Health insurance companies across the country: February 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

At the Leap Year Café...

... it's really something.

One year ago at the Wisconsin protests: Nothing happened.

There was no February 29th last year!

Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.

“We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”

As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.

The authors therefore concluded that “what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled”....

I think this works as a "Modest Proposal"-type satire that is really a critique of abortion.

10 surprisingly low-paying jobs.

Including:

Firefighters
Mean annual income: $47,730
Bottom 10% make $23,050...

Reporters and Correspondents
Mean annual income: $43,780
Bottom 10% make $19,970

"A carpenter came with a toolbox and said, ‘I’m a carpenter from the underground... Show me the house and I’ll build a hiding place."

Dr. Tina Strobos hid more than 100 Jews from the Nazis — 4 or 5 at a time. She died this week at the age of 91. She learned her values from her parents, "socialist atheists who took in Belgian refugees during World War I and hid German and Austrian refugees before World War II."

The Gestapo searched the rooming house several times. But Dr. Strobos, a tall, soft-spoken woman, beguiled the Germans with her fluency in their language and her cool, ingenuous pose....

Dr. Strobos rode her bicycle for miles outside the city to carry ration stamps to Jews hiding on farms. She transported radios to resistance fighters and stashed their guns. She created fake identity cards — ones that were not stamped with a J — either by stealing photographs and fingerprinted documents from legitimate guests at the boarding house or making deals with pickpockets to swipe documents from railway travelers.

She was cold and hungry when she took those risks and was interrogated nine times by the Gestapo. Once, she was left unconscious after an official threw her against a wall.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said when asked why she had taken such gambles. “Your conscience tells you to do it. I believe in heroism, and when you’re young you want to do dangerous things.”

Santorum gets as many Michigan delegates as Romney.

"Rick Santorum claimed a partial victory Wednesday when final results showed he and Mitt Romney evenly split Michigan' s 30 delegates, even though Romney got more overall votes in the Republican presidential primary Tuesday."

"I fought this road tooth and nail so that you’d be forced to ride the bus."

A proposal for billboards along U.S. 12, attacking Governor Walker's likely adversary in the likely recall election here in Wisconsin.

Goodbye to Davy Jones.

The lead singer of The Monkees has died of a heart attack at the age of 66.

Very sad. We were just talking about the importance of the cute boy singers who play a role in the gentle romantic fantasy lives of adolescent girls. The kids today have Justin Bieber. Don't diminish these idealized boyfriends. Davy Jones was one of mine. I was 15 when "The Monkees" began on TV, and Davy was absolutely perfect.

ADDED: We were talking about the importance of cute boy singers because of one of the "American Idol" contestants this season, Eben Franckewitz. Here's how adults react to his performance last night:

This cutie... He just sounds so young and weak. Maybe he's just really nervous? Then no, the chorus doesn't really get any better. Oh, Eben.... Obviously, this kid is not going anywhere because we all know how this show works by now, but this was not a good performance.

But... spoiler alert...

According to DialIdol, he's in first place by a mile. Obviously, it's the young girls who are watching and voting, and he is their boyfriend.

UPDATE: I was wrong about Eben. He missed the cut when the votes came in.

"Snowe's Gift To Obama."

An Andrew Sullivan blog post title.

"You realize when you get to my age... that you hopefully will still do some more work."

"But the last great creative adventure is dying in a positive way."

Andre Gregory is back making a movie with Wallace Shawn. (Together they made what has been my favorite movie for the past quarter century.)

You can use "a name of your choice" to reserve a spot at the play about the Sterling Hall bombing.

And you won't need to show an I.D. at the door. I was wrong about that, I've been informed.

You simply need to get your name on their list and then tell them your name at the door. And if you don't want your real name on their list, you can use "a name of your choice." Like... I don't know... Robert Fassnacht... or Leo Burt.

With no I.D. requirement, appropriated names suggested, and a play whose playwright asks "why do most of us think that [those who broke the social norm] weren’t [justified]?," wouldn't you expect some theatergoers without reservations to attempt to get in using a name they think somebody else might have chosen?

Federal regulators are about to require rearview cameras in all new cars.

Because something must be done about all those drivers who keep backing up into and over children. This will add $160 to $200 to the price of every new car, but what is money when there is a device that might make up for the people who fail to turn around and look when they are backing up?

Why with a camera built into the front view, people might shake off their old training and quit turning around, trust the little digital video, and come up with whole new ways of backing up into children.

“We haven’t done anything else to protect pedestrians,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. “This is one thing we can do and should do.”

If it weren't for the concision and frankness, I'd say that quote is the perfect manifestation of the mind of a bureaucrat. There are 3 chilling steps: 1. We haven't doing anything recently about X, 2. There is something we could do, and 3. We should do it.

The new requirement stems from a 2008 law, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, named for a 2-year-old boy who died in 2002 when his pediatrician father was backing a sport utility vehicle into their driveway....

In urging Congress to help reduce backover injuries, KidsAndCars created a public-service announcement showing that 62 children could fit behind a large S.U.V. without being visible to the driver in any of the mirrors.

What about vehicles that are not large SUVs? The regulation applies to all cars. Also, you're supposed to turn around and look when you back up, not rely on mirrors.

Here's the very impressive KidsAndCars PSA that invokes deep fears:

ADDED: Now, the rule is being delayed. Today was the deadline, but it "may be delayed until after November's presidential election, regulators said."

The proposed rule, estimated to cost $2.7 billion, was listed as one of the five most expensive pending U.S. regulations in an Aug. 30 letter President Barack Obama sent to House Republican leaders.

Wow. What a difficult problem! You've got the voters who empathize about children and voters who worry about too much regulation. What do you do? Obviously, you delay the rule. More study is needed.

Creeping childishness hits the army.

I went to "Army Dietitian Touts Warning Labels for Desserts and Fried Foods at Mess Halls" from a Drudge link that said "Army Replaces Soda Machines With 'Hydration Stations'..." Said touting, by Lt. Col. Sonya Cable highlight, sounds like something on the "Sesame Street" level. The new program is called “Go for Green.” Cable explains:

"In the military we all kind of know red means, ‘uh oh, there’s problems’... Amber, middle of the road, we’re doing okay. And green is good to go, all is right. We took that same concept and we applied it to our menus.”

Uh oh, there's problems. Is that the way people talk to each other in the military now?

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

At the Winter Fountain Café...

... you can see things you're not meant to see.

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: Protesters locked out of the Capitol at long last.

Protesters trying to deal with the lock-out.

"About 60 demonstrators who had slept in the statehouse overnight remained inside as of noon... and they banged drums, sang and danced in the rotunda."

"What one Wisconsin legislator said to another after the budget vote: 'You are f*cking dead.'"

Primary results, Michigan and Arizona.

Let's watch!

7:18: Gingrich is running on about a tree falling on a house. I came in in the middle and he seems deranged.

7:21: Hoosiers beating the Spartans, 43-27.

7:22: Meade has the remote.

7:24: Romney winning in Wyoming. Did you know Wyoming was happening today?

7:31: CNN has 16,093 Santorum, 15,942 Romney, in Michigan. Totally close, but Blitzer keeps exclaiming things like "Even in Mitt Romney's home state!"

7:53: Me: "What's more important to you: Romney in Michigan or Hoosiers beat Spartans." Meade (immediately): "Hoosiers!"

7:58: Hoosiers win! 70-55.

8:00: CNN projects Romney as the winner in Arizona with 44%. Santorum 37%. No projection in Michigan. With 17% of the vote in Romney in the lead by about 3,905 votes.

8:05: CNN polling shows 33% of moderates/liberals voting for Santorum. You know what that means. Operation Hilarity.

