Ghoulish Gerlach

Edit: In the wake of the latest case of an abortion doctor being killed by a derange-o whose actions may have been fueled by overwrought self-righteous rhetoric, I would like to point out that any apparent wishing of violence upon specific individuals in any of my blogposts is simply an exercise in expressing negative feelings through fantasy, not a sincere wish for violence. Don't hurt people. Thank you.

In a recent (Thursday, May 21, 2009) letter to The Wall Street Journal (to which Laurie subscribes) there are several letters about an article on animal rights activists... not the car burning kind, the sober kind. A math professor at Ohio State University with the regrettable name of Ulrich Gerlach writes in to say:

"Your report makes repeated reference to "animal rights"... The supposition that animals (i.e. nonhumans) have "rights" is a contradiction in terms. A "right" is a moral principle that sanctions one's freedom of action in a social context. The concept of a "right" presupposes the existence of reason and volition, and the capacity to govern one's actions by means of moral principles. These capacities are absent in animals. Any attempt to evade this fact by talking about "animal rights" is to engage in the same fallacy as to talk about fictions such as unicorns or goblins."

Questions:

1. Why didn't Michael Vick's defence team call Professor Gerlach as an expert witness?

2. Did Ulrich Gerlach craft a definition of "rights" (his quotes, not mine) that leaves the door open for for human infant vivisection because he is

a. A sloppy thinker when it comes to real-world issues, as opposed to abstract mathematics?

b. A callow nihilist in spite of his self-assertion as definer of valid moral positions?

c. A vivisection fetishist?

d. All of the above?

Bonus question: Would any of these make him unique among WSJ subscribers?

3. When Professor Urlich writes "talking about 'animal rights' is to engage in the same fallacy as to talk about fictions such as unicorns or goblins" is he

a. Expressing a literal-minded mathematician's disdain for any discussion of fantasy and legend? Does he believe it is inherently fallacious to talk about unicorns or goblins?

b. Attempting to compare abstract conceptual values to fictional creatures? Is his phrasing comical in its grammatical wobbliness?


4. Should people who frame arguments about animal rights without mentioning such subjects as pain, cruelty, distress or anthrocentricism be gang-raped by grizzly bears until there is nothing left of them but a stain? If not, why not? Defend your position.

The Quick and The Dead and The Trash

The other day I was driving down South Cannon, a key road here in Kannapolis. I saw a guy walking on the side of the road FLING a plastic bottle into the woods. It was repression rather than restraint that prevented me from turning the wheel and sending him flying into the woods as well.

There's garbage all along the roadside around here, and trash is constantly blowing into our yard, our gardens; plastic bags like smoke ghosts clinging in our branches. I've lived all my life in the American Southeast, so I'm accustomed to filth and litter all over the place, but it seems to be more concentrated in this depressed small town. Probably a stagnating vicious cycle... if the place is a trash bin, why bother being clean?

* * *

I just finished The Quick and The Dead by Joy
Williams. At first I almost gave up on it because the adolescent characters seemed too arch to be believed, but I finally accepted the stylization and slid into a splendid examination of American Enigma. Consider reading it. Thank you.

Transcription (From Memory)

Page: You're listening to the Diane Rehm Show. I'm Susan Page, filling in for Diane, and our topic today is harsh interrogation tactics which the Bush administration has approved and defended, but which President Obama seeks to end. Our guests are Mike Posner, President of Human Rights First; Jess Bravin, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and Mark Thiessen, former speechwriter for President Bush. Mike, what's the story on harsh interrogation?

Mike: The Greatest Generation had a strict anti-torture policy, and they beat the Axis. We have a pro-torture policy, and we can't beat a bunch of scruffy cave dwellers.

Mark: We don't define it as torture if it works. Our interrogators tried going by the book and got diddly, but with harsh interrogation techniques we got info on all kinds of evil, and used that info to stop attacks on Americans.

Page: Such as?

Mark: Al-Quaida was totally gonna go ape all over us, but we got the info and stopped it.

Mike: Can you back that up with specifics?

