Javiera y Los Imposibles – "Eyes Without a Face"

A cover by a Chilean band of one's of Billy Idol's more intimate, evocative songs (which takes its name from a French horror film).

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2013: Train

Last year, we looked at the Nazi-era board game Juden Raus, so it seemed appropriate this year to look at Brenda Brathwaite's unconventional game, Train.

The Wall Street Journal gives a very good introduction with its 2009 video and interview, "The Board Game No One Wants to Play More Than Once":

The entire interview is short and worth reading in its entirety, but here are some key sections:

Not all players have the same experiences. I understand that someone who played the game compared it to “Halo”?

Yes, that has happened only once, and it was incredibly surprising to me, to the other players and to the people watching. It is not a common experience. The woman later told me she felt guilty about it, though. I think her callousness was an incredible learning opportunity for all of us. Some people approach the game and see it for what it is immediately, and their reaction is no less visceral than those who play the game. There are those who play all the way until the end and then realize where the trains were going – and it is such a steep drop. People become nauseated. Their faces flush. People have cried. There is always a one-hour period of discussion after (or two hours at MIT).

With that singular “Halo” exception, no one has ever wanted to play again. There is then the second experience, one of watching the game being played. I have watched it dozens of times now, and it still nauseates me when people put the passengers in the cars. I am fascinated when one player figures it out – puts it together – and suddenly stops his or her progression toward the end and instead works diligently to thwart everyone else. This player will often immediately request the rules wondering how he or she can subvert the system to save everyone. The dynamics of the experience are fascinating, moving and emotional for everyone, me included.

[…]

Why do you think games are a good medium for approaching difficult periods of history such as the Holocaust? I’d imagine some could argue that making a game trivializes the subject matter.

They could and have argued that, but it doesn’t. It makes it extremely powerful, and I haven’t shown the subject any disrespect. I’ve created an experience through interactivity, much like museums have created an experience through the use of image and sound and space. I think games are a good medium for approaching any subject, particularly difficult ones, because by their very nature, they are abstract, invite interaction and allow us to confront and question things… particularly rules that we may blindly follow.

A game is all I know. I don’t work in another medium. I saw the power that it had when I used a game to teach my daughter about the Middle Passage. So I don’t see it as something that trivializes. Rather, I see it as the medium finally reaching a new potential.

Do you think the public has a narrow definition for the term “game”? I’d assume most people associate the term with having fun.

We’ve learned that game = fun. So, yes, we have a narrow definition for it, but I believe that definition is expanding. As an artist working in this medium, I want it to expand. Imagine if someone said all books or movies or paintings had to be fun? A game is an interactive experience which has goals, a clear end and a set of rules. I think anyone who considers the systems that are presented in my series will see the full potential of games to explore the human experience. If you consider something like Risk seriously, how fun is that? It’s only fun because we’re able to abstract the domination and destruction. In Train, that’s nearly impossible.

As a note, I never once refer to Train as a game in the rules, and I also never refer to the participants as players.

This TED video doesn't have much on Train itself, but explains a great deal about its genesis and Brathwaite's mindset:

She also discusses Train starting about 27 minutes into this hour-long talk at the Game Designers Conference, including her conversations with a rabbi, and the positive and negative reactions to Train. (The whole talk relates to the game, though, and is worth watching.) As she mentions, Train is intentionally designed to allow "rules-lawyering," so that the players have choices, and can also become complicit.

The Board Game Geek entry has a little more, Sande Chen shares her interesting reflections on the game, and Ben Crair at The Daily Beast also wrote on it. Brathwaite has presented her work at the Games for Change Festival, among other venues.

It's very important that the board game component is always followed by a discussion (usually up to an hour, although the MIT session was two hours). The discussion is an essential part of the experience. "Playing the game" can stir up some uncomfortable feelings (some participants cry), and it would be irresponsible not to allow the participants a chance to process and reflect on it all. (In several ways, Train reminds me of the Milgram experiments.)

