The Chaff

Wednesday, Jul 23rd - 2:49pm
Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

It All Makes Perfect Sense Now!

Camile Paglia suggests a very provocative and compelling reason for the recent shooting rampage by a student at Virgina Tech:

The pervasive hook-up culture at college, where girls are prepared to sleep with boys they barely know or fancy, can be a source of seething resentment and alienation for those who are left out.

Young women now seem to want to behave like men and have sex without commitment. The signals they are giving are very confusing, and rage and humiliation build up in boys who are spurned again and again.

In typical, snarky lefty blogofacist fashion, Bradly S. Rocket over at Sadly, No! dismisses Ms. Paglia’s thesis as “tragically and depressingly stupid”. I believe that Dr. Rocket is too enthralled by knee-jerk, “blame men for the stuff they do” feminazis* to truly understand simple brilliance of Ms. Paglia’s insight.

If we take Ms. Paglia’s thesis as given, it provides us a concrete, mathematically provable method of reducing spree killings in our society.
Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

What’s the Big Deal, Anyway?

Matthew of Defective Yeti  has written up a primer on the US Attorney purge. Several pundits are pushing the talking points that US attorneys are political appointments, so firing them for partisan political advantage shouldn’t raise any eyebrows at all.

The technical term for this is bullshit. 

While it’s true that the appointments themselves are political and raise no eyebrows, once in office, the US attorneys are enjoined to be impartial in their practice and their execution of justice. Think of US attorneys as DAs or prosecutors–and then look at the stories again.

What we’re talking about is a Senator calling up a prosecutor attorney and trying to get him to speak about sealed documents and rush an indictment to help win an election. When the prosecutor refused, he was fired shortly after. Can I raise one eyebrow on that, maybe?

In two other cases (Carol Lam and the guy in Guam in the first term), prosecutors were fired in the midst of wide reaching corruption investigations involving close, personal friends of the White House.  In the case of Guam, the investigation was halted immediately by the replacement; we’re still waiting for the results of Lam’s replacement. Sorry–my eyebrows are up.

There are also several instances of prosecutors rebuked and fired for not aggressively pursuing “voter fraud” cases, cases that these prosecutors investigated and found no cause for indictment.

We are talking about the impartial, equal application of justice, here. We are talking about officers of the court being pursuaded to take or drop cases based on the defendant’s party affiliation. We are talking about prosecutors being fired because they would not be complicit in fraud, harrassment, or corruption.

We are talking about the pervesion of our democracy at its most basic level, and yeah, you’d better believe my eyebrows are raised. We’re talking about the kind of crap the mafia is known for, not the Department of Justice! I’m appalled that we’re even discussing why this is an issue.

Regardless of what precisely the “crime” is (it will likely vary in each individual case–Gonzales and aides are in trouble for lying to Congress), the pattern is frightening. If the US attorneys are telling the truth, if the evidence holds up, this is crossing-the-beams BAD, people: it’s a non-recoverable, “shut it down now” error in our democratic process.

If we can’t trust the justice system to handle cases on the merits of the evidence instead of the party membership of the defendent, who do we turn to for help? If we can’t rely on the executive branch to imparitally enforce the laws, why bother making laws anyway?

This is a huge step backwards to robber barons, party bosses, and kangaroo courts.

And people are asking why it’s a big deal?

No Comments » - Posted in Crimes Against Sanity, We The Sheeple by Dorothy
Monday, April 2nd, 2007

Zero Sums and Mondays always get me down

I was reading this post over at Pandagon on the problems with thinking of Feminism as a zero-sum game, and it occurred to me that most of the issues I know of could probably be tied to zero-sum thinking.

Once you have the belief that you can’t gain unless someone else loses, you have an excuse to lie, cheat, or steal to get ahead. You have the impetus to screw over your fellow man. You have the drive to establish a hierarchy and make sure you stay on top, and then to justify that hierarchy by “othering” those at the bottom, whether by their race or their gender or their brand of jeans. And isn’t that the source of most of societal problems?

