The White Peril 白禍 http://whiteperil.com/ en-us 2008-04-17T03:04+00:00 Eeeeeven told the golden daaaaaffodilllll http://whiteperil.com/posts/1208401607.shtml Eric doesn't like being labeled, and not for the usual tiresome I'm-too-free-spirited-to-be-defined reasons:... Sean 2008-04-17T03:04+00:00 labeled, and not for the usual tiresome I'm-too-free-spirited-to-be-defined reasons:

While I can say what I think about most things, experience shows that adopting any label invites conformity to it. (Especially criticism from those who claim it.)

Once you say what you are, some a**hole will come along and say that you're not, because he is.

Similarly, once you say what you aren't, some a**hole will come along and say that you are, because he isn't.


It's convenient that (small-l) "libertarian" suits me fine, because it tends not to set people off. I like "classical liberal," but (today's left) liberals often seem to think you're trying to dress up as one of them while being a closet fascist. ("Yeah, you're a liberal in the sense that, like, Mill would have meant it," someone sneered at me once.) And while my positions on many issues align with what we now consider "conservatism," I'm not fundamentally a conservative. (Well, I am when some gross guy is hitting on me. Then I identify myself as a "conservative" in a clear, forceful tone and mention that I'm a registered Republican. You movement conservatives don't mind the fib, do you? It's to the end of preventing casual homosexual intercourse, after all. And I really am a registered Republican.)

The only problem with calling yourself a libertarian--besides, as Eric alludes to, being invited by supposed fellow travelers to engage in poker-faced debates over the most inane hypothetical situations imaginable--is that a lot of people don't understand that it doesn't mean "libertine" or "anarchist." I can't count the number of times I've had to explain that no, I don't think all governing bodies should be dissolved so we can frolic naked in meadows all day and subsist on game and wild berries. In general, though, even those who conclude I'm just a closet right-winger seem to give me a fair hearing without rancor.

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My buddy grabbed my arm the other night and asked whether I'd seen Julie Burchill's inevitable column about the new Madonna album yet. He summarized it as "If I spent four hours a day at the gym, I'd look better than that bitch!" Not too far wide of the mark:

Madonna is everywhere, reigning over the just and the unjust, friend and foe alike; loving her or hating her is as futile as loving or hating the rain, wind or snow - it'll happen anyway.

...

If Madonna didn't devote her life to harassing us, what would she do with herself all day? Remember, this is a woman with so much time on her hands that she can spend four hours a day working out. I know I'm fat, but I have to say that if I spent four hours a day working out, I'd want to look a damn sight hotter than Madonna does; those vile veiny hands, that sad stringy neck - yuck!


Madonna has the sort of body that tends toward the plump/luscious side; you can see it in her early videos. Endomorphs like that who diet and exercise themselves into having no body fat often end up with skin that has a weird stretched look.

The rest of the column is the exact same thing Burchill writes whenever a Madonna record comes out, and it's as funny (and bawdy) as usual.

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Surprise! Hillary Clinton once said something nasty behind closed doors about white, working-class Southerners (via Ann Althouse):

In January 1995, as the Clintons were licking their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at a retreat at Camp David. Should the administration make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach.

"Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."


And since some things never change, Clinton's spokesman responds with contempt when asked about the authenticity of the quotation:

A spokesperson for Clinton said the quote was taken out of context and did not reflect her true political philosophy. "This quote differs from the recollection of others who were in the room at the time this comment was allegedly made," said Jay Carson. "To be clear, that's not how she felt then and it's not how she feels now, and the proof is in how she has lived her life, the work she has done and the policies she has pushed and pursued over the last 35 years."

Asked to produce a witness who would say that Clinton had been misquoted, Carson wrote: "So, you've got two guys we've barely heard of remembering a verbatim quote from 13 years ago?... Sounds totally and completely reliable."


Remember the Clinton administration, when we were subjected to that kind of smear-and-spin routine almost daily when something or other threatened to blow up in the happy couple's faces? We could be mere months from going back to it!

