Why I'm Awesome

So, Meg hit me up with the 7 Things That Make You Awe-Summm! meme. Naturally. So, after giving it some thought, here are my responses in all their arrogant glory. Sadly, however, she's already tagged all the bloggers I "regularly read." So, I'll leave it open to whoever hits here who wants to do it. Batmite!, you could do this up right. JP, I probably wouldn't bother if I were you. Even your own brother likes me better than you.

Here are the 7 things that make me AWESOME.

1. I have the neatest kid in the world. I know everybody says that, but it's true, at least for me. I couldn't have picked a more perfect fit, even though sometimes I think we're worlds different. My kid has a serious humanist conscience, isn't afraid to stand up to authority (documented since first grade), makes awesome three dimensional art, and is a good friend. He's pretty funny, too. And I've worked hard to make sure he trusts me to tell me the serious stuff -- which works so far, even though sometimes I think it's too much information!

2. I am a writer. It's part of the core of who I am, and I'm pretty good, if I do say so myself. I have a good sense of "perspective," I have an ear/eye for detail, and I do my best when I'm paying attention to human motivation. One of these days, you'll get to see for yourself. ;)

3. I have a thing for The Truth. I don't like seeing people lied to, even if it's something stupid like deadlines that aren't really deadlines. I'm not saying I've never told a lie, which would obviously be a lie. I'm just saying I don't like seeing people manipulated through lies. I think that's one reason I'm still in education. I want to help people figure out how to use the tools to figure out things for themselves.

4. I have backbone. Maybe it's genetic predisposition, but I have a sense of Righteous Indignation that latches on like a pitbull and won't let go. Granted, sometimes that doesn't work out so hot. But if you're getting screwed over by Teh Mann, come and see me about it. Chances are I can get worked up enough over it to help you out. I'm not very physically impressive (well, ex-boyfriends would disagree, but I mean in an intimidation kind of way -- although they might disagree with that, too). But I learned when I was ten years old that most battles are battles of words, and most people bluff, so, why not open your big mouth and see what happens? Having backbone actually got me a university award, a job and a few less problems in life. One of the best concepts I ever learned was just to open your mouth and ask "Why is it that way?" followed by, "Who says?" and then, "Can I talk to that person?"

5. I can stir me some shit. Sort of goes along with "backbone," but sometimes there are situations that require more finesse than a full frontal assault. Like most things, for example. This is the upshot of not being physically intimidating. Looking like a naive little girl can have its perks when you're ready to stir some shit. I only stir shit for a good cause, though. And sometimes for personal amusement.

6. I think I'm a pretty good teacher. I'm sure you'd find some disagreement there. But my evaluations say otherwise. There are a handful of students I talk to and a couple that I'm pretty close to. I realize that for some people that's boundary crossing, but I'll have lunch with these kids any time. They're like stepkids or foster kids to me. I think it's precisely because I care about them that I am a good teacher. I think my approach is something like a layman's terms meets den mother. Students come into my office and plop down just to tell me how much they hate their roommate. Students bring me presents (yes, after grades are over). Students email me just to tell me how life is going. They pop in just to see what I'm doing. They try to Facebook me, even though I've tried to hide myself thoroughly. I think they like me -- they really like me! And I think part of it is that I'm fascinated with them. I like seeing them make connections. I like watching them "get it". I'm voyueristic that way. And I guess they like being watched. We've now taken a turn for the creepy.

7. I'm the person you want to take along if you want to go out. And do whatever. Because I'm basically down for whatever, and I enjoy so many things you can't really go wrong by going out with me. Unless you've done something to piss me off, you've always had a good time. I clean up nice. I look good in a dress or in leather pants. You can drink beer with me and I won't embarrass you when the waiter brings out the good wine. I'm a good conversationalist. We can talk about everything from the next Revolution to Reality TV. We can go yell at boxers or we can go to an opera. We can go to the Derby in dresses and hats, or we can go to a muddy field concert and get drunk and mock the band to the point they have to acknowledge it (happened twice, first time with Nickleback and second time with Black Eyed Peas). We can do whatever. Because I'm down like that. :)

Et tu?

Call For Posts!

Most academic fields have a "call for papers" throughout the year from various conferences and academic journals on certain topics. While this blog hardly represents anything near the realm of the intellectual and any conference I might hold would probably be in Smokin' Jack's bar, I'm still going to issue a call for posts.

