PAX East: A Modest Success

Editor's Note: There is much to say about the disaster in Japan, but as I'm still playing catch-up, I'll wait on that post and give an update on that thing I've been working on

I hope that next time [Team Respect] goes to a con, there are more of us to hit up the panels and hand out swag, because for as much fun as I had at PAX East, I do wish I'd gotten the chance to play some more videogames.

To that note, I did get the chance to demo the new Mortal Kombat, which was more fun than I've had playing a fighting game in a couple of years (and more fun than I've had playing a Mortal Kombat game since the franchise launched).

I also got to demo Twisted Pixel's The Gunstringer, which is truly fucking astounding. Using the Xbox Kinect, you control the story's hero, who just so happens to be a marionette! As you fight your way through the barren landscape, a narration plays that adapts to the action on screen. It is to puppet theater what Rez was to music.



None of this is to suggest that I regret the other purposes for which I attended PAX. As it stands, [TR] is garnering still more followers on Twitter, with a major spike since the con. We distributed pink wristbands with our twitter name and our URL, collected business cards from a fair number of developers. I was also approached by a teacher from my high school, who was interested in organizing an event there about ethics and hate speech and wanted to know if I'd be interested in giving a talk.

Considering that one of the long-term goals we had from the getgo was doing precisely that sort of thing, I'm pretty fucking psyched.

When we started out, we weren't quite sure what we could accomplish at PAX East with such little time to organize and so few resources. The bar we set for ourselves was thus: Make it absolutely fucking clear that at this con, in this city, the people who are interested in helping greatly outnumber the trolls.

The douchetrucks behind @teamrape managed to stage a "flashmob" consisting of between 15 and 18 people outside a nearby UNO's.  They also managed to get us to give them handfulls of bracelets before we knew who they were, and get themselves kicked out of the Gender in Games panel. They've been at this for a couple of months longer than we have, and are followed by 60 people on twitter.

As of this writing, we've distributed around 2000 wristbands, are followed by 192 twitter users-- including the great and powerful @Themiscyra, who on Sunday became the first woman to take the stage for the final round of the Omegathon, and did so proudly displaying a [Team Respect] wristband-- and have made significant content with the press, the industry, and activists in the community. We also met with the brilliant minds at MIT's Gambit Lab, who in addition to their great work in gaming, created the Hate Speech Project as a reaction to the hostility surrounding the dickwolves debacle. It was put on display at the back of their booth at the expo hall.



A full report will follow over at the Team Respect blog, but in short: [TR] is WINNING. This started as a response to a specific mishap in the gaming community, but it won't end there.

As gamers, we're sick of merely saying "games aren't bad for you." Games are GOOD for you. They keep soldiers deployed in combat zones from wanting to kill themselves-- in fact the only behavior more effective in decreasing risk of suicide is 5 hours of daily exercise.  They treat depression.  They improve confidence and self-esteem, and channel positive energy. If you don't overindulge, they make you a more productive, more considerate, more helpful member of society.  But the catch is, none of that shit works if you're an asshole, or are playing in a space that's dominated by assholes.

We can't sanitize the Internet or online gaming as a whole--nor do we want that power-- but from what we've learned at PAX, it's quite clear what our mission from here on out ought to be: To carve out a space where people can expect to be treated respectfully, and to encourage people to take that attitude out to the gaming community as a whole. To encourage others to lead by example and in so doing change the fucking world. The limits of what can be accomplished by our efforts have yet to be fully defined, but what we already know commands us to press forward.

[TR] Update and other thoughts

Six days without a post is the norm for much of my time on this blog, to the extent that I still, STILL have not yet posted my 500th piece on this site. But it's a bit off from my recent posting habits, so let me assure you, I've still been banging my head on the brick wall that is the Internet, but it's been at a different part, and this time I've begun to see deeper cracks appear.  Team Respect has been live for six days now, and as of right now we've racked up 92 twitter followers, an entry on the debacle "Pratfall of Penny Arcade" timeline, 25 forum members (who have collectively posted 93 times) and 37 likes on facebook.

