Friday, December 5, 2008
Film When Paris Hilton Is the Best Thing in Your Movie...
Posted by Lindy West on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:43 PM
...you're basically fucked.
There's one last thing opening today: Darren Lynn Bousman's Repo! The Genetic Opera, a gory musical about a futuristic organ snatcher. 
Thinking of checking it out? Read Jesse Vernon's excellent, thoughtful review. And then, if you have any sense, stay home:
I want to dissect this movie, deftly remove its pulsing, “singing” heart and churn it through my feminist meat-grinder. At first I chalked up my feelings of numbness and shock after leaving the theater to feeling out of place surrounded by tight-black-leather-clad teen goths, who burst into song as they awaited the film. The white-mask wearers (an image from the film, a dull hybrid of Joker and V) scattered throughout the audience upped the creep level even more. Huddled on the beach at Alki afterward, I gazed through the mist at the sparkling city and digested this “rock opera.”As a recent convert to the Buffyverse and an admirer of that show’s musical episode, I had high expectations for Anthony Head (Buffy’s Giles) as the Repo Man. And Paris Hilton’s dominatrix persona on My New BFF and her fake presidential candidacy have lately warranted the heiress a second chance at dimensionality—here she plays Amber Sweet, “addicted to the knife” and vying for daddy’s fortune.
It's 2056, the rich/poor divide is cavernous, and everyone is addicted to body-modifying surgery and its complementary painkiller, Zydrate. The introductory montage teeters between homage and cheap meme—black-and-white comic strips illustrate the back-story and introduce the characters, punctuated by streaks of red. The residents of this dreary yet technologically advanced future purchase their abundantly accessible organs on loan. Which means that when they default on their payments, guess what? The Repo Man collects. Literally. It's a decent premise with potential for enticingly gory imagery—campy costumes and acting veiling an ironic critique of a beauty/violence obsessed culture.
But any expectations of Joss Whedon-style powerful and sexy women were promptly shattered. My horror was not at the mutilation-as-beautification theme, the plentitude of disembowelment scenes, nor the human hand-puppet (not the HUMP! kind, the hand-shoved-in-slashed-stomach kind). I can do gore. It was the utterly disappointing, yet familiar, female characters, who were introduced and then promptly relegated to the margins. There’s 17-year-old Shilo, locked in her room, sickly, and easily manipulated; Blind Mag, a tool of the powers that be who dies impaled on an iron fence; and Amber Sweet, a whiny addict who wants daddy’s fortune. Oh, and Dead Marni, who’s, um, dead. The nameless T&A, whose bodies are literally props to be violated, with rape jokes or knives, are dubbed the Scalpel Sluts.
My one respite: Paris Hilton, who, holding the mic with one hand and her malfunctioning wardrobe (read: peeling-off face) with the other, was utterly delightful.
That's hot.
Film This Weekend at the Movies*
Posted by Lindy West on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:19 PM
*The "Goddamnit, It's After 7 pm, So Why Am I Not Drunk or Asleep Yet" Edition!!!
First of all, I would just like to say thanks to everyone who came and bounced upon my knee last night at the Northwest Film Forum Holiday Party, where I played the role of Drunk Lady Santa. You were all very enthusiastic, and only a handful of you were gropey. My lap is thoroughly bruised and chafed now. Happy holidays!
Opening this week:
We've got a couple of great web-only reviews that I want to draw your attention to. First, Charles Mudede unravels the mystery of Beyoncé in Cadillac Records:
Forget Beyoncé. She can only sing. Even when she is acting, she is singing. In Cadillac Records, she appears late in the film as Etta James. But nothing like Etta James comes out of her performance. All we see is Beyoncé singing something about having a mean white father, a mother who was a prostitute, and a heart that's been broken by so many men. When Adrien Brody, who plays Leonard Chess, the founder of Chess Records, the label that helped launch the rock-and-roll moment in pop music—when Brody holds Beyoncé in his arms, he is not holding a person but a piece of music. The thing that does not know how to stop singing—this is Beyoncé. A being that talks like a tune, walks like tune, looks like tune—this is Beyoncé. Pop is her blood.
