Dear Blizzard

Racial slurs to follow.

Dear Blizzard,

The "player versus player" aspect of World of Warcraft involves a large portion of the playerbase.  The game's best PVP players are involved in internationally broadcast championships.  PVP is an important enough part of the game that there's a section of the website dedicated to it.

If you click that link, it'll take you to lists of the most highly ranked PVP players and teams.

A few of the team names listed today:

iskall suk my deek
purpledrank is fo nagas
We pop Cherrys
iwnaputmybeefintourtaco
shat on ur face
Helen Keller VS Traffic
cap yo shiz
DAYUM DATASS
team nignig
naga needs points
Shytsnmasterbations
Fandom Ruckin Comp

(For anyone reading over my shoulder, "naga" is a kind of water-dwelling humanoid creature in the game.  It also just happens to sound similar to a racial slur.)

A couple of the more egregious player names:

Jackslowfuk
Rapiesroofie

I would guess that these lists are automatically generated, but it would behoove you to keep an eye on them. This is a public website, the face of World of Warcraft and Blizzard Entertainment.

Playing on an RP server and running into characters named "Huntard" and "Monkslol" is bad enough.  Seeing "team nignig" on the game's website is a disgrace.

I wish that you respected your game enough to ensure that its rules weren't broken.

I wish that you respected WOW's community enough to help us fight this kind of behavior.

Please, at least respect your reputation enough to take action.  Add something behind the scenes to flag names with certain letter combinations.  Become more assertive about responding to reports.  Read what's posted on your own website.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Parks and Recreation

Dear "Parks and Recreation,"

Something pretty terrific happened in the TV world this week.

Leslie Knope refused to call someone a bitch.

"I need to protect a sweet couple from a sex-crazed librarian who makes me question my stance on using the b-word. I dunno, maybe just this once. No, Leslie, fight it. FIGHT IT."

Part of being a feminist means checking your language.  Our culture inundates us with negative stereotypes and negative terms for women.  Being a feminist means policing our language to scrub it of those themes and terms.

Once you've advanced your feminism game, it's easier.  Once you've eschewed those words, you don't find them on the tip of your tongue anymore.  And some of us never used them to begin with.

But for most of us, we go through a phase (sometimes a long phase) where we find it hard not to slip from time to time.  That word is just so fitting and it's just so cutting and you're really pissed off and you know it's wrong but in this one case it seems so, so right.

For some people, the word is "bitch."  For others, it's something else.  You know that you shouldn't say it, but it pops out from time to time.  It's hard to give up; nothing else says what you mean in quite the same way.

But it's important for us to stand firm.  It's important for us not to fall into the easy insults the patriarchy so eagerly recommends.

That's why I love this moment so much.  For one, it rings so true.  That's a real moment, a recognizable moment I know so many of us have echoed.  For another, Leslie doesn't give in to temptation.  She fights it.  She stays true to her principles.

It's easy to have those moments of weakness.  I'm proud of Leslie for standing strong, and I'm proud of "Parks and Rec" for giving us this win.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear WOW Player

Dear World of Warcraft Player,

You invite someone to group with you.  For the sake of this letter, let's call her K.

K doesn't respond, because she has no idea who you are and doesn't see anyone with your name in her immediate vicinity.

You whisper an embarrassed apology, explaining that you sent the invitation by accident.

(This is odd.  The two of you weren't in the same guild, same zone, or same chat channels.  How did you invite her by accident?  By misspelling her name?  Not likely, not an unusual name during off-peak hours.  By right-clicking her name and hitting "invite" by mistake?  But why would you have had her name on-screen in the first place?  You would've had to do a /who search for people of her level or in her zone or something, and why would you have done that?  The two of you were on different zones in different continents and at different levels.)

She says that it's fine, accidents happen.

You talk about how late it is and how tired you are.  She agrees that it's late and says that she's tired, too.  You mention having a daughter.  You call K "sweety."  Since most players seem to assume that other players are male unless otherwise told, K assumes that you think she's a guy, so you must be someone who calls anyone and everyone sweety.  Since most of the straight men she knows don't call other men sweety, she goes by stereotypes and assumes that you must be a woman or a gay man.  (While she thinks that it would be terrific if straight men addressed other men as sweety, that's not part of K's experience.)

