The Good
"Remember how you said that the beef stew was a little thin for your taste? Well, I added some stuff to it and cooked it down, and now it's nice and thick. Do you want me to save you some?"

"You know, sometimes I think you have the impression I don't like your cooking. I think you're a good cook."

"I know. But it's not just enough to be good. I'm a perfectionist. It can't just be good, everything has to be faaaaabulous!"

"Well, you already are fabulous."

"Awwww! I'm going to eat the last of the stew for lunch."

The Bad
Transgender Day of Remembrance. My cousin out in California and I had a falling-out because I kept trying to raise his awareness about trans issues. Regardless of what you think about trans genitalia, or whether trans sex is "real sex" (take a wild guess as to where I stand on that issue), I think we can all agree that transfolk have the right to, you know, live. Without being beaten, maimed, or murdered. I think that the ability to walk down the street undisturbed is a basic human right we can all agree on.

More information here: http://gender.org/remember/day/index.html
(and no, visiting the site will not make you queer).


The Roomba
Yet another reason for me to get a Roomba (I need to amass a good amount of them in order to overcome that "but we're in a recession" voice in the back of my head):

Link in case of embed failure

I can't imagine my timid kitty would ever actually ride the thing around the room like that. But still, soooo cuuuuuute! Robot friends!

Dan Savage wants to be Sarah Palin's gay friend:



Via Feministing.

Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leq3ydk5Ug4

I have nothing else useful to say about the election, except maybe this:

Neal Stephenson came to read from his new book Anathem a few weeks ago (see #5 here). During the Q&A period, someone asked him about modern politics. I can't remember the exact phrasing of the question, but I believe it was about what had most influenced 20th-century politics. Stephenson took a moment to think, and then he said Nixon's successful presidential campaign strategy that plays on the fears of the electorate.

Which still happens.

I'd like to point the finger at the excesses of the latest McCain/Palin fearmongering ("Who is the real Barak Obama?"). But fears play out in our camp as well: see here and here. Of course, from where I stand, I'm a lot more afraid of what would happen if McCain were president.

My biggest problem with politics -- and the reason I dropped out of the Debate Club in seventh grade -- is the inevitable distortion of truth that happens in the midst of rhetorical competition. As a poet, I'm very sensitive to language, and I believe firmly, strongly, deeply in the notion of a truth that lives outside of the individual's mind. Will, desire, competition, lust for power -- they all distort that truth, at least temporarily.

The Anglo-Saxon wic means exactly that: bending, twisting, shaping. My savage ancestors understood the magic inherent in the transformation of one thing into another; of a bundle of reeds into a wicker basket, of a battle over land rights into an epic struggle between good and evil. The wisest of those people learned to respect that power, and to temper their use of it. But pundits, reporters, campaign managers, press secretaries, and politicians wield that same transformational power. They bend, twist, and shape reality with their words. I just wish they'd burn some sage before they begin, and maybe add a "with harm to none, for the good of all" at the end of their speeches. It's supposed to be about the good of all, right? Not just the good of the winner's constituents and campaign contributors.

From John Scalzi:

Honestly, I no longer know what to make of John McCain anymore. A man who has readily admitted he doesn’t know much about the economy makes a big show of bringing his presidential campaign to a grinding halt to rush to Washington to fix it, which seems a bit like a NASA auto pool mechanic declaring to all and sundry that he’s going to stopped making oil changes to rush to Florida to consult on the Shuttle.
[...]
he also suggests we cancel (or, “delay”) the presidential debate on Friday, and maybe the VP debate next week. You know, just to be sure we’re all focused on the economy, instead of, frivolous things, such as the fact that John McCain apparently hasn’t had a useful thought about the national economy since he married a heiress, and that Sarah Palin can’t be trusted to extemporize [...] without appearing like she’s [shoving her hockey-mom pumps down her throat].

Link to Scalzi's full post

And via yesthatthom, some Youtube videos of Letterman catching McCain in one WHOPPER of a lie. "Could McCain be so out of touch that he didn't realize that Couric, also on CBS, would be interviewing him in the very same building?"

