So, at a certain point, when you're bawling at 3am after watching the season finale to a cartoon, you have to ask yourself why. The cartoon in question is the excellent Clone Wars series that was just released on Netflix. At the end of the series (massive spoilers ahead, btw), Ahsoka Tano, who had quickly become my favorite character as the series progressed, is eventually framed for a terrorist attack. In the process of the story, she is eventually captured, and barred from the Jedi order, after the council inexplicably ignores years and years of behavior and observation of Ahsoka's personality and motivations and uncritically accepts circumstantial evidence. She is eventually cleared of all charges, and the Jedi Council tries to blow smoke by telling her that their complete and utter betrayal and abandonment of her was somehow just another character building test on her way to becoming a Jedi knight and offer her her job back. Instead, smart kid that she is, she chooses to walk away from the religion she's built her own life around, because, when push came to shove, they didn't have her back at all, despite a lifetime of service.
As it turns out, I can strongly identify with leaving a religion, despite the friends and family that want me to remain, because they can't see me through the filter of systemic malfunction. Even though you don't believe in something anymore, even though it's right to do it, even if you still honor the core tenets of that belief system, walking away is still hard. Especially when it means walking away from friends and family to some degree as well. Apparently I had not processed just how hard, because when I saw that scene I lost it.
I was initially bummed that the Clone Wars was ending, and that they were replacing it with a show set before episode IV. The boyfriend quite astutely pointed out it was probably for the better, since the clone wars represent an era of failing hope, and the original series is an era of rising hope. A new hope. Yes, I like that.
The other story that kind of saved my life this week was Grant Morrison's Animal Man of all things. There's a bit towards the end where Grant makes an appearance in his own comic, and talks about how hard it is to understand the massive systemic injustice that goes on in the world, in this case towards animals, and somehow find away to operate normally without being constantly angry at the injustice at all hours of the day. To understand the systematic oppression and torture of animals (human or otherwise) our society still relies on to some degree to provide the comforts citizens demand, while still functioning normally somehow. What I love about Animal Man is how he points out that this constant outrage can lead to loss of perspective and immoral decisions from the activist side as well. In the end he seems to council holding on to hope, even when everything seems bleak. Which is a very christian idea. Which is a very humanist idea. It was exactly what I needed to hear at the time. Thank you Grant Morrison.
This week, in an era of increasingly cynical and hopeless stories* (because God is dead and it's all bullshit don't you know), I am grateful for stories that exist to increase hope. I am grateful for artists who inspire hope, as tacky as that may seem to the modern world.
*For instance, Man of Steel, which delivered a completely hopeless, morally rudderless and bleak story, even though it explicitly stated that hope was central to the main character. Here' a hint: massive bombs detonating over a city aren't hopeful, no matter what inspiring messages you paint on the shell casing.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Righteous Hatred
Having a hard time getting my hate on today. Here are some reasons why.
The problem with the righteous hatred of the hateful dead is:
A) They can't hear me. The only one affected in this exchange is me. Hate generally does not have a positive effect on me.
B) Hatred becomes steadily less righteous the longer one indulges in it.
C) They're still inside my head, forcing me to play by their rules. I'm still standing on the other side of the line they drew, spitting hate at someone who has long ago walked off the field. That's a pretty successful and long-lasting deployment of a hate bomb, no?
This is not to say I mourn the hateful, honor the hateful or love the hateful. Although some who pursue peace would say yes, do that too. This does not mean I forgive the hateful. Although some would say yes, do that too. This is not to say the actions of the hateful to deprive others of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shouldn't be defended against. It is to say that in living a life in pursuit of righteous hatred, the justified hatred, the self-evidently acceptable hatred, I run the serious risk of not being mourned, or loved or honored when is my time to go.