8:16: Romney's ahead in Michigan now by 9,238 votes, 3 percentage points.

10:52: I'm back. Romney won. Santorum has lost his momentum. Does this mean it's over now?

680,000-pound boulder goes on a 106-mile journey... for art.

It will ride a "294-foot-long centipede-like transporter between 10 and 11 p.m. and travel at the painstakingly slow speed of about 5 mph."

[W]ork crews from about 100 utility districts will have to take down traffic signs, overhead wires and other obstacles to let the rock pass and then reinstall them later.

A signal expert will have to move and rebuild traffic signals that would otherwise be mowed down like blades of grass by the transporter — nearly as wide as three freeway traffic lanes....

During the day, the rock... will have to park in "the middle of the road, the only place big enough"...

The total cost of the project, including the rock, the transportation and construction of the sculpture site, will be up to $10 million, which was raised from private donors....

Of course, the rock is tweeting:

I don't understand how I was NOT asked to be a part of the new season of @DancingABC. I may not move fast, but I'm graceful!
— LACMA Rock (@LACMARock) February 28, 2012

Hey, that reminds me: There's a Green Bay Packer on the new "Dancing With the Stars" — Donald Driver, along with Urkel, Gladys Knight, and Martina Navratilova.

"And is it really good policy for Santorum to fill young adults with suspicions about higher learning..."

"... which rightly exists to challenge — in a healthy sense — what parents and maybe pastors have poured into them?" asks Frank Bruni.

If their beliefs survive that, then those beliefs can be seen as genuinely earned and are probably all the stronger for it. Santorum’s did. He went not only to college but also to two graduate schools, getting an M.B.A. from one and a law degree from the other.

But to listen to him talk about universities is to get the sense that he doesn’t trust others to emerge from such an obstacle course of unsavory influences as uncorrupted as he did. For safety’s sake, he’ll bless a little ignorance.

He’ll also massage facts. In explaining his Kennedy-induced nausea, he claimed that the former president had said that people of faith had no place in public life. What Kennedy asserted was infinitely more nuanced than that. He said people of all faiths were welcomed, so long as they weren’t slaves to their creeds.

Apparently, Santorum used bulimia against those ideas that the academics attempted to pour into him. Others digest what they've been fed.

Speaking of pukeworthy: "infinitely more nuanced." What is it about nuance that liberals love so much? And infinitely more nuanced? Ironically, that's quite crude. Infinitely? Kennedy had oodles and oodles of nuance. Or is it that Santorum, in Bruni's book, has zero nuance, so anyone with any nuance at all has infinitely more than Santorum?

And I love the way Bruni modifies his idea of challenging family and religious values with the phrase "in a healthy sense." There's no assurance of healthfulness!

And if challenge is so good, college students who were raised in liberal families with liberal or nonexistent religions are being horribly deprived!

Angelina's leg...

... is everywhere.

Things that make law students go "off task."

This is from a study of students using laptops in class, but the researcher was able to gather data that is more generally useful to teachers, because it identified some very specific things that cause the student to look for something to do other than paying attention:

1) Student laptop users tend to go off-task when X-(anything) occurs for 4 minutes or more...

2) When professor is engaged in Socratic method with one student...

3) When a classmate engages with professor...

4) When professor is monotone, or, overly uses one linguistic intonation style...

5) Approximately 40 minutes into class...

6) When professor calls on students in expected order...

Apparently, students like variety... and not listening to other students.

Romney says "I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am."

WaPo reports:

Romney suggested that Santorum was winning the support of the GOP’s most conservative voters with “incendiary,” “outrageous” and “accusatory” comments.

“It’s very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments,” Romney told reporters. “We’ve seen throughout the campaign that if you’re willing to say really outrageous things that are accusatory and attacking President Obama that you’re going to jump up in the polls. You know, I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am.”

A few minutes later, when a reporter brought up Romney’s comment about lighting his hair on fire, the well-coiffed candidate interjected: “I’m not going to do it. I don’t care how hard you ask. It would be a big fire, I assure you.”

I think Romney has a nice demeanor. A nice sense of humor. Ever notice that when he talks, he always seems to be sort of chuckling?

If you had to trust one of these individuals to handle your personal financial affairs...

Let's assume you've got complicated, extensive financial affairs. We're talking about all your life's savings, all the contingencies of a long retirement for you and medical care for you and your family, and all of the wealth that could be preserved for your children and grandchildren, and all that you might be able to contribute to various causes.

"Why does yoga produce so many philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people shocked and distraught?""

"One factor is ignorance," says William J. Broad in the NYT (via Instapundit):

Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise... Since the baby boomers discovered yoga, the arousal, sweating, heavy breathing and states of undress that characterize yoga classes have led to predictable results. In 1995, sex between students and teachers became so prevalent that the California Yoga Teachers Association deplored it as immoral and called for high standards.

Oh, the "ignorance"! And yet... it was "predictable." Hmm. Seems contradictory... and yet, this subtle combination of knowing and not knowing is typical of sexual things. And religious things.

Also in the article:

At Rutgers University, scientists are investigating how yoga and related practices can foster autoerotic bliss. It turns out that some individuals can think themselves into states of sexual ecstasy — a phenomenon known clinically as spontaneous orgasm and popularly as “thinking off.”

The Rutgers scientists use brain scanners to measure the levels of excitement in women and compare their responses with readings from manual stimulation of the genitals. The results demonstrate that both practices light up the brain in characteristic ways and produce significant rises in blood pressure, heart rate and tolerance for pain — what turns out to be a signature of orgasm.

This is the future of sex: The woman, completely inside her own head and the man, over there using a computer monitor to get a look at her private parts:

"Santorum Robocall Asks Michigan Dems To Vote For Him."

TPM reports, with audio and "confirmation that the call did indeed come from the Santorum campaign."

Michigan’s primary rules allow Dems to vote in the state’s GOP primaries. The liberal site DailyKos and other progressive partners have been trying to drum up enthusiasm for “Operation Hilarity” - an effort to get Democrats to vote in the GOP primary and tilt the vote against Mitt Romney. The Santorum campaign evidently decided they’d take votes from any legitimate source.

Following some speculation that the robocall may have been a “false flag” effort designed to harm Santorum, a spokesman Hogan Gidley confirmed to TPM that they were indeed footing the bill, and reaching beyond party lines. “If we can get the Reagan Democrats in the primary, we can get them in the general,” he told TPM.

It's not wrong for Santorum to seek the votes of Democrats. The message strongly pushes the "Michigan worker" to vote against "Massachusetts Mitt Romney" because he opposed the auto company bailouts (while supporting the Wall Street bailouts). The message doesn't tell people that Santorum opposed the auto bailouts too (along with the Wall Street bailouts). So it's a bit deceptive. You can criticize Santorum for that. Who knows whether Santorum would like to bulk up his vote with Democrats who just want the weaker Republican to be the nominee? Frankly, I assume he does, and I don't think that's wrong. Is it?

When Wisconsin has its primary to determine who will oppose Scott Walker in the recall election, are Scott Walker supporters supposed to stay home and allow Democrats to select their strongest candidate? If the primaries are open, doesn't it mean everyone has a right to play the political game any way they want? That's built into the open primary system, adopted by the people of the state, democratically. You can base your vote on any ground that you like. You don't have to explain it to anyone.

"New play uses oral history to craft story of the 1970 Sterling Hall bombing."

"Uncivil Disobedience, a new play from Madison’s Forward Theatre Company, examines an important event in Wisconsin’s history...."

