WTFF: i. Chomp!

First in the series: "What the Fucking Fuck?!"

LA Times: Health reform supporter bites off fingertip of passerby at rally

The facts of this incident are not entirely clear. Drawing from the other things I have read about this incident and heard on talk radio, I'll attempt to paint you the following picture.

MoveOn.org throws some pro-HCR event in the sleepy suburb of Thousand Oaks, CA. People show up, probably holding signs, some crap like this. Events like this often draw heat and counter-protestors, and one of them was a guy named Bill Rice. Oh, this video from Neil Cavuto might help:



Rice, probably a moran, didn't take kindly to MoveOn's little shindig. Yes, MoveOn can be a bit obnoxious, but in typical right-wing kneejerk fashion, Rice heckles a dude in a black shirt (who might well be a moran himself, but we'll just call him Mr. Black.)

My understanding is that the following happened after that:

1. Mr. Rice heckles Mr. Black in some especially moranic manner.

2. Mr. Black says, "hey, you're a fucking idiot," and charges Mr. Rice.

3. Mr. Rice, feeling a little threatened, starts swinging his fists at Mr. Black. He connects, and in his own words, "his fist goes in [Mr. Black's] mouth."

4. Mr. Black freaks out and bites off the end of Mr. Rice's finger.

5. Mr. Rice collapses in pain. Mr. Black flees.

Cavuto, being a moran himself, is simultaneously hilarious and bewildering in his mock-seriousness. "You gave an appendage in the cause of protesting health care reform."

This is where we leave the realm of WTF and enter the realm of WTFF.

The best irony of all is that Mr. Rice, being well advanced in age, is probably covered by Medicare and had his injuries treated by the taxpayers.

Hero? Hardly. FUCKING HYPOCRITE TOOL is what you are, Mr. Rice. I rather wish he'd bitten your entire hand off and taken a piss on the stump, you stupid son of a bitch.

And Cavuto? What is your damage? This deranged maniac starts swinging his fists and gets his just desserts, and you're calling him a hero?

WTFF??

WTFF: Prologue: Moranity (rhymes with "Sean Hannity")

An introduction to the "What the Fucking Fuck?!" series.



My family and I have recently decided to use the neologism "moran" in the same many people my age and younger use the word "retard". This applies to other parts of speech: "retarded" becomes "moranic", and "the state of being a retard (retardation?)" becomes "moranity". The "a" in "moran" is short--so "moranity" rhymes with "Sean Hannity". Hm, let's take a look:



Yep, sounds about right.

Moranity is not just mere stupidity--it is stupidity disguised as introspective intellect. It is ego-driven stupidity. It is mind-boggling stupidity. It is stupidity most easily recognized by its cruelty and just obnoxious, purposeful lack of sensitivity and insight--as if lacking the ability to think critically and compassionately were a virtue instead of a vice. And it's often hilariously self-referential, as the first photo illustrates quite well.

I'm definitely not the first person to think of this, either (sense 3). (Warning: Urban dictionary is not usually the most safe-for-work site.)

Those of us who like to at least attempt to think critically and compassionately get so frustrated with stupidity of this nature that we'd lash out ourselves, usually using the word "retard" instead. But this is not a good idea--making fun of someone with a genuine disability is just the sort of thing we're preaching against here. Not only that, genuinely "retarded" people are rarely outright cruel and obnoxious.

Moranity has always been with us, of course, but lately it seems on the rise. You'd think that chasing a moran out of the White House would improve matters greatly. But, in fact, the problem has gotten a lot worse. I guess when morans think they are in charge of things they can restrain their more obnoxious moranity--but when the non-morans get fed up and throw them out, the morans REALLY lose their shit, resulting in a widespread pattern of incidents leading many (including myself) to enter what I call the "Perpetual State of What-the-Fuck (WTF)?"

The Perpetual State of WTF has been an intermittent problem for me in the last ten or so years especially. I think it first occurred with the sex scandal during the Clinton Presidency. The President getting it on with a reasonably attractive young lady in the White House is an obnoxious scandal, to be sure, and covering it up was just the sort of thing that got Nixon into so much trouble. But the froth and noise and rumors surrounding such a thing was just so over the top I often found myself unable to think about it at all, preferring to just whisper to myself "what the FUCK?"