Hate has a primary goal and a secondary goal. The primary goal is to destroy or failing that restrain or failing that imprison the people to hate. The second, failing all that, is to scorch the earth, and bring you down to their level so that if you "win," hate still gets fed. Even if the goal is not accomplished, the hate virus will still try to reproduce. So the hateful can turn around and say, "Enjoy your victory. But you are just like me now and you would have done the same."
The problem with righteous hatred is the hateful always believe their hate to be righteous. The problem with the hateful and that worldview is the idea that hate is always justified, all that remains to find the best reason to hate.
Hate is a beast I cage within me. I do not hate the beast, because the beast is part of me. I simply try to remember the beast is not all of me, and in general is best left recognized and accepted when awakened, but caged. I am not always successful in keeping him in his place.
The best thing about the hateful worldview is it is NOT the best frame for viewing the world, and I can choose to reject it in favor of larger ideas that lead somewhere better. The best thing about hate is it is not necessary for achieving my goals. The best thing about hate is I can leave it aside. The best thing about hate is I can let it rest with dead men. So that is what I'm trying to do.
The problem with the righteous hatred of the hateful dead is:
A) They can't hear me. The only one affected in this exchange is me. Hate generally does not have a positive effect on me.
B) Hatred becomes steadily less righteous the longer one indulges in it.
C) They're still inside my head, forcing me to play by their rules. I'm still standing on the other side of the line they drew, spitting hate at someone who has long ago walked off the field. That's a pretty successful and long-lasting deployment of a hate bomb, no?
This is not to say I mourn the hateful, honor the hateful or love the hateful. Although some who pursue peace would say yes, do that too. This does not mean I forgive the hateful. Although some would say yes, do that too. This is not to say the actions of the hateful to deprive others of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shouldn't be defended against. It is to say that in living a life in pursuit of righteous hatred, the justified hatred, the self-evidently acceptable hatred, I run the serious risk of not being mourned, or loved or honored when is my time to go.
Hate has a primary goal and a secondary goal. The primary goal is to destroy or failing that restrain or failing that imprison the people to hate. The second, failing all that, is to scorch the earth, and bring you down to their level so that if you "win," hate still gets fed. Even if the goal is not accomplished, the hate virus will still try to reproduce. So the hateful can turn around and say, "Enjoy your victory. But you are just like me now and you would have done the same."
The problem with righteous hatred is the hateful always believe their hate to be righteous. The problem with the hateful and that worldview is the idea that hate is always justified, all that remains to find the best reason to hate.
Hate is a beast I cage within me. I do not hate the beast, because the beast is part of me. I simply try to remember the beast is not all of me, and in general is best left recognized and accepted when awakened, but caged. I am not always successful in keeping him in his place.
The best thing about the hateful worldview is it is NOT the best frame for viewing the world, and I can choose to reject it in favor of larger ideas that lead somewhere better. The best thing about hate is it is not necessary for achieving my goals. The best thing about hate is I can leave it aside. The best thing about hate is I can let it rest with dead men. So that is what I'm trying to do.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Review Review
This is my my favorite quote from Slant's review of 300: Rise of an Empire
YES. Pixel-barf will be my new go-to phrase to describe the modern practice of filling every action scene with CGI debris.
Murro gives the film nothing so much as a hit-refresh on the same glistening, impossibly golden and gray flecks of pixel-barf that have invaded the frames of every tent-pole studio release since the Bush administration.
YES. Pixel-barf will be my new go-to phrase to describe the modern practice of filling every action scene with CGI debris.
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Subtle Winks from the Eye of the World
I did not expect to enjoy my third or fourth re-read of Robert Jordan's Eye of the World recently, but I did. Now that the series is officially finished, I think I'm going to plow though the entire series again, that is, if I can clear my to-read shelf first, a project I've been stalled on for 2 years now. My enjoyment of the series dwindled the more the plot started dawdling in in a transparent attempt to stretch out the story for as many books as possible. But it was nice to be reminded in Eye of the World how tight the story used to be.
