A Nativity Scene

God bless Anderson Cooper.

The smack down he lays on Texas Rep. Leo Berman, over Berman's unshakeable fantasy that Barack Obama is not actually an American citizen, is truly something satisfying to behold. Cooper's approach isn't overly antagonistic or bombastic. Rather, it's the kind of patient, respectful probing that Socrates made famous through Plato. (Different than the kind of probing he practiced with Plato, though I've heard Anderson might not be averse to that line of discourse either.) Cooper simply shows his evidence and asks questions, which--as anyone who's ever desperately wanted to verbally string up an idiot knows--is a monumental show of poise on his part.

As for the birther issue, while I've reflexively rolled my eyes at it for years now, I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that I. Just. Don't. Get. It.

Most liberal bloggers say it's rooted in racism--Barack is black; he can't be an American President! So, the birth certificate issue is, what, the white, rightwing racist dogwhistle for the post-Jim Crow era? The bigots can't say out loud that a black man is unfit to be Commander in Chief--because they'd be ridden out of town--so this is the codeword they've settled on, "birth certificate"?

Look, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, within sight of Stone Mountain. (I mean, c'mon.) I think I have a pretty good eye for this brand of hateful lunacy, just from years of exposure, if nothing else. Maybe I've lost my touch after some years here in the North but...I just don't see the racism here.

If I may distinguish one venom from another for a second: the white male supremacist doesn't register foreign blacks in his mythology. I would argue, in some sense, that he prefers them. "Go back to Africa!" and all that. His problem with African-Americans is precisely their American-ness, as it represents a clear threat to the image of his own. (I'm terribly tempted to make a "through a mirror darkly" joke...and I realize I just passive-aggressively did!)

The hubbub over the teleprompters on the other hand, now that I immediately understood. The idea that he couldn't speak so well, so properly, without outside guidance (from white handlers, I would imagine) goes back to the fundamental sneer bigots employ against educated black people being "articulate." Bing, bing, Bubba wins the spittoon!

But Obama being Kenyan, being other. I dunno. No buzzers go off. Which leads me to think that it's more just hopeful thinking on the teabaggers' part--a magical way to get rid of a political enemy. We'll just wish him away, they say. And believe me, I understand the desire. If someone came up to me in 2006 and said that George W. Bush was actually born in Ciudad Juarez because Barbara heard there was cheap formaldehyde down south, well, I'd be awfully tempted to believe it.

But I'd be wrong.

Random Thought: Doucheness

How long before hipsters start using Walkmans instead of iPods...?

Nudie Pics

This whole TSA bodyscanning issue makes me terribly cross. Cross, I tell you!

Personally, I don't want some random dude/dudette simultaneously looking at me or my wife naked and potentially shortening our lives. I married my lovely wife because I liked the idea that I was the only person who would get to see her naked and because I'm hoping to spend a nice, long life with her. For folks keeping track, those are exact opposites of what the TSA is offering us.

There are many interesting angles to this, but the one that amuses me most is the idea that this may be the first issue of Obama's presidency that crosses ideological lines. As a left-leaner, I don't like it because I find it invasive and unnecessary, only good for conditioning the public to accept more and more outrageous assaults on our liberty and privacy in the name of fear.

However, I also understand a conservative's take on the matter--resisting the unnecessary growth of government; supporting an airport's ability to hire security firms it prefers--as well as that of the fiscal types pointing out the 6% drop in ridership (pdf, first result) that accompanied the rise of this demeaning security theater after 9/11 and are worried about further blows to the economy.

I mean, hell, I think even conservative Christians would nod right along with me when I talk about my disinterest in the woman to whom I made sacred vows being photographed naked by a stranger. And those people are batshit, especially when it comes to questions of a woman's right to her body! And yet, there we'd be, agreeing.

So here we are, Red America and Blue America, sitting at the table of bipartisanship for the first real time since Obama's election. It must be a relief for the President to finally have an issue where the winning side is also the right side, and to stand up with liberals and conservatives alike as our Chief and make clear that we are all the change we've been waiting for.

Sorry? Oh, you say he supports the scans and the pat-downs?

Dammit....

Bow Before The Bogg

From time to time, I enjoy testing my skill at nailing down the Shiller from Wasiller with the sharpest pins of wit and derision I can muster. It's a kind of cross-tent carnival game: I'm over at the one with the pop-gun and the stuffed animals, and she's a circus freak. It just works out.