And Paul Constant does not hold back his many, many feelings about Punisher: War Zone:
Besides Ray Stevenson's herculean efforts to bring credulity to a character who's thinner than the pulpy paper he's printed on, all the other actors—especially Doug Hutchison as a maniac who does eeee-vil things like shoot a little girl's dolls for the fun of it (because he's eeee-vil!)—fall prey to the awful script. At times, the dialogue is so bad it's funny ("Don't die on me!" the Punisher barks at a guy with an axe in his chest, and when the guy coughs up some blood to protest, Punisher snaps at him, "Shut up, kid, you're gonna be fine!"), but more often it's just pathetic (Hutchison tries to make "Yummy yummy yummy in my tummy tummy tummy" sound menacing. He fails.)
Then, in the print edition, there's Charles on Nobel Son ("Science has turned into a madman, cultural studies has become a cannibal, and poetry finds its end in a madwoman who paints in a dark room with other mad people"); Eli Sanders, quite briefly, on Stranded: I've Come from a Plane that Crashed in the Mountains ("It's hard to believe they survived, but it's even harder to believe how powerfully articulate they are about their ordeal and how much they have to teach us about what it means to be alive—and human"); and Brendan Kiley on Great Speeches from a Dying World ("It strips away the crust of history and sterility from the words, making them unsettling—and dangerous—all over again").
David Schmader did a nice Q&A with one of the creators of the Found Footage Festival, which is over now, but still worth a read:
There's this video that's made the rounds among touring bands, a fan video sent to guitarist Steve Vai, that's become kind of legendary. It's this woman who says that to impress Steve, who makes all sorts of funny sounds with his guitar, she's going to make all sorts of funny sounds with her vagina. And she's sort of staring into the camera vacantly while she does this, and she's clearly got a few screws loose, and it's just more weird and creepy and disturbing than funny. To us, it has to be funny. The whole point of our show is comedy.
And in Concessions, I ate fondue and fell in love with an extremely fancy recliner:
I know your secrets, rich people, because I was one of you yesterday for a few short, sweet hours in the cool, slate-tiled confines of Gold Class Cinemas at Redmond Town Center. GCC (I call it GCC because we are that kind of casual bros now) is a luxury movie theater for luxury people who want to enjoy Hollywood movies without the mess of dung-encrusted riff-raff—their clouds of flies and squiggly stink lines obscuring the screen; their pet chickens and barnyard mannerisms; their banjos and shotgun weddings; their overalls and lassos; their empty, sad, and doubtless chicken-fried wallets. GCC costs $35 a ticket. Suck it, poors!
In Limited Runs, um, I have a headache (the aftereffects of too much nog). So instead of me typing them out, you can look them up in our complete listings here. I am sorry. It is time for this Lady Santa to recline.
HO HO HO!
Teh Internets I'm Glad There Was No YouTube When I Was in High School
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:52 PM
I'd've probably done something like this:
Drugs The Last Few Weeks on Drugs
Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:29 PM
What Dolt Hatched This Egg? The U.S. is funding an initiative to replace Afghanistan’s opium plantations—where most of the world's lucrative opium crops are grown—with pomegranate orchards. This pomegranate fad is surely on the wane. I think we’ve all maxed out on pomegranate juice, pomegranate mimosas, pomegranate martinis, pomegranate soda… they must be going the way of wheat bran smoothies. The popularity of opium, on the other hand, appears to have some staying power.
People Still Suck: Teenager kills himself by overdosing on a web cam while douche-bag viewers goad him on.
If We Only Could Remember to Smoke It Every Day: Scientists find that marijuana helps keep memory sharp by reducing brain inflammation and stimulating new cell growth.
