Tuesday, May 31, 2011
James Wolcott, a 59-year-old man, purports to empathize with Piper Palin and...
... tries to enfold her in his flabby old arms with the pretense that he is somehow cooler than her parents:
Piper in that shot looks like Grace, the elder daughter played by Ruby Jerins in Nurse Jackie....Hmm.
My "sources" tell me is that a future stop on Palin's bus tour will at Randy's Rodeo in San Antonio, Texas, the site of the Sex Pistols' infamous gig in 1978. Todd Palin intends to stand on the very spot where Sid Vicious staggered. I had no idea Todd was so "into" punk history, and wish I could be there when he explains to Piper what Sid and Johnny Rotten meant to America, and from there they'll all be heading to the Alamo to find the basement where Pee Wee Herman's bike is reputed to be.
Let's talk about morality.
America has a strong consensus about a lot things even as we are divided on others:
What surprises you the most here? Are you surprised that 80% of Americans say suicide is morally wrong? I've often had to struggle with commenters on this blog when I have taken the firm position that suicide is murder, but I think America mostly agrees with me. There is generally an outpouring of sympathy when someone commits suicide. Why don't we express our moral opprobrium toward the self-murderer? I think it's because that person is gone, and we feel sorry for those who are left behind. They are the victims.
Doctor-assisted suicide is an important subcategory of suicide, and the Gallup report says that it "emerges as the most controversial cultural issue in Gallup's 2011 Values and Beliefs poll." But what is notable is that support for assisted suicide has been dropping and has reached its lowest level of support in 8 years.
What surprises you the most here? Are you surprised that 80% of Americans say suicide is morally wrong? I've often had to struggle with commenters on this blog when I have taken the firm position that suicide is murder, but I think America mostly agrees with me. There is generally an outpouring of sympathy when someone commits suicide. Why don't we express our moral opprobrium toward the self-murderer? I think it's because that person is gone, and we feel sorry for those who are left behind. They are the victims.
Doctor-assisted suicide is an important subcategory of suicide, and the Gallup report says that it "emerges as the most controversial cultural issue in Gallup's 2011 Values and Beliefs poll." But what is notable is that support for assisted suicide has been dropping and has reached its lowest level of support in 8 years.
"Ohio State officials will argue that the school should be spared, in part because they got rid of Tressel..."
"... the head of the program that has been so tainted by wrongdoing. For years, Ohio State benefited from Tressel's choirboy image. Now, the university is likely to paint him as a huge problem that has been eliminated for the betterment of the athletic department. It is not the noblest of tactics, but it adheres to an axiom of big-time college football, one that Jim Tressel has heeded for years: You do whatever it takes to win."
Sports Illustrated investigates.
Sports Illustrated investigates.
You can be a great lawyer when the judge doesn't have access to the case law.
"A BAT who fell upon the ground and was caught by a Weasel pleaded to be spared his life. The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds. The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free. Shortly afterwards the Bat again fell to the ground and was caught by another Weasel, whom he likewise entreated not to eat him. The Weasel said that he had a special hostility to mice. The Bat assured him that he was not a mouse, but a bird, and thus a second time escaped."
That's an Aesop fable. The official moral is: "It is wise to turn circumstances to good account."
That's an Aesop fable. The official moral is: "It is wise to turn circumstances to good account."
"Perhaps it was Zeppo’s ardent pursuit with dinner invitations and flowers or the new Thunderbird convertible he bought for me."
"Or was it the time he stood behind a group of strangers in an elevator and pulled faces until I was laughing so hard I had to get off? Not only did Zeppo have the caustic wit of the Marx Brothers but he made fun of himself rather than of those around him. I think that may have been why he was always given the role of romantic lead while his brothers insulted him."
Am I the only person who bought Barbara Sinatra's "Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank" because I wanted to read what she has to say about about Zeppo Marx?
ADDED: After Chico Marx's funeral:
Am I the only person who bought Barbara Sinatra's "Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank" because I wanted to read what she has to say about about Zeppo Marx?
ADDED: After Chico Marx's funeral:
Crammed into the living room with scores of mourners, I noticed a strange woman staring at me. Zeppo noticed too and asked someone who she was. It was his first wife, Marion, a former Ziegfield girl he’d divorced seven years earlier, five years before he’d married me. A week later, I was playing tennis with Dinah Shore at the Racquet Club when I spotted Marion watching me in the same eerie way. I asked Dinah to introduce us. Marion was a little strange, but I think she just wanted to check me out. I felt sorry for her. She’d raised their adopted sons alone, and Zeppo showed little or no interest in them or her, it seemed. What really bothered me though was that he hadn’t even recognized the woman he’d been married to for twenty-seven years.
"A senior Egyptian general admits that 'virginity checks' were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring..."
"... the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities," CNN reports:
"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general said. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)."...IN THE COMMENTS: Freeman Hunt said:
"We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said. "None of them were (virgins)."
That sounds like he's saying that they did assault and rape them.
Rush Limbaugh is 6 minutes into his show without mentioning Weiner.
It's all about the economy, people. The man is not distracted. Not yet, anyway.
I'll keep you updated.
UPDATE #1: 9 minutes into the show, Rush brings up the top Drudge story about "Teen Gangs Unleashed on Boston Beach." Something about green energy in the UK. Wait times in emergency rooms. But all of this is tied into Obama-economics. "Listen to some of these headlines at Drudge." Now, I don't think Drudge has picked up the Weiner Hacker Incident. But it's hard — really hard — to believe that Rush hasn't heard about it. Does he go entirely by Drudge? If he brings up "Woman Takes Attacker's Penis To Police" — a Drudge headline — then we will know. He's seriously Drudge-dependent.
UPDATE #2: After the break, 20 minutes into the show: Have you noticed how much better Sarah Palin looks in a helmet than Michael Dukakis? Then on to more talk about the economy — specifically the real estate market. Still no Weiner.
UPDATE #3: 40 minutes into the show, still no Weiner. Rush goes to the break with the teaser that he's got lots of sound bites about Sarah Palin... and then on to your phone calls. So, apparently, he's got no monologue about Weiner. My theory: He wants to make a show of not being distracted by the Weiner story, and it will come up in the context of a phone call. Deniability. Mr. Snerdley imposed this caller on him, he'll say. I predict an excellent caller laying out the story, with Rush acting exasperated by the distraction, but then doing a great job talking about it.
UPDATE #4. My lord! I'm live-blogging the Rush Limbaugh show! 50 minutes into the show, he's taken the first call, and it was about real estate woes.
UPDATE #5: An hour and a half into the show, still no Weiner. He's talking about Sarah Palin, comparing her bus tour to the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour," which, he tells us, was "an experimental movie." He's playing clips of MSM folk talking about how it's hard for them to follow the tour. But why should Sarah Palin "give them anything" — after the way they've treated her? A nice clip of Sarah saying she's owes mainstream media nothing, and let them do their "investigative work" if they want to know where to find her.
UPDATE #6: Beginning the third hour, Rush says he's just hearing about this "I guess we're calling it 'Weinergate.'" Weiner's story, he says, "seems like it's hard to swallow."
UPDATE #7: "Somebody tell me why it's a big deal... some bulging package to a babe in Seattle...." Now, he's saying he got some email before the show about it. "Who in the world has time" to write about this? Is it that people "are captivated by the Twitter thing?"
UPDATE #8: He's indulging in some double entendre: "Is he giving his constituents the shaft?" He makes a reference to how Republicans are treated: "All I know is that Larry Craig was drummed out of Congress for tapping his foot." Back to the double entendre: "I had my hands full before we even got to the Weiner story."
I'll keep you updated.
UPDATE #1: 9 minutes into the show, Rush brings up the top Drudge story about "Teen Gangs Unleashed on Boston Beach." Something about green energy in the UK. Wait times in emergency rooms. But all of this is tied into Obama-economics. "Listen to some of these headlines at Drudge." Now, I don't think Drudge has picked up the Weiner Hacker Incident. But it's hard — really hard — to believe that Rush hasn't heard about it. Does he go entirely by Drudge? If he brings up "Woman Takes Attacker's Penis To Police" — a Drudge headline — then we will know. He's seriously Drudge-dependent.
