/20 does not put forward a single piece of solid evidence to back its assertion that drug use was the primary factor in Matthew Shepard’s murder. Their entire case is based on speculation; sensational repetition of unsubstantiated claims; interviews with people like Aaron McKinney and Kristen Price, whose credibility is extremely suspect; and contextually questionable soundbites from the prosecutor in the case.

QUESTION: Why would 20/20 so aggressively – and sensationally – attempt to rewrite the factual record of this case without a single piece of incontrovertible evidence to support their claims?

6) LACK OF EVIDENCE THAT SHEPARD KNEW HIS KILLERS

20/20's promotion of the show focuses on whether Shepard knew McKinney and Henderson prior to his murder.

In the final moments of the third segment, Vargas says, "There are a lot of facts the mythology surrounding this case got wrong. If you think Matthew Shepard never met his killer before that night, you may have to think again." Yet 20/20 presents no credible evidence that they did, only the accounts of three sources – Ryan Bop (sp?), Elaine Baker and “Jean” – whose credibility is extremely questionable.

QUESTION: Why, with nothing but speculation or contradictory information by unreliable sources to support it, does 20/20 make this sensationalistic angle one of the tentpoles of its report and its publicity strategy?

7) 20/20’S DEPICTION OF MATTHEW SHEPARD

Listen carefully as 20/20 depicts Matthew Shepard as a drug user, troubled, depressed, suicidal, etc., based only on accounts from unreliable sources.

QUESTION: Why would 20/20 feel it necessary to characterize the life of Matthew Shepard in this way when the depiction has no connection to the show’s attempt to advance a new motive for Shepard’s murderers?

8) PREVIOUS EXAMINATIONS OF DRUG THEORY NOT ACKNOWLEDGED BY 20/20

It is well known that Harper's magazine published an in-depth (and GLAAD Media Award-winning) cover story on Shepard’s murder back in 1999 that considered how methamphetamine abuse may have intersected with the homophobia and other factors that contributed to Shepard’s murder. McKinney’s alleged use of methamphetamines was also raised as part of his defense strategy -- an angle that was reported on extensively in the media.

QUESTION: Why does 20/20 suggest that the possible influence of drugs/methamphetamines on this case has not been previously explored by the media? And why does it not acknowledge these previous examinations.

9) JUDY SHEPARD’S INTERVIEW WITH 20/20

Elizabeth Vargas interviewed Judy Shepard ostensibly to get her reactions to the claims made by those Vargas had interviewed for 20/20. Yet Judy’s soundbites make it appear as though she did not have any problem with 20/20's claims. Also, Judy Shepard’s interview was conducted on the condition that 20/20 simultaneously interview Sean Maloney, Judy’s attorney and longtime adviser. Maloney was also critical of 20/20's premise and its decision to enable McKinney to violate his plea bargain agreement, but none of Maloney's comments – made on the record to 20/20 – are broadcast.

At the end of the piece, Vargas attempts to suggest that Judy Shepard even agrees with the premise of 20/20's piece by setting up (in voice-over) a soundbite from Judy by saying, "Even Matthew's mother says her son's life and death have been mythologized." Yet Judy's quote only focuses on her perception that her son was an ordinary young man.

NOTE: The final broadcast version differs from the press preview copy in that Judy Shepard has one soundbite challenging the assertion that her son's murder was not motivated by hate. Also, Sean Maloney now appears briefly in the segment, offering a broad quotation about hate crimes in America.

10) 20/20 DOES EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT IT CLAIMS TO BE DOING

20/20's premise is that Matthew Shepard's murder is more complicated than it seems. But their piece drives the viewer in the opposite direction, attempting to sell audiences on a simplistic notion that if McKinney and Henderson were under the influence of drugs, then anti-gay bias could have played no role whatsoever in their decision to target, beat and murder Shepard.

QUESTION: Clearly, there may have been factors in addition to anti-gay bias involved in this case. But why is 20/20’s piece so determined not to examine the complexity of this crime, but instead to develop an inaccurate single-cause motive that runs counter to the facts of this case?

Posted at 1:36 AM

November 25, 2004

The Thanksgiving buffet at Sawmill Creek Resort was once again quite wonderful, a vast array of wonderfully prepared foods in a very festive autumn-themed ballroom, all with very enjoyable live music throughout (the harp players are still my favorite). My grandma and I certainly ate our fill (and more) and certainly had a pleasant time, but we were both disappointed that it was just us.

I had invited Steve to come from Toledo to join us and he had accepted, but Steve apparently found himself quite exhausted and decided extra sleep was a necessity and chose to stay home. As I say, My grandma and I were disappointed not to have him join us, but I certainly can understand wanting some extra sleep. Not only is it just a pleasant idea to be able to sleep in and relax on a holiday like today, but I'm dead tired, too. Last night I was up 'til well past 4 AM so that I could finish reading a book for one of my classes. I also needed to write a poem, too, but I decided to put that off in favor of sleep. Still, that left me with under five hours of sleep for the night, and that was the third night in a row that I'd had that little sleep. Tonight has to be different or I may just drop. In fact I've been popping Excedrin MIgraine capsules all day each day just to function, and that's surely a bad sign, don't you think.

So the meal was wonderful, and for the most part I did relax today, but sleep will be the key. I've been up, now, for a half hour after having fallen asleep while reading laying down (that ended up giving me five hours of sleep), and I'm looking forward to going back to sleep again after I finish writing this. Hopefully I'll get at least another five hours before getting up. That would help. If I don't sleep that long it certainly won't be for any fault in trying.

Posted at 5:59 AM

November 24, 2004

I have tended to avoid writing Journal entries with directly religious content, partly because I'm just not very religious (as in being at most a deist and at least only slightly more than an agnostic), but I've also avoided religious topics because I didn't want to alienate anyone who might be reading if I wrote about one religion and not another (which is ironic, really, because I haven't remotely held back from expressing my extremely liberal views, even knowing that there are a lot of conservative people out there, some of them my friends). None of that will stop me today, however.

It's not like I'm advocating a religion. In fact, I'm mocking a certain faction. Evangelical Christians just about beg to be mocked in general (although there are exceptions), but the people discussed in this column from the New York Times are exactly the sort of self-serving, self-important idiots who give all religions a bad name. This article reminded me distinctly of a great Jethro Tull song called Hymn 43, specifically the line, "If Jesus saves, well he'd better save himself, from the glory, glory seekers who would use his name in death." If these people promoted the ideas of "love thy neighbor", "turn the other cheek", or "do unto others as you would have done unto yourself" then I might have a kind word for them. Instead I just see them as greedy, ignorant, hateful people who will more likely go to a hell than a heaven(and just to remind all of you, these are the people who claim they won the election for Fuehrer Bush).

Apocalypse (Almost) Now

If America's secular liberals think they have it rough now, just wait till the Second Coming.

The "Left Behind" series, the best-selling novels for adults in the U.S., enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a born-again Christian. The world's Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, along with many Catholics and Unitarians, are heaved into everlasting fire: "Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and screeching."

Gosh, what an uplifting scene!

If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.

Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the co-authors of the series, have both e-mailed me (after I wrote about the "Left Behind" series in July) to protest that their books do not "celebrate" the slaughter of non-Christians but simply present the painful reality of Scripture.

"We can't read it some other way just because it sounds exclusivistic and not currently politically correct," Mr. Jenkins said in an e-mail. "That's our crucible, an offensive and divisive message in an age of plurality and tolerance."

Silly me. I'd forgotten the passage in the Bible about how Jesus intends to roast everyone from the good Samaritan to Gandhi in everlasting fire, simply because they weren't born-again Christians.

I accept that Mr. Jenkins and Mr. LaHaye are sincere. (They base their conclusions on John 3.) But I've sat down in Pakistani and Iraqi mosques with Muslim fundamentalists, and they offered the same defense: they're just applying God's word.

Now, I've often written that blue staters should be less snooty toward fundamentalist Christians, and I realize that this column will seem pretty snooty. But if I praise the good work of evangelicals - like their superb relief efforts in Darfur - I'll also condemn what I perceive as bigotry. A dialogue about faith must move past taboos and discuss differences bluntly. That's what blue staters and red staters need to do about religion and the "Left Behind" books.

