On Be a Dick Day 2008

Okay, so this is just a reminder that tomorrow, February 14, is the third annual observance of Be a Dick Day. This is the day for everyone who's spent the past year being thoughtful, considerate, sensitive, and occasionally romantic to cash in their saved-up karma points and act like an utter douchenozzle. Instead of taking her out to dinner, order in--and only order enough for yourself. Instead of shaving your legs and putting on that perfume you like, put on those footie flannel pajamas that make you desirable to no man and eat an entire plate of onion fritters for dinner. Me, I spent 2007 being a good and sympathetic listener and wearing flats so as not to tower over the 5'6" guy I was seeing, so I'm going to spend the entire night griping to whoever'll listen, and every time my feet touch the ground, they're going to be in three-and-a-half-inch stilettos.

Haven't been generous and considerate this past year? Sorry, you're on the hook. But I'll certainly think of you fondly as I whine my way through The Bourne Ultimatum and teeter around Southside in my towering pumps.

On Super Bowl ads: the worst of the blechh

Okay, so I've mentioned the Super Bowl ads that really gave me a chuckle, and those were great, but there were a few groaners and more than I really expected that were stupid or offensive or just plain bad. And that's no good. If you're spending that kind of dough on thirty seconds of national ad space, you might want to make sure you're not actively offending people, Salesgenie.

The worst offenders:

Salesgenie.com

No, for serious, are we actually doing this? Really, Salesgenie? Really? We're doing pandas with broken English and broad, exaggerated, Star-Wars-prequels quality fake Chinese accents? And then eating the furniture? This is really how we're promoting our business, Salesgenie?

Bud Light

Ha, ha, foreigners are funny! Hee! And Carlos Mencia is for reals funny. Heh. Budweiser hit it out of the park with just about every other ad they ran during the Super Bowl (see Will Ferrell as Jackie Moon and the Bud Light cavemen), but this one just struck me as a real boner. So to speak.

Sobe

Yeah, I know it's Naomi Campbell. Yeah, I know they're doing the "Thriller" dance. I still don't get it.

Under Armor

Again, I find myself just not getting it. I mean, "Click Clack" and the whole thing about protecting this house were kind of obscure, but this "the future is ours" thing just strikes me as kind of, I don't know, dumb? Is that the word? Dumb? We'll go with that one.

So that's it for the best and worst of the Super Bowl ads. I guess that takes care of--what? Game? You mean all those guys in tight pants running around between the ads? Was that---oh. Right. Yeah, that was, like, okay, I guess. Whatever.

It was no ferocious badgers Corolla ad, anyway.

On Super Bowl ads: the best of the best

Okay, so I watch all ads, whether they're during the Super Bowl or not. I'm in advertising. It's my business and my hobby. It's kind of an annoying hobby, as they go, because for every really great, inspired ad you see, there are twelve local car dealership ads with men named Bubba in brightly-colored pleather suits screaming at you that you can own a new Suzuki for ONLY ZERO DOWN NINETY-NINE A MONTH OH MY GOD SQUEEEE!!111!!!one!!

And in theory, Super Bowl Sunday should be awesome, because the sheer cost of ad space during the Super Bowl should be so prohibitively high as to scare off crappy advertisers, but that's not always the case. And when bad ads appear during the Super Bowl, they fall far shorter of particularly high expectations than they would any other weekend, and the disappointment is all the worse.

This isn't about those ads. This is about the ones that jumped off the screen and made me laugh, cry, and/or go online to see them again. I'd love to get all philosophical and/or technical about these and expound upon what aspects of the ads really speak to my consumer brain and what subtleties amused and intrigued me, but the fact is, the barfing baby was, like, totally funny, and stuff, so there.

In no particular order, for no particular reason, with no particular agenda, my faves:

Bridgestone Tires


NFL - Chester Pitts


E-trade

Talking, barfing baby both amusing and disturbing? Right on.

Careerbuilder

Gawker didn't really like this one because of the creepy imagery of the heart leaping bodily from the woman's chest; I'll admit to being somewhat concerned that her boss would eat it once it was on his desk, but when the (admittedly obvious) punchline came up, I was right amused.

Coca-Cola

I can't help but have some affection for Carville, and I had to laugh watching Bill Frist invoke the rules of "jinx."

Honorable Mentions
- Audi. I liked the Godfather reference, and if that weren't enough, the car is simply dead sexy. Dead. Freaking. Sexy.
- Pepsi Stuff. This one is really, really hard for me to admit, because I have significant feminist objections to Justin Timberlake (ask me about the ways his videos objectify women. Wait, just for the sake of time, don't), but I thought this one was cute and funny. For all his faults, the man seems to have a good sense of humor and doesn't seem to mind looking silly. And, yeah, I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating crackers.
- Fed Ex. Even if that last shot was eerily reminiscent of the mass-slaughter scene toward the end of Dogma.

ETA: A hilarious one that completely slipped my mind? This one:

Pepsi was three for three in value for their Super Bowl ad dollars. Pepsi wins at Super Bowl advertising.

On the good, the bad, and the Friday Random Ten

Two worthy causes (and I volunteer to personally help Clive Owen kick the nic, even if that means spending every single day with him)

Okay, so I'm ashamed to admit that I completely forgot that Ash Wednesday, the kickoff to Lent, is next week. If it hadn't been for Doug's reminder, I might have missed it entirely and been condemned to whatever circle of hell hosts Lenten-sacrifice-non-giver-uppers. The fifth circle? Isn't that the one where you have to wax Adnan Ghalib's chin-landing-strip constantly and it keeps growing back? Anyway, since I certainly don't want to end up there, I'll have to get busy coming up with a Lenten sacrifice. In the past, I've given up swearing, alcohol, and/or caffeine; I may choose any or all of those. Just as long as I can keep my cocaine habit.