We Should Win an Award for Fucking Up Another Country This Bad: If you recall Plan Colombia, you may remember that we sent billions in “aid” to stop the production of cocaine by eradicating coca plants. Instead—determined to sell their product to the most demanding cocaine market in the world (that would be us)—farmers grew more coca in the mountains, cartels grew more powerful in the cities, and the cocaine supply swelled in America. Nice work, U.S. So we switched strategies to Plan Mexico, which attempts to stop cartels from delivering the cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. by intercepting their shipments and dismantling the cartels. But now Mexico is a bathtub of piranhas. The death toll so far this year: 4,300, double that of last year. The amount of money their drug czar allegedly accepted in cartel bribes: $450,000. The place where cartels are sending their assassins: hospital rooms.
Dear People Who Set Drug Policies: Farmers will farm, smugglers will smuggle, and dealers will deal drugs—and kill anyone they have to—to deliver their commodity to the most lucrative drug market in the world. That's how capitalism works.
This Is What Hypocrisy Looks Like: The same month that the California prison guards' union spent millions of dollars to defeat an initiative that would have replaced prison terms with treatment for drug offenders, the union led a lawsuit against the state to reduce prison crowding. The union says current conditions create "a dehumanizing effect on correctional staff."
Inmates with open, bleeding wounds routinely use communal showers and suicidal prisoners are sometimes kept for hours inside small cages, witnesses testified in a lawsuit over state prison crowding.California's 33 adult prisons are designed to hold about 100,000 inmates, but currently have more than 156,000.
About 35,000 inmates—or roughly 20 percent of the state’s prison population—are serving time for drug offenses. Judges haven’t yet made up their minds.
Homo I'm Dan Savage and I Approve This Message
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:23 PM
Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality—Peter LaBarbera's outfit—is attempting to generate controversy by outing me as non-monogamous. Under the headline "PERVERTED PARENTING," LaBarbera has posted a long excerpt from a piece I wrote for Salon way, way back in 2004, most of which ended up in my book The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage and My Family. So it's not like I was trying keep this non-monogamy stuff a secret or anything.
I've long suspected that LaBarbera is a highly placed operative of the International Homosexual Conspiracy. He regularly attends BDSM and fetish events, like the Folsom Street Fair and IML, to take pictures of gay men in leather and fetish gear. LaBarbera's pictures are passed around suburban mega-churches as proof that gay people are unfit to marry or be parents because, um, gee, you see, like, no straight people have kinky sex or wear fetish gear. Or something. 
I've always wondered how many deeply closeted gay men have seen LaBarbera's pictures and said to themselves, "You know what? To hell with this mega-church—I'm coming out and moving to San Francisco and buying myself a pair of chaps and going to this Folsom Street Fair! It looks awesome!"
And I've always wondered if that wasn't LaBarbera's secret gay agenda with all those Folsom and IML photos.
Anyway, reading his post about my perverted sex life—it's really not my parenting that's perverted, Peter—left me more convinced that LaBarbera is a highly-placed operative of the International Homosexual Conspiracy. If his intentions were to make me look bad, if he wanted to convince his readers that I was a deranged sexual libertine and a threat to my child, LaBarbera could've just written that I was openly non-monogamous and left it at that. His readers would picture slings in the dining room, late-night orgies after the kid went to bed, crazy fetish nights at the Savage's. But LaBarbera quotes the piece at great length and includes sections like this:
But of course straight couples don’t have to be monogamous to be married or married to be monogamous. Monogamy isn’t compulsory and its absence doesn’t invalidate a marriage. There are hundreds of thousands of heterosexual married couples involved in the organized swinging movement and God only knows how many disorganized swingers there are out there. Married straight couples are presumed to be monogamous until proven otherwise, and that assumption serves as a powerful inducement to be (or appear to be) monogamous. Even most swinging couples prefer to be seen as monogamous by friends, family and associates. But as with children, monogamy is optional. It’s up to each individual couple to decide for themselves if monogamy is central to their commitment.
