I’m surprised it took anti-same-sex-marriage campaigners so long to ape the common tactic of SSM families to use little kids to speak to their views. Granted, it’s nowhere near as compelling for the anti-SSM crowd as it is for the pro-SSM crowd, because when kids of SSM families say that they grew up just fine and their parents love each other, they’re both refuting the common argument that SSM weakens families and reiterating the pro-SSM argument that same-sex love is dignified, healthy, and deserving of all the societal endorsement that straight relationships get.

In comparison, when a kid speaks up against gay marriage, we get this:

I really feel bad for the kids who have two parents of the same gender. Even though some kids feel like it’s fine, they have no idea what kind of wonderful experiences they miss out on. I don’t want any more kids to get confused about what’s right and OK. I really don’t want to grow up in a world where marriage isn’t such a special thing anymore. It’s rather scary to think that when I grow up the legislator or the court can change the definition of any word they want. If they can change the definition of marriage, then they could change the definition of any word. People have the choice to be gay, but I don’t want to be affected by their choice.

In order, that’s

1.) An endorsement of traditional straight marriage as “special” and “wonderful” without bothering to explain why it is special or wonderful
2.) A suggestion that homosexuality is wrong without bothering to explain why it is wrong
3.) The old saw that same-sex-marriage will make straight marriage less special, which is an argument from privilege
4.) Sky-is-falling assertions about the powers of the courts to change legal definitions (which have existed since there were courts, basically)
5.) The suggestion that homosexuality is chosen behaviour despite mountains of evidence to the contrary

On the bright side, this young woman’s career path is most likely already mapped out for her. In ten to twelve years, expect to see Sarah Crank (and oh my god is that not the most appropriate last name ever) either writing for National Review or on Fox News, depending on how conventionally pretty she is.

Recently, the whole “Nice Guy” topic came up again, well after the initial post had become a thing of legend. Many people jumped in on the new discussion, but it always seems like the same people respond in the same way. The phrase, “Yes, they’re being jerks, but they’ve got a point…” keeps getting bandied about in these conversations, with one user posting an old joke about the supposed underlying truth behind the complaints that Nice Guys have. As I am not yet an accomplished disembowler of bad ideas, I thought I might take a practice run at this one…anyone else want to join me behind the cut?

A sixty-second remake of The Thing but with Pingu?

Hey, remember the “Internet Nice Guy” post from 2007? Well, it still gets traffic and the occasional comment, and I felt I should share this one, from “doesntmatter” (although I added some paragraph breaks to his wall of text):

So funny how everbody jumps on the bandwagon an the females aplaud the author for being totally one sided and saying exactly what they want to hear, while he totally disregards the other side of the story, that some females indeed are bitches who just use males when they are in the need, e.g. if their asshole boyfriend dumped her again (because he just wanted sex and nothing more, and that was clear from the beginning for everyone except for her), perfectly knowing that the guy they are using is loner who wants a girlfriend (and sex, of course) and will do pretty much anything for her, and instead of saying “You? Never!” or just talking to another person they just throw him away after use and forget it.

TL;DR: There are always two sides to a story, and it DOES matter if you are in a relationship and can talk down to people who are not, or if you are part of the folks which are not in a relationship and try like crazy to get into one only to see all their efforts crumble to dust. A rich man can lightly say that money does not really matter in life, while the poor man will certainly say the opposite. So don’t be so fucking full of yourselves because you were lucky and others were not.

Have fun with it, everybody!

Gene Marks’ “If I Was A Poor Black Kid” has been getting widely trashed around the intertoobz for its shameless display of white privilege and jaw-dropping ignorance about what actually being a poor black kid is like. You can read numerous takedowns of this and they’re all good. Smarty P. Jones’ response is an excellent one, as is Jeff Yang’s “If I Were A Rich White Dude.” Both pieces address the essential fact that poor black kids have a hell of a lot on their plate before they even get to the issue of doing well in school and both are worth reading.

But my problem with Gene Marks’ drivel isn’t that it’s privileged. My problem is that his underlying argument is simply morally abhorrent.

Gene Marks barely concedes at the beginning of his screed that poor black kids have it tougher than, say, middle-class white kids. What is Marks’ solution to this problem? Ah ha, that’s a trick question because so far as Gene Marks is concerned, there is no problem:

But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind. I don’t believe that. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.

