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![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jducoeur | |
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In the wake of CA's court decision to legalize same-sex marriage, it looks to me like the issue is at a crisis point. How it plays out is going to depend *very* much on McCain -- and how he treats it will tell us a lot about him. Yes, we've been down this road before. But let's get real: everyone in the country knows about the Massachusetts Reality Warp (except maybe the people in this state, many of whom don't seem to understand just how weird a place this is). So when MA legalized gay marriage, it raised quite a hubbub, but in a certain sense it wasn't a threat -- most people could take say, "Oh, that's just that strange liberal state", and figure that it wouldn't happen anywhere else. But this time it's California. Still pretty liberal, but quite a bit more divided and representative of the country -- this is the state that brought us Ronald Reagan, after all. It's the biggest and richest state in the country, and it tends to be a long-term bellwether. So when *they* legalize it, both sides know that the ball is gaining momentum. I think most people are going to have the sense -- the quite accurate sense, I should add -- that if the gay-marriage movement isn't stopped within the next five years, it'll pretty much be unstoppable, since the demographic trends are on its side. So the religious right has only one tactic that makes any real sense: put pressure on McCain to change his stance, and support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The excuse they will use is that it's fighting "activist judges", who are perverting the country's morals. Their claim will be that, by turning this Presidential election into a referendum about holding a referendum, they will be able to rally the right once more, and take the White House. What will McCain do, if the conservatives push this? He's on the record as being against an amendment -- indeed, his public position is much like that of both Democrats, and if they all keep to their positions the issue will be relatively muted. (Which, mind, is the best likely outcome. We *will* win this, so long as we play the long game, winning victories state by state. The only chance of real defeat is if the conservatives can rally strongly enough to get and win a constitutional amendment now, which would likely set the whole thing back by decades.) Oh, sure -- there will be the battle over who gets to appoint the Supreme Court, which is somewhat relevant. But that just doesn't inspire the kind of fervor that an amendment could, especially since the conservatives *already* control the Court. But McCain isn't as consistent in his views as he would like to pretend, and he *is* a very serious conservative -- of the three candidates, he's the only one who I suspect is genuinely against gay marriage in principle. (As opposed to the Democrats, who are probably unsupportive mainly as a matter of sad but sensible political tactics.) I would say it's entirely plausible that he will find a way to amend his public stance in order to look more conservative -- he's done it before. Indeed, the only reason I consider it fairly likely that he won't is that he's already the Republican candidate, so he's tacking a bit more towards the center now. Still, this election is going to be all about rallying the troops. McCain doesn't have particularly deep support from the current core constituencies of the Republican Party, and his greatest danger is that they simply won't vote. Yes, he's got a lot of support from the center -- but much of that is predicated upon a persistent misimpression that he's a social moderate, and I think it's unlikely that that is going to survive the next few months. So he has a nasty political calculation to make, about whether he needs to do *something* that will not only make him look credible to the social conservatives, but make them passionate about voting for him. Will he change his stance? I dunno. I hope not for several reasons, not least that it would damage my already-wounded respect for the man. I would be much happier to see him stick to his guns: being a man of principle is about actions when the stakes are high. If he does switch to supporting an amendment, everyone should prepare for what will likely turn into the real ground battle over gay marriage -- given the timing and circumstances, I suspect that this would be the biggest and most important fight over the issue. So let's hope for status quo, but be ready for possible rapid escalation of the issue... Tags: politics
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thebitterguy | |
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Okay, so yesterday while waiting for our dinner to be prepares, Cynra & I went to get some bathing products for me. I'd lost my soap and poofy at the Wellness centre, so we got a new poofy and some of that fancy body washing stuff (now with exfoliant!) So, after this morning's quick round of the Wellness Centre's machines, YHB hosed himself off and took his act on the road. Perched myself at my desk and started dealing with the clients. Then, I noticed my head was itchy. So I scratched it. ( I suppose this might be TMI if you're some kind of robot )And for the record, right now I am not that glad I use Dial. Anyway, when I tried to text Cynra about the morning's events, I learned that my phone does not know either Exfoliate or Dandruff. Tags: hair, health, married life
Current Mood:  kinda freaked
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theferrett | |
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This tower of geekitude has at least a hundred rooms, and each of them seems to reference some sort of nerdy thing. I wish I could get all of them, even though there are some repeats (HAL shows up at least twice). But it's amazing work. If you are a survivor of rape or sexual abuse, Shadesong is holding a healing ritual. It is, as she says, "An attempt to exchange shared pain for peace. A way of reaching out across the dark and sharing love." And if you want, she can light a candle for you to hold you in her heart. Zombie Squad is "an elite zombie suppression task force ready to defend your neighborhood from the shambling hordes of the walking dead...When the zombie removal business is slow we focus our efforts towards educating ourselves and our community about the importance of disaster preparation. To satisfy this goal, we host disaster relief charity fundraisers, disaster preparation seminars, and volunteer our time towards emergency response agencies." Incredibly cool. I got a handout at Penguicon, and it was amazingly useful. (I do have an emergency preparation kit.)