What's good (for the week ending 2/1):

- speed dating. No, seriously, it's fun. I did the Ronald Single Mingle at the Barking Kudu (benefiting the Ronald McDonald House; great charity, that) last night, and having the opportunity to talk to about twenty different -- very different -- guys for three minutes apiece was a unique and enjoyable experience. I think the trick is to have a friend or three with you and drink more than is generally advisable. And a note to the guy in the Cookie Monster costume: I was #8, in the gray top and jeans, and you need to call me.
- tunics. I'm so glad that tunics have been big this season, because I'm ridiculously, unnaturally long-waisted and I can go months without finding a shirt that doesn't fit like a crop top. Big ups to whichever writer at WWD decided that hip-length tops would be all the rage (in my former life, that writer would have been yours truly).
- Monopoly
- umbrellas. Would have been nice to have one on Tuesday. Or yesterday.
- Dubya's last SOTU ever

What's bad:

- political infighting. Come on, folks, I realize that the primaries are a competition of sorts, but we have to be careful not to slam our primary opponents so hard that, come general-election time, we don't have any electable candidates left in the party.
- cigarette smoke. I'm so allergic, it's not even funny.

The Ten:

1. Kenny Neal, "She Ain't Happy Unless She's Sad"
2. Green Day, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"
3. Donny Hathaway, "She Is My Lady"
4. Enya, "Deora Ar Mo Chroi"
5. Kid Rock, "Cowboy"
6. Wolfgang Mozart, "Il Catalogo e Questo" from Don Giovanni
6. The Fugees, "The Score"
7. Pet Shop Boys, "Minimal"
8. Tina Turner, "Steamy Windows"
9. Gioacchino Rossini, "Cum Sancto Spiritu" from Petite Messe Solennelle
10. Johnny Cash, "Ring of Fire"

If this Random Ten is making predictions for the success of the coming weekend, I'm sure it's saying that I should expect a call from Cookie Monster. What was good for you this week?

On Barack Obama (it was bound to come up eventually)

Okay, so outside of the occasional oblique reference in the midst of some political to-do, I haven't really discussed my support for Obama; I've probably devoted more election-related blog inches to Hillary Clinton than I have to Barack Obama. Doug has made several great posts on the subject of late, and I more or less agree with everything he says there; probably a large part of my reticence on the subject so far has been the fact that he just puts it better than I ever could.

But I'm going to be taking my shift (wo)manning the phones at the Birmingham Obama HQ this weekend, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to really gather my thoughts on why I'm an Obama supporter. Most of my friends also support him, and generally for the same reasons, so our conversations generally end up devolving into, "Ohmygod, Obama's so awesome." "Yeah, he's totally cool." "I've got a hetero man-crush on him." "I think I've got a regular one." Fun, certainly, but not terribly likely to sway any undecided voters to our side of the fence.

I think it can be hard to really define the nature of your support for a candidate at the primary stage because most people within the party have basically similar priorities. It's not the general election, where Club Red goes up against Club Blue and the voting public gets to choose between two fairly different political philosophies; it's the intra-party competition where each candidate has to present him- or herself as the best example of the ideals of that philosophy. Which Democrat is more Democrat-y than the other Democrats? Who better embodies the principles of the party?

And I'm not going to pretend that it's a platform issue for me. Something we frequently forget during elections is that the promises the candidate is making now will be limited by the willingness of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the voting public to make them a reality. Running on a platform of rainbows and free puppies doesn't guarantee wet-but-sunny weather or an unlimited supply of cuddly canines. I like Obama's approach to education, but if he'd have to accomplish it through unilateral executive orders, I want no part; I didn't like it with Bush, and I wouldn't like it with a Democrat. The issues listed on Obama's Web site are useful as a rundown of his personal priorities, and that's important to me, but what's more important is his philosophy on leading the country -- where it needs to go and how it needs to get there.

That's a more nebulous subject, and a lot more sensitive than supporting educational success and opposing terrorism in Iraq ("I'm for good things and against bad things! Vote for me!"). Is the job of the president to make life easier for Americans or to make life better? Is it more important to support the efforts of the party whose ideals he represents (which ideals he believes to be the general good) or to unite the entire country in support of the generally accepted good? Is it better to reach your goals by overpowering the opposition or by drawing them over to your side?

And I guess that, in the end, is the difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, for me. It's not individual policy points, which we could debate at great length and detail for months; it's leadership and service philosophy. Obama has gotten some criticism within the party for his contention that creating bipartisan consensus should be a priority; there's a feeling that promoting progressive goals is more important than uniting Congress, and by extension the country, behind a common goal. I wonder why he couldn't do both? The Democratic party stands by its platform because of the belief that that kind of progressivism will benefit the country as a whole, not just the blue half. Transcending partisanship doesn't mean abandoning principles and giving in to the Republicans so they'll like us; it means finding the things that we already agree on -- and there are lots of them -- and starting from there. One of my favorite quotes from the short-lived but funny show That's My Bush was from Laura Bush when she said, "Now, maybe you can't unite pro-choice and pro-life activists because, in a way, they're both right." Transcending partisanship just means finding a way to do that anyway, and I don't know exactly how Obama intends to do it, but I'm not going to criticize him for having that goal.

I don't like the way the government runs right now. I don't like the way the members of Congress, within and between parties, interact with each other. I don't like the way business is accomplished. And Clinton is very experienced with that process. She knows it, she probably knows how to game it, and I have no doubt that, as president, she'd be able to get things done within it. But that's not a plus for me, because that means it's still there. It means that your average American isn’t getting proper representation unless he’s got a personal lobbyist; it means that little porky projects are piling up until significant portions of the budget are taken up with projects that don’t benefit the vast majority of the country; it means that our elected representatives spend more time trying to get re-elected than they do trying to represent us; it means that a legislator who believes that something other than the party line might better benefit the country will get shouted down before he has a chance to voice his opinion; and I don’t like those things.

