Dave Writes Things

Like this, for example.

[davewritesthings-blog]

New Objection

(I objected to another wedding this weekend (updating and amending the last objection). Here's the text of the new objection. And to clarify YES they knew it was coming and YES I'll do this at your wedding too, if you'd like. And WON'T if you wouldn't like!)

Oh David. And oh Dawn. My dear friends. My employers. My landlords. I'm so happy to be here today to celebrate your incredibly impending marriage.

What we know of as marriage began as a Bronze Age economic exchange. To, um, put it mildly, a lot has changed since then.  Of course, marriage is no longer explicitly a financial arrangement. Nor is it a business agreement intended to solidify family alliances or obtain lands. It is not a sworn contract meant to assure paternity. It is now, ideally, an act between two people who share romantic love. And in a vacuum, that’d be totally fine.

But despite how much the real world sucks, we do not live in a vacuum. It is impossible to separate this marriage we are here to celebrate today from the institution.

I love you David, and I love you Dawn, and I love you together as David and Dawn. And after today, you will be a legally recognized union, and with that recognition the State will provide to you a package of benefits and rights which should be inalienable, and offered to all people regardless of relationship status. It’s awesome that you'll have these benefits, but the benefits have no real connection to marriage or to each other, and they should not have been withheld in the first place subject to the state endorsing the relationship.

Applying to the State to endorse a relationship is ceding to the State the power to define, condone, and judge the validity of relationships. This is a power they do not have, and it is one I am distinctly unwilling to allow them.

And it’s not just that our government needs to make marriage available to all couples regardless of gender, although they DO, and much good progress has been made on that front. Section 3 of DOMA has been struck down. Same sex marriage is now legal in 19 states and Washington DC, with 12 more states’ laws in legal limbo. More change is coming. But it is still the fact that what ought to be inalienable rights -- hospital visitation from your partner, for crying out loud -- can be capriciously provided and denied based on the whim of governors and judges. Rights provided on a whim aren’t rights, they’re political bargaining chips, and our love for each other, and the life we build with the people we love, is worth so much more than that, whether our partner shares our gender or not. Or whether the people we’re building a home with, or planning for the long-term with, or raising our children with, are our romantic partners or not. There is not one kind of love more valid, or more deserving of recognition, and we still have a long way to go.

And while this objection is about the outdated law, it’s also about dominant cultural values. Marriage is not the state to which all relationships aspire. It is a choice, and it can be a great one. But it should be one choice available out of many recognized as valid by society. But it isn’t. Not yet. Right now, as far as society is concerned, you are married or you are not yet married. Or you were married but now you’re not, so maybe you will be again. And as that cultural notion that marriage is the ideal state becomes further and further codified, our freedom to make other choices steadily erodes.

What I hope for, and what I hope we will all work toward, is a society open, with full rights, full benefits, full privileges, and full social recognition, to everyone. To couples, yes, married or not. To people single by choice or circumstance, to non-romantic life partners of any sort, to trios, and groups, and communes. To gay, straight, bi- pan- and omni-sexual people. To monogamous and polyamorous and asexual people. To people of any gender and none. To everyone regardless of how and whom they love.

But that is work we have for tomorrow. For tonight, I am so, so happy, David and Dawn, to be here with you. To celebrate with you. To honor the love you have found with each other. To cheer as you get married and to dance all night. I love you. Let’s party. And I know it's the 6th and I haven't paid rent yet. I've been traveling, and spent ALL my money. I swear it's coming. Thank you. And congratulations.

[davewritesthings-blog]

Oh, the Saxophony!

I wrote this in like '07 and somehow the Internet has NOT retained a copy of it. Fucking Internet. Anyway, here it is. DO YOUR JOB INTERNET.

Central Park. Friday afternoon. Late June. New book, uncracked spine. Sun shining down. Majestic rock on which to sit. Cool summer breeze ruffling my gorgeous, gorgeous hair.   And then... there it is! That sound!   Listen closely-- can you hear it? You can't miss it. Well, just pipe the hell down and focus, OK? This is important. Turn your ear to the East. Or for that matter to the West or North or actually just anywhere. Pick a direction. Yes! There it is! No, not the soft rustle of the summer wind through the leaves (or my hair). Not the joyous cries of children at eager play. Not even the omnipresent white noise of passing traffic. I'm talking about that other sound. That sound like... like... like somebody squeezing the life from an enraged cat. That sound like a preschool choir covering Bjork. That sound like the mating call of some sick, misbegotten offspring of a clarinet and Satan.   I'm talking about: that saxophone. And the reason you can hear it? It is EVERYWHERE.

I was on a need-to-know basis... and I NEEDED to know. I needed to know who to add to my Short List of the Eternally Loathed, which currently comprises: the entire New England Patriots football organization, Richard Bruce Cheney, and Edward "Hey, You Know What The World Could Really Use Right About Now?" Teller. It's a tough list to get on, but once you're on it, you're never getting off. A quick message to those readers among you who are at this point saying, "Why look here! I like the saxophone, see, and I always have!" and to those of you saying, "What you're saying is preposterous, simply preposterous! I play the saxophone, see, and I love it I just love it." To the first group: no you don't. You may not know it yet, but you don't. To the second group: please stay far away from me. To the lot of you: yes, in my mind, you all talk like it's a 1940s movie. How to proceed? Well, I knew from enough action movies that in order to understand my enemy, I would have to become my enemy... yes... I would have to become a world-class saxophone player, so that I might truly learn to hate myself. I would have to become that which I despise! I would learn the ways of my enemy and actually you know what? On second thought, maybe I should just read a book on the history of the saxophone. The library. Thursday afternoon. Mid July. Spring in my step. Sun shining down. Warm summer breeze rustling my slightly longer, undeniably luscious hair. The book: The Devil's Horn, by Michael Segell. Presumably a title meant to showcase how "bad ass" the saxophone is, but which may, in fact, speak to a deeper truth. But more on that in due course. First, allow me to set the scene before you, reader:   It's the 1840s. It's Belgium. Smell that? That's Belgium, savvy? And Belgium-- no... not just Belgium, but the world is CRYING OUT for something annoying to pay attention to. Keep in mind that this is long before the advent of the steel drum or talk radio-- there is a dearth of obnoxious noise around. It's just you, the lazy cry of the birds above, the sound of the wind running through your (let's be honest) sub-par hair, and that instantly recognizable scent that can only be described as 100% Belgium. Shh. If you close your eyes and listen, you can't hear anything at all. And... scene. Reader, did you imagine it? Did you place yourself in 1840s Belgium? If you did, I'm sure you must have imagined that it was absolutely, unspeakably, and almost incredibly lovely. Well one man experienced life that way and thought that it sucked. His name? Adolphe (not Larry) Sax. He had himself an idea (as well as a full beard). He planned to make an instrument to fix all that-there quiet. And he would call it the Adolpheridoo! Or something. He got to work. It wasn't easy. He labored long, he labored hard, he designed and welded and smote. Until finally: success! Although year after year his "improvements" to existing instruments had been ignored by the Belgian musical authorities, Sax knew what the world needed, and what it needed was NOISE NOISE dreadful NOISE! With his prototype complete, he and his shiny new baby (the Adolphomonium?) headed to the 1841 Belgian National Exhibition to be seen and judged. Well, another inventor took one quick look-see and judged discerningly that his best bet was to drop-kick the fucking thing across the room in the vain hope that it would stop it from ever making noise again. Which he did. That seriously happened. Disgusted with the (airquotes) total lack of (/airquotes) good taste shown by his own countrymen, Sax wrapped up his -ophone and angrily stomped toward someplace he thought might be won over by something brash and obnoxious: Paris, France. A place responsible for popularizing the accordion and the musical "Martin Guerre." Good guess on his part? We'll go with "yes." Sax arrived in Paris. He threatened, cajoled, pleaded. He yearned to play the gay romancer. Sorry, now I'm thinking about musicals. What I mean to say is, Sax was able, by calling in favors and making a general nuisance of himself, to "persuade French military officials to include [saxophones]... in their regimental bands" (Segell, 16). So, in summary, a man named Adolphe stormed over the border into France and infiltrated the military, which quickly capitulated. What? Just summarizing, here. I'm not making any comparisons to anything else that ever happened in history. I can't help it if you see a connection between this and some other historical event. The military bands, replete with Sax's shiny brainchildren, then traveled the world sharing their good fortune in capturing the market on instruments that go BWAHHHHHHHHHHH. And that was that. Finally, the world had found the horrible noise for which it had so desperately yearned! The inhuman device spread quickly, gaining popularity across the globe. In just a few short steps, Sax had gone from having his instrument punted across a convention hall to having his golden spawn "deploying its powers of seduction on every continent in the world. Everywhere it landed, it was recognized as the sound of modernity and independence--an instrument that gave voice to the common man, whose creative spirit was being stifled by the depersonalizing forces of the industrial revolution." (Segell, 20) Hooray! Huzzah! OH MY SWEET LORD NO PLEASE NO. The one thing we don't need any more of is the voice of the common man, OK? The common man is dull and annoying (plus keeps electing Cheney and buying Patriots tickets!). I know that the saxophone "has a concentration of harmonics at around 200 hertz, the same as the human voice," (Segell, 36) which may be all well and good in theory, but I don't really like listening to people go "MEHHH!" for minutes on end without drawing breath. Especially not into a megaphone. Why would I suddenly appreciate it more if it's coming out of a golden twisty thing? I DON'T appreciate it more. Surprise! It's still irritating. Plus in just the 1840s Liszt, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Schumann, Verdi, Berlioz, Strauss, and Stephen Collins Foster were all writing music, so I think the world was doing OK without the saxophone even in the throes of the robot takeover, or whatever it is that Segell thinks happened in the 19th Century. But wait: maybe something even more sinister did happen. Why did the saxophone suddenly spread, virus-like, across the globe in such short order? Hmm? Fairly strange, no, for an instrument maker to go from being ignored to having his instruments suddenly worshiped everywhere ion the globe? Segell likes to think that the spread of the saxophone is due to its players finding in each other a (rather alarming) brotherhood: "Saxophonists," he writes on page 5, "I've learned, are a generous and agreeable lot, enormously sympathetic to a new convert. Immediately, they know... that he's been seduced by a power he can't quite understand and yet is helpless to resist. They're happy to help in any way they can." Gee, that reminds of something... but I can't quite figure out what oh yeah CULTS. You know how once every decade or so, a big cult decides to drink juice in order to catch a passing comet, or to get torched by the FBI, and everybody who was able to make it out of there alive and mostly sane says something like "they made me feel so included! So loved!" That's called "love-bombing", which