Over the years, this feeling has gotten more and more intense, to the point now that I cannot listen to even a 5-minute radio news broadcast without saying "what the FUCK?!" out loud, and quite loudly. Only recently have I caught myself doing this, though--when I think back to it, however, I remember doing it for years. I think it's an automatic defense mechanism to avoid thinking about things that disturb us too deeply, because such thought usually leads to crushing despair.

But now, things have gotten so out of hand that WTF has now progressed to "What the FUCKING fuck?!", or WTFF. In other words, the level of WTF has now grown so outrageous that rather than simply say WTF and shrug it off, I am tempted to lash out in a serious rage, perhaps dropping what I am doing and destroying something very expensive with my bare hands.

It's just that frustrating to me. Most often, too, the WTFF reaction is inextricably linked to moranity. Often, Sean Hannity, as well. Sometimes, though, I get lost in the fail that is our culture and engage in WTFF behavior myself. This is, of course, supremely frustrating.

But there's got to be a better way to deal with it than, say, wrecking my car or smashing a $500 iPod, because that reaction itself smacks of moranity. Hence, this series, which starts in earnest Tuesday or perhaps today.

Look again at the first photo. Soon, if not now, you'll be pining for the days when the most obvious and obnoxious morans were merely defending the indefensible. Such things were easily dismissed by a WTF and a chuckle at the expense of fuckstains holding signs like this. But now the problem is so pervasive that rage is an entirely reasonable response.

WTFF i-iii: coming up.

Busy weekend for me (including yesterday), but when I get a moment I will post the first two articles in the "What The Fucking Fuck?!" series:

1. Finger-chomping health-care protester heckler dude.

2. Earth Liberation Front toppling a radio...broadcast...tower in...Snohomish County?

3. The latest offering from the local Tornado of Fail, also known as Tim Eyman, courtesy of Goldy. (Goldy calls his blog "HorsesAss.org" and was temporarily infamous for his attempt to introduce a ballot initiative declaring Tim Eyman to be a "horse's ass". He's not at all wrong, incidentally, about that or much of anything else he posts on.)

Oh, wait, that's three. Well, I told you it was called "What the Fucking Fuck?!"

Palliative vs. transformative: An example.

There are different ways for movements (for example, feminism) to have impacts on society. Two types of impacts are:

• Palliative impact--A movement has palliative impact when it improves things for a few people but the long term effect is minimal or even backfires.


• Transformative impact--A movement has transformative impact when it shakes society to its foundation, causing the new society to barely resemble the old one.

Both types of impacts have their places, but it's only the truly transformative ones that can break us out of the rut we are in and give us a chance to truly become great--or horrible (not all transformative movements are positive).

Two separate feminist movements can clue us into the difference.

The first example is the feminism of the early 20th century, often called "first-wave" feminism. This was clearly transformative. The most obvious transformation is universal suffrage. But, also, the fact that women have legal and social identity apart from their fathers and husbands--that is gigantic. There are other less ground-shaking things--the value of women's higher education, the idea that a woman can be a boss, etc. For women, the world of 1909 is fundamentally different from the world of 2009. That's transformation, baby.

Then there is the "Baby Boomer" feminism, often called "second wave". The members of this movement often set out to be transformative, but it turns out that it was a palliative movement. Some women were empowered to really unleash their feminine power, some women were better protected from abuse by men, some women found improved sexual liberation. But was it transformative? Not really. Things might be different in some ways for women in 2009 vs. 1979, but, eh, in many ways things have gotten worse for women. Second-wave feminism is clearly palliative (among other things).

About the only transformative effect it could possibly have is if same-sex marriage becomes more generally accepted, or even "normalized." But even if that happens, it has to share credit with what we could call, for lack of a better term, the "queer rights" movement. That movement, by the way, is definitely transformative. The world for queer people in 2009 is substantially different than it was in 1969.