Can Obama change that? I have no idea, honestly. He wants to, though, and that’s one up on Clinton; he recognizes that being able to work within the system is of no benefit to anyone when the system itself is fatally flawed, and he wants to change it. For me, his inexperience is a plus simply because he doesn’t yet know what he can and can’t do. And it’s sappy, I know, but sometimes the greatest things are accomplished when you just haven’t been told that they’re impossible. My sole contribution to the field of philosophy is the concept that it’s better for things to suck differently than for things to suck the same way they were sucking before, and I stand behind it because it’s true. Obama’s inexperience may end up presenting the country with a few problems, but if it does, at least they’ll be different problems than we’ve been facing for the past decade or so.

He wants to hold Americans responsible for contributing to the success of our own country. He wants to give Republicans and Democrats the benefit of the doubt that we can put aside partisan differences and find some common ground in deciding what’s best for the country. That’s where the “hope” thing comes in, and the “change” thing. Is it a naïve pipe dream? Very possibly. But I’m guessing that if you don’t tell him that, he won’t stop trying to get there until he’s pretty damn close. And pretty damn close is a damn sight better than we’ve been doing.

On my sophomore effort (or, "Nothin' Like a Meme")

Okay, so you've already found your stripper name (middle name + street you grew up on) and your transvestite name (childhood pet + mother's maiden name). You may even know your Wu Tang name. Now it's time for you to move into the big leagues and design your album cover.



This is, of course, actually my second album; many of you will remember my solo first album, I Just Did Four Guys and I'm Exhausted, featuring the vocal stylings of Benji Carr. "Say Nothing Be Nothing" is, however, my first album with my new band, Operation Wolf.

Here's how it's done:

1. Click on this link for Wikipedia's random-article generator. Whichever Wikipedia entry comes up is the name of your band.

2. Click on this link for the Random Quotations page. The last four words of the last quotation on the page are the name of your album.

3. Click on this link for interesting Flickr photographs from the last seven days. The third picture on the page is the artwork for your album.

Throw them all together into an album cover, post them on your blog, and link to it in comments below (and over at Doug's blog; I have to give him full credit for finding this'n).

On the SOTU, down for the count

Okay, so the state of our union is strong. Not "confident and strong," as in past years; just "strong." I can see why it might be that way. "Strong" is good enough for now.

I predicted Monday that the State of the Union address would be the slightest bit lackluster, but I had no idea that it would result in such rhetorical drudgery as to deprive a worthy charity of much-needed funds. Apparently, we can't even trick George Bush into helping out wounded veterans.

(And incidentally, "economic uncertainty"? Is that like the "food uncertainty" we had back when the government decided that anyone who wasn't actively starving couldn't be hungry?)

Things that I should have thought to pledge for: inappropriate grins and winks by our president, mind-blowing departures from reality, shots of sleeping senators.

Here's the count:

bipartisan: 2
"nucular": 4
terrorist(s): 17
freedom: 10
Iran: 7
surge: 6 (at $2 a pop)
Osama bin Laden: 1 ($10)
applause: 72, and I'll confess that I completely forgot to count standing O's this time around. Shameful, I know. Last year's count was 24, so I'm going to go ahead and pay out for 25 this year just to give the WWP something to play with. If anyone has a more accurate count, let me know quick before the check hits the mail.

Pending any corrections by any far more astute SOTU viewers, the take for the Wounded Warrior Project is $86.25, or not quite one backpack. That brings the three-year total to $287.

Will the State of the Union Pledge Extravaganza and Chili Cook-Off continue in future years with future presidents? It depends on the president, I suppose, and on his/her speechwriting staff. I'm personally hoping for a little bit more sincerity, a little bit more reality, a lot more variety, and maybe just a scootch of comedy -- the intentional kind. And I'm really, really hoping that by the next time a State of the Union address rolls around, the Wounded Warrior Project won't need my donation nearly as much as they do now.

On the third annual State of the Union Pledge Extravaganza and Chili Cook-Off

Okay, so tonight's State of the Union address should be a big one, because it's the last one that President Bush will ever make.

(Pause to wait for applause to die down.)

As in past years, I'm putting together my State of the Union Drinking and Donation Game but, truth told, it's kind of a challenge this year, because Bush didn't really do all that much last year and doesn't have a whole lot going for him this year. In past SOTUs, we've had bold statements on Social Security, human-animal hybrids, immigration, the war in Iraq, war in Iran, and deficit reduction. Now, Bush is coming into his lame duck year and has spent the last six months at least without enough personal or political pull or credibility to really throw his name behind so much as a K-Mart ribbon cutting. Despite past protestations by Tony Snow that Bush would never "cease to be bold" despite plummeting poll numbers, this year's SOTU is likely to be more covers, remixes, and old standards than new material.

I'll start by flat-out pledging an additional $20 for either of the following statements: "I know we all have places we'd rather be tonight, so I'd appreciate it if you'd hold your applause until the end of the address" and "The Democrats choose to forgo their traditional response in favor of this performance by U2, live from Washington, aired without commercial interruption."

Per traditional rules, $1 will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, a really fantastic organization that gives aid in a variety of forms to seriously injured servicemembers and their families, for every occurrence of the following:

- "bipartisan"
- "nucular"
- "terrorists"
- "freedom" ($5 if it's used as a plural)
- "surveillance" or "interrogation" ($5 if he actually says the word "waterboarding")
- "Iran"
- "recession" ($5 if he uses "deficit" in the same sentence)
- "economic stimulus" ($5 if he refers to Ronald Reagan in this context)
- 25 cents every time he pauses for applause, 50 cents per standing ovation

As an added bonus, $2 will be donated each time one of these classics is dredged up:

- "stay the course"
- "surge"
- "benchmark"
- "hard work"
- "they hate our freedoms"

And a whopping $10 if he says, at any point, in any context, "Osama bin Laden."

