Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Descending into the abyss

So admittedly, I got a little distracted today at work. I've been saying for some time now that I would post some of the online "finds" of recent weeks, and I visited memepool in anticipation of such a post tonight, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything really great. Well, you know how these things go... First I followed a memepool link to the Unfortunate Animal of the Month Club. This one is my personal favorite, though I am also really fond of frankenbunny. Well, Cat Grey's links page (Cat Grey being the creator of the unfortunate animals), took me to another site, which in turn took me here. Who knew that goths had their own ebay-ish haunts? Somehow I got on an animal expedition of sorts and from link to link found myself admiring the tiger man and feeling somewhat astonished at the wide variety of fetishes there are in the world. In my defense, let me say that I used to work here and have even published a book about the Internet. That is to say, I used to surf the web for a living (and of course, write grants, as every writer for a nonprofit must do except those of us lucky enough to work for places that don't accept outside donations--let's hear it for the traditions). Of course, I don't surf the web for a living now, so there's really no excuse for my behavior today. I just got sucked into the perversity, what can I say?

Many of the other recent sites I have loved, have had to do with politics, shocking I'm sure. There's the Dishonest Dubya action figure, the George W. Bush speechwriter, and highlights from the first debate, Faces of Frustration. Thank god the Democratic Party has finally overcome the desire to take the high road, I say. On the less satirical and more sobering side of things, the Cost of War site I think is very effective, Convince Your Mom is cute, and this story by The Washington Post explains a thing or two (sorry, you have to register for that one, I think). Most depressing of all is the Iraq Body Count site.

Which reminds me of my ideas for the Kerry campaign. First, the next time an anti-abortion person asks him a question about her tax dollars going to fund abortion, I think Kerry should politely point out that regardless of his stance on abortion, he is the best candidate for anyone who cares passionately about the sanctity of life since we perhaps could have avoided the deaths of 13,000-and-counting people if we had managed not to go to war. (And on this note, let me say as an aside, that it really would be nice to have a Democratic candidate that wasn't quite so much of a hawk. Bring back the doves!)

My other idea, and this one I have held onto since "liberal" became an epithet during the Dukakis campaign, is for Kerry to read the dictionary definition of "liberalism" the next time Bush accuses him of being the most liberal man in the Senate (and if that's true the country is far worse off than even I imagined). Merriam-Webster says it's "a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties." Similarly, the American Heritage Dictionary defines it this way: "A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority." I think Kerry should just read that and ask Bush what part of that definition he is trying to distance himself from. I actually emailed that suggestion to the Kerry campaign, so if you hear him define liberalism during tomorrow's debate, you know where he got that idea from.

If you watched the last debate, you know that Kerry handled the accusation by stating that he didn't believe in labels. Frankly, I still do believe in the efficacy of labels (nice wiggling on that one, John), and I know the most liberal person in the Senate is my former senator, Russ Feingold,who was the only one out of the hundred of them with the guts to vote against the Patriot Act. If you're curious about how liberal your Senators are, check it out at Progressive Punch.

Okay, that's enough out of me for one night.

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