Writers do stuff besides write? Really?

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Hey, The Writers Have Lives!

It's always interesting to me to find out about The Armchair Empire's writers. We have more than a dozen writers on staff and I've met three of them and I only know a few facts about the rest of the writers. Ages, married, kids, work... the very basics. So I'm always surprised to find out they have lives! Catwoman was released back in July and ever since we received our review copy I've been anxiously waiting for the review. Four months later it's nearing completion. Or so I'm told by D.D. Nunavut, the reviewer on the title. Besides being a six-foot tall, one-eyed, philosophy PhD holder, she's also a dual Canadian/American citizen (though she seems to identify mainly with her American side). Here's how the "Sorry, man" email went:

I'll have that Catwoman review in a couple of days, but the delay isn't the cause of the subject line.

I've been in Pennsylvania the last couple of weekends, and before that, I was in Washington D.C. for a weekend, and I'm just sincerely f****** sorry that my country re-elected C-plus Augustus with a 2 and a half percent "mandate."

Hey, we did some good. We won Pennsylvania (and New York, of course, but that was why I was spending my weekends in Pennsylvania in the first f****** place. Don't get me wrong, the state is absolutely beautiful, but it's just so frustrating to live in a solid "Blue" state like New York, where knowing your electoral outcome 4 years ahead of time makes everyone that much more complacent. I had to get where the action was.)

I'm kind of freaked out. What the hell is wrong with my country? I don't even know why I'm writing this to be honest, except for the fact that you're one of the few potentially sympathetic ears I haven't numbed yet.

What bothers me is that Bush's victory was really decided on fear, and you never really make a good decision based on fear. Apparently, a slim majority of people here now believe that if Kerry were elected, black men would take buses to the suburbs to steal their stereos, gay Puerto Ricans would marry their sons, grain silos would be blown up by Nukular weapons
of mass destruction and John Edwards would personally, with a vacuum, suck the brains out of pre-term babies and then sue the doctor that watched.

How did we get here? Why is the United States so afraid? I really fucking hate talking about this, in fact, I haven't spoken about it for almost three years, but I stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and watched both towers fall on September 11. I was fortunate enough to be spared from any casualties among my close friends and relatives; my future husband was not. It took me months to feel OK during my commute to work. It took me a year to feel OK about flying, and my job at the time required a whole lot of flying.

To me, that makes sense. It's something I'm going to have to live with as long as I live here. But my life would be unworkable if I were so paralyzed by fear that I couldn't go to work in the morning.

So I'm over it. Why Topeka? Why Boise? Why South Dakota? Those were never "swing states" or "swing" cities, but regardless, what are they afraid of? How are people who believe in this country supposed to convince others that our role in the world cannot be shaped or driven by fear, when our opposition is so actively courting it? Fear is going to trump tolerance
and moderation every time, and you've got to hand it to those assholes, they know how to scare up some votes.

I'm just deeply disappointed by these results. My bitch-slap Catwoman review should be ready on Friday afternoon, since I'm taking the day off to get some rest.

How would you respond to an email like that? (I suppose it would depend if you were on a Donkey or an Elephant; that would be, Democrat or Republican, or vice versa -- I'm north of the 49th Parallel so my knowledge in this field is lacking but I do know this: Canadian political parties need mascots!) I asked D.D. if I could post it, a request that she graciously approved with this email.

Man, I would say yes, but I guarantee you and I both would probably get a ton of hate mail, and I wouldn't put it past someone to organize a boycott of the website. It really is that bad down here. I live in a bubble in New York, and you live in one in Canada. John Kerry won the city 75% to 22%, and I'm sure he'd carry similar margins in Canada and probably most of
the rest of the world. Everyone I talk to here feels the same way, but hang out in Oklahoma City, and it would be night and day.

Ironically, that's exactly the problem I'm talking about. The people in the red states aren't bad people, they're not dumb people, and sure, there are homophobes and racists in the midwest and the south, but we have our share of jerks here too.

The problem is, they're scared, and it has seemed to me that Republicans have waged a consistent campaign of fear since the early 1990s to get out a vote that most of these people make in stunning disregard to their own economic self interest and instincts for decency. If it wasn't fear of more terrorism, it would have been fear of moral erosion--the card they began
playing as early as the 1960s in the South.

Trust me, it's ingrained, and people on the other side of the divide feel just as passionately (obviously, judging by the election results) as I do, and that's not a fight I think we want to pick on a game review site.

Also, I'm really, really hoping that Bush will bury the hatchet and govern and lead in a more centrist fashion this time. I really, really hope that this was just a successful ploy for re-election in a battle that really began with Howard Dean's candidacy almost two years ago now. He's already said that his two biggest domestic goals are overhauling Medicare and
Social Security, he's going to need a lot of support from both sides of the aisle to get that done, and I'm sure he knows it. He's going to have to start pulling the country and the world back together, or he knows he will leave a horrible legacy.

Really, I just have to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. The Left is almost as responsible as the Right for taking the debate over the use and abuse of American power into the gutter. I mean, lord love Michael Moore for getting people fired up, but come on, George Bush shaking hands with Saudis, saying we went to Afghanistan to build an oil pipeline, and then those idyllic scenes of pre-war Iraq in your movie don't really contribute much to the conversation. Iraq was a problem, the middle east is a problem, I'm just disgusted that they again used fear, fear, fear to sell that war instead of being straightforward and transparent with the nation and the world.

I really just want our country to stop fighting itself, so that we can chill out and solve some real problems, and right now, I think I'm still a little too hotheaded to add much to that conversation, either. Was Kerry a better choice to do that? I believe it. Does Bush have some huge hurdles in front of him that he erected himself? Definitely. But unfortunately, the world has no other choice but to work with him now.

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Anyway, man, I think it would probably be a really bad idea to post that earlier message. It's probably just too inflammatory, it isn't going to change anyone's mind, and it has the potential to really alienate a lot of our readers.

Thanks, though. I really hope that the world knows that half of America is gravely disappointed in the direction our country has been headed. The

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disrespect we've shown and the hatred we've inspired among the citizens of our oldest allies. France? What the hell was up with that idiotic "freedom fries" movement and the silent boycott of French wine? Sure, we helped France out during WWII. People here forget that they had our back during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and they helped bring us back together after the
Civil War. Why can't people ever look back on our incredibly brief history in this country?

I just hope we can turn this around.

For once I was left a little speechless.

In a game review, passion doesn't really get flowing unless it's a terrible game or the best game the writer has ever played. D.D. is turning out to be one of those rare writers that can kick around ideas while still take a heartfelt decision and not be afraid to stick up for it. It also makes me realize how much of a life the writers have outside writing articles for the site. (One of our writers worked for a time under government contract at Los Alamos!) The writers get married, go to school, have kids, experience loss, leave jobs, get involved in politics... If you ever tried to stereotype a game "journalist" don't try it again. There's no stereotype.

- Omni

(November 7, 2004)