Marks then goes on to describe how poor black kids can should just get ahead with Technology ™ and how you can get a cheap computer or a free one even (from generous accountants!). And this is of course its own brand of stupid, ignoring the basic truth that a kid isn’t gonna know how to buy a cheapo computer at the age of eight much less be able to afford one.¹ But he soon comes back to reaffirm the idea that the way things are is merely a minor setback.

In Philadelphia, there are nationally recognized magnet schools like Central, Girls High and Masterman. These schools are free. But they are hard to get in to. You need good grades and good test scores. And there are also other good magnet and charter schools in the city. You also need good grades to get into those. In a school system that is so broken these are bright spots. Getting into one of these schools opens up a world of opportunities. More than 90% of the kids that go to Central go on to college. I would use the internet to research each one of these schools so I could find out how I could be admitted. I would find out the names of the admissions people and go to meet with them. If I was a poor black kid I would make it my goal to get into one of these schools.

And if not – then what? “Tough luck, kid – we know you wanted to go to a good school, but it turns out there was at least one more kid than you who was just too qualified to pass up. I bet you’re wishing you spent more time on math so you didn’t only get an A-minus in it three years ago, huh?” No, wait, Gene Marks has you covered too!

Or even a private school. Most private schools I know are filled to the brim with the 1%. That’s because these schools are exclusive and expensive, costing anywhere between $20 and $50k per year. But there’s a secret about them. Most have scholarship programs. Most have boards of trustees that want to give opportunities to kids that can’t afford the tuition. Many would provide funding for not only tuition but also for transportation or even boarding.

You know, it’s not often I say this any more, but what the fucking fuck.

His next answer is private school. Really. Look, I know from private school tuition assistance. More often than not, they’re willing to help out. But for those students who have nothing? The competition for those plum spots is insanely tight and makes the magnet school spot competition (which is already crazily intense) look like a relaxing garden party.²

It continues in that vein, of course. If you can’t go to a magnet school or a private school you can work with your school’s guidance counsellor. You can always learn to code software (and I have plenty of friends who work in software and I will say, straight up, that the idea of coding as a universal panacea to aid all social mobility problems is wildly overrated whether it is coming from Stupid McRichdude or Cory Doctorow). In Gene Marks’ world there are always opportunities. I know this because he says so repeatedly, and if a poor black kid has to work harder to get those opportunities, well, maybe that’s not fair, but that’s just how things are.³

And this is where I just throw up my hands because I was not a poor black kid. I was a middle-class white kid, possibly quite like Gene Marks. I did not have to memorize half a dozen pieces of software in order to study or learn skills that would be valuable to future employers instead of sneaking out with my friends to play Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.⁴ Indeed, I got into an elite private school and got kicked out of it. And I still went to university and got a degree, and then eventually got into law school. Because I was a middle-class white kid, I got to spend my childhood playing rather than working tirelessly to have a decent future. And that’s all right. What isn’t all right is expecting that poor black kids are just going to have to work their asses off to get even a fraction of the opportunities I got.

Everything about Marks’ stupid, stupid essay assumes as unchanging truth that a poor person will have to work ridiculously hard in order to have a future where they are not poor, and this is the root of the problem that Marks not only doesn’t address but asserts is just not that big a deal in his preamble when, after applauding Barack Obama for talking about income inequality, claims that the superrich aren’t getting vastly more than their fair share. Because there’s nothing wrong with expecting someone to work hard to rise above their current status. But there’s plenty wrong with expecting kids to load themselves to the bone with work in order to have a chance to rise above their current status.⁵ He’s willing to pay lip service to the idea that inequality is wrong, but he’s not willing to suggest that something be done to address the problem of inequality. It’s just another hurdle for poor black kids to jump, and he’s ever so gracious to admit that he, Gene Marks, did not have to jump these hurdles – and that’s just how it is. Tough luck, poor black kids! Those of you who cannot do these incredible and amazing things to struggle upwards, well, there’s always McDonald’s.

In the end, Gene Marks’ prescription for the societal problem of inequality is that individuals be exceptional. But that doesn’t work, because everybody can’t be exceptional. That’s kind of the opposite of what the word means. And that’s why his essay is abhorrent and stupid: because it doesn’t address the problem. Indeed, it’s barely willing to admit the problem exists. His entire idea consists of tinkering around the edges with stale, stupid advice that comes as no surprise to anybody who’s thought even for a second about it,⁶ and that just isn’t enough.