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![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) gothamist | |
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http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=6046684919111271c158700600e8d0c7 http://gothamist.com/2008/05/16/john_darnielle.php  John Darnielle may be best known for his band The Mountain Goats, but he's also the latest blogger with a book; this weekend he's in town as both a musician and an author.
Tomorrow night Darnielle will read from his book, the latest in the 33 1/3 series, about Black Sabbath's Master of Reality; which he wrote through the voice of a 15-year-old boy who's been institutionalized. Before taking a seat at Housing Works on Saturday, he'll get on stage at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple with The Mountain Goats as the band headlines the AIDS Walk benefit (tickets).
Earlier this week he told us about the 15-year-old fictional Roger Painter, playing at the Knitting Factory, and, of course, death metal.
On your Flickr account you caption the photo of your book by saying your first ambition was to be a writer. Did you ever pursue that until now? Do you think you'll publish something else in the future? No, I didn't pursue it - I mean, I did a little, just before I started the Mountain Goats I was writing poetry and starting to get published. But then I sorta channeled all my energy into music for a long time. I am writing another book for sure, I gotta be honest, writing a book gives a sort of jolt that's new and really exciting to me, and I work best when I'm excited.
Why ultimately did you choose writing songs over books? I don't know how most people come to do what they do but for me anyway it's not like I sat down with a list of my options and went "I shall now choose to do this! Because this is what I desire to do!" You know? I am not really a rational plan-it-out dude like that. I'm a nurse by nature and vocation, I just sort of started writing songs one day because I was sitting around my room thinking about Frankie Valli, and things kinda snowballed from there. If writing books was a quicker process I might have ended up being an author earlier.
Are there any other ambitions that have been put on the back burner? Hmm. Gotta think about this for a minute - maybe yeah, I have thoughts of writing symphonic music sometimes. I really doubt I have the melodic or harmonic chops to do that by myself - I would need somebody to push me, you know, and shake me out of my comfort zone. I have thought about asking some people to see if they want to write something really ambitious in that way. But it's more of a vague thought than an ambition, I think the word ambition is maybe kind of dangerous. I prefer "thoughts."
Did you learn anything new about Black Sabbath writing this book? Oh for sure - I hardly knew the bio at all. I didn't use a lot of the information I learned in the book except as background, but, like, especially all the stuff that happened during the Ozzy's-absence interim - whole huge hilarious incredible story in there, they were on I.R.S. for a minute & there was one album that was basically an Iommi solo joint that they had to call "Black Sabbath" anyway - really this amazing lost-in-the-wilderness narrative that was totally fascinating to me.
Was your first instinct to write it through a character (Roger Painter) other than yourself? Actually I initially called the narrator "John Darnielle," but realized this was a bad idea. But I wanted to tell a story, you know - stories are always what are most powerful for me.
What were you listening to at Roger's age, 15? Lou! Lou Reed all day. 15 was my big year of Lou. I was buying bootlegs, cut-outs, any Lou I could get my hands on. I was the only guy I knew who'd even ever seen a copy of the solo debut. I was listening to Bowie too. By the end of my 15th year I was really started to get into some Iron Maiden if I remember right.
Radar just put out a feature on death metal, and they say, "At its best, extreme metal is music for those who—to adopt the parlance of Black Flag—would rather rise above than skip along." Do you think you keep a balance of rising above and skipping along? Can someone "kind of" like death metal? Sure, I don't think you have to be neck-deep in the stuff to enjoy it - I don't believe in prescribing how people can like stuff. You know, lots of death metal dudes find their own work really funny and goofy - it's just that, unlike indie bands, they don't think they have to telegraph their punches in that regard. You know? It's like, you can put on a deadly serious face and still be cracking jokes.
