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Category Archives: Culture
What I’m Reading, May 20, 2014
![By Darkness Blackheart from Mystery Babylon, Infinita (IMG_0354) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Victoria_Beckham_and_the_Spice_Girls_in_Las_Vegas_2007-225x300.jpg "By Darkness Blackheart from Mystery Babylon, Infinita (IMG_0354) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
I couldn’t find a good stock photo signifying “resentment,” so here’s Victoria Beckham, who sings a song with that title.
Once again, we can see how these folks divide the world into a bifurcated land of enterprising strivers and idle moochers. Conservatives have an easy time understanding the world as a “fallen” place where sin is ever-present and perfection always eludes even the best of bureaucratic planners, but they seem to have great difficulty in understanding that the world is also a place with broken people who through genetics, environment, or misfortune are in need of societal assistance. As long as there is some accountability, they are pretty good at forgiveness, but compassion and empathy are tremendous challenges for them.
But, quite aside from all that, we can see that resentment is the key ingredient in their political toolbox.
GOP lawmaker doubles down on anal sex obsession, Robyn Pennacchia, Death and Taxes, May 6, 2014 Continue reading
The Pocahontas Argument
The following argument was actually made, out loud, during proceedings before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Bostic v. Schaefer, a same-sex marriage case (the context is a comparison between anti-same-sex marriage laws and anti-interracial marriage laws struck down in Loving v. Virginia):
There is a history, prior to the Jim Crow era laws, the anti-miscegenation laws. The idea of interracial marriage was not prohibited. It still fit within the fundamental right of marriage, the idea of a man-woman marriage. Before Virginia passed those affirmative anti-miscegenation laws, it might not have been the social norm, but people certainly could have married, and indeed did marry, across racial lines. Pocahontas married John Rolfe in the early 1600s and their marriage wasn’t declared unconstitutional
David S. Cohen at Slate deconstructs some of the problems with this argument, although I suspect one could write a book detailing just the legal or historical problems with it. As Cohen notes: Continue reading
What I’m Reading, May 19, 2014
![By Peter Mackinnon, Kerry Calder, and Stef Moir/First Photographics [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Morphsuit_photoshoot_leap.jpg "By Peter Mackinnon, Kerry Calder, and Stef Moir/First Photographics [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
Amazon’s ridiculous photography patent makes Mark Cuban happy, Andrew Leonard, Salon, May 9, 2014
If you are, like Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, a person who believes that the U.S. patent system is completely out-of-whack, then the news that Amazon was recently granted a patent for the process of shooting pictures against a white backdrop was simultaneously a cause for outrage and reason for jubilation.
The outrage part is easy. Studio photographers have been taking pictures against white backgrounds for ages. The notion that such a thing could be patented strikes many people as inexplicable and bizarre. But that’s also exactly why this particular tidbit exploded so quickly out of the amateur photography blogosphere and into the mainstream tech press and finally to the attention of Mr. Cuban. It’s the perfect example of why we need comprehensive patent reform.
The NFL Will Never Be ‘Ready’ for an Openly Gay Player, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, February 10, 2014
[Sam] will be challenging a deep and discrepant mythology of who is capable of inflicting violence and who isn’t. Last week, Jonathan Vilma speculated about how he might feel if a gay teammate saw him naked:
Imagine if he’s the guy next to me and, you know, I get dressed, naked, taking a shower, the whole nine, and it just so happens he looks at me. How am I supposed to respond?
What undergirds this logic is a fear of being made into a woman, which is to say a fear of being regarded sexually by someone who is as strong as, or stronger than, you. Implicit to the fear is the gay player’s ability to do violence. It exists right alongside a belief that the gay player is a “sissy.” (“Grown men should not have female tendencies. Period,” Vilma once tweeted.) The logic is kin to the old Confederate belief that Southern slaves were so loyal and cowardly yet they must never be given guns.
The mythology Jonathan Vilma endorses will not fade through vague endorsements of “tolerance,” lectures on “acceptance,” nor any other species of heartfelt magic. The question which we so often have been offered—is the NFL ready for a gay player?—is backwards. Powerful interests are rarely “ready” for change, so much as they are assaulted by it. We refer to barriers being “broken” for a reason. The reason is not because great powers generally like to unbar the gates and hold a picnic in the honor of the previously excluded. The NFL has no moral right to be “ready” for a gay player, which is to say it has no right to discriminate against gay men at its leisure which anyone is bound to respect.
Photo credit: By Peter Mackinnon, Kerry Calder, and Stef Moir/First Photographics [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
There’s More to Marriage than Lust
Chris Sevier, whom you might remember as the guy who sued Apple for not stopping him from looking at porn, is really mad about the prospect of two dudes getting married. So mad, in fact, that he has decided to once again embarrass himself on the national stage in protest:
In Florida, James Domer Brenner and his partner are currently suing the state to recognize their marriage, which was legally performed in Canada. Florida does not currently allow same-sex marriage or recognize marriages performed legally elsewhere, so this is likely to be a pretty important case.