1. Also, some of Marks’ ideas about how Technology ™ can help are kind of stupid. What makes Project Gutenberg better than, say, a public library? [↩]
2. And let us not forget that many private school scholarships oddly have a tendency to go to poor kids who are also athletes. [↩]
3. It’s worth remembering that in order for a poor black kid to receive all of this useful advice, the poor black kid has to be reading Forbes magazine. You know – as poor black children are wont to do. [↩]
4. Granted, I probably should have been getting high instead, but there you go. [↩]
5. And even in Marks’ scenarios, he admits you need to be lucky. [↩]
6. Did this guy not see Waiting for Superman? I mean, it’s a flawed movie, but at least it makes the point about poor parents being willing to bust ass to get their kids into good schools and failing. [↩]

So some ad agency had the Muller people come in and say:

“Okay, so KITT is driving down the street and he parks all-awesome like, but a cop gives him a ticket, so this Muller truck nearby is actually a Transformer and it turns into a robot and it eats the cop, but then it spits out Yogi Bear because the Muller Transformer has turned the cop into Yogi. Yogi is happy so he dances down the street, but he runs into a crowd of rude businessmen, so the Muller Transformer spits out a rain of giant fruit and that turns them into Mr. Men and Pikmin and things. So they all dance happily but suddenly they see that a crane is about to knock down a small house in between two skyscrapers! Luckily, Muttley is flying his plane which has a giant hammer made from a giant Muller yogurt tin attached to it, and knocks the crane into the sky, where it dissolves into a rain of coloured birds. Then it looks like rain – oh no! But then another giant container of Muller is opened, and the yogurt forms giant hands which scoop up the rainclouds into a ball, then twist that ball into a rainbow with a smiley face on it. And scene.”

Why don’t I have that job, and the hallucinogenics that come with it?

Been a busy weekend, but let’s face it, I had to get to this sooner or later. I can’t talk about DC’s greatest heroes winding up at J.K. Rowling’s magical wizard academy without talking about Marvel’s big heroes and where they’d wind up. (I’d discuss the X-Men, but let’s face it, they already are at a school for people with strange and unusual powers run by a manipulative old guy who’s training them to use their powers to fight evil. The only difference is that Dumbledore didn’t generally chuck bowling balls at people’s heads to test their reflexes.) So who would wind up in which house? Who am I picking as an “Avengers” lineup? Let’s find out!

Captain America: An obvious choice for an Avenger, but a less obvious decision over which house he winds up in. On the one hand, you can’t question the courage of the star-spangled Avenger; this is a guy who wanted to join World War II before it even started, because despite the fact that he weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, he wanted to go sock Hitler on the jaw. And that’s before you even get into the “standing toe-to-toe with Thanos despite Thanos having the Infinity Gauntlet and Cap having his fighting spirit” thing. But courage, while it is an important trait of Cap, is not his defining trait.

The recent Cap movie actually showed it best, in the scenes between Steve Rogers and Professor Erskine (some of the best scenes in a great movie.) Cap doesn’t join up because he wants to go out and prove his courage fighting Nazis, he joins up because he believes strongly that he should stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves and it never even occurs to him that he’s one of them. He joins out of a sense of duty to protect others, and if that’s not Hufflepuff, I don’t know what is.

Iron Man: Lately, of course, it seems like Tony is a prime candidate for Slytherin; somewhere around the time he conquered his alcoholism, desperate writers have settled on “asshole control freak tries to use technology to control his surroundings and finds out the hard way just how badly that turns out” as his default story arc. (That is, when he’s not being mind controlled to kill lots of people. You begin to understand why they rebooted him three times.) But underlying the whole desire to control is a naive, almost pathetic belief that he can solve all his problems just by inventing cool enough stuff that it will fix everyone’s problems in the whole world. Tony Stark thinks that if he can create a better process, a better system, then he can create a better humanity. This belief that intelligence, properly applied, can solve any problem makes him a perfect Ravenclaw!

Thor: Thor routinely goes out and fights giants. Because he can. You’d just have to wave the Sorting Hat in his general direction to hear “GRYFFINDOR!” shouted out in the Great Hall.

Hawkeye: He’s one of my all-time favorite characters and a staple Avenger (who has, in my personal opinion, been mishandled worse under the Quesada/Bendis era of the series worse than any other character in the entire franchise, and that includes the decision to make Power Man and Iron Fist Avengers.) He’s also a joyously uncomplicated character, a brash manchild who found purpose and meaning to his life by joining the Avengers and adopting their ideals as his own. Arguably, Hawkeye’s turn under the Sorting Hat would involve a long, telepathic argument over whether or not they should just make a fifth house, because it’s downright insulting to stick Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in a bunch of lesser outfits. But eventually, the Sorting Hat would decide that a guy who deliberately forgoes Hank Pym’s growth serum to  battle mad gods and alien armadas armed with a bow and arrows belongs in Gryffindor.

