John Cole, someone I generally agree with, has been getting a little snippy with the blogosphere over its impassioned response to the stolen election and subsequent rallies for justice currently taking place in Iran.

My thoughts are with the folks in Iran risking it all fighting for democracy, but this can not be said enough- this is not about us, it is about them. I love the coverage of events, but please stop with this narcissistic nonsense.

Most of this is targeted at Andrew Sullivan, who has been working with a great level of dedication to get the news about Iran out while the mainstream media did little to cover the story. I agree with John that changing the colour scheme of a website does nothing to contribute to the Iranian people’s fight for a fair democracy, but that doesn’t mean it’s a meaningless gesture.

I’ve followed this story from its early stages, unable to look away, desperate for any new photo or bit of news out of Tehran. I feel the pain of the Iranian people, and I wish I could do something to solve their problems. But I can’t. Their problems are theirs. All I can do is watch and hope that they win the freedoms every man, woman, and child deserves. Quite frankly, writing about their bravery — these people who are fighting battles our forefathers fought for us, so that we could live in a world with the tacit understanding of legitimacy — is all we can do. To lift up our voices and echo the cries for freedom. We need to let them know that while this is their fight, they do not stand alone. The world is watching.

As a devout fan of Babylon 5, I’ve had more than my share of discussions about it. I’ve told endless people to watch the show, to not give up on the show before they get to the second season — when the show really begins to take shape — and, like any B5 acolyte, I’ve defended the controversial fifth season. Obviously, don’t read any further if you don’t want to be spoiled about Babylon 5.

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Generally speaking, I’m OK with what Obama has done so far. I’m not particularly fond of the way he’s handling the economic crisis — it’s a little too deferential to the whims of an industry that imploded through incompetence and greed — but he’s generally improved America. And this is only three months in. That said, I’m not such a fanatic that I can ignore the increasingly serpentine dictates coming from the Obama administration’s Department of Justice.

Glenn Greenwald has been following, and closely scrutinizing, the DOJ’s positions in the hopes that Obama’s campaign rhetoric would lead to real change in the department most disturbed and malformed as a result of Bush’s corrupt administration. There have been advances, none miraculous. But what’s more troubling is the movement towards some of Bush’s positions rather than away. Obama’s Department of Justice continues to strengthen the abuses of power put in place by the Bush administration.

I was sympathetic at first. So early into his term, we shouldn’t be so demanding. Indeed, many of the problems the DOJ is faced would inflict wide-spread collateral damage. But the DOJ is doing more than asking for more time to consider the proper solution, they are fighting to ensure the unjust status quo remains. Get with it, Obama. Fix this shit now.

This week’s Kings continued the trials of Silas, and further explored the depths of the machinations of the entire royal family. But first a bit of abstract discussion, shall we?

I’m generally slower writing my reviews than most TV blogs because I have a full time job and other real world responsibility whereas most bloggers have blogging as their job. This is a detriment to my work because it can often seem like an out of date topic by the time I get around to publishing. At the same time, I also get a chance to read other reviews and comments on those reviews. This can both colour my view and also give me a chance to crystallize rebuttals and confirmations of those discussions. Of course, sometimes I have these thoughts independently and it seems like I’m parroting others but what can you do. Other people can be right sometimes too.

A decent chunk of the discussion from the last few episodes, especially from io9 and its commenters, has been focused on the saccharine innocence of David, without recognizing that that is a necessary part of his character. I said last week that this show reminded me of Carnivàle, but it was for more than the use of prophetic dreams and religious destiny. They are both telling the story of the birth of a hero, in the classical sense. I can imagine these same cynics, who criticise David’s virtuousness, rolling their eyes when, early on in Carnivàle, Ben Hawkins uses his empathy to coax a grief-stricken mother to give up her dead child from her hand to be given a burial.

