you really don't want to know

But you wouldn’t know it from the way we treat our countrymen.

Most of the debates I get into lately seem to be with people who share a common thread in their logic. The specter of “socialism” looms large and scary; redistribution of wealth (or anything that resembles it) is an abhorrent notion; the word “entitlement” is used with dripping disdain for the needy and/or infirm. Plus, they’re often Christian. But fuck that “brother’s keeper” shit.

We rule. America, FUCK YEAH! We kick ass, and freedom is the BEST! If you don’t agree with such-and-such, then you must hate FREEDOM! You point the finger at companies that make money, so you must hate capitalism! Go live in a socialist country, comrade.

Americans are the best people on Earth! But I don’t trust any of them to refrain from leeching off the system. Fuck those assholes. I’m not gonna let my tax dollars form a big teat for them to suck on. Eat shit, poor people. Get a job. DIAF and GTFO.

But yeah, America RULES! We kick ass, and we spread freedom to the countries who need it! But man, I sure don’t trust the government, those evil fucks are trying to steal all the power they can get their hands on, so they can create a permanent ruling class, and ultimately enslave us all. Michele Bachmann told me so.

For what purpose, I have no fucking idea. But that whole “free healthcare” stuff they do in Canada and England and France and every other industrialized nation sounds like evil just waiting to happen. Either that, or it’ll bankrupt us. Because I don’t trust our government to do anything right. But America IS THE BEST.

Honestly, my dream right now? Bring back the “lady” and the “gentleman.” Because really, the world of political discussion is taking on a decidedly “YouTube comments thread” patina, and it’s turning my fucking stomach. The only rational political discussions I ever have anymore are with people who already think like I do. That’s not good.

I’m not gonna lie to you: Natascha McElhone is a beautiful woman. I’m charmed by her every time I see her on screen. And every single time, it takes me a minute to realize why:

Yep. That’s my mom.

Without going into much detail:

I’m working on a new website. Our designer made a really nice design for the client. In the “About Us” section, they’ve got a page for each member of the organization. The design features two photos of the person:

1. a professional mugshot, which goes in the right sidebar
2. a more candid “action” photo, something that shows the person is a human

Apparently, the client didn’t hear the word “candid,” so each of the “action” photos is just another close-up face photo. Their clothes are more casual, like they’re having coffee with an old friend on the back porch. Most of them are looking out-of-frame with a smile on their face, as if they’re chuckling at something vaguely amusing.

The effect, really, is that they look like they’re gazing lovingly at the other photo of themselves in the sidebar.

…especially warped, stretched-to-the-breaking-point, incredible opinions. Last night, I watched Jon Stewart interview Betsy McCaughey about the “scary” business that’s in HR3200 (PDF link), the healthcare bill that’s currently under review. Here’s the as-aired video of the segment, but I’ll also post the “extended” interview (two parts) below. They basically let the interview run long, and just abruptly cropped it for TV with a recommendation to watch the rest online. I’m glad they did.

Now, the truth is, as soon as I saw her walk out with that binder, I was ready for her to flip to a few pages and start telling me things I didn’t know. I thought, “finally, someone who’s not going to talk to me like I’m a child.” Well, for those of you who knew anything about Betsy before now, my sincerest apologies for being such a ridiculous optimist.

As you’ll see in the video, Betsy didn’t even have any post-it notes on any pages. She had no intention of reading anything from that binder, and I’m honestly surprised there was anything but blank pages in there. It was a prop. She is a patronizing, condescending panderer, and Stewart was an absolute saint for not tearing into her like he did with Jim Cramer.

The thing about props — like Betsy’s big binder — is that they either need to support your cause, or you really need to not bring them. Because if they don’t support your cause, then there’s a very strong chance that they will destroy your credibility if the people you’re talking to are paying you any mind.

To be fair, I’m glad she brought that binder, because she did teach me something that I needed to know. In her words, “the really scary” parts reside between pages 425 and 432. And because I’m a skeptic, I’ll assume that if Jon hadn’t mentioned the page numbers, Betsy wouldn’t not have mentioned them. But since the page numbers were mentioned, she made a big show of flipping open her huge binder, ruffling to certain pages, and then reading exactly none of what was on those pages.

“Let me tell you what it says,” came from Betsy’s lips several times, but she never once read anything of substance. She would look directly at Jon, or at the camera (god I hate that, she cares more about presenting the “right face” than about the integrity of the things she’s saying), and would spout opinion.