There were a few things that jumped out at me on this last read-through though. The first is how simple the plot of the first book is. A bunch of farm boys meet a wizard and run from the farm to the city in a mostly straight line with the devil hot on their heels. With a teleport to the final boss fight at the end. It's a pretty solid chase story, all things considered. Yes, "the bloat" can be seen in its nascent stages even in the first book, when the author takes 200 pages to describe two farm boys riding on wagons, being chased out of towns, and meeting unsavory people over and over again before finally reaching the big city. It's so repetitive, that in the paperback edition I have there is an editing error where the author accidentally describes meeting the same damn farmer twice, and describes the encounters identically almost verbatim. There's little growth or purpose to that part of the narrative and could probably have been covered in a few pages without the story losing anything. But hey, it turned a 500 page novel into a 700 page novel. Still, it grabbed me in the beginning and kept me turning pages until the climactic encounter at the Eye of the World, just like it did the first time.
Of course, some of the original head scratchers remain. While I find his depiction of the gender war in small town villages interesting and amusing, then women all seem to be the same cardboard cut-out characters. All arms akimbo, or folded beneath their breasts, or tugging on their braids and lecturing the men for being so dumb. In the Wheel of Time, men and women are forever impenetrable mysteries to the other, locked in a never-ending cold war of parallel societies. I'm not saying this is problematic necessarily, just that it always strikes me as odd, this depiction of women and their interactions with men. It's as if the male-female split between Aes Sedai has fractured the gender relations in every other part of civilization as well.
Which brings me to the biggest idea that jumped out at me this read, which is how good a metaphor becoming an aes sedai is for a homosexual coming of age story. In this universe, being a man who can channel fabulous power is not a choice, it is how one is born. It is also terrifying and confusing to anyone who finds out, so men who realize this about themselves keep it secret for fear of being ostracized or killed. Every man who can channel is assumed to be mentally ill. Rand's in love with a woman, but he doesn't seem to feel much passion for her, and it's made clear pretty quickly that he and she are destined to be good friends at most. He meets other male channelers who, while publicly reviled, disturb and excite him. He spends most of the book in denial, plagued by frumpy matrons trying to smother him in one way or another before finding freedom in channeling pure(-ish) energy with other men. He discovers he's not the same as other boys and is probably not going to be able to live the life his family and friends want for him, and eventually comes out in a public and dramatic way when he can't contain it any longer. Okay, it's a little bit of a stretch, I'll grant. Still, I think the case could be made. And honestly, I like the story 100% better when I read it that way. Read the quotes from the post below though, and tell me there's not at least a LITTLE homo-erotic subtext in a lot of those lines.
Or maybe it's just me. Just me? Okay.
There were a few things that jumped out at me on this last read-through though. The first is how simple the plot of the first book is. A bunch of farm boys meet a wizard and run from the farm to the city in a mostly straight line with the devil hot on their heels. With a teleport to the final boss fight at the end. It's a pretty solid chase story, all things considered. Yes, "the bloat" can be seen in its nascent stages even in the first book, when the author takes 200 pages to describe two farm boys riding on wagons, being chased out of towns, and meeting unsavory people over and over again before finally reaching the big city. It's so repetitive, that in the paperback edition I have there is an editing error where the author accidentally describes meeting the same damn farmer twice, and describes the encounters identically almost verbatim. There's little growth or purpose to that part of the narrative and could probably have been covered in a few pages without the story losing anything. But hey, it turned a 500 page novel into a 700 page novel. Still, it grabbed me in the beginning and kept me turning pages until the climactic encounter at the Eye of the World, just like it did the first time.
Of course, some of the original head scratchers remain. While I find his depiction of the gender war in small town villages interesting and amusing, then women all seem to be the same cardboard cut-out characters. All arms akimbo, or folded beneath their breasts, or tugging on their braids and lecturing the men for being so dumb. In the Wheel of Time, men and women are forever impenetrable mysteries to the other, locked in a never-ending cold war of parallel societies. I'm not saying this is problematic necessarily, just that it always strikes me as odd, this depiction of women and their interactions with men. It's as if the male-female split between Aes Sedai has fractured the gender relations in every other part of civilization as well.