UPDATE #2: After the break, 20 minutes into the show: Have you noticed how much better Sarah Palin looks in a helmet than Michael Dukakis? Then on to more talk about the economy — specifically the real estate market. Still no Weiner.
UPDATE #3: 40 minutes into the show, still no Weiner. Rush goes to the break with the teaser that he's got lots of sound bites about Sarah Palin... and then on to your phone calls. So, apparently, he's got no monologue about Weiner. My theory: He wants to make a show of not being distracted by the Weiner story, and it will come up in the context of a phone call. Deniability. Mr. Snerdley imposed this caller on him, he'll say. I predict an excellent caller laying out the story, with Rush acting exasperated by the distraction, but then doing a great job talking about it.
UPDATE #4. My lord! I'm live-blogging the Rush Limbaugh show! 50 minutes into the show, he's taken the first call, and it was about real estate woes.
UPDATE #5: An hour and a half into the show, still no Weiner. He's talking about Sarah Palin, comparing her bus tour to the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour," which, he tells us, was "an experimental movie." He's playing clips of MSM folk talking about how it's hard for them to follow the tour. But why should Sarah Palin "give them anything" — after the way they've treated her? A nice clip of Sarah saying she's owes mainstream media nothing, and let them do their "investigative work" if they want to know where to find her.
UPDATE #6: Beginning the third hour, Rush says he's just hearing about this "I guess we're calling it 'Weinergate.'" Weiner's story, he says, "seems like it's hard to swallow."
UPDATE #7: "Somebody tell me why it's a big deal... some bulging package to a babe in Seattle...." Now, he's saying he got some email before the show about it. "Who in the world has time" to write about this? Is it that people "are captivated by the Twitter thing?"
UPDATE #8: He's indulging in some double entendre: "Is he giving his constituents the shaft?" He makes a reference to how Republicans are treated: "All I know is that Larry Craig was drummed out of Congress for tapping his foot." Back to the double entendre: "I had my hands full before we even got to the Weiner story."
"I've really never understood the business... of sending these pictures to women."
Can someone please explain to Mark Schmitt — and everyone else with this comprehension problem — why some men send pictures of their genitalia to women?
AND: Here's an even more awkward effort by a Blogginghead to talk about erections. I especially love the way this clip — which I edited to enhance the humorous effect — begins with the diavloggers being all out of synch talking about how lovers can be out of synch. (Warning: the phrase "morning wood" pops up.)
The most likely innocent explanation for the Weiner Hacking Incident.
Yesterday, I said:
The funny thing is, the innocent explanation for what happened requires me to suspect that his first post was a something of a lie. The innocent explanation is: He doesn't write his own tweets. He's got a ghost-tweeter.
My Twitter account was hacked could mean: The hack writer I hired wrote the tweet.
To use this explanation, Weiner would have to concede that his clever tweets were not — or not always — his. I note that he could use this explanation even if it isn't true. Get some 21-year-old fall guy to say he got drunk and let his crush on that cute girl in Seattle go to his head.
But I think it is news when a politician mishandles his internet communications. Minor news, but worth noting.This morning, looking at a new NYT article, I thought of another option. This article goes on at length about what a prolific tweeter Weiner has been and how clever his Tweets are.
And it's really news — serious news — if either: 1. the internet accounts of a politician have been hacked in an effort to destroy the man, or 2. the politician makes the false statement that he has been victimized by a crime. One or the other has occurred in this case (unless I'm failing to see some other option).
Should we all be closing our Twitter accounts lest some devious prankster destroy our reputation? Or has Weiner — for his own purposes — maligned Twitter's business and undermined the Twitter-user's sense of security? I want to know!
AND: If Weiner is lying about his accounts getting hacked, he could be sued by Twitter (and the other companies) for defamation.
His first real Twitter post used a play on the title of Ms. Palin’s book to declare his intentions to embrace the new medium: “Going rouge over here. Starting to twitter w/o telling my minders. But what if nobody hears me? Did it happen.”Going "rouge"? You'd think a man whose name could be misspelled to be the name of a sausage would be more careful. But he has been going rouge these last few days.
The funny thing is, the innocent explanation for what happened requires me to suspect that his first post was a something of a lie. The innocent explanation is: He doesn't write his own tweets. He's got a ghost-tweeter.
Mr. Weiner’s Twitter tone is strikingly punchy and personal, and sometimes juvenile....Maybe because he's got some cheeky Harvard Lampoon-type guy tapping out the wisecracks.
He often posts several messages a day... Many are about national politics, with cheeky hashtags, like “Newt running for Prez. Mitt running from Mitt. Where to begin? #TargetRichEnvironment.” And there was “Ok let’s start with Newt. He’s the brains of the field, right? #TallestPygmy.”So terribly clever and edgy. Why does a Congressman have time for that? Why does a Congressman have a mind for that?
The number of members of Congress who are on Twitter has more than doubled, to more than 400, since the start of this year, but the actual involvement of those members in the crafting of their messages varies widely.So who's writing all that junk?
Mr. Weiner, a technophile, has clearly considered the role of Twitter in honing his public image, and he said in an interview earlier this month that while his Twitter stream “is usually something about the national conversation or a five- or 10-degree pivot from the national conversation,” his Twitter personality is all him.So he doesn't want to admit he's not writing it. You know, there's another meaning to the word "hack." There are hack writers. It's normally a noun, but I'm sure I'm not the first person to say it could work as a verb.
My Twitter account was hacked could mean: The hack writer I hired wrote the tweet.
To use this explanation, Weiner would have to concede that his clever tweets were not — or not always — his. I note that he could use this explanation even if it isn't true. Get some 21-year-old fall guy to say he got drunk and let his crush on that cute girl in Seattle go to his head.
Where's Meade?
He's out with the chickens! And the tent and the bikes. In Nashville, Indiana. And it's time to get home.
The Weiner Hacker Prize
"As much as I admire Congressman Weiner's Gandhi-like forgiving attitude toward his assailant - as well as his world class ninja programming skills - I'm afraid this incident doesn't just involve him. For, after all, what Internet user is safe when the person who hacked this unsuspecting Weiner remains at large? Okay, maybe not "large," but still, come on man. Who's to say this same criminal hasn't somehow hacked my last 5 federal income tax returns with fraudulent deductions for alcohol-related blogging expenses?"
Iowahawk puts up $1000.
Iowahawk puts up $1000.
Monday, May 30, 2011
"Before he started making movies, Stanley Kubrick was a star photojournalist."
"In the summer of 1949, Look magazine sent him to Chicago to shoot pictures for a story called 'Chicago City of Contrasts.'"
City of Contrasts... what a horrible travel-book cliché. I'm assuming it already was a horrible cliché in 1949. But check out the thrilling photographs! I love the smoking (literally) lingerie model:
City of Contrasts... what a horrible travel-book cliché. I'm assuming it already was a horrible cliché in 1949. But check out the thrilling photographs! I love the smoking (literally) lingerie model:
"This isn’t a campaign bus. This is a bus to be able to express to America..."
"... how much we appreciate our foundation and to invite more people to be interested in all that is good about America and to remind ourselves we don’t need to fundamentally transform America, we need to restore what’s good about America."
Oh! So that's what kind of a bus it is.
Palinspeak. It's apt to drive the media mad.
Oh! So that's what kind of a bus it is.
Palinspeak. It's apt to drive the media mad.
"Things that I never imagined people would care about are now being plastered all over blog sites..."
"... including pictures of me from when I was 17 and tweets that have been taken completely out of context. I tweeted once (it was reported that I said it twice) that 'I wonder what my boyfriend @RepWeiner is up to.'"
ADDED: Imagine if Anthony Weiner were a Republican. (I know, it's such a hackneyed visualization, but it's important here.) The liberal/lefty blogs would be shredding him mercilessly. I'm not saying Weiner's not getting his hair mussed. But if he were a Republican, the feeding frenzy would be of a different magnitude entirely.