You ask her what time it is where she is.

She hesitates to reply.  After all, she knows not to give out personal information on the Net.  Still, you seem to be some friendly, chatty woman (or a friendly, chatty gay man) and it wouldn't hurt to be friendly in return just this once.  So she mentions what time it is where she is.

You ask if she has a child, too.  She says no, she has a dog.

You say that you're divorced.  You ask whether she's married.  She says that she's single.

You tell her how old you are.  You ask how old she is.  She's uncomfortable with this Q&A on personal information.  She begins to think about how much she's already told you.  You know her time zone, you assume that she lives alone (you've already made a comment about her being "lonely.")  You know that she has a dog, and that simple fact has been used against her before, when someone threatened to harm her dog.  She tells you that she's not comfortable giving out personal information on-line.

You tell her that you understand.  You refer to yourself as male.

She starts to wonder what's really going on here.  You contacted her out of the blue with an excuse she was willing to accept in good faith but which honestly seems very shaky.  You began to call her "sweet" and "sweety" far before you had any indication of her gender, which suggests that you assumed her to be female from the start, but why would you assume that about someone you accidentally contacted at random, when the overwhelming consensus among players seems to be that the default WOW player is a guy?

You began to flatter her early in the conversation, when you knew nothing more about her than that she's a human being who plays WOW, types in complete sentences, and doesn't reply to accidental invitations with, "Fuck off, n00b."

Now you begin to press for her age a second time, after she's already told you that she doesn't want to discuss it.  You push for her to admit to an age range.  When she tells you again that she's not comfortable disclosing that information, you begin to talk about hugging her, inquiring into the kinds of hugs she prefers.

Throughout this conversation, she's tried to be friendly, because she wants to be polite.  She's been told all of her life how important it is to be polite to people, especially as a woman.  She's also been told that it's her responsibility to protect herself from "stranger danger," so she's also been a bit removed, so as not to seem too encouraging.  It's a weird dance and she hasn't been happy with any of her replies; they all seem too forward or too cold.  She can't simply relax and have a good time, because if anything happens, even something so simple as you posting this chat log on-line later for everyone to have a good laugh at, it'll be her fault for not saying the right things in the right way.

She doesn't know who you are or what you want.  You claim to have contacted her by accident, but that doesn't make logical sense.  You continue to push for personal information even after she's asked you not to discuss it.  She has reason not to trust you.

Is it any surprise that she stops replying?

Here's a tip for you.  Act like you want to get to know her as a human being.  Instead of wheedling her age, gender, and location out of her, start with what you already have in common: the game you're both currently playing.  Ask how long she's been playing, if she's into raiding, if she's into pet battles, that sort of thing.  Tell her how you're enjoying the new expansion and which achievement you'll work on next.  Instead of telling her how "sweet" she is after thirty seconds of polite conversation during which you really learned nothing about her except that she's capable of pulling off decent grammar and punctuation, get to know her as a person so that you can learn whether she really is sweet, or sarcastic, or a complex human being with various personality traits which don't all fit under generic assumptions.

I don't know why you assumed her to be a woman.  Maybe it was her character's race, her class, her name?  (Maybe you're the alt of someone she knows, which makes this entire situation even slimier.)  Playing the "accidental invitation" game is conniving and starts the entire conversation off on a bad foot.  Why not be honest?  Whisper people and tell them that you're bored and sleepy and want to talk.

Don't lie to women to get them to interact with you.  Don't press for details when someone has already set boundaries.  Don't drop generic compliments so early they're meaningless.  Treat women like human beings you want to get to know.

