okay, we still have to do something about syria, again

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“We HAVE to do something about Syria!”
“Okay. Why?”
“Because the Syrian government used chemical weapons against their own people!”
“Okay. But hasn’t the Syrian government been killing their own people for…wait. Wait a minute. Wait just one goddamn minute. Didn’t we already have this conversation? This exact conversation? Five years ago, didn’t we have this same conversation?”
“Yes. But this time I’m serious!”
“Okay. Has anything changed in the last five years?”
“Yes! We have a new president!”
“Okay. And is he better equipped to handle delicate, highly nuanced, incredibly volatile international situations?”
“Are you fucking crazy? It’s Donald Trump!”
“Okay. So we’re still fucked, then?”
“Yes, that’s correct! Massively fucked! Fucked all around!”
“Okay. And knowing all that, your position is…?”
“We HAVE to do something about Syria!”

about that witch hunt

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There’s something really interesting about the raid on the office of Michael Cohen, Comrade Trump’s attorney — something that’s not getting the attention it deserves. Most of the attention is focused on the raid itself.

I suppose I should spend a moment on the very obvious things about the raid that are interesting. Like the fact that it’s not a raid. It’s raids. Multiple. The FBI raided his office, his home, and a hotel room.

Then there’s this: it’s really uncommon for the State to seize client material from an attorney. The attorney-client privilege is pretty sacrosanct; it doesn’t get cast aside easily. But there are a few exceptions to that privilege, one of which is that discussions between an attorney and a client involve committing or covering up a crime are NOT privileged. They’re not protected.

So for the FBI to conduct those raids, they first had to convince a prosecutor that they knew with a high degree of certainty that 1) the material they were seeking was evidence of a probable crime or cover-up being discussed by Cohen and Comrade Trump, and that 2) they’d find the material in the locations they were searching.

Attorney Michael Cohen

But here’s what’s getting overlooked: the name of the prosecutor who got a judge to issue that search warrant. Geoffrey Berman.

Who the hell is Geoffrey Berman? At present, he’s the interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Why ‘interim’? That’s an interesting story. The office had been held by Preet Bharara, who the NY Times described as “the nation’s most aggressive and outspoken prosecutor of public corruption and Wall Street crime.” When Trump was elected, all 46 U.S. Attorneys were asked to submit letters of resignation. Trump, however, apparently met personally with Bharara and asked him to stay on.

This was a potential problem for Comrade Trump since his financial empire is based in New York City, which is part of the Southern District of New York. That meant any financial investigation into Trump would be conducted by Bharara. Marc Kasowitz, another of Trump’s personal attorneys, publicly stated he warned Trump that Bharara would ‘get him’ on corruption issues. Trump then attempted to call Bharara, who refused to accept his phone call, saying it would be inappropriate for him to discuss legal matters involving the president with the president. He was fired 22 hours later.

Comrade Trump then met with a number of attorneys to decide who would be the next United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It’s wildly inappropriate for the president — or any government official — to interview attorneys who might be responsible for investigating his business dealings. But wildly inappropriate is Trump’s calling card. And who did Trump select for that office? A Republican who’d been a partner in the law firm Rudy Giuiliani worked for. A Republican who’d contributed US$5400 to Trump’s presidential campaign.

Geoffrey Berman, interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

That’s right: Geoffrey Berman.

Think about that for a moment. It means 1) a U.S. Attorney who was essentially hand-picked by Comrade Trump was 2) presented with evidence convincing enough for him to believe there was sufficient probable cause that 3) Trump and his attorney had engaged in communications involving either a criminal act or covering up a criminal act that he felt 4) compelled to ask for and convince a judge to 5) issue a warrant to search three locations where evidence of that crime or cover-up would be found.

That is astonishing. And I mean astonishing in the earliest sense of the term (okay, for word geeks: astonish, from the Latin ex, meaning ‘out’ plus tonare, meaning ‘thunder’; in other words, thunderstruck — staggered and dazed by the auditory shock wave created by lightning).

Comrade Trump keeps calling this a “total witch hunt.” If so, that would mean Michael Cohen is a witch’s familiar and Trump is a fucking witch. But c’mon, it’s not a witch hunt. Witches deserve more respect than that. After all, the Wiccan Rede says ‘An it harm none, do what ye will.’ That certainly excludes Trump. No decent coven would accept him as a member. Even if he was a witch. Which he’s not.