Mark: I'm afraid I can't reveal the kind of high-level secrets that only speechwriters are privy to.

Jess: You know, I sat in on some Army interrogation training, and the by-the-book tactics aren't softball at all. They push people pretty far.

Mark: Nah, I've seen it. It's totally vanilla.

Mike: Vanilla?

Page: Let's take some calls. Hello Fred, you're on the air.

Fred: I'm a psychologist so I know what I'm talking about when I say that in Vietnam we learned that you do ANYTHING to get the information. You can't have your hands tied. You do whatever it takes to get the information. I can't tell you how many times I had to tie a guy up, slap him around, and press my genitals to his sweating, bristly face, just to get information out of him.

Mike: So those were the interrogation tactics used in Vietnam?

Fred: They were my tactics, and I find they're just as applicable to therapy.

Page: Really.

Fred: I've turned many a troubled teen around.

Mike: Say, didn't we lose in Vietnam?

Fred: Who's we, white man? Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Mihn! He taught us how to win!

Page: And that's about enough of Fred. Here's Becky from Nashville on line 2.

Becky: Speaking as President and Founder of the Nashville branch of the Daddy Touched Me And I Liked It Society, I believe real American Christian Men are tough. and in my White Christian McMansion with Thomas Kinkade prints on the wall, tough means being strong enough to put panties on the head of a guy who's been tied to a bedframe.

Mark: Now you're talkin'.

Becky: Don't forget, Jesus was a torturer!

Jess: Actually Jesus was tortured, not a torturer.

Becky: Are you saying Jesus was a terrorist?

Jess: No, the Romans thought he was a terrorist, so they tortured him on a false pretext.

Becky: That never happens I'm not listening LA LA LA. If you drew a Venn Diagram of "People Who Get Tortured" and "Terrorists" it would show a total overlap. We are an exceptional, moral, blessed nation, and that means we can do anything we want without jeapordizing our exceptional, moral, blessed status. If that means torturing a few creeps, so what?

Mark: Wow, I usually have to pay $3.95 per minute for this.

Page: Becky, thank you for your keen insights. Mark, zip your pants back up.

Mark: Look, this word "torture" is getting thrown around too freely. It's not torture if they're HEROES.

Mike: Where I come from Heroes is a dopey superhero soap opera. Only Neo-Cons think it's a reality show.

Mark: Mike, why do you love 9-11?

Mike: Suck it, gnome.

Mark: Okay then, Mike, let me ask you something. If you could have prevented 9-11 by sticking bamboo shoots under a terrorist's fingernails, would you have?

Jess: If I may interject here, 9-11 didn't happen because no one in America had the moral courage to torture terrorists. It happened because the CIA and FBI were acting like middle-schoolers who think each other is too stuck up. If they had shared information that they already had, the whole thing could have been averted.

Mark: Where's the fun in that? I can't go back to highlighting favorite passages in Naked Lunch! Tormenting young Arabic men is too important for the imagination alone! It needs to be explored... in all its shiny, wet glory...

Page: My hand to God, we are never discussing this topic again.

This Gust

I got a few days off recently, and returned to Kannapolis, just in time to

A. come over all sick again, days after declaring myself fully recovered, and

B. have the bathroom plumbing get all backed up. After a few false starts the landlord found a plumber who has worked in this area for many years. He worked on our house as Laurie and I discussed Jonathan Haidt's theories about the role of disgust in morality. I was pretty convinced that disgust had long since ceased to be an overwhelming factor in my moral views; not that I never feel disgust, but that I can differentiate between immorality that inspires disgust in me (murder, rape, child abuse, etc.) and acceptable things that inspire disgust (smoking, odd but harmless sexual practices, etc.).

Eventually the plumber got everything working. As I shook his hand, he said it should be good for another five years.

"By then," he added, "Obama will be out of office and I'll fix it again. I did a job for a black lady the other day. She said she voted for Obama and she'll vote for him again. I said 'you may be voting for a dead man.' I don't believe he'll make it."