As always, you're invited to watch along with me and help keep count; as always, if you choose to use the SOTU for drinking games and not donations, be sure to have a designated driver, a trash can, and an ambulance on speed dial handy. Watch this space for commentary, final numbers, and the big take for the Wounded Warrior Project (to date: $200.75). Vaya con Dios.

On the good, the bad, and the Friday Random Ten

In good taste and very, very bad

Okay, so what a week it's been. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. Tom Cruise had a whacked-out sci-fi fantasy. Britney Spears had a new personality that thought it still had kids. And me? Well, I had a pinot-grigio-fueled nightmare that I was trapped inside Amy Winehouse's beehive. But that's all over now, because it's Friday.

(Incidentally, every time I upload pictures to Flickr, it invites me to "Save This Batch," and every time I think I'm being invited to Save This Biatch. Which isn't a bad idea. If anyone needs saving, it's this biatch right here.)

What's good (for the week ending 1/25):

- Cloverfield. Seriously, an incredible movie. Not so graphic that I had to watch it filtered through my fingers, but I did have my hand over my mouth the entire time (and I don't know why people do that, and I never thought I did it, but apparently, I do). The (ironically named) Steadicam did send me home craving peppermint tea to calm my stomach, but even if I'd had to yark in the bushes outside of the theatre, it would have been totally worth it.
- C.O. Bigelow Mentha Lip Shine in Vanilla Malt Shake
- pot roast on a cold night. And we've had some (some cold nights, and some pot roast). I had the misfortune to be up at 4:45 Sunday morning taking my cousin to the airport, and my hardy little German-made car decided that 17 degrees with a wind chill of 12 was precisely the temperature at which she no longer wanted to function. I'd have been mad, but I really couldn't blame her.
- the "Bit O' Blues" radio station on iTunes
- red lipstick to lift a lousy mood

What's bad:

- folks profiting from a tragedy. Come on, people, a person has actually died. Can we maybe leave the loved ones to their grief without a) speculating or b) jumping on the grief train? And this guy is just a scum.
- liars

The Ten:

1. Sarah Brightman, "Only an Ocean Away"
2. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "The Impression That I Get"
3. Shirley Bassey, "Big Spender"
4. Poe, "Fingertips"
5. Nina Simone, "See-Line Woman"
6. P.O.D., "Boom"
7.The Isely Brothers, "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)"
8. Nanci Griffith, "Workin' In Corners"
9. Pet Shop Boys, "Casanova in Hell"
10. Guster, "Window" (live, with Jump, Little Children)


Funny story: I can't really figure what predictions this Ten might make for the coming weekend, but it describes the past week almost precisely. And no, I won't tell you how. What's good for you this week?

On der Untergang der Cowboys

Okay, so you know I was laughing.



"It's all Jessica Simpson's fault."

On having more than dreams

Okay, so this may not be the most timely of posts, since Martin Luther King, Jr., Day was yesterday, and all I posted about was Scientologists, and that's 'cause I shamefully spent most of the day on the couch with popcorn and soap operas and a splitting headache when I was perfectly capable of going out and doing at least one of the many good deeds being done throughout Birmingham in honor of the holiday.

But what's up with the "I Have a Dream" speech?

Don't get me wrong, now. It's an awesome and very moving speech. It's well-written, of course, with great parallelism and imagery and a rhythmic kind of poetry that I think you have to actually be a minister to perfect. And of course it sends a great message of cooperation and tolerance and acceptance and unity and peace, one that was practically unheard of in the general population at the time. As oratorical rallying points go, it's not a bad one.

But every time MLK Day rolls around, the speech gets played on the news, and schoolchildren stand up and recite it, and they have activities where they write their own dreams on construction-paper American flags and post them on bulletin boards, and organizations have Dream Luncheons and I Have a Dream Tolerance Symposia and everyone dreams of little black boys and girls holding hands with little white boys and girls.

And every time, I wonder if that sixth-grader really knows what words like "interposition" and "nullfication" mean when she says them, or if we all know whether or not we're "engag[ing] in the luxury of cooling off" or "tak[ing] the tranquilizing drug of gradualism," or if, really, anybody actually listens to the speech anymore or if we just let the words roll over us like the prayers we've been saying in church since toddlerhood ("Our Father, who aren't in heaven...").

It's nothing wrong with the speech. It was then and remains revolutionary and powerful. But it, like the Lord's Prayer, like the Pledge of Allegiance, suffers for repetition if we never take the time to break it down by line and phrase and appreciate what's really being said. I think we might all benefit if we occasionally swapped out that most famous and worthy of speeches for some of his equally profound ones that get less attention but could, through their sheer novelty, make a little more impact -- and in so doing, honored the man not for a moment of oratory inspiration but for a lifetime of work that still has an impact today.

Last year, I posted from this April 1967 speech:

And so, I conclude by saying today that we have a task, and let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction.

Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.

Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.

Let us be dissatisfied until those who live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.

Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family will live in a decent, sanitary home.

Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality integrated education.

Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.

Let us be dissatisfied until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not on the basis of the color of their skin. Let us be dissatisfied.

...

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us the courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.

Three years earlier, Dr. King had said this in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama, to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity.

This same road has opened for all Americans a new ear of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a superhighway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.

I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.

"And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."

I still believe that we shall overcome.

On pre-screening for the deep-down crazy

Okay, so Tom Cruise didn't get where he is just by being insanely rich, insanely power-hungry, and insane, full-stop. No, he had to go through an intense auditing process designed to evaluate his mental and emotional state and ultimately free him from possession by the alien ghosts that escaped from volcanoes millions of years ago and were polluting his mind with the false memories inflicted by Xenu's brainwashing.

The good news is that you, too, can be free of those naughty, naughty alien ghosties by going down to your local Scientology center and getting hooked up to an e-meter. In the meantime, though, Radar magazine has been kind enough to publish an excerpt from the actual tests used by LRH's followers in the orgs to KSW and free preclears from the influence of thetans and SPs.



How clear are you?

