not to impune the reputations of my favorite gamers

Tough Talk from a Guy in a Dungeons and Dragons Tee

from Overheard in New York

Old man: Let the people off the train first! Let the people off first! You know the rules!
Young man: Sir, this is New York. There are no rules. You're living in a fantasy world.

--1 train, 110th St

sundry school in three panels

You know how you could just watch a hundred Simpsons episodes just to see the creative way Matt Groening changes up the family rush to the couch part? I feel the same way about Red Meat titles. Here's a happy Sunday Red Meat for y'all who missed church this morning. Again.

post-eugene-post

Spent a long (but not long enough) weekend in Eugene, Oregon visiting my kids and hanging out with their friends. I love that I have children who can pre-sort the masses for me and cull out the best contestants. Almost without exception the people they like and respect are people I would want to count as my friends. And I was not disappointed. What a great time.

Of course, I'm fairly awash in post-visit blues. Not overwhelmingly, just normally. I like/love these two humans I helped usher into the world. They are (and I know this is not always the case with the fruit of our loins) my people. Bright, complex and funny. Full of intensity and ideas. Lovers of language and food and faraway places. In spite of my selfish moments of missing their presence close-by, I am delighted that they choose to take on the world in their very different but inspiring quests. Sigh.

blogs, blags, blugs

I don't care if everyone has a fucking blog and it's all sooo trendy. The people at dailykos.com and wemakemoneynotart.com have enriched my life to the point that I can't imagine a world without this medium. You have to sift through a lot of shit but there are gems out there, people.

P.S. I almost forgot the inspirational Jesus of the Week site. This week's jotw (7.28.07) is as rich as always. Jesus the gymnast. Doing the crucifix. Oh...well, jesus, this is awesome.

some nyt disappointment

From fair.org this entry:

A Meet the Press appearance offers insight into the source of misinformation so frequent in New York Times columnist Brooks' writing. His citation of Times reporter John Burns when asserting that postponing withdrawal would "prevent 10,000 Iraqi deaths a month" prompts questioning from fellow guest Woodward, if not from their "bulldog" host:

Woodward: "10,000 dying"... where does that come from?

Brooks: Well, A, it comes from John Burns. Second, it comes from the national intelligence...

Woodward: Well, no, he doesn’t say 10,000.

Brooks: Well, no, no, but it talks about genocide.

Woodward: Yeah.

Brooks: So I just picked that 10,000 out of the air.

Meanwhile, epidemiologists who have applied the standard tools of their profession to Iraq and concluded that the death toll under U.S. occupation is approximately 15,000 a month do not have David Brooks' access to the mainstream media discussion.

Once upon a time we could depend on the New York Times to be the last word in unbiased, hard journalism. Those simpler times are gone. While there may be much that the NYT still does well, the difficult work of ferreting out the truth is back to our own hunting and gathering. That's serious work. Maybe it always was/should have been up to us to investigate, but christ, it would have been nice to depend on a few professionals out there.

new yarmulke for your putz

The Houston Press cover article this week is entitled "The Fantastic Foreskin." First of all, kudos to the clever writer who penned that. Anyway, the article is about circumcised men who feel that they are "missing something" and employ all sorts of weights and pulleys to "create" a new beanie for their little guy.

Hmmm. I am pretty adamantly opposed to circumcision, even though I succumbed to pressure and had my son circumcised twenty-odd years ago. (Actually, it was witnessing that procedure that cemented my opposition to this archaic and unnecessary practice.)

However, reversing the process seems problematic. Like making a turtleneck out of a scoop neck by stretching it. Seems like the end result would be...I don't know, ill-fitting.

tidbits

Holy Shit
I was doing some research...okay, I was stumped on a NYT crossword puzzle clue (Will Shortz can shake his finger at me 'til it falls off–I'm okay with that.) and stumbled upon these two pontifical gems:

461-468 A.D. Pope HILARIUS
468-483 A.D. Pope SIMPLICIUS

In light of the recent reversion to the Me Catholic | You Heathen categorization of the world (thank your Herr Benedick), I yearn for simpler, more hilarious times.

