Category: Rants

The world has got some plans for me
Courthouse, jail, and factories

This song keeps popping up in my shuffle lately. The opening lyrics, while not especially profound, are probably confusing to people under the age of 30. One of those things does not seem like the others. But in the 1970s and 1980s, the children of the Boomers started to see boring, blue collar work like factory jobs as a soul-killing prison. There are hundreds of movies, books, and songs from that era featuring characters who just want to live…but they're stuck behind a machine press for the rest of their lives. It's funny in hindsight that we used to worry about the work being insufficiently fulfilling, because I'm pretty sure most of us – and plenty of people in their teens and twenties right now – would gladly take those factory jobs today. They paid decently, they had benefits, and they had a semblance of stability, at least before NAFTA.

The idea that jobs are supposed to be psychologically rewarding is a remarkably new one, and not a particularly helpful one. People under 40 today – myself included – think in terms of "careers" instead of jobs.

We also tend to look at careers as outlets for expressing who we are (or how we see ourselves) and we expect them to be rewarding in ways that go beyond a paycheck.

When I look at my own mangled expectations about the sense of fulfillment I'd get from my career or see and hear the same from 18-21 year olds on a daily basis, I feel like we could benefit from a little historical perspective.

For most of human history the idea of a profession or a "career" was either nonexistent or relevant only to a tiny niche group in society. Our job was to avoid starving, freezing, or being killed by large animals. When learning trades and getting formal education became more common, rarely were they chosen on the basis of which one would provide the most stimulation and opportunities for personal growth. One became a blacksmith not because it offered the chance to let one's personality shine through. You became a blacksmith because you were lucky enough to become an apprentice to one and if you learned the job well, you stood a fighting chance of making enough money to house and feed yourself and a family. That was it, essentially. As far as the work itself, any job that didn't present an excessive risk of killing or maiming the person doing it was considered pretty sweet.

I often tell students – they have a habit of returning from things like internships and summer jobs jaded by the mundane nature of the working world – that if a given job was fun, they wouldn't have to pay people to do it. No one out there is offering $45k plus benefits for someone to do kegstands, watch Netflix, or play with tiny puppies for 40-45 hours per week. Maybe one person in a million has a job that truly is fun in the sense that it's a thing people would do without getting paid for it. For the vast majority of us, however, a job is just a way to pay the bills.

That's all it ever has been. Nothing has changed except our expectations.

Right now I have what by any criteria would be considered a good job. I'm paid decently, I have basic benefits, and the position is as close to Stable as jobs get these days. Yet I'm not happy because I'm expecting the job to make me happy. I expect it to not suck, when in reality on many days it does suck because it's a goddamn job. Nowhere was I promised that it would be rewarding and fun all the time, or that it wouldn't be frustrating, or that I would have days where I come home and wonder why I bother.
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I bother because they pay me, and getting paid is very useful to me. But that's it. That's the deal: I show up and fulfill my responsibilities, and then I get a check. Nobody said anything about fun.

As often as I give this advice to other people, I give it to myself lately. What I can't figure out is why people in my age group (or younger) have this idea that the task for which they get paid will also be personally enriching. Is it because we lack fulfillment in our personal lives?
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Is it because we're spoiled, believing that the working world owes us self-actualization in addition to a means of supporting ourselves? I'm not sure. What is certain is that we should be careful what we wish for. Those factory jobs that no longer exist start to look pretty appealing as our Career-as-Spirit Quest theory runs into reality.

There are a number of topics on which I feel confident, if not competent, enough to be a dick. Art is not one of them. I am a big fan. The first thing I do when I visit a city is go to the art museum(s). If all I had to do was answer trivia questions about artists or explain different movements, styles, periods, and so on, I'd write something and not feel too much like an idiot. But I just don't have the smug confidence of the art critic that would allow me to describe in great detail, "This is shit, and here's why." I can spot said shit from a mile away, but I lack the vocabulary to explain its flaws.
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That's why I'm glad someone else wrote a lengthy takedown of the artistic talents of Chinese political dissident/artist Ai Weiwei. In the same way that people tend to be sensitive about criticizing Israel for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic, criticism of Ai has been largely verboten lest it be interpreted as criticism of his political activism. His willingness to speak out against the Chinese government is laudable, regardless of how effective it is.
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He was beaten nearly to death by Chinese police at a political protest in 2009. The guy is not a fake activist or some guy posting "F the System" on Facebook. But art galleries throughout the Western world have tripped over themselves to hold Ai exhibitions, and frankly his work often borders on sophomoric. Two good quotes from the lengthy article:

