Say it ain't so!!!

Damn dude. It is one of those places that you kind of feel is trapped in time and won't go anywhere so you put off going there for a while and keep meaning to and don't and then it gets turned into a Ramada hotel.

Fuck Ramada.

But I'll check out the new place and see what it is like, though I am skeptical about any venue having the same worn-in, eastern European ex-pat feel that the Bulgarian Bar had.

Quit coddling the little whiners you idiots or they never stop whining!!!

so I followed the link to the original article that was the subject of my previous post:

TheStar.com - How to spot a baby conservative

Uh, great and all until you get to the inevitable spot where the author tries to write in a salve to the titty-baby conservative set:

"For conservatives whose feelings are still hurt, there is a more flattering way for them to look at the results. Even if they really did tend to be insecure complainers as kids, they might simply have recognized that the world is a scary, unfair place.

"Their grown-up conclusion that the safest thing is to stick to tradition could well be the right one. As for their "rigidity," maybe that's just moral certainty.

"The grown-up liberal men, on the other hand, with their introspection and recognition of complexity in the world, could be seen as self-indulgent and ineffectual."

The damn whiners are always getting the attention and learn this from all the lazy parents who just feed their whiney-ness from and early age and the teachers who work to not rock the boat with the bratty kids and the petulant parents. You could tell when a teacher had a fucking backbone and told the whining kids to shut up and deal or suffer the consequences. Same thing with parents.

Can we get a few reporters and politicians with spines who don't always try to triangulate to not offend these emotional retards who act like assholes and make the rest of our lives miserable? If a politician is saying stupid things, call them on it. If a person is saying ridiculous things, call them on it, and don't put in a cushion to protect their delicate ego. If you are dealing with your petulant roommate, maybe then you should soft-step and not be too heavy handed with any criticism, but politicians should be adult enough to take strong criticism or they should be run straight the hell out of public life. Conservative, liberal, democrat, republican, whatever. Whiney-ass-titty-babies should not be the folks steering the national dialogue.

Duh!

This is beyond not suprising:

Suburban Guerrilla: You Mean They Really Are Whiny Ass Titty Babies?

Little shits grow up to be big assholes (perhaps that is an unfortunate choice of explitives for this particular description... or maybe it is apt).

I should have rented _Mysterious Skin_

I've been fighting a little bit of a cold, and out with friends last night, everyone kept telling me I sounded like Kathleen Turner, so I decided to lay low today and just rent a couple of movies and lay around the house. I almost got _Mysterious Skin_ or _Bad Education_, but I wasn't sure if anyone else would be home and I kind of wanted to watch something fun and silly. I am a sucker for special effects and goofy sci-fi stuff and don't mind the occasional kid movie, so when I saw Zathura sitting on the shelf, i decided to give it a try.

Kids play old game, wind up in outer space, have to win the game to save themselves and get back to their family. Evil, human-eating, alien lizard-people, deranged robot. Awesome!

Uh, until you watch the movie. The special effects were great. The aesthetics, with the retro feel of the game/astronaut/spaceships/robot, were perfect. The acting was decent too and the story flowed reasonably well. So what was the trouble? From the first scene, you find yourself hard-pressed to not want every character you encounter to die. The children in the movie are horrible little shits who deserve to be eaten by alien lizard-people. Really, truly retched little beasts of humans whose incesant whining and selfishness makes you want to see them sent to boot camp. The dad seems to be well-meaning, but you definitely get the feeling from it that his doting attempts at being the perfect parent has created these little monsters who resent one another and try at every turn to monopolize his time and force a declaration that each is the favorite child and that the other is less important. It was like watching a retelling of cinderella with only the evil stepmom and stepsisters, a familial group of selfish trolls who would make sense as part of a story were they being contrasted against kindly, likable others.

Here, however, they aren't the disagreeable foils to good, hardworking, appreciative characters; they are the center of the story. That these characters were well-recieved (as is evident in the rottentomatoes.com review of Zathura) says frightening things about us. I really have a hard time believing anyone could watch that and not want to snatch those kids up and give them an ear full. And take the dad and sign him up for a parenting class too. Where is Super-Nanny when you need her? Really, donate every last one of their under appreciated toys to charity, sign them up for some team sports and after school activities (boyscouts, gymnastics, piano lessons, whatever) and give them a chore list so they could earn an allowance to buy for themselves every future toy or gadget they wants.