Hank Pym: Okay, maybe Hank Pym was handled worse by Bendis than any other character…let’s call it a toss-up, okay? (Yes, I have issues with Bendis’ handling of the classic Avengers characters. Specifically, I have several hundred issues, and all of them establish clear character beats that Bendis ignores because paying attention to established characterization takes up time he could be using to plot his latest three-issue long halting conversation.) The point is, Hank Pym’s defining character trait isn’t anger or emotional instability. He had a major nervous breakdown at one point that caused him to lash out against his friends and loved ones, but what caused that breakdown was the stress of trying to be a superhero even though he was never really cut out for it. He wanted to be a scientist, helping people through his inventions instead of hitting people, but duty to the people he cared about kept calling him back to it. It’s that sense of dedication to the Avengers that makes the Sorting Hat choose Hufflepuff over Ravenclaw, even though it might take a while to choose.

Wasp: Let’s see. Janet became a superhero because her father died and her new boyfriend suggested she help him avenge that death (two emotional connections early on.) She spent her free time volunteering at a local hospital reading to sick children (duty to the helpless.) She met a bunch of superheroes and immediately suggested they all bond together into a common group (more dedication to community and family.) She eventually wound up becoming the chairwoman of the Avengers–not because she was ambitious, but because a chairwoman was needed and it was time for her to step up and help the team. She eventually sacrificed herself…um, sort of, because Thor did something, or…*sigh* Bendis… *sigh* The point is, when you look at the Wasp’s career, she’s always been about dedication to her large, self-made, extended family. She might never have become a hero if she’d been left to her own devices, but she cares about heroes enough to want to help them out. She’s a Hufflepuff if there ever was one.

Bonus non-Avenger characters! While I will maintain, to my dying day, that the inclusion of Spider-Man and Wolverine into the ranks of the Avengers was a colossal mistake that shows that Bendis not only never understood any of the characters he was writing, he actually never understood the core concept of the book he took over and should not have been allowed near the series with a ten-foot pole, I also know that people probably want to know where they wound up. So for the record, Spidey‘s a classic Hufflepuff (“with great power must come great responsibility”), while Wolverine would be a Gryffindor until he got expelled for sneaking non-butter-beer into the dorms and wound up getting kept by Hagrid as a pet.

Which still leaves a lot of Avengers. Let’s face it, unlike the JLA, the Avengers has a constantly fluctuating line-up; feel free to add your favorite Avengers in the comments!

Hey, it could happen. The DCU is big, it’s got magical, and the Big Two comics companies have a long and stories tradition of incorporating their tie-in comics wholesale into their fictional universe so that they can get the cheap sales hit of crossing over their established heroes with the new corporate icon on the block. (Which is why they can’t reprint Marvel Two-In-One #21 and Power Man and Iron Fist #73, but that’s another long, angry post.) Sure, the money-printing engine that is a comic-book adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s work remains inexplicably absent, but she and her devotion to actually maintaining the integrity of her fictional characters can’t live forever. Someday there’s going to be a JLA/Harry Potter comic. And the question then is, who gets sorted into what house?

Superman, like Harry himself, would be a good choice for more than one house. His steely-hard integrity and devotion to friends like Jimmy and Lois (when he’s not in the Silver Age and “teaching them a lesson” about one thing or another by subjecting them to absurd robot-double based humiliations) could land him in Hufflepuff, while his intellect would also make him a good fit in Ravenclaw. (Although that’s an element of the character that’s been played down post-Byrne reboot…it used to be that Superman used the Fortress of Solitude to do his own elaborate experiments too dangerous or complex to be carried out in labs on inhabited continents, but these days he mostly subcontracts out the “being smart” to STARLabs.) But ultimately, Superman is someone who isn’t afraid of anything. It’s what makes him such an inspirational superhero; he’s what we could be if we were freed of our insecurities and vulnerabilities. And it’s what would make him an excellent Gryffindor!

Batman, of course, has already been covered with devastating accuracy by Chris Sims. I’d recap his logic here, but that’s what links are all about; suffice to say that he’s dead right, and Batman would be in Ravenclaw. (Where he would be joined by Batgirl, Oracle and at least one or two Robins, if the crossover was big enough.)

