#Ferguson Redux

If Bill Cosby were in Ferguson, the first thing he would do is rape someone.... Then the second thing he would do is criticize blacks.

I was a young child during the LA Riots back in '92, and though I didn't participate in those riots, I can tell these present riots are for rank amateurs. Like the rioters out here, they're not demonstrating outrage so much as damaging other people's property. The rioters aren't violent enough to be revolutionaries and are not peaceful enough to be protestors. They are posers--pseudo-revolutionaries--and most hate the cops more than they have been victimized by the police. They hide amongst the legitimate protestors, so really, I would just stay home. The rioters are ruining the legitimate points that you might be making about racial profiling and police brutality. And here's what's going to happen: Business people will not want to build in Ferguson--not for a decade--and the land will become blighted. And this wouldn't be the cops' fault. Because one black guy was killed in self-defense, this place is going to get worse, not better. There is no dialogue--and any dialogue that might occur would lead to shouting and mutual recriminations. Cops come and go, but these riots will last long in Missourians' (Missourites'?) minds. Long after Wilson is dead, the history books will speak of those assholes who burned down a piece of Missouri.

Of course, this really isn't about the one black guy. The media--especially the rightwing media--are attempting to condense this into a Mike Brown/Ferguson PD issue. We are supposedly recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression--a recovery that has largely benefited the wealthy/middle-class more than the poor. In 2014, some people still cannot believe a brown guy named "Hussein" could have been born in America. Voter ID laws (that prevent blacks from voting) are good but gun control laws (that might protect blacks' right to stay alive) are evil. Screwdrivers and hoodies are burglar tools. Don't film cops because they're shy.

These systemic issues do not change certain problems with the DA's case: Scanning the grand jury transcript, the pro-Brown witnesses did not understand that their recollections were wrong. They didn't see lies as lies, and they repeated what they thought members of THEIR community wanted to hear: Brown had his hands up, and he wasn't fighting back. Some of the prosecution's witnesses didn't see what happened but were repeating hearsay. And the forensic evidence supported the defense. The video of Brown assaulting another man supported the defense. A grand jury could indict a ham sandwich, and thus the case for self-defense was so strong that Wilson does not have the culpability of a ham sandwich. (What does need to be explained was the apparent shift in the police's story that Brown was stopped for the violent robbery that he'd just committed, not walking in the street.)

Meanwhile Wilson does himself no favors by speaking. His conscious is clear, which are HIS exact words. (He said this--Google it!) Really? No regrets? I know almost nothing about Darren Wilson, but I can think up at least one thing that he did wrong in his life. I can think up one thing he did wrong. When you kill someone, you should show remorse for your actions--even if it was just in self-defense, not murder. Nope. He has no regrets. I like Darren Wilson a whole lot less now. He was once a good cop, but he'll never be a cop again.

The protestors are legitimate in putting forth the issue of police corruption. I have the creeping suspicion that whites would care a lot more about what's happening in Ferguson if a Chipolte were burning. The immaturity of the rioters has been used as an example of the animalistic behavior of blacks. Plus they probably voted for Obama, including the ones under 19.

The thug Mayor Rudy Giuliani exemplifies the problems with so many of the rioters' critics by pointing out this: Well, black people are always killing each other too--so why not agents of the government? He is a LAWYER! He should know that's not how the law works, damnit! Just because black guys are shooting each other doesn't give cops permission to shoot them too--y'know, get in on the action. Soon all Americans will run out of black guys to shoot. Then white people will have to start importing them--from somewhere.

Giuliani's points are based on the neo-racist notion that most black people agree with conservatives and that racism no longer exists. In antebellum America, slaveholders believed that blacks revolted not because they were legitimately outraged but because outside agitators (white liberals) were turning them against their benevolent masters. The police are totally honest and not racist at all. The "race hustlers" ( re Al Sharpton--always with Sharpton) and the media are tricking black people into believing the status quo is racist. Now there are rumblings that Brown's stepfather should be prosecuted for "inciting" these riots. (In his anger that the government just killed his son, he expressed support for tearing down the government.) Shockingly, in this story, only the black guy might end up being sent to prison.

Ferguson PD, demonstrating how big their balls are, have demanded the NFL should apologize to them for inflaming racial tensions after several Rams performed the "hands up" protest gesture. (Oh, and to the people of American, putting your hands up is a good call when confronted by the police--this movement is more sarcastic than I would like to see.) Of all the evils of the NFL, they are not causing riots. They are in the unenviable positions of having to choose between showing support for law enforcement and abiding by the cops' sheer stupidity.

Rudy Giuliani, however, is a certified asshole. Unlike Mitt Romney, it feels like Giuliani is an asshole to his own family, which makes him a very special asshole. He should go back to New York and try to exploit 9/11 some more.

Bill Cosby: Scooby-deebee-do, I'm going to rape you!

Called it.

Called it.

Called it on iTunes.

Lena Dunham: Not a pedophile!

There are so many reasons to hate Lena Dunham. She is a hipster-poser whose parents never pointed out that she wasn't special as they sent her to a liberal arts college. She's like the JD Salinger of girls who've had a boyfriend. She's the Woody Allen minus the life experience. She's not as stupid as a Kardashian-Jenner, but she's not as attractive as one. However, recently people have been claiming that Dunham is also a pedophile because of some questionable passages in her latest book concerning her own sexual exploration, which I will not name, because I don't want to promote her.

There are a serious of problems with their allegations. For starters, pre-sexual people cannot be sex offenders, since being an offender requires knowledge of the inappropriateness of their behavior and a desire to receive sexual gratification from their conduct with youths or unwilling partners. Dunham's critics are contorting reality in claiming that she is currently or was ever a part of such perversion. Dunham's actual perversion is reason enough to criticize her.

Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Jerry Seinfeld, Wilmder Valderrama, Mila Kunis (probably), Karl Malone, Ted Nugent, Justin Timberlake, Steven Tyler, that Asian guy who's dating Lorde--all these people received sexual stimulation from people under the age of 18, and thus are better examples of pedophiles. Taylor Swift was 19 when she dated 17-year-old Taylor Lautner, but I'm not sure what encompassed dating the teenage Swift. Maybe a lot of handholding and unicorn drawing as she gathered material for her next album on everything you're doing wrong.

[There is a double-standard in May-December relationships that favor women. (South Park addressed this excellently. Nice.) This can be seen in cases where a teacher--almost always a woman--has a sexual relationship with a teen. And some of these teachers were hot. I mean, unusually hot. Lena Dunham is not hot. She does not look good naked. (Take. A. Clue.) However, this does not entail incest.]

In talking about her masturbating habits, she is relating how ludicrous her sleeping arrangement was at this time, and I'm wondering what her parents were thinking in forcing kids to share beds when there was presumably no financial need to. She was not testifying that she enjoyed touching herself near her sister--she was saying the exact opposite. She was using an analogy, not making a confession. It is an analogy that any man with a lick of common sense would never use, but Dunham is neither a man nor does she have a lick of common sense. Dunham is a needy runt (switch out a letter), and her behavior towards her sister was not molestation but a manifestation of that. What we should take of this is Lena Dunham lacks self-awareness.

Dunham does herself no favor by blaming rightwingers or men for taking her comments out of context. This was a ploy of rally their troops before the midterm. This is "slut shaming," as she would claim. I disagree. No, no one cares about what Lena Dunham thinks, politically, so there is no reason to attack her. You're Taylor Swift but you have a TV show and you're not pretty, Lena Dunham. You're also not Hillary Clinton, who witnessed real oppression of women in the real world, not Manhattan or Hollywood.

A normal woman would not have written about such things. Dunham is of the generation that believes that even the most humiliating things should be written about and thus recorded for posterity. These things are things that you're supposed to take to your grave--same as Michelle Phillips's acknowledgement that she once had a sexual relationship with her father. But Dunham has nothing else to write about.

The Amanda Show...

