Larry's Phat Page: News

According to a recent poll, 52 percent of Republican voters believe that Barack Obama didn't actually win the landslide election that gave him the presidency last November 4, instead maintaining that ACORN and the Democratic Party conspired to steal votes and rig the election in their favor.

Meanwhile, 58 percent of Republicans doubt that President Obama was born in the U.S. or is a legitimate American citizen. In some Southern states the numbers of so-called "birthers" are much higher.

The polls are troubling for a number of reasons. George W. Bush lost the popular vote and achieved electoral victory amidst a controversy-ridden, incomplete recount in a state where his brother was governor - the election came down to as little as 500 votes, but was still considered legitimate. Why the hell is Barack Obama's 10 million vote victory seen as tenuous?

Meanwhile, if a wave of enthusiasm among change-hungry college-aged voters, urban voters and diverse populations sent Barack Obama to national office in a transformative election, who might a wave of highly-motivated tea-baggers and birthers bring to Washington in 2012 or 2016?

One of the reasons why we see such a high percentage of Republican party members leaning towards extreme far-Right opinions is that Republican numbers have dwindled; between 21 and 32 percent of Americans identify as Republican in the first place, most others claiming to be independents or Democrats. "Moderate" Republicans have funneled out of the party to consider themselves Independent, leaving the hard-Right behind. And since the Republican party lacks a clear vision of its own ("low taxes and strong military" might be what they want, but it was a disaster under Bush so they're reluctant to claim it), it's main emphasis is to be anti-Obama so the most anti-Obama Americans will cite themselves as such in polls. That means that the half of the Republican Party that thinks Barack Obama is a Kenyan Muslim is the Right-most 10 percent of Americans, and not such a scary number anymore.

There's a more insidious reason to suspect an apparent shift to the Right in America - the one that Glen Beck, Karl Rove and other GOP proponents insist has occurred. John Stewart hinted about it in his extended interview with Lou Dobbs this week. In one sense, Stewart points out, this is what happens whenever a Democrat is in the White House. (Remember the litany of allegations against the Bill Clinton in the 90s, which ranged from conspiracy, to rape, to murder.) In another sense (which Stewart leaves unspoken), the president's skin color may have a big thing to do about it; after all, what people seem most nervous about is "change," and a multicultural America is a significant break from the past that significantly challenges the racial privilege of white Americans.

Working-class rural Americans might not feel they have much going for them right now in our poor economy, so race becomes an especially poignant part of identity; to those who lean Right, they see Obama challenging their white privilege without reducing their economic un-privilege, leaving them with nothing. To add another layer, diversity is something you see in cities; rural areas tend to be homogeneous; so having a non-white president might be perceived as culturally challenging to exurban and rural lifestyles.

In fairness, we should also point out that there are wingnuts on the Left, too. A pretty hefty number of Americans thought 9/11 was a conspiracy when the Bush administration was in power; a good bunch of the so called "9/11 truthers" were Ron Paul-ites and some of the same anti-government extremists who dominate the healthcare forums today, but it's safe to assume that many of them are liberals who voted for Obama, or are too far to the Left to even vote (a significant number of non-voters refuse because they see both parties as slaves to corporate money).

But somehow the message that reached the general public was different in that case. Even pundits on Fox News want to argue that the anti-Obama conspiracy theorists are somehow different from the anti-Bush ones. Popular liberal pundits and columnists dismissed the worst accusations against George W. Bush; popular conservative pundits put the fringe Right on a platform and claim they're the new movement in American politics.

That's partially what the Obama Administration wants, because having political enemies that virtually everyone finds distasteful helps position yourself in the mainstream. The Republican Party is now purging itself of moderates, which means the Democratic party can only grow and absorb annoyed Independents and Republican castoffs, as it has done with Republicans Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee and may do with the likes of Dede Scozzafava and Charlie Christ.

