People call for people to be fired because they use the word "faggot" in public.

There's a legitimate case to be made if, as is somewhat implied, there was a lot of on-set animosity -- that whole "hostile workplace environment" thing, which is legit -- but it seems to be the height of Political Correctness (and I use that term pejoratively here) to agitate for someone to lose their job as a result of a public statement they made, even if it was in the context of an awards show and thus semi-official.

Which is not to defend this guy's choice of language. Poor form, and all, but do we really want to start firing people on this kind of basis? Seems extreme to me.

Now, GLADD's position -- that it's not good language to promote and that he should apologize -- is far more moderate than those expressed by the entertainment press and a the VP of the Directors Guild, which seems to be that if you're homophobic, that's grounds for dismissal. This is why people fear and loathe the idea of Hollywood, even as they lap up the products.

Without defending homophobia, I think it's well within our individual rights as citizens to dislike whoever we dislike for whatever reasons, rational or otherwise. Acting on those feelings is different, but its a very dangerous thing to try and normatively shape ideas (e.g. creating thoughtcrime).

Real honest online activism; getting every member of congress on-record about escalation is an important step in stopping it.

It's also a great use of the interweb; a lot more real and effective than circulating petitions which (pssst, here's a secret) are mainly about listbuilding.

This, on the other hand, actually may matter, so check the link and see if your representatives have gone on the record (mine have) about whether or not they support the Bush/McCain doctrine escalate in Iraq.

Missed the really cheap tickets, but you can still save $30 if you get 'em today.

Jerome Armstrong, who I still have to post a recap about, continues to behave like a thug on MyDD. The latest example is a popular diary written by an Edwards supporter which takes Barak Obama to task for using similar language to Joe Lieberman. Jerome put it on the front page, and edited in an image from Google News with Edwards using similar language.

The image is two and a half years old, so that's pretty weak sauce, but the point here isn't the substance of the argument; it's what Armstrong did with his admin powers.

Here you have a community site that's had a pretty good vibe to it over the past year or two. It's a community that has good things bubble up from the diaries, and has a smaller (but in many ways sharper) community of commentators than the bigger blogs.

On this community site, you have one of the admins taking a community contribution, editing it without permission to completely flip it around on the author, and putting the result on public display.

That's thuggish, bullying behavior, and it's destructive and wrong. Even if Jerome's an Obama fanboy and was hurt by the community member's diary -- or maybe as he said was the case with Dean in this post and they've put him on the payroll so now he's carrying water -- this is a shitty way to behave on a community website. It's a petty violation of what anyone would consider normal standards.

This upsets me partly because people in the campaign world think Jerome actually has good advice (highly debatable), but more because he really brings the whole tenor of MyDD down. Matt and Chris and Jonathan and the other posters have a good thing going, and Armstrong's half-bright technology posts, childish abuses of admin power, and transparent frontpage shilling muddy the waters.

So much to do. Work is kicking back into high gear just as I'm getting settled and starting to hit my homezone stride for 2007. On the plate:

• FutureMajority.com
• Redesigning OJ as a three-fold combo of aggregator, autobio and wiki
• Getting Moammar registered, checked out by a mechanic, and getting into car audio
• Really finishing up my living/working space at home; a few days of hippie carpentry
• Flirting!
• Experiments with political video
• Continuing to run the drupal dojo, learning Jquery
• The list goes on...

It's my natural state to be overfull with things to do. I just need to buckle down, focus and flow.

I'm pretty sure this is actually from Eyes on the Prize. I've got a torrent file for that here (broken link before), and I strongly suggest you grab it and seed.

Not only do we all owe this man for a large portion of the level of racial integration we have today, anyone who wants to change the world also owes him big time for the path he laid down. You want to see how it's done? Check it out.

I mean, listen to the oration. Where the hell is that kind of voice in today's turbulent and troubled times?

Two years ago, the saintly leaders at DownHillBattle did a nice little bit of copyright and general activism by organizing screenings of the seminal Civil Rights documentary Eyes on the Prize, which has not been available for sale for some time because of all the clearances necessary for the archival footage.

Their action was called Eyes on the Screen, and it used BittTorrent to distribute the first two episodes of the video series. I participated in SF, torrenting the first two episodes and setting up a showing at this anarchist loft I had a couple of connections with.

It was probably one of the single most rewarding pieces of activism I've participated in, as it drew a very diverse crowd both young and old, and people were very moved by both the documentary (which is GD amazing) and the circumstances (internet wizardry) by which it was presented.

That event was one of the rare moments in my time as a velvet revolutionary where I really felt like my work was building on, rather than digging itself out from under, the legacy of the 1960s. It was fucking inspiring.

Holmes and Nick and Tiffany got some serious pushback from the original producers who claimed they were really working hard on getting everything together for a DVD re-issue, and that this "stunt" was putting it all at risk. In response, they took down the torrent link and instead encouraged people instead to get the video from a library for screening.

Hmmmmmm....

January 13th 2007, the day I bought my first car. What did I get? A Taliban Truck, natch. I feel we've got a lot to learn (methodologically, that is) from global guerrillas, and their strong endorsement of late 80s Toyota pickups carries weight with me.

More info and pictures (obviously) soon.

UPDATE: Made it home. The truck, tentatively christened Moamar, performed beautifully on the drive up, although there's a non-critical leak in the coolant system. Good to be home: frigid night air and a hot tub an exotic turnip soup. Nice.

Well, it's on now. Bush will double-down more troops. Nancy will go all-in to beat it back, but Bush will veto and the House and Senate don't have 2/3rds majority to come over the top. Maybe in the time it takes to do this, more Republicans will flip, but it still seems unlikely that this can be effectively fought with procedure.

After all, Bush already started the escalation, sending more troops yesterday as a matter of fact. He's the decider!

I don't know what to make of this. It's kind of chilling that the President can keep surging forward even though everyone knows it's not really going to work out. It seems like a pretty big failure that there's no check or balance here, because this is moronic and (considering that people are dying) also somewhat monstrous.

The other spooky thing is sending those aircraft carriers, putting a Navy man in charge, and talking up the Patriot missile batteries (which are no real use against IEDs). That all points to Iran. But he wouldn't be stupid enough to try that, would he? Would he? Could we stop him if he was?

Not a fun line of thought to consider.

UPDATE: Shitters. I'm starting to get a very bad feeling about all this. It's very very Nixon part deux, but kinda worse in some ways.