UPDATE: It appears I got ahead of myself…and ahead of the facts. It appears Berman DID NOT initiate the search warrants for Cohens office and elsewhere. Although the search was executed by the Southern District of New York, it’s being reported that Berman was recused from the process. It’s not clear at the moment whether he recused himself or was recused by his superiors. In any event, the warrant application came from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The problem with these fast-moving events is that…well, they’re fast-moving.

fuck those guys

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A few days ago I lost my patience with Bret Stephens, an anti-Trump conservative who wrote an apologia defending Kevin Williamson, who’d just been hired by The Atlantic despite having publicly expressed his opinion that women who’d terminated their pregnancies (and their doctors) should be hanged. My position was simple: if you think the opinion that hanging people for receiving or performing an absolutely legal medical procedure has a legitimate place in the marketplace of ideas, then…well, fuck you.

There’s a discussion to be had on abortion, to be sure. But it’s basically impossible to have a discussion when one party’s position is “hang ’em.” In any event, the issue isn’t abortion itself; that just happened to be the subject on which Williamson expressed himself. The real issue is this: what are the boundaries of civil discourse?

After some reflection and thought, and under pressure from outraged readers of The Atlantic, the magazine decided NOT to hire Williamson after all. Jeff Goldberg, the editor who’d hired Williamson, offered an explanation both for his hiring and his firing. In defense of hiring him, Goldberg said, “[N]o one’s life work should be judged by an intemperate tweet.” Which I happen to agree with. However…well, let Goldberg himself say it: “The tweet was not merely an impulsive, decontextualized, heat-of-the-moment post.”

Composing an impulsive, decontextualized, heat-of-the-moment tweet ain’t easy.

In other words, Goldberg thought it was fine for Williamson, in the heat of the moment, to say he’d like to see women who have an abortion and the doctors who perform them hanged. But it was NOT okay for Williamson to actually hold that view as a considered opinion. To which I can only reply to Goldberg, fuck you. That’s bullshit. Even in the heat of the moment, once somebody voices the opinion that ‘you and people like you deserve to be killed‘ the discussion is basically over, even if the person who says that doesn’t really mean it. The fact that Williamson DID mean it, only makes it worse.

Now that Williamson has been returned to the editorial shelf, conservatives are rushing to his defense and the defense of free speech.

Kevin Williamson’s firing is another reminder that much of American conservatism finds itself ghettoized not by choice, but by the left’s active demands that the right be silenced. Socialists, national or otherwise, don’t like to compete for ideas when they can shut up others.

Fuck you. Nobody is calling for the right to be silenced. But a lot of folks do hold the opinion that advocating death by hanging for folks who engage in a legal medical procedure isn’t a position that merits much consideration or discussion.

It appears that The Atlantic has fired Kevin Williamson. That was close. They almost expanded their intolerant little bubble for a brief moment. In the end, we knew they couldn’t abide employing a talented individual with – gasp – a different worldview.

Fuck you. I feel no obligation to tolerate a worldview that says women and their doctors should be killed for legally terminating an unwanted pregnancy. If you feel that’s an acceptable worldview, then…well, fuck you.

Kevin Williamson: hired for his talent, fired for his views. This is chilling.

Fuck you. You know what’s chilling? Saying women and doctors deserve to die because they choose to undergo a medical procedure you find abhorrent. That’s pretty damned chilling to any sort of civil discussion.

“You dare omit the nutmeg? Have at you, villain!”

Here’s the thing: there are venues and forums for every political, social, or religious view, no matter how extreme. If you believe Jews are actively plotting to destroy Christianity, there’s bound to be a place where that view can be discussed. If you believe nine-year-old boys are capable of consensual sexual experiences, there’s probably a place where you can discuss that. If you believe slavery is a legitimate social institution, I’m pretty sure you can find a forum where that view is welcome. If you believe people who eat meat should be locked up in a hog containment barn for a year, there are places where that view will be seen as legitimate. If you think it’s a mortal sin to omit nutmeg when serving eggnog, you can find a venue where that belief will be applauded.

But extremist views of any sort don’t belong in general social discourse. Extreme voices shouldn’t be silenced, but that doesn’t mean we’re obligated to hear them or accept them as legitimate. And if you think claiming women and their doctors deserve to be hung by the neck until dead is NOT an extremist view, then fuck you.

in which i sorta lose my temper

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I’d never heard of Kevin Williamson until a friend sent me a link to an opinion piece in the New York Time entitled The Outrage Over Kevin Williamson. Even though I’ve lost a lot of respect for the Times, and I generally avoid their opinion page these days, I read the piece. I wanted to know 1) who the hell is Kevin Williamson, and 2) who was outraged by him, and 3) why.

