04-15-2013: On the Futility of Terror

This wasn’t just an attack against the Boston Marathon. It was an attack against the American public and our democratic use of the streets. We have used our public roadways for annual parades, protest marches, presidential inaugurations, marathons, and all manner of other events. The roads belong to us, and their use represents an important part of our free and democratic tradition-- Amby Burfoot, Runner's World

Patriots Day is a holiday only celebrated in Massachusetts, which commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord and the start of the American Revolution. We Bostonians are quite proud of our city's role in the foundation of American democracy, but given the extent to which that celebration takes a back seat, you could be forgiven for thinking that the whole thing was just an excuse for us to have the day off so that we can watch the Boston Marathon. Boston being what it is, if the holiday hadn't existed already, we'd probably have invented it.

The race was founded in 1897, inspired by the success of an event held at the first modern Olympics. For distance runners around the globe, Boston is the marathon. Tell a marathoner anywhere in the world about making it over Heartbreak Hill, and odds are about even they'll know what you're talking about. Here, Marathon Monday is without any doubt the finest day on the calendar for sports fans. A Sox game begins at Fenway at the odd time of 11:05 so that when the game-- which is often memorable in its own right-- is over, the fans can leave the stadium and watch people finish the race. And they do.

It may seem somewhat odd that we let the day commemorating the Shots Heard Round the World be overshadowed by sport, but I'm as proud of that as anything else about the day. The state motto of Massachusetts is Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, or "by the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty. Having won the war and achieved liberty, the celebration of armed resistance becomes a footnote to another Bostonian acheivement felt the world over, this one placed firmly in the category of peace. An international sporting event devoid of the pseudo-nationalism of team sports or the actual nationalism that creeps into the Olympics.

Ezra Klien speaks to this in a blog post titled, "If you are losing faith in humanity, go out and watch a marathon"

I've never run the Boston Marathon, but both my parents have, and I grew up watching it every year around the 20 mile marker with family. In a town that eats, drinks, breathes, sleeps, shits and fucks sports-- sometimes to the point of are-you-seriously-chanting-Yankees-Suck-at-a-game-against-the-Royals embarrassment-- the Marathon is a unique experience: a sporting event where everyone in the crowd stands in full-throated support of everyone in the race, whether they be from Boston, New York, Kansas City, or Kenya. The fact that nobody from Massachusetts has won it for over 30 years hasn't put a damper on our enthusiasm for it; all those who run the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boylston Street are Bostonians as far as we're concerned. And the feeling, for some, is mutual; three time winner Cosmas Ndeti of Kenya went so far as to name his son Boston. Uta Pippig, who won it three times for Germany, became a US citizen in 2004 and now sits on the board of directors for MIT's AgeLab.

The race is an hours-long-miles-wide outdoor party where distance between spectator and participant is at some spots in the course reduced to the vanishing point. High-fives, cups of water, and words of encouragement are dispensed, more often than not from one stranger to another. When my mother ran Boston, there was nothing stopping me running alongside her to show support as she passed by. By the same token, there would have been nothing to stop me from ruining Ndeti's record-setting performance in '94, but that shit just doesn't happen. Who would fuck with the Boston Marathon?

FUCKING WHO?

Three people lost their lives yesterday, one of whom was only eight years old. Many lost limbs, and close to two hundred were injured. More still were struck with terror at having witnessed the violence firsthand, or robbed of the fruit of their months-long labor of devotion by the actions of someone who very likely has no clue what those athletes put themselves through to get to where they were. As such, I'm going to try to keep the narcissism to the bare minimum, but I can't help but take it personally. Marathon Monday is a part of my identity, and Copley Square is one of my favorite haunts. Those hurt were my people. Lacking any information about the piece of human filth who saw fit to visit carnage upon what I consider to be a piece of myself, I've felt the urge to add to the ugliness. To yell at the friend of mine who commented that they were doing the "hip" thing by posting to Facebook that they were alright. To personally hound and shame everyone who tweeted about the attack with the hashtag #BostonMassacre. To hitchhike down to Texas, beat the ever-loving shit out of Alex Jones and tell him that Michael Moore sent me.

As always seems to happen in times such as these, my rage was quelled by the extent to which our better angels were on display. The people who ran towards the blast when it wasn't at all clear what was going on, save for the fact that others were in need. The runners who crossed the finish line without breaking pace and continued on for two miles to the hospitals so that they could give blood after running their asses off for over four hours. The volunteers, EMTs, trauma surgeons et al who kept far more people alive than could have reasonably been expected. The ordinary citizens who offered up their homes to those displaced by the attack. The local businesses which bid anyone come and eat, drink, charge their phones and pay only if they could. The runners everywhere who vowed to return the next year. In their actions and more, Boston responded to tragedy in a spirit befitting a holiday which commemorates the bravery of those who decided long ago that they would not allow their lives to be controlled by others through violence.

