When you take a position in public office within a democratically run nation, you are placing yourself in a system controlled by many. The president follows the will of the American people (or is supposed to, at least - see Bush-era totalitarianism), governors are expected to work within the bounds of the federal government, senators and representatives are to work within the laws of their respective states, and so on as the tree spreads. In essence, this means:
GOVERNORS ARE NOT MONARCHS
Regardless of my own feelings toward the Obamacare bill - which does indeed have many beneficial aspects that should never be repealed and would only be protested by the most monstrous excuses for human beings, though the original magnificent bill was slashed and burned by Republicans who would rather let those less fortunate die than pay a single cent more in taxes, not to mention the still-worrisome requirement to purchase health insurance which I can see easily being manipulated by big business to force Americans into genuine economic servitude - I understand that it has been signed into law. It has been ratified as constitutional by the Supreme Court. It is a national requirement.
Who the fuck thinks they can get away with openly defying the federal government when they operate within the federal government? Louisiana's governor Bobby Jindal has stated that he refuses to implement the Affordable Care Act, known in slang as Obamacare, and will work to elect Romney and repeal the act. Bob McDonnell, the governor of VA, also said that his state is in no hurry to comply with the act.
Let's take a step back and look at the facts. Let's ignore the potential for insurance companies and state governments to get even further in bed with one another and implement plans to bleed the proletariat dry. The "poorest" people to be hit with this act's taxes will be those making over $200k a year with no spouse, children or other dependents. For those with families or dependents, the minimum taxable income bracket will be even higher. So to all those bitching about how you'll be taxed to support this act, shut up. If you are taxed, you can fucking well afford it. The majority of those bitching, however, don't even know this. They just believe the generalizations spewed out by Conservative pundits who claim that everyone will be taxed. These pundits work for the same people who stopped healthcare from being available to everyone. I still don't understand how this is an issue: who doesn't want medical care if they get sick? The same dumb fucks who protest Medicare are most often those receiving Medicare.
The lies that these politicians and pundits tell aren't even very good; they can be debunked by anyone with a computer doing a quick Google search or two. This is only further proof that the Republican party thrives on the willful and vehement ignorance of its "grass-roots" base, those people who live at or beneath the poverty line yet still eagerly lap up everything Beck and Hannity spew, supporting bills that leave them ever more destitute while the rich get more wealthy, all because they refuse to educate themselves.
I can't even pity these people, as the hate they spew leads to violence and death, murder of people whose only crime was wanting to live life as they want without hurting anyone. So, all I'm left with is my own hatred, though this hate is directed at those who intentionally harm their fellow human beings, their fellow Americans, to nurse a grudge that's not even their own at the behest of overlords who actively wish them ill.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Obamacare; or, What Happened to our Yam-Head?
It's no big secret that I supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 bid for Democratic presidential candidate. I thought that her experience in the White House, as well as having her husband's knowledge to draw upon (Bill Clinton was the last president to leave us with a surplus, a staggering surplus at that, which Bush burned through and got America nearly a trillion dollars in debt in his first term) would make for an incredibly capable president. I believed that her no-nonsense attitude would also be beneficial, as her track record included far less BDSM-style submission that Democrats misconstrue as compromise.
However, Obama won the nomination and then the presidency, and I supported him as I view anyone with apparently good intentions as being vastly better than the exploitative vultures in the Republican party who would have all money and resources funneled directly to the rich. Unfortunately, his administration has been one of waffling and surrender to the point where I'm surprised the birthers don't think he's from France instead of Kenya.
Guantanamo, Afghanistan, gay marriage; all of these major issues the president has either simply let lie or, in the case of Afghanistan, actively aggravate the situation by pushing more troops into an area where US presence is a prime cause for terrorist sentiment.
Above all else, however, it is this abomination of Obamacare that will forever blight the president in my eyes. It is his "No Child Left Behind," a presidential mandate that will doubtlessly begin to tear apart those least fortunate. The original proposition reviled by Conservatives as Obamacare was an ingenious concept and a transitory phase to universal healthcare like every other first-world democracy has: it would have the United States government implement its own health insurance plan that citizens could sign onto if they lacked the funds to get healthcare from the private insurers. Obviously, the idea that big business might lose income from the unemployed - those rendered jobless by the Bush housing market collapse and subsequent stock market implosion - switching to a public option sent Republicans into a panic and Congress, now controlled by Republicans because Americans were too goddamn stupid to realize that two years isn't enough time to fix eight years' worth of bullshit, shot down the bill like nobody's business.
Fast-forward two years, to this landmark Supreme Court decision over the newest incarnation of Obamacare, the one that Mitt Romney is vowing to slay even though forcing the public to buy from private insurers or else was his fucking idea back in Massachusetts. This Obamacare is a travesty, an order for all Americans to purchase health insurance or be fined, yet it has no impetus for insurers to lower their prices for those below the poverty line. This is exactly like No Child Left Behind, wherein the least able schools are further penalized because they can't educate their students well enough with what meager funds they have, so Conservatives' solution is to cut their funding further. Only, unlike NCLB, there is no real way to cheat the system and fake test scores to get out of paying for insurance or paying a fine.
I believe that this act will go down in history as one of the worst governmental mandates in history, only helping the rich to get richer while the poor lose what little money they have. I can bet it won't be too long before some rich bastard is offering deals to the poor like a feudal lord, where they can live on his thousand-acre estate in return for endlessly working for him.
However, in this latest presidential election I will still be voting for Obama over Romney. I'd rather have a spineless, idiotic wimp in power than someone actively working for the bad guys and promoting prejudiced, even genocidal, sentiments.
However, Obama won the nomination and then the presidency, and I supported him as I view anyone with apparently good intentions as being vastly better than the exploitative vultures in the Republican party who would have all money and resources funneled directly to the rich. Unfortunately, his administration has been one of waffling and surrender to the point where I'm surprised the birthers don't think he's from France instead of Kenya.
Guantanamo, Afghanistan, gay marriage; all of these major issues the president has either simply let lie or, in the case of Afghanistan, actively aggravate the situation by pushing more troops into an area where US presence is a prime cause for terrorist sentiment.
Above all else, however, it is this abomination of Obamacare that will forever blight the president in my eyes. It is his "No Child Left Behind," a presidential mandate that will doubtlessly begin to tear apart those least fortunate. The original proposition reviled by Conservatives as Obamacare was an ingenious concept and a transitory phase to universal healthcare like every other first-world democracy has: it would have the United States government implement its own health insurance plan that citizens could sign onto if they lacked the funds to get healthcare from the private insurers. Obviously, the idea that big business might lose income from the unemployed - those rendered jobless by the Bush housing market collapse and subsequent stock market implosion - switching to a public option sent Republicans into a panic and Congress, now controlled by Republicans because Americans were too goddamn stupid to realize that two years isn't enough time to fix eight years' worth of bullshit, shot down the bill like nobody's business.
Fast-forward two years, to this landmark Supreme Court decision over the newest incarnation of Obamacare, the one that Mitt Romney is vowing to slay even though forcing the public to buy from private insurers or else was his fucking idea back in Massachusetts. This Obamacare is a travesty, an order for all Americans to purchase health insurance or be fined, yet it has no impetus for insurers to lower their prices for those below the poverty line. This is exactly like No Child Left Behind, wherein the least able schools are further penalized because they can't educate their students well enough with what meager funds they have, so Conservatives' solution is to cut their funding further. Only, unlike NCLB, there is no real way to cheat the system and fake test scores to get out of paying for insurance or paying a fine.
I believe that this act will go down in history as one of the worst governmental mandates in history, only helping the rich to get richer while the poor lose what little money they have. I can bet it won't be too long before some rich bastard is offering deals to the poor like a feudal lord, where they can live on his thousand-acre estate in return for endlessly working for him.
However, in this latest presidential election I will still be voting for Obama over Romney. I'd rather have a spineless, idiotic wimp in power than someone actively working for the bad guys and promoting prejudiced, even genocidal, sentiments.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Nerdrage Time
Trilogies really are big in the nerd kingdom, aren't they? Maybe it's due to Schoolhouse Rock's magnificent "3 is a Magic Number" song, or the original Star Wars trilogy (before they left Lucas to his own devices and he kept changing it to come in line with his own cartoonish ideas), but trilogies are very important to the geek and gamer subculture. Trilogies are also the easiest way to make a titanic fuckup these days. I don't even need to do more than mention the colossal atrocity that was the Star Wars prequel trilogy, so let's look at some others.
While I've never been a fan of first-person shooters, I greatly enjoyed the Modern Warfare series. The first and second told a gritty and believable alternate-history war story. WW3 was a bit hard to imagine, but the story had a firm enough setting that it was forgivable. Modern Warfare 3 dropped the ball, killing off fan-favorite Soap MacTavish and going insane with the first-person "crippled cutscenes" wherein the player's revered tough-as-nails veteran character falls down and has to be carried away again and again and again. The story became too bloated and bizarre, with the villains somehow overcoming the entire Russian government and establishing military dictatorships in existing nations.
