ginandtacos.com

I'm impressed by the readers who have finished the Realdoll documentary movie, and I'm a bit embarrassed by not having finished it myself. This weekend was my birthday, and I have needed to avoid hangover/headache inducing activites, so the rest of the video will have to wait a bit longer before being finished.

And I forgot about the two-handed broadsword.

Some people have mentioned the question as to whether the people in the video are either less or more of a threat to women now that they spend their free time acting out sex crimes on an inanimate object. Do Realdolls keep them locked up voluntary in their house (de facto prison), or is it just practice for the real thing? Would it be ethical to give Ed Gein a Realdoll, or would the Realdoll just make him an even more energetic (and efficient) monster?

Luckily an economist from Clemson University wrote an interesting paper about this with porn. It has that weird air of autistic thought that economist get (the kind that defines porn as a non-rivalrous, non-excludable public good with potential positive externalities), that I love but can be very off-putting. He looked at reports of rape incidents and correlates them against % access to the internet by time in communities after controlling for all the usual suspects of variables. Here's the abstract:

The arrival of the internet caused a large decline in both the pecuniary and non-pecuniary costs of accessing pornography. Using state-level panel data from 1998-2003, I find that the arrival of the internet was associated with a reduction in rape incidence. However, growth in internet usage had no apparent effect on other crimes. … These results, which suggest that pornography and rape are substitutes, are in contrast with most previous literature.

I love natural experiments in economics, and this is a pretty good one. The study finds a 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. The normal problems that you have with statistical studies of this sort are all accounted for – and the results are glaring in the data. It may also explain part of why teenage births have decreased since the mid-90s. (It doesn't handle long-vs-short term issues of watching porn, and if you see porn itself as analogous to rape, there is another critique to be had.)

For what it is worth, and the author himself positions himself against this view quickly, but what the hell (It's 1:30pm and I'm still hungover): whenever we have goods with these qualities we tend to think the government should be in the business of helping to provide them (markets underallocate them). And other substitute goods for criminal goods are applauded in society (afterschool programs as a substitute against gang recruitment, for instance). I suggested to someone (they were naturally horrified) that $5K of our tax dollars for a realdoll purchase voucher, in exchange for a voluntary registration as a sex offender (and maybe one of those lowjack monitor ankle things) is significantly better deal that what it "costs" if he acts otherwise. I don't think any politicians are going to run on that platform though (A Chicken in Every Pot! A Realdoll in Every Closet!), though it would be kind of neat.

One of my favorite old posts on ginandtacos is Erik's take on the realdoll community, as it was presented to us by a salon.com article that started a whole Internet meme fest on what it means to spend over $5,000 on a masturbation toy. Realdolls, in case you don't know, are 'realistic' looking rubber dolls (see picture of 'davecat' below) that cost a large sum of money, that tend to get purchased by people who are acting out a relationship with them. Do read the ginandtacos post, it includes some great comments from the readers.

One thing that was linked to in the article was, from the Realdoll's webpage, was the Realdoll FAQ (not work safe). It is quite disturbing to read, as it quickly switches from (real examples) "Question: What sort of people buy REALDOLL? Answer: REALDOLL customers include …scientists, health professionals, housewives" to questions such as " Question: Tell me more about the doll's entries. Answer: The inside of the Vaginal and Anal entries use a different grade of silicone than the rest of REALDOLL's body…" – you don't want to go any further. It goes from normal to disturbing quickly. As Erik put it in his entry: "I honestly could not read any more than a fraction of it before I had to close the browser."

Eventually we all started daring each other to read it, and the entire FAQ was read, and though it was years ago, it still freaks me out to think about it. And now there is this:

"Guys and Dolls" (hat tip to feministing). Evidently someone wasn't satisfied by reading a salon article and making fun of these losers; they had to go even further and sponsor a British documentary crew to interview as many subjects as they could find and investigate the factory. The video is 46 minutes and it is virtually impossible to watch. It is like the Realdoll FAQ to the tenth power. It is probably the best accidental horror movie ever made.