Bret Stephens

The editorial is written as an apologetic letter to Williamson by Bret Stephens, who I only know as a conservative political writer who opposes Comrade Trump. It begins with Stephens citing the reasons for the apology:

Sorry, first, that you have to endure having your character assailed and assassinated by people who rarely if ever read you and likely never met you. Sorry also that your hiring as a writer for The Atlantic has set off another censorious furor in media circles when surely there are more important subjects on this earth.

Okay, then. This guy Williamson, who has been offered a job writing for The Atlantic, is apparently having his character assassinated. That’s shameful. Nobody likes that, nobody is in favor of character assassination. So at this point in the editorial I’m feeling a bit of empathy for poor Williamson. Until I found out why there is a ‘censorious furor in media circles.’ Stephens writes:

The case against you, as best as I can tell, rests on three charges. You think abortion is murder and tweeted — appallingly in my view — that doctors and women should perhaps be hanged for it.

I may have set a North American speed record for shifting from empathy to censorious furor. This guy tweeted that women who have abortions and doctors who perform them ought to be hanged? Hanged?

Stephens lists a couple other reasons for that ‘censorious furor’ but really, why bother? I mean, that first reason alone is more than censorious furor-worthy. Hanged, for fuck’s sake. Hanged!

I don’t like abortion, as I’ve said elsewhere, but I completely support a woman’s right to choose. I can understand why a lot of folks disagree with me. I can also understand why a lot of folks would like to turn back the clock and make abortion illegal again, though I think they’re absolutely wrong. I can even understand (on a purely intellectual level) why some folks would think it necessary to criminally punish women and abortion providers. But hanging? Are you fucking kidding me? Hanging?

Stephens goes on:

[Y]our critics show bad faith when they treat an angry tweet or a flippant turn of phrase as proof of moral incorrigibility. Let he who is without a bad tweet, a crap sentence or even a deplorable opinion cast the first stone.

A flippant turn of phrase. Hanging women and doctors…just a bit of irreverent frivolity. I’ve written my share of crap sentences, and I know there are folks who think some of my opinions are deplorable. But you can hand me that first fucking stone, because if advocating hanging women and abortion providers isn’t proof of moral incorrigibility, then I don’t know what is. What kind of fucking madness is that? You know what really shows bad faith? Wanting to hang people for receiving or performing an absolutely legal medical procedure.

Kevin Williamson

Stephens finishes by chastising the people who don’t think The Atlantic should hire a guy who has advocated hanging women and abortion providers. He says,

[T]hey foreclose the possibility of learning something useful from someone smart. Learning does not require agreement. There’s a reason this section of the newspaper is labeled “Opinion,” not “Affirmation,” “Reinforcement,” or “Emotional Crutch.” Liberals used to know that. What happened?

What happened? I’ll tell you what happened, you pus-brained fuckwit. A lot of people have no interest in ‘learning’ the opinions of assholes like Kevin Williamson who think the appropriate response to terminating an unwanted pregnancy is to string women and their doctors up by their necks until they die. That’s what happened.

thanks

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Occasionally people send me things. I’ve no idea why they do, but they do. Not often. Maybe three or four times a year. But periodically the postal carrier arrives at the door with an unexpected package.

Well, not always unexpected. I mean, usually somebody has emailed me and said something like “Dude, I have something for you — what’s your address?” And I give them my address. Why the hell not? I spent a chunk of my life as a professional invader of privacy, so I know the notion of personal privacy is pretty much an illusion. So far nobody has mailed me dog shit or anything explodey, so there’s that.

It always pleases me when these packages arrive. Sometimes, I confess, I’m a tad confused by what’s actually in the package — because sometimes the thing in the package is…well, let’s say some of the stuff is eccentric. But still, how could I not be pleased at the generosity and thoughtfulness behind the gift?

A random assortment of stuff folks have sent me.

I get photographs, of course. Lovely, interesting, beautifully printed photographs. And books (usually about photography, or about photographers, or by photographers but I’ve also received stuff like old Conan Doyle novels). I’ve a friend who, like some character out of fiction, sits in European cafes and writes beautifully (occasionally indecipherable) hand-written letters on the most sensuous paper, sometimes including an interesting business card. And occasionally there’s the eccentric stuff — shark teeth, a bent and rusty horseshoe, a bit of shale shaped like a duck’s head, an advert for gas masks, a box of Jane Austen band-aids, a ceramic ashtray. “Saw this,” people write, “thought of you.” I’m not sure quite what it means when somebody sees a key chain modeled after a Medical Examiner’s toe tag and thinks of me, but I like to think it’s somehow a compliment.