Carnivàle does a better job of this, obviously. Ben is introduced as a man on the run for murder, and that past follows him throughout the two year run, but at the same time, there is hardly a moment in the run of that show where Ben Hawkins is not perfectly virtuous or at the very least fighting desperately the temptations offered to him. But the journey is the same. Ben struggled with this role while being tempted until he ultimately grew into a more mature role and accepted his quest to kill Brother Justin. David will follow a similar path, because both stories are of the Hero chosen by God. So to criticise his virtuous origins is, I think, to completely misunderstand the story that is being told to you. And now onto the show.

The big thing I took away from this episode was that the Queen rules much more than anyone knew. Silas may have catalyzed a broken people, but it was her work in building and designing the monarchy that keeps their people strong and vibrant. Having something greater than themselves kept them believing in the dream of Shiloh in the long arduous years before the glistening city was built. And now that the years of war and conflict are over, the people of Shiloh need to see their royal family. The premiere of the ballet, around which the episode revolves, that the queen cares about. “We are the performance,” she says. The thing to inspire the people, and also to remind them of who is in charge and why. There’s something to be said for exploring that. Often, democracies fall into dictatorships and empires because particularly compelling and inspiring leaders come about. It’s just as reasonable that a modern day monarchy, one created recently not one long ago established and only retained for nostalgia’s sake, would require those same “larger than life” characteristics to remain viable.

Of course, in this episode Silas is doing his own work to maintain that larger than life persona, by abandoning his mistress and her son, possibly permanently; a sacrifice God demanded, it seems. His bastard son is once again sick, and this time it doesn’t look reparable. And, so his recent spat with Reverend Samuels be damned, he seeks Samuels’ counsel and wisdom. What must he do to regain God’s favour? Why must God constantly punish him? First by giving him a son who desires men, then by giving his people a greater hero to worship, and now by taking his younger son’s life. After Samuels offers little comfort, Silas’ truck flips over after colliding with a deer. Seeing the deer slowly dying on the ground before him, he realises that he needs to make a sacrifice in his life and quickly snaps the neck of the deer. He then returns to the hospital where his son lays near death, and goes to sleep. When he awakes, his son is better and he takes that as a sign that his decision from the night before was right. He leaves them both behind for his decadent, and solitudinous, royal life.

The solitude of Michelle Benjamin continues at the gala following the ballet, where she hopes to run into David — who was abruptly uninvited by the queen due to his rising star — but instead gets hooked up for a play date with a childhood friend, who is now a financial success, by her mother. She uses the situation to her advantage to obtain financial backing for her long suffering health care initiatives. Which will likely introduce a romantic rival for David as the story progresses. Speaking of, David is invited by Jack Benjamin to club hop and have a good time in general. Jack, having been ever so subtly pushed by his mother to take David down a peg or two, gets his female friend to get him to do dirty things in public places. Of course, David fights the urge and so the paparazzi only get a shot of him making out with her rather than shots of him fucking. But mackage is mackage, and Michelle sees the story online the next morning.

There are a few nuances I’m ignoring or glossing over here, but I can bring them up later on when they’re more relevant. Maybe I’d seem smarter if I mentioned my personal thoughts on these little scenes now and they come to fruition later, but I’m fine with leaving some of these details out when there’s no strong need to discuss them now. Overall, it was a good episode, and the show’s trajectory is interesting and quick thus far. The writing is strong and lyrical, and I don’t expect it to degrade. However, this is, I believe, the last episode directed by Francis Lawrence, so we’ll have to see if the visual beauty of the show can be maintained without his hand behind the camera next week.

I’m a fan of Obama, but I’m also aware that he’s not the perfect politician for me. My stances are more liberal than his. But he’s still the best shot America has at truly improving itself over the next four years, so I’m cool with his imperfections. The change he brings may only be incremental rather than revolutionary, as his rhetoric implied, but it will be positive change nonetheless. A friend of mine, more offended by Obama’s recent dismissal of the legalization of marijuana than me, continued the argument by quoting from Glenn Greenwald’s article praising Senator Jim Webb’s recent push for prison reform, despite its impolitic implications.