So have any of you been dared, or dared someone to watch a horror movie? Junior-high sleepovers, "What are you, chicken?!?!?" For Politics-Free Friday, my dare to you audience, is to start watching and note what time and/or event freaks you out to the point where you had to stop watching. I tried, and I mean I tried to finish the thing (I am in fact daring you), but my on my first try I could only make it to minute 15 when a guy from Virginia starts showing off his collection of AK-47s and Mac-10s along with his realdolls ("that's three [automatic] guns and two realdolls I own…"). He waves a glock in the air above a Realdoll taking a "nap" in his bed, and talks about the Mac-10 he "would carry around". It is way too much. In the first couple of minutes you get to see Davecat (goth kid above) mention something like "the problem my dad has with her is that she's not alive" in my-dad-is-a-bigot-teenage-righteousness way.

The second try I made it to minute 20, where you get to see the factory where the dolls are made, and the endless torsos and pelvic areas hanging from chains or moving along assembly lines is like something out of a slaughterhouse. Forget Saw and J-Horror flicks, this is seriously the most disturbing horror movie I've ever seen.

Hi all. This Mike pinch hitting for Ed while he is on vacation for a week.

Literature Professor Michael Berube's blog, sadly closed since the beginning of 2007, was one of my favorite things on the internets. Luckily he still shows up online here and there. The Common Review has just posted a new essay by him about his experiences with the Harry Potter series, and how the series has enriched the life of his son Jaime, who has Down's Syndrome, by helping him to understand what is going on with narratives.

It expands on a series of posts from his blog about this topic. Berube chronicles about how his so-called "retarded" son learns to understand stories as stories through Rowling's books, and how he uses that to reflect on a range of issues. If you are a fan of the books or lit crit or education, special or otherwise, check it out.

Also – go see the new "Order of the Phoenix" movie if you haven't already – it is the actual summer blockbuster movie event, rivaled by Ratatouille and Live Free or Die Hard*. They did a fantastic job taking what was probably the worst book to adapt; its is almost as good as the third movie, which stands as my favorite. Side question I've been asking people: Alan Rickman as Snape or as Hans Gruber – which do you prefer?

* – My enjoyment of this movie was amplified by seeing it opening night at midnight with several flasks of whiskey, and playing a game where we had to drink every time we could make the statement "John McClane killed that man by means that weren't solely with the use of a gun." That is a good game to play to that movie.

Today's entry is very brief as I am simultaneously packing for a week of vacation and packing to move when I return. I'll have my laptop and, rest assured, I will be posting bile from the road. You'll also hear a little more from Mike over the next week to pick up the slack while I'm gone.

You really need to read this. If you ever wondered what kind of people go on the National Review Carnival Cruise, well, it's the kind of people who say:

" Of course, we need to execute some of these people…. A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. "Then things'll change."

In some ways, the crowd on this $1200-$6000 cruise is exactly how you'd imagine it – elderly, fat, completely white (save for the busboys and Uncle Tom Connerly), and with strongly-held belief systems that are utterly impervious to facts. But on the other hand, the crowd is a little bit more out there than I expected. I mean, there's a lot of talk about killing people. Kill the liberals, kill the intellectuals, kill the Muslims…..

It's pretty amazing how these people just abandon all restraint once they think they're among their own. Every comment in this article reeks of people enjoying a seven-day stretch during which they can stop being so darned PC and start speaking their minds. Seven days in which the Constitution and the Geneva Convention and the ComSymps and the Liberal Media and the rules of decency don't apply. This, my friends, is why the rule of law must apply to those in positions of power. The alternative is what you see here in this week-long mini-experiment in uninhibited conservatism: intellectual children (violence solves everything!) with six-figure incomes plotting to kill their "enemies" and anyone who tries to stop them.

It was not until I started this little exercise in logical fallacies that I realized just how easy it would be to knock them down, one by one, simply by reading neoconservative opinion columnists regularly. Analogies about fish and barrels come to mind. Thank god it's so easy, because reading this shit is just painful. Analogies about hot pokers and eyes come to mind.

Bill Kristol is a logical fallacy with pants. There are so many things that make me laugh about this column that I can hardly focus on its formal flaws. But let's start with his textbook use of cum hoc ergo propter hoc - the "correlation equals causation" fallacy. In his latest I-can't-fucking-believe-the-Post-pays-for-this-and-prints-it column, Kristol goes far enough to make even his staunchest allies wonder if he's in the ether. Let's look at his stunning logic at work:

Let's step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let's look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? First, no second terrorist attack on U.S. soil — not something we could have taken for granted. Second, a strong economy — also something that wasn't inevitable. And third, and most important, a war in Iraq that has been very difficult, but where…we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.