If the Republican party is left to nominate Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin to national office, that's great for Democrats. But I don't think it's good for the country; most of our lives happen after election seasons, not during them. And in those months, debate and compromise have been replaced by bitterness and obstructionism - as the healthcare debate reveals. One of the most "moderate" and reasonable ideas in a clash between a public and private sector is a public option, letting people choose for themselves what to buy or support - but that has been a bitter fight supported by just one of 177 House Republicans. Republicans are off the radar for Democrats as far too far on the fringe to support any kind of reasoned compromise on big issues.

It's not because conservative ideas are without merit - they're not - it's because the views of those supporting them are increasingly disjointed and antagonistic, and misrepresentative of where most Americans - who are pragmatic and persuadable - really are. That's good for Democrats hoping to win office, who seem unpopular until they're juxtaposed with even more unpopular Republicans. Notice how even Hillary Clinton, who's likability had been below 50 for years, still won in about half of all polls against John McCain before the 2008 presidential election.

The unfortunate thing is, if centrist voters become discontent with the Democrats (over things that are hard to move, like the economy) and do decide that they'd rather take a risk than stay where they are, the far-right Republican party is the only thing they have to turn to. And that's reason for us all to worry.

This is the kind of stuff that LGBT people live with and face in the workplace every day.



It's also another example of what I meant when I complained a few weeks ago about the way LGBT people's lives are endlessly politicized in social interactions as well as on the national stage.

Peter Vidala, age 24, was fired from his job at a bookstore in Boston's Logan Airport for telling a regional manager that he didn't agree with her "so-called homosexual fiance," or more specifically, that she had one, and that she mentioned that she had one.

Vidala is a straight, conservative Christian man who felt that being fired was victimization on the basis of his religious belief. But Vidala's claim, unlike most claims of discrimination, was given an audience: Vidala got a chance to speak through the news to explain his whole plight to the country.

In Vidala's doesn't even pause to think that most people consider talking about their family a part of a normal conversation, instead arguing it was she, not he, who politicized the workplace.

"This woman repeatedly, and without any kind of provocation on my part, kept making references to this out-of-work homosexual behavior that she takes part in," Vidala explains, "by bringing up this so-called homosexual fiance that she has. And I don't believe that controversial issues like that have any place, especially in the Boston workplace, where, you know, it's such a hot-button issue, um... yeah."

So in other words, LGBT people have no right to talk about their personal lives, because their personal lives are so political.

It's comforting that even on Fox News the anchor clearly isn't really buying it.

His response: "If you were concerned about controversial issues in your Boston workplace, why did you, in turn, raise it with her, yourself?"

Vidala's response: "Peter, oh, Peter, I uh..."

This is the kind of stuff that people of any minority status: women, people of color, LGBT people, people with disabilities or religious minorities, have to deal with constantly. By joining conversations about personal lives with mention of our own, we are accused of "making people uncomfortable" or bringing up politics. By correcting homophobic, sexist or racist language, we are similarly accused of bringing politics in, this time to an even greater degree, even though the original language was clearly far more "political" than our own expression of nonparticipation in that language.

My guess is that Vidala's publicly-stated opinion on the matter is not so much a product of his own values and upbringing as his attempt to appropriate anti-discrimination language to his own benefit, and failing. I doubt he so much felt oppressed "as a Christian" by his coworker's comments as he saw an opportunity to preach his own values, and brought up his own oppression after he got fired.

Still, dominant majority groups with the most power often claim to be oppressed by minority groups trying to make room for themselves, as is the case when conservatives say that legalizing same-sex marriage "shoves it down our throats" or that public acceptance of LGBT people is discrimination against Christians.

In a previous interview with Fox, Vidala told reporters that "In general, I believe people don't want to hear about controversial issues like that in the workplace. They shouldn't have to," referencing his own right to not hear that his coworker has a fiance of the same sex. This is tantamount to saying that people of minority status aren't allowed to talk about themselves while everyone else is allowed to. This is Vidala's definition of "nondiscrimination," which is, in essence, discrimination.

Luckily this is a battle the LGBT people seem to have won, though Vidala won too by getting national attention. But in everyday battles, all across the world, where we are accused of making people uncomfortable by virtue of our existence, the outcomes are more subtle, and often much less favorable.

Well. This will mark the end of CatJournal.

