Russ Merva Emerges to Confirm His Ignorance

Shortly after the November 2008 elections, I wrote this post about Prop 8, and singled out a man named Russ Merva, who was pictured holding a sign in support of the successful (in that it passed) measure.

Well, Ol' Russ Merva Googled himself and found my post. He left a comment which is really worth reading if you ever wanted to be terrified at a person's stupidity. Here's what he had to say:

WOW- what a honor, I have a blog dedicated all to me! Yes, I'm that guy on the picture, just for the heck of it I Googled myself and- Vuala! -here I am... and a blog... addressed to me.  Well, I'll seize the moment and will try to answer some tough questions you're asking me, Eli. Ready?! Here I come: Even if gay marriage happens it will not last long, why you ask? Well, because: 1) it is not natural, and as a result there are consequences, to start with: AIDS, and other freaky illnesses that follow this kind of lifestyle 2) there are many more reasons, but the main reason would be because... Yes Eli you guessed it(not that you guessed, but because you knew it deep inside..., where nobody sees or hears you, yeeees deep inside...) GOD will judge GLBT people from turning away from him. Some things are true whether you believe or not, and God is True. Up until 1963 or 64 American Psychiatric Association was considering Homosexuality a mental disorder, but then again because of threat of being murdered, poor doctors "switched" their minds and changed definition to a "love between two same sex partners". Eli, I now that you are a smart man, needless to say confused - can I recommend you this site- http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality. Please don't get me wrong, I do wish you the best and may God open your eyes, so you don't end up..., therefore read it, there is a lot of good information. May God save you. P.S. Enlightened Human Being as you like to refer to yourself, let me enlighten you on what happened to society, empires if you will, that were (may I use this phrase again...- yes, thank you) Enlightened Human Beings that you are? I'll be more specific: Great Empires like Greeks, Romans, Byzantine tell me Eli what happened to them? Went down in ruins. Why? MORAL DEGRADATION P.P.S. USA DESTRUCTION 101- Ignore your conscience, spit on morals.

I'm not going to respond to everything he says. What would be the point? He will in all likelihood die a bigot. Also, he didn't bother to answer the question of what the gays ever did to him, and why it's so important to him that his bigoted views be enforced on people he has nothing to do with.

I kind of feel bad for the man. He clearly has no capacity to think for himself, and to top it off, he probably sees the writing on the wall: Prop 8 was the turning point. Prop 8's passage was a devastating loss for truth, fairness, and justice, but America recognized it as such, and is not going to let it happen again. I'm sure it's been a bad few weeks for Russ, what with Iowa and Vermont joining Massachusetts in allowing gay marriage. Russ and his fellow willingly-ignorant Bible-thumping sociopaths, are losing this fight, and he must be pretty sad about it.

Here's a video that I think sums up the gay marriage debate pretty well. Watch it Russ! It's full of truth, unlike your Conservapedia article (which carries the laughable tagline: "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia"... HAAAAHAHA).

Statesmen Gone Wild: Free Speech Plundered Over Porno Pirates

This post relates to pornography, but does not link to or show any actual pornography, so it is safe for a hidebound killjoy like MD State Senator Andy Harris (R-Baltimore and Harford) to read it. Yesterday, Harris painted a cross on his chest and crusaded against the evil heathens at the University of Maryland (which I'm proud to call my alma mater) because the school's student union scheduled a screening of "Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge," apparently the highest-budget XXX-rated porn in history. 

Harris ignored the facts that 1) no state money went toward the screening, 2) IDs would be checked at the door, 3) Planned Parenthood was invited to lead a discussion about safe sex practices before the screening, and 4) no one was putting a gun to anyone's head to attend the screening, and he proposed an amendment that would have cancelled ALL state funding to the school if they showed a XXX porn. Skittish University officials forced the cancellation of the screening. Good for you Andy! Now the world is free of porn... except for being a few keystrokes away from any person with an internet connection. 

I'll try to refrain from injecting my own opinions about pornography, but last I heard, it is legal, and I do believe there's this thing called "free speech" that's supposed to prevent legislatures from meddling (censoring) when something "inappropriate" but legal is going on. But Andy doesn't care about that. There's boobs! We can't show boobs to adults who want to see boobs! That would be terrible! And definitely worthy of shutting down the flagship university of the great state of Maryland after 155 years of service!

Here's what Senate President Mike Miller, who said he would have supported the amendment, had to say about it:

• I don't believe in censorship, but at the same time, I don't think that film was appropriate in a state building on a state campus. . . Yes, the amendment was overkill, but at the same time, it would have passed because it forced legislators to either vote for hardcore pornography or university funding.
  