I can do little but agree with this. It is the mark of a great man¹ that he says what people don’t wish to hear, that he pushes for the things the silent majority wishes to remain silent. And by this metric Obama is, for the most part, not a great man. He is an inspiring man. He is an articulate man. He is an intelligent man. But he is also a pragmatic man. And pragmatic men do what they think they can get done. Obama knows that to push for the legalization of marijuana, even timidly, would create a backlash that would distract from the work he has to get done.

Is his stance cowardly? In its own way, it most certainly is. And Webb is a braver man for the fight he brings to the Capitol. But that is, I think, something for which Obama has been previously praised. His pragmatism is what allowed a first term African-American Senator, with the middle name Hussein, and a Muslim father to get where he is. He wouldn’t accomplish much at all if he was pushing for the wild-eyed quixotries of others. Unfortunately, his visual and cultural radicalisms limit his ability to be truly radical politically.

But this is not to say that he follows this actively. He simply is a political moderate man. The liberal arguments that he is secretly for the legalization of marijuana don’t hold any weight for me, any more than the conservative arguments that he is secretly a Muslim. He may not be someone fervently for the prosecution of casual users, as evidenced by his recent mandate that the DEA no longer raid state-run marijuana farms and his support of medical marijuana, but I don’t think that equates to legalization, or even decriminalization. His past usage is not compelling in this respect to me either; hypocrisy at this level among politicians is hardly new.

It’s disappointing to me that President Obama is unwilling to address the unpopularity of the marijuana and hemp laws, but it’s not entirely surprising. That’s not to say I support this position. I do not support it, nor do I respect Obama’s reasons, but I do understand it is a part of his politics.

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Footnotes

1. A great woman as well, but let’s not get into neutral pronouns today, m’kay? [↩]

The networks are railing about President Obama’s recent request for network time, especially given how frequently these requests have come in comparison to previous Presidents. In fact, the head of NBC recently attributed Chuck’s lackluster ratings to Obama’s preemption a few weeks ago. I somewhat understand their annoyance, their job is to get high ratings and when a show’s momentum is interrupted that can affect their ratings. But at the same time, there’s an easy solution in all of this: work with the White House ot make these a scheduled event. Like FDR’s fireside chats, give Obama a chance to inform America on a regular basis. So, with the White House, find a good time that the networks can all give away, and then schedule that for Obama. If Obama decides that there’s no need for an update any given week, then they can all fill the time with a repeat or something.

Maybe Fox will have to move American Idol one night out of the week, maybe some other network will have to switch a show. But in reality, any show which is sufficiently popular won’t suffer too much from a night switch. We often blame networks for constantly switching time slots of quality shows leading to their inevitable cancellation, but in reality it’s poor marketing of those new time slots that kills the shows. Any show they want people to keep watching they market the shit out of to inform its audience that it’s changed times. So give Obama his variety hour. And stop the fucking whining.

Glenn Greenwald wrote this morning about Obama’s new message to Iran. I absolutely agree that reconciliation and the development of peace is desirable, with any nation, but one note of his post struck me as slightly off:

But whatever else is true, it is a weak, decaying and insecure nation that beats its chest and relies on ugly threats to establish its “toughness” and “credibility” with the world, while the mark of a strong and confident nation is the willingness to take a first step like this one towards its adversaries.

This is true in many respects, most especially in our modern society. But it’s that temporal qualifier that makes the sentence true, a qualifier Greenwald excludes. At the height of the Byzantine Empire‘s reign, it was a military force to be reckoned with, sacking the cities of any nation that dared cross its border. But as its power and wealth dwindled, new invaders like the Saracens exploited that weakness. Ultimately, unable to defend themselves they resorted to buy-offs, providing their enemies with millions of pounds of gold to maintain their territory. As their star faded, much of their power was retained via political back channels, using conspiracies to wage their enemies against each other, and ceding territory for the sake of peace. But their true power was gone¹. It’s true that the truly great emperors of the Byzantine Empire also ruled justly, but that does not belie their military acumen and its use.

I don’t mean here to criticise President Obama’s policies, in fact I agree with his tact regarding Iran, for the most part. But it is a tact of its time. Which is a good thing. Our world is changing, the solutions of the future are not the solutions of the past, and America now has a President that understands that.