Wonder Woman is interesting, because while she’s every bit as brave and heroic as Superman, what defines them as different is Wonder Woman’s boundless compassion. She’s always been more interested in reforming villains and showing them a better way to live (anyone remember the Golden Age Paula von Gunther?) It’d be pretty easy to see her and Helga Hufflepuff commiserating on the plight of those poor students scorned by the other three houses and making a commitment to ensure than nobody goes through Hogwarts alone. She understands that “loyalty” and “dedication” are more than just being a tireless worker or a good friend, but being someone anyone can rely on. Which is what makes her the best Hufflepuff!

Green Lantern has, of course, already been through a glorified version of the Sorting when he became Green Lantern. Sure, it was funny-colored aliens instead of battered old hats, but who knows what the Sorting Hat is actually made out of? It looks kinda leathery; maybe somewhere in the mists of time the four founders of Hogwarts skinned themselves a Guardian and made it into a hat, and the tradition just evolved from there. In any event, “fearless” as a requirement for Green Lantern-hood makes it pretty obvious that whether Hal, Kyle, John or Guy, they’d all be Gryffindor!

The Flash…Barry’s the easiest to categorize, but all of the Flashes over the years share a certain reliability and dependability to them. The different Flashes, no matter which one you’re talking about, never had any particular trauma in their past that made them “driven to dispense justice” (except in the TV show, of course…) They just got powers, looked at the world around them, and said, “Hey, I should help out with this.” For Barry, it was an extension of his job, and for Wally, it was an extension of his friendship with Barry. Jay shares the same matter-of-fact approach to heroism, the kind of steady and old-fashioned nature that would make them excellent Hufflepuffs!

Martian Manhunter is another very easy one; he’s classically been seen as the team’s tactician ever since the characters stopped being merely a collection of superheroes that followed a writing formula and started being an actual team that people wrote stories about. (Which was sometime in the 1970s, probably..) We see it clearest in Morrison’s JLA, but it’s usually Martian Manhunter who is coming up with the plan and telling everyone else (with his mind) how to get it done. As such, he’d be right at home with Batman in Ravenclaw! (Anyone who does not want to see a storyline where Batman and Martian Manhunter forge a group of teenage witches and wizards into a merciless, steel-hard magical justice dispensing machine has no poetry in their soul, dammit.)

Aquaman is unique among all the Justice League in that he’s actually more important in his “civilian” identity than in his superheroic one. As King of Atlantis, he is responsible for guiding the destiny of a nation and commanding its people…and while he’s at times a reluctant ruler, and he’s certainly no despot, he is nonetheless accustomed to being the leader of a nation. He has to set an agenda for a whole country, he has at times had to fight challengers to the throne, and even when dealing with his own teammates, you can tell that he expects them to follow his direction…and while you couldn’t say that it’s the only aspect of his character, any more than you could claim that Batman isn’t brave or Wonder Woman isn’t smart, Aquaman is a rare example of a good character whose strongest aspect is ambition. As such, he would be a fine example of something sadly lacking in Rowling’s actual novels…a good Slytherin!

There’s the basic seven; if you have thoughts on other DC characters and their treatment by the Sorting Hat, feel free to leave them in the comments!*

*Yes, it is distinctly possible that I’ve gone completely insane. As it’s the kind of insanity that leads to Batman giving ninja-training to a horde of telepathically-linked Ravenclaws, I make no apologies.

“Dominique Strauss-Kahn couldn’t have raped that woman because 1.) He’s never been caught raping anybody before, 2.) Economists don’t rape a whole lot, as a rule, 3.) He couldn’t have raped anybody without a weapon handy, 4.) Lots of hotel maids are bad people, and 5.) He’s rich and this is all made up or exaggerated because everybody hates the rich.”

I need Jimmy Kimmel to show up and just give this post a long, long stare.

I know predicting future fashions is never easy (really, I should at some point devote a post to the endless lineup of incredibly terrible civilian clothing in Legion of Super-Heroes over the years. – suffice it to say that the future? Is caftans), but if you end up with a future-military where plumed and/or finned helms are back in fashion, something has gone sharply wrong with your design sense.

For the record, this story ends when the emperor is driven insane by a plague-harmonica of his own creation.

I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence. But there you go. Weird War Tales is like that; the only way this could be more weirdly-warrish is if somehow it was revealed at the end that vampires were somehow to blame. Or, alternately, Space Hitler.

Most of my readership are, unsurprisingly, Americans, so this column should be read – and widely dispersed – by them.