And then, just when I think I have choked through the worst of it, Kristol drops the bomb:

What about terrorism? Apart from Iraq, there has been less of it, here and abroad, than many experts predicted on Sept. 12, 2001. So Bush and Vice President Cheney probably are doing some important things right.

There have been no more incidents, so Bush and Cheney "probably are doing some important things right." Ladies and gentlement, the Washington Post printed this. This man is a multi-millionaire, he gets to spew his bullshit on TV every day, and he has a direct phone line to the White House. Ignore (for just a moment) that points two and three range from complete fabrication (the economy is strong!) to mere delusion and willful misinterpretation of facts ("we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.")

I'd rather focus on the first part: no domestic terror attacks since 9/11. Why? In KristolWorld, we've avoided this fate thanks to George Bush, the War on Terror, invading Iraq, and so on. No terrorist attacks + George Bush is president = George Bush's actions have prevented terrorism. Let's run with Bill's "logic" here. Since 9/11, the White Sox have won the World Series. The price of gas has exploded. Neil Patrick Harris came out of the closet. Pluto ceased to be a planet. Mickey Spillane died. George Bush is responsible for all of these things.

I'll leave this rather simple, self-explanatory fallacy alone now. But I'm not done having fun with Bill yet. You might want to take a glance at the comments on that Post website. There are more than twenty-five hundred comments. As far as I can tell (and I admit I didn't read all 2580 of them) the thematic range of the comments starts at "This makes no sense" and tapers down to "Bill Kristol is out of his goddamn mind."

He then stretches his legs to do a little fellatio on Gen. Petraeus – a common neocon talking point these days. Why are they laying it on so thick? Well, they have two months until the September deadline for evaluating if the "surge" is working. And they're going to use that two months verbally turning the guy into Jesus Christ and Patton roled into one….so that when he says the surge is working, well by golly we'd better believe him! Finally, and this is when he really gets into the cough syrup, the GOP has the Democratic Party right where they want it. The odds of a Republican sweep in 2008 simply couldn't be better!

What it comes down to is this: If Petraeus succeeds in Iraq, and a Republican wins in 2008, Bush will be viewed as a successful president. I like the odds.

Well the right-wing talking heads have already pre-ordained the "Petraeus will succeed" part – just talk about the guy like he's an infallible genius, and then all he has to do to succeed is say "I have succeeded." Combined with the great odds that our next president is going to be Fred Thompson, Bush is going to be positive fawned over in the history books.

Given that Bill Kristol has been wrong about every single goddamn thing in the last four years (the talk of sectarian strife in Iraq was overblown "pop sociology") it's really amazing that he continues to make these kinds of predictions in print. I guess it's easy when no one in the media ever calls him out on his abject stupidity…and they keep writing him checks to squeeze out more brown, sludgy lumps of brilliant prognostication.

(I apologize for the limited length and scope of today's entry. I can assure you that I will make up for it tomorrow or Wednesday with a piece that will push your endurance to the limit.)

I think my favorite part about the massive settlement checks that Catholic diocese around the country are writing out lately (with disturbing regularity, I might add) is that no one seems to blink twice at their ability to pay. This weekend, the diocese in Los Angeles agreed to pay a staggering amount – a record $660,000,000 – to more than 500 abuse victims. If you don't think that's fair, I'd strongly encourage you to watch the documentary Deliver Us from Evil. You can see Roger Mahony squirm on camera as he attempts to explain why a priest who confessed to raping dozens of children as young as 18 months old (think about that for a second) was transferred from parish to parish to parish without a word of warning or explanation over 20 years.

That's a pretty daunting amount. And yet the diocese will pay it, just like they doled out $86,000,000 in Boston a few years back on account of Bernard Law's habit of using unsuspecting parishes in a game of "Hide the NAMBLA Member" with pedophile priests under his authority. Sure, they will do some whining about how they have to sell off property to do it, but….does it strike anyone else as a little odd that a church has that much money lying around? It reminds me a bit of the old Onion classic "Pope Asks to be Taken Off List of World's 100 Richest People."