What I want are deconversion stories -- especially those from former Jehovah's Witnesses, but I'll take any and all deconversion stories. I want to know the things people said or tried to do to you to keep you in or if you went peacefully into the light. I may tell my Sister's deconversion story, if she gives me permission. And I might either tell mine again, repost the old one, or give my perspective on being fourteen years "out."

So have at it. No deadlines.

-- DV

How To Not Work While At Work!

My office desk is covered over with material for the upcoming semester (and my current muffin teaching project). My desk at home is covered over as well, but with other material. Anyone observing my workspaces would assume I must have a paper fetish.

But as the new school year draws near, I'm trying to get a jump on curriculum planning. This year I have a Teacher Buddy. I'm trying to think of a good name for him, because I'm sure he'll surface on the blog regularly. So, advice on that score would be welcome. But because I have a cohort, and I'm the "senior" lead, I'm trying to be responsible by giving him the material he'll need to make his own decisions. Ergo, I have to get done first. I've just reworked the How Not To Fail Out of College sections we have to teach to account for the gutting the administrators did to the program. That was so aggravating it may need its own post, but for the moment, I've wrestled it to the ground. I'm currently working on the First Year Writing prep, because we have 100% new assignments -- well, sort of. They're just changed enough so that the whole syllabus needs to be redone, but not so foreign that I can't use previous techniques. But it feels like I'm doing all new course preparation for everything, which makes me agitated and more prone to surf the internet and waste time blogging.

As I swam through the wave of papers on my desk, I came across the "field notes" paper we were given for the training we had this past May. Instead of important notes about the presentations, my field notes are covered with my own conversations and notes to those around me, a process JP and I have used previously to survive graduate classes. It looks like you're taking diligent notes, when in fact, you're busy making observations like the following:

books = teh awesome!

making fun of Canadians

Category marking number of times "eh" is said (answer: 5)

Who is girl @ end of table???

White Person's Business Voice (four tick marks)

Is that some sort of bacterial infection?!

drawing of cat

stab out my own [picture of eye] (two tick marks)

NONCOMPLIANT (I don't remember why I wrote this, but I assume it was in reference to myself)

There was smarmy-ness during our presentation!!!

Yes, very important observations, I know. But they are a critical way to survive meetings and training sessions. So is blogging, tweeting and general internet surfing when you really just don't want to finish your fall curriculum... So please -- comment and entertain me. I'm bored off my ass right now!

-- DV

You Know Where You Can Find Me

My buddy Mad Dog asked me if there was a "birthday" song that was my favorite. I initially said no, but that's not true. There is a song I always think of as a birthday song, even though he never really intended for it to be one. There's even an awesome techno mix of this "birthday" song along with a cool Simpsons graphic. :D

So yeah, you know where you can find me for my 32nd birthday. It's been a party since last night anyway. It's scheduled to go through this weekend!

-- Dante's Virgil

Happy Birthday, Mad Dog!

Hope you have a treat for your birthday!

-- Dante's Virgil

Recipes for Fast Rising Muffins

So, I mentioned earlier that one of my summer projects was teaching writing to a group of high school kids coming in for six weeks. We've just finished week three, and Sweet Jesus, I'm not sure if I ever want to do it again. These kids come from local high schools and are allegedly the cream of their crop. They're all (potential) first generation college students, and the goal is to try to make them think college is a good choice for them, to sort of give them a taste of it without scaring the beJesus out of them. They dorm here during the week, take English, math, bio and a foreign language, and then go home over the weekend. I thought I was getting high school seniors or maybe juniors. I thought, OK, that's close enough to the demographic I work with to be acceptable. So I signed on.

What I got instead were four eighth graders; they call them "fast rising ninth graders" which makes them sound like some sort of baked good to me, but four fucking eighth graders. The high school seniors all went to another English class they're getting actual credit for. Rounding out the roster were three freshman, two juniors and and five sophomores. Oh, and one homeschooled kid whose grade level they didn't know and one senior who is in special ed. Speaking of special ed, it turned out I had three students who spent time regularly there. I have no training in learning disabilities per se, and they're lucky I worked in a nonprofit that dealt with them. Working with these kids has been something of an eye-opener for me. There is still a big cognitive and emotional gap between a 16-17 year old and an 18-19 year old. Other things I've noticed...