It's a nice little quote, but it makes no sense. A "nay" vote on the amendment = porn and funding remain. A "yea" vote = no porn and funding remains or yes porn and no funding, but the Senators are in no way voting on whether the school is allowed to show it... perhaps because they have NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to do so. They are just legislating the morality of porn by threatening the purse-strings of one of the most important institutions in the state. Legislators wouldn't have been "forced" to do anything at all. Just like students are not "forced" to see the movie. They totally reached beyond their powers on this one.

And my very own State Senator, Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery), did me proud by saying just that:

• The proposed amendment was a direct affront to freedom of speech. . . The Supreme Court has been clear that student groups enjoy First Amendment rights. It's not the movie I would have chosen for myself or my kids, but that's the beauty of the First Amendment: People who want to see it can go, and those who don't want to don't have to.
  

Well put, Senator Raskin (that's him on the right, Harris on the left). I'm so thankful that my representative in the State Senate understands that he has not been elected to legislate what is "decent" or "appropriate" to be shown to consenting adults.

I would love to see the University call the Senate's bluff and show the film anyway. Any court would strike down the Senate's actions, and the public outcry against closing down the University over such a trivial matter might put the Senate back in its place. Also, I hate to see my supposedly liberal state behaving in such a backwards way. It's not like UMD was going to be the first school to show it. UC Davis showed it without incident, as have other schools.

Sadly, an (unscientific) poll in the Baltimore Sun shows 60% of voters think the University did the right thing by cancelling it. Apparently we still live in such a puritanical society that we'd rather give up our rights to freedom of speech than allow some college kids to watch a porno.

The Murse Revolution

Recently, I was at a party, and a friend of mine spilled some pasta salad on his neatly pressed khakis. No problem, I have a Tide-To-Go pen for ya. That'll come right out.

A few months ago, my girlfriend's car overheated, and we had to stop at a gas station to peer under the hood. It was night-time. No problem, I have a headlamp!

Just about every single day, I commute to work on the Metro, and some loud-mouth jerk is yapping away on his cell phone about some nonsense. No problem, I'll drown that noise out with my iPod and Shure Sound Isolation headphones. 

Unless the cell phone conversation is really interesting. Then I'll break out the digital voice recorder. Or maybe I'm inspired by some comment to write a poem or plan a blog entry. I have my Moleskine notebook and multiple colors of Pilot pens for that. Or maybe I want to distract myself by defacing an anti-choice advertisement on the train. I have my red Sharpie for that.

Whatever I need, I've got it with me, because I carry a murse. Yes, a man-purse. It's technically called a messenger bag, but let's face it, it's a bag with a strap filled useful things that one carries around daily. It's a purse (or murse). I'm not ashamed of it either. I like to be prepared for things. Why should my being a man preclude having all of these items with me at all times?

Here's a look at the contents of my murse on a typical day: 

Also, you might find my lunch, some mail, sunglesses, a water bottle, ibuprofen, or a camera (not pictured, duh). Of course, what makes my murse much more useful is the fact that I have a tiny Acer netbook that fits in one of the external pockets.

Sadly, men are still uneasy about carrying murses because of their perception as a women's accessory. In this classic Seinfeld episode, Jerry is ridiculed and called a girly man for carrying a "European carry-all" with him instead of a wallet. 

But the episode clearly illustrates that pockets and wallets do not suffice! Poor George starts having back problems because of his enormous wallet, and eventually loses its contents in a gust of wind. If he'd had a murse, he would never have had such problems.

Why should women have all the fun and convenience of being able to carry a book or a handheld videogame or a sock full of nickels at all times? It's unfair. Downright sexist. So I hope that the murse revolution is coming.

Thoughts on the Recession

Did you know there's a recession going on?! Of course you did. Even if your job hasn't been affected at all, you noticed, because it's everywhere. I noticed too. Here are some of the things I find interesting:

+ Most marketing and advertising is still as shameless as ever: It seems like every tv commercial and internet ad out at the moment mentions the "tough economy" in some way or another. They emphasize that, in these tough times, it's important to be wise with your money, so you really should buy ABC insurance or XYZ pickup truck. We're supposed to be bailing out these jerks? They have jobs. Could they be any more insincere in their advertising?

+ To be fair, there are a few examples of companies behaving well: I saw a commercial that said Hyundai is selling their cars with a guarantee that if you lose your job in the next year, you can return it. That sounds like a winner of a proposal to me. The company looks good, like it cares. Not that I'm in the market for a car, but it makes me more likely to buy Korean.

