bristol palin had her baby

she named it TRIP!

as in, road trip

or i’m about to trip on the rug!

Wow. This needs to not be news.

More importantly, Israel is fucking with/fucking up Gaza. Nuclear powers should not do this shit to their own populace. This is one reason that we entered Iraq the first time. Only without nuclear weapons. I’ve always been interested int he Middle East. I wrote the best paper in my life in 8th grade proposing a comprising two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But each time it seems that something gets close, it seems like Israel fucks shit up. Hamas offers a renewed ceasefire, Israel attacks. That follows. I see it. Oh, wait… I don’t. Good job Promised Land.

I don’t have a subject for this yet, but most probably, the focus will be on Missouri or St. Louis politics.

To recount this past year, there has been a further shift in the voting nature of Missourians to the right. Although the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Jay Nixon, won the election by a 2-1 margin, the Democratic party last in the presidential race. Even with Obama’s mobilization of the Democratic base and young voters, Missouri voted Republican. Democrats also lost in the state and U.S. representative races.

Missouri has always been divided: urban v. rural, St. Louis and Kansas City v. everybody else. But the populaces of these two cities have been dwindling thanks to the continued downsizing and relocation of major corporations (thanks Boeing!). This, along with a growing evangelical population, has pushed Missouri just right of its bellwether status. Nixon won the election because of name recognition. He was a statewide elected official for 16 years before he ran for governor. His rival, Kenny Hulshof, was a U.S. Representative and a late entrant into the gubernatorial race.  Obama didn’t win Missouri. He lost by around 4000 votes (thanks Dad).

Missouri state-elected officials who run on the Democratic ticket are not normally “liberal” Democrats. The only notable exception to this rule is Claire McCaskill. Most run, like Nixon, on “Missouri values,” focusing on Jobs. As a Democrat, the focus on Healthcare and Education is added, often at the expense of issues like Taxes and Immigration. But on most issues, in order to be elected, statewide candidates play to the right of center in Missouri.

This will only continue. I certainly hope it doesn’t. But the Missouri Democratic Party has not taken advantage of the developing youth base as other state’s organizations have. They are particularly insular, in my external view. The Republicans don’t need to reach out. They have a fairly consistent base of Missouri voters. I see in the coming years a stable lead for state Republicans in the House and Senate. Democrats need to make inroads in rural districts in order to develop any change in this. They also have to weigh the benefits of Blue Dog Democratic candidates running in rural districts. Will they help? For Democrats in Missouri, the future doesn’t look great.

Ross Douthat over at the Atlantic links to a letter published in 1992 describing a military coup in 2012. It is precipitated by the economic and military situation that had developed in 1992, and presumably, will develop after. While the author of this letter, Charles Dunlap, says that it is “emphatically not a prediction,” it is an interesting alternate reality. His conclusions are of special note:

• Demand that the armed forces focus exclusively on indisputably military duties. We must not diffuse our energies away from our fundamental responsibility for warfighting. To send ill-trained troops into combat makes us accomplices to murder.
• Acknowledge that national security does have economic, social, educational, and environmental dimensions, but insist that this doesn’t necessarily mean the problems in those areas are the responsibility of the military to correct. Stylishly designating efforts to solve national ills as “wars” doesn’t convert them into something appropriate for the employment of military forces.
• Readily cede budgetary resources to those agencies whose business it is to address the non-military issues the armed forces are presently asked to fix. We are not the DEA, EPA, Peace Corps, Department of Education, or Red Cross–nor should we be. It has never been easy to give up resources, but in the long term we–and the nation–will be better served by a smaller but appropriately focused military.
• Divest the defense budget of perception-skewing expenses. Narcotics interdiction, environmental cleanup, humanitarian relief, and other costs tangential to actual combat capability should be assigned to the budgets of DEA, EPA, State, and so forth. As long as these expensive programs are hidden in the defense budget, the taxpayer understandably–but mistakenly–will continue to believe he’s buying military readiness.
• Continue to press for the elimination of superfluous, resource-draining Guard and Reserve units. Increase the training tempo, responsibilities, and compensation of those that remain.
• Educate the public to the sophisticated training requirements occasioned by the complexities of modern warfare. It’s imperative we rid the public of the misperception that soldiers in peacetime are essentially unemployed and therefore free to assume new missions.[94]
• Resist unification of the services not only on operational grounds, but also because unification would be inimical to the checks and balances that underpin democratic government. Slow the pace of fiscally driven consolidation so that the impact on less quantifiable aspects of military effectiveness can be scrutinized.
• Assure that officer accessions from the service academies correspond with overall force reductions (but maintain separate service academies) and keep ROTC on a wide diversity of campuses. If necessary, resort to litigation to maintain ROTC campus diversity.
• Orient recruiting resources and campaigns toward ensuring that all echelons of society are represented in the military, without compromising standards.[95] Accept that this kind of recruiting may increase costs. It’s worth it.
• Work to moderate the base-as-an-island syndrome by providing improved incentives for military members and families to assimilate into civilian communities. Within the information programs for our force of all-volunteer professionals (increasingly US-based), strengthen the emphasis upon such themes as the inviolability of the Constitution, ascendancy of our civilian leadership over the military, and citizens’ responsibilities.

