No joy in Mudville

I can’t believe this has actually happened. Heads are going to have to roll. I’d start with Randolph, moving on to Beltran, Glavine, and the entire bullpen. Hell, even get rid of Alou. Build the team around Reyes, Wright, and Maine; everyone else is expendable.

The 2007 New York Mets: Fuck Me

What the hell is going on?

WTF, Mr. Met? WTF?

The Mets have completed their epic late-season collapse and are now tied for first with Philadelphia with three left to play. I simply don’t understand how this could have happened, but I do know that I’m absolutely horrified and disgusted by it all. Giving Philadelphia joy is like being naked in the subway: it’s rarely intentional, never pleasant, and something a New Yorker should avoid at all costs.

I wish I could say I’m hopeful, but I can’t say I have any faith at all that the Amazins can with a three game series against the Marlins at home, let alone sweep them (which is probably what’s required at this point).

UPDATE  (10:43 PM EDT):  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Photo by Flickr user tobyleah used under a Creative Commons license.

Finally!

Georgetown has granted John Thompson III a contract extension through 2013. Hoya nation breathes a big sigh of relief.

Photo by Flickr user Joe Shlabotnik used under a Creative Commons license

Best. News. Ever.

Rebecca Watson has won the Public Radio Talent Contest! While this doesn’t necessarily mean that she’ll get a show, it’s still quite awesome. I can only hope that she’ll do as well on her pilot as she did during the contest, where she was the top vote-getter in most rounds.

“Skeptic’s Radio”. Damn, it feels good just to type that. I can’t imagine how great it will be to actually hear it.

For those unfamiliar, you can listen to her contest entries here, and you can listen to her as co-host of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast here. Congratulations, Rebecca!

Missing the point

What’s amazing about Dana Goldstein’s response to Matt’s and Mike Meginnis’ posts on identity politics is how she manages to provide such a illustrative example of what they were talking about. Matt wrote:

I like writing about “social justice” and “identity” issues. Some of my favorite posts have been about marriage, abortion and the pay gap. The problem is that when I wrote about how feminists approach marriage, I would get comments from Marcotte and others that because I was a white male and obviously had so much to gain from marriage, of course I would support it. Well, that’s just a pointless debate to have, why talk about these things if your interlocutors are just going to throw up the “privilege” flag, essentially ending discussion? So, if there are social pressures against openly and vigorously disagreeing with the people who drive the “social justice crusades focuses around identity” discussions, then you might as well not even engage in them.

To which Dana responded by ignoring this point, using most of her post to pick out a few quotes (arguably out of context) and then using them to show how Matt is a sexist prick. And just to make this assertion very clear, Ann Friedman shows up in the comments and congratulates Dana, as if taking Matt Zeitlin down a peg were a major victory against the patriarchy.

Obviously, Matt and Mike’s concerns were completely unfounded.

What’s even more maddening is that apparently Dana doesn’t even realize that she’s being a hypocrite:

But I’m wary. If “male bloggers” like “arguing” so much, as Zeitlin writes (what? and female bloggers don’t?), they should welcome these back and forths, not shy away from them. The sense I got from both responses was that while Meginnis and Zeitlin relish a good “man-to-man” fight, they don’t really want to engage in debate with women or people of color who practice “identity politics.”

What was that, Kettle? You’re criticizing someone for not engaging others’ arguments? Good lord! Not only does she ridiculously misconstrue Matt and Mike’s arguments, she seems to lack the self-awareness to see she’s doing the exact same thing she’s criticizing them for.

Finally, there’s this gem:

Unfortunately, language like Matt’s makes me want to head into a feminist corner and never come out to converse with some of my fellow progressives.

Of course, this should in no way be construed as “fretting”, which I’m now told is a gender-specific verb and thus is always a sexist slur.

Like Matt and Mike, I too am a white male, and like them I am confused by some of the strains of thought that run through the corner of the feminist blogosphere that I read. I even (gasp!) sometime disagree with those thoughts. It would be much better if feminist bloggers like Dana actually engaged that confusion and disagreement and worked to alleviate it, rather than assuming that anyone who disagrees with them is a rabid misogynist.