The fact that one single diocese can come up with $660 million (although insurance is paying about 40% of that) gives the lie to the estimate that the church's overall net worth is about $5 billion globally. If individual diocese like Boston and Los Angeles have enough non-essential property to readily raise a hundred million or so (mind you, they're not selling churches – this is just their assorted real estate holdings) then, worldwide, the assets must certainly be beyond even the largest estimates.

Don't worry, though. I'm sure it won't take long for word to filter down from the Vatican that more parishes should follow this example and take refuge in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. That will spare them from having to sacrifice any of their office parks – clearly a steep punishment for allowing priests to fuck kids for decades. What it won't stop them from doing, of course, is cajoling the faithful into coughing up more of their paychecks. If one were to resort to the rhetorical device of asking What Jesus Would Do, I'm fairly certain that the answer would not be "Hide the church's massive financial empire behind federal bankruptcy laws to avoid having to take child rape cases to trial."

It was with considerable sadness that I received the news of James D. Barber's passing back in 2004. Barber is a well-known political scientist whose most important work deals with presidents' "character." Essentially, he psychoanalyzes the presidents from afar. It has its flaws (quite obviously) but it is still canon. Not only do I rely on Barber as an important component of teaching the young'ns about the presidency, but I desperately wanted him to live long enough to have to deal with George W. Bush.

Barber divides presidents into four personality categories based on two dichotomous components: Are they active or passive, positive or negative? Active-positive presidents (FDR, Clinton, JFK) show high levels of confidence and move past failures easily. Passive-positives (Reagan, Taft) are genial but get wounded very easily; they detest conflict and need to be everyone's friend. Passive-Negatives (Eisenhower, Washington) are reluctant, hands-off presidents who do the job only out of a sense of duty. Lastly, Active-Negatives (LBJ, Nixon) are entirely resistant to change, see "enemies" everywhere, and refuse to get over (or abandon) failed policies.

Let's just say you don't need to take my entire course to figure out where George W. Bush belongs in Barber's typology.

It has been interesting to teach the course for a couple of years. Originally, the College Republicans in the audience would argue that Bush is Active-Positive. After all, he does propose a lot of very big ideas (most of them terrible, of course) and seems relentlessly positive. As time goes on, the students who argue that seem to be disappearing. The key, defining characteristic of the Active-Negative category is the refusal to abandon failed ideas coupled with paranoia and secrecy. The consensus seems to be that Bush belongs there. Barber would agree. Believe it or not, I am starting to think everyone is wrong.

Reading the most recent column by former Reagan/Bush 41 apparatchik Peggy Noonan really got me thinking…can Barber's analysis even handle someone like W? Noonan says:

As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president's seemingly effortless high spirits. He's in a good mood. There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush? Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure. His Iraq leadership has failed. His standing is lower than any previous president's since polling began. He's in a good mood. Discuss.

…Fair enough: Presidents can't sit around and moan. But it doesn't look like an act. People would feel better to know his lack of success sometimes gets to him. It gets to them.

Presidents never fit squarely and cleanly into one of Barber's little boxes, and we can't expect that W will. But Barber's analysis presumes a lot of things about its subjects. It presumes that, for the most part, our presidents are sane. They may be awful people (Nixon, LBJ, etc) who get boners from belittling people and neurotically see "enemies" everywhere. They may be jerks. They may be inept. What they are not, Barber assumes, is out of their goddamn minds.

When I see the way this president acts – and the complete absence of doubt in public or even in private – I'm convinced that there's something wrong with the guy. Here is a president who experiences failure after failure, a man whose decisions have caused untold death and suffering (not to mention leaving our national finances in an absolute shambles). He's essentially hated by everyone who is not a hardcore, unmovable Republican loyalist. And yet he's on top of the world. He's happy. He's convinced that he's well-liked. He brags about how well he sleeps. He constantly goes on vacation. Optimism and the ability to brush off failure is one thing – a complete disconnect from reality is another.

I look at the reality in which Bush finds himself and I cannot help but think this is not how a normal person would act. That's a weak line of argument, as none of us can judge (especially from afar) how someone "should" react. But I can't help it. Honest to god, how can anyone face the failures that face the president – and the knowledge that it's entirely his fault – with that fucking smirk on his face?

