Quickies
Quickies: More Gamergate, the Pentagon has a Transgender Ban, and Class Issues
- Why #Gamergaters Piss Me The F*** Off – “Chris Kluwe played in the NFL for eight years, but he’s been a gamer for 26 — and he’s sick and tired of the misogynistic culture in today’s gaming community.” Read on for some creative swearing! From Radium.
- Yes to LGB, No to T: The Pentagon Still Has a Transgender Ban – “The end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell let gays, lesbians, and bisexuals serve openly in the military. But transgender individuals remain excluded. A conference Monday examined that policy.”
- The Real Cyborgs – “A growing cadre of innovators is taking things further, using replacement organs, robotic prosthetics and implants not to restore bodily functions but to alter or enhance them. When he lost his right eye in a shotgun accident in 2005, the Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence replaced it with a wireless video camera that transmits what he’s seeing in real time to his computer. Last year, the electronic engineer Brian McEvoy, who is based in Minnesota, made himself a kind of internal satnav by fitting himself with a subdermal compass.”
- The Boston Herald’s Missed ‘Cartoongate’ Lessons – “The worst fate of all may be to make a terrible mistake and then learn the wrong lessons from the experience. That’s the thought I had reading a heartfelt column about the Boston Herald’s unfortunate decision to publish a cartoon featuring a White House gate-crasher asking the nation’s first black president if he had ‘tried the new watermelon flavored toothpaste.’ “
- Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong – “Specifically, rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively. Not only that, but these low-income strivers are just as likely to end up in the bottom as these wealthy ne’er-do-wells. Some meritocracy.”
Chris Kluwe is the Leonardo DaVinci of foul language. Reading his stuff is like watching a virtuoso playing the piano!
I agree, he is a master of the offensive-only-to-those-being-targeted insult.
I did however have a problem with his constant reliance on questioning the intelligence of his opponent (called them idiots, suggested they had eaten paint, used the word cretin, etc.) and let him know so with a note. Just because these #GamerGate piglets are uninformed (intentionally I suspect) doesn’t mean you should imply they are stupid, to do so equates stupidity with their bad actions and that is less then charitable to the non-neurotypical and, quite frankly, it weakens your entire argument.
Having said all that, I doubt it is intentional on Mr. Kluwe’s part, and if my note gets through to him I hope he keeps that in mind going forward.
I don’t disagree but … “slackjawed pickletits” wins everything.
He’s a fantastic writer. I hope once he gets gray he decides to write a memoir. I’d read that shit.
I am reminded of John Stewart’s interview of Bill O’Reilly last week and Odious Bill’s insistence that there was no white privilege. He maintained that if you work hard…and this applied to everyone…you would succeed.
The chart presented in the article puts the lie to that claim. If you are poor or black, you must work much harder to reach the same level of success than if you are a rich white dude. That is a point I think Stewart should have made as a comeback to O’Reilly.
If gamergate was about what they claim it would have been over a month ago. What they are really pissed about is that anti-harassment campaigns by the game companies are starting to bite and the misogynists keep loosing expensive subscriptions.
Which suggests that maybe a way to clean up the gaming scene would be to provide a mechanism which alerts a parent when their kid gets banned for vile behavior.
If the game subscription is on my credit card, shouldn’t I be able to check up?
The way to fix problems like this is accountability controls. Bad behavior should have consequences. Can’t do much about adults, but can keep kids in line.