To be fair, we haven't really been trying on facebook, because nobody we know has any finesse with it.  My twitter chops have the likes of Melissa Harris-Perry and Harry Shearer tossing me @replies. My facebook chops have people in my circle of friends telling me "cool story, bro." If anyone were to offer advice or assistance, that would be killer.

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Valentines Day came and went, but the discounted chocolate remains, as does the bottle of gin my Other of Primary Significance got me for what we refer to as "Hetero-normative Teenybopper Bullshit Day," which rates rather above the "teacher valentine" chocolates I got her and leaves me playing catch-up. It's Rogue Spirits Pink Spruce gin, and having sampled a fair number of juniper-wrought liquors, I have to say this is my favorite. The gin has been infused with spruce oil and seasoned in Oregon Pinot Noir barrels, which come in along with various citrus elements to strike the first chord. It middles with cucumber which continues to the tail end, where it's joined by the juniper and grains of paradise, a peppery spice famously employed in Sam Adams Summer Ale.

I've yet to use it in any mixed drinks, as it's delicious on its own or with ice, but I suspect that combining it with Lillet at martini proportions with a twist of lemon would yield agreeable results. I shall report back when I've tested this hypothesis. Enjoying it in any form you choose along with the lyrical stylings of Garfunkel and Oates comes with my unqualified endorsement

May we all be spared of our parties taking a turn for the douche.

Peace

Team Respect: A Grand Announcement

Ever since I was three years old, I've played videogames. It started when I was three years old, and my father's Intellivision allowed for two controllers to control the same character in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. My father maneuvered the crudely pixelated Ranger whilst I shot arrows. We played that Intellivision until it went bust.

Later, I was hospitalized for asthma. I was breathing out of a tube in the wall, and while my parents visited me, I was often alone.  Luckily, they wheeled in a TV with a Nintendo Entertainment System. For sure, I'd rather have been breathing under my own power, but it made my time in the hospital less scary. It's that experience that would later lead me to support Child's Play, a charity that puts toys and games in children's hospitals, so that kids everywhere can feel a little less scared while they're healing.

The charity was the brainchild of Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, best known as the creators of Penny Arcade. Their action helped redeem the gaming community in the eyes of society at large. Gone now are the frothy-mouthed rantings of Jack Thompson. Indeed, the narrative has flipped completely. Prominent researchers are now saying that games are good for you.

Their other great accomplishment is PAX, which is for many of us summed up in a word: home. Last year, it came to the East Coast for the first time, and I was in attendance. It was, in short, awesome. While many other conventions of its sort are commercial enterprises centered on hyping games and getting gamers to part with their money. Not true with PAX.  PAX is a community of gamers who are there to play games with each other. And at that, it's one of the more inclusive spaces in the gaming community.

However, recent events have led many to feel less welcome. Here is a timeline of events. It's not the comic itself that has so many of us upset. It's the boorish response from the creators and their defenders that served to make reasonable critiques invisible. And encouraged some high-grade dickery, taken to the most extreme in those who have vowed to show up to the con wearing shirts that say "Team Rape." As a result, many people-- some of my friends included-- to no longer feel welcome at PAX.  Which sucks, because PAX is truly special and everyone should have the ability to enjoy it.

We're better than this. I know because I've been there.  I've seen people at PAX receive prizes worth hundreds of dollars only to immediately return them and request that they be put up for auction to benefit Child's Play. There is a culture in PAX-- and in gaming at large-- that is conducive to being changed for the better by the existence of good examples.

It is with this in mind that some friends of mine and I have founded Team Respect.

We're not quite sure what our long-term plans are.  As of right now, we're encouraging those in the gaming community who don't like to hear it when their fellow gamers are inconsiderate of others, whether it be defiantly pledging be assholes to abuse survivors, or using "faggot" as a generic insult to stand up and declaim it. To say that we, as gamers-- as human beings-- won't stand for this.

