Fwd: Off the chain

It's pretty astounding -- and a little frightening -- how much of our political discourse has been happening, unfettered and un-fact-checked through peer-to-peer channels like chain email over the last decade. You end up with whoppers like those questioning Obama's religious identity and "Americanism" that have seeped insidiously into public consciousness via deliberate plants by Republican operatives -- and have largely succeeded in otherizing an otherwise unstoppable candidate.

It's rare that I'm included in one of these forwards, but (shocking!) I find it hard to resist responding when I am, and I try to do so in a way that's inclusive and doesn't alienate the sender -- not always an easy task when you're faced with Islamophobic or anti-immigrant blather.

Last week, I had the pleasure of getting an entirely grassroots email forward generated by pro-choice progressives who were soliciting donations for Planned Parenthood "in honor of" Sarah Palin. It was a pretty welcome change from the standard stuff I usually get from the gun-toting conservative uncle/spooked former music teacher from Alabama conting. Then this morning I got this one:

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, right? .....

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic,
different.'

Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.


If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first
black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration
drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a
Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the
state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spe nd 4 years in the
United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while
sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the
Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs
committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council
and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months
as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified
to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2
beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real
Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a
Christian.

If you teach responsible , age appropriate sex education, including the
proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other
option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen
daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a
prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values
don't represent America's.

If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age
25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska
from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

It was surprisingly well-informed (suprising not because of the sender, but because of the fact that typically these things lack any substance and are just vessels for fear-mongering), and it laid bare the hypocrisy of the Republican ticket's talking points.

I wouldn't gone on with my day at that point, but then I saw this response attached:

You already know how I feel about politics and therefore politicians. You know I don't consider myself Liberal or Conservative. I hate labels, so I define myself a Constitutional Protectionist. Neither side seems to concern themselves with that or what's really wrong with this country. They spend too much time worrying about the personal lives of the opposition. While some of the things that go on, or have gone on, in ones live may be considered a window into their lives, we've all seen that it does not necessarily effect one's ability to lead though it obviously affects our opinion of them as human beings. The problem is both sides lie long enough to get your vote, then do what they want anyway. So, folks please forgive me if I choose place my focus on other things regarding these people and their ability to lead us out of the mess all the previous "leaders" regardless of party, have gotten us into. But, having said all that, I do vote, always have and will, and have never advocated not voting despite seemingly always having to deal with the lesser of two evils. That responsibility as an American citizen is the only thing that gives any of us the right to complain. In all honesty I am not really enamored with any of these people, finding some good and some not so good in all of them. I'm not confused, just annoyed. I don't get caught up in what the media says because I have the same opinion of talking heads that I do of most all politicians. Thanks for the opportunity to read and respond to this but I won't be spending any more time reading or responding. I really do hate politics and the media.

...and I thought, alright, I'll bite, because if no one responds, the debate is DOA. And then why not use it as an excuse to post, since it's been a while since I've written something that was purely for the sake of politicking and intellectual masturbation:

The response to this forward was a bit disturbing to me...especially since I think many Americans share this disillusioned, disenfranchised attitude. Not that there isn't plenty to feel disillusioned about, but a less than surface examination of the candidates' policy positions would reveal that the decision isn't between two very similar candidates or the lesser of two evils. Neither are perfect in my book, but there are very clear cut differences here, ones that you'd discover upon circumventing mainstream network news media, instead of withdrawing from the dialogue.

Pat's forward is exposing the distortions we're getting from talking heads and from campaign spin -- it's essentially affirming those cynical frustrations that many express about opportunistic politicians and sensationalist talking heads. Only the response misses the key point that the distortions are originating from one side in particular.

Rather than just writing off "politics and the media" -- without which, we wouldn't have a democracy or a Constitution -- if you're a self-described Constitutional Protectionist, you'd want to be certain that the next adminstration we elect isn't of the same ilk as one that's shredded the Constitution as gleefully and with as much reckless abandon as the current one.