The Hirshhorn has recently purchased Ai's more than thirteen-foot-high Cube Light, which, with its row upon row of jazzily back-lit gold-toned crystals, suggests the retro-glam décor for an upscale bar or nightclub. While a wall label explains that Cube Light "interrogate[s] conventions of culture, history, politics, and tradition," it seems to me that the only reasonable response to this caramel colored concoction is to order a martini and make it extra dry. I confess that Ai lost me completely with Cube Light, part of what the people at the Hirshhorn refer to as his "celebrated chandelier series." The glitz of Cube Light reflects a side of his sensibility that some progressives will dismiss as high bourgeois kitsch, although at times it is unclear whether Ai is parodying a taste for swank Chinese porcelains and beautifully crafted wood furniture or celebrating it.

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The truth is that he may not be entirely clear about this himself.

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Asked more recently about the project, Ai had this to say: "Because the Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads is animal heads, I think it's something that everyone can have some understanding of, including children and people who are not in the art world. I think it's more important to show your work to the public. That's what I really care about. When Andy Warhol painted Mao in the 1960s and 1970s, I don't think many people understood Mao, either—it was just this image that people knew, like Marilyn Monroe or somebody. So they might see these zodiac animals like that—like Mickey Mouse. They're just animals." Ai may be a hero when it comes to speaking out for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake, but when he talks about his art he is jeeringly manipulative. It is hard to have patience for an artist who justifies his work with references to Mickey Mouse.

I'm sure it's somewhat awkward to explain these concepts in a foreign language, but this sounds like the ramblings of a college sophomore. It points to a larger problem with the art world – Ai has been adopted by the jet-set as a cause célèbre/mascot alongside nonprofit/foundation favorites like the Dalai Lama, Sudanese child-soldiers and Aung San Suu Kyi – but also to a larger problem with all of us, as this is just another symptom of our lost ability to take anything at face value anymore. We live in a world in which any artist who can throw together something banal and sell it with a verbose, pseudo-intellectual cover story is considered Very Serious and Important. Even though it is for a good reason – art is subjective and we often lack the vocabulary to dissect it – it's very rare that anyone calls artists on these things. It amazes me that journalists can listen to statements like the above without saying, "I'm sorry, but what in the hell are you talking about?"

Now that we're willing to accept that anything and everything is art, we're susceptible to every manner of deception whether it's done by others or we do it to ourselves. We tell ourselves that the great political activist must be also a great artist, and that his work is an incisive commentary on the Chinese political system. We're reluctant to confront the possibility that the great political activist is an artist, albeit not an extraordinarily talented one.

Five days ago, officers of the LA Police Department opened fire on a pickup truck that "matched the description" of one driven by headline-dominating murderer Christopher Dorner. At least 20 rounds were fired, many of which missed the truck by several yards and hit parked cars and nearby homes. Miraculously, neither occupant of the truck (two women, 45 and 71, delivering newspapers) was killed or seriously injured.

Later that same day, Torrance police officers intentionally rammed another pickup truck "matching the description" of Dorner's. One of the officers got out and fired three shots at the driver for good measure. Miraculously, the decidedly non-Chris Dorner driver was not killed.

The description given to police was of Dorner's gray Nissan Titan. Dorner is a large, muscular black male weighing over 250 pounds. So it is not clear how all of the cops involved managed to confuse a teal blue Toyota Tacoma driven by two Hispanic women, one of whom is elderly, for the vehicle in question. Nor is it clear how the police mistook David Perdue, a short, wiry, white male driving a pickup truck that was neither gray nor a Nissan, for Chris Dorner. It's almost as if the police were completely out of control.