"results in the release of pleasure inducing chemicals into the reward system of the brain... Thus, it should come as no surprise that the behaviour of people under the influence of cults [or saxophones] is similar to that we observe in addicts. Typical behaviour [you can tell this is all legit because of the 'u' in 'behaviour'] for both includes draining bank accounts and education funds [presumably to buy more saxophones], selling or mortgaging property [which is why they're always outside!], neglecting children ["Why don't you run out and get daddy another pack of single reed mouthpieces, or I'ma have to smack you around again"], destroying relations with family and friends ["YOU DON'T LOVE ME ANYMORE! ONLY MY SAXOPHONE LOVES ME! SHE TELLS ME IN MY MIND WHEN I'M SLEEPING!"] and losing interest in anything except the drug or cult [or, I'm sure he meant to include, saxophone]." (Henson [with interpolation by me])

So! Now we have very plausible explanations for some of our queries! We know why there are so many of them: they're literally saxophone addicts! Why they're all standing outside: they don't have homes! Why people look at me like I've just killed their dog when I tell them I don't like saxophones: it's not that I've killed their dog-- it's that I'm killing their God. Which brings us to the uber-question I posed at the beginning: WHAT IS GOING ON? Have you figured it out? I think you have. Hint: it's something bad. Worse than bad. Worse than worse than bad. It's bad with a capital BAD. It's not just Central Park anymore. It's not just our enjoyment of sunny afternoons. The saxophone came from nothing. And is now taking over everything. Still not there? Think: beginning with that failed attempt to kick the life from it before it ever had a chance to spread (my guess? Scott Bakula was inhabiting that man that day, driven by an unknown force to change history for the better), many people have tried to stop the slow metastasis of the saxophone:

"Sax's plans and special tools were stolen, his instruments counterfeited, and his employees bribed to abandon his service... A mysterious fire destroyed his workshop... a bomb that had been placed under his bed exploded prematurely. He escaped assassination again when a loyal and trusted employee of similar height and built arrived unexpectedly one night at Sax's house after midnight. Mistaken for his boss, who was not home, the employee was fatally stabbed through the heart." (Segell, 22)

Then, after all that, Sax got lip cancer, which made it impossible to play the saxophone... until it suddenly, inexplicably healed. Are you reading this? Forces greater than you-- forces greater than even me (which is saying A LOT)-- obviously wanted this guy out of the picture, yet he and his unholy machine survived. Why? The Devil's Horn, you say? Well, even Adolphe himself thought so: "shortly before he died, he recounted a dream in which black devils were blowing his horn and summoning all the damned to the infernos of hell." (Segell, 39) You're there now, aren't you? Have you reached this selfsame conclusion? Yes! You must have! You and I both know, reader: that wasn't a dream! THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! The saxophone isn't the voice of the common man, see, it's the voice of the very Devil, why, the very devil himself! Don't you see! It's all so clear! Sax didn't develop a prototype! He just signed a Faustian contract! In blood! A contract for his soul and the soul of the world, a soul that would be changed forever, warped, destroyed by the very song of Hell! THINK ABOUT IT! How else could that horrid instrument spread so quickly?! Alas! Chekov imagined Hell as frozen; Sartre thought Hell was other people; Sax actually got it right and now WE'RE LIVING IN IT! So what then? Here I am! My apartment. Saturday afternoon. Mid August. At my keyboard. Comfortable desk chair on which to sit. Cool summer breeze through the window ruffling my somewhat shorter but still ridiculously wondrous hair. And I despair, reader, I despair! For if my theories are correct, we have an answer to our question. We know "WHAT" it "IS" that's "GOING ON". We now know that all saxophonists everywhere are members of an ever-growing, horrific cult that has caused each and every one one of its members to enter unknowingly into the terms of a contract with The Evil One as they work with their instruments to bring about an early End of Days, resulting in the Earth's eventual transformation into a suburb of the underworld. Yet even as we say this... for the first time... I feel sorry for these saxophonists. Oh, also hatred. Always the hatred. Yet they know not what they do. They are victims. Just as we will all be soon. Unless... Unless we fight back. It may be a futile act, perhaps, but mustn't we try? Verily, we must! The center must hold! Mere saxophony must not be loosed upon the world! This brass beast that slouches toward Bethlehem to be born must be stopped at all costs! And I shall be the first, reader! I shall show the way! I shall be the first to help these lost, wretched souls back toward the light! To do so, I-- we, all of us-- must understand their world, their lexicon, their paradigm. So that when I approach them I can truly say: "I understand you! I understand where you are coming from! I too have listened to the musical stylings of John Coltrane, Kenny G., and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. But now there is still time to turn away!" And then we shall talk together, perhaps sit and commune with one another, one soul to another, the force of my love-- of our love!-- shall break that contract's unholy bonds and those lost and lonely souls shall abandon their twisted golden idols and come home to play music on an instrument that isn't driving our planet into the fifth ring! To begin... I shall have to learn the ways of their world. I shall have to hear some of this alleged "music". And so, reader, it begins. OK... play. Oh. Ah. AHH. Oh my word. It's... it's... it's awful, reader, it grates on my ears! On my heart! On my soul! I feel as if it's tearing into my mind! IT THREATENS TO UNDO MY VERY SANITY I MUST STOP IT... I CAN'T... REACH... I CAN'T MAKE IT... stop... and... and... actually... actually wait just a second. Huh. You know what? Now that I'm hearing it, it's not all that bad. It doesn't sound like the death wail of a laryngitic rabbit at all. It's... why it's sort of pleasant. Wow! It's more than sort of pleasant! It's wonderful! It's beautiful! Now that I really hear it, I love it, see, I simply love it! It sounds just like the voice of the common man! Like my own voice! It's speaking to me IN MY OWN VOICE! It's the greatest instrument ever! It sounds like an instrument that knows what it wants, that knows that it's cool, that knows... wait, what am I doing inside on a day like today? I could be outside. I could... why, I could be PLAYING the saxophone if I wanted to! I don't have one yet, but I'm sure I know where I can get one. I'll just use my rent money! Let me just leave a quick note. "I have moved to park to play saxophone. Bye." That's good. That'll do. Now I just need to go! To go outside and make music! "Come," the music says to me. "Come to me now!" And I shall come. For in that voice is love. And I know now--finally-- what it is to feel loved! So loved! So long! Oh and allow me just to say before I go: I will see each and every single one of you in Hell. ****** Bibliography (that's right. it's a blog entry with a bibliography) Segell, Michael. The Devil's Horn: The Story of the Saxophone, From Noisy Novelty to King of Cool. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2005 Henson, H. Keith. Sex, Drugs, and Cults. An evolutionary psychology perspective on why and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people, and what might be done to mitigate the effects. 