They all have "behaviors." That's what they call them and that's what the staff calls them. They don't "behavior" in my class, they do it everywhere else, though. But I get to hear about it. Or watch them skulk in, and all I say is "Behaviors?" And they'll nod. It's actually kind of funny. Sitting through conferences with them is bizarre. It's the only time I've ever thought, "Wow, is this person the most vulnerable human being I've ever seen!" And I simultaneously wanted to slap them as hard as I can. They haven't made the intellectual leap to "Why" instead of "What" yet. So they spend their journals talking about how they didn't like the person who wrote the article -- but they still won't even tell me why. When I introduce the concept of "Why", it's like I've mentioned men have landed on the moon. I have two who are stuck on themselves academically. They've both said out loud that they never have to study for anything in high school, so they're pretty sure college is going to be a breeze. I stopped class and sat down I was laughing so hard. I'm pretty sure that's against the law, but I couldn't help it. After I wiped my tears away, I tried to explain that in college, everybody else is more or less just like you academically. You might be Queen Principal's List in high school -- but when you come to college, you find out so was everybody else, and the Dean's List is a lot harder to crack. The "average" college student is probably a little brighter than the "average" citizen -- but in a room full of themselves, you're just average.

They also think they're the next Stephen King or Stephanie Myers, and I've begun to use an analogy for that to help them cope with the fact that the scribblings they have might just need more work. El Hijo came up with it actually. It's a sports metaphor. When you're young, anybody can play ball -- they make allowances for everyone, and the same is true for young writers. But when you get into high school, the talent gets cropped, and the same is also true of writers. If you want to write at the "high school level," you have to have been fairly good at it when you were younger. But if you want to go to college and play sports, well, you have to be even better -- and the same is true for writing, especially creative writing. Selling a book? Well, that's like being in the NBA. I told them they needed to think of best selling authors as the Shaquille O'Neal's of their field. Writing isn't the same as publishing which isn't the same as being popular and selling. Playing isn't the same as making the team, which isn't at all the same as being drafted for the NBA. I think they got it. I told them if they wanted to publish like that, they would have to have the same dedication to writing as basketball players did to making the college team in the hopes they would be drafted. It's sort of sobering to think about, but it's true, really. But I digress.

The students and their "behaviors" really aren't the worst part. The idiot TA is the worst part. He has "behaviors" all his own. I knew they got a tutor for each class, but I didn't realize the tutor was required to sit in on my classes. I call him a TA to make him feel better, but I had no obligation to use him in class. When I first met him, he showed up to the office in a full suit, was incredibly loud and fairly obnoxious. He cut me off regularly, dismissed most of what I had to say, and made everything about him, him, him. At the end of the session, I finally just turned to him and said "Look, you're going to have to lose the suit. I know you think it's about authority, but it's not. It's about trust. It's the summer, most of them are 14 years old, just lose the suit, OK?" And he did. He didn't lose the attitude, though.

Some of that attitude is understandable. He's twenty-two, he came from a really poor area on scholarship and got to study abroad for grad school (he's finishing his Masters this summer). He got to see a little bit of the world on top of that on the university's dime, and he feels proud of himself. The problem is, he came into the classroom which was made up of kids who came from exactly where he did, and talked down to them. He made them feel like they could never be like him because their grammar sucked. He wasn't trained to teach people how to write, so all he could do was sit there and criticize. In a way, it's not his fault. He's not a teacher. Some people just have the teacher-gene. They understand how to explain things to people. Some people are just better off doing that thing than explaining it to others. Like Chemistry profs at a university -- most suck at teaching, but they're awesome at actually doing and studying Chem. This tutor-person made one of them cry. They hate him. They roll their eyes when he turns around. Well, all but one, the cute little 14-15 year old in the front row. She flirts with him and he's stupid enough to flirt back. It's very mild, and I really don't think he even understands what's going on, and I certainly don't think he would ever, ever do anything wrong. But he doesn't understand what he's setting himself up for. The first day of class he tried talking over me, and I put him down swift and hard. We're not co-teachers. I'm in charge. I don't mind sharing authority, but you don't have the right to come in and take it. He didn't do it any more after that.