It's this kind of misplaced -- though understandable -- apathy and surrender to the worst elements in American politics that landed us with the last 8 years. The more that intelligent members of the reality-based community throw up their hands, the easier it will be for these forces of distortion to capture the minds of the more impressionable folks who are more susceptible to the kind of fringe viewpoints that seek to priviledge the very few at the expense of the rest of us. It's our civic duty to prevent that from happening again.

I really think it's important to engage these folks and meet them where they're at, so I 'spose if if this conversation happens to be via email forwards, then I'm game.

Harvey comes home.

San Francisco paid a long overdue - though never more appropriate - tribute to one of its unsung heroes last Thursday with the unveiling of a bronze bust of Supervisor Harvey Milk . The Hall was regaled in rainbow balloon anemone chandeliers. Old Glory was dressed in her best tie-dye, draped over the balcony of the second story, The Sisters in white, veiled and bejeweled. It had all the pomp and circumstance of a corporate sponsored gala, State Senators stumping. Sure Milk was a visionary, sometimes prophetic - portending his martyrdom - but could he have imagined the movement he was part of being mainstreamed to the point where (to put it as Cleve Jones did) Smirnoff and American Airlines targeted his community as "just another marketing demographic"?

Milk's voice was echoing in the rotunda, booming ominous and ethereal and indecipherable with the acoustics of those coffers, as if he were speaking from some great beyond - though I doubt that'd be his style, because he couldn't have banked on the afterlife if he gave so much of himself to the living. He predicted his own murder, his sacrifice to the movement, giving his life so we - all those queer and questioning and fluid and anything but mainstream - could be public and live openly and with dignity, without fear from the tyranny of regression.

There were other voices - Newsom's was hoarse, and maybe I imagined it, or some part of me wanted to hear it, but I thought I heard him say something about San Francisco values and "eat your heart out, middle America." Tom Ammiano's soprano soared in sharp relief - a pointed "SHUT UP" for anyone who ever wanted to stamp out equality.

Going alone, I thought I'd just play casual observer - mostly to soak up inspiration for writing - but people are drawn to distance. Two women asked if I knew whether Sean Penn was making an appearance, another assumed I was a reporter and thought I was old enough (gasp) to have been around when Dianne Feinstein made the shell-shocked announcement on TV that Milk and Moscone had been killed. He lamented the lack of direct action, the complacency that capitulated, "it's enough to build a website." I bristled a little, said the lack of media coverage made it a losing tactic, and that people had turned to making media of their own. He himself had given up on mainstream media, the tenant of objectivity that "gave voice to crazies".

There was one man that made the decision to get off at the Civic Center station worthwhile on his own. He announced himself by gently teasing me about my back - too young to be aching from standing. A self-described San Francisco native, a man swilling a celebratory bourbon, he sidled up next to me while I was doing my best self-composed fly on the wall. He told me about the Milk he knew - a man he wouldn't have known but for the grace of PBS and "The Times of Harvey Milk" when he was "just a kid in the Bronx". We shot the shit - talking about the fight in November, how 2008 is it - finally it - and how insular San Francisco is, and how somehow short of moving inland, we've got to channel our political energies there. I couldn't help but feel proud to see Victory Fund's logo in the sponsor slideshow. He told me how Milk cut his hair, but he didn't conform - he just simulated the mainstream, and worked from the inside - never losing his principles.

Then there was the grand finale - GSA kids, out at 14, 15 - climbing the marble stairs, pulling back the silk drape, all flashbulbs and a chorus of happy birthday that moved me to tears. Home at last, to ordain the marriages of same-sex couples.

On the way home, a woman wielding a petition outside pleading for 30 sec of my day made me a little sheepish - my profession, but done outside the comfortable confines of an office, the anonymity of ghostwriting behind a screen. It had seemed hard enough to turn out after the 9 to 5 for this event and it made me wonder guiltily whether I still had the fortitude to do the canvassing thing. Made me even more grateful for the hard won victories of our forebears.

Oy gevalt, no matzo?!

It's true, there definitely was a shortage in SF over the weekend. My housemates and I had to resort to eating our haroset on whole wheat table water crackers.

On an unrelated, totally unkosher note, I indulged in some other types of deliciousness over the weekend, including a burger and fritto misto at Magnolia Brewery, spaghetti and meatballs at Emmy's, and poached eggs with buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy at Universal Cafe. Light, I know.






