Seriously, who could ever vote for this guy?

More Crazy Ted time!

I honestly don't go out of my way to find these things, but for some reason it's hard to read anything in the Sentinel these days without finding Ted DeSalvatore doing or saying something ridiculous.

Today's example comes from an article on The Compound nightclub getting shut down early by police:

Police shut down the Compound nightspot about an hour early Sunday morning because of an argument between two women which looked like it might "escalate," Sgt. Glenn C. Fossa said.

Pretty standard stuff. The Compound has had a few incidents in the past, and the city's License Commission has been critical of them lately so I suppose that closing an hour early is sort of newsworthy, even though there were no arrests.

But it doesn't make for a very exciting story. And how do you spice up a boring article? Call Crazy Ted!

Ward 4 Councilor Ted DeSalvatore, a former supporter of downtown's now-defunct Club Karma, said clubs which feature hip-hop will always face an uphill battle.

"I know that tends to bring in the clientele that can be a little tough to deal with it [sic], you know they just have to be a little more vigilant," DeSalvatore said, explaining that Club Karma's staff could not handle the sometimes violent crowds he said hip-hop music can attract.

Okay, I'll grant that a club that plays hip hop may bring in a younger and therefore more rowdy crowd than one that only plays John Tesh and Kenny G. But who in their right mind really thinks hip hop attracts "violent crowds" these days? It's about as mainstream as mainstream gets.

The Compound's web site says its upstairs features live bands, comfortable seating, and pool while the downstairs is "Hip Hop, Techno, and Top 40 Dance". Yeah, that's some hardcore gangsta shit there, alright.

Now, just blaming hip hop for violence would be dumb enough, but Ted rarely stops there. No, it's time to take it to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme!

DeSalvatore said he would consider putting a total stop to hip-hop in the city's bars and clubs, although he wondered if it would be legal to do so.

"If you are going to have regular violence that is due to hip-hop, maybe it should be something that should be banned," DeSalvatore said.

Two big problems here:

One: "regular violence that is due to hip-hop"? Ted, it's two girls fighting in a bar. I'm willing to bet it wasn't over the song selection. It's just possible that the alcohol being served had more to do with the fight than the music being played at the time.

Two: You can't fucking ban an entire genre of music just because you don't like it! Even suggesting such a thing should disqualify you from ever seeking higher office and probably earn you a remedial civics lesson on the Bill of Rights. Then maybe you'd realize that yes, there are some pretty big legal problems with banning music.

The likelihood of anything coming out of DeSalvatore's remarks is slim, but just knowing that he thinks along these lines is frightening. If this man gets any real power the city of Fitchburg is in big trouble.


[In honor of Ted's love of good Marxist hip hop, this post has been written while listening to The Coup's "Steal This Double Album".]

Skeletor makes bad game, liberals do something stupid

For the last couple of weeks I've received a few emails from the generally excellent Campaign to Defend the Constitution (aka DefCon) about a new video game called "Left Behind: Eternal Forces".

If you're not familiar with the "Left Behind" franchise, it's based off Skeletor-lookalike rapture fundamentalist Tim LaHaye's popular book series. It's also spawned movies starring creepy Kirk Cameron. Now it's branched out to a crappy video game.

All well and good. Bad prose and bad movies often spawn bad video games.

Unfortunately, DefCon has gotten all in a snit over the game:

Just in time for Christmas, the religious right has released a violent video game in which born-again Christians aim to convert or kill those who don't adhere to their extreme ideology. Disturbingly, the game's apparent attempts at religious indoctrination are aimed at children and focus on violent, divisive, and hateful scenarios. While the religious right apparently has no problem pushing the product this holiday season, America's #1 video game seller should know better.

Take action now and urge Wal-Mart to stop selling religious violence this holiday season.

Now, I don't know if their main idea is to get major retailers not to sell the game at all of if they just want Wal-Mart to be consistent in its moralizing. Wal-Mart, of course, refuses to sell certain games due to content all the time. Either way, they're horribly misguided.

Worse yet, they've attracted other groups to their cause, and I've seen complaints about the game pop up on several liberal blogs.

One thing I thought the "reality based community" had a good grasp on was the fact that video games are not reality. Grand Theft Auto didn't make people go out and shoot hookers, Doom didn't cause the Columbine shootings, and Sim City has been responsible for very few city-planning disasters. Left Behind similarly is not going to cause its players to go out trying to kill or convert everyone they see (though some players may already have those propensities).

Unfortunately, the mainstream media has picked up on this story, which will mostly have the effect of selling more games. Reuters, AP, and the Boston Globe all have stories. I even heard it mentioned on Al Franken's Air America show (ugh, that's hard to admit listening to).

Here's some advice to liberals who want this game to go away. Shut up about it!