I've read a few criticisms of the game, for instance that it doesn't capture the mindset of Germans sending Jews and other Holocaust victims (political opponents, homosexuals, gypsies/Roma, etc.) to the death camps, in that key Germans weren't unaware of what was going on. That's true, but I'd also suggest that that reaction misreads the intent of the game. I haven't "played" Train, and if I did, couldn't do so from a point of innocence. Still, I can imagine one's natural competitive instincts turning to horror. Given the iconography of the game, I suspect I'd guess the references; Brathwaite has recounted that some people get it at first glance, and furthermore, that even an explicit refusal to "play" on that basis actually does constitute "playing" the game. The object of certain artists is to jar the audience out of their everyday thinking (Beckett and Brecht come to mind). Train is aiming to do just that, and has apparently been fairly successful at it.

Consider the genesis of the game, and Brathwaite's story about her young daughter talking about the Middle Passage without really understanding it. The point of it all isn't about capturing the German mindset; it's about jarring the participants out of theirs, to shock them out of blithely recounting events without really thinking or feeling about them. If during the debriefing, a group of participants and observers choose to discuss (among other things), the mindset of Germans, they're perfectly free to do so. The explicit rules of Train and its game mechanics are intentionally simple, but how the participants actually play the game, and what they choose to discuss afterward, both allow for a great deal of freedom (again, intentionally).

The Middle Passage game improvised by Brathwaite made her daughter personalize the playing pieces and families; similarly, the excellent Holocaust museum in D.C. asks each visitor to the permanent exhibit to take a card that contains a name, photo, and biography of a real person who lived during the Holocaust. Visitors carry the card throughout the exhibit, and can research more about their person afterward. Meanwhile, Art Spiegelman's Maus uses both a distancing effect and meta-narrative techniques in recounting the tale of his father, a Holocaust survivor. At one point, Spiegelman prints a photo of his father in his concentration camp uniform, and it's intentionally and effectively jarring to see this photo of a real human being who has been heretofore presented to us as a cartoon mouse. It makes us think, it makes us reconsider all we've read with a greater weight. It's probably pointless to try to "rank" Train against other Holocaust art and pedagogical materials, but it seems to be in very good company in being thought-provoking in an beneficial way.

(Thanks to reader Ursus for the initial tip.)

The Low Anthem – "Charlie Darwin"

MLK Day 2013

This year, I wanted to pass on two thematically-appropriate pieces on the Civil War era.

The first is an intriguing story from Avis Thomas-Lester in The Washington Post, "Civil War Hero Robert Smalls Seized the Opportunity to Be Free":

He sat at the conference table next to Frederick Douglass as they tried to convince President Abraham Lincoln that African Americans should be allowed to fight for their own freedom. He served five terms in Congress. He ran a newspaper and helped found a state Republican Party.

But first, he had to win his freedom.

To do that, he conceived a plan that struck a blow against the Confederacy so significant that he was heralded across the nation. Carrying out his mission required bravery, intelligence and precision timing — attributes that many whites at that time thought blacks didn’t possess.

Robert Smalls proved them wrong and changed history in the doing.

Follow the link to read the rest.

Meanwhile, American Experience on PBS is showing a three part series on the Abolitionists. The first two parts can be viewed online, while the third will air this upcoming week. (Seeing Lincoln made me long for a good Frederick Douglass biopic, and PBS delivers a taste of that.)

For the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. himself, check out the MLK archive or a number of other blogs today.

Trolling America

Earlier this week, Rachel Maddow presented a fantastic segment analyzing the bulk of conservative discourse as trolling:

A key portion transcribed:

Trolling is a key part of the conservative entertainment slash media business model. These guys say stuff all the time that they do not intend to be persuasive. They’re not trying to explain something, or bring people along to their way of thinking – they’re just doing something to attract attention, and hopefully condemnation and outrage from the mainstream, and particularly from liberals. They want to offend you. They seek to offend you. That is the point.

