The Mallet of Loving Correction Part 6

Every moment of that process, she has to be thinking of me, and how I've forced all of this on her-exercised my ability to bend her life away from what it was to what I've made of it. Me exercising my control.

I gotta tell you, it feels awesome.

But! You know what would feel even more awesome? The knowledge that, if you get your way and abortion is outlawed even in cases of rape, that my control of her will continue through all the rest of her life.

First, because she'll have no legal choice about whether to have the baby I put in her-sorry, dearie, you have no control at all! You have to have it! That's nine months of having your body warp and twist and change because I decided that you needed a little lesson on who's actually running the show. That's sweet.

Once the baby's born, the woman will have to decide whether to keep it. Here's an interesting fact: Of the women who have gotten pregnant from rape who give birth to that baby, most keep the baby, by a ratio of about five to one. So my ability to change the life of the woman just keeps growing, doesn't it? From the rape, to the nine months of the pregnancy, to the rest of her life dealing with the child I raped into her. Of course, she could put the kid up for adoption, but that's its own bundle of issues, isn't it? And even then, she's dealing with the choices I made for her, when I exercised my control over her life.

Best of all, I get to do all that without much consequence! Oh, sure, theoretically I can get charged with rape and go to prison for it. But you know what? For every hundred men who rape, only three go to prison. Those are pretty good odds for me, especially since-again!-folks like you like to muddy up the issue saying things like "forcible rape." Keep doing that! It's working out great for me.

As for the kid, well, oddly enough, most women I rape want nothing to do with me afterward, so it's not like I will have to worry about child support or any other sort of responsibility...unless of course I decide that I haven't taught that woman a big enough lesson about who's really in control of her life. Did you know that 31 states in this country don't keep rapists from seeking custody or visitation rights? How great is that? That's just one more thing she has to worry about-me crawling out of the woodwork to remind her of what I did, and am continuing to do, to her life.

Look how much control you want to give me over that woman! I really can't thank you enough for it. It warms my heart to know no matter how much I rape, or how many women I impregnate through my non-consensual s.e.xual battery, you have my back, when it comes to reminding every woman I humiliate who is actually the boss of her. It's me! It's always been me! You'll make sure it'll always be me. You'll see to that.

I am totally voting for you this election.

Yours, Just Another Rapist.

P.S.: I love it when you say that you "stand for innocent life" when it comes to denying abortions in cases of rape! It implicitly suggests that the women I rape are in some way complicit in and guilty of the crimes I commit on top of, and inside of, their bodies! Which works out perfectly for me. Keep it up!

No, seriously, keep it up.

-JAR Forrest Plumber Feb

3.

2009.

Wait, what?

Fresh off his stint as a war correspondent in Gaza, Joe the Plumber is now doing political strategy with Republicans.

When GOP congressional aides gather Tuesday morning for a meeting of the Conservative Working Group, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher-more commonly known as Joe the Plumber-will be their featured guest. This group is an organization of conservative Capitol Hill staffers who meet regularly to chart GOP strategy for the week.

Wurzelbacher, who became a household name during the presidential election, will be focusing his talk on the proposed stimulus package. He's apparently not a fan of the economic rescue package, according to members of the group.

I think it's nice that the GOP has found its new BFF with Joe the Plumber, but if memory serves correctly, every time Mr. Wurzelbacher opens his mouth on the issues of the day, ignorance vomits forth in rushing gouts. I believe the GOP is packaging this as "wisdom from the heartland," but speaking as one in the heartland, dude, it's just ignorance. And what's not ignorance is a GOP talking point, so I expect from the GOP point of view, whatever Joe says is going to be pure gold. He makes so much sense! He's saying things we've always believed! Well, yes.

This is not to disparage Mr. Wurzelbacher for being an opportunist, incidentally, and if you are of a mind to, here's a quiz for you: Hey, you're a bald, chunky, blue-collar n.o.body from a c.r.a.ppy little midwest town! By chance, you find yourself thrust into the national spotlight and have a chance to do something more interesting with your life than sit in your c.r.a.ppy little midwest town and get balder and chunkier. Do you: a) Say, "no thanks, I'd rather stay a n.o.body"; b) Do all the wacky c.r.a.p everybody asks you to do for as long as you possibly can, because in your heart you know it will never ever get any better than this for you for as long as you might possibly live.