And after that? Who knows? But right now, we're making a hard push to get the word out ahead of the convention on March 11th, and I'd ask everyone who reads this to pass it along to the gamers in their lives. It's time to take our culture back.

Convince one mind at a time to cleave to the spirit of Wheaton's Law, which is to say, "Don't be a dick."

A lighter note.

The great and wonderful Pia Savage has posted her second Psychology Today piece. In it, she describes her first panic attack, which took place during notebook inspection day in the second grade.

As someone to whom notes were superfluous and taking them was like trying to throw with my off hand, I personally appreciate her sharing her own experience.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that if anyone reading this doesn't already know what's going on in Egypt right now, they can damn well find out on their own and I don't need to speak on it with an unearned air of authority.

I will say this. During the day while I was taking a break from rather dusty housework, I was glued to twitter. among the tweets about the clashes between protesters and brownshirts, something hilarious happened.

The National Organization for Marriage linked this cartoon from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal  on their blog.

Naturally, they didn't get the joke. For thinking people, culture shock is a source of humor and/or discomfort. For Defenders of Marriage, it's evidence that something is well and truly wrong with the Universe.

SMBC is authored by Zach Weiner, who in addition to having a surname uncannily appropriate for the brand of humor that he has elevated near to the level of High Art, is about the last person who is going to let you get away with subverting his work to fit your message of hate. The thing about hotlinks is that you only control the name of the file that they display. Usually, that's enough.  However...

For me it was a welcome break from hearing about how Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Richard Engel, Nicholas Kristoff, and all of the other reporters out there whose names I can't immediately bring to mind but who are no less worthy of mention are in real danger. Some have said that the attention they've gotten is a distraction, but I disagree.

I warrant that there's a danger of people from the West focusing their sympathies on the people who look like them who came late to the nightmare rather than the people who have lived their whole lives under the conditions that created this crisis, but that's not the only force at work These are the people we invite into our homes every day to get a better understanding of how the world is working. In the United States, their efforts are routine; expected. In Cairo, during this time of crisis, it gives some cause to threaten their lives. If we think only of the faces we know, then we indeed have missed the point.

I am infinitely grateful both for the reporters who shine a light on the darkest moments of human history, and the smart, funny people who make those dark moments easier to bear. Double points for each if they can manage to stand up for the powerless while doing so.

I would be remiss if I didn't call your attention to this man

Editor's note: this post was originally intended to contain only one sentence about the situation in Cairo, but it got away from me. If you're looking for content that better fits the title of this post, skip down to the bottom.

I've been almost completely unable to divert my attention from coverage of the protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo. I just got through watching a group of anti-government protesters rip a man who seems to have been a pro-Mubarak provocateur from his truck and beat him. They attempted to dismantle it for the scrap metal, which was all too important earlier in the day when whatever chunks of metal were available were used as improvized tower sheilds, linked together like the Roman legion, in order to drive back the thugs hired by the ruling party to transmute what was originally a non-violent protest into a violent one.

over 750 people were injured in a battle that has been described by witnesses as "medieval" At least four were killed. The morning call to prayer has been drowned out by gunfire.

Journalists and Westerners have been especially targeted by the pro-Mubarak thugs, with Anderson Cooper and his crew-- to give only one example-- having been attacked when they tried to get a better vantage point.

The work of the People has become this: hold the square at all costs, even unto death. They have been going home in shifts for food and supplies, and have taken responsibility for securing the perimeter, which had previously been the Army's task. Tanks have laid down smokescreens hoping to interfere with the ability of both sides to hit each other with stones and petrol bombs, and giving cover so that anyone wishing to leave unharmed was given the opportunity to do so.

This isn't the post I set out to write, so I'm going to leave it at this: Our brothers and sisters in Egypt started this movement out of a yearning for democracy, but now they are in this fight for their lives. The ruling party is out for their blood, and if they remain in power when all is said and done, there is no reason to believe that they'll put this shit behind them, if past is prologue. Those of us watching this revolution from the comfort in our homes have an obligation to not be idiots about it when we talk about Egypt. The reporting of Al Jazeera as well as this brilliant post at Sarthanpalos--which I urge everyone to read-- have been invaluable resources toward this aim.