When a bomb exploded just outside Sterling Hall in the early morning hours of August 24, 1970, it was a thunderous event in the history of Wisconsin. Intended to destroy the Army Mathematics Research Center, it caused enormous damage to the building and killed physics researcher Robert Fassnacht and injured three other people....

Mike Lawler of the Wisconsin Story Project, in conjunction with Troy Reeves of the Oral History Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has spent several years conducting interviews and collecting stories from people who were there – and those whose lives were profoundly changed by the aftermath. These stories form the basis of a theatrical piece exploring the impact of the bombing on campus, and also within the larger protest movement of the 60s and 70s.

More information here, including this:

Underneath the story of the bombing and the effort to affect government policy in Vietnam, Lawler believes there is a bigger issue to explore. "For me," he says, "the central question of the story we’re telling is not ‘were the bombers justified?’ but rather, ‘why do most of us think that they weren’t [justified]?"

"Partially underwritten by the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission."

ADDED: I'd like to go to this play so I can tell you about it, but I'm extremely put off by this:

Due to limited seating in Rotunda Studio, reservations are strongly encouraged... To reserve your seats, please email fhonts@forwardtheater.com.

They're collecting names and addresses, and you'll have to I.D. yourself at the door to be seated. I want to buy tickets anonymously and not be identified! I live in a city where people point me out and announce to the group: "Ann Althouse is here." And not in a nice way. It's creepy.

And imagine if a right-wing group were doing a play that pushed left-wing buttons as hard as that suggestion that the Sterling Hall bombers were justified.

AND: I received email from the theater group's communications director saying that you won't need an I.D. at the door. You simply need to get your name on their list and then tell them your name at the door. And if you don't want your real name on their list, you can use "a name of your choice." Like... I don't know... Robert Fassnacht... or Leo Burt.

I said:

I didn't think of the idea of using a fake name. I can't imagine emailing and making a reservation under a pseudonym or showing up and giving a fake name. I mean, now that you've suggested it, I can think about it and see that it's not something I personally can do. I have never in my life tried to get into some place using a fake name, and as someone who gets recognized in this town (and confronted!), I'd be afraid of finding myself in an embarrassing situation.

"I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners."

And other Romney "wealth gaffes," as the Washington Post calls them.

By the way, the official right-wing response is: It's good to get rich! The Democrats act like there's something wrong with being rich.

And I would add: Would you prefer someone who's been unsuccessful handling his own financial affairs?

"Walkergate."

"The Democratic Party of Wisconsin released the first of what will likely be a barrage of recall-themed advertisements Monday, as the anticipated recall elections of Gov. Scott Walker and five Republican politicians loom ahead."

I see they've toned down the rhetoric for the recall. During last year's protests, Walker was Hitler. Now, he's just Nixon. Good to see the old civility agenda kicking in at last!

UW-Madison Professor James L. Baughman [says] the comparison is a stretch.

“With Watergate, Nixon’s undoing was knowing more than he let on in the cover up,” Baughman said. “I don’t think they have that on Walker. I’m troubled by the idea of the analogy.”

[Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson Graeme] Zielinski defended the advertisement, saying there is plenty of evidence Walker has been hiding criminal activity and his denials are not believable.

Despite his reservations, Baughman admitted, “It’s a clever ad. Maybe it’ll work.”

You know what's especially clever? Making dishonesty your theme... dishonestly! The people of Wisconsin love that kind of playfulness with the truth. It gets us thinking. Very stimulating. Nice work, Democrats. So ironically Nixonworthy.

IN THE COMMENTS: purplepenquin said...

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin ran advertisements last year that said Walker was Hitler?!?

Shame on them for doing so...does anyone have a link to those ads? I can't believe this is the first I've heard about it.

I don't know if the Democratic Party ran ads, but at the protests, there were many, many signs comparing Walker to Hitler. It was a standard meme at the protests. The protesters displaying signs were not shunned or corrected by other protesters. It was the norm. Meade and I would approach individuals with Hitler signs and ask them to explain, and invariably, they defended the comparison.

For example, this woman, holding a sign depicting Walker with a Hitler mustache and hair, questioned by Meade, snips that Walker is "like Hitler." Here's a young woman with a sign depicting Walker as Hitler, who, asked to explain, says "He doesn't do nice things." Here's an "Adolf Walker" sign with a swastika. Here's a protester with the sense to cover her face:

But you're right in your sarcasm, purplepenquin. The Democratic Party did not select this material for glossy advertisements to send out all over the state. But this is the way it looked, day after day, in Madison, Wisconsin. This is how the protesters related to each other and created the passion and fervor that led to weeks of drum-beating and chanting in the rotunda. Hitler has been scaled back to Nixon for more general Wisconsin purposes.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Ben & Jerry's apologizes for its ice cream that (attempted to) honor Jeremy Lin.

The "Taste the Lin-Sanity" flavor contained lychee honey swirls and fortune-cookie pieces, which outraged some people.

Do you see why? It's stereotyping to connect someone of a particular ethnic group to the food conventionally associated with that group.

"To sit out here in public and philosophize … is really not the best use of our time."

Said one Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice.

"I think it’s vitally important that the public be able to see what we do and how we do it... This would be a major mistake, to close what has been open," said the other.

ADDED: Here's another photograph of a sticker on the lamppost in the previous post:

That is a depiction of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser. Why show him as a female? Some lefty is confused. Trying to denounce Prosser, he has unwittingly expressed the opinion that to be female is to be debased and inferior.

At the General Strike Café...

... perhaps (purr-haps) you have a solution for everything.

"If women do something like uptalk or vocal fry, it’s immediately interpreted as insecure, emotional or even stupid."

"The truth is this: Young women take linguistic features and use them as power tools for building relationships."

Yes, yes, remember the old rule: Whenever researchers find something to be true of females, they will interpret and report it as evidence of female superiority. As I've pointed out many times, this rush to patronize women reveals an underlying fear that women actually are inferior. It’s immediately interpreted as insecure, emotional or even stupid. Wow. That linguistics professor openly stated the impermissible belief that impelled her to figure out how to say that women really are superior: They take linguistic features and use them as power tools for building relationships.

See the tell? Power tools. What's more associated with the male than power tools? To make the female seem superior, the professor expresses herself with a decidedly masculine metaphor. Power tools. Also: building.

I'd like to see what she'd say if she found a vocal tic more prevalent in men. Perhaps: If men do something... it’s immediately interpreted as confident, rational and smart. The truth is this: Men take linguistic features and use them as Barbie Dolls for ruining everything.

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: "Meade brought home the video, handed me the cameras, and said 'I almost got myself arrested.'"

"It's funny the second time you watch it! It looks like a Michael Moore-like thing... attempting to get past the police into the building."

Here's the edited video. The most interesting thing about it is not that Meade didn't want to wait in line, or that he played the "new media" card, but that the police come close to revealing that they are on the protesters' side:

"All these people have decided that they are working with us to help with their protest. We're not keeping..."

"You're helping the protesters?"

"We're not keeping you from protesting. We're helping to keep the peace."

The police were supposedly clearing out the building that day, but New Media Meade got the scoop from the police that anyone who wanted to stay would be allowed.

"Law Deans May Go to Jail for Submitting False Data to U.S. News."

Why not?

Gov. Scott Walker will not challenge any of the recall signatures.

With the deadline for the challenges coming at 5 p.m. today, Walker's campaign just announced that it faced "an impossible timeline" imposed by a Dane County Judge. The Government Accountability Board continues its review, however, with a March 19th deadline, and it might strike some signatures.