[davewritesthings-blog]

2012 Reviewed By A Dog

originally posted at PoliSub 

I realize this is a little bit outside my normal purview, but the news that week was just all so effing bleak I didn't feel like being funny about it. So.

New ball ok cold outside. Outside and run at ball to get ball. See squirrel. Bark at squirrel. Run and bark. Inside bed and warm. Quiet and bed and no running. One loud sky. Bark at loud and scared. Food a lot but want more some. Snuggle warm. Warm outside and sun. Get ball. See dog. Friend? Good friend. Other big dog bad. Not friend but some friends and chase and bark. Take ball and run. New smell by tree and find stick. Bite stick. Hide stick. Remember stick? Smell friend and run but no. Find food. Go away and stop and food to run. Sky flash loud banging and bad. Hide from loud bad. Get treat and snuggles. Hot and run and pant and friends and squirrels to barking. Find stick and take it. Friend? Friend? Leaves and running. Smell new smell and find it. Eat it but bad. Bad smell ok and run more and roll and stuff. Loud wind and barking inside but ok. Find food and get food and snuggles. Outside cold. Old ball and running get ball. Get treats and good dog. Good dog and good. Friend?

[davewritesthings-blog]

How the Creation of the Universe Could Fuck Up Our Economy

originally posted at PoliSub

  This month’s GQ Magazine (“The Magazine for Gentlemen Who Love Quarters”) features an interview with Marco Rubio, the junior senator from the great state of Florida. Are you familiar with Rubio? He’s considered to have the inside track for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, because he’s not white but still hates gay and poor people, and so I suppose they’re thinking “Eh, two out of three ain’t bad, I guess.”

During the interview, Rubio was asked how old he thinks the Earth is. And his response began with: 

  “I’m not a scientist, man.”

OK. Hold on, sparky, don’t freak out yet. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s not necessarily the beginning of an outrageously stupid answer, because he might follow it up with, “But some people actually ARE scientists, and they all say 4.5 billion years old, so I’ll defer to them because they know what they’re talking about and I’m a moron.”

Cross your fingers. Let’s see how he actually finished up: ”I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.” There’s so much crazily wrong with this I don’t even know where to start. 

Firstly, sure, fine: parents are welcome to teach their children whatever the hell they want, but it doesn’t make what they teach them CORRECT. You see the difference, Marco?  More importantly, acknowledging the age of the universe actually has an imperial fuck-ton to do with the GDP and our economic policies, because believing that evidence is important in evaluating solutions is a sign that our political philosophy is going to be based on reason and not on playing pretend. It’s a sign that when all (ALL!) of the available evidence says that cutting taxes on the wealthy does not lead to greater prosperity, we’ll go “Huh, guess THAT doesn’t work” and try something else, instead of saying “Guess it’s a debate amongst economists” and punting the ball while actual people suffer. It’s a sign that when faced with consumption that far outpaces the scarce resources available to us, we’ll search for new ways of being, rather than hoping everything’ll just shake out in the end. It’s a sign that when someone suggests that our economy can just keep on growing forever and ever amen, we’ll evaluate the likelihood of that being true (hint: none) and adjust accordingly. Sheesh.

Finally, nobody — really, nobody at all, anywhere — thinks the earth was created in “7 actual eras”. It was clearly created in 9 Semi-Actual Eons. Duh. Come on, Marco: TEACH THE DEBATE.

[davewritesthings-blog]

Unflying pie.

Nobody has ever said that I'm a pragmatic thinker. In fact, plenty of people have told me just the opposite: that I'm a "Utopianist", that I'm unrealistic, that "other people don't think like [me]." Somebody on the Internet once said to me "your pie is stuck so very, very firmly in the sky."

And they're right! I do not tend to think (purely) pragmatically; in fact, I often think that the notion of pragmatism is a crutch people use to avoid acting ethically. Whatever. People of good conscience can disagree about this, and it's a discussion for another time. Preferably over beer.

Because today: I'm actually going to tell you pragmatically why -- if you align closer to the Democratic party than the Republican party but still think the Democrats are insufficient -- I think it's a good idea for you to vote for Jill Stein for President.

If you live in California, Illinois, or New York.

Nate Silver gives those three states a 100% chance of going to Obama. Not 99%. 100%. Polls can be wrong, but Silver is not known for his inaccuracy (and even if he is off, he's not wrong by 51%). Barack Obama is GOING to win California, Illinois, and New York.

The Electoral College sucks. All of our votes don't count equally. That's a raw deal, but in this case it might be a little bit of a blessing in disguise for those of us disaffected (or, you know, enraged) by the Obama administration, and rightfully terrified of the prospect of a Romney administration; we are stripped of the need to do the moral calculus necessary to see if we should suck it up and vote for Obama (despite the corporatism and the drone wars and the NDAA &c. &c.) or vote our conscience and risk not doing everything possible to stop Romney (worse than Obama in all the areas in which they differ) from getting elected.

(I mean, recommend doing this moral calculus anyway. It's good homework!)

Go look at Jill Stein's platform. It's awesome, right? It's the kind of platform I (and so many of the people I know!) want to vote for. But it's one we don't often vote for because we choose instead to vote pragmatically.

In this election, if you're a resident of one of those three states, your pragmatic vote and your pie in the sky vote get to be the same. You can vote your conscience AND show support for a more inclusive vision of our nation. You can not do anything to increase the chances of a Romney victory AND show the Democrats that there are people out there wanting to move away from the broken Democratic platform.

The moral calculus in the other 47 states makes it harder. I get that. But really, if you live in California, Illinois, or New York the choice is clear. And pragmatic! Hooray!