IN THE COMMENTS: Freeman Hunt writes:
And it's really news — serious news — if either: 1. the internet accounts of a politician have been hacked in an effort to destroy the man, or 2. the politician makes the false statement that he has been victimized by a crime. One or the other has occurred in this case (unless I'm failing to see some other option).
Should we all be closing our Twitter accounts lest some devious prankster destroy our reputation? Or has Weiner — for his own purposes — maligned Twitter's business and undermined the Twitter-user's sense of security? I want to know!
AND: If Weiner is lying about his accounts getting hacked, he could be sued by Twitter (and the other companies) for defamation.
ALSO: NBC News reports "Lewd Photo Sent Over Rep. Weiner's Hacked Twitter Account... his Twitter account was hacked." Not that Weiner makes that claim, but an outright assertion that his account was hacked. Twitter is getting slimed here. Does it deserve it?
ADDED: Imagine if Anthony Weiner were a Republican. (I know, it's such a hackneyed visualization, but it's important here.) The liberal/lefty blogs would be shredding him mercilessly. I'm not saying Weiner's not getting his hair mussed. But if he were a Republican, the feeding frenzy would be of a different magnitude entirely.
IN THE COMMENTS: Freeman Hunt writes:
So the media is just accepting this absurd assertion that all his accounts were hacked? They were all hacked for the purpose of sending a boner photo to some woman in Seattle? And he hasn't bothered to contact law enforcement?Nevadabob writes:
Right.
Must be nice to be a Democratic politician.
1) Weiner hasn't reported the alleged hack to the FBI.
2) Facebook hasn't announced any investigation of Mr. Wiener's allegedly hacked account.
3) Twitter (the company) knows the IP address of the computer that really sent the tweet. However, Twitter hasn't announced any investigation. They also haven't released the IP address of the person who actually sent the tweet so we can see if that IP address belongs to the Democrat Rep. Wiener
yfrog knows the IP address of the person that actually uploaded the obscene photograph Mr. Wiener's yfrog account. Thusfar, yfrog has not released that IP address so that we can track down the nefarious hacker who did that. Also, Mr. Wiener could request that they release that IP address to the public so we could help him track down the hacker. But he hasn't.ADDED: Is it news if a politician is unfaithful to his wife? It's not important (unless there's some big hypocrisy involved, as there is with politicians who have made their careers spouting "family values"). But I think it is news when a politician mishandles his internet communications. Minor news, but worth noting.
Mr. Wiener so far refuses to tell us what his own IP address is. And, he is refusing to answer detailed questions that would allow us to determine if the IP address which sent the tweet is at his home in New York.
It's trivially easy to determine if his accounts have REALLY been hacked. Is the FBI investigating? He is, after all, a sitting member of Congress and it is a felony to impersonate a member of Congress. It's also a felony to hack people's Facebook and Twitter accounts.
I'm left to wonder why hasn't Mr. Wiener reported this breach of Homeland Security to the proper authorities? Is it because falsely reporting this would itself be a felony?
And it's really news — serious news — if either: 1. the internet accounts of a politician have been hacked in an effort to destroy the man, or 2. the politician makes the false statement that he has been victimized by a crime. One or the other has occurred in this case (unless I'm failing to see some other option).
Should we all be closing our Twitter accounts lest some devious prankster destroy our reputation? Or has Weiner — for his own purposes — maligned Twitter's business and undermined the Twitter-user's sense of security? I want to know!
AND: If Weiner is lying about his accounts getting hacked, he could be sued by Twitter (and the other companies) for defamation.
ALSO: NBC News reports "Lewd Photo Sent Over Rep. Weiner's Hacked Twitter Account... his Twitter account was hacked." Not that Weiner makes that claim, but an outright assertion that his account was hacked. Twitter is getting slimed here. Does it deserve it?
"Sarah Palin and her family sneaked out in Washington on Sunday night for what she called an 'incognito' tour of the national monuments..."
Reports the NYT:
Sarah, she's just like you, visiting the monuments, posing by the name of her state, wearing a visor and a baggy black T-shirt. I love the way she's slouching as if she's not thinking about her looks at all, while the other women are doing the photo-pose-y thing and the husband takes the figure-flattering 3/4 position and sucks in his gut.
Details of the visit were posted Monday morning on her Web site, along with pictures that show her, her husband, Todd, and her daughters enjoying stops at the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial and the World War II Memorial.Beautiful, innovative unrolling of what is presumably her candidacy for President.
In one picture, Ms. Palin and Mr. Palin are sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out toward the Washington Monument, like any other couple might. In another, the whole family is seen standing below a part of the World War II Memorial that says “Alaska,” their home state.
Sarah, she's just like you, visiting the monuments, posing by the name of her state, wearing a visor and a baggy black T-shirt. I love the way she's slouching as if she's not thinking about her looks at all, while the other women are doing the photo-pose-y thing and the husband takes the figure-flattering 3/4 position and sucks in his gut.
Did you know "how important the personal innovation lifestyle is becoming"?
What's your personal innovation lifestyle? Is it focused on "ordinariness and ... the capacity... to take on roles that involve higher levels of personal responsibility"? Are you "deploy[ing] new values (like sharing)"? Do you "want aut0nomy" — whatever that is?
"Head of patron saint of genital diseases sold to Los Angeles buyer."
Only $5,000, in an antique case.
I'd never heard of the patron saint of genital diseases, Vitalis of Assisi.
I'd never heard of the patron saint of genital diseases, Vitalis of Assisi.
St Vitalis was born in Umbria, Italy, and is said to have lived an immoral and licentious youth. In an attempt to atone for his early sins, he later undertook pilgrimages to shrines throughout Europe, eventually entering the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco.Fetching water in a basket? I don't believe a word of it. I don't even believe that is Vitalis's head. And if Vitalis is the name of the patron saint of genital diseases, how did the name Vitalis come to be used more famously for a product to be applied to the head?
After leaving the monastery, he lived the remainder of his life as a hermit near Assisi. It is said that he wore only rags and shunned all material wealth, with the exception of a basket which he used to fetch water from a nearby stream.
He died in 1370, and word of his sanctity soon spread due to reports of numerous miracles performed on those with bladder and genital disorders.
"When Patti Davis posed nude for Playboy in 1994, she was twice as old as the typical Playmate."
"Now 58, she’s posing for us — and telling the naked truth about her motives."
"Us" = More, which is a magazine. So is Us, but this is More. If you want Less, maybe that's also a magazine. Or should be.
"Us" = More, which is a magazine. So is Us, but this is More. If you want Less, maybe that's also a magazine. Or should be.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Palin's Rolling Thunder photo op.
The NYT emphasizes that she couldn't really ride anywhere because of the crush of photographers. I will emphasize the utter gorgeousness of the photograph at the link (and, presumably, all the other photographs that got taken as the bike went nowhere).
Wiener and Weiner are 2 different words.
Learn spelling if nothing else.
ADDED: FedkaTheConvict the convict recommends this absurd interview Weiner gave to Megyn Kelly (back in March). Let me pinpoint the part I found especially funny, when he grants her time to speak, then immediately talks over her.
A photo of a man’s bulging gray boxer-brief underwear was posted to [Rep. Anthony] Weiner’s account with yfrog — an online image-sharing site — on Saturday night, according to biggovernment.com, which is run by Andrew Breitbart. The photograph is from the waist down, and shows no face.You've got your special election and your special erection. 2 completely different things. But they can be linked.
“The weiner gags never get old, I guess, ” the veteran lawmaker emailed a POLITICO reporter in response on Saturday.
“This evening a photo surfaced on Congressman Weiner’s yfrog account and in his verified Twitter timeline of a man in his underwear with an erection,” Publius, the handle for the site’s editors wrote...
Earlier this week in Weiner’s home state, a special election was held to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of married Republican Rep. Chris Lee, who sent a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met on Craigslist....
ADDED: FedkaTheConvict the convict recommends this absurd interview Weiner gave to Megyn Kelly (back in March). Let me pinpoint the part I found especially funny, when he grants her time to speak, then immediately talks over her.
Ray Davies...