Walker’s campaign filed documents with the GAB on Monday saying that signature review needs to continue because it found a 10 to 20 percent error rate. And Walker attorney Steven Biskupic of Michael Best & Friedrich said that Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty and We the People of the Republic, two tea party groups, had organized a “Verify the Recall” effort to review signatures, but campaign finance laws prevented them from coordinating with Walker.

Best and worst Oscar fashions.

A nice slide show, beginning with Jennifer Lopez at her best.

My favorite is Stacy Keibler (whoever she is). Her dress is a fabulous gold vortex. Put it next to Meryl Streep's drape-y gold thing. But Meryl won the gold thing that is the statuette. Keibler had George Clooney, though.

ADDED: The NYT has a slide show grouped by color, and you can see Streep and Keibler on one page.

"I fell in love with Benihana because, if you sit at a table full of strangers and you don't say anything to anybody..."

"... you're an asshole...."

So, [Tracy Morgan] says he started using the restaurant regularly as a way to try out jokes on the public. "You've got a built-in audience. It's like a small comedy show, and this is the stage."

As we're talking, Morgan notices a guy at the next table listening. When asked what he likes about the vibe, Morgan answers loudly, for the other guy's benefit....

Go to the link for the — warning: offensive — routine.

"President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob."

"You're good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to tests that aren't taught by some liberal college professor."

That's something Rick Santorum said on Saturday. On Sunday, George Stephanopoulos asked him: "Now getting to college has been part of the American dream for generations, Senator. Why does articulating an aspiration make the president a snob?"

Santorum observes that "there are lot of people in this country that have no desire or no aspiration to go to college, because they have a different set of skills and desires and dreams that don't include college."

And to sort of lay out there that somehow this... should be everybody's goal, I think, devalues the tremendous work that people who, frankly, don't go to college and don't want to go to college because they have a lot of other talents and skills that, frankly, college, you know, four-year colleges may not be able to assist them.

Stephanopoulos reminds him that he said on Glenn Beck's show that "Obama wants to send every kid to college, because they are indoctrination mills. What did that mean?" Santorum says everybody knows that "how liberal our colleges and universities are and how many children in fact are." Conservatives are "singled out" and "ridiculed." He said that he "personally... was docked for my conservative views."

(I genuinely wondered what he meant by saying he was docked, looked it up on line, and ended up in the Urban Dictionary. What a distraction! Anyway, I think he means "docked" in the sense of deprived of some benefits. But, in light of recent discussions of Satan, it might mean he had his tail removed or shortened.)

Santorum continues, going on about the "real problems at our college campuses with political correctness" and "politically correct left doctrine." Then he says he wants to "to make sure that conservative and more mainstream, common-sense conservative and principles that have made this country great are reflected in our college courses and with college professors." I wonder how a President might go about making sure of something like that? I would think that one of the conservative principles that made America great is the President sticking to the proper work of the President.

2 things stand out to me here:

1. Obama is the university professor, promoting the product/process that lifted him up and that he bestowed on others. His vanity/self-esteem are all wrapped up in the ideology of education. But Santorum's self-image is that of the student. He was oppressed and bullied. He still feels angry and ripped off. Which attitude resonates more with the American people today? That is, do Americans identify with the professor or the student?

2. The important thing, in my view, is that every young person in America — regardless of their cultural and economic background — needs to see clearly that they can get a higher education — that they belong there if they choose to go there — and that they have a choice that should be based on what will work out well for them. They should to go to college for a good reason, and one particularly good reason is to study science and engineering. If they are going to study in some softer, less career-oriented area, the mushy notion that everybody ought to go to college is not enough, even if the President of the United States tells them it is.

After reports of burned Korans, "a deadly chain of events that has not only inflamed tensions but possibly exposed a crippling weakness" in the Afghanistan exit strategy.

WaPo puts it this way:

The killing of the U.S. officers on Saturday occurred two days after a man wearing an Afghan army uniform fatally shot two American troops in eastern Afghanistan, the latest in a string of incidents in recent months in which local security forces have turned against NATO personnel.

Some of the killings have been perpetrated by Afghan troops whose loyalties lay with the Taliban. But, in most cases, the attacks have been the result of tensions between U.S. forces and Afghans who felt as though they had suffered an insult to themselves or their faith.

But Obama apologized. The article doesn't mention Obama. Only "Senior Obama administration officials," who, we're told, "have sought to reassure a war-weary American public that the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan would draw to a close by the middle of next year." The middle of next year, that is, after the election. We weren't supposed to be thinking about Afghanistan during the election season.

Here's the NYT article:

American officials sought to reassure both Afghanistan’s government and a domestic audience on Sunday that the United States remained committed to the war after the weekend killing of two American military officers inside the Afghan Interior Ministry and days of deadly anti-American protests.

But behind the public pronouncements, American officials described a growing concern, even at the highest levels of the Obama administration and Pentagon, about the challenges of pulling off a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan that hinges on the close mentoring and training of army and police forces.

This article does refer to Obama, his apology for the Koran burnings, and the impending presidential election — in the context of things Romney and Santorum said. Romney's comment is so bland, it's not worth quoting. Santorum, in what the NYT calls "harsh criticism," faults Obama for apologizing when the burning of the Korans was not an intentional display of disrespect.

Here's the full transcript of what Santorum said (on ABC's "This Week," i.e., the George Stephanopoulos show). Santorum, referring to the Koran burnings, says "a mistake was made, clearly a mistake, which we should not have apologized for."

[S]ay it's unfortunate, say that this is something that should have been done.... But to apologize for something that was not an intentional act is something that the President of the United States... suggests that there is somehow blame, this is somehow that we did something wrong in the sense of doing a deliberate act wrong. I think it shows that we are -- that I think it shows weakness. I think what we say is, look, what happened here was wrong. But it was -- it was not something that was deliberate, and we are -- we -- you know, we take responsibility for it. It's unfortunate. But to apologize, I think, lends credibility that somehow or another that it was more than that.

Do we have any actual experts on Afghan culture who can tell us what apologies mean to Afghans? Obviously, we have trouble understanding what counts as a manifestation of disrespect and why it inflames the Afghan people to such a degree, or whether it's bogus inflammation used as an excuse for violence, so I have no confidence that Obama or Santorum is any good at predicting the effect of apologizing or not apologizing on the events in Afghanistan.

Both of them seem to take a position on apologizing that has to do with their American cultural values. As Americans, we can talk about the meaning of apologies and form opinions about whether Obama or Santorum has the better philosophy. But choosing a President, I want someone effective at doing what is in American interests around the world.

Obama came into office claiming some special insight into how we are perceived in other countries, and he made us feel that he would improve these perceptions. This has not happened.

Santorum offers a different approach. Perhaps reciting and adhering to clearly stated American values would work better than Obama's apologies for America. But I don't see any special understanding or expertise in either of these men. They are just 2 American men behaving according to their instincts and ideology.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

"Sacha Baron Cohen just spilled 'ashes' of Kim Jong Il on Ryan Seacrest."

A tweet from the Oscars that I am not watching.

Cohen is promoting his movie "The Dictator" and appearing in character as Adm. Gen. Shabazz Aladeen, which the Oscar folk tried to keep him from doing.

ADDED: Video.

Looking back at my old Wisconsin protest posts from a year ago, I'm struck by...

... the bemused, distanced attitude I have and how coolly neutral I was presenting material that I could have been really sensationalistic about. It was just another day in Madison, Wisconsin, and I was looking for things to photograph. It confirms for me what I've known about myself for a long time: I'm not into politics the way other people are.

The original name of this blog was Marginalia, and — as I explain in the very first post — Marginalia was a name I made up for Madison, when I was, long ago, writing a fictionalized account of my life here in this remote outpost in the Midwest. I was writing about art and life and a little law. My only early political posts were about Wesley Clark's body fat and a mixed metaphor in the NYT.