All of which is to say that regardless of who placed those bombs, why they did it, or who else might have been involved, I can tell you that the story of April 15th, 2013 is the story of the futility of terrorism. Not because I share the certainty of some that those involved will meet justice; at this point, that cannot be known. But a community does not withstand terror by punishing its perpetrators. We withstand terror by refusing to be terrorized. By not allowing a freak occurrence inflicted upon us by cowards and thugs to change us or the way we live our lives. Terrorism is rare, it is difficult, and it is the work of inferior minds. Its success relies entirely upon our own co-operation. We can learn from these events, and make strategic corrections where they reveal gaps in our security. But in a year's time, we will have another marathon, and we must not consume ourselves with rendering it impervious to terror. We would surely fall short of the mark, and in so doing sacrifice the communion between athlete and fan that makes Marathon Monday a treasure of life in Boston. The quality which we cannot bestow upon our public gatherings is one which we must instill in ourselves. And when we do that, the world will know us to be the victors.

Everything I'm hearing suggests that we're going to get the response right this time. I plan on doing my part to make sure we do.

Our institutions did not become great by following a path of timidity and cowardice. And we can only hope that, when pummeled, as the Boston Marathon was today, they will rise again, stronger than ever.-- Burfoot

Spam, Spam, Spam, John Bolton, Spam, Spam and Spam

I actually find myself partially agreeing with John Bolton about Russia. Not that we should back away from arms control-- Bolton would suggest that on any day ending in -y. But it might be a good idea to push forward on missile defense in Europe so that we have something utterly inconsequential on the table that we can give up so Putin can stop making the situation in Syria and still be able to declare victory when he goes back to the harem of half-tiger dancing girls whom I assume will be waiting for him in Moscow.

I am, of course, suspicious of any time I even superficially agree with someone who sees the UN as legitimate only when it serves his neoconservative agenda. Especially since his proscriptions are being offered in the context of there needing to be a fundamental shift in the strategic realities in the Middle East if we are to see peace there (Ok, what he said was "advance legitimate American interests," and he almost certainly meant something else by that, but seeing as peace is the only legitimate American interest in the Middle East, that's what I'm running with.) Seeing as Russia's sociopathic behavior on the world stage more or less stems from concern about the expansion of American geopolitical capital, it's hard to see how we're going to save any lives in Syria by telling them, for instance, that we have no interest in pursuing agreements aimed at preventing the militarization of space.

Pounding our chest at Russia and saying "come at me, bro," is many things, but it's not strategic. Where there is a whisper of kinda-maybe truth is that Putin, keen political operator that he is, is likely basing his posture via a vis the US on how the President has dealt with bald faced unprincipled intransigence at home. If that's the case, and this is a matter of Putin crowding the plate, as it were, it's because he doesn't think that Obama has it in him to brush him back. If so, it's possible that it might be  tactically sound to give him some chin music. But all that can possibly do is get him to take half a step back. It isn't going to win the ballgame. The only way to win the ballgame is to ultimately find a way to make peace with Russia and Iran without giving away the store. Honestly? I don't remotely have the policy chops to tell you how that's going to happen (working on it). I am, however, keenly aware of what not to do.



On an unrelated note, I would like to ask people who are posting this image on social networks to please fucking stop

Congrats, folks! You've found a way to save less than 1% of the deficit whilst giving members of Congress further incentive to seek outside income! You know, the outside income they get by investing on inside information and taking high-paid gigs from the people who were lobbying them while they were supposedly serving our interests. This is no different than Republicans going after foreign aid or funding for the arts. You can fundamentally believe that the people who are receiving this money don't deserve it, but pretending that cutting it off is going to solve any problem is severely fucking delusional. It's the sort of thing that distracts us from, you know, actually solving our numerous problems as a nation.

Wondering and Dreaming, the Words Have Different Meanings

BOSTON COLLEGE, 2006

I had been drafted at the last minute into acting as a judge for a 24-hour one-act play competition that my best friend from high school was emceeing. A frequent feature of our friendship was that he would often take great initiative--and do an impressive amount of legwork-- to get a project off the ground, only to wind up having a hole in his planning that seemed to be precisely my shape and size. To wit, I've gone undercover to help him investigate a pyramid scheme, held a boom mic for an on-camera interview of a rabbi, rewritten bits of voiceover for his documentary about the anti-Iraq war protests in DC at the time, assisted in writing a sketch to get him into a comedy group, helped set up chairs for any number of improv or sketch performances, and lugged around, cumulatively, quite a lot of shit.  This time, my task was to sit on my ass and have opinions about theater.