The woman you contacted would love to have a boyfriend who plays WOW.  But it's more important to her to have a boyfriend who respects her boundaries.  If you won't respect her limits about conversation topics, she has no reason to believe you'll respect her limits about anything else.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Ke$ha

US pop star Ke$ha says she wants to be a gay man because they are 'magical people'.
The Tik Tok singer whose latest single Die Young is out now told Britain's Gaydar Radio that she feels a strong bond with gay men.
Asked if she would like to be a gay man, she answered: 'Are you joking? Yes, I do.'
Ke$ha added: 'There's just an energy to a gay man.
'It's not really comparable to any other people. You guys just exude just this happiness.
'Pretty much my whole touring party, as far as, like, the dancers, it's a lot of gay, beautiful, beautiful men. And they're just gorgeous. And their love of life is amazing. They're just, I don't know, just really magical people.'
-GSN, via

Dear Ke$ha,

I believe that when you talk about gay men being magical, beautiful people who love life, you mean to be complimentary.  I believe that you mean well.

But that was a really harmful, bullshit thing to say.

Gay men are not more or less energetic, more or less happy, more or less beautiful, gorgeous, or magical than anyone else.  They don't love life more or less than anyone else.  They are, in fact, comparable to other kinds of people.  You've created some separate, special, unique category for them, removing them from the general population of humankind, as if they're magical fairy creatures here to be beautiful and celebrate life and sparkle.

Gay men are just people.  Some gay men are old.  Some gay men are ill-tempered.  Some gay men are racist and/or stupid and/or ugly.  Some gay men are felons.  Some gay men are abusive.  Some gay men don't use their turn signals.  Some gay men have disabilities.

On Shakesville today, Liss posted some photos of some of the new couples getting married in Washington and Maryland now that same-sex marriage is finally legal there.  In comments, lizziepet said:

I shared the Buzzfeed link that had the photos of Jane and Pete-e on Facebook yesterday, and one of my friends was like, "Well, that's not what I was expecting." "What were you expecting?" "Not old people." "Because only the young and hip can be queer? o.0"

Do you understand how this is relevant?

You're separating out gay men from the general population and shoving them into a "magical" box.  You're denying them the fullness of their personhood.  They don't get to be irritable or unkempt or unpleasant, like anyone else does.  They don't get to be fat or old or depressed or ugly.

Let people be people.  We talk a lot in feminism about intersectionality, because anything that hurts people with disabilities hurts women with disabilities, anything that hurts people of color hurts women of color, anything that hurts trans people hurts trans women, and so on.  All women aren't minor variations on the same theme, and all gay men aren't, either.

Gay men are people.  Some people are happy, magical, beautiful, energetic people who love life.  Some people aren't.  Pushing "positive" stereotypes isn't helpful, it's harmful.  If you genuinely want to be an ally, you'll stop.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Doritos

Some Crash entries are so unique they deserve extra kudos. We received many whacky (sic) themes from this year's entries, now help decide which of these odd and oddly spirited ads made by you deserve a Nacho Average Ad Award.
-Doritos "Crash the Superbowl" ad-making contest

Dear Doritos,

I was over at Shakesville today and learned that you're hosting a contest!  What fun.  It's great to see you encouraging people to be creative.  I'm sure that your "Nacho Average Ad Awards" have received a lot of terrific submissions.

The spirit of the contest seems to be to have some zany, outside-of-the-box fun, with awards for "Best Glass Shatterer" and "Sweetest 'Stache."  Funky and non-traditional!

Oh, and an award for "Best Supporting Babe."

How very, very traditional.

By "babe," I assume you mean "sexy young woman," since the accompanying image is of a pin-up mudflap sort of shape and there's a separate category for actual babies under "Best Pint-Sized Performer."

You only list eight categories of awards, yet you had to make room for misogyny.  You could have made the eighth category something like "Best Stunt" or "Most Creative Product Shot."  You could have pushed the "wacky" vibe and gone for "Best Use of a Shoe" or "Best Gratuitous Lip-Smacking."  But you went for "Best Semi-Important Hottie."

The most important, interesting role for women, then, is to be sexy.

Men seem to be the default here.  There are awards for pets and infants and "babes," but no role for best dude, best bro, best supporting guy.

The babe is a "supporting" babe, of course.  No main roles for babes here!  Don't take up too much camera time!  The pets, the infants, they might be the star of the show, but we don't want the women to think that they're important, or anything.

What a great award.  Of all of the women who strive to meet the patriarchy's current beauty standard and were shown in Doritos ads but kept largely on the sidelines so they wouldn't get uppity, you were the best.  You were the best!