I really do feel marginal, but as I said back when I named the blog Marginalia, I love writing marginalia.

A year ago today at the Wisconsin protests — 100,000 people marched around the Capitol in the snow.

Meade and I walked against the flow of the crowd so we could photograph a lot of faces, and I edited his video down to 10 minutes, that included a huge union presence, a man dressed as a rich man declaiming "In the old days, we knew how to deal with peasants!... Burn you like marshmallows!," ladies who harass me for blocking their view of some people in "Star Wars" outfits, the voice of Peter Yarrow, a protester complaining that Obama's not there, and a view into the soul of a puppet. [More of Yarrow here.]

Inside the Capitol, I made use of my fisheye lens.

We checked back at the Veterans Memorial, where, the day before, the protesters had promised us they were going to clear their signs and things away from the memorial.

"The signs were off the memorial, but, as you can see, the junk was still piled against it, and Meade had a long talk with them — and the Capitol Police — about it. The protesters were very polite and circumspect, even as they fell back on the argument that they thought it was enough to take down the signs — and that they'd thought, yesterday, that it was enough to tape the signs only on the back of the monument. The assertion was made, as it was yesterday, that people can't tell from the back that it's a war monument."

ADDED: Here's the edited video of our return to the Veterans Monument.

Also, I traced the timeline of the protests to date and believed that there was "this slowly tightening cordon will effectively accomplish the end of the occupation at 4 p.m. this afternoon."

And, on this short video, Meade questions a man with a sign that reads "Egypt, Libya/Madison, Wisconsin/Civil Unrest Is Best." The conversation ends when the man leans over to Meade and says "Get your head fucked." There's also a cute (but cold) doggie at the end."

Evan Bayh, clinging to guns and religion.

This morning, on Fox News Sunday:

Well, look, Bill obviously noticed, the Wall Street Journal editorial page will notice, you can go into Michigan, put a gun to the head of the people going into these caucuses and no one will be able tell you the specifics of Romney's economic plan, or very few. But they do get a gut sense is this someone who is a leader with big idea who can try and lead this country in a better direction. God love him, he just hasn't been able to communicate that yet.

Gun to the head... God love him... What's wrong with that man?

"As we round the corner into Sunday night's low-hype, low-suspense Academy Awards..."

"... is there anything you're hoping to see on Sunday? Any viable surprises that would delight you? Any level of expectation for Billy Crystal's hosting?"

I don't think I have ever been less interested in the Academy Awards than I am this year.

Rasmussen poll: "just 24% of Likely U.S. Voters favor applying affirmative action policies to college admissions."

"Fifty-five percent (55%) oppose the use of such policies to determine who is admitted to colleges and universities."

The national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted February 22-23, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports.

The reason for the poll is, apparently, that the Supreme Court announced last Tuesday that it would hear the University of Texas affirmative action case. It's interesting to me that the poll is of likely voters. Presumably, public opinion influences at least some of the Justices to some degree. Do we as a people think taking race into account — for purportedly benevolent purposes — is good or bad? There are approaches to constitutional interpretation that would find a place for information like that.

But why should we care in particular about likely voters? Various political candidates need to figure out how to persuade us, the likely voters, to view them in a favorable light. If affirmative action is going to be in the news because of the pending Supreme Court case, candidates will need to talk to us about it, including — if they are running for President — who they'd put on the Supreme Court. If likely voters fret about access to contraception, they may lean toward Obama: He'd better appoint the next couple Justices. But if they can be made to worry about affirmative action — based on that Rasmussen poll — perhaps they'll think: Better give the appointments to Romney/Santorum.

"Make the pie higher!"

Said George Bush, that one time. I quoted him, with fondness and enthusiasm, when I saw this high pie in the bakery window.

So we got a couple slices of pie and cups of black coffee and went over to the seating area, which looked like this:

Forget it. It's Madison. Enlarge to read. Read and laugh or weep or whatever. The pie wasn't even that good. The decor was flaky but the crust was not. It was rubbery, and the forks were made from super-thin plastic. Not a workable combination.

In a glass case, there was this National Organization for Women display:

"Let's support children who do exist." Oh, that reminds me. The great atheist Richard Dawkins acknowledges that God might exist. In that spirit, shouldn't pro-choice people acknowledge that children in the womb might exist? But the big question, in both cases, is: What are you going to do about it?

ADDED: In the photo with me holding a cup of coffee, the sign right above "Kill the Bill!" says "Info Station/location/West Gallery/2nd Floor/(Behind the Flags)." That's directing you to the display that disrespected the Veterans Memorial, which was the subject of last night's "A year ago today at the Wisconsin protests.". The video at that post begins with the flags referred to on that sign. It continues with a defense from the protesters that because they are using the back of the monument: "If you take a picture of this, you can't tell its a war memorial." But the sign directing folks to the "Info Station" said look for the flags.

James Taranto is "surprised to see @annalthouse sort of defending" Charles Blow.

Taranto's tweeting. Citing 2 of my blog posts — "Mr. Blow may attempt to delete that Tweet..." and "Our reflexive response to 'Everybody Draw Mohammad Day'... was sympathetic/But Althouse prompted us to reconsider" — he wonders whether I think we "should mock religion or not."

Let's get a few things straight:

1. I was not defending Blow's infamous "Stick that in your magic underwear" tweet. My post quotes Jim Geraghty making the usual double-standard criticism about which religions are mockable, then asks — asks! — if you'd like to see the counter-argument, that religion should be vigorously mocked, and links to Crack Emcee. I'm just setting up discussion there, not drawing my own lines about what I think people should be saying about religion.

2. My "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day" post is demanding that people look at a double-standard problem, using the hypothetical "Everybody Burn the Flag Day." You need to think about what you're doing when you decide to leverage your protest on deep reverence that other people feel.

3. I've never stated a general rule about mockery and religion. I don't have one. Comedy is a great and dangerous force. Most people aren't too good at using it. It can communicate good fun or extreme contempt. You can be a complete asshole with comedy — which you have a right to be, but if you go too far in that direction, you'd better be good! You're probably not as funny as you think you are, but if you want to go to extremes, you're stupid if you don't know there's a risk. Now, the riskiest stuff is also the funniest stuff. Ask Lenny Bruce. No, you can't. He died. Remember when Michael Richards tried to do that Lenny Bruce thing? His career died.

4. Instead of a pathetic and necessarily futile hope for rules for humor, let's think deeply about what humor is. Here's a classic starting point:

In Freud's view, jokes... happened when the conscious allowed the expression of thoughts that society usually suppressed or forbade. The superego allowed the ego to generate humor. A benevolent superego allowed a light and comforting type of humor, while a harsh superego created a biting and sarcastic type of humor. A very harsh superego suppressed humor altogether.... Freud followed Herbert Spencer's ideas of energy being conserved, bottled up, and then released like so much steam venting to avoid an explosion.

5. Underpants.

"Something about seeing the silhouettes of all the Holders of the Lights shifts the event from mere signage propaganda...

"... to an odd kind of testimonial. It is the main lesson of the Occupy movement: that bodies matter, and radical action can be defined by bodies in space standing against overt and covert assumptions and assertions of totalizing power."

Some impressive "Recall Walker" signage on a Highway 41 overpass.

Yes, I think it can be easily done/Just take everything down to Highway 41...

But what's the rest of that self-mythologizing prose about? Bodies in space... overt and covert...?? They're mainly saying that by having people outside, in the cold, holding signs, it's more powerful than just having a sign stuck up on its own. Clearly, it's more powerful from the subjective standpoint of the individuals holding the signs. So powerful it threatens to tip over into insanity. Let's hope it's not too contagious. I don't think it is. Haven't seen much at all about Occupy lately.