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Footnotes

1. I apologize if I’m grossly wrong about any of the history of the Byzantine Empire; I’m mostly working off of memory for this, and even then my knowledge and analysis is mostly cursory. [↩]

Nate Silver has been one of the bloggers I read more outspokenly against the new tax on bonuses for bailed out companies and in his recent post about it, he discusses some of the side-effects of the new legislation.

A senior engineer at General Motors, who shepherds the production of a new hybrid vehicle that will turn out to be a best-seller, shouldn’t get a bonus for that. Really?

Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan, who has managed his company’s assets adeptly and kept it mostly off the taxpayer’s dole, is no more deserving of a bonus than an AIG crook. Really?

An mid-level investment banker at Morgan Stanley, who works her butt off to persuade her bosses to facilitate a deal for a new wind-power company that turns out to be a big economic and environmental winner, should have her incentive compensation taxed at 90%. Really?

An administrative assistant at PNC, who is volunteering to work 70-hour weeks because of cutbacks in the company’s staff, deserves a Christmas Bonus — unless her husband happens to be a lawyer earning $250,000 per year, in which case it should be taken away. Really?

$500,000 in salary for an employee that performs badly is perfectly fine, but a $500,000 bonus for one who performs exceptionally well isn’t. Really?

I’m sensitive to these issues, and I don’t know a lot of the details of the bailout process. In fact, I’d even be willing to concede that this legislation probably should’ve been limited to AIG due to their brazen shamelessness with regards to public outcry about these outrageous bonuses.

That said, fuck the bonuses. Do senior engineers even get bonuses when their products succeed? None of the engineers I spoke to when I was studying to be an engineer gave me that impression. Do successful companies need to take bailout money? If not, then no one at JP Morgan deserves a bonus, because their company on the whole didn’t succeed. If JP Morgan is “mostly off the taxpayer’s dole” it’s still on the taxpayers dole, and it’s there because of their failures.

This is ignoring the strawman inherent to a lot of these discussions. A senior-engineer creating a hybrid vehicle; an investment banker facilitating a deal for a wind-power company; a woman working 70 hour weeks while her husband makes more than $250,000.

Have the American automotive companies really shown any interest in hybrid or electric vehicles? The electric vehicles that were shuttered nearly a decade ago despite consumer demand tell me otherwise. Maybe that will change given the new incentives enacted by the Obama administration, but do we really want to pay out of both hands by giving bonuses to people working because of these industry-wise incentives?

And if there were any low-level investment bankers financing wind-power, it probably wouldn’t need a multi-billionaire like T Boone Pickens to get the marginal level of support it currently has. If wind power doesn’t succeed it won’t be because a low-level investment banker — who should do his fucking job, I don’t get bonuses — okayed a wind-power company, but because the government forces the industry into making it a success.

The assistant working 70 hour work weeks — volunteering them no less — has a husband that makes a quarter million dollars. First off, why is she volunteering to work these arduous hours? Because she’ll get fired otherwise? I don’t think that’s legal. Because she wants the bonus? Her husband makes $250,000, does she really need that third big screen TV?

None of these examples are both realistic and sympathetic, at least not to me. Even if they were, those people all still have a job, and not just a job but a well-paying job. Which is a lot more than a lot of the people whose lives were destroyed by the myopic mismanagement of all of these companies.

Three years ago I noticed a bunch of CDs on sale on amazon.ca for 99 cents each. I already had an order that needed a few more dollars to get free shipping and I love music, so I added a few for the sake of curiousity. A few weeks later the order arrived and I immediately started going through the CDs I purchased. The first I opened up to listen to was The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky. Immediately, I knew that I had discovered something amazing. Hidden in this seeming pile of refuse was an album that from its first echoed notes took hold of me and drew me in to a world I had never experienced previously and left me wanting more.

