Let’s just file this under There’s Much Much More to the Story, I Bet.
Category: Society Page 44 of 69
The NYT Magazine has a remarkably intelligent story on Internet trolling. I don’t know much about the author of the story, but he’s obviously been around a while. I’m pretty comfortable in considering myself as someone with a bit understanding of the social-interaction history of the Internet*, and most any story about it leaves me cold. This isn’t your usual breathless teh internets is EVIL story, though, and tho’ it’s not a terribly deep piece, it does catch some of it quite well. Worth a read.
*Sometime this summer we passed my 15 year anniversary marking near daily postings online. My first taste of the online world came via Compuserve in the mid-80s, but it didn’t become a part of my daily life until I snagged an account at GSU in 1993.
Atrios directs us over to Pandagon, who does a great job of illustrating the penchant of the “family values” crowd to go nuts when someone clearly describes what they’re trying to do. In this case, CA Attorney General Jerry Brown has revised the Proposition 8 ballot question to read (in part):
Changes California Constitution to eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry. Provides that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
Well, okay. That’s exactly what it proposes to do. The CA Supreme Court recognized a state constitutional right to marriage (regardless of sex) and this proposal seeks to eliminate that right. What’s to be mad about?:
This completely obliterates the conservative framing of the issue (“protecting marriageâ€, “preserving the traditional family,†etc.) and shows that supporters of the ballot initiative want to repeal a civil right that is now in place. And the fundies are hopping mad. [ . . . ]
Jennifer Kerns of the Protect Marriage coalition told the Los Angeles Times the revised wording is “inherently argumentative.†Kerns said the wording had the potential to â€prejudice voters against the initiative.â€
I saw this over and over again in the time leading up to the vote where Virginia showed the world what a backwards place it really is, in many respects. The proponents of the anti-same sex marriage provision would spit out some of the most vile and obscene things – the usual stuff – and then go nuts when you called them bigots (and I’ll note that more than a few Dems were complicit, as they didn’t like hearing the bigotry of their parents (or themselves) called out for what it is). My response?
If you don’t like being called a bigot, don’t act like one.
Vivian Paige has the second part of her review of Tom Schaller’s Whistling Past Dixie up. There’s lots of stuff to dig into. She’s highlighting some of the interesting facts (the particular focus of Southern Christians) and taking apart some of the myths (Southern black people vote disproporitionately less than other Southerners). Check it out. It’s a conversation I hope to jump in on, a little later.
CNN Senior Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin did a series of reports about TSA’s practices in May, and guess what?
[S]hortly after I began a series of investigative reports critical of the TSA. Eleven flights now since May 19. On different airlines, my name pops up forcing me to go to the counter, show my identification, sometimes the agent has to make a call before I get my ticket,” Griffin reported. “What does the TSA say? Nothing, at least nothing on camera. Over the phone a public affairs worker told me again I’m not on the watch list, and don’t even think that someone in the TSA or anyone else is trying to get even.”
The TSA, which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security, said Griffin’s name wasn’t even on the watch list, and the agency blamed the airlines for the delays the reporter experienced. The airlines, on the other hand, said they were simply following a list provided by TSA.
Forced to clear himself 11 times in two months, just to get on a plane? Yeah, he’s not on the list at all. And it’s this sort of petty – yet effective – harrassment that will help subtly shape norms and discourse around TSA’s practices.
Never expected to see Radovan Karadzic on trial.
Update: Wow. This is the website he kept, advertising his alternative medicine practice. It boggles.
Update II: That is most probably not a website for him. The best clue is the registration date. Ah well. Count me in as a hot news sucker. But, at the end of the day, he’s still going to rot for the rest of his life. And that’s what’s important. (Thanks to M.E. for the tip off.)
Ricardo Ricco (winner of 2 TdF stages this year) popped for EPO. Shocker. So, Ricco, this is for you (NSFW, if the speakers are up):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqxnm6t3QMw[/youtube]
Credit to PdC for the video inspiration.
Update: So, why is it that I (and so many others) have such contempt for this guy, considering the doping ways of cycling heros past? A commenter over at Podium Cafe put it very well. Hit the jump for a slightly edited version of it (and expect the kind of language you’d get moments after learning that someone just screwed the Tour):
Screw America is apparently what Newsweek/National Journal’s Stuart Taylor thinks the President should do:
President George W. Bush ought to pardon any official from cabinet secretary on down who might plausibly face prosecution for interrogation methods approved by administration lawyers. (It would be unseemly for Bush to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney or himself, but the next president wouldn’t allow them to be prosecuted anyway—galling as that may be to critics.) The reason for pardons is simple: what this country needs most is a full and true accounting of what took place.
And then the next President should be complicit in the coverup:
The incoming president should convene a truth commission, with subpoena power, to explore every possible misdeed and derive lessons from it. But this should not be a criminal investigation, which would only force officials to hire lawyers and batten down the hatches.
Yeah, I’m sure Gonzo, Addington and Yoo will be totally willing to tell you the truth about everything if you just promise them that we’ll throw the whole concept of justice down the shitter just to keep them feeling comfortable.
See, Stuart Taylor is laying the groundwork not only for W’s pardoning of every criminal in his administration, but also the partisan attack on Obama if he doesn’t defend W’s actions. I’ve been worried about exactly that since Obama started looking like a viable candidate, and share Sadly, No’s take, unfortunately:
The sad thing is: I know Obama will do exactly as Taylor recommends. Except he won’t even bother to set up the fucking bogus-assed truth commission. Just sweep this shit under the rug and enjoy his newfound powers to issue warrantless wiretaps and torture orders. Oh, and be sure to give special immunity to people like Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockfeller, who should also be tossed in the Hague for being complicit in all this bullshit. This isn’t about partisanship, peeps — it’s about restricting the ability of our political class to behave in the most reckless and lawless ways imagineable. If we don’t want to degenerate into a damn banana republic, we have to demonstrate that we won’t let our most powerful politicians get away with breaking the laws they’ve sworn to uphold.
I don’t think Obama would continue the torture, but otherwise, I’ll lay a marker down on this – this is exactly what will happen, barring huge public pressure to the contrary. And we all know how reliable the American public is when it comes to matters of actual moral import.
This isn’t particularly noteworthy, other than it reminded me just how ubiquitous blogs have become (or – really – how ubiquitous they’ve become in a very narrow segment of society). 
This guy stopped in Murky Coffee (which is just down the street from me), the barista played to stereotype, and he wrote about it. This other guy overheard the conversation between the first guy and the barista, and wrote about it, too. And then Boing Boing wrote about the first guy writing about it (which is where I first heard about it). And now I’m writing about all three of them writing about it. And using a picture that someone else took of the result of the conversation between the first guy and the barista.
All that effort, and none of us have contributed anything useful to the world, I’m afraid.
(FWIW, I’d trade Murky Coffee for the old junk shop that used to be there in a heartbeat. And Murky Coffee should take that dollar bill down from the bulletin board and use it to pay their unpaid DC taxes.)
Update: Murky Coffee owner Nick Cho gets in on the clown bandwagon.
Photo: Tom Bridge
I understand what they were trying to do (I think), but really?
