About a year ago, Mark Foley, a Republican congressional representative from Florida, resigned because it was discovered that he had sent sexually explicit electronic messages to teenage boys.
And now, not to be outdone by his erstwhile colleague, Republican Senator Larry Craig has utterly shamed himself by allegedly soliciting sex in an airport bathroom.
Big surprise: these politicians, who are members of the party that considers itself the American model of moral probity, are also enormous hypocrites. But there's a disturbing trend that emerged in the media coverage of both of these stories. With both the Foley scandal and the current Craig scandal, the media have put too much emphasis on the question of whether or not these men are gay.
Being gay shouldn't be the issue here; the issue in both of these stories should be that these men are violating the law and exhibiting moral depravity. But by the way the media cover the scandals, they often make it seem like being gay itself constitutes the entire scandal.
Who cares if Mark Foley is gay? He was sending sexually explicit messages to teenagers! Isn't that awful regardless of whether the teenage victims of his perversion were male OR female?
And again, with Larry Craig: he, a married man, was cruising for sex in an airport bathroom. Isn't that reprehensible whether or not the complete stranger he wanted to proposition was a man OR a woman?
The homosexual leanings of these men should only enter the story insofar as to expose the hypocrisy of their conservative positions against gays. When the media make it seem like being gay is a scandalous issue in and of itself, they're simply contributing to the same damaging national atmosphere of homophobia that these hypocritical Republicans and their colleagues have worked so hard to perpetuate.
31 August 2007
29 August 2007
Read A Fucking Book
CNN: Poll of US Reading Habits
One in four Americans read no books last year.
That reminds me of something Mark Twain once said: that the man who does not read has no advantage over the man who can't.
One in four Americans read no books last year.
That reminds me of something Mark Twain once said: that the man who does not read has no advantage over the man who can't.
27 August 2007
22 August 2007
Lessons
BBC: Bush Compares Iraq to Vietnam
President George W Bush has warned a US withdrawal from Iraq could trigger the kind of upheaval seen in South East Asia after US forces quit Vietnam.
Is this man serious?
When I think of the phrase "Lessons of Vietnam", I have to say that the first thing that comes to mind isn't that we should have stayed there longer.
No - when I think of the Vietnam War, I think of a war begun in a land far away, with an enemy we knew nothing about, for reasons that represented a total lack of understanding of that part of the world and its relationship to us. I think of a war in which the costs were severe and the rewards nonexistant. I think of a war in which we had trouble telling friend from foe. I think of a war in which we floundered for years with no objective and a scattered, ad hoc strategy. I think of a war that sapped the morale and tarnished the international reputation of the United States. I think of a war that went down in history as a military disaster, a governmental error, and a national tragedy.
There are indeed lessons to be learned from Vietnam's place in American history. But President Bush has not learned from our country's past mistakes; he has repeated them.
President George W Bush has warned a US withdrawal from Iraq could trigger the kind of upheaval seen in South East Asia after US forces quit Vietnam.
Is this man serious?
When I think of the phrase "Lessons of Vietnam", I have to say that the first thing that comes to mind isn't that we should have stayed there longer.
No - when I think of the Vietnam War, I think of a war begun in a land far away, with an enemy we knew nothing about, for reasons that represented a total lack of understanding of that part of the world and its relationship to us. I think of a war in which the costs were severe and the rewards nonexistant. I think of a war in which we had trouble telling friend from foe. I think of a war in which we floundered for years with no objective and a scattered, ad hoc strategy. I think of a war that sapped the morale and tarnished the international reputation of the United States. I think of a war that went down in history as a military disaster, a governmental error, and a national tragedy.
There are indeed lessons to be learned from Vietnam's place in American history. But President Bush has not learned from our country's past mistakes; he has repeated them.
15 August 2007
Jet Lag
Probably the only fun thing about the primary campaigns starting so damn early is that we get to see all of the candidates' sundry mistakes, gaffes, and blunders lampooned on the Daily Show. Until the primaries close enough to become actually relevant, Jon Stewart is going to be my only source of news on the subject.