+ I thought I noticed a change in retail service. It looked like service was getting better, with people working just a little harder so they're not the next one to be laid off. Then I got really crappy service at Eggspectations, and kicked some dirt on my theory. Still, I'm very curious to see if, as the unemployment rate increases, people will start taking their jobs more seriously. I recognize that there will always be the odd jerk out there serving you coffee with a scowl to whom you'd like to say, "Hey, I ALSO worked all day." Hopefully now there'll be less of them.

+ Partisanship is alive and well in Washington. I don't think it's Obama's fault. Republicans need to come up with some idea that is not tax cuts. They also need to drop the hypocritical cries for less government. I wish there were more sane Republicans for Democrats to reach out to, but it seems they've all been replaced by Democrats, and we're left with the radicals that come from the reddest of red states.

+ You know what would be great for the country right now? If those AIG execs who got the money just voluntarily gave back their bonuses. If ever there was a chance to cash in on changing the public's opinion of the financial system, it is now. They don't need that money! They're rich folks. And it's not like they're giving it away. They ARE buying something by giving the money back: public backing, the good will of a nation. AIG is toxic now. I doubt they did anything that was at all uncommon in the industry, but it's extremely popular to harp on bonus-giving at the moment, on both the right and the left. It won't do any good if they're forced to give it back. It has to be a grand gesture of voluntary support for a nation in need of such grand gestures from everyone, not just the president. That's what change is, people!

It's an interesting point in our nation's history. I'm not satisfied with the news we get from traditional sources; it's just too narrow in scope, I think. I hope the internet cultivates some bigger, more radical ideas for charting the course of the nation's and world's future. But I'm not holding my breath.

Sleep Apneopoly?

I went to the doctor's office the other day to see if I could get tested for sleep apnea. I'm almost certain I have it. It's an annoying sleep disorder that makes me stop breathing in the middle of the night, then have a jolt as my body panics from lack of oxygen. It makes it so my sleep isn't as restful as it should be. Everyone who's slept near me says I have it. 

The appointment started with answering what seemed like hundreds of versions of the same two questions on a handheld computing device from the '80s (do you get sleepy a lot during the day? do you snore or stop breathing a lot in your sleep?). Then, another lady and I watched a 19-minute educational video (that's VHS) about sleep apnea, complete with overly dramatic re-enactments and testimonials. This other lady had it bad. Her regular breathing sounded like the average person's snores after a night of heavy drinking. She actually fell asleep during the video, which I found hilariously appropriate. 

After the video, the lady in charge (I don't know what she was, a nurse, a technician, a specialist, but not a doctor) came in and gave a spiel about treatment options. There's surgery, a mouthpiece, or the dreaded CPAP machine. This doesn't include behavioral changes like weight loss, restricting alcohol intake, and sleeping on your side. So, to my surprise, most insurance, including my own, does not cover surgery or the dental piece, because they are not proven to be effective, but they do cover the CPAP machine, because it's a sure thing, or so the nice lady said. It costs about $600, not including the recommended humidifier attachment before insurance.

So nice lady took snore-breath lady to another room to talk individually, and I was left to wait. In the room where I was waiting, I noticed that all the posters on the walls, all the pamphlets, and all of the devices laid out had the logo "ResMed" on them. This is the company that makes the CPAP machine. I don't like being marketed to in my doctor's office. It seems like there should be no place for that when my health is at stake. It seems this is too much to ask, though. When I got my turn with the nice lady, she told me I'd be scheduled for a sleep study, and that my insurance would cover the breathing machine if I needed it. So that was that. I left the doc's.

Now, something does not sit right with me about this whole CPAP machine thing. The lady who saw me seemed more sales rep than medical professional. All the obvious branding and single choice of CPAP brand set off my corporate bloodsucker alarm. The fact that insurance companies don't cover the options that don't involve selling me an expensive machine just because the other options aren't proven to work made me more dubious. Doctors hand out stuff that they're not sure will work all the time. That's like half their job. Trial and error.

So, don't get me wrong. I'm gonna try it. None of the cost comes out of my pockets, and the potential benefit of getting a completely restful night's sleep for the first time in my life is pretty appealing. I'm definitely NOT excited about sleeping with an ugly, uncomfortable-looking mask on my face every night for the rest of my life (especially since I'm an avid cuddler ... TMI?). I'm just concerned at another possible example of insurance and medical supply companies treating me with the most profitable method, and not necessarily the best. I can't wait for healthcare reform, man.

shameless pepsi ads

There are a lot of people making money off Barack Obama-related merchandise and marketing. Here's one particularly ambitious attempt. There are countless shirts, hats, and pins graced with his name or likeness. I don't particularly like it, but insomuch as it indicates a greater participation in and awareness of politics and government, I'm ok with it.