Wyoming prepares for a post-America future.

Just in case!

Frankly, I think all the states should have made plans like this a long time ago. Given the possibility of nuclear war, a large asteroid, or — Wyoming, I'm looking at you — the eruption of the Yellowstone caldera, the states ought to be ready to operate independently. I recommend, as part of the plan, ultimate reunion of the states — those that survive with intact state government — under the U.S. Constitution.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Kites on ice, kids on marble.

Today on Lake Mendota, guys with kites (and sails) to pull skis (and sleds):

And in the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda — a year after the protests — it looks like this:

The kids (and adults) are lying on the ground not because they sleep overnight there — like last year's protesters — but to gaze up into the dome.

A year ago today at the Wisconsin protests — signs and piles of personal belongings everywhere, even on the Veterans Memorial.

In the early morning hours, Democrats filibustered, and then Republicans suddenly, quickly took a vote, enraging the Democrats, who shout "Shame! Shame!"

Meade and I arrived at the Capitol midday, and I'm stunned at the signs taped everywhere, many more than there had been before. There are pillows and sleeping bags and other things piled up, and many people are sitting or lying on the floor.

As we walk around on the first floor, we find some protesters have pushed a table loaded with junk up against the back of the Veterans Memorial and have taped their various notices to the back of it and piled stuff up around its base. Meade insists that they move their table and take down those signs and tells them they are hurting their own cause by disrespecting the monument, and instead of simply apologizing, they defend their actions — they're using the back of the monument, and they are passionate about their cause — even as those who died in wars were passionate. Here's the 9-minute video, which were, for us, among the tensest moments of the protests:

"The fervor of the sixties penetrated law schools quite passionately."

Strikingly sexual imagery from a 2005 article called "Introduction to Clinical Legal Education" (which I'm reading in connection with my law school's "self-study" of its clinical program). (PDF.) Here's the quote in context:

During the second wave of clinical legal education - a period spanning from the 1960's through the late 1990's - clinical legal education solidified and expanded its foothold in the academy. The factors that contributed to this transformation included demands for social relevance in law school, the development of clinical teaching methodology, the emergence of external funding to start and expand clinical programs, and an increase in the number of faculty capable of and interested in teaching clinical courses. Perhaps the most powerful of these factors was the zeitgeist of the 60's, which produced "student demands for relevance." In reflecting on the growth and direction of clinical legal education, Professor Dean Hill Rivkin has noted: "It was the societal legacy of the sixties . . . that most shaped clinical legal education. The fervor of the sixties penetrated law schools quite passionately."

ADDED: Speaking of passionate fervor, I love Wikipedia. It has an article titled "Relevance." Excerpt:

During the 1960s, relevance became a fashionable buzzword, meaning roughly 'relevance to social concerns', such as racial equality, poverty, social justice, world hunger, world economic development, and so on. The implication was that some subjects, e.g., the study of medieval poetry and the practice of corporate law, were not worthwhile because they did not address pressing social issues.^{[citation needed]}

Of course, that passage contains many links to other Wikipedia articles, including this one called "Social justice." Excerpt:

The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in 1840 based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and given further exposure in 1848 by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati.... It is a part of Catholic social teaching, the Episcopalians' Social Gospel, and is one of the Four Pillars of the Green Party upheld by green parties worldwide. Social justice as a secular concept, distinct from religious teachings, emerged mainly in the late twentieth century, influenced primarily by philosopher John Rawls. Some tenets of social justice have been adopted by those on the left of the political spectrum....

Ah! Religious roots. I note the resonance with Rick Santorum's observation that President Obama believes in "some phony theology." Sorry. The 60s penetrated me too passionately, and I've still got the fervor for relevance.

The Internet!

"Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about."

"It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is."

It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

Professor Richard Lindzen, via Instapundit, who compares the global warming hysteria to Y2K.

ADDED: "Why the Climate Skeptics Are Winning/Too many of their opponents are intellectual thugs."

The Gleick episode exposes again a movement that disdains arguing with its critics, choosing demonization over persuasion and debate. A confident movement would face and crush its critics if its case were unassailable, as it claims.

Indoor mountain biking parks.

Very nice!

[Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park, b]uilt in the shell of a defunct 110,000-square-foot Menards home and lumber store [in Milwaukee], ... is a facsimile of the original Ray’s in Cleveland, which occupies the hulk of a World War II-era rayon and parachute factory.

Also at the link, the other winter biking option: fat bike:

“It’s like snowshoes for your bike,” [said Greg Smith of Milwaukee], explaining how the giant tires spread out over snow, sand and marshland. Until last winter, when Surly and Salsa, two Minnesota companies, began offering ready-to-ride fat bikes, the only option for true snow biking was to cobble together expensive parts.

"Seven Other Seinfeld Quotes That Apply to Mitt Romney."

Too easy?

"The vocabulary of class warfare may have begun on the left—a very socialist left..."

"... but in mainstream American politics it didn’t gain much traction until the Republicans took it up."

Framing the struggle as cultural and tribal rather than as economic, they proved to be more effective class warriors than the Democrats. Richard Nixon won over the “silent majority” by casting intellectuals, student radicals, and the media as enemies of those he awkwardly termed “the so-called unimportant people.” Ronald Reagan called out “welfare queens” for bilking the government. The Bushes brought down their opponents by igniting incipient racial and cultural resentments. Michael Dukakis fell to the vicious Willie Horton ad. The infamous Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry impugned his war heroism; an ad showing him windsurfing off Nantucket became an emblem of unseemly privilege.

So what's Obama supposed to do?

"Caricature is the most evanescent and pedantic of the visual arts."

It's hard to look back.

"President Obama’s attempt to 'soften' U.S. immigration enforcement — in what has been widely viewed as an election-year appeal to Hispanic voters..."

"... has so far produced mixed results on both practical and political fronts, according to a new Syracuse University report and anecdotal accounts from immigrant advocates."

"I've tried to explain my belief that a man should not be 'buddies' with another man's wife, but my wife doesn't see it and says they’re just pals."

"At the conference my wife will essentially be 'dating' this guy for five days. I do trust my wife completely. But this guy is single... I’m annoyed that I will be home with the boys while she is on vacation with another man. I can't ask her not to go, and I can't join her. What can I do?"

Advice?

Friday, February 24, 2012

At the Ambulance Café...

... you can enhance your performance.

"The girls always make bad decisions and are always losers. Since I'm a girl, then I'm a loser!"

Maybe you shouldn't let your children watch this season of "Survivor," where they've divided males and females into separate tribes.

"The defendant’s acts were not a prank, they were not an accident and they were not a mistake."

"They were mean-spirited, they were malicious and they were criminal.”

"You gotta keep things in perspective... He might be stupid at times, but he was an 18-year-old boy and certainly not a criminal. There was no bullying...He’s not a bigot."

"This is my livelihood, this is my integrity, this is my character."

Said Ryan Braun. "This is everything I've worked for in my life being called into question."

A year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: "And if Scott Walker gets in our way, we're going to roll right over him.

Here's how it looked in the rotunda, as things we're getting a little nasty and surreal:

And a UW professor retires after after only 21 years to "protect" herself from "depressing and threatening" clauses in Governor Walker's bill.

People seem to be losing their bearings.

Kodokushi.

Lonely deaths.

"Dr. Seuss' The Lorax... has been licensed to advertise an SUV."

Oh, my.

Well, that's just terrible — melding this heavy-handed moralizing scold to a perfectly decent little Mazda.