The Matrix trilogy is another major disappointment, trying to tell some sort of twisted existential nonsense instead of a legitimate story. And considering that the Revolutions tie-in game had the Wachowsky Brothers actually step in during a cutscene and insult fans for not liking the third movie's ending, well...
These failures in storytelling, however, pale in comparison to the big daddy of narrative buttfuckery known as Mass Effect 3. For those not "in the know," the Extended Cut DLC was released today, with several minutes of new footage to pad out the almost transcendentally horrendous original ending. Fan anger at the original ending was greater than almost anything the gaming world has ever seen. This game was made by BioWare, the company known for their storytelling above all else. Even in games with poor controls and unbalanced gameplay, fans didn't care because the story was strong enough. Me? I say meh. I enjoyed the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, but I always thought BioWare's character development was better than their storytelling. Even with that said, however, the original ending was an abhorrent sore.
I could go on for fucking pages about how shit the ending was, but you can just google the ending and find entire forums dedicated to picking apart and analyzing that fuckheap. Suffice to say, it was bad. It was very, very, very...bad. Throwing in an eleventh-hour character, subverting the entire theme of the series up until that point, and completely invalidating one of the most lauded aspects of the Mass Effect series - that is, player choice making a difference not only in one game, but in all games to follow - the ending would have been horrible enough without the creative director building up hype about how many different permutations to the ending there would be, how this was THE END of a titanic series and how this would change the gaming world as we know it. Casey Hudson even said, "You won't be able to say you got ending A, B or C." Well guess the fuck what? The only endings available were A, B and C. No permutations in the ending, no real impact from all the war assets and hours of one-mode multiplayer consumers were ordered to play in order to receive the so-called "best endings," no nothing. Player choice meant NOTHING. Less than nothing, in fact, since if you didn't do everything in the game and play hours of multiplayer there was a good chance you wouldn't be given a choice. If you saved Wrex or the Rachni Queen in the first game? Doesn't fucking matter. You helped save Tali's home world? Doesn't fucking matter. I had my first inklings of this even as I was playing the game, where you can accidentally doom an entire planet to extinction and nobody even mentions it again. Two whole races wiped out, and nobody bats an eye. The developers didn't care.
So now we get the Extended Cut, a free downloadable add-on that brings in a few extra lines of dialogue and cut scenes to "better explain" the ending. This is the equivalent of finding a rat in your Taco Bell and the manager adding some parsley to it. You still paid for your meal, and there's still a dead sewer animal in it, but this might make it a bit more palatable. Oh, they included a new ending - a half-assed "Refusal Ending" one-fifth the length of the other endings that has the cycle continuing a la Matrix 3, where it turns out instead of Buzz Aldrin's voice recounting stories of "The Shepard" to a kid and creepily calling the boy 'my sweet,' the entire Mass Effect series has been a recording from a holographic Liara telling the next group of species how Shepard failed.
To me, this is the ultimate slap in the face. You already get a sad enough ending, with Shepard either completely compromising his/her moral code and the entire theme of the trilogy at the drop of a hat, or exterminating entire synthetic races to destroy the Reapers. Now we get an even sadder ending where everyone dies because the fans had the audacity to want to have a choice in the matter, to have Shepard continue along with his morals. War assets still make no difference; there's only a single tiny cutscene where we see the victory fleet being destroyed. There's no chance to save people with the new option. It's just BioWare and Electronic Arts spitting in their customers' faces, saying "Here's your fucking new ending. You killed everyone we made you care about. That's what you get for wanting a satisfying conclusion to your game, schmuck!"
Every developer seems to have the urge to "go against the trend" these days and give a downer ending or an unsatisfying one, but over a goddamn decade that has become the new trend. At least when Fallout 3 did it the ending was in line with the Biblical theme of self-sacrifice that had been established from the game's start. At least Lemony Snicket's books were internally consistent, having warned readers from the beginning that the ending would leave them disappointed.
Unlike many others I actually really enjoyed Dragon Age 2. I thought it helped to establish the series as being about the entire world instead of a war against the darkspawn or anything as pedantic and overdone as that. However, I will not be purchasing any more games from BioWare after this last insult to their consumers, the people without whom they cannot exist. Nor will I be purchasing from Electronic Arts, who have now killed two of my favorite game companies, Westwood Studios and BioWare.
While I've never been a fan of first-person shooters, I greatly enjoyed the Modern Warfare series. The first and second told a gritty and believable alternate-history war story. WW3 was a bit hard to imagine, but the story had a firm enough setting that it was forgivable. Modern Warfare 3 dropped the ball, killing off fan-favorite Soap MacTavish and going insane with the first-person "crippled cutscenes" wherein the player's revered tough-as-nails veteran character falls down and has to be carried away again and again and again. The story became too bloated and bizarre, with the villains somehow overcoming the entire Russian government and establishing military dictatorships in existing nations.
The Matrix trilogy is another major disappointment, trying to tell some sort of twisted existential nonsense instead of a legitimate story. And considering that the Revolutions tie-in game had the Wachowsky Brothers actually step in during a cutscene and insult fans for not liking the third movie's ending, well...
These failures in storytelling, however, pale in comparison to the big daddy of narrative buttfuckery known as Mass Effect 3. For those not "in the know," the Extended Cut DLC was released today, with several minutes of new footage to pad out the almost transcendentally horrendous original ending. Fan anger at the original ending was greater than almost anything the gaming world has ever seen. This game was made by BioWare, the company known for their storytelling above all else. Even in games with poor controls and unbalanced gameplay, fans didn't care because the story was strong enough. Me? I say meh. I enjoyed the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, but I always thought BioWare's character development was better than their storytelling. Even with that said, however, the original ending was an abhorrent sore.
I could go on for fucking pages about how shit the ending was, but you can just google the ending and find entire forums dedicated to picking apart and analyzing that fuckheap. Suffice to say, it was bad. It was very, very, very...bad. Throwing in an eleventh-hour character, subverting the entire theme of the series up until that point, and completely invalidating one of the most lauded aspects of the Mass Effect series - that is, player choice making a difference not only in one game, but in all games to follow - the ending would have been horrible enough without the creative director building up hype about how many different permutations to the ending there would be, how this was THE END of a titanic series and how this would change the gaming world as we know it. Casey Hudson even said, "You won't be able to say you got ending A, B or C." Well guess the fuck what? The only endings available were A, B and C. No permutations in the ending, no real impact from all the war assets and hours of one-mode multiplayer consumers were ordered to play in order to receive the so-called "best endings," no nothing. Player choice meant NOTHING. Less than nothing, in fact, since if you didn't do everything in the game and play hours of multiplayer there was a good chance you wouldn't be given a choice. If you saved Wrex or the Rachni Queen in the first game? Doesn't fucking matter. You helped save Tali's home world? Doesn't fucking matter. I had my first inklings of this even as I was playing the game, where you can accidentally doom an entire planet to extinction and nobody even mentions it again. Two whole races wiped out, and nobody bats an eye. The developers didn't care.
So now we get the Extended Cut, a free downloadable add-on that brings in a few extra lines of dialogue and cut scenes to "better explain" the ending. This is the equivalent of finding a rat in your Taco Bell and the manager adding some parsley to it. You still paid for your meal, and there's still a dead sewer animal in it, but this might make it a bit more palatable. Oh, they included a new ending - a half-assed "Refusal Ending" one-fifth the length of the other endings that has the cycle continuing a la Matrix 3, where it turns out instead of Buzz Aldrin's voice recounting stories of "The Shepard" to a kid and creepily calling the boy 'my sweet,' the entire Mass Effect series has been a recording from a holographic Liara telling the next group of species how Shepard failed.
To me, this is the ultimate slap in the face. You already get a sad enough ending, with Shepard either completely compromising his/her moral code and the entire theme of the trilogy at the drop of a hat, or exterminating entire synthetic races to destroy the Reapers. Now we get an even sadder ending where everyone dies because the fans had the audacity to want to have a choice in the matter, to have Shepard continue along with his morals. War assets still make no difference; there's only a single tiny cutscene where we see the victory fleet being destroyed. There's no chance to save people with the new option. It's just BioWare and Electronic Arts spitting in their customers' faces, saying "Here's your fucking new ending. You killed everyone we made you care about. That's what you get for wanting a satisfying conclusion to your game, schmuck!"
Every developer seems to have the urge to "go against the trend" these days and give a downer ending or an unsatisfying one, but over a goddamn decade that has become the new trend. At least when Fallout 3 did it the ending was in line with the Biblical theme of self-sacrifice that had been established from the game's start. At least Lemony Snicket's books were internally consistent, having warned readers from the beginning that the ending would leave them disappointed.
Unlike many others I actually really enjoyed Dragon Age 2. I thought it helped to establish the series as being about the entire world instead of a war against the darkspawn or anything as pedantic and overdone as that. However, I will not be purchasing any more games from BioWare after this last insult to their consumers, the people without whom they cannot exist. Nor will I be purchasing from Electronic Arts, who have now killed two of my favorite game companies, Westwood Studios and BioWare.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Reviews: Dragon's Dogma
The newest sprawling adventure epic released by Capcom, Dragon's Dogma manages to present the typical fantasy setting blessed with a fresh coat of paint and a looming sense of desperation that really helps to establish the atmosphere. In the game, players control a person known as the Arisen, a being who appears once every generation, born when his or her heart is stolen by the incarnation of ultimate evil, the Dragon. The Arisen is then the only person who can slay the immensely powerful beast and must embark on a quest to bring down the dragon as its very presence causes monsters to crawl out of the woodwork and devastate the land.