I'm so good at having opinions, you guys.

That one of the contestants was a former classmate of mine and former pupil of my theater sensei, who was also a judge, did not get examined by anyone. He did a one-man-show that I found a bit touching if a little angsty, but sort of disqualified himself by not memorizing it.

I posted about it at the time, but left out the most important thing that happened to me that day.

There was a contingent of current and former BC High Drama cast and crew in the audience waiting. She was there with a whiteboard, buzzed head and attire that was somehow simultaneously frumpy and somewhat suiting. We'd met only once before, but she greeted me warmly as if we already knew each other well. That is to say, as warmly as one can without speaking. It was Lent, and she had given up talking. Before I left, she scrawled "Do you have IM?" Her name was Katrina Kessler, and this was the day that we first became friends.

At the time, having long, meaningful conversations via Instant Messenger was extremely normal for me as there were important people in my life for whom I had no other mode of contact. And as she had a month of no speaking ahead of her, it was her only way of communicating over a distance in real time (She still kept her phone on her, but if you called her, you needed to do all the talking). It was a perfect month to get to know each other, and I'm infinitely grateful for the confluence of events. In a rare twist, Catholic doctrine was factoring into my life positively. We became fast friends

Her relationship with the Church is one that will likely confuse me for the rest of my life. Katrina chose Lucifer as her confirmation name, which  one other friend of mine has gotten away with (the rules are that it has to be the name of a Saint or an angel). She taught Sunday school, and gave things up for Lent, despite being well aware of what the game is with Catholicism. (she would eventually identify as a witch). The self-described "con man" believed in the usefulness of Sunday school as a means of scaring young children, but Lent seemed to be half about performance art and half about an exercise in willpower. The following year she would give up swearing, which she said was far more difficult than giving up speaking altogether.

Performance art was, indeed, a large factor in our friendship. Together we were Team Creepy, a dynamic duo which vowed to nudge people out of their comfort zones. We engaged street crazies in philosophical discussions. We staged ridiculously specific fetishes that would have seemed asexual in nature if not for one or both of us responding with what Katrina would call "enthusiastic agreement." We embraced absurdity with a straight face and had many, many adventures in Boston that all seemed to end with us walking about the Common. If walls, park benches could talk... they'd probably have far more scandalous things than us to speak of. But they'd all know our names, even if we never bothered writing them down for/on them.

Neither of us had a car, and we lived on opposite ends of the state, so almost every time we saw each other, we met in the middle at Boston Common. Huddling at night in the dead of winter in front of a bronze statue of one child horsey-riding another, sheltered from the cold by the basin of a dry fountain in the Public Garden... this is how we each knew, viscerally, of our importance to one another. For both of us, staying out in the cold with each other was always preferable to going back home. Some nights I would ride the Red Line all the way to her stop at the end of the line, and stay on as it turned around to take me home. It added about two hours to my night, but it was worth it every single time.

Katrina was the first person to get me to wear a dress, and also the first person to get me out of a dress. She introduced me to the insane and wonderful sounds of Syd Barrett, which to this day inform my sensibilities as a writer and as a musician. Being her friend helped me learn when not to give a fuck. Kat has taken permanent residence under my skin and in my veins and within the twisted corridors of my mind.

I said goodbye to her last Monday.

CANTON, MA, 2012

This is what it means to have a big family


My teacher and mentor embraced me as I waited in line to pay my respects. Coming from an Irish Catholic family with more first cousins than I can count, I'm more than a little familiar with this, but this was different. The triumphs and tribulations I had shared with some of the people in that room had made brothers of us all, and even the people with whom I had never worked on anything due to a lack of overlap in our times at the school saw me as family.


The BC High Dramatics Society has always been a tight-knit group. The work we did at Dever Hall was for many of us the most meaningful part of our high school education. Some of us routinely stayed there until 7pm working, as most of us wore many hats. Aside from acting I was involved with carpentry, costumes, and props, and I was by no means the most busy. If you go through three hell weeks a year with the same people, you're going to either love them or hate them, and for us it was ever the former. All of us loved Katrina.

Being of an all-male school, BCHDS seeks the help of young women from other schools to play female parts. I never got the chance to perform on stage with Katrina as she didn't start with the group until after I had graduated, but I did get the chance to see her once onstage. Whereas some from outside the school were better described as guest performers, she was one of us without any doubt. We all loved and admired her, and for good reason. Katrina lived her life in a way that we all wish we could say we lived ours. She gave freely of herself, and was unfailingly loyal to her friends. She beat her own path through life and was never afraid to look utterly ridiculous doing so.