Another epiphenita
I have come to the conclusion that successful relationships, by that I mean mostly happy and somewhat long-lasting, are not primarily the result of love and common interests but of complementary dysfunctions. You find someone who can tolerate your nose-picking and whose toenail biting does not make you homicidal. Done.

Handmade
There's a site called The Letter Project based on the simple premise that everyone deserves to get a letter. No gimmicks, no advertising. Just some guy named Rick who will send you a letter if you ask him. Handwritten and unique. The only way you can "support" the project is to send Rick stamps. I so love this idea, I sent him some new lighthouse stamps with a letter of my own. Within the week I received a real letter. A truly lovely letter about what I wrote to him and his bike ride that day. I am moved beyond explanation by this uncomplicated gesture. I will write him back. Perhaps a greater tribute would be to make it my goal to regularly send handwritten letters to others...

State of the Nation
An idiot* monkey throwing his poo around still retains a modicum of cute. A retarded* ape with a machine gun, mowing folks down while throwing his shit around has rounded the bend to diabolical. Time to find Marlin, Jim and the big tranquilizer dart.

*let's not insult the regular primates, people.

you wonder why women love gay men?

A man writes to Dan Savage about his shameful sexual attraction to fat women. Dan Savage writes back and, among other things, tells him "You're a cowardly, hateful piece of shit." [5 July 2007]

I love Dan Savage.

trompe tower o jesus

You know, I do love me some trompe-l'œil and some Jesus of the Week. Somewhere in my stony non-believing heart, a happy little song is playing for this one. It's all about creating illusions to deceive perception. Yeah, that's the way Christianity looks to me...

What are these three ladies doing strolling past
a twenty-foot Jesus with their heads down?
Is that one chica talking on her iPhone?
Pay attention, girls! Jesus is right above you on a brick wall
looking like He's gonna drop the Bible on your heads!
—jotw

bulletin to houston motorists

Signal first. Brake second.
Assholes.

discovery channel deja vue

The frogs are back. This is the third night of relentless trilling. Now I know why we eat them.

wow

I don't have cable, so I missed this special commentary Tuesday night (July 3, 2007) on MSNBC. But I do have access to YouTube. Watch this incredible response to Bush handing Scooter Libby his Get Out of Jail Free Card by Keith Olbermann. It's been so long since I've witnessed a mainstream television or print journalist be this honest (about anything, not the least of which is Bush's exponentially disastrous presidency), I could have wept. Some might say it's easier to criticize now that Bush's numbers are in the toilet...so how come we're not hearing much more of this? Like, every single day?

While I'm on my pinko commie fag liberal rant, go see Sicko. Really, stop pissing around about it and just go.

oh ye goddessless

Street preacher: Oh, you poor ladies. You are on your way to Hell. Stop holding each other like that! Don't you know that lesbianism is a sin?
Girl: Dude, that's my mom!

--Jay St

file under "o" for omg

From the sorbet of sites, have one between each political blog:

Ghetto chick: Excuse me! Excuse me! What's the name of the towers that got knocked down?
Incredulous passerby: Umm . . . The World Trade Center.
Ghetto chick to thug boyfriend: See! I told you it wasn't none of that twin towers. You thinking of Lord of the Rings.

--Vesey St

tuesday morning pick-me-up

Once again, from OverheardInNewYork.com:

Older man hugging younger man: Wassup, my nigga?
Younger man: Dad, cut it out. We're white.

--Leonard & Lafayette St

This shit slays me.

holy shit, something REAL

Weasels 'n Polecats
I've come up with a ferret analogy of why some of my co-workers make me absofuckinglutely crazy. I like ferrets. Mostly from a distance and behind glass but occasionally in the flesh as well. I believe if I had to cohabitate in close quarters with them, however, I'd swell up with hives and homicidal urges. So it's a proximity thing. Once in a while a potential irritant is tolerable, perhaps even likeable. Increase the exposure to 9 hours a day with only a fabric covered divider and well, you see where I'm going with this.