Seriously: polling indicates that four-fifths of the United States opposes raising the debt ceiling. In economic terms, this is like four-fifths of the United States wanting, say, New York City to be blown up with a nuclear bomb; even technical default (e.g. allowing debt to hit the debt ceiling but not defaulting), and the USA’s position as possessor of the world’s reserve community currency¹ ends the same day.

Which for me would be pretty awesome because the US dollar would plummet against the loonie and I would be able to buy lots of stuff from Amazon with Canadian pennies, which would suddenly be of incredible value to Americans. Until I lost my job in the inevitable recession that would hit me and everybody else in the world thanks to the USA collapsing, but rest assured that my Amazon shipments would include everything I would need to become the Gyro Captain from The Road Warrior.

1. D’oh! [↩]

So Scott Adams has been busy of late getting a reputation as a jackass, and he feels this is unfair, so naturally he published a long blogpost about how everybody is being unfair to him just because he created a sockpuppet account to go on Metafilter and give himself props:

As a general rule, you can’t trust anyone who has a conflict of interest. Conflict of interest is like a prison that locks in both the truth and the lies. One workaround for that problem is to change the messenger. That’s where an alias comes in handy. When you remove the appearance of conflict of interest, it allows others to listen to the evidence without judging.

Well, yes, not telling people who you are does remove them of the ability to respond to you, but I have to respect Adams’ ability to try and present lying to people as a positive. People will tend to get offended when you lie to them, and unfortunately just because Adams had reasons for lying to them doesn’t make it not rude to the Metafilterites who honestly engaged his sockpuppet.¹ It also manages to conveniently overlook the fact that, even though Adams’ identity was not known by his debate partners, they still disagreed with his points, rendering his “well they would have disagreed with me just for knowing who I was” line of argument basically invalid.

This week for example, I’m the target of Men’s Rights advocates, Feminists, and one bearded taint who is leading an anti-creationist movement. What do those folks have in common? In each case they are using the same strategy. They take out of context something I’ve written, present it to the lazy Internet media who doesn’t check context, and use it to demonize me to gain publicity for their respective causes. That’s how advocates get free publicity. They find a celebrity to target.

Now this deserves honest examination.

Adams portrays himself as the undeserving target of multiple groups, characterizing their anger at him as being the spawn of misunderstanding – either accidental or purposefully created by a nasty third party. The problem is that, for someone who’s complaining about “lazy Internet media,” he’s being awfully lazy in characterizing these attacks. Men’s rights’ activists aren’t pissed at Scott Adams over a misunderstanding: they’re angry at him because he called them a bunch of pussies.² Feminists aren’t pissed at Scott Adams over a misunderstanding: they’re angry at him because he compared equal work for equal pay to a child wanting candy for dinner and minimized the difference in amount of sacrifice necessary to maintain a job and family that exists between the genders, not to mention the fact that defining weakness by use of the word “pussies” isn’t something feminists traditionally like at all.³ And scibloggers… well, we’ll get to them.

Adams does this regularly: he says something that even an idiot would know is offensive (or at least gratuitously stupid), then gets hurt when people are offended and says “I was only joking” or “it was a thought exercise!” or something else that expresses the general sentiment that it’s everybody else’s fault for taking him seriously when he says something in a thoughtful-seeming tone, even when his actions after the fact make it perfectly obvious that he knows he’s been bad.

Fine, then. Here is a thought exercise. A man repeatedly says things that are obviously likely to provoke people into anger, then, when they get angry, claims that they shouldn’t be getting angry because he was not sincere. Is this A) his fault or B) everybody else’s fault?

The same thing is happening today with a Republican official who emailed some friends a humorous photo of President Obama’s face on a chimp and a punch line about his birth certificate. If your only context is what the Internet says about this story, you assume it’s a typical racist act by a Republican who is already guilty by association.

It’s funny that Scott Adams, in this rant, is complaining about the media being “lazy” by characterizing her as a racist. Why is it funny?

But if I add the context that Googling “George Bush monkey” gives you over 3 million hits, and most of them are jokes where President Bush’s face is transposed on a monkey, you see what’s really going on. Democrats and advocates of civil rights are using the media to further an agenda at the expense of a woman who was probably so non-racist that the photo in question didn’t set off her alarms as being a career-ending risk.

Well, no, it’s not funny because Scott Adams just compared the tired old joke about George Bush having a chimp-like face to the historical racial slur of black people being compared to monkeys, which is a painfully false equivalency because white people also generally don’t get upset when you call them the n-word. It’s because this woman “who was probably so non-racist” has previously defended other people for making racist jokes and statements. It’s a shame Adams didn’t bother to find this out before championing the aforementioned racist, who of course has it just as bad as Adams.^{4 5}

If you wonder how the evolution rumor started, it’s partly because I made the following argument: The evidence for evolution, by its nature, seems fishy to the average non-scientist independent of the underlying truth. That’s a statement about human perceptions, not the objective reality of the theory.