(If this is starting to look like a food blog, that's probably because eeting is my primary form of recreation. And if it looks like a photo blog, it's because I'm too lethargic from all the eeting to write.)

Photo creds to virgined , rsun78, and eirecubdc.

Job's theme song, on cello.

What could be better?

h/t to diane :)

That's how we roll.

My co-workers and I were "those people" riding around the city a couple weeks ago in Go Cars. Think fumes, squirrelly-handling, incapable of going in reverse, and sometimes they need a push to make it uphill. At least mine did. You're the most hated thing on the road when you're driving them, so luckily people stay away from you. If it weren't for that fact, and the fact that they're taxicab yellow and you can't miss em, I'd say they really shouldn't be street legal. Though I have heard tales of people getting drunk and driving them around...perfectly safe.

It started raining while we were tooling around the Richmond district, and one leaked while the other wouldn't start after sitting for a few minutes.

All in all, though, it was a blast.

Summing up that last post in comic form

I heart xkcd.

That really got out of hand fast!

In college, I couldn't resist taking the bait and responding to breathtakingly stupid opinion columns in the Daily Nexus. Case in point. As my readers (all three of them) can attest, I'm just a wee bit stubborn and have a hard time backing away from a political argument--er any argument, for that matter--even if it's a losing battle between two polarized ideologies that can only result in stalemate. Or ad hominem attacks (communist v. racist, anti-semite v. Islamophobe).

But after graduation, I didn't have another outlet for these wonderfully productive pissing contests. There was a serious shortage of self hair-rip or eyeball-gouge-enducing political fodder.

Then my endorsement of Edwards on Facebook precipitated an ongoing debate thread with a high school friend who also studied globalization but ended up on the opposite end of the spectrum. We took a long hiatus after the dialogue seemed to reach fever pitch around a "clash of civilizations"-type argument, and now we're back to electoral politics. He says he'll vote for Obama--he likes his counterterrorism expert--but he needed convincing that all this talk of populism is just to appease labor, and that he's really a free trade champion at heart.

I thought I'd share my response, since our conversations haven't gone beyond the confines of Facebook messages, and it's honestly the closest thing I've written to an editorial in a while, albeit an at times shrill antagonistic one. But that's how our conversations usually go--a jab here and there, but mostly gloves above the belt. I've kept it anonymous, though in the unlikely event he actually reads this, I'm happy to name names. For now we'll call him...Milton.

Oh Milton, trying to get my goat with some populist-baiting. Alright, I’ll bite.

No use losing sleep over Obama’s trade policy – rest assured, behind closed doors, he leans laissez faire. Yep, he’s just pulling the wool over the eyes of those poor jobless schmucks in the Rust Belt, the folks that have been hung out to dry time and time again by the race to the bottom. The proof is in the pudding (I'll let The Nation do the talking):

"...an Obama aide told Canadians not to take seriously the Illinois senator's criticisms of NAFTA"

"Obama backed the recent Peru Free Trade Agreement, and his 'movement' on globalization issues has seemed to be influenced more by presidential ambition than the commitment to workers here and abroad that motivates fair-trade crusaders like Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and Maine Congressman Mike Michaud--neither of whom has endorsed anyone in the presidential race"

And if that doesn't ease your mind, know that George Will has praised Obama's economic advisor.

Obama’s no Edwards, much to my chagrin, though I could see where you might feel like he’s taking a page from the populist playbook with his recent watershed speech. He talked about unity, which has always made me nervous because it smells a little too much like capitulation--trying to shake hands across the aisle with an unbending opponent. It also reminds me of Pollyanna sunshine and lollipops notions of colorblindness that wash over the very real experience of racism. But I digress…

Instead Obama’s speech was nothing short of a paradigm shift in the way he encouraged a frank discussion of race, bridging the gap by promoting unity against a common socioeconomic threat: “a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.” He placed corporate greed squarely in the crosshairs. I could see how that might make some nervous.