More to the point, doesn’t it invalidate the very reason we form societies to begin with?

 

If we could survive just as well on our own, we wouldn’t have evolved as social creatures.

Five or six humans are more able to fight off a predator than one. Likewise, a group of people can care for children better than one person alone; taking turn allows the caretakers to rest and the children to broaden their experience and knowledge. But these social groups only work if everyone benefits: if there is no benefit, no payback for each individual, the group members would never have succeeded over individuals and groups would never have evolved.

 

And those ancestors who first formed tribes and bands survived only because they didn’t screw each other over. When facing a predator, any human who hamstrings a fellow tribe member to enable his own escape would never be trusted again. The person who dumps a child on an unwilling caretaker violates the social contract, and that person–and that child–wouldn’t be welcome in the group anymore. If all of the group members betray each other, the group loses cohesion, and again, social behavior would not have been passed down through our genes.

Now, we haven’t always done a good job of looking out for all the members of our human tribe, but we usually at least made gestures towards community: we use to try.  In the past 15 years or so, though, it seems that zero-sum thinking has become the norm, and self-centered behavior has become not just tolerated but respected. When? Why?

What happened to this genetic understanding that everyone in a group should gain some benefit from belonging?

When did selfishness replace charity as our most defining virtue?

When did our social motto change from “From each according to his means, to each according to his needs” to “I got mine–the rest of you can fuck off”?

1 Comment » - Posted in Crimes Against Sanity by Dorothy
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

How Unlucky Is It…

…when you wake up to find a black cat sleeping under a ladder?

Do you feel lucky, punk?

A close-up so you can feel the catitude:

I suppose I can tolerate you.

No Comments » - Posted in They Who Must Be Adored by Dorothy
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

Mysogynist-to-English Dictionary

Often on various feminist blogs, some poor guy opens up his mouth and makes what he thinks is an innocent statement, only to get verbally shredded by lashing tongues and razor wits.

And the guy sits there thinking, “Hey, Wha Happened?”

Well, it’s possible that the guy has accidentally bumped up against a peculiar language known as Edited Standard Misogynist Asshole or ESMA. ESMA contains many words that sound like regular English, but this is just pure coincidence. All ESMA words are in the first person narcissist declension, which has a very strict usage: it always focuses on the ESMA speaker only, regardless of what else might be implied.

People who travel in feminist circles very quickly figure this out and shy away from the English homophones to avoid confusion. Some of these you are probably already familiar with, for example:

Bitch: a woman who doesn’t follow my orders
Uppity Bitch: a woman who calls me an asshole when I give her orders
Lazy Bitch: a woman who insists I do half of the housework and childrearing
Castrating Bitch: my ex-wife

Some of the less well-known (and therefore more troublesome) ESMA homophones after the jump:
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4 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Sunday, March 18th, 2007

Historical Analogy Is a Two-Edged Sword

It’s become pretty popular among various “hawkish” bloggers to bask in the reflected glow of 300. The glorification of war and cartoonish* masculinity has been commented on in detail by people far more qualified than I. But the nit I have to pick with the 300 hawks is the “historical analogy” angle. Because of such lovely tidbits like the wife of King Leonides saying “Freedom isn’t free” and the stereotype of light-skinned good people standing in for “us” in films, the hawks have decided that the Spartans are an analogy for America and the Persians an analogy for Iran, Iraq, or everyone in the Middle East in general.

You want to make 300 into a historical analogy? OK. Let’s look at that, shall we?

(*That’s a JOKE, son! It went right by ya!)
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2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Thursday, March 15th, 2007

Moral, Schmoral

After General Pace commented about the immorality of homosexuality, the major presidential candidates have all been asked the question, “Do you believe homosexuality is immoral?”

To me, the only answer to ANY question regarding “moral” issues in politics is some variant of this:

It does not matter whether I believe something is immoral. It only matters that our citizens’ rights are protected. We cannot and should not attempt to enforce the morality of any religion or group of religions by law. The founding fathers understood this; our allies understand this; we have to understand it.

