This Is Me Threading the Needle / 6-22-11

I appreciate you deeply, faithful reader, but please do not assume at any point during this post that you know what I'm about to say. Ahem.

First of all, I find it reprehensible when a victim is blamed for the crime committed against him or her. Remember that.

Now that we understand each other, here are four scenarios in which people make choices that lead directly or indirectly to discomfort. Maybe it'll be more clear where I'm headed in a few paragraphs.

1. If my home is burglarized while I am away, and I locked the doors and windows, it is not my fault that I bought a large TV or an XBox or some nice jewelry. I do not deserve to have nice things stolen from me just because I own nice things.

2. If I forget to renew my car insurance policy, and I hit a telephone pole, and I break a few bones, and the bank takes my house because I can't pay the hospital bill, I don't deserve to be penniless and homeless. I deserved to learn a painful lesson, but I didn't deserve to have my life ruined for combining an minor lapse in judgment with plain old bad luck.

3. At the same time, if I ride a bike naked through Fremont on a sunny summer solstice day, I can't very well complain of an uncomfortable itch the next morning.

4. AND... if I bathe in beef broth then go spend the night sleeping in a hammock between two trees in a forest full of grizzly bears, I can't expect anything less than to be eaten alive.

Now that that's out of the way, what to make of Slutwalk?

Background: In April, a Toronto police officer, addressing a small gathering of law students, seemed to suggest that certain victims of rape may themselves be partially to blame. His words, verbatim: women should "avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized."

That was dumb. Classic blame-the-victim bullsh*t, because nothing a woman does entitles a man to sexually take advantage of her. Nothing. That includes the way she dresses, speaks or flirts. Rape is obviously inexcusable in all cases, and wholly the fault of the perpetrator.

Well, in what can only be described as "predictable," women and women's organizations erupted in fury. The officer was properly reamed, the first Slutwalk came to life, and women in four continents pulled together to march in all kinds of attire, denouncing the idea that rapists were lured into a violent crime by a little cleavage and a tight skirt.

Good for them. (The women, not the rapists.) All's well that ends well... except.

Except.

The officer's comments keep getting interpreted as belonging to the fourth category of statement I began this post with. Yeah, the bears and beef broth one. I don't know the officer, and I don't even care to look up the guy's name. Still, I would like to give him a minuscule portion of Doubt Benefit, and allow him to rephrase, so we can place his improved analysis where it might actually resonate, rather than chafe: squarely in between the second and third categories.

Here's some context to what he said (what?? context?? that has no place in public discourse!!):

"You know, I think we're beating around the bush here. I've been told I'm not supposed to say this -- however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."

How to make this constructive instead of destructive... searching... searching... all right. This isn't perfect, but see what you think:

"Certain men will always find a way to abuse certain women, and it quite often will have nothing to do with the woman's appearance or her choice of wardrobe. Rape is so very often rooted anyway in psychological unrest, not sexual frustration.

"But if you, as a woman, wanted to take one additional step that could cut down, albeit marginally, the likelihood of you suffering a sexual assault, you could always choose to dress more modestly. If you want to avoid the unthinkable, then fastening an extra button on your blouse from time to time seems like another way to stack the odds more in your favor.

"It's not fair to you, because you ought to be allowed to wear what you want, within the confines of the law. And it's anything but foolproof, because these are deranged men we're dealing with here. But I'll tell you what: a modicum of modesty is probably marginally effective. And sometimes, marginally is all you need."

I mean, really. Try and deny that revealing attire makes guys think of sex. (To be fair: staplers, baseball, the letter Q, and white noise all are also perfectly capable of making us think of sex.)

Try and deny that certain unstable men will be pushed over the edge -- and yes, driven to contemplate, then carry out, a sexual assualt -- by so many plunging necklines and miniscule shorts.

You can't do it, can you? Your denial doesn't stretch that far, right?

Solutions to this dilemma are evasive. Burqas? No thank you very much. Fewer clothes? Yeah, right. Status quo? Blech.

No, the only solution is to determinedly steer clear from blaming the victim, to prosecute offenders, and to have enough self-awareness to stop deluding yourself into thinking that wearing a swimsuit in public HELPS men see you as a whole person.

(Far be it from me to give fashion advice to anyone, by the way.)

Unfortunately, such subtleties will be lost on those who advocate for dress, or for those who would ardently defend the dresser's right to be as suggestive as she wishes. Eh. At least this gives our citizens yet another chance to yell past each other.