Being around my people was an enormous comfort save for two uncomfortable facts. One was the nature of my relationship with Katrina, which may have been known by most or all but never had any kind of social recognition, which made it difficult for me to talk about it around, for instance, someone who had actually been dating her in what for lack of a better word I'll call an official capacity. The other was the exceedingly Catholic nature of the proceedings. People know, for the most part, not to try to comfort me with platitudes about how the departed are surely watching over us from heaven. But such talk was in the air, and while I can't blame people for it, for me it served only a reminder of the utter finality of my friend's passing. A reminder that those trying to comfort me were having a fundamentally different experience than I was. People who live in the city talk about feeling alone in the company of millions, but that's nothing compared to feeling alone in the company of people who actually care about you. This is, of course, something that has happened every time I've been to a funeral, but this time stung more than any of the others.

On a Thursday in April, I texted her to invite her for dinner, but as it turned out she was in California. Katrina had made a new, sudden change in her life, and was now, traveling around fixing up childrens' homes as a part of a group that I have yet to learn anything about but which she describes as a cult. Two weeks after I found out about it, they were driving back from repairs at an orphanage in Missouri late at night. The driver was exhausted, there was machinery discarded along the end of the road, and the car was flipped.

Life is bullshit sometimes.

I was fortunate enough to have seen her this March. Kat had filled her schedule with work and massage classes, save for Thursdays, and as a result we hadn't been in touch for quite some time. We were going to make a habit of being around each other more, because I also had my whole Thursday open. It didn't quite work out the way I'd hoped, but I did get to spend one day with her. I didn't miss the chance to tell her how much she meant to me. Point of fact, I was gushing and was maybe a little embarrassed at the time. I'll never be satisfied with the time on this Earth I had with my dear friend, but it would have been hard to do much better with what I had.

Missing Katrina had sort of become a state of being, and now its been made permanent. When I found out about her change of situation I had started to bring myself around to accepting the possibility of her being completely removed from my life in the service of a higher cause. Trying to banish any resentment that I might not get to see her again due to the needs of the many...

If you'd told her that there was a fifty-fifty chance that she'd get killed doing what she was doing, I have little doubt that she'd have done it anyway. That's just who she was.

It's a small comfort, but one that at least feels real to me.

For all the time spent in that room,
the doll's house, darkness, old perfume,
and fairy stories held me high
on clouds of sunlight floating by

In Response to Mr. Hitchens (better late than never)

Christopher Hitchens argued last Monday that those who are alarmed about the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki are under heavy obligation to say what they would have done instead.


It's pretty much just the sort of thing Christopher Hitchens would say. And I sort of agree. I don't necessarily see it as an obligation, but I absolutely am far less likely to take someone seriously if they haven't at least thought about alternatives.


If it doesn't bother you at all, you can fuck right the hell off.


An American citizen has been killed in our name, with no due process of law. This should be a crisis of conscience for all of us.

This isn't to say that I don't think it's utterly appropriate to target an enemy commander during a time of war, regardless of the circumstances of his birth. But this is about precedent, and that means doing the paperwork. And the rationale given for the hit's legality is flimsy at best.

For the past 10+ years we have been engaged in a global conflict against a transnational enemy whose troops have no uniforms, who don't amass at the border, who regard success in terms of how many, not how few civilian casualties are inflicted, and who reside in places where they are not the state or of the state but are under some level of protection.

The rules of war were not written with this sort of conflict in mind; that much is obvious. The rational response to this realization would be to work with the international community craft new rules that impose limits on the use of military might in accordance with the spirit of existing international law but without the outmoded language.

Our response instead has been to do whatever is easiest, and create a post hoc justification for it based on tenuous interpretations of existing law. It's a disgrace, and as Americans we were taught to expect better than this.

It should absolutely be legal to take out a man who has betrayed his country to a transnational death cult, and with apparent lethal result, who is holed up someplace inaccessible to any agency  able to capture him.

But under current law, it doesn't appear to be. We have only our own laziness to blame for this.

