A compendium of random thoughts regarding politics, society, feminism, sex, law, and anything else on my mind. POST YOUR COMMENTS BY CLICKING ON THE TIME INDICATOR BELOW THE POST YOU WISH TO COMMENT ON. RSS FEED AVAILABLE AT http://feeds.feedburner.com/Dilanblogspotcom

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APOLOGY TO KOBE BRYANT:
Turns out he asked the alleged victim for a different selfish, kinky sex act that is generally a no-no on a first date for non-celebrities (except in porn movies). See here and here for details.

posted by Dilan at 5:10 PM

 
700 FOR BONDS:
It's fashionable to hate Barry Bonds. Of course, here in LA, he's hated because he's a Giant. The media hates him because he doesn't play the game of smiling while answering their stupid, lazy-ass questions. The fans hate him because he plays the villain. And everyone hates him because he is suspected of steroid use.

Nonetheless, we are living through the era of a new Babe Ruth and we ought to recognize it. Nobody else out there is hitting 700 home runs. Nobody else has hit 73 in a season. Nobody else has had 200 walks in a season. In fact, if you attend a 3 game series of games between your local team and the Giants, you are almost guaranteed a Bonds home run and will quite possibly see two or three.

Sometime next year, he will pass the magic numbers of 714 (Ruth) and perhaps even 755 (Aaron) home runs. When he does, he will become the first since Ruth to hold both the single season and career home run records. It is said that it is better to be respected than loved. Unloved as he may be, Bonds' hitting prowress has certainly earned our respect.

posted by Dilan at 11:26 PM

 
DAN RATHER HAS GOT TO GO:
As they say, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. And once it became clear that those documents were forged, it was incumbent on Rather to admit it and investigate what happened. Instead, he is covering his own ass (ironic since the forged documents included an alleged "cover your ass" memo.

Howell Raines was fired, and a lot of people didn't think that could happen. The question is, is Rather too big a fish?

(Of course, I never understood what was so great about Rather in the first place. I mean, the guy isn't exactly Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow, is he?)

posted by Dilan at 7:59 PM

 
CELEBRITIES AND A CERTAIN TABOO SEX ACT:
[Warning, folks, this is very graphic.]
From the Vail, Colorado Daily News comes the edited transcript of Kobe Bryant's interview with police (according to the paper, it has been edited "for language and the most graphic details of the events as Bryant described them"):

"Detective Loya: Did you ever ask her if you wanted, if you could ...
Bryant: Yes. That’s when she said no. That’s when she said no. That’s when she said no.
Detective Loya: So what did, what did you say?
Detective Winters: What did you say, how did that, how did that come about?
Bryant: Um, you know, that’s when I asked if I could ..., she said no.
Detective Loya: So you like to ... ?
Bryant: That’s my thing, not always, I mean, so I stopped. Jesus Christ man. "

And here's more:

"Detective Winters: When did she, when did you stop, what, what made you stop?
Bryant: Well I asked her about the ... thing and she was like no, I don’t know.
Detective Loya: How many times did you ask her?
Bryant: Once.
Detective Winters: Okay, all right, okay. You said, when, did it stop at that point?
Bryant: Um, did I stop? (Inaudible) She went like this (inaudible), I asked her if I could ... and she was like no um, I thought she was cool, you know, I stopped. I stopped pumping and uh, I just, I just stood there like this (inaudible) and um, then she just moved like this."

Pretty obvious what the "..." thing is, isn't it?

Assuming the Kobe Bryant statement is truthful, this isn't the first time that a celebrity has been turned down for anal sex during a one-night stand.

For instance, there was Jenna Jameson and Marilyn Manson:

"Jenna talks about Marilyn Manson trying to have anal with her in the book but she had to turn him down because he was too big for her."

There was also Suzen Johnson and Frank Gifford. I don't have a cite for this one, but I remember that one of the tabloids reported that he asked for anal when he had his affair with the former flight attendant.

I think of consensual anal sex in the context of relationships. It is either something that very kinky women like to do with men that they completely trust, or something that women in long-term relationships will do (even though they don't really like it) to please their husbands or boyfriends who they love very much. I don't think that too many women do anal on the first date. It's painful (especially when there's no lube around, and you know that Kobe didn't have any lube-- he didn't even have a condom), requires preparation and relaxation, and, even at best and with a trusted partner, is far, far less pleasurable than vaginal sex is for a woman.

But, I guess this is one more example of celebrities getting-- or at least expecting to get-- whatever it is they want. Somehow I have a feeling that there are quite a few NBA, NFL, and rock groupies who do have anal sex sans lube with celebrities whom they just met, despite the fact that it is very painful for them, and that's why Messrs. Bryant, Manson, and Gifford apparently felt comfortable asking for it.