Sexism.  Misogyny.  Women as secondary, as support.  Women as eye candy.  This is not "unique" or "wacky" or "odd."  This is traditional and old and tired.  We've seen it before, trust us.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Chris Brown 2

Dear Chris Brown (again),

In case my last letter didn't work for you, let me try again.

You're hanging out, tweeting, when someone says, "You're a worthless piece of shit."

Naturally, your response is to wonder, "Whoa, what's up with her?"

But then it kicks in: oh, right.

You're probably frustrated.  People keep bringing up your felonious past when you'd rather put it behind you.  It's aggravating.  You feel harassed and misunderstood.

Chris, these aren't simply haters.  They're not antis who jump on you just because you're a public figure.  As I reminded you earlier, it's normal and reasonable for people to talk about your history and to find it relevant.

So, here it is: someone calls you a worthless piece of shit.

You resent the insult, but you know why she said it.

If you don't want to hear it, you can block her.  If you think that she's harassing you, you could contact Twitter and push them to deal with it.  If you're upset, you can employ any of the techniques recommended in anger management.  (I assume that you've been through anger management therapy, or therapy in general.  I also sincerely, not sarcastically, recommend that you go back for more.)  If you want to reply to the insult, you can suggest that her remarks are inappropriate by tweeting back something like, "Hey, I'm just trying to talk to my fans, here."  If you want to address the more general point that you want people to stop bringing up your criminal past, you can say, "I've done some terrible things, and I'm sorry for them, but I deal with that every day.  I'm working towards being a better person.  #secondchances."  That's not 140 characters, but you get the idea.

If you want to trade insults, I'd recommend strongly against it for a dozen different reasons, but you could reply in a tit-for-tat fashion.  She calls you a worthless piece of shit, you call her a untalented jackass, and so on.  Point out that you're more wealthy and famous than she is, something like that.  "Who are you?  #questionfromaGrammywinner"

You skipped all of those routes and went straight for crude, sexual misogyny.

If you want us to believe that your abusive behavior is in the past, that it's all behind you now, that you're not that person anymore, you have to stop being that person.  People have a problem with you because you have a problem with anger management, misogyny, and domestic abuse, and when they bring it up, you react with more of the same.

If you're angry that people treat you like someone who abuses women, stop acting abusive towards women. Work on how you respond to women.  Work on how you respond when you get angry.  Your responses are all out of proportion to the situation.  Your responses are grossly misogynistic.  This is a problem.  You have a problem.  Don't be surprised when someone points it out.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Bill O'Reilly and Keith Ablow

Dear Bill O'Reilly and Keith Ablow,

You sat down together on national television to talk about the popularity of Psy's "Gangnam Style" video.  It's hit a landmark number of views on YouTube, and you wanted to figure out why.

If I squint, it seemed like you started to touch on a conversation about the nature of pop music and whether or not the escapist qualities of the Internet and pop culture are harmful.

But in essence, all I really got was five minutes of nonsensical racism.

A few choice moments:

The most popular music apparently is that without intelligible words to some extent. 

So it means nothing but it's got a nice upbeat to it. 

The meaning is that it has no meaning. 

Elvis Presley could sing, he had a good voice, his songs had words.

You don't understand Hangul.  That doesn't mean that the entire language is without meaning.  Psy isn't babbling nonsensically in made-up words.  He's speaking his native language.  The song itself has meaning; you just don't understand it.

Is there a larger discussion to be had about the massive popularity of a song in a language that much of its audience doesn't speak?  Yes.  Did you really have that conversation?  No.

You emphasized the point that "Gangnam Style" is popular on (and largely because of) the Internet, but you didn't think about the fact that people can look up translations of the lyrics?

Look, here's an article from a place you're probably familiar with:

Gangnam is a wealthy neighborhood in the South Korean city of Seoul where young people go to party. In the song, Psy describes the kind of guy he is and the kind of girl he wants, painting caricatures of the ostentatious culture of people who hang out in Gangnam. 

As The Atlantic pointed out in an in-depth article last month, behind the flashy costumes and killer dance moves in Psy's video, there's a subtle commentary on class in South Korea. 