Let me tell you a story about a family member of mine. We will call him "TJ," because I want to protect his privacy and because I've always wanted to know a TJ. TJ was a quirky child, but not so quirky as other members of our family. He was bright and active. He was a striver and a hardworker who merely dreamed of entering the American middle class and having a family. He went to a college, got a degree, got a decent-paying job. He moved out on his own. Immediately around this time--in his early 20s--TJ's drinking increased. He began doing drugs--weed and mushrooms. He became difficult to work with and he drove erratically. He began hanging out with people he shouldn't have. To all of us, he seemed to have had a drug and alcohol problem--that would be the logical conclusion. The simpler conclusion is normally the correct one.

In a period of a few months around 2001-2002, his behavior spun completely out of control. He lost his job, lost his car--and it was impossible to get an explanation out of him as to how exactly he lost his job and car. He cashed in his 401K--to buy more drugs and booze. He became difficult to talk to, even when he was sober. For another decade, he drifted between a meatpacking plant in Nebraska, a cult and group housing. Eventually his father did intercede--enough to get him his own place and a medication schedule that he would both accept and calm him down if not necessarily make him "better."

Now TJ has a home, but he spends his days drinking beer and watching TV. He likes football.  He has no chance of getting another job because he is so non-personable. Sometimes he gets so drunk that he shits himself. He has more friends than me.

We were all entertained by Amanda Bynes downfall at first, namely when she announced that she was quitting acting, the one thing that she had clearly excelled out. She had acted her entire life, without exaggeration: She started doing stand-up as a child, before transitioning to the Nick network, then the WB. She did mediocre teen movies that nonetheless made money, and she could've made many more if she wanted to. Her Twitter feed became erratic--with her desire to be vaginally murdered by Drake and her use of "ugly" as  catchall to describe anyone whom she didn't like. She pierced her face. (There's no better sign that you don't want to return to acting than piercing your face.) Then it became apparent to those of us who know anything about psychiatry that there was suddenly something wrong with her. Suddenly it became less funny. You didn't need to know her personally or have a psychiatric background to know that there was a mental issue in play here--but I knew long before. She was a "good girl" throughout her youth, then she became acting completely bizarre in her early 20s. (Lindsay Lohan: not crazy.)

In recent months, Bynes' parents had refused to acknowledge their daughter's psychiatric problems--she's doing fine. She's just a brat. She smokes too much weed. Her stint at one of the FIDM recently ended on account of her belligerence and apparent paying other students to do her assignments. The now infamous YouTube clip of her shopping certainly cleared a few things up for them--and the world--and she's now been pressed into rehab for possible schizophrenia and bipolar.

It is fortunate that Bynes has the resources to receive help--even if that help is commitment to a hospital. There is no cure, and there probably never will be.

Stephen Collins, Jennifer Lawrence: Caught with their pants down--not together; that would be weird.

We've learned a lot of things from recent leaked this year. Kate Upton is dating down. Apparently Anna Kendrick likes pot and coke. Jennifer Lawrence, however, is the biggest star to have her images leaked to the Internet via a third party--still, the revelations concerning veteran actor Stephen Collins's predilections are actually the most destructive.

Ladies, that part of your body is only meant to be seen by you, Jesus, your husband and America's medical professionals. Lock it down, ladies. Lock it down. There. I fixed sexting. Next controversy! Ebola?

Honestly, I never got the appeal of vaj shots. I always assumed that women were smarter than that. (A giant penis warrants a "da fuck?") Almost 15 years since Pamela Anderson had a sex tape featuring her and ex-husband Tommy Lee stolen from their home, it should be assured that celebrities have learned nothing about filming their private moments. If anything, owing to technology, celebs have gotten worse at capturing their shame for posterity. Benjamin Franklin said that three people can keep a secret if two are dead. Now there's the fuckin' cloud. Try killing a cloud. Go ahead. I'll wait. Get your gun and go outside of your house, then pick a cloud at random, and go shoot that sucker. See?... Oh my God--I hope you didn't just discharge a firearm into the air!

Lawrence's first comments discussing this matter were spot on: Her privacy has been violated. She did not intend for this images to be released to the public. The leakers were disrespectful towards women. As a matter of common sense, we are all entitled to privacy, as consenting adults. Lawrence has a point here, if only via a strawman argument: That Lawrence was publicizing these images--no, no one is claiming that she has been. However, Lawrence produced these images. She transmitted them. She's now trying to distract from her bad decisions by blaming people who had done worst, and I don't approve of that--but, yeah. Other people had done worse in this case than transmitting homemade porn via email to another person.

Lawrence should've stopped speaking there. However, she went on: "Anybody who looked at those pictures, you're perpetuating a sexual offense," Lawrence told Vanity Fair. "You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, 'Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.' I don't want to get mad, but at the same time I'm thinking, I didn't tell you that you could look at my naked body." And on: "It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he's going to look at you."

I'm 99% sure that he looked at both your nudes AND porn, Jennifer. Because it is my understanding that Nic is a dude, and that's how men roll. There's really no well-defined quota to how much nudity that men intend to see. We are never full. Additionally, Hoult probably shared them with numerous male friends. (Sir Ian McKellan looked at them, and he said: "Sweeeet." Exact quote.) Did any boyfriend in Lawrence's past tell her he needed a constant stream of her nude or else he would look at porn or maybe go gay? Was this a ransom situation where a man was threatening to switch teams unless he was provided with a ransom, and Lawrence was forced to pay this ransom by sending in photos of her boobs? Well...was it?

No one needs permission from Jennifer Lawrence to look at images of Jennifer Lawrence. She opened a door, and the breeze came in. She's personally offended that people are looking at images that she created--she crafted a message, then she tried to control the deliverance of a message. Don't be an Anne Hathaway.

Celebrities have long been the first to act as early adapters for new technology--including social networks--while simultaneously refusing to socialize with their legions of fans. For too long, sexy celebs have been living the high life (hey, another Anna Kendrick joke!), exposing themselves to the public thru their celebrity-whoredom but not wanting to own up to it. Some of them are cool with you--to a point--as they put on a façade of self-deprecation. The Fappening took them down a notch. The one thing most shocking, besides the volume of data stolen, was how non-shocking these images are.

In contrast to the hackers, Stephen Collins, has apparently committed sex crimes beyond the digital world. Horrible sex crimes. He allegedly intentionally exposed his genitals to very young girls, and tried to get them to touch him. His career is over. (He knows this, resigning from SAG and slinking away. Consult his attorney.) Unless this is a hoax, we won't be seeing him in mainstream entertainment anymore. Questions remain as to why the police can't find the victims, who are clearly being named in the leaked tapes, and why it took two years for these tapes to be leaked. Why did wife Faye remain married to this creep? His salvation will arrive when these tapes are exposed as a hoax, but this event will not happen. We know this because Collins's message is one of embarrassed defeat.

Over ten years of episodes--down the tube! No, this series has been rendered unwatchable! This is not an exaggeration. Collins was in literally every episode--he was the anchor of the show--and now no one can watch the series without wondering what was going on in the actor's head. What's truly fucked-up is that the series was like a clearinghouse for Millennial-era starlets. Mackenzie Rosman, who was closest to the victims' ages at the time of their alleged molestation, must now search her memories for instances where Collins was inappropriate with her. And, for the love of God, Internet Movie Database, change this photo: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2442042624/tt0115083?ref_=tt_ov_i!

One thing that we can be sure about this scandal: Chris Martin traded up.

On Mumia Abu-Jamal, SOG...and waiting for Goddard to not be stupid.

There's a saying in the criminal justice system: SOG (or SOP), which is an acronym for "some other guy." It's a catchall for anytime a defendant claims that he couldn't have committed the crime despite all evidence to the contrary. "I didn't shoot my wife--it was some other guy!"