And this:
All sorts of nightmare scenarios play out in people’s minds when a male couple—particularly one with kids—admits to being nonmonogamous. While married couples are presumed to be sober monogamists until proven otherwise, nonmonogamous gay male couples are presumed to be reckless sluts until proven otherwise. So, for the record: My boyfriend and I don’t hang out in sleazy bars at all hours, we don’t have three-ways with men we’ve met on the Internet, and neither of us is willing to take irrational risks for the sake of the next orgasm. Like a huge number of straight couples, we have an understanding. “Cheating” is permissible under a few tightly controlled and highly unlikely circumstances; finally, all outside sexual contact has to be very safe—indeed, it has to be hypersafe, almost comically safe. We’ve never done anything, nor would we ever do anything, that would put our child at risk. (There will be no Kramer vs. Kramer moments, i.e., no strange adults wandering nude through our house in the middle of the night.) For all intents and purposes, the limits we’ve placed on outside sexual contact have resulted in a sort of de facto monogamy. In the 10 years we’ve been together the planets have aligned on a couple of occasions. We’re more nonmonogamous in theory than in practice.
The bolds are all Peter's, not mine. Now is it just me or does it look like he's going out of his way to address any fears that his conservative readers might have about non-monogamous gay male parents? It's almost like he's helping to make my argument for me. So the only conclusion I can come to is...
Peter LaBarbera: highly placed operative of the International Homosexual Conspiracy.
City Woman Warns Police About Gang Targeting Prostitutes
Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:02 PM
A woman identified in a police report as a prostitute has warned Seattle Police that a gang of men may be targeting and attacking prostitutes near the Seattle Center.
On November 26th, the woman contacted police to report an assault and also told them that a group of four men have attacked and robbed other prostitutes around the Seattle Center and in Denny Park.
According to the woman, the group of four men—who, the woman says, all carry knives—hang out at a gas station on 6th and Denny and wait until they see a prostitute get out of a car before they grab the woman and assault and rob her.
The woman who reported the attacks says she was also assaulted by the group of men at 6th and John. She told police that when the men attacked her, they tried to remove her pants but she was able to escape.
The woman told officers she believes several of the men may be Russian.
Film Nixon Everywhere
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 5:17 PM
In response to the upcoming Frost/Nixon movie, The Vulture has a list of the top ten movie Nixons. Their top choice—Lane Smith, in 1989's The Final Days, which I'm fairly certain is not available on DVD—is suitably obscure. And a couple of them—the awesome Dan Hedaya made a wretched Dick in Dick, and Bob Gunton in Elvis Meet Nixon was terrible—shouldn't be on a list with the word "best" in the title.
But there are a couple of great performances on here. One of my favorites is Philip Baker Hall, in Secret Honor, which was adapted from a one man play and directed by Robert Altman. The YouTube they've embedded here is actually the end of the movie, so I wouldn't recommend you watch it unless you've already seen the glory that is Secret Honor and you want to relive it.
I was disappointed to see Anthony Hopkins at way down at 7, though. I really thought Nixon was one of the best movies about a president ever made, and it does as good a job as can be done at finding his humanity. Here is a clip, which, weirdly, includes Dan Hedaya:
Without having seen Final Days, I have to say that I think that's a number one-level performance, in spite of all the Oliver Stone camera-buggering.
Nightlife / Conflict of Interest If You're Going Out In Seattle Tonight...
Posted by Grant Brissey on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 5:15 PM
... do yourself a favor: Go here, download their card/printout thingy, take it out with you, and save a whole bunch of loot on a whole bunch of stuff. Disclaimer: I sometimes work at one of the bars participating in this event, but I promise not to work during it.
Drunk How the Fuck Do These Things Survive in the Wild?