What moral rules should we expect the government to enforce for us? A ban on pork products? Alcohol? Tobacco? Men, how about we outlaw blow jobs? Women, have you been fitted for your burka? There is no place to draw the line, no shades of gray. No moral code can be “more important” than another: the moral code of modern Presbyterianism holds the exact same weight for its believers as the code of fundamentalist Shiite Islam holds for its believers as the code of Faerie Wicca holds for its believers. And all moral codes have the exact same power over those people who don’t believe in them: none.

On marriage rights for homosexuals in particular, I would honestly love to see a candidate state, flat out, that morality has no place in government, and then dare their opponents to attack marriage rights without mentioning morality:

If there is no logical or compelling reason for the state to restrict marriage rights, it doesn’t matter if I or anyone else thinks homosexuality is immoral, just it didn’t matter that many people thought inter-racial marriage was immoral. You are free to think that homosexuality is immoral, and I promise you that you will never be forced to marry a member of your own sex. If you need some help on dealing with the fact that homosexuality exists, I suggest you ask a Kosher Jew or Halal Muslim for advice on how to handle the presence of something you consider immoral. Other than that, get over it and get on with your life.

Get morality out of the discussion all together. It doesn’t belong there. Morality is an issue for theologians, not politicians. In America today, our political candidates are the least qualified people to comment on morality.

1 Comment » - Posted in In Dorothy's World by Dorothy
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

Never Overlook the Importance of Oversight

Now that we have a Democratic Congress, we’re starting to see what actual Congressional oversight looks like. From 2002 to 2007, every single call for investigation into any issue has been tabled, postponed or ignored. Every. Single. One.

Pick an issue:
Mark Foley harrassing Congressional pages
Voting irregularities
9-11 lead up and response
Misuse of intelligence
The outing of a CIA NOC agent for political payback
Iraq rebuilding contracts
“Missing” funds for Iraq reconstruction
The ongoing disasters of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and Gulf Coast reconstruction
Restricting taxpayer-funded events to Bush loyalists
Abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanimo Bay
The network of secret CIA prisons in Europe
The NSA Internet surveillance program
Unconstitutional signing statements

There has been at least one proposal for an investigation into each one of these issues, and it has been shot down. The administration has flat out told Congress to piss off on more than request for documentation. And Congress looked the other way.

That’s over now.
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No Comments » - Posted in We The Sheeple by Dorothy
Monday, March 12th, 2007

Apologies to Ms. Whatzername

My sixth grade science teacher was the bane of my existence. She was mean and snippy and gave me a B minus! Once, she even held me after class and asked if I was acting out because I didn’t get enough attention at home. It was humiliating and infuriating–

–because she was right. She had me nailed. Out of all the teachers in my grade school, she was the only one who really saw what was going on. And I gave her hell for it.

So this my belated apology.

No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Saturday, March 10th, 2007

Pardon Our Dust

Well, we’re back up after a long hiatus. The database crashed unrecoverably, and the blogging software we were using was being difficult. And of course, all of this happens right as I get into “crunch time” at work, and we all get sick, and…

Anyway, you probably don’t care about all that.

We’ve switched back to WordPress, designed a new look, and added some new stuff. I’m still rebuilding all the links and sidebars, but you’ll notice the “fiction” link up there. That’s the result of an epiphany.

I finally realized that the main cause of my writer’s block has been trying to force stories into particular formats or “sellable” lengths. I don’t write short stories or novellas or novels: I write serials. My stories are most often episodes of ongoing characters or worlds that aren’t complete enough to sell as a story but not “big” enouh to expand into a novel. Sometimes, an episode comes out in prose; other times it comes out in storyboards or verse. I spend a great deal of my time trying to force a story into something it doesn’t want to be.

It’s crazymaking.

So I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m going to start posting the “orphan” fiction here instead of tearing my hair out trying to make it fit some market. There are a couple of pieces up as tests; more will be coming.

No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
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