signs, signs..everywhere signs

Not sure if this is a local phenomenon or something national, but here in Maryland I've noticed an interesting trend in political signs on the runup to this November's election. The Republicans are not announcing their party on their campaign signs. I was driving around a few days ago and it hit me that neither Ehrlich nor three other Republicans running for office in Maryland put the fact that they were Republicans on their campaign signs.
I thought at first that it might just be a general trend for this election among both parties, but every Democrat's sign I saw clearly marked that they were Democrats.
Why is that?
Usually something is omitted from a campaign sign because the candidate does not want potential voters to think about that fact. In this case, the Republicans seem to be afraid to remind voters that...well, that they are Republicans. The Democrats, however, do not have the same fear.
Now, this could be a Maryland phenomenon, because Maryland (despite having a Republican Governor) grows more and more a Blue State each election. Ehrlich is hanging by a thread, and Republicans running for local offices are already expecting to catch part of the Bush Backlash. But this is the first time I've seen a party act in a manor that indicates they believe their very party affiliation is a detriment...so it's better if voters don't think about it.
That's pretty profound, and may be rather telling about what Republicans are expecting in November.
I'd be interested to hear from others in other parts of the country to see if they are observing the same phenonemon.
Intersting side note, there's one Democrat in Maryland that has a billboard up of him standing next to Hillary Clinton....he's using his association with Hillary as a selling point. That means that strategists have detected a groundswell in part of the public that actually believes aligning yourself with Hillary will be positive for your campaign. That's very interesting indeed.
Sound off about signs in your area, tell me what you see.

The mental castration of the American male

One of my big pet peeves is what I call the castration of the American male. By this, I mean the penchant in our society for the last, oh, 20 years, to portray everything that is intrinsically male to be negative attributes that need to be cast off.
You can see it everywhere you go; on television, in books and in movies, everything men have a natural bent for is cast in a negative light. On commercials, you see the classic couple, the bumbling, clueless husband, and the condescending, smart wife who "tolerates" his foolery.
Yet nobody seems put out by it. And people wonder why men's values are so all over the map these days.
I think that we would find, if we were to cease the constant assault on the American male psyche, that perhaps men's natural instincts aren't as bad as we are constantly told it is.
For millions of years, being male seemed to work just fine. I really don't think all of our natural urges suddenly became irrelevant.
We ARE naturally competitive. That is behind our drive to achieve, to strive to be better, to be something greater than our parts.
Socially, the drive to be the best is being doused. Everyone gets a trophy these days after the little league game. Everyone's kid has their own bumper sticker about their kid doing such and such at school. But you can't douse a million years of instinct. And when you deny that part of a young man, you don't squash it, you just force it to come out in other ways....ways you as a parent no longer have control over.
You get bullies, delinquents, and boys who grow up having no concept of being able to direct their natural instincts toward something positive...because we tried to deny those instincts' existence.
Of course men want to collect the most "toys." That comes from eons of instincts of providing for their family. Try to squash that, and what you get is men who still have the urge, but no direction. SO when your husband spends the check on a new DVD player instead of something necessary for the household, that's why.
Yes, men are sexually agressive creatures. No, you can't control that for long. Does that mean they are naturally unfaithful? No. It means that when a wife or girlfriend tries to control him via sex, eventually his instincts will kick in and he'll get it from somewhere else. And the better the man, the more opportunities for that "somewhere else" there will be. Hen peck him, and eventually he'll explode.
But usually by the time the American male is maried it's too late. It starts at birth. It starts with parents today jumping on their son for demonstrating natural male instincts without providing another outlet. Yes, you should stop him from beating up another kid in the sandbox and teach him why it's wrong. But that's where most parent's stop. You need to find another outlet for them.
The bitter irony of it all is that women probably suffer more from the castration of the American male than the men do. More and more unsatisfied with their men, but don't know why. Cosmo is telling them everything they do is fine (while also telling them they neeed to lose weight they couldn't possibly lose) and everything you do is wrong. When they get you to see things their way, they can't figure out why they're so irritated with you.
I see couples like this all the time, and it's like nails on a chalkboard.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with being a man. It's what you were born to be.