It turns out I have a severe cat allergy. Not like my dad's, where he enters a room and can't breathe; but while we might be okay during the afternoon, I'd spend all night coughing and wheezing, waking up like my lungs were on fire. This is the originally-filtered post I made to locals.

He has been placed. I rented a CAN car and drove him to his new home in the West End. He cried, and I cried, and talked and sang to him as I drove. I think he'll be a lot happier, honestly; he will have multiple people to fawn over him, and he'll be able to share a bed with them without them waking up all night. He really, really likes sleeping with people, and I couldn't be that person.

Still.

He's a wonderful cat. Seriously, five days and I was completely in love. I learned that he had to go, and the wonderful contrasoma[*] helped me find someone to take him, so we spent the evening cuddling (and my skin burning, augh) until it was time for him to go.

My favourite memory, I think: while unpacking, I found an akabeko that Amelia had given me from an antique fair in Kyoto--an akabeko is the bobble-headed things. This was a red cow wearing the bushels of prosperity. I set him on the floor and bopped his head twice; Cyril, in my arms, got this look of entire mischief and then reached out with his claw and smacked it hard. It was so adorable.

hsifyppah, jlunder, Avi, gfish, and ladydrakaina--the Tuesday dinner crowd--have plied me with alcohol and Mario and so life is good. I did my crying on Monday and on the car ride over. I'm not really one to wallow; I'll be okay. And he's in a much, much better position now.

[*] Really, truly, he'd shrug this off and say it's not true, but contrasoma is one of the truly decent people of Vancouver. Without him, Cyril would more than likely have ended up in a shelter instead of a loving, welcoming home. The beer I'm bringing him on Friday is not nearly enough of a thank you.

Few would see a movie like 2012 expecting a heartrending story line or touching lesson in human nature. From the onset the purpose of the film is clear: we're going to blow this place up.

That was certainly the reason I rushed to see it on opening night, after the trailer laid it out for us in telling sneak peeks: Acres of city blocks slide like clods of dirt into the Pacific Ocean. A Buddhist monk rings a sacred bell as a tidal wave the size of a continent washes over the desolate Himalayas, killing him. 2012 boasts itself with scenes that are as awe-strickening as they are disturbingly beautiful.

As far as that goes, the only criticism I can offer is that the film pivots, about a quarter of the way in, from going too slow to suddenly going way too fast. A few mild tremors shake Los Angeles in the first part of the film - during a painfully tedious exposition to let characters reveal their cliche family backstories - and then without warning, Southern California splits itself apart in an abyss as deep as the Marianas Trench. The next thing we know, Yellowstone Caldera is erupting as a supervolcano in a bang so powerful it sends out shockwaves and a mushroom cloud akin to a Hydrogen bomb. (True to action movie form, the explosion rips over the hills at thousands of miles per hour until it approaches our protagonists fleeing in a lumbering motor home, and slows to their pace for their nail-biting escape. The explosion seems to pause or even retreat for several minutes as they scramble out of the vehicle into a parked airplane, but quickly re-accelerates to barely kiss the tail of their plane as it speeds away, churning with black smoke, glowing rocks and lava all the while.)

By the time Yellowstone has erupted, the world is basically over. The skies darken. Subsequent scenes of destruction are posed as an afterthought. "Oh, by the way," the President's Chief of Staff explains to aides in Washington, "Rio de Janiero was just destroyed by an earthquake" (cue footage of Christ Redeemer crumbling off its perch), then in a similarly decontextualized scene, we watch St. Peter's Basilica collapse and kill the entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church along with prayerful masses (we see nothing of the rest of Rome, though). When our protagonists get their airplane to Las Vegas, most of its hotels and casinos have already anticlimactically collapsed into the core of the Earth in a giant earthquake, and we witness the ruins of Las Vegas astride a seemingly infinite abyss. Washington D.C. is next to go, at a pace that is almost too fast to comprehend; an earthquake takes down the Washington Monument, then a gigantic, yawning tidal wave rises out of the Atlantic and looms over the city (which is covered by volcanic ash from Yellowstone), but the film cuts away just as the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, an aircraft carrier, lands on top of the White House.