... back, with friends. Listen to the 11-minute audio at the link. Lots of music on it. The one thing I definitely dislike is Ray singing with Bruce Springsteen. The notion that their voices blend together... ridiculous. Bring back Dave. There's a voice that goes with Ray's.
"If I perform again with my brother, it will not be in a position of peace and harmony, because that's not a great situation for us... The fire and energy is the important thing. It's the thing that made us fight and punch our way into a career."Yeah, who needs friends? But the new album is called "See My Friends" — and you can buy it here.
"Model plunges to her death after falling through hotel window while 'play wrestling' with female friend."
"Lashawna Threatt... crashed into a window and fell five storeys onto a slanted glass ceiling above a sun room at the W Midtown Hotel" in Atlanta, Georgia.
The other woman fell through the window too, so it's not a case of the survivor telling her version of the facts.
The other woman fell through the window too, so it's not a case of the survivor telling her version of the facts.
Passionate Chonvill, who is friends with both women, said both women had just got to the hotel and were 'having a good time'.
'They are two small girls and I am trying to figure out how the hell two small girls could break a window like that.'
Machete, the Cane Corso that killed a boy, "had showed no sign of aggression."
Said the mother of the dead 4-year-old. The neighbors tell a different story:
"Those dogs were vicious," said building superintendent Kenny Risher, 50. "They stink and they are nasty. The same dog ate their (pet) rabbit."...
Risher and other neighbors said [the boy's stepfather Damian] Jones would wear a protective arm guard while training the fierce dogs outside the family's Brownsville apartment.
"They looked mean," Risher said. "Nobody would want to go near them. They were trained to fight."
Some recalled the dogs foaming at the mouth as Jones worked the dogs into a street-clearing frenzy.
"It was a violent dog," said neighbor Anthony Brown, 35, of Machete. "Dangerous. A big dog. The whole block is scared of that dog."...
Great-grandfather Jamaal-Uddin said Machete was typically laid-back. "I guess it's just like humans," he said. "It's the quiet ones you have to watch."
Making a big deal out of a baby's sex in the guise of attempting to make nothing out of it.
"A Toronto couple are defending their decision to keep their infant's sex a secret in order to allow the child to develop his or her own gender identity."
And as for performing an experiment in gender identity, even assuming it's okay to perform a socio-political experiment on a baby, you haven't controlled the conditions. By calling special attention to the child, you've made his environment abnormal. Why didn't you quietly and seemingly casually do all these gender-neutral things and then, later, reveal what you learned?
In an e-mail, Ms Witterick wrote that the idea that "the whole world must know what is between the baby's legs is unhealthy, unsafe, and voyeuristic".Hey, lady, no one would even be thinking about — ugh! — what's between your baby's legs if you hadn't made a media event out of it.
And as for performing an experiment in gender identity, even assuming it's okay to perform a socio-political experiment on a baby, you haven't controlled the conditions. By calling special attention to the child, you've made his environment abnormal. Why didn't you quietly and seemingly casually do all these gender-neutral things and then, later, reveal what you learned?
"Since taking office as a wartime president in 2009, Obama has struggled at times to surround himself with military commanders whom he trusts and feels personally comfortable with."
WaPo reports:
Supporters of [Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright]... said he ultimately paid a political price for giving independent military advice to Obama that sometimes conflicted with counsel provided by Gates — his civilian boss at the Pentagon — and Mullen....
“He was very aware he was providig [sic] guidance that was not in alignment” with the rest of the Pentagon, said a military officer close to Cartwright who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations with the White House. But Cartwright felt compelled to give an independent assessment to the president, even if it risked alienating Gates and Mullen, the military officer said. “He was told [by Obama], ‘No, don’t just give me the old line, Hoss. Give me your opinion.’”
Designing althou.se.
Did you know I'm going to bust out of blogspot soon? When the Althouse URL isn't althouse.blogspot.com but althou.se — what do you expect to see? I'm talking design. I've been using this very minimal template — Minima — for so long. Are you picturing something fancier? Something with more columns? A distinctive image in the banner? Would it bug you if things changed or do you want change? Change but not too much? And in which direction?
ADDED:
ADDED:
"The excuse that you're not breaking new gossip you're just helping to spread gossip seems like a pretty lame excuse."
Jack Craver — the Isthmus writer who did that hit piece on me — takes some heat for writing "Oh, and Herb Kohl is long-rumored to be gay." That came in the context of talking about whether Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin — who is openly gay — could run successfully for Herb Kohl's Senate seat.
If the question is what counts as outing? then it's not outing to report the existence of well-known rumors. How well-known are the rumors about Herb Kohl?
But the question isn't really how to define the term "outing." It's whether it's whether a journalist should bring up the subject of rumors in a particular context. Here, the context is whether an openly gay candidate will be successful running for an political position now held by a rumored-to-be-gay person. Another context where it might seem justified is reporting the rumored-to-be-gay person's vote on the repeal of Defense of Marriage Act or Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
I think the mainstream norm is to avoid mentioning the rumor and to wait until the person identifies himself as gay — even in those special contexts. Perhaps it depends on how obvious the rumors have been balanced against how gay-related the context is. And the thumb on the scales is: How edgy/mainstream do you want to be?
Isthmus is our "alternative newspaper." We could talk about what that term means. And Craver's on-line writing self-identifies as a "blog," whatever the hell that is.
If the question is what counts as outing? then it's not outing to report the existence of well-known rumors. How well-known are the rumors about Herb Kohl?
But the question isn't really how to define the term "outing." It's whether it's whether a journalist should bring up the subject of rumors in a particular context. Here, the context is whether an openly gay candidate will be successful running for an political position now held by a rumored-to-be-gay person. Another context where it might seem justified is reporting the rumored-to-be-gay person's vote on the repeal of Defense of Marriage Act or Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
I think the mainstream norm is to avoid mentioning the rumor and to wait until the person identifies himself as gay — even in those special contexts. Perhaps it depends on how obvious the rumors have been balanced against how gay-related the context is. And the thumb on the scales is: How edgy/mainstream do you want to be?
Isthmus is our "alternative newspaper." We could talk about what that term means. And Craver's on-line writing self-identifies as a "blog," whatever the hell that is.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
At the Allium Spacecraft Café...
... don't take off just yet.
(That's my photo, animated by Chip Ahoy, according to instructions by Penny.)
"I'm sure I'm not the only one who read this and thought of one of the greatest movies ever made."
Yeah, I did too. And thanks for posting that 36-year-old trailer. I haven't gone to the movies in many months. I never see that there's anything coming out that I'm even slightly moved to think about seeing.* I thought maybe it was that I am getting old, and I no longer feel the way film needs you to feel to work as film. But seeing that old trailer now... I don't think it is me. It's the pictures that got small.
———————————————
* Not a fiction movie anyway. I do care very much about seeing "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," and I will see this documentary about Bill Cunningham.
———————————————
* Not a fiction movie anyway. I do care very much about seeing "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," and I will see this documentary about Bill Cunningham.
Crack plays Instapundit...
... with Instapundit. There's a funny but NSFW image at the link. BTW, I think Crack is wrong about why Glenn doesn't link to him. I think Glenn's mind and Crack's mind are just far enough out of sync that... well, maybe one day, one of them, all of a sudden will realize he's on the wrong page or on the right page but the wrong note, and he's got to get in sync with the other one to understand what’s happening in this country. And it will be blogged.
ADDED: Crack, could you take a look at this?
AND: The link in the "ADDED" section was wrong for many hours yesterday, I apologize. Corrected.
ALSO: Instapundit acknowledges that his site was sending out malware vibes yesterday. Sorry I passed that along. I kept noticing a nasty window popping up when I tried to go to his site, but it took me a long time to notice that I'd entered it here.
ADDED: Crack, could you take a look at this?
AND: The link in the "ADDED" section was wrong for many hours yesterday, I apologize. Corrected.
ALSO: Instapundit acknowledges that his site was sending out malware vibes yesterday. Sorry I passed that along. I kept noticing a nasty window popping up when I tried to go to his site, but it took me a long time to notice that I'd entered it here.