However, one man is really not happy about it. His name is Chris Savier, “a former Judge Advocate and combat veteran” who is really just a treasure. In order to protest the case before it even starts, he filed a motion to intervene in this case and demand the right to marry his “porn-filled Apple computer.” In the 24-page long document, Savier insists that if gay people “have the right to marry their object of sexual desire, even if they lack corresponding sexual parts, then I should have the right to marry my preferred sexual object.”
So instead of “girlfriend,” “fiancée,” or “wife,” should I be saying “preferred sexual object”? I don’t see that going over well. At all.
I Know that the Vast Majority of Gun Owners Are Very Responsible
What I’m Reading, May 14, 2014
Tribal gatekeepers officially enshrine Phelpsian bigotry as ‘evangelical’ and ‘Too Christian’, Fred Clark, Slacktivist, May 9, 2014
Why do right-wing extremist partisans like Jack Burkman think that they’re entitled to act as the designated spokespersons for all of Christianity? Because the gatekeepers of the white evangelical tribe have enabled and encouraged that delusion for decades now.
Burkman is a nasty piece of work whose vicious anti-gay beliefs have led him on a personal vendetta to try to destroy the career of an individual whose teammates, coaches and opponents from his years at Missouri all insist is a terrific guy. Burkman’s is the kind of unvarnished hate and bigotry that makes most public figures — politicians, TV networks, businesses — keep their distance lest the public assume they share such views.
But there’s one place where someone like Burkman will always find support. There’s one place where no amount of hateful resentment will ever cause one to be ostracized and regarded as too extreme. That’s in the white evangelical tribe. Continue reading
Conservative Caricatures (UPDATED)
![By CBS Television (eBay item photo front photo back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Carrol_OConnor_as_Archie_Bunker.jpg "By CBS Television (eBay item photo front photo back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
UPDATED 05/14/2014: Fixed some pronoun and spelling errors (h/t Alice).
I’ve commented before (at least twice) on the disconnect between liberals/progressives and conservatives when it comes to humor. I’m still sorting out the reasons for that, but so far I’m coming to the conclusion that humor itself, by virtue of being based in part on the unexpected, has certain inherently “liberal” qualities* (to use the parlance of our times.)
B. Spencer at Lawyers, Guns & Money (fast becoming the most-cited blog on here, I think) offered some thoughts on caricatures of liberals and conservatives in pop culture that got me thinking:
I wrote a post awhile back about liberals and conservatives and how we look at pop culture differently. I’ve noted before–in passing–that there seem to be more liberal caricatures in media than there are conservative caricatures. Yet most liberals seem much less angsty about enjoying popular culture more broadly, and liberal caricatures specifically. I think that it’s too easy and pat to say that “well, libs are just super-cool about everything.” I don’t think that quite covers it.
She proposes that the reason for this is that “most writers, most purveyors of popular culture are ‘on my side.'” She also specifically references the “dour feminists” on Portlandia and notes that they come across as funny in part because the show’s creators, he suspects, “are actually pretty feminist.”
Atrios builds on this, noting that those characters work in part because the writers are making fun of themselves to a certain extent, whereas conservatives who try to lampoon liberals do not have the same sort of understanding: Continue reading
What I’m Reading, May 12, 2014
![By Vegas Bleeds Neon (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Calvin_and_Hobbes-style_snowman_2b.jpg "By Vegas Bleeds Neon (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
Sixteen Things Calvin and Hobbes Said Better Than Anyone Else, Edd McCracken, Book Riot, February 6, 2012
On life’s constant little limitations
Calvin: You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don’t help.
On expectations
Calvin: Everybody seeks happiness! Not me, though! That’s the difference between me and the rest of the world. Happiness isn’t good enough for me! I demand euphoria!
***
On the unspoken truth behind the education system
Calvin: As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You’ve taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations. Continue reading
Happy Mother’s Day, Metal Style
Today, we’ll be taking my mom out to lunch at doing all the Mother’s Day stuff.
On the occasion of Mother’s Day, I figured I would take a moment to recognize other cool moms. Well, I might only get to one. We’ll see.
Mothers would do anything for their kids, it is often said. How many mothers would write, record, and perform a metal song dedicated to their son, though? I’m guessing not many, but Maria Brink, lead singer of In This Moment, wrote the song “He Said Eternity” for her kid.
Even if you’re not into metal, you surely would agree that this might qualify her as the Coolest Mom Ever.
This particular live version of the song includes her dedication to the kiddo at the beginning, but it’s not necessarily the greatest performance. I put a video with the album version after it. Continue reading