Christopher Keelty

Author, artist, bloviator. More at ChristopherKeelty.com.

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HBO's Game of Thrones: Breaker of Chains

A few terrific scenes, a terribly problematic one, and no dragons. My thoughts on Season Four, Episode Three of HBO's adaptation.

** Warning: Game of Thrones Spoilers through Season 4 Episode 3; also a few very minor spoilers from the book series to this point.

After George R. R. Martin took his timelast week laying out the Purple Wedding, the show runners had to work to catch us up on what’s happening with everyone else, and this week we saw a lot of plot points moving. It strikes me that if there were a similar…

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I've read about a dozen reviews of the Game of Thrones finale...

I’ve read about a dozen reviews of the Game of Thrones finale…

…and not a single reviewer seems to notice the potential relevance of Dany’s visions in the House of the Undying. Lots of people are unhappy with what was removed from the House of the Undying sequence. Few seem to notice what may have been added.

Sure, you could argue that her walk through the Red Keep’s Great Hall, with its broken roof and the gently falling [ahem] snow is symbolic only of…

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Game of Thrones: Further Thoughts on "That Scene"

* MAJOR spoilers here. If you aren’t caught up reading the Song of Ice and Fire novels, you probably want to skip this one. Seriously.

Since I wrote up my brief thoughts on the most recent episode, Breaker of Chains, there have been many more words written about “that scene,” in which the show runners changed a disturbing-but-depicted-as-consensual sex scene between Jaime and Cersei Lannister…

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Why the Twitter-Block People Want is Impossible

Twitter Block http://wp.me/pARzz-FR

There’s been a fair amount of controversyrecently over Twitter’s “block” function. In mid-December, Twitter made and announced a change to the way blocking worked. The ensuing uproar, which prompted Twitter to revert the change less than a day later, continues to this day. Critics accuse Twitter of failing to protect victims of bullying and harassment—but the reaction really reveals more about…

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California, Drought, and Bottled Water

California, Drought, and Bottled Water

California is running out of water. So is the entire American Southwest, for that matter, but the crisis in California is in particularly dire straits. A number of farms in the state are already out of water, and officials estimate drinking water will run out in many communities in the next 60 to 100 days. This is Grapes of Wrathterritory, and forecasts say it will only go on, and likely worsen,…

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My Own Experiences with Health Care

In the three days since I posted my surprisingly popular Breaking Bad: Anywhere But America Edition comic strip, and since Michael Moore very kindly retweeted both the comic and my unscientific poll on socialized health care, my blog and Twitter have become venues for discussions of the American health care system and its alternatives.

And I have a confession to make: I’m not informed enough to r…

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My experience at the Boston Marathon

My experience at the Boston Marathon

One of the stranger days of my life today. Lizran her second Boston Marathon, and as usual I was there to cheer her on. She ran her first Boston last year, but the unseasonable heat and a stomach flu forced her to drop out around mile 14. This year, she paced a friend, and they finished a little before 2:46 PM. As you may or may not know, two bombs detonated at the finish line four minutes later.…

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More Silver Age Marvel (AKA Iron Man's Rocket Skates)

We’ve now had four Iron Man movies (counting The Avengers) by three different directors, and not once has he deployed his rocket skates. I can only assume they were saving that big reveal for the battle against Ultron. Or maybe Galactus. At what point does one reveal the trump card that is a pair of rocket skates?

I just cannot express how much I am loving the Kree-Skrull War. I definitely need…

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Religious Imposition, Not Religious Liberty

Religious Imposition, Not Religious Liberty

As a rule these days I try to avoid investing time and energy in online debates, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. Yesterday I got sucked into a debate at the Matt Walsh Blog about Arizona’s rightly-vetoed Senate Bill 1062, the “Turn Away the Gay” bill. I was more than a little startled by the outpouring of right-wing support for SB 1062that followed Governor Brewer’s veto, and the…

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The Brief but Stupid Story of Bill Donohue's (Almost) Anti-Gay Gay Pride Float

The Brief but Stupid Story of Bill Donohue’s (Almost) Anti-Gay Gay Pride Float

Torquemada was also defending the civil rights of Catholics.

I’m posting this story here because I just love it so much.

So the Catholic Leagueis an organization established to “defend the Catholic Church,” headed by a man named Bill Donohue. Like most Christian advocacy groups, the Catholic League interprets “defending their religion and civil rights” as imposing their beliefs on other people,…

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Porn, College, and a Woman's Right to Choose

Porn, College, and a Woman’s Right to Choose

Just a heads up: Many of the links in this post are NSFW.

In January, some ass at Duke revealed at a fraternity rush event that his friend and fellow freshman was doing online porn. According to his account, he promised her that he would keep her secret, but then revealed it anyway because, you know, frats.

What a dick, right? He treated his friend with zero respect, as if doing porn made her…

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The Society of Uncompromising Douchebags

The Society of Uncompromising Douchebags

I really hate this commercial. It’s the Wiser’s whiskey spot with the guy holding his wife’s purse in the mall. If you haven’t seen it, I’m linking it below–but if you have seen it, I’m going to politely suggest they don’t need more traffic.

httpv://vimeo.com/30140142

Sure, the idea that a man holding his wife’s purse for even a few moments demeans his masculinity, that’s an old chestnut of the…

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HBO's Game of Thrones and the Purple Wedding

I was disappointed by Sunday's Game of Thrones--until the Internet told me I had to look closer.

** Game of Thrones spoilers follow. If you’re caught up on the HBO series then you’re safe.

I watchedGame of Thrones on Sunday night with a mix of delight and disappointment. Delight because since the debut of the HBO series I’d awaited the Purple Wedding almost as eagerly as I’d dreaded the Red Wedding; disappointment because, as the episode drew to a close, I was sure they show had cut out the…

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The Company Town in the Twenty-First Century

How did the big banks turn the US into a 19th century mining town? Read "The Company Town in the 21st Century" http://wp.me/pARzz-Mp

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, miners in the Pocono Mountains and other coal-rich regions often lived in company towns, built around the site of a mine. They paid their rent to their employer, who built and owned all houses in the town, just as they bought their groceries, clothing, and other provisions from company stores.

In many cases these purchases were on credit rather than…

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Fred Phelps, In Memoriam

Fred Phelps, In Memoriam

Fred Phelps was a closeted gay man.

No, I have no conclusive proof of that, and I’m not being facetious in a “ha-ha, he sure would hate me saying that” kind of way. It’s what I truly believe, because it’s the only rational explanation I can come up with for the sheer volume of the man’s hatred for homosexuality and the LGBT community. [pullquote position=”right”]Fred Phelps was attracted to men,…

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USA's Oldest LGBT Bookstore to Close

Sad news: Giovanni's Room, the oldest LGBT bookstore in the country, will close for good in May.

Sad news this week as the Philadelphia Gay News reports that Giovanni’s Room, the oldest LGBT bookstore in the country, will close for good in May.

Owner Ed Hermance, who has operated the store since the dark early days of the gay-rights movement in the 1970s, tried to find a buyer for the store so he could retire, but an apparent deal fell through. According to the PGN, Hermance blames Amazon…

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Civic Personnae

Something Liz and I got thinking about this past weekend:

After attending a particularly drunk and rowdy brunch at a bar in downtown Arlington, Virginia (nice town, by the way) Liz remarked how different it was from the more subdued brunch in New York City. I remarked, off-the-cuff, that “New Yorkers have a certain expectation of how New Yorkers are supposed to behave.”

This got me thinking about…

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