Eric also noticed this story. (He didn't say much about it, but, then, he had to go to New Jersey, so he had plenty of pain to contend with already.)

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I don't think this post has enough parentheses.
]]> Pack it and move it http://whiteperil.com/posts/1208089312.shtml Does anyone out there know where my evening shirt is?... Sean 2008-04-13T12:04+00:00
Well, what good are you?

I thought I always kept it inside the dinner jacket on the same hanger, but unless it's invisible, it's not there. I hope I didn't leave it in Atsushi's closet when I moved out.

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How is it possible for one man to have so many vases? If there were ever any doubt that I'm gay, it's been dispelled by the four boxes of decorative housewares I've just packed. Mind you, they don't include anything you could eat off or store something in.

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It's time for me to break a pair of sunglasses. Or maybe lose them. I can feel it. The weather keeps going from sunny to cloudy, so you need them sometimes and then not others. They end up in a pocket or dangling by one slender arm from my bag. I seem to have a thing for dropping them in cabs or putting them down on tables and putting something heavy on them. I school myself resolutely to keep them in their little crush-proof cases, but it never works.

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I'm not entirely sure why, but I have The Descent in the DVD player, and I'm finding it oddly comforting to have it playing while I'm packing. Given the increasing claustrophic-cave-like-ness of my apartment, you'd think it would make me afraid of confronting a throat-biting humanoid in the bathroom or something, but I actually find it rather cozy. And I used to be of those people who were completely unable to handle horror movies. (When I was growing up, all the talk of demons waiting to getcha we got in church affected my over-active imagination a good deal.)

BTW, if you like suspense and have a strong stomach, The Descent is a great little movie. It's bloody and seriously scary at times, but you don't leave it feeling cynically worked over. It's thoughtful and raises interesting questions without being pretentious, and the cave scenes are very persuasive even though they were all shot on a soundstage. I love hypertrophied old Hollywood glamour-orgy productions as much as the next gay man, but there's a lot to be said for a movie made by people who relied on ingenuity, skill, and conviction rather than piles of money.]]> Visibility http://whiteperil.com/posts/1207032002.shtml Stephen Miller at IGF posts about an Advocate column responding to the murder at school of a cross-dressing fifteen-year-old who lived in a facility for troubled youth.... Sean 2008-04-01T06:04+00:00 posts about an Advocate column responding to the murder at school of a cross-dressing fifteen-year-old who lived in a facility for troubled youth.

Of course, it's partially Bush's fault. No, really. Here's part of Neal Broverman's Advocate piece:

"Part of the role of a school is to teach young people how to function in a democracy," says Kevin Jennings, a former teacher and the founder and executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, a national organization working to ensure safe schools for LGBT students. "In a democracy we protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Where are they going to get that lesson? They've got to learn it in school." [Note unassailable logic of preceding sentences--SRK]

But they don't. At least not in the way they did before the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted by Congress in 2002 at the Bush administration's urging.

"There's been a real retrenchment of antibullying and diversity programs since No Child Left Behind," says Jennings. "What that's done is establish standardized testing as the only measure of good schools. In the late '90s there was a lot of momentum around multiculturalism and diversity. That was really reversed by this imposition of standardized testing. A lot of educators are frustrated because they understand the importance of addressing some of these larger [social] efforts, but when they try to they're told, 'You've just got to get the math scores up.'"


Is standardized testing the only measure of school performance that's currently given weight? I'm no education expert, but my understanding is that schools are still rated according to their safety standards; it's hard to believe that a pattern of violent bullying that goes unpunished wouldn't be factored in there--assuming the reporting administrators are being honest. Keeping schools from finding ways to cook the numbers to make themselves look better has been a major issue since the program was first implemented. Still, that doesn't mean the shift from trying to teach kids huggy multiculturalism to trying to teach them math is in and of itself a bad one.

