The Internet Delivers Cocktail-Quaffing Sheep with Automatic Weapons!

The other day, economist Brad Delong asked, "What Good Is an Internet That Cannot Produce a Picture of Newt Gingrich Pursued by Cocktail-Quaffing Sheep with Automatic Weapons?"

To understand this question, you have to look back at the political week. Last Sunday, Newt Gingrich went on Meet The Press, where he described the Ryan Plan (you know, the one that would replace Medicare with a coupon system, effectively condemning half of America's grandmothers and grandfathers to death panels run not by doctors but by accountants) as "Right Wing Social Planning," among other things.

Gingrich is a regular on Meet The Press, so his damage control the following day was hilarious. He said, "I made a mistake, so quoting anything I said Sunday would be fraudulent going forward," and "I wasn't ready for 'gotcha' questions." Really, Newt? David Gregory, who you've sparred with dozens of times, finally nailed you with a 'gotcha' question? Watching the Gingrich campaign have a full-on meltdown as the right wing called for his blood has been ecstacy-inducing for those of us who love this game.

But then, in a moment that must be the epic of all epics of campaign ridiculousness, Gingrich campaign spokesman Rick Tyler wrote a letter describing the press (who have the audacity to misrepresent Gingrich by quoting him in full, with context. How dare they!) as "literati" and "sheep."

Not only do you have to read the (short) press release, but you have to read the comic version. Only then will you grasp the full epicness of it. This is Donald Rumsfeld's "Known Knowns" on acid!

Oh, and it gets better! I am totally and completely asquee! This made Pepsi squirt out of my nose! (No, really, it did. Ow! But it was so worth it!)

John Lithow performs a dramatic reading of the Gingrich campaign press release, verbatim, unchanged.

I'm not reading this right, am I?

I'm trying to parse this sentence, in an article about The Feminist Porn Awards:

The vast majority of explicit material is made for a male audience; at best, it is degrading, and at worst it is often physically harmful to the women featured in it.

I'm trying to figure out what the writer is saying here. Is she saying, "The vast majority of explicit material is degrading to women"? Or is she saying, "Explicit material made for a male audience is, at its best, degrading to women"?

If it's the first, I can see how someone could make that argument. It's an arguable position. I think it shows a deep misunderstanding of the marketplace of porn, and what porn is, who makes it, and who consumes it.

But it seems to me that she's making the second, which I would argue is not only not true, but it's deliberately and viciously androphobic. The assumption is that male pornography consumers (and creators) can only be expected to be degraders of women, and nothing more.

---

I also find the rest of the article degrading, as a man. The idea that "'depicting a woman thrust up against a nightclub wall by a man and [redacted] hard' is degrading" is degrading. I wouldn't mind being thrust up against a nightclub wall and [redacted] hard myself, by either a hot man or a hot woman. It's not the act, it's matters of consent and context.

(no subject)

Stormy and her Hat

The hotel rooms are actually kinda nice. Not fabulous, but the AC works, the shades actually cover the entire window (when helped with a pair of clothespins, naturally), the bathroom isn't horrible. The shower latch on the tub sticks, but after tugging hard it comes up and you get decent water pressure.

The soap says it contains "marine extracts." So that's what happened to Sarge.

My roommate is Scott, a decent guy so far. Straight shooter given to wearing the high-contrast knit shirts of a salesman. And sure enough, that's what he is: he sells airplanes.

I met up with my crew of three young women and we scouted the neighborhood for lunch. It took a while, but eventually we found a Korean burger joint in a strip mall with a submarine sandwich shop and a smoothie joint. I had a straight burger and fries, neither of which were worth reporting on.

My diet is taking a heck of a hit here.

We got back on the bus for a ride to Fullerton College, where the actual competition was scheduled to be on Friday. The band was scheduled to be in a "clinic," where someone from the judge's group (but not scheduled to be one of their judges) worked with the band for an hour to try and improve their performance presentation. That left

The Choir in Rehearsal

the choir free to run around. Stormy and her friends made a game of throwing Storm's hat off an outdoor stairwell, of the kind common in sunny, beautiful lands like South California. I ended up herding eight young women at some point, and I have to say only this: Castle Anthrax probably wasn't as much fun as it sounded. The giggles were crazy-making, and the smell was terrible. It might even have been what caused Sir Galahad to be so pure.

