Brainwaves of Sken

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I heard Orrin Hatch talking about Ted Kennedy on NPR today. “He is to be revered. His whole family is to be revered for what they’ve done and sacrificed for our country.”

Not only am I sad at the loss of Ted, but at the loss of that connection across ideology; Hatch came to congress specifically with the desire to fight against Kennedy, and while their ideology did not waver, they became great friends. I wonder whether we have gone beyond such maturity and compassion for each other, to look beyond (not forget or ignore, but to accept) our differences.

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There are more photos under constructacon.org! Also, I uploaded a brief video of the pool party to youtube. :)

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What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report

UPDATE II: To those blithely dismissing all of this as things that don’t seem particularly bothersome, I’d say two things:

(1) The fact that we are not really bothered any more by taking helpless detainees in our custody and (a) threatening to blow their brains out, torture them with drills, rape their mothers, and murder their children; (b) choking them until they pass out; (c) pouring water down their throats to drown them; (d) hanging them by their arms until their shoulders are dislocated; (e) blowing smoke in their face until they vomit; (f) putting them in diapers, dousing them with cold water, and leaving them on a concrete floor to induce hypothermia; and (g) beating them with the butt of a rifle — all things that we have always condemend as “torture” and which our laws explicitly criminalize as felonies (“torture means. . . the threat of imminent death; or the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering . . .”) — reveals better than all the words in the world could how degraded, barbaric and depraved a society becomes when it lifts the taboo on torturing captives.

(2) As I wrote rather clearly, numerous detainees died in U.S. custody, often as a direct result of our “interrogation methods.” Those who doubt that can read the details here and here. Those claiming there was no physical harm are simply lying — death qualifies as “physical harm” — and those who oppose prosecutions are advocating that the people responsible literally be allowed to get away with murder.

If you feel that these acts were justified because we have people threatening our society and terrorizing our people, I’d suggest you not tell me so unless you’re sick of hearing my voice or having my respect. Indeed, I would agree that a person who supports these horrifying acts even on the guilty, even at the danger of imminent death (which there never was), has embarked for the world populated by sociopathic serial killers – they’ve turned our society into everything we have ever revolted against.

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and photos from #constructacon will be forthcoming, but I wanted to say that this weekend flew by. It was crazy incredible amounts of fun. 50 of the most entertaining people got together at a cheesy little hotel and spent the entire weekend getting their hilarious sexy creative fun on.

I participated in all sorts of stuff, but I received a mini-grant on the spot to throw a miracle berry party, where I had tons of things to taste including guinness, bud light, rum, swiss cheese, lemons, limes, rhubarb, apples, candy and more. I helped “run” an improv panel (thank goodness Carrie and Anne were there!), and spent the entire convention doing whatever the hell I wanted, whenever the hell I wanted.

AND I got to see Lucy, who took the time and expense to drive to Ann Arbor TWICE this weekend, getting very little sleep in order to do what she needed to at Vet school.

More later, time to go have more fun.

Whee!

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I’m pleased to note “the beard”, as I tend to keep it, has more or less returned.

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Everyone at work has been admiring my new green shirt – we’ve gotten to discussing laundry, actually, as nearly all of my button-downs have shrunk frustratingly (as indicated by the cuffs).

Apparently, it’s pretty standard not to use the dryer with button down shirts, even if they’re ordinary cotton or cotton blends. I thought that was only true with silks and such.

So, if I want to maintain shirts that are the same length when I put them on as when I bought them, I guess I have to do a special shirt load that I hang dry. I’m not particularly excited about that – I’ll have to start using fabric softener, I imagine, instead of dryer sheets, as well.

This weekend is Construct in Ann Arbor, and I’m geeked. There are a number of panels I hope to be participating in, free food (with membership) I totally intend to nom, and people I want to chill out with unrepentingly.

From the internets: The Golden Institute was created by President Carter after he defeated Ronald Reagan, in order to make the United States the most energy-rich country in the world. Check out the video (click the full-size button!) to see some of the projects they worked on! Now that we harness lightning, can you believe we used to pay other countries to provide us with liquid fuel?

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… you’d better get on it.

Downloads from Microsoft end tomorrow, at which point you’ll have to find the file elsewhere to load it (you can still get the key for it from MS after that, though).

Reminds me, I need to change my geek icon.

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There is a comic being produced based on Stephen King (and Peter Straub)’s The Talisman. With their permission.

And Gabe of Penny Arcade is doing the alternate cover (scroll down).

It was my favorite book, at 10 years old, and I read the crap out of it for the next six years.

I don’t generally buy comics, but I do believe I will be buying the snot out of this one.

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John C. Wright, author of some science fiction books, wrote a post entitled More Diversity and More Perversity in the Future! regarding the CEO of the Sci-Fi network’s statement that he intended to have more same-sex partners in otherwise-normative relationships on the network.

It has made quite a stir, even though it happened months ago weeks ago, because his vitriol is really pretty fantastic.

There were many rebuttals, including one from jer_, but one of the most interesting ones comes from a guy who claims to represent The Elders of Sodom, where he writes a lengthy rebuttal. Frankly, as someone extremely familiar with verbosity, I think think it reads a little like a college psych textbook, but his summations near the end are pretty informative and true, if not written compellingly. For instance:

Whatever particular set of principles we adopt or construct for ourselves in the “post-conventional” stage of moral development, to us homosexuality is not “normal” as far as percentages go, but is entirely “normal” for that percentage who identify as homosexual, just as ginger hair is “normal” for those with ginger hair (assuming they don’t dye it regularly such that their “normal” colour is, say, mauve.) The Elders of Sodom don’t care. Normality is utterly irrelevant in an ethics based largely on empathy and reason rather than conformity to an imagined social/natural/divine order. As far as the Elders of Sodom are concerned whether our sexual behaviour is normal or not is neither here nor there, just as our hair colour is. It is none of your business, Mr Wright.

Aware of the observed facts of homosexual behaviours across the animal kingdom, the Elders of Sodom also know that homosexuality is entirely “natural” in the sense of “occuring within nature”. It is simply somewhat less than usual as a behaviour pattern — which doesn’t matter a jot. Some will argue that one is born homosexual, the deviance no more “unnatural” than ginger hair, but some of us see no need to defend homosexuality on that basis. Even if one becomes homosexual through a gradual development of sexual tastes, the deviance is no more “unnatural” than if one develops a taste for bletted medlars and a dislike for apples. It is no more nor less than a variance of preferences. And to repeat myself: this is none of your business, Mr Wright.

If you do read the rebuttal and you don’t want to go through the whole thing, I suggest you look for the italicised comment (originally from Wright): “I’d like someone, anyone, to explain to me how my culture reached a position where a public entertainment company can be criticized for failing to contribute to the moral decay of the land, and that the criticism would be taken seriously, and the company would cringe and promise to do better.”

That bit is good stuff.

My favorite is this:

Which is to say, where any wide-spread moral dicta is called into question, one may not agree with the criticism, may even consider the problem it is asserting non-existent; it is, however, only the most rudimentary of ethical judgements to consider that one may be wrong about the reality and severity of the problem and that one should therefore seek to establish the reality and severity of the problem. This sort of dismissal is, as far as the Elders of Sodom are concerned, an abrogation of ethical judgement at the most basic level. Your deficiency does not just result in bad ethics, Mr Wright. It is unethical in and of itself.

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