If I had another six to eight weeks with him instead of three, I could probably shape him into something. He has taken more attention and thought toward his "development" than any of my Behavior Muffins have. But it doesn't matter anyway -- they're firing him come Monday.

All in all, it's sort of been an OK experience. Most of them have shitty self-esteem, and seeing how they can actually do the work is empowering. Seeing how high school isn't the be-all, end-all of your experience is empowering, too. Almost all of them have expressed a keen desire to get out of Small Town, West Virginia, and they all seem to recognize that college is key to that.

How could a recipe turn out any better than that?

-- DV

People Will Even Prank Drying Paint

Lately I've taken to watching C-Span's Washington Journal show in the morning while I'm getting ready and having my coffee. Sometimes it's like watching paint dry, to be sure. It's not the most exciting thing ever, obviously, but there is absolutely nothing on in the way of actual news on the Big Three stations. They're usually discussing Michael Jackson's kids or the latest in baby strollers. The hosts over at Washington Journal have eleventy-thousand newspapers on the desk with highlighted articles -- literally where they have taken a highlighter pen to the article so you are sure to catch the most relevant points -- and they let people call in and have their say about the items. They only really respond to callers if they have a guest on the show. Otherwise, they just let the callers speak their piece and then they move on, which is kind of weird to watch. It's like you get to participate, but not really. There are three separate phone lines for Democrats, Republicans and Independents, who all call in and say pretty much what you would expect them to.

Occasionally, though, as in at least once a day when I watch it, WJ gets prank callers. Which is hilarious. Here are two suits sitting at a desk with important papers only to have someone call in and say, "Yes, I'd like to ask a question about the bailout for these businesses you were discussing, and -- AAAAHHHHHHH! *click*". That happened this morning. One creepy dude called in and asked the lady guest, "I have a question about this topic ... what size are your feet?" LOL. I know it's immature. But it's also kind of disruptive in a way that I find oddly human and very funny. Some people call in and want to rave about things not on topic, for example the corruption among West Africans living in New York. There are apparently known trouble makers, as I've seen the host respond to a caller who said, "Am I on the air??" with a "Not anymore!!" And hung up on him. He must have recognized what was coming. YouTube has some of these crank calls.



More pranks:


In the cases where people want to ramble about stuff not on topic, I think they just want to feel like there is a space, any space, that will acknowledge their concerns. But with the prank calls, well, it's just damn funny to be sitting in your work clothes, drinking coffee, thinking about the political issue, only to have someone freak out for a second. Or maybe that's just me.

-- DV

Holding Down Fort Virgil

I've spent the last five days all by my little lonesome, while El Hijo went to Kentucky to help his family with his father's eye surgery (successful, so far). I have mentioned before that I don't do so well on my own. I have a tendency to wander around out of boredom and being the stick-poker that I am, find new things to poke with a stick and get all riled up. I've managed to keep it mostly virtual, though, engaging in a couple of Internet Fights. Those are always fun. I've obviously blogged more regularly than I normally do. But I'm certainly doing better than the last time around. Minus the part where I poisoned myself with bad meat and spent the next day paying for it.

I've had to teach this summer session (which I am blogging about soon), so that helped me maintain some level of presentability. If you read the old post, you'll discover that I spent most of the last summer that this happened lying around like an alcoholic middle-aged man, sleeping in my clothes and going to work in said clothes the next day. I've done somewhat better this time around. I've at least eaten things that weren't horribly out of date (minus the incident with the bad meat), but they weren't particularly healthy, either. It was mainly an alternation of steak and frozen stuff. I did manage to shower and keep clean clothes on this time. I've been semi-productive. I managed to send out a few more "paper bullets of the brain" (students, where does this reference come from??); I taught without cursing; I attended a "heritage" festival and managed to drink Yuengling at my favorite bar and later that night kill a bottle of Dom with D/B while discussing the unsatisfactory nature of the possibility of a revolution any time soon; I had a delightful lunch meeting with a former student of mine (I hang out with some of them, but I can count them on one hand); the cats have not killed me (Fanny usually tries when she realizes El Hijo is gone for a significant amount of time -- I have no idea why).