Posted by Lindy West on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 5:08 PM
They look like if Trig Palin and Jim Henson's Creature Shop came out the wrong end of that teleportation machine in The Fly.
Music Tonight at the Comet
Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:54 PM
Jeff Kirby says: "Holy crap the Comet has a good lineup tonight. I'd argue it's one of the best rock bills of the year..." [More.]
Film / Theater If You're Casting Around for Something to Do Tonight...
Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:44 PM
...and you haven't seen The Adding Machine (more thoughts on it here) or Milk (movie times are here), well, there's no time like the present.
Savage Love Savage Love Letter of the Day
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:27 PM
I'm a 24 year-old breeder chick, and was wondering if one of my regular habits is a common practice in the workplace. At least 2 or 3 times a week, I get incredibly horny at work and go to the bathroom to finger myself and get off. Basically I sit on the toilet and play with myself while thinking about how wrong it is (that's part of the thrill). I also find reaching an orgasim through masterbation is only possible when I imagine cheating on my boyfriend, being watched by our roommate who is touching himself, or other similar "wrong" situations. All this being said, I'm quite satisfied with my vanilla sex life with my bf and love him to death. Do many people touch themselves at work, or is this just a strange kink I have? Also, why is it that I picture these bad things while I touch myself when I'm in fact never going to cheat and satisfied with my sex life?In The Can
I don't have any data for you about how many people masturbate in the can at work. Precious few, I would hope... as I work in a crowded office and share the can with lots of people I don't particularly want to picture masturbating.
As for the images that roll through your head while you're masturbating—taboo stuff, dirty stuff, naughty stuff—it could mean that there's a bad girl in you who's itching to get out. Or not. But wrong & dirty mental images get your blood pumping and otherwise they wouldn't dominate your erotic imagination. That doesn't mean you have to do those naughty things. But it's been my experience—ahem—that people generally want to do the things they think about when they masturbate. You may not be ready to do them now, or with this boyfriend, but I predict that you'll do them someday, with someone.
Visual Art Updates
Posted by Jen Graves on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:17 PM
I'm officially off today, but I wanted to share a couple of things before I disappear again for the weekend.
What A Pair: A librarian and a postal worker amassed an amazing art collection (they lived off of one salary and bought art with the other), and now there's a movie about their adorable selves. (They also split up the collection among art museums, SAM being one of them.) (Great tip, Charlie!)
LA MOCA Under Investigation: By the California Attorney General.
Visual Art Miami!
Posted by Jen Graves on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:08 PM
More eye candy from Art Basel Miami Beach by photographer Andy Pixel, who also provides the captions. (Here's yesterday's batch.)
Doug Aitken's last blast (2008), neon-lit lightbox (duratran mounted to plexi in aluminum lightbox)
Liz Craft's Black Widow (2000) is paint of fiberglass, represented by Patrick Painter, Santa Monica. This spider was huge and incredibly creepy. Its legs were curled and splayed in a very dead bug kind of way, only above one's head.
Los Carpinteros's Estanteria III (2008), plywood and maple veneer finish; a replica of the ubiquitous IKEA bookcase, bowed out on one side as if with the Photoshop "punch" filter.
City At the UW Protest
Posted by Eli Sanders on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Dominic and I were there. Some photos:
Retail Oh, Wobblies...
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 3:33 PM
The Starbucks Union website is often dead for long stretches of time. And for good reason: The IWW has to be delusional to believe they can somehow convince Starbucks to allow unions in their stores. Today's post...
Fellow Union Members and Friends:Anna Hurst is a New York City barista, Starbucks Union member, and a single mother of two.
One day in August, Anna went home ill from work at Starbucks. In retaliation, her store manager - abruptly and without notice - denied her any work hours for two full weeks.
Anna needs the money she's owed to put food on the table, pay her bills, and buy Christmas presents for her two children.
Call and/or text message store manager Gwendolyn Krueger today at...