Mumia's supporters have advanced this series of events: A black man matching Mumia's description but not Mumia entered the scene, after Officer Daniel Faulkner had stopped Mumia's brother in a traffic stop. He shot Faulkner, then he ran away, possibly leaving the gun behind. Somehow, Mumia got shot by Faulkner. Reading the Free Mumia movement's webpages, I am still confused as to how Mumia got accidentally shot.

There's a mental condition where a person believes that a loved one has been replaced by a replicate. It is called Capgras delusion. If possible, this is the case here, where everyone except the witnesses think someone else shot Faulkner, and the witnesses who did not confirm to Mumia's innocence were really witnessing a fake Mumia shooting Faulkner. The witnesses were thus wrong--or being coerced--into claiming the real Mumia murdered Faulkner. But no. It was the fake Mumia.

The police, seeing the downed cop and the wounded black man, decided the black man did the shooting. They proceeded to plant the same model gun (the model, a .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver, which Mumia also coincidentally owned) that the SOG had used, then they slid a shoulder holster on Mumia's body. To insure conviction, they told the witnesses what to say. He was tried by a racist kangaroo court. (It's biggest mistake, however, was probably allowing Mumia to defend himself. He was a political activist, not a lawyer. He delivered long-winded speeches and called character witnesses, but he could not dispute the evidence against him. He wanted to put the system on trial, but no sane judge would allow that; this was his trial.)

Why is Mumia such a cause celeb? Unlike most prisoners--whether white or black, regardless of era--Mumia is a well-spoken and literate man. A man of letters, and educated people can't possibly be "bad," academia teaches us. (Bad people speak incoherently and don't challenge conventional wisdom--wisdom like not inviting probable murderers to give speeches at your college.) The appearance of putting the Panthers or the Black Power movement on trial led to this backlash, even if it was necessary to establish a motive in the case. Philadelphia had notorious racial conflicts in this era, so it's easy to imagine that the judge and jury were trying to set up a heroic black man. Like Rodney King, Mumia came about at a time and place for Babyboomers to adopt him as a symbol of all that's wrong with policing and American racial relations, and the facts become irrelevant. Like all conspiracy theorists, his supporters first made up their minds about what happened, and worked backward to obtain evidence of their interpretation of events. Lack of evidence is evidence.

Mumia could never defend his innocence, so he has long positioned himself as a political prisoner. He is a martyr of American racism. Before he was about to be executed, he was prepared to die for America's sins. Give me a break! Of all the hundreds of thousands of blacks wrongfully convicted in our nation's 228 years, most of their crimes weren't as severe as murder--and most of them were factually innocent.

Hey, white folk, stop saying "playing the race card." THAT'S racist too!

I have been reflecting on my own interaction with a cop, several years ago, at a Ralphs Downtown. I was looking around, minding my own business, and a middle-aged white woman in business attire said "hello" to me. Normally people don't say hello to me, so I was immediately confused. She was not particularly attractive, and I had no desire to have intercourse with her. She was not mentally deficient, so I saw no reason to return the greeting. I looked down and noticed that she had a shield on her belt, and I deduced that she was a detective with the LAPD. Here was my moral quandary: Do I smile back?Ultimately I did not smile at her--I did not know her, and I had no desire to know her. Nor did I make any clever pig jokes, which would've been rude. (She was slightly overweight, and it would've worked on several levels.) I maintained my moral principals, and I walked away without comment. I was not under arrest.

The reason for this quandary was not that I hate cops or that I hate white people. My problem was that she had a problem with blacks. She surely did not say "hello" to all the blacks whom she'd encountered, so she immediately characterized me as one of the "good ones," and she should say "hello" to at least one this morning to improve community relations. So, she was racially profiling me by being civil towards me--that's right--and I find racial profiling offensive.

I am not one of the good ones. I am one of the complicated ones. Like 15 million other black men, I live my life in accordance to the way that I have been treated. In turn, I treat all white people as individuals. I do not subdivide whites (or people) in accordance to morality, but on their current behavior towards me, understanding that this behavior might change based on the situation that they are in. We are all driven by our same base needs: foods, pooping and sex (and sometimes we do two of the three things at once, with the adventurous trying all three). In my life, I have encountered white conservatives who have divorced their views from racism (conservatives frequently lack self-awareness, and they associate things as "right" or "wrong" without acknowledging moral relativism) and white liberals who preach tolerance while in reality are massive tools.

I do not listen to rap music. I do not follow sports. I do not call all women "bitches" and "hoes" because I have not met every woman in the world, thus I am not qualified to assess how big of a bitch or how big of a ho every woman might be. I do not use the word "nigger." "Nigger"/"nigga"/"niggah" is exclusively a word for non-blacks to use on blacks... So blacks know whom to punch. This is just an easier way to live life.

Well, the police were just doing their jobs, so many might say. According to Sgt. James Parker, the cop caught on tape calling Watts a liar, they weren't interested in recording this, which further complicates matters. They just wanted her ID. Of course, Watts didn't know this. If they did tell her, it would've sounded like a trick.

Someone, somewhere calls the cops about public sex, then the cops come--maybe days later--then start asking people who it was. The cops didn't see anything. They are just rounding up interracial couples looking for "lewd conduct." (It's like the LAPD does not have history books--they're going o start accusing interracial couples of "lewd conduct." The department might be legally correct but lacking in COMMON SENSE. The appropriate thing was to pretend that nothing happened. They couldn't find the suspects, and there was nothing the police could do about it.) From her perspective, she was just a black woman standing on a street corner, then some cops come by and ask her to identify herself and, oh, they wanted to quiz her about her sex life. From the little I know about women, they do not appreciate being quizzed about their sex lives.

No, Watts probably was not trying to take a principled stand against racial profiling. She was trying to walk away from a situation that risked her embarrassment. (Ninety percent sure that the decision to have car sex was the boyfriend's idea.) She thought "sex offender"--and her career would be over, so as an existential mater, she could not risk TMZ learning that she was busted for car sex. She is not Eddie Murphy. (I'm using Murphy because he was a big celebrity when he was busted giving a ride to a transsexual hooker, not because they're both black. His career survived. He is a man.)

Was this cop doing his job? Probably. He was, about to leave no stone unturned in his investigation of car sex in Los Angeles. You can smell weed coming from open car windows as people drive by you, but Colombo here was going to stop the car sex.

My problem is that the police were doing their jobs, I suppose. They were behaving in a legally correct manner but were not exercising COMMON SENSE. This sergeant was being a dick, accusing her of "playing the race card," which exacerbated her mental anguish. Ignoring racism is perpetuating racism; most white Americans would still like blacks to ignore racism, which is why they've invented "playing the race card." Everyone else seems  proud of the way this sergeant handled himself, without commentating on how he made the situation worse. He had a possibly mentally unstable woman, and he was either calling her a nigger or a liar. (I'm guessing he was calling her a liar.) He should've arrested her silently or not arrest her. He chose the most dickish path, and both handcuffed her and didn't complete his duties. Parker was doing the bareass minimum. In doing so, he kicked a hornets nest and wondered where these hornets came from. Finally her boyfriend--yeah, a white guy--broke the standoff and handed the cops her ID. He recognized that it was just easier. Personally, I would've liked to see them actually arrest her. She should've made the cops earn their pay.

The outrage should be the DOUBLE STANDARD. Paris Hilton--who had committed a bunch of crimes--was originally only required to serve TWO DAYS of a 45 DAY JAIL SENTENCE. Why? The jailers though she was "sad," and Hilton was so sad, the compassionate thing to do was to let her out of prison having served less than 5% of her jail time. This was such a glaring example of systematic misconduct that it caused a public outcry and Hilton had to be sent back to jail, which was also an extraordinary move. If Watts had been a cop herself or cop's daughter, she never would've been cuffed. No, she wouldn't have freaked out, because there would be no record of it. The cops knew her, and they wouldn't want to embarrass her by inquiring her about her sex life. The event would've been handled quietly. This is a different kind of police corruption than the "shoot you in the head and steal your drug money" variety.