If Obama’s just spouting supposed populist claptrap about improving people’s lives, then I suppose it’s no different than the obligatory Republican deception that the GOP has middle class Americans' economic interests at heart. And I doubt Obama's just doing it to pander to labor. You know, it’s amusing to hear the free trade faithful decry the unfair influence of “big labor,” as if labor could somehow compete with corporate power in influencing politics. Last I checked, only 12% of the workforce is unionized, and Americans have a more favorable view of WalMart than unions, ferchrissakes. And anti-statists act as if they’re some embattled minority? Ha. For as much as free marketeers fancy themselves empiricists, they’ve always sounded a lot like another “embattled” faith-based force in American politics that holds onto a tired orthodoxy with religious fervor.

Phew, tangent.

Is it all empty rhetoric? I’m skeptical too, but unlike cynical fundamentalists who would conflate democracy with markets and would have every politician in their pocket, I’d prefer to think that we have a candidate who is genuinely interested in this “nonsensical” desire to address the needs of the many.

You’ll really have to make this decision on your own. And honestly, what choice do you have, since Republicans have failed to produce a worthy candidate? The American people have seen the impact of deregulation and privatization with the mortgage crisis and the catastrophe in Iraq, and if all this talk of “change” is any indication, hopefully this election will act as a referendum on the relentless corporatist trade policies that have steamrolled homeowners and robbed American troops and Iraqi civilians alike of their lives and livelihoods.

Aaand I'm spent. This ended up taking more time than I intended. But it's been a while since I've sparred with anyone on this stuff. Got me fired up -- thanks.

-Heather

P.S. About The Economist -- I no more believe that it’s an objective agenda-free publication than I believe that Pinochet's Chile was an “economic miracle.”

The blame game, ad infinitum

Though it's become the centerpiece of the Beltway argument for troop withdrawal, it still never fails to nauseate me:

The only way to get the Iraqis to accept responsibility for their future is by no longer extending them an indefinite blank check, intensifying diplomacy and withdrawing our troops swiftly, responsibly and safely.

-Lee Feinstein, national security director for the Clinton campaign

Jens Lekman @ Bimbo's 365

Oh, there was many a hipster, to be sure, donning plaid just like the headliner, and their "very unique hairdos" (as David sarcastically sniped). They were out in full effect, professing their "man crushes" and demanding their favorite songs. One was met with an uncharacteristically firm rebuke from Jens: "No. You can't get everything you want in life." But he couldn't keep a straight face long enough to be make his annoyance believable. This guy is too sanguine, too sweet to be cold -- dancing giddily around the stage with his band, all in matching outfits with matching keys around their necks, arms outstretched like airplanes during an electronic instrumental interlude.

No, the hipsters couldn't dissuade me. After all, with a"boyfriendable baritone" and "deadpan style of singing" reminiscent of Stephen Merritt*, what other musician is charming enough to make even the most mundane minutiae lyrical? Seriously, who else can pull off a line like this:

So you pick up your asthma inhaler
and put it against your lips
and oh those lips I've loved

or this

I was slicing up an avocado
when you came up behind me
with your quiet brand new sneakers

or my favorite,

Oh, I still remember "Regulate" with Warren G.
Could that have been back in the sweet summer of 1993?

Hell, he made a song out of Google Map directions!

Wasn't really expecting him to be a comedian, though I guess those witty lyrics had to come from somewhere. He related a story of telling his audience in Florence how he marvelled at what a beautiful city they lived in, and learned his lesson after the show when some fans cornered him and angrily insisted it was a shit hole. So he did a little reverse psychology -- "I hate San Francisco, with your rainbows, and your tiny tiny hummingbirds, and your cute boys and girls...fuck San Francisco. This song's for Oakland." Cheers all around, natch.

He played Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill during an encore, violin and cello subbing for the horns like at this show in Italy:


Reminds me of clapping on a street corner in Santiago...

*Talking smack about hipsters and then linking to Pitchfork...no, the irony's not lost on me.

Grist outdoes itself

Young McHipster has a farm, e-i-e-i-o. And on her farm, she has organic produce, e-i-e-i-o. With a CSA here, and a trucker hat there, here a market, there a Pabst, everywhere an urbanite. Young McHipster has a farm, e-i-e-i-o!