Control-Alt-Delete / 6-20-11

I'm back. Sans vengeance.

It wasn't vacation. Maybe it was writer's block. Mostly, it was me jumping through some self-publishing hoops as I prepare to launch my puny novel into a largely unwelcoming world, a scoffing, haughty, naughty world that undoubtedly has no time for my "literary" shenanigans.

But now I pledge to reboot the blog, starting tonight, because I have been sent new and shiny bloggacious ideas. One came courtesy of my five-year-old: an insight into blind patriotism. One's from the news: a commentary on something called Slutwalk. And presidential politics are heating back up again. And for all we know, God is still out there, as long as you define "God," "is," "still," "out," and "there" in just the right way.

Anyway, the novel, yeah, it's done. It was submitted to my "publisher," which is just a company I hired to help me turn my story into an actual good-looking, professionally presentable piece of prose on which I can earn royalties. (I promise, the book is NOT full of alliterations. I make it a habit to save the worst humor for this space.)

So the process was vain, the result likely vainer, but now the novella (25,000 words) is in production, and before the summer is through, it'll be for sale. Sometime in August, I'll write a post about it, a preview of sorts; sometime in the fall, I'll update you on my efforts to sell it to people who want to pay me for it. Then, it'll fade into the obscurity for which it was destined. Which is totally fine. Mostly, this was a fun hobby that kept me busy for the past two years. And completion feels good, dadgummit.

But for now, let there be write!

Sorry.

Milton Bradley Lost the Media Game / 5-11-11

Milton Bradley, the baseball player, has his fans.

They're here, here, here, here and here. Just a sampling. (I freely admit the third link is lame. But still fun.)

Anyway. This seems like a lot of fandom calories dedicated to a guy who has the reputation not just for sowing seeds, but planting entire crops of discontent wherever he lands. He played 216 games with the Dodgers, and that was the most he logged with any one team over a 12-year career. Easy to do if you're Jamey Wright. Harder to do when you lead the AL in OPS in 2008.

Well, to offer a slight understatement, Milton hasn't made best friends with everyone at every stop.

"You understand why they haven't won in 100 years here," is how he described the environment in the Chicago Cubs organization. They traded him before he played another game wearing their uniform.

"You wonder what his problem is," one ex-teammate reportedly said.

Mariners manager Eric Wedge is personally aware of MB's uncuddly side.

There's plenty more along those lines. You don't need the whole resume. It's fun/maddening to remember he threw the ball in the stands after two outs against the Twins a couple years ago. Use that googly thing if you want more anecdotes.

Milton inspires a wide range of emotional reactions. It's not so hard, in the game of baseball, to become a villain, a laughingstock, or a feared offensive force. It's not so easy to pull all three off.

I'm not sure that the apparent trichotomy -- if it even exists -- comes from MB being somehow deranged, bipolar, manic depressive, although one of those may well be a real condition of his. Not a shrink here. Let me repeat: I'm not capable of telling if anything ails him, mentally. What I do know is that he treated the media like dogshit year after year after year, and he paid the price.

Milton Bradley spent his career losing the media game. Maybe he cared too much about what people thought of him; maybe he cared too little. Those are equally valid theories. What's not in dispute, though, is that he made it very, very easy for people who covered him to dislike him. The consequence: bad press. Simple cause and effect.

I don't know that individual reporters across the country deserved his disdain. Maybe they did. Speaking as a former sports reporter, journalists are just as capable of being jerks as the next guy. Humans!

Point is, you can treat the media like stinky stinky doo-doo if you're anonymous little me. Works less well if you're a public figure of any kind.

That being said, Milton earned some of the unflattering words printed about him.

Earlier this year, an arrest for what might or might not be domestic violence (no charges were filed) doesn't make him any more endearing or defensible to those who would work to endear him to us or defend him in the court of public opinion.

But digging a little further, why should any of us rely on the impressions of any media member to form a judgment on a player's inner qualities and deficiencies? Why should any of us try to ascertain if a socially distant guy is someone we'd like, or wouldn't? And by socially distant, I don't mean reclusive. I mean, if we can't get to know our sports idols (and very few of us fans get to do so), then why should we act like we do?

Come to think of it, that explains why I can't stomach comments from people who purport to know the guy beyond the player. Get over yourselves.

To conclude with a non-conclusion, our lack of understanding of Milton, the man, is why this blogger's piece from Monday is so spot-on. He admits he bought a view obstructed ticket to Milton Bradley: The Show.

