The Christian Write

Last night my boyfriend and I went to see Pixar’s latest CGI masterpiece, Inside Out, and as is to be expected with anything from Pixar, it was a delight to experience. Gorgeous visuals, sharp humor, earnest and emotional storytelling…you know, the things Pixar is known for. The movie is absolutely a must-see.

Later that night I ruminated a bit on the movie, imagining what it would be like to have the five personified emotions - Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger - running around in my head. While I did, I came to a sudden realization: the human protagonist, 11-year-old Riley, is probably bi.

Just to get this out of the way right off the bat: no, I don’t suspect she’s bi because she plays hockey. It’s a cliche (and somewhat insulting) stereotype to assume that any female in a sport rougher than gymnastics is lesbian or bi, and Pixar are much better storytellers than that. What clued me in were Riley’s emotions; specifically, their genders.

In Riley’s head, her five emotions are co-ed: Joy, Sadness, and Disgust are female; Fear and Anger are male. This in and of itself doesn’t mean much of anything, it just provides some nice variety in voices. Seriously, you can’t do much better for gruff, shouty Anger than an indignant Lewis Black. However, we briefly get to see the emotions inside other people’s heads as well, most prominently Riley’s mom and dad. While they share the same basic character design, there’s a slight difference…

All of the emotions in Riley’s mother’s head are female, and all of them inside her dad are male. It’s not cosmetic either, slapping wigs on the “women” and mustaches on the “men”; all of the mother’s emotions are voiced by female actresses. Fear is voiced by Bill Hader in Riley’s head, but in her Mother, Fear is voiced by Laraine Newman. Anger doesn’t seem to be credited, but the chorus of voices are all female. Similarly in her father’s head: it’s a chorus of male voices from all the emotions.

The brief smattering of other internal emotions that are seen throughout the film seem to support this idea, as Riley appears to be the only one who has a mixed-gender emotional set. I’d have to watch the film a second time and pay closer attention, though, to be sure. Now, things might change once she hits puberty and the emotions all settle into a specific gender once the hormones start flowing…but then that would make about half of her emotions trans, and that’s a whole other barrel of monkeys.

Or, I could be overthinking all of this and reading a message in the movie where none exists - humans excel at seeing patterns where there are none, after all - but given Pixar’s history of cramming all sorts of subtle messages, symbols, and details into their movies, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if it was deliberate.

This past weekend I joined a bunch of friends to indulge in the latest edition of Nintendo's long-running Super Smash Bros. fighting game series. As the technology of each successive console has improved, so have the polygon counts and the texture-rendering capabilities which the model designers have put to...*ahem*..."detailed" effect, giving Captain Falcon here quite the glutes of steel. 

The age of drones is imminent. Be they police surveillance drones, Amazon delivery drones, geographical mapping drones, or wrist-mounted consumer drones for the ultimate selfie, skies swarming with quadcopters are in our collective future. 

Virtually all drones will be equipped with varieties of cameras as a part of their sensory array to ensure that they don't crash into buildings, birds, or each other, as well as to be able to provide visual feedback to the pilot, either in real-time or uploaded to a central server to access later - or most likely both.

Naturally, the idea of a bunch of flying cameras is something to get privacy concerns riled up, and rightly so. Though she overreacted a bit, Seattle resident Lisa Pleiss can't be faulted for being suspicious of a drone that was hovering near her 26th floor apartment, especially since she was in the process of getting dressed.

New technology is often scary; we don't know what all it can do, and usually one of the first people out of the gate is a myopic dumbass who doesn't know his hole from an ass in the ground that threatens to ruin it all for everyone.

Drones, despite the very obvious Big Brother implications that they carry, don't have to be the scary herald the destruction of personal privacy. In fact, their misuse can be reined in with some pretty simple measures.

Extension Of Aircraft Registration

If there's one thing the Internet has taught us, it's that anonymity is a major factor in dickish behavior. If people feel they can act without fear of repercussions, the desire to be a jackass is orders of magnitude greater. This one is easy: we simply expand aircraft registration to include any drone that comes mounted with a camera. Though possibly problematic on really small drones, requiring all drones to be emblazoned with a high-contrast, easily visible registration code that is tied to a specific individual or organization will be a major roadblock to most casual peeping toms.