As far as the plot goes, it seems pretty cookie-cutter until you begin to reach beneath the surface. One common complaint from other reviewers is that it's difficult to tell which quests are part of the storyline. I, on the other hand, enjoy this fact because many side quests will either give you an advantage down the road or further advance the plot, revealing more of the storyline. The other boost to the plot is the addition of beings called pawns, humanoid creatures from another dimension. Everyone has one pawn that always follows them, which they can design just as they did their own character through an extremely in-depth character creation system, and can then "borrow" two other pawns. This borrowing is an amazing part of the game, as you are actually taking other players' pawns, their stats recorded at the last inn they saved in, and using them to fight alongside you. The pawns can offer advice on quests that they have previously completed with another player, give suggestions or utilize advanced tactics against monsters with which they are familiar, or simply make idle comments that grow more versatile with experience.
Graphically the game is impressive, though not necessarily as astonishing as some other big-name titles. Human designs can feel a bit lacking next to the painstaking level of detail bestowed on the titanic monsters. In general, though, the game looks very good. The cities and surrounding areas all look rather shoddy, even the capital, which lends to the aesthetic that this is a land barely holding itself together from generation after generation of nigh-endless monster attacks.
Gameplay is where players may split in their opinion of Dragon's Dogma. Combat is fast and hectic, but perhaps a bit too much so. Unlike in the original Prototype, where the chaos and carnage lent to the depth of the experience, Dogma requires a more precise hand. Drawing from games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta for the flowing combat system, Dragon's Dogma can get a bit overwhelming at times, having to manage your character plus up to three others in precision-based battles against legions of enemies supplemented by hulking colossi several stories tall. Control of your character is fluid, for the most part, though I have experienced a couple hangups particularly when climbing on monsters, where pushing UP doesn't necessarily make you climb higher on the beast due to your character's orientation on the monster. Control of the pawns, though, can get a little spotty. Overall the AI is very good, the pawns undertaking their actions as instructed and helping to overwhelm enemies, but precision control can cause a few hair-pulling moments. In addition, while the lack of a fast-travel option can help with immersion - and such an option could make many side quests a joke - in a world so massive and dangerous fast-travel would be a nice feature to have. Items called ferrystones can take you back to the capital, but since they're one-use items and only direct you there until much later in the game when you can set up a single beacon of your own, I doubt much would be lost in making the ferry option a free, unlimited-use mechanic.
Overall, Dragon's Dogma is an innovative little romp that can grow tedious at times, requiring it to be switched out for another game on occasion, but it never gets irritating enough to call it a detriment. For anyone who enjoys fantasy games and ever wanted to scale a cyclops to skewer it in the eye or ride a dragon into the clouds for a massive midair battle with the beast, Dragon's Dogma comes highly recommended.
As far as the plot goes, it seems pretty cookie-cutter until you begin to reach beneath the surface. One common complaint from other reviewers is that it's difficult to tell which quests are part of the storyline. I, on the other hand, enjoy this fact because many side quests will either give you an advantage down the road or further advance the plot, revealing more of the storyline. The other boost to the plot is the addition of beings called pawns, humanoid creatures from another dimension. Everyone has one pawn that always follows them, which they can design just as they did their own character through an extremely in-depth character creation system, and can then "borrow" two other pawns. This borrowing is an amazing part of the game, as you are actually taking other players' pawns, their stats recorded at the last inn they saved in, and using them to fight alongside you. The pawns can offer advice on quests that they have previously completed with another player, give suggestions or utilize advanced tactics against monsters with which they are familiar, or simply make idle comments that grow more versatile with experience.
Graphically the game is impressive, though not necessarily as astonishing as some other big-name titles. Human designs can feel a bit lacking next to the painstaking level of detail bestowed on the titanic monsters. In general, though, the game looks very good. The cities and surrounding areas all look rather shoddy, even the capital, which lends to the aesthetic that this is a land barely holding itself together from generation after generation of nigh-endless monster attacks.
Gameplay is where players may split in their opinion of Dragon's Dogma. Combat is fast and hectic, but perhaps a bit too much so. Unlike in the original Prototype, where the chaos and carnage lent to the depth of the experience, Dogma requires a more precise hand. Drawing from games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta for the flowing combat system, Dragon's Dogma can get a bit overwhelming at times, having to manage your character plus up to three others in precision-based battles against legions of enemies supplemented by hulking colossi several stories tall. Control of your character is fluid, for the most part, though I have experienced a couple hangups particularly when climbing on monsters, where pushing UP doesn't necessarily make you climb higher on the beast due to your character's orientation on the monster. Control of the pawns, though, can get a little spotty. Overall the AI is very good, the pawns undertaking their actions as instructed and helping to overwhelm enemies, but precision control can cause a few hair-pulling moments. In addition, while the lack of a fast-travel option can help with immersion - and such an option could make many side quests a joke - in a world so massive and dangerous fast-travel would be a nice feature to have. Items called ferrystones can take you back to the capital, but since they're one-use items and only direct you there until much later in the game when you can set up a single beacon of your own, I doubt much would be lost in making the ferry option a free, unlimited-use mechanic.
Overall, Dragon's Dogma is an innovative little romp that can grow tedious at times, requiring it to be switched out for another game on occasion, but it never gets irritating enough to call it a detriment. For anyone who enjoys fantasy games and ever wanted to scale a cyclops to skewer it in the eye or ride a dragon into the clouds for a massive midair battle with the beast, Dragon's Dogma comes highly recommended.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Dungeons & Dipshits
Let's get this out of the way first: I greatly enjoy Dungeons & Dragons, or rather, I did. I have nothing against any level of nerdiness that comes part-and-parcel with the game, so long as the creepy stalkers don't get any ideas about my friends.
Now, believe it or not, when I was younger I hated writing. I thought it took much more time than simply telling the stories. I preferred video games over board games, since there was less chance of a titanic fuckup if you chose your video games carefully than if you played a board game with others. This, obviously, led to a sort of an aversion toward D&D, not in a derisive way but just that I didn't think it would be fast and consistent enough. Considering that now I am one of the favorite DMs at any gaming store I play at, I'd say this has changed.
I got into D&D at the tail end of 3.5. While I enjoyed the game, I found some titanic flaws and imbalances. I enjoyed playing spellcasting classes yet I got incensed for my friends who preferred melee classes, since my characters' spell lists could render their characters irrelevant. I saw it as bad design that a player had to handicap his character in order to make the others' contributions meaningful.
When 4th Edition came out, I saw potential for the greatest incarnation of D&D ever. By streamlining the rules and putting all classes on a relatively even playing field, players were no longer limited by artificial restrictions on how to roleplay their characters and everyone could contribute. I always had a feeling that the writers of adventures never truly grasped how amazingly free this new system was, which is always a potential problem in the early days of any edition. However, only two years into the new edition's lifespan something horrible happened:
Wizards of the Coast pussied out
Edition wars have plagued D&D since its inception. Every update or rules change has had its share of nasal cries in protest. When your primary consumers wear bedsheets as capes and hide in their mothers' basements, fear of change is something you have to deal with. However, for the first time someone seemed to see the potential in an overhaul of 3.5, modifying it to better balance the gameplay. A little company called Paizo picked up the Open Gaming License once Wizards (henceforth abbreviated WotC) moved to their new edition, launched a massive open playtest for 3.5 loyalists, and released a game called Pathfinder. Now all the angry so-called fans who turned their backs on D&D for having the audacity to change had a new game to flock to, hiding in little corner rooms and making snide comments against 4E and insinuating that its players were all of subpar intellect. This is a phenomenon I designate as the "mass ragequit."
The problem was, WotC pissed their pants in fear of losing even one fan. After sales failed to meet their expectations when they, for the first time in ages, had real competition on the same level along with the competition's advantage of catering to those who wanted the previous edition to continue, WotC panicked. First they started pushing their books, which I have never known to be a real cash cow. Then they started inventing board games, short romps themed after some of their classic settings - instead of migrating those goddamn settings to 4E like fans had clamored for - in a move that damned them just as the Wii's reliance on dozens of family-friendly Carnival Games discs destroyed their reputation and fan base.
Finally, the execs threw their hands up. They said, "We gave you books, board games and even instructions on how to play your character the right way. Why don't you like us? What, you want actual meaningful content as opposed to just more power set supplements? But those were our best-selling things in the previous edition! Of course people didn't like the previous edition's supplements for their in-depth storytelling and the additions they made to the game world! Why the hell would years of setting development and a half-dozen different fully realized campaign settings make 3.5's supplements more palatable?"
