My brother has posted his thoughts on last night’s rioting in Vancouver. I think we’re mostly on the same page about how this mess came about: the riots happened because people expected a riot to happen. The anarchists and the assholes showed up, dragged a few fence-sitting drunkards in with them, and the party was [...]
Archive for the ‘politics’ Category
Vancouver Riots
June 16, 2011
Standing in the Rubble
April 30, 2011
Two months ago, near the start of the Libyan revolution, I read this paragraph: Gaddafi, clad in brown robes and a turban, spoke on Tuesday evening from a podium set up in the entrance of a bombed-out building that appeared to be his Tripoli residence hit by US air raids in the 1980s and left unrepaired [...]
Passionate Wisdom
April 27, 2011
UPDATE (June 13, 2011): The author of this story has come forward admitting that it is a hoax. Although the story loses some of its appeal without the lustrous shine of a “based on a true story” tag, I hope that the underlying message of my commentary still stands. An out lesbian in Syria is [...]
How To Explain DADT to a 4-year-old
September 22, 2010
This morning, in response to a story on NPR, Ruby asked me what “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” means. Never one to shy away from an opportunity to explain extraordinarily complicated issues to a young child, I dove right in… First I started by explaining that the people in the army and navy don’t have as [...]
Gotcha Politics
September 20, 2008
This blog post (which made it onto boingboing today) was the last straw for me. It takes Microsoft to task for using a Macintosh to create their latest “I’m a PC” ad campaign. There’s no discussion of the content of the ads. Just a quick mention of a meaningless point of embarrassment. Gotcha! There’s too [...]
Swarthy Choice
November 2, 2007
There’s an ad on the bus warning everyone to be vigilant of stray packages. These ads are sad and ultimately destructive of the society they’re supposed to protect. I wish we could learn to think more rationally about risk. But anyway, that’s not what prompted this post. The ad has a picture of a suitcase-like [...]
My take on I-933
August 8, 2006
Initiative 933 is on the ballot for Washington State this fall. Here’s the summary: This measure would require compensation when government regulation damages the use or value of private property, would forbid regulations that prohibit existing legal uses of private property, and would provide exceptions or payments. Read the full initiative here: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/initiatives/text/i933.pdf I am [...]