For starters, it's worth pointing out that those predicting an apocalypse have a long and lousy record. In America, tens of thousands of followers of William Miller waited eagerly for Jesus to reappear on Oct. 22, 1844. Some of these Millerites had given away all their belongings, and the no-show was called the Great Disappointment.

In more recent times, the best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970's was Hal Lindsey's "The Late Great Planet Earth," selling 18 million copies worldwide with its predictions of a Second Coming. Then, one of the hottest best sellers in 1988 was a booklet called "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988." Oops.

Being wrong has rarely been so lucrative.

Now we have the hugely profitable "Left Behind" financial empire, whose Web site flatly says that the authors "think this generation will witness the end of history." The site sells every "Left Behind" spinoff imaginable, including screen savers, regular prophecies sent to your mobile phone, children's versions of the books, audiobooks, graphic novels, videos, calendars, music and a $6.50-a-month prophesy club. This isn't religion, this is brand management.

If Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins honestly believe that the end of the world may be imminent, why not waive royalties? Why don't they use the millions of dollars in profits to help the poor - and increase their own chances of getting into heaven?

Mr. Jenkins told me that he gives 20 to 40 percent of his income to charity, and that's commendable. But there are millions more where that came from. Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins might spend less time puzzling over obscure passages in the Book of Revelation and more time with the straightforward language of Matthew 6:19, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth." Or Matthew 19:21, where Jesus advises a rich man: "Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. . . . It will be hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

So I challenge the authors to a bet: if the events of the Apocalypse arrive in the next 10 years, then I'll donate $500 to the battle against the Antichrist; if it doesn't, you donate $500 to a charity of my choosing that fights poverty - and bigotry.

Gentlemen, do we have a deal?

Posted at 11:47 PM

November 23, 2004

Today's doctor appointment for my grandma left us with the knowledge that she has severe carpal tunnel syndrome that has caused her to lose 25% of her strength and dexterity in her right hand and 50% in her left, and the deterioration will only get worse. We also learned that the steroid shots that have sometimes been used in the past as a way to combat this are no longer approved due to negative side effects and lasting problems. That means that the only choice is to basically live with things the way they are or have an operation on both hands. The operation sounds much less intrusive, much less painful, and much less problematic than either of us had expected, but it still scares my grandma to have to contemplate any type of surgery at all. It's her decision one way or the other, but neither she nor I are sure that there's even really much choice left to the situation. She'll decide very soon.

So that was the big deal today. I had also gotten new tires for the car earlier in the day, something which sucked up more of my dwindling money, but something I really couldn't go any longer without, considering the front tires were almost entirely devoid of tread. At least I was able to get Goodyear tires and get rid of those piece-of-shit Firestones, and the feel of the car already seems better. The big test will be seeing how the tires perform in rain and in snow and ice. Considering the old tires had me hydroplaning all over the place, I'm hopeful that these new tires will give me more control. Time will tell.

Both of these appointments were early in the morning, and I didn't get to sleep until almost 3 AM last night, so I ended up with less than five hours of sleep. I can function pretty well with five or more hours of sleep, but if I get less than five it's usually touch and go. Today was no different. I've been sort of numb all day, and I lost consciousness around 9 PM and woke up at about 2:30 AM. "You just fell asleep," you might say, but you have to realize that I was reading a book for a class and the tv was on in the background, and I was going fine and then just ... stopped. It's not like I yawned or decided to rest my eyes or snuggled back into my seat of something as a precursor to dozing off. I just went unconscious and that was that. So now I'm awake enough to write this Journal entry before going back to sleep to round out a full night's solid rest. That still leaves me with a book to finish and a poem to write, as well as laundry to do and a paper to start, but I guess I did okay before I fell asleep, finishing all of my other varied readings for classes.

I think I'll upload this now, before I lose consciousness again. You just never know when that's going to happen, you know.

Posted at 4:09 AM

November 22, 2004

I've been doing really well with depression this semester, not getting down very often (at least by my standards) and not having my bouts of depression last all too long. That's been a big plus, and it's certainly been a good thing. I can't imagine how I could have kept up with all of the reading and writing I've been doing this semester if I'd been in a depressed stupor. It just wouldn't have worked.

Tonight I'm feeling pretty down. I have all sorts of crap do as the semester is rapidly drawing to a close, and I have all sorts of stuff I have to do, as well, for my grandma and her house during the same time. Plus, I still get lonely quite often. All of this hits me at once sometimes and I just get overwhelmed and just sad that this is the state of my life, but for the most part I've been able to deal with all of that stuff pretty well.

The big trouble starts when, as tonight, I stare for too long, too longingly at some guy that I'd really like to get to know. It's okay at first to just look, to appreciate the beauty of the face or the curve of the body or the play of the personality or whatever it is that appeals to me. It's okay to do that for a little while even. But at some point I can let myself go too far, and the appreciation of what I see turns to longing and the longing turns to the realization that the object of my affection doesn't even realize I exist, and finally that turns to the sad realization that I'm alone and that staring longingly at guys is really pathetic and hopeless. And then I just beat myself up about it.

It's just really upsetting. Andrew, in my film class, is just so adorable. I realize that he wouldn't be appealing to a lot of people, but there are so many things about him that I find just perfect, like his ears and his neck and his butt, and there are so many things about him that I find intriguing like the white patch of hair that seems a natural occurrence in his otherwise brownish hair or the little scar on the side of his neck that isn't unattractive but noteworthy. He piques my curiosity in a lot of ways, and he makes me want to get to know him, but the best I can do is just sit there and stare at him, catching secret glances even though I suspect he's caught me more than a few times. So many times I end up leaving that class feeling like a creepy old man, and I hate that. It's bad enough to feel alone, but feeling old and creepy as well is like hitting rock bottom.

I hate days like this, and I hate thinking that I'd be better off hiding in a cave for the rest of my life, avoiding any human contact so that I don't end up feeling this way. In some ways I've learned to cope with being alone, as much as I hate it, but I don't think I'll ever get used to the feeling that I'm acting like some lecherous old creep. It depresses me more than you could imagine.

Posted Written at 2:28 AM

November 21, 2004

I've been writing one project after another today, finishing things up to turn in tomorrow, and I've mostly been working without any TV playing in the background. I did, however, turn on The Wizard of Oz and let it play in the background for the past couple hours. Surely that's what made this poem come into my mind, twisted though it may be.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

Oz had no inkling,
never suspected the secret
love triangles manipulating
the lives of everyone –
munchkins and monkeys,
lions, tigers, and bears,
talking trees and dancing
scarecrows – no thoughts
to infidelity and pedophilia.

The great man himself,
if ever a wonderful wiz,
made adoring Glinda put out
gossip about the Wicked Witch,
the spurned woman, burned
once he lost his beer goggles,
newly drunk on a youthful vision
in ruby slippers, a step too far
outside the safety of Kansas.

He thought to have her
get rid of his ex, then melt her
with his touch, see her give in
and eagerly click her heels
apart, spiriting her away
to his private chambers. But
Glinda, jealous, saw the wretched
curtain of lies, set the dogs upon him,
and saw him take flight from justice.

Posted at 1:36 AM

November 20, 2004

Oooooo! Sparkly!

Posted at 12:37 AM

November 19, 2004

Fuck my head hurts. Too many papers to write means painful migraines. Yippee.

Posted at 12:41 AM

November 18, 2004

Yes, life continues to suck. Thanks for asking.

Posted at 12:34 AM

November 17, 2004

No. The pain never does go away, does it. It never ever goes away.

Posted at 1:56 AM

November 16, 2004

The people who are bidding on a ten year old half of a grilled cheese sandwich on eBay are clearly the same folks who voted for George Bush. Stupidity and fanaticism seem to go hand-in-hand, and it's amazing that such deeply inbred people don't have vastly more birth defects. Don't take this to mean that I'm abusing all religions and religious believers because that's not the case, but people who are fanatics and fundamentalists are, by definition, taking things to an extreme that is insane, unhealthy, and quite disturbing to those of us who are rational. It's a fucking grilled cheese sandwich not the Shroud of Turin! Get a life, people! If you're going to be fanatics then join something harmless like the Church of Pac-Man or something.