But, above all, the thesis of this post, is that these cops were dicks.

Ray Rice--hey, you ladies can change him!

Somewhere Solange Knowles is like "See! It's normally the other way around!" And it is. I'm starting to worry about successful black people fighting in elevators. Is that now going to be their thing? The new Captain America is black, so maybe that fight scene in Captain America 2 is a precursor or foreshadowing.

Feminists have been pushing for Rice's ouster since the YouTube video of him dragging his apparently unconscious fiancée earlier in the year and a lot of people are pointing out how disturbing the NFL's stance on tolerating domestic violence while condemning illegal drug use. What's disturbing is the NFL's long refusal to acknowledge that concussions are bad. (The sports broadcasters narrating the game shouldn't be yelling "Oh, boy, he got his bell rung!" but they should be asking: "Is he still alive?") That the NFL didn't fire Rice immediately--over a video--is not as bad. Marijuana is illegal, and although it clearly has some medicinal value and a person might be drugged or take it unknowingly, people choose to take the marijuana. When people are involved, things become more complicated. Relationships are complicated, and love doesn't necessarily make sense, especially outside the movies. When the victim isn't indicating that she (someday, he) is not a victim, what are we to do? What is the NFL supposed to do when a woman walks into a wall? Are the cops supposed to ignore the woman's wishes and do what the cops want--what would make us, as a society, feel better? The Rices did a lot to cover up the battery--as did, apparently, the courts and the league.

I do think it is safe to say that the NFL's stance on domestic violence is zero. However, there is and should be evidentiary issues when making a claim of domestic violence, and ending a man's career on a lie is always a plausibility. Having studied the media all these years, I have realized that not everything is as it appears. A picture says a thousands words, but it is up to the viewer to decode them. Janay might've been injured after he beat her or she might've been drunk or they both might've been drunk or she might've been dead this entire time--we do not know.

It turns out he totally decked her. She was lashing out at him, then he totally dropped that chick like McLovin in Superbad. That slug was nasty and excessive for the amount of energy the attacker had expunged on him. Really, he's the Israel of people. NOW we know what happened (or at least have a better idea)--why he was dragging her out of the elevator--and the question should be how much the NFL can enhance its previous two game suspension, for now he has truly embarrassed the league. A damn elevator cam stripped away their plausible deniability. Hey, maybe someone should've checked that cam when the first footage was exposed?

This leads us to why Janay doesn't just leave him. The first reason is the psycho-mumbo-jumbo that abused women have been brainwashed into believing that they can't leave their abuser, that their marital bonds are physical in nature--and that is a realistic interpretation of the situation. However, I think the more practical explanation is that Janay Rice enjoys being a football wife. The wives are her friends, and it is a world that will be denied to her if she doesn't stand by her man--she is not so much fighting for her husband's life but for her own. (So nothing happened in the elevator.)

The flipside is that Rice will never be able to find work as lucrative as an NFL player; he probably has limited job skills and Janay probably isn't independently wealthy. His wife and daughter will have less--the family's financial outlook is about to take a hit. (Oh, you see what I did?)The feminist fantasy is that Janel will leave her abusive husband and sue him, taking everything he has. But he has nothing now--thanks to the feminists. Ultimately feminists have made this into a gender issue; they are exploiting the situation for the noble goal of lowering the level of spousal abuse in this country. (White people could use this to show how violent blacks are; communists could show the violence of the upperclasses.... Etc.) The "big picture" is that now the NFL will take domestic violence more seriously. The commentators have found a solution, I suppose.

People tend to destroy themselves. YouTube just facilitates it. Ultimately there is no sadder commentary than that.

HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS!?!

Yep, there's a bunch of leaked nekkid photos of celebrities online, so this will be a brief post. That is all.

#Ferguson

There's this weird belief among black Americans that if you win the fight--with the cop, or another citizen--you won't go to jail. No, black people of America, if you win the fight, you'll go to jail longer. When the cops molest you like Thandie Newton in "Crash," you should sue. (Hope you win, by the way.) When they try to arrest you, you let them arrest you and you sort it out later. When a cop pulls you over, it is not a good time to discuss race relations in America or offer the cop a critique of his job performance--you keep your hands on the wheel. If the cop is particularly bigotted, he would've shot you several minutes ago. He's probably just an average white guy trying to do his job, and he will be offended by your suggestion that he's what's wrong with America today. (And, hey, he just pulled YOU over for committing crimes--so fuck you!) When a cop pulls you over, Al Sharpton isn't going to help you because he isn't there. The ACLU isn't going to help you. The NAACP isn't going to help you. When a cop pulls you over on a deserted road late at night, it's you and a white guy and the white guy has a gun. So be cool. You know you're a great human being, but the cop doesn't know you--and that's the point of being strangers. You both believe that you're "good," but the difference between you kids is there's a 100% chance that the cop has a gun.

The anti-authoritarian streak amongst American blacks gets in the way of common sense, regrettably. The looters, and the protestors offering the looters cover, are at times living in their own reality. They are clinging to the original narrative where Brown is another Trayvon Martin, caught Walking While Black--and any evidence that contradicts this notion is part of a larger racist scheme to undermine blacks. They cling to the original story that Brown was about to be abducted by a white cop, and was only trying to defend himself against the cop. Brown, a gentle giant, tried to flee, then was shot. Then Brown was left begging for his life as the cop shot him some more. "They executed him!" is the popular refrain, and going by the original witness statements, this seems to have been the case.

However Brown was more than a hundred pounds heavier than Martin. Brown was actively committing several crimes while a real cop (not a loon pretending to be a cop) pulled him over, for committing an actual crime. Most importantly, Brown was caught on tape LITERALLY assaulting a man in the minutes he allegedly assaulted the man who claims he shot the black man in self-defense.

 

Now Brown's family supporters are claiming the police have released this tape in order to advance the conspiracy against Brown and blacks in general. This tape, in their minds, proves nothing, since Wilson didn't stop him for the shoplifting that he'd just committed. This is where I get off. This is getting stupid--stupid on several levels. It's possible that the police department didn't want to be seen as slandering a dead kid, and it's possible that the police just recently connected the dead giant black guy with a bunch of cigars on him with the report of the giant black guy who recently robbed a store of a box of cigars. (Not all blacks guys walk around with a box of cigars, just so everyone knows. That's not a thing.) The suggestion that the tape was released as part of a master plan to make Brown look bad is stupid--partly because the police force is not smart enough to have master plans--and neither was Brown, apparently, who sacrificed his life for $50 worth of tobacco.

 

Far from innocent, Brown was a bully. (I am not using the word "thug.") Like Rodney King, he is becoming an unwarranted martyr of police brutality. His family might've loved him dearly and he could've had a bright future ahead of him, but the reality of the situation is that Brown was not a gentle giant, as his family's lawyers are now spinning him in anticipation of their lawsuit, but he was an occasionally violent petty thief. He made at least one bad decision that day, which was a strong arm robbery. Whatever else happened next, his bullying behavior undoubtably contributed to his death.

 

 It now appears that the Ferguson Police Department was trying to cover-up a legitimate shooting, which is actually the weirdest of possible scenarios. This is also the best proof of their corruption: Not that they murder black men, but because they are so tone deaf to the public and the very laws that they are supposed to enforce--they fail the spin. They still have not released photos of Wilson's injuries. I imagine Wilson was pretty bruised-up, and we will see that when the photos are released in the next few days or possibly several years. However the polce department hasn't relased the photos yet because...they're idiots. This tape and Wilson's record are the reasonable doubt. No fair jury in America, after seeing this tape, would convict Wilson of murder or even manslaughter now. 