My PTSD is still kicking really hard, though, and that's just so disappointing. I even went to therapy for it over a year ago because the physical symptoms were getting too rough to deal with -- it's never mental (except in the wee hours of the morning), it's like muscle memory. My therapist said it's psych trauma memory and that certain situations can trigger it like muscle memory, in a way, and that made a lot of sense to me. It's been fourteen years since my father died and the trauma that went along with that over the next couple of years. But I still cannot sleep in a bedroom by myself -- if I'm the only adult in the house, I have to sleep on the couch. I still wake up at every little sound, even cats scratching in the litter box at the other end of the house. That's because when I found out my father died, I was laying on my bed with my headphones on and my eyes closed. It's going to sound stupid, but there is no other way of explaining it: I was lying perpendicular to my closet and it just felt like the closet was ... breathing. Like it was alive and something was going to pop out and get me. Something really evil. I couldn't keep my eyes shut, because it felt like a monster was just waiting for me to get settled in so it could rip into me. I've never been a person to be afraid of the dark or of things in closets. So it was incredibly weird and unsettling to say the least. Just then, my sister (then 15) burst into my room, and I will never forget the look on her face as long as I live. She was talking and I couldn't hear her because my headphones were really loud (I was 17). But her face said the world had just ended, or a bomb had dropped, or something horrific had happened -- or as it turned out, my dad had shot himself and my mother had just found him. What I thought was a breathing closet was most likely my mother's screams, which my sister says she still hears sometimes at night when she goes off to sleep, and my sister's feet pounding up the stairs to my room, her screaming too.

I'm glad I didn't hear it and I'm grateful I wasn't the one who found Dad. Because I can remember him just as I saw him last, in his checkered blue work shirt, smelling like Spearmint gum with a cup of coffee before I went to work that early Spring morning at about 6:30 a.m. He smiled and kissed me and told me he was proud of me for working on my Spring Break. And that's how I want to remember him. It's also why I'm a fucking work-a-holic and no one can tell me they're proud of me and it mean anything near what it meant coming from him. Ah, well. It also meant my sleep went to hell and never came back. I used to wake up in the morning and there would be nothing on the bed but me -- no pillow, no sheets, nothing. Before I slept like a log. No more. I also cannot have my Ipod turned up too loud. I can't be in a position where I feel like I can't hear "what's coming", and that's why sometimes I end up on the couch at night, hoping to prevent "what's coming" from getting there. Therapy helped *a lot* because it helped me figure out what the triggers are. But it didn't stop the sleeping habits I have; it just reduced their prevalence. Oh, and it got rid of the ripping gut pain I used to have every single fucking day that would bend me in half or put me on the floor. That's a huge bonus.

I had a particularly rough night last night, as I couldn't go to sleep until about 2:00 a.m. and I was right back up again at 5:00 a.m. like a lightening bolt because I could've sworn I heard somebody coming through the back door. There was no one, of course, there never is. But it was impossible to go back to sleep after that.

I'll be really grateful when El Hijo comes home in another day or so. In the back of my mind, I'm a tiny bit fearful of what my life would be like if Dante were grown and gone and something happened to El Hijo. Hell, I'd probably move into my work office and just put a sleeping bag in there. Sigh.

Yours neurotically,

-- DV

Man Declares Acne Made Him Murder His Ex

Appropriately, his name is John Mullarkey.

Appropriately, because his legal defense for killing his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend was "my acne medicine made me do it."

That's right, his whole defense rested on blaming Accutane. Mullarkey supposedly experienced mood swings from this acne medicine that caused him to stab his former girlfriend sixteen times in a totally non-premeditated kind of way, the same girlfriend he had been abusing before they broke up and stalking afterward. Some would say that Mullarkey did not seem to exhibit mood swings. In fact, he seemed to exhibit one steady mood: bad. Mullarkey was a major Stalk-a-holic, sending the victim numerous text messages one of which read like this:

In the most disturbing message, Mullarkey wrote "I stabbed my self at Demi’s I love you." The outgoing message is shown in a police photo on the blood stained screen of Mullarkey’s cell phone.

According to him, he went over to her house to "reconcile" with her. Perhaps he thought bringing a hunting knife along would help the conversation go smoother. Some of her wounds were deeper than the length of the blade. During the trial, his lawyer asked for a mistrial to be declared, because the makers of Accutane pulled it off the shelves. Aha! Said the lawyer. Unfortunately for him, it was pulled because of a pricing dispute, so his request was denied.

It took the jury less than two hours to come back and call shenanigans on Mullarkey.