• Have you ever enslaved a population?

Well, imagine a group of fifty or so people who voluntarily visit a blog each day in search of wisdom and humor and continue to return despite consistently getting this dreck instead. What would you call that?

• Have you ever killed the wrong person?

I prefer to consider it killing the right person a little bit early.

• Have you ever wiped out a family?

It can be argued that my lack of success in the dating arena qualifies as wiping out my future husband and kids simply by never having any.

• Have you ever tried to give sanity a bad name?

Tried?

• Have you ever consistently practiced sex in some unnatural fashion?

Dude, my parents read this blog.

• Have you ever made love to a dead body?

See above.

• Have you ever engaged in piracy?

Annually.

• Have you ever been a pimp?

I spent two years of my life as a trend pimp. I'm still recovering from the shame.

• Have you ever eaten a human body?

Hello, Catholic?

• Have you given robots a bad name?

They do that quite nicely themselves, thanks. You might want to talk to David Letterman, though.

• Have you driven anyone insane?

I once had a Spanish teacher who retired suddenly after an orchestrated gaslighting campaign by her students. I cannot disclose who was responsible for that campaign.

• Is anybody looking for you?

If the Department of Homeland Security isn't keeping an eye on me, I'll be not only surprised but hurt. Seriously, I do, and I do, and I do for you people!

• Have you ever set a poor example?

Daily.

• Have you systematically set up mysteries?

I'm aloof and enigmatic, and that bothers you. (That one's for you, Doug.)

• Have you ever made a practice of confusing people?

It makes the mysteries that much more interesting.

• Have you ever gone crazy?

I live there.

• Have you ever sought to persuade someone of your insanity?

Have I ever had to?

• Do you deserve to have any friends?

Absolutely not. I consider myself deeply lucky in that respect.

• Have you ever castrated anyone?

Does verbally count?

• Is there any question on this list I had better not ask you again?

This one.

• Have you ever tried to make the physical universe less real?

Reality is universally difficult to handle. I consider it my duty to humanity to make that reality as surreal as possible. Call it a service.

Check the whole list at Radar. You may find that you're less clear than you thought. The cool thing about Scientology, though, is that they're the authorities on everything: getting people off drugs, the mind, improving conditions, criminology, the way to happiness, bringing peace, uniting cultures, making a better souffle, preventing static cling, conquering that not-so-fresh feeling, leaving Britney Spears to her own devices, and jumping on couches. If you're not in the game, you need to get out of the arena. Peace.

On the good, the bad, and the Friday Random Ten

Smart and funny; neither.

Okay, so I think that getting work to do during our slow period (also known as "pretty much all winter") is more unpleasant and arduous than it is during our blisteringly heavy period because people don't prioritize. Wrapping up a student recruitment campaign in August, we know exactly where every postcard, brochure, and viewbook needs to be and when it needs to get there, and it might mean working late, but it gets done, by God. January brings account executives Lumberghing into my office and saying things like, "Yeeeeah, we haven't talked about this, but I've been talking to the School of Medicine about a video we're doing for them, and if you could go ahead and interview some people and get a script written up, that would be great. Just a five-minute video with an intro and some voiceovers and those interviews would be great. And I'm gonna need you to go ahead and get that to me by the end of the day today. Yeeeeah." Thus Friday has come with the thundering speed of a frozen turd rolling uphill. It's also come with snow -- just a little bit, just on the rooftops -- which makes it an awesome week regardless.

What's good (for the week ending 1/18):

- Oreo Candy Bites 100-calorie packs
- the BSC Headquarters
- Juno
- Atonement (seriously, one of the most visually stunning films I've seen in my life, and I've seen some)
- hip-hop violin

What's bad:

- theocracy
- in hindsight, pretty much the entirety of the Baby-Sitters Club series

The Ten:

1. Frederic Chopin, "Nocturne No. 17 in B Major"
2. Wolfsheim, "Once in a Lifetime"
3. Claude Debussy, "Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum" from Children's Corner
4. Frank Sinatra, "Too Marvelous for Words"
5. Evanescence, "Taking Over Me"
6. Pet Shop Boys, "Fugitive (Richard X Extended Mix)"
7. Michael Bublé, "Come Fly With Me"
8. Kermit Venable and the BeauBassin Cajun Band, "Back of Town"
9. Nickel Creek, "When You Come Back Down"
10. The Rolling Stones, "Blinded by Rainbows"

I'm not really sure how to interpret that as a prediction for my weekend. Maybe I'll appear smarter and more cultured than I actually am. That could be cool.

How was your week? That, your ten, and your childhood favorites that don't hold up on further examination go in comments.

On a return to my childhood (and why that's a bad idea)

Okay, so I am, despite the accusations of a couple of acquaintances, a generally contented person. I'm not unhappy, I'm not angry. I am opinionated and outspoken, frequently sarcastic (I consider it an art form), and occasionally bitchy (going by my family's preferred definition of "bitch," it being "a woman who just got her way"). I now have reason to believe that my constant tweenhood diet of Baby-Sitters Club books can be held somewhat responsible for this.

What else could make a woman go from this

I’m not sure how I felt reading these the first time around, but the early books are the biggest stretches…they’re not the realistic-ish conflict that happen in some of the books (friends ditching friends, stupid fights, etc) nor the really outlandish stuff (getting lost on an island in Long Island Sound, winning the lottery, best friends’ parents getting remarried)…

and this

ANM really likes the mysteries, but really not so good at writing them. Her mysteries remind me of the witch and ghost stories I used to write when I was young. Nothing was connected other than superficially, there’s no depth. Now, I’m sure part of that was me being influenced by her. But, a crazy rich published writer should have worked a little harder. (Ouch, I know.)

to this?

First of all this book should totally have been called "Stacey is a Selfish Fucking Cow." Now, I know she's usually selfish and inconsiderate in general, but this book positively revels in her assitude.

...