We all did.

Not Exactly Cops and Robbers / 5-2-11

When Osama bin Laden's planes hit those towers, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania ten autumns ago, he announced himself as Public Enemy Number 1.

He graduated instantly from distant little terrorist nuisance pest dude to The Bad Guy. Deservedly so: He and his followers perpetrated an evil act on 3,000 innocent bystanders. And in the end, whether the mastermind was in fact bin Laden himself or not, that part is of little consequence. Al Qaeda did this to us, one way or another. (Conspiracy theories are fun, but flimsy.)

There is little way to deny that Osama and his minions, in this battle (I hesitate to call it a war), became the bad guys. We were victims of aggression by an evil band of murderers. We watched it happen. We were struck by evil.

But that didn't automatically turn us into the good guys.

We could have seized the moment and been the goodies, as the Brits like to say. Except that 100,000 dead Iraqis -- real, live men, women and children who perished in an subsequent unnecessary war waged under false pretenses at best -- would like to object. If they could.

So when you celebrate the death of a real bad guy, a mass murderer, for sure, see if you can copy me and try desperately to squeeze three competing thoughts in the back of your crowded mind.

One's from a friend of mine who posted this last night on facebook: "Being glad that anyone is dead is still being glad someone is dead."

Then, this gem, pulled from some clever bumper sticker author: "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

At last, something from yours truly: "My opponent's wrongness is not some sort of redemptive purifying elixir that absolves me from making compassionate choices. Sometimes, a conflict might not have any good guys."

Ladenfreude / 5-2-11

Watched President Obama last night announce the capture and death of Osama bin Laden.

Then read up on what others had to say -- journalists, friends, strangers.

Is there a word for less-than-glad, yet highly relieved, with equal parts excitement and disbelief? There should be. That's what I am, so the word is required.

Less-than-glad is not exactly what these people, or these people, or even these people, are. (And that last one's from stuffy old NPR's facebook page.)

Yet... I just can't bring myself to dance on a grave, because no matter which bones lie in that coffin, the fact remains that if you look down, you find that you're still dancing on a grave.

That having been said, if we're being honest here, and now is as good a time as any to start with a truth-based strategy, I'm actually quite relieved. Not happy, mind you. Just relieved that a mass murderer is no longer free to let his particular brand of hate loose on the world. Quite relieved that bin Laden will never again strike my country. I exhaled all last night.

At the same time, adrenaline kicked in the instant I received the news alert. This bad guy, this mass murderer of people of every ethnicity and religious stripe, he's finished, and it's a f*cking big deal. W called it a "momentous achievement."

To boot, it doesn't feel real. Maybe because Al Qaeda has been on a decentralization kick as of late, at least according to most counter-terrorism experts, including Jack Bauer, so the news doesn't exactly spell the end of organized terrorism anyway.

I kid, I kid with the cheesy "24" reference, but when you spend a day sleeping in, doing yard work, watching baseball, and reading in the sun, your system just might reject serious news that forces it to revisit the last ten ugly years of world history. Did this really just happen?

Still looking for that catch-all word to sum up what I'm feeling. Good luck with that, self.

Hell? No / 4-26-11

A guy trying be deep wrote this recently:

"Is Gandhi in hell?"

The writer's so cute. He thinks he's asking a question. Really, it's just too adorable to pass up.

Just because you put the pretty little squiggly line with the teeny tiny dot at the end of your sentence doesn't mean you're posing a legitimate query. In this case, the writer has crushed any question contained within his words, by instead making at least four bold statements.

"Is"

Statement: Hell may be defined as a place where things, beings, spirits, SOMETHING, exists.

"Gandhi"

Statement: The brain/cells/consciousness/mind/personality that made Gandhi Gandhi live on, despite the destruction of that being's first two components. Put another way, what is left of Gandhi, post-death, can still be defined as Gandhi.

"In"

Statement: Hell has a physical location. A person/soul/spirit can occupy it.

"Hell"

Statement: Hell exists.

So go ahead, put your nifty little question mark at the end of your short little sentence. But you're not fooling me.

I reject all four statements contained within your so-called question. Go find someone else to ask your pretend stuff to.

Reckful Baseball Predictions / 3-31-11

Baseball!

For your amusement (and your amusement only), here is how the 2011 season will play out. No no, it's true, I confess, I'm cheating a little here, because 0.12 percent of this year's games have already been played. And I'm not taking a whole lot of chances. Whatever the opposite of reckless is -- that's how my foreseeing organs foresee the future.