What would I have done instead? I'd have worked to establish a judicial process for targeted overseas killings that isn't just a bunch of lawyers putting their heads together to try and find a way to call something legal. I'm going to favor a drone strike over boots on the ground any day, and I'm going to favor a drone strike over an insurgent attack that kills civilians any day. But if people are going to be killed in my name as an American, I want an assurance that they're the right people. This isn't merely a moral concern. Whenever we misfire, whenever we shoot into a crowd, whenever we target the wrong person, we are potentially creating new enemies who see the killing of their loved ones not as collateral damage but as murder. The ethics and the cost-benefit analysis are grey under the best of circumstances. To say that this is distressing is an understatement. But it ought to be distressing, or else we find ourselves as we do today where the ethical implications of covert action are the result of anything but the best of circumstances.

This isn't about whether or not it was right to kill that one man. It's about how the justifications used for the killing can be abused in the future. Even if one trusted the Obama administration fully to discharge this newfound (and as of yet unchallenged) power, it's still unconscionable to let it stand when it could one day fall into the hands of, oh, I don't know... a presidential candidate who has all but called for the lynching of Ben Bernanke


As we watch the American Spring begin to take root, we should keep in mind that Wall Street isn't the only place in the world operating with a massive moral hazard. Unaccountable power is a cancer on our society no matter who wields it.

Will You Idiots Please Stop Crying?

I was on break, stealing wifi from the hotel across the street from the store where I work when the 30-minute warning for the Casey Anthony verdict was issued. I walked back in and told my coworkers that the news was coming, and that there was no way that Casey was going to jail.

Nobody believed me, which was hardly surprising, and part of the reason why I bothered to tell them. After the verdict came back I spent a good portion of the rest of my shift explaining the American criminal justice system to the two coworkers of mine who had an excuse, not originally being from this country.

Later I took one of them bowling for the first time, cultural ambassador am I.  But I digress.

What made me absolutely certain of the not guilty verdict was the short deliberations-- establishing reasonable doubt doesn't take nearly as long as exhausting reasonable doubt. But the only reason I wasn't certain beforehand was because I'm not brimming with trust in my fellow Americans to pull their end of the rope where phrases such as "beyond all reasonable doubt" are concerned, let alone"air of reality"

If you watched the news coverage of the Casey Anthony trial, you were bombarded with how many fun things Casey did while her daughter was supposedly missing and what an incalculably cold, evil woman Casey must be. Also, we might kill this one, who's excited? If you watched the trial, you saw the prosecution lean heavily on the above while utterly failing to make its case. Their first boneheaded mistake was not charging involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included for a case where the actual event of the victim's death was never established.  And it didn't get a whole hell of a lot better from there.

It was kind of surreal watching the esteemed members of the legal commentariat assembled on MSNBC's live team do Orwellian backflips to explain how the short closing argument by the prosecution had to be some trap so that it fit their Official Casey Anthony Narrative, designed seemingly to entice their viewers into believing that this was a done deal and if they tuned in next week they'd get to see live footage of a young woman discovering that the possibilities for the rest of her life have been narrowed down to the long one or the short one. They were too busy speculating how Jose Baez would react if it were a movie to notice that he'd knocked his closing out of the park without the cheap theatrics they described. He simply explained in clear and uncertain terms that function of the jury wasn't there to solve a mystery. If after the prosecution rests there remains a mystery as to the facts of the case, then the function of the jury is to acquit, no matter what they think might have happened.

News is, for most proprietors of it, a revenue-driven enterprise. And you can't help but notice that the outrage that has resulted at least in part from the media's role in shaping expectations is a neat and tidy consolation prize for not being able to use any of the catchy slogans they'd come up with for the death penalty hearings. Here's what you won't hear from many of them: Even if the worst is true about Casey Anthony, it's unequivocally a good thing that she was found not guilty, as any standard of proof that would have lead to her conviction would put many, many innocent people behind bars. Everyone crowing about how justice wasn't served can fuck right the hell off.  Justice was never on the damn menu.

Caylee Anthony is dead. Nothing can change that. It may confound the chest-thumping law and order set for  me to say this, but the purpose of our criminal justice system isn't to punish criminals. It's to remove dangerous people from the public and place a deterrent on criminal behavior. Punishment isn't an end unto itself; It's a method of deterrence. Nancy Grace can talk all she wants about how the devil is dancing. I'll take her word for it as a subject matter expert-- when Nancy Grace dances with the devil, she leads.

One person who you can trust to get it right when countless others get it wrong is Chris Hayes, who was music to my ears on The Last Word last night when he spoke about the greater implications of the verdict and the public and the media's reaction to it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Not for nothing, but I'd absolutely watch that anti-Nancy Grace show.

Is this thing on?

Apologies for my (unfortunately characteristic) absence. This time it's because I got an almost-full-time job for a company that forbids me from identifying myself as their employee online. They're apparently very sensitive about who knows who touches their flowers.