 

But that leads us to what happened. Here is one scenario, and it's only one possibility: Brown, believing that Wilson was stopping him for the violent robbery THAT HE JUST COMMITTED, tried to attack the cop through the window of his car. (The witnesses, with their own anti-cop bias and their desire to protect a neighborhood guy, thought that Wilson was somehow trying to pull the giant guy into his car--which as well as being physically impossible, would mean that he was trying to abduct an almost 300 pound black guy for reasons still unknown.) Wilson felt that this big guy was trying to grab his gun, so he shot him. Brown retreated, having just been shot. He raised his hands in surrender. However Wilson, not understanding that the fight was over--full of adrenaline and possibly having suffered head trauma--assumed that Brown was about to charge him again, so he began shooting Brown some more; alternately, Brown might have really tried to charge Wilson again. Brown was shot so many times because he was still on his feet; the wound at the top of his head suggests that he was falling downward and forward at the time.

Either way, no charges will be filed against Wilson. And trying to file civil rights charges against him would be folly due to the lack of racial aminosity from Wilson. Obama is sending Holder to try to calm down the black citizens, not because Obama hates cops. These are Obama's "I feel your pain" moments and are, if anything, condescending towards blacks. Like Obama's "beer summit," It is ultimately an empty gesture, and rightwingers need to shut the fuck up about Obama's attempts to heal the racial divide, however superficially. Rightwingers have no ideas, just criticisms--or claiming that we should stop talking about racism since talking about racism makes people racist, of course.

Assuming that Brown normally led a law-abiding life, I'm not sure what mental situation Brown was having that led him to attack that shopkeeper. What I do suspect is that if Brown had tried to run away, obeying all traffic laws, he would've goen away. Rather Brown vacillated between attacking the cop and making a get away, and this indecision cost him his life.

Who's to blame for ISIS?

BUSH STARTED THE WAR THAT DESTABILIZED IRAQ! This isn't even ancient history! This is RECENT HISTORY! I still have magazines talking about the rush to war--DATING FROM 2003!!! (No, my apartment isn't very clean.) We should make Bush President again, just to impeach him for THE MASSIVE WAR THAT HE STARTED!!! Is this possible? Can we do this, Constitutionally speaking?

The police that Bush trained (after dismissing Iraq's ACTUAL SOLDIERS) promptly surrendered the weapons that Bush gave them when confronted by a heavily armed invasion force. Now ISIS has American arms that we gave to the Iraqis so they can shoot more Iraqis. BRILLIANT!

You know what? Before Bush, there was a guy who kept Iraq sable and (yes) a terrible place to live. There was a guy--whose name escapes me, something to do with a hole--and Bush had him killed. Bush threw a match on a pile of garbage, and the only thing worse than a pile of garbage is a flaming pile of garbage. (Bush also fired the firefighters--the Iraq army--for reasons unknown.) The flaming pile of garbage will destroy everything that its embers come into contact with. And now future Presidents will have to deal with these fires of genocidal freedom, peace and prosperity.

Ebola coming to America. "What can possibly go wrong?" asks every arrogant scientist in every science-fiction movie ever.

So the two Americans infected with Ebola are returning to America for treatment, and who would've thought that would be controversial? I mean, flying Ebola patients all around the world is how the planet of the apes got started. This is not a good precedent.

Shockingly very few people are talking about the late 90s hit "Outbreak," which is worth mentioning. This is one of the few instances where the media are showing restraint. "Outbreak" is an inaccurate depiction of a real Ebola outbreak. You have to be contaminated by bodily fluids; it is not as contagious as the flu, which has actually killed many more people. The fatality rate is 60%, which is less than 100%, so...yay? In Africa, there is a distrust of doctors and poor corpse handling procedures, which contribute to these outbreaks.

Still, I have the creepy suspicion that we're going to end up fighting genetically modified apes about ten years from now.

Extremely white actor hooking up with extremely Latin actress? A Fast and Furious relationship?

Well, Zac Efron and Michelle Rodriguez are now happening. And it just produces a "huh?" in a lot of us. They are both attractive and solidly B-list, eternally flirting with the A-list. There's the racial aspect as to why their pairing seems odd, certainly, but the fact that Rodriguez is a decade older than the Zacster seems odd.

I am intrigued if they are each other's beards. Both actors have long been dodged by rumors of their sexuality. (Rodriguez is bi, which is, of course, the midway point between straight and Homosexualland, which was also a rejected part of the Disney empire.) Both actors have played exactly one character throughout their entire respective careers, and those characters don't seem they would be compatible.

Ultimately this is probably two attractive people temporarily keeping each other company.

Why do I like "Working the Engels"?

I have no idea. I will watch all 12 episodes, even if it gets canceled.

I do love the cast. There's Azura Skye, whom I've loved since the 90s. Although not traditionally beautiful, her presence has permanently imprinted on my conscious. Yes, she's in my blood. Love Kacey Rohl. Watch her Vines; she's so dang weird. She would be delightful in small doses, but to be in a relationship with her might induce me to eat her like Hannibal. She's far too young to be an attorney, but at least the show writers acknowledge it.

At the same time, it is not all that funny. It is Canada funny, not America funny. It's moments of placid talking followed by brief spurts of wackiness--someone falls down, random nudity, etc. There's an occasionally cynical reference to Christianity and spiritualism. Nothing too offensive. Everybody's so dang pleasant, and the ending seems to always be steeped in people's innate goodness and cooperation.

So watch the show on NBC.... Or not, whatever.

Gary Oldman--da fuck?

I wish I could say I wouldn't watch "Planet of the Apes." But I totally will. Because it's a movie about apes who ride horses into battle, firing a machine gun in each hand. Come on! And it's in 3D! I'm part Jewish, and...damnit, I'm still there!

 

In Oldman's recent Playboy interview, he defended Mel Gibson and bashed any number of things, including Nancy Pelosi and the rest of human society. Normally one of our most respected actors, I can only think he briefly forgot what interviews were.

 

Oldman thinks that every white guy has announced that he hopes his girlfriend gets raped by a bunch of niggers? Oh my God, what goes on at Gary Oldman's house? Oh, does Gary Oldman greet Jews by asking them: "Why are you starting all these wars? What the hell?" Then he waits patiently for a response. Because that's what we all do!

 

When you're famous, people will attack you--sometimes for asinine reasons. This must be incredibly infuriating, as people line up to take shots using their lack of information and intelligence. Whoopi Goldberg recently set the bar higher (or lower) by defending (guess who?) Mel Gibson. She also defended Roman Polanski, explaining that having sex with an intoxicated 13-year-old then telling her not to talk about it isn't really rape. Plus, being a Frenchmen, this was totally normally in his culture.

 

One has to respect Oldman for his commitment to his craft, and for his other comments, like pointing out that society is going to Hell. Kids are twerpish. The Golden Globes are overrated, but he used other words. And he knows some of his movies were crap.

 

Oldman, for all his classy outsiderness, lives in the celebrity bubble. When a celebrity attacks--anywhere in America--they rush to defend him! Hope he doesn't start defending Roman Polanski.

Why Hillary shouldn't win.

Freshman year of college, I had a poli-sci professor, who was generally a leftist. He did not like Gray Davis, but the Republicans would always bring out a rightwing nutjob to challenge the Democrat, and sometimes the rightwing nutjob wins (like Pete Wilson). In his words, he would end up "holding his nose" and voting for Gray Davis. A year after that statement, Arnold Schwarzenegger would run his insurgent campaign, seizing power, and proceed to make California significantly worse.

