Q&A

[sabotabby]

Question post is here. IP logging is still off.

Okay, here are some that I think are okay to answer in a public post.

Are you bi?

I'm almost exclusively attracted to male-identified people and I've never had sex with another woman, so I don't consider myself bi. However, my view of human sexuality—or at least my view of my own sexuality—is fluid enough that I don't think me falling for and/or sleeping with a woman is outside the realm of possibility or would shake my sense of who I am.

what should i do with my liiiiife?

I want you in my revolutionary government (which I am not leading, incidentally; I'm Minister of Re-Education). You can choose your post after the revolution, but in the meantime, you should be preparing for that eventuality.

OKAY -- HOW ARE BABIES MADE!?!

Explanation here.

ALSO HAVE YOU EVER SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED WORSHIPPING SATAN

I read the Satanic Bible when I was 14 and it pretty much seemed like someone had taken the Christian Bible and done a search and replace on the names. I don't know if that counts as "serious consideration" or not.

Why do you hate freedom?

You'll understand if you ever have to teach a class full of 13- and 14-year-old boys. Freedom is vastly overrated.

What is more dangerous? A crazed person with a gun, or a regressive intellectual with a pen? Why? How should each be dealt with?

Christopher Hitchens should be mocked ruthlessly, waterboarded (again), and then forced to endure months of self-criticism and hard labour.

HOW THE FUCK DO I STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS ELECTION?

IT IS DRIVING ME MAAAAAD.

Get a job as a high school teacher, and/or stumble upon a cache of frequently updated Watchmen porn. Both of these things will suck up your time and mental energy. Obsessing over the Large Hadron Collider also helps.

Oh, I have another question: if you were going to teach a course on the history of various ideas within radical politics, is there a textbook you'd work from? I suspect we may have to do this.

I'm unfamiliar with a decent textbook on the subject. I suspect that you'd be better off with a course reader, much as I hate the damned things. Another thing you might do, since there's so much good stuff in the public domain (marxists.org is especially wonderful) is have your course reader online to save on paper and printing costs.

What do you think of Sarah Palin weaing an Israeli flag pin at her RNC speech?

I'm pretty sure it's obligatory in order to get elected in the U.S. You could probably get away with not wearing an American flag pin, but if she went through the entire election without at least once donning the Israeli colours, she'd end up getting called bin Palin or something. Also, I suspect she's an anti-Semite so she's overcompensating.

Will we all die if McCain wins?

No. Just a lot of poor brown people will die, and probably people like us. Even in the end of Dr. Strangelove, the rich white folks made it out okay.

If you could design your ideal course to teach, what would it be?

I think it would be about propaganda, the arts, and pop culture, and how they have been and can be harnessed for subversive or revolutionary purposes. Half of the class would be theory, the rest hands-on studio work.

What's a question you'd really like to be asked but never have been?

Believe it or not, no one has ever asked for my thoughts on yaoi.

Comments

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Anti-Semite? Well, this may have been unintentional:

http://gawker.com/5048188/palin-quoted-antisemitic-author-in-rnc-speech

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

What do you think of Sarah Palin weaing an Israeli flag pin at her RNC speech?

I just was randomly surfing around lj and came across this... As much as I despise Palin as a person, that wasn't an Israeli flag pin, it was a single-star "MORE PATRIOTIC THAN YOU" pin because she has a son in the the military.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether to smile at the irony of people not being able to distinguish an Israeli pin from "I AM SUCH AN AMERICAN PATRIOT" pin.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Well, I haven't seen pics of the military pin, but apparently they're both white with one blue star, so. *shrugs*

See also: Palin quoted anti-Semite in Convention Speech (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/10/palin-quoted-anti-semite_n_125429.html).

[sabotabby]

In fairness, I am staying away from any news of the U.S. election. I don't have a TV, so I only hear about this shit third-hand.

[tanyahp.livejournal.com]

I want to take your propaganda class!!!

[beam-oflight.livejournal.com]

Me too!

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

You have more email.

[ironed_orchid]

I'd immediately sign up for your class on proganda etc.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I knew what you were going to link to for the explanation of baby formation but it still make me laugh like an idiot.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

Still make me laugh like an idiot. I need to be in your class, where you can teach me 2 grammar. p.s. can I have a position in your government?

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

Ummmm... watchmen porn? lnx plz

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Seconded!

[sabotabby]

Okay, you two—sorry to keep you waiting, but this is really NSFW. Warnings for all of the usual fun things, along with rape and tentacle porn.

http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/9566.html
http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/10580.html
http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/12030.html
http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/13077.html

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

People who want to stop thinking about the election should not read my LJ right now, I'm afraid.

[marsianer.livejournal.com]

What is an election?

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

Isn't that what McCain's taking his government-insurance-supplied viagra for?

[orpheus42.livejournal.com]

So what ARE your thoughts on yaoi?

[sabotabby]

:D :D :D

[one-serious-cat.livejournal.com]

"Even in the end of Dr. Strangelove, the rich white folks made it out okay."