The choir had their practice, and eventually we headed back to the hotel, for dinner at Downtown Disneyland, a narrow alleyway on the east side of Disney property where all the stores are isolated and made accessible to passers-through. Anyone who wants to buy Disney merch can walk through without buying a ticket.

It was a mile walk. One of the three young women with my group was already looking peaked even before we got there. As we walked there, we saw on the other side of a fence all of the high schoolers lining up for Grad Night, an all-night extravaganza that Disneyland puts on for paying customers. As we walked passed it, I gestured and told the girls, "Behold, The Slathering Zombie Horde. Let's get this done before they escape their cage."

One of my girls' requirements was to find live music. That was easy. There were Disney-approved street performers. The first was the most depressing. One of the most notable lead singers of one of the most important punk bands of the 1980s, and this guy playing hammered dulcimer had reduced it to a Muzaky, ballady thing. It was horrible. (I don't care what you say, "Neuromancer" wasn't that tragic an album.) The second played a mean flamenco guitar, but a shame about the terrible backing music he chose on his synth.

Brother Yusef

The third, Brother Yusef, was fairly awesome. Entirely on his own, stomping out a beat with a tambourine around his ankle while he belted a mean blues, it was still, well... how blue can the blues be, when it has been approved to be played in the Happiest Place on Earth?

The Disneyland restaurants were all too expensive for our budgets, so we hit out for the Dennys down the street. I told everyone to call their loved ones and make sure they know we're all still alive, and then we headed back to the hotel.

My diet has been terrible. I know, I said that, but grief, I never realized how easy Seattle makes it to eat healthy.

Dammit, forgot to draw today.

Friday, In Anaheim!

Sand Sculpture

I slept okay for the strange hotel arrangement. I usually don't have much trouble sleeping in a strange bed. I woke, showered, shaved and joined my three giggling troops. We went to Starbucks; it was the closest place, and we were revolted to find they didn't have hot food.

Grief, it's expensive to live in LA. A latte costs $4.60.

Our expedition of the morning was to Huntington Beach. The weather was 63F and cloudy. Omaha informed me over IM that it was 70 and sunny in Seattle. The bus ride was as long as last night's, but made better because this time I had remembered a book, The Stepsister Scheme. We passed by an enormous oil-fired generator plant, another reminder of the infrastructure that keeps people alive here. There was also a gigantic church, and a rotting leftover of the once unstoppable Thomas Kincade empire.

We wandered up the beach, watching the National Scholastic Surfing Competition going on there. It wasn't very exciting, mostly because we had arrived between rounds. The boys rented a cheap volleyball from a beach house and played against the girls. Then they ganged up and buried one of the boys in the sand. This was definitely a case where I should not interfere.

Stormy by Sand Sculpture

We passed by a gorgeous sand sculpture that was highly romantic; someone had used the sculpture to propose to his girlfriend; the hand-lettered response was "She said yes!" on the lee side. There was also some awesome work of whales, and a reproduction of the Huntington Beach pier.

The girls gawked at a beautiful young boy surfing in the waves as we wandered up the pier, then we went inland for lunch. This place is your classic tourist trap. Stormy joined us, as did her friend and a boy. Lunchtime arrived, so we stopped at a place called Bomburgers where Soviet-style kitsch poster art suggested "Burgers for everyone!" The special was $5, well within our budgets, so it was a deal. The burger was meh, the fries awesome in that "deep fried in something tragically bad for you" way.

While we were there, Stormy gave me a hug. "Oh my god, you're wearing that aftershave." She turned to her friends. "You have to smell my dad. He smells sooo good."

"I am not smelling your dad. I'm good. Really."

Eventually, it was time to return to the hotel and get ready for the entire point of this adventure: the competition. On the way back, we passed by a store that advertised the sold "12 Step Materials." I'm like, really? That's your selling point?