This is when the media (and most of the public, in fairness) jumps in to remind us that these officers are under a lot of stress so, you know, accidents like firing 20+ rounds at the wrong people are going to happen. Apparently we are supposed to be sympathetic. Apparently when cops feel like they are in danger we're supposed to excuse their violent, undisciplined responses. If only the same rules applied to us. For example, how much sympathy do victims of mistaken identity get? Let's say you look like Suspect A and the police jump you. A natural reaction by a person being manhandled for no reason might be to throw a punch or fight back, at which point they've bought themselves about a dozen felony charges for resisting arrest and assaulting officers.

Does anyone, let alone the police, look at a situation like that and say, "Well geez, I understand why he fought back, it's very stressful and he certainly wasn't going out of his way to attack the police"? For all the hand-jobbing nonsense about how police are highly-trained experts in law enforcement / American Heroes, they have a shocking tendency to act like a posse rounded up from the local bars. Shoot first, ask second. Draw your weapon just to be safe. If you shoot, be sure to empty the entire magazine. Details such as the identity of the person you're firing at can be determined later.

I know being a cop is a hard job. I also know that the reason we pay people to do this difficult job is so that the law is enforced with professionalism and restraint. But I guess as long as there's some great excuse like "They were scared" or "They believe the victim in this tragic accident looked like Suspect A" we're supposed to be comfortable with them patrolling our streets, having authority over us, and being given the power to kill when in their clearly impeccable judgment it is necessary to do so. Certainly the Dorner case is one in which we can all understand why the cops are on edge; what is less clear is why we no longer expect the police to do their job properly and with professionalism as soon as they feel scared or stressed in what is an inherently dangerous job.

Last week was the tenth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the UN Security Council about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction on February 5, 2003. It remains difficult for me to even think about the political climate of the year long run-up to the invasion of Iraq without feeling stabby all over again. We don't need to rehash the number of levels on which all of the claims and "evidence" used to grease the wheels of the war machine were either wrong or outright lies – I believe the WMDs turned out to be two donkeys and a crate of Sparklers – but we owe it to ourselves to remember how badly the media collectively failed us.

Not one major newspaper or news network responded to Powell's theatrics with anything remotely approaching skepticism. The obsequious, totally credulous editorials read like Onion articles today.
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The NY Times was probably the soberest, merely noting that "Mr. Powell's speech was all the more convincing because he dispensed with apocalyptic invocations of a struggle of good and evil and focused on shaping a sober, factual case against Mr.
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Hussein’s regime." The Washington Post, in contrast, titled its staff editorial "Irrefutable", noting that "it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction." On the same page, Richard Cohen stated that, "The evidence he presented to the United Nations – some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail – had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool – or possibly a Frenchman – could conclude otherwise.
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” Ha ha! The French are pussies! WaPo's foreign policy "expert" Jim Hoaglund helpfully chimed in, "To continue to say that the Bush administration has not made its case, you must now believe that Colin Powell lied in the most serious statement he will ever make, or was taken in by manufactured evidence. I don’t believe that. Today, neither should you."

Hoagland and Cohen still have the same jobs today. Because, you know, why wouldn't they? If you think shame prevents them from writing about the need to invade Iran and eliminate its nuclear weapons, Google them and prepare for a shock.

I propose that every year, February 5 should serve as the Yom Kippur of American journalism – a total TV news blackout for 24 hours while the editors, producers, on-air talent, fact checkers, and other assorted minions devote themselves to confessing their sins and seeking forgiveness.
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Newspapers will run the headline, "We failed and it cost 100,000 lives" and no content except detailed descriptions of every pre-war claim that turned out to be false or fabricated but was reported anyway without any corroboration beyond "anonymous government sources." The next day the news industry will return to being the same cacophony of nonsense that it was in 2003 and remains today. But for one day, everyone will be forced to confront the truth, to spend the day in radio silence thinking about their actions and the consequences. Maybe – just maybe – a few more Americans in the media and among the general public will pause and ask a critical question or two the next time a war-hungry administration and their fawning fans in the news industry start cheerleading the nation into another trillion dollar, decade-long war that costs tens of thousands of lives.