American League, Final Standings

WEST

1. Oakland, 88-74

2. Texas, 85-77

3. Seattle, 77-85

4. Anaheim, 76-86

CENTRAL

1. Minnesota, 90-72

2. Chicago, 88-74

3. Cleveland, 79-83

4. Detroit, 78-84

5. Kansas City, 67-95

EAST

1. Boston, 101-61

2. Toronto, 89-73

3. Tampa Bay, 86-76

4. New York, 83-79

5. Baltimore, 59-103

National League, Final Standings

WEST

1. San Francisco, 89-73

2. Los Angeles, 86-76

3. Colorado, 85-77

4. San Diego, 80-82

5. Arizona, 56-106

CENTRAL

1. Milwaukee, 91-71

2. Cincinnati, 90-72

3. Chicago, 88-74

4. St. Louis, 81-81

5. Houston, 66-96

6. Pittsburgh, 63-99

EAST

1. Philadelphia, 99-63

2. Atlanta, 90-72

3. Florida, 82-80

4. Washington, 76-86

5. New York, 67-95

Playoffs (aka Crapshoot Rounds)

American League

Boston def. Oakland 3-1

Minnesota def. Toronto 3-2

Boston def. Minnesota 4-1

National League

Philadelphia def. Cincinnati 3-1

San Francisco def. Milwaukee 3-2

Philadelphia def. San Francisco 4-1

World Series

Philadelphia def. Boston 4-1

Explanations and Rationale, Top Ten Style

10. So fun to root against the Yankees. They are one significant pitching injury away from a .500 season. (Bad year for NY, with the Messed-up Mets finishing in last place.)

9. Mariners will surprise the world by reaching .500 in August. Then they will fold, as expected.

8. Yes, everyone is picking Boston and Philly. There's a reason for that. Many reasons actually. Both teams are deep, flush with starting pitching and offense, and both squads are hungry for more success than they experienced last season.

7. Blue Jays will profit most from the Yankees' temporary demise. Toronto last made the playoffs in 1993. That was before the wild-card was invented. Now they get to be one.

6. A's win a weak AL West; Giants overcome injuries to take the NL West almost by default.

5. Seriously, never root against the Twins. What are you, an idiot?

4. Ichiro racks up 240 more hits and bats .355, second in the league.

3. Cliff Lee is the World Series MVP. (Risky predictions are overrated.)

2. Batting champ Dustin Pedroia is the AL MVP; Tim Lincecum is the NL MVP and Cy Young; AL top pitcher is Trevor Cahill.

1. A record six no-hitters are pitched. One by Felix Hernandez, one by Lee, one by some guy nobody has ever heard of before this season. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens both serve time in jail for perjury, and nobody hits 50 home runs. Coincidentally.

No, Huck You / 3-19-11

Fox "News" commentator, former Arkansas governor, and sometime presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, lecturing on same-sex marriage:

"The ideal world is a man and a woman, you don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal, that would be like saying well, there's some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them."

His words verbatim, from a radio interview February 28 of this year with host Steve Malzberg.

This has to stop. Comparing relationships between loving adults to relationships between molesters and molestees -- this has to stop. This can no longer be part of our national conversation, and that kind of talk needs to be called out for what it is: one part fear-mongering, another part ignorance, and clearly part insult.

I get it, though. Huckabee believes -- or at least pretends to believe, for political expediency -- that marriage is a covenant reserved for heterosexual unions. He doesn't want to expand that covenant outside that circle. That's the way it's been for millennia. I get it. Tradition!

So just say that. And stop there. Just state that gay couples are barred from marriage, for reasons of gender. If that's all it is. (It may be less defensible to acknowledge that you think that inheritance rights, visitation rights and custody rights are special privileges reserved for state-sanctioned heterosexual lovers. But that is the legal core of what you're implying.)

Anyway. More sentences beginning with "just": Just admit that you want traditional marriage to continue in its present form. There is very little shame in sticking to the dictionary definition of a term. Just take that route and you'll at least escape with some decency left.

Or even... just say "you don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that's against the ideal." Leave out the incest line.

Just say that traditional marriage is the ideal, and no substitutions are permitted. That's all. Leave room for the other side to politely argue that gender doesn't figure into the ideal. Have your conversation on those grounds.

But don't say that marriage between two women will lead to creepy old guys marrying their great-niece. Then you join the haters, and you deserve to be called out for it.