Yes, I took a selfie with a Jane Austen band-aid on my nose.

Okay, this is going to seem like a tangent, but it’s not. Back in 2012 I wrote a blog post about encountering a huge murder of crows. A couple of years ago, I was notified about a new comment on that post. It read:

Hi Greg,
I love your photos. I, too, am a huge fan of crows and ravens. We had a pet raven named Cyrano De Bergerac. He was so smart and so funny. I was wondering if I could use/buy one of your crow photos to include in a painting I want to do.
Thanks from heather

I said yes, of course. I usually say yes to this sort of thing. Besides, I’m a huge fan of crows and a huge fan of Cyrano (the Brian Hooker translation) and a huge fan of folks who can paint. So I said yes, then I promptly forgot all about it. I usually promptly forget about this sort of thing. But then in January I got an email.

Dear Greg, I responded to an early blog post about crows. I had a pet raven named Cyrano De Bergerac and I asked if I could use your photos for a painting I wanted to do. I finally got around to working on it. I am almost finished and I was wondering if you would like to have it. If so, may I have your mailing address?  Thanks from Heather

So I gave her my address. And, again, promptly forgot all about it. Then the painting arrived.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Something small, I suppose. Maybe one of those 8×10 cotton duck canvas panels. Actually, I’m not sure I had any expectations at all. I was just pleased that Heather liked a photograph, and pleased that she wanted to use it as a basis for a painting, and enormously pleased that she was generous enough to want me to have the final work. But whatever I was expecting, I can say without any hesitation that it wasn’t this. It wasn’t 34×24 inches of this:

I was gobsmacked. My gob? Totally smacked. It’s crows, of course, but it’s not just crows; it’s Aesop’s crow, the one from the fable in which a thirsty crow drops pebbles into a jug of water until the water level rises so he can drink. It’s Aesop’s clever crow channeled through Heather Vos, with a bit of mysticism tossed in, and a healthy dollop of pure crowness.

There’s a 12th century bestiary that includes an imaginary discussion between a crow and God. God, it seemed, was foolish enough to try to ignore the crow. The crow wasn’t having any of that, even from a god. The crow said,

“I, Crow, a talker, greet thee Lord. with definite speech, and if you fail to see me it is because you refuse to believe I am a bird.”

This what I love about crows, and it’s what I love second-most about this painting. Crows are clever, confident enough to talk to gods as an equal — confident enough to explain things to gods. We see that crow confidence here.

What I love most about the painting, of course, is that it exists. That it’s a physical reminder that people like Heather Vos exist. That a woman from a small town in Ontario, was thoughtful enough, generous enough, talented enough to create this painting and share it with me.

I’m a lucky guy, I recognize that. I live in a safe place, I have a warm bed in which to sleep, I haven’t had to miss a meal in years, I have friends and family. I’m generally a ridiculously happy person. On those rare occasions when I start to feel the world is cold and cruel (and there’s ample reason to feel that way these days) all I have to do is look around my desk and I’m reminded that the world is full of people who are kind and caring and altruistic and warm-hearted — and I’d go on, but I already sound too much like a Pollyanna.

But thanks — thanks to Heather and to everybody who has ever sent me anything, including their thoughts.

my satire compass done broke

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The ‘patriots’ of FreeRepublic are unhappy, and they want folks to know about it. Those spoiled, obnoxious kids with their weird hair and their African boogie-woogie music and their total lack of good manners marched yesterday, demanding that politicians pay attention to them. Kids these days, I declare.

“This is all too organized. I have little doubt that the recent school shooting and possibly the Vegas shooting were false flag operations. You don’t put these events together on short notice.” —  bk1000 (I stand with Trump)

Well, now I’m confused. Apparently the people who successfully implemented two false flag mass murders, resulting in 75 deaths and 438 wounded aren’t organized enough to put together a march in support of their false flag operations. Man, this false flag stuff is hard.

“Many of those killed were 14 or 15 years old. How many freshmen and sophomores would a junior or senior even have met in a large high school?” — Bob

Sure, Bob, that makes perfect sense. These kids must be frauds, because most of them probably weren’t close friends to the ones who were killed. Probably. And c’mon, why would anybody grieve over the deaths of folks they don’t know that well? Unless, of course, those folks are pre-embryonic blastocysts. Why won’t anybody speak for the pre-embryonic blastocysts?