They want the attention, and they really want the condemnation. Because, hey, attention's attention, and clicks are clicks on the website, right? Bad publicity is still publicity. But more importantly, the key part of their base audience that they are trying to monetize, likes anyone who gets condemned by the mainstream. It's a badge of honor. So it makes people sign up for the Daily Mega-Ditto-Buy Gold Newsletter! or whatever. And pay their, 9.95 for "I used to be on TV, but now I'm on the Internet," right, "Sign up now for exclusive content that you won't find in the lamestream media that hates me!" It's a shtick, right, it is a shtick that pays… and it pays big dollars to big name conservatives, and it pays small dollars to others…

Trolling definitely fits in that "pissing off liberals" is a key motivator for conservatives, and certainly is a key method for conservative fundraising. It also fits in that the bulk of conservative statements are not really aimed at advancing the discourse or solving problems; they are point-scoring, or aimed to derail productive conversation. It's the natural outgrowth of an ideology that is hostile to the very notion of government, and thus the ethic of responsible governance. Conservatism has always been reactionary in nature, but in its contemporary, dominant form, it is petulant and selfish, and at its worst, nihilistic. (See "The Four Types of Conservatives for more.)

While some conservatives are utterly sincere when they spout crazy shit, for others such as Ann Coulter , it's all part of the grift. Rick Perlstein breaks down the dynamics in his excellent piece, "The Long Con: Mail-order conservatism." Or consider this pop-up ad for right-wing magazine The American Spectator; it features Mark Levin, one of the angry cons in Rachel Maddow's segment above:

Give us money, because it will piss off liberals. Conservative leaders can't offer their marks better policies, better lives or a better America, but they can offer spite, and that's been a successful and lucrative approach for conservative leaders since at least Nixon and the Southern Strategy.

Sometimes, the grifters grow to believe their own bullshit (they start using their own product). In the Maddow segment, Mark Levin angrily sputters, "Since when the hell do we Americans believe in separation of church and state?" Levin sells himself as a conservative intellectual, and likes to tout a nickname, "The Great One," bestowed on him by his buddy Sean Hannity. For Levin to actually believe what he's saying, he'd have to be as ignorant as Rick Santorum about the founding of the United States. Obviously Levin knows what he's saying will sell to his audience, but does he actually believe it? Either he believes it, or he knows it's ridiculous… or he has come to believe it over time. In 2005, Dahlia Lithwick wrote a now-classic, scathing review of Levin's book on the Supreme Court:

I use the word "book" with some hesitation: Certainly it possesses chapters and words and other book-like accoutrements. But Men in Black is 208 large-print pages of mostly block quotes (from court decisions or other legal thinkers) padded with a foreword by the eminent legal scholar Rush Limbaugh, and a blurry 10-page "Appendix" of internal memos to and from congressional Democrats—stolen during Memogate. The reason it may take you only slightly longer to read Men in Black than it took Levin to write it is that you'll experience an overwhelming urge to shower between chapters.

In 2010, the debate about "epistemic closure" among conservatives heated up when conservative Jim Manzi at National Review eviscerated the account of global warming in Levin's book Liberty and Tyranny, writing:

It was awful. It was so bad that it was like the proverbial clock that chimes 13 times – not only is it obviously wrong, but it is so wrong that it leads you to question every other piece of information it has ever provided.

Manzi went on to provided detailed examples of Levin's shoddy arguments. Levin reacted furiously, as did many other conservatives, arguing the Levin's work was solid and serious and how dare Manzi, etc. The most entertaining defense came from conservative Ross Douthat, who wrote that "the only way to defend a book like “Liberty and Tyranny” against Manzi’s critique is to argue that Levin should be judged primarily as an entertainer, rather than as a rigorous political thinker." In other words, the best defense that Douthat could muster was to say that Levin knew he was completely full of shit. Levin was trolling. (At a certain point, Levin and other conservatives might not know the difference.)