One other thing-- in the transcript, Kobe says, apparently about anal sex, "that's my thing". Why do I find it unsurprising, given Kobe's selfish playing style that emphasizes his individual scoring achievements over teamwork, that his "thing" is a particular sex act that gives him great pleasure while likely inflicting pain on his partner?

CORRECTION: It turns out that Kobe actually asked for a different kinky, selfish sex act. See this post. But my points remain valid.

posted by Dilan at 7:55 PM

 
COMMENTS:
I have enabled the "comments" feature on this blog. (I didn't know how to do that before.) Feel free to post whatever you want! (To post a comment, click on the blue time of posting indicator below the post.)

posted by Dilan at 5:59 PM

 
THE SMOKING TYPEWRITER:
The CBS documents are definitely forgeries. I have no doubt about it after reading this blog post:

http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html

The only question is who forged them? I don't think CBS has much of an obligation to protect the anonymity of folks who passed them forged documents. And this is a serious issue that has serious political repercussions. There's a big story here, and CBS should figure out who snookered them.

posted by Dilan at 5:22 PM

 
THE FALLACY OF THE DEMOCRATS NEED TO BE "TOUGH":
Presidential campaigns always conform to established narratives. Republicans have to demonstrate that they are compassionate and not heartless, Democrats must demonstrate that they are strong and tough, and that they are not big-spending liberals. Each candidate is at times accused of being too ideological, and too captive to his base, and at other times is accused of being a flip-flopper, a wobbler, of cynically "moving to the center" for the general election.

I guess it is easier to use one or more of these prefabricated narratives than it is to actually figure out what makes the candidates tick or to say anything original about them. But the problem is, these narratives are not only lazyman's journalism-- they are also often wrong.

Consider, for instance, the problem that the Democrats are supposedly "weak" on defense issues. It probably started as part of the disgraceful Republican meme in the 1940's that liberalism and communism were one and the same, and thus the liberals could not be trusted to protect this country. So let's look from the 1940's out and see what we can see about Democrats and defense issues:

1948: Truman-- defense issues probably helped him, as he was associated with the successful conclusion of World War II and the dropping of the atomic bombs, which was widely popular.
1952: Truman declines to seek reelection because the Korean War was so unpopular. The Korean War is, along with Vietnam, the classic "Democrat War", to use Bob Dole's phrase from 1976. Truman was clearly trying to show he was as anti-communist as the Republicans. Instead, he got us into a quagmire that took 50,000 American lives and ended in stalemate. Adlai Stevenson is the Democratic nominee aganist Eisenhower, runs primarily on domestic issues, and loses to a war hero whom no Democrat could have likely beaten.
1956: Stevenson faces Eisenhower again, Ike still wildly popular, same result.
1960: Kennedy vs. Nixon. Kennedy argues that there was a "missle gap", and that Eisenhower and Nixon were insufficiently hawkish in the Taiwan Strait and in Cuba. Kennedy wins a close election. Defense issues helped Kennedy.
1964: Johnson vs. Goldwater. Actually, this is a fascinating election because Johnson won it by posing as a dove. (He rewarded the electorate for their votes, of course, by escalating the disastrous hawkish policy that Ike and Kennedy started in Vietnam.) He attacked Goldwater as "trigger happy" and ran the famous "Daisy commercial" which insinuated that a vote for Goldwater was a vote for nuclear war.
1968: Johnson, like Truman before him, doesn't run for reelection because of the unpopularity of the Vietnam War. Democrats could have nominated anti-war Eugene McCarthy but instead nominate Hubert Humphrey, who was compromised by his role in the pro-Vietnam War Johnson Administration. Humphrey barely loses to Nixon, who runs on a promise to get us out of Vietnam. Again, the more dovish candidate wins the election (and again, after posing as a dove, the winner proceeds to escalate the Vietnam War).
1972: McGovern is a big anti-war candidate, but he is also completely incompetent (convention speech in wee hours of morning, Vice-Presidential candidate taken off ticket after it turns out he had been in psychotherapy). Loses to Nixon despite Nixon's unpopularity.
1976: Carter promises a foreign policy based on human rights, isn't particularly hawkish or doveish. Beats Ford, who was crippled by Republicans' association with Watergate scandal.
1980: Carter seen as ineffective President; Reagan was unbeatable anyway. Greatest politician in my lifetime.
1984: Mondale was seen as too liberal, but again, he wasn't beating Reagan anyway.
1988: Dukakis gets bashed on for posing in that tank, but it should be remembered that he was trying to look more tough, not less tough, by doing that. He gets beat by Bush 41, who was running as Reagan II.
1992: Weird election. Ross Perot splits the vote. Clinton ran as a hawk, saying that he would be tougher on China than Bush 41 had. On the other hand, Bush 41 trumpeted what was then seen as success in the first Gulf War.
1996: Clinton vs. Dole. Again, both of them run fairly hawkish campaigns. Clinton wins.
2000: Gore trumpets his role in Bosnia and Kosovo war policies. Bush runs as a dove, promising a more "humble" foreign policy. Bush wins.