Oh, and there's this uber-lame subplot. Haley Braddock and Vanessa Pike have a huge fucking fight because they both got the same bathing suit. Yawn.

...

Stacey is just positive that Mal will be a knockout one of these days. I, for one, am not convinced. Also, Stacey is monumentally fucking condescending. In addition to being a bitch. And a liar.

It's got to be more than two years of steady exposure to some of the craziest-making tween-targeted books on the planet. I freaking loved those books. I had all of them (the ones available at the time, anyway). I wanted to be them. I wanted to start my own club, like Kristy. I named my cat Tigger because of Mary Anne. I got my hair permed because of Stacey (big mistake. Big. Huge). I tried to dress like Claudia, much to the dismay of my parents, because it resulted in outfits similar to this,

... I wore the coolest tuxedo I'd recently bought in a thrift shop, including a silky, piped shirt and a bright red velvet cummerbund. I removed the shoulder pads from the jacket, which made it really slouchy (I love that look). Then I bought a pair of white socks with silver glitter. I decided to wear a pair of red sneakers to match the cummerbund. I swept my hair up and fastened it with a rhinestone barrette in the shape of a musical note.

resulting, I'm sure, in muttered editorial comments from my parents something akin to this.

Wow. I think she's destined for a future as a backup dancer at the Tonys circa 1982.

Regardless, I feel a true kinship to brave Tiff, who is blogging her way through the Baby-Sitters Club series at the rate of one excruciating novel a week. I think it's awesome. How often do you get such a bracing recap of the abject inanity that you sucked up unquestioningly as a child? Why did I never appreciate what a bitch Stacey was? Why did I never wonder why the entire damn club always managed to go on vacation to the same spot at the same time? Why did it make sense to me that a couple of eleven-year-olds might be put in charge of children? Why in God's name did I ever think that red leggings and a purple turtleneck could possibly be a good idea?

I'm sure I'm projecting on Tiff here when I speculate that that kind of question is responsible for the vehemence of her posts. Reading over her recaps, I find myself thinking, Ann M. Martin, what the hell did you do to me? What gave you the power and authority to fuck with the mind of a twelve-year-old? How dare you impose the gospel of Laura Ashley on an impressionable tween? Dawn was not laid back; she was uptight to threaten Kristy's uptightness, and her "California casual" outfits sound, in retrospect, hideous. Claudia was a flake and an unrealistically lousy speller. Mallory was a whiny little bitch. Mary Anne was reasonably interesting when she nutted up and stepped to the more overbearing members of the BSC, and she probably had the least ridiculous wardrobe by today's standards, so go Mary Anne. Except that Logan was a controlling asshole, and she needed to stop being such a doormat to him, and to her dad, and most of all, to Kristy. Kristy was a shrew. And you're right, Tiff, they never did think to actually talk to a fucking adult when something, say, illegal was taking place, and Stacey never took a beach trip without whoring it up with some crappy choice of a boy and leaving all of the work on her friends, and what kind of criminally irresponsible idiot parent leaves an infant in the hands of a thirteen-year-old, and... I think I need to lie down.

The book ends terribly. "And that's no lie!" SMACK!!!!!!

I'd totally bring back the silver squiggle pin, though. Those things were boss.

On open theocracy

Okay, so this kind of thing is why this election is so important, and why you just cannot believe the fundies when they claim they respect your right to practice your own religion (when they bother to claim it):

" do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Despite the fact that Huck doesn't define which god, whose concept of God, or the god of which holy book or series of books is the one whose will is to be enshrined in our nation's constitution, I think it's fairly safe to assume that he means the god of the King James version of the Christian bible as interpreted by the Southern Baptist Convention, also known as his god. Amending the Constitution to those particular standards would mean banning blended fibers (which should improve business for cotton farmers, at least) and shellfish (but not so much for the shrimpers, crabbers, and lobstermen off the coast of New England) and approving slavery and the stoning of insubordinate children. We know for sure it'll involve wifely submission.

If Huck asked me what God's standards are for gay marriage or universal health care or national defense, I daresay he'd get a couple of answers that he'd disagree with. And I daresay he'd go right ahead and push for unitary executive power over my uterus whether I thought God would approve or not. Because we're not talking about God's standards; we're talking about Huck's standards, the ones he's pushing by waving a bible around and invoking the name of a being that between five and ten percent of Americans don't even believe exists. We're talking about Mike Huckabee as the god of the Constitution, and if not him, the fundie wackos behind him, and if not them, some other fundie wacko pursuing the presidency with the same agenda.

What ever happened to John F. Kennedy's take on religion?

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew--or a Quaker--or a Unitarian--or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim--but tomorrow it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

[...]

Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

A personal belief system is inevitable, as is the fact that whatever your beliefs happen to be will have some influence over your conscience. That's unavoidable. But a presidential candidate needs to come into the race conscious of that fact and determined to avoid it to the extent that it is possible to do so. Because the president needs to see to the physical, terrestrial interests of the American people and leave their heavenly salvation to whatever higher power they worship or choose not to, as is their right as enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution on which he's trying to impose the questionable standards of his personal god.

Unless we're talking about the standards of this guy's god. He seems to have it together.

On Hollywood and the unwed mother

Okay, so I was already prepared to hate Juno when I walked into the theatre. I'd read a lot on various feminist blogs about the way various parts of the film could be twisted by anti-choicers, and I'd read a couple of interviews with the screenwriter, Diablo Cody, that really made me question her sense of wealthy white privilege. And when Ellen Page's Juno MacGuff yelled at that dog to "Shut [his] gob," I knew that I was going to hate the unrealistically snappy smart-disaffected-teen pseudo-slang-a-la-Megan-Jasper.

Except I actually really, really liked the movie.