'Virgin Mary' sandwich back on eBay
Top bid reaches over $16,000 in second round of bidding

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- The people at eBay were no believers in this cheesy miracle: half of a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich whose owner claimed it bore the image of the Virgin Mary.

Diana Duyser put the sandwich up for sale last week, drawing bids as high as $22,000 before eBay pulled the item Sunday night. The page was viewed nearly 100,000 times before being taken down.

An e-mail Duyser received from eBay said the sandwich broke its policy, which "does not allow listings that are intended as jokes."

But, Duyser, a jewelry designer who has bought and sold items on eBay for two years, insisted this was not a laughing matter.

"How could eBay do this to me?" Duyser said Monday, hours before the online auction was supposed to have ended.

On Tuesday, the Web site allowed bidding to resume, with the top offer reaching over $16,000. Bidding is scheduled to end Monday.

Company spokesman Hani Durzy said the listing was mistakenly removed because officials doubted whether Duyser could deliver the product.

"After looking at it a second time, there's nothing to indicate that the seller isn't willing to give up this cheese sandwich to the highest bidder," he said. "We're going to allow it to stay up."

In mocking response, two similar items were posted later -- grilled cheese sandwiches bearing the images of the Virgin Mary's used chewing gum and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

Duyser thought eBay would be the best place to show off the sandwich, made on plain white bread with American cheese. It was cooked with no oil or butter.

Duyser, 52, said she took a bite after making it 10 years ago and saw a face staring back at her from the bread. She put the sandwich in a clear plastic box with cotton balls and kept it on her night stand.

At first, she was scared by the image, "but now that I realize how unique it is, I wanted to share it with the world," Duyser said.

The sandwich, she added, has never sprouted a spore of mold.

Posted at 10:56 PM

November 15, 2004

Here' a sample of my recent poems:

Baa

We will no longer be
your sheep, shepherded
in silence, flocked in docility,
driven by fear of attack
dogs, our so-called protectors
from wolves hiding in the hills.

You will no longer drive us
where we do not wish to go,
fleece us for your own gain,
lead our precious lambs to be
slaughtered to feed your appetite,
thrown away when you’ve had your fill.

We fear the wolves, but
you frighten us more,
brandishing your cudgel,
shearing us of our comfort,
stripping away our basic protections,
alleging you do so for our health.

You claim a mandate,
convince the flock that there are wolves
just around the corner waiting
to kill, but we bide our time, for you
fail to shepherd us to a better life.
One day we will break free.

Posted at 2:39 AM

November 14, 2004

This map is revealing but also very scary. It shows that the Red Scare, the wave of conservative dominance that won the election for Bush and the Republicans, is geographically even more pervasive than the standard maps of red states and blue states have suggested. The good news (if there is any good news to be seen from this election) may be that cities have proven themselves to be the clear bastion of sanity and Democratic rule. That spells hope for future elections if Democrats learn to focus upon the cities and realize that the rural areas are full of, to a very large extent, hicks, yokels, and bible thumpers who won't ever vote for any Democrat, no matter how much they can do for them. This article is truly revealing, and I agree wholeheartedly (except concerning environmentalism ... I have my reservations about these comments).

THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO: It's the Cities, Stupid.
by The Editors of The Stranger

There are two maps on this page.

The one at the top should be familiar. It's one of those red-state/blue-state maps that have been tormenting Democrats, liberals, and progressives since November of 2000. Over the 36 days that George W. Bush and Al Gore fought for the White House in Florida, "red" and "blue" became metaphors for America's divided electorate. Red vs. Blue--Democrat vs. Republican; liberal vs. conservative; pro-life vs. pro-choice; gun-huggers vs. gun-haters; gay-huggers vs. gay-haters.

The red-state/blue-state map opposite shows the results of 2004's presidential election--red states won by George W. Bush, blue states won by John F. Kerry. But the red-state/blue-state map is misleading. If a Republican presidential candidate takes 50 percent of the vote plus 1 vote in any given state, the whole state is colored red (even worse, a mere plurality of voters can turn a state red when third parties are involved). The same goes for the Democratic candidate--corral the most votes, and the whole state is colored blue. But painting an entire state one color or the other creates a false impression, an impression that we believe is hampering the Democratic Party's efforts to pull itself out of its tailspin.

Take a look at the second map. This map shows a county-by-county red/blue breakdown, and it provides a clearer picture of the bind the Democrats finds themselves in. The majority of the blue states--Washington, Oregon, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware--are, geographically speaking, not blue states. They are blue cities.

Look at our famously blue West Coast. But for the cities--Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego--the West Coast would be a deep, dark red. The same is true for other nominally blue states. Illinois is almost entirely red--Chicago turns the state blue. Michigan is almost entirely red--Detroit, Lansing, Kalamazoo turn it blue. And on and on. What tips these states into the blue column? Their urban areas do, their big, populous counties.

It's time for the Democrats to face reality: They are the party of urban America. If the cities elected our president, if urban voters determined the outcome, John F. Kerry would have won by a landslide. Urban voters are the Democratic base.

THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO

It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map. Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Austin is our island in Texas; Las Vegas is our island in Nevada; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland "values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this country. And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers. Red Virginia prohibits any contract between same-sex couples. Compassionate? Texas allows the death penalty to be applied to teenaged criminals and has historically executed the mentally retarded. (When the Supreme Court ruled executions of the mentally retarded unconstitutional in 2002, Texas officials, including Governor Rick Perry, responded by claiming that the state had no mentally retarded inmates on death row--a claim the state was able to make because it does not test inmates for mental retardation.) Dumb? The Sierra Club has reported that Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee squander over half of their federal transportation money on building new roads rather than public transit.

If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new identity politics, an urban identity politics, one that argues for the cities, uses a rhetoric of urban values, and creates a tribal identity for liberals that's as powerful and attractive as the tribal identity Republicans have created for their constituents. John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews, young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these groups have in common? They choose to live in cities. An overwhelming majority of the American population chooses to live in cities. And John Kerry won every city with a population above 500,000. He took half the cities with populations between 50,000 and 500,000. The future success of liberalism is tied to winning the cities. An urbanist agenda may not be a recipe for winning the next presidential election--but it may win the Democrats the presidential election in 2012 and create a new Democratic majority.

For Democrats, it's the cities, stupid--not the rural areas, not the prickly, hateful "heartland," but the sane, sensible cities--including the cities trapped in the heartland. Pandering to rural voters is a waste of time. Again, look at the second map. Look at the urban blue spots in red states like Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico--there's almost as much blue in those states as there is in Washington, Oregon, and California. And the challenge for the Democrats is not just to organize in the blue areas but to grow them. And to do that, Democrats need to pursue policies that encourage urban growth (mass transit, affordable housing, city services), and Democrats need to openly and aggressively champion urban values. By focusing on the cities the Dems can create a tribal identity to combat the white, Christian, rural, and suburban identity that the Republicans have cornered. And it's sitting right there, on every electoral map, staring them in the face: The cities.

The urbanites. Howard Dean had it wrong when he tried to woo the "Pickup Truck with Confederate Flag" vote. In fact, while Kerry won urban areas by a whopping 60 percent--that actually represents a 15 percent drop in urban support from 2000 when Gore won the election. The lesson? Democrats have got to tend to their urban base and grow it.

In cities all over America, distressed liberals are talking about fleeing to Canada or, better yet, seceding from the Union. We can't literally secede and, let's admit it, we don't really want to live in Canada. It's too cold up there and in our heart-of-hearts we hate hockey. We can secede emotionally, however, by turning our backs on the heartland. We can focus on our issues, our urban issues, and promote our shared urban values. We can create a new identity politics, one that transcends class, race, sexual orientation, and religion, one that unites people living in cities with each other and with other urbanites in other cities. The Republicans have the federal government--for now. But we've got Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City (Bloomberg is a Republican in name only), and every college town in the country. We're everywhere any sane person wants to be. Let them have the shitholes, the Oklahomas, Wyomings, and Alabamas. We'll take Manhattan.

