Here are just a few of things I believe, think, and know to be right:
Sustainability and environmentalism are not incompatible with greater consumption, a growing population, and/or aquiring more and more “stuff.” We just need it all to be recyclable and made from recycled things. The climate crisis is a technology challenge and solvable problem given enough money. We don’t have too many people, too much population growth, too much stuff, too much trash. We could all go on vacation in the virtual world, powered by solar energy, and future technology could make the experience akin and likely better than the real thing. For example.
I cannot speak for any neighborhood but my own (and I want to stress, I don’t intend to); but in my immediate neighborhood, most of the visibly unsheltered “homeless” are able-bodied, caucasian, English-speaking and well-fed. They have clothes, tents, and equipment (iPhones, laptops). They do not appear to be victims of any socio-economic structural injustice beyond our enablement. They are addicted to a life on the street to enable drug use and the associated activities it both requires and encourages. all low-level property criminals, the visibly unsheltered, and hard drug (methamphetamine, crack, heroin) users are sy
3. I absolutely hate live music.
4. I genuinely believe Sheryl Sandberg is a sociopath; I believe that she is directly responsible for the election of Donald Trump as my President, and for the departure of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from a union with Europe, a continent it sacrificed its Empire to liberate from fascism.
5. I was one of the very first people I know to declare Trump would win. I believe I was probably a victim of Russian trolls in my (nonetheless accurate) view that Hilary Clinton is unacceptable as Presidential candidate. The Russian Trolls probably helped shape my view of her unpopularity and ability to cause polarization; but I still think she’s unacceptable. Here’s why: You cannot be the first female president and bring with you as your husband a man who, when he was President, repeatedly showed, through his actions, that he had no respect for women. He brought an intern into the Oval Office, alone, and stuck a cigar into her vagina, and ejaculated onto her Gap dress to the degree his semen stains were visible to the nation on the dress. The dress was a piece of evidence in a Congressional impeachment trial. Imagine if we had a dress with Harvey Weinstein’s cum on it (ok, that’s not fair, Bill is only accused of rape by one woman). Imagine if we had Trumps. We’d be livid. Oh, ! I fucking miss the 1990s so much. DIGRESSION ALERT!! Ok, back to my point. Basically, I do not believe you can be a feminist and support a woman who’d make someone like that our first First Gentleman. She’s an enabler of his sexual harassment of women for decades.
6. There is nothing anyone could have done to prevent me from becoming gay, including myself. I wasn’t always happy about this fact. But I see now that it prevented me from becoming a straight, white, male asshole. I have genuine lived experience as a persecuted minority; I feel like I’m more empathetic, inherently sympathetic, and allied with all other marginalized demographic cohorts.
7. All my friends are Jewish women, pretty women, smart women, a childhood or family friend, or a big ol’ homosexual. I don’t know why but that’s my tribe. The rest of you, I will take additions for a new friend once every six months. To win, simply do not call or text me for the next 6 months and you’ll win.
8. I am an ENFP. My archetype is Ariel from the Little Mermaid. Like her, I’m a hoarder, always late, kind of a hot mess, self-absorbed, but deep down, a genuinely kind person who usually is forgiven because people know he loves them and they do him in return.
9. I am deeply, deeply offensive. If that upsets you, the greatest thing about liberal democracies is that you do not need to read anything you don’t like. And I don’t have to change what I write because of how you feel. We do not regulate speech in this country; we do not “ban” words (sorry Sheryl Sandberg, Stalin and totalitarianism). You get to choose what you read, and what you say; and so do I. This is an amazing and beautiful and sacred right and privilege. It is central to our democracy, to our dignity, and to our civilization’s long-term worthiness.
But if that doesn't do it for you, here is my version of the South Park preamble: everyiutning in this blog honors and is protected by the First Fucking Amendment. Also, only fags don’t understand the difference between satire and bigotry (I also have to go; there is a dead baby in a clown costume rotting in my microwave).