Playing-nice-with-others theory aside, the fact is most days I ought to be annoyed at the mindless, spin-saturated, jargon-rife patter. It is insulting and fucks over language and meaning. It is a sacrilege to truth and direct communication. For example, a direct quote I heard with my own bleeding ears:

"[let's have them]...take a very detailed, cursory glance."

Sweartogod. And that's just the surface rash. The real carcinogens dwell beneath the surface.

When someone shovels conference room-loads of bullshit and everyone around them fawns: Isn't she smart? Isn't he corporate material? it's all I can do to keep from standing on the "desk" surface of my demoralizing miniature cube and scream, "But the Emperor is Naked and He Has a Hard-On and Why Can't You See It"?

But, you know, that way unemployment lies...and this approach would have me standing on restaurant tables, car roofs and government agency countertops and the whole thing makes me too weary to bark.

Commentaterheads
Now, the latest trend in online news is to invite the public to comment on editorials, stories and whatnot. The rationale behind this is wreathed in inclusiveness and the voice of democracy and it makes me want to puke. First of all, the impetus behind this is like the impetus behind most noble crap: money. Page clicks, in this case. Give people the ability to publish their two-cents or just read the two-cents of their "regular guy" neighbor and you get more page clicks. More page clicks attracts more advertisers. Please don't make me connect any more dots.

And there's the other part of this hot new approach that sickens me. You see, the idealistic believer in democracy who has a cube of her own in the mayhem that is my head gets pummeled whenever I read the puling, lobotomied comments. Bovine troglodytes with keyboards. Racist illiterates and simpletons manipulated by fear. The self-righteous and the smug. These are my fellow Americans (insert your own country). From these lowing masses would be chosen a jury of my peers. It's another thought that chills me into staying my hand everyday.

Is that a voice in the wilderness?
Then I read something as real and raw and bullshit-free as this blog: Violent Acres*. A woman who writes about the idiocy of the war on drugs. She tells the self-pity-free, flat-out horror story of her childhood and how the system didn't just fail her, it rubberstamped her abusers.

And I, non-believer and skeptic, understand for just a moment why people form congregations.

I love that this woman doesn't give a shit about my approval. I love that she doesn't hesitate to say riotously "unladylike" things. She's not interested in playing fact wars. She draws conclusions based on her experience and observation and can't understand why so many people can't fucking do that. She doesn't think she's a good writer and in that she's dead wrong. Her writing has power and cohesion. She doesn't invite comments. I understand that. I write for the two-dozen people I've invited to read my cerebral, foul-mouthed opinionated diatribes, and it took forever to decide to publish anything to the "world."

V, you fucking rock. And I think you're full of shit and right on.

*I wholeheartedly thank my good and anonymous friend for this gem of a link and several others. My life is richer because of you.

houston mid-june a.m.

Our vehicles were sweating this morning. Not dew-covered. Dew implies something cool and refreshing. When you wake up to a humid 75°F, it's sweat. Warm, oily car perspiration.

pink dispair

dailykos
There's a blog I really like called the dailykos.com. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga began the blog in 2002. For me, he has all the progressive credibility credentials: ex-military, fled El Salvador as a child with his family, educated, informed, intelligent and articulate. Yes, it's liberal and so am I and of course, I don't take every word as canonized truth–it's just more information than I'm ever going to get from corporate media. He has a bunch of contributing editors to his site and I generally find the writing and links very informative.

pink pinko baby
And I love that bloggers can periodically include bits of their personal lives. Someone once said that all politics are personal and that simple cliche bears repeating. The human element can be as strong a bond as philosophical agreement.