Jill Stein. November 6th. Go to.

I will now go back to my vision of the world in which kindness and understanding rule the day. See you there.

[davewritesthings-blog]

The Eleventh

Slaney asked me if I would write something for her college students on the anniversary of September 11th. So... here it is. Please know it is aimed at people who were seven or eight years old in 2001. And this wouldn't be important if we weren't friends, but we are, so please note that I think this is the thing I've had the most difficulty writing maybe ever, so... you know. Anyway.

*****

Let’s say you’re babysitting your two little cousins. One of them hits the other one. So you say “Jaden! What are you doing?” and Jaden’s like “Bella took my toy!” and so you’re like “It doesn’t matter, you don’t hit people, ever. You’re on timeout!” and then Jaden’s like “Aw, phooey!” or whatever it is the kids are saying these days.

By asking Jaden what he was doing, are you excusing his action? By trying to get to the root cause of the hitting are you taking Jaden’s side? Are you a Jaden apologist? Why do you hate Bella? Are you saying that every boy has a right to hit his sister and maybe he was even justified in doing so?

*****

I can’t prove it, but I’ll argue that the number of Actual Evil People in the world is vanishingly small. Part of the reason this is (likely to be) the case is that there is (likely) no such thing as Actual Evil. Listen, I’m as close to agreeing with Platonic philosophy as I can be without literally sitting in a cave with my back to the fire, and even I don’t think there’s Actual Evil in the universe.

Osama Bin Laden was a mass-murdering fuckhead, and I’m personally glad that he isn’t alive anymore. But he wasn’t evil in the way that, like, Skeletor is evil. He wasn’t steepling his fingers and cackling just because. He didn’t wake up one Tuesday and go “Hey, you know what would be fun?”

He killed a lot of people. But it wasn’t Just Evil and it wasn’t for kicks; he did it for a reason, and figuring out what that reason is is not excusing what he did, because what he did has no excuse, because killing people who don’t want to be killed is Wrong (I warned you about the Platonism thing). And for more than a decade now, I have been told by people in power that trying to figure out the reasons why he attacked makes me a terrorist sympathizer. People who say this are moral fucking simpletons, and this is coming from a Platonist, so you know it’s pretty extreme.

Look: imagine if Saudi Arabia had military bases all over the USA. Or imagine if Saudi Arabia were here dictating how we dig up our oil. That would be weird, and that would be upsetting, and so I imagine it is just as weird and upsetting in reverse for people in Saudi Arabia. So bin Laden saw military incursion into his home country. He decided to attack the Pentagon.

And the USA, with aid and diplomacy and the bully pulpit that comes with the loudest microphones, supports Israel in pretty much everything they do. This may have upset bin Laden at least partially because Israel has done some pretty heinous shit to Muslims. Which is not to say that he wasn’t an anti-Semitic shithead, because he was, but it’s not like when he said that Israel has committed atrocities against Muslims that he was totally wrong (again, please please please remember: it’s not OK for Jaden to hit Bella, even if she really did take his toy. Plainly: please don’t run airplanes into buildings. Ever. For any reason. Thanks.), and the US government has remained supportive even in light of those atrocities. He decided to attack the Capitol, or the White House, and it didn’t work, because the people on that flight traded their lives for the lives of others. (In the history of the world, there has rarely been such a clear act of heroism; we should learn their names, we should build of them statues.)

And bin Laden thought that the USA’s trade policies have disenfranchised and put into de facto slavery a significant portion of the world’s population, which is not only not wrong but completely factually accurate. He decided to attack the World Trade Center.

He turned commercial airliners into missiles and sent them at the centers of our military, diplomatic, and economic might. He had a reason.

But no, he does not get my sympathy. I’m glad he’s dead. Fuck that guy.

*****

You put Jaden into timeout because it’s not OK to hit your sister. But it’s also not nice to take somebody else’s toy without asking, so you put Bella into timeout too. She’s going to think this is unfair; aren’t you blaming her for getting hit?

But you’re not. You just want her to be a better person, regardless of who hits her.

Right?

*****

I know how hard this can be to think about. Or to talk about. Or even to think about talking about. It’s all so complicated and fraught: a well of sadness and anger and I can never touch the bottom no matter how deep I dive.

It’s a Tuesday in September. There has never been a lovelier morning, clear and beautiful and perfect. Squint skyward and listen: you can hardly believe how lucky you are to be alive.

[davewritesthings-blog]

Dave Goes to College

originally posted at PoliSub

I was at the bar the other night sitting next to a college admissions officer. Because I am me I was like “OH WORD? What are the essay prompts?” One of them was something like “Tell us what you hope to experience in college” and because I am me I switched from the banana bread beer I was drinking to the one that tastes like cherries and said GIVE ME TEN MINUTES. We set a timer. And this is what I wrote.

  Day One, 5am

I awaken to the sound of my cock. His name is Benton and he eats only dried corn which I provide from a sack. I assume your dormitories allow livestock, or if not, I assume they will make an exception for Benton, for Benton is no ordinary cock.

  6am

Jumping Jacks.

  6:12am

I arrive at the dining hall 48 minutes before it opens. More Jumping Jacks.

  7am

Grapefruit

  8am

First class - Fine Art

I will learn to draw and paint and I will always be respectful of the professor who knows more than I do and I will find the prettiest girl in class and I will woo her.

  9:20am

Run from class. Massive grapefruit dump.

  9:30am

Second class - Theory of Theories

I have no earthly idea what we will learn in this class, but because it’s college I know it must not be bullshit.

  10:50am

Pushups and grunting.

  10:55am

Snack (Pringles).

  11am

Fellowship with roommates and other friends. Begin my campaign for Student Council. I plan to be Student Council Vice President. I do not plan to then murder the Student Council President. That would be weird.

  11:22am

Nap or kickball on the quad.

  12pm

Lunch at the dining hall. Insult the cleaning crew, then show them up by doing a better cleaning job than them. Stand on a table and announce plan to violently take over school. Photograph everyone who agrees with me, and take those photos to the Provost to show who must be eliminated. 

  12:20pm

Counseling.

  1pm

Disciplinary meeting. Promise to never do it again. Blame stress of new environment. Cry loudly.

  3pm

Dance class.

  4:20pm

German.

  4:30pm

Hate German.

  4:40pm

Leave German, swearing never to return.

  5pm

Dinner (milk).

  6pm 

Homework and crying.

  9pm 

Shower and more crying.

  10pm 

Bed.

  Next Day: Repeat. For four fucking years.

  He said he would have admitted me in a heartbeat. So take THAT Grad Schools.

[davewritesthings-blog]

What Happens When at 3am I Drunkenly Review Reality TV

originally posted at PoliSub.

I just watched the season premiere of Wipeout. Why? ‘Cause the ad was like “Here’s a show about people hurting themselves you should watch it!” and I was like “No, come on, it’s the 21st Century. We’ve mapped the human genome and invented the welfare state. Surely we’re beyond this. It’s not really just a show featuring video of people smashing their faces into things, right?”

  I WAS RIGHT. It’s not just that. That would be stupid; this is actively evil. It actually undoes some of the good done by art. Beethoven’s music is now just slightly less beautiful; Ernst’s colors have lost some of their shine. The world is a worse place because Wipeout exists. Aliens who are monitoring our television signals have been going like “Oh… they have nuclear bombs? I don’t know about these Earthlings… Let’s see what they do next before we decide” and in a couple of years they’re gonna get the Wipeout broadcast and then it’s “CODE RED CODE RED PLANETARY EXECUTION SQUAD TO FASTEST POSSIBLE SPACESHIPS DANGEROUS CREATURES MUST BE ELIMINATED TO ENSURE UNIVERSAL SURVIVAL!”