This brings up back to the old question of stupid, evil or crazy. At a certain level, it doesn't matter. Bad policies still need to be defeated. Regardless of what terms one uses, unfortunately modern conservatism and the Republican Party have very little of value to offer America.

The question remains as to what requires a response and what that response should be. Maddow's definition is that trolling is speech designed to provoke outrage rather than to persuade, and in the context of right-wing media, that trolling is speech designed to raise money. Maddow is right that, in some cases, it's wise not to rise – or rather, stoop – to the bait. Specifically, she's correct that getting angry in the way the troll intended, and ceding control of the conversation to the troll, is rarely if ever effective. That said, there are cases where the trolling is so prominent that ignoring it doesn't work, and it has to be addressed. Alternatively, if "punching down" is an essential part of Maddow's definition of responding to a troll, surely there are harmful arguments from conservatives that require "punching up." Extreme conservative discourse can push the Overton window over time in a bad direction if there's no pushback whatsoever. And conservatives can overreach in their desire to provoke outrage, or by expressing their true craziness, and thus generate backlash – see Rush Limbaugh on Sandra Fluke, or the NRA on Obama's daughters, or Alex Jones on guns. There's also the utterly sincere and ignorant Republican rape caucus, which helped the Republican Party lose several elections in 2012.

Representative Allen West, featured in Maddow's segment, offers another great test case. West definitely trolled for money during his election, and has trolled for money since. His outrageous, baseless remarks about communists in the Democratic Party were strongly criticized by many, including Bill Moyers in a video essay, "The Ghost of McCarthyism." Should West's comments have been ignored? I would argue that, in his case, since he was an actual congressman versus just another shouting head, he could do actual harm if left unchallenged. Rush Limbaugh is more powerful as a commenter than he could be as an elected official, but at West's level, congressman was a step up in power. West was indeed able to fundraise off of 'liberal outrage' over his comments, but his remarks were also so extreme that shining a light on them turned off some mainstream voters and helped him lose the election. (If someone has more detailed analysis of the West race, feel free to pass it on.) The best response often may be situational. Maddow's correct that responding knee-jerk to a stunt, and getting into a shouting match with a troll, gets one nowhere and only helps the troll. But some extremist conservative statements do require serious discussion, or exposure, or ridicule. Perhaps more importantly, some statements require action, in terms of opposing bad legislation and bad candidates. (Bill O'Reilly can rage about the decline of the white establishment all he likes, as long as his movement is losing elections.)

This brings us to a major problem with America's national political discourse. Liberals don't get to choose what statements are taken seriously by the mainstream media. It's fine to try to ignore fringe trolling, but the corporate media consistently validates crazy conservative ideas as legitimate. If and when a crazy, right-wing idea gains this sort of power – for instance, that it's perfectly respectable to choose not raise the debt ceiling and destroy America's credit rating, or to pledge to an unelected figure never to raise taxes ever, even in the fact of Armageddon – the option of "ignoring" no long exists. The same goes for the inane, almost inevitably wrong Beltway conventional wisdom issued by Very Serious People, for instance on the national debt. There's more than one way to troll. To quote a post from last year:

Basically, saying "both sides do it" is a form of trolling. In almost every case, when a Very Serious Person says "both sides do it," "both sides are to blame" or any of its variants, it is to shut down discussion, not to bring it to a deeper, more nuanced level.

Right-wing trolling intended to outrage is indeed a problem, but so is faux centrist concern trolling – and the latter sometimes excuses the former.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti – "Baby"

Here's the original. There's a wild story behind this one.

Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2012

(The Best Posts of the Year, Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves)

(A 2007 Jon Swift picture.)