So let's see: in 1948 and 1960, out-hawking the Republicans helped Democrats. However, in 1964, 1968, and 2000, the more dovish candidate won. The only elections where Democrats were probably hurt by being doves were elections they were going to lose anyway-- the two to Reagan, and McGovern's incompetent campaign in 1972.

So why, exactly, was John Kerry's vote for the Iraq war seen as such an asset by the Democratic Party establishment in this election cycle? Especially since: (1) it makes it impossible for Kerry to properly and effectively criticize the war that he voted to support, and (2) it is perfectly clear that it was a political vote, an attempt to protect Kerry's electoral prospects if the war went well (all one has to do is look at Kerry's previous doveishness (including on the question of Saddam Hussein in 1991) to see this).

If the Democrats lose this election, they will have gotten what they deserved. Parties without any balls to stand up and oppose bad policies deserve to lose.

posted by Dilan at 11:27 AM

 
BUSH'S PAST:
Apparently 60 Minutes, this Wednesday, is going to run an expose on what President Bush was doing that year when he was supposed to be in the Texas / Alabama National Guard and nobody knows where he was. I am ambivalent about this issue, because I really do wish the Presidential campaign would focus on more important things, like Iraq and the deficit, but here are a couple of observations about this issue:

1. A lot of Bush's supporters have tried to make Bush's National Guard service into some noble cause akin to the current Guard members putting their lives on the line in Iraq, when we all know that in the Vietnam era this was a route for rich kids (like Dan Quayle) to not have to go to Vietnam while not explicitly dodging the draft either. Bush-- who could have defused this by simply having the guts to say that he didn't want to go to Vietnam and admires greatly those who did-- has never said a word about this argument being made on his behalf.

2. The (tacitly) Bush-sponsored Swift Boat ads (falsely) trashed Kerry's service record and his activities protesting Vietnam. Again, Bush could have defused this by simply condemning the Swift Boat ads as false and contemptible (no, not all 527 ads, just the Swift Boat ones). But he didn't (again, he does not have the guts to ever tell members of his base that they are full of it), and if voters have a right to consider whether Kerry has told the truth about 35 years ago, they certainly have the right to consider whether Bush has told the truth about 33 years ago.

The truth is, I am sure Bush did a lot of unsavory and unadmirable things when he was a young alcoholic. I also think it is quite likely that he didn't take his service to his country very seriously and had no intention of going to Vietnam. I happen to admire Bush for having overcome the problems of his youth. But let's face it-- the reason his comeback from alcoholism and youthful irresponsibility is so impressive is because he was so irresponsible in his younger years. He has never been willing to admit this in anything other than oblique terms. He has admitted that he was "young and irresponsible" but has never admitted specifics-- cocaine, multiple DUI's, avoiding Vietnam service, lots of womanizing, etc. (The reason for this is because he has a lot of supporters on the religious right who feel these things reflect badly on one's character even if one later repents for them.)

By the way, I don't think Bush has to admit these things. He really doesn't. I'm fine with him just obliquely saying he was young and irresponsible-- though I do wish he would just admit why he didn't go to Vietnam.

But here's the problem. Kerry was a very responsible youth. Really. He risked his life for his country, and then came back and exercised his First Amendment rights to try to end a war that he thought was immoral and save the lives of other young American and Vietnamese citizens. About the only irresponsible things that you could argue he did were using too extreme rhetoric in the Senate and throwing away the ribbons and medals-- and even those acts are actually quite defensible in context. But here's my point: even if you believe that Kerry went too far in some of his war protesting activities, such acts are probably not nearly as irresponsible as some of the things Bush did before he turned his life around.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with something I've said for some time. Bush should not be attacked for the fact that in his youth, he was irresponsible. I don't care-- he's clearly turned his life around, and we should all admire that. But Bush-- and his surrogates as well-- have no business attacking Kerry for his actions when he was young, because if what Kerry did at age 27 is fair game, then the vastly worse things that Bush did before he cleaned up his life are also fair game. And the Bush people don't want to play that way. They need Kerry's youthful anti-war activities to portray him as a dangerous leftist peacenik. (Notice, for instance, Zell Miller's out of context quotation of Kerry's remark-- from his college days-- that he opposed US military actions without UN approval. Kerry has never repeated this remark, and voted for Kosovo and Iraq wars without UN approval, but Miller still used it.)

In this context, Bush deserves what he gets in terms of the examinations of his sordid past.

posted by Dilan at 6:32 PM