“I attended the great 9/10/09 Tea Party march in DC against Obola and all he stood for. We had 1,700,000 attendees and, by pure, polite numbers alone, shut down the DC Metro. Then, afterwards, we cleaned up our own mess.” — Libstripper

Yeah, okay. The great 9/10/09 Tea Party march was held on 9/12/09, but let’s not pick nits. And that 1.700,000 people who attended? The two main event organizers — the National Taxpayers Union and FreedomWorks — estimated the crowd size to be between 200,000 (FreedomWorks) and 800,000 (NTU). The public information officer for the DC Fire Department acknowledged the crowd was “in excess of 75,000.” But hey, nits for the picking, right? On the other hand, it’s been reported that there was far less trash left behind than you’d expect from 1,700,000 protesters. So there’s that. Thanks, Obola.

“It does have the look of being manufactured all the way back to the shooting itself. How many opportunities for law enforcement were there to stop that nut? This looks media generated.” — virgil

Well, virgil is clearly on to something here. Law enforcement must be in on the false flag operation because they had too many chances to stop the shooter but didn’t. Also? If law enforcement hadn’t been so distracted by the fake news Russia-Trump-Russia investigation, they’d have seen the shooter was dangerous. Also too plus? The school resource officer was a coward who could/should have stopped the shooter but didn’t because…because…wait…oh, because it was a false flag operation to distract people from the Russian investig…wait…okay, it was because…you know, maybe I’ll come back to this after I’ve had my meds.

George Soros overseeing a false flag operation to destabilize Trump just like Pol Pot, probably.

“A little too convenient that Hoggboy was an aspiring cub reporter and Baldy was the schools resident LGBTQWERTY activist.” — digger48

Seriously. The only thing more convenient would have been if this entire event was a Soros-funded attempt to disarm citizens and eventually create a dystopian state and eventually commit genocide on the middle class using malcontents like Pol Pot used the peasants in the Khmer Rouge.

“A Soros-funded attempt to disarm citizens and eventually create a dystopian state and eventually commit genocide on the middle class using malcontents like Pol Pot used the peasants in the Khmer Rouge.” — sumuam

Fuck me.

Okay, maybe it was actually a setup from the gitgo by Democrat Party Congresswomen, Debbi Wasserman Schultz, Frederica Wilson and Congressman, Ted Deutch, in cahoots with the Broward County Public Servants & Police Sheriff, Scott Israel, etc. to make POTUS, Trump look horrible while killing the Second Amendment.

“I have believed this was a setup from the gitgo by Democrat Party Congresswomen, Debbi Wasserman Schultz, Frederica Wilson and Congressman, Ted Deutch, in cahoots with the Broward County Public Servants & Police Sheriff, Scott Israel, etc. to make POTUS, Trump look horrible while killing the Second Amendment. It failed, but, the murders did not.” — JLAGRAYFOX

Damn it! These fuckers make satire impossible.

 

in which i confess i was wrong about trump’s cabinet

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I was mistaken. In the past I’ve referred to Comrade Trump’s appointments as the Cabinet of Nazgûl. I was wrong.

I mean, it seemed appropriate initially. After all, the Nazgûl were nine men (men, what a surprise) who had “obtained glory and great wealth” in life before succumbing to the dark, corrupt attraction of Sauron’s power. And like the characters in Tolkien’s novel, these men “one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom” of Comrade Trump.

But here’s the thing about the Nazgûl: the reason they were Sauron’s “most terrible servants” was that they were competent. They were good at their jobs. They understood their role, and they fulfilled it professionally. That can’t be said of Trump’s current crop of advisers. These guys would be best described as cartoon villains — except that they have actual power.

I was wrong; this is NOT Comrade Trump’s cabinet.

John Bolton, a certified conspiracy crank who makes Yosemite Sam look like a damned diplomat, is going to be the new national security adviser. This is a guy George W. Bush couldn’t get confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations despite having a Republican-controlled Senate. This fucking guy has advocated the preemptive bombing of both North Korea AND Iran, because that worked so well in Iraq. This beef-headed motherfucker has publicly suggested the Russian hack of the DNC might have been a false flag operation by the Obama Administration. Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee revealed that this deceitful sonofabitch bullied intelligence analysts into saying Cuba — Cuba, an island nation whose claim to fame is its ability to keep a 1944 Dodge in running order — had developed a sophisticated bio-weapons program. And Comrade Trump thinks it’s a good idea to make this canker-brained bullshit artist his national security adviser — his third in fourteen months.