It wasn't hard to like. It also wasn't hard to pick out which parts would be prime fodder for anti-choicers; 16-year-old preggo Juno (and I don't think I'm spoiling too much here, but do read on at your own peril) goes into an abortion clinic and ends up coming back out when she discovers that her fetus already has fingernails. She responsibly decides to put the kid up for adoption. She searches for a loving, stable, hetero, normal couple to raise the kid, and she finds them, and they meet and negotiate a closed adoption and the deal is done and aren't we all just about to have a happily-ever-after 'cause Juno chose life?

Yeah, sure, on the surface, yeah. If you haven't actually seen the movie and are working purely from hearsay, reviews, and some promotional materials, you might think that. But actually watching, you see how the movie is all about choice -- Juno's choice to have or not have the baby. Juno's choice to put it up for adoption. Juno's process of selecting an adoptive family that she finds appropriate. And at the end, which I will absolutely not spoil because I insist that each and every one of you go see it and report back, she makes a couple of pretty significant choices, some of which might satisfy the fundies, one of which almost certainly would not. Without really advocating any particular path -- Juno's situation is presented as unique, as all such situations are -- Juno is given the authority over her own life and body to decide how to address her unique circumstances.

And that's what the pro-choice position is all about. It's not about forcing people to have abortions or ripping eight-months fetuses from their unsuspecting hosts in the dark of night. It's not even about advising that women have abortions. It's just about making sure that, should a young woman like Juno or an older woman with a family decide that her circumstances aren't conducive to carrying a pregnancy to term, she has access to safe and affordable health care for that process. And it's about supporting her choice if she chooses to have the baby after all and raise it, so that she can afford to support herself and her kid and give them both the best life possible. And it's about supporting her choice if she chooses to have the baby and give it up for adoption, so that she can have access to health care to keep her healthy and adoption services to help her find a good, loving family of whatever shape or orientation.

It's also, of course, about preventing the need for abortions in the first place, to the extent that such a thing can be done. It's a laugh line in the movie, but the boysenberry condoms proffered by the receptionist at the abortion clinic -- "My boyfriend wears one every time we have intercourse. It makes his junk smell like pie" -- are also a reasonably effective means of preventing pregnancy in the first place. Far moreso than, say, pretending that sex doesn't exist, telling teens never to have it, and expecting that they'll have the un-hormonally-driven self-control to refrain.

From where I sat, the movie was far more pro-choice than anti-, but I can see why antis desperate for a pop-culture foothold might bite down on it and wrestle it into submission in fallacious support of their own ends. At the same time, though, I've tried to come up with a lighthearted, non-preachy movie based on the a similar premise but with a different ending -- pregnant teen/woman decides to have the abortion -- and I just can't figure out how to make a movie out of it that's worth making a movie of. If she chooses to have the abortion and, as so frequently happens, it all works out well, she sighs and says, Well, gosh, I wish I hadn’t had to do that. Oh, well, life goes on, and life goes on, there’s not much of a movie. And, of course, if she chooses to have an abortion and everything goes horribly (or even marginally) wrong, the anti-choicers are all over it, screaming, See what happens?! See what happens when you kill teh baybeez?!!?!?!one!! Maybe it could be a movie from the perspective of one of the woman’s other kids who now has a better life because her mother had an abortion, but I just don’t know.

Commenters on the Feministe thread suggest movies like Teachers and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, both of which address the abortion issue as only an 80's film can, but both of those include said issue as a provocative subplot rather than the main focus. It all makes me think that maybe there aren’t any explicitly pro-choice movies out there because the pro-choice position is so inherently reasonable as to be beyond cinematic drama.

Regardless, I'm not going to let the antis plant their flag in this one just because they can't be bothered to read beneath the surface, especially since in their ideal world, Juno probably wouldn't have had access to the health care necessary to produce a healthy baby, and she certainly wouldn't have been able to leave it in the loving arms where it ultimately landed. The whole damn movie is all about choice -- and more than that (more importantly than that, even? It could be argued), it's really, really entertaining. And funny. And sweet. And Allison Janney is my hero. And unlike Knocked Up, it's probably even a movie you could see on a date without going home and sitting on opposite sides of the couch without making eye contact.

On the good, the bad, and the Friday Random Ten

Trust me, you never think to buy them 'til it's already pouring down.

Okay, so it seems like this week was really focused on Hillary Clinton and the stuff she's been putting up with, and that's probably because that's what's been going on and has been interesting. I kind of hate primaries season because, as necessary as it is in our current political system, it's kind of a crappy way to choose a candidate. You're given a field of five or eight candidates who, all being of one party and probably within the "moderate" limits of said party (the 'wingers are pretty much there for entertainment value) and they argue about which of them best represents the values of that party. It's like trying to pick the plaid-est out of a drawerful of plaid socks. Once they've differentiated themselves just a bit and the field narrows, it turns into a monkeyhouse poop-fight wherein each candidate and his/her supporters try to point out exactly why the other candidates suck deeply and should go back where they came from. Then, once a candidate is chosen, everyone who's just spent the last three months slagging him/her off like he/she is depravity incarnate and Satan and Pete Wentz (but I repeat myself) now turns around to talk about how their candidate is, in fact, the very height of awesome and we always liked him/her and it's the other guy who's scum.

Yeah, that'll work.

So at this point, as much as I love my buddy Barack, I'm still counting the days (and it's still, like, 230 or something) until we have a nominee and a platform and can get down to the actual, non-circular-firing-squad-ish business of putting a decent chief executive into the Oval Office.

Lots going on until then, though.