Eight months ago, I walked into a low capacity hall at San Diego Comic-Con for an early morning panel about an upcoming show from NBC called Kings. After a short discussion of the basic premise of the show — an alternate history drama set in a monarchy named Gilboa inspired by the biblical tale of David and Goliath — they screened the first twenty minutes of the pilot episode, and I experienced that same enraptured envelopment into a brand new world that that amazing album had beset upon me. Now, eight months after that initial burst of interest followed by a relative dearth of new information, Kings has finally premiered and my first impression has only been enriched by the complexities I once imagined were possible now made manifest by the remainder of this amazing premiere.

Over at Ain’t It Cool News, they’ve compiled snippets of the many reviews of this show. Some of them are fairly positive, but it seems as though most of them chide the show for having cheesy aspects, or soap opera trappings, comparing it to shows like Dynasty and Dallas. I’m not sure why any show that manages to tell a serious story is immediately a soap opera. Is Battlestar Galactica a soap opera because of its intense dour depiction of life? Of course not. It’s merely a show willing to deal with things seriously, as is Kings. To call the show a soap opera is to call Deadwood, or other such character drama, a soap opera: it’s not disingenuous to do so, but it belittles the show to use such a pejorative. All of the criticisms, though, are not unfounded. But the good, and more importantly the potential for good, more than outweighs what little there is to legitimately criticise.

The main story of the premiere, and likely of the rest of the series, is of David, played by Christopher Egan. Taking his name from the biblical slingshot-wielder, the show begins with David living the rural life as King Silas of Gilboa — Ian McShane in a typically brilliant performance — unveils the shiny new capital, Shiloh, built upon the ashes of the cities destroyed by the years of war that ravaged Gilboa before Silas united the lands in the unification War, a costly conflict that left David fatherless with a disenfranchised mother.

Before the inaugural speech is over, tensions are rising with the neighbour nation Gath and two years later the war carries on with David now at the front lines. When the survivors of an ambushed squad are taken hostage by Gath, David defies the orders and, crossing the front lines, rescues the hostages, including the King’s son. This rescue is no small feat given that the front lines of the war are lined by Gath ‘Goliath’ tanks, a menacing visage to all Gilboan soldiers. And so David returns as the hero who slayed a Goliath and saved the King’s son. That’s the first twenty minutes wrapped up in a few sentences. There’s much more there, but I find that the more I like a show the more I want to detail every nuance of the scene (which is why I rarely write about Lost; I don’t want to end up writing 15,000 words per episode) so I’ll leave the rest to the viewer to relish. I will say however, that those twenty minutes are the best and most effective exercise in world building I’ve ever seen.

This premiere has already established that, while this is an alternate history with kingdoms where America once reigned, this world only diverges from ours in the last two centuries. David’s love of classical piano, and more importantly his playing of a piece by Liszt, underscore an implicit history that will certainly get explored as the series continues. How did the world of Liszt change such that not America but Gilboa and Gath were formed? Hopefully, the writers already know the answer.

Perhaps as impressive as the world building is the character building, with every character having complexity and ambiguities which can be developed and exploited over time. The King’s wife, for example, is a quiet but manipulative woman who publicly expresses a distaste for politics while privately and silently ensuring her family’s skeletons stay in their respective closets. Similarly, his son portrays himself a womanizer to the paparazzi to keep up appearances, despite his homosexuality. His desire for power is clear but he is neither the villain nor the brat in this story. At least not yet.

The King’s brother-in-law, the head of a large corporation, Crossgen, which has bankrolled Silas’ rule for years is the most villainous character introduced thus far. His need for war to ensure quarterly profits impel him to push Silas to war despite peace being offered. It’s not until David, once again defying the will of the King, bravely reaches out to their faceless enemy, as the Goliaths stare him down, and brings about renewed peace talks, that his lust for war is sated. Even then, his plots and machinations continue apace to replace the King and continue the profitable war.

David is the archetypal hero. He is a farm-boy turned war hero who doesn’t understand nor desire the world into which he’s been thrown. He quickly falls for the King’s daughter, herself a passionate supporter of improving the nation’s health care much to the King’s dismay. His star rises precipitously, first due the the rescue of the hostages, then later from his part in the reestablishment of peace talks with Gath.