They are all both possible and, in my opinion, a good thing. Especially thte restoration of budgets to separate agencies as opposed to the defense budget. This would not only restore autonomy and restrict support of the military, but it would give these agencies more free rein, hopefully leading to an overall increase in efficiency.

Some of Dunlap’s statements don’t tend to support this non-prediction from happening. Especially the statement about how the “military’s obvious competency” in Iraq. Oh, for the First Gulf War…

Anyhow, the link is here.

Today UNM President David Schmidly opened his Town Hall Meeting (I quote from memory, therefore somewhat inexactly): “When I was preparing what I would say today, one quote that came to mind was the opening of a novel by Charles Dickens: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’”

This, as almost everyone knows, is the opening from A Tale of Two Cities . The book is often assigned reading in high school because, as I’ve heard more than one English teacher tell a class, “People make reference to it all the time.”

Evidently, few students read past that first line.

Pres. Schmidly probably used the oratory tactic to impress his audience, failing to consider that it was made up of well-read individuals who have made their career in academics. I highly doubt Schmidly would have quoted the passage if he knew what story it opened, if he could foresee the visions it called to the minds of his 800 listeners–visions of a brilliant doctor imprisoned, of authorities and aristocrats being ushered to the guillotine.

In conclusion, I entreat everyone to resist the urge to spout brilliant quotes during speeches. They are hardly ever given fair treatment in that context.

Not only that, but we must not, we cannot allow platitudes to be made of revolutionary texts. To do so is to succumb to the power of those who would turn our minds for a profit.” -Rachel Hill

In the age of junkyard journalism, this call to bring context to statements, especially quotations, is most appropriate. Necessarily, we must seek to put everything in context. Recent cases stemming from partial quotations misrepresenting journalists, commentators, and politicians echoes the need for this context. Also, Dickens is not overrated; “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” is.

Both Huck and Stewart were well-versed in the debates surrounding gay marriage: procreation, traditional definitions of marriage, all that jazz.

I understand the last gasps of the anti-gay-marriage movement in these arguments, but Stewart’s replies were not just credible, they were influentual. C’mon rest of nation, it’s not hard to understand the futility of the “anti-love” movement. Huckabee kept citing the will of the nation, 68% votes for gay marriage bans. I know that number is highly inflated. But the numbers won’t matter if we can overturn these moves. Maybe it will just take time. I hope it just takes mobilization.

On that note, today, Wednesday, December 10th is Day Without A Gay. Now, I’m not always for direct action, but this can’t hurt. And I’m all for boycotting work.

So, why Rod? No one has liked you since your election. If the Republican party had any organization in Illinois, you wouldn’t be governor. So, you try to do as much as you can that you can get away with? You have no political future.  Good luck with Ryan in prison. I hope the Lt. Governor makes an appointment. Because, Rod, you have no good judgment. This is for sure.