  I know it’s my job as a writer to explain to you why it’s so bad, but it’s literally beyond words. It’s something out of fucking Lovecraft. It feels like a viral ad for the voluntary human extinction movement. It’s aired by the Walt Disney Corporation, which spent your entire childhood telling you how magical and romantic life was going to be, and is now gamely attempting to obliterate your grown-up soul.

  Look, I’m not above watching reality television; I’ll watch the hell out of some Project Runway (SHINY PRETTY THINGS!). Or Amazing Race (FARAWAY PLACES!). Or Storage Wars (JUST KIDDING THIS IS A SHOW ABOUT OBNOXIOUS PEOPLE BUYING ROOMS FULL OF GARBAGE!). And I’m human, and so have sometimes laughed at people falling down. Whatever.

  But this is not normal reality TV, and this is not normal falling down. This takes every possible vapid, awful, terrible, unfunny, sexist, anti-thought, visciously-schadenfreudetastic, dehumanizing stereotype about our current lived reality and condenses it into a single hourlong black hole of suck. The event horizon has swallowed our world, and we have entered into crushing endless night. We’re all doomed. Good riddance.

  Americans, it’s available to watch here for the next thirty-odd days but DON’T, for REAL, just trust me on this. Non-Americans WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM?

[davewritesthings-blog]

GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER

originally posted at PoliSub. also, full disclosure, it's really dumb.

You know what we don’t talk about enough here at PoliSub? FOOD POLICY. 

You may think I’m going to talk about how Monsanto is like the Devil except worse and actually real, or how crazy it is that people are starving but we pay millions of dollars to people every year to not grow food, or how holy shit Taco Bell is selling a taco shell made out of Doritos [ed. note: for space we cut a 7,000 word parenthetical here in which the author tried to figure out the correct plural of Dorito] and how in related news I think the end-times are at last nigh.

  But NO. I’m here to talk about the shit that really matters: soybean oil.

  Listen: I’m almost 30. In my time I’ve bought a lot of soybean oil. And I am here to tell America — nay, THE WORLD — that I am not buying ANY more soybean oil until that shit is FULLY HYDROGENATED. Do you hear me, people who make food? I’m sick of you skimping on what should be the full hydrogenation of my soybean oil. The hydrogenationing process is what makes soybean oil into SOYBEAN OIL. But no. You don’t deliver. It’s always effing PARTIAL. 

  “Ho hum, here I am at work, where my only job is hydrogenatoring this soybean oil YAWN I’m tired 10:30am already guess I’ll just go home now and leave all this soybean oil unfully hydrogenganinated!” You know who that was an impression of? YOU. Yeah, I went there. 

  You think you can keep getting away with that? With giving me soybean oil that you were supposed to fully hydrogenate but only doing part of the job? Well you CAN’T. This is America and I will not stand for it. I mean, sit for it. Yeah, I’m sitting. It’s like I told you: THIS IS AMERICA. 

  Listen: The next time I get soybean oil, I want that shit literally dripping with hydrogen. I want to smell the hydrogen from the next county. When I dip my tongue in I don’t even want to taste the soybeans. I want a tongue bathed in of delicious, delicious liquid hydrogen.

  Now to questions sent in by our readers:

  Q) What has one electron and tastes good in soybean oil?

A) Hydrogen.

  Q) What has two electrons and tastes better in soybean oil?

A) TWICE AS MUCH HYDROGEN.

  Q) Help! This recipe said “season to taste” but I’m an idiot. What does that mean?

A) It means add more hydrogen to your soybean oil, or whatever you’re making that isn’t soybean oil, although you should just be having soybean oil.

  Q) Hold on… won’t drinking liquid hydrogen give you frostbite? A) Yeah, delicious frostbite.

  NO MORE QUESTIONS. You know what you have to do soybean oil hydrogenators. Get to it.

  Because as my good friend Edward Teller always used to say: Hydrogen? It’s the bomb.

[davewritesthings-blog]

Two Fun, Easy, Not-Angry-At-All Ideas for NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly

originally posted at PoliSub

Dear Ray Kelly, NYPD Commissioner,

Hi. You probably don’t know me. Let me tell you about myself: I’m 5’11”. I really enjoy frozen yogurt. I sometimes go outside in support of an inclusive economy and then your police officers threaten to arrest me for crimes as eeeeeeeevil as “dancing in the street” and “having a stack of books for people to borrow” and “noticing how fucked up everything is and actually caring about it.” Release the hounds, right? So far, I’ve managed to avoid getting clubbed, punched, sprayed with toxic chemicals, having my head shoved against anything, being handcuffed for no reason, being left on the street seizing without anybody untying me, beaten bloody, or any of that really awesome stuff you guys are getting to be sooooo good at. 

Honestly, I’m starting to take it a little personally. What do I have to do to get you to notice me? Should I carry two signs? Should I let you imagine a really arrestable slogan by carrying a sign that’s blank? Would that be fine?

Hey speaking of “blank” and “fine”, you know Lloyd Blankfein? (listen, I’m a professional writer; these are the kind of segues you gotta watch out for). He’s the guy who runs Goldman Sachs. And since you and I are both fully in support of arresting people, I was wondering: would you please go arrest that miserable asshole? You know that he illegally accepted naked short sales in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse, enriching himself and his company while the world economy was crumbling? You know that he underwrote bonds and then went and illegally encouraged other customers to bet against those bonds? You know that he helped Greece hide the true nature of its debt in order to keep making money from them, helping the European economy and therefore likely the world economy to the precipice of collapse? You know that he “failed to disclose to investors vital information about the CDO, known as ABACUS 2007-AC1, particularly the role that hedge fund Paulson & Co. Inc. played in the portfolio selection process and the fact that Paulson had taken a short position against the CDO?” OH MAN that sounds complicated. I bet it must have been really bad, right? But what are we supposed to do about it if we don’t even know what it MEANS?

So I have an idea. WAIT. TWO IDEAS.

Idea 1: I will convince Lloyd Blankfein to come down and dance in the street. We all know how illegal THAT is. I’ll see him on the sidewalk sometime (we run into each other a lot, because we eat at the same restaurants (Taco Bell)) and be like HEY LLOYD. I FORGET WHAT THE MACARENA LOOKS LIKE. HELP A BUDDY OUT? And then BOOM you can send in the commandos with their machine guns and their Star Wars helmets to lock him up. And then when people are like “You can’t arrest him! He’s a rich white man!” you can be like “HE WAS DANCING IN THE STREET. WHAT ABOUT THIS DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?” and then you can arrest all of THOSE people too for having the temerity to question you!

Idea 2: We set up a ratio. A good, solid arrest ratio. You get to keep arresting people for “sitting in a park that is required by law to stay open 24 hours a day” or “feeding the hungry” or “thinking of power structures that wouldn’t have your punk-ass in charge of them”, but for every thousand of us you arrest you HAVE to go arrest ONE bank CEO. Just one. I mean, you know how Goldman Sachs’s creation of the Goldman Commodity Index helped literally starve millions of people? How much worse than publicly doing the Cabbage Patch is the widespread starvation of millions? You tell me, Ray! I just want to believe that we’re working toward something here. Like frequent flier miles! Eventually, we’re going to earn something right?

I’ve already chosen my reward. Keep arresting us. But just tell me how many more arrests it’s going to take before you start to actually do your goddamn job.

BTW I LOVE what you’ve done with the city. I feel so SAFE these days. Fuck you,

Dave

[davewritesthings-blog]

Objection to a Wedding

This was originally performed at an actual wedding, but I just want to clarify that I was asked to do so. Karina and Taylor are wonderful and brave and I am honored to have been given this opportunity, and I promise not to do this at your wedding unless you also ask me to.