It's ridiculous, I know. A boy can dream, though.

"Media Week" prior to the Super Bowl is an excellent opportunity for athletes to say stupid things into cameras and microphones. 49ers player Chris Culliver took the proverbial ball of stupid and ran with it this year. After hack comedian Artie Lange asked him a hi-larious "So it's San Francisco, there must be gays on the team" joke-question, Culliver decided to hold court for a moment.

"I don't do the gay guys man," Culliver told Artie Lange ahead of the game. "I don’t do that. We don't got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do…can't be doin' that sweet stuff in the locker room man. Nah."

While I could focus on his curious word choice ("I don't do the gay guys" was what came to mind, Chris?) it's interesting to consider his comments in light of another piece of news that got little if any attention last week.

Former 49ers player Kwame Harris, a first round draft choice out of Stanford who played six undistinguished seasons in the NFL, was charged with felony domestic abuse stemming from an altercation in a restaurant with Dmitri Grier, an ex-boyfriend with whom he had lived previously. As a fan of a different NFC West team, I recall seeing Harris twice per year when we played the 49ers. So when I saw this news item I said, Oh, I remember that guy. Guess he's gay.

Nobody knew that until the charges were filed, which I assume attracted attention because "ex-NFL player charged with felony" is always good filler for sports journalists. During his time in the NFL, he kept this to himself. As the above comments from Culliver reflect, pro football might not be a very enjoyable environment in which to be "out".

What really gets me, though, is this part of Culliver's quote: "We don't got no gay people on the team…" Really? How do you know, Chris? Because in hindsight it appears that anyone on the 49ers for Harris' six seasons would have been wrong about that. And statistically, with 53 players on every NFL roster (plus countless coaches, trainers, staff, and other people "in the locker room") there's a good chance his statement is incorrect right now as well. Let's put it this way: there are 1500 active NFL players right now. The odds that zero of them are gay are…low. Extremely low.

What's surprising is not that Culliver made his comments, because I'm sure attitudes like that are common in the hyper-masculine environment of pro football, but that he or anyone else in the NFL would assume "There are no gay people here." The coincidental timing of the news item about Kwame Harris underscores the reality that "they" are everywhere. They might be keeping to themselves so they don't have to deal with your bullshit, but they're "in the locker room", in the stands, in your workplace, on the bus, serving your food, and in your church.

That's what I hope Chris Culliver and other players learn from this experience – there is no "gay-free zone" where it's OK to call people fags and air your theories about what kinds of people you find unacceptable. That players don't walk around with G-A-Y stamped across their forehead is not evidence that NFL locker rooms are tiny empires of heterosexuality.
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Over a decade ago when John Rocker made his infamously stupid comments about "queers with AIDS" on the New York subway, one of his teammates on the Atlanta Braves (if memory serves, Tom Glavine) was asked if he would accept a gay teammate.
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I remember him pausing for a second and saying, "Well, I probably already have." As much as it would shock him to learn, Culliver probably has too.
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My current home is a city that is very typical of the post-industrial Midwest. It was clearly a great place in the 1950s, and everything has gone straight downhill ever since. There's nothing special about it; the landscape is dotted with these places. Youngstown. Toledo. Muncie. Saginaw. Flint. Rochester. Binghamton. Scranton. Hartford. Reading. Peoria. Gary. Dayton. Rockford. If you've been to one, you've been to all of them.
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There are still people to be found there, but they've all fled to the suburbs. The "city" is a largely empty monument to an ancient civilization.

Accordingly, the nation's historical population centers in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest continue to shrink relative to the fast-growing states in the South and West. Much of the industry from the northern states has migrated to places like South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The rapid growth and economic expansion of the South in recent years is a source of great pride in the region. When I lived in Georgia, I noticed that the media and elected officials in particular delighted in, well, gloating about their success at the expense of higher-wage, cold winter states in the Midwest. And it is certainly true that a state like Georgia is growing by leaps and bounds while the Ohios and Michigans continue to wither away.

It is understandable that people in the South – especially the civic leaders and opinion-makers – are in a gloating mood. The giant new auto factories are being built in places like Chattanooga and Spartanburg and West Point, GA, not in Buffalo or Dearborn.