It's possible, of course, that he was expressing a fear that many of Obama's supporters hold for the President-Elect. But his twisted smile suggested otherwise. It's also possible that he was hoping for Obama to be killed because he simply doesn't like Obama's politics. But I assumed, and assume still, that he was hoping for Obama's death out of Honkey Pride.

I don't know when I've gone so swiftly from gratitude to loathing. I wanted to take the hedge clippers to this cross-eyed hillbilly's fist-sized adam's apple.

Of course I did nothing but glower at him and stiffly walk away, but the link between disgust and moral views was, for me, sharply reasserted.

My last post mentioning Larry Langford, honest

It's "Mission Accomplished" for Larry; he's been allowed to put a big tax burden on the poor with a regressive tax, no one seems to care, and now he better provide all the stuff he's promised to supply (rotsa ruck). I want lower crime, better education, and economic prosperity in Birmingham as much as anyone, but there's a difference between loud promises and actual accomplishments. Would it have killed us to put the tax burden on folks who can afford yachts, rather than people who can't afford rowboats?

Third Post of the Day: did I mention that Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford Sucks?

From this Alabama News article Re: Langford's regressive sales tax increase:

Olivia Thompson, a former city bus driver forced to leave her job because of a disability, said she lives on just $607 a month.

"They're saying one penny's just one penny," the West End resident said. "It's not just one penny if they double and triple taxes for business owners. That's going to spill over to us, and we won't even be able to afford food stamps."

Langford, who dropped in for about 10 minutes of the evening meeting and took the microphone, dismissed such fears.

"If a penny's going to break you, you're already broke anyway, so don't worry about it," he told the cheering crowd.


What a callous little man. A domed stadium might be a good idea, but don't put the burden on those least able to bear it.

It's the cheering crowd that gets me, though. Birmingham is dumb. Dumb like a frog.

Birmingham, Alabama has the Mayor it deserves.

The winner of the new Platinum Douchebag for Excellence in Sucking is Birmingham's new mayor, Larry Langford, for proposing a sales tax increase to pay for the products of his synapse misfirings. Please help me hate him for pushing this regressive tax. Why does he like regressive, poor-people-punishing taxes so much? What is he, a Republican or something?

The Actor's Nightmare, Extended

The other night I had an intriguing version of The Actor's Nightmare. That's the dream where you're in a play, but you realize that you've never read the script or attended rehearsal, and you're about to publickly screw up and let down everyone who's counting on you to make the show work. It's awful.

But this time the dream began earlier on the day of the show. I was aware that I still had time to read the script, but first I had to take care of some chores. So I went through the day (I'm not going to bore you with a blow-by-blow; I usually have a rule against sharing dreams) and with each task I tried to perform I realized I was having the same basic problem as in the regular actor's nightmare: I didn't know what to do or how to do it, and people were watching as I screwed up and let them down. Again and again. The dream ended backstage with the curtain about to go up, and my realizing that I never did get around to reading the script.

It's like The Actor's Nightmare extended to cover my whole life, which is about right.

Shame on Animeigo

Animeigo is an Anime distribution company that's been around since the relatively early days of anime distribution in the West; it's always had a rep for being a scrappy little company, by fans, for fans. That's cool. And recently they released domestic versions of the Urusei Yatsura movies. That's cool. Urusei Yatsura is a goofy comedy series created by Rumiko Takahashi of Ranma 1/2 and Inu-Yasha fame, but the second Urusei Yatsura movie (from the future director of gloomy SF art anime like Ghost in the Shell) was moody and weird in a way I really enjoyed. The second one was the only one I could find until recently, so I was eager to see the others.

Recently Netflix delivered the first one to my mailbox, and in typical Aaron fashion I watched the behind-the-scenes feature of the English dubbing before I watched the film. It's simply footage of the English dub voice actors recording lines, and I found it reassuring; anime dubs are a crapshoot, but these actors mostly seemed like the real deal. Lovely voices and the line readings had integrity.

Then I watched the film, and found the dub disappointing. It was like a patchwork quilt in which the patches were mostly good but they'd been poorly stitched together. The level and nature of the emoting didn't match the visuals very tightly, and that's the directors' fault (there are two credited dub directors) since the director's supposed to be responsible for making sure the actors' efforts are matching up.

