Yes No Prop 8

A curious incident on the homestead. Amid some television news coverage of yet another street rally against the passage of Proposition 8 (a “hot button” issue, which forbade gay marriage in California), my father shared his philosophy on the topic. “I voted yes on 8. These people are sick. They were born this way. Why should they be punished for that? Why should we prevent them from getting married?”

My eyebrow rose, almost involuntarily. “A Yes vote means that gays can’t get married,” I said. “Oh!” my father rushed to correct himself, “I mean I voted no.” Of course he did. Surely he just misspoke, and didn’t actually misapply a Yes vote for a No on the ballot, right? And then I wondered how many voters on Election Day, less careful than my father, actually voted Yes when they meant No, or vice versa.

I am reminded of the hilarious Simpsons episode (Season 15, Episode 8) where Homer buffoonishly tries to assist Marge’s campaign for a particular proposition, including printing up bumper stickers that say “Yes No 242.”

This whole ordeal of an election cycle (disregarding for a moment the beauty pageant cum satyr play that was the presidential election), all the way up to the street rallies and the tragicomic words flowing from my father’s mouth, was a living picture of our glorious democracy, up to its gills in its solemn duty of obfuscating the issues and obscuring facts. Hence, the laughable (or reviled, or endearing, depending on your stance) “King and King” commercial in support of Prop 8.

It makes me wonder where all these rally-rabbits were before the election. Even in my neighborhood of Hillcrest, epicenter of gay life in San Diego, I saw only the occasional “No on 8” sign dangling from a chain-link fence, whereas pretty much any other neighborhood in town was rife with Charlie Churches and pregnant housewives pushing strollers at major intersections and spreading the gospel. How many horn-honkers did I have to endure every time I got stuck behind a traffic light?

My father’s comments were followed by my mother’s virulent proclamations that gay marriage was wrong and that she had voted against the proposition. Or was it for the proposition? Having mailed their ballots in beforehand, my mother, who had apparently delegated the task of actually filling out the ballots to my father, questioned him on whether he had marked her down for a Yes or No. Really, do we even know the difference?

My final word? I believe it was best expressed on a car window I saw whizzing by the other day: “Equality in marriage. Everyone deserves the right to be miserable.”

Samus was right

Like the wheel, some things, once invented, don’t require any fundamental changes. A has always been jump, and B has always been attack. Just like A has always been "confirm," and B has always been "negate" or "go back" in menu screens. These are Nintendo staples, going back to the 80s. (Arcade games of the time were fond of designating their buttons with names of moves, rather than letters or numbers.)

It was only during the Sony Playstation era that it became fashionable to switch the venerable identities of A and B (or what in Sony parlance is circle and cross, or some such folderol). This travesty has gained much traction throughout the gaming world, but not a whiff can be found in the world of Nintendo, Jebus be praised.

I am gratified that Nintendo’s current DS ports of old Super NES games faithfully retain the classic control schemes. One might argue that it would be nice for them to have included an option to customize controls. Granted. It would also be nice for them to have included instant replay, an unlockable library of cutscenes, and language options for French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Tagalog. Hey, why not free t-shirts, too?

One might say that the times being what they are, Nintendo might have accommodated younger players, or older players who have fully conformed to the Sony paradigm. But I know at least one younger player who grew up during Sony’s period of hegemony, and she has no trouble rocking it Nintendo-style. And I personally go between the two with nary a hitch (though my sense of logic winces at the falsity of pressing B to confirm).

Though my preference is clear, I’m not contrasting “what’s right” and “what’s wrong,” but only “what is” and “what once was and can still be.” Though I have no problems with the Sony style, I’ve never heard a practical argument about why this change was necessary. It seems like its true raison d’être was to differentiate Sony from its predecessors.

I may be biased. After all, even as I play Playstation 1/2/3 games, I still refer to the buttons as “A, B, X, and Y,” and am bemused and befuddled any time someone growls at me, “Press Triangle!” NEStalgia is a beautiful thing.