And of course, King Silas himself, around whom all this intrigue revolves, is one of the great draws of this show. Ian McShane, playing a character as conniving as Al Swearengen in a world much more civilized yet just as brutal as Deadwood, is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale network television environment. Silas is a complicated man, a melange of numerous regal stereotypes. His opening speech, and most likely every speech after that, describes a story from the founding days of Gilboa when a flock of butterflies came upon him and perched upon his head in a ring as if they were a living crown. A sign from God. And yet, he has none of the trappings of the typical religiously driven leaders of our time: he knows full-well that evolution is a truth, and devotes a family breakfast to the topic; he accepts his son’s homosexuality as a part of his nature; he is an eloquent leader, who uses his words for both good and ill; he is a brilliant tactician whose military experience lent itself to the political travails of a King. Of course, his religiosity is tempered by his desire for power, and when the Reverend Samuels disowns Silas near the end of the premiere he is more than willing to abandon God. But despite these two conflicting aspects of his larger-than-life personality, beneath it all is a long dormant desire for a quieter life. He is a tragic yet terrifying hero, one we know will eventually fall away for David to rise.

The two weak points of the premiere are the wartime scenes and the relationship between David and the King’s daughter. That Gath would hold hostages just past the front lines of battle, even temporarily, strain credulity. In addition, David’s impassioned speech to Gath asking for compassion and common ground would have likely ended with David brutally destroyed by the numerous tanks trained on him throughout the speech. But I take both of these points in stride because a) this is a different world, with different alliances and territories, strategies and tactics could be slightly different b) David held a white cloth stained in his brother’s blood as he delivered his speech; had Gath fired upon a white flag, there surely would have been international repercussions and c) it is David’s destiny to become King — the final scene where the butterflies land atop his head to signal his coming reign is a sure sign of that — and so I’m willing to accept a few well-timed mistakes on his enemies’ parts; many of the most successful kings and emperors of the past have had such luck in the ascension to power.

The other weak part, the love story, is weak because it happened too easily. There’s no real conflict there, they both seem to already be smitten with each other and in a relationship. I was hoping for it to take a while for their bond to grow before all that happened, but this is a minor quibble as the show could easily still get those things done over the course of the season by introducing conflict. It’s also very daring that the show took what appears to be the only romantic relationship on the show and resolved it so quickly. It’s like if the writers of The Office got Jim and Pam together in the first episode. So I’m willing to believe, for now, that they’ve thought about this and are subverting the stereotypes again for effect.

It’s been a couple days now and the ratings have been tallied and they’re atrocious. Kings had a horrible opening. Kings has already finished filming for the season and I used to think that networks wouldn’t cancel a show with complete episodes ready to air, but Firefly and Daybreak shattered that misconception, so I have to hope that the word of mouth on Kings spreads fast and the ratings improve week-over-week, because this show is a real adventure. It’s an adventure in storytelling, it’s an adventure in world-building, and perhaps most importantly it’s an adventure in broadcasting. It’s the sort of high concept high drama story that’s been relegated to cable television in recent years, and yet here it is on a Big Three network (admittedly the smallest of the Big Three). If Kings becomes a ratings success, as it deserves to be, it could be a catalyst for the networks to reinvigorate the increasingly conservative and middling television they produce.

I loved the premiere. I’m  deeply impressed with the show so far. It’s an achievement in storytelling, and I’m sure the subsequent episodes will be as good if not better.

Hilzoy has a post reiterating her support for a ban on primate pets. All her arguments are excellent, and the reasons for not having primate pets are manifold. And yet she ignores — consciously perhaps? — the most obvious reason to never take apes as pets…

Andrew Sullivan, a much more prolific blogger and — let’s be honest here — generally better writer, wrote today about the damaging effects of civil unions.

France created a civil unions law in 1999 for gays but failed to designate gender and now about a third of straight couples getting married in France opt for civil unions because they are easier to get out of. Don George points out the obvious:

…it is terribly humorous and ironic that the French created civil unions to protect the institution of marriage…and now civil unions are undermining marriage because people are opting for them instead of marriage. Talk about the law of unintended consequences. So possibly the lesson for our country is that the best way to protect the institution of marriage is not to deny people marriage by creating a separate but equal system, but to allow gays to marry.