The most troubling part isn't just that the charaters were awful and retched and children that you would be horrified to ever be around, but that they were believable and familiar. Those spoiled little retards are popping up everywhere these days. If you saw that movie and thought the kids were likable and that that is 'just the way kids are' and you are considering raising children, please do us all a favor and consider NOT raising kids. And if you watched it and thought the kids in the movie reminded you of your children, let me be the first to tell you that your kids are not going to find a campy mechanical space game that will uproot your home, send it flying through space, and teach them valuable life lessons and make yours a functional family. You need to get advice on raising kids from the cranky old people in your neighborhood and quit being a push-over with the little horrors you have created.

Anyway, if you are in the movie store and considering renting _Zathura_, don't. Get something with charaters you could care more about and who have more functional family relationships, like maybe any John Waters film.

wah wah wah...

"It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us."

Yup, he is the only star whose private persona deviates from their public persona. If we can't trust our pop stars, who can we trust?

But really, ladies, if you want him, you can keep him.

small man syndrome

I really don't understand why bill o'reilly is on the air. TV, radio, whatever, why do they broadcast him out in public? I know, people watch him and some folks love him, but in order to continue to believe in the best in people, I have to assume that most people watching are responding to the same instinct that makes it hard to turn away from a train wreck. Yes, you could argue that a tendency to stare at train wrecks isn't exactly the best in people, but it is better than the alternative and I do think it is better if people stare at such tragedies and bear witness to them than to pretend they didn't happen. Though perhaps the trainwreck analogy is innappropriate: if he weren't on the air, the tragedy that is his person wouldn't involve so many victims. It would just a be a domestic violence situation and the people close to him could deal with it and maybe call the authorities as needed (as it apparently has been needed in his office in the past). It wouldn't so much be everyone's business that he is an angry creep with an embarrassing and agressive defensiveness who lashes out at people and can't take criticism, but he is on the air.

Really, no point left in arguing with the man. He is just kind of pathetic. Does he have family or friends who can tell him how retarded he looks? We have all met that short guy with the over-compensating Napoleon complex who acts so tough and picks on people and get so wounded and aggressive if criticised. bill acts like that, but I believe he is supposed to be quite a tall man.

I guess there is more than one way to be short.

Maybe that is why he uses a loofah in creative ways.

In highschool, there had been a guy who lived on our hall who was likable enough when he was in a good mood, but who was super bitchy most of the time. Just a crank who would lash out and gripe and get super critical and defensive with everyone else who lived around him. My roommate was talking to his girlfriend about this constant annoyance, baffled at why he would stay wound so tight and she just laughed. One of her best friends had dated him, and she informed us that the girls seemed to think that his temper tantrums were linked to physical... shortcomings. Not bottom side of average, not kind of small, but bottom of the scale little. Less than three inches erect.

I'm not saying that bill o'reilly has a short penis. I have no idea and don't really care to. I just know that he acts like he does.

Gay Patriot � The Violent Anti-Christian Leftists In America and Abroad

I've left the gay republicans alone for a while, but every now and then I decide to go slumming through some of their posts and generally end up irritated and dumbfounded. When I need to be distracted from being irritated with idiots who I otherwise love (ie a roommate who wasn't returning phonecalls and an uncle who is borderline retarded and has taken an unseeming interest in my soul and how my gay ass will burn in hell for being a homo and a liberal), I can always count on folks like gaypatriot to have an endless supply of dreck for me to focus my fury on instead.

today, he did not disappoint. In this post, he plays the always fun fake victim game:

"Is there a connection between the 2004 political speech crimes against Republicans, the rise of anti-Semitism in France and Europe, the riots by radical and moderate Muslims alike over cartoons, the Secular Left’s “War on Christmas”, and the recent spate of anti-Christian violent acts in the United States that I note below?"