I read with mixed feelings this entry about his two-month old daughter which features a picture of the beautiful baby. I am as big a fan of infants as some of my sisteren are of puppies and kittens and the like. Even wrinkly red, vernix-caseosa-coated, meconium-extruding newborns are irresistible to me. Which is why my feelings are mixed. She is a lovely child. But as I looked at the photo I was dismayed at the pink, puffy-sleeved, sweet-sweet-sweet embroidered dress/blouse she was wearing for this special photo.

Ach. I love pink. But when we dress our babies in hyper-gendered outfits we handle them differently. We place exagerrated emphasis on gender importance. We handle the spun-cotton-candy-sugar like spun glass. We handle the navy blue-clad more...firmly. I can't seem to make many inroads on this issue with even my most progressive acquaintances. I get their "oh, she's on her feminist rant again" tolerantly amused faces.

There's nothing wrong with the delicate or the rough-and-tumble. However, let's seriously question the one-or-the-other approach that saturates gender perception.

get a gun, daddy
In addition to the traditional portrayal of femininitude, were the predictable comments about having a daughter:

When you have a boy, you only have to worry about 1 penis.
When you have a girl, you have to worry about five million penises.

It's always amusing to see my friends have to pull out the daddy card and be that scary man that scares off the boyfriends. A buddy of mine is already talking about getting a rifle, and his daughter's only a year old.

Well, shit. These are supposedly non-conservative, untraditional commenters. These are the liberals, feminists and progressives. And while some add disclaimers to their references about "sugar & spice," there is wistful attachment to these traditional descriptions.

When you begin with the premise that the world is chock-full of penis-wielding intruders and little girls must be protected by their daddies, you strip away the potential survival power that a female might have and replace it with fear and helplessness.

This isn't just about pink dresses.

renegade ex-mormon with coffee

Letter I recently wrote to my daughter:

as luck or coincidence would have it, the science of sleep came up in my netflix queue and arrived the same week as the 25th "anniversary of my wakefulness." June 14th, 1982: i was told i had narcolepsy and that diagnosis (and treatment) marked a dramatic change in my life.

but i never stopped loving the feeling of falling asleep.

the movie was enchanting. especially the corrugated cardboardness of it all. and how could one not delight in cotton-turned-clouds? anyway, it's making me rethink my "chaos" and how much i love having creative materials around me.

love,
mom

Narcolepsy is comedy fodder. And it should be. It's a quirky disorder that doesn't kill you but can muffle much of life's bright color if undiagnosed. But, it is a funny problem. I am grateful to the quacky internist who suggested that I might have a sleep disorder. I would have been hard-pressed to accomplish a third of what I have done in my life thus far, in that sleepy state.

Re: this post's title
Having been raised Mormon, I was ironically barred from the only non-prescription and universally available stimulant: caffeine. When I discovered coffee after my diagnosis (it was the only alternative to prescription drugs that were not an option while breast-feeding aforementioned daughter in her infancy) my system seized upon this substance. I was AMAZINGLY awake. And my virginal digestive system was in an uproar. Good times.

if i spend too much time trying to figure out this post's title i'll never get it written

Not enough people are talking about impeaching Bush. What more does he have to do before we slap our collective forehead and say WTF? I say impeach the bastard. Then, try him for war crimes. Any other world leader with his arrogant, murderous audacity would be dragged in front of an international council and unanimously condemned.

I've been learning a little bit more about a blogging legend who passed away last week. Steven Gilliard was the founder of thenewsblog.net, died at 42 and left a big hole in the progressive blogging community. As I researched the life of this intelligent, informed man, I was amazed at the persistence of so many dedicated political bloggers out there. Ferreting out all the empty or inaccurate news and dragging it into the open. Don't they get overwhelmed by the insanity and deception? Maybe they do but I'm so glad they're out there digging around the morass of fear-fueled and lackluster media reporting.

So I'm on an RSS feeding frenzy lately. Fair.org and dailykos.com have joined the well-loved Rude Pundit to fill in some of the big holes in our glassy-eyed media reports. If I have to see one more homepage story about American Idol or Paris Hilton I will leap off the edge of my cube sohelpmegod.