Adairdevil

Summer 08 Snapshots

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:51:11 -0500

I still haven't edited the photos from my trip out to Walla Walla. Or from my nephew's birthday. Or my Mom's birthday. Or . . . well, I've got a lot of editing to do. To get started, some everyday shots from around town. First, the best thing ever: MAGIC. Below are some informal shots I rattled off on my cameraphone. I've been using its panoramic function the anticipated way and also toying around with it to stitch together noncontiguous/in-motion photos, usually as I ride the subway. My subway chronicles: Simple: Dynamic: Also seen around: The poles of the gun debate encapsulated: More fun with sign disrepair:

White People: Roughly 60% Boneheads

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:03:19 -0500

And yes, I am a white person and have done and said my share of dumb things. But no, I am not stupid enough to think that blacks have as good a shot or better as whites at getting ahead.

Comments closed but visible here and at full entry link.

Bruce Springsteen, Voice of My Heart

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:06:29 -0500

For a man I've never met, Bruce Springsteen has done a lot for me. He's given me two of my very favorite albums (Tunnel of Love and The River), he's given me a great concert experience, and he has given me and all New Jersey natives the certainty that there is at least one person to whom we can always point with pride. (Bon Jovi, why won't you go away???) And now he has gracefully encapsulated my feelings of pride, rage, and everything else that comes with being from a state I love, that treated me well, and for which, for whatever reason, some people actually expect me to apologize.** From his speech at the New Jersey Hall of Fame back in May:

So let me finish with a Garden State benediction. Rise up my fellow New Jerseyans, for we are all members of a confused but noble race. We, of the state that will never get any respect. We, who bear the coolness of the forever uncool. The chip on our shoulders of those with forever something to prove. And even with this wonderful Hall of Fame, we know that there's another bad Jersey joke coming just around the corner. But fear not. This is not our curse. It is our blessing. For this is what imbues us with our fighting spirit. That we may salute the world forever with the Jersey state bird, and that the fumes from our great northern industrial area to the ocean breezes of Cape May fill us with the raw hunger, the naked ambition and the desire not just to do our best, but to stick it in your face. Theory of relativity anybody? How about some electric light with your day? Or maybe a spin to the moon and back? And that is why our fellow Americans in the other 49 states know, when the announcer says "and now in this corner, from New Jersey...." they better keep their hands up and their heads down, because when that bell rings, we're coming out swinging. God Bless the Garden State.

Indeed. Now, pardon me as I cue up "The Ties That Bind".

** No, fellow student who called New Jersey "a shithole" in the middle of Constitutional Law class, I do not forgive you, and your "I mean, excuse my language" only made it worse. Your word choice wasn't the problem; I had, after all, just replied, "You had to fucking go there, didn't you?" (A fine and refined moment in my law school career thus far.) The problem was your contempt for the place others call home. It was a cheap shot. I hate cheap shots.

The Reason for the Red State-Blue State Divide

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:09:24 -0500

. . . is, I am convinced, stories like this one. If I did not know awesome people from Missouri and instead had to base my opinion solely on stories like this, I would never quite trust the place. My favorite line:

In addition to having a badge and a car that seemed to scream law enforcement, Mr. Jakob offered federal drug enforcement help, Mr. Schulte said. (Local officials thought the offer must have somehow grown out of their recent application for a federal grant for radio equipment.)

But that's just me. You may prefer the bit about him naming his false federal agency after a bit in Beverly Hills Cop. Oy. OY.