As evidence, he links to articles about the churches being burnt in AL and man who opened fire in a church in Detroit. I'll just bypass the irony of the fact that it is the redneck redstate republican contingency who are most famous for church burnings and the idiocy necessary to jump to the conclusion that if they are motivated by racism, then they must have been done by lefties who hate Jesus. And I'll ignore the fact that a church being the backdrop of a domestic conflict does not make the violence an act against Christians in general. Let's get on to his conclusion based on this evidence:

"I submit there is. Despite their hysterical rantings about the massive reduction in civil rights under BushAshcroftGonzales, the facts are that the violent acts against free speech and freedom of religion in America are directed against and not by American conservatives and people of faith (mainly Christians and Jews)."

Um, uh no, the facts aren't that. It is hysterical for folks to get upset about the executive branch breaking the law, doing it secretly, and trying to cover it up when exposed despite the fact that they could have gotten warrents under the current law, even after the fact if they had just tried? But taking to unrelated regional stories of conflict involving churches as the locations of the crimes and spinning them into evidence of oppression and violence against WASPs is just good common sense?

A big fat 'whatev dude' is about all you can say. Though, actually I have more thoughts about this "wah, wah, wah, my pussy hurts" crap that retards on the right are always going on about so I'll pick this up again later.

proud citizen of bush's nation of retards

Really, why is this man allowed to talk in public? does he have loved ones? If you care about this person, don't let him speak to groups or people. I hope this is parody, but strangely don't think it is:

"Goldberg: 'Some say that Native Americans were great environmentalists don't know history. Some think that Indians were like a Disney movie, with Indians talking to bunnies. The great plains used to be a giant forest. The Indians burnt it to the ground to hunt buffalo."

The Great Plains used to be a giant forest that the Indians burnt down to hunt buffalo? Have you ever seen a more damning indictment of the American educational system? Dude, I don't even think anyone can argue with you and try and set you straight; we all just need to slowly back away and leave you alone in your weird world.

This is what you voted for...

A kid walks into a gaybar and attacks people with a hatchet and a gun.

This is what the gay marriage amendment push was about. This is what the republican national convention was about. This is what "love won out" is about.

You scream from the rafters that gay people are destroying the country and communities and should matter less under the law, and soon enough folks are getting whacked in the head with a hatchet. True, usually the violence is less odd, less reported, but all the same...

"God is the lover of the zoo."

Over New Year's while talking to me, my mother was relating that my cousin who is a Baptist minister had met Bobby Welch, the president of the southern baptist convention. Mom went on to relate that my uncle had coached him, I believe in college (in what sport, I don't know) and that he always been really nice and friendly to my mom and cousin (who were about 4 at the time) and they had their first childhood crushes on him. He always talked to them when he came by the house and (I think) was a lifeguard and would sometimes take the to the pool. Kind of a sweet story, and he sounds like he is and was a really nice guy.

This is part of what makes so much of the politics of the last couple of years so painful: I know that individually the people pushing the worst policies are also really nice people individually. Not all of them are the awful people you would expect when you look just at what they support. The freepers are the vocal few, trapped alone in their miserable lives whining on the internet, but most of the folks who voted for torturing people, war for revenge and profit, cutting social programs for the poor, harming the environment, demonizing gay people, and adjusting the tax code to benifit the the wealthiest among us are suprisingly decent people when you actually meet them one on one (and make no mistake that any vote for bush this last go round can only be viewed as a vote for such; four years into it you can no longer feign ignorance). I have no doubt that were I to meet Mr. Welch, we would probably get along so long as we didn't discuss politics or religion.

But I'm probably not going to meet him individually, despite some sort of family connections. I am going to meet his effects on the direction of the baptist church. The extreme politicization of the southern baptist convention is how I have to judge him and those he represents.

Anyway, I haven't really dug too deeply into learning more about him specifically and don't care too right now. He was nice to my mom as a child and I'll stick with that for the moment (though I am not departing with my belief that the modern southern baptist convention represents the worst of modern America).

I finally googled his name though and got this link:

Go Bobby Welch!

It is an amazingly obnoxious (and long) piece of writing to read, but the final paragraph begins with this line which begged to be shared:

"God is the lover of the zoo."