Plus there was a lot of "indicating" in the dub. You know how, when you're telling a story about something that happened to you, you'll demonstrate what people said with "angry voice" or "confused voice" or whatever? They're not convincingly angry or confused voices, and they're not supposed to be; they just communicate the idea of anger or confusion. Well, that's called Indicating in thesp-talk and it works in a story but not as a theatrical or cinematic performance. When an actor does it, it seems half-baked and phony. There's a lot of that in this dub.

But that's not why I'm angry at Animeigo; like I say, cruddy dubs are common in anime. I'm angry about another bonus feature on the DVD. It's a half-hour collection of dub auditions that didn't make the cut; it opens with humorous opening titles and hollerin' sound FX that communicate we're about to hear something really painful. Then we're treated to a bunch of audio auditions, some of them actually bad, some just odd. The implication is that we should spend a half-hour scorning the auditionees who weren't picked.

Well. Every working actor has auditioned and been turned down before. Your Favorite Actor has auditioned and been rejected. It's part of the deal, so holding up unchosen actors for scorn is simply wrongheaded. It's also callow and swinish; how would you like it if you applied for a job or school and later found your application on their website under the heading "Check out the essays that didn't make the cut LOL!" A company that treats applicants with such contempt is a company that doesn't deserve to stay in business. Actors should be able to audition without fearing that any uninspired performances on their part won't be trotted out for the sneering amusement of others.

One more thing: although putting this audition reel on the DVD would be rotten even if the actors on it all stank, some of them seemed about as good as the folks who DID get selected, which suggests the real reason Animeigo put this reel on the DVD at all; it's the classic insecure person's tactic of elevating oneself by pushing others down. "Look what a good job we did! After all, we didn't hire these losers!" Actually, Animeigo, you did a poor job on that dub, even with some pretty good actors on there, so screw you. I won't be buying or renting anymore Animeigo products.

Nashville Cabaret

This went way better than I feared it would. Bongo Java is a teensy performance space, and I like it that way. OTOH it's too darn hot; I thought I was going to collapse from heat prostration right in the middle of my first song. I wanted to trade costumes with the dancing girls; ya'll wear this heavy jacket, I'll wear the skimpy fishnets. Anything to stay cool. Anyway, if you go to Bongo Java, try the granola. Yum!

The feedback I got from the family and friends who saw it was that it was quite good but about three weeks too long. "Leave 'em wanting more" is not the credo of our little group. More like "Pound 'em into submission." But it turns out I enjoy the stress and payoff of taking the show on the road. My voice is shot (mostly because of the transition from cold weather to hot) but now I'm looking forward to doing it again in Atlanta.

Also I publicly (and onstage) declared my big crush on fellow cabaret performer Kimberly, regarding which the reader is referred to this post.

Meanwhile, the prayer vigil for my neighbor continues. Never before have I heard him when he was in his apartment and I was in mine, but last night I clearly heard him doing what he does best: cussing real loud, apparently into his phone. Does this burst of renewed vigor indicate that he's in better health than ever, or is it the Thorn Bird's Song? Here's hoping it's his dying throes. Keep praying

Let Us Prey

I saw that awful neighbor the other day. He looked really bad but he's still alive. You people are not praying hard enough. Oh ye of little faith. Here's the new prayer:

Oh Lord, kill the bastard already. Just take one of those deaths You're planning to ship to someone in Darfur and hit him with it instead. Make it look like an accident, oh Lord, so law enforcement won't read this blog and think I had anything to do with it.

Selah

Kill him, oh Lord, and he will be killed. I know You don't make no trash, but some of what you make becomes trash, and that horrible neighbor of mine is a case in point. I've had bowel movements that deserved more respect than him. Flush him, oh Lord.

A Man's Home is His Castle.