So, because WotC wasn't giving the people what they wanted, they decided to go in the exact fucking opposite direction! They began dancing the can-can while hitting themselves with fish a la Monty Python and released D&D Essentials, which was essentially what angry fans had called 4E from the start: D&D dumbed down. Now, without the more exotic equipment to shore up characters' weaknesses, the developers outright told players what powers they would get and what weapons they had to use. In a system that was all about freedom of choice, this was a jarring change for the worse. As time went on WotC continued to slash-and-burn two years' worth of progress by essentially invalidating preexisting classes and styles, lying out of the left side of their mouth while their right hand was tearing apart their own system.
And then, less than four years after 4E came out, the entire thing collapsed under the sheer weight of its executives' stupidity. The game was an abomination, a Frankenstein's monster created by a lazy-eyed Pollock. And now WotC has sent out calls for suggestions - not even playtesting, just suggestions - for their new 5th Edition.
I have a suggestion, Wizards: sell the fucking franchise. No matter how many collectible cards you release, or board games you publish, or shitty books you sell to serve as testament that Stephenie Meyer isn't the only one who can buttfuck fantasy, an inundation of products will never, EVER make up for real content and heartfelt dedication. The last edition's debacle proved that there's a major shortage of that up in Seattle. Sell the franchise to someone who actually cares about making quality products and not just making money - which this goes to show can't always be accomplished by just throwing shit at the public.
As for me, I finally tried out Pathfinder. Turns out it's pretty good, better than 3.5 and infinitely better than that necrotic placenta 4E has become. I still don't like how other Pathfinder players still degrade the players of other editions, but at least now I can agree that anybody who still claims to enjoy WotC's monstrosity can't have all their marbles.
Now, believe it or not, when I was younger I hated writing. I thought it took much more time than simply telling the stories. I preferred video games over board games, since there was less chance of a titanic fuckup if you chose your video games carefully than if you played a board game with others. This, obviously, led to a sort of an aversion toward D&D, not in a derisive way but just that I didn't think it would be fast and consistent enough. Considering that now I am one of the favorite DMs at any gaming store I play at, I'd say this has changed.
I got into D&D at the tail end of 3.5. While I enjoyed the game, I found some titanic flaws and imbalances. I enjoyed playing spellcasting classes yet I got incensed for my friends who preferred melee classes, since my characters' spell lists could render their characters irrelevant. I saw it as bad design that a player had to handicap his character in order to make the others' contributions meaningful.
When 4th Edition came out, I saw potential for the greatest incarnation of D&D ever. By streamlining the rules and putting all classes on a relatively even playing field, players were no longer limited by artificial restrictions on how to roleplay their characters and everyone could contribute. I always had a feeling that the writers of adventures never truly grasped how amazingly free this new system was, which is always a potential problem in the early days of any edition. However, only two years into the new edition's lifespan something horrible happened:
Wizards of the Coast pussied out
Edition wars have plagued D&D since its inception. Every update or rules change has had its share of nasal cries in protest. When your primary consumers wear bedsheets as capes and hide in their mothers' basements, fear of change is something you have to deal with. However, for the first time someone seemed to see the potential in an overhaul of 3.5, modifying it to better balance the gameplay. A little company called Paizo picked up the Open Gaming License once Wizards (henceforth abbreviated WotC) moved to their new edition, launched a massive open playtest for 3.5 loyalists, and released a game called Pathfinder. Now all the angry so-called fans who turned their backs on D&D for having the audacity to change had a new game to flock to, hiding in little corner rooms and making snide comments against 4E and insinuating that its players were all of subpar intellect. This is a phenomenon I designate as the "mass ragequit."
The problem was, WotC pissed their pants in fear of losing even one fan. After sales failed to meet their expectations when they, for the first time in ages, had real competition on the same level along with the competition's advantage of catering to those who wanted the previous edition to continue, WotC panicked. First they started pushing their books, which I have never known to be a real cash cow. Then they started inventing board games, short romps themed after some of their classic settings - instead of migrating those goddamn settings to 4E like fans had clamored for - in a move that damned them just as the Wii's reliance on dozens of family-friendly Carnival Games discs destroyed their reputation and fan base.
Finally, the execs threw their hands up. They said, "We gave you books, board games and even instructions on how to play your character the right way. Why don't you like us? What, you want actual meaningful content as opposed to just more power set supplements? But those were our best-selling things in the previous edition! Of course people didn't like the previous edition's supplements for their in-depth storytelling and the additions they made to the game world! Why the hell would years of setting development and a half-dozen different fully realized campaign settings make 3.5's supplements more palatable?"
So, because WotC wasn't giving the people what they wanted, they decided to go in the exact fucking opposite direction! They began dancing the can-can while hitting themselves with fish a la Monty Python and released D&D Essentials, which was essentially what angry fans had called 4E from the start: D&D dumbed down. Now, without the more exotic equipment to shore up characters' weaknesses, the developers outright told players what powers they would get and what weapons they had to use. In a system that was all about freedom of choice, this was a jarring change for the worse. As time went on WotC continued to slash-and-burn two years' worth of progress by essentially invalidating preexisting classes and styles, lying out of the left side of their mouth while their right hand was tearing apart their own system.
And then, less than four years after 4E came out, the entire thing collapsed under the sheer weight of its executives' stupidity. The game was an abomination, a Frankenstein's monster created by a lazy-eyed Pollock. And now WotC has sent out calls for suggestions - not even playtesting, just suggestions - for their new 5th Edition.
I have a suggestion, Wizards: sell the fucking franchise. No matter how many collectible cards you release, or board games you publish, or shitty books you sell to serve as testament that Stephenie Meyer isn't the only one who can buttfuck fantasy, an inundation of products will never, EVER make up for real content and heartfelt dedication. The last edition's debacle proved that there's a major shortage of that up in Seattle. Sell the franchise to someone who actually cares about making quality products and not just making money - which this goes to show can't always be accomplished by just throwing shit at the public.
As for me, I finally tried out Pathfinder. Turns out it's pretty good, better than 3.5 and infinitely better than that necrotic placenta 4E has become. I still don't like how other Pathfinder players still degrade the players of other editions, but at least now I can agree that anybody who still claims to enjoy WotC's monstrosity can't have all their marbles.
"Fix yourself"
The criticism I see most often of people who suffer from addiction - particularly of people with little means who live beneath the poverty line - is that the addicts should reevaluate and fix their lives if they find themselves relying on drugs. Now this condescending answer is all well and good for the critic, as they are often upper-middle class or upper-class people with steady jobs, health insurance and access to therapists and proper rehabilitation facilities. The problem comes when people apply this arrogant reasoning to others far below their own income bracket.
The truth is, many addicts turn to drugs or drink in an attempt to escape their lives of suffering or even to regulate their own mental conditions. After all, in a nation where a frightening percentage of people don't have health insurance, even a simple checkup is often unaffordable, to say nothing of an actual prescription for antidepressants or tranquilizers.
This represents a common failure in American thinking, which is that everyone has access to the same resources that you do. For arrogant rich bastards this doesn't even come into play since they don't care about anyone else (see John McCain not even knowing how many houses he owns or the AIG execs giving themselves multi-million-dollar bonuses during the economic recession instead of paying their employees), but for those in the middle income bracket the reasoning is often less sinister and more pitiable: Americans have boxed themselves inside their own minds to hide from their own harsh realities and have become so used to this act that they assume everyone else lives just like them.
Denial is an extremely powerful tool, one that is continually exploited by those truly in power, the corporations. Just deny that pollution is making the world less safe. Ignore the fact that oil is a finite resource and that in order to acquire it we have to pay millions to theocratic dictatorships who want to see us dead. Pretend that the unemployment numbers don't mean anything.
This denial means that Americans would rather pretend that the slums don't exist; that gangs exist just because everyone in said gangs are bad. It's much easier to just chalk everything up as black-and-white rather than having to think about the social and economic situations that allow gangs' "law of the jungle" mentality to take hold, or the twisted sort of stability that gang presence brings by protecting neighborhoods from being ravaged and picked apart by other gangs.
A little advice for America: stop pretending that things aren't bad, and stop ordering the most disenfranchised and least able to fix their problems while you sit back and watch your DVR. Also, stop pretending that little charity clean-up drives will truly fix anything in the slums. We need to take action, as a people, at the highest echelons of power in order to reach into the lowest pits of America and save our fellow man.
The truth is, many addicts turn to drugs or drink in an attempt to escape their lives of suffering or even to regulate their own mental conditions. After all, in a nation where a frightening percentage of people don't have health insurance, even a simple checkup is often unaffordable, to say nothing of an actual prescription for antidepressants or tranquilizers.
This represents a common failure in American thinking, which is that everyone has access to the same resources that you do. For arrogant rich bastards this doesn't even come into play since they don't care about anyone else (see John McCain not even knowing how many houses he owns or the AIG execs giving themselves multi-million-dollar bonuses during the economic recession instead of paying their employees), but for those in the middle income bracket the reasoning is often less sinister and more pitiable: Americans have boxed themselves inside their own minds to hide from their own harsh realities and have become so used to this act that they assume everyone else lives just like them.
Denial is an extremely powerful tool, one that is continually exploited by those truly in power, the corporations. Just deny that pollution is making the world less safe. Ignore the fact that oil is a finite resource and that in order to acquire it we have to pay millions to theocratic dictatorships who want to see us dead. Pretend that the unemployment numbers don't mean anything.