All indications are that it's a really terrible game based solely on its gameplay alone:

• IGN review: Scored 5.9 / 10
• GameSpy review: Scored 2 / 5
• GameStats review: Scored 4.0 / 10
• Gamespot review: Scored 3.4 / 10

This game can do a great job of failing on its own merits, it doesn't need anyone to help it along.

Yes, the premise offends a lot of people. It is pretty awful. But censorship is censorship, and there's no place for it.

It all reminds me of the truly awful game Postal, which came out back in 1997. It was violent and stupid and not the least bit fun to play, but I played it. So did enough other people that it got an equally stupid and violent sequel.

Why did so many people play such a craptastic game? Because Joe Lieberman made a public issue out of it (in return, easy mode in Postal 2 was named "Liebermode"). He gave a ton of free press to a bad game that would have died a quiet death under the boot of just not being very fun and made it sound cool.

So please liberals, leave the whining about video games to the conservatives and Joe Lieberman. Defend the company's right to make and distribute lousy games about offensive subject matter. Stick with reality, we've certainly got enough instances of the wall between church and state breaking down to keep us busy. You can't defend the first amendment by attacking video games, you can only do it harm.

Sticking our nose in video game sales is not just silly and counterproductive, it's dangerously close to advocating censorship. This is not a fight we should be a part of.

Teenagers are trying to kill you!

Just in time for me to renew my driver's license, the Fitchburg Sentinel and Enterprise is running a hard-hitting special series on how teenagers drive too damn fast.

Now, I probably wouldn't normally make a post about something as trivial as this. It's really better suited to a response to their blog post. However, I still seem to be blacklisted from the S&E's blog so the post goes here.

The question the "Twin Cities Blog" is concerned about is "What do you think can be done to slow down young drivers?".

My never-posted answer in a nutshell was that the same things that slow down older drivers slow down young drivers. Training, signage, and enforcement. What doesn't slow down young drivers is treating them as a distinct group to be demonized for speeding when everyone you see on the road is doing the same thing. That's pretty controversial, I know.

Teenagers do tend to speed more than older drivers. That's a fact, but it's hardly the whole story. Everyone speeds. You speed, I speed, even my grandparents speed. Speeding is virtually required if you're going to get on a highway and not cause an accident. Driving 45 mph on Route 2 is going to cause more problems than driving 65 will.

It's not the speed that kills (despite the shocktacular "Speed Kills" headline), it's the inexperience. Teenagers have faster reaction times than older people, so are actually better able to handle the speed. What they lack is the experience required to deal with the unexpected, and the wisdom to not engage in behaviors that are going to get them in trouble. The only way to get that wisdom and experience, like it or not, is to get out on the road.

Now, why will demonizing teens as a group do nothing? Because that's the way it has always worked. Teenagers aren't stupid. They know that everyone else is speeding too. When you introduce a made-up problem like "teen speeding" they know you're ignoring the broader problem of everyone speeding. Understandably, they then tune you out.

Focusing on speeding is also a bit absurd in itself. Speeding is only relative to arbitrarily-set speed limits. It's a handy way to subconsciously characterize those who speed as criminals. The real issue is accidents, and there are a lot of good ways to reduce accidents. How about fixing the damn roads, adding more streetlights, providing proper drainage systems, and so forth? Every time I drive on Route 2 in the rain I feel like I'm dancing with death.

Of course, these are expensive problems to solve. They might require some degree of sacrifice on our part, and possibly even tax money (gasp!).

It's much easier just to blame teenagers for driving too fast. Too bad that's not the real problem.

Stay tuned for next week's Sentinel and Enterprise question: "What do you think can be done to keep women from talking too much?"

Governor hates state, loves self-delusion

The AP had an article today about Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations. Apparently he was able to take a little time away from cross-country Massachusetts-bashing to offer up a few quotes.

I have to hand it to Mitt, he must be among the most optimistic politicians ever. Knowing he stood no chance of winning another term at home, he's just going to focus on running the entire country.

After losing 20 of 36 governor's races as the head of the Republican Governors Association, he bravely uttered:

"The job of Republican Governors Association chairman is to raise money," he said. "We're not going to take the credit for any wins we get, nor are we going to take the blame for losses we suffer."

Hmm, I wonder if he would have said the same thing if the Republicans hadn't lost so many governorships. It's easy to not take credit for wins when you didn't get any, and it's just cowardly not to take credit for losses.

Also, in reference to wider Republican losses, the multimillionaire said:

"We must return to the common sense Reagan Republican ideals of fighting for hardworking Americans," Romney said in a postelection statement.

Now, I was fairly young during the Reagan administration, but I don't recall Reagan doing much for hardworking Americans. He did classify ketchup as a vegetable, which I suppose helped hardworking ketchup makers like John and Teresa Heinz Kerry. I'm pretty sure that was the extent of his legacy, though.