Which brings me to the biggest idea that jumped out at me this read, which is how good a metaphor becoming an aes sedai is for a homosexual coming of age story. In this universe, being a man who can channel fabulous power is not a choice, it is how one is born. It is also terrifying and confusing to anyone who finds out, so men who realize this about themselves keep it secret for fear of being ostracized or killed. Every man who can channel is assumed to be mentally ill. Rand's in love with a woman, but he doesn't seem to feel much passion for her, and it's made clear pretty quickly that he and she are destined to be good friends at most. He meets other male channelers who, while publicly reviled, disturb and excite him. He spends most of the book in denial, plagued by frumpy matrons trying to smother him in one way or another before finding freedom in channeling pure(-ish) energy with other men. He discovers he's not the same as other boys and is probably not going to be able to live the life his family and friends want for him, and eventually comes out in a public and dramatic way when he can't contain it any longer. Okay, it's a little bit of a stretch, I'll grant. Still, I think the case could be made. And honestly, I like the story 100% better when I read it that way. Read the quotes from the post below though, and tell me there's not at least a LITTLE homo-erotic subtext in a lot of those lines.
Or maybe it's just me. Just me? Okay.
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Religious Liberty
Andrew Sullivan touches on a couple of things that I've been thinking about this week. But I don't think he's quite definitive enough in his discussion so I'd like to reframe it a bit. First, is this from Ross Douthat:
I don't think Andrew pushes back hard enough here. These kind of overwrought, garment-rending love songs to the victimization of christians have no reasonable basis in reality. No one is telling churches what to believe or that they have to love gay people or the idea of gay marriage. No one is pushing for punitive measures against churches for not loving gay people and they'd be wrong to do so. Churches are still in complete control of what churches get to believe. All that's happening is churches are losing the "right" to impose legislation on non-churchians regarding what marriage can legally be. This is happening largely because they have, to date, failed to produce a single, valid argument about why two consenting adults who love each other should be unable to marry, or how those marriages will impact society in a negative way. Not a single, compelling argument yet from them, other than, "but my limited and myopic interpretation of the bible in a way that conveniently reinforces my biases instead of challenging them suggests that ...". Which is to say, not only do they not have a single, compelling civic argument against gay marriage*, there are compelling religious arguments against gay discrimination that most churches seem to be pointedly ignoring. So no, I'm not going to feel sorry for churches on the basis of losing the battle on the civic right for gays to marry. They are not going to be "forced" to do anything other than live in a world where gay people get to be married and affectionate with each other, sometimes in public, and where they and their children will have to see it. And arguing that Christians have some kind of monopoly on the world marriage and the institution itself doesn't pass the laugh test. Ask the kings of Israel what they think of "traditional" marriage. When they can tear themselves away from their concubines and wives #2-100 I mean. Ask the unmarried disciples how much traditional marriage allowed them to spread the word of god more effectively. The modern religious case for "traditional marriage" as something the bible endorses is incoherent, and only emerges if you're good at picking metaphorical cherries.
And really, there are two arguments going on here aren't there? The first is that "We are a christian nation and therefore the laws should be based, at least in part, on biblical values as perceived by citizens of this country in this century, especially James Dobson." Since there are many good and strong arguments against this idea, they are failing that. The second then, is, "Well, we at least deserve to create lives for ourselves where we don't have to interact with non-christians and open sinners like gay people," which, sadly, also has many strong, and obvious, arguments against it, from both a civic and religious point of view. I don't know, honestly, why people who have lived in a pluralistic all of their lives don't understand that they have not ever had, do not have now, and will not in the future (hopefully!) the expectation to live in a society where they do not have to interact with people who do not believe in Jesus and do not share their sexual orientation.