"'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' that was about the fact that the first change that takes place is in your mind..."
"... You have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move. So when we said that 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' we were saying that the thing that’s gonna change people is something that no one will ever be able to capture on film. It will just be something that you see, and all of a sudden you realize I’m on the wrong page, or I’m on the right page but I’m on the wrong note, and I’ve got to get in sync with everyone else to understand what’s happening in this country."
Gil Scott-Heron, RIP.
Gil Scott-Heron, RIP.
"Scott Lemieux's Spencer Ackerman moment."
Actually, I think this is unfair, but I'm not going say why or distinguish Scott Lemieux from Spencer Ackerman, because I swore off linking to Lawyers, Guns and Money when they deleted all Meade's comments. I'm not going to interact with people who have deliberately and finally cut of my channels of interaction with them.
Restore everything and apologize and I will.
Restore everything and apologize and I will.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Margo Dydek, the tallest WNBA female basketball player ever, has died of a heart attack at the age of 37.
She was 7'2" tall.
Despite Dydek’s prowess in Europe, American scouts were lukewarm before she arrived in the United States in 1998 for a predraft camp. There was a reason: because of a clerical error, her height was listed as 6-6 in the advance materials they had been given.
Then Dydek walked through the door. The scouts scrambled.
Gallup poll: Democrats estimate that 28% of Americans are gay.
Republicans are much closer to reality, at 20.2%, but still far off. (The actual percentage is more like 3.5.)
What accounts for this discrepancy? Perhaps Democrats are more likely to live in places where there are larger concentrations of openly gay people. Perhaps those with liberal views are more likely to hear the news that people they know are gay. Maybe Dems are dumber. The poll does also show that less educated people have the highest estimate. Or maybe it's that women tend to be Democrats and women estimate high (29.7% to men's 19.4%). Why would women estimate high? It might be that they are more likely to key into talk about private lives, and thus hear more about various people being gay, and then they extrapolate a ridiculous number. Younger people estimate high too, and younger people tend to be more liberal.
Whatever. Why are people so ill-informed? It's embarrassing. Would people be more likely to support equal rights for gay people if they knew how small the number is? But of course, we don't really know exactly what the number is. We're all only estimating.
What accounts for this discrepancy? Perhaps Democrats are more likely to live in places where there are larger concentrations of openly gay people. Perhaps those with liberal views are more likely to hear the news that people they know are gay. Maybe Dems are dumber. The poll does also show that less educated people have the highest estimate. Or maybe it's that women tend to be Democrats and women estimate high (29.7% to men's 19.4%). Why would women estimate high? It might be that they are more likely to key into talk about private lives, and thus hear more about various people being gay, and then they extrapolate a ridiculous number. Younger people estimate high too, and younger people tend to be more liberal.
Whatever. Why are people so ill-informed? It's embarrassing. Would people be more likely to support equal rights for gay people if they knew how small the number is? But of course, we don't really know exactly what the number is. We're all only estimating.
"Althouse is shrewder."
Says Andrew Sullivan. Thanks. He's saying I'm shrewder than Byron York, referring to this post, earlier today, which is up to 249 comments (on the Friday afternoon before the long holiday weekend.) Of course, the topic is Sarah Palin. Sullivan connects my post, which tweaked the "serious people," with something Rush Limbaugh said:
Wow.
'The Inside the Beltway’ ruling class — the elite — they’re more oriented toward candidates they can attach the word ‘serious’ to — which is another way of saying someone who is boring, who doesn’t ruffle feathers, someone who exudes an air of formal education and sophistication — she doesn’t exude that, and I think it’s going to shake a lot of people up ... You know the effect that she has on establishment Republican people.Later, Sullivan put up another post on the Sarah Palin/seriousness theme. Asking "Does this sound like someone not running?," he posted Palin's bus tour ad:
Wow.
"Death from Dehydration Is Usually Serene."
An ABC News article, from 2005, back when people were agonizing over Terri Schiavo.
"The process of starving to death seems very barbaric but in actuality is very peaceful," said Dr. Fred Mirarchi, assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia.That came up first when I Googled "patients die of dehydration," which I did because I was trying to find this news article I'd read yesterday. Here it is: "Elderly patients dying of thirst: Doctors forced to prescribe drinking water to keep the old alive, reveals devastating report on hospital care." That's in the Daily Mail, reporting on the situation in the UK:
"The patient's experience is really pretty benign," said Dr. Joanne Lynn, a hospice physician associated with Americans for Better Care of the Dying, a group working for improved end-of-life care. "Overwhelmingly, what will happen is nothing."...
"Patients [become] uremic -- filled with bodily toxins -- and are unaware of their surroundings," Mirarchi said. "They develop electrolyte imbalances that eventually cause an abnormal beating of the heart."...
"The heart will then stop and the patient will die," said Mirarchi....
"Going without water makes it more gentle," Lynn said. "Allowing chemicals [in the blood] to cause arrhythmia is more merciful."
The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink.Am I wrong to suspect there is a form of euthanasia going on?
Dehydration contributes to the death of more than 800 hospital patients every year.
Another 300 die malnourished.
"Married couples have dropped below half of all American households for the first time..."
"... the Census Bureau says, a milestone in the evolution of the American family toward less traditional forms. Married couples represented just 48 percent of American households in 2010.... What is more, just a fifth of households were traditional families — married couples with children — down from about a quarter a decade ago, and from 43 percent in 1950, as the iconic image of the American family continues to break apart."
(NYT link.)
(NYT link.)
"Less than three years into the job, first lady Michelle Obama is on her third chief of staff and third social secretary."
"She is on her second communications director, the White House chief usher recently departed, and her press secretary’s last day is Friday."
But why? Politico delves:
But why? Politico delves:
Sources familiar with the East Wing, who asked not to be named discussing internal dynamics, described the first lady’s office as a challenging workplace, where grueling hours and the expectations of a formidable boss intensify the demands of managing a popular first lady’s schedule, image and agenda.Read between the lines.
“The first lady is a lovely woman, but she’s tough as nails, and that can be hard for some people,” said a source familiar with the office. “She has really high expectations.”...
“For whatever reason,” said one source familiar with the office, the first lady’s staff just hasn’t “gelled.”
“You don’t take these sorts of jobs unless you love the principal [figure],” the source said. “And you can deal with a principal who has high expectations when you’re all gelling as a group, but that just wasn’t happening.”
"Lang told a Madison police officer at the Motel 6, 1754 Thierer Road, that he had a gun 'to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies.'"
Madison.com reports on the arrest of Ralph Lang, who was arrested here in Madison, about a mile from a Planned Parenthood clinic, after he "reported to the front desk he had accidentally shot a bullet through his door at the motel and was worried that it might have struck someone in the room across the hall." He reported the gun shot, and he (apparently) told the police about his plan:
Lang told a Madison police officer at the Motel 6, 1754 Thierer Road, that he had a gun "to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies"...
Lang said he planned on shooting the clinic's doctor "right in the head," according to the complaint. Asked if he planned to shoot just the doctor or nurses, too, Lang replied he wished he "could line them up all in a row, get a machine gun, and mow them all down," the complaint said...
Lang had a history of targeting Planned Parenthood buildings. Court documents said he was arrested in 2007 outside a Madison branch, telling officers that everyone in the building deserved to be executed and that police were failing in their jobs by not carrying out the executions....
He said that on Thursday he intended to find out who the abortion doctor was and "do what I feel police officers fail to do."
Asked what that was he said, "Take a gun, drop the abortionist."
"Take a picture of my pie. I need a picture."/"No. You’ll write that my rhubarb cobbler sucked and your pie was great."
Penelope Trunk writes about what do do if you think you're getting fired — and, most bloggishly — includes a lot of rhubarb, interpersonal dramedy, goat cheese, home repair, absurd photography, and career advice like: "wait for the words, 'You’re fired.' And then, no matter what words lead up to that phrase, say, 'I’m sorry you feel that way. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.'"
"The bottom line is Sarah Palin is not going to run for president... She's making money, she's moved on..."
"... she's kind of an entertainer rather than a politician. She still has some sway with the grass roots, but she is not going to run."