Maybe he'd be more appropriately named John Bullshit.

The only thing that bugs me about this case is that the people really responsible for John Mullarkey's state of mind go unpunished and unaccounted for. Accutane didn't make him do it. But you can lay good money on the bet that something in his childhood sure as hell did. And you can also bet he was walking around exhibiting all the signs of major problems to people who are supposed to be family, who very clearly did nothing about it. Those people are walking around free to screw up somebody else's life, while Mullarkey is going to jail (as he should). I think they ought to bear some of the blame, too.

-- DV

WV Legislators Take Another Stab at Banning Gay Marriage

Next week, legislators in this state begin hearings into whether or not they should open up the issue of gay marriage for a state wide vote in order to change the state constitution. Republicans tried to ram this through in March, and some Democrats bravely (given the social conditions in this state) told them to shove off.

This seems to be a matter of making a statement more than anything else. Other states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, etc.) have already voted to recognize gay marriage, and this seems to be about standing up and making a Fundamentalist Christian Stand. Which pisses me right the hell off. If fundamentalists feel that legislation is somehow persecuting them, we'd hear it screamed about to the high non-existant heavens. But when they want to persecute someone else, well, then it's a tool they demand the right to use. Separation. Of. Church. And. State. From the article:

Family Policy Council of West Virginia President Jeremiah Dys and a representative of the Alliance Defense Fund -- a conservative organization that says it seeks to "aggressively defend religious liberty" -- will speak in favor of the amendment, Dys said.

"We're thankful that the Legislature is setting aside time to carefully study this issue," he said. "To my knowledge, this is the first time the West Virginia Legislature has ever officially discussed the Marriage Protection Amendment."

The whole point of separation between church and state is that you get religious liberty. It doesn't mean you're "at liberty" to go around forcing your version of your beliefs on everyone else! Your relgious rights are NOT being trampled on, because it doesn't mean you are going to be forced to be gay or to get "gay married". You can keep right on hating gay people, whether they get married or not. So your right to be stupid is not interefered with in any way. But if we are defending "religious liberty", shouldn't we also be defending those faiths who do NOT consider homosexuality a sin and gay marriage to be an equal right? What about their religious liberty? Doesn't it need defending too?

What also cracks me up is the name of the thing: the Marriage Protection Amendment. LOL. I have been married for four years, and gays getting married has done nothing to undermine my own marriage. The link between gay marriage being allowed and hetero marriage being somehow destroyed has never been explained to anyone. Heteros don't need marriage protection from gays who want to get married. They need marriage protection from stupid heteros who get married too soon or for the wrong reasons. Now that would truly be a service to hetero marriage. Everybody could use couples counseling and financial counseling before they get married. That's what causes marriages to break up: money and miscommunication. Please to be pouring all your wasted dollars into those efforts, thank you.

It may not matter in the end anyway. Massachusetts has sued the federal government over the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), saying it violates the Constitutional "full faith and credit" clause ...

Full faith and credit ought to be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings, of every other state; and the legislature shall, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings, shall be proved, and the effect which judgments, obtained in one state, shall have in another.

... and therefore forces Mass. to have to break it's own laws to discriminate against people it otherwise wouldn't. Or something like that. WV might vote and pass the issue only to find themselves smacked down by the Supreme Court as being in violation of the Constitution. If it happens, let us hope they fall square on their asses.

-- DV

Reality to Mark Sanford: Please STFU Now

Instead of "Don't cry for me Argentina," Sanford's new tag line should be "Someone, Anyone, please put a gag on my mouth." Seriously, already, Sanford. Everyone would like you to shut the fuck up. Many would like to see you also resign. You're lucky that your own state legislature chose to simply censure you instead of boot you out. I'm sure some are regretting that decision, especially when reflecting on recent information about how the whole economic summit in Argentina turned out to be your personal agenda to get a piece of ass. Asking to see pieces of real estate instead of taking the historic tour you were offered is telling. So is your request to keep your nights free. What I find most hilarious is that you were already planning a trip to Argentina for "bird hunting" anyway. LOLOL. That your state decided you did not misappropriate those funds when the whole trip was so very clearly designed for a different purpose is jaw-dropping, frankly, and not in the interests of the South Carolinians who bankrolled your booty call.