Take your time on that one, people.

So, no: I don't blame Joe the Plumber one bit for taking up the invitation to talk strategy with the GOP, or fly to the mideast, or any other thing he might be offered to do that sounds interesting to him. Dude's living the dream, man. As long as they keep letting him, why shouldn't he. I support Wurzelbacher milking this thing. Good for him. I hope he's having fun. I suspect he is.

The real question is not what Joe's doing, but what the h.e.l.l the GOP's thinking. Maybe they haven't been keeping up with current events, but the last guy who hitched his wagon to Joe the Plumber found that wagon in the ditch. Joe the Plumber is an everyman, perhaps, but he's the sort of everyman who got outvoted by all the other sorts of everymen out there, and whose numbers appear to be shrinking as time goes on in any event. Which is to say that it's good for Joe the Plumber that the GOP wants to hear from him; it's probably not so great for the GOP.

Fox News Would Like To Take a Moment To Remind You That the Obamas Are As Black As Satan's Festering, Baby-Eating Soul Jun

12.

2008.

Back in the day-you know, when presidential candidates were respectably white-news organizations called potential First Ladies "wives." But now that black folks are running, we can get all funky fresh with the lingo, yo. So it's basically fine for Fox News to use "Baby Mama" for Mich.e.l.le Obama, slang that implies a married 44-year-old Princeton-educated lawyer is, to use an Urban Dictionary definition of the term, "some chick you knocked up on accident during a fling who you can't stand but you have to tolerate cuz she got your baby now." Because the Obamas are black! And the blacks, they're all relaxed about that s.h.i.t, yo. Word up. And anyway, as the caption clearly indicates, it's not Fox News that's calling Mich.e.l.le Obama "Baby Mama," it's outraged liberals. Fox News is just telling you what those outraged liberals are saying. They didn't want to use the term "Baby Mama." But clearly they had no choice.

Meanwhile, over at her personal site, Mich.e.l.le "Fox News' Ethnic Shield" Malkin defends Fox News' use of the "Baby Mama" phrase by essentially making two arguments. First, Mich.e.l.le Obama once called Barack Obama her "baby's daddy," and as we all know, a married woman factually and correctly calling her husband her child's father is exactly the same as a major news organization calling a potential First Lady some chick what got knocked up on a fling. Second, the term "baby-daddy" has gone out into the common culture; heck, even Tom Cruise was called Katie Holmes' baby-daddy, you know, when he impregnated her and she subsequently gave birth while the two were not married, which is exactly like what happened between Mich.e.l.le and Barack Obama, who were married in 1992 and whose first child was born six years later.

So by Malkin's reasoning it's perfectly fine for Fox News to call Mich.e.l.le Obama the unmarried mother of Barack Obama's children because an entirely different phrase has to her mind entered the common culture, and there was this one time that Mich.e.l.le Obama once uttered something that sounded like that entirely different phrase, which is not the phrase that Fox News used. But wait! Malkin also points to someone in her comment thread saying that one time, Mich.e.l.le Obama actually used the phrase "baby daddy"! No apostrophe! It's in a comment thread, so it must be true. Therefore, Mich.e.l.le Obama apocryphally using a piece of urban slang makes it perfectly okay for Fox News to use an entirely different piece of urban slang. And that's why, you see, it won't be a problem for Bill O'Reilly to refer to Barack Obama as "my n.i.g.g.a" on the next O'Reilly Factor.

It's s.h.i.t like this that makes a different story on CNN, about whether Barack Obama should be considered black or biracial, an absolute hoot. Here's a quick test on whether Obama should be considered fully black: Poof! Barack Obama has been magically transported to a KKK meeting in deepest, whitest Klanistan without his Secret Service detail. There's a rope and a tree nearby. What happens to Obama? If you say, "why, Barack Obama walks out of there alive, of course" then sure, he's biracial. Also, you're a f.u.c.king idiot. To everybody who cares about Obama's racial ident.i.ty, either positively or negatively, the man is a black man, married to a black woman, who has black children. Black black black black black black black black.

