her nipples are showing

another thought about this.

americans like to make righteous noise about women being forced to cover themselves from head to toe in muslim countries, lest they risk being stoned to death by angry mobs. definitely a terrible situation. of course, in america if a woman doesn't cover her breasts, she risks being chained and thrown in a cage by men (who might use lethal force against her at any moment).

yes, the latter is better than the former, but it isn't anything to be proud about. america only looks good by comparison to misogynist totalitarian fundamentalism. how about this for a radical crazed leftist lunatic perspective: women should be able to wear whatever they want, and not liking their decision doesn't justify physical coercion of any kind. justification for the use of force against another person requires a high burden of proof. "her nipples are showing" doesn't qualify.

but i know, i know, that's fucking batshit insane, and couldn't even be contemplated in civilized society. so how about this for a perfectly reasonable and moderate position, argued from the popular progressive standpoint of basic gender equality: armed agents of the state should allow a woman to appear in public wearing anything that a man is allowed to appear in public wearing.

image via

NBA stats: finessed to look however the home team scorekeeper wants them to look

greenwald and chomsky

Glenn Greenwald is under contract to write a book (he appears in the comments) that will be "a comprehensive examination of Chomsky’s life as a public intellectual as a means of understanding how America’s dominant media controls and narrows political debates." I look forward to that.

woman chained, kidnapped, thrown in a cage

for not wearing a shirt. I have to think the cops feel pretty stupid about this, right? Some of them anyway.

Pinker on violence and anarchy

In the interest of confronting ideas that challenge my beliefs, here's Steven Pinker writing that violence has steadily declined over the centuries. I've seen him sing this song before. One hypothesis he mentions for why we see such a trend is the rise of the State, which specifically is the notion that I find unpleasant. He doesn't defend that particular idea too vigorously, just mentions it, but I do want to take exception to part of it. I don't like the way he uses "anarchy" here:

And today, violence continues to fester in zones of anarchy, such as frontier regions, failed states, collapsed empires, and territories contested by mafias, gangs, and other dealers of contraband.

He's using anarchy to mean lack of a powerful state in a particular geographic area, but also using it to mean chaos, violence, etc. I don't know what frontier regions he might be talking about so I can't quibble with that, but it occurs to me that many of today's "failed states and collapsed empires are failed and collapsed" because of the states that did or continue to exercise power in the area. Examples? duh, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc. As for "mafias, gangs, and other dealers of contraband," what is the distinction between those entities and State governments? Scale?

So needless to say, I don't buy this logic:

These tragedies can be averted by a state with a monopoly on violence. States can inflict disinterested penalties that eliminate the incentives for aggression, thereby defusing anxieties about preemptive attack and obviating the need to maintain a hair-trigger propensity for retaliation.

But if you take out the "disinterested" part I think there might actually be an important idea here. If the State is the only actor who can legitimately use violence, and the state is controlled by the interests of an elite few, that in and of itself could reduce violence. Rather than dozens or hundreds of little mafias, you just have a few big mafias. If nobody else gets to use violence, seems like that could indeed reduce overall violence.

So those are my hastily thrown-together thoughts on the matter. Comments?

more sports thoughts

good and bad things about various pro sports, from a fan perspective, and trying to ignore overall issues about priorities, expense, etc.

football

bad - i don't like to support it because it is too violent. nfl players get seriously hurt very often, and after a few years in the league they're often fucked up for life. the players contracts aren't guaranteed, so many of them don't even really make very much money considering the risks they face. plus the amount of hype and commercialization of the game is fucking insane, worse than any of these others. it is impossible to sit still through an entire game with the constant commercial interruptions.

good - the complexity of 22 players on the field at once, all with very specialized roles, results in some very cool strategy and creativity. football is a good sport to sit around and watch with people while not actually paying much attention to the game. i guess that doesn't say much for it.

basketball

bad - almost all coverage of the sport is asinine, focused on personality, interpersonal drama, soap opera bullshit etc. commentary and coverage of the game itself is all about flashy plays, with very little attention paid to what actually wins games.

good - watching nba players compete (while ignoring the announcers) is amazing. i love to play basketball, so seeing the same number of players in the same amount of space with the same ball and same hoop, but doing such different things is very fun for me. the popular criticism that nba players don't try hard is wrong. they play hard, and when they play smart, it is very enjoyable.

baseball

bad - it can get boring. all the best players have been cheating for the last 20 years. the best teams can just buy the best talent.

good - it is a thinking man's game. all about anticipation, playing the numbers, etc. deep history. sitting in the bleachers at a nice ballpark is a great way to spend a summer evening.

soccer

bad - the best soccer is played in time zones that make it hard to watch where i've lived. soccer riots are stupid.

good - 45 straight minutes of uninterrupted coverage per half. that's huge. also, as the most widely-played sport in the world, i suspect that the best soccer players are better at their sports than any other players in other sports, if you follow. there are also 22 players on the field like american football, but each of them basically does the same thing, just in different parts of the field, so it isn't as complex as nfl games. that's not a bad thing, there is real beauty to the subtleties of the game.

take that, cara!

banality of evil

For years now I've thought there might be something useful about writing a book about about how sports and politics are kind of the same. Meaning, there's something genuinely meaningful to them, but there are so many layers of preposterous bullshit on top that it is impossible to take them seriously. The primary focus would be how media coverage of political matters is just as flawed as media coverage of sports, the idea being that it is easier and less controversial to convince people that sports coverage is obiously retarded, and from there showing how political coverage is at least equally retarded, and vastly more important to human lives.

I'm reminded of this at 11:50pm on a Friday night because I just read this. If anyone cares about this matter, post a comment and I'll revisit it and decide if I'm justified in my thoughts.

In other news, I think I might try out for the tennis team. I haven't played any serious competition in 10 years, but I'm not sure this league would be serious competition. Plus if I can barely scratch my way on to the squad, it might at least be fun to practice for free.

knocked up

Human pregnancy tests work on bonobos. That's kinda cool. I wonder how far out the phylogeny that keeps working.

The Largest Street Gang in America

The Largest Street Gang in America

give up

among all the things that take themselves seriously, is there anything more fuck-yourself-in-your-own-asshole-with-your-own-cock-and-complain-about-the-pain retarded than politics in the US? jesus ass-fucking-with-his-own-cock christ!

ok so i actually like henry's work usually, but his politics piss me off so i'll start ripping on him. this shit is retarded. so what if he supports gangs? how is that worse than supporting the US gov?

update: to clarify, my issue is with the hypocrisy, not defending my love of violent gangs

I bought a pair of Nike shoes recently, and felt pretty bad about it. As far as I can tell, Nike gets rich by exploiting wage slave peasants throughout Asia. I bought the shoes, a pair of (football) cleats, because they were the cheapest shoes that would provide for sure footing during slightly damp softball games. So the ethical dilemma is whether safety during my leisure activities should trump my reluctance to support the way Nike does business.

Does anyone know of any ethical cleat makers?

Greenwald ripping into GE's coporate censorship of NBC, as part of a sleazy deal with Fox News. GE agreed to prevent MSNBC from criticizing Bill O'Reilly and Fox News, in exchange for Fox agreeing not to report on GE's unpopular businesses.

Fuck GE.

ok, here's a thought. it sometimes occurs to me that this pointless shit i write will probably be posted on the internet forever, or at least until everyone blows each other up. so in addition to total strangers from whereeverthefuck reading what i write, theoretically my great-grandchildren could read this drivel in 2068. if they aren't too busy blowing each other up of course.

so...

hi kids! if i'm still alive, maybe you should go visit me. i'm old and lonely. bring beer!