What's good (for the week ending 1/11):

- Naomi Watts's boots in Eastern Promises
- Viggo Mortensen's tats in Eastern Promises (what can I say? Bad boys have their appeal)
- putting your hot guy in and riding him all night (at a football game. Man, you've got a dirty mind)
- gushing, crashing, crackling thunderstorms as seen from the other side of a sturdy window and a steaming cup of tea
- kicky rain boots

What's bad:

- not having kicky rain boots when it starts raining
- getting assaulted by a face-pinching Tweety Bird

The Ten:

1. Chicane, "Lost You Somewhere"
2. Elton John, "But Not For Me"
3. ZZ Top, "Legs"
4. Ben Folds Five, "Brick"
5. Evanescence, "Whisper"
6. The Drifters, "Save the Last Dance for Me"
7. Carl Orff, "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana
8. Serge Gainsbourg, "Wake Me at Five"
9. The Clash, "Something About England"
10. Downright, "Drinking the Dregs"

And on a personal note here, best of luck and comfort and healing to a certain Practically Harmless regular who recently laid his bike down doing 60. If y'all need anything at all, you know where to find me. Anything good for you this week? Anything?

On shit that'll get your arm broken, for serious

Okay, so I know this blog has kind of gone all-Hillary, all the time (which is especially funny considering that I don't even intend to vote for her in the primaries), but beyond being an Obama supporter, I'm a woman, and some shit just pisses me off.

Seriously, I am not a violent person, but any individual, male or female, who intends to come up on me and pinch my cheek like you're my grandmother (and, for the record, none of my elders have ever pinched my cheek, because they all recognize how incredibly demeaning it is) will end up with your wrist in a cast, and it's justifiable, because you touched me first. Why Chris Matthews would think it's appropriate to tweak the cheek of a full-grown adult, sitting Senator, and presidential candidate is beyond me, but I do suspect it has something to do with her matched set of X chromosomes.

It's easy to cry sexism when you've got a candidate who is being attacked and also happens to be a woman; you run into correlation vs. causation issues if you make that call too early. Certainly, not every criticism made about her policies or candidacy is motivated by the fact that she's a woman. But when you see her criticized for something like showing emotion when she's feeling particularly impassioned about the future of her country (for which a comparable man would be lauded as strong, determined, devoted) or treated like someone's adorable niece in a cupcake dress and ruffled diaper cover, I can't ignore the fact that she is being treated differently because of her gender -- and I welcome examples of times when she's made an issue of her gender herself, because I haven't really noticed any, although I'll confess that I haven't been looking.

I'm with Megan Carpenter there. I dee-double-dog dare Chris Matthews to tweak the cheek of every candidate he interviews until the general election. John McCain, I think, has particularly pinchable cheeks, and I know you could get a good handful of Fred Thompson's jowls. But doing that'll be proof to me that you're not actually a patronizing, sexist asshole but merely an smarmy, unprofessional asshole with serious boundary issues.

On tears and a clown: Redux

Okay, so I've loved Tom Toles before I even knew what politics were (was? were?).

Still do.

(Incidentally, Jeff Fecke over at Shakesville suggests that Clinton's New Hampshire victory might be partly due to women being sick and damn tired of pols and press attacking Clinton for being a woman. I think he's got something there. I'm still an Obama supporter, but I get a little more pissed off with every mention of Clinton and her girl-cooties.)

On tears and a clown

Nut up, ya wuss.

Okay, so Hillary Clinton got choked up at a campaign event.

ZOMG!!111!!one!!! Hilery Clinton haz emoshuns! She cant be preznit!!!1!!eleven!!!

We all saw this coming, right? As soon as we knew we had a presidential race with a viable female candidate in it, the questions flew about whether she'd be the wobbly little creampuff that it's always been assumed a female president would be. Because women are emotional and illogical. Because they get their periods and feel sad about things. Because a woman who was president during a threat to national security would probably, say, get all scared and mad and invade a country that wasn't even involved just to look tough. (Well, okay, not that one.)

And so Hillary Clinton got into the race and was... not emotional. Robotic, even, some said. Harsh. Tough. "Stoic and sharp-edged." Ice-queen-esque with her pantsuits and her unemotionality. The same stability and strength that would have any male candidate declared Reaganesque was, on her, ball-busting bitchiness, because she's a woman, and women are supposed to be soft and nurturing.

But God forbid she should actually have emotions, John Edwards:

“I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business,” Edwards told reporters Laconia, New Hampshire.

Now, Amanda reads that as blatantly sexist. I can see where she'd get that, although several commenters on that thread pointed out that the above comment directly followed his stated desire not to comment on Clinton's emotionality. Still, though, it's a shot, one that he may or may not have taken at a male candidate who displayed passion and frustration when talking about his hopes for the country.

Because that's what it was. A lot of people have characterized it as a lot of different things, including calculated histrionics, but watch the video. "You know, I have so many opportunities for this country. I just don't want to see us fall backwards." Isn't that something we want our presidential candidates to care about? "This is very personal for me. It's not just political, it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game, they think it's like who's up or who's down. It's about our country, it's about our kids' futures, and it's really about all of us together." Yeah, it is, actually. And if she was tired and a little bit frustrated and her voice cracked when she talked about the stuff that's really important to all of us, can you blame her?

Strength isn't about being unemotional, and toughness doesn't mean not having emotions. I don't think that anyone would call armor-plated steamroller fullback Owen Schmitt weak because, during a moment of elevated emotion, he shed a tear. I suspect that few would think our president any less of a cowboy for welling up at his inauguration, and any demands for a stoic solidity in the face of crisis could be answered with his teary photo op in the Oval Office soon after the 9/11 attacks.



But when a man is overcome with emotion and lets a single, crystalline tear roll slowly down his sooty and battle-scarred cheek, it's handsome and admirable. When a woman, exhausted from intense campaigning and frustrated and worried about the idea that our country is backsliding from its ideals, lets her voice break, just a little, watch out; she's probably about to get her period or something.

Obama is my candidate of choice in the primaries. I'm not voting for Senator Clinton because I disagree with her policies and object to some of the more opportunistic stabs she's made in the direction of the squishy moderate. I'm not not-voting for her because she felt a feeling that any emotionally mature and politically aware person is feeling right now, and I'm not castigating her for expressing that feeling a little bit where people could see her in all of her human indignity. Much better a president who can process his or her emotions, express them, and move on than one who has to sublimate them into violence against thousands of innocent people.