It sure as h.e.l.l matters to Fox News, which is why it's dog whistling about Barack so loudly that it's vibrating the windows. Calling Mich.e.l.le Obama a "baby mama" isn't just Fox News having a happy casual larf; it's using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama's relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men. Someone at Fox News just ought to call Barack Obama "boy" at some point so we can have all the cards right out there on the table.

This will keep happening. Fox News will keep finding ways to remind its viewers that the Obamas are black (and possibly Muslim), Mich.e.l.le Malkin will continue to make excuses for Fox News' dog-whistling racism that expose the fact that she's about as familiar with logical thinking as a rainbow trout is with knitting, and eventually some portion of the Fox News audience will get to the ballot box in November convinced that they're not really racists, they just know that there's something about that Obama boy they just don't like. This is how it will go. Let's not pretend it's not part of equation, this election year.

Friends Nov

23.

2011.

My oldest friend who I still know and stay in contact with is Kyle Brodie, whom I met in the second grade. We hit it off on the first day, not in cla.s.s but on the bus ride home. We started having a conversation and we both found each other so mutually clever that we just knew we were totally going to be best friends. And we were, until he moved away, as people do. But we kept in touch here and there and have genuinely reconnected again in the last couple of years; he's still as clever as ever and I'm delighted that 34 years ago I made the right decision to be his friend (and he to be mine).

The newest friend I have I made this last weekend; it's Adrienne Kress, an author I met at SFContario 2 in Toronto, and much like Kyle in second grade, it was her humor and cleverness in conversation that made me feel like I could have a connection with her, and encouraged me to spend time with her over the course of the convention. It is of course far too early to know if this enjoyment of her company and liking her as a person is going to mean I'll be friends with her as long as I've been with Kyle, and honestly, it would be totally unfair of me (as well as possibly creepy for her) if I had that expectation. And you know what? I don't. We'll see how it goes. But in the meantime, I'll consider her a friend, and happily so.

In between Kyle and Adrienne are some hundreds of people over the course of my life with whom I have been fortunate enough to be friends, to a greater or lesser extent.

"Friend" is an imprecise term, mind you. Cla.s.sifying someone as a "friend" is a little like cla.s.sifying them as a "mammal"-it's probably correct but it doesn't actually tell you much. There are all sorts of different types of friends, from the sort of friend barely above the level of casual acquaintance to the sort of friend who, when they call and say "I have a problem, bring a shovel," you bring a shovel and deal with the problem without so much as a second thought. The taxonomy of friendship is exhaustive and even then doesn't take into consideration that nearly all friendships are in motion. Your best friend in sixth grade may be someone to whom you barely speak anymore, for no other reason than life happens. The person with whom you shared mostly only a friendly pa.s.sing relationship for years may unexpectedly become one of your most important friends. Friends you may see in real life only once a year-if that-may share a bond with you of surprising warmth. Time and circ.u.mstance and the fact we are ourselves always changing means our friendships are always changing too. New ones are added. Old ones trail away. Sometimes they return. Sometimes they don't.

It's not easy to define what a "friend" is in any event. There's a joking definition which gets somewhere in the neighborhood: "a friend is someone who knows the real you and likes you anyway." I think it might be more accurate to say that that a friend is someone that helps you to be the person you are, and likes you anyway. But even that doesn't get to it completely. I mean, h.e.l.l, I have some friends that sometimes I don't even like very much. That doesn't stop them from being my friend, and sometimes even some of the best of my friends. It's tempting to throw up one's hands and cla.s.sify friendship in the same way Potter Stewart defined p.o.r.nography: Hard to define but you know it when you see it.

Nevertheless, I'll strive for a simple definition. I think at the end of the day, a friend is someone you emotionally want in your life, who wants you emotionally in theirs. Why do you want them in your life, and they in yours, and how much in it for both? That's something for the two of you to work out, and when you can't figure it out, or sometimes you end up wanting different things, that's when the friendship changes or ends. It's also possible that your friendship is not mutually graded: You may feel an intense attachment to a friend who feels less intensely about you, and vice-versa. This can sometimes lead to problems. And finally friendship is two people dealing with each other, and you know how people are. Sometimes no matter how much you want to be friends with someone, or how much other people think you should be friends (or on occasion how much you would like to be friends for the sake of a mutual friend), it just doesn't work. Friendship isn't actually easy. People aren't easy.