But there's a line. I walked out of the Metro at Union Station the other day to this sight: 
This is DC's train station, a landmark of the city, and it's plastered with Pepsi ads that blatantly capitalize on the Obama campaign's message of hope for this struggling nation and world. We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis in generations, coming off of eight years of the worst leadership this nation has seen, and we are on the verge of taking our first breath of some badly needed hope... and Pepsi has to stick its ugly corporate logo on it and cheapen the whole damned thing.

There's no "O" in "we" so Pepsi had to make a slight modification. Disgusting.

inconvenient year-end technology failure

If you happen to be in the market for a netbook, and you are trying to decide between the Acer Aspire One and the MSI Wind... get the Wind. My friend Rachel got the Wind in September. I got the Acer in October. My Acer is now dead, or something like it. It won't turn on. I'm sending it back for repairs. This is annoying because:

1. I'm obviously an internet fiend.
2. I can't work on my annual Christmas mix, and it'll have to be delayed.
3. I can't work on my year-end top albums list because all my music is on that laptop.
4. My desktop (which I'm using to write this post) is a six-year-old hand-me-down piece of garbage that crashes every five minutes, and certainly doesn't fit in my man-purse.

Meanwhile, Rachel sent me a link saying that Wired named the Wind the Top Gadget of 2008.

On top of that, my new LG enV2 phone, which I also got in October, turns off every time I put it in my pocket. Garbage.

Why I Hate Of Montreal

Of Montreal being annoying in Baltimore, 2007

I don't usually go around actively hating on bands. I respect musicians for putting themselves out there for public critique, and I usually just ignore bands I don't like. But Of Montreal is an exception. I can't stand them. I first heard them on Satanic Panic in the Attic, and it was an OK album, but I found the unchecked glee of the singing highly annoying. Don't you know rock music is about misery?! The next time I heard them was on an Outback Steakhouse commercial. I generally groan when bands I like "sell out" and do commercials, but Of Montreal took it a step further. They changed the words to one of their own songs to make the jingle for the Outback commercial, "let's go Outback tonight." Here's the original song, "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games." That is criminal! An "indie" band shilling for a corporate steakhouse and changing the words of their own song?! Who does that? They deserve maximum mocking. That happened a while ago, though. The indie-heads know that's old news. The last straw for me, however, was even older news than that, which I recently found with the help of my good friend Wikipedia. Of Montreal is not from Montreal, but from Athens, Georgia. Maybe I'm the stupid one for assuming what shouldn't necessarily be assumed. Maybe everyone else caught on to that long ago. But me? I just learned about it, and I'm angry at being deceived for so long. Also, it didn't help their cause that their new album, Skeletal Lamping, sucks.

Amazing Feat

I accomplished something amazing the other night, something I doubt many people can claim to have done. I chipped a tooth in my sleep. That's right. I chipped one of my upper teeth with one of my lower teeth.... while sleeping. How, you ask? I wonder how myself. I must have made some sort of sudden movement in my sleep, perhaps something dream-related. I don't remember. I woke up to the disturbing sensation of something going terribly wrong in my mouth.

It was only a tiny chip, hardly noticeable, but I could feel the bits of tooth floating around my mouth. Few things make me cringe more than even the thought of my teeth cracking. I'm cringing right now, while I write this. (Cringe... I like that word. It sounds like what it means.) It's even more frightening to think that, since it happened once, it could happen again, and I have no protection against it. Basically, I could permanently fuck up my teeth in my sleep. What do I do? Wear a mouth-guard to bed? That's a quality-of-life sacrifice I'm not willing to make.

Ugh. I might as well get dentures now and get it over with.

Who are you, Russ Merva, and what did the gays ever do to you?

Russ Merva holds up a "Yes On 8" sign as a bus emblazoned with "Vote No On Prop 8" passes in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, Nov. 3, 2008. Both sides of Proposition 8, were out the day before Tuesday's election trying to drum up support. If approved, Prop. 8 would change California's constitution to ban same-sex marriage.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The AP picture above ran in a lot of newspapers on Thursday after Proposition 8 in California passed. The ballot measure called for an amendment to the State Constitution saying, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The measure passed with a 500,000 vote cushion.

Here's my question: WHAT THE FUCK?!

I am so disappointed in California right now. That state has dropped ten notches in my eyes. This is supposed to be the bastion of liberal ideas, the trailblazer of progressive policy. How could they so overwhelmingly pass a bill that annulls the 18,000 same-sex marriages that have occurred in the state since June 17, after the State Supreme Court ruled that gays could marry?