Er: yes. If you read my first ever essay on the topic, in 1989, you will find it was exactly this possibility that led me to back full marriage equality over marriage-lite options such as domestic partnership and civil unions. It was a way to integrate gay people and protect marriage.

What I don’t understand about the conservative viewpoint on marriage is their view that it is an inherent good. That somehow marriage is necessary for society to flourish and freedom to ring through the streets of the world.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, an Atlantic blogger generally found on the other side of the political spectrum, has a different view of marriage:

As much as I can recall, there were basically three reasons for us to get married. 1.) I might leave. Marriage would force me to do the right thing. 2.) To declare our commitment to each other before a community of people whom we loved. 3.) The business reasons–the legalities of your estate and guardianship. I found–and still find–the first two reasons were utterly unconvincing. The third held some sway, but with the help of a lawyer we’ve managed to take care of that. The first turned marriage into a kind of insurance policy, and I just believed that if you felt you needed insurance for the person you were having kids by to stick out, you needed to reconsider the whole proposition. The commitment and community reason held some appeal. But I believed, and still believe, that long-term romantic partnerships are between the two people entering into it.

I hated the idea of public declarations, because the life blood of the relationship–what bills to pay, how to raise your child, your love life–all of that happened when no one else was around. Kenyatta knows more about me than any human being walking the earth–and this is as it should be. No one knows more about my strengths and my weaknesses, my failings and my successes. I trust her to the end. But that trust was worked for–it was not declared or conjured by the presence of other people.

I’ve had similar views on marriage for a while now, but so rarely has the argument not against marriage, but against the necessity of marriage been so succinctly put. Some people might have a different idea of what a long-term relationship requires. I know that my ex did. But to imply that marriage is an inherent good is misleading.

So this moron here is claiming that Obama was disrespectful to Latinos because none of his big cabinet appointments were Latinos despite their avid support of him. He also claims that Alberto Gonzales was a good idea simply because it broached a racial barrier. Completely ignore the gross misconduct and all the other reasons why Gonzales was terrible and just look exclusively at his skin.

First of all, the cabinet of a presidential administration is not there to meet racial quotas or to pay back favors done during the campaign. They are there to advise the president, and ensure their mandates are implemented. (I’m grossly simplifying this because I barely know American politics, and yet I still know this guy’s stupid)

If you think there are more qualified people that should be in Obama’s cabinet that’s a perfectly fine criticism, but they can’t be more “qualified” because of the race of the parents. You fucking idiot.

Second of all, Obama was not a good choice because he’s black, and Gonzales certainly wasn’t a good choice because he’s Latino. The fraction of people that voted for Obama simply to breach a racial barrier in politics is not what won him the presidency. It was his political acumen, in collusion with the economic meltdown and an infamously bad sitting president. I’m sure his race helped him in some groups and hurt him in others. But in the end, he won primarily because he was the best person for the job.

Basically, that guy’s a douche and a moron. He also defends Bush’s appointment of a Latino to Commerce Secretary and immediately follows it up with a rebuke of Obama because he appointed Bill Richardson as Commerce Secretary. The guy’s a moron, people.

Christian Rock sucks. It does. You shouldn’t try to defend it, you should be more worried about why you listen to such shitty music¹.

It’s shitty half of the time because it’s cloying and cliche and the other half of the time because it’s deceitful. The first half is the stuff you see in one minute mini-infomercials late at night. The second half is the stuff that makes it out of the core Christian Rock culture and into mainstream rock.

Switchfoot. POD. Seventh Day Slumber. This Beautiful Republic. Christian Rock bands generally have really lame names. And if you run across the music of any of the bands that “pass” as regular rock, you’d probably like it enough to listen but not enough to love it. It becomes a part of the din of songs that get played on your local rock radio station. But, for me at least, when you find out they are a Christian Rock band, suddenly every time their songs come on you can hear nothing beyond their hidden evangelizing.