If you want context, go for it, the link is there, but it really ruins it. I do recommend the whole last paragraph, but just the line itself borders so beautifully on the absurd and is likable all by itself. Without that awful article of condescending vapid ra-ra-go-team fight-fight-fight-win-win-win crap, you can give it its own context, find a way to let it make sense. Associated with the greater horror that it is part of, you can't like it so much.

Like Bobby Welch.

Sort of... but no.

I like Larry Johnson's writing in general. He offers great insight usually, but I have to take serious issue with how he simplifies why it was stupid for Condi to not have seen the Hamas victory coming. Yes, it was stupid and probably no one outside of the administration didn't at least know they were going to do well in that election. In a post at NO QUARTER he references an excerpt of his previous writing on the subject including this statement:

"We are unwilling to come to grips with a very simple truth -- the majority of people in the Middle East prefer an Islamic rather than a secular government. Economic development does not ensure a steady march towards a secular, diverse society. Heavens (irony intended) just look at us. Despite our economic prowess and alleged sophistication, religious fundamentalists in our own country have succeeded in bringing great pressure to bear on our government and our media."

No, a majority of the people in the Middle East do not prefer an Islamic government to a secular diverse government. A majority of people in the Middle East aren't seeing their needs met and the Islamic surge is fed off of a resentment of the West's role in that lack. Hamas won because it is concerned with the day to day needs of the population of Palestine. This is not to say that Hamas goes about acheiving this the right way or that Hamas gaining more power bodes well for the region, but if you want to take the teeth out of Hamas and resistance groups there are only two ways too it and neither has a damn thing to do with religion. The religion part is just a cultural rallying point, reinforcing a sense of belonging and moral imperitive to a cause. To slow down terrorist groups you have to either kill them all ('them' being the members of not just the organization itself, but the entire group, ethnic/regional/political/whatever that they are revolting in the name of), or you have to incorporate the population back into the community. In Israel, the Palestinians have been marginalized and divided and had much of their means of economic stability destroyed. Until those issues are handled, the resistance will only get increasingly heated.

This isn't because Palestinians want an Islamic government. It is because they see Hamas as fighting against and enemy who is standing in the way of their security. Give a Middle Eastern nation security and stability for a few years and see if the populace keeps voting in an Islamic majority.

And the same with this country. Yes, economic development does insure a march towards a more secular diverse society, but only in so much as all members of society are incorporated and involved in that society and that the economic development doesn't allow one group to accumulate most of the profit. No, Christians in this country are by no means the ones with the economic short end of the stick, but they sell their message as a reaction to being victimized.

They are not selling Jesus's message, but rather using the Bible as a cultural touch stone for rallying against the forces which they peceive as threatening them. Notice that the religious right attracts the most racist, bigoted folks you will ever meet. Not only the overt ones, but the message of protecting the world from this secular onslaught is also not so subtly as they would like to believe communicating a wish for a time when being white was more overtly advantageous. We aren't stupid; we know what is meant when they talk about the good old days and it has nothing to do with morality. It is about the world being organized in a way that white people and particularly a certain segment of the white population was on top and assured of staying on top.

The religious right makes a great noise about the country turning from its values, but this is what they mean. It is just a thinly veiled attempt at resurrecting social controls that keep people 'in their place'.

I am not so cynical to believe that all religious sentiment amongst people is so calculated and callous. Certainly there are true believers and those whose moral compass is aligned by their faith, be it Christian, Muslim, or other and certainly churches and mosques play central roles in many communities and that the idea of getting a feeling on belonging and purpose isn't only a negative thing or necessarily in opposition to a functional, diverse, accepting culture. But for these things to remain positive, people's basic needs must be met and they must feel secure and safe or their religious sentiment can easily be harnessed into knee-jerk political opposition, which in more extreme cases can lead to terrorism.

Overheard commentary about Middle Eastern political commentary

If you are in my bedroom adding water to your aquarium and you overhear someone angrily pacing and talking on the phone utter the words "mother-fucking twat monkeys," you may be fairly certain that Mason has just finished reading the New York Times' editorial commentary about Middle Eastern political goings on and is now discussing it with some poor soul. Today it was their asinine and patronizing comments about Hamas's recent political success in Palestine and what it says about the prospects for democracy in the Middle East.