EMBRACING URBAN SELF-INTEREST

To all those who live in cities--to all those depressed Kerry supporters out there--we say take heart. Clearly we can't control national politics right now--we can barely get a hearing. We can, however, stay engaged in our cities, and make our voices heard in the urban areas we dominate, and make each and every one, to quote Ronald Reagan (and John Winthrop, the 17th-century Puritan Reagan was parroting), "a city on a hill." This is not a retreat; it is a long-term strategy for the Democratic Party to cater to and build on its base.

To red-state voters, to the rural voters, residents of small, dying towns, and soulless sprawling exburbs, we say this: Fuck off. Your issues are no longer our issues. We're going to battle our bleeding-heart instincts and ignore pangs of misplaced empathy. We will no longer concern ourselves with a health care crisis that disproportionately impacts rural areas. Instead we will work toward winning health care one blue state at a time.

When it comes to the environment, our new policy is this: Let the heartland live with the consequences of handing the national government to the rape-and-pillage party. The only time urbanists should concern themselves with the environment is when we are impacted--directly, not spiritually (the depressing awareness that there is no unspoiled wilderness out there doesn't count). Air pollution, for instance: We should be aggressive. If coal is to be burned, it has to be burned as cleanly as possible so as not to foul the air we all have to breathe. But if West Virginia wants to elect politicians who allow mining companies to lop off the tops off mountains and dump the waste into valleys and streams, thus causing floods that destroy the homes of the yokels who vote for those politicians, it no longer matters to us. Fuck the mountains in West Virginia--send us the power generated by cleanly burned coal, you rubes, and be sure to wear lifejackets to bed.

Wal-Mart is a rapacious corporation that pays sub-poverty-level wages, offers health benefits to its employees that are so expensive few can afford them, and destroys small towns and rural jobs. Liberals in big cities who have never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart spend a lot of time worrying about the impact Wal-Mart is having on the heartland. No more. We will do what we can to keep Wal-Mart out of our cities and, if at all possible, out of our states. We will pass laws mandating a living wage for full-time work, upping the minimum wage for part-time work, and requiring large corporations to either offer health benefits or pay into state- or city-run funds to provide health care for uninsured workers. That will reform Wal-Mart in our blue cities and states or, better yet, keep Wal-Mart out entirely. And when we see something on the front page of the national section of the New York Times about the damage Wal-Mart is doing to the heartland, we will turn the page. Wal-Mart is not an urban issue.

Neither is gun control. Our new position: We'll fight to keep guns off the streets of our cities, but the more guns lying around out there in the heartland, the better. Most cities have strong gun-control laws--laws that are, of course, undermined by the fact that our cities aren't walled. Yet. But why should liberals in cities fund organizations that attempt, to take one example, to get trigger locks onto the handguns of NRA members out there in red states? If red-state dads aren't concerned enough about their own children to put trigger locks on their own guns, it's not our problem. If a kid in a red state finds his daddy's handgun and blows his head off, we'll feel terrible (we're like that), but we'll try to look on the bright side: At least he won't grow up to vote like his dad.

We won't demand that the federal government impose reasonable fuel-efficiency standards on all cars sold in the United States. We will, however, strive to pass state laws, as California has done, imposing fuel-efficiency standards on cars sold in our states.

We officially no longer give a shit when family farms fail. Fewer family farms equal fewer rural voters. We will, however, continue to support small faggy organic farms, as we are willing to pay more for free-range chicken and beef from non-cannibal cows.

We won't concern ourselves if red states restrict choice. We'll just make sure that abortion remains safe and legal in the cities where we live, and the states we control, and when your daughter or sister or mother dies in a botched abortion, we'll try not to feel too awful about it.

In short, we're through with you people. We're going to demand that the Democrats focus on building their party in the cities while at the same time advancing a smart urban-growth agenda that builds the cities themselves. The more attractive we make the cities--politically, aesthetically, socially--the more residents and voters cities will attract, gradually increasing the electoral clout of liberals and progressives. For Democrats, party building and city building is the same thing. We will strive to turn red states blue one city at a time.

From here on out, we're glad red-state rubes live in areas where guns are more powerful and more plentiful, cars are larger and faster, and people are fatter and slower and dumber. This is not a recipe for repopulating the Great Plains. And when you look for ways to revive your failing towns and dying rural counties, don't even think about tourism. Who wants to go to small-town America now? You people scare us. We'll island-hop from now on, thank you, spending our time and our money in blue cities. If an urbanite is dying to have a country experience, rural Vermont is lovely. Maple syrup, rolling hills, fly-fishing--everything you could want. Country bumpkins in red rural areas who depend on tourists from urban areas but vote Republican can forget our money.

You've made your choice, red America, and we urban Americans are going to make a different choice. We are going to make Seattle--and New York, Chicago, and the rest--a great place to live, a progressive place. Again, we'll quote Ronald Reagan: We will make each of our cities--each and every one--a shining city on a hill. You can have your shitholes.

URBAN VISION

The first president Bush had a problem with the "vision thing," and he lost. Democrats had a problem with vision thing in 2004, and they lost. But they don't have to continue having this problem.

Above any other advantage, the new urban identity politics solves "the vision thing" for the Democratic Party. No longer are we a fractured aggregation of special interests or a spineless hydra of contingent alliances--we are a united front, with a clear, compelling image and an articulated system of values. Up until now, the Republicans have been winning the image war. When you think of "America," you imagine a single-family dwelling with a flag in the front yard and acres of corn waving in the background. It's an angry red fantasy. But propaganda is flexible, and audiences are pliant. Urban politics opens up a whole new visual vocabulary to be exploited by TV advertising, and it's a vocabulary rich in emotional content, particularly after September 11. This is the era of cityscapes, rapid transit, and crowds of people. Political advertising can no longer pander to nostalgia about the yeoman countryside--we must embrace our urban future.

With all the talk of the growth of exurbs and the hand-wringing over facile demographic categories like "security moms," you may be under the impression that an urban politics wouldn't speak to many people. But according to the 2000 Census, 226 million people reside inside metropolitan areas--a number that positively dwarfs the 55 million people who live outside metro areas. The 85 million people who live in strictly defined central city limits also outnumber those rural relics. When the number of city-dwellers in the United States is quadruple the number of rural people, we can put simple democratic majorities to work for our ideals.

Even people who don't live in cities look to urban centers for a certain image of America. The nation identified with New York City in such a visceral way on September 11 not just because Americans died there--Americans died in a Pennsylvania field and in Northern Virginia too--but because the New York skyline is a stirring image of American prosperity and achievement. It symbolizes the motivation and spirit of the American people, the wealth of our nation, the thrum of diverse cultures, and inexhaustible cultural creativity. Cities inspire us; they speak to our hopes and our passions. Small towns diminish us; they speak of lost history and downscaled dreams. The Democratic Party should compete on our own turf, change the terms of the debate, and give the American people heroes to believe in--as well as enemies to revile.

Conservatives have vilified liberals for decades, and the new urban identity politics gives the Democratic Party its own partisan villains. The truth is that rural states--the same red states that vote reflexively Republican in national elections--are welfare states. While red-state voters like to complain about "tax-and-spend liberals," red states are hopelessly dependent on the largess of the federal government to prop up their dwindling rural population. Red states like North Dakota, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Arkansas top the list of federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid. And who's paying the most? Blue states. Cities--and states dominated by their cities. Welfare states, in contrast, demand federal money to fund wasteful roads to nowhere. Welfare states guzzle barrel upon barrel of oil so their rural residents can sputter along on ribbons of asphalt.