My Thoughts Exactly

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:08:23 -0500

In this "I'm not a feminist, I'm an equalist" era, I know what I'm about to say will make me sound shrewish and vile and--nightmare of nightmares!--not "sex-positive", but I have to say it anyway: Could we please stop pretending prostitution is glamorous? Or that a woman who becomes a prostitute is "making it"? (Yes, ha ha, I get the pun.) Even if we were magically transported to a patriarchy- and misogyny-free land where sex work was just like any other kind of work, it would top out at just that: work. Drudgery. As it is, the prostitution industry is linked with a lot of violence, exploitation, addiction, human trafficking, and pretty much every other shittastic idea the human race has ever thought up, including the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the solution is to "écrasez l'infame!" or to fight for the dignity of sex work--to try to make it so that the high-priced call girl with full agency and excellent medical care is not the Sasquatch-rare exception but the rule. But in neither case should pin-up glamorization play a part. My hatred, it bubbles over**. And this clinches it: I am never subscribing to Showtime.

** Except at whichever of my neighbors did this to the poster in my subway station. To that person, shiny unicorn rainbows forever!

Open Letter to a Fellow Duane Reade Customer

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:22:10 -0500

Dear Sir, You may not intend any harm, but repeatedly staggering up and down the same cosmetics aisle with dead eyes and a slack jaw is, well, creepy. Especially with that tube of hemorrhoid cream in your hand. Please go away. Best, Adair

This Week in Bull Shit

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:42:07 -0500

As a general rule, I cannot fathom the hullabaloo surrounding a visiting pontiff; popes are not my particular interest. But what I really don't get is the credulity with which various press folk have bought the notion that the visit has included apologies for the Church's role in abetting the molestation and rape (let's use the right words, shall we?) of children. Apologies have a basic framework: "I did ____; I was wrong; I am sorry." In the best instances, that statement would be followed by, "And I will do everything in my power to make right what I did wrong." An apology does not involve having an underling (in this case, a cardinal) busily disclaiming on your behalf any responsibility:

“I personally do not accept that there is a broad base of bishops who are guilty of aiding and abetting pedophiles, and if I thought there were, or knew of them, I would certainly talk to the pope about what could be done about it,” the cardinal said. “I am aware of bishops who have admitted to making mistakes, but those seem to be mistakes grounded in taking counsel that didn’t turn out to be good advice,” he said, explaining that he was referring to reports from psychologists and therapists.

To quote a great American playwright, MENDACITY!

A side note: my other favorite part of this long nightmare is that the large number of abused girls is underreported, giving us two wonderful offenses in one phenomenon: 1. Some members of the Church claim, and some people actually buy, that the abuse is in any way related to homosexuality. 2. The suffering of molested/raped girls is ignored.

Dewey Iacono, R.I.P.

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:15:42 -0500

A few weeks ago, my mom had to put the much beloved Dewey to sleep. I don't know why I haven't written about it until now, except that the Dewmaster deserves a better eulogy than my hectic schedule was permitting. If you have ever visited my other site, you know that Dewey was, well . . . too dewy. This led to him living a life of accommodated exile where he was fed, sheltered, and cared for by our family, but disallowed entrance to the house. Instead, Dewey made the garage, the deck, and the yard his domains. The thing was, though, that Dewey's defining characteristic was that he was happy--pretty much always. So this meant that when he was put outside, he cheerfully persisted in attempting to regain entrance to the house. For about 15 years. Every Iacono assembly-line formation to bring in the groceries was accompanied by cries from my mother of, "Watch him! WATCH HIM!" In the early years of his banishment, Dewey's sunshiny outlook would invariably mean that, having gained access to the house, he would head straight to whatever area of the house would be most upsetting for my mom. (A favorite is the time we kids searched in a panic to hustle Dewey out of the house before our mother caught on . . . only to find him curled in a ball on my parents' bed. "Death wish," said my brother, and he may not have been wrong.) In later years, he seemed to understand that he wasn't supposed to stay inside and, having gotten inside by the downstairs door, would walk along with us to the upstairs deck door and head out the moment it was opened. "My point being made . . .", said my brother (again). The one thing I want to make clear is that despite his outside ways, we took very good care of this cat. One winter, when the yard was under about 15 inches of snow and Dewey was confined to the garage and walkable parts of our drive, my dad shoveled a path between the driveway and the deck so that he could have full access. The sight of the tip of Dewey's tail bopping along above the snow--his tail was almost always up, the better to communicate cheer and to whiz--is one of the most endearing memories I have of both Dewey and of my dad. For my part, I bought Dewey a succession of snug, woolen cat beds that hugged close and plugged in for extra warmth. Winter's arrival was marked annually by a call from my dad telling us that, "Dewey's in his hat." Even Dewey's misconduct tended toward the hilarious. I have held forth at length about how this cat taught me the important distinction between love and trust. I always welcomed him, let him follow me around, and played with him--but I never turned my back on him. The stories of those who did have a certain uniformity. The best was my mother's. It was before Dewey was sent outside--it was, in fact, the clincher in that decision. I was in the kitchen, I think doing my homework, when I heard my mother yelling in the next room. I stepped out to see my mom standing up in front of the couch with a book in her hand, yelling at Dewey. Her summary, "I'm sitting here thinking, 'God, it's warm.' The son of a bitch pissed on me!" And so Dewey was sent outside. But that changed little; he was an important part of our family all the same. I already miss him terribly.