So says somebody close to Romney, according to Byron York. Somebody close to Pawlenty says something similar: "I don't think she's going to run... She has faded a lot in the last few months. I look at what she's doing now and say that she's found a way to get back in the story."
These people are in the middle of raising money and attracting attention to their candidate, so it's in their strong interest to diminish the rise of Palin. York acknowledges that his unnamed confidantes may be "just spinning." But he says, these are "serious people," and they point at her "lack of a campaign operation."
York sees this, sort of:
York sees that:
The serious, old-fashioned people are saying that there's a conventional, old-fashioned way to finance a campaign, and if Sarah Palin isn't using it, then she must not be running. And York is adding: If she is running, she will fail. But there may be a new way, despite what happened to Fred, and she may be doing it, and it may very well work. The Tea Party worked.
Things have changed since the days of Fred Thompson.
So says somebody close to Romney, according to Byron York. Somebody close to Pawlenty says something similar: "I don't think she's going to run... She has faded a lot in the last few months. I look at what she's doing now and say that she's found a way to get back in the story."
These people are in the middle of raising money and attracting attention to their candidate, so it's in their strong interest to diminish the rise of Palin. York acknowledges that his unnamed confidantes may be "just spinning." But he says, these are "serious people," and they point at her "lack of a campaign operation."
"Watch what she has done," says the Republican close to Romney. "Has she contacted one major donor across the country about putting together an organization? Has she talked to one member of the Republican National Committee about working for a campaign, or one governor, or one former governor about working for a campaign? The answer is no."Maybe these "serious people" should be called conventional people. What did these "serious people" say when Palin was doing most of her communication via Facebook? Did the serious people say that serious people do not talk to the press and the public by writing Facebook updates? Because that would be conventional. Conventional people saying you're not serious because you're not conventional. But what if Palin is out ahead of them, and they can't see it? I wonder what these serious people thought about the Tea Party as it emerged?
York sees this, sort of:
It's possible Palin is in fact running and believes she can do so in a way that's never been done before. Maybe she can. It's certainly been tried; in 2007, former Sen. Fred Thompson and a small group of aides conceived of a campaign that would rely on Internet videos, social media and lots of buzz to gain support, with less reliance on old-fashioned things like shaking hands, begging for money and courting state party chairmen. It didn't work.Strange contradiction there: "never been done before"... it's been done before and it didn't work. If Palin has a another new way, then it hasn't been done before, and you can't say it didn't work, based on the fact that "it" didn't work. We'll have to see what Palin's new way would be. But suppose it is essentially the same as what Thompson tried. The fact that it didn't work the first time it was tried doesn't mean it won't work the second time. And, obviously Sarah is not Fred.
York sees that:
Of course, Palin is a far more ambitious politician than Thompson.Yet the whole point of Fred was that he was the serious person. He was the adult in the room. Palin is the one so many people like to think of as a lightweight. Fred had an old-fashioned sort of gravitas, melded, perhaps, with some new ideas about how to campaign for President. It's 4 years later and Palin is a different person, with a different relationship to new (and old) media.
The serious, old-fashioned people are saying that there's a conventional, old-fashioned way to finance a campaign, and if Sarah Palin isn't using it, then she must not be running. And York is adding: If she is running, she will fail. But there may be a new way, despite what happened to Fred, and she may be doing it, and it may very well work. The Tea Party worked.
Things have changed since the days of Fred Thompson.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
There's something a bit absurd about a billionaire killing a goat...
... and congratulating himself about sustainability.
Zuckerberg's guide on this strange journey has been a well-known Silicon Valley chef named Jesse Cool. She lives in Palo Alto, eight houses away from Zuckerberg, and owns a local restaurant called Flea Street Café. Cool has introduced Zuckerberg to nearby farmers and advised him as he killed his first chicken, pig, and goat. "He cut the throat of the goat with a knife, which is the most kind way to do it," says Cool.At the Flea Street Café... you can talk about Jesse Cool. You can talk about Zuckerberg Nerd. You can think you're quite fine for needing to see an animal die in order to imagine that animals die in order for there to be meat, and you can claim that your seeing what you found it hard to imagine makes it somehow better for you to consume the product that everyone knows comes from animals.
"Sarah Palin is launching a nationwide bus tour starting Sunday in Washington..."
"... Palin will also be stopping at other spots of symbolic national significance on the East Coast, including the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg and Antietam, and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.... In addition to the tour, Palin’s camp recently announced a two-hour promotional film about the former governor set to premiere in Iowa next month."
So... does that mean she's going to run for President?
ADDED: That film — according to the Guardian — "will present her as a Joan of Arc-like figure beset at every turn by vicious leftwing enemies seeking to thwart her ambition of reviving the conservative legacy of Ronald Reagan." Somehow I doubt that the film actually mentions Joan of Arc. If not, the linked article has quite a deceptive headline: "Sarah Palin likened to Joan of Arc in two-hour documentary film." The title of the movie is "The Undefeated," which sounds more like the title of an American western than any reference to Joan of Arc. But the British website comes up with Joan of Arc, who was not undefeated. She was captured, purchased by the British and then tried — unfairly — and executed — brutally — by the British.
So... does that mean she's going to run for President?
ADDED: That film — according to the Guardian — "will present her as a Joan of Arc-like figure beset at every turn by vicious leftwing enemies seeking to thwart her ambition of reviving the conservative legacy of Ronald Reagan." Somehow I doubt that the film actually mentions Joan of Arc. If not, the linked article has quite a deceptive headline: "Sarah Palin likened to Joan of Arc in two-hour documentary film." The title of the movie is "The Undefeated," which sounds more like the title of an American western than any reference to Joan of Arc. But the British website comes up with Joan of Arc, who was not undefeated. She was captured, purchased by the British and then tried — unfairly — and executed — brutally — by the British.
"Barack Obama was probably not aware that he was doing anything unusual when making a toast 'to the Queen' and then continuing with a short speech."
BBC explains:
According to protocol, however, he should have stopped after the toast.Whatever the original or the details, the President intended and wanted to follow the protocol, and somebody on his staff did him a grave disservice by not making absolutely certain he was getting it right.
The band, taking its cue from the word Queen, struck up with the national anthem leaving the president struggling to make himself heard.
What happens when the Queen is toasted is all part of protocol, an elaborate set of customs and rules that govern interactions with the British royal family....
[I]t stems from a time when monarchs were accorded an almost divine status and had to be treated accordingly....
"Spectator removed from Wisconsin Senate gallery, purportedly for wiggling fingers and bouncing shoulders, during Voter ID debate."
Interesting video at the link. Watch it and tell me what you think.
If you think the finger-wiggling guy looks familiar, he appears in a New Media Meade video that I blogged here on March 23rd. He comes up to Meade at 1:49 in the first video. The second video is a 14-minute discussion with him in the rotunda. The discussion covers some of the free-speech issues that are shouted about in the finger-wiggling video.
ADDED: I just rewatched the old 14-minute video and thought this part was interesting:
He talks about refusing to do things the police asked him to do: "I was never arrested... I wasn't breaking the law enough for them to be able to...." Indeed, for whatever reason, the police were extremely tolerant of the protesters. Now, this young man who enjoyed that tolerance is surprised to find himself escorted out of the Senate gallery, and we see the belligerence the police encounter after all their tolerance. Or maybe that is the reason they were so tolerant. It creates a big scene when they are not. But how are they supposed to maintain order if people come to think they don't need to show respect for them?
If you think the finger-wiggling guy looks familiar, he appears in a New Media Meade video that I blogged here on March 23rd. He comes up to Meade at 1:49 in the first video. The second video is a 14-minute discussion with him in the rotunda. The discussion covers some of the free-speech issues that are shouted about in the finger-wiggling video.
ADDED: I just rewatched the old 14-minute video and thought this part was interesting:
He talks about refusing to do things the police asked him to do: "I was never arrested... I wasn't breaking the law enough for them to be able to...." Indeed, for whatever reason, the police were extremely tolerant of the protesters. Now, this young man who enjoyed that tolerance is surprised to find himself escorted out of the Senate gallery, and we see the belligerence the police encounter after all their tolerance. Or maybe that is the reason they were so tolerant. It creates a big scene when they are not. But how are they supposed to maintain order if people come to think they don't need to show respect for them?
