The Rabbit Hole

So President Obama says he thinks gays should be able to get married. I'm going to choose not to be cynical and focus on how he then backed up to say "But, uh, states should do what they want," especially since North Carolina (state motto: "One day, we'll catch whatever venereal disease our power bottom state has and be twice as crazy!") just happened. I'm going to recognize the significance and urge people to continue putting the pressure on and the reinforcement coming. The POTUS said gays should marry. It's a big deal. We need to continue to work on tolerance issues (bullying, anti-gay hate crime, job discrimination) on the small scale to drive home the point that gay people ARE PEOPLE such that states will eventually catch up to the newly evolved Obama.

Speaking of the gays, you know what I saw five minutes of this weekend? Urban Legends: Final Cut. Which features a sexy lesbian (played by Eva Mendes, no less) who just happens to be a lesbian. ASTONISHING, RIGHT? I cannot believe I'm saying this about that shitty movie, but we could really do with more of those. Just, you know, to have around. And while I'm throwing out magical liberal wishlists for the motion picture industry, please employ more people of color and more women in roles other than "mother" or "girlfriend." K THNX BAI.

Okay, time for more fun Avengers stuffs. Check out the comments on this io9 post (careful, spoilers) for some truly awesome Hulk animated gifs. I could watch the top one alllllll day. And while we're on the subject of Hulks, why don't we let one tell us what makes an interesting one? (Again: SPOILERS) No spoilers here: a truly awesome Black Widow poster. It reminds me strongly of James Bond's credit sequences in the 1960s. Very mod, very chic, very sexy, still powerful. And there's a Hawkeye one, but it's got nowhere near the level of sophistication and class, I'm afraid.

I will have an extensive post on how I lost at Christmas--and organized the means by which I failed--at another time. I just had to post this snippet from Matt Taibbi's thoroughly readable (despite the fact that it's almost entirely given over to machinations of the financial industry) Griftopia. I have been reading this book for three straight hours, with hardly a break. Taibbi is a brilliant, acerbic, unforgiving writer, this being not least evident when he is describing why people would suddenly be interested in speculating on commodities futures:

"Why not bet on something that people can't do without--like food or gas or oil? What could be safer than that? As if people will ever stop buying gasoline! Or wheat! Hell, this is America. Motherfuckers be eating pasta and cran muffins by the metric ton for the next ten centuries! Look at the asses on people in this country."

I escaped, hours ago, to read this book outside the interference of TV. Yes, you read that right. I, TrinityVixen, actually ran away from a TV in order to read--to read a book, no less! Because I'm still in Reno for the Christmas break, that meant coming down to the lobby. The people here have been, up until now, very easily ignoring me. My spluttering mirth has upset this peaceful live-and-let-live, alas.

I was planning on going to bed in half an hour. I may have to just finish this book. (It's not long.)

More about the California decision.

Most important part, right here:

The California Supreme Court was the first state high court to strike down a law barring interracial marriage, in a 1948 decision called Perez v. Sharp. The United States Supreme Court did not follow suit until 1967.

Thursday’s decision was rooted in two rationales, and both drew on the Perez decision.

The first was that marriage is a fundamental constitutional right. “The right to marry,” Chief Justice George wrote, “represents the right of an individual to establish a legally recognized family with a person of one’s choice and, as such, is of fundamental significance both to society and to the individual.”

Chief Justice George conceded that “as an historical matter in this state marriage has always been restricted to a union between a man and a woman.” But “tradition alone,” the chief justice continued, does not justify the denial of a fundamental constitutional right. Bans on interracial marriage were, he wrote, sanctioned by the state for many years.

Tradition. You've got to be fucking kidding me. TRADITION is a good enough reason to deny people basic human rights? Find me the people who think so right now. I'd like to initiate them into the tradition of me stabbing them in the groin with rusty knives.