So, Mr. Russ Merva with your yellow "Yes on 8" sign, what do you have to say for yourself? What was it that not only made you vote for such a measure, but actively campaign for it? I don't mean to pick on you, as there were about 5 million other Californians with you on this issue, but you obviously consented to being in this picture by giving your name. You clearly wouldn't mind being a poster-boy against gay rights. 

So what the hell did the gays ever do to you, Russ? What's it matter to you whether Dan and Tom are married or not? I don't tell you you can't marry a woman because it goes against my morals do I? Maybe I should say it's against my morals to have idiot douchebags marry and procreate, so we should prohibit it by amending the constitution. How about that?

Of course, that'd be ridiculous. But no more ridiculous than what your movement managed to get passed. 

I'm gonna take a wild stab at the real reasons you voted for this amendment:

1. You realize that the wheels of social progress are turning, faster and faster, and the social construct you put all your chips into (presumably the church life) is going to look more and more antiquated and stupid. You don't want to look stupid, right? So you fight back against those who would make you look stupid, the more enlightened human beings who accept the realities of the world instead of the gospel from thousands of years ago that isn't relevant or even fully understood. That, and you've always had a thing for fairy tales.
2. You find gay people repulsive because you grew up never seeing any. And like most other people with a tiny little underdeveloped brain, your instincts make you hate what you don't understand.
3. You think "traditional marriage" is actually a real thing, even though your own is in shambles. Perhaps the tradition you're referring to is the get-married-for-the-wrong-reasons-and-being-miserable tradition that so many Americans follow, leading to a ridiculously high divorce rate.
4. This is your issue. You don't go out and picket against people who steal, deceive, and murder. You go out and picket against people who love each other but happen to be of the same gender. To you, this makes perfect sense, somehow.
5. You think it's about evolution. You think, "we were meant to procreate, and same-sex couples can't, so it's wrong." Well, Einstein, does that mean if some crazy person had cut your dick off in a fight, you shouldn't be allowed to marry either? How about that?
6. You heard some smart-sounding person say that it's not government's place to be involved in gay marriage, and it should be up to the faith communities, since marriage is traditionally a religious practice. Of course, you forgot to consider that, well, if government shouldn't be involved in gay marriage, should it be involved in straight marriage? Bah, don't be ridiculous.

I'm sure there are other reasons those 5 million people voted to take away the rights of people who never did them any harm whatsoever. It just hurts my brain to try and come up with them, because they're all SO STUPID. The only smart thing in that picture is what's on the bus: "Unfair, Unnecessary, Wrong."

Mix Tape Gripe

So, if you know me at all or have scrolled down this page, you'll know that I'm very big into music. I find out about a lot of my music from searching the internet. Sites like metacritic, emusic, last.fm, pandora, and even amazon have broadened my musical horizons in a big way.

But a lot of the music I find out about, I've been introduced to by people I know. My favorite way of finding out about new (or new to me) music is from mixtapes (ok, mix cds, but tapes just sounds so much better). I'm constantly thinking about mixes I can create, often with a recipient or theme in mind. Introducing people to music is one of my favorite things to do--thus much of the content of this blog.

And I love getting mixes and devouring what another person considers the best of the best. Songs I fall in love with from mixtapes always have the extra sentimental pleasure of reminding me of whatever thoughtful fellow music-fiend was kind enough to make it for me. That is, unless I get a mix from someone I'd rather forget about. Then, however great the songs are, they come with a little side dish of pain.

And wouldn't you know it, a few months ago, I was given what I begrudgingly admit is one of the best mixes I've ever heard, only to be rejected by this mix-maker. I don't have any serious hard feelings or anything. I didn't know her that long or that well. It probably never would've worked out, but I did like her, and I still feel I was judged kind of unfairly. I'm ok with that kind of stuff though. Love hurts, etc.

The thing that really really annoys me, you see, is that she had such damn good music taste. She's given me all these songs to love for the rest of my life, which I appreciate, but damn it, I'll probably always associate those songs with her. A lot of the songs and bands I've raved about on this blog, she could take credit for introducing me to, and there are a lot more that I haven't referenced, out of spite. I'll probably sprinkle them in over time, so as to appear less enthusiastic about her taste, on the off-chance that she comes across this page (woops).

Songs that bring sad or painful associations are nothing new for me, and probably are familiar to a lot of people. Who among us hasn't had one of our favorite songs permanently attached to the memory of some ex-love or friend? I guess my gripe is that this pretty meaningless relationship is going to leave such a significant and permanent mark on my musical taste and memory. It annoys me greatly. Grrr.