"It's not that Obama can't speak clearly. It's that he employs the intellectual stammer."
"Not to be confused with a stutter, which the president decidedly does not have, the intellectual stammer signals a brain that is moving so fast that the mouth can't keep up. The stammer is commonly found among university professors, characters in Woody Allen movies and public thinkers of the sort that might appear on C-SPAN but not CNN. If you're a member or a fan of that subset, chances are the president's stammer doesn't bother you; in fact, you might even love him for it (he sounds just like your grad school roommate, especially when he drank too much Scotch and attempted to expound on the Hegelian dialectic!)."
Meghan Daum explains it in the LA Times. And, righties, quit mocking:
Meghan Daum explains it in the LA Times. And, righties, quit mocking:
[T]he godfather of the intellectual stammer is arguably none other than the paterfamilias of the conservative movement, William F. Buckley Jr.... In fact, if the people critiquing Obama's meandering speech patterns were to see an old "Firing Line" segment, I daresay they would think Buckley was drunk or otherwise impaired.
Judge Sumi strikes down the Wisconsin collective bargaining law.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
[Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat] sued to block the law after Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) filed a complaint saying that GOP legislative leaders had not given proper notice in convening a conference committee of lawmakers from both houses to approve Walker's budget-repair bill....Comments at the Sentinel:
What a surprise, coming out of Dane County....
Thanks to the Democratic Party, We now have a 3rd Legislative Party.
THE COURTS!!!!!...
Shocking...NOT!!!...
Time to recall activist judges in this state. Send this liberal wacko packing. Tommy Thompson had it right, there is Madison, a radius of 30 miles and then there is reality. Time to send this through the legislature again! Go Scottie Go! The majority of Wisconsinites support you!...
Its about time. She's only sat on this for a couple of months stalling with the worst kept secret of all time. Now, appeal it and also put it in the budget bill.
Supreme Court upholds Arizona law that requires employers to check the immigration status of job applicants.
Announced, just now, on the SCOTUSblog live-blog of the Court. Here's how SCOTUSblog described the issue in the case, which is called Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting:
Whether an Arizona statute that imposes sanctions on employers who hire unauthorized aliens is invalid under a federal statute that expressly “preempt[s] any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens”; whether the Arizona statute, which requires all employers to participate in a federal electronic employment verification system, is preempted by a federal law that specifically makes that system voluntary; whether the Arizona statute is impliedly preempted because it undermines the “comprehensive scheme” that Congress created to regulate the employment of aliens.According to the live-blog, the decision was 5-3 (with Kagan recused). Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor are the dissenters.
The Chief Justice's opinion explains that the licensing provision falls squarely within a savings clause in federal immigration law and that the Arizona statute does not otherwise conflict with federal law.Here's the PDF of the opinion.
I don't think Bill Clinton and Paul Ryan were caught in a secret conversation that they didn't want overheard.
Here's the tete-a-tete, beautifully filmed, by ABC News, with excellent sound quality.
Now, Bill Clinton has chosen to criticize the Democrats for falling into complacency, coasting into the next election. He's displaying himself as the real man of action, who would rise above politics and work hard to forge solutions. (Of course, this display is politics.)
Ryan makes a corresponding display: He too is a man of action, rising above politics, putting himself out there. But he's also purporting to speak for his whole party. The Republicans are acting. The Democrats are digging in and resisting. Clinton then says "give me a call."
So, is Clinton selling out the Democrats, making them look bad and giving Ryan a boost? If he is, why would he do that? Does he somehow seem to represent the Democrats, saying, for them, that they don't or shouldn't want the paralysis, lighting a fire under them to act or at least giving them some cover, making it seem as though they do care about action?
Or is Clinton out there on his own, peeling away from some or all of the Democrats, perhaps creating some kind of opening for Hillary?
"So anyway, I told them before you got here, I said I’m glad we won this race in New York," Clinton told Ryan, when the two met backstage at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. But he added, “I hope Democrats don't use this as an excuse to do nothing.”Watching that clip, I felt that was staged for the camera. They're savvy enough to know where the media are. It was ABC News, backstage with them. So my question is, why did each of the 2 men decide that was what they wanted people to overhear? I'd say, first, that both men see themselves as the serious thinkers, trying to face and solve a real problem. The setting frames the message as: This is what the most serious and knowledgeable men from the 2 political parties say to each other when they are not playing politics for the camera.
Ryan told Clinton he fears that now nothing will get done in Washington.
“My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving,” Ryan said.
Clinton told Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.” Ryan said he would.
Now, Bill Clinton has chosen to criticize the Democrats for falling into complacency, coasting into the next election. He's displaying himself as the real man of action, who would rise above politics and work hard to forge solutions. (Of course, this display is politics.)
Ryan makes a corresponding display: He too is a man of action, rising above politics, putting himself out there. But he's also purporting to speak for his whole party. The Republicans are acting. The Democrats are digging in and resisting. Clinton then says "give me a call."
So, is Clinton selling out the Democrats, making them look bad and giving Ryan a boost? If he is, why would he do that? Does he somehow seem to represent the Democrats, saying, for them, that they don't or shouldn't want the paralysis, lighting a fire under them to act or at least giving them some cover, making it seem as though they do care about action?
Or is Clinton out there on his own, peeling away from some or all of the Democrats, perhaps creating some kind of opening for Hillary?
"Saudi Facebook Campaign Calls on Men to Beat Women Drivers."
Says Gateway Pundit.
A facebook campaign launched in Saudi Arabia is urging men to beat women who are caught driving. The page already has 6,000 “likes.”...I'm a bit freaked out by this. When did that Facebook page start? Because I'd never heard of it before this morning. I'd heard of Manal al-Sharif's campaign, which involved a Facebook page, and my reaction, written Tuesday morning, included a hypothetical in which a Saudi man starts a Facebook campaign calling on men to beat women drivers. I wrote:
"The call comes as activists are demanding the release of Manal al-Sharif, a Saudi woman who was jailed for defying the ban."
Isn't the real question is whether women should be allowed to drive, not whether organizing on Facebook incurs harsher punishment when you commit a crime? Think about some other crime — some crime that obviously should be a crime. I hesitate to describe a crime, but let's say some Saudi man thinks women who drive should be dragged out of their cars and beaten. He sets up a Facebook page to promote that opinion and gets 12,000 supporters. Then — twice — he drags a woman out of a car and beats her. Now, he is arrested. Let's say that in Saudi Arabia men who beat women for driving are normally just asked to promise not to do it again. Would you object to making an example out of the man who used Facebook?Note that I hesitated to describe this crime, because I did not want to give anyone any ideas. I'm not saying I think the new Facebook is a result of my suggestion. I'm just saying I'm freaked out by the coincidence.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn confined to $14 million apartment in Tribeca.
"It's a three-story, 6,800-square-foot palace with a movie theater, antique French oak floors, a gym and a terrace - and $50,000-a-month rent."
Beautiful restaurants in that area. But he can't go out. Had to order in. Got $242.790 worth of "steaks and salad" delivered last night.
Beautiful restaurants in that area. But he can't go out. Had to order in. Got $242.790 worth of "steaks and salad" delivered last night.
The bill was put on 26-year-old daughter Camille's credit card, and deliveryman Ramon Leal walked away with a handsome $25 tip.Actually, that's not a good tip. It's about 10%. Leal is rationalizing and refraining from bad-mouthing the rich man. And, by the way, the place may be huge and well-located, but — see the pictures at the link — it's in pretty bad taste. Aptly bad taste. Feh.
"It's a good tip considering I just walked around the corner," Leal said, dismissing reporters' questions about serving Strauss-Kahn. "I'm just doing my job."
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Scotty wins. Seems to be having a love affair with Lauren.
