I'm not even cross-dressing today!

My roomie wanted to go shopping today. I tagged along with her to the mall, contemplating buying a jacket or a lightweight coat, as I managed to leave my coat in Middle Tennessee and Memphis is experiencing a cold snap.

As usual, shopping for clothing put me in a bad mood.

We went to Aeropostale first. I like a lot of the clothing in Aeropostale. The look appeals to me: not frilly, simple lines, basic clothing. In fact, as I walk in, I see a denim jacket that I like. When I note that the top jacket, which from a distance I would have pegged for an extra-small, is actually a medium, my heart falls a bit. But I flip through the rack until I find an extra-large. (When stores have clothing that fits me, I alternate between large and extra-large, occassionally a medium.) The extra-large, of course, is just a bit too small on my large shoulders. Oh well, by this point I'm used to clothing from stores and departments aimed at my age group not fitting me. (By the way, I find it ironic that a clothing brand called Self-Esteem doesn't make shirts that will fit me.) I see a couple of shirts that I like in the girl's section, but a quick holding up of the shirt to my shoulders indicates that a correct fit is not to be found in the store. While my roomie is trying on some pants and shirts that she found I did a quick survey of the jeans section. Most of the jeans in the store were between sizes 0-5. I located about four, maybe five pairs of 11/12 jeans and a grand total of two pairs of pants in the 13/14 size. I spared myself the pain of bothering to try on the 11/12s that were in a style and wash I liked (I'm a twelve in some brands). I doubt they would have fit me. The 13/14s were in a hideously light wash. My suspicions that Aeropostale was being paid off by whoever profits from driving girls who like me are caught between regular and plus sizes to thoughts of becoming a nudist confirmed, I became bored and wandared to the boys side of the store.

I regretted my decision to stop wearing mens clothing. Boys clothing appeals to me for some reason. I have a tendency to go shopping for my little brother and come home with clothing for me. Plaid shirts, baggy cargo pants, proportions that aren't overwhelmed by a large bone structure, (for those of you hearing excuses, I did order a larger class ring than the marjority of the guys in my class), plaid shirts again, boys have all the good clothing. The comfortable clothing, the clothing I like. I looked with longing at the cargo pants hanging on the wall. So many pockets. I love pockets! And there would be pants that would fit me. Not a fashionable fit, of course, but they would fit. 34x34 or maybe even a 32x34. (It's been a while since I bought boys jeans. My last, beloved pair, beautifully broken in pair became capris over the summer.) Futhermore, why do manufacturers give boys a more logical and consistent sizing system? I overcame temptation. But then the plaid shirts began to call my name. They were such a pretty blue. A good blue for me. And I don't have to worry about the fitting being designed for breasts larger than mine! But again, I preserved.

And I don't know why I did. Because I really liked those pants.

So, I don't understand a couple of things. First, why in god's name can't the fashion industry manufacture jeans for slightly larger girls? (I'm always finding lots of tiny jeans 0-7 and lots of larger jeans 16-24. This suggests to me that either the gods of clothing hate me, or there are a lot of young women out there who share a body size with me 11-14ish and consistently beat me to the stores.) Secondly, why do guys get the decent clothes? Damn binary gender construction! Futhermore, why did I decide to stop wearing boys clothing?

Assume away, disgusted ones!

Just in case you, along with the rest of the United States was hypnotized by the liberal media into thinking that the Shrub had claimed, as justification for invading, that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, he's here to explain that in addition to spreading freedom (which is, as dish best served via AK-47) invading Iraq with prevent 'instability' in the region. From the Washington Post, which conveniently shows up in my inbox around 5 am most mornings.

In the "60 Minutes" interview, Bush said that although Iraq has descended into instability since the U.S. invasion in March 2003, the removal of Saddam Hussein nonetheless was worthwhile. Hussein's remaining in power, he asserted, would have only led to a potential nuclear arms race between Iran and Iraq, which would have created even greater instability.

Now, I assume a lot of things in life. I assume that I exist and an not a voice in someone's head. I assume that the visible world is more real than the voices in my head. I assume that I possess free will. I assume that no single human can ever know the totality of the Divine and therefore can not claim to know the will of God.

Anyone of these assumptions could be wrong, so perhaps I shouldn't come down too hard on the Shrub for assuming that Hussein had WMDs or that Iran and Iraq were going to become engaged in a nuclear arms race, or that his actions (invading some countries, giving the finger to other countries, etc) wouldn't result in other countries feeling a bit worried about their national security and deciding to shore up their defenses by pursuing nuclear weapons.

But then, as a typical rule, mass numbers of people don't die from my assumptions. Unless, of course, the voices in my head who have dissappeared due to gross neglect were indeed more real than the visible world.

Oh, Cal...

My fascination with conservative nutjobs continues! Today I feature our dear friend, Cal Thomas.

Dear Mr. Thomas wrote on January 2 about the execution of Saddam Hussein. Now I rarely agree with Mr. Thomas who makes brilliant statements, like suggesting that CSI should be censored because women scientist in a scientic context use the word "semen" when referring to semen. (He did not appear to have a problem with male scientists using the word "semen.") But, while I disagree with Mr. Thomas's politics, this is about bad theology.