What I see right now is a lot of palliative movements--or worse, retrograde, reactionary movements that diminish us as humans rather than making us better. The new resurgence of somewhat progressive politics in this country? Palliative at best, and reactionaries are trying as hard as they can to minimize the palliative impact. But even if the progressives win, will things really change? Hardly.

It's time for transformation. Transformation could really make things a lot better. Or it could do us in entirely. What I don't want to see is something that simply makes our misery more tolerable. That is stupid bullshit that I've seen my entire life and am sick of. Let's tear it apart and rebuild it. It's the only way. We may fail, and we may all die as a result. But are we really living now? No, not really.

Unfortunately, I have no idea where to begin. I guess maybe we begin by making people agree with my thought model--that this world sucks and we might be able to change it by transforming it in some way, hopefully making it better.

Self critiques: ii. Aphorisms, clichés, and thought termination.

You may notice I'm a big fan of aphorisms. However, since my new focus is on trying to revive the (mostly) lost art of critical thinking, I realize aphorisms can be problematic.

An aphorism is a cutesy phrase that helps easily remind you of a way to navigate through a complex situation and remember your thought processes concerning it. A recent one I have used is "Only Nixon could go to China." When we say that phrase, what we SHOULD be doing is reminding you of the complexities of American foreign policy during the Cold War and certain timeless political realities. As aphorisms go, it's a fairly good one, because it's useless in other contexts, and you can only understand the reference by returning to the previous considered complexity.

Another good one is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It wraps up a great deal of ethical debate into a mindset that encourages simple empathy. It is also difficult to use oppressively, because it's difficult to imagine many interpersonal problems that are caused by too much empathy.

It's when aphorisms get too broad in application or are supported by too little critical thought that they become trouble. A good example is "thinking outside the box". All too often, it can be used as an excuse to hurt people's feelings or cause disruption for the sake of causing disruption. It might also be used as a license to think or act in a grossly stupid manner. However, the concept can still be useful if used carefully. A good term for these sayings is "cliché," though there are clichés that didn't start out as worn-out aphorisms (but clever ideas, sure).

Clichés are not terribly harmful in and of themselves, because they can still be critiqued and discussed if people are so-motivated. But some go further--some are so reactive, so mindless, that they have the tendency to foreclose further rational disussion or thought.

A great example is "We will have to agree to disagree." It's polite enough--it's deeply disguised in a highbrow Voltairesque mutual respect. But don't be fooled for a second--when you use this phrase what you are really saying is, "I find your thinking to be painful to me in some way, and I don't want to deal with it right now, so I'm telling you to fuck off, before I punch you in the nose."

A term for these sorts of sayings is "Thought-terminating cliché." I mean, sure, a polite way of expressing your frustration is probably better than kicking a debate opponent in the balls, but the way people hide this sort of non-thought in a form of genteelism is really embarrassing.

Anyway, the point of all this is that:

• I overuse aphorisms, but I hope to use them only as aids to thinking, not impediments to it.


• Don't hide behind politeness as an excuse to avoid thinking. Think of other ways to say this, such as, "I find what you say provocative and interesting, but I have no response to it right now. Could we discuss this later?" Even if you're totally lying, at least you've left the door open to thought.

Self critiques: i. The use of foul language.

I think you might've noticed that I use a lot of foul language in this blog. Sometimes foul language indicates a lack of thought. Sometimes it means you don't have a very good vocabulary (as the cliche goes). And sometimes it's a way to make something hurt worse.

Maybe with me it's more of the latter. I use it mostly for intensity. So that you understand in no uncertain terms how frustrated I am. However, it betrays my anger, so maybe it means I'm not thinking about things as carefully as I should.

Am I going to change this? Not a chance. While I'd like this blog to be as accessible as possible, I'd rather be able to express myself freely. To those who find my use of foul language difficult to take, I suggest the following:

1. Lighten up. Seriously. A lot of times, the word "fuck" is funny. Go ahead. Giggle. Sometimes it's good for you.

2. If you're worried about your kids, I'll clearly label posts that are not safe for kids. Otherwise, there's nothing in these posts that kids shouldn't read, even if they have foul language. If your kids have enough cognitive development to understand what I am writing in this blog, they already know these words anyway. And many of them use these words when you're not looking. TRUST ME.