WHAT DOES THE CHORUS, 'OPPAN GANGNAM STYLE,' MEAN? 

It roughly means something like 'Your man has Gangnam Style.' 'Oppa,' which literally means 'older brother,' is an affectionate term girls use to address older guy friends or a boyfriend. It can also be used as a first-person pronoun, as PSY does here — in this case, he's telling a woman that he has Gangnam style.

Look at that, The Atlantic did an in-depth article!  It's almost as if there's some sort of substance to this song that might be relevant to the video!  As if Psy isn't merely babbling out meaningless nonsense!  Wait, this song has lyrics?  Fascinating!

Then you bring out this lovely line:

This is a little fat guy from Pyongyang or someplace, Seoul.

Maybe you're not familiar with world history.  Or even with national history.  But assigning just any Asian person to just any Asian country is racist.  Further, assigning someone from South Korea to North Korea is culturally insensitive.  They're very different countries, as someone who earns a living commenting on politics might need to know.

There are like sixteen guys named Sy on Long Island that I could tell you about, they don't look like him.

Now you're mocking his stage name?  Laughing over the fact that people of Asian ethnicity don't look like people of Italian ethnicity?  "Ha ha, he has a stage name, ha ha, he's Asian, ha ha!"  Fantastic political commentary, there.

You spend some time talking about Elvis Presley.  You end up arguing that Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Justin Bieber are real musicians with real music, while "Gangnam Style" is utter nonsense and Psy makes meaningless music.  As if the popularity of "Gangnam Style" marks some historic turn where pop culture deteriorates from talent and substance to nothingness.

This kind of pop music: interesting, meaningful
That kind of pop music: nonsensical, meaningless, potentially harmful and dangerous to civilization as we know it

This kind of pop musician: talented, can sing, can dance
That kind of pop musician: no talent whatsoever

This kind of pop music: in English
That kind of pop music: in Hangul

This kind of pop musician: white, American/English/Canadian
That kind of pop musician: Korean

You spent five minutes saying racist things during a discussion predicating on the idea that "Gangnam Style" is a song without meaning.  Are you also upset that Shakira randomly lapses into garbled babble-speak as well?  Are you also worried about the sanity of those deluded opera-goers who are so fond of meaningless babble-music?

It's not in English!  I don't immediately understand what it means!  Therefore it is devoid of all substance!

It's not in English!  Therefore it is nonsense!

I don't understand it!  Therefore no one else does, either!

The two of you are not the center of the universe.  A wonderful and vibrant world exists beyond you.  Some people speak Hangul.  Some people like Korean pop music.  Some people know how to look things up on the Internet.

If you want to talk about pop music as escapism and whether or not Facebook is bad for society, have that discussion.  Leave the racism out of it.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Chris Brown

This post contains discussion of misogyny, sexual violence, sexual humiliation, and death threats.

Dear Chris Brown,

Here's something a fan of yours said recently:

Rihanna forgave him, they made up if they can get over it so can everyone else who it does NOT concern!!!!!!!!

Here's something similar from you:

"Just ask Rihanna if she mad??????"

This idea appears to be popular among you and your fans.  It seems as if you and Team Breezy want to believe that the problem, if one exists, is between two people: Chris Brown and Rihanna.  Therefore, the argument seems to go, if Chris Brown and Rihanna say there's no problem, there's no problem, and everyone else should stay out of it.

No.  See, you're a felon.  In a court of law, you were deemed guilty of committing a felony.  It wasn't a civil case, Rihanna v. Chris Brown.  It was People v. Christopher Brown.  The people of the state of California are the ones legally involved here, but since California is a state in the larger country, I think that the entire nation has some interest in the situation.

You didn't break Rihanna's laws.  You broke California's laws.

It's okay for Californians to be upset with you.  They follow those laws.  They vote people into office to write those laws.  They pay taxes to fund the upholding and enforcing of those laws.  The rest of the country has a vested interest in how every state's justice system works.  You committed a felony.  It's normal and reasonable for people to be unhappy with you over it.

It's not as simple as you having a fight with your girlfriend.  It's more serious than that, and we're treating it as such.