Welcome to a tradition started by the late Jon Swift/Al Weisel. He left behind some excellent satire, but was also a nice guy and a strong supporter of small blogs. As Lance Mannion put it in 2010:

Our late and much missed comrade in blogging, journalist and writer Al Weisel, revered and admired across the bandwidth as the “reasonable conservative” blogger Modest Jon Swift, was a champion of the lesser known and little known bloggers working tirelessly in the shadows...

One of his projects was a year-end Blogger Round Up. Al/Jon asked bloggers far and wide, famous and in- and not at all, to submit a link to their favorite post of the past twelve months and then he sorted, compiled, blurbed, hyperlinked and posted them on his popular blog. His round-ups presented readers with a huge banquet table of links to work many of has had missed the first time around and brought those bloggers traffic and, more important, new readers they wouldn’t have otherwise enjoyed.

It may not have been the most heroic endeavor, but it was kind and generous and a lot of us owe our continued presence in the blogging biz to Al.

Here's Jon/Al's 2007 and 2008 editions. The 2010 revival here, and here's last year's edition.

If you're not familiar with Al Weisel's work as Jon Swift, his site features a "best of" list in the left column.

Meanwhile, Blogroll Amnesty Day (co-founded with skippy) is a celebration of small blogs that's still going strong, and coming up again the first weekend in February.

Thanks to all the participants, especially those who helped out behind the scenes. (I continue to try to find the right balance between inclusive and manageable.) Apologies to anyone I missed who wanted to participate. You still can, by linking your post in the comments. Whether your post appears in the modest list below or not, feel free to tweet your best post with the hatchtag #jonswift2012.

As in Jon/Al's 2008 roundup, submissions are listed roughly in the order they were received. As he wrote in that post:

I'm sure you'll be interested in seeing what your favorite bloggers think were their best posts of the year, but be sure to also visit some blogs you've never read before and leave a nice comment if you like what you see or, if you must, a polite demurral if you do not.

Without further ado:

Brilliant at Breakfast
"The Pigeonholing of Adam Lanza"
Jill: "Musings on the media using the language of middle schoolers to try to turn an obviously troubled kid into a monster."

Ornery Bastard
"History Indeed Repeats Itself"
Bustedknuckles connects a recent disaster with an infamous past one.

darrelplant.com
"Come Home, George McGovern"
Darrel Plant: "How a change of 4.5% of the popular vote in the 1972 presidential race could have defeated the criminal re-election of Richard Nixon."

Mad Kane's Political Madness
"Alpha-Political Verse (Election 2012)"
Madeleine Begun Kane: "My humorous 26-line poem about Election 2012, in all its alphabetized glory. "

David E's FaBlog
"Normal Democratic Means"
David Ehrenstein: "Justice Antonin Scalia's virulent homophobia. The post reveals that he didn't even deign to read the facts presented in "Lawrence vs. Texas" before deciding (against the court majority) that "sodomy" laws should stand."

Real American Liberal
"Breathe In, Breathe Out ... In ... Out ... Good"
John Sheirer: "A post-election message to Republicans who believe Obama voters are crazy or stupid or America haters: Take a deep breath, unbunch your undies, be still and quiet for a few moments, and search for your faith in America and in humanity."

BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com
"How Ronald Reagan Unwittingly Laid the Groundwork for the Death of Capitalism"
Marc McDonald: "Over the years, Ronald Reagan has gotten a lot of credit for achievements that he had nothing to do with (like "winning" the Cold War). However, Reagan should get credit for something that he actually did achieve: laying the groundwork for the death of capitalism as we know it."

Mikeb302000
"The 2nd Worst Mass Shooting in US History"
Mikeb302000: "Concerning the very recent horror in Connecticut, I put the blame squarely at the feet of the NRA and their adherents."

Zencomix
"Santorum and Delilah"
Dave Dugan: "Satire of Rick Santorum's superstitions regarding his success in the Iowa Caucus."

Pruning Shears
"Concerning violence advocates and nailing jello to walls"
Dan, DCblogger, affinis, lambert and okanogen: "A look at how some have tried to justify violence at Occupy with endlessly slippery arguments."