This denial means that Americans would rather pretend that the slums don't exist; that gangs exist just because everyone in said gangs are bad. It's much easier to just chalk everything up as black-and-white rather than having to think about the social and economic situations that allow gangs' "law of the jungle" mentality to take hold, or the twisted sort of stability that gang presence brings by protecting neighborhoods from being ravaged and picked apart by other gangs.
A little advice for America: stop pretending that things aren't bad, and stop ordering the most disenfranchised and least able to fix their problems while you sit back and watch your DVR. Also, stop pretending that little charity clean-up drives will truly fix anything in the slums. We need to take action, as a people, at the highest echelons of power in order to reach into the lowest pits of America and save our fellow man.
I want an old drug
Generally speaking, there are two species of illegal drug user: the kind who enjoys getting high, and the kind who tries to find refuge in the drugs from their own pain. Obviously there is far more to it than that, but whatever. It's a generalization.
The biggest problem that we as a nation face is that people are stupid. It's cool to be a complete dumbshit these days. Thus, we have people who glamorize the "drug life" to the point where being strung-out seems something to which they aspire. How the hell else do you explain the prevalence of bath salts, the drug that causes you to run naked through the streets, fleeing electricity or chewing off a man's face? What the hell happened to natural drugs? What, were marijuana and the coca plant not good enough for people? Being mellow or wired was just too passé?
And tobacco fucking sucks. It's a multi-billion-dollar industry built on a drug as addictive as heroin, made even more addictive by adding other chemicals such as trace amounts of arsenic. There are tons of reasons why tobacco is legal while pot isn't, ranging from the fact that tobacco was grown in the original thirteen colonies to the simple truth that tobacco leaves its addicts the most universally functional, able to continue working for their corporate employers while still indulging a habit harder to kick than just about anything.
The name of the game is money. I truly wonder what kind of process corporate climbers must go through to abandon their humanity in favor of avarice. For the leaders of drug cartels and other blatantly illegal ventures, it's pretty easy: one generally starts off with an inclination for monstrous action that is then honed as one gets more and more embroiled in the world of evil. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy set in motion decades or even centuries ago, and an armchair scholar such as myself lacks the motivation to delve into history to trace the true origin.
Now, in truth, I have never indulged in illegal substances. I've never done pot, cocaine, or any other drug. Nor have I ever made use of tobacco. Alcohol is alright, but I only drink rum on the barest occasions. Never had a taste for things like vodka or whiskey, or even beer, since I don't want a drink that doesn't taste good.
Even as a non-user, I can still see that the war on drugs is not working. You can't just shoot at everything and make it go away; the world doesn't work like that. Sometimes humanity has to compromise, though that is the key word: humanity. Sometime soon I'll go into depth on how Alan Moore is overrated and how Watchmen is, in my opinion, a terrible book, but for now we'll stick to real-life compromises instead of artificially exaggerated ones. Drugs, especially artificial drugs or artificially augmented drugs like cigarettes, are bad. Even many pharmaceuticals are bad, created for the specific purpose of selling relief from ailments that don't really matter, the so-called cures being more dangerous than the problems. However, if tobacco is permissible because it makes money, why not legalize and tax all drug consumption? Suddenly that not only puts a lot of revenue in state and federal pockets that before was going to fund criminal enterprise, but the bathtub savants who brew the stuff can be hired to design quitting regimens as well as helping to create new curatives for real diseases. In addition, this would create a genuine war on drugs, as countries caught in the act of not cracking down on their cartels could face fines or even legal/military action from the US for permitting the illegal transportation of a consumable substance. Or something like that. I don't have a law degree if you couldn't tell.
Point being, we could still restrict drugs' use but suddenly we're earning far more revenue and cops can get back to stopping the real problems, like gang violence and the actual producers of illegal drug stashes rather than the street corner distributors. I'll address the problem of finger-wagging at people with no concern for the causes of their actions in a later post, but for now I'm signing off to go eat breakfast.
The biggest problem that we as a nation face is that people are stupid. It's cool to be a complete dumbshit these days. Thus, we have people who glamorize the "drug life" to the point where being strung-out seems something to which they aspire. How the hell else do you explain the prevalence of bath salts, the drug that causes you to run naked through the streets, fleeing electricity or chewing off a man's face? What the hell happened to natural drugs? What, were marijuana and the coca plant not good enough for people? Being mellow or wired was just too passé?
And tobacco fucking sucks. It's a multi-billion-dollar industry built on a drug as addictive as heroin, made even more addictive by adding other chemicals such as trace amounts of arsenic. There are tons of reasons why tobacco is legal while pot isn't, ranging from the fact that tobacco was grown in the original thirteen colonies to the simple truth that tobacco leaves its addicts the most universally functional, able to continue working for their corporate employers while still indulging a habit harder to kick than just about anything.
The name of the game is money. I truly wonder what kind of process corporate climbers must go through to abandon their humanity in favor of avarice. For the leaders of drug cartels and other blatantly illegal ventures, it's pretty easy: one generally starts off with an inclination for monstrous action that is then honed as one gets more and more embroiled in the world of evil. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy set in motion decades or even centuries ago, and an armchair scholar such as myself lacks the motivation to delve into history to trace the true origin.
Now, in truth, I have never indulged in illegal substances. I've never done pot, cocaine, or any other drug. Nor have I ever made use of tobacco. Alcohol is alright, but I only drink rum on the barest occasions. Never had a taste for things like vodka or whiskey, or even beer, since I don't want a drink that doesn't taste good.
Even as a non-user, I can still see that the war on drugs is not working. You can't just shoot at everything and make it go away; the world doesn't work like that. Sometimes humanity has to compromise, though that is the key word: humanity. Sometime soon I'll go into depth on how Alan Moore is overrated and how Watchmen is, in my opinion, a terrible book, but for now we'll stick to real-life compromises instead of artificially exaggerated ones. Drugs, especially artificial drugs or artificially augmented drugs like cigarettes, are bad. Even many pharmaceuticals are bad, created for the specific purpose of selling relief from ailments that don't really matter, the so-called cures being more dangerous than the problems. However, if tobacco is permissible because it makes money, why not legalize and tax all drug consumption? Suddenly that not only puts a lot of revenue in state and federal pockets that before was going to fund criminal enterprise, but the bathtub savants who brew the stuff can be hired to design quitting regimens as well as helping to create new curatives for real diseases. In addition, this would create a genuine war on drugs, as countries caught in the act of not cracking down on their cartels could face fines or even legal/military action from the US for permitting the illegal transportation of a consumable substance. Or something like that. I don't have a law degree if you couldn't tell.
Point being, we could still restrict drugs' use but suddenly we're earning far more revenue and cops can get back to stopping the real problems, like gang violence and the actual producers of illegal drug stashes rather than the street corner distributors. I'll address the problem of finger-wagging at people with no concern for the causes of their actions in a later post, but for now I'm signing off to go eat breakfast.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Temptation my white Irish ass
What's the best way to prevent someone from doing something? Obviously this answer will vary and there is no one universal answer, but if you said that a good way to keep someone from undertaking an action is to treat them as intelligent and lay out the negative consequences for them, trusting them to do the right thing, there's a good chance you're right.
If you said that the universally best way is to just shame the person into submission and tell them that they don't know well enough to be trusted with their own lives, please take this moment to apply a stapler to your groin.
In case you haven't yet guessed, this post is riding the coattails of Coattails in reference to policy and rhetoric. In the barest essence, abstinence teaching doesn't fucking work. If you protest, look to the person whom Conservatives hold up as the proof that abstinence does work: Bristol Palin. She got herself knocked up and is still unmarried. And that last part seems to be the real thing about abstinence: its proponents seem to believe that "abstinence" means, "if you fuck you gotta get married," rather than the real origin word, "abstain." Then again, how can one expect Conservative thought to make any goddamn sense? In that vein,
Hypocrisy
Family values. The fuck are "family values," anyway? Nobody in the Romney or Bush or, hell, ANY camp can tell you what family values are. It's just a term they spew over and over like a moron with a word-a-day calendar trying to sound smart. Speaking of family values, how about we look at Newt Gingrich? How many wives has he ABANDONED TO DIE now? I think the tally is four. As soon as one of his wives falls ill he starts banging some other broad and once his wife is terminal he outright leaves her for this new model. This is not a one-time event, either. It's happened, like, three times now. Check it out for yourself.
With family values still firmly in mind, how about Larry Craig or any of the dozens of Republican congressmen and senators who have been caught in the act of performing or soliciting gay sex? Considering that one of the only definitions of family values that Conservatives can agree on is "not homos," that's a pretty fucking big issue, eh? In fact, let's use another heading. I have more to bitch about and it needs a separate section:
"Temptation"
The idea of temptation is easy enough for anyone to understand. You find yourself drawn to perform an act that is either sinful or not-good in some other way. Be it a hot chick when you're married, the opportunity to shoplift, or the urge to stab your fucking seventh-grade English teacher for exploiting your autism to abuse you (or maybe that last one was just me), something tempts the average person almost every day.