Scenes such as this will continue through the rest of the film, revealing impending disasters but ending before the actual destruction ensues. Tidal ways loom up, but we cut away before the waves strike, and we assume that the characters who stood watching it are killed. Earthquakes begin but leave the scene before they reach their full strength. In other cases, we happen upon a ruined city that has already been destroyed, as happens with Honolulu, covered by lava. Most often we get even less than this: a military commander tells a diplomat that "Tokyo has been destroyed by an earthquake. Singapore has been wiped out by a wave." The most dramatic disaster scene of the film remains the drawn-out Los Angeles earthquake from the beginning.

The thing that is notably missing from the film is discussion of the Mayan prophesy (or rather, rumor) of destruction in 2012 that is its impetus and namesake. If the film had the spiritualistic or supernatural overtone, then maybe the rapid succession of perfect coincidences that destroy the Earth's cities would have a haunting poignancy. Instead, we are left only with science to explain what is going on, and the science falls flat. (According to 2012, solar flares make the lower Earth's crust melt and the continents slide around through the ocean like leaves on a pond.) We learn that the planets line up in such a way as to lead to these events every 650,000 years, even though there has certainly never been an event like this in Earth's history, which has been through almost 7 thousand 650,000 year periods in its 4.5 billion years. As exposited in the film, the geophysical anomalies leading to the Earth's destruction cause the continents to shift thousands of miles in the blink of an eye - something that requires them to move at tens of thousands of miles per hour, yet nobody on the ground is flung into space as would realistically happen if that occurred. This all happens magically on the ground without so much as cough of disturbance in the atmosphere, as observers in airplanes don't figure out that land masses have moved until suddenly what they thought should be Guam turns out to be Tibet.

It is the end of the film that really gets me, though (Spoiler Alert). Beyond all the drama of survivors taking refuge in gigantic futuristic arks (tickets cost a billion Euro, so it is the world's richest people who survive - our middle-class protagonists are stowaways) that the world's governments had been building all along for mankind's survival, the last scene in the movie tells us where humanity will go to rebuild: Africa.

According to the final scenes of 2012, in all the earthquakes and tectonic shifting, Africa has risen in elevation so much that it avoided being washed over by tidal waves that obliterated the rest of the planet. The Cape of Good Hope is now the highest point on Earth, which is, confusingly, where the world's governments decide to set up humanity again, on the peaks of what will likely turn out to be glaciated mountains (sounds like paradise, right?). Our protagonist tells his children, who mourn the loss of their Southern California home, that they will find new homes where they are going.

But - uh - don't people already live in Africa? Mayans were the first ethnic group be written out of 2012, Latinos are strikingly absent from the casting, and now the narrative suggests that native Africans are absent from the Earth. Forgive me for my politics, but it seems that having the world's billionaires land on a dark-skinned continent to "re-build humanity," as the story explains, is just a tad colonialist. There is no reference to the African governments, which were evidently not even part of the international ark-building program to begin with. I'm confused if the film's writers see all Africans simply as tribal nomatic peoples, or as so militaristically primitive that it just doesn't matter whether or not they already own the land you want to take. Perhaps the pending television series will elucidate this further.

I would say that 2012 has the basic structure of a great disaster movie, with awe-inspiring computer-generated explosions akin to Armageddon and Independence Day. But it tries too hard to be something else; if its all about the disasters, then the disasters should follow the same natural arc that any good story line does: subtle at first, but introduced to witnesses (in this case, the world's population) through a gradual process of discovery, first with small bad news, then in steps to full awareness. In 2012, everyone outside a secretive government agency finds out that the world is ending after it is already well under way. There is no great "pending doom" scenes as occur in the latter parts of The Knowing where the horizon glows red with what is to come. There is no gradual escalation of events like the way small volcanic eruptions and gas emissions precede the big climactic pyroclastic explosion in Dante's Peak. For the full effect, panic needs to slowly build through political wrangling, small cities taken down, riots, disasters following realistic trajectories, looting and then outright terror before the world's ultimate demise rather than mundane obliviousness until suddenly your home and city is swallowed by the Earth.