Shorter James Glanz:Should we really have allowed the brown people to vote?

john tierney still a dumbass

as I have pointed out before,john tierney is a dumbass, which of course makes him an appropriate replacement for william safire. And he is back decrying the horrors of the drug war, how it has torn minority communities apart with harsh sentencing of nonviolent offenders and...no, he's upset because a white doctor got busted for trading oxycotin prescriptions for sex. What noble cause he has taken up, an obvious miscarriage of justice.

Bustardblog has already smacked the dork for it, so I'll just keep my trap shut.

Good As You: 'Brokeback' uber-critic books another Fox News gig

From the excellent blog Good As You I see that fox news is booking an idiot bigot fearmonger to trash 'Brokeback Mountain'.

Suprising? No.

The guy's review of the movie is just as predictable. Evil Hollywood is sneakily manipulating us to not hate homos, when if they were honest, they would really be portraying the gays as pedophiles and drug addicts. Cutting edge stuff, eh? Throw in some nazi references, cry 'what about the women and kids who got hurt?', and invoke rape. Insert anti-smoking message.

Let's look at a little section:

"Yes, the talents of Hollywood's finest are brought together in a successful attempt at making us experience Ennis's suffering, supposedly inflicted by a homophobic society. Heath Ledger's performance is brilliant and devastating. We do indeed leave the theater feeling Ennis's pain. Mission accomplished."

Credit where credit is due: he at least seems to seen the movie, unlike damn near every other retarded review I have read. But uh, "supposedly inflicted by a homophobic society"? What do you propose caused the difficulties in the film? The outcome wouldn't have been different had it been set in a homo friendly society? I guess you can also blame them for being born into socio-economic settings which didn't afford them the opportunity to escape their unfriendly surroundings and build a life in a supportive community, like I was able to, but that doesn't make the fag-hostile backdrop any less culpable for having no place for these fellows other than in the closet or in the ground.

a little more? ok:

"Lost in all of this, however, are towering, life-and-death realities concerning sex and morality and the sanctity of marriage and the preciousness of children and the direction of our civilization itself. So please, you moviemakers, how about easing off that tight camera shot of Ennis's suffering and doing a slow pan over the massive wreckage all around him? What about the years of silent anguish and loneliness Alma stoically endures for the sake of keeping her family together, or the terrible betrayal, suffering and tears of the children, bereft of a father? None of this merits more than a brief acknowledgment in "Brokeback Mountain.""

Uh, you kind of have to be special to not see all the wreckage and anguish in this movie. Alma's suffering isn't exactly whitewashed, but also, true to life, she is able to remarry. She has other places to turn, a community to support her in her pain and she and their children are not left abandoned. The community that would rip Ennis to shreds or send him packing if his pain were public offers her other opportunities to move on and have a place.

And a quick aside: the whole cult of children makes me want to strangle someone. "...the preciousness of children..."? WTF? Let me go puke.

back to kupelian:

"What is important to the moviemakers, rather, is that the viewer be made to feel, and feel, and feel again as deeply as possible the exquisitely painful loneliness and heartache of the homosexual cowboys – denied their truest happiness because of an ignorant and homophobic society."

In a perfect world, this wouldn't be a political film. It isn't specifically set up to be one. It is about doomed love like most great Hollywood romance/tragedies. That it is two men should be incidental. That is how it was filmed, that is how it comes across when you watch it. It isn't intentionally some big activist film. But anything openly gay is political, intentionally or not. Ang Lee didn't go out of his way to shove some fable about ignorant and homophobic society down our throats; we live in a largely ignorant and homophobic society and so the characters' struggles resonate and feel very real to the viewer. That isn't Hollywood magic; it is an audience whose sense of empathy and recognition aren't crippled by bigotry.

one last chunk:

"Thus are the Judeo-Christian moral values that formed the very foundation and substance of Western culture for the past three millennia all swept away on a delicious tide of manufactured emotion. And believe me, skilled directors and actors can manufacture emotion by the truckload. It's what they do for a living."

And dear sir, what do you do for a living?