Dark Lord's Otakon Report

Every year about this time, Baltimore suffers an invasion of it's inner harbor. Ninjas, pirates, sailor scouts, robots, and lots of guys with spikey hair and really big swords converge by the thousands on the Baltimore Convention Center. It's Otakon, as in Otaku, a Japanese word for Japanese pop culture geeks. Anime, manga, J-pop music, martial arts movies and the like are all ingested, sold, packaged, previewed, emulated, discussed, and in some cases outright worshipped, in large doses. This was my first time attending Otakon, and so, I took my camera. The whole thing lasted three days, Friday through Sunday, but I only went Friday night and Saturday. the Convention Center is huge, two massive, multi-story buildings, and it can be murder on your feet. Friday, I really went for the atmosphere. There were at least six video rooms showing anime constantly, or live action flicks from Japan. There were also several panels focusing on various aspects of Japanese culture, such as one I sat in on that discussed Nieczche's philosophy as demonstrated by the characters in Trigun. At night the films and panels got more and more risque, however. I saw one panel advertised as a "Do it yourself bukkake" panel. I decided to duck that one. So the first day I got a good measure of the place, took lots of pictures and watched lots of subtitled original Macross episodes. I also tried to get a handle on this whole Naruto thing. Because, let me tell ya, there was no escaping it. Everywhere you looked there were little Naruto Ninjas, alone and in clusters, in corners fighting with the wrappers of new DVDs or trying to chat up one of the countless roving bands of 4'11" tall 80 lbs asian girls in Sailor Moon outfits. I finally caught a few minutes of it. Looks to me like DBZ, but with newer animation. I just never got into shows where a fight took three episodes, two of which were the opponents talking and "powering up."
There were also a ton of pirates. Ninjas....pirates...in the same place?!?! You KNOW there was gonna be trouble. It all boiled over Friday night when the DJ started spinning techno/anime remixes in the main hall. The ninjas and the pirates faced off in a "You Got Served" style dance battle that was highlighted by two Naruto ninjas actually knowing how to break dance and then being countered by the crew of One Piece, headed by Jack Sparrow, doing the River Dance. I knew you wouldn't believe me. So I got pictures.

After that and a few panels and videos, I called it a night, returning early saturday morning to try and get in on some of that dealer room action.
How big was the dealer room? Well they said it was large enough that you could launch an F-16 from it. Not only were all the big heavies of the anime biz there, but there were countless video game dealers, anime booths, clothiers, artists, model and toy dealers and lots and lots of swords. I got myself some DVDs of some older stuff that I only had on VHS, bought two new swords and some art and then spent a good chunk of time in the massive video game center.
Kudos to the organizers for this. They carted in at least two dozen large plasma screen televisions, then filled them with everything from brand new DBZ and Narutu fighting games that weren't even translated from Japanese yet, to old classics like Street Fighter II Alpah, Tekken III and Samurai Showdown, as well as many non-fight games. I waxed some guys with my never flagging Chun Li skills and then got schooled by dudes doing crazy ridiculo naruto moves (I think I finally decided to give it up when someone did a super move that appeared to steal my soul...).
I was going to stay for another night of panels and dance music, but by then I was bushed. Also, I had just about had my fill of the Otaku crowd. While I definitely have my geek attributes, I'm nothing compared to some of these people. Most are cool, but there are some that I just can't understand how they function in society outside of their Otaku world. Some of them, obviously, don't.
Case in point, on Friday night when the dealer room closed, there was a massive traffic jam at the steps leading out, with people crowded in pretty tight. Fortunately, everyone had made sure to use their Right Guard that morning. I made a crack about the bad planning, and a girl in line behind me said "LOL". no, she didn't laugh out loud.
She.
Said.
The.
Letters.
L-O-L.
When you begin speaking in internet anagrams, it's time to unplug and maybe take in a ball game...or something.
Overall, I found out that there were 25,000 people in attendance over the course of those three days. I had blast. If you're into anime, manga or the like, this is a lovefest you just can't miss.
You've got a year to prepare. See you there.
Oh, and because I love ya...here's more pix, mostly sexy cosplay girls.