Now, straight males, tell me this: when is the last time you looked at another man's ass and had to resist the nigh-overwhelming urge to release a noise like a gorilla whose nipples are aflame before leaping upon said ass and pounding it until it resembled Jennie-O ground turkey? The answer, for most of the world, is "never," followed by, "what the fuck is wrong with you for asking that kind of question?"
That, my friends, is the difference between genuinely straight people and "straight" Conservatives. I bullshit you not, jump to any religious pundit or politician babbling about religion, particularly on Fox News, and just wait for one of them to mention "resisting the temptation of homosexuality" and how difficult such resistance is. In actuality, for those whose brains are wired for heterosexuality, there is no temptation, because we aren't wired to find those of our same sex attractive. I have watched my openly gay dorm-mate in college prance about in naught but his underwear and my only comment was to put on a damn shirt.
Find yourself a Bible. Open up to Leviticus, the book most Conservatives reference when put to task to actually give a point as to where it says not to be gay. This book also says to kill children who talk back and that rape victims must marry their rapists, among other things, but notice the term for lying with a man as with a woman: "it is an abomination." Not a sin, an abomination. Look at what else is an abomination: wearing clothes made of more than one fabric or color. If you've guessed by now that an abomination in the Bible isn't so much a monstrosity as something that's not a good idea to do, you've got it in one. Leviticus was written during the time that the Israelites were still numbering in the double-digits and were, like the rest of Western humanity, barely better than bonobos. If they could fuck something, they would. This would result in low reproduction and they'd all die off. Now look at Idiocracy, the Mike Judge cult classic. It's easier to tell stupid people that you can talk to plants or that, "I'm God so what I say goes" rather than trying to explain the intricate details to your flock while they're trying to bone their camels.
The Old Testament also has God ordering His people to rape the women of a conquered city and mount heads on spikes in His name, so maybe we shouldn't be following that particular half of the Bible so closely these days...
To make a long tangent a bit shorter, it's seeming to me that many decades ago the Conservatives' forefathers made a big damn deal about homosexuality so their children repressed their urges, since it appears that nearly every mainstream Conservative is at least bisexual from their "struggles with homosexual urges" that nobody else in the country really has to deal with.
Think on another section of temptation as seen by Conservatives: have you ever wondered how these groups, in their protests of things, come up with such perverse and insane ideas on their projected "slippery slopes"? To reference homosexuality again, one of the common protests is that if gay marriage is allowed it's only a short trip to people fucking and wanting to marry chickens. To me, this is evidence that Conservative perversion extends deep and they're afraid that if they're given permission to be gay they won't be able to control their actual twisted sexual urges, fucking barn animals or running through the streets violently raping people. In my opinion, we should all be very afraid of what twisted fantasies run through the minds of Republicans in power.
If you said that the universally best way is to just shame the person into submission and tell them that they don't know well enough to be trusted with their own lives, please take this moment to apply a stapler to your groin.
In case you haven't yet guessed, this post is riding the coattails of Coattails in reference to policy and rhetoric. In the barest essence, abstinence teaching doesn't fucking work. If you protest, look to the person whom Conservatives hold up as the proof that abstinence does work: Bristol Palin. She got herself knocked up and is still unmarried. And that last part seems to be the real thing about abstinence: its proponents seem to believe that "abstinence" means, "if you fuck you gotta get married," rather than the real origin word, "abstain." Then again, how can one expect Conservative thought to make any goddamn sense? In that vein,
Hypocrisy
Family values. The fuck are "family values," anyway? Nobody in the Romney or Bush or, hell, ANY camp can tell you what family values are. It's just a term they spew over and over like a moron with a word-a-day calendar trying to sound smart. Speaking of family values, how about we look at Newt Gingrich? How many wives has he ABANDONED TO DIE now? I think the tally is four. As soon as one of his wives falls ill he starts banging some other broad and once his wife is terminal he outright leaves her for this new model. This is not a one-time event, either. It's happened, like, three times now. Check it out for yourself.
With family values still firmly in mind, how about Larry Craig or any of the dozens of Republican congressmen and senators who have been caught in the act of performing or soliciting gay sex? Considering that one of the only definitions of family values that Conservatives can agree on is "not homos," that's a pretty fucking big issue, eh? In fact, let's use another heading. I have more to bitch about and it needs a separate section:
"Temptation"
The idea of temptation is easy enough for anyone to understand. You find yourself drawn to perform an act that is either sinful or not-good in some other way. Be it a hot chick when you're married, the opportunity to shoplift, or the urge to stab your fucking seventh-grade English teacher for exploiting your autism to abuse you (or maybe that last one was just me), something tempts the average person almost every day.
Now, straight males, tell me this: when is the last time you looked at another man's ass and had to resist the nigh-overwhelming urge to release a noise like a gorilla whose nipples are aflame before leaping upon said ass and pounding it until it resembled Jennie-O ground turkey? The answer, for most of the world, is "never," followed by, "what the fuck is wrong with you for asking that kind of question?"
That, my friends, is the difference between genuinely straight people and "straight" Conservatives. I bullshit you not, jump to any religious pundit or politician babbling about religion, particularly on Fox News, and just wait for one of them to mention "resisting the temptation of homosexuality" and how difficult such resistance is. In actuality, for those whose brains are wired for heterosexuality, there is no temptation, because we aren't wired to find those of our same sex attractive. I have watched my openly gay dorm-mate in college prance about in naught but his underwear and my only comment was to put on a damn shirt.
Find yourself a Bible. Open up to Leviticus, the book most Conservatives reference when put to task to actually give a point as to where it says not to be gay. This book also says to kill children who talk back and that rape victims must marry their rapists, among other things, but notice the term for lying with a man as with a woman: "it is an abomination." Not a sin, an abomination. Look at what else is an abomination: wearing clothes made of more than one fabric or color. If you've guessed by now that an abomination in the Bible isn't so much a monstrosity as something that's not a good idea to do, you've got it in one. Leviticus was written during the time that the Israelites were still numbering in the double-digits and were, like the rest of Western humanity, barely better than bonobos. If they could fuck something, they would. This would result in low reproduction and they'd all die off. Now look at Idiocracy, the Mike Judge cult classic. It's easier to tell stupid people that you can talk to plants or that, "I'm God so what I say goes" rather than trying to explain the intricate details to your flock while they're trying to bone their camels.
The Old Testament also has God ordering His people to rape the women of a conquered city and mount heads on spikes in His name, so maybe we shouldn't be following that particular half of the Bible so closely these days...
To make a long tangent a bit shorter, it's seeming to me that many decades ago the Conservatives' forefathers made a big damn deal about homosexuality so their children repressed their urges, since it appears that nearly every mainstream Conservative is at least bisexual from their "struggles with homosexual urges" that nobody else in the country really has to deal with.
Think on another section of temptation as seen by Conservatives: have you ever wondered how these groups, in their protests of things, come up with such perverse and insane ideas on their projected "slippery slopes"? To reference homosexuality again, one of the common protests is that if gay marriage is allowed it's only a short trip to people fucking and wanting to marry chickens. To me, this is evidence that Conservative perversion extends deep and they're afraid that if they're given permission to be gay they won't be able to control their actual twisted sexual urges, fucking barn animals or running through the streets violently raping people. In my opinion, we should all be very afraid of what twisted fantasies run through the minds of Republicans in power.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Coattails
The world is turning to shit. There is one simple reason for this: we're letting it. Oh, I could bawl on and on about how corporations and big media use the power of their lobbyists to control our government like a really expensive marionette, how the alcohol and tobacco industries intentionally beat down the legalization of marijuana because it's safer and less addictive than either of the aforementioned substances, how pharmaceutical companies have to be led by evil overlords, and all sorts of jazz. But at the end of the day, it's the people's fault. The Obama election proved that a true grass-roots campaign, making people aware that they had the power to improve things, worked. It proved that we, the people, can change things.
Unfortunately, that election was very telling about the American people. You see, the reason it worked so well was because the people weren't really the ones taking responsibility. They were picking somebody else to shoulder the responsibility, somebody else to take the blame. The voter is like the sports fan: If his team wins, he exclaims, "We won!" If his team loses, he growls, "They lost." Notice the difference? A fan and a voter can claim responsibility for their favored team/candidate if they perform well, citing their support, but can also foist the blame on the same figurehead if things go awry.
This is a VERY important point: for the most part, Americans don't want to do the work. They don't want the responsibility. Fuck, I don't want the responsibility. Not alone. And the problem is that, even with all our social media, many of us do feel hopelessly alone. One person is as effective as the lone remaining protestor in Tiananmen Square, but without becoming a symbol around which others can rally; the rest of the people will just change the damn channel.
This subject of responsibility cannot be stressed enough. When combined with Americans' short-as-fuck attention spans, it has made for an unbelievable upheaval. Apparently the average person either is too stupid to realize that the world doesn't reset itself when a new president is elected, or entirely forgot about the foreclosure bubble destroying the economy and blamed the economic collapse on Obama rather than the fact that the economy looked like a three-hour game of Jenga by the time Obama took over.