Take a state like Wyoming, the arid, under-populated home of our glowering vice president Dick Cheney. Wyoming receives the second-highest amount of federal aid in the nation per capita (Alaska, another red state, is number one), and it ranks second lowest in federal taxes paid (behind only South Dakota). Overall, the federal government spent about $2,413 per capita in Wyoming for the fiscal year 2002 (the last year for which data is available), compared with almost exactly half that amount, or $1,205 per capita, for Washington State. This ridiculous disparity extends even to Homeland Security funds, which ought to be targeted toward the most vulnerable areas--coastlines, big city landmarks, porous borders. But landlocked Wyoming, with exactly zero important strategic targets, merits $38.31 per capita in Homeland Security funds. New York state residents get a measly $5.47. An urban agenda would argue for kicking Wyoming off the federal dole. States should pay their own way, not come to cities begging for handouts.

A refusal to subsidize rural waste will inform other policy decisions as well. Farm subsidies, for example, are obsolete and they cause needless friction in international trade agreements. The agricultural complex in the United States is so concentrated that very few voters have a personal stake in the continued existence of farm subsidies. Rural voters aren't going to switch party affiliations no matter what we do, so let's jettison their issues when they fail to serve our core interests. Ethanol, a corn-derived alcohol, is another great example. Scientific consensus says that corn will never be a viable source for alternative fuel, since the very production of ethanol requires so much fossil fuel and the payoff is paltry. Ethanol is vanity research; the new urban politics should stand for real solutions.

In the same way, we need to claim legislation like the Clean Air Act as our own. It is urban residents, not rural residents, who suffer when air quality is poor, and coal mines in rural states cannot dictate what size airborne particulates we should be willing to breathe. Asthma is a growing problem across the nation, but it is particularly acute among African American and Latino children growing up in the inner cities--the death rate from asthma complications is three times as high for minority children as it is for whites. This is unacceptable, and it's just one example of an issue urban residents can and should rally behind.

Democrats are now emphatically the minority party. This doesn't mean we give up; it means we take a page from the Republican playbook, refining and relentlessly pushing a vision of our own. We must rededicate ourselves to the urban core.

URBAN INDEPENDENCE

The anti-urban vote does more than just overwhelm city voters in presidential elections. It also overruns city priorities on local policy debates. We should go our own way. After all, when a city like Seattle's fate is tied to that of a state like Washington, the city's interests are routinely routed. In 1993, for example, Washington voters limited state budget increases, hobbling education and transportation funding. The measure, which passed statewide by a 51 to 49 margin, tanked in Seattle, 46 to 54. A 1997 gay rights measure, meanwhile, suffered the converse fate, losing statewide while winning here. And Tim Eyman's two tax-slashing initiatives won in rural and suburban areas but went down in flames inside city limits.

Laws limiting taxes have a disproportionate impact on cities, which rely on local levies to pay for basic social and human services like domestic-violence programs, low-income housing, and tenant advocacy. If you're wondering why the city is suffering draconian budget cuts--$24 million this year, $20 million in 2005--you can thank rural voters who seem unable to grasp a basic Christian tenet; greed is bad, sharing is good.

The lesson is simple for urban residents: Seattle shouldn't cast its lot with the rest of the state. Rural and suburban voters have shown again and again that they aren't willing to fund urban infrastructure. Throughout Washington State, transportation taxes like 2002's Referendum 51 have tanked, while anti-transit measures like Tim Eyman's I-776 have passed overwhelmingly. While that might seem like grim news for cities like Seattle, there's a silver lining: When cities set their own transportation priorities, truly urban systems (like the monorail) get funded and built, while the suburban mega-highways that lard initiatives like R-51 go unfunded. We don't use suburban roads. We can let the suburbs figure out a way to pay for them.

Cities have the clout, and the imperative, to give people alternatives to driving solo, and to punish those who insist on clogging our city streets. In Seattle, we've done exactly that. We've built bike lanes, expanded the bus system, and banned new park-and-rides inside city limits. We've funded a South Seattle-to-downtown light rail system. And we've overwhelmingly supported the monorail, an inner-city mass-transit system that's paid for by one of the most progressive taxes available: an excise tax on the value of cars in the city. Want to buy a Hummer? Fine. But you're gonna pay for it--and help fund public transit. If you want to rely on environmentally friendly public transit, though, we'll make it affordable and easy to use. That's a truly urban value.

Transit like the monorail, in turn, promotes density in outlying areas (like Ballard and West Seattle), which leads to the creation of housing that's affordable to everyone--not just the proverbial penthouse-dwelling downtown urban elite. Cities like Seattle can further encourage dense urban housing by adopting policies that encourage developers to build dense low-income housing. And we've done it: Last year, Mayor Greg Nickels unveiled a new push to increase density outside downtown by increasing building heights and providing incentives to developers who build inner-city housing.

The more housing that is built in cities, the more people can afford to live there. And the more cities pass laws that make it easier to live in cities--laws like Washington State's inflation-indexed minimum wage, which passed overwhelmingly in Seattle--the more cities will attract the kind of culturally and economically diverse populations that make them attractive places to work and live. And, as counterintuitive as it may seem to composting, recycling self-righteous suburbanites, living in dense urban areas is actually better for the environment. The population of New York City is larger than that of 39 states. But because dense apartment housing is more energy efficient, New York City uses less energy than any state. Conversely, suburban living--with its cars, highways, and single-family houses flanked by pesticide-soaked lawns--saps energy and devastates the ecosystem.

Cities' freedom to go their own way extends, of course, beyond mere infrastructure. Urban dwellers are cultural libertarians--we don't just tolerate a diversity of lifestyles and attitudes, we embrace it. Seattle, for example, has over 1000 churches, mosques, and synagogues. From San Francisco to Ann Arbor to Seattle, cities have been the vanguard.

Drug reform is a prime example. Eight states have passed medical marijuana initiatives; none could have done so without the pro-pot clout of cities. Last year, Seattle voters overwhelmingly passed Initiative 75, which effectively decriminalizes marijuana possession by making it cops' lowest law enforcement priority. And just this month, Ann Arbor passed a law legalizing medical marijuana, the second city in Michigan to do so. There are countless other examples. But the bottom line is this: Cities, not the outlying suburbs, are leading the way on drug reform. And where cities go, the nation will inevitably follow.

Gay rights, another national issue, took a beating this November, as 11 states passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. But locally, Seattle has ensured that gays and lesbians enjoy the full protection of the law. Not only are Seattle city employees and employees of firms that contract with the city entitled to domestic partnership benefits, earlier this year, Mayor Nickels announced that the city would honor gay marriages from other progressive jurisdictions, such as Portland and San Francisco.

But there's still more to do that the Feds and the State are loath to deliver: Subsidized childcare; safe injection sites; expanding the monorail through the rest of the city; discouraging excessive auto use by taxing mileage (to pay for more public transit); and providing family planning for low-income families. An aggressive new urbanist movement will go its own way, making the cities, not the states, the true laboratories of democracy.

URBAN STATES

In November 1960, a black 6-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges entered the newly desegregated William Frantz Public School in New Orleans. In reaction to her admission, white parents withdrew their kids from Ruby's class and she completed the first grade alone, with instruction from one teacher and support from a child psychiatrist. Ruby's walk to class on the first day of school inspired Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With. In this painting (one of Rockwell's best, as far as we are concerned), a very black Ruby Bridges is escorted to school by four big white U.S. marshals. The image is powerful because it represents the federal government as an institution and enforcer of reason. The white bigots of New Orleans can complain, bitch, and threaten the lives of black boys and girls all they want, but in the end the federal government steps in to ensure that the rights of every American are protected.

This image of the federal government is now in a coma. The lawmaking bodies that are clustered in Washington, D.C. (the Senate, the House, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court, the White House), no longer form the enlightened center from which reason and justice emanate. During the civil rights era, the federal government could claim to at least aspire to this transcendental order (the Great Society, the War on Poverty, the Voting Rights Act of 1965), but not today. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Washington, D.C., has exerted a force that is not progressive (as epitomized by Rockwell's painting) but oppressive. This is not an exaggeration. For example, the sole reason why the state of California--or more accurately, the cities of California through the agency of the state--turned to its own citizens to establish funding for stem cell research is because the federal government, in the form of the reelected Bush administration, holds a profoundly backward position on the matter.