As far as the Judeo-Christian moral values being swept away blah blah blah... just shut the hell up. The foundation of Judeo-Christian values are the accumulation of knowledge and the application of reason, grace, and forgiveness in interaction with others. Recognizing our own personal flaws and our common humanity. Expanding our experience and using this expansion to allow us to reach further out into the world. Sure there are other bits to Judeo-Christian values, but when you said the ones which have been integral to the fabric of Western progress for three millenia, I assume you aren't talking about the genocidal and racist chunks of the Bible. I guess not being able to exercise the previously popular Biblically-proscribed bigotries as openly as society once concidered acceptable, some folks are desperate to not conceed a last few bigotries and accept them as their own instead of scapegoating God for their lack of empathy and discomfort with 'differnt'people.

Belated Holiday Correction: Jeff Foxworthy's Celebrity Roast Only the Second Gayest Thing Ever

as an aside in a fairly recent post, I had pointed out that Jeff Foxworthy's celebrity roast was the gayest thing ever. (way down at the bottom)

I was wrong.

On Christmas Day, me and roomies M1 and M2 (neither Mason) and out of town guests watched "White Christmas" at M1's emphatic insistance. I can't remember ever seeing the movie before and didn't realize that 1)it is something of a war movie (mostly post-war, but everything comes from the central male characters having been in the war together) and 2) it is the gayest movie ever made!!!! Gayer than "Tu Wong Fu", gayer than "Jeffery", gayer than "Rocky Horror Picture Show". The. Gayest. Thing. I. Have. Ever. Seen.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

and now I am taking off to the HalfKing in Chelsea to see James Wolcott.

a few heroes left: David Letterman

saw this on Gawker:

Dave Letterman Serves Bill O�Reilly Ass on a Plate

He is nice enough about it, but just finally calls bullshit on o'reilly's stupid war-on-christmas crap. So perhaps this might not qualify one for hero status, and he didn't exactly save a kitten from a fire but he effectively and dismissively smacked a smarmy loud-mouth idiot who talks straight out of his ass and contributes to giving morons even more moronic ideas which I at some point have to listen to in conversation. For actually standing up and saying 'oh shut up already, dumbass' to one of these blow-hards that everyone else seems too chickenshit to confront (ok, so Al Fraken smacked him all over the place and George Clooney does it just for sport), I have to give the man some credit.

I grew up on late night talk shows and always considered Johnny Carson as one of my childhood heroes. I always used to watch David Letterman too, but had a falling out with him in highschool (something which I am fairly certain that he is not aware of) when he bumped Jaques Cousteau as a guest so the goo goo dolls could jump in a giant bowl of eggnog. I didn't watch the show for five years after that (this is from someone who had previously watched him almost daily for years); I have since forgiven him. And been impressed when I find myself around to watch the show.

I have not forgiven the goo goo dolls, for Jaques Cousteau not being on the show that night or for their music. Or for the lead singer's hair cut.

UPDATE: Welcome to all the folks slipping in here from global affairs forum, even if the fine fellow who linked to us did it with kind words such as these: "While we are calling both clowns, be reminded that there are ignorant dumb asses who actually defile the term hero." I'll have my little hero of the day and you can kiss my ass. That said, contrarians always welcomed. I haven't been blogging as much lately as usual, but please feel free to look around a bit and comment as you see fit.

friday random ten

I've never bothered with doing a friday random ten list like all the cool kids, but reading Amanda's today I felt like I might finally jump on this band wagon.

A quick comment on why I never do this and always end up frustrated when I try to do this simplest of all blogging tasks: a good chunk of the music on my computer was copied to it from mix cds sans names and titles, so there are a whole lot of songs which I listen to all the time but don't quite remember the names of. So if one of those songs jumps into the mix, I am just skipping it which sucks since much of the cooler stuff I listen to comes from Mason's uncanny talent for finding obscure, amazing music. What ev, such is the price of laziness.

and one other comment is that I am feeling lazy, so I'm done capitalizing things, so my un capitalized things should not be taken as indicative of ill-will as they can be on other days.

anyway...