Karen Santorum says she was against her husband's running for President, but finally decided it was "God's will."

WaPo reports:

Speaking in deeply spiritual terms, Karen Santorum said she had been reluctant to throw her support behind the idea because her husband’s failed 2006 Senate re-election campaign had been so brutal. Also, she said, her husband had become more involved with the family after leaving the Senate, and was even coaching Little League...

Karen Santorum has been largely behind the scenes during the campaign, busy in part taking care of the couple’s youngest child, Bella, who suffers from a terminal disorder.

But God must want the children's father out on the road, pouring his life's energy into a quest for power. Just when he was getting more involved with the family, coaching Little League, faced with the terribly ill baby, he got called away. But through prayer, you can ground yourself in faith that these things all happen for a reason. There are other men offering their services to the country, men with grown children, but God wants Rick out there too, vying for the top spot.

"I have these other aspects of my life that no one knows about. I’m an artist. I’m a musician."

"Nobody knows that... They just see me at the guy who tried to kill Reagan.”

In the wake of last year’s shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by accused gunman Jared Loughner, John Hinckley asked one of his therapists, “Wow. Is that how people see me?”

"Michigan GOP Primary: Romney 40%, Santorum 34%."

Rasmussen's new poll, conducted yesterday — that is, the day after the last debate. The margin of error is +/-4.

"Sarah Palin’s top aides held a conference call to denounce the forthcoming HBO movie 'Game Change'..."

"... which like any ultraliberal media production, knocks Palin as a mentally imbalanced moron. Reporters are already underlining the Palin aides haven’t seen the movie."

Already?

Somebody sounds mentally unbalanced.

"The photographs are not self-portraits but rather depictions of invented personas and tableaus..."

"... shot in her studio without the help of any assistants, costume designers or hair and make-up experts."

"Mr. Blow may attempt to delete that Tweet..."

But Jim Geraghty has preserved the Mormon-bashing outburst of the NYT columnist.

One of your columnists responds to a comment he does not like, from a Mormon presidential candidate, and responds, “Stick that in your magic underwear.”...

We just witnessed ESPN firing an employee for using the phrase “chink in the armor” in a headline about the New York Knicks’ Jeremy Lin. While no one could prove a desire to mock Lin’s ethnic heritage, and the employee expressed great regret for what he insisted was an unthinking lapse, it was deemed unacceptable even as an honest mistake. Regardless of what one thinks of ESPN’s reaction, one is left to marvel at the contrast before us. Would the New York Times find it acceptable if one of their columnists chose to mock Muslim religious practices? Jewish faith practices?

You want the counter-argument? That we should mock religion? Nobody does it better than The Crack Emcee.

When Satan set his sights on America, the place were he was "most successful and first successful was in academia."

Said Rick Santorum in that 2008 speech at Ava Maria University. I've lived in that purported stronghold of Satan for the last quarter century, so that caught my attention.

He understood the pride of smart people. He attacked them at their weakest, that they were, in fact, smarter than everybody else and could come up with something new and different. Pursue new truths, deny the existence of truth, play with it because they're smart. And so academia, a long time ago, fell.

And you say "what could be the impact of academia falling?" Well, I would have the argument that the other structures that I'm going to talk about here had root of their destruction because of academia. Because what academia does is educate the elites in our society, educates the leaders in our society, particularly at the college level. And they were the first to fall.

And so what we saw this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being educated in our institutions, the next was the church.

Interesting that he said "domino effect" while speaking at Ave Maria University and saying that Satan has reached into academia and the church. Ave Maria University was founded with the fortune that Tom Monaghan made selling Domino Pizza. Exactly how deep does this Satanic plot go? All the way back to Ypsilanti in 1960 when Tom and his brother bought that small pizza store. I have lived in Ypsilanti. I know Ypsilanti. I have seen the mark of the devil in Ypsilanti. The Domino's Pizza logo has 3 dots. They were going to add dots for each store that they opened, but they stopped at 3, the number of stores they had in 1969, when the logo was designed. The company headquarters is in Ann Arbor, the location of the University of Michigan, where I arrived in 1969. Was the Devil digging his hoofs into academia, beginning right there and then? I'm no expert at numerology, but I can't help noticing that if you take the 1 in 1969, grip it tightly, and knock the two 9s over, you get 666.

But here's where my blood ran cold. I said "Oh, Lord!" out loud. (Causing Meade to say: "Lord? The Dark Lord?!") I was reading on in the above-linked Wikipedia article on Domino's Pizza, and I came to this:

In 1998, after 38 years of ownership, Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan announced his retirement and sold 93 percent of the company to Bain Capital, Inc. for about $1 billion and ceased being involved in day-to-day operations of the company.

Bain Capital! The bane of our existence!

To say that something or someone is "the bane of my existence" means that the person or thing is a constant irritant or source of misery. As a cliché, "bane of my existence" has lost its edge to a large degree over the years...

But "bane" was once a very serious word. The Old English "bana" meant literally "slayer" in the sense we now use "killer" or "murderer." Early on, the English "bane" was also used in the more general sense of "cause of death," and by the 14th century "bane" was used in the specialized sense of "poison," a sense which lives on in the names of various poisonous plants such as "henbane" and "wolfbane."

Connect the dots, people! The dots. Not just the 3 dots in the Domino's Pizza logo. There were many more dots, but they withheld them from the logo. They didn't want you to see that many dots. You must struggle to see the dots before you can even hope to connect them. Bain/Bane Capital is reaching everywhere, into our pizza, into our university. It was Bain's billion that built Ave Maria University where Santorum came to deliver his warning about Satan in academia. And now we have the 2 men left standing. Santorum, who is warning us, and Romney — r omney/r money/our money — who is the Bain/Bane of our existence. We've lost Cain — Cain ≠ Bain — a man — her man — who rose like Ave Maria, out of pizza. But it was Godfather Pizza. God the Father's pizza, not the Satanic 3-dots pizza.

Connect the dots! Find all the dots and connect them, lest Satan's already successful plot further succeed, perhaps vaulting the baneful Romney to the Presidency! But, oh, you say, Althouse is herself an academic. She is swollen with the pride of smart people, and therefore vulnerable to Satan's depredations, pleased to offer up something new and different, tantalizing us with new truths, denying the existence of truth, playing with truth because she's so smart.

Close the box — that 3-dot box — on the melted cheesy atrocity. Move along, smart people. There's nothing see here. Look, over there. It's Mitt, that terribly handsome man. Hail, President Romney!

Why did Rick Santorum deliver a yank-your-arm-out-of-its-shoulder-socket handshake to Ron Paul?

At the end of the debate on Wednesday. Video at the link, where the headline reads "Ron Paul Fans Outraged At Hearty Post-Debate Handshake." I watched the video, and you don't have to be a Ron Paul fan to be outraged. I had to wonder about Santorum's sanity. That wasn't just a hearty handshake. That was... evil. There is evil in the world. Could it be... Satan?

Hey, Rick. Take a lesson from a master:

IN THE COMMENTS: Chip Ahoy said:

Ron Paul was ready for Santorum at the fifty-seventh debate and wore a prop rubber arm. At the end of the debate when Santorum vigorously shook Ron Paul's prop arm it warbled and stretched right out of the jacket sleeve. Ron Paul yelled "Ow! WTF, you freak?!" The rubber arm snapped back and 2% of Santorum's vote flowed over to Ron Paul in repulsion to the aggression but in a twist 1% of Ron Paul's votes and 3% of Gingrich's votes, and 2% of Romney's votes flowed to Santorum because those voters thought the sight of pulling out Ron Paul's arm was awesome.