I posit the following: declaring your undying love for another person by offering to take part in a Bronze Age economic exchange is pretty weird. Right? I mean, that’s cool. Weird is good.

Of course, marriage is no longer explicitly a financial arrangement. Nor is it a business agreement intended to solidify family alliances or obtain lands. It is not a sworn contract meant to assure paternity. It is now, ideally, an act between two people who share romantic love. And in a vacuum, that’d be totally fine.

But despite how much the real world sucks, we do not live in a vacuum. Context, in a grand irony, always matters. It is impossible to separate this marriage we are here to celebrate today from the institution. They are, unfortunately, lawfully wedded. I celebrate Taylor. I celebrate Karina. I celebrate [Taylor&Karina]. But this wedding also has a third party involved, and it ain’t the Holy Spirit. It is the State. After today, Karina and Taylor will be a legally recognized union, and with that recognition the State will provide a package of benefits and rights which should be inalienable, and offered to all people regardless of relationship status. These rights include but are not limited to joint holding of property as tenants, lower tax rates, access to joint healthcare, and, according to the Government Accountability Office, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of federal benefits, rights, and privileges. You may think it’s a big deal to update your relationship status on Facebook. When you update it with the State, you suddenly have more rights. You are more of a person now. This should not be. Applying to the State to endorse a relationship is ceding to the State the power to define, condone, and judge the validity of relationships. This is a power they do not have, and it is one I am distinctly unwilling to allow them. I have many friends who were kind of with me. Who said they would never get married in a state that didn’t allow it for all couples. Now in 43 out of 50 states, as we know, these are rights provided only to pairs of people claiming to be on opposite sides of a gender binary. In 7 of the 50, including ours, they are accorded more broadly: now it’s pairs of people of any (well, they would say “either”) gender. Oh, not the federal benefits of course. Those are only available to normal -- sorry “heterosexual” -- pairs. Gay marriage does not fix this. In fact as Michael Warner writes, “the unmodulated demand for same sex marriage fails to challenge the bundling of privileges that have no necessary connection to one another or to marriage. Indeed, if successful, the demand for same sex marriage would leave that bundling further entrenched in law. Squeezing gay couples into the legal sorting machine would only confirm the relevance of spousal status and would leave unmarried queers [which here can be taken to mean “everyone else”] looking more deviant before a legal system that could claim broader legitimacy.” And it’s not just the law. Marriage should not be a goal; it should be a choice. One choice available out of many recognized as valid by society. But it isn’t. Not yet. Right now, as far as society is concerned, you are married or you are not yet married. And as that notion becomes further codified our freedom to make other choices steadily erodes. Of course there is no problem with this particular marriage we are here tonight to celebrate. In isolation, it’s not even an issue. But, as David Mitchell asks, “what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?” I believe that this is not a neutral event; that it is a small notch backward from a just society available and open to everyone. And if we here in this room condone and celebrate this, what hope is there for a society open, with full rights and full social recognition, to single people, unmarried couples, or trios, or groups, or communes, or any other choice that we should in a free society have available to us? We gay, straight, bi- pan- and omni-sexual; monogamous and polyamorous and asexual; we Maddow watchers, Nader voters, and Warren supporters; we wacky East Coast artistic liberal elite so hell-bent on waging a culture war to destroy traditional values: if we gather together to celebrate the power of the State and of society to dictate and regulate acceptable personal relationships, what hope do we have? I am so, so happy, Karina and Taylor, that you have found love with each other. I hope that your love is true, strong, and abiding. That you build together the sort of intimacy that is only cultivated with care over long years. That you improve each other’s lives every single day. Karina and Taylor, I hope will all of my heart that you are together forever. And I hope with all of my heart that you get divorced tomorrow. Thank you.

[davewritesthings-blog]

A Very Private Letter to Rush Limbaugh

(originally posted at PoliSub)

OH HAI RUSH

Sorry about all this kerfuffle. I realize you must be pretty confused about what happened, so I wanted to offer some friendly advice to help you avoid things like this in the future. Here we go:

Hey shit-for-brains! The fact that no women will have sex with you isn’t evidence of sex being immoral, it’s evidence of you being a tremendously shitty human being. Sex can be super fun, but nothing can be fun when it’s done with you, because you’re a contemptible misogynistic gasbag with no respect for anyone who isn’t a rich white conservative man! 

  I know you’re in your 60s now, and that it can be hard to teach an old dog new tricks (speaking of dogs, remember when you called 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton the White House Dog? That’s the sort of thing you’re going to want to try to avoid going forward if you’d like to ever have sex ever ever) but I recommend getting laid at least once so that you can at least know whereof you speak. Like when you undertook that project to become a drug addict so that when you talk about putting all drug users (even the white ones!) in prison you’d at least have some personal experience. 

  It’s not going to be easy to do this, Rush. You’re going to have to overcome the jealousy you feel for other people who get to experience sex when you don’t. It’s going to take some real effort on your part to get past these feelings and to start unthinking some of your myriad cretinous thoughts. 

  Here are some facts for you to repeat to yourself as you go throughout your day (read them once and then just say DITTO!) to help get your mind in the right place:

  -Women are human beings!

-Human beings have evolved to be repelled by pieces of shit!

-You are a piece of shit!

-Sex is not just for procreation!

-You really suck at being a person!

-Try to stop being such an unfathomably hateful asshole!

  Repeat these simple truths to yourself every time you feel like opening your reeking cesspool of a mouth and someday soon you might begin to get a sense of why everyone’s so pissed at you. Which could — if you work hard — mean that someday you get to experience the physical act of love. 

  In the meantime, a final bit of advice: go fuck yourself. 

  Because sure as shit nobody else is going to.

[davewritesthings-blog]

Two Ideas for NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly

(originally posted at PoliSub)

Dear Ray Kelly, NYPD Commissioner,

Hi. You probably don't know me. Let me tell you about myself: I'm 5'11''. I really enjoy frozen yogurt. I sometimes go outside in support of an inclusive economy and then your police officers surround me, menace me, and threaten to place me under arrest for crimes as eeeeeeeevil as "dancing in the street" and "having a stack of books for people to borrow" and "noticing how fucked up everything is and actually caring about it." Release the hounds, right? Haha! So far, I've managed to avoid getting clubbed, or punched, or sprayed with toxic chemicals, or having my head shoved against anything, or being handcuffed for no reason, or being left on the street seizing without anybody untying me, or beaten bloody, or any of that really awesome stuff you guys are getting to be sooooo good at. 

Honestly, I'm starting to take it a little personally. What do I have to do to get you to notice me? Should I carry two signs? Should I let you imagine a really arrestable slogan by carrying a sign that's blank? Would that be fine?

Hey speaking of "blank" and "fine", you know Lloyd Blankfein? (listen, I'm a professional writer; these are the kind of segues you gotta watch out for). He's the guy who runs Goldman Sachs. And since you and I are both fully in support of arresting people for crimes, I was wondering: would you please go arrest that miserable fucking asshole? You know that he illegally accepted naked short sales in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse, enriching himself and his company while the world economy was crumbling? You know that he underwrote bonds and then went and illegally encouraged other customers to bet against those bonds? You know that he helped Greece hide the true nature of its debt in order to keep making money from them, helping the European economy and therefore likely the world economy to the precipice of collapse? You know that he "failed to disclose to investors vital information about the CDO, known as ABACUS 2007-AC1, particularly the role that hedge fund Paulson & Co. Inc. played in the portfolio selection process and the fact that Paulson had taken a short position against the CDO?" OH MAN that sounds complicated. I bet it must have been really bad, right? But what are we supposed to do about it if we don't even know what it MEANS?