Overheard in the subway

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:17:53 -0500

Yesterday morning, before we had managed to travel a full stop, our subway train stopped with an announcement that somebody was injured on the tracks. The power was shut down (auxiliary lights came on) and we sat still for 27 minutes. It wasn't that bad, just strange; even when trains are stopped, there's usually a hum of speakers and paused engines. It's rarely that truly quiet. The conductor herded us up the length of the train to a car that was in the station and we were then free either to wait for the situation to be resolved (if, you know, you had a spare few hours) or to exit the station and make our way as best we could. This led to my favorite snippet of dialogue from the day: Cop to querulous member of public: Do you have to wait for the train? No, you can do something else.

An Open Letter to This Evening's Subway Enemy

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:16:55 -0500

Dear Jerk, I'm sure you spend a lot of your life being called "entitled", and because you are an idiot, you probably think that means you are actually endowed with more rights and privileges than others. Allow me to clear this up for you: people are using that word to avoid calling you an asshole. That, however, is exactly what you are. Having thus provided you with needed information, I now feel entitled to ask you a question: Did you really think that when I saw you, on a reasonably crowded F train, taking up a whole three-seat bench--with your spread-out legs, perpendicular elbows, and bag of crap--I wouldn't do something about it? There were other seats. There were even other people violating the common laws of the subway--pole huggers, door blockers, etc. But your conduct was so appalling I knew I could not look away, could not possibly approve of myself if I did not do all in my power to put a stop to it. This is why I deliberately sat on the nice end seat by the door, giving an insincere "excuse me" as I forced you to move over and take up a mere two seats. It is also why I made eye contact with the next person who got on the train, gave a head tilt, and got her to sit on the other side of you. You are an asshole, and I will combat your socially unconscionable conduct wherever I encounter it. I hate you. And tonight, I defeated you. Next time, act right. Adair

My oddities.