Romney also has the not-quite-but-almost approval of the religious right:

"We're not trying to find a Sunday school teacher in chief; we're trying to find a commander in chief," said [Jerry] Falwell, who traveled to Massachusetts last month to meet with Romney. Also attending the meeting were Franklin Graham, Gary Bauer, Lou Sheldon, Richard Land and other conservative social and religious leaders.

"Where he goes to church will not be a factor; how he lives his life will be," said Falwell.

Of course, that he does go to church at all is a major factor. He may be part of what many on the religious right consider a cult, but at least he's no stinkin' atheist!

Even if we accept that his nutty religion won't really be a factor, Romney has no chance. Most of the far right sees him as being to the left of McCain, and being from gay marriage loving Massachusetts won't do him any favors there. Not to mention his flip-floppy treatment of abortion rights. He has said a lot of stupid things about Muslims though, which might win him a few points.

The real problem though is that he hasn't done a damn thing as governor. He managed to royally screw up the Big Dig, but that's about all most people here will remember him for. He'll blame the Democrat-controlled legislature, but whoever wins in '08 will also be faced with a Democrat-controlled legislature. Making excuses for not doing anything isn't going to go very far.

Not doing anything isn't necessarily a problem when running for president, but you have to be charismatic enough to make people like you. Which he's not.

Who does like Mitt Romney? I'd wager Kerry Healy doesn't. The voters of Massachusetts certainly don't. The voters of New Hampshire don't (McCain and Giuliani both lead him in polls there). The far right doesn't because he's not crazy enough. The moderates don't because he's too crazy. Someone must, but I've yet to meet them.

His only chance is to shoot for VP and hope his looks get him in. He could be the Dan Quayle of 2008, only less qualified.

Local leaders tired of this shit

I've been too busy to get many posts written lately, but this wonderful piece in the Sentinel just tugged at my heartstrings so much I had to write something:

Locals react to 'coarseness' in today's society

It seems that such moral luminaries as Ted "brown people scare me" DeSalvatore, Dean Mazzarella, and a bunch of Roman Catholic Bishops (who never do anything wrong) are upset that people do things like swear and watch television. Especially those kids with their long hair and Beatle boots.

DeSalvatore, in keeping with his batshit-craziness, has the best quotes:

A number of teenagers and younger children harassed marchers in the "Liberty Walk" that DeSalvatore helped organize this summer, he said.

Some of them wore gang-related apparel and tried to intimidate others, he said.

"If you stand on Wallace Ave., and you see some of these kids coming down the street, and you just close your eyes and listen, you'd think you're on another planet," he said.

Shocking! The leader of the not-so-subtlely racist "Liberty Walk" feels like he's on another planet when he sees kids whose culture he doesn't understand.

Ted, some of us have thought you're on another planet for some time now. And not just because you're standing on Wallace Ave with your eyes closed.

Another gem:

DeSalvatore said he worries that younger children will start to imitate Internet and television images of sex.

"You never used to see sex on TV, and now what you see doesn't take a whole lot of imagination," he said. "That's only going to generate a curiosity, and that curiosity is going to generate some action. It's worked with cigarettes, it's worked with alcohol, it's worked with drugs. We see somebody else doing it, we've got to try it, too."

Scary stuff indeed.

Seeing not-quite-sex on TV is going to make people curious about sex. Just like it did with cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. None of which were problems prior to the widespread adoption of the television. Prior to that time people just assumed sex was something only dogs did, and were truly baffled by the Opium War and prohibition. Personally, I blame Milton Berle's legendarily large pecker for all this trouble.

Anyway, all you coarse people out there need to cut that shit out. Fuckwads.


Update: On the drive home I realized something. Ted simply has no understanding of cause and effect. Here are how things work in his mind:

• Cause: Three hundred lily-white people go for a march through neighborhoods they characterize in a press release as "filled with the criminally minded, aggressive, threatening individuals that make up our present gangs and drug dealers".
• Ted's Mind Effect: "We'll be greeted as liberators! They'll shower us with flowers and babies!"
• Real Effect: The locals think you're an idiot and aren't afraid to tell you so.

Similarly...

• Cause: For no particular reason, TV executives decide to put sexually-suggestive material on television. They also push drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and probably the Homosexual Agenda (tm).
• Ted's Mind Effect: Teenagers are overcome by the peer-pressure of the glowing magic box and decide that maybe they should try this "sex" thing too. And smoke, drink, take drugs, and probably hire a gay hooker.
• Real Effect: Since people apparently like sex, ratings go up.

Just look over pretty much everything Ted DeSalvatore has ever said and you'll see the same wacky cause-and-effect distortion. I'd provide more examples, but I have to catch a flight to Thailand.