Posts by matt

I really don’t know what the big deal is about “reparative” or “conversion” therapy, as it’s known. Yes, I definitely think we should do more careful studies of it to make sure any deleterious psychological effects are completely offset by the psychological benefits, but many people nowadays seem unwilling even to let those studies happen.

If a person is unhappy with his sexuality and wants to change it, and we attain the ability to do so clinically, safely, possibly even chemically, why not oblige? It’s not like there’s going to be a huge population-wide rush for the service. (Hell, if it didn’t take too long, I might even pop into a clinic and give girls a try for a weekend or so, just to see what all the fuss was about.)

Anyway, put me on the record as being all for conversion therapy.

And let’s begin by turning this poor bastard gay.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. It’s not the end of civilization as we know it. It’s still just the beginning of a really, really crappy one.

Most accounts I’ve heard of the genocide in Rwanda include at least one mention of Paul Rusesabagina, a Kigali hotel owner whose derring-do saved hundreds from the slaughter. If you haven’t heard his story, Philip Gourevitch tells it in this excellent episode of This American Life (it’s the third story, and starts about 38 minutes in). Basically, Rusesabagina uses three unlikely weapons — liquor, influence, and the telephone — in his battle against the unthinkable. But he employs a wonderful savvy and a knack for misdirection. “I think the key thing about Paul,” Gourevitch says, “is his instinct that everything is negotiable.”

Paul’s story, and (I hope) the story of the genocide, will be told in theaters for the first time next month, with Don Cheadle in the main role. The main site is awful, but it’s got clips from the film (hint: to turn off the music, click the microscopic text in the upper-right corner), and offers an excellent repository of links about the tragedy that I hadn’t seen (like this page, where you can hear an incomprehensible-but-nevertheless-chilling sample of the RTLNM radio network, the chief instrument the killers used to incite the genocide).

In honor of the recently hott BizCazh.com, and in final comment on the Great ‘Lection of 2004, I submit “The Morning After”:

The Country is bound for one LONG walk of shame. America, the once beautiful, is slowly making its way back to its apartment, still wearing last night’s clothes. The country has sex hair, and can taste its own breath.

Parental advisory — exteme lyrics, visceral imagery, rank partisanship, &c.

Interesting:

Ransom is a software publishing model where the rights to the source code remain restricted until a set amount of money is collected or a set date passes, at which point the code is automatically freed under an OSI/FSF-approved license.

(Red Ferret for President.)

Kevin Drum nailed it, I think. Scandal earns the day. History, the President’s first term, and the current political dynamic are brimming with evidence for this, as Drum points out:

Consider the highlight reel of reelected presidents over the past 50 years. Ike won a second term and watched in dismay as his chief of staff was forced to resign over a vicu

OK, it’s essentially official. Even if, by some miracle, legal battles in Ohio throw the outcome of the election into question, President Bush will remain President Bush until the year 2008. Half the networks have called Ohio for Bush, enshrining him as the victor in the sleepy minds of many. And as my one true love, the Supreme Court, informed us in 2000, we mustn’t disturb our fragile national psyche with silly questions of absentee whozits or civil rightamajiggies or provisional whatnots. If the people think Bush won, he won.

And they do, so he did.

I had expected this outcome long ago, but there’s one disappointment I wasn’t numb to. Justice Rehnquist. The evidence suggests his thyroid cancer is fatal. I can’t imagine he’ll be returning to the Court for any real tenure. Sure, he’d love to attend to his legacy, but you know, can’t cheat death and taxes ‘n’ all.

To me, the Supreme Court is a fragile miracle. It’s my favorite thing in our entire government. Even Scalia and Thomas, the big lugs. After all, lose them, and you lose the legitimacy of the Court in the eyes of much of America. And America, despite its lack of faith in all else, somehow continues to believe in the Court.

I don’t think the Court will turn drastically conservative or anything, but I think it could lose its progressive edge if the balance is tilted by a Bush nominee. And then it would become just another muddy, stale brick in the wall.

Last week’s PIPA survey has gotten quite a bit of play in the press. In short, red and blue America live in different worlds. Red America (that is, over three-fourths of President Bush’s supporters in this election) sees a world where Saddam Hussein was the shadowy figure behind al Qaeda and 9/11, where somewhere in the crannies of Tikrit there sits a yet-undiscovered stash of weapons of mass destruction, and where most of the world cheers our efforts in Iraq. Blue America believes the opposite on all counts.

When it comes to what people believe about their candidates, majorities of the President’s supporters misperceive his foreign policy positions, while majorities of Kerry’s supporters perceive his positions accurately, weeks before an election where foreign policy is supposedly the biggest issue on the table.

But the survey respondents who give me the most hope for democracy are the 18-Percenters. Eighteen percent of Bush supporters still believe Iraq had WMD or a major WMD program even though they know that the Duelfer report concluded otherwise.

Hans Blix. David Kay. The Senate Intelligence Committee. Charles Duelfer. Either invisible to faith-based America, or simply wrong.

So this is what it comes down to. We march to the polls a week from today armed with completely different truths, answering completely different realities. How are we supposed to build a democracy together? And what could possibly be done about this divide?

I’ll join the chorus of handwringing on the Internet for the lack of an online version of David Owen’s article in last week’s New Yorker. I could write about it, but Tim’s already done that quite well enough for the both of us. So I’ll go the crowd one better, and reproduce a few paragraphs for your pleasure and edification:

Most Americans, including most New Yorkers, think of New York City as an ecological nightmare, a wasteland of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams, but in comparison with the rest of America it’s a model of environmental responsibility. By the most significant measures, New York is the greenest community in the United States, and one of the greenest cities in the world. The most devastating damage humans have done to the environment has arisen from the heedless burning of fossil fuels, a category in which New Yorkers are practically prehistoric. The average Manhattanite consumes gasoline at a rate that the country as a whole hasn’t matched since the mid-nineteen-twenties, when the most widely owned car in the United States was the Ford Model T. Eighty-two per cent of Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot. That’s ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for residents of Los Angeles County. New York City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were granted statehood, it would rank fifty-first in per-capita energy use.

“Anyplace that has such tall buildings and heavy traffic is obviously an environmental disaster