Bill Richardson has, for the most part, escaped the mockery that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert heap on much of the other candidates. But recently, he did something extraordinarily stupid, which I think deserved even more derision than it received.
The event in question, which was lambasted last night on the Daily Show, involved a gay TV Station Democratic debate in which Melissa Etheridge asked Richardson if he thought homosexuality was a choice. First he said yes. Then he said that he's, well, "not a scientist". Meaning, of course, "yes but I don't want to sound homophobic".
But that's not even the outrageous part. Apparently, in a clumsy attempt to backpedal, he now attributes his statements to not understanding the question because of jet lag.
Come now. Even if you had not slept for days, it's pretty clear what's being asked if Melissa Etheridge is the one asking the question and it includes the words "homosexuality" and "choice".
Richardson's excuse is an absurdity on several levels. First, of course, it simply insults the intelligence of anyone who hears it. But on a deeper level, we are considering this man for the office of President of the United States - a job that carries with it significant stressors and probably a lot of travel-related fatigue. If he "didn't understand" such a simple question due to a bit of jet lag, what kinds of awful mistakes would he make as President, at, for instance, international summits? Would he get us into a war with North Korea because he didn't get a nap on the plane?
Bad move, Governor Richardson. You'll have to do a lot better than that - or else the only place you're going to be popular is on late-night satire.
Bill Richardson has, for the most part, escaped the mockery that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert heap on much of the other candidates. But recently, he did something extraordinarily stupid, which I think deserved even more derision than it received.
The event in question, which was lambasted last night on the Daily Show, involved a gay TV Station Democratic debate in which Melissa Etheridge asked Richardson if he thought homosexuality was a choice. First he said yes. Then he said that he's, well, "not a scientist". Meaning, of course, "yes but I don't want to sound homophobic".
But that's not even the outrageous part. Apparently, in a clumsy attempt to backpedal, he now attributes his statements to not understanding the question because of jet lag.
Come now. Even if you had not slept for days, it's pretty clear what's being asked if Melissa Etheridge is the one asking the question and it includes the words "homosexuality" and "choice".
Richardson's excuse is an absurdity on several levels. First, of course, it simply insults the intelligence of anyone who hears it. But on a deeper level, we are considering this man for the office of President of the United States - a job that carries with it significant stressors and probably a lot of travel-related fatigue. If he "didn't understand" such a simple question due to a bit of jet lag, what kinds of awful mistakes would he make as President, at, for instance, international summits? Would he get us into a war with North Korea because he didn't get a nap on the plane?
Bad move, Governor Richardson. You'll have to do a lot better than that - or else the only place you're going to be popular is on late-night satire.
13 August 2007
"Sales Event"
Since when did selling cars turn into an 'event'?
Most car commercials you see on TV have a sentence that never deviates from this formula: "The (insert corporate name here) sales event: on now at your local (insert corporate name here) dealer." I suppose 'sale' doesn't sound exciting enough anymore.
And that's not all. Lexus, who seem to have a peculiar knack for pompous indulgence in their advertising, apparently now find the 'sales' part of the formula too pedestrian; I saw a Lexus commercial recently that simply announced "The Event."
"The Event"? How nauseatingly pretentious. I guess this is what marketing executives are paid for, though: to make selling cars sound like a black-tie ball at the royal palace.
Most car commercials you see on TV have a sentence that never deviates from this formula: "The (insert corporate name here) sales event: on now at your local (insert corporate name here) dealer." I suppose 'sale' doesn't sound exciting enough anymore.
And that's not all. Lexus, who seem to have a peculiar knack for pompous indulgence in their advertising, apparently now find the 'sales' part of the formula too pedestrian; I saw a Lexus commercial recently that simply announced "The Event."
"The Event"? How nauseatingly pretentious. I guess this is what marketing executives are paid for, though: to make selling cars sound like a black-tie ball at the royal palace.
07 August 2007
Life Imitates Art
In the episode "HOMR" of the twelfth season of the Simpsons, Homer finds out via a doctor's X-Ray that, when he was a child, he shoved a crayon up his nose and into his head. The crayon had stayed lodged there throughout his entire life, and the pressure it put on his brain accounted for his characteristically low intelligence.