But I think we'd all be satisfied if you just shut your pie hole. You are embarrassing your wife and family, yourself and your state. Whenever he talks about his Argentinian mistress, he calls her his "soul mate". Of their whole affair, he says:

Sanford insisted his relationship with Maria Belen Chapur, whom he met at an open air dance spot in Uruguay eight years ago, was more than just sex. "This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

Maybe if you're Romeo and Juliet, you get to blab in purple prose about your forbidden love affair and make out like you're star-crossed lovers instead of consenting adults who purposely decided not to give two shits about someone else's spouse and kids. But you are an adult, not a Shakespearian tragedy. Kindly do the right thing. At least STFU about it in public.

On top of that, he seems to admit to previous sort-of kind-of affairs:

There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn't have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line," he said.

Not sure what that ultimate line is, I assume he means fucking, but who knows? And for that matter, who cares? While it's always a fascinating little sub-study in itself to know what (allegedly) uber-religious people think is a "line" to cross, that gets the people of South Carolina nowhere. If Sanford cannot stop talking about his mistress, perhaps he should do the decent thing and divorce his wife and go be with this woman. It has to hurt like hell to hear your husband say of some other woman:

he said he would die "knowing that I had met my soul mate."

So poop or get off the potty, Mark. Go be with your other woman, or have the respect for your wife to shut up about her.

Article link with live Sanford action: Sanford makes ass of self.

-- DV

Village Idiots Violate Personal Rights

Good job, authorities of Crivitz, Wisconsin, for revealing yourselves to be village despots.

Long story short, an Iraq war veteran flew the flag upside down on his own property on the Fourth of July in protest only to have the local village authoritarian idiots march onto his property and take it down. The ACLU is considering action.

Is it illegal to fly the flag upside down as a sign of distress? Hell, no. Is it a violation of his first amendment rights to deny him that ability? Hell, yes. Some people per the linked article see that as disrespect of the flag.

To which I have to ask, what is more important: a symbol of State power or individual liberty to speak one's mind?

The four police officers and Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey should be ashamed of themselves. Here is what the local Sheriff had to say about his gross violation of this veteran's right to protest -- a right he earned, I would have to think, by his service to their country.

Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula said it was not illegal to fly the flag upside down but people were upset and it was the Fourth of July.

"It is illegal to cause a disruption," he said.

"Disruptions" of course being defined however people in authority choose to define things that displease them. If looking at an upside down flag causes severe disruption, then people need to find something else to do with themselves. Get a hobby or something. Who was disrupted by this man's flag? How were they disrupted? He certainly didn't prevent their parade from taking place. Both Brey and Kanikula can expect to receive an email from me expressing my extreme disappointment in their illegal use and abuse of "authority." You get your authority from the people. The people ought to take it back. But since they haven't just yet, you ought at least to respect where your power comes from.

Or maybe not. Maybe enough blatant displays of this sort of authoritarian numbnuttery would be just what it takes to get more people thinking about just why it is they cede their power over to despots like these.

From the article:

Neighbor Steven Klein watched in disbelief.

"I said, 'What are you doing?' Klein said. "They said, 'It is none of your business.'"

Maybe they need to realize that if they keep telling the Steve Kleins of the world it's none of their business, they'll soon find themselves out of the business of telling other people what to do.

-- DV

Bad Decision? You Betcha!

It figures that when I have lots of comments to make I have no time to make them.

Ah, good, ol' Sarah Palin. Everybody knows by now she quit her job as Governor of Alaska with 18 months-ish left to go. The excuses have varied even more than the rumors, and they are simply ludicrous:

she wants more time with her family -- because no other governor with children has ever had to really tackle that aspect of the job. And isn't that something you would've considered before you ran for the office?;

she was called by a higher power -- one that obviously trumps the Alaskan people she committed to serve;

she didn't want to be a "lame duck" governor -- something that only happens when you can't run for re-election, which was not the case here. Unless by "lame duck" she meant "useless", in which case, that would probably be true;

the ethics investigation was a "distraction" and "unfair" and "expensive" to the Alaskan people -- never mind that the bulk of the expense has been incurred because she refused to cooperate by even writing a simple letter to clear things up. When you make people dig, you incur costs;

the ethics investigation was costing her too much money and she had to get into the corporate world again -- because starting a "Palin Legal Defense Fund" is a hassle, but joining Twitter puts the "fun" in "fund."