There was a violence prevention program in place at the school that attempted to teach kids how to manage their emotions and empathize with others. Would a gay-straight alliance or more explicit attention to tolerance of gay kids have helped? Possibly.

Broverman delivers the usual coarse generalities about "violence as a solution to conflict" (bad, very bad), but he raises the common-sense point that maybe King's elders should have taught him a bit more caution when it came to wearing heels and eye makeup and adopting a flippant, teasing persona in a school full of teenagers. Miller reports that a cadre of social welfare busybodies naturally flipped out:

Braverman [sic--his name is Broverman according to the by-line] raised serious issues that are certainly worth discussing. But his piece provoked strong criticism from certain activist quarters, as in this Open Letter to The Advocate from "lawyers, advocates, and child welfare professionals" who declare "hiding fuels hatred" and that "We cannot keep children safe by hiding them. Succumbing to fear creates an environment in which hatred thrives. Invisibility is just another, more insidious, killer." [A dumbfounding thing to say in connection with a child whose flamboyance just got him shot--SRK]

That sounds a awful lot like the kind of sloganeering that is meant to stifle open discussion rather than foster it. Gay adults know that, if they choose, they can walk hand in hand down a street of a non-gay neighborhood--and they know that in a great many neighborhoods they will risk getting beaten (or worse) for it. That's a choice adults can make.



I think Miller shows impressive restraint. What kind of moron do you have to be to go around telling children that they can just go around expressing themselves however they like and expect the world to love them for it? Or even to expect those who do love them for it to be able to bail them out every time they land themselves in trouble? I daresay that most people go through junior high school hiding what they are to some extent; that's how you get along. Teenagers learn through trial and error, as their personalities are gelling, how much they're willing to hold back in order to avoid making waves and how much they're not. This is not just a gay issue.

In a free society, the authorities aren't policing everywhere you go and everything you do. You can go about your business as a law-abiding citizen without being watched all the time, but the trade-off is that you can get yourself into dangerous situations when no one is in a position to help you. It only takes minutes to get beaten up, and less than that to get stabbed or shot. (In this particular case, one of the issues is how McInerney managed to get a gun onto school property undetected; but then, if he was that much bigger and stronger than King, he could probably have broken his neck or banged his head hard enough to kill him without a weapon.) Eliminating the real dangers gays face is not going to be achieved by griping that they shouldn't exist and teaching young people to pretend they don't.

Added on 2 April: I originally characterized the junior high school in the story as being for troubled youth because, for some reason, I read the article that way. Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for pointing out that it appears actually to have been a regular old junior high school with some kind of anger management program. I've excised the two misleading sentences above, and while I hate to be told I've made a stupid mistake, I'm actually kind of glad to learn that particular information about the school. I was originally utterly baffled that counselors would tell a fifteen-year-old that a school for troubled kids was a good place for him to start cross-dressing. I still think they were irresponsible, but I guess I'm a bit less baffled now.]]> 男尊女卑 http://whiteperil.com/posts/1206668509.shtml Speaking of fags making civic-minded gestures of dubitable effectiveness, one of the higher-ups in the Stonewall Democrats chapter at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has decided that the logo for... Sean 2008-03-28T01:03+00:00 Advice Goddess). You've probably narrowed the reason down to just a handful of possibilities. Read the quotation below to see whether you guessed the correct PC transgression!

LSA senior Kolby Roberts, a member of the Stonewall Democrats who has led the effort, said he finds the logo's message inappropriate and offensive.

"I have a problem that you take a women riding a hamburger and you put it next to the word 'quickie,'" he said. "It just seems like it's not putting a good message out there for the objectification of women."


Please. No gay man on Earth is in any position to be complaining about others' sexually objectifying anyone. Sorry. Just, no. You can complain that it's inappropriate in a given context, but that would require more precise thinking. It would also require thinking about manners and the evolution of beneficial social mores and stuff, and you might end up saying something judgmental.