So I have an idea. WAIT. TWO IDEAS.

Idea 1: I will convince Lloyd Blankfein to come down and dance in the street. We all know how illegal THAT is. I'll see him on the sidewalk sometime (we run into each other a lot, because we eat at the same restaurants (Taco Bell)) and be like HEY LLOYD. I FORGET WHAT THE MACARENA LOOKS LIKE. HELP A BUDDY OUT? And then BOOM you can send in the commandos with their machine guns and their silly Star Wars helmets to lock him up. And then when people are like "You can't arrest him! He's a rich white man!" you can be like "HE WAS DANCING IN THE STREET. WHAT ABOUT THIS DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?" and then you can arrest all of THOSE people too for having the temerity to question you!

Idea 2: We set up a ratio. A good, solid arrest ratio. You get to keep arresting people for "sitting in a park that is required by law to stay open 24 hours a day" or "feeding the hungry" or "thinking of power structures that wouldn't have your punk-ass in charge of them", but for every thousand of us you arrest you HAVE to go arrest ONE bank CEO. Just one. I mean, you know how Goldman Sachs's creation of the Goldman Commodity Index helped literally starve millions of people? How much worse than publicly doing the Cabbage Patch is the widespread starvation of millions? You tell me, Ray! I just want to believe that we're working toward something here. Like frequent flier miles! Eventually, we're going to earn something right?

I've already chosen my reward. Keep arresting us. But just tell me how many more arrests it's going to take before you start to actually do your fucking job.

BTW I LOVE what you've done with the city. I feel so SAFE these days.

Fuck you,

Dave

[davewritesthings-blog]

The New 1st Amendment

originally posted at Political Subversities

Did you guys see the big news this week? No professional basketball! What a shame. Anything else happen? 

Whatever. On an UNRELATED TOPIC, I just got hired to be Michael Bloomberg's spokesman! Woo! And as my first official action, I'm just gonna lay it out: I think it's time to admit that the 1st Amendment has run its course. It's way, WAY too Freedomy. It was a good idea for a while (1789-1801), but ever since (1802-TOMORROW) it's just been a drag. Right? You end up with all these people trying to claim they have "rights" and everything just because it's written in "The Constitution". You know what else is in The Constitution? Your mom. GET A JOB HIPPY. 

It's 2011. It's time for a new 1st Amendment. And as many, many people have called me "The Modern Jefferson" (and it ain't 'cause of my fly wig), I'm gonna go ahead and take a stab at this.

Ahem. Congress shall make no law respecting: 

an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, even if, say, the religion is predatory and creepily litigious, or even if its leaders apparently just can't help themselves when it comes to molesting boys and then lying about it, no matter how obviously demented its teachings or how flagrantly they break the law by engaging in very clear political action, they shall still be afforded tax-free status and eternal respect from everyone forever (notice: nothing in this amendment applies to anyone wishing to build a Mosque within a mile and a half of a spot where somebody might not want one);

or abridging the freedom of "speech", which in this case means "money" but definitely not "tents", and you may not get around this by building tents out of money, and when we say that "money" equals "speech" we mean "money given directly to one of the two acceptable political parties" and definitely not "money given to Wikileaks or anybody else annoying", and don't be too loud about your speech, and make sure that you're not disturbing anyone at all ever, and maybe actually it's just better if way say this whole thing only applies between like 10am and 4pm in certain cordoned-off areas which we can decide on completely arbitrarily; 

or of the press, unless they might show someone in power doing something bad in which case we'll go ahead and block them from seeing it or go ahead and arrest them if they somehow get past us, or fuck it, just beat them up with clubs, although no worries because there will be only like seven journalists who will care, the rest will just copy and paste whatever we send them in a press release and call it responsible centrism; 

or the right of the people peaceably to assemble as long as it's daylight and they don't lie down or sleep or have a library or "really mean it" or refuse to state "demands", and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, which, just to make it clear, we are totally and completely going to ignore unless you've got a really big pile of "speech" you might want to share.

There. Much better. We can all agree on that.

And if you disagree, you are cordially invited to line up quietly in the middle of the fast lane on the West Side Highway and shut right the fuck up. Nobody cares.

[davewritesthings-blog]

Rick Perry For... Something or Other

Originally posted at Political Subversities

Last Wednesday, occasional GOP frontrunner and completely non-racist hunting range owner Rick Perry exploded the Internet and his chances at the Presidency by forgetting what he was going to say. "The third agency of government I would do away with,” he said during a debate, after being asked a question that had nothing at all to do with which government agencies he would do away with, “The Education, the Commerce. And let's see. I can't. The third one, I can't. Oops."

“LOL,” cried the world as one, “What a n00b! No President can ever say “Oops” ‘cause then something something overwhelming terrorist victory.” (I’m paraphrasing.) The point is that, like Howard Dean’s candidacy being undone because he went “Ah!” that one time, Perry’s is now undone because he forgot what he was going to say and then used a word intended to show that he realized he had forgotten what he was going to say.

Rad. Good. He SHOULD be sunk. Not because he said “Oops”. But because remember what he said just before he said “Oops”? I do! I’ll give you a hint: he said he wanted to eliminate the Departments of Education and Commerce.

Now, it's pretty clear that Perry has never been the beneficiary of at least one of these services (spoiler alert: Education), but that's no reason to unilaterally wipe it off the slate, right? Especially now. Because here’s what those Departments are in charge of:

Commerce: Creating sustainable infrastructure, and promoting job creation and economic growth, all of which, according to the latest Census data, are “fucked North, center, and sideways into an egregiously cocked hat.”

Education: EDUCATING CHILDREN OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH RICK PERRY?

Srsly, what was the third one? Justice, because why bother? Housing and Urban Development, because if you don’t have a roof you’re probably a poor and therefore expendable? Health and Human Services, because just don’t get sick, idiot?

Rick Perry very, very, very, very (word count considerations stop me from going on) obviously shouldn’t be President. Not because he forgot what he was going to say. But because… um… uh… let’s see… I can’t think of the reason. Oops.

Haha, just kidding, it’s because he’s a moron.

[davewritesthings-blog]

A Nearly Line-By-Line Response to an Email About OWS Received From A Distant Family Member

Sigh.

The OWS group did trash Zuccotti Park. 

False. Sanitation teams were working around the clock to make sure that it wasn't trashed. I know this from personal experience, because I have personally helped sweep the park. There were teams constantly emptying the garbage bins, collecting recycling, sweeping, cleaning. I've seen some people actually scraping gum off of the tops of trash cans. It may have looked a mess from afar because of the tents, but it wasn't the way it's being portrayed; we had our own gray-water filtering system, our own refuse and recycling centers, dozens and dozens of brooms and mops and cleaning supplies. Plus, pretending that the city cared at all about sanitation when they wouldn't let us have porta-potties is a bit rich. 

They made a real mess of the normally clean park 

Just to reiterate, No, this is not true. 

and disrupted numerous businesses around the park 

Well, yes, that is sort of the point. Business as usual as it happens down there has to stop, and I'm happy to help disrupt it. If this is the canard about us adversely affecting small business, I say nonsense. Ask Liberatos Pizza how they feel about the Occupation. Ask the food-cart vendors. We might not have been shopping at the Men's Warehouse across the street, but whatever, we sure did increase the tourism by an order of magnitude. Major chains (McDonalds, Starbucks) are probably annoyed that so many people were using their bathrooms, but, again, there was a really easy way to fix this. 

They have a right to protest 

Yes., 

but their efforts have been mostly misguided 

This is incorrect, but even if it were correct, so what? The First Amendment doesn't say "The Right to peaceably assemble so long as absolutely everything you say isn't misguided." 