But the reward is that you get to have friends. You have the people to whom you may vent, with whom you can laugh, who will support you when you need it and for whom you may be a shelter. People who are, as is often said, the "family of choice"-those with whom you may stand and face what the world sends your way. People who are a part of you, have helped you become you, and who might be a part of who you are moving forward.

I have been genuinely blessed with friendships of all sorts and have been thankful for them all, from the most casual friendships to the ones that have lasted and grown all through my life. For each of these and in their way, I have tried to be a good friend in return, and worry that I haven't been. I can be oddly bad at connection; e-mails slip past me, calls turn into week-long bouts of phone tag, I get wrapped up in my own head and I wander about in otherwise oblivious ways. Even friends who I consider to be best friends I can be out of communication with for months at a time. So I am likewise thankful that when I do once again get in contact, they are gracious to me and still friends. It means a lot to me, more than I can easily express here.

So, my friends: Thank you, each of you and all of you, from the ones I have known all my life to the ones I am just meeting. It's a good life with you in it. I hope your life is better for me being in yours.

Gawker, Reddit, Free Speech and Such Oct

16.

2012.

I've been watching with some interest the drama surrounding Gawker writer Adrian Chen revealing Reddit user/celeb/moderator/troll Violentacrez's real life ident.i.ty (Michael Brutsch), which among other things resulted in Brutsch losing his job, presumably because Brutsch's employer was not 100% comfortable employing someone who spent his days moderating online forums with t.i.tles like "Chokeab.i.t.c.h" and bragged about the time his 19-year-old stepdaughter performed oral s.e.x on him. It also resulted in Reddit globally banning links from Gawker (since rescinded, although forum moderators ("subredditors") can choose to block links within their forums-and do), and various bannings due to discussion of the drama.

Wrapped up in all of this are various chest beatings about free speech and whether someone's online anonymity is sacred, even if he is a creep, the culture of Reddit in particular and the Internet in general, and in a larger sense where the rights of one individual-say, a creepy middle-aged dude-begin to impinge on others-say, young women who don't believe that merely being in public is an invitation to be s.e.xually degraded. This is all interesting stuff, to be sure, and naturally I have a few thoughts on these topics. In no particular order: 1. The "free speech" aspect of this is largely nonsense. Reddit is not a public utility or a public square; it's a privately owned s.p.a.ce on the Internet. From a legal and (United States) const.i.tutional point of view, people who post on Reddit have no "free speech" privileges; they have what speech privileges Reddit itself chooses to provide them, and to tolerate. Reddit chooses to tolerate creepiness and general obnoxiousness for reasons of its own, in other words, and not because there's a legal or const.i.tutional reason for it.

Personally speaking, when everything is boiled down to the marrow, I think the reason Reddit tolerates the creepy forums has to do with money more than anything else. Reddit allows all those creepy subreddits because its business model is built on memberships and visits, and the dudes who visit these subreddits are almost certainly enthusiastic members and visitors. This is a perfectly valid reason, in the sense of "valid" meaning "allowing people to be creepy isn't inherently illegal, and we make money because of it, so we'll let it happen." But while it makes sense that the folks at Reddit are either actively or pa.s.sively allowing "we're making money allowing creeps to get their creep on" to be muddled with "we're standing up for the principles of free speech," it doesn't mean anyone else needs be confused by this.

If someone bleats to you about any of this being a "free speech" issue, you can safely mark them as either ignorant or pernicious-probably ignorant, as the understanding of what "free speech" means in a const.i.tutional sense here in the US is, shall we say, highly constrained in the general population. Additionally and independently, the sort of person who who says "free speech" when they mean "I like doing creepy things to other people without their consent and you can't stop me so f.u.c.k you ha ha ha ha" is pretty clearly a mouth-breathing a.s.shole who in the larger moral landscape deserves a bat across the bridge of the nose and probably knows it. Which is why-unsurprisingly-so many of them choose to be anonymous and/or use pseudonyms on Reddit while they get their creep on.