Under Bush, the federal government spent almost nothing ($25 million) this year on stem cell research, a policy that's entirely informed by the bizarre belief in a God who has a white beard, lives in heaven, and hates the idea of stem cell research. The reality is this: There are over 100 million Americans (most of them Christian) whose lives would be improved or saved by therapies and treatments that could be developed through stem cell research. The federal government, however, holds the opinion that God should not be deprived of worship from the souls that are supposedly housed in the miniscule cells of five-day-old embryos. Realizing this is just plain stupid (or country, an archaic synonym for stupid that should be revived in our post-2004 election world), California's citizens--its urban citizens--passed Proposition 71, which would allocate for research nearly $300 million a year over the next 10 years. This figure, $300 million, is three times larger even than what John Kerry proposed, and promises to bring the benefits of this new science to all Americans before the close of this decade. Clearly the federal government is no longer the enforcer of reason, the cities are, we urbanites are.

Proposition 71 is just the beginning of a new, muscular urban politics. More and more decisions involving health, education, transportation, and law must be wrested away from our theocratic federal government by large humanistic cities. The federal government may give us its prayers but it will never give us even the most basic health care coverage. The State of Hawaii has what the rest of America doesn't have--universal health care coverage. Why can't other states do the same? Or, more to the point, why can't big cities compel the states they're located in to do the same? Again, it is not the State of Washington that is blue, it is the concentrated population of Seattle that is deep blue; and because Seattle is so damn big it has the power to dictate the politics of its generally hostile state. So, this is not about state rights--indeed, the counties in California that passed Proposition 71 by 60 percent or more were all urban (San Francisco with the highest percentage in the whole state, 71). It's about urban rights, about empowering the bastions of reason and rationality in a nation that is increasingly unreasonable and irrational. As a resident of the city, you should be proud to be an urbanite.

URBAN VALUES

It's no secret what the urban population is against--the Bush administration and its red armies have done us the favor of making it a cinch to identify: We oppose their sub-moronic, "faith-based" approach to life, and, as stated above, we hereby relinquish our liberal tendency to sympathize with their lack of, say, livable working conditions, a family wage, and a national health care program. We no longer have to concern ourselves with the survival of the family farm, nor do we have to concern ourselves with saving fragile suburban economies from collapse. They're against us; we're against them. This is a war.

But if liberals and progressives want to reach out past our urban bases, it might be helpful to identify some essential convictions, thereby allowing us to perhaps compete on "values." Identifying and articulating our core convictions, as opposed to compromising and downplaying them in search of some kind of non-urban appeal, might actually attract voters in exurbs and rural areas who understand the importance of cities to the national economy. But even if it doesn't, ours is a superior way of life. Wherever people choose to live in this country, they should want to live as we do.

So how do we live and what are we for? Look around you, urbanite, at the multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities, and tribes that are smashed together in every urban center (yes, even Seattle): We're for that. We're for pluralism of thought, race, and identity. We're for a freedom of religion that includes the freedom from religion--not as some crazy aberration, but as an equally valid approach to life. We are for the right to choose one's own sexual and recreational behavior, to control one's own body and what one puts inside it. We are for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The people who just elected George W. Bush to a second term are frankly against every single idea outlined above.

Unlike the people who flee from cities in search of a life free from disagreement and dark skin, we are for contentiousness, discourse, and the heightened understanding of life that grows from having to accommodate opposing viewpoints. We're for opposition. And just to be clear: The non-urban argument, the red state position, isn't oppositional, it's negational--they are in active denial of the existence of other places, other people, other ideas. It's reactionary utopianism, and it is a clear and present danger; urbanists should be upfront and unapologetic about our contempt for their politics and their negational values. Republicans have succeeded in making the word "liberal"--which literally means "free from bigotry... favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded"--into an epithet. Urbanists should proclaim their liberalism from the highest rooftop (we have higher rooftops than they do); it's the only way we survive. And in our next breath, we should condemn their politics, exposing their conservatism as the anti-Americanism that it is, striving to make "conservative" into an epithet.

Let's see, what else are we for? How about education? Cities are beehives of intellectual energy; students and teachers are everywhere you look, studying, teaching, thinking. In Seattle, you can barely throw a rock without hitting a college. It's time to start celebrating that, because if the reds have their way, advanced degrees will one day be awarded based on the number of Bible verses a person can recite from memory. In the city, people ask you what you're reading. Outside the city, they ask you why you're reading. You do the math--and you'll have to, because non-urbanists can hardly even count their own children at this point. For too long now, we've caved to the non-urban wisdom that decries universities as bastions of elitism and snobbery. Guess what: That's why we should embrace them. Outside of the city, elitism and snobbery are code words for literacy and complexity. And when the oil dries up, we're not going to be turning to priests for answers--we'll be calling the scientists. And speaking of science: SCIENCE! That's another thing we're for. And reason. And history. All those things that non-urbanists have replaced with their idiotic faith. We're for those.

As part of our pro-reason platform, we're for paying taxes--taxes, after all, support the urban infrastructure on which we all rely, and as such, are a necessary part of the social contract we sign every day. We are for density, and because we're for density, we're for programs that support it, like mass transit. If you ignore the selfish whimperings of the Kirkland contingent, it's not too hard to envision a time when the only vehicles allowed on the streets of Seattle are buses, trams, and shuttles. Utopian? Wrong: reality-based. It's a better, smarter way to live, and the urbanist is always in favor of that. People who commute to the city for their livelihood and then attack urban areas and people in the voting booth are the worst kind of hypocrites. Commuters, we neither want nor need you. We welcome, however, new residents, new urbanites, the continual influx of people from other places who come here to stay (are you listening, liberal residents of Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming?). These transplants help create the density we find so attractive, and they provide the plurality that makes cities thrive.

A city belongs to everyone in it, and expands to contain whoever desires to join its ranks. People migrate to cities and open independent businesses or work at established ones. They import cultural influences, thus enriching the urban arts and nightlife, which in turn enrich everything. Most importantly, they bring the indisputable fact of their own bodies and minds. We wait in line with them at QFC, we stand shoulder to shoulder with them at the bar, we cram ourselves next to them on the bus. We share our psychic and physical space, however limited it might be, because others share it with us. It's not a question of tolerance, nor even of personal freedom; it's a matter of recognizing the fundamental interdependence of all citizens--not just the ones who belong to the same church. Non-urbanites have chosen to burn the declaration of interdependence, opting instead for tyranny, isolationism, and "faith." They can have them.

These, of course, are broad strokes. We all know that not everyone who lives in the suburbs is a raving neo-Christian idiot. The raving neo-Christian idiots are winning, however, so we need to take the fight to them. In this case, the fight is largely spiritual; it consists of embracing the reality that urban life and urban values are the only sustainable response to the modern age of holy war, environmental degradation, and global conflict. More important, it consists of rejecting the impulse to apologize for living in a society that prizes values like liberalism, pluralism, education, and facts. It's time for the Democratic Party to stop pandering to bovine, non-urban America. You don't apologize for being right--especially when you're at war.

Posted at 9:46 PM

November 13, 2004

There is something wrong with me. Seriously, I used to be able to get all sorts of stuff done each day and still have time, most days, to relax afterwards. In fact there were some days when I could just lay around, read, watch tv, or whatever, sometimes to the extent that I'd actually get bored and wonder just exactly what I could do with my time. Those days are gone, though, and something must be wrong with me because I sure don't understand what could have changed about the world to make this so.

Sure, when I look at it closely there are some things that are different. The biggest is the internet. I spend a lot of time surfing and reading on the net, in the morning and in the night. That probably accounts for at least an hour a day and more like three hours a day. Still, it seems I should have more time.

Maybe television should be blamed, but realistically I probably watched as much tv as a kid as now - at least as far as shows I watch with dedication every week. I don't count just having the tv on to watch something in the background. I easily admit that the tv is on much more often now than as a kid, largely due to the varied offerings of cable, but I don't see this as sucking away my time. I can take tv or leave it.