It’s not that I dislike that they infuse their music with their religious beliefs; the best music comes from your most strongly felt emotions. But those bands go about it in a deceitful way. When interviewed they claim they’re not “Christian Rock” even when they began their career in the highly accessible Christian Rock tours that can really raise the profile of up and coming bands. I understand that the label of “Christian Rock” has a dirty connotation to it, but it has that because of bands like those that deny the meanings behind their songs. Rather than admit that they’re praising God, they pretend the song is about a girl.

The less notable segment of Christian Rock isn’t much better. With their over-the-top references to Jesus and God, they go beyond simply expressing their feelings and thoughts and head into the world of evangelizing. And when your songs are little more than evangelical chants wrapped in rhythm, you not only lock yourself into the Christian base, a base which doesn’t need evangelizing in the first place, but you reduce your credibility as an artist.

I’m an atheist but that doesn’t mean I detest religion; I simply have no need or desire for it in my personal life. But many of my favourite shows and movies have religious and mystical concepts at their very heart. So don’t think I hate Christian Rock simply because it involves God. I hate it because it involves God poorly.

An example of a band which is not Christian Rock but has lyrics which discuss God and Jesus very openly (and earnestly) is Page France. I’ve listened to most of Page France’s “Hello, Dear Wind” and overall the album’s a little weak, but the tracks that I find myself returning to since the initial listen — the opening two tracks (Chariot, and Jesus) and the closing track (Feather) — all contain various levels of religious and Christian symbols. But the key is that those songs talk about Jesus and God in novel ways, and they appear to be not an active part of their music. Their songs don’t include God because they think their songs should include God, but merely because the songs they end up writing include him.

I said Christian Rock sucks, but the truth is that Christian Rock shouldn’t even exist. Like the “Pro-American” parts of America Sarah Palin talks about, Rock music isn’t something to be chopped up and spread among ideologies. Music which contains religious references isn’t Religious Music. Categorizing music is fine, in fact I Love it, but there’s a difference between an adjective and a noun. A noun is what you are, but an adjective is simply a modifier. Much like the difference between calling a gay person “a gay” and “a gay person” it seem nominal at best, but the difference is staggering in its connotations. And far too many people don’t treat “Christian Rock” as an adjective followed by a noun.

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Footnotes

1. With apologies to Daniel Tosh [↩]

I should write something big and grand here filled with purple prose — and I definitely considered it — but tonight the words to listen to tonight are those Barack Obama will speak shortly. He will be the next President of the United States of America. This moment will be remembered by all who experienced it. The words are hard to come by right now, not because I’m crying or overcome with emotion. I’m humbled. This was more than a watershed moment. This was more than an attack on republicanism. This was more than a breakthrough in race relations. This was something else. I want to say more, but right now there are simply too many things racing through my mind about how much this changes… everything.

I was watching Larry King Live tonight and Penn Jillette made the claim that you should vote for the person whose ideas and policies match yours the best. I was ok with that. Until he emphasized that competency shouldn’t come into it.

I don’t know if Penn supports McCain or Obama, or if perhaps he’s going to write in Ron Paul to assuage his Libertarian leanings, but his comment on voting from ideals implies to me that he’s going for McCain/Palin and the only way to intellectually justify that was for him to say “vote for ideals, not capability.” (Of course, if that was his rationalization, he probably should have also looked at the extreme religious views of Palin, which would likely disqualify her in his mind)

I respect Penn Jillette, because Penn and Teller: Bullshit is a great show. I don’t agree with everything they say on their show, but on the balance it’s a public service that they talk about these things that tend to go unnoticed or unchallenged. That said, I think that voting exclusively from ideals is lunacy.

Now obviously policies matter. If you’re a strict Libertarian, you’ll probably never vote for someone who wants to increase the size of government or introduce anything remotely socialistic, but that doesn’t mean you should vote for the incompetent guy just because he wants to give you a tax cut. I’m just saying, let’s not be idealogues about this. There are numerous things that should factor into any decision you make, and the decision as to who will lead your nation for the next four years especially should not be so oversimplified.