What bands are you listening to right now (death metal and otherwise)? This morning I woke up and listened to the new Jamie Liddell, which I've been doing pretty much every morning since it came out. Then I listened to Lord Jamar's The Five Percent Album, and I really enjoyed it, so I listened to a Sadat X album. These are the dudes who used to be in Brand Nubian, hardcore 5% dudes. They make great music, I do wish they'd lay off the homophobia but as a death metal fan I'm kind of used to listening to music I dig that's also a little objectionable. Yesterday I listened to old early death metal all day: Sarcofago and Autopsy. Gotta say fuck yeah to Autopsy, that there is one of the best bands ever. So is Sarcofago of course. Also really enjoying the new Breeders album.
A few years back you played Knitting Factory and said whenever you came back after that, you'd always play there, but the venues have gotten bigger and bigger since...what gives?! Yeah I sorta didn't expect things to get as big as they did. People complain mightily if you keep playing rooms that're too small to hold all the people who wanna get in - the rooms get uncomfortably packed, half the people inside are pissed that they can't get up close enough, people email me to say "your show sold out before I could get tickets, c'mon be a bro and guest list me and my friends, eh?" and it just becomes clear that you gotta move up to bigger rooms in order to keep people happy. Except the people who're taking notes about the drunken ramblings of a guy who's just finishing up a good set at the Knitting Factory of course ;)
Do you have a favorite place to play in NYC? At this point I don't, really - we've been moving around a little the last few times through. The place I'd want to play most is the Sugar Bar, though - kind of a dream to meet Ashford & Simpson, they're legends to me.
Do you have a favorite "only in New York" story? I am sorry to report to you that I don't. Only the stories I make up are interesting, my real-life stories tend to be of the "I had a delicious sandwich and then I watched Law & Order" variety.
Which New Yorker do you most admire? This is a tough question and it depends on whether you want natives-only or people who came to be from NYC. If the latter I gotta go with either DJ Kool Herc. If it's gotta be natives, gimme Edith Wharton.
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gothamist | |
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http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=f53a4f3594119b30662b7e9a6347d12d http://gothamist.com/2008/05/16/robber_targets.php  The police are searching for a man who robs subway passengers during their morning commutes. He targets his victims on the subway platform, grabs their purses and then runs into the subway tunnels.
The suspect has committed four robberies in the past five days, all during the morning rush hour, all with female victims. Here's a list of the robberies, via WNBC: The man first struck at approximately 8:30 a.m. Sunday on the L subway at 14th Street and First Avenue, police said. The man approached a 24-year-old female who was sitting on a platform bench, grabbed her purse and then fled, police said.
Two days later, at about 9:20 a.m. on the 1 subway at Seventh Avenue South and Christopher Street, the suspect approached a 38-year-old woman, grabbed her purse and then fled.
The next morning, at about 9:05 a.m., the same man is believed to have approached a 30-year-old woman on the L subway at 14th Street and Third Avenue, grabbed her purse and then fled into the subway tunnel for a third time.
His most recent attack was just after 7:30 a.m. on the northbound 6 platform at Lafayette and Bleeker streets. He is said to have approached a 27-year-old woman’s purse before fleeing into the subway tunnel. The NYPD released a sketch of the suspect, described as a man who is age 30 to 35 years old and approximately 5'9", with a medium build. Call Crimestoppers (800-577-TIPS) with any information.
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theferrett | |
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One of my favorite roleplaying settings of all time is Deadlands – a juicy little setting that combines westerns, steampunk, Cthulhu, alternate history, time travel, and zombies into a rich, tasty package.
Unfortunately, Deadlands is also the poster child for a style of roleplaying I love that is always doomed to failure.
But lemme fill you in a bit on the Deadlands history first. See, in 1863, a group of Indians had had enough with being beaten down by the white man, so a batch of them travelled secretly to the Hunting Grounds and broke the bonds on all the evil Manitou that had been bound there to release magic back to the world.
The first the white men found out about this was on the field of Gettysburg, where the North and South shot at each other. And as each man fell, they rose as zombies and chewed both sides to bits.