On the subject of anonymity: 2. Anonymity/pseudonymity is not inherently evil or wrong. Astute observers will note that on Whatever I allow both anonymous and pseudonymous postings, because sometimes you want to say something you wouldn't normally say with your name attached and/or because you have personal/business reasons to want not to have a trail of comments lead back to you. Perfectly reasonable and perfectly acceptable, and as I moderate the site pretty attentively, anyone who decides to use the cloak of anonymity to be an a.s.sbag will get their words malleted into oblivion in any event.

It's not anonymity or pseudonymity that's the issue. The issue is people being a.s.sholes while anonymous because they don't believe it's ever going to get back to them. This is a separate issue from anonymity/pseudonymity. Someone who is anonymous shouldn't be a.s.sumed to be an a.s.sbag, any more than someone who uses their real name should be a.s.sumed to be a kind and decent human being. In both cases, it's what they say that should be the guide.

However: 3. If at this point in Internet history you think you're really anonymous/pseudonymous on the Internet, or that you have a right to anonymity/pseudonymity on the Internet, you're kind of stupid. Yes, stupid, and there's no other way to put it. I remember back in 1998 and people with pseudonymous online diaries freaking out because they ranted about a family member or boss online, and then that person found out, and as a result the diarist was fired and/or had very awkward Thanksgivings for several years. And you know what? Even back in 1998, when the Web was still reasonably new, while one could be sympathetic, in the back of the head there was always well, what did you expect? It's not that hard to find things out. Something will give you away sooner or later. Here in 2012, if you're going to make an argument to me that anonymity truly exists on the Web, I'm going to want you to follow up with an explanation of how the Easter Bunny is riding unicorns on Mars with Kurt Cobain.

I find it difficult to believe that Redditors don't understand that anonymity online is merely a facade; indeed it's probably one of the reasons that revealing the ident.i.ty of pseudonymous Redditors is looked on as such a huge betrayal. That said, anyone who goes to Reddit and truly believes that a site-standard ethos of "don't reveal our members' ident.i.ties" fully protects them from being revealed or allows them to revel in obnoxious and/or creepy behavior without fear of discovery, they're kind of dumb. I won't say that they deserve what they get-maybe they do, maybe they don't-but I will say they shouldn't be terribly surprised.

Now, you might argue that someone has a right to pseudonymity or anonymity online, and depending on your argument, I might even agree with you (hint: such an argument doesn't involve posting s.e.xualized pictures of minors or the unconsenting). But I would also agree with you that it would be cool if the Mars rover beamed back a picture of Kurt and Peter Cottontail jamming on "Pennyroyal Tea" while their unicorns kept the time on tambourine. Back here in the real world, you should get used to the idea neither is happening soon.

Speaking of the real world: 4. Reddit is not the Internet, the Internet is not Reddit, and in neither place is one obliged to privilege anonymity/pseudonymity. It seems like a lot of the angst emanating from Reddit regarding this event is based on a community standard of not outing anonymous or pseudonymous Reddit users. However, just because something is a community standard does not mean one is obliged to follow it in all ways at all times, and if the "com-munity standard" is doing real harm or is being used as a shield to allow people to act badly without consequence, then it's a reasonable question of whether this "standard" is to be allowed to stand unchallenged.

In any event, an argument that those outside the community are bound to its standards is a tough one to make outside of that community. Am I, John Scalzi, enjoined by Reddit "community standards" on my own site? Not in the least, and if anyone suggested I was, I would point and laugh at them. Am I when I am on Reddit, signed into my Reddit account ("Scalzi," which, I would note, is not particularly anonymous/pseudonymous)? Well, I'm enjoined by the actual rules (seeing as I have no right to free speech as understood by the US Const.i.tution while I am there), and generally would try to abide by established local practices. But there are rules and then there are guidelines, and I don't need to believe that the latter has the force of the former.