Ahem.

Now for something a bit closer to home, and indeed closer to having anything to do with the title of this post. This is Zach Wahls, a college student and fellow Eagle Scout, speaking at the Iowa State House-- where a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is being considered-- in defense of his two moms.



Preach it, Zach

Judge Virginia A Phillips is Owed Several Beers

So, that happened.

Up until just now, I've accepted if not embraced the Obama administration's line on Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  If Joe Biden is to be believed, the executive branch's relative lack of action was a negotiated position that won them support for repeal in the Congress.  One could look at the Republican filibuster of the defense authorization bill containing DADT repeal and cynically ask me how that one went, but presumably it wasn't just Republicans who asked for that consideration.

Also, stop being such a smartass, One.  This isn't the first time I've had to talk to you about this.

As for the actions of the Department of Justice... I have no fucking idea.  Are they an extension of Obama's promise to not end DADT by executive fiat?  Using the DOJ as a bargaining chit in that way would probably be impeachable.  Are they purposely putting forth bad cases?  Maybe.  It's uncertain if the injunction banning the enforcement of DADT would have been anywhere near as strong if the case put forth by the DOJ wasn't so weak.  But then why try the cases at all?  To buy time for the legislature?  I don't think you can delay a court case for as long as you can delay a Senate debate.

As it happens, the deadline for an appeal is going to come around the same time that the Pentagon is scheduled to release its study on the impact of repeal on troops during wartime, which will likely coincide with a lame duck session of Congress.

So, what will the history books say when this whole mess (to say nothing of all the others) is in the rearview mirror?

Fucked if I know.  I just want to make it out of this chapter with a little dignity.  And if this shit isn't settled by the end of the year, I'm moving to the moon.

I swear, they aren't all like this.

Reading this made me sick to my stomach. Two young children in Boulder, CO have been unceremoniously expelled from Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Catholic primary school,upon the discovery that their parents were both women.

I know. It's the Catholic Church.

The same Catholic Church that had the audacity to judge Massachusetts for legalizing gay marriage at the same time it was making headlines for having aided and abetted child molestors in escaping responsibility for their actions. It's the same Catholic Church that in America has raised a shitstorm over a President's support of abortion rights when even the Pope, who thinks rock music is the devil, is willing to have a constructive dialogue on issues of social justice. The same church that threatened to withdraw its charitable organization if Washington DC allowed gay marriage. So why am I expecting anything from these fucking swine?

Because I am the product of a Catholic education. For four years I was both a beneficiary and a student of an educational philosophy that for hundreds of years has honed minds that have changed the world. Scott Janssen at HuffPost sees this through more or less the same lens.

Boston College High School is a remarkable institution. I was taught government and politics (out of a textbook intended for second year college students) by a man who ran for Congress after a stint as a state legislator. The director of the Dramatics Society worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His assistant, who designed set pieces and costumes and taught us how to craft them, worked in professional theater as well as architecture (which he also teaches) and so many other disciplines that an attempt to list them here would only do him a disservice by omission. Many in the faculty are published authors. One writes a weekly column on education in the Globe. Numerous others would have had resumes every bit as impressive had they not gone straight from college back to teach at their alma mater.

These are people who are passionate about education. And the institutional history of that passion and dedication dates back centuries.

Ignacio de Loyola, so named for the Spanish castle where he was born, could have had an easy life. His family's plan for him began and ended with his becoming a cleric at an early age. But Ignacio was his day's equivalent of a comic book nerd. He devoured tales of powerful knights, and like Don Quixote, wished to better them. Unlike Don Quixote, he lived at a time when such a thing were possible, and through some means not uncovered by history, he gave his duties as a cleric the slip, and from 1509 to 1521, he was a knight of the highest reputation, and it seemed no blade could harm him. But a French cannon did, in 1521, when he was leading the King's men in defense of the citadel at Pamplona. The shot went between his legs, taking a chunk out of one and breaking the other. As he fell, so did the Citadel.