Short versions, long versions, all funny-as-hell versions (when did Letterman switch over from the nutty younger late-night guy in a sweater to the Johnny Carson of our generation?). Watch them all here: http://yesthattom.livejournal.com/879499.html

On a more religious note, I can't get the Family Research Council (a.k.a. family fearmongers' council) to take me off their damn spam list. What began as keeping track of what the other side was up to has turned into a daily dose of hate in my inbox. Faithful America is a nice antidote -- a PAC that reclaims religious values from the far right.

I got fed up enough to send a strongly worded response to a particularly egregious email full of lies and half-truths. I'm sure it's falling on deaf ears over in Tony's inbox, though. Maybe it will amuse you, dear Intarwebs.

From a personal appeal for dough from Tony Perkins, President of this "Christian" organization:

I want you to hear something a California pastor said to me recently:

"If we lose, we go to jail."

It's just that simple, says Pastor Jim Garlow--if marriage loses in California, religious liberties everywhere will be next. [Funny thing, that: here in Sodom Massachusetts, religious liberties seem to be alive and well for Christians, Muslims, Jews, pagans, and others alike, gays can get married, and marriage as we know it is still intact.]

The fight for marriage in the states is our first priority.

But we can't take our eye off Washington, D.C. politicians. Your support is vital as we stand up to liberals who want to criminalize your religious speech . . . threaten the religious liberties of employers . . . silence conservative and Christian broadcasting . . . raise taxes . . . and impose taxpayer funding of abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

And my response:

Tony, this is an incredibly offensive letter. Christians have never
been sent to jail in this country for practicing the teachings of
Christ. Untold numbers of homosexuals, though, have been rounded up by
police, beaten, raped, and returned to the street without charges ever
being placed. Recognizing a loving, stable union between two people is
not an affront to marriage. Preaching hatred and intolerance is,
however, an affront to Christ's teachings. Shame on you, and shame on
your organization. Turn off your computer and read your bible.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have
love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all
knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do
not have love, I am nothing.
And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I
surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me
nothing.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:1–3 (NASB)

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I generally like to observe this holiday and not work on it because I value MLK's work far more than I do, say, Columbus's. Overall, I like my job, but the Paid Time Off policy... don't get me started. Read this NY Times Op-Ed piece instead. And then this piece about the new "PTO" trend in staffing. And then consider that when I take off Christmas, New Year's Day, Independence Day, or any other "paid" holiday, that ALSO comes out of the same pot.

Blog for Choice day is tomorrow.

See if you can follow my train of thought here:
* During the abolitionist and suffragist movement of the late 19th century, key leaders (mostly male) decided to focus on abolition before women's suffrage. The slaves were freed 40 years before women got the right to vote.
* We have a white woman and a black man up for the DNC nomination.
* Ever hear of the term "scarcity mentality" when applied to diversity efforts? That's when a bunch of, say, women compete for the same promotion instead of, say, helping each other. Then the men get to get together and joke about how catty women are toward each other.
* My biggest frustration with the progressive movement has been the inability of members of different oppressed classes (people of color, immigrants, women, queers) to join together toward a common good. Probably because there's been no consensus as to what that common good should be. Meanwhile, white, Christian right-wingers whine about being oppressed minorities themselves.

That is all.

Tomorrow is the 9th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. There's been a lot of posts about it on the webcomics community. I have nothing eloquent to say about it, except perhaps that I've met some lovely transfolk in my lifetime. It pisses me off that people think it's okay to commit physical violence against them just for existing. More here: http://www.rememberingourdead.org/day/what.html

Big yay to WGBH Boston for creating the show and funding the episode of Postcards from Buster that's the cause of all the controversy. But puuulease! The whole point of the show is to point out the diversity of different families all over the country! Mormons are okay, apparently, because they "believe in a strong family." So strong, apparently, that they used to have backup!

But not two mommies! Gawd forbid!

I just thought our country was heading in the RIGHT (meaning CORRECT) direction under Clinton. It appears that we're backsliding further than ever into bigotry and poverty. Sheesh. I'll take prosperity and blowjobs over wartime, recession, and repression any day.