Anyway, the reason this story caught my eye, besides Amy Alkon's funny commentary, was the lameness of the complainers' reasoning:

Roberts said he believed the image was distasteful, regardless of the person.

"Basically, what it has is a provocatively dressed woman straddling a hamburger, and she's very busty and its kind of really horrible," he said.


"Kind of really horrible"? Good thing you're an engineering major, darlin', 'cause you're not doing our famed gay skill at delivering pithy witticisms any justice.

How things have degraded. Back in my college days, when dinosaurs and Massive Attack roamed free, the affronted leaders of feminist and gay student groups would at least have had some pseudo-philosophical hoodoo to make their pique sound deeply meaningful. Where's the mention of the "male gaze"? Where's the invocation of the "hostile intellectual environment"? And it's Michigan--shouldn't we be bringing Catharine MacKinnon into the act? What are they teaching kids these days?

Added on 29 March: Eric is in Ann Arbor at the moment and has checked the place out.]]> Trust me when I say I know the pathway to your heart http://whiteperil.com/posts/1206078191.shtml The story's a good week old, but considering what old news it is anyway, I don't feel all that dumb linking to it now. R.E.M. has a new album out... Sean 2008-03-27T05:03+00:00 new album out soon, and the hype-o-rator has been on full-blast for weeks. Who knows? Maybe it really is the band's best album in over a decade, and old fans should be getting all spazzy with anticipation. (Personally, I dropped away after Automatic for the People, which to me is about as melodious and ear-pleasing as the reaction of a cat when you throw a bucket of ice water over it. I'm clearly in the minority on that one, though.)

Anyway, there's a usual flurry of interviews and photo shoots and magazine covers. GayNews reports that Michael Stipe has finally just cut the crap and identified himself as gay:

This week he told Spin magazine, "I recognize that to have public figures be very open about their sexuality helps some kid somewhere out there."

Although Stipe has never felt the need to discuss his sexuality before, he informed the magazine that he now felt that it was important to be open and honest in order to provide understanding and hope for the younger generation.

"It was super complicated for me in the '80s. I was totally open with the band and my family and my friends and certainly the people I was sleeping with. I thought it was pretty obvious."

Stipe stated that in the past he didn't see that being out could be so important for others. "I didn't always see that. But I see now, of course that's the case, of course that's needed."


Considering how fervently Stipe embraced everything else on the leftist checklist, it's kind of funny that he didn't see coming out of the closet, of all things, as being important. But I see no reason not to take him at his word. He did, after all, make a point of being uncategorizable and enigmatic about his private life--and why not?--and he's been open about being bisexual for years. If he's decided he is, in fact, gay, then sure, no reason he shouldn't be up-front about it with the public if he likes.

I'm not sure the announcement will have the effect of "helping some kid out there," though. Gay kids already know that it's possible to be an open homosexual if, like Stipe, you're constantly going to be pushing what a "transgressive" weirdo you are. Especially if you've also already made a pile and aren't risking much in the way of money and career trajectory. I'm not faulting Stipe for waiting until he was ready to reveal this or that about himself; I'm only saying that it's a bit late to be all public-spirited about it in the way he seems to want to be.

BTW, before anyone tries to call me on it: Yes, the joke of the post title is that "Superman" was neither written by R.E.M. nor sung by Michael Stipe.]]> Things I don't get http://whiteperil.com/posts/1205905411.shtml Cab drivers in Taipei don't like taking you to an intersection. Ask for "Zhongxiao East Road where it crosses Dunhua South Road," and you frequently get a blank look. "Which section?"... Sean 2008-03-19T05:03+00:00 See? These two streets. They cross here. Take me to the intersection...any old corner will do by this point. I stabbed conclusively with the pen. No reaction. Finally, I remembered I wanted Section 4. Scrawled it down. The driver beamed. Oh, okay. Zhongxiao East Road Section 4. Why didn't you just say so? Well, I gave you the intersecting street. We're not talking about Moebius Avenue and Tesseract Boulevard--they're two major arteries, and they only cross in one place!