Dance, rock boy, dance

I am an unapologetic music snob. When I go out to bars, I tend to spend more money on the jukebox than I do on drinks. I do whatever I can at parties to be invited to play DJ. And no car trip is too short that it doesn’t require me to make a mix CD. I know my behavior is prickish, but nonetheless I dare not change it. I am motivated by an evangelical fervor to expose you to my taste in music, no matter the cost. I can’t help that I listen to better music than you do, but I do know that if you let me DJ, I’ll really get this party going.

Additionally, I am in no way a hipster, as I tend to believe that most great music has already been made. New bands are annoying to me, as they muddy up the repertoire and force me to devote memory to knowing them when I could be mastering more of Jimmy Smith’s catalog. When I do start to like something recent, it’s because it’s so good that it overcomes this bias.

Which brings me to Muse’s kick-ass song, “Supermassive Black Hole”:

Trivia Recap

Things went swimmingly over at the Wonderland Ballroom on Monday night. Aside from a long rambling monologue on the greatness of Mississippi (which was not in any way my fault), Kevin and I were funny, congenial, and thought-provoking (we rule). The winning team was, of course, a bunch of bloggers, including Megan McArdle, music trivia god Dave Weigel, Matt Ficke, Lindsay, and one other guy whose name I’m horrified to learn I can’t remember, but who probably has a blog too Tom. Congrats to them and to team Don’t Tase Me Bro, who won for best team name.

Apparently Kevin and I were lucky to host after a few weeks of sub par quizzing, as we received a lot of comparative praise. Since trivia hosting doesn’t come as naturally to some, here are some quick tips.

• Keep your questions short, and your answers shorter
• Edit your questions for length, factual correctness, humor, and clarity. Then have someone else edit them. Then edit them again. In fact, keep editing until you have to print them out and head to the bar.
• Don’t use trivia night as a way to show everyone how smart you are. The goal should be for every team to be able to get at least a few right in each round.
• Keep your categories as broad as possible. For example, “Doctor Who” is a terrible category. “British Science Fiction” is a much better alternative.
• Try to frame your questions so that if someone doesn’t know the answer, they can at least make an educated guess from the context.

Most importantly, have fun. People are there to have a good time, not to relive their SAT experiences. Lightheartedness and willingness to bend the rules will take you very far. As will healthy alcohol intake.

If there’s enough demand in the comments, I’ll post the quiz later this week in case any of you non-DCers want to test your wits.

Wrongitude

Kevin Drum links approvingly to this post over at Headline Junky, which makes many good points about the damage the Bush administration has done to the US-Turkey alliance (mostly via Iraq), but unfortunately descends into blessed ignorance:

Turkey was already on our side. And we’re in the process of losing it, at the very moment when religious Muslims have begun to dominate the Turkish political scene.

For the time being, the Turkish military and cultural elites serve as guarantors of secularism. But if Turkey ever does wind up sliding into theocracy, it will be a major strategic setback for American regional interests.

Yes, it’s our old friend anti-Muslim hysteria (“It’s not just for Limbaugh anymore!”). Just to be clear, these are the same religious Muslims who (off the top of my head):

• made EU ascension their top priority.
• abolished the death penalty.
• opened up more of the economy to market forces
• challenged the primacy of the military in domestic politics

Yes, sharia will be around any day now. And those “guarantors of secularism”? They wanted to throw a coup because the wife of the presidential nominee wears a headscarf. Oh my, I gettin’ the vapors! A headscarf? Lawdy!

Did you meet a “Scrubs” cast member tonight? I think not.

Travis Schuldt is a righteous dude.

UPDATE (09/26/2007):  I’m pretty sure this is all Sam’s doing (scroll down to “Hey, Isn’t That….?”).

Trivia, bitches!

I’ll be hosting trivia night at the Wonderland Ballroom this Monday, September 24th.  I can only promise not to have some stupid category like “Florida State University” where no one can get a single answer right.  The question now is, will Nobody Summons Megatron show?