This is also a question of responsibility: whenever a Liberal does something wrong, every Conservative talking head and the entire body politic gathers together and declares the n'th crusade against the target, but when a Conservative makes such a minor misstep as, say, politicians who call for the persecution of homosexuals being found to have been gay all along or actively promoting laws that serve a company they or a friend owns at the expense of an entire state, no expense is spared to downplay or erase it. Bush the Lesser was a barely-functioning alcoholic until he was 40, and his wife killed a man with her car. Pundits have referred to these occurrences as, no lie, "Youthful indiscretions." Youth ends at about 25 at the very latest, and I don't think the taking of another human being's life counts as an indiscretion, particularly considering that this is the same party whose members have been known to bomb abortion clinics because murder is wrong.
The author side of me jokingly blames Stephen King for the negative reaction to Obama's four years in office. The writer whose dramatic works inspired the term "the magic Negro" undoubtedly raised Americans' expectations as to what would happen. The public expected him to raise a magic wand and fix everybody's problems. But are we really surprised? These are the same idiots who don't want to work toward anything, so why should a fix to their suffering have to take time and effort? We want our happy ending NOW, and if we don't get it we'll turn to a representative of the party that violently butt-fucked us in the first place.
Speaking of, Conservative policies have never worked in the history of forever. The entire idea - removing, of course, the rampant hatred and religious oppression now so inherent in the Republican party that it makes actual governmental policy an afterthought - is that corporations know best how to run themselves, and catering to the wealthy will make the entire country a better place. Now, back in the early 1800s (the time period to which most Conservatives seem to want to return, albeit with air conditioning and TiVo) this might have worked, seeing as the country was for the most part self-sufficient and self-contained, so money spent would cycle through American towns. However, ever since the infamous robber-barons realized that they could incorporate, charge whatever the fuck they wanted, and sell for profit with no regard for consumers or those affected by their actions, the entire economic policy falls apart. Corporations care only about profit. They care nothing for proper service, or if the service even comes through. So long as they are paid and those in the highest echelons receive titanic bonuses, they do not care.
Christ on a cracker, I could go on forever about this stuff, but I haven't slept in forever and I really don't want this single post to become a book-sized diatribe, so I'll save the rest for another post.
Unfortunately, that election was very telling about the American people. You see, the reason it worked so well was because the people weren't really the ones taking responsibility. They were picking somebody else to shoulder the responsibility, somebody else to take the blame. The voter is like the sports fan: If his team wins, he exclaims, "We won!" If his team loses, he growls, "They lost." Notice the difference? A fan and a voter can claim responsibility for their favored team/candidate if they perform well, citing their support, but can also foist the blame on the same figurehead if things go awry.
This is a VERY important point: for the most part, Americans don't want to do the work. They don't want the responsibility. Fuck, I don't want the responsibility. Not alone. And the problem is that, even with all our social media, many of us do feel hopelessly alone. One person is as effective as the lone remaining protestor in Tiananmen Square, but without becoming a symbol around which others can rally; the rest of the people will just change the damn channel.
This subject of responsibility cannot be stressed enough. When combined with Americans' short-as-fuck attention spans, it has made for an unbelievable upheaval. Apparently the average person either is too stupid to realize that the world doesn't reset itself when a new president is elected, or entirely forgot about the foreclosure bubble destroying the economy and blamed the economic collapse on Obama rather than the fact that the economy looked like a three-hour game of Jenga by the time Obama took over.
This is also a question of responsibility: whenever a Liberal does something wrong, every Conservative talking head and the entire body politic gathers together and declares the n'th crusade against the target, but when a Conservative makes such a minor misstep as, say, politicians who call for the persecution of homosexuals being found to have been gay all along or actively promoting laws that serve a company they or a friend owns at the expense of an entire state, no expense is spared to downplay or erase it. Bush the Lesser was a barely-functioning alcoholic until he was 40, and his wife killed a man with her car. Pundits have referred to these occurrences as, no lie, "Youthful indiscretions." Youth ends at about 25 at the very latest, and I don't think the taking of another human being's life counts as an indiscretion, particularly considering that this is the same party whose members have been known to bomb abortion clinics because murder is wrong.
The author side of me jokingly blames Stephen King for the negative reaction to Obama's four years in office. The writer whose dramatic works inspired the term "the magic Negro" undoubtedly raised Americans' expectations as to what would happen. The public expected him to raise a magic wand and fix everybody's problems. But are we really surprised? These are the same idiots who don't want to work toward anything, so why should a fix to their suffering have to take time and effort? We want our happy ending NOW, and if we don't get it we'll turn to a representative of the party that violently butt-fucked us in the first place.
Speaking of, Conservative policies have never worked in the history of forever. The entire idea - removing, of course, the rampant hatred and religious oppression now so inherent in the Republican party that it makes actual governmental policy an afterthought - is that corporations know best how to run themselves, and catering to the wealthy will make the entire country a better place. Now, back in the early 1800s (the time period to which most Conservatives seem to want to return, albeit with air conditioning and TiVo) this might have worked, seeing as the country was for the most part self-sufficient and self-contained, so money spent would cycle through American towns. However, ever since the infamous robber-barons realized that they could incorporate, charge whatever the fuck they wanted, and sell for profit with no regard for consumers or those affected by their actions, the entire economic policy falls apart. Corporations care only about profit. They care nothing for proper service, or if the service even comes through. So long as they are paid and those in the highest echelons receive titanic bonuses, they do not care.
Christ on a cracker, I could go on forever about this stuff, but I haven't slept in forever and I really don't want this single post to become a book-sized diatribe, so I'll save the rest for another post.
Gotta Start Somewhere
To all who may stumble across this little gem (using that term loosely at the moment), it would likely be best to take a moment to illuminate readers as to what they may expect from this. Quite frankly, this is a place for me to praise, decry or simply expound on any subject I can imagine. It'll get political, it'll get religious, it'll get explicit, it'll piss a ton of people off.
But then again, what doesn't piss people off these days? Actually, that's a good starting point for this blog:
Immature Rage
We've all seen it happen: some titanic cocksponge in power has a fit over something minor and creates a nation-wide controversy that will last the entirety of twelve-and-a-half days before Kim Kardashian breaks another chair with her giant ass or some other inane occurrence.
This is what passes for the social climate in America, and like all things, it's difficult to decide where exactly it started, but we'll get back to that.
As I said, this is a repository for my thoughts, and my mind works in some pretty damn mysterious ways, so forgive any tangents I am unable to repress. That said, words. Words have power that nothing else in the world has. The right word in the right place - just one word - can incite riots or calm hearts. All of the greatest wars and achievements have not been won through strength of arms, not really. Sure, the soldiers and the explosions get the glory, but how did those soldiers even get mobilized? Words. Somebody said the right things to get the collective public off their fat, lazy asses and onto the battlefield. We've seen this work for good, as with Churchill and Eisenhower, both Roosevelts, and even Patton in his pre-battle speeches. It has also worked for ill, through Hitler and Stalin, Hussein and Ahmadinejad, and even Bush the Lesser.
Yes, I said it, and not just to stir up controversy. Face it, in the wake of 9/11, the general intent of which was well-known to the DoD and Bush himself since the day the reins were handed over, words like terrorism and patriotism were bandied about like "bitch" and "fuck" are in a gangsta rapper's songs. Plus, the entirety of the "war on terror" has been built on a lie, that lie being that Iraq had anything whatthefucksoever to do with 9/11. Honestly, The Mighty Shrub just wanted to beat up the guy who made his daddy sad.
But this isn't about Bush, not yet. This is about the monster of political correctness, and how the evils of maniacal fantasies have corrupted this nation and continue to do so. I direct you to the following link, http://tinyurl.com/8ys7swm but will gladly sum it up for those of you who don't like to be sucked into other websites: a comedian named Ally Bruener, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, was arrested for using the word "crippled." I'll pause for a moment to let the sheer level of bullshit sink in.
A crippled woman was arrested for using the word "crippled." Isn't that like arresting Jews for not referring to themselves as some made-up PC term like "Moses' Followers"? Or forcing everyone of Hispanic heritage to call themselves Latin on pain of incarceration?
Now, this brings me to several different points, all of which bear analysis, so I'll arrange them in no particular order.
1. Offensiveness
This is a sticky one, since offensiveness is sort of subjective. Up until my late teens, curse words caused a literal reaction of pain in my mind when spoken by people I knew. I chalk this up to autism, as my mind is geared toward words. The intent that comes with these words, when spoken in anger, burned in my mind; at least that's the best I can describe it. Now that I'm older and have really made words my thing, I am for the most part unaffected by the cursing of myself, my friends and family, though words spoken in true hate directly in front of me still generate a visceral response beyond simple revulsion.
Enough about me, let's talk about me some more! Just in a context that's relevant this time: I am a graduate of an HBCU. For those who don't know, that's a monogram for Historically Black College/University. I am essentially the photonegative of a black person, so while I was readily accepted by most people, I was always looked at funny if I used black slang and I didn't dare use "the N-word." I'd have gotten the ever-loving hell beaten out of me.