Hillary has experience, and with that experience, is a long history of dumbass mistakes. During the run-up for the invasion of Iraq, Hillary had her profile in courage moment--but she just went with the political attitudes of so many Americans at the time, believing that she will be rewarded at some later time. Her later heroic defense of the tragedy in Benghazi--chastising Republicans for trying to politicize an Islamic terrorist attack halfway around the world--is a positive, but does not remove the smear of what she actually did: Her early support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

It is hypocritical to criticize Republican congressmen for Iraq and not Democrats who worked with Republicans to give Bush the authority to attack Iraq. Whereas the Republicans were acting on their stupid political principles, the Democratic minority were aiming for national security brownie points and supporting the Republicans' stupid ideas because they wished to protect their political careers. Whether or not the views that you stand are wrong, stand for something. This was John Kerry's mistake in 2004, and Mitt Romney's mistake in 2012. Saying "my bad" does not constitute contrition. When you fuck-up in a job, you don't apply for a better job at the same company! The appropriate thing to do is to place oneself in self-imposed exile as penance. It is hypocritical to excuse a woman's stupidity because she is a woman--you sacrifice your feminist street cred when you lower the bar to accommodate a woman's intellectual capabilities.

There is also a visceral reason for my hesitation to support Hillary: Hillary clearly cried during her 2008 campaign--there is news footage of her sitting alongside daughter Chelsea, crying. She was crying. She whined about the favorable press Obama received throughout the 2008 campaign, while ignoring why Obama wasn't placed under the media microscope that Hillary was: Obama didn't have the scandals that Hillary and her husband had; the Obamas were both new and still perceived as honest. Our opinions of her were formed, for better and worse. Obama couldn't sell himself as experienced, and she couldn't sell herself as exciting.

You cannot cry if another 9/11 happens. There's no crying in the presidency. Crying makes me, personally, uncomfortable. When America is attacked, we do not cry but we kick our enemies in the balls. "These colors don't run," bitch. (For the record, I'm not calling any specific female a bitch; I'm calling whomever might attack America in the future "bitch.")

I will not support Hillary during the California primary in spring 2016. Yes, I will probably vote for a man, but that is only be because most candidates are male; our first female President should not be Hillary Clinton. She opened doors for women, but we cannot ignore that she does not want to be treated any differently because she is a woman.

The Republican candidate will support bringing back workhouses. They will think birthcontrol is turning away when you cum. They will continue to confuse science with superstition. And they will do so while being utterly confused as to what murder has to do with firearms. If 2012 primaries are any indication, the Republicans will trip over themselves to out-crazy each other--and Democrats will do something similar--before centering themselves during the general election.

Hillary Clinton isn't tall. She has a history of lying. She has a cackle like a witch who just ate a bunch of kids. She has gained weight, and it's noticeable. She lacks political integrity. She is an opportunist. I hate your pants suits. However, Hillary Clinton is sane.

So I guess I might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary in November 2016. She will count this as a victory.

First chapter of "Glyphics," on sale on all eBook formats.

“The Earth is a farm. We are someone else’s property.”

 

Charles Fort (1874-1932)

 

“JFK was killed by a nun,” Ethan said as he looked out at Smith.

“Huh?”

“John Kennedy. He was killed by a nun—or a cop, or a priest—someone who would not be suspected—because it’s just always the last person you suspect—in life.”

“But a nun?”

He thought about it for a moment, and knew that the hit team was starting to sound Village People-y. “Alright, maybe not a nun, but you get my idea: He was killed by someone who wouldn’t be suspected—someone whose presence at Dealey Plaza would go unquestioned and who would be allowed to go about their business unbothered—that’s how it normally is, you know.

“So many people think it was someone hiding behind a fence or something on the grassy knoll--not a chance. The gunman—or woman—intentionally stood out on the knoll and then fired the fatal shot with a small caliber rifle hidden in an umbrella or a cane—which is also why so few people heard the additional shots.”

The town laid dark aside from the streetlights and the occasional home that was not hip to the attitude of the rest of the town. The town as a whole was in a state not so much sleep but of restlessness—a state only someone unaccustomed to it would notice. On the outskirts of town stood the Monolith Oil Refinery, its two giant holding domes jetting out like a pair of huge bulging eyes looking upward at the clear September sky. A large billboard with a troika of super-powerful halogen lamps at its base pointing upward proclaimed:

 

MONOLITH OIL

a branch of ChemCorp

Creating a better world with science!

 

Next to the lettering was an animated owl wearing a tasslecap and bifocals—ChemCorp’s creepy-as-hell mascot. It clenched a slide rule in one talon and a beaker in the other; its wings were outstretched in a peculiar gesture of victory. The lamps and the position of the billboard made it the most visible aspect of the town’s night skyline. Hollywood had its sign; Smith had a giant-ass cartoon of an owl-scientist.

Beyond the refinery lay hundreds of miles of white desert. But the desert was more than desert; it was a world within itself. A world alien to most. A world where hostile plants grew to gigantic proportions, its thousands of spikes prepared to spear anything that ventured too closely. A world where hairy arachnids the size of men’s faces ate birds and small mammals. Where the littlest creatures—just red dots against the ground—were the most feared, its danger being in the communal mind of the colony. And some of the ugliest, most violent birds on God’s not-so-green Earth awaited something—anything—to curl up and die, so they might continue their own survival. Truman had always hated the fire ants for their conformity (yes, "conformity"—those ants were total robots), always hated the vultures for their scavenging. And people who kept tarantulas as pets were even bigger freaks than he.

The rangers would bring in a corpse from the sands, every once in awhile—typically a fool hiker who'd underestimated how much water would be needed for their walkabout. Sometimes a local.

Outside of the Amazon, the American Southwest was among the most hostile terrain in the western hemisphere.

Ethan, a teen extraordinary only in how ordinary he looked, wore khakis and a light colored shirt—unaccustomed to the climate, he looked like a tourist. His face was pale and sweaty. He held a tinted bottle in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other—he alternatively puffed and sipped to keep that special blend of tobacco and cheap booze in his mouth.

Truman was in sharp contrast to him: tall, burly with black hair. His skin had a slight tan to it, suggesting nativity to the Southwest. Dressed in black cargopants and a pitch black duster (worn either out of habit or a dullenly to the heat), he blended into the night as much as humanly possible. He was holding a tinted bottle too.

But the number of empty bottles at the their respective feet—almost a 3-to-1 ratio—made it evident who’d consumed more of the sauce. And if there was any additional doubt, one only needed to sample Ethan’s drunk talk, which was as insane as when he was sober, but with sobriety, his ramblings were at least accurate in syntax.

Ethan mused: “Have you ever looked up at the sky and asked yourself if that crap they taught us in Sunday school was true?—I mean when you look into the blackness of space, the seemingly infiniteness—infinity—infinesses”—he had no idea what he was saying at that point, his mind in autopilot—“infinite of the dwellings of the gods and felt obliged to ask yourself about the true meaning of the beginning—and the possible end of our existence as we know it.” Ethan, making it abundantly clear he was a “philosophical drunk,” walked to the edge of the bluff and looked up at the indescribable beauty; millions of stars looked down. He was transfixed by the universal portrait of beauty. Like he’d never seen the stars before.

A ball of fire streaked across the sky, dragging a tail that seemed to cut through the fabric of time-space itself—a meteor skimming the atmosphere. Probably.

A minute later Ethan doubled over, placing hands on bent knees and trying to slow his anxious breathing. “Now I feel nauseas.”

“You’re drunk,” Truman stated as if it was some mind-blowing insight.

Ethan thought about this for a second. Then he proudly delivered the answer that was so obviously perfect for the moment: “Yes I am.”

After another pause, he continued, “Different societies,...they call it different things. Ours calls it the Apocalypse—the end of all things, when the gods shall descend from the heavens and divide mankind between the worthy—those who’ve served them faithfully—and the rest, who will perish by their powerful hands...and fire and...yada, yada, yada.” He took another sip, and added with a great degree of certainty, “There’ll definitely be fire involved.”

Then he turned and staggered over to his drinking buddy, who was sitting on a log—at a safe distance from the edge—and pondering how anyone could "yada, yada" after the fire. He plopped down beside Truman on the log, almost giving him an impromptu lap dance by about nine inches to his right. The two boys had grown close these preceding months, and neither wanted to ruin the bromance with overt homoeroticism. “I’ve uncovered information thought secret on the Internet from a man who identified himself only as ‘Miscreant.’ It will finally reveal a vast conspiracy of global proportions and provide the Justice Department with sufficient evidence to prosecute all those involved. I’ve kept this information coded and hidden—”

“What kind of conspiracy?” Truman asked in amusement, and took a large swig himself.