3. I'll make sure the people at which I direct this language deserve it.

HCR: iii. The Vulcan Option.

I'm not going to have time to write a doozy of a post anytime soon. Instead, I will attack this Twitter style.

I call this idea the "Vulcan Option", because it comes from a scene in the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. (If you know nothing about Star Trek, skip the next two paragraphs.) The story at this point in the movie was that a Klingon moon had exploded, destroying most of the atmosphere of the Klingon homeworld. The Federation was the only government capable or willing to assist them--if not, billions of Klingons would die. The current chancellor of the Klingon Empire, a man named Gorkon, agreed with this assessment and was willing to negotiate something. The Federation government agreed to send the crew of the Enterprise as an envoy.

Captain Kirk was puzzled by this choice, as he was on record as utterly loathing Klingons. They had, after all, killed his only child three movies ago. Spock, in his usual characteristic of wry humor post "resurrection", simply responded, "An old Vulcan proverb, Captain: Only Nixon could go to China."

(OK, anti-Trekkers, you can start reading again.)

"Only Nixon could go to China." This aphorism refers to the political reality that only an ardent anticommunist could suggest normalizing relations with a communist nation like China without having his motives questioned. The first US President meeting that standard was Nixon. Therefore, only he could "go to China."

Again we are faced with an "only Nixon" moment. This has a measure of additional irony, as it was originally President Nixon who suggested that something be done about the lack of access to health care. The recently late Senator Ted Kennedy took an all-or-nothing approach to Nixon's proposal, essentially causing it to die an ugly death. I am quite sure Sen. Kennedy carried that regret to the grave, as it set up the current horrid situation.

But we're back there again. Republicans have an excellent opportunity to put their ideological stupidity aside and suggest a radical approach such as universal single-payer. The rationale? IT'S GOOD FOR BUSINESS. Businesses spend TRILLIONS on health care expenses for their employees--even retired ones! This truth has wrecked untold businesses, the latest prominent one being General Motors. If businesses could share this risk and expense publicly, all sorts of great benefits would accrue to them.

Gosh, why didn't the Republicans think of this? Well, gee, it's such a great idea, I don't fucking know. Perhaps the ideological bent of "poor people are lazy assholes who deserve to starve and die of treatable illnesses" outweighs their uncritical pro-business ideological bent.

This is Plank I, by the way, of my Theory of Republicanism: Republicans hate the weak and vulnerable, unless they are a fetus. But more on that later.

But you know modern Republicans look evil and generally lost when they make RICHARD FUCKING NIXON look reasonable.

HCR: ii. Here's a good point.

From LiveJournal, no less. "Foolsguinea" writes:

A recent letter of comment in the newspaper asks, "If, as [Obama] says, we can keep our doctors and the insurance we already have, wouldn’t that be perpetuating the very system he says is broken and needs to be fixed?"

That's a good question. The Democrat leadership are acting out of a certain cowardice, & yes, conservatism on this issue. They campaign on change & then turn around & say they'll defend your present benefits.

Read it all.

This is precisely the thing on my mind, but I'll get into the deeper philosophy of it later, especially to point out that Republicans have a gigantic win on a plate right in front of them and they don't even know it. I'll elaborate on this later, but for now reflect on the ancient Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China.

TOPIC I: Health Care Reform

OK, for real, I've been watching this nonsense all summer, and all I can think of to say is:

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Maybe when I get more than half an hour to post about it, I will elaborate.

GOIN NUCYULAR ON THE WORLD

OK, I am back now.

I have had a number of personal problems since I've started this blog, but now I feel they're all under control.

In the interim, I have reached one overarching belief: Through critical thought, we could probably solve most of the problems that hurt us individually and as a society. The problem is that no one thinks critically very well, including myself. This is a bit of a problem.

The main focus of this blog will be to decry this whenever possible and suggest solutions towards thinking better. It will also be an outlet for my general outrage about things, chiefly concerning ways in which the strong abuse the weak. Oh, yes, and finally, I'll be eulogizing the Republican Party in a mocking tone, because, yes, I believe they are totally irrelevant right now. Then again, the rest of us need to act while we have the chance, because if somebody blows something else up in this country, the R's will ascend again.

