It is the last fiery gasp of summer 2009, and it is too hot to move. I am a child of the desert, of the dry Bakersfield heat, and ninety-five degrees is almost comfortable, but humidity makes me sweat; it makes me sticky; it makes me miserable. I throw my shirt across the room and sprawl in bed, over the covers. The fan beside my bed sweeps its meager breeze up my chest, across my face, and I close my eyes.
By the time I caught my breath, Rio was laughing quietly to himself, still holding my hands as he watched me in his half-shy, half-knowing way. “What’s the matter?” he teased. “Never kissed a boy before?”
I licked my lips, tasting the memory he’d left behind. “A couple times, just to try… but it was never like that.”
His eyes lit up at the compliment, and he leaned forward, whispering against my cheek. “You like me that much?”
“Maybe.” I closed my eyes again, letting myself nuzzle back and slip my hands around his waist.
This game was harder, between the pressure of having come so close, and the nagging feeling of Rio watching my every move. It felt like a year, trying all at once to dominate the machine and to cradle it in my arms, wrestling with it for control of the ball’s manic, rebounding energy. I lost count of the plays, of the points scrolling past as the bumpers came alive and the machine’s synthetic voice begged me to keep going, just a little bit more.
It was getting hard; the game mattered too much. At the very least I wasn’t about to let Rio beat me just by playing around. The tension started building in my muscles, winding me up tight, from my hands up to my arms, from my shoulders down my back, and I started to welcome the drain, the precious few seconds of rest before I sent another ball up the ramp.
Eventually I had no more, and I slumped over the machine, exhausted, staring at the scoreboard. The numbers continued to spin, catching up to my last bonus points. Rio laughed, delighted, as he walked up behind me. “That’s very good! You’re very intense when you want to be.”
Still trying to catch my breath, I barely managed a smile.
“Close your eyes,” I heard him whisper. “Your score isn’t going anywhere.”
ABC7 reports that the San Francisco City Council has passed a resolution in support of the Iranian election protestors. They call it “a strong message“, and make a point of emphasizing that the vote passed 11-0, as if this should make President Ahmadinejad sit up and pay particular attention.
In the meantime, security forces are shooting people in the streets, senior clerics are calling for executions, and The Wall Street Journal reports that the government is charging families $3000 “bullet fees” before allowing them to recover the bodies. Somehow I think that San Francisco’s “strong message” is having slightly less effect than expected. The “activist movement” doesn’t like to admit this, but ultimately, posturing can only change people who are willing to listen. Barring treaty, trade, or threat of war, a people cannot compel a foreign government to heed their concerns, and it’s silly to expect that they could. As Iran too clearly illustrates today, a people cannot even compel their own government to heed their concerns, if it can force them back to silence without fear of reprisal.
Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.
It was true when Chairman Mao wrote it seventy years ago, and it’s true today.
Edit: Last year, the Texas Review of Law and Politics released an interesting comparative study of nations’ civilian gun-ownership rates and their degrees of personal/economic freedom.
Adrian is going to Fanime tomorrow and will be there all weekend.
Track him down and say hello!
(Hint: He is usually sheathed up to the neck in black and wears a lot of leather. Also, he has kitty ears with purple fluff!)
Please do not dry-hump him without asking for permission first. It perturbs him.