“One that reaches into every man, woman and child on the planet: Aliens—visitors from a distant world—are plotting colonization,” Ethan sat up, walked to the bluff’s edge again, and began to pace back and forth alongside it. “Scientific experiments against Americans in numbers greater than anytime since World War II—experiments to create human weapons, and new weapons—weapons greater in power than any nation’s conventional, viral, chemical, bacterial or nuclear arsenal.”

Truman walked over to his babbling bud. Ethan, approached by him, stopped pacing. They stood for a moment, looking out into the night. Two things a small desert town in the middle of jackshit had: heat and panoramic views.

Ethan took a final drag of his cigarette, then flicked it out over the bluff. The little red burning tip faded away into the darkness. He stood staring down the bluff. In his eyes was a look of hopelessness that would have made Sisyphus’s appear optimistic by sheer comparison. “A lot of crazy shit is going to go down in the next couple years, man,” he told him in all seriousness, and by the tone of the guy's voice, Truman could tell it was his prophecy. “This country—this state—this town—our school. I have a feeling this is gonna be ground zero.”

“So...‘Fight the future,’ ” Truman told him condescendingly. Underrated movie. Greatest movie ever based on a great show; hadn't been so great in the end when the main actor was replaced with the T1000.

There was a moment of reflection for Ethan. However inebriated he may have been, he probably knew he was being mocked. He looked like he was about to cry, of all things—not that the "alien-boy" from the city was used to being mocked. And he was suddenly very tired. Though he was also very plastered. Ethan Howe was also a sleepy-drunk, turned out.

“C’mon, bud, school starts tomorrow.” Truman gave him a soft push in the general direction of his car, a ‘68 VW Bug convertible. Loved that car.

The ride had an outsider cool to it, but it was basically built like a ride-along lawnmower; only less durable on rough terrain. The underside of the body had been scrapped up real bad. Once fire-engine red, it was now a dirty shade of burgundy, sporting an amazing coat of dust—the handiwork of the wipers was visible. The thin tires had shitty traction, and two hubcaps were gone—the front left, the back right. Someone had once scrawled "wash me" on the window; Ethan in turn had scrawled "fuck you" beneath the snotty missive. So Truman had been driving around his conservative burb with the words "fuck you" on his passenger side window. Soon he'd decided to do a slightly better job at washing his windows, it being a better idea to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

Ethan staggered toward the vehicle. Halfway to the car, he dropped his beer bottle.

It shattered on the road, the sound being carried several miles up that midnight road in either direction.

Truman watched him for a moment, until Ethan entered the passenger side and apparently passed out—a thud came from the car, which Truman took for his friend's head hitting the dash. “Man, he’s gonna have one bitch of a hangover tomorrow,” he told himself, containing the rising laughter.

Ethan always could make Truman laugh—if not always for his sense of humor as his joy de vi. (The high schooler had learned that word over the summer. Liked it. Didn't think it sounded gay at all.)

He took one final look at the sleeping town with the little houses and still streets—from way up there, it all looked like a scale-model of a town, or a number of dollhouses built along a series of obsessively plotted streets. Some inextraordinary town where, with the exception of the occasional family trip when he'd had a whole family, he'd spent the entirety of his existence. “ ‘Fight the future,’ ” he repeated irrelevantly, this time to himself, and hurled his bottle out over the bluff.

It broke on a jagged rock somewhere, and the white foam bubbled and sunk into the sand. The sand absorbed everything.

 

Truman drove down the twisted two-lane road back into town. A single error would cause the car to strike the guardrail—go too fast and they’d pull a James Dean. His slight inebriation only worsened the situation: The stars would streak by with every sharp turn, creating an even more perilous situation.

Ethan was asleep, face resting on the dashboard. His mouth open, drool gushed out from both sides. Trying to maintain his concentration on the road, Truman managed to take his hand off the stickshift, and closed his jaw, quelching the gush of saliva, because protecting his friend’s dignity and his dash seemed more important at the time than dying. Ethan’s eyes opened a little--not much--a little. He began to breath heavily and mouth what might have been words. Truman didn’t notice that, his mind again committed to navigating the winding cliffside road.

“Truman...”—he finally managed to get out. “Truman, if I don’t make it, I want you to take the folders to the Justice Department—you can trust them, you can trust the Justice Department. They have ‘Justice’ in their name, and I find that fun-ny.”

“Yeah”—he was still amusing Ethan—but now Truman was kinda annoyed as he was trying to keep them from dying and he'd never considered himself a risk taker. “Where are these folders?”

“Where they belong,” Ethan replied cryptically, as if that had attached to it some significant meaning. With that, he slipped back to sleep on the dash, and he slept all the way back to his house.

Here's why the Bay TMNT movie isn't going to suck.

ISN'T.

It's about human-sized ninja turtles. It's already at the peak of ridiculousness. It can't be worse than the rubber suit versions--but I suppose I am ruining some of your childhoods by pointing out how bad those films were. The 2007 CGI version was alright.

William Fichter is awesome. Loved him since "Grace Under Fire." Good casting. Love that. I'm glad Megan Fox realized that she's not a great movie star on her own and made her peace with Bay. See, he's not as bad as Hitler! There you go!

Baxter Stockman will at least be represented. K. Todd Freeman is a brilliant actor who deserves his due. It seemed that he peaked in "Buffy"--but, no, he's back!

Yes, the Turtles' heads have a passing resemblance to dicks.

That is all.... And turtle power, I guess.

Sympathy Should be Shown to the Families First

It is a cruel joke on our nation's character that we are now relieved when a mass shooting produces fewer than ten victims. America's heart should go out for the families of the victims and then for the UCSB community.

Ultimately Elliot Rodger's self-image did not match up to his reality. He was a 22-year-old community college student who never worked a steady job in his life. He had a totally unwarranted sense of entitlement and elitism, making him an obnoxious twerp as well as a murderer. The media is neglecting to note that his rantings were moments of lucidity; his life was not working out that way that he intended, which led to his explosion of horrible rage. And the fact that his killing spree largely occurred with the assistance of a BMW (a gift from a parent) has made him the posterchild for privilege.

To blame the actions of Rodger on Judd Apatow or any of the Hollywood elite is, however, asinine. It is picking a successful artist, then trying to link the behavior of a madman to their work is what countless idiots have tried with Catcher in the Rye. Now some idiots are pointing seemingly randomly at movies where the average guy gets the hot girl like Puritans who never learned to read. (This is a trope that deserves to die, but does not deserve to be killed by feminists or anyone else. Seth Rogen will be held accountable for his crimes someday. Don't you worry.)

Working thru his manifesto. It has excellent spelling and grammar, but is otherwise dull writing. You see his obsession with World of Warcraft and other role-playing games. (This community will now, always, get a bad wrap on account of so many of their members committing murderous rampages.) He recognizes that his life isn't going great, but he cannot connect his problems with his behavior. So far, there is no mention of him approaching the "beautiful girls" whom he wants to have sex with--he can only lash out in petty ways when they DON'T take the initiative to connect with him. He thinks himself a gentleman but in reality he is ill, and he probably had the idea that he was a gentleman implanted in him by a society that confused his quietness and smallness with politeness and decency. If you did not know how this story was going to turn out, you would feel pity for someone so deluded but otherwise non-violent.

It is intellectually lazy to classify him as a misogynist. (For sincere misogyny, please consult the Columbine killers' writings.) He liked women, and sincerely didn't understand why they didn't reciprocate because of a communication and logic gap. He had no history of sexual assault, which is what one would suspect of a murderous sex offender. Most of the people whom he apparently hated were men who were succeeding in relationships with women. When he did explode, the first people killed were his male roommates (who undeniably did mock his lack of game). Far from being a misogynist, there is no word to describe Elliot Rodger.