Another time I was in a speeding cab with a few guys who do, in fact, speak Chinese. They asked for the intersection of Something and Something. "Which section?" An exchange of looks among the passengers--did anyone remember? "Section 2!" the guy next to me said, in clear confident tones. Then he turned to the rest of us. "It probably isn't Section 2, so when we get there, we'll just ask him to keep going to the next section until we get to the right intersection."

I've lived in Japan for twelve years and am used to being baffled by cultural differences. I have to say, though, I'm stumped by this one. Maybe it's because the cities I'm used to are New York (where the address numbers can't be divined from the street numbers) and Tokyo (where half the streets don't even have names), but most of the cabs I've been in in my lifetime refuse to move for you unless you pinpoint the intersection you're going to. No one has been able to explain to me how Taipei ended up developing the other way, though I can see why passengers would use addresses more often, since the address-numbering system here is very intuitive.

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You can be openly gay and get the benefits (nothing to hide), or you can be closeted and get the benefits (acceptance into the mainstream at all levels). You cannot do both. Those who want to be vociferously gay and simultaneously demand that people accept and adore them for it are insufferable, but it's people with the opposite problem who've been inflicting themselves on me lately, so they're the ones I'm going to grouse about.

You want to get married and have children? Good for you. It's none of my business. Whether you really feel affection for your wife or just want your family elders to get off your case or think you'll look more socially stable when it's promotion time at work, I don't care. However, sweetie, if you're going to sit in a gay bar (run by someone who's not afraid to show his face to the licensers and beer distributors and everyone else as the manager of a known gay bar), drinking whisky (served by guys who are not afraid to work at a known gay bar), talking to me (gay, for those who haven't noticed), then do not expect sympathy when you launch into a monologue about how hard it is to lead a double life, how you hate sneaking around, how you feel lonely all the time, and how you're really scared you'll run into a colleague in the wrong place someday. What exactly is the reaction you're expecting? We all make our trade-offs, and by definition, that means we're not going to get some things we want. News flash: If you hide what you are, you're going to feel like you're hiding all the time. Part of taking grown-up responsibility for your own choices is accepting that and not taking every opportunity to whine about it. Sheesh.]]> Over and over http://whiteperil.com/posts/1205301247.shtml Occasionally, the thought flits through my head that maybe Go Fug Yourself isn't quite as funny as I think it is. Then I start guffawing again and forget all about it.... Sean 2008-03-12T05:03+00:00 This is Heather's riff on one of the photo-op photos from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions last night:

igmaju.jpg


MADONNA: And the arms, they work, right? Young people have great arms. Justin probably has awesome arms. He's kind of my inspiration, actually. God, I just want to use my fearsome guns to tear off his young flesh and eat it.

JUSTIN: I don't know why, but I'm suddenly afraid that Madonna is going to use her fearsome guns to tear off my young flesh and eat it.

IGGY: I wonder what it'd taste like if I used Madonna's fearsome guns to tear off that kid's young flesh and eat it.


I'm still not sure how much of Madonna's strangeness of appearance is due to getting work done; a lot of it could be all the dieting and working out. No question, though, that she's bringing the same determination to staying "youthful" that she did to becoming a star. And (to bring up Taylor Dayne for the second time in a week) M. at least is working with her facial structure rather than against it.

To see Madonna's continued ability to polarize people in action, refer to this comment thread at Ann Althouse's.]]> It's Tuesday http://whiteperil.com/posts/1204024013.shtml The staff at my office here in Taipei have given me two different nicknames. I was designated "Evil Pink Guy" (by one of the fags, naturally--we're such bitches) the day I... Sean 2008-02-26T11:02+00:00
I'm honestly not sure which one I prefer. Being known as the Evil Pink Guy could, it seems to me, have its advantages.