...is especially sad, to me. I can't imagine Ms. Hurst will have her job for much longer after all these IWW workers deluge the manager's phone with calls and texts. "But it's illegal to fire somebody for this sort of thing," someone says. "Welcome to 2008," I say, sadly.
I have a weird relationship with the Wobblies. I know they're doing hopeless work, but I really want to side with them.
News Of Human Bondage
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 3:27 PM
The well-intentioned, pre-teen variety:
A white social studies teacher attempted to enliven a seventh-grade discussion of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls, prompting outrage from one girl's mother and the local chapter of the NAACP. After the mother complained to Haverstraw Middle School, the superintendent said he was having "conversations with our staff on how to deliver effective lessons."
Thanks to Slog tipper Marc.
Homo There Is No "Last Civil Rights Struggle."
Posted by Erica C. Barnett on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 2:57 PM
Melissa McEwan says something that is true:
When you relegate any rights movement to the dustbin of history, as if everything has been tied into a neat little bow of perfect equality, instead of regarding the movement as the ongoing, living, breathing, still-significant, still-necessary struggle that it is, it's effectively a declaration of not being your ally, because if there's "nothing left to accomplish," if there's no struggle, there's no need for allies.
What prompted this seemingly self-evident statement was the cover of this month's Advocate, which declares (in case you can't read the fine print—or don't get the headline's oh-so-subtle message) gay rights "the last great civil rights struggle."
Her post, and the Advocate cover, reminded me of this image, from a post Eli did on last month's anti-Prop. 8 protests. At the time, Eli wrote that the sign was "hard to argue with."
Although I didn't write about it at the time, that sign has stuck with me. How smug, how self-centered, do you have to be to declare not just racism but sexism over and done, to suggest that blacks' rights and women's rights have been "checked off" the list, and to fail to realize that all civil rights are part of the same struggle? Women, black people, gays and lesbians should be allies. It's divisive shit like this—shit that divides us into "us" (in the Advocate's case, "us" upper-middle-class, white, able-bodied gay men) and "them" (everybody else)—doesn't do anybody any good. It may be provocative, but it isn't helpful, or even interesting.
Books Cruised?
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 2:15 PM
This has been floating around the litblogosphere for a few days, but I've been so obsessed with layoffs I haven't paid much attention. Now I finally see that attention must be paid:
Tom Cruise is denying that he pressured Amazon to stop selling a book critical of the Church of Scientology.On Oct. 31, Irish publisher Merlin released “The Complex,” in which John Duignan, identified as “a former high-ranking member” of the church in Britain, describes his “dramatic escape” from its “elite para-military group,” the Sea Organization. Five days later, Cruise dropped by Amazon’s Seattle headquarters to glad-hand staffers and host a sneak peek at his new movie, “Valkyrie.”
A few days later, Amazon’s British Web site stopped selling “The Complex,” explaining to customers that someone mentioned in the book had alleged it defamed him with “false claims.”
Tom Cruise or not, Scientology apparently has yet to learn: If to try to ban a book, it makes more people want to read the book. I will try to get my hands on a copy of The Complex soon, and I'll report back to you.
City School Board Battle Royale
Posted by Erica C. Barnett on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 2:05 PM
Ed. Note: This post is by former news intern—and current Meany Middle School volunteer—Chris Kissel.
Last night, the Seattle school board held its first meeting since announcing the closure of several schools
But those bombshells weren’t nearly as loud as the people wearing bright green “Save Arbor Heights” t-shirts—a reference to the West Seattle elementary school that is among the schools proposed for cuts—who took up nearly half the seats in the room. West Seattle Blog has all the info
“Right now my kids can walk to school,” said Ridge McCoy, who sat behind me during the meeting, a “Save Arbor Heights” sign around his neck. “I don’t want them being dispersed all over the place.” Parents from Arbor Heights, the Accelerated Process Program (APP) at Lowell, Summit K-12, and a few others spent the first hour or so giving the board suggestions, most of which involved shutting any school but theirs. Some were appeased when Goodloe-Johnson announced a few possible revisions to her initial proposal, including merging Rainier Beach and Garfield High Schools and moving Pathfinder to Cooper Elementary, rather than Arbor Heights.