Perrspectives
"Please Proceed, Governor"
Jon Perr: "Now that Mitt Romney’s perpetual quest for the White House has failed, he doesn't merely need to leave the national stage. Mitt Romney must take his brand of "post-truth" politics with him. As a much better man once put it: "Please proceed, Governor.""

J-TWO-O
"You might be an old fart if..."
J. of J-TWO-O: "Although I have many good (satirical) political posts, I decided to go with a little much-needed humor."

Poor Impulse Control
"Waiting For the End Of the World"
Tata: "When the states go all dudely privilege, dames need a new state for a dude-free state of mind."

skippy the bush kangaroo
"king of bain"
skippy the bush kangaroo: "parody lyrics of the police classic."

The Rude Pundit
"Andrew Breitbart in Hell: A Fantasia"
Lee Papa (The Rude Pundit): "Andrew Breitbart drops dead and realizes that he's heading to Hell. On his way down, he wonders what awaits him."

The Agonist
"Totalitarianism in the US: An Accident Waiting to Happen"
Numerian: "Compares Republican political philosophy to that of Soviet Russia, starting with Pravda like propaganda and promoting themselves through big lies, and in our case, small ones too."

ConnectingtheDots
"The View From 88—Distress and Hope"
Robert Stein: "From the far shores of old age, an ancient blogger seeks perspective from the hype of his own Greatest Generation to the bashing of Baby Boomers and tries to imagine a future beyond what Martin Luther King called “the fierce urgency of now.""

Rawrahs
"And I Ask Myself, How Did I Get Here? -OR- Do I Owe My Soul To The Company Store?"
Rehctaw: "Reversal of fortune for the middle-class and other casualties of modern life."

Mike the Mad Biologist
"A Modest Proposal: Alabama Whites Are Genetically Inferior to Massachusetts Whites (FOR REALZ!)"
Mike the Mad Biologist: "Every so often, like a bad case of hemorrhoids, the race/IQ/genetics kerfuffle flairs up. Well, the Mad Biologist can settle it once and for all."

Shakesville
"I Cannot Truly Want What I Am Told I Must Have"
Melissa McEwan: "A post exploring choosing to be a woman without children and why I made that choice. Set against the backdrop of the Republicans' war on agency, I explain that, for me, as long as my culture and government try to coerce me into motherhood, the only truly authentic choice I have is to choose against parenting."

Confession Zero
"Love is above all, is all and cherishes all and would no more send part of Love to writhe in agony than breathe hate into our lungs"
Mark R. Prime takes a poetic approach.

Mock, Paper, Scissors
"An Affair to Remember (Charted)"
Tengrain and the crack team at MPS spend literally minutes analyzing all the known players and whatnot involved in the nefarious Petraeus Sexy-Time Affair and document the timeline in this handy cut-out-and-keep chart.

Strangely Blogged
"Because He's President, That's Why"
Vixen Strangely: "A rumination stemming from the heckling by a Dally Caller reporter on how right wing irrationalism shapes the choices President Obama makes, and how it totally doesn't."

Simply Left Behind
"Bread and Circuses"
actor212/Carl: "The Super Bowl is an annual spectacle that most closely hearkens back to ancient Rome in its decline. It's a sign to be cautious that we are not that far away from collapse."

Bark Bark Woof Woof
"Yes, I Do Take It Personally"
Mustang Bobby: "When the Constitution talks about “We The People,” I’m one of those people. I didn’t give up the rights enumerated in that document because I happen to be gay.”

The Way of Cats
"Village of Elves"
Pamela Merritt: "Remember wanting Sea Monkeys as a kid because the ads were so compelling? Their promise has been fulfilled; feline style."