Haha. Ah, the world of animated fiction. Surely nothing like that would ever happen in real life...
BBC: Pencil removed from German's head
A woman in Germany who has spent 55 years with part of a pencil inside her head has finally had it removed.
Margret Wegner fell over carrying the pencil when she was four. It punctured her cheek and part of it went into her brain, above the right eye.
The 59-year-old has suffered headaches and nosebleeds for most of her life.
Life really does imitate art.
Haha. Ah, the world of animated fiction. Surely nothing like that would ever happen in real life...
BBC: Pencil removed from German's head
A woman in Germany who has spent 55 years with part of a pencil inside her head has finally had it removed.
Margret Wegner fell over carrying the pencil when she was four. It punctured her cheek and part of it went into her brain, above the right eye.
The 59-year-old has suffered headaches and nosebleeds for most of her life.
Life really does imitate art.
05 August 2007
Naive
It's sometimes said that if you're a conservative when you're twenty, you have no heart, and if you're a liberal at fifty, you have no head. A gross oversimplification, perhaps, but - so some think.
But indeed, political liberals in America have more of a reputation than conservatives of having their heads in the clouds. Whenever conservative pundits aren't making the case that liberals have actively malignant designs against our country, they're arguing that liberals are naive and out of touch with reality. (The potential incompatibility of these two portrayals - self-consciously subversive elements versus hapless, bumbling fools - is not discussed, and it's usually assumed that liberals somehow embody both caricatures.)
This is amazing to me, considering that many conservatives believe that:
-it is unimportant to have an intelligent, or even functionally literate, person occupying the office of President of the United States
-evolution is false, because a book written two millennia ago says so
-abstinence education actually works on teenagers
-homosexuals choose to be gay (but somehow, heterosexuals don't have to choose to be straight)
-if everyone is armed, then society will be safer for it
-our Founding Fathers were evangelical Christians
-the ninth amendment doesn't exist
-the first half of the second amendment doesn't exist
-the environment's capacity for abuse and exploitation is limitless
-we don't need to understand anything about a country in order to invade it and set up a new government
-we can keep doing what we're doing in Iraq and somehow everything will turn out swell
Now, of course, liberals aren't without their fair share of mistaken theories and unrealistic notions, but how do they get labelled as the head-in-the-clouds party, while by contrast the conservatives can bill themselves as worldly pragmatists? Sounds a little naive to me.
But indeed, political liberals in America have more of a reputation than conservatives of having their heads in the clouds. Whenever conservative pundits aren't making the case that liberals have actively malignant designs against our country, they're arguing that liberals are naive and out of touch with reality. (The potential incompatibility of these two portrayals - self-consciously subversive elements versus hapless, bumbling fools - is not discussed, and it's usually assumed that liberals somehow embody both caricatures.)
This is amazing to me, considering that many conservatives believe that:
-it is unimportant to have an intelligent, or even functionally literate, person occupying the office of President of the United States
-evolution is false, because a book written two millennia ago says so
-abstinence education actually works on teenagers
-homosexuals choose to be gay (but somehow, heterosexuals don't have to choose to be straight)
-if everyone is armed, then society will be safer for it
-our Founding Fathers were evangelical Christians
-the ninth amendment doesn't exist
-the first half of the second amendment doesn't exist
-the environment's capacity for abuse and exploitation is limitless
-we don't need to understand anything about a country in order to invade it and set up a new government
-we can keep doing what we're doing in Iraq and somehow everything will turn out swell
Now, of course, liberals aren't without their fair share of mistaken theories and unrealistic notions, but how do they get labelled as the head-in-the-clouds party, while by contrast the conservatives can bill themselves as worldly pragmatists? Sounds a little naive to me.
01 August 2007
Irony
Irony is using Lisa Simpson as a promotion for Burger King.
"Support free speech," eh? You know what Lisa Simpson also supports? Protesting obtrusive corporations that abuse the environment and kill billions of animals. But I suppose that's a minor detail.
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