“…the first time I read it, I wrote ‘disgusting.’ See? ‘Disgusting.’” Well, that’s great. But I’ve read page 432, and I don’t see it as “disgusting,” I see it as an extremely rare situation in which a doctor will get a minor ding to their “quality rating” if the patient decides to change their mind about their advance directives, or if the advance directives are not carried out as the patient directed. For those of you reading this, go ahead and read the bill. No patient will ever be forced into anything, and no patient will ever be put to death. No patient will ever be refused treatment if their advance directives say one thing and they decide to do another. The whole section has nothing to do with “death panels,” has nothing “scary” or “disgusting.” I do see that doctors will be paid for consultations regarding advance directives and life sustaining treatments, and I do see that a doctor’s quality rating will get dinged if the patient’s documented wishes are not carried out as prescribed. But Betsy and other politicians are doing everything in their political power to take relatively innocuous “penalties” (which will be very rare) and make them into not just straw men, but bogeymen, and try to scare us into submission. This is much more about hurting Barack Obama’s chances at re-election, than about protecting American citizens.

Early in the interview, when they were talking about advance directives and end-of-life consultations, Jon said “Although, the language is ‘life-sustaining’ procedures.” Of course, the first word out of Betsy’s mouth was “no,” but I counted the phrase “life sustaining” ten times from pages 426-433. It’s the topic of the section. It’s what it’s all about! I’m sorry Betsy, but your credibility is hurt merely by your speaking. That’s not a good sign.

I’m currently working on a re-vamp for the website of a company that was bought by Verisign in 2006, and they’re apparently spinning it back out into its own entity. And I can’t get the phrase “chewed up and spit out” out of my head. I feel kinda bad for the people involved.

This has been profoundly troubling me since I saw it last night — an excerpt of an interview with the rapper DMX:

Q: Are you following the presidential race?
A: Not at all.

Q: You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
A: His name is Barack?!

Q: Barack Obama, yeah.
A: Barack?!

Q: Barack.
A: What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Q: Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
A: Barack Obama?

Q: Yeah.
A: What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

Q: You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
A: I ain’t really paying much attention.

Q: I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black…
A: Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.

Q: So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
A: Nope.

Q: Is that why you’re not following it?
A: No, because it’s just—it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. It doesn’t really make a difference. These are the last years.

Q: But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge.
A: I mean, I guess…. What, they gon’ give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should’ve done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn’t be in the fuckin’ position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, “Here you take it. Take my mess.”

Q: Right, exactly.
A: It’s all a fuckin’ setup. It’s all a setup. All fuckin’ bullshit. All bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about none of that.

Q: We could have a female president also, Hillary Clinton.
A: I mean, either way it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. No one person is directly affected by which president, you know, so what does it matter.

Q: Yeah, but the country is.
A: I guess. The president is a puppet anyway. The president don’t make no damn decisions.

Q: The president…they don’t have that much authority basically?
A: Nah, never.

Q: But Bush pretty much…
A: You think Bush is making fuckin’ decisions?

Q: He did, yeah, he fucked up the country.
A: He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin’ speak!
Can’t be serious. He ain’t making no damn decisions.

Q: Well Barack has a good chance of winning so that might be something.
A: Good for him, good for him.

The thing is, this guy has kids. He has fans that look up to him. He is a role model. And there are magazines that care enough about what he thinks to conduct an interview with him, even though they already know him and his reputation. They put him in the spotlight when he’s all coked up, and they don’t even see a problem with it. Not only that, but I’m sure the smart rappers are all lookin’ at him like “man, sit your ass back down and pull up a shadow. You doin’ a disservice to your people.”

But he believes in Jesus. I guess that’s gotta count for something, vacuous though he may be. Christ almighty has rap gone to shit in the past decade.

for future reference

First, read this. From the description on NPR:

Obama Campaign Skewers Clinton E-mail Statement

Wednesday morning, the Clinton campaign sent reporters and bloggers covering the campaign a statement that consisted of questions and comments under the title of “Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground.”

The Obama campaign’s communications department decided to annotate those questions and comments with some comments of their own… and boy, they held nothing back.

The thing is, I can’t tell (if this is what it’s purported to be) whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it’s downright immature. I mean jesus, it looks like the sort of he-said she-said bickering and bitch-slapping that happens between bitter boyfriends and girlfriends over email. You’ve all experienced it, you know how it goes. It’s about as immature an exchange as one can imagine.

However, on the other hand, politics are built almost entirely from bullshit, and I do appreciate the snarky smackdown on a heap of bullshit. One way or another, I know these words didn’t come from Obama himself. And while the response seems immature at the face of it, it sure as hell is a whole lot more respectable than Karl Rove-style tactics.

Also of note: O’bama t-shirts for St. Paddy’s day. That’s pretty effin’ funny. I’m glad as hell they’ve got a sense of humor.