Southern Beale
"Sometimes A Bra Is Just A Bra"
Southern Beale: "The post commented on Sally Quinn's unwittingly patronizing/unquestionably hilarious column in the WaPo about that infamous photo of a female protestor in Cairo being hauled away by police, clothes stripped off to reveal she was wearing a blue bra. Quinn just couldn't seem to get past the fact that an Egyptian woman wore a blue bra beneath her clothes. Talk about missing the forest for the trees!"

A Blog About School
"What Does This Blog Want?"
Chris Liebig: "It's basically a plea for people to think about schoolchildren in the context of other historically disenfranchised groups, and to be more conscious of the moral hazard posed by our authority over them. In the name of "achievement," are we teaching kids to conform to a less humane, more authoritarian world?"

driftglass
"Who is John Galt?"
driftglass: "An in-depth look at Paul Ryan's desperate denialism of his Randite roots."

bjkeefe
"Good move"
Brendan Keefe: "If by "best" one means "what provoked the most reaction ..." I like this post for the comments – instructive or unintentionally hilarious, depending on your mood."

Amendments We Need
"Romney's Ever-Fixed Mark"
Paul Wartenberg: "For all of Romney's flip-flopping during his campaign, he had one constant stance the whole time: a massive tax cut for the rich. This article attempted to shred that stance."

League of Ordinary Gentlemen
"My Year of Guns"
Tod Kelly: "Three encounters with guns – each in my eighth year – that shaped my love, respect and occasional lack of comfort with them."

Cookblog
"Full Metal Redneck"
Peter Barrett: "A rumination on killing a varmint."

TBogg
"Internet Man Does Not Want To Be On The Google Anymore"
TBogg: "George Tierney of Greenville South Carolina does not understand women or how the internet works. Hilarity ensues…"

Mister Tristan
"Will to Live…and Ultrarunning"
Gary Bruner: "This post concerns dying before one’s time, the will to live, and quality of life, triggered by seeing a downed limb while running."

The Rectification of Names
"Workers unite! You have nothing to lose but elections"
Yastreblyansky: "It's from a series of parodies of David Brooks columns (David Brooks writes...), this one the early November piece on "The party of work", by which he meant Republicans. I know, how can you satirize that?"

Polite Company
"On the Internet, You Can Be Anything... "
Thursday: "It really disturbed me to see a level of degenerate thought going on in what is a community that prides itself on thoughtfulness, especially those folks "defending" the (possibly unintentional) creeper."

Sketchy Details
"Reality Reflecting Criticism: Tropes vs. Women in Video Games "
Robert Gannon: "In one of the weirdest entertainment stories of the year, a feminist blogger trying to Kickstart a project examining gender stereotypes in video games became the voice of women harassed and trolled for daring to have a voice on video games. Video games are apparently serious business for young male gamers."

glad you asked
"still struggling to come out"
aarrgghh: "a freeper asks his fellow wingnuts for advice for coming out to his gay friends."

Lotus – Surviving a Dark Time
"Guns, gun nuts, gun violence, Second Amendment nonsense, and the bloody results"
LarryE: "Newtown was not the first mass shooting and unless we call out the gun nuts and realize how limited the reach of the Second Amendment really is and then act on that knowledge, it will not be the last – or the worst."

Mutant Poodle
"The Perils of Privilege"
Mutant Poodle: "A reflection on the downside of never having had a shitty job, among other perils of a privileged upbringing."

Art-Commerce
"Political Theology"
Michael Odom: "I don’t blog as much as I once did, but the theocratic leanings of Mourdock at al. led me to a piece about religious certainty. "

p3 – Persuasion, Perseverance, and Patience
"Two countries separated by a boorish candidate"
Nothstine: "The English Language, the American Language, and America's most embarrassing ambassador of good will in 2012."

Psychopolitik
"Vertical Solidarity Is Nonsense"
B-psycho: "A response to Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay about race & reaction to Obama."

This Is So Gay
"On Stereotyping"
Duncan Mitchel : "The triumph of the meme."