The victorious French took him with them to the castle at Loyola, where he underwent a long and painful recovery, involving multiple botched surgeries on his broken leg, in an era with no anesthesia. He asked his caretakers for books of knighthood, but all that was available were books on the life of Christ and of the Saints. And he read them in the same way as he'd read about chivalry: yearning to out-fast, out-consecrate, and generally out-holy the Saints between the pages of the only books he could get his hands on.

Look, dude had issues.

After hanging up his sword and military vestments and giving away all his possessions, he took the name Ignatius and dedicated the next 11 years of his life to educating himself in order to be a better help to others. Then he founded the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, each of whom to this day complete 11 to 13 years of college prior to being ordained. Their mission to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth through public service, primarily--obsessively-- through education.

He's now known as St Ignatius of Loyola, patron saint of education. The prototypical Catholic educator. And although in his lifetime he did seek to convert the Protestants and the Jews and the Pagans, it was the schools founded in his name, mine in particular, that led the way in dismantling the notion that Catholic schools were for Catholics alone.

Which can only be seen as the logical extension of Ignatius' belief in the supreme importance of education. If the mission of the Church is to make the world a better place, and the way to make the world a better place is to educate the people and instill in them the desire to improve the lives of others, then it would be a sin to deny schooling to anyone for such petty reasons.

And yet here we are.

Archbishop Charles J Chaput wrote a rather pathetic and predictable defense of the policy. which as someone who is proud to have left the Church--but also to have learned quite a bit from it-- I feel obliged to refute.

The main purpose of Catholic schools is religious; in other words, to form students in Catholic faith, Catholic morality and Catholic social values.

See, and here I thought that the main purpose of any school was to educate. But no, he goes on to say that academic excellence is a matter of pride "as well." Good to know. I wonder if Catholic hospitals have the same kind of attitude.

Many of our schools also accept students of other faiths and no faith, and from single parent and divorced parent families. These students are always welcome so long as their parents support the Catholic mission of the school and do not offer a serious counter-witness to that mission in their actions.

In the Archbishop's world, it's apparently perfectly reasonable that non-Catholics would send their kids to a school whose primary purpose is to teach their kids how to be good Catholics. And you have to love the weasel words, which present no enlightenment whatsoever into what makes gay parenthood more of a breach of Catholic values than divorce.

We need to remember that Catholic families pay twice for a Catholic education: through their taxes, they fund public education; then they pay again to send their children to a Catholic school. The idea that Catholic schools should require support for Catholic teaching for admission, and a serious effort from school families to live their Catholic identity faithfully, is reasonable and just.

He'd just said that a Catholic identity wasn't necessary for attendance. He said it exactly one paragraph ago. It's becoming clear that while my Catholic educators taught me the virtues of critical thinking, Archbishop Chaput wasn't so lucky. I was taught that the formation of conscience is something we must do individually. Chaput says "If Catholics take their faith seriously, they naturally follow the teachings of the Church in matters of faith and morals; otherwise they take themselves outside the believing community. "

You heard him, divorced folks. You heard him, birth control users. You've removed yourselves from the believing community because you disagree with the Church on one or two of its teachings. And the Church never changes those, ever.

At the end, he puts on his "reasonable" face, and claims that ultimately, the children couldn't attend the school because teachers have a duty to teach the "authentic faith of the Church" without wounding the children's feelings. Apparently that duty curiously doesn't extend to calling divorced parents sinners.

I don't pretend that everyone else's experience with Catholic Schools are the same as mine. Or that the Jesuit model is universally emulated (even though it should be). But one thing is clear here. The Catholic Church has lost sight of its mission. I know. I've been there. I've studied the mission. In my own way, I've been a part of it, even though I'm now no longer with the Church, or indeed any religious organization.

I still believe in the mission of Ignatius. It helped form my political identity. My support for gay rights, and my self-identification as a Progressive do not come in spite of my Catholic background. They come because of it.