Reminds me of one of those "overheard in San Francisco" moments I had with my housemate at Dolores Park a while back--couple d00ds of the hipster persuasion were sitting near us guzzling (of course) Pabst, and this is their prototypically perfect exchange:

Hipster 1: You're not rockin' the fixie today, man.

Hipster 2: Nah, too many hills.

photo by Tizzie P.

Didn't know they had a name for it...

Overall Shot of San Francisco Protest
Originally uploaded by mattmills

More brilliant reporting from the Chronicle:

The rhetoric Wednesday was not as heated. Direct Action coordinated this year's protest but seemed aware of what has been called the "Code Pink conundrum," in which the activists are so shrill and unpleasant that even those who agree with them are turned off by their tactics.

Update: From the ANSWER Coalition flyer--

BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW
END COLONIAL OCCUPATION
IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, PALESTINE, HAITI
MONEY FOR JOBS, HOUSING, HEALTHCARE & SCHOOLS, NOT WAR
STOP U.S. INTERVENTION IN IRAN, VENEZUELA, CUBA, PHILIPPINES...
NOT TO RACISM & ANTI-IMMIGRANT ATTACKS,
DEFEND CIVIL LIBERTIES

I've heard of casting a wide net, but wow...that covers just about everything.

...but I thought empanadas were the new cupcake?

So I know I said I'd blog about our office cupcake tasting, but then I found the post that might've served as inspiration for the day that almost ended in tragedy...delicious, iced tragedy.

I was completely torn between Kara's Cupcakes and That Takes the Cake, but ultimately my chocolate bias won out and I gave the nod to Kara's because of the Fleur De Sel. With that said, I think That Takes the Cake has the most original cupcakes in terms of flavor combinations and cake textures.

My thoughts exactly. I can't believe we did this the week of Thanksgiving. Oh wait, yes I can. And did I mention my housemates and I are hosting a cupcake party soon?

You know, Nosheteria (best food blog name evar) says cupcakes have become passe, but it's gonna take a helluva lot more than them falling out of fashion for me to stop fiending.

The mother of all markets

Back when local food was more necessity than movement:


Alemany Farmer's Market, 1953
Originally uploaded by Telstar Logistics

ch-ch-ch-changes

Seems every time there's some sort of significant shift in where I'm at, I rename the blog. So it's been almost 6 months since I moved to "The City"...long overdue, but maybe now that I've got a purty new masthead and links to boot I'll have more of an incentive to post.

Required Reading: "The Face of Feminism" Edition

Thought I'd share a coupla things I read over the weekend that struck a chord.

>>Jessica Valenti on "The Sisterhood Split" -- this captures a lot of what I've been feeling about the dialogue around Clinton's candidacy and reactions from mainstream feminsim:

...Herein lies the reason so many of us are loath to discuss intrafeminist problems publicly. We know that Clinton supporters are taking heat from sexists--whether at home, at work or from pundits who relish talking about Clinton's "shrill" voice or whatever thinly veiled misogyny of the day is on cable news. We don't want to provide the backlash more fodder. We also know how hard our feminist foremothers fought to be here and how important the moment is--and we want to be a part of it. I certainly do. But not at the expense of what I believe is best for women, and not just because a movement that assumes it knows what's best for me tells me to.

This is refreshing after reading Astrid Henry's "Not My Mother's Sister" -- a book reviewed on by Feministing's "Not Oprah's Book Club" with a cover more befitting "Ya Ya Sisterhood" than a somewhat dense scholarly deconstruction of the generational lines in the sand drawn between 2nd and 3rd wave feminisms. And by dense I mean that the footnotes and bibliography were as long as half the text itself, and my head just isn't in the game anymore when it comes to academic writing. Too much writing for email, where there's a premium placed on punchy prose (and did I mention aliteration?). But I'm rambling...I like that Henry is trying to get at the roots of intergenerational infighting in order to shore up the movement and refocus energy outward, but I think I prefer Valenti's approach:

...feminists make a mistake in prematurely calling for unity. Instead of glossing over the problem with the rhetoric of sisterhood or having an elite group declare the dispute settled, let's own the conflict and use it to make real progress.