Finally, the end of the movie leaves out bits of information that nerds like me are interested in most. What is the state of natural flora in preserved Africa, or in the rest of the world? The closing scene zooms out to show us a remodeled Africa (with drastically altered coastlines), the lone continent that has not been stripped bare by waves, and its central parts are still green. But what about the rest of the Earth? Does Florida border Argentina now? Is Antarctica to turn into a tropical paradise? The producers were either too lazy or just didn't think audiences would care enough to want to see what has changed. In a movie that utterly lacks a decent human story, there is too much emphasis on the human story when those of us who did like the film liked it for one reason alone: the awe-inspiring natural world.

[Filtered to Cascadia locals--Seattle and Vancouver area] opened

Oh god this is a miserable post to make. Just creating the filter took me forever because I kept having to clear my eyes.

I'm allergic to Cyril, and this is going to be the hardest thing ever.

( lots of details, none too important )

The thing is, Cyril is an amazing and wonderful cat. Seriously, within 30 minutes he'll have burrowed somewhere where you can't let go. I've only had him three days and already it's killing me to have to consider this.

I've e-mailed some local friends that might be able to take him. If you have been considering a cat (or an additional cat) please let me know. If he has to go, I'd like to get it as soon as possible before he gets too settled in, because he's already had a rough couple of months with moving, and I can't bear to imagine him feeling abandoned again.

He's a 4-year-old long-haired cat. He's up-to-date on shots, and I have the originals for his proof of rabies vaccination and health certificate. He's seriously the sweetest, warmest cat I've ever met, and he'll purr and wharble his way into your heart.

I've spent $110 in the last week at the local pet store, and since I apparently can't have a cat, you'd be welcome to all of that (litter castle, food, litter, food/water dish, toys, scratching stuff, cat carrier, whatever else).

I am trying not to be all whiny, but sorry, it's just stupidly not fair. To him, to me, to anyone.

He made it safe and sound. Many thanks to treeskin for taking care of him and for making all this work on the other end, to byronsart for transporting him to Kansas City Airport at way too early in the morning, to noveldevice for introducing us and helping with logistics and everything, and to sonatine and Cody for transporting him from Seattle to here today.

He spent about half an hour hiding in various spots, then fifteen minutes wandering around sniffing things, then came over and banged his head on my hands until I started petting him. Even let me pick him up. So I think we're going to be okay. :D

Right now he's still lying on the step. I think it's a cozy, somewhat-hidden space where he can still see everything.

I promise this journal won't be all cat all the time, but it is totally Cyril Day. :D

Just got word from sonatine: Cyril's alive and well (if rather frazzled, poor thing; four-hour flights are not fun) and on his way north. If he's feeling obliging, there will be pictures tonight. (The delay is because it takes a few hours to unload and process everything from the plane. Also, he only did the MCI-SEA wing, but even still, a four-hour flight is a lot.)

(I've been resisting the urge to make, like, seven posts today about cat cat ^ω^ cat.)

We've made some additions and improvements to Notes!

The Notes feature has been added to two action-taking pages:

• You can now add a Note directly on the Add a friend page - handy if you'd like to mark down where you met them or another name you know them by!
• On the Ban and unban users page (under Account -> Privacy) you can now add a Note, including to a group of users all banned at the same time (so that next year you won't need to ask yourself "hey, why did I ban these guys?")

Other changes:

• When you're viewing your existing Notes they're grayed out; click in a field to activate it to change the text (this page can be found from the header by using Profile -> Manage Notes)
• Changes to editing:
  • When you're going to create a new Note but one already exists, you'll get a warning that you're editing an existing Note
  • You can now delete a note from the "Edit note" pop-up in the hover menu
  • You can now delete notes for multiple selected users on the Manage notes page
  • When you change Notes on "Ban|unban users" page, they can be edited and saved with "Save Changes" button

So this (or in French, since I read R-C for French practice) was my morning. How are all y'all doing?

(I'm a few blocks away, so I wasn't directly in it, but it sure made for a loud and exciting morning followed by a weird commute that involved taking a conference call while standing on a street corner (E 7th and Scotia, to be specific) because buses couldn't get through to get me to work.)