By the time the fifty-eighth debate rolled around Ron Paul's supporters had fashioned an electrified arm to use on Santorum at the end of the debate but that was detected at the debate entrance and viewers were denied the chance of seeing Santorum electrified by his own aggressive handshake.

And perhaps for the 59th debate, the prop arm might pull out altogether, creating an image something like the animation Chip made for us yesterday, when we were trying to understand not Satan, but Mammon (one of the 7 princes of Hell), and a painting by Evelyn De Morgan called "The Worship of Mammon" had a strangely meaningful extended arm. The illuminating animation:

And the lesson we learn, at long last? The man who gives an extremely vigorous, super-macho handshake — what is it, really, that he is afraid of?

Finally, some snow...

... as I sit down to the morning's blogging.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Russ Feingold's new book has a title that's so right wing... and I mean 1960s right wing.

"While America Sleeps."

Freaky!

Will living alone — without "social checks and balances" — make you too eccentric?

This is one of these NYT lifestyle articles with anecdotes about women who do things like leaving their bra on the kitchen table. Then there's the woman who wears "this pair of white flax bloomers that go down to my knee. They’re like pantaloons. They’re so weird." She never lets anyone see them. "No, no... That would be the height of intimacy..." And yet, she's telling us all about them. She also "grazes on nuts and seeds."

What emerges over time, for those who live alone, is an at-home self that is markedly different — in ways big and small — from the self they present to the world.

Until they're interviewed by the NYT. Then they present that self to the world.

Oh, well... anyway... I enjoyed reading this article, because I had this attitude myself as a woman living alone, and it's an attitude that curls back on itself and makes you think you have these special freedoms that would hurt too much to sacrifice. Here I am, expressing myself on the subject in the summer of 2008:

In the summer of 2009, I would get married, after learning that I really can be myself and be free in the constant presence of another human being. I had no idea!

"The gradual yellowing of the lens and the narrowing of the pupil that occur with age disturb the body’s circadian rhythm..."

With age, it becomes more important to open our eyes to bright sunlight.

Leave the sunglasses off, and you will sleep better, think better, and feel better.

Ryan Braun becomes the first baseball player — as far as we know — to win an appeal after a positive drug test.

These things aren't supposed to be public, so there may have been other cases:

The panel consisted of Shyam Das, baseball’s independent arbitrator; Michael Weiner, the head of baseball’s players union; and Rob Manfred, the head of labor relations for Major League Baseball and the baseball official who has presided over the sport’s evolving drug-testing program during the last decade.

It was Das who cast the deciding vote to exonerate Braun and it was Manfred who angrily weighed in with his own statement shortly after the appeal was officially upheld.

“Major League Baseball vehemently disagrees with the decision rendered today by arbitrator Shyam Das,” the statement read in part.

Braun argued that the test results were flawed, and MLB has a huge stake in the integrity of its procedures.

I love Braun and I'm celebrating the outcome, but I hate to think MLB is screwing up the testing. Do you think Braun got away with something, or do you think the test might have gone wrong and that what happened to Braun suggests that some of the other players were punished as a result of flawed tests?

The man who published all those dirty books... and turned down "Lord of the Rings" because he "couldn’t understand a word."

Barney Rosset, of Grove Press and Evergreen Review, dead now at 89.

Besides publishing [Samuel] Beckett, he brought early exposure to European writers like Eugène Ionesco and Jean Genet and gave intellectual ammunition to the New Left by publishing Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”...

He defied censors in the 1960s by publishing D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer," ultimately winning legal victories that opened the door to sexually provocative language and subject matter in literature published in the United States. He did the same thing on movie screens by importing the sexually frank Swedish film “I Am Curious (Yellow).”

Grove Press also published "Naked Lunch" and "The Story of O." And Evergreen Review published Allen Ginsberg's "Howl."

What a great free speech hero! Thanks, Barney! RIP.

"If you have freedom of speech, you have freedom of speech," he said.

"Former Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter said Thursday that Rick Santorum got his facts wrong..."

"... when he said that he endorsed Specter only after securing a promise that Specter would support GOP Supreme Court nominees."

Santorum, last night:

"I said will you support the president's nominees? We had a 51-to-49 majority in the Senate. He said, 'I'll support the president's nominees as chairman.'"

Specter, today:

"He is not correct. I made no commitment to him about supporting judges... I made no deal."

So... was Santorum destroyed at last night's debate?

That's what I heard.

A year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: a camel was tormented by "The Daily Show" and Gov. Walker was pranked with a phone call.

Here's my post about the "Daily Show"'s nauseating exploitation of a camel here in Wisconsin. (But look here to see some good "Daily Show" coverage of the protests from 2/22/11.)

Here's what I had to say about the phone call, in which someone pretended to be David Koch:

Walker opponents would love to make something of this phone call, but all they have are a few over-the-line things the Koch impersonator said like "You gotta crush that union." Walker just ignores that stuff and goes on with his standard points, which is probably the standard strategy that most politicians use when people interact with them....

Doesn't this prank call prove that Scott Walker is not close to Koch? He doesn't recognize his voice! He doesn't drift into a more personal style of speech. He treats him like a generic political supporter.

There was a big "teach-in" at the UW Law School.

Chip unlocks a dirty visual secret.

"That painting is subversively pornographic. It's shocking my eyeballs."

Later:

See what I mean.

I was going to make her head bob and then I thought, no, you must consider the children. And then I thought, if I would make the head bob then I might learn where it is that Photobucket is drawing the line about taking down my stuff. Since they never tell me.

Wow! I haven't seen such a convincing animation since Ra^thergate.

IN THE COMMENTS: t-man corrects:

That's a dude, Chip, not a woman.

"When should knowing lies be restrictable on the ground that they cause emotional distress?"

Eugene Volokh paraphrases the question the Supreme Court Justices were asking yesterday, as they considered whether the Stolen Valor Act violates the First Amendment. Volokh opines:

[T]he potential chilling effect on true speech of punishing the lies about oneself (a matter on which one should rarely fear an honest mistake that could be misinterpreted as a deliberate lie) is less than the potential chilling effect on true speech of punishing lies about others. So this is one of the things that leads me to think that the Stolen Valor Act should be upheld....

8:08 - Mitt Romney cuts short his own introduction: "As George Costanza would say, when they're applauding, stop." [UPDATE: Jason (the commenter) points out that Romney was referring to this episode of Seinfeld:
At the coffee shop, George laments to Jerry about losing respect at a project meeting led by Mr. Kruger after following a good suggestion with a bad joke. . . . At the next Kruger meeting, George takes Jerry's suggestion and actually leaves the room after a well-received joke.]

Here's something that happened on Monday, but appeared in the news late last night:

[Daniel von Bargen, "best known for his role as Mr. Kruger on 'Seinfeld,'"] was in critical condition Wednesday after shooting himself in the head in an apparent failed suicide attempt.

Paramedics went to the 61-year-old actor’s Cincinnati, Ohio, apartment Monday after he called 911, saying, “I’ve shot myself in the head ... and I need help,”...

"The boiling of millions of penguins on a remote Antarctic island triggered one of the first international wildlife campaigns."

"A century on, DNA analysis proves it has been a success. Now, Macquarie Island's king penguins must face rampaging rabbits."

Boiled penguins. Rampaging rabbits. I'm deep into the science news this morning.

Should Ben and Jerry have apologized for "Taste the Lin-Sanity"?
	Yes. It was as bad as trying to honor a black player with watermelon ice cream.
	Yes. Someone was offended, and it's best to say sorry to anyone who was offended.
	No. It was a cute, nice, fun thing that Ben and Jerry should be proud of.
	No. Apologies suggest blame, show weakness, and erode traditional values.

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