Finally, parents from some the less-affluent schools—those like Meany Middle in central Seattle, which may be axed so that NOVA and the Bilingual Orientation Center can share its building—stood up to speak. I volunteer at Meany, so I know that it’s not the kind of “success story” Arbor Heights is, but is is one of the district’s most diverse schools, and a symbol of the flawed SPS busing policy that, in part, led to this mess (many of Meany’s students are bused there from the South End).
Meany parent Sarah Slate (who seemed a little offended when I noted Meany’s less-than-bombastic presence at the meeting) said she hopes the district will think about meshing Meany with another school. “If the Meany community survives, it’ll be in a merger,” she said.
Much of the Superintendent’s plan is aimed at getting students back into South End schools—which, as she noted in her slide presentation, are chronically underenrolled—and easing crowding in North End schools.
But not everyone agreed that simply redistributing students would solve the South End's problems. “The district has ignored [the South End] for decades,” said Board President Cheryl Chow, after most of the cameras had stopped rolling and the angry parents had gone home. “Now we’re telling students to go back to these schools. We can’t do that if we don’t have quality programs there.” That’s much of what the board will be working on before Jan. 29, when they’ll give the final word on the schools closures and reassignments.
Media The Daily's New Standard for Reality
Posted by Jonathan Golob on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 2:04 PM
What was the lesson Sarah Jeglum learned, thanks to her flailing reign at The Daily?
Free speech is for everyone. It’s not just for the majority, and it’s not just for the minority. It’s not just for people you agree with, and it’s not just for people you disagree with. It’s for you, and it’s for every person on this campus and in this community.
Thanks for the lecture on free speech, Sarah! It's for everyone, right? Why are all these liberal weenies giving you such grief for publishing Op-eds and editorials promoting the poor, beleaguered ultra-conservative traditional values? Poor Sarah!
As one UW community member to another, let me tell you something. The problem isn't agreement or disagreement. The problem isn't the opinions you published. Your mistake was publishing lies, under the banner of fact—the outright lies and fabrications about a threatened minority group.
Let's revisit the infamous article by John Fey—that you decided to publish, and now continue to defend—picking out the indefensible lies and fabrications within.
...There is nothing constitutional about gay marriage on a state or federal level......homosexuality is more of an emotional condition, and we should not, for that reason alone, start passing laws condoning it...
...Being homosexual, like other emotional tendencies, doesn’t make someone a bad person, but it’s a problem that needs to be dealt with, not denied....
....Also, the Christian concept of marriage predates any state-sanctioned licensing program, which means marriage is an inherently religious concept in America. Any state interpretation of marriage that violates traditional church views may well be a violation of the First Amendment....
...The potential of open homosexuality for creating social dysfunction has been made manifest...
...It’s hard to tell someone they should respect basic social rules — such as not harassing people for honest disagreement — when they already reject other customs, such as traditional marriage....
I'm exercising a hard standard for fact here, selecting only the most egregious violations of reality that form the backbone of John Fey's essay. Every single on of these statements is readily, easily and definitively refutable after even cursory examination.
(Take the massive, overwhelming, credible, sound, tenable, probable, corroborating, confirming, affirmative collection of scientific evidence confirming that being gay is an intrinsic trait—not an emotional condition, a problem or social dysfunction.)
Yet, you published this—a piece making inflammatory and vicious accusations against a minority group—despite the obvious and unavoidably malevolent falsehoods contained within, further choosing to illustrate it with this graphic:
Listen, I'm all for dissenting voices for having a public voice. But, even in Op-Ed pieces, there is a line. You cannot allow your writers to fabricate reality, and then draw conclusions upon fabrications.