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Hokkaido Diet member Muneo Suzuki, an uncommonly proficient glad-hander even by Japanese standards, has had one of his sentences upheld:

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday upheld a two-year prison sentence against Lower House member Muneo Suzuki, a once-powerful politician convicted of accepting 11 million yen in bribes and other crimes.

...

Although prosecutors can incarcerate Suzuki, his lawyers have requested his release on bail, meaning the lawmaker will likely be able to continue his political activities.

Under the Diet Law, lawmakers accused of bribery while in office lose their seats only when a guilty verdict is finalized.

Suzuki, a former member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, once wielded enormous influence over the Foreign Ministry, particularly on Russian affairs, and publicly clashed with then Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka during the Junichiro Koizumi administration.

But his power eroded after he became embroiled in a series of money scandals.

The lawmaker was found guilty of collecting 6 million yen from Shimada Kensetsu Co., a contractor based in Abashiri, Hokkaido, for his influence in gaining the company preferential treatment for a contract in a large-scale port construction project.


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A town in Saga Prefecture has a different (ahem) incentive plan in mind:

The Karatsu Municipal Government will from April start providing special bonuses to any citizens 75 or over who have not needed medical treatment or special health care over the previous 12 months.

Healthy elderly Karatsu citizens will be able to receive a special 10,000 yen payment provided they are on the list the city draws up for entitled recipients and they decide to apply for it themselves.

Karatsu's move to reward healthy older citizens is the first such step for a Japanese municipality.

Karatsu is hoping the idea will catch on and encourage older people to look after their health to cut potential rises in medical costs as the city's population ages.


The original Japanese for the program is ご長寿健康手当 (go-chouju kenkou teate: "payment for health in [exalted] longevity"), but it sounds to me more patronizing than respectful. Those who are already over 75 (or will be hitting 75 in the foreseeable future) are at a point at which there's not a whole lot they're likely to be able to do to affect which ailments they're prone to. They can be extra careful not to fall and break fragile bones, I suppose, but their range of choices is going to be kind of limited.

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The new Janet is okay. By which I mean the album. The new Janet herself appears to have gone further toward Michael/LaToya-fying her nose. Kind of spooky.]]> Family http://whiteperil.com/posts/1197301535.shtml ... Sean 2007-12-10T15:12+00:00 post with an interesting comment thread--interesting because it addresses a serious sore spot of an issue without devolving into snarky one-liners. The issue (which is only part of what the original post is about) is the extent to which our gay civic duty, as it were, compels us to identify with people we don't really have much in common with besides homosexuality.]]> 毛深い http://whiteperil.com/posts/1191228428.shtml While everyone else is debating whether there are gays in Iran, this fag (note unapologetic hegemonic-Western assertion of identity--BUTCH, huh?) is wondering anew at how beyond sexy Hugh Jackman is,... Sean 2007-10-01T08:10+00:00 beyond sexy Hugh Jackman is, even if the hair needs a trim (just the hair on his head, obviously).

Speaking of body hair, I'm normally pretty persnickety about this sort of thing--don't get me started on visible clip-on bow ties at black tie parties--but I'm not sure I can fall in line with this post (via Ann Althouse). I can see arguing that grown men shouldn't wear shorts because it violates adult etiquette. I can see pointing out that shorts flatter well-shaped legs and don't flatter dumpy ones. Hell, attractiveness isn't even always the issue. I've been fighting with friends who tell me I should show more chest hair when we go out for years. My relatively smooth buddies can have three buttons open, and you don't even notice. I have three buttons open, and I look as if I should have a sign around my neck that says, "Ask about my low all-night rates!"

But looking decent and looking comely are two different, if related, considerations that it's not good to slush together. (Is it proposed that we go the whole way and ask people who lost the genetic lottery on bone structure and complexion to wear paper bags over their heads?) Noisome breath and body odor or noisy chewing--that sort of thing is inescapable to people around you, so it's flat-out inconsiderate to inflict it on them. I have a hard time equating that with covering up your legs lest someone deem them too hairy.]]>