"My Favorite Conservative" This one is a little rambling. I'm tired.

On Friday, a co-worker told me that I was his "favorite conservative". This came after a lengthy discussion of several issues, while we should've been working. I took it as a compliment, because I was pretty sure that he did not mean this in the sense of "you're of a very passable disposition for a child molester". I returned the compliment by saying that he was one of the few people at our company who I would talk politics with, because he is always good natured and reasonably dispassionate, even if I find some of his positions insane.

I try to be good-natured and dispassionate as I can be when arguing politics with folks here for practical reasons. To begin with, I am in the distinct and small minority, both at my company and in the state where I live. Being somewhat affable also helps to keep some perspective on what I'm discussing. I have very definite beliefs and profess pretty strong allegiances to certain ideas, but I live in the world of people. Getting along is important, even if those around you often say things that annoy me-and they do.

For example, another guy who sits close to my desk will suddenly, and with no provocation-that I can see, at any rate-begin ranting about "crazy Republicans" at every turn. They are never referred to as just Republicans, and it is clear that he has little to no sense of proportion as to what political disagreement really means. I don't take offense to this, because it became clear early on that he's not very serious when it comes to thinking about politics, and because there's a difference between Republicans and conservatives, even though there's a reasonably large area of common agreement between the two. And since I never know who exactly he's mad at (I usually put my headphones on and turn the music up), I don't know whether I might agree with him or not. I suspect almost certainly not, but it is still easier to not know for sure.

So the guy I first wrote of in this post said that Bush was "radical". I thought that was very curious, especially coming from a self-professed anarcho-syndicalist, so I asked him what he meant. It was because Bush supports the FMA. Now, I haven't really figured out where I stand on that particular issue, but I thought it would be worth it to clarify whether he really thought that the notion of the FMA was radical. It turned out, after clarifying some terminology, that he thought that it was radical to support a Constitutional amendment defining marriage. I pointed out that the notion of the state extending marriage to gays was a far more radical notion, given that no government, or even society, that I knew of, had ever countenanced legal recognition of gay marriage, or even the social legitimacy of same-sex unions (except of course, ours, and that was very recent). I then pointed out that something radical, even though Bush's position wasn't, isn't always bad, and cited the 19th amendment, which was a good thing*, but far more radical at the time, precisely because it sought to do something unprecedented**. The FMA seeks the opposite outcome, because it seeks to limit an institution to what it is currently. He seemed to agree to that, for which I was gratified. He also understood that I was arguing about terminology, and not what I thought of the underlying issue, which was even more gratifying, as some people have a tendency to view any clarification of the terms of an argument, or of a position or term of that argument, as support for that argument, which can be annoying when it's not one's aim.

*JF may strongly disagree with me here. I'm not sure, but if it prods him to write on disenfranchisement as a positive political goal, that would be great.

**It might've not been unprecedented, but suffrage for women must've been extremely rare, at the least. I'm sure Mr. Flory will set me straight.  ¶ 23:57 0 comments

  I Wear A Hat Sometimes I must admit, what will surely be to the horror of Zane, that I wear a hat when I'm outdoors for any length of time. And not only a hat, but a western-style hat. Though I live in a Blue state and must look faintly ridiculous, I can't help but wear a hat, because its utility trumps any style concerns I have. However, though I think I'm out of style, because, let's face it, hats for grown men went out when Kennedy was inaugurated, I do look pretty good in it, if one just discards any notions of current fashion.

So why do I wear it? Well, as I've alluded to above, for the utility of something is usually more important to me than its appearance. The area of clothing is one of these areas. My reasons, therefore, are based on practical considerations:

1) I am very fair skinned.
2) I have very short hair. This is partly out of habit, and partly because I am balding, and therefore need to protect my shiny pate from the elements.

I happen to think close-cropped hair on balding guys looks better than any of the alternatives. Short hair on a balding man says: "Yes, I am balding, and this haircut strikes the proper balance between not calling too much attention to it, and pathetic attempts at denial or obfuscation of that fact. There will be no comb-overs or long hair in the back for me, no sirree".

So I wear a hat. But I don't wear it indoors.  ¶ 22:56 0 comments

  Mohammed Ali vs. Daughter & Adidas vs. Reality There's a new Adidas ad which, through the banal magic of CGI, shows Laila Ali, Mohammed's daughter, in the ring with Mohammed, in his prime. She throws some punches which miss, but then drills Mohammed a good one, and he looks surprised. The tag line is something about how the impossible is never impossible if one dares impossibly to posit plausibly the possibility of possessing Adidas shoes.

At the risk of sounding sexist, I've got to call super balderdash on this commercial. Laila may be the greatest female boxer alive, and even the best one of all time. That doesn't matter. Let's grant, for the sake of argument, that Laila could go back in time and convince her father to box her, and that he could somehow be completely disinhibited, and fight her as he would Frazier, or Foreman, or any other boxer to which he was accustomed to boxing (that is to say, men), free from concerns about boxing a woman, and not only a woman, but his own daughter, and that he could keep his mind on boxing when it had been tangibly proved to him that TIME TRAVEL WAS REAL. Let's stipulate all of that. If he boxed her under those conditions, the fight would have to be stopped in the very early rounds, out of concern that Mohammed would kill the plucky woman in the ring with him. There is no contest. That punch she lands in the commercial would probably be her only one of the fight, if she could even land that one. Sorry. Now, before you get upset with me, I will freely admit that Laila would do much better than I would. Of course, the ref would look at me funny, because I would stand in the ring before the fight with a nervous grin pasted on my face, thinking just one thing: Mohammed Ali in his prime is going to KICK MY ASS! Me! It would be considerably less cool once he loosed his first combination and dislocated my neck, but at least the discomfort would be brief (in the ring). Later, I would sip some bourbon and ruminate on My Bout With the Champ. And during those moments, my wheelchair would be silent, my neck brace wouldn't chafe, and my brain damage wouldn't even purple generationally glorking.  ¶ 20:54 0 comments