New URL

Left at the Beltway has moved! Please set your browers to:

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Moving on Out

Moving time! Blogger, it is just not working out between us. It's not me, it's your lack of flexibility and modularity, sorry to say.

New blog coming soon.

The Myth of the Nice Guy Meets Reality

Amanda Marcotte has recently become one of my favorite bloggers. She's known primarily for being an unapologetic feminist, with a sharp polemical style and wit of steel. I tend to put her in the "don't always totally agree with, but brings an important perspective and is damn amusing to boot" category. She doesn't play nice with the boys, and there are far too many boys who find this absolutely outrageous for a woman blogger, especially one who's "not even hot" (yes, direct quote). When these boys set their sights on one of her posts, they can quickly turn the comment section into a hateful cesspool of misogyny and masculine insecurity. They do a marvelous job of proving exactly why it is important she continue to write and not pull punches for the sake of being "ladylike."

Joe the Plumber: Guns > Dead Kids = FREEDOM

Hey, remember that Joe the Plumber guy?

Yeah, this guy, the shiny one with the microphone in front of that old lesbian Lindsey Graham?

You know, S. Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio "small business owner" who asked a question about taxes during a 2008 Obama campaign stop, and was then made into an "average American" hero by the conservative media? Remember how his pithy sobriquet was repeatedly invoked during the next debate, by both McCain and Obama, as an avatar for Real 'Murica? And remember how he turned out to not actually be a plumber after all? [Skip to the bottom for the tl;dr version!]

Is There An Internet Stupid Award?

 "SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET!"

Because I am a glutton for intellectual torture, I scrolled down to the comments on an article I was reading about white privilege and poor whites. That's a really bad idea on most sites, at least if you prize undisturbed digestion. Sure enough, I came across some serious verbal dung and I feel compelled to wipe it away.

The Beltway and its Discontents

I live just a few miles outside of Interstate 495, also known as the Capital Beltway, a 64-mile stretch of Purgatory that circumscribes Washington DC. It most famously provides a handy metaphorical boundary between those who "play the game" of Washington politics and the rest of us, mere spectators looking on in both laughter and horror. I have lived near this most august of roadways all of my life. I grew up surrounded by lawyers, reporters, politicos and public servants of various varieties, all drawn like white-collar moths to the enormous bureaucracy blazing at the Beltway's very core. Yes, the Old Circle Jerk and its denizens are well-known to me; I've been wading knee-deep in the bullshit since it was up over my head, and despite the risk to my health, continue to do so today.

So this is Left at the Beltway. The title actually works in a couple of ways: I feel left outside the Beltway as the derpitude consumes all within, I find my views consistently to the left of the "Beltway media" and its quixotic obsession to find balance where there is none, and depending on how you hold the Metro map, I actually do live a bit to the left of the thick gray line. This is where I plan to channel all the fury building up inside, as I stand here outside. You are welcome to read, comment if you'd like and quote at will. You are also welcome to tl;dr and GTFO, if you so please.

The way out is over there. To the right. Off that cliff.