And no, it's NOT ironic to call someone hateful. It's not an ironic act for me to heap scorn on a hateful statement. I don't become hateful or intolerant for doing so. I become the person who brings daylight to a dark comment. When we get home from a two-week vacation and I tell you, "Oh man, the fridge is broken," and you open it, and you get tackled by the ripe stench of rotting asparagus dipped in curdled milk, you don't blame me for pointing out the malfunctioning appliance. (Well, not successfully, at least.)

I'll give people a chance to retreat if they want from cruel remarks. I say stuff I regret. I have compassion.

However, I don't have to tolerate hate.

To wrap up neatly: If the day comes when more than just some crackpot pervert wants to legalize incest and possibly brand it with a governmental seal of approval, then at that time, we can have that conversation. But this isn't it.

You Probably Won't Even Remember This Headline / 3-16-11

I'm not a history scholar by any means.

But it sure seems to this untrained observer that world events move at a different pace now.

In 1989-1991, an entire empire (one built on the quicksand of totalitarianism disguised as communism) disappeared from the face of the earth, just like that. My senior year in high school, a whole quarter of our social studies course was to be dedicated to studying the U.S.S.R.; it was naturally meant to fall under the rubric of geography. Yeah. That ended up being a history lesson instead.

We marveled at the breakneck speed of revolution. Boy, were we ever young.

(And before I go on, hell yes, those were awesome times to be a teenager! The world was on fire. [Hey! Billy Joel is NOT playing in the background. You're not hearing that song. You're really not. You might be hearing this one, however.] Relatively bloodless revolutions toppled regime after regime in Eastern Europe. Borders opened, walls fell, and a speedy war in Kuwait placed America so very squarely on top of the international food chain. Outside the food chain, even. For a decade.)

And to think, at the time, we didn't even have cell phones, the Internet, digital cameras, music downloading, DVD's... those things spent the 90's becoming ubiquitous.

So instead of experiencing another round of political upheaval, we held on the rest of that decade for dear virtual life as technological advances raced ahead with maniacal all-obsoleting speed. CD's used to mean something. Cordless phones used to mean something. 1 megapixel used to mean something. Digital cameras used to mean something. Huh. 128 megs of RAM was once considered ostentatious.

But you were there. You know all this.

What does it mean?

It means we're living in an uncertain era of change, and sometimes we don't even know what brand of change is lurking around the calendar's corner. Unhyperbolically, we're passengers in an era of hyper-accelerated cause and effect. Facebook and Twitter and other platforms have brought the reality of constant motion and constant contact to every doorstep, or to every doorstep's neighbor. You can be unconnected, but it takes an advanced degree in Hermitology and a will of titanium. Or a trip to the inner reaches of, say, Congo. (In a pinch, a week of watching Fox "News" will fill you with enough untruths that your connection becomes spotty.)

Everything is everywhere -- even in Congo, truth be told -- if only we want it. Sometimes when we don't want it, hm. The next thing is always about to happen; the last object in your rear view mirror is way, way, way farther than it appears.

Sudan voted to split into two nations way back in January. Remember? More than 100 people died in a bombing in Moscow a couple weeks later. Anyone recall the New Zealand earthquake that killed 200 people? Yeah, me neither. That was all the way back in February. Three weeks ago already.

Who was the president of Egypt from October 1981 until last month? Can't think back that far. That was one 9.0 quake, one tsunami, two near-government shutdowns, one bloody civil war, five major civil unrests, one oil spike, four nuclear explosions, one stock market hiccup and one Charlie Sheen ago. (Come to think of it, Charlie's kind of old news.)

I'd like to offer three conclusions from the observations above:

1. No longer does the phrase "We've always done it this way" carry any weight. For better or worse, traditions are measured in weeks and months, maybe years, but certainly not decades or longer. One-day-old news is exactly that. No, not news -- one day OLD.

2. People resistant to change are going to have a very, very, very hard time the rest of this century.

3. September 11, 2001 will be 10 years old when we go back to school after summer vacation. It might as well have happened a thousand years ago.

For Nothing / 3-13-11

I don't mean this in a rude manner, because there are serious cataclysms going on, but posts on Libya and Japan can wait. (There's still, in any case, at least three weeks until the Rapture, by my meticulous reading of biblical fortunetelling texts. And shouldn't there be locusts first anyway?)

No, the Wisconsin shenanigans have pissed me off, and the blood continues to proverbially boil, even a few days later.