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:32:02 -0500

Shiny tagged me to do this. I usually greet chain letters/emails/recipes with a wrathful binning, but since this one carries no threat and is instead a mere interesting exercise, I'm going along with it. So: Ten Weird Things about Adair 1. Capitalized prepositions hurt me. (That's why "about" is lowercase in the title; when not the first or last word of a title, a preposition of any length should be lowercase.) There's part of me that will never understand why people didn't absorb this rule in English class or don't care about getting it right. 2. I count words and have a weird system for doing so. This is going to make me sound absolutely batshit, I know, but here's how it all works: When people speak, I count their words off on my fingers. Not always, but often. (When I was little and developed this habit, it was all the time.) I don't move my hands at all while doing this, just mentally assign the words to a digit and carry on conversation as though nothing else were happening. I don't just count off, though. It goes like this: Counting the ten fingers: Left pinkie, right pinkie; left thumb, right thumb; left ring, right ring, left pointer, right pointer, left middle, right middle -- from the outside in with the left going first. Counting the spaces between: Left between pinkie and ring, right between pinkie and ring; left between thumb and pointer, right between thumb and pointer. And so on, again working outside-in, left to right. Unifying the hands: Each hand gets a word of unification (left then right), and one word to unify them both. If this third, unifying word does not end a sentence, the unification does not happen at all. Instead, a cycle of 10 (and, if needed, 8) begins again. Unification can happen after any 10 or 8, but not any other time. When unification happens, I can start over or set it all aside. And so, I love sentences of 13 and 21 words a lot. 3. When I was little, I had weird shoelace issues. I hated -- still kinda do -- the way the end of a lace will flap against your shoe after a bow is tied. So I would pull it in right against the knot. Since I also hated my shoes being loose, this meant that there would then be a hell of a lot of string in the bows -- bringing the annoying flop issue back into play. And so I would not just double-knot my laces, but stack knots on top of knots, all of them so tight as to render the knot superstructure immobile. When I went over my friend Christina Leonard's house to play and had to take my shoes off, it took forever. 4. Despite the crazy-train obsessiveness one would think is associated with habits like those detailed in #2 and #3, I am incredibly messy. 5. I hate Paul McCartney. It's atavistic and almost violent. Every time I hear his voice, all I can think is "BULLSHIT!" There is no life story associated with this, nothing about his personal history or any event in my life that makes this so. I've tried to like his work because everyone assumes that everyone else likes the Beatles and Paul, and it would make my life easier if I did. But whenever I hear his work, I am possessed with a certainty that he is where authenticity goes to die. And so I have no use for the Beatles' records, but get along famously with the Lennon solo albums and am friendly enough with George Harrison's solo work. Hell, even Ringo's put out a fun song or two. But Paul McCartney? HATE. HATE. HATE. 6. My left thumb is shorter than my right thumb. Dunno why. It looks like it didn't cook long enough or something -- the top phalange just stops short, nail bed included. 7. I remember lyrics to songs really well. This is an asset come karaoke time. 8. I hate coffee. 9. I love Mother Goose liverwurst. No substitutes. All other kinds -- peh. Good luck finding the good stuff, though. 10. I am very streaky. I'll want the same food for a long time, paint in the same color/style for a long time, listen to the same few songs for a long time. And then my fixation will wear down to a gentle affection. The people I tag will be tagged in private, as I am fairly sure none of them will go for this. I don't need my pull dismissed publicly.

Follow-up to last post . . .