she quit to take a book deal -- because no one in history has every done two things at the same time, like, their job and writing a book that is probably going to be ghost written for you anyway;

she quit to make appearances as a GOP fundraiser -- speculation, but the GOP would be stupid not to use her in this capacity;

she quit to be on FOX News as the female Newt Gingrich -- total commercial appeal, I buy this one;

she was under FBI investigation -- not true, but obviously plausible enough for people to latch onto the idea;

something bigger was coming down the pike in terms of scandal -- ties in with rumors about FBI, but really would anyone be surprised at this point?;

she is having a midlife crisis -- fair enough. I guess some male governors respond to midlife crises by having affairs with Argentinian women they can't shut up about;

she's a maverick -- LOL.

I'm not sure any of this really matters nationally. Her base still loves her, and people who didn't like her in the first place now have new reasons to keep disliking her.

Her resignation is more than just a means of fodder for talking about Palin nationally, though. It should be more about the people of Alaska. It's bad enough for the people of South Carolina that their governor ran away to bonk his mistress on another continent without telling anybody. For what it's worth, I'd consider that a job walk off and fire him like any other hard working American would be fired. But Palin's walking out for over a year. She was contracted to work for four years as a public servant, but she chose to break that contract with the public because she thinks she can better serve them "from the outside" where she cannot force or control legislation in any way. Makes perfect sense to me. She thrust the Lt. Gov. into a role he's not ready for in anticipation that if he wants to keep this job, he'll have to both campaign for it very shortly while still learning on the job.

For a woman who characteristically makes bad judgments, this really isn't surprising. What it shows more than anything else is a misunderstanding of how leadership works. If you're going to be the boss of somebody, part of that involves taking care of that person, too. That means when you hire somebody to do a job, you don't just show him the factory and say, "Well, today's my last day, there she is! Have at it." There's this little thing called "transition" that people need. I was an Assistant Director once. If my boss had walked out, I could've run the place. I knew how it worked. But it would've been on chewing gum and shoe strings. I would have had to learn and interpret her methods in a closer way than just working beside someone allows. I would've probably had to take focus away from certain things to put them toward her main duties. The whole point of having more than one person run things is so you can both do different tasks. Palin seems to be under the impression that it's no problem to just turn the office over to your next in command, that things will be smooth, that he must know exactly what's going on. He won't, and he can't. On top of that, he has to take on a new Lt. Gov. (about which there is already some controversy -- a man who has already resigned, but wait, not really), and that person also has to learn the job from scratch. When you have to learn on the job, people don't get served. The real losers here are Alaskans -- even though they got rid of Alaskan Loser #1.

You can't be a "maverick" if you interpret "maverick" to be "person who does what they want when they want regardless of the collateral damage" and be a "leader" at the same time. But this word redefinition problem she has is persistent. She told one reporter "I quit, but I'm not a quitter." Yes, you are. Quitters are people who quit things, and since you quit your job, you are a quitter. You are a Quitty Poo-Poo-Pants, whether you like it or not.

She really does twitters, by the way. And in her native dialect, doncha know? If you want to follow her for the lols, her twitter address is: AKGovSarahPalin. Um ... is she going to have to change her handle now?

-- DV

Persiankiwi Missing

There have been no new tweets from Persiankiwi since June 24. :(

Given the renewed efforts at crackdown, I fear for his life. Especially considering one of his final tweets:

we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will
torture and get names - now we must move fast -

I hope he is safe. I am also sad, because I realized that by naming him, I increased his danger. Now, I'm not exactly a news outlet. And international news picked him up and carried the story with his twitter profile, so it's not really my fault per se. In fact, he had a tweet about that:

foreign news reported us on twitter - we have too much ppl looking at us -

Ironically, given the crackdown and the relative silence from the protesters, I'm afraid that without more international attention, this brave movement is doomed. But it has to be done without calling attention to individuals.

On a more removed intellectual note, the Iranian uprising is a good example of some anarchists' philosophy on voting, which I'm thinking about doing a post on. The summer is a good time for that. Incidentally (not like I don't have enough to do), I'm working with another anarchist to hopefully start putting out pamphlets, good ol' Thomas Paine style. :D

So my What Did You Do This Summer essay would read: I wrote flash and edited an uprising.

Story of my life, really.

-- DV