Remember also: As Natalie Merchant once sang, "Until the lamb is king of the beasts, we are so one-sided."

From Irvine, CA: ARM recasts are the next financial bomb waiting to go off.

Irvine Housing Blog: "The ARM Problem"

The biggest problem are not the resets themselves, but the recasts. Let me explain a recast. Many ARMs allow you to choose your monthly payment:

1. A"fully amortizing" payment, which is a normal mortgage payment.
2. An "interest only" payment, which holds the principal balance the same.
3. A "minimum" payment, which is a portion of the interest. In this case, the remaining interest is capitalized into the principal balance.
4. A "catch up" payment, an extra-principal payment which lets you catch up to the amortization schedule (you generally cannot exceed this with other extra-principal payments because of prepayment penalties).

If you make the fully amortizing payment, you are vulnerable to the rate increasing. But if it decreases, you are happy. And, otherwise, you have few surprises. But it's what happens to you if you use one of the other two options without the "catch up" that gets really ugly. If you haven't caught up to the amortization schedule by a certain point, usually 5 years into the mortgage, your payment schedule is recast so you will finish paying the mortgage off in the remaining term. This means all of your payments go way, way up. This can even happen to you if you pay the fully amortizing amount but the rate increased. A recast can also happen if your principal balance increases by more than a certain amount, typically 25%.

The purpose of these so-called "option" ARMs was to give people with highly variable income a chance to manage their payments. If you had bad cash flow, you could pay interest only or even less for a while and catch up later when you got a big windfall. But real-estate agents and bankers got the brain-dead notion that people could buy a house with an option ARM, pay the minimum, and then refinance into a fixed when the house "inevitably" appreciated 20%. For their part, people who really wanted to buy a house went along with it, much to their eventual sorrow.

You'll also see in the blog post I have linked an example of $1.2M Irvine house that fell in value by a third, leaving an overleveraged borrower screaming for help from the government. That's freaking awesome. I mean, I have a lot of sympathy for average borrowers in average situations getting screwed in an average manner. Sure, let's help them out. But my patience is tried when someone who could clearly afford to rent a nice but not awesome place goes out on a limb for a fancy house, partially motivated by speculative greed, gets burned, and expects taxpayers (including me) to bail them out.

That's what frosts me most about the coming option ARM recast bullshit. I could get on board with helping an overextended Joe the Plumber (though not Joe the Plumber himself, because he's an asshole) not lose his modest starter home (which went for about $600,000 in Seattle a few years ago, but anyway). I mean, I could've probably barely afforded a house, but I stayed a renter because I thought it more responsible, and I knew the skyrocketing nonsense was not sustainable. And this is how I am rewarded for my discipline. My house is pretty nice, but I am going to have to dig deeper to keep all you yuppie scumbags in Bellevue and Redmond in your dream homes. That doesn't give me the warm happy happy.

I understand, though, that the alternative is worse, so sure, let's do it. But you numb nuts better not give me any lip next time I agitate for affordable housing in the Seattle area. We helped you; next it'll be your turn.

Joe Nocera pwnz0rs the Right, hopes Obama is more like FDR than...not...I guess.

Blog post at "Executive Suite": Where is FDR When We Need Him?

Joe Nocera is a well-connected business columnist.

Syndication test -- please ignore.

This is a test of some syndication. Please ignore.

In Utah, you can be both Gentile and Jew.

Story: Holocaust survivors are tired of being polite about Mormons baptizing dead Jews.
(courtesy: the author of Four Year Plan, via Facebook.)

Full disclosure: I was a Mormon when I was a child, between about 9 and 17. I participated in the rite of proxy baptism when I was about 13. Fortunately from the perspective of this article, all 15 of my proxies were named José, so I'm reasonably sure they were not Holocaust victims. In retrospect, I am not terribly sure that none of those I was baptised for really wanted to become Mormons, nor do I think they were even jazzed up about being given the name for Jesus' father, when they already had a perfectly good Mesoamerican name for themselves.