>>On the topic of global feminisms, Alternet's Joshua Holland asks "Is Islam Really Stuck in the 12th Century on Women's Rights?" A lot of what I've read from him has challenged the "clash of civilizations" contingent and called out Islamophobia and Western ethnocentrism, and this was no exception:

The bottom line here is that increasing women's civic, political and economic participation is a good fight, and an incredibly significant one. Focusing primarily on the status of women in Islamic countries to rid ourselves of the stigma of our own inequalities or to justify Western hegemony over the rest of the world is not.

I had to read this at least five times before it really registered:

Portuguese women got the vote in 1976, Swiss women in 1971.

No. Words.

Mission Mural Tour

Where I work, the last Friday of every month is reserved for "Final Friday Funday" office fieldtrips -- er, off-site meetings? So on leap day, a coworker took us on a walking tour of the murals in the Mission.

Check out all the photos here -- particularly the Megatron-esque gentrification monster. Most photos were taken in Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley by Mark F. and myself.

Silhoutte portal reveals a previous incarnation
of constantly repainted Clarion Alley

Precita Eyes is a community-based mural arts collaboration that offers weekend tours and curates many of these pieces.

Stuff White People Like

Tell me you've seen this.

(I'm sipping water from a Sigg bottle right now, I might add.)

"Cheers--top of the food chain."

Just watched Alex Koll do this routine at the Punch Line, and thought it was definitely share-worthy:



He did deadpan improv like I've never seen at the Dark Room earlier this month. Ooo, look at me, name dropping San Francisco comedy joints, whoopedy-doo.

OMG she's alive...

...and well. Haven't written since moving to San Francisco, and for lack of a better place to begin, I thought I'd start by sharing some of the more recent activities that have been keeping me gleefully preoccupied, and work backwards (read: SF cupcake tasting still has yet to be chronicled).

Please, try to contain your excitement, hb.

Yesterday: SF Freeze flash mob, at the Powell St. cablecar turnaround. Stood still in the rain, nose running and tears streaming for five minutes while unamused shoppers pushed past. My housemate and her brother had planned to pose jousting with umbrellas, and I ended up holding mine out as a shield. Passersby got increasingly annoyed--"what is this?" "get out of the way" "fucking move"--and I started asking myself: Really? Are you really willing to get poked in the eye with an umbrella spoke for the sake of a performance art? Er, no. Definitely outside the comfort zone, and not something I would've done on my own, but ultimately was glad to be a part of it, risking loss of sight notwithstanding.

Here's a really well composed photo, and some low-res video below. Neither capture this punk/Victorian-esque style couple that stood nearby me, frozen in a kiss for the full five minutes beneath an inside-out umbrella.


SF freeze
Originally uploaded by Marco Sanchez





Next up: Last week's release party for “Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure” - inspired by Ernest Hemingway's "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."



A few choice memoirs:

No shit I'm critical - you're flawed. - Elizabeth Koch
Friends all Jewish. I'm merely neurotic. - Brian Mahon
Most successful accomplishments based on spite. - Scott Birch
Big heart protected by sharp tongue. - Kris Kleindienst
Adopted? Are you fucking shitting me? - Darius Logan
Happiness is a warm salami sandwich. - Stanley Bing
Mormon feminist loves husband, hates patriarchy. - Caroline Kline
Never really finished anything, except cake. - Carletta Perkins
Fight. like. hell. for. the. living. - Susie Bright

Was inspired to write a couple less clever ones of my own:

Hated perpetual motion, now can't stop
Privileged social activist: contradiction in terms?
Mellow actor, scattered activist: seeking balance

And finally: Just so I don't look like a shill for Laughing Squid, there's McDonald's in Chinatown for the New Year's celebration.

They were out in full force with a hidg-ous float and colossal puffy happy meal box-shaped tent, complete with flags advertising their offensive "i-am-asian" sitelet. They've actually trademarked the phrase. Mmm, have some cultural appropriation with your Big Mac. Oh, and don't miss their tagline: "i aim to be the best." It's okay to perpetuate the "overachiever" stereotype, cause it's not racist if it's a compliment, right guys?! McVom.

pic courtesy of David's phone