(Six points of reference before the real post begins: 1. WI is a middle-of-the-road swing state and should be governed as such and not as some wet-dream political laboratory for the far right; 2. Stripping collective bargaining rights from teachers but not from firefighters? Really? I mean, really...; 3. Why have quorum requirements at all if they be bypassed with trickery? Makes no sense; 4. The WI Senate probably violated open meeting laws; 5. Don't try and disguise your power plays as budget solutions; 6. It's just plain wrong to try and legislate unions out of existence.)

Recent events in the Midwest (Ohio and Indiana passed similar measures, although to be fair, how would you know, with Charlie Sheen leading a band of Libyan-Egyptian rebels as they seek to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act while dodging suicide bombers) have been jarring. They have managed to push me back from the terrifying brink of courteous bipartisanship, where I tried to live last week, and have thankfully returned me to my natural home of unvarnished partisan liberalism.

With that out of the way, I think it's safe to say now, politely, factually, but also aggressively, that the Republican Party is officially the Party Of Against.

Somethin' like this has been said before. It was fashionable in many circles to call the GOP the "Party of No" immediately following Obama's election, and for good reason: that was their only move, outnumbered in Congress and the West Wing of the Mixed-Race House. In those happy months, the few remaining R's were virtually powerless to stop the slothlike, icebergian, tectonic-plate-speed advancement of Democratic-sponsored legislation. After all, all they said -- whimpered -- during that golden age was No, no, no.

And while that was adorable for a while, elections have consequences, and R's enjoyed a giant Boehner for the duration of 2010, which climaxed with them retaking the House and almost the Senate, and pushing the president EVEN farther to the right.

But back to the polite, factual, aggressive mutilation promised earlier. And maybe less gutter humor along the way, you ask? Eh. We'll see. I guarantee nothing.

Rules Of The Game: I will make none of the following statements up. I might embellish with Johnvented words. You can't stop me. All claims will be accurate; all opinion will be supported with D-cup arguments. (All worked up, can't help myself.)

I'd wager that some statements found below will even be perceived as complimentary, in the eye of the right kind of conservative beholder.

Crucial Disclaimer: I may generalize at times (i.e., not every Republican disbelieves in climate change), but that will not and should not detract from the accurate nature of what follows.

Opening Salvo: The Republican Party is best defined not by what it stands for, but instead by what it sets its sights on blocking.

List Of Illustrations:

1. R's are against more regulation anywhere, in principle.

2. R's are against more power being consolidated in the federal government's hands.

3. R's are against taking steps to combat climate change.

4. R's are against allowing a certain legal procedure to be performed. (We all know which medical procedure this refers to; it's the one the Supreme Court has declared legal in each of the past four decades.)

5. R's are against legalization of marijuana. 'Cept for my Kentucky buddy Rand Paul, The Perfect One.

6. R's are against same-sex marriage. One fair poll here.

7. R's are against taking steps to prevent accidental gun deaths (30,000 a year). When trigger locks become mandatory, they do their darndest to overturn that kind of life-saving legislation. Next.

8. R's are against universal health care. (Except Mitt Romney, 2006 model year.)

9. R's are against raising taxes in any economic situation on any segment of the population, for any reason. (Still trying to decide if that's hyperbole or not. Still trying.)

10. R's are against any expansion of the social safety net.

11. R's are against the power of unions to collectively bargain. Ohio, Indiana and now Wisconsin legislatures have removed those rights. Michigan's working on it. Pennsylvania too. Conservative darling and New Jersey Governor -- and noted liar -- Chris Christie is tinkering with the idea.

12. R's are against Muslims and Islam in general. (Link, link, link, more links are easy to find but that should be enough.) Free admission: this is a broad generalization I make here. But a good one. And by good, I mean highly defensible. Click the links.

13. R's are against amnesty for illegal immigrants and their children, no matter how long any of the family members have lived stateside. Besides Reagan, of course, he was a fan. But nobody listens to him anymore.

14. R's are against campaign finance reform.

15. R presidents are, in practice, squarely against balancing the federal budget. They're against even trying.

16. R legislators are against equal pay for equal work legislation. The vote in the House two years ago on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: 250-177. (The big number was the Democrats. The teeny tiny number was the other guys. Emphasis on guys.)

That ought to do it. Did I forget anything? (Like reparations, or habeas corpus, which I didn't forget, but decided to leave out?) Well, if I did, this guy probably said it, since his like-minded post went live while I took a break to work for a living. Jerk.