Still, it's this amateur pastime of mine that makes me appreciate the level the pros play at.

TBogg's just...good.

More Bush

Speaking of Bush, I think moving his upcoming memoir, Decision Points, to the True Crime section of your local bookstore is a truly fine idea.

Though seeing as I'm a firm believer in accurate labeling, and since this is Bush we're talking about, I'm torn between that and the ESL shelf...

No, Just....No...

There are so many things wrong with the idea that Barbara Bush showed little George W. her miscarried fetus back in the day that it makes my fingers hurt when I consider cataloging them, and it makes my stomach turn thinking about what I'd be cataloging.

Yes, there's the idea of a fetus in a jar to begin with, as well as the unsavory nature of most pro-life politics--to which Georgie-Porge apparently turned after this macabre vignette--and let's not forget the nauseating fact of W's very existence (natch). Yet, the most fundamentally disturbing element of the story is that the fetus is just more proof that someone actually engaged in voluntary intercourse with Mrs. Bush...and was happy enough about it to finish.

Know horror.

Mawage: Year One!

Three years and two days ago, I kissed a girl.

One year ago today, I kissed that same girl, making her my wife.

This morning, I kissed the very same girl. And then I made coffee and she fed the cats. Ain't married life grand?

According to some tradition or other (one that apparently dates back to the Middle Ages, the interwebs tell me), the married couple on each anniversary is supposed to gift each other things made out of a certain material, like wood (heh) or crystal. Now, because we're corny, you've-been-the-love-of-my-life-since-I-first-saw-you-we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-piece-of-government-red-tape-to-know-what's-what types, we've already done paper and cotton (years one and two, respectively), even though we've only technically been married a year, so today we're supposed to give each other something made out of leather.

Why? Dunno. Three years seems like a little soon for a relationship to need spicing up. I would think maybe the seven year mark is more appropriate. The funny thing is neither of us really has an idea about what to get the other--though we've both suggested a cured ha'bunny pelt at one time or another. (For those playing at home, Eliza often looks and acts as if she was half cat-half bunny, and the English used to call a half penny a "ha'penny." Again yes, we're geeks. And yes, we joke about flaying and tanning her hide because we often want to kill her.)

If nothing else, I have promised my love the leathery feel of our skin after 60 years of wedded bliss. As far as gifts go, this one may take a while to deliver, but it'll be sooooo worth it in the end...

Yaawwnnn.....Anything New Happen Lately?

Bullet points with butterfly wings:

Republicans take the House. Sure, it sucks. But Dems didn't really turn out and the GOP once more relied on a constituency that has one foot in the voting booth and one in the grave. We can wait them out. The upshot is that the standard GOP types will now be forced to share their bed with their feral, teabagger cousins, while, conversely, members of the Blue Dog caucus were sent home in droves (which must hurt since they're used to taking their ball and going home when they say so), thus freeing the remaining Dems from at least a portion of their pandering duties.

On that note...Pelosi. She's stated she's interested in running for Minority Leader. Good. When I read comments like this, saying 1) why keep Pelosi? people hate her!, 2) if we have liberals in charge Obama will be caught in the middle, and 3) we should have more conservative leadership while we're in the minority!--I then set a puppy Havanese on fire before blurting 1) we keep her because she's proven good at her job (even now) and because the Republican puke funnel can make many Americans hate anyone, just look at Obama!, 2) well, I know which point of the triangle he should side with if he's pressed, and 3) um...what?

Olbermann is suspended without pay. Again, it sucks. But what I really want to know, given the specifics of MSNBC's rule against political giving, is if they really with-a-straight-face-no-fingers-crossed earnestness believe that Countdown is straight news rather than opinion. But even then, how do they think Olby's personal contributions (which are allowed) negatively affected his job performance, assuming he made clear the money wasn't on behalf of his employer? MSNBC Pres. Phil Griffin: today's most maybe biased, politically tin-eared person...in the world!

Okay, I'm sure I'll have more bullet points soon, probably aimed at your head from a car window (cause life's been a bit stressful lately).

Now go let your auto-correct misspell some tongue. Sorry, something.

Demotivate

Or an epic poster for their bathroom, hung opposite the toilet, so they can contemplate their sins...