This is important for several reasons. First, it still shows the power of a word. Even if the general definition has been inverted, non-blacks are still forbidden to say or write it or they are automatically labeled as evil. Second, it proves that the civil rights movement has backslid. I won't say it altogether failed, because I can't judge, but when the same group that fought for equality now fights to remain segregated in its own subculture and lashes out against others, I'd say that the sentiment definitely got lost in the generation gap.
The question I raise, then, is this: how is that word, one that can get sixty to seventy percent of Americans beaten up or killed if uttered in public, not legal taboo, yet in a moderately large city the word "crippled" can lead to the incarceration and fining of a legitimately crippled person? The mind boggles.
2. Presumption and, moreover, missing the fucking point
This is something that both "sides" fall victim to, though in its inception political correctness was more pioneered by liberals yet is now more a weapon of conservatives, but we'll get to that. The presumption is, forbidding something will make it stop. That somehow, by preventing people from using a word, we will stamp out discrimination. I hate to make the reference, because the referred-to material makes my eyeballs bleed from its sheer ineptitude, but even fucking Naruto got this right: forbidding people to tell that the kid had a demon stuck in him didn't make people hate him less; they just found other ways to raise their children to hate the kid.
Originally, political correctness was just a finger-wagging method of trying to force respect, which I suppose is a noble cause and it got the general idea of words' power: by insisting that certain groups be referred to by more respectful terms, the idea is that people will come to be more respectful. This is decent enough in theory, but since you can't control what people think or what they say in private or among likewise bigoted minds, it accomplishes precisely dick. Tacking on a fine to this is a more conservative way of keeping up appearances, Stepford-style. You WILL conform to our delusion that Leave it to Beaver was a documentary and that life can still be like that, or we WILL jail your pinko-Nazi-socialist-fascist-Commie-homo ass.
This draws from what would be a major failing in Conservative thought/rhetoric, except that the American public is so bone-stupid that it works: most Conservatives believe that not talking about something makes it cease to exist. And guess what? Like a Twilight Zone ostrich whose world really does vanish when it sticks its head in the sand, this works more often than not. Who among you remembers Ted Haggard, the figurehead for the entire goddamn Evangelical church who was, in the mid-2000s, finally outed by a guilt-ridden male prostitute who confessed that Haggard had for decades been paying him exorbitant fees for gay sex and copious amounts of drugs. What did Conservatives do? A collective "our bad," then he was swept under the rug and never spoken of again.
Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away, but if the public forgets about it that's what matters to maniacs like Beck and Limbaugh and other less-powerful political figures like senators and congressmen who vehemently fight environmental acts because that would mean admitting that a problem exists, and it's just easier to pretend everything's fine.
This entire concept of Conservative rhetoric will be examined in a later post. I'd do a piece on Liberal rhetoric, but let's face it, Liberals really have no fucking rhetoric, nor do they really have a platform. I'd refer to Liberals as "we," but I like to imagine that, were I attacked by a murderer, I wouldn't help him drive the knife into my throat after a few seconds of struggling and nearly disarming him.
But then again, what doesn't piss people off these days? Actually, that's a good starting point for this blog:
Immature Rage
We've all seen it happen: some titanic cocksponge in power has a fit over something minor and creates a nation-wide controversy that will last the entirety of twelve-and-a-half days before Kim Kardashian breaks another chair with her giant ass or some other inane occurrence.
This is what passes for the social climate in America, and like all things, it's difficult to decide where exactly it started, but we'll get back to that.
As I said, this is a repository for my thoughts, and my mind works in some pretty damn mysterious ways, so forgive any tangents I am unable to repress. That said, words. Words have power that nothing else in the world has. The right word in the right place - just one word - can incite riots or calm hearts. All of the greatest wars and achievements have not been won through strength of arms, not really. Sure, the soldiers and the explosions get the glory, but how did those soldiers even get mobilized? Words. Somebody said the right things to get the collective public off their fat, lazy asses and onto the battlefield. We've seen this work for good, as with Churchill and Eisenhower, both Roosevelts, and even Patton in his pre-battle speeches. It has also worked for ill, through Hitler and Stalin, Hussein and Ahmadinejad, and even Bush the Lesser.
Yes, I said it, and not just to stir up controversy. Face it, in the wake of 9/11, the general intent of which was well-known to the DoD and Bush himself since the day the reins were handed over, words like terrorism and patriotism were bandied about like "bitch" and "fuck" are in a gangsta rapper's songs. Plus, the entirety of the "war on terror" has been built on a lie, that lie being that Iraq had anything whatthefucksoever to do with 9/11. Honestly, The Mighty Shrub just wanted to beat up the guy who made his daddy sad.
But this isn't about Bush, not yet. This is about the monster of political correctness, and how the evils of maniacal fantasies have corrupted this nation and continue to do so. I direct you to the following link, http://tinyurl.com/8ys7swm but will gladly sum it up for those of you who don't like to be sucked into other websites: a comedian named Ally Bruener, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, was arrested for using the word "crippled." I'll pause for a moment to let the sheer level of bullshit sink in.
A crippled woman was arrested for using the word "crippled." Isn't that like arresting Jews for not referring to themselves as some made-up PC term like "Moses' Followers"? Or forcing everyone of Hispanic heritage to call themselves Latin on pain of incarceration?
Now, this brings me to several different points, all of which bear analysis, so I'll arrange them in no particular order.
1. Offensiveness
This is a sticky one, since offensiveness is sort of subjective. Up until my late teens, curse words caused a literal reaction of pain in my mind when spoken by people I knew. I chalk this up to autism, as my mind is geared toward words. The intent that comes with these words, when spoken in anger, burned in my mind; at least that's the best I can describe it. Now that I'm older and have really made words my thing, I am for the most part unaffected by the cursing of myself, my friends and family, though words spoken in true hate directly in front of me still generate a visceral response beyond simple revulsion.
Enough about me, let's talk about me some more! Just in a context that's relevant this time: I am a graduate of an HBCU. For those who don't know, that's a monogram for Historically Black College/University. I am essentially the photonegative of a black person, so while I was readily accepted by most people, I was always looked at funny if I used black slang and I didn't dare use "the N-word." I'd have gotten the ever-loving hell beaten out of me.
This is important for several reasons. First, it still shows the power of a word. Even if the general definition has been inverted, non-blacks are still forbidden to say or write it or they are automatically labeled as evil. Second, it proves that the civil rights movement has backslid. I won't say it altogether failed, because I can't judge, but when the same group that fought for equality now fights to remain segregated in its own subculture and lashes out against others, I'd say that the sentiment definitely got lost in the generation gap.
The question I raise, then, is this: how is that word, one that can get sixty to seventy percent of Americans beaten up or killed if uttered in public, not legal taboo, yet in a moderately large city the word "crippled" can lead to the incarceration and fining of a legitimately crippled person? The mind boggles.
2. Presumption and, moreover, missing the fucking point
This is something that both "sides" fall victim to, though in its inception political correctness was more pioneered by liberals yet is now more a weapon of conservatives, but we'll get to that. The presumption is, forbidding something will make it stop. That somehow, by preventing people from using a word, we will stamp out discrimination. I hate to make the reference, because the referred-to material makes my eyeballs bleed from its sheer ineptitude, but even fucking Naruto got this right: forbidding people to tell that the kid had a demon stuck in him didn't make people hate him less; they just found other ways to raise their children to hate the kid.
Originally, political correctness was just a finger-wagging method of trying to force respect, which I suppose is a noble cause and it got the general idea of words' power: by insisting that certain groups be referred to by more respectful terms, the idea is that people will come to be more respectful. This is decent enough in theory, but since you can't control what people think or what they say in private or among likewise bigoted minds, it accomplishes precisely dick. Tacking on a fine to this is a more conservative way of keeping up appearances, Stepford-style. You WILL conform to our delusion that Leave it to Beaver was a documentary and that life can still be like that, or we WILL jail your pinko-Nazi-socialist-fascist-Commie-homo ass.
This draws from what would be a major failing in Conservative thought/rhetoric, except that the American public is so bone-stupid that it works: most Conservatives believe that not talking about something makes it cease to exist. And guess what? Like a Twilight Zone ostrich whose world really does vanish when it sticks its head in the sand, this works more often than not. Who among you remembers Ted Haggard, the figurehead for the entire goddamn Evangelical church who was, in the mid-2000s, finally outed by a guilt-ridden male prostitute who confessed that Haggard had for decades been paying him exorbitant fees for gay sex and copious amounts of drugs. What did Conservatives do? A collective "our bad," then he was swept under the rug and never spoken of again.
Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away, but if the public forgets about it that's what matters to maniacs like Beck and Limbaugh and other less-powerful political figures like senators and congressmen who vehemently fight environmental acts because that would mean admitting that a problem exists, and it's just easier to pretend everything's fine.
This entire concept of Conservative rhetoric will be examined in a later post. I'd do a piece on Liberal rhetoric, but let's face it, Liberals really have no fucking rhetoric, nor do they really have a platform. I'd refer to Liberals as "we," but I like to imagine that, were I attacked by a murderer, I wouldn't help him drive the knife into my throat after a few seconds of struggling and nearly disarming him.
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