In the case of Adrian Chen, the Gawker writer who revealed Violentacrez's real-life ident.i.ty, I think he's perfectly justified in doing so. Whether certain denizens of Reddit like it or not, Chen was practicing journalism, and writing a story of a figure of note (and of notoriety) on one of the largest and most influential sites on the Internet. They may believe that Mr. Brutsch should have an expectation not to have his real life ident.i.ty revealed on Gawker, but the question to ask here is "why?" Why should that be the expectation? How does an expectation of pseudonymity on a Web site logically extend to an expectation of pseudonymity in the real world? How does one who beats his chest for the right of free speech on a Web site (where in fact he has no free speech rights) and to have that right to free speech include the posting of pictures of women who did not consent to have their pictures taken or posted then turn around and criticize Gawker for pursuing an actually and legitimately const.i.tutionally protected exercise of the free press, involving a man who has no legal or ethical presumption of anonymity or pseudonymity in the real world? How do you square one with the other? Well, you can't, or at least I can't; I have no doubt some of the folks at Reddit can guide that particular camel through the eye of the needle.

But they would be wrong. Mr. Brutsch's actions are newsworthy, and it's neither libel nor defamation for Gawker to correctly attribute his actions to him, whether or not he ever expected them to be attached to his real life ident.i.ty. If they don't think so, I heartily encourage them to take up a collection for Mr. Brutsch so he can sue Gawker. I know what the result would be, but I think the path to getting there might be instructive to some Redditors.

Or maybe (and hopefully) they already know they don't have a legal or ethical leg to stand on, which is why they eventually fall back on well, this just isn't done and then ban Gawker links on Reddit. Which, of course, is their right. That is, so long as the people actually running Reddit believe it is.

Gizmodo Agrees: Apple Fans Are Status-Seeking Beta Monkeys Jun

9.

2009.

Thus, its entry today lamenting the fact that with the latest iteration of the Apple product line there is no longer any meaningful technological or design distinction between the expensive, top-level Apple products the hipsters flash about in coffee shops and subways to signal their reproductive fitness, and the plebian-level Apple products common trolls use to sign into Mys.p.a.ce and/or listen to their Nickelback MP3s: A leveling of cla.s.s distinctions in Apple products is going to sting people who valued the affectation of elitism that came with using Apple's top-of-the-line products. Even subtle differences-like the premium paid for the matte black MacBook over the otherwise identical shiny white one, were signals, beamed out to the others in the coffee shop, declaring who was "da boss." You know, the guys who wore the white earbuds with pride five years ago...

Maybe Apple is trying to create good design that works for anyone and everyone. I can respect that. Still, the question remains: Does this make rich people look like poor people, or poor people look like rich people? The privileged must know.

Gizmodo is getting its snark on, obviously, but it also hit the nail on the head as to why I, at least, have a mild allergic reaction to the Cult of Apple. It's not that Mac laptops and iPhones aren't nice pieces of equipment; they surely are. It's just that they're also the tiny c.o.ke spoons of the early 21st century-a bit of decla.s.se ostentation flashed by people who think they're signaling one thing when they're in fact signaling something else entirely, and that thing is: I may be an a.s.shole.

To be sure, the guy with an Android phone and a Toshiba laptop may be no less of an a.s.shole. But you're not necessarily going to a.s.sume that from his technology alone. This is why I'm always vaguely annoyed when someone smugs at me that I should get a Mac for my next computer: part of my brain goes, yeah, it's a nice machine, but then I'll be indistinguishable from all those Williamsburg d.i.c.ks. Next will be a canvas manbag and chunky square gla.s.ses, followed shortly by leaping in front of the G train. Thank you, no.

Yes, yes: Not everyone hoisting a MacBook Pro or soon to be flashing an iPhone 3GS is a vacuous hipster status monkey. But then, not everyone who drove a Trans Am in 1982 was a beefy, mullet-wearing Rush fan, either. Yet when you picture a 1980s Trans Am owner in your mind, is he not today's Tom Sawyer? Does he not get high on you? Well, see.

A General Observation Sep

20.

2009.

The Internet does seem to be full of people whose knowledge of complex concepts appears limited to a dictionary definition.

Some of them seem to be proud of that.

Having Been Poor Apr

1.

2009.

Xwrites: Reading your 'being poor' topic and having been under-monetized at points in my past, I'm wondering how you think that affects/should affect a person's current lifestyle. Could being a packrat be related to that? Habitually looking at the price of everything just another case of OCD? How about being traumatized by the thought of throwing away leftover food?