But I've always wondered if the bluster is genuine or merely an attempt to drown out the nagging realization that the Rust Belt is a glimpse into their own near future.

They like to brag that the "business-friendly environment" in the Red States (Translation: luring corporate employers with tens of millions of dollars in public money and the promise of an obedient workforce that will do anything one asks for $11/hr) is driving their growth. This is certainly true. However, if the new economy has taught us anything it's that there is always someone out there willing to undercut you. There's always some other city, state, or country willing to lay more subsidies, gifts, and tax breaks at the feet of manufacturers, and to promise an even cheaper and more exploitable workforce. The system has succeeded in creating enough dispossessed, desperate people that someone will always offer to do it for less.

So when the new rapid growing cities in the Sun Belt triple in size in a single decade, you have to wonder if they realize that in 20 years we'll be looking at them the same way they currently look at Detroit. All the money Mississippi lavishes on the industries it lures in will be a distant memory and the next group of suitors will be lining up and offering to cut their own throats. These companies don't care about the cities they were born in. They certainly do not care about some Southern cesspool that paid them to come carpetbagging into town in 2002.

If you've been to any of these places and seen the explosive (and unplanned) growth in Phoenix, the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, Atlanta, Charlotte-Raleigh-Durham, Birmingham, and so on, you can't escape the feeling that everything about them is temporary. The strip mall developments, the chain restaurants, the shoebox hotels, the blocks of identical, crappy "townhomes" that look like minimum security prisons or particularly stylish college dorms – none of it is built to last. It's as if the industries know that they're not going to be here long enough to bother with creating the illusion of permanence. Garland, TX is just a rest stop on the journey from Michigan to Mexico.

Read a million smug news items about Detroit and Cleveland if it makes you feel better, folks.
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It's going to happen to you in twenty years, too. I'm sure you understand, being "business friendly" and all, that it's not personal. Your new corporate friends are responsible to no one but the stockholders.

These new "cities" that have been created seemingly overnight will disappear just as quickly. At least up North we made buildings sturdy enough to stick around and remind us of better days. You'll never even know your strip malls and subdivisions were there.

From the briefs filed in the impending Supreme Court case in California's Prop 8:

Paul D. Clement, a solicitor general under President George W.
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Bush and now representing House Republicans, argued that marriage should be only for men and women because only straight couples can 'produce unplanned and unintended offspring."

By contrast, if gay people want to have a child, "substantial advance planning is required."

So planned children are – bad? And unexpected, possibly unwanted children are – good?

And that’s a sound legal argument against gay marriage?

According to Clement, yes, because "unintended children" born and raised out of wedlock "would pose a burden on society." As of 2010, about 40% of U.S. children are born out of wedlock, 10 times the number of 50 and 60 years ago. No one calls them "illegitimate" or "bastards" any longer, and their birth does not send their parents racing to the altar in order to shield the child from now-nonexistent shame – and to save "society" from the burden of supporting them.

I'm going to pause while you re-read that until you can figure out what in the hell they're even arguing. If at first glance it makes no sense whatsoever, do not adjust the contrast. You're perceiving things correctly.

You're used to me taking potshots at right-wingers for lacking ideas other than "Cut taxes" and "Fire cruise missiles at it." This, however, is not an example of people who are out of ideas. These are people who have a vast number of ideas, and all of them blow. These are people scrambling for something to plug the leak while their boat sinks. If it isn't time for full blown panic, it's close to it.

Recently I've noticed a trend – hearing people talk about these issues regularly over time gives me an interesting perspective on how the goalposts and talking points shift – toward perhaps the last plank of the anti-gay marriage platform that could reasonably be called a legal argument: the idea that gay marriage presents some demonstrable harm to society, and government can regulate such things in the public interest. It's really not hard to make conservatives turn purple when they toss this line at you; "So the government should ban things that could be argued to harm society. Like giant sodas? Guns? Violent movies? I thought you guys were against the nanny state."