Is Rihanna mad?  I have no idea how she feels about it, and it's really none of my business anyway.  Are the people of the state of California and the larger United States of America mad?  Well, they certainly have every right and reason to be.

Let's move on to the specific incident to which the tweets above relate.  Here's the conversation as I see it:

Chris Brown: I look old as fuck! I'm only 23... 

Jenny Johnson: I know! Being a worthless piece of shit can really age a person. 

Chris Brown: take them teeth out when u Sucking my dick HOE.

Jenny Johnson: It's "HO" not "HOE" you ignorant fuck.

Chris Brown: I should fart while ur giving me top. "Seize the day" #CarpeDiem

Jenny Johnson: Your mom must be so proud of you.

Chris Brown: see.. I don't even have to tell u what u already know. Thanks HO! #bushpig

Jenny Johnson: [link to this article] #SuckIt

Chris Brown: mom says hello... She told me not to shart in ur mouth, wanted me to shit right on the retina, ....#pinkeye

Jenny Johnson: YOU FLIRT!!!

Chris Brown: Let me leave this bitch alone... It's good to know my worth by listening to a bitch that is worthless! #iwin #bushpigswag

Jenny Johnson: Okay. I'm done. All I got from that exchange with Chris Brown is that he wants to shit and fart on me.

Chris Brown: Further proved my point of how immature society is. #CarpeDiem

Chris Brown: To teambreezy... Know that I'm not upset. Just felt like entertaining the ignorance. These bitches crazy..

Chris Brown: Back to life...

Jenny Johnson: I have zero respect for a person who seems unapologetic for the terrible crime he committed and shows no signs of changing.

Chris Brown: Just ask Rihanna if she mad??????

I hardly know where to begin.

Apparently Jenny Johnson is a professional comedian.  She's tweeted you before, but this is the first time that you've responded.

I expect that by now, you've realized that although you'd like to put your felonious behavior behind you, some people insist on bringing it up and acting as though it's relevant.  (It is.)  I imagine that sometimes you get frustrated at their comments, reminders, and digs.  How you respond when you become angry, and particularly how you respond to women when you become angry, is very relevant to the actual felony you committed.  Abuse and domestic violence are part of larger patterns of behavior.  While you'd like us to think that your violence with Rihanna was an isolated incident, that's simply not how human psychology works.

So, instead of following these handy steps or perhaps reporting harassment to Twitter, when someone called you a "worthless piece of shit," you replied with nasty sexual aggression and misogyny.

Here are the insults she threw at you:

worthless piece of shit
ignorant fuck
Your mom must be so proud of you.

You replied by talking about her sucking your dick, talking about her being toothless/removing her teeth in order to service you sexually, talking about her sucking your dick again, talking about shitting in her mouth, talking about shitting on her eye, calling her worthless, calling her immature, calling her ignorant, calling her a whore twice, and calling her a bitch three times.

Do you see the theme of woman-hating sexual violence here?

When a woman angers you, you use specifically misogynistic slurs.  You try to put her in her place by describing her servicing you sexually.  You try to shame and humiliate her by talking about voiding your bowels in her face.  Your replies hammer home the message: Your gender is all that matters.  You're a woman, therefore I'll use you for my sexual fulfillment.  I'll humiliate and degrade you while you pleasure me.  You're a whore and a bitch.  It's an outpouring of sexualized misogyny.

You said all of this knowing that you were in a public place.  Knowing that your words were easily recorded and spread.  Knowing that your fans were avidly listening.

You claim that you weren't upset.  No?  If this is you merely being entertaining, how do you respond to people when you're really angry?

The public has a vested interest in monitoring your behavior.  Society needs to know that your abusive violence is in the past.  The way you replied to Jenny Johnson tells me that you need help.

Please.  Get some help.

With love,
Frank Lee

P.S. To the media outlets asking which side we're on, this is not an issue of, "Ooohhh, mint or strawberry, which one do you prefer?"  This is an issue of someone insulting a celebrated felon and pointing out his criminal past, and being replied to with sexualized misogyny (from Chris Brown) and death threats (from his fans).  Am I on the side of "truth and insults" or "misogyny and death threats?"  That's the question you're asking?  Please take a long, hard look at yourself and shape up.