1) valentine's day - steve earle
2) love will tear us apart - kiki & herb
*skipped song from "songs for immortals" mix lauren made for me*
3) white chocolate tea - the childballads
4) la vacaloca - manu chao
*skipped song from "lisa's girl mix for mason"*
5) star man - seu jorge
6) independant woman pt.1 - elbow
7) that's what i say - ray charles
8) long vermont roads - levi fuller (magnetic fields cover)
9) glory - liz phair

and finally:

10) heaven's just a sin away - the kendalls

With Democrats like this, who needs republicans?

democratic state sen. r. edward houck of Fredricksburg, VA:'I can't always just vote my conscience and my convictions,'

If you aren't voting your concience or your convictions, you should probably ask yourself what you are voting. Perhaps like so many americans, 51% or so, you vote your bigotries and your fears.

Just go read the story this is linked to.

Get a fucking spine, asshole. You might ask Santa for a heart, too.

bloomberg is a fucking prick

So, yeah, it will cost the city a bazillion dollars if the transit workers strike and we will all have to walk everywhere (straight to the bar), but when the mta is raising fares, laying off workers and increasing delays by reducing maintainance crews. So no, I'm not sympathetic to the mta's management and the mayor has pissed me off more than a few times so fuck him.

City Seeks Stiff Fines for Workers And Transit Union if They Strike - New York Times

I want to leave work so I won't get started on bloomberg's sudden war on nightlife since the election. All you bastard hipsters that voted for the jerk remember that's what you voted for when the lights come on and cops enter the bar at your favorite LES/E'Vil watering hole.

mickey kaus is an idiot

you can tell you are in for some enlightenment when you see this at the top of a web page:Epater Les Breeders - If you don't see "Brokeback Mountain," are you�a bigot? By Mickey�Kaus

Uh, dude, if you don't want to see the movie, don't go see it. Not going to see it doesn't make you a bigot, acting like it is ridiculous to concider that there is a possiblity that the movie can be good enough to appeal to a broad audience without the whole story being about titty-fucking is what makes you a bigot. Don't give us your whole "I'll go see it because I am with it and open minded, I'm just saying I won't like it because I am such a such a heterostud" posturing. You just come across as more of a heterotard instead.

Some one points out the idiocy of his comments gently, so he says more idiotic things and misses the whole point because he is too busy being macho to bother to actually think:

"P.S.: Reader C. E., reacting to an earlier 'Brokeback' post, emails:

"If I follow your logic, I should be genetically repelled from such films as Out of Africa, The Princess Bride, The Notebook, Wuthering Heights, The Big Easy, and basically every Hollywood romance ever made except Brokeback Mountain because I couldn't possibly enjoy a story about people who are not like myself.

"Er, no. If a gay man, say, goes to see 'Wuthering Heights,' there is at least one romantic lead of the sex he's interested in! In 'Brokeback Mountain,' neither of the two romantic leads is of a sex I'm interested in. ... My wild hypothesis is that more people will go see a movie if it features an actor or actress they find attractive! If heterosexual men in heartland America don't flock to see 'Brokeback Mountain' it's not because they're bigoted. It's because they're heterosexual. 'Heterosexuals Attracted to Members of the Opposite Sex'--for those cultural critics wondering what a commerical disappointment for this much-heralded movie will Tell Us About America Today, there's your headline. ..."

One, it is stupid to posit that straight men only go to movies to stare at tits. There are movie made just for that and having someone attractive in a movie always makes it nicer, but the point is stupid. Particularly that if that is his argument, I have a hard time thinking that he won't find Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams attractive, both of whom look amazing and are involved in sex scenes. There is no lack of attractive folks of either sex. If he really wants to go with his "I'm a perv who only goes to the movies to look at the purty girls," he still has no reason based on that arguement to avoid the movie.

If you don't want to see the movie, just don't go. Nobody really cares until you start crowing about how breeders won't like it because straight men can only like something if there are pretty girls to look at and it's not because you are bigotted you just need boobs to look at or why would you go see it since you ain't no fag. The posturing is embarassing and tired.

The movie will do well because it is well done. It is a difficult movie and might be challenging to folks, but that is to its credit. Mickey, if it is so hard for you to understand how you could care about characters whose experience is not identical to yours, then maybe you need to be challenged and ask yourself why you are so resistant to the idea. And yeah, bigotry might be the name for it.