I also see myself losing time because of some of my obsessive-compulsive activities. Really, though, these things are more disconcerting than they are really consumers of time - they bother me more that I have them and can't avoid them than they bother me because they consume a whole lot of time. Yes, they take up time from my day, but not a lot, and certainly they rarely keep me from doing something else. I expect I lose maybe an hour a day from this sort of behavior, maybe more on some days, but that's still not a huge dent in my available time.

The biggest difference between now and those "olden days" when I used to feel like I had more time, is that I'm older. Yes, being in my late thirties has made me, physically, slow down a bit. Some of that's due to the effects of age and some is due to being out of shape, but the effect is the same - I don't have the energy I had when I was younger, even just ten years younger. But not having energy doesn't seem to equate with not having time. It's not like I sleep more because I have less energy. I may even sleep less now than when I was a kid, actually. Getting older seems like the biggest issue, but I can't see how it really makes any difference.

And really, I can't find any reason at all that I don't feel like I have any time to relax - or even enough time to do what needs to be done. I wonder if it will always be this way? Will I retire, sometime around being 80 or something, and find once again that I have all sorts of time on my hands, or will I still be struggling to keep up with all that has to be done. I certainly hope that by then, or more hopefully well before then, that I can find extra time in the day to wind down and enjoy myself. I need to make up for a lot of such lost time, and I'm looking forward to having it again.

Posted at 1:32 AM

November 12, 2004

Both of these things are sad, this news article and this personal ad. Sad, yes, but also things I can understand and empathize with. I'm not proud of my feelings lately - I waver between deep depression with a sense of hopelessness and intense anger with a fire of vengeance. I'm not the kind of person to act on my anger, at least I haven't been since I was a little kid, and it makes me feel bad to even harbor thoughts like this. The whole election still has me messed up, however, and I'm not sure how long it will take for my feelings to change. My guess is at least four years.

High school political debate leads to assault

APPLE VALLEY, Minnesota (AP) -- Three high school students, one allegedly armed with a bat, were charged with attacking a pro-President Bush classmate after he reportedly said only gays would support Sen. John Kerry.

"It's a good thing to see young people interested and excited about politics," said Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom. "It's obviously very disturbing to see this kind of violence over it."

The 17-year-old was assaulted last Thursday in the high school parking lot following a class discussion about the election, authorities said. He was treated for cuts and bruises and released.

The alleged assailants have all been charged: one with felony assault -- because he allegedly went to his car to get a bat during the assault, prosecutors said -- one with misdemeanor assault and one with disorderly conduct.

... and this ...

Straight male seeks Bush supporter for fair, physical fight - m4m

I would like to fight a Bush supporter to vent my anger. If you are one, have a fiery streak, please contact me so we can meet and physically fight. I would like to beat the shit out of you.

Posted at 12:07 AM

November 11, 2004

... but there is no joy in Mudville ...

After literally months of checking once or more times each day, my hope of finally gaining ownership of theDreamworld.com has come to an end. Just over a year ago I contacted the owner of that domain, hoping that I could buy it from him - after all, he had owned the domain for a number of years without doing anything with it at all. He replied to my inquiry and kindly turned me down, saying that he someday did hope to create the website he wants, and in the meantime he had no problem paying a bit each year to hold onto the domain for himself. I was disappointed but respectful of his decision.

A few months ago, though, the whole issue came to my mind again and I checked out the ownership details and saw that his registration was due to expire today, November 11th. I figured that it was a longshot, but I hoped that he would, for whatever reason, not renew his ownership, allowing me a chance to finally snag the domain and add it to my .org and .net domains for theDreamworld. Considering there was only a bit more than two weeks left as I kept checking and considering that the last time he renewed he'd done so more than two months in advance, I grew more and more hopeful that I'd have my chance. Alas, he renewed today, extending his registration for another two years. I suppose it's not that big of a deal, but I had been getting so much more confident with each passing day that I might have a chance that now I feel really let down. Wah.

Posted at 12:33 AM

November 10, 2004

Thanks for nothing to the Career Center on campus. Considering they claim to offer help not only with finding jobs after graduation but also with arranging grad school after graduation, their claims reach far beyond what they have to offer.

I met with Celeste at Career Services at BGSU today, and not only did she talk nearly non-stop for an hour and a half without telling me anything I didn't already know, but she also managed to not answer a single one of the questions I brought to the table. It's not like I was asking much either. I have done more than my share of research regarding schools, the process of application for MFAs, and evaluating and ranking the various programs, and I had simple questions that, for the most part, really just needed an opinion from someone who had a feel for how grad schools look at things, something that the Career Center claimed they could offer. Apparently they are marketing themselves quite a bit beyond anything realistic. And I wouldn't be so steamed if I hadn't wasted nearly two hours of my time today that could certainly have been put to better use. The sad truth is that I have no idea why I'm surprised by any of this.

Posted at 2:05 AM

November 9, 2004

Ding-Dong the Ashcroft's dead! The wicked dick! The asshole prick! Ding-Dong the wicked Ashcroft's dead! Read and be amazed; the only man worse than Fuehrer Bush himself is leaving the administration.

Ashcroft, Evans resign from Cabinet
Officials: Attorney general will leave when successor confirmed

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In the first signs of a second-term shakeup for the Bush administration, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans have resigned, the White House announced Tuesday evening.

Ashcroft's resignation will become effective upon confirmation of a successor, Justice Department officials said. Evans will stay into January, according to The Associated Press.

Ashcroft, a former senator and two-term governor of Missouri, has garnered criticism during his nearly four years as attorney general on issues like the Patriot Act, which backers say helps the government in its fight against terrorism and critics say infringes on civil liberties.

In July, Ashcroft released a progress report and said the Patriot Act "saves lives" and was "al Qaeda's worst nightmare." Portions of the law are set to expire in December 2005.

His confirmation hearing in January 2000 was filled with sharply divided debate. Ashcroft's critics highlighted his longstanding conservative political and religious views -- especially his anti-abortion stance.

Yet those views have also made him a favorite of many on the right, especially religious conservatives.

Eventually the Senate voted 58-42 for his confirmation -- an usually narrow margin for confirming a Cabinet official.

Ashcroft was treated for gallstone pancreatitis in March, and his recovery kept him out of the office for nearly a month. In his handwritten resignation letter, dated November 2, he told Bush the job has been "both rewarding and depleting." (Text of resignation letter)

"I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration," he said. "I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons."

In a statement from the White House, Bush said Ashcroft "has worked tirelessly to help make our country safer" and "served our nation with honor, distinction, and integrity."

"During his four years at the Department of Justice, John has transformed the department to make combating terrorism the top priority, including making sure our law enforcement officials have the tools they need to disrupt and prevent attacks," Bush said.

Evans, who served as Bush's campaign chairman in 2000, is a longtime friend and one of the president's closest advisers. In his resignation, dated Tuesday, he congratulated Bush on last week's election results but said he concluded "with deep regret that it is time for me to return home."

"It is a blessing to have served America with such an extraordinary leader and a true friend," he said. (Text of resignation letter)

In response, Bush called Evans "one of my most trusted friends and advisers" and "a valuable member of my economic team."

"Don has worked to advance economic security and prosperity for all Americans. He has worked steadfastly to make sure America continues to be the best place in the world to do business," the president said.

President Bush met with his Cabinet on Thursday and held a news conference later that day. At that time Bush said he had yet to make any decisions about replacements for any people who resigned.

"I don't know who they'll be," he said. "It's inevitable. There'll be some changes. It happens in every administration."

Bush said Thursday that he was proud of every member of the Cabinet and his staff, and that he understood that they had exhausting jobs and made many family sacrifices.

Posted at 12:27 AM

November 8, 2004

The Red Scare.