Maximum Flight Elevation

Though the FAA seems intent on quashing the progression and utility of drone use, one of the more sensible regulations is already in place: operators of personal drones are required to keep their aircraft below 400', or just under two Gipsy Dangers. 

While this would still allow drones to reach the tops of most buildings it would keep them within eyesight, as they wouldn't make it halfway up taller buildings in major cities like San Francisco or New York. While not as directly effective as a registration number, the two combined raise the barrier for privacy invasion even further.

Harsher Penalties For Violations

No matter what roadblocks and deterrents are put in the way, there will always be a few someones that will try to get away with shenanigans, so this last idea is applicable to those. Due to the greater ease with which privacy rights can be violated with drones, when someone is caught and convicted of a willful violation of privacy via use of drones or drone technology the punishments need to be harsher than what current penalties may be. The crime simply needs to not be worth the risk.

The Simplest Solution

What is woman?

What is the nature of evil?

What, exactly, is meant by "Machiavellian"?

The philosophers at Wisecrack on YouTube have a new-ish series called "8-Bit Philosophy" that cover these questions and a variety of others with classic Nintendo game characters, such as "What is real?" with Plato and The Legend of Zelda, and "Is a cat a cat?" with Derrida and Double Dragon.

What is woman?

What is the nature of evil?

What, exactly, is meant by "Machiavellian"?

The philosophers at Wisecrack on YouTube have a new-ish series called "8-Bit Philosophy" that cover these questions and a variety of others with classic Nintendo game characters, such as "What is real?" with Plato and The Legend of Zelda, and "Is a cat a cat?" with Derrida and Double Dragon.

The name Matt Stolhandske probably doesn't ring a bell, but depending on which news circles you run around in you may have come across his editorial in The Washington Post. Stolhandske is raising money for the owners of the Portland-based Sweet Cakes Bakery, who have come under severe financial duress within the past year. The thing is, the owners of Sweet Cakes are Aaron and Melissa Klein.

They're in debt to the tune of $150k in fees and fines - a sum which may well bankrupt them - because last November they refused service to a lesbian couple, an act of discrimination that ran afoul of Oregon's Equality Act of 2007. As is typical, the couple hid behind their religious beliefs to justify their bigotry, though notably their religion didn't step in when it came to serving other sinners.

Stolhandske is a conservative evangelical, so perhaps it's not terribly surprising that he's wanting to raise money to help out fellow Christians, but the record scratch is that Stolhandske is gay...and he's not excusing their behavior one bit.

Despite initial perceptions and the hyperventilatings of some, Stolhandske is actually not being an apologist for the Kleins' behavior. In fact, he explicitly condemns their bigotry while still extending an olive branch to broker for peace and foster good will. You know, like Jesus does in that little book the Kleins claim to hold dear.

Whether he intended it or not, though, Stolhandske has done something brilliant with this offer that completely shatters the Christian Martyr complex that the Kleins have. The Kleins have only two options: accept the money raised, or decline it.

If they accept it, then they're accepting the kindness of a man who is, in this instance at the very least, trying to live as the Bible commands: loving thy neighbor, turning the other cheek, forgiving trespasses, fomenting peace rather than letting a wound fester. They claim to be Christians; he's actually acting like one. Accepting his money would be an acknowledgment of that, and that the gays aren't really out to get them.

If they reject it, then they're cementing their public perception as homophobes and pull back the mask of religion that they're using to hide their odious bigotry. Furthermore, their actions will reflect on all of the businesses that try to excuse their hatred with faith, standing as a testament that it was never about freedom of religion, just small-minded prejudice.

It's something we've all experienced: that one-night stand who gets just a little too clingy and just cannot pick up on those subtle little hints to please pick up his clothes and go. Adrian Anchondo took that sentiment and crafted a parody of Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" in the form of "Please Go Home."

Starring Daniel Franzese and backed up by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, the song perfectly captures those feelings of, well, "Please, go home." Also, because I'm in the chorus, I'm totally in the video! Towards the back....behind Sister Roma....