The expectation that one can and even SHOULD expect or try to arrange this kind of life is flat out ridiculous. Even from a churchian point of view, Jesus never promised a life of sameness, a life of comfort, and life where your beliefs and lifestyle can never be challenged. In fact, if I'm remembering my churchian holy book correctly, he, in fact, exhorted his followers to get out in the world and rub shoulders with the unclean! And, if in rubbing shoulders with the unclean fails to convert the unclean to your churchian point of view, he DID NOT recommend taking over the government and forcing them to live your way anyway. And of course, this cuts both ways. Gays like myself can't reasonably expect that we get to live in a world where everyone loves gay people and gay stuff in general! The best deal for both sides then, given that neither can have a world where their worldviews and lifestyles will never be challenged or praised by all people, is to agree to, you know, courteously agree to disagree on these particular matters, because simply believing in a higher power doesn't hurt anybody else, and marrying someone of the same sex has so far been shown, scientifically no less, not to hurt people.
So no, I don't feel sorry for churchians on this particular matter. We have, in fact, been having this discussion for a few short decades now, and the anti-gay marriage types have had ample time to make a compelling argument and have repeatedly failed to do so. So no, this is absolutely NOT an imposition of liberal values on principled conservatives. This is a relatively mild repudiation of the attempted imposition of christian principles on civic law because the religious argument against gay marriage is uncompelling*. Liberals and the state do not care what churches choose to believe about gay marriage, so long as they aren't insisting the rest of us agree to their tortuous and tenuous arguments against it based on a biblical authority that non-churchians do not recognize or agree with. And how many times do people have to suggest that churchians have lost the plot, before they'll consider the possibility that the reasons their beliefs are not compelling guidelines for behavior sans sympathetic legislation have more to do with flaws inherent in their own interpretation and adaptation of churchitarianism, rather than pernicious and stubborn choice to do evil by not listening to them and their questionable religious authority. I would like to gently suggest that non-churchians are, by and large, reasonable people and the issue is they don't find your arguments against and decision to be hateful towards gay people reasonable or well-founded. Even if we were to accept the possibility that the Bible contains some moral authority, that's still a long way from being convinced that churchians do not frequently, gratuitously, and seamlessly incorporate their personal and cultural biases into their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Beyond that, the whining about how people at large don't like them much for holding principled beliefs about the inherent ickiness of gay people is hard to sympathize with either. People don't like you because you choose being an asshole to people who are different than you and not hurting anyone, because even they can see you have a choice in the matter, and that continuing to choose intolerance and venom towards people who AREN'T HURTING YOU BY LIVING THEIR LIVES WITHOUT SHAME says a lot about what kind of person you choose to be and how just and noble and worthwhile your beliefs are, regardless of the stories you tell yourselves about yourselves. Even from out here, especially from people who used to be churchians like yourselves, we can see that unless you have love, all your culture war bluster might as well be a resounding gong or a clanging symbol.
Are beliefs that can not stand exposure to contradictory beliefs really that powerful or worth having? Isn't it possible that anti-gay doctrine undermines and is incompatible with the broader doctrines of love, humility and grace? Or would you rather just keep clanging that gong?
* Gay people aren't harmed by loving each other and being physically affectionate. Marriages between straight adults are not affected by the marriages of other people, gay or straight. Children aren't harmed by knowing gay people exist. Straight children aren't more likely to "grow up gay" because they've seen or met a gay person any more than gay children are likely to be "grow up straight" despite a lifetime of living and interacting with straight people. Gay is an orientation, not a "gateway drug" to behaviors like pedophilia or bestiality. In fact, the rates of pedophilia among the gay population is roughly the same as the rates in the straight population. The state is not in the business of protecting people's immortal souls, so it doesn't matter if gay sex is, highly arguably from all angles, technically a religious sin from a civic point of view. Conservatives are losing because they have yet to challenge any of the above statements with compelling logic or evidence.