Obviously, I have recovered from this altogether obnoxious sect, and moved on to something even more obnoxious: Episcopalianism. Of course, the set that finds Episcopalianism obnoxious is somewhat, but not completely, distinct from those who find Mormonism obnoxious. Those poor self-proclaimed orthodox Protestants must really have it rough, being annoyed by nearly everyone, including other self-proclaimed orthodox Protestants.

But while I find the third group is obnoxious as well, there's very little outside of Christian Reconstructionism that approaches proxy baptism in unmitigated tackiness. I may hold forth at length about it when I have more time.

My napkin says the war on drugs makes no fiscal sense.

If you consider only incarceration, the cost of putting someone into jail for drugs for 2 years is highly variable, but it a reasonable median figure is about $46,000. This counts only the time they serve for their sentence. This does not count the amount of money spent while the person is in the court system, though in the case of problem drug use, some amount of that will probably be necessary whether you put the drug users in jail or not.

On the other hand, a moderately priced detox and rehab facility costs about $800 per day. A heroin user assisted with clonidine or Suboxone usually stays about 3 weeks, for instance. That's $17,600. People on meth may stay a bit longer. People on other drugs will probably stay less time. I would say a nice round figure is about $18,000.

Not only have you already saved $26,000 per person. You could argue that rehab doesn't stick very well, and I would agree. You might have to send them back at $18k/pop, and that starts to add up. On the other hand, prison doesn't stick very well, and the second sentence is often 5 years or more. Now we're talking about $115k for you hardline people, whereas I'm still just spending $18k.

This doesn't take into account other factors. The untold billions spent on interdiction, which itself leads to more jail and another $23,000 per person-year. The violence inherent to a business forced underground by the law. The development of highly organized terrorists intent on protecting what they have. And the costs to all of us in diverted law enforcement and other social resources are difficult to measure, but probably spiral up over a trillion dollars very quickly.

Meanwhile, say a person is half-likely to succeed in rehab and stay clean. If they make median income, we will get about $8,000/year back in taxes from them. Cut that in half, and the drug users themselves pay for their own rehab in just over 4 years.

Let's think about this as adults, please. Yes, drugs have very bad consequences for their users and society. Even marijuana, often regarded as harmless by its proponents, can cause certain people psychological trouble. Yet, our current policy is inhumane, ineffective, and imbecilic.

It's inhumane because the drug users most at risk for causing us problems are often suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness and are self-medicating. Throwing them in jail for this is cruel beyond measure. If you're going to seriously suggest we spend more to throw them in jail than it costs to treat their pain because of a moral position, we'll I'm sorry, but you're a fucking asshole.

It's ineffective because I can cruise to several key points in my city and pick up any drug I want in a matter of minutes. It will take me a few hours to figure it out exactly, but interdiction is a sad joke, despite the unfathomable amount of money we spend on it. The worst part, though, is civil forfeiture laws that give police departments a serious incentive to be corrupt.

It's imbecilic because we just can't afford to be throwing this kind of money away any more. But I love how conservatives preach "fiscal conservatism" and spend trillions on bullshit like this and sinkholes like Iraq.

The answer is not more money--it's total, unequivocal legalization combined with reasonable safety regulation and significant-but-not-stiff taxation. The taxation can also help pay for rehab if my napkin math is off.

The key point is, though, no one serves another day in prison for drugs, and no one is turned away from rehab. If they want it, they can have it--free. If they want a swank joint, then they can pay, but otherwise, we will.

Because it's the only alternative to this madness we have now.

EDIT: $40 billion. I found an offline source that says every year, governments at all levels pay $40 billion on the War on Drugs. $30 billion of it is incarceration. $10 billion on other stuff. That is nearly TWO MILLION three-week stints in rehab. In ten years, we could have the problem of drugs effectively controlled.

My proposal pays for itself. You could raise a ridiculous shitload of money with a 25% excise on recreational drugs. You don't want to go too much higher, because you don't want to encourage bootlegging, though tax bootleggers are not nearly as harmful from a crime perspective as today's drug gangsters. But even that is only half what my state charges on cigarettes, so I think it will work.