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:48:38 -0500

With it being understood that I don't actually dislike Obama, and will campaign for him if he wins the nomination . . . There are a few major reasons I cast my vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. The first is that I think her healthcare proposal is a lot better--that Obama starts at the compromise position and thus will get creamed on the issue if elected. Following from that is the fact that whenever I hear the candidates speak, Hillary Clinton is so much better able to discuss policy in depth, to drill down and explain her position with a clear understanding of how different agencies, economic forces, and people interact. So my support is much more about what's right with Clinton than what's wrong with Obama. But. There are two reservations I have, one more to do with some of his supporters, one to do with his own choice. To illustrate the first: Near my school's subway on Tuesday, there were Clinton and Obama supporters passing out flyers and urging people to support their candidate. I was trying to make a call and watched for a few minutes. Both supporters had mostly the same tack: yelling "Support ____!" But when the Clinton supporter was questioned about education policy, she actually answered the question. When the Obama supporter was questioned, she referred the person to Obama's website and then kept yelling, "The audacity of hope! The audacity of hope!" as the potential voter went down the subway stairs. To that I have to say: what the fuck? This was one incident, but it illustrated the weird cult of personality surrounding Obama that I flat-out don't get. There are a lot--a lot--of very intelligent reasons to support Barack Obama for president. This wishy-washy ideology of hope crap isn't one of them; it's a way for people to believe that if only we elect this one man, a new era will begin, America will be AMERICA! again--and they won't have to think about politics anymore. Well, it isn't going to be that way. If he's elected, he'll do his best, and that will mean a much better job than the shmuck in office now. But politics is messy, and ugly, and he's going to have to compromise, make decisions people hate, and problems are not going to disappear magically. A recession is kicking in and he is going to inherit it. The war in Afghanistan is falling apart and he's going to have to fix it. The war in Iraq--whether or not he would have voted for it, which we don't truly know (it's a lot easier to say outside of the Senate what you'd do if in it)--can't be miracled away; withdrawal is going to be difficult, dangerous, and costly. And every step toward progress on these fronts will be opposed by a movement for which George W. Bush was a figurehead, but by no means the only source of power. This is the American reality, this is the price we pay for having allowed these interests to ascend, and nothing but continued and active engagement by people who actually care can possibly change it. So this new era, shiny hope bullcrap gives me pause. Not exactly about him--he's a politician, and "We May Be Fucked" is not a good campaign slogan. But about how much of his support comes from people who believe he is a leader who can join us in solving our problems, versus how much comes from people who think he can make them just disappear. The second issue can be summed up in one word (and then discussed in many more!): McClurkin. I'm singularly unimpressed by his embrace of McClurkin and subsequent framing of that embrace as a free speech issue. It isn't, really. I think McClurkin can be as homophobic as he likes, can shout it from rooftops, print banners, whatever. Go enjoy your free speech, asshole! I just expect any candidate--any person!--claiming to be in any way ethical/moral/intelligent not to have any part of it. It's really not a lot to ask. It seems to me that Obama made a calculation that McClurkin could get him more evangelical votes than he would lose by offending people who actually give a crap about the way LGBT people and interests are treated in discourse (not just in votes). That's the deal he made. He deserves to pay the cost of his bargain. Since I actually DO care when candidates give tacit approval to homophobia, part of the cost he pays is my vote. Is it the worst bargain a candidate has ever made at the expense of the LGBT community? Nah. This is what they always do, though it's usually in general elections when they know there's nowhere else to go--what are LGBT voters going to do, support Huckabee? But it's a tired, cynical, calculating political move all the same. It's what almost all politicians do at one point or another. It's why I don't expect anything new from Barack Obama.

As ever

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:35:37 -0500

Paul Krugman articulates clearly that which I've mangled in my own conversations: Clinton, Obama, Healthcare

Specifically, new estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton’s would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan resembling Mr. Obama’s — at only slightly higher cost.

Progress / Regress

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:21:13 -0500

I had this whole thing I wanted to write relating my horror at this New York lottery commercial with a case we read in Con Law where the court was so offended at the mere notion of gambling and lotteries that it could not shut up. Instead, I will apply a principle from Torts: res ipsa loquitur. (The thing speaks for itself.) New York Lottery's latest ad: Now that it has spoken for itself, I would like to reply, "FUCK YOU VERY MUCH." I can't even decide to whom it is most offensive, but really, there are no winners here.

Dear Pundits,

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:57:56 -0500

You don't know why New Hampshire voters chose Hillary Clinton. You do not know that it had ANYTHING to do with the one, single, solitary time she approached tears. You do not know that if it DID have anything to do with that moment, it was because of the emotion and not because of what she was actually saying at the time. All you really know is that people voted in a way you didn't expect. Or, more precisely, women voters voted for a woman candidate in a way you didn't expect. And so you have to dismiss it as an act of irrational solidarity with Hillary Clinton's irrational moment. Because women are stupid! And emotionally overwrought! And probably shouldn't be allowed to vote at all! And so, at the risk of sounding too emotional, I have to say: you pack of misogynist assholes**, could you stop parodying yourselves and do your fucking jobs for once? You know, pretend that the leadership of the free world is being decided and try to pay some attention to an issue or two? ** I'm including Judith Warner and Maureen Dowd in this. No links; you can dig up their cringe-inducing idiocy on your own if you hate your brain that much.