We are not really having an argument about same-sex marriage anymore, and on the evidence of Arizona, we’re not having a negotiation. Instead, all that’s left is the timing of the final victory — and for the defeated to find out what settlement the victors will impose.
I don't think Andrew pushes back hard enough here. These kind of overwrought, garment-rending love songs to the victimization of christians have no reasonable basis in reality. No one is telling churches what to believe or that they have to love gay people or the idea of gay marriage. No one is pushing for punitive measures against churches for not loving gay people and they'd be wrong to do so. Churches are still in complete control of what churches get to believe. All that's happening is churches are losing the "right" to impose legislation on non-churchians regarding what marriage can legally be. This is happening largely because they have, to date, failed to produce a single, valid argument about why two consenting adults who love each other should be unable to marry, or how those marriages will impact society in a negative way. Not a single, compelling argument yet from them, other than, "but my limited and myopic interpretation of the bible in a way that conveniently reinforces my biases instead of challenging them suggests that ...". Which is to say, not only do they not have a single, compelling civic argument against gay marriage*, there are compelling religious arguments against gay discrimination that most churches seem to be pointedly ignoring. So no, I'm not going to feel sorry for churches on the basis of losing the battle on the civic right for gays to marry. They are not going to be "forced" to do anything other than live in a world where gay people get to be married and affectionate with each other, sometimes in public, and where they and their children will have to see it. And arguing that Christians have some kind of monopoly on the world marriage and the institution itself doesn't pass the laugh test. Ask the kings of Israel what they think of "traditional" marriage. When they can tear themselves away from their concubines and wives #2-100 I mean. Ask the unmarried disciples how much traditional marriage allowed them to spread the word of god more effectively. The modern religious case for "traditional marriage" as something the bible endorses is incoherent, and only emerges if you're good at picking metaphorical cherries.
And really, there are two arguments going on here aren't there? The first is that "We are a christian nation and therefore the laws should be based, at least in part, on biblical values as perceived by citizens of this country in this century, especially James Dobson." Since there are many good and strong arguments against this idea, they are failing that. The second then, is, "Well, we at least deserve to create lives for ourselves where we don't have to interact with non-christians and open sinners like gay people," which, sadly, also has many strong, and obvious, arguments against it, from both a civic and religious point of view. I don't know, honestly, why people who have lived in a pluralistic all of their lives don't understand that they have not ever had, do not have now, and will not in the future (hopefully!) the expectation to live in a society where they do not have to interact with people who do not believe in Jesus and do not share their sexual orientation.
The expectation that one can and even SHOULD expect or try to arrange this kind of life is flat out ridiculous. Even from a churchian point of view, Jesus never promised a life of sameness, a life of comfort, and life where your beliefs and lifestyle can never be challenged. In fact, if I'm remembering my churchian holy book correctly, he, in fact, exhorted his followers to get out in the world and rub shoulders with the unclean! And, if in rubbing shoulders with the unclean fails to convert the unclean to your churchian point of view, he DID NOT recommend taking over the government and forcing them to live your way anyway. And of course, this cuts both ways. Gays like myself can't reasonably expect that we get to live in a world where everyone loves gay people and gay stuff in general! The best deal for both sides then, given that neither can have a world where their worldviews and lifestyles will never be challenged or praised by all people, is to agree to, you know, courteously agree to disagree on these particular matters, because simply believing in a higher power doesn't hurt anybody else, and marrying someone of the same sex has so far been shown, scientifically no less, not to hurt people.