Whoever continues Barber's work will probably take the path of least resistance and lump him in with Nixon and the Active-Negatives. Is that possible, when Bush acts like this is all a great big joke to him? That's what makes him truly unique. Nixon didn't spend his press conferences laughing and plying the press corps with Dumbass Fratboy Humor. I don't recall seeing a smile on LBJ's face anytime after 1965. But George W. Bush feels just fine despite that pesky war and those dirty liberals who obstruct his plans to privatize everything between here and the moon. I half expect that if he addressed the Iraqi parliament he'd crack a few jokes and, perturbed by the lack of response, ask "Why all the long faces?"

So Friday night at Pitchfork Fest was definitely worth $20 and a drive. I couldn't entirely turn off the social commentary track that runs on a loop in my head, though. Even while rocking out.

First of all, and this bears emphasizing, it was very well-organized for a festival. I hate festivals. They are almost always somewhere between a clusterfuck, a fire drill in Chinese, and a backyard abortion. Even though the crowd easily filled a very large park area (I'm bad at estimating crowds but I'd guess somewhere around 5000) the entry/exit was easy and there were plenty of bathrooms, water, first aid, and so on. High-five to pitchfork and the Chicago Park District. Most festivals resemble historical re-enactments of the Fall of Saigon. This didn't.

Second, as much as I enjoyed the GZA tearing through Liquid Swords, it felt more than a little odd to me. Something about a couple thousand white kids throwing up W's, chanting Wu-Tang, and smoking large amounts of drugs (which no doubt routed their way to Naperville through the black communities on which they are a cancer) was discomforting. Not to mention that the performers must have felt a bit like an anthropology exhibit for the thousands of current and soon-to-be grad students eager to show how deeply they Understand Other Cultures.

To wit (and you have to give GZA the 2007 Knowing One's Audience Trophy), large portions of the crowd seemed as though they were hearing Liquid Swords – easily one of the best albums of the decade – for the first time. When they encored with an ODB tribute / cover of "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" the crowd practically ejaculated on itself in unison. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate ODB more than most. But it had a sad sort of "Let's play something they recognize so we can get out of here" feel to it. The experience was not improved by the simultaneous flashing of 5000 cameraphones and a collective "I can't wait to blog this on MySpace" thought-bubble.

And in case you were wondering, Sonic Youth still bores me to fucking tears.

I'm in a particularly tuneful mood on this No Politics Friday ™, as I am about to drive to Chicago for Pitchforkfest. Friday night only, but what a Friday night – Slint (Spiderland), GZA (Liquid Swords), and Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation) each playing one of their albums start-to-finish. Alas, I cannot stick around for Battles, Mastadon, and Yoko Ono (Not performing together. Were they, I think I would pretty much have to see that.)

Occasionally, in celebration of what phenomenal taste I have, I will make some suggestions that may enrich and broaden your musical spectrum. Some of it is old, some of it is brand-spankin'-new. Most (but not all) of it rocks an awful lot, so if you're not into that sort of thing you may need to rely on other websites for a supply of emo bitch yodeling. If you're bored on Friday afternoon, you love stealing media files off the interweb, and often wonder "How can I make myself a better person?" then have at this mix.

1. The Cows, "Mas-No Mas" – Whorn (1996)

2. Don Caballero, "Don Caballero 3" – What Burns Never Returns (1998)

3. Dead Prez, "I'm A African" – let's get free (2000)

4. Drive Like Jehu, "Future Home of Stucco Monstrosity" – s/t (1991)

5. The Bled, "Hotel Coral Essex" – Found in the Flood (2006)

6. The Chariot, "Yanni Depp" – UNSUNG (2006)

7. Public Image Ltd, "Four Enclosed Walls" – Flowers of Romance (1981)

8. Parts and Labor, "Fractured Skies" – Mapmaker (2007)

9. Trenchmouth, "Power to the Amplifier" – Inside the Future (1993)

10. Strike Anywhere, "We Amplify / Blaze" – Exit English (2003)

Enjoy. Guys, when you master this list (plus any other musical suggestions I provide) and find yourself neck-deep in pussy, feel free to thank me. Nothing gets the ladies throwing themselves at me quite like my urbane, trendy tastes in inoffensive music.