John Bolton, National Security Adviser in waiting

This is clearly a disastrous decision. Which means it’s perfectly in keeping with Trump’s decision-making process. It’s the same process that resulted in putting Kellyanne Conway in charge of the opioid crisis because…well, who the hell knows why she was put in charge. She was probably in the room at the time.

Is there any good news in Bolton’s appointment? Yeah, sorta kinda. Bolton probably won’t last very long in his position. He draws too much attention, and Trump wants all the attention focused on himself. Also, Bolton criticized Comrade Trump’s handling of Russia, saying, “Trump got to experience Putin looking him in the eyes and lying to him, denying Russian interference in the election.” I can’t imagine Comrade Trump putting up with that sort of talk for any length of time. I suspect Trump will kick him into the canyon in the not too distant future.

The only saving grace of the Trump administration to this point is that Trump is too fucking incompetent, too fucking stupid, too fucking ignorant, and way too fucking uninterested in anything other than himself to do Sauronesque level damage to the nation. We don’t have a Dark Lord; what we have instead is a cheap-ass, shallow gilt tinplate, jumped up Grima Wormtongue — a lying coward who abuses women, steals from others, and kisses Vladimir Saruman’s ass.

Jeebus on toast — you know, this used to be a halfway decent country.

no need to help the arseholes

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Yesterday I mocked the biased preliminary report on the Russia investigation from the Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. I included a few silly fictionalized tweets based on Comrade Trump’s all-caps tweet celebrating the prelim HPSCI report. One of those fictional tweets…well, hold on. I’ll come back to that.

I tend to write these blog posts fairly quickly. I may piss away a chunk of time doing research, but the actual writing happens in a bit of a rush. Most often it’s a first draft — so there are occasional typos, errors in grammar, mispeled wirds, or words omitted. It also means I sometimes includes stupid shit I wouldn’t have included if I’d paused long enough to consider how the stupid shit could be interpreted by folks who don’t know me. Or even those who do know me.

I made a rare editorial change before publishing yesterday’s post. I deleted a harmless but snarky fake tweet about HPSCI defending the music of Nickelback. I wanted to include something more obviously and sharply political, something more Republicanish. I replaced it with a snarky fake tweet about HPSCI and Stormy Daniels.

This prompted my friend (for the purposes of this post, I’ll call her “Jenn” — which is coincidentally her name) to respond. She wrote:

Loved this, darlin’, until the “STORMY DANIELS PROBABLY ACTUALLY A MAN” bit, which chucks a mudball of mockery in an unfortunate and undeserved direction.

“Jenn” went on to say this:

I’m in complete favor of taking jabs at Republican bullshit and hypocrisy; and lawdy, you do it well. But I find it cruel when a joke depends on transphobia and homophobia for any sort of “scaffolding.” Even if it IS exactly the sort of thing these arseholes would say. There is no need to help the arseholes sideswipe people who are already vulnerable and targeted and getting hurt all the damned time.

“Jenn” is smart, funny, compassionate, and thoughtful. She’s also a good friend. And she’s right. I’d intended the Stormy Daniels bit to be a swipe at the misogyny / gender insecurity of Congressional Republicans. But that swipe WAS built on the hurtful ways haters depict some folks who are already marginalized. It’s all the more hurtful since I have friends who fall outside of traditional gender norms.

I want to say this: I will not let anybody — friend or not — police my speech. But I also want to say this: I need to remember to police my own speech. I’m grateful I have friends who’ll call me out when I’ve crossed a boundary. I may not always agree with the boundary, I may not respect it and I may intentionally violate it — but I’m SO thankful for friends who point out where their boundaries are.

One of the most difficult things we can do — and something we really MUST do — is to call out our friends and family when they say or do something offensive or stupid. It’s probably harder to call out our friends than it is to call out a stranger. It took a bit of courage, I think, for “Jenn” to tell me I’d fucked up. It would have been so much easier for her to stay silent.

Do Not Feed the Arseholes

In this case, I totally agree with “Jenn”. As she said, there was “no need to help the arseholes.” Helping the arseholes is just a tiny step away from being an arsehole. I could have made my point in another way. After “Jenn” spoke up, I considered editing the blog post and re-inserting the snarky Nickelback bit. But that would just be covering my tracks. I think it’s probably more important to acknowledge that I fucked up.

And hey, let’s face it, I’ll likely do it again. We all fuck up. And we can all benefit from friends who remind us not to help the arseholes.