It sounds like a comic book villain or a Halloween costume, doesn't it? And for those of you either old enough to remember or with a basic knowledge of contemporary American history, you'll know that the Red Scare refers to the actions of the U.S. House Unamerican Activities Committee, led by Joe McCarthy to try to reveal communist subversives in the midst of all of America. This was the 1950s and communism was widely feared, largely because the U.S. government said that it was something to be feared, not because anybody really knew what communism was or what there was to fear about it. Moreover, the Red Scare was less about communism than it was about silencing dissident voices in America. McCarthy's HUAC meetings focused on trying to indict people from Hollywood and people in higher education like college professors, claiming that they were "unAmerican" in their talk, that they were obviously communist because they found fault with rich people and capitalist society and because they supported the poor and minorities and the working class. By and large the people who were brought before HUAC, some of whom were jailed for their ideas and their speech, were not communists but merely social progressives - liberals in many cases. They wanted to help those in need and they knew that the people keeping them from doing so were the "silent majority", as Nixon would later call them, the conservative religious masses of America who abhorred change and were quite happy with segregation and miscegenation and the continued dominance of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males in America. Those people were afraid to step into the 20th century and face the facts that equal right for all was a new fact of life and not something they could roll back or scare people away from. Eventually the Red Scare, just like the Salem Witch Trials, crumbled under their own self-righteousness and intolerance of difference, and Joe McCarthy and his cronies were rightly mocked and discredited and lost all of their political power.

Unfortunately the Red Scare is back, not claiming to be attacking communists any longer but attacking liberals directly, without shame. The Bush Administration itself has publicly said in press conferences that Americans should "be careful what they say" because they wouldn't want to be seen as "unAmerican." Liberals have been painted as being wolves in sheep's clothing, even though there's certainly no factual evidence to support that. And the religious conservatives are clearly at it again, trying to roll back every advance of the 20th century and the 21st century to take us back to that place where White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Males can rule unchallenged. They want to get rid of Affirmative Action, they want to get rid of abortion rights, they want to get rid of equal protection acts that help women and minorities, they want to raise Christianity as the national religion to the exclusion of all others, they want to define the morals and behaviors of the nation, and they want to make you do their bidding and keep quiet. This is the Red Scare all over again. You could even see it with the election coverage, literally, with the Red States overwhelming the Blue States, covering the maps of America like a wash of blood.

It may sound extreme, but the tactics being employed by the conservatives, the religious right, the Republicans, and the Bush government are walking deep in the footsteps of Joe McCarthy and the Salem Witch Trails and the Spanish Inquisition. Millions of Americans will suffer under this new Red Scare. Millions more will suffer around the world from its effects. If history truly does repeat itself, and it certainly seems to do so, then this new Red Scare will, like the last one, crumble in upon itself and reveal it's architects and proponents for what they are, but that may take a while. Historically these things run wild for ten, twenty, or even thirty years before they go too far and their reign of terror ends. The effects of decades of such intolerance and repression are unfathomable and frightening, but they're here and they're at the moment unstoppable. Be very wary of this new Red Scare and be mindful of the truth at all times. These are scary times, and your rights are being compromised. We can only hope it will end soon.

Posted at 2:13 AM

November 7, 2004

I spent all day working on the yard and the outside of the house, and by far the most freaky experience was covering the outside of the air conditioner on the second floor.

To reach that air conditioner I have to borrow the neighbor's ladder and extend it as far as it will go. Even then I can barely reach the air conditioner, so I have to put the ladder so close to the house that it's at about an 80 degree angle from the ground making it seem like you're going straight up. This is all made much more wild by the fact that this aluminum ladder, fully extended, flexes - bending a bit as you climb, almost bouncing around each time you move the slightest bit. It makes getting up the ladder interesting enough, but it makes working at the very top of the ladder a completely freaky experience that makes you wonder when you're going to bounce off.

I'm not afraid of heights, but this trip up the ladder, each fall and spring, leaves me playing things much more cautiously than I normally would, and between my cautious approach and the sheer time-consuming nature of covering a big box that you can't fully reach around, the whole process ended up taking me probably about a half hour of fucking around with covers and rope and trying to get it all to be secure so that the winter snow doesn't get inside. I did finally, I think, get things taken care of, but it was more of a pain in the ass than I needed with everything else I had to do.

It was a long day and I'm seriously achy and tried, but now I'm just going to veg out in front of thee TV and try to relax. Soon I'll get some sleep, and then tomorrow will be another day.

Posted at 11:34 PM

November 6, 2004

There's still not much that's very positive to report here in America ... but great news has come to me from New Zealand - Chris is going to marry Alice! He didn't offer anything in the way of details, but I'm very excited and happy for him, and I'm hoping to find out more soon. It's so cool.

Posted at 1:44 AM

November 5, 2004

Two black cats crossed the path of my car while I was driving back from Bowling Green today. I'm not really a superstitious person, but I'm aware enough of such things to realize that the sign made by two black cats was perfectly symbolic for the completely shitty day that I had. I won't go into detail, but let me state clearly that:

1) If the fucking state of Ohio starts any more construction on U.S. Route 6, and if they don't quickly finish all of the bullshit they've started, even just as of today, I will personally find who is responsible and make them pay.

2) If I see Fuehrer Bush on TV one more time, looking like Damien in Final Conflict: the Omen III, I will personally fund any zealots who want to make sure that the anti-Christ is brought down.

3) If I don't get at least 9 hours of sleep some day during the next week, I will gag my grandmother and tape her to her bed.

and

4) If I keep seeing attractive guys everywhere I look, none of them remotely interested in me, I'm going to have a complete nervous breakdown from which I might never recover (I largely expect this to occur at any moment).

Posted at 12:22 AM

November 4, 2004

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times once again says it perfectly:

The Red Zone

With the Democratic Party splattered at his feet in little blue puddles, John Kerry told the crushed crowd at Faneuil Hall in Boston about his concession call to President Bush.

"We had a good conversation," the senator said. "And we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together. Today I hope that we can begin the healing."

Democrat: Heal thyself.

W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.

The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.

W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on "moral issues."

The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"?

While Mr. Bush was making his little speech about reaching out, Republicans said they had "the green light" to pursue their conservative agenda, like drilling in Alaska's wilderness and rewriting the tax code.

"He'll be a lot more aggressive in Iraq now," one Bush insider predicts. "He'll raze Falluja if he has to. He feels that the election results endorsed his version of the war." Never mind that the more insurgents American troops kill, the more they create.
Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.

Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage."

He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq.

Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.

Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.

Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."

John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.

Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary's 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90's.

But with this crowd, it's hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.

Invading France?

Posted at 12:28 AM

November 3, 2004

From BoingBoing, reader Dave in the UK writes:

"As a British citizen, I just can't understand why. Does the British media unfairly portray Bush, or are more than half of American voters just fucking stupid? I write this as an appeal to BoingBoing - please, please help me understand how this could have happened, and why, why on God's earth would so many Americans support Bush?"

I wish I had an answer, Dave, and I doubt that British tv can possibly portray Bush as nearly as evil as he truly is. To answer your question, my best guess is that 50% of the American people are idiots, sadists, or anarchists trying to accelerate world destruction (over here we just call them Republicans). Let me know if you have any better guesses.

Posted at 11:40 PM

November 2, 2004

How incredibly depressing. Even if Kerry somehow squeaks out a narrow victory (which is possible but not probable), the Senate and the House have both gone more deeply into Republican control, and the ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage have passed in every state where they were posted. What a great victory for bigotry and idiocy everywhere.

Posted at 12:24 AM

November 1, 2004

Piano Song
by Erasure

Never get angry at stupid people
Though I go crazy at the dumbness of my life.
Sit and stare into a dusty window
An empty face stares back at me and cries.

My vulnerability rushes up to me
'Til I'm left here
The rebel without a cause
The deeper I delve into
The consciousness of me and you
The harder it gets,
I need to close my eyes,
What hurts me most -
I'll never see your eyes again.

Though I get weary
Doesn't mean that I'm unwilling.
My body belies me
I'm of fertile mind.
As I grow older
The world forgets me
And talks to me as if I'm some kind of child.

Their insensitivity washes over me
'Til I'm left here
The rebel without a cause.
The deeper I delve into
The consciousness of me and you
The harder it gets,
I need to close my eyes,
What hurts me most -
I'll never see your eyes again.
The harder it gets,
I need to close my eyes,
I can't recollect
I'll never see your eyes again.
I try to forget
I'll never see your eyes again.
What hurts me most -
I'll never see your eyes again.

Don't
Touch
Me.

Posted at 2:02 AM

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