Unbeleever Kat Cannot Eet Yer Soul Cuz You No Haz Won

This is awesome:

It makes me want to write a sequel to the brilliant Grandma's Dead: Breaking Bad News With Baby Animals, something like God Is Dead: From The Mouths of (Cute Animal) Babes.

Yeah...

Deep In Vein: The Re-In-Veining

Okay, so I feel I've been successful enough in revamping my relationship to this blog that I can go ahead and indulge in a little self-promotion (gasp) without backsliding into the intellectually timid habits of yore.

(clears throat, puffs out chest)

Deep In Vein has a gig this Friday the 29th at the Acheron, in Brooklyn. 8pm, $8 at the door. We're playing alongside some pretty badass folk: the Communion; Flourishing; and headlined by Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire. It's gonna be loud and it's probably gonna be fast. Except for us. We're loud and drone-y, all the way. It's good to be different.

All the deets are on the DIV web site, under Upcoming Shows. So...yeah.

Muppets Assemble!

My wife loves the Muppets; I love the Avengers. And, as a child resembles a blend of its parents, it clearly follows that this awesome sketch by Caanan Gall is an attempt to imagine what the fruit of our joined loves will yield. Behold:

A Koster-Hurt family portrait.

How did this Caanan person know?

Gimme A Bloody Mary, Mary!

If what this man says is true, that gays are just like alcoholics, then that would explain a lot about why gays are so fabulous and why they never lack for social, um, lubrication.

It's the dopamine, sweety!

And can you imagine how much beer money I would save a year if I just chose to prefer cock? Well whatevs, I'd end up blowing the extra cash on Abercrombie&Fitch tank tops and old van Damme movie rentals in the end anyway.

("Blowing" "van Damme" "in the end"? Oh heavens to Betsy, the transformation's already started....)

The Cart Before The Horse's Ass

I was reading this bit of ridiculousness--wherein the Washington Post hosts a livechat with the not-imitated-enough Dan Savage to discuss the recent spate of gay teen suicides...and then "balances" that with a response by the not-overlooked-enough Tony Perkins (whom I would call a douchebag except Christianists tend to vehemently oppose even the most backwards methods of female reproductive health)--when a particular statement by Mr. Perkins jumped out at me:

"Homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression."

Is it too much human empathy to ask of dear Tony to imagine that if, during his formative years, he were told by everyone around him that his sexual orientation was an abomination and an embarrassment and he was even occasionally beaten because of it that he might not be prone to a higher rate of mental health problems, especially fucking depression?

These people literally cannot get shit more backwards.

Random! Random! Read All About It!

Since the theme of the day does appear to be a random firing of neurons based on the stream of my google reader, I will admit that I have long had a soft spot for the gaudy verbal stylings of Wonkette.

I mean, c'mon, any piece of writing that includes this sentence--"Not in this Country, and not under our Dual Jurisdiction of the Declaration of Independence, Social Security, and the Bible."--and ends with a reference to Circuit City, such a piece of prose is like costume jewelry on the long arm of Liberty.

Wonkette : Stephen Colbert, if drinking had ruined his dignified diction...

Inferior Stars

Okay, I thought they shot people on the L.A. Freeway for less than this.

Have standards on the west coast fallen so far? Or did the same luck that bought these Jersey Shore clones a tour bus on which to paint their sad imitations of sapienship also spare them a hail of righteous lead?

Their continued existence is either a case for the existence of fortune or one against the existence of an Almighty.

Either way, given their continued existence, no one wins...

Random Thought: A Way Of Seeing

Just knocked out a bit of light design over at Dixon Place (re-teching, with great pleasure, Kim Katzberg's Penetrating the Space), and thinking ahead to lighting Caborca's two plays coming up at CSV in November, and I had the sudden, very strong (very random) desire to know what the great John Berger would say about modern light design for theater.

I also have no idea how to find out if he has, in fact, already commented. Cause, I mean, how do you google his level of profundity?

Vagina-ectomy

If you've ever wondered what it sounds like to remove someone's vagina, or what the most awesome eleven words in the English language are, you have to go read this.

In Extremis II

I'm not alone...

In Extremis

Kos says the Dems are drowning because they weren't progressive enough. Brendan Nyhan says it's a myth that parties benefit from veering to their respective extremes (left, in the case of the Dems), and that, rather, the Donks are drowning because the economy is weak.