P.P.S. Team Breezy, I am trying my best not to get into it with you, but death threats go way too far.  Threats of any kind go way too far.  Please learn to express your anger more maturely, instead of jumping into threats of death and sexual violence.  Maybe your idol will learn something from you.

Dear Blizzard

Dear Blizzard,

I was visiting your on-line store the other day when I saw this item for sale:

World of Warcraft® Penny Arcade 3-Ring Binder 

BradyGames and Penny Arcade have created a collectible, special edition, 2 sided (Horde & Alliance) World of Warcraft binder, featuring World of Warcraft in the classic Penny Arcade style! BradyGames is constantly adding exclusive, online-only binder update content to www.bradygames.com/wow. With this binder comes a registration code allowing you easy access to the files, which you can save to your computer, print in color or black-and-white, and insert into your binder. 

Fans of World of Warcraft and Penny-Arcade.com should be sure to pick up this collectible binder while supplies last!

For half of a moment, I actually tried to tell myself that it couldn't be that Penny Arcade.  That you must mean some other Penny Arcade.

Surely you wouldn't have merchandise from that Penny Arcade on your website.  Official, trademarked merchandise on the Blizzard store?

I genuinely hope that you'll reconsider.  It's only one item, so it should be easy to remove.

Don't want to take the item down?  Perhaps you could follow an example set by others and donate the proceeds to Men Can Stop Rape.

If you're wondering why women and feminist allies have trouble with WOW, consider that you're trying to sell Penny Arcade merchandise to them.

For more reading on Penny Arcade:

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen and counting.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Justin Timberlake (Part 2)

For this letter to make sense, please read the first one here.

Dear Justin Timberlake (again),

Wait.

Wait, I get it now.

I read your apology letter and was disgusted because the apology didn't fit the situation being apologized for.

I failed to take into account that you probably thought that it did.

I did my reading and research to find out what was going on, and what I found warranted a much more serious, thoughtful apology than you delivered.  I was frustrated to find that your open letter seemed more interested in defending than apologizing.

Now it's all clicked, and I realize that you may have come across as defensive because you felt defensive.  You may have written such a weak apology because you didn't feel very apologetic.

You don't understand what our problem is.

You don't understand why we're so disgusted by that video or that it was used as a joke at a celebrity's European wedding festivities.

You don't get it.

Wow.  I'm sorry, I assumed that it would be obvious.  Isn't it obvious?  Or maybe you do get it; maybe you just feel defensive at having to explain yourself.  Maybe you want to enjoy your happy moment of newly wedded bliss without being disturbed by petty complaints about some video some "knucklehead" friend of yours made.  Maybe you're just resentful that word reached the press and the public and ruined your good time.

Maybe you saw the video and understand the complaints, but just don't see it as that big of a deal.  So some homeless people were mocked.  So your friends sat around and had a good laugh at the idea of you voluntarily associating with people down on their luck.  What's the problem?  God, you can't even tell a joke anymore without the PC police making a huge deal of everything.

Your letter took 12 paragraphs to say "I'm sorry" and even then wasn't very convincing, given all of the ways you found to explain that it wasn't that bad to begin with.  We got quotations from your grandfather and some "everyone's equal" down-home Tennessee wisdom, but your harshest words against the video were, "I agree with the overall consensus."  Scathing!

About that Tennesse wisdom:

As a matter of fact, growing up in Tennessee, I was always taught that we as people, no matter what your race, sex, or stature may be, are equal.

You can't honestly believe that Tennessee is some egalitarian wonderland where everyone's treated equally.  There's no racism in Tennessee?  There's no sexism in Tennessee?  (Hey, good news, Aunt B.!)

Maybe you do honestly believe that everyone in Tennessee is treated exactly the same.  That everyone there has all of the same experiences and opportunities in life as you.

And maybe you really do believe that such a cruel, disgusting video was an innocent joke, unfortunately misunderstood.

That says a lot about you.

The world has been kind to you, Justin.

Please learn to be kind in return.

With love,
Frank Lee