The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by kate:

I find myself wondering how he got Pat Tallman into it. Are they in a relationship?

Bruce, that book's officially not in continuity. (Even if its author thinks it should be.)

Totally irrelevant minor correction: Bulger, not Bolger.

OK. As a born and bred Boston-area-person, let me tell you some things.

Boston Herald = tabloid.

Boston Herald = Right wing tabloid. (The equation isn't perfect, but it's certainly generally a hell of a lot more conservative than the Globe.)

Howie Carr = Reactionary asshole who goes after anyone who's not his definition of "a good guy." He's, um, kind of a jerk.

So in other words, yes, Xopher.

Oh, hm.

Sorry, Suzanne-- I'm from Boston myself (well, Dedham, but currently live in West Roxbury), so I was pretty much trying to exude wry-sliding-towards-dark humor.

Don't mean to minimize people's losses, yours included.

Wait, what?

Pedantic Peasant, I was under the impression that the two artists/guerilla guys had in fact told the police the location(s) of the lite brites, somewhere around noonish. Am I incorrect?

I think the 'THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS' political response came mostly from the assumption that the faux pipe bombs had something to do with the lite brites.

But once they realized the faux pipe bombs had nothing to do with the lite brites... Feh.

Btw, having read the 64 comments so far, I obviously do think that there's a big difference between a city that had an actual trauma happen to it and a city that watched in dismay while awful things happened to other cities. I have a whimsical kind of fondness for the idea that Boston (particularly the polticians) may have some weird version of survivor's guilt. None of which, I hasten to add, means that the response was proportionate or reasonable.

Nor is the Boston Police Department any good. I focus mostly on the rate of solving murders, when I say that, but the Previtera case is a great example of the problem. (And THAT problem, of using terrorism as an excuse for authoritarian crackdowns, is (obviously) nationwide.)

Incidentally, as it turns out, though the politicians continue bloviating and all, what was a big part of the problem, for the Boston police, was not actually the ATHF stuff, but rather two pipe bombs. (Non-functioning, both of them. And pipe bombs can't do *much*, but it's more justifiable (to me) than the ATHF alarm.)

The Boston Police Commissioner provides more justifications.

It's still ridiculous to call what the two artists did "a hoax," it's still security theater, Mayor Menino and Gov. Patrick just lowered my opinions of them about 4,000 percent, but... there was at least /other stuff/ going on that kind of makes some sense.

To be absolutely honest, their wariness doesn't puzzle me at all. The post you made (which was, after all, about them) was dismissive in an extremely thorough way which is awfully hard to answer at all reasonably, particularly if you're at all likely to take something personally.

And then commenters were also dismissive (and condescending).

Why /wouldn't/ they be wary?

Mind you, were it me, I just wouldn't comment in the first place, but I can certainly understand the urge.

(Although not, I admit, the urge to run and tell your husband. The hell?)

Concord? Has this been stuck in places like the _Democrat_ and the _Union Leader_? (I dunno if Concord has a newspaper. I can't imagine it doesn't, I just don't know it.)

Because no offense meant to the _News and Sentinel_, but it is somewhat more... local than those other two.

When I was a kid, my brother had a hamster. Several times, she got out and wandered across his chest during the night.

Since, being a teddybear hamster, she weighed next to nothing, this was a bit disconcerting to wake up to.

One time when my mother was away in Pennsylvania, I somehow let the hamster get out. Couldn't find her anywhere. So my mother got back, and I had just started to tell her, shamefaced, that the hamster had fled the premises, when she closed the kitchen door, and screamed. Lo, there was the hamster (Theo by name), chillin', eating a dropped piece of bread. (The kitchen is down some very steep stairs from where the hamster was kept. Also, we had a terrier at the time.)

So I told her about the hamster, see, while putting a bowl over her so she wouldn't escape.

My current cat, while a very good mouser, grooms my guinea pigs.

Random and useless datapoint-- I did see info about that poll on CNN. I didn't listen to all of the story, though (I was in Dunkin' Donuts), so I don't know if they mentioned the "lots and lots of troops don't want the surge" part of the poll.

Also, happy birthday.

Lizzy, I don't pray in the usual Christian sense, but I'll remember her when I'm singing.

Peace to her.

Also, Howard, "Go children slow."

Hey Teresa, what's the story behind the cow detector?

#105 -- Well, yes, that's obvious to you and me and lots of other people wandering around. But the thing of it is is that gender/sexuality continues, to a large extent, to be seen on an either/or axis, and people get so wrapped up in the either/or that they can't see the possibilities inherent in the frickin' continuum.

Which is to say, I wish bisexuality were an option that the firmly heterosexual camps and the firmly honosexual camps were more open to. But that's what you get when you Can't Change Your Identity. (Which, what? People change parts of their identities all the time.)

But this is something that has changed in my lifetime and will continue to change, so I'm... certainly not content, but, at least, comfortable with possibility.

Rebecca (particularly at #94)-- I'm a lot more scared and angered by someone who actively works with people who are trying to take my rights away than I am scared of people who disagree with my chosen worldview. (Although I do admit that some of the radical queer activists can be pretty damn hardline about it. But they continue not to be able to legislate my rights away, so I continue not to be /nearly/ as angry at them as I am at the Republicans In Power.)

But I'm sympathetic to Mary Cheney. Bad position to be stuck in.

Ah, yes, "dyke".

It's my experience that folks about 10 years older than I am (I'm 33) do tend to view it as a word to be used either a) only in-tribe, or b) as an insult.

It was around my era that the specific efforts to reclaim dyke (also fag and queer) were happening. So I (in my social circle) use it with ease. Ditto the general queer-friendly community. Other places, more thought is required. Like, I would use it here (though with qualifiers, probably), but I wouldn't use it with my parents, unless there was a lot of preparatory explanation.

So Anthony's using it that way, except as a negative, and in mixed company. Shrug. Just intensifies his insult.

As for this whole "needs a mother and a father" stuff, I'm just /tired/ of it.

Blink. Someone said (not two weeks ago) that the phrase "executive privilege" would start getting thrown around, and lo! (Although admittedly, those specific words weren't used.)

I keep forgetting that they don't care if I get astonished every 3 seconds.

My folks only *get* the News & Sentinel; they don't live close enough to know anything. (Specifically, they live in the Boston area and have a house in North Stratford.)

Hope they find the driver-- things like color and other ID markers *can* be useful, though not, it seems often.

I think this describes the situation at the Voice fairly well.

I'm pretty sure I read a later article which was even gloomier, but now I can't find it.

I'll write email about Tom Tomorrow, but I'm not optimistic.

#12, Graham-- To be fair to GW Bush, it was during the Gulf War (I mean, the original one, back in '91) that the ban on showing coffins was put in place.

But absolutely agreed it's a sacred thing, part of the proper ritual. it continues to fail to surprise me that GW Bush is not a fan of the larger rituals.

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