I've been out of my parents' house for about three months now, which has done wonders for my sanity. Not doing wonders for my sanity is the fact that John Ensign may never go to jail.

If you only give a shit about one political sex scandal this year, please make it this one.

Usually what makes these stories relevant to the political discussion is the extent to which the politician in question gained their status by pimping their morals. Hence the entirely justified disgust at the revelation that at the same time that Arnold Schwarzenegger was decrying the scourge of single-parent minority households, he may have already helped to create one.

But seriously, I don't care. The possibility that the Governator's misadventures may suck up what ink may have otherwise been alloted to Ensign's rankles me. Because Ensign is more than your garden-variety Republican hypocrite. He was a made man. Groomed for a future run at the Presidency by a theocratic fundamentalist cult known as The Family that has its hands up more Washington asses than a cross between Vishnu and Jack Abramoff. So in his capacity as a deacon and a gynecologist (or at least, claiming those capacities in order to claim privileged information), Senator Tom Coburn recommended a 1.2 million dollar payout to the Hampton family (wound up being less), and an illegal lobbying gig for the cuckolded husband.

That's what we already knew.  What has become clear since the report by the Senate Ethics Committee is that Ensign tricked his parents into committing perjury on his behalf. It has also become clear that at least at first, his advances toward Cindy Hampton were unwanted. Ensign continued them anyway, pressing his leverage over her as her boss and as the man footing the bill for her kids' pricey education.

And this is where it's hard for me to continue, because when I describe this behavior I'm not quite sure whether I should be referring to it as sexual harassment or as rape.

We haven't come to expect a whole lot out of our politicians lately, and frankly we've come to expect far less from those with an R in front of their name. But this shit is beyond the pale.  And there's an explanation for it. From Jeff Sharlet's reporting on the support system in place for John Ensign at the Family's C Street house:

David Coe, Doug Coe's son and heir apparent, calls himself simply a friend to men such as John Ensign, whom he guided through the coverup of his affair. I met the younger Coe when I lived for several weeks as a member of the Family. He's a surprising source of counsel, spiritual or otherwise. Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- he asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply.

It was David Coe who rang Ensign's cell phone at the hotel room where he and Cindy were meeting for what would be the last time and said "I know what you're doing. Put your pants on and go home."

He wasn't calling because Ensign's pursuit of Cindy Hampton was an abuse of his power, both as her boss and as someone upon whom her family depended on for a great deal. He wasn't calling because it was high-octane hypocrisy. He was calling because as the future head of the elite fundamentalist movement and all its sinister clout, he really wanted his John Ensign project to yeild a "god-controlled" presidency.

The Family protects far worse men (and they're all men) than John Ensign on the global stage--indeed the anti-gay legislation written by their Ugandan protege David Bahati may any day now put the death penalty on the books for "aggravated homosexuality"-- but he's the high water mark for this side of the Atlantic, at least since the Nixon era.

Whether or not rape is an accurate descriptor for John Ensign's actions couldn't have mattered for his groomers. Their former pet "new chosen," Siad Barre used it as an interrogation tactic when he ruled Somalia. In all cases, their status as important people; "key men" in the struggle against socialists like Castro or FDR or Obama, exempts them from normal morality.

I've been involved in a lot of arguments on the Internet where the phrase "rape culture" has been invoked and I've at times been critical of the circumstances in which it's applied, but Jesus fucking Christ the fact that neither John Ensign nor his co-conspirator Tom Coburn are currently facing indictment for their actions is prima facie evidence of the persistence of rape culture.

As is the paternal bullshit of the Toronto cop who declared, before a group of law students, that if one wanted to avoid being raped, the best thing to do is not to dress like a slut.

Thus began the Slutwalks. First in Toronto, and in several cities since, including, on May 7, Boston. Thousands turned out dressed, well, however the fuck they felt like dressing.

Many carried signs that said things like "Sluts Say Yes," and "My Thong is Not an Invitation." There were a few unfortunate assholes dressed as pimps who told reporters that were there looking to get numbers, who mistook my glaring at them as wondering if they were hollering at me, and conveyed, crudely, that they were not.

Like they were ever going to get any of this even if they begged.

Taken after the event, but this is totally what I looked like at the time. 

It was a rowdy, sexy, meaningful good time that ended in Boston Common (or at least the one in Boston did) with speeches.  Here's the one that stuck out for me

There’s a word for all of this. And that word is bullshit. But there’s also a phrase for it: social license to operate. What that means is this: we know that a huge majority of rapes are perpetrated by a small minority of guys who do it again and again. You know why they’re able to rape an average of 6 times each? Because they have social license to operate. In other words: because we let them. Because as a society, we say “oh well, what did she expect would happen if she went back to his room? What did she expect would happen walking around by herself in that neighborhood? What did she expect would happen dressed like a slut?”  