In the first paragraph, our friend claims to have a better understanding of justice than God.

In a final blasphemy, Saddam Hussein, who spent most of his life as a murdering secularist, went to his justified death holding a Koran and offering his soul to God, if God would accept it. If God does, He will have to commute the sentences of Saddam's mass murdering predecessors, including Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

To me, this seems to be telling God what to do. Mr. Thomas, tell me, what happened to the prayer "Lord, let thy will be done?" It seems rather presumptuous to pretend that a human knows the mind of God and God's exact will for a situation. Thomas turns himself into the judge of Saddam Hussein's eternal fate, a role which (I'm to lazy to look up the citation) is forbidden Christians by their own Bible.

It's dangerous for anyone to pretend to have the judgment of God. Humans do have an ability to recognize good and to recognize evil, but out discernment is imperfect. This isn't an argument that there is no objective standard of justice. That standard is Divine, and I firmly believe beyond human comprehension. Further, I believe that the human journey is attempting to further refine our standard of justice to more closely resemble the Divine standard. While we are required at times to act according to our imperfect standard, we should never presume to know how the Divine standard would rule in a given situation. Thus, while we can say that Saddam Hussein deserved to die for his crimes, it is blasphemous to claim or imply that God will make the same judgment in Hussein's eternal fate. When we do so, we cease to view ourselves as an image of God and view God as an image of ourselves.

The scary portion of Cal Thomas's bad theology is that he is acting in the same manner as Al Kaida and other religious terrorists. He presumes to know the ultimate, eternal definitions of right and wrong and of just and injust. He presumes to know how God would act in a situations and flatters himself with the role of judge over the eternal fate of human being. This is the mindset that allows people to kill other humans without regret.

Unforntunately, Thomas isn't the bull goose looney of the Conservative camp. Just to remind us that there is infinite variety amongst nutters we have Ann Coulter, insisting that democrats didn't lower flags for Gerald Ford but for Saddam Hussein.

Authorial Sadism

What a topic for a first post!

**Spoiler warning for any random people who might be reading Carol Berg.**

So, last night as I'm plugging along through my "OMG I have time for braincandy, gimme some good high fantasy" reading, the question occured to me, can an author be too sadistic to their characters. I'm currently reading Guardians of the Keep by Carol Berg. It's the second book in a series. In the first book, we met the main character Seri, who was a typical protagonist for Berg -- rather older than eighteen, flawed, and the owner of an extremely tragic past. Ten years before the story opened, Seri's husband was burnt at the stake for the practice of sorcery and then her infant son was murdered by her brother because he just might inherit magical ability. This isn't at all uncommon for Berg, whose characters have typically suffered through a mental, if not also physical hell (Seri had gotten off rather easily, she wasn't enslaved, nor had she been locked in a prison cell having her fingers systematically broke for ten years). By the end of the story, things look a bit brighter for Seri, although not perfect (this is something I admire in Berg's writing, things rarely end perfectly, just improved). She's been able to forgive her brother (who was manipulated by evil exterior forces beyond anyone's control, of course), which it doesn't heal the loss of her son seems to provide her with some closure, and her husband's soul (that's to good exterior forces meddling in the affairs of mundane humans) has been reincarnated, and gets to kick major ass saving not one, but two worlds from exterior evil sources beyond anyone's control. Now if he only didn't have amnesia -- but the meddling good exterior forces are working on this problem.

Moving on to book two. Husband finally remembers Seri. Unforntunately, due to the circumstances under which he remembers her, he goes completely nutty and offs himself. Poor Seri gets to watch this episode through a window. Futhermore, her son was actually swapped at birth with her brother's son, so the kid she thought was her nephew is actually her son and he's been kidnapped by the evil exterior forces. (And, yes, we did have a "Luke, I am your father." moment of sorts.) Seri hasn't had a mental break yet, but my god!

So can an author simply be too sadistic to their characters?

Berg's case is different from the average sadist author. For one thing, she's a good writer. Sure there are cliches, and she does use her own set of stock characters. But she writes well, and she writes convincely. I care about her characters, and futhermore, they are real, flawed people. Not all of Seri's problems are based in the fact that the fates of the world hate her. She frequently makes things worse on herself through pride or through anger. Her characters also grow and are changed by the shit that they live through, rather than simply enduring it to show how strong they are or how evil the bad guys really are (*cough* Terry Goodkind *cough*). But, occasionally, it would be nice to have something good happen to the characters I like.

On one hand, no story can be entirely positive. I love the definition of plot as get your character up a tree, throw things at her, and then get her back down. Something has to go wrong. Characters need to make mistakes, and they need to suffer the consequences of making a mistake. Characters should lose some of the time -- especially in a genre like fantasy, where things tend ot magically work out for the protagonist.

On the other, writing is for an audience. And when the audience is rather attached to a character (through good writing) throwing things at the protagonist relentlessly can become painful for the audience, particularly when there doesn't seem to be a reason -- plotwise -- for the pain.

Oh well, I'm not done with the book, so perhaps there is a good reason for the further beating of poor Seri. I hope.