So no, I don't feel sorry for churchians on this particular matter. We have, in fact, been having this discussion for a few short decades now, and the anti-gay marriage types have had ample time to make a compelling argument and have repeatedly failed to do so. So no, this is absolutely NOT an imposition of liberal values on principled conservatives. This is a relatively mild repudiation of the attempted imposition of christian principles on civic law because the religious argument against gay marriage is uncompelling*. Liberals and the state do not care what churches choose to believe about gay marriage, so long as they aren't insisting the rest of us agree to their tortuous and tenuous arguments against it based on a biblical authority that non-churchians do not recognize or agree with. And how many times do people have to suggest that churchians have lost the plot, before they'll consider the possibility that the reasons their beliefs are not compelling guidelines for behavior sans sympathetic legislation have more to do with flaws inherent in their own interpretation and adaptation of churchitarianism, rather than pernicious and stubborn choice to do evil by not listening to them and their questionable religious authority. I would like to gently suggest that non-churchians are, by and large, reasonable people and the issue is they don't find your arguments against and decision to be hateful towards gay people reasonable or well-founded. Even if we were to accept the possibility that the Bible contains some moral authority, that's still a long way from being convinced that churchians do not frequently, gratuitously, and seamlessly incorporate their personal and cultural biases into their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Beyond that, the whining about how people at large don't like them much for holding principled beliefs about the inherent ickiness of gay people is hard to sympathize with either. People don't like you because you choose being an asshole to people who are different than you and not hurting anyone, because even they can see you have a choice in the matter, and that continuing to choose intolerance and venom towards people who AREN'T HURTING YOU BY LIVING THEIR LIVES WITHOUT SHAME says a lot about what kind of person you choose to be and how just and noble and worthwhile your beliefs are, regardless of the stories you tell yourselves about yourselves. Even from out here, especially from people who used to be churchians like yourselves, we can see that unless you have love, all your culture war bluster might as well be a resounding gong or a clanging symbol.
Are beliefs that can not stand exposure to contradictory beliefs really that powerful or worth having? Isn't it possible that anti-gay doctrine undermines and is incompatible with the broader doctrines of love, humility and grace? Or would you rather just keep clanging that gong?
* Gay people aren't harmed by loving each other and being physically affectionate. Marriages between straight adults are not affected by the marriages of other people, gay or straight. Children aren't harmed by knowing gay people exist. Straight children aren't more likely to "grow up gay" because they've seen or met a gay person any more than gay children are likely to be "grow up straight" despite a lifetime of living and interacting with straight people. Gay is an orientation, not a "gateway drug" to behaviors like pedophilia or bestiality. In fact, the rates of pedophilia among the gay population is roughly the same as the rates in the straight population. The state is not in the business of protecting people's immortal souls, so it doesn't matter if gay sex is, highly arguably from all angles, technically a religious sin from a civic point of view. Conservatives are losing because they have yet to challenge any of the above statements with compelling logic or evidence.
Monday, March 03, 2014
Hindsight
When I read through old posts I feel like I have a multiple personality disorder. Trying to express myself in fits and starts, a new way every time. The ones that seem overly fanboy-ish and consumerist are the most embarrassing so far. I want to slap myself and tell me to have some pride.
Unrelated, "Hindsight is 20/20" seems like an odd way to claim one's ass has perfect vision. Be careful in gazing at the ass for the ass gazes also back. I guess? Maybe I'm missing something.
Unrelated, "Hindsight is 20/20" seems like an odd way to claim one's ass has perfect vision. Be careful in gazing at the ass for the ass gazes also back. I guess? Maybe I'm missing something.
We Killed the Stars Long Ago
We killed the stars long ago
but left their corpses burning brightly.
We thought you'd like to see them so
we display them for you nightly.
We embalmed them all in gravity wells
put on some planets in adorning.
If you'd like to thank us, swell,
you may do so in the mourning.
cross-posted here.
but left their corpses burning brightly.
We thought you'd like to see them so
we display them for you nightly.
We embalmed them all in gravity wells
put on some planets in adorning.
If you'd like to thank us, swell,
you may do so in the mourning.
cross-posted here.
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