The Indian nations, fueled by magic, suddenly thundered forth to carve out a territory of their own, and both the North and South found themselves fighting on two fronts, unable to make headway. Ten years later, they’re still at a grudging war, brought to a virtual standstill.
The white man’s also learned to use magic, which they do by playing cards with the Manitou, betting their very souls to cast spells. And they’ve also learned how to fuse magic with mad science, creating all sorts of crazy ghost rock-fuelled gadgets.
But the Manitou are evil, and their end goal was to turn the world into a place of utter fear and terror so the Reckoners could be unleashed. The wars were good, but they wanted more – so they created the foulest monsters, dredged up from the subconscious, and now all sorts of ghoulies and critters are roaming the Weird West that need to be defeated.
Enter the heroes.
The nice thing about Deadlands is that it clearly has a Story, and each sourcebook advanced that tale a little. You’d get the latest supplement and discover “Oh, the North’s now in control of Shan Fan,” or find that in fact the plots that Character X had to make a railway to the West Coast had fallen apart. And there were rich secrets to be discovered (my favorite? Discovering that the leader of the Southern Confederate Alliance had been taken over by a doppelganger bent on hell and destruction).
Things happened when you weren’t around. Which was an incentive to pick up the new books. You had movers and shakers in the Weird West that you got attached to, and wanted to see what happened to them.
Now, Deadlands isn’t perfect. It has perhaps the most flavorful mechanic system ever devised, using both poker chips and a deck of cards – so cool - but the mechanics are complex and difficult to learn. Worse, some of the characters are outright useless (I played a Huckster, the guy who plays cards with demons, only to have them admit in later supplements that you wound up getting fried three times as often as the other PCs).
And Deadlands is the deadliest game around, if you play it straight out of the box. You have to make Guts checks every time you encounter a monster, which pretty much kills you, and every firefight is deadly. They have pre-planned adventures, but looking at them and the stingy rewards you get at the end of them, one wonders how any PCs survived to the end of any of them.
But the real problem with Deadlands? It has a Story to tell.
See, I’ve been rereading the supplements lately (when I’m down, RPGs are my comfort reading), and I couldn’t remember how the story ended. I remembered that everything did in fact get wrapped up and the Reckoners were disposed of, but I was surprised given how well I remembered the rest of it that I couldn’t remember the ending.
So I read Unity, the final Deadlands supplement. And remembered how terrible it was.
The story was actually pretty good. It wrapped up things. But as an adventure, which it was supposed to be, it sucked.
Unity is pretty much this:
“Go here and fail to save this important character who does better things than you do, who must die to advance the plot. Then go here and have another important character save your bacon from the hordes of evil armies. Then a third important character handles the Reckoners for you, and you play his errand boy.”
The thing is, I like dynamic worlds. As a reader, I like RPGs that have some movement – the world of D&D isn’t that interesting to me, mainly because it never really changes. Deadlands is great because it feels like history.
As a player, however, I want the ability to affect that. And when you have A Story to tell, you can’t really knock it far off-track. If you somehow, via a Herculean effort, manage to kill the mayor of Shan Fan and take control, you have now diverged from the official storyline and all future supplements don’t apply to you. And if you can’t do that, then what’s the point of roleplaying?
As a GM, I try to allow my characters to attempt anything. There are some things they’re vastly unlikely to succeed at, and some things that are downright foolish – as in, “If you do this, I am not going to attempt to pull your fat out of the fire, which may lead to a TPK” – but they can try anything. And in some cases, they’ve succeeded wildly.
When you have A Story, however, that’s hard to do. The PCs can’t stop the Modron March, or if they do then whoops the future supplements are worthless. That’s a bad place to be in. You have to leave the villains there for other PCs to fight.
Deadlands tried gamely to fight this. They had the rule of “If you stat it, they will kill it,” so wisely they did not give statistics for the biggest and most vital player characters. And they held votes from various groups around the world – if enough PCs succeeded in this module here, then the official storyline would reflect that victory. If they failed, then the storyline would reflect the failure.
But in the end, Deadlands, though a compelling read, is ultimately a failure as a roleplaying game because it puts the characters in a little box. And that’s never fun.
Sadly, my favorite game, Planescape, did that as well… But that’s a story for another day.
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Previous 
There are more answers and questions regarding the disappearance of a NJ woman from a cruise ship. The Norwegian Cruise Line company said surveillance videos show 46-year-old Mindy Jordan