Lost: Slickety Jim's, Lugz, Militant Penguin, and a couple other things. A surprising number of my co-workers are in mourning for Lugz, considering how downhill it had gone in the last couple of years. But very sad, all around.

In other news, the cat has his flight booked. Cat cat cat :D :D cat. (Or :3?) After weighing the options, I went with a 2005 import model, so he's got a bit of a journey tomorrow. sonatine and Cody will also be up, so it'll be a fun weekend. Cat cat. :D

When I booked his flight, the helpful cargo staff asked if I wanted to sign him up for their frequent flier program for pets. I'm going to end this post on that just to let it sink in that such a thing exists.

So now I am a department store employee. It... has its ups and downs. I sometimes don't know exactly how to feel about it. Sometimes my customers suck when we don't have stock. They yell at me and tell me its all my fault I don't have whatever product they want as if I am directly responsible for the manufacture, shipping, and unpacking end of things too. I mean I do stock and replenishment. I have no control over what I get, only what I do with what I get. Some people just can't understand that though. Some of my customers have been awesome though. So it's not horrible. Its a learning experience.

So I work 6 straight days this week. Nothing out of the ordinary since summer. I was used to 10-14hr shifts 4 - 6 days a week, with no degree of regularity. I'm sure I can deal.

Maybe I'll get scheduled in something OTHER than shoes though. That'd be different.

I'm gonna go watch Castle and play videogames now.

The Scenario:

For this thought experiment, step into Christian or Roman Catholic theology saying that a fertilized egg is an act of creation that generates a human soul.

You are an employee of an egg/sperm bank and the power goes out, meaning that all the eggs and sperm in the cooler are going to thaw out and be destroyed. You are the only person present in the building when the power goes out.

Say that you realize that there are 100,000 viable eggs, and about a billion viable sperm in a frozen state.

It suddenly occurs to you that you can mix the eggs and the sperm, which represents, in Christian theology, 100,000 acts of creation as each individual egg becomes fertilized embryo and has a human soul.

You realize that the eggs will die shortly after being fertilized since there is nowhere to put them and they will thaw, but because you are Christian, you know that you could say a few words to dedicate them to God (a baptism) and they would all die in a few hours being committed to Heaven. Upon doing so, you would send 100,000 new souls to heaven to spend eternity in bliss.

On the other hand, by NOT fertilizing the eggs, they will die without ever having existed as souls, and the beings who now exist in thought and potential (in your mind) will never exist.

Since the government does not recognize fertilized eggs as humans, there are no legal ramifications, and anyway nobody would find out about it. You could just say you had to throw away the contents of the cooler, which is protocol in this situation, and nobody would fault you.

The Choices:

So what do you do? Say that in either situation, you are unhappy with your choice; you would prefer to allow the eggs to be implanted and become citizens. But you have the choice nonetheless. Is it...

...1) Worse to not fertilize the eggs, meaning that 100,000 potential beings will theoretically "die" in the universal sense because they do not exist.

...2) Worse to fertilize the eggs, meaning that 100,000 human beings will die in the literal sense but be immediately transferred to heaven, and spend eternity there? You are, in sense, "saving" 100,000 souls which is in some way a huge victory for God.

Remember to consider:

1) Assuming that a fertilized egg represents the creation of a human soul, does the person have moral value WHEN

a) the thought and potential for their to be a human being is there (which you definitely have in the cooler)

b) when the human being actually exists and is created

c) when the human being is born and able to choose between good and evil?

2) God's Biblical commandment is to "be fruitful and multiply" to add to God's creation on the Earth. You believe that being married and not having children is a selfish decision because it precludes the creation of life and offends God, and you understand that the general tone of the Bible is positive towards the creation of new life, especially the creation of life that is "saved" and will go to Heaven.

A second question:

With a (theoretical) time machine you could go back in time and stop a human being from being conceived. Is it worse to kill a person by altering time and causing him/her to not be born, or worse to kill a person after birth? Say that you don't have to kill him/her but could, rather, withold medical treatment that would almost certainly end in death?