Did they? I just assumed that they ran out time to go underground and rebuild civilization through rape camps or joy divisions or whatever. It's a much sadder ending if those guys actually lived.

[erotetica.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the Russian guy plant a bomb in the War Room?

[sabotabby]

I thought it failed.

If an ending's going to be dark, I usually like it to be as dark as humanly possible, and those guys surviving at the end makes it a much bleaker movie than everyone dying.

[qraccoon.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong that the first thing I thought after reading this post was "I wonder if anyone has made Dr Manhattan/Large Hadron Collider porn?"

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I expect it is called Large Hardon Collider.

[robotar.livejournal.com]

hahahahaha oh FUCK nice!

[sabotabby]

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

So, waitaminute. The whole fear of the tight little black hole devouring everything... that's just a some kind of vagina dentata FUD from the partriarchy trying to keep the sisters down, right?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

She wore an Israeli flag pin?
I'd say I was shocked that an Antisemite would do such a thing, but then I'd have to feign ignorance about the whole Christian Zionist movement which has to be one of the most nauseating movements I've ever had the misfortune of coming across.

AIPAC are Republican Hawks who pretend to represent the "Jewish" interest, they're like a bunch of Benjamin Netanyahu's. The Christian Zionists want all the Jews in Israel/Palestine so that we all DIE! And Bring Forth Armageddon and OMG The Rapture.

*vomits*

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I like the answer on Satanism :D

[tempesta-x.livejournal.com]

I think it would be about propaganda, the arts, and pop culture, and how they have been and can be harnessed for subversive or revolutionary purposes. Half of the class would be theory, the rest hands-on studio work.


This sound like an awesome course. This bring up the question "When will you put her in charge of this course?", but that's directed at... important education guys.

[robotar.livejournal.com]

OMG YAOI
i trust you've seen "sensitive pornograph"

[marrythebed.livejournal.com]

What's that? (Now imagining that dumb book with naked men cooking and cleaning.)

FYI

[(Anonymous)]

The flag that Sarah Palin was wearing was an Alaskan Flag - NOT Israel flag

Re: propaganda

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Y'know, we have a situation in out school that the principal does not allow hats to be worn in it. Now the locals pretty much go to sleep in their baseball caps. I tried to explain to kids how the baggy pants fashion came about and encourage them (well, the large minority that has real issues with this) to do something, such as wear their caps on their shoulder or something as a sign of protest. I know the kind of BS the principal brings up to justify the policy (Jesus, he even mentioned the Columbine Massacre as having something to do with it), so I more or less imagine how the texts of the revolution can be phrased. But I lack practical ideas on how to go about this. When I talk to specific students they pretty much nod their head, some understandingly, but it's not like they know what to do either, except than just wearing the caps. You've got any ideas for me? (That's where I may get the "You know, actually, I don't think it's such a bad idea for kids to take their hats off at school" reply)

Re: propaganda

[sabotabby]

(That's where I may get the "You know, actually, I don't think it's such a bad idea for kids to take their hats off at school" reply)

From me?

I think the no hat policy is ridiculous—hats make old people feel uncomfortable because about 100 years ago, you were supposed to take your hat off in doors. And hats make white people uncomfortable because they associate hip hop fashion with black people. And then old white people make up all sorts of bollocks to justify their squicky feelings. I don't like it.

I don't know how much you can work this in with your subject, but if my kids were having a hard time with it, I'd have them work it into a project somehow (maybe a news/opinion segment where they catch authority figures sputtering as they try to explain it, or a poster). If I taught Civics, I'd have them do a petition or letter-writing campaign. For Physics, I dunno.

Re: propaganda

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

We'll make it extracurricular :). Besides, when you teach on a reserve, the first thing to do is to forget your curriculum documents (of course, I may argue that that is the first thing for any teacher anywhere to do).
Petition. Help the kids write up a refutation. Okay, that's not bad, thanks.

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

What's Watchmen pr0n? That sounds really hot.

[sabotabby]

I think it is. Apparently some people have reservations regarding making pr0n based on the Greatest Graphic Novel Ever Written. I like to think that Alan Moore would approve of this more than he approves of Zack Snyder making a movie of it:

http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/9566.html
http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/10580.html
http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/12030.html
http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/13077.html
http://plus4chan.org/boards/pco/res/14403.html

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, that's crazy. Rorschach is definitely my fave, but I didn't care much for Dan. I thought, like Rorschach thought, that Dan was a lame-o. I don't get the Greatest Graphic Novel Ever Written part. I complained on GoodReads about the art, which I didn't care about. Maybe I'm just too shallow or dumb to understand the Time Magazine hype. Besides that, I have the h0tts for Azzarello and Risso. My Bad Muslim self who totally should not know anything about these things would have them both, a la the scene toward the end of Y tu mamá también.

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

OH BOO, I just found out who Ack Snyder was/is. He's the "THIS IS SPARTAAAA" guy. Totally lame adaptation of 300, turning a 45-page picture book into a 2 hr movie.