The sciblogger community isn’t pissed at Scott Adams because they think he’s a creationist: they’re pissed at him because he raised a bunch of easily debunked arguments and treated them as reasonable evidence that creationists had a point, then backpedaled and claimed he was only engaging in a “thought exercise” once people pointed out that his arguments were stupid and that all he had done is prove that creationists survive by peddling lies over and over again.⁶ People don’t get offended by the process of examining why creationism gets a toehold. They get offended when Scott Adams does it really, really badly and in a way which gives unfair credence to creationist arguments.

Besides which, it’s not like Adams ever comes up with anything novel out of these thought experiments.

I will add some context though. Keep in mind that creating the hapless Dilbert character largely in my own image launched a twenty year career of daily self-deprecation. Likewise, about half of what I write outside of the comic is unambiguously self-deprecating. I’m a short, near-sighted, bald, over-the-hill guy with a bad sense of direction and an astonishing lack of competence at 99% of life’s challenges.

Yes, but Adams is also a millionaire many times over, so really, self-deprecation on his part isn’t charming. (Also, frankly it’s amazing that this self-deprecation all of a sudden disappears whenever somebody points out that Adams has said something really dumb, which makes it seem less like humility and more like a minstrel show.)

Let’s take a moment to call back the discussion of how the messenger changes the message. A large number of you are reading my explanation of the evolution rumor and dismissing it as my pathetic attempt at revisionist history. I’m back pedaling! I got caught being a moron and now I’m trying to save face!

See how this works? The messenger with a strong self-interest is automatically non-credible, and should be.

And this is why Adams had to lie about his identity on the internet!

There are some types of information that can only be communicated by an unbiased messenger. And the most unbiased messenger in the world is one that is imaginary, such as my invisible friend, PlannedChaos.

This is simply drivel. An imaginary messenger is by definition biased towards its creator, because that’s how creators roll. “PlannedChaos” wasn’t ever going to give anybody a reasonable, even-handed critique of Adams’ controversial writings, because he was Adams. Of course, possibly Adams will now claim that he was trying to point this out all along and we’re the stupid ones for falling into his trap, but for someone complaining about laziness on the part of his critics, this is the worst kind of argument if it’s intentional, because it’s baiting, pure and simple. We can either assume that Adams is sincere when he initially writes on any topic, or assume he’s full of crap when he writes anything: when you have someone who claims to be baiting people, those are your only two options for dealing with them efficiently.

On the scale of immoral behavior, where genocide is at the top, and wearing Spanx is near the bottom, posting comments under an alias to clear up harmful misconceptions is about one level worse than Spanx.

“HEY YOU GUYS THERE ARE MURDERERS AND RAPISTS AND STUFF OUT THERE SO WHY ARE YOU GETTING ALL MAD AT MEEEEEEEEEEE?”

1. His complaint that Metafilter is a “cesspool” is just kind of nuts, because Metafilter is probably one of the most balanced and fair discussionblogs on the interwoobs, but whatever. Maybe Dogbert wrote it. [↩]
2. Rightfully. [↩]
3. And also there’s the fact that Adams soon deleted the post from his blog, demonstrating that he knew perfectly well that he had written something offensive, and then maintained afterwards that no, that blogpost he hastily deleted was totally cool you guys. [↩]
4. Maybe she was engaging in a “thought exercise!” [↩]
5. To say nothing of the fact that his argument is just boneheaded. Seriously: who in the hell doesn’t know that you don’t compare black people to monkeys? Like, ever? [↩]
6. See also: Adams’ comments on atheism. [↩]

Okay, follow along with me here. It’s well-known that George Lucas was a big Kurosawa fan during his formative years as a film-maker, and that he cites ‘The Hidden Fortress’ by Kurosawa as a key inspiration for ‘Star Wars’. Some have even described Lucas’ movie as a science-fiction remake of ‘The Hidden Fortress’, much the same way as ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ is a Western remake of ‘Yojimbo’. Which leads me to wonder, what might have happened if Lucas had been inspired by a different Kurosawa film? What if it wasn’t ‘The Hidden Fortress’ that shaped the direction of his classic film?