Maybe I expect this: he’s black and writing for a major news source, so he must have some special insight.  I’m going to own that statement now. But what is really great about Ta-Nehisi is that he’s great at putting his ramblings into sensical thoughts, following in a logical fashion.

From yesterday on Ta-Nehisi’s blog: A response to Obama and Race.

And now that I have a blog, I will begin my weekly reflections on Dan Savage’s relationship, sex-advice column “Savage Love.” Read the article if you want to understand what I’m talking about.

Savage straddles the issue of polyamory/monogamy/etc. with a degree of grace that I don’t think I could marshal. I, too, have issues with the institution of monogamous relationships that has become the central course in our culture in the past few centuries or so.  This colors my response as it colors his.

So to the girl who wants to be monogamous but whose off-and-on girlfriend wants to have a threesome, I can’t define your comfort level about this situation. In my mind, there are a few things to ask yourself. First, if you intend to be in a monogamous relationship, how can you reconcile this with dating someone who does not want this. Without a healthy dialogue as to what your relationship should consist of, your relationship will not last. Assumptions need to be shared, or it won’t work.  Secondly, while I’m not against drugs as a concept or in action, your need to use drugs to dull the situation around you tells me a few things. You try to hide from uncomfortable situations in a chemical smokescreen. This is not only ineffective, but can lead to a worsened feelings. And the fact that your partner doesn’t see the red flags in your request (“I can’t handle a third, so I’m going to take drugs to do something that I don’t want to”), and continues to not meet you halfway or accept your monogamy request signals that she isn’t going to be with you long.

I think that Dan is coming from the perspective of an advice columnist (somewhat out of character for him). He doesn’t want to offend LWORD:

If you want a girlfriend you don’t have to share, find another girlfriend. If you want this girlfriend, learn to share.

I agree with the first line, but the second option, to me, is not required. No one should be so invested that when something like one’s personal stance on monogamy is threatened in practice in your own relationship. If you want this girlfriend, LWORD, let her know that you can’t share. If she insists, let her go. It’s the only plan of action.

Is the dendrophiliac heterosexual because he feminizes the tree? It depends if you believe that everything is gendered–and bi-gendered at that.

But the book is about a man having sex with a tree! Doesn’t it have to be sexual? Yes, it does. But it doesn’t have to do with human sexuality. Whether or not the man feminizes the tree, it’s not heterosexual, to me, because the tree is not human. But, more to Dan’s point, the fact that this book was sexualized in such a manner speaks a lot to the readers.  I read everything as sexual. But that doens’t necessarily mean that everything is. As a rule, Freudianism is projected onto us by society. This discourse is not mandated, but it is pushed onto everyone in the Western world as a standard method of analysis (just as reading everything in through historical Marxism). This means: don’t do what I do, not everything is sexual.

As to the Dom/sub issue:

Safety in sexual acts is always an issue. And therefore, trust is an issue. More so when you are in a submissive role. I may want to be hurt during sex, but everyone has their line(s) and infection is one of mine. A simple request to use a condom would work. This is something that should have been thought of before this situation came up. Now, that this situation has not worked out, learn from your mistakes and find a new Dom and tell her about your need for condoms.

While I think that there is a standard understanding of a D/s relationship, not all submissives are completely submissive. As with all sexual identities, the D/s identification is one that is self-identified. If my self-identification strays from what is the generally accepted norm, don’t let someone get it wrong. Call them on it: I’m submissive, but I need to know this is safe. Do this before the situation arises. And since all sexual acts have a degree of safety involved, this shouldn’t be a hard request to make when you first become active with someone. It should be a standard request.

So, my motivations for doing this blogging thing:

1)  Sheer boredom. It’s exam time. I need to procrastinate, and this is more productive than most of the internet.

2) Reflection. I’ve been needing a place to respond to other blogs, which I read voraciously. And my desktop is getting crowded.

3) Narcissism. Not only does it feel good to see my words on the internet, but it also feels good to be able to send someone to my blog to understand my feelings.

4) A creative outlet. And to ignore the rule of three.

And now, to jump right in.