I got to chat a bit with Franzese as well during all of the shooting and he's totally adorable; he's come a long long way from "too gay to function." We even developed a "thing" where he'd come over and just start rubbing his beard against mine, vigorously enough that I'm surprised we didn't start setting off literal sparks.

As you may or may not be aware, Facebook's policy requires all users to submit their legal names when creating their profiles. You may have been unaware because this policy that has largely gone unenforced. However, they started cracking down on performers this past week - drag queens in particular - for using their stage names rather than their given names and thus violating Facebook's policy.

Sister Roma of the San Francisco chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence has been making headlines in the fight against this policy, noting that its selective enforcement is disproportionately targeting members of the LGBT community. She was even picked up by the Wall Street Journal and organized a protest that has led to a proposed meeting with Facebook officials.

Sounds good so far: a company did something the users didn't like, the users complained, and now the company is looking into fixing the issue. Except Facebook seems intent on digging themselves in even deeper.

Some drag performers are finding that they are not just locked out of their account, but that their accounts have been completely deleted, as San Francisco performer Heklina of Trannyshack fame discovered. Going even further, it turns out not just "stage names" are forbidden: anything that is not on your driver's license or official government ID can get your account closed until you fix it, including common truncations despite what the policy above says:

The fallout is that now users are getting a petition going on Change.org to demand Facebook change their policies, but Facebook has their own input on the issue: posting or sharing the link results in the following pop-up:

Now, one might initially think that the address with the suspicious-looking url of "chn.ge" is what's setting off Facebook's spam filters. However, a link to another petition on Change.org that uses the similarly scary address of http://chn.ge/1wAQXY2?share_id=EzXfUJIZhu meets no resistance whatsoever (incidentally, it's a petition to call for an end to the Boy Scouts' anti-gay policies, and should also be signed). Then on top of all of that, anyone clicking the posted petition is greeted with this:

Again, the above-linked Boy Scouts petition clicks through without any interference, as do other petitions using the shortened "chn.ge" url. Unless someone from Facebook comes through with a really good explanation, this appears to be a deliberate attempt on the part of Facebook to discourage and even outright censor discussion about their policies. Lest that sound all tinfoil hat-y, Sister Roma has already been a victim of censorship in a private conversation between herself and Sister Unity Divine about Facebook's policies: 

This pic floating around imgur tells you all that you need to do:

The address in step 1 is here, and here's the text for you to copy/paste: I want internet service providers classified as common carriers.

If you need a refresher as to what, exactly, Net Neutrality is, Extra Credits has you covered:

And if you need to know why it's important that Net Neutrality be preserved, Jon Oliver has the rundown:

Awww.

And legal consequences at that, as Canadian citizen Robert Campbell, 42, discovered this past July when he awoke to an arrest on charges of criminal harassment, identity theft, and defamatory libel.

Seeking revenge against everyone who had wronged him, Campbell engaged in his cyberbullying tactics of humiliation and defamation starting in 2001, the first seven months of which he didn't even leave his apartment, and did not end until his arrest a couple of months ago. He is now facing 181 charges from citizens in Canada, the U.S., and his home country of the United Kingdom.

This is horrible, and it's painful, and it's utterly reprehensible...but it needs to be seen (or, more accurately, heard):

A kid comes out, his mother says she's known since he was a toddler, and his whole family utterly rejects him, complete with some of the most vile and poisonous "Christian love" from people who claim to follow the Bible, complete with physical abuse.

Ah, believing in the Bible; the half-assed excuse used by mouth-breathing troglodytes the world around as a shield for their evilness and bigotry.

Fortunately, Daniel seems to be an adult of 20 or so, so he should be able to fend for himself as he is no longer a legal dependent, and assuming his family hasn't actually beaten him up and driven him out early, he'll be gone from that festering pustule of a home by midnight tonight.

Also, it would seem that Daniel has some loving friends who came to his support and set up a GoFundMe account to help him kickstart his new life. Starting over can be monstrously expensive, but so far they've raised over $14k to get him on the road to a better life. If you feel so moved, you can throw a few bucks to the cause on the GoFundMe page.

While it's unlikely that Daniel will ever stumble across this post.....