The Seven Samurai: Tatooine moisture farmer Luke Skywalker stumbles upon information that his insignificant homeworld is about to become the crux in the Empire’s plan to destroy the Rebellion. Princess Leia of Alderaan, a key figure in the Rebellion, is coming to this distant world to exchange vital information with Rebel spies; little does she know that the Empire has already learned of her mission, and has set a trap for her with a hidden garrison of Imperial troops…a garrison led by the Emperor’s personal enforcer, Darth Vader. Skywalker longs to help the princess, but he’s only one man, and an untrained fighter at that; he needs help if he’s going to save her. So he recruits a rag-tag band to help him: An exiled Jedi Knight named Ben Kenobi, a smuggler with a heart of gold named Han Solo, a bestial Wookie named Chewbacca, a grizzled bounty hunter named Boba Fett, and a Rebel pilot named Wedge Antilles. The six of them rescue the princess from the initial ambush; and together, the seven of them retreat into the Tatooine desert, where they use Ben’s knowledge of the terrain to slowly winnow away the Empire’s advantage of numbers. In the end, although Ben and Boba die in battle, Leia succeeds in her mission and (possibly) begins the end of the Empire.

Yojimbo: In the distant galactic backwater of Mos Eisley, Ben Kenobi (a former Jedi Knight who fled to the Galactic Rim after the fall of his order) becomes embroiled in the middle of a war between rival gang lords Jabba the Hutt and Xizor. He hires himself out first to one, then the other, playing both sides against the middle while he secretly works to clean up “the most wretched hive of scum and villainy.” The end features him dueling against Jabba’s top enforcer, Boba Fett. (The scary thing is, this requires only minimal changes to fit into continuity…)

Rashomon: In the aftermath of the death of Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi at the hands of Sith Lord Darth Vader, we see differing interpretations of the event from Vader, Kenobi, Leia, and finally the droid duo of C-3P0 and R2-D2. In the end, though we see many versions of the final battle between the two, the truth remains elusive and unknowable.

The Lower Depths: Owen Lars and his wife, Beru, run a small flophouse on Tatooine for scoundrels down on their luck. Among them is Han Solo, a smuggler and thief, and Ben Kenobi, a mysterious wise old man with a troubled past. Han is having an affair with Beru, but his growing friendship with Beru’s nephew Luke makes him consider breaking it off. At the same time, his admiration for Ben makes him think about finding a better life. When he discovers that Owen and Beru beat Luke, he breaks into their house to defend his young friend, only to wind up inadvertently killing Owen. Beru claims that he did it to continue their affair, which ends his friendship with Luke, and Ben flees when Imperial stormtroopers come to arrest the smuggler. In the end, Beru is arrested as well, leaving Luke without guidance and support.

Ran: Emperor Palpatine’s ambitious plan for his succession backfires on him when he delegates power to three of his most senior advisors, Grand Moff Tarkin, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and his apprentice and “son” created through Jedi magic, Darth Vader. Vader questions the wisdom of splitting the Empire between so many ambitious men, and is disowned and banished along with his droids. But Vader is proven right when Tarkin and Thrawn go to war over the Empire, and both of them try to put the Emperor out of the way as a potential obstacle; with his Royal Guard slaughtered, the insane Palpatine is left to wander the countryside. There he is discovered by R2D2 and C3Po, two of Vader’s droids that have remained loyal to the Emperor. They take refuge in a peasant’s hut on the swamp world of Dagobah, only to find it occupied by Yoda, Palpatine’s old Jedi foe who he had ordered to be blinded.

Vader discovers what happened to Palpatine and gathers an army to find him; this is viewed as an attempt at conquest by Tarkin and Thrawn, who send their own armies to stop him. In the final battle, the three armies weaken each other to the point where the Rebel Alliance is able to overthrow them; it’s revealed, in the end, that this was the ultimate goal of Tarkin’s wife, Mon Mothma. Tarkin kills Mothma, but is himself killed when Rebel ships blow up his Star Destroyer. Vader finds Palpatine, but is killed by Boba Fett, an assassin sent after him by Tarkin before his death. Overcome with grief, Palpatine dies, marking the end of the Empire. The film ends with a shot of Yoda, blind and alone on Dagobah, the only survivor of the film’s events.

(And by the way, before anyone thinks to comment on it, yes, I know ‘Ran’ came out after the trilogy was finished. If I can postulate an alternate universe where Lucas based ‘Star Wars’ on other movies, I can postulate one where he did it a decade later.)

All we need is to do is hook up a generator to this perpetual motion machine!

(Although now I must know what the trick is.)