#YesAllWomen has gotten douchey, though. At the club, women will be hit on--I will ask her "how you doin'?" Because I would like to know how the chick is doing, and talking to her while being a black guy does not constitute a sex crime. (I'll accuse you of a hate crime for accusing me of a sex crime. I can be hysterical too.) It belittles the seriousness of rape to claim that a guy who says "let's get out of here and go some place quieter" is rape. Stop it. There are appropriate places to say and do sexual things, and a woman's say in the matter is 50%. Women cannot control every situation that they are in; you do not get to be comfortable wherever you go, ladies. I have not taken my junk out and placed it on her head while riding the subway (which I've also done). I will not apologize for being a man anymore than I expect ladies to apologize for the femaleness. There are clear gender differences or rules to be considered--not ignored--in our society. Rodger became a mass murderer because he couldn't understand the rules: 9s date 9s, maybe 8s. He had neither the talent nor the skills to pretend to be something higher.

#BringBackOurGirls ...assholes.

Al Qaeda is calling their press agents, and saying: "Hey, this isn't us. We don't practice sex slavery.... Death to Israel, death to Israel."

This is where you are now, dudes. You have to abduct girls to get laid. Personally I am confused as to what parts of the Koran says that sex slavery is to be encouraged--they would know this, too, if they knew how to read. Part of the real world is hearing thoughts that are offensive to you--including secular education, or "education," as it is also known. (Interestingly enough, most of the world's Muslims are illiterate. I'm not making this up. Arabic, Farsi--they can't read any of it.) It's asinine that Christians would deny reality to buttress their religious teachings, it's asinine when Muslims do it as well. Really Boko is fully living up to the Fox News' depiction of Muslims, Arabs, black guys and the poor. Congratulations. You're making Fox News sensible.

As so often the case, the turds have floated to the top, with Rush Limbaugh managing to mock the First Lady's use of Twitter to apply social pressure to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. I just wanted to share that. There are still turds in America, despite our attempts to advance women's rights in both the US and abroad. Whatever Obama might do, some Republicans will rally around evil. (Rightwingers defend Boko; leftwingers defend Bono, whose music is good.) Republicans will announce that Obama should do both more and less to rescue these girls--including ignoring the will of the Nigerian government and begin a military invasion of Nigeria.

I really want this to end up with a happy ending, but we all know that it's only a matter of how bad this situation is going to get.

So...heard about what Don Sterling said?

I love that the breaking point was this chick having her photo taken alongside black people. Can we all agree on the hilarity of that? Can we all love that?

You also get a sense that there would be less controversy if he owned an NHL franchise or a NASCAR team--where saying black people shouldn't show up is kinda redundant. He would've been fined but not banned for life. Telling black people not to come to NBA games--really? Really that's like telling the lesbians not to come to an LPG tournament.

Here's my defense of him: Sterling was entitled to make racist comments in private without a nosy journalist recording him and saying: "You're busted!" The issue should be his broken promises to charities, shady business dealings, corruption and generally awfulness--not his personal opinion of African Americans. Now another recording just came out--possibly as a weird cover for the first recording, clarifying what he meant, but it feels like we all know what he really meant.

This entire tape controversy also distracts from Sterling's shady business dealings. This guy is a slumlord, and his wife was caught on tape posing as a housing inspector to harass some poor renters. Oh, and his kid shot a guy in the back and claimed self-defense.

This V. Stivi-whatever is clearly a nutjob, too, by the way. She clearly leaked the tape. Whatever good things that she might've done in her past, she's also a fame whore. If Sterling wasn't giving her money for sex, then he just wasted a few million on him, which makes Sterling stupid as well as sleazy and racist. According to the LA times, this was the Sterlings MO: Don would seduce a young woman with extravagant gifts, then when he broke the relationship off, his wife would harass the mistress to get some of the stuff back under the principle that it was common property. These two are amongst the worst human beings alive.

In the next few months, he will attempt to play on the public's sympathies by donating money and looking for black people to hang-out with (which will also require money). He will claim medical and psychiatric problems. But ultimately there's no treatment for being an asshole.

Some Darwin Awards 2014 Nominees and One Also-Ran

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. Whenever anyone anywhere does anything stupid in this world, the first thing black Americans think is: Please don't be a black person. Lady tries to rob a convenience store naked from the waist down? "Don't be a black lady." Knock-out game? "Don't be black kids." Mayor caught smoking crack? "Don't be Marion Barry." (Fortunately that time was Toronto Mayor Bob Ford.) This thought came to my mind immediately upon learning that a kid had tried to hitch a ride to Hawaii in the wheelwell of a commuter jet, miraculously surviving the bitter cold and thin air of high altitude travel in an unpressurized container. This guy surely Googled how to sneak into a commuter jet's wheelwell but he didn't Google what would happen if you fly 20,000 feet in a non-pressurized compartment--where survival of the journey becomes more unlikely than possible. It turns out this kid originally came from Somalia, and though I do not know what desperation this young man was going through that made him think that this was a viable option, but it doesn't change that this was a dumbass move, and he barely avoided winning a Darwin Award.

When someone does something extremely dumbass, and the result of their stupidity is their own death--and they have failed to reproduce--they are to be nominated for the Darwin Awards. As dark as it might be to think about, really, it's for the best that some people don't have children. Outside forces did not cause their deaths--they'd brought it on themselves.

Also this week loon Bryon Smith was convicted of first degree murder in the deaths of two teens who had broken into his home. Like the George Zimmerman case, this defies traditional criminal charges: This is where the victim became the perpetrator, and the victim becomes wholly unsympathetic--and the one man left standing could control the narrative. The castle doctrine should've provided Smith with more authority to kill the intruders--a portion of self-defense erraticism that I actually support. However this guy was undone when he told the truth--he didn't attempt to whitewash what he'd done with conflicting accounts--unlike Zimmerman. Smith clearly tortured those kids--and clearly he should've either lied afterwards or claimed some mental ailment. (Plus they were white.) His inability to stage a cover-up has led to his arrest for the crime.

What is disturbing besides the kids' deaths was the way in which the mainstream media are covering it: Emphasizing how "innocent" and "popular" the white kids were--while burying the fact that they were breaking into homes when the shooting occured. Further they were shot multiple times wheras Trayvon Martin was shot once (Still, the same media that didn't question why Zimmerman had called the police when he didn't see the black kid commit a crime is now not questioning why the pretty white kids had broken into at least one home. The media bent over backwards to make a white girl look innocent while bending over backwards to make a black guy look guilty.) In all likelihood, they were trying to rob Smith's place, and their fun exploration into criminal behavior was interrupted a genuinely damaged individual with guns. What was a home invasion robbery was turned into a juvenile rite of passage because the criminals did not fit the profile and out of fear of appearing insensitive to the dead kids' families. Smith will pay for his crimes for the remainder of his life; but the media's coverage of this case has been inexcusable too.

A Woman's Nuclear Option

This week Lindsay Lohan revealed that her unprofessionalism during the shooting of her O! unscripted show was on account of her miscarriage. That truly was shocking, but it also doesn't explain her unprofessionalism in the years prior to her miscarriage.

Ladies, is that like the nuclear option for you? Is that the one thing that any woman can say to justify her behavior and end the conversation about some controversial matter? "I had a miscarriage." (The first nuclear option is "I was raped.") It's like: "I'm sorry to hear about your miscarriage...but you still won the argument. Okay." As much as the feminists want to rise above this towards gender equality, there remains a difference between the genders, which allows for women to have this prerogative; and common decency allows us to give women a pass. There is nothing intellectual or academic about it.

We should take Lohan's word that she did suffer a miscarriage, if only because it would make us look terrible if we accused her of lying about such an awful event. But she will have trouble using it as an excuse for missing some later assignment, of course.