His Vorpal Sword
"The Congress of the Forest"
Hart Williams: "One momentous day, the Forest Congress assembled to debate the burning issue of the hour: a bill had been offered declaring every acorn a tree, and, thus, all criminal penalties should accrue to anyone disturbing an acorn just as they would to anyone cutting down a tree ..."

M.A.Peel
"Paul Fussell, Scotch, a Birthday, & the Sophomore: A Shaggy Dog Story"
Ellen O'Neill: "Paul Fussell died this year. I was one of his "cookie cutter" students at Rutgers, except there was another side to him than the complete curmudgeon he came across in a People magazine article."

alicublog
"I Give It Four Farts"
Roy Edroso: "I took the opportunity presented by some stupid documentary about wingnuts to channel my favorite comic character, Jonah Goldberg."

Pass the Doucheys on the Right-Hand Side
"Truth, Hypocrisy, and the Legacy of Leviticus – Part Two"
DC Martin: "A questioning of the frequent citing of Leviticus when people tout their "righteous" homophobia while they continue to engage in other behaviors clearly banned by the same book of the bible."

The Inverse Square
"Anatomy of a Zombie Lie"
Tom Levenson: "This post is a take-down of the claim, repeated after every gun massacre, that guns save many more lives in their use for self defense than they cost in these tragedies."

They Gave Us a Republic
"You're not supposed to pull the ladder up behind you"
Blue Girl puts it in perspective.

The Reaction
"Privileged rich douchebag: The Mitt Romney narrative for 2012"
Michael J.W. Stickings: "Long before the remarks about the 47% became such a significant campaign story, the essence of Mitt Romney's character was clear. This post set the tone for 2012."

We Are Respectable Negroes
"White Men Like Adam Lanza Commit 70 Percent of the Mass Shootings in the United States. Why is the Media Afraid to Talk About This Obvious Fact?"
Chauncey DeVega: "After the tragic Newtown massacre by Adam Lanza, a conversation about the relationship between race, gun culture, and mass shootings began—however briefly. In a series of posts, I began a discussion about white masculinity and mass shootings. Because white folks are "invisible" and do not have a "racial" identity in the United States the mass media does not talk about "white crime"…"

Lance Mannion
"Asperger's Un-diagnosed"
Lance Mannion: "There’s a general conception that Asperger’s is basically a form of clinical nerdiness complicated by reflexive jerkiness. Long-time readers know why that idea makes my blood boil."

Blue Gal
"Welcome to the Culture War"
Fran/Blue Gal: "Why no one can be a bystander in the Republican war on women."

The Hunting of the Snark
"Power and Money"
Susan of Texas: "I picked [this post] because it reveals the lengths Megan McArdle goes through to hide her ties to the Koch brothers, despite her claims that she has no loyalty to them."

Finally:

Vagabond Scholar
"The Four Types of Conservatives"
Batocchio: "Most conservative political figures break down into one of four broad groups: Reckless Addicts, Proud Zealots, Stealthy Extremists and Sober Adults. (A long form post.)"

Thanks again, folks. Happy blogging (and everything else) in 2013.

(Added: A special shoutout to DougJ of Balloon Juice for his help these three years in obtaining submissions and thus spreading the luv.)

Hallelujah Chorus 2012

This post is a repeat, but for the season, it's hard to beat the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. First up, a neat flash mob version:



Next up, Cantillation with the Orchestra of the Antipodes, conducted by Antony Walker:



The Robert Shaw version is also quite nice, and then there's this one from the Roches (h/t Steve Audio):

Christmas 2012

Mr. Bean's Nativity Scene. (Hat tip to Blue Gal for the reminder. If British comedy is your thing, you can also check out Terry Gilliam's Christmas Carol.)

Tim Minchin – "White Wine in the Sun"

The animated verison of a lovely Christmas song by a nonbeliever. Minchin can be very funny, but here's he's quite touching. (I was first introduced to this a year or so back through the Balloon Juice community, and reminded again of it through a recent Digby post.)