Unless they're willing to take the football and run with it on that point, proudly championing the idea that government exists to criminalize that which might cause harm, they're really out of ammo in this fight. That's not to say that the Supreme Court will rule against them – Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy have a history of basically writing editorials as opinions on this issue, and who knows what Appeals to Tradition they will cite this time. But that's pretty much all they have left. Religious arguments. Moral arguments. Appeals to tradition and public opinion (which is quickly realigning against them on this issue). As far as their ability to build an actual case against legalizing gay marriage, this is shaping up to be a spectacle of mediocrity.

They might be out of gas, finally.

I have always considered and continue to consider gay marriage a Full Faith and Credit Clause issue; if one state issues a civil license, the Constitution plainly states that it is the obligation of other states to honor it. Your Vermont drivers' license is valid in Oklahoma, and so is your New York marriage license. The legal principle at work there changes not one bit when a state redefines marriage. Every state, for example, has different rules about the age at which people can marry without parental consent. Marriage is something people made up that governments see an interest in making an enforceable, legally binding contract. Its definition has changed and will continue to change. That we even have to waste time debating this is indicative of how thoroughly convinced religious conservatives are that their beliefs and the law are one and the same.

(Just a quick note: I felt like we all outgrew the previous name of the annual award given to the worst example of a human being, so it has been re-named in honor of perennial finalist and one-time winner Joe Lieberman. I'd like to take a moment to recognize Senator Lieberman for his long career of being a d-bag. If you're having a rough day, sit back and remember that Joe Lieberman is no longer an elected official. That's something.)

Election years are absolutely lousy with assholes, and the selection process for this award is a veritable embarrassment of shitheads. This year we met Jerry Sandusky (and his facilitators), E.L. James, Gotye, Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, Peggy Noonan, and perennial favorites like David Brooks, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum. How does one choose a single name from that pantheon of human detritus? This isn't even accounting for bleedingly obvious choices like Mitt Romney, Rush Limbaugh, and Eric Cantor pretty much any House Republican. And that's not even expanding the search outside of the United States.

I was very tempted to offer the award to Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler (oh, go ahead and just try to guess which party) for running on a jihad against the nonexistent problem of "voter fraud"…and then using public funds to travel to the RNC and to a voter suppression conference administered by an association of right-wing lawyers. Then I strongly considered Karl Rove, who challenged Budd Dwyer for the title of Most Emphatic Suicide on Live Television on election night. In reality, though, it was way too entertaining and enjoyable to serve as a year defining act of assholery.

Though I dislike the idea of giving the award to more than one person, the honest choice for 2012 has to be the GOP Rape Caucus – the candidates for the House and Senate who decided that the best way for the GOP to stay ahead of the social and demographic changes in the electorate is to take really, really batshit insane positions on abortion. Furthermore, if there's anything women voters (or non-voters) love, it's when a gray, wrinkled, dour-faced 65 year old white guy explains to them what rape is along with his special theories on the workings of the female reproductive system.

Three men in particular drove home this point in 2012. First, Todd Akin rejected exceptions in abortion legislation for rape because women cannot become pregnant from rape ("From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment. But the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.") Never before has the phrase "maybe that didn't work or something" been more indicative of a person's intellectual underpinnings. Richard Mourdock, running in a slam dunk Senate race in Indiana, then decided to tell everyone that pregnant rape victims should be forced to have the baby. Now there's a popular stance! Then Joe Walsh, running in a safe Illinois congressional district, told us that abortion is never necessary to protect the life and health of a pregnant woman. Tell us more, fellas!

Just so we're all clear, these three old rich white guys want to stand before rape victims and tell them you have to have that child. Because I said so. You take it from here, Joe Pesci in Raging Bull:

You've heard of Akin and Mourdock, but they were hardly alone among GOP Senate candidates in 2012. Turns out that 12 of the 33 opposed rape/incest provisions in abortion legislation. Akin and Mourdock became the poster boys for today's Republican: a reactionary, sanctimonious Know-Nothing trying his damnedest to drag the United States back to the 18th Century.

Their actions are in keeping with the smug, self-satisfied, and unctuous tradition of Joe Lieberman himself. Truly they are assholes of year-defining proportions.