If I'm upset at gasoline prices, it doesn't do any good to throw rocks at a food store, and that's what they are mostly doing with their misguided retaliation 

Firstly, equating what we're doing with violence is already problematic because with thousands and thousands of people involved there has been almost no violence. Compare that to the police reaction, by the way. Secondly, I'm not even sure what the "non-misguided" version of this retaliation is, short of the canard that we should have had a march one Saturday to blow off steam and then voted in the next election. That is voluntarily giving up my responsibility as a citizen.

Blocking traffic on bridges only hurts commuters who are trying to hold onto their job... not the politicians and bureaucrats that caused their problem. 

I had friends in that march. It appeared to everyone (except for maybe - MAYBE - the first few rows) that the police led them onto the bridge. You know what stopped traffic a lot longer than letting everyone cross? Making everyone sit down and then arresting all 700 of them one-by-one. Plus, that was a one-time thing. The Occupation has been going on for two months and it disrupted traffic for a few hours because of shitty police work? That's what you've got to cling to? Or if you're talking about the thing on Thursday night, that was *a few minutes* and *previously arranged with police*. "They were blocking traffic" is not an apt summary of #OWS nor anywhere near a good reason for it to have been raided.

Some of the protesters are upset that they can't find a job and earn a decent living... and I can understand their frustration. 

OK...

Some have college degrees and can't get a better job than being a clerk at a retail store... a job that requires minimal education. It might be that a lot of those degrees are "Liberal Arts" degrees, that qualifies the holder to say "ya want fries with that?". 

Ahahaha what losers those liberal arts degrees holders are. If only they had gone into finance, they could be screwing over the rest of the population too!

Most jobs now require technical and computer skills, a skill that is something more relevant than how to play some "shoot-em-up" simulated war game. 

I'm not entirely sure what the point is here, but if it's that everybody down there has spent their whole lives playing video games it's so epically false I don't even know where to begin. For instance, I'm pushing 30 and have a full-time job. I've met people down there that are college students, recent graduates, parents, full-time workers, veterans, retirees, grandparents. If we're being shown as being a bunch of pot-smoking college kids, it is a lie. Seriously. Just a lie. Also, we HAVE the computer skills! Have you seen how good we are at technical and computer skills? Check out nycga.net, and all the videos produced, and all the websites built, and all the Internet organizing. We did that from A PARK. Without a roof or electrical connection. Savvy? This is not about "us" being able to get "a job" this is about an economic system so stacked against regular people that, especially in light of Citizens United, we don't even live in a functioning republic anymore.

Some of the protesters don't really know what they want, other than a cradle to grave socialist government that takes care of them... they need to grow up. 

Nonsense. Just absolutely false. As false as if I said that all Tea Partiers want a rifle, a Bible, and a fifteen-foot fence around their property and that's it. I don't want a socialist government. I want a government in service of people and not in service of corporations, and I don't have that right now. I am a grown up. So are the people who are sacrificing their time, energy, and oftentimes well-being to try to make the world better for other people. 

I do agree with you that the police and city mayors have been heavy handed in their clearing of some areas,

That's putting it a little bit lightly, yeah?

but I can also understand their frustration too. 

"Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble, unless it frustrates the billionaire mayor."

When something stretches on for two months, they've made whatever point they intended to make... 

Apparently not, because you still think we're asking for socialism, so let's give it another couple weeks, eh?

and it's time to move on. 

No. Not gonna happen.

When I heard about the library being tossed into the trash trucks, that made me sad and angry too...

It should. It proves you're human.

I'm surrounded by books and do a lot of reading. I respect books and the enjoyment that they bring, there had to be a better way to handle the library, 

Again, this is really tip-toeing around the issue, yeah? They threw 5,000 books into a dumpster. Because they're worried about the damage we're doing to property. Um?

and I wish they had taken the time to do it. There are a lot of problems with the economy, 

Yes

and frustrations at an ineffective government 

Yes

that doesn't seem to know what to do to fix the problems.

Oh, they know what to do. They have no interest in doing it. They're different things.

The government has misguided programs and policies that throw money at problems instead of finding out what caused the problem, who caused the problem, and how best to fix the problem so it never happens again. 

Because they've been bought and paid for by corporate interests.

Bank, insurance company, and investment company bailouts didn't solve any problems, they just moved the problem to the American public by increasing the federal debt. 

Right. This is really, really terrible and it's only gotten worse. Our corporatist government learned no lessons from this whatsoever because they're all still fine, and the money's still flowing in from Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon. We don't have money to match them. We won't ever. The only thing we have is our physical presence, our brains, and our resilience.

Failure of the companies that were involved would have been far better in the long run. Fixing somebody's problem and saying "don't do it again" isn't going to solve anything... it'll just be worse next time, and there will be a "next time".

Hmm, I wonder if there's some way we can register our rage about the state of things? 

If you have time, read this article from the Wall Street Journal.

FTA: "At the entrance, police arrested 99 people—including a city council member—who blocked the roadway in an act of civil disobedience that had been arranged with the NYPD." How does this equate with us being unwashed, unhygienic know-nothings? 

[davewritesthings-blog]

An Invitation to Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit

Vikram, my man! How are you holding up?

Not too well, I imagine. I saw how over the past five weeks something like a million customers left their banks to join Credit Unions because of twaddle like "you guys being human leeches" or whatever. BULL (like that statue on Wall Street!). Please note I will NEVER abandon you, Vikram. Not even if you knowingly defraud your customers.

Oh hey, on an unrelated note, I saw how your company had to pay a $285,000,000 settlement because you knowingly defrauded your customers, and how the SEC made you "promise" not to do it again. CHUMPS. Remember how you made the same "promise" not to defraud your customers in July of 2010, and in May of 2006, and in March of 2005, and in April of 2000? I guess they don't! Haha, suckers.

I'm so glad this law exists where if you massively profit off of breaking the law nothing happens to you as long as you give back a tiny portion of the money and promise not to do it again. Last month, I was caught breaking into a department store (I won't tell you which one but it rhymes with "J.C Lenney's") because they had this maroon sweater-vest I wanted ($37.99! A "Steal"! Haha!). The police later caught me and I was like "I SWEAR I won't do it again" and they were like "OK, fine, give us $12 and we'll call it lesson learned, right?"

Vikram, I'm wearing that sweater right now and it is LUSCIOUS.

Anyway, this isn't about me, this is about YOU. Are you so depressed right now? Because of how you found out that all of your customers hate you for no good reason other than that stuff about you repeatedly making millions of dollars for yourself by stealing from poor people and then getting away with it? I imagine you must be pretty miserable. Just so you know that someone out there still loves you, I wanted to invite you over to my place for Thanksgiving. It's a fifth-floor walkup (that's where there isn't any elevator. positively DICKENSIAN) but it's cozy, and I think we'd have a great... oh, wait a second, you live at The Beresford? Just kidding, I'll come over to your place.

I'm going to bring a couple of my friends, if that's OK. I'm just going to invite the US soldiers on whose homes you illegally foreclosed. Oh, and the thousands of people whose foreclosure forms were robo-signed without due diligence. And, actually, as long as I'm at it, everybody in the US who (unlike Citigroup) actually pays Federal taxes since we were all swindled in this boondoggle.

We'll come in shifts if you think we won't all fit at once. No need to go overboard, either. If you buy food in bulk you should be able to feed us all for, I don't know, let's say $1 apiece. It'll cost just a little bit more than your most recent fraud settlement!

But we'll only come over this once, Vikram. We PROMISE not to make it an annual thing.

Stay strong. Stay crafty. See you next Thursday!

Gentle cheek caresses,

Dave