I live in a teeny apartment. I like it there; it's a lovely, safe neighborhood, and as soon as I clean up the mess I've been accumulating, it's going to be a pleasant home. Only one problem. The Crazy Scumbag Upstairs And Across. He usually lies low, but tonight, not for the first time but for the first time in a while, he stomped downstairs and loudly pounded on the door of the woman who lives under him and across from me, hollering profaine demands that she keep it down. I was sound asleep until Dr. Douchebag started carrying on (around two in the morning, per his own hollering). Ponder the psychology of someone who is outraged to have been awakened, but who deals with his outrage by waking everyone else.

So I've written a little prayer for him. I ask that you pray along with me if you are so moved.

Dear Lord, Creator of the Universe and Lord of Love: please kill this guy. We don't need his worthless ass around here, o Lord. Please kill him. I'll give You fifty bucks. And I don't mean kill him "in Your good time," I mean TODAY.

Just to be fair...

A "Cut him some slack" post from liberal cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall. Of course Rall needs to cut Danny Hellman some slack, Hellman being a talented illustrator and prankster who pulled a mean prank on Rall and has been in court for years as a result. So here's the deal: Ted, drop the lawsuit and I'll, uh, stop dissing Mallard Fillmore. Deal? Probably not.

Reindeer Monologues

Birmingham Festival Theatre is doing Reindeer Monologues again this year, and I'm trying to relearn my monologue. I'm finding that it's familiar enough to take for granted, but not familiar enough that I actually know the thing. It's going to be fun to do it again, but relearning it may be a bit of a chore. Some of my fellow returning reindeer are reconcieving their roles, and while I'm not planning any sweeping changes I am trying to fine tune a few things. On the other hand I somewhat agree with David Mamet that actor-y acting, lots of technique, is mostly wasted effort. I worry that honing the perfect line readings will only distract me from maintaining clear energy and focus. a sequence of polished line readings could, perhaps, result in a credible performance, but mightn't it end up pasteurized and homogenized? That's no good.

In this show Comet is a spin doctor, and I based a lot of my rhetorical choices on preachers. Only after the show closed did I realize that Chuck Swindoll had been my main model, since he's the only fiery preacher I ever heard growing up. I suspect he must be less sociopolitically conservative than many preachers with that fiery Billy Sunday style, since my Mom listened to him regularly. One interesting detail: whenever I delivered Comet's spin-filled defense of the play's wayward Santa it was impossible (for me, anyway) to not think of Karl Rove et al. Will the monologue play a bit differently now that Rove and company have had to eat an all too thin sliver of humble pie?

Speaking of oversized political figures, I have a notion of what my next performance after Reindeer Monologues may be, but it's only a tenuous offer so I shouldn't say much more. But it would involve playing a satirical version of a real-life politico.

Is anything else going on? I got a car, but it's bad luck to even acknowledge the existence of these terrible things; any little jinx will cause them to break down. Oh, but speaking of car trouble, did you hear that Bruce Tinsley, the guy who does the abysmal comic strip Mallard Fillmore, got busted for drunk-ass driving? Second offense on four months? And he accused the cops of hassling him out of some kind of grudge? Source... Way to duck (No pun intended) that personal responsibility to which you guys give so much lip service, Little Tinsley Jesus!

Truth be told, I'm not getting my schadenfreude on because of his position on the sociopolitical spectrum, but because, as comics critic R. Fiore put it in
The Comics Journal, Tinsley should be arrested for impersonating a cartoonist. You can be as far right as you want if you're funny or insightful. You'll never hear me dis P. J. O'Rourke, who's a rock-ribbed conservative, but is also brilliantly funny. And if O'Rourke were busted for drunk driving, he'd own up to it. Heck, it would fit his Republican Party Reptile persona. Considering how many conservative figures have fallen to the hypocrisy problem in recent months, I'd suggest more of them drop the spray-on "Values" and become RPRs like O'Rourke. Hey, if the values are really your values, great, but if not, find some other way to pander to the base.

Edit: Obviously Tinsley needs to do the decent thing and say "I've got a problem. I'm seeking help." I hope he gets it. I suspect there's a connection between the quivering nastiness of his comics and his alcohol problem. By "nastiness" I emphatically do not mean "conservatism."