Jaclyn Friedman.  Full transcript here 

There's the key phrase. Social license to operate. John Ensign is not in jail. Tom Coburn is still in the Senate, and may have been granted immunity from prosecution. Because their cabal and our society has given them social license to operate.This is the defining feature of rape culture.

It's a sickness that crosses ideological lines. Whether or not the facts will show him to be guilty of rape, the angry reaction by many on the Left to the mere suggestion that something might be wrong with Julian Assange was appalling, as was Assange's dismissal of the accusations as being "just about a broken condom." Say even that in a comment on the Huffington Post and you're bound to get smeared. What, pray tell, makes Assange so credible that people will believe that the Swedish government collaborating with the CIA to take him down was a more likely proposition than the accusations leveled against him being true?

Privilege.

Who knows if the Senate holds anyone with a secret quite so felonious as John Ensign's. Being a United States Senator confers upon one a sense of privilege that's hard to properly describe. When you have the power to single-handedly cripple an economy by placing a hold on unemployment extensions over a beef regarding earmarks going to your state, you have the power to get away with a whole lot of shit. The Senate Ethics Committee is a small deterrent, but at least it represents a potential downside to foul play-- Indeed, without their investigation, Ensign would likely have wound up going unpunished, as the deceptions the Committee uncovered had previously fooled both the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission. But if Tom Coburn goes unpunished, and if the new information made public by the Ethics Committee doesn't result in an indictment of John Ensign and possibly Senator Coburn, then there will be that much less to persuade a future John Ensign not to sexually harass his employee. Or to persuade a future Tom Coburn not to help his friend cover it up.

And it's bad enough in the United States Senate as it is.

A brief, terrifying thought

So, for this past week I've been trying to think past what could have stopped the Tuscon shooting, because we don't get another shot at that one.  There's something that bothers me quite a bit.

In 2009, Senator John Thune sponsored an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would have made it legal for any person permitted to carry a concealed weapon in any state to carry one in every state.  In states with less permissive gun laws, residents would have had fewer rights than out-of-state visitors from states with more permissive gun laws.  And from everything I can tell, under that legislation, Jared Loughner would have been permitted to carry concealed in New York City.  It failed by two votes.

Yeah, it's really kind of remarkable where the states rights conservatives stand where the chips are down.

We may be able to ban thirty-round extended magazines (not likely), but this shit isn't going away.  Republicans control the House, and they picked up more than two votes in the Senate.  And while you and I may be shocked by the sheer gall of the gun lobby here, what they're looking to replace is only more sensible by a hair.  Massachusetts, for instance, more or less reserves CCW for people who need handguns to do their jobs and people who are receiving death threats.  If CCW reciprocity between the states were based on compatibility of standards, a permit holder from Massachusetts would be able to carry a concealed weapon in most states. But because recognition is based on reciprocity agreements, in many cases, the less restrictive state's left with a choice between, for instance, Massachusetts citizens having fewer rights in Massachusetts than those visiting  from other states, and Massachusetts citizens having fewer rights in other states.  It's usually a no-brainer.  But if someone's life is being threatened in Massachusetts, and there's an actual threat of danger, It's naive to think that the threat would disappear when they go to another state.

Here's an interactive infographic-map that explains how CCW reciprocity works.  It may not be not be a particular priority of yours or mine, but whatever you think about gun control, it's against the spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment, which means that even the most moderate gun rights advocates aren't going to stop wanting to do something about it.

This isn't to be taken as an endorsement of expanding concealed carry... There's a fully fleshed-out policy piece that I'm working on, because I ain't got shit else to do, which will no doubt wind up here or on Blogcritics after every place I submit it ignores me.  What I'm suggesting is that unless we change the law in a way we can deal with-- it may one day wind up the other way.

The Shape of Things to Come

I'd like to plug my friend David Harewood, who has written today's featured article over at InformedPlanet.com.  Check him out.

So as it turns out,  I was right when I predicted a 53-47 split in the Senate (not in any way that was recorded, so I guess you'll have to trust me.  Or not.  Whatever.)  I didn't make a prediction for the House, but if I had, it would have been wrong.  Not that I was particularly surprised.  History dictates big wins for the opposition the first midterm election following a new President's inauguration, as well as during hard economic times.