Would you publish an essay, starting with the premise that Jews have horns? That black people are incapable of rational adult thought? I assure you, you can find people in our community with these opinions—as filled with hate and irrational fear as John Fey apparently was when he wrote his screed.
People with such opinions are welcome to exercise their free speech; as a gatekeeper to a powerful medium, you aren't required to offer any of them a platform to distribute their hatred.
You are in charge of a widely read publication—supported more solidly than virtually any other media outlet in the city, thanks to the money taken from your fellow students. You are the strong in this situation, the loud, the powerful. In this position, you allowed your power to be used to harm—with the gravest and most vicious deceit—a minority group just stripped of a fundamental right the rest of us can enjoy in life.
I suggest you have at least one more lesson to learn before your editorship is done.
Homo / History / Politics Blacks and the Fear of a Gay Planet
Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 1:54 PM
Not long ago, at the Capitol Club a white comedian, Billy Wayne Davis, said this about his white girlfriend: "Last night, my girl told me that she must be gaining weight because black men are looking at her all the time." Davis' joke made the audience, mostly white, uncomfortable. But his joke was not empty. Cultural speaking, it had real substance. Black men, at the level of culture and its codes, do prefer women who are heavy, curvy, built like a "brick house."
But why this preference for curves? What is its root? The black male preference for heavy women certainly has its roots in the rural experience. A society that is dominated by the sleepy rhythms of agriculture, by farming, by the growing of things to eat and sell—the necessary pressures of this kind of experience shapes the desire for women who can carry heavy things, survive the the pains of labor, and outlast the natural calamities that frequently beset crops. This rural taste for curves, however, did not end with the rapid urbanization of black Americans. It persisted (and continues to this day) in a social condition that favors women with less weight and curves. Slimness is the urban ideal.
But we must also recognize that black Americans have only been urbanized for just over half a century. They are relatively new to the city and its ideals. But the longer they stay in the city, the greater will be the decline of the rural code for curves. The same can be said also about homosexuality. It's well known that a large number of black Americans are opposed to homosexual unions. One reason for the dominance of this feeling in this community is poverty; another is poor education. But also there is the fact that the faith in the truth of the heterosexual union is nothing more than a rural faith. In the light of the urban experience, such a faith begins to crumble. It crumbles because the agricultural pressures that reinforced heterosexual values—the breeding of animals, the breeding of children to help with farm work, and so on and so forth—are gone. In the city, man is liberated from all that rural nonsense and superstitions and can become the man he actually is—gay, straight, whatever. Breeding is not an urban ideal.
The reason why black Americans continue to believe in the value of heterosexual marriages and habits has much to do with the fact that they are still new to the city. The longer they are shaped by the urban, the harder it will be to maintain or justify this and other dead (rural) attitudes.
Drunk Who Would You Choose in a Gunfight?
Posted by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 1:49 PM
Today's imaginary dilemma: You can only choose one of the two people depicted in this video to be on your side in a gunfight. Choose wisely.
News Positively Shocking
Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 1:19 PM
A study commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has apparently shown that a small percentage of a type of Taser widely used by law enforcement agencies—including the Seattle Police Department—could deliver significantly stronger electric shocks than they're designed to.
Of the 41 Tasers tested, four delivered significantly more current than Taser International says is possible. In some cases, the current was up to 50 per cent stronger than specified on the devices.
All of the Taser X26s which apparently delivered a stronger shock were manufactured before 2005.
In response to the report, Taser International released a statement "generally consistent" with specifications and accuses the CBC of:
using engineering minutiae to confuse the viewer and create a false sense of controversy over a test that confirms the output of TASER X26s are consistent, and well below acceptable safety thresholds.Taser acknowledges that there are...instances where current increased as resistance increased which would not be expected based on the laws of physics.
Taser International has requested that the units be tested again.
The Seattle Police Department began using the Taser X26 model in 2005 and they've gotten plenty of use.
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