Now, it may be true, as many point out and the teabaggers prove, that pols using red meat (i.e., veering to the extreme) to fire up the base tends to alienate undecideds and so imperil that party's electoral prospects. But I'm just gonna poke my little mouse head up and squeek that the economy remains weak precisely because the buh-Donk-uh-Donks have not pursued a progressive monetary policy. As Atrios continuously points out: we're ruled by people who think 10% unemployment isn't a crisis. That's not level-headed centrism, as I gather Nyhan would think. That's Hoover-ism.

I restate my fervent wish that there was a viable third choice in this country. We have the Party of No and the Party of Not Yet. The party of bullies and the party of co-dependents and sycophants.

Nyhan is right about the symptoms, but Kos is right about the cause. Kos is right because progressivism isn't running to the left, it's running to the true center of this country. And if Dems ever get that through their cowardly skulls we'll see a blossoming of the wise left the likes of which followed WWII.

Commence holding of breath in 3...2...1...

Extra!

This article on military sightings of extraterrestrials reminds me of a friend's father who used to tell stories of his stint as a comm man in the Army (I think).

This was Vietnam-era, and if memory serves he was stationed, or for some reason, operating in Morocco. (I remember that clearly because my ten-year-old brain loved chewing on that wonderful word. Mooorrrr-rooocckkk-coooeee. Yup, still tasty.)

Now, this dad was a rather conservative guy--Republican, non-church going but still Catholic, small business owner, etc.--qualities I associate with a more traditional view of the limits of our world (rightly or wrongly). So it was especially interesting to me when, on occasion, he would talk about his time in Morocco, and how he and his fellow soldiers would watch oddly shaped ships dance in the sky and then disappear. He believed without question that the crafts weren't human--they would change colors and alter course at impossible angles and at great speed--an opinion bolstered by the wealth of time he and his mates were given to study them. He said it happened so often while he was there that the guys more or less viewed the spectacle the way we watch late night TV.

Anyway, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, and all that....

The Good Word

Underground preachers are pretty common here, as anyone who depends on the subway can tell you. As part of my route from home to work every morning, I happen to pass through the tunnel that connects Times Square with Port Authority. For as long as I've been here, a nook of this tunnel has played host to a group of Proselyteers, whose church--a couple of folding tables with placards featuring the harsher sayings of the Bible in large fonts--I've struggled to find a witty name for for years now. ("Under the Rock of Ages"? "Sub-Corpus Christi"? It'll come to me...)

Today, like most days, someone tried to hand me a pamphlet with the Good Word and, like most days, I politely declined. But it again got me mulling the ongoing discussion about why atheists don't proselytize, and for the first time I felt in my gut that our absence from such public forums was a bit sad.

Here was a religious man spending his precious time trying to get his fellow travelers to think about the afterlife. Wouldn't it be of infinitely greater value for one of us non-religious types to impress upon our fellows that they'd be better served by concentrating on the treasures of this life?

Then again, knowing how absurd the idea is of changing a stranger's entire belief system through one sloppily-printed flier handed off while said stranger is walking from the 7 train to the blue line at 9:45 in the morning...maybe by not wasting hours thus proselytizing we atheists are indeed treasuring the little time we have on this earth.

Hallelujah.

Google Reader...Win?

A (Golden) Watershed Moment

According to SiteMeter, someone in Germany found my site through this search.

Ladies and Gents, I have arrived.

9/11 (2)

Okay, this day also reminds me of something else that I only rarely think about. Whatever logic underlies this memory goes against how I view the world now in almost every way--and not just because it came from the Discovery Channel.

I remember distinctly being maybe ten or eleven, and watching a program on Nostradamus in the living room. One of the predictions they were discussing was that in the year 2001, a man in a turban would launch a great fire from the sky, bringing chaos (or whatever the language was they used back in 1988-ish) to the precise latitude and longitude of Manhattan.

At the time, 2001 was very far in the future, meaning it was still in grown-up land--the land of money and mobility and doing what one pleases. Since the idea of growing up and living elsewhere was still unfathomable to me, I instead worried about the nearest adult. My mother was cooking dinner at the time, so I ran into the kitchen and asked whether she had any intention of being in New York City in 2001. She looked confused and admitted that she didn't. Relieved, I went back to watching TV.

Being generally skeptical of prophets of any stripe, I share this little reminiscence without comment...