But consider this:

In the past two years, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, House Democrats passed a truly astounding amount of legislation-- including major reforms such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Credit CARD Act, and  the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.  Not to mention the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which just today I discovered was being put to use to repair a stretch Cambridge Street in Somerville, MA that had fallen into such disrepair that its potholes have cost me a bike tire, a wheel and a brake cable.

But I guess John Boehner doesn't want me to have a bike.

In any case, Nancy Pelosi has been regarded by historians as one of the best Speakers of the House in the past hundred years.  In addition to those specific bills I mentioned, she passed 430 bills through the House, all of which had majority support in the Senate, and yet none of which passed.  Because Senate Democrats were too scared to make Republicans own up to their obstructionism and actually read from the phone books to stop them from passing bills covering, among other things, infant nutrition.

The Public Option, which 50% of Republicans supported, died in the Senate.  As did a significant portion of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which it is now abundantly clear wasn't enough.  Unemployment benefit extensions, small business tax credits, a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and additional infrastructure programs all languished due to the Democrats' unwillingness to challenge the notion that requiring 60% of the Senate to pass anything was normal.

And yet?  It's Speaker Pelosi who loses her job title in January, whilst  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid keeps his gavel.

Whiskey.

Tango.

Foxtrot.

So what now?

We have divided government yet again, but unlike in 1994, the Senate remains in Democratic hands.  With the House controlled by the opposition and the Senate still incapable of action, Democrats aren't going to be able to have any kind of a legislative agenda unless the filibuster gets changed.  As luck would have it, the rule's two greatest defenders (Chris Dodd of CT and the late Robert Byrd of WV) are no longer in the Senate.  Evan Bayh, who was the first Senator to ever threaten to filibuster his own party's bill, and indeed was the first to do so before the bill made it to the floor for debate, is also gone, though he seems to have had a deathbed conversion vis a vis autocratic obstructionism.

So where does that leave us?

It takes 50+1 to change Senate rules upon the convening of a new Congress.  And of those in the current Senate, Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Jay Rockefeller, Mark Pryor, Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Akaka, Carl Levin, and Jon Tester are going to need convincing.  Four of them need to vote yes in order for a change to be made.

It's going to be an interesting first session, I tells you.

After that, my advice to Democrats is to pass jobs bill after jobs bill in the Senate.  Simple pieces of legislation whose impact on employment can be easily quantified.  And keep a running tally of the number of jobs that would be added to the economy had it not been for Republicans refusal to move on legislation simply because it was passed by Democrats.  Run three-second TV spots featuring the number and a URL with the details and phone numbers for local Senators and Representatives.  Either something will give, or the American People will know why it didn't.

Drill, Baby, Drill

We could be looking at the worst oil spill in living memory off the Gulf Coast, coming right on the heels of Obama's decision to allow off-shore drilling, which should have come as no surprise to people who were paying attention during the 2008 election season.

There are a lot of people to point fingers at here. You could blame Obama for giving in to pressure in order to save his electoral landslide (and the mandate that came with it). You could blame John McCain, Sarah Palin, Michael Steele, and the rest of the right-wing noise machine for hawking so shamelessly on a wedge issue. You could blame the media for not fully disseminating the numbers on off-shore drilling: That whatever the impact on the environment (which we have now witnessed), a country that uses 25% of the world's oil and only possesses 3% of it cannot drill the way to energy independence.

I blame us.

During the election, sixty percent of voters said that they favored offshore drilling. Suddenly, in the wake of a financial crisis that caught McCain side-by-side with Phil "there's no real recession and people who say there is one are whiners" Gramm on the most important issue of the year. "Drill, baby, drill." became the only substantive issue where the Republican Party was on the same side as the people. So of course they hammered on it, despite the fact that it wouldn't make us any more self-reliant than Obama's much-ridiculed tire guage.


Which isn't to say that I'm letting Steele and Palin off the hook for hawking-- or Obama for folding. By ultimately favoring off-shore drilling, both sides did the truth and their constituents a grave disservice, and there ought to be accountability for it.

But in a democracy, the people rule. It's possible to be at odds with popular opinion in some matters and still win elections, and in fact it's the duty of a statesman . But when a supermajority oppose you on an issue with as much exposure as offshore drilling had in the 2008 Presidential election, it's hard to ignore it.

I don't think we believed it when we were told that drilling was safe. The information was out there.

I think we just didn't care.

The people I spoke to during election season who were pro-drilling weren't basing their position on a cost-benefit analysis. A number of them ridiculed me for caring about the risk to the environment at all.

Those of us who do give a shit about the consequences of our energy consumption need to find a new way forward, because "punch the hippies" is a disturbingly viable political strategy in this country.

And the clock is ticking.