Beyonce appeared to be in hell while singing a hellishly awful song. Steven Tyler got to follow Bono. Jennifer Lopez's husband had a whole big number because he's Jennifer Lopez's husband. Tom Jones showed up and sang "It's Not Unusual." Besting him in the oldest man competition, Tony Bennett was there. He's 85! He sang with Haley. Like they're a couple. Judas Priest deigned to appear. "American Idol" is not something they scorn. Who can scorn "American Idol" now? They sang with James Durbin. And Jack Black sang with Casey Abrams. That was ugly. Jacob Lusk got Gladys Knight and they sang about Heaven. Lovely. Scotty McCreery did a duet with Tim McGraw who, we're told, is the most-played artist on the radio of the last 10 years. And Lauren Alaina did her duet with Carrie Underwood. And Lady Gaga sang about being "on the edge" while standing on a scenery cliff, which I was worried she'd fall off of, and then she did intentionally fall off in the end, onto some hidden foam, no doubt. I'm sure she'll be back to howl at us on future occasions.
Off the top of my head, that's what I remember from tonight's big "American Idol" results show.
Off the top of my head, that's what I remember from tonight's big "American Idol" results show.
"Thank you for the freak show. She died in front of me. You’re treasonous." Jared Loughner yelled....
... just before Judge Larry A. Burns found him incompetent to stand trial.
At his first courtroom appearance shortly after the shootings, Mr. Loughner had his head shaved clean and stood absolutely erect. On Wednesday, his hair was long and sticking out in all directions, he had a scraggly beard and he slumped during the proceedings like an old man. He put his head in his hands for some time just before his outburst, which he shouted at full throttle as the judge was talking.
"Could Conjoined Twins Share a Mind?"
Whoa!
Suddenly the girls sat up again, with renewed energy, and Krista reached for a cup with a straw in the corner of the crib. “I am drinking really, really, really, really fast,” she announced and started to power-slurp her juice, her face screwed up with the effort. Tatiana was, as always, sitting beside her but not looking at her, and suddenly her eyes went wide. She put her hand right below her sternum, and then she uttered one small word that suggested a world of possibility: “Whoa!”
I find toast-botch too painful to mock.
What if you gave a toast and nobody raised their glass with you, because they were in the middle of a solemn ritual that you had thought was the solemn ritual that is your toast but was their national anthem and the elderly queen was queenly enough to say gently to you "that's very kind"? You would carefully place your glass on the table and stand stiffly like everyone else and hope that the wide frown on your face expressed not your nightmare experience but some simulacrum of the "national anthem face" you should have had there all along, when you were blabbing that Shakespeare — Shakespeare! — to try to butter them up about what a great country they think they have. Oh! The rigidity of this horror!
Raising money for Bloggingheads by auctioning the censorship of Ann Althouse.
In the words of the Marx Brothers...
... tomorrow, I leave! That's worth about... a million dollars!
There's a comment signing-in problem...
... which Blogger is working on.
Sorry if you're having trouble. I've gotten a lot of email about it. I'm sure it will be fixed relatively soon. Meanwhile, you needn't harangue me about leaving Blogger, because I am leaving Blogger. It will happen soon.
Sorry if you're having trouble. I've gotten a lot of email about it. I'm sure it will be fixed relatively soon. Meanwhile, you needn't harangue me about leaving Blogger, because I am leaving Blogger. It will happen soon.
"I think Beyonce is a great pop songwriter. Still, the lyrics to this song are classic faux empowerment..."
"... as she's literally suggesting women run the world by being very persuasive with our vaginas."
Amanda Marcotte wrings her hands over a song that mostly consists of saying "Who run the world? Girls" over and over. I saw this video when it played on "American Idol" last week, and I couldn't really make out what her literal argument was. It seems to me, you hear that one line over and over and you're distracted by vivid images of the singer (which could be characterized as "being very persuasive with [her physical presence]").
Oh, what do you want to talk about here? Feminism? What is the real feminism? Whether Marcotte misused the word "literally"? How songs affect the mind? Is it with the lyrics, read literally, or in some more complicated way?
Amanda Marcotte wrings her hands over a song that mostly consists of saying "Who run the world? Girls" over and over. I saw this video when it played on "American Idol" last week, and I couldn't really make out what her literal argument was. It seems to me, you hear that one line over and over and you're distracted by vivid images of the singer (which could be characterized as "being very persuasive with [her physical presence]").
Oh, what do you want to talk about here? Feminism? What is the real feminism? Whether Marcotte misused the word "literally"? How songs affect the mind? Is it with the lyrics, read literally, or in some more complicated way?
Requiring patients to sign over copyrights to reviews of doctors so the doctors can make websites take down bad reviews.
If you've chosen a doctor based on all the good reviews in Yelp, and he won't treat you unless you sign a form that gives him ownership of whatever you might write about him, then you need to know how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act works, so you can see that the doctor has seized the power to remove his patients' bad reviews.
Or maybe doctors are just adopting this standard-form Medical Justice agreement and they're not really monitoring and censoring the on-line reviews... in which case they are unwittingly making savvy patients suspicious of what are genuinely good reviews.
(Via Matt Yglesias.)
Or maybe doctors are just adopting this standard-form Medical Justice agreement and they're not really monitoring and censoring the on-line reviews... in which case they are unwittingly making savvy patients suspicious of what are genuinely good reviews.
(Via Matt Yglesias.)
"UN-COOL, UN-HIP, COUNTRY-FRIED SINGER WINS 'AMERICAN IDOL'..."
"SOURCE: SCOTTY TOOK NEARLY DOUBLE AMOUNT OF VOTES OVER RUNNER UP... DEVELOPING.."
Drudge, linking only to a general article about the season, purports to know the results.
But, he's right of course. Everyone who checks out DialIdol knows it and has known it for weeks. It's not some special inside knowledge. The finale show last night was terrible, mainly because they were desperately trying to make us believe it was a close competition. And they weighed Scotty down with 2 songs that had him speaking like a child — the original song "I Love You This Big" (ugh!) and some other song about schoolchildren. The guy is only 17, but his main feature is a deep voice that makes him seem much older. Why fight that with lyrics from the point of view of a child?
Anyway, speaking of old and young, the show tried to rejuvenate this season, with Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler (and without Simon Cowell), but somehow it ended up even more old fashioned. Maybe that's what happens when you don't have Simon there insulting the kids for seeming old and old fashioned.
Drudge, linking only to a general article about the season, purports to know the results.
But, he's right of course. Everyone who checks out DialIdol knows it and has known it for weeks. It's not some special inside knowledge. The finale show last night was terrible, mainly because they were desperately trying to make us believe it was a close competition. And they weighed Scotty down with 2 songs that had him speaking like a child — the original song "I Love You This Big" (ugh!) and some other song about schoolchildren. The guy is only 17, but his main feature is a deep voice that makes him seem much older. Why fight that with lyrics from the point of view of a child?
Anyway, speaking of old and young, the show tried to rejuvenate this season, with Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler (and without Simon Cowell), but somehow it ended up even more old fashioned. Maybe that's what happens when you don't have Simon there insulting the kids for seeming old and old fashioned.
"It has long been the supreme fantasy of establishment guardians in general, and David Brooks in particular..."
"... that American politics would be dominated by an incestuous, culturally homogeneous, superior elite 'who live in [Washington] and who have often known each other since prep school.' And while these establishment guardians love to endlessly masquerade as spokespeople for the Ordinary American, what they most loathe is the interference by the dirty rabble in what should be their exclusive, harmonious club of political stewardship, where conflicts are amicably resolved by ladies and gentlemen of the highest breeding without any messy public conflict."
Glenn Greenwald (sounding like Rush Limbaugh).
Glenn Greenwald (sounding like Rush Limbaugh).
"How Kathy Hochul won, and why it spells trouble for the GOP in 2012."
Jerry Zremski in the New Republic:
The Hochul message—the one that was a winner for her—could be seen on signs all around New York’s Twenty-Sixth District, from the sprawling strip malls of Buffalo’s wealthiest suburbs to the faded farms of Genesee County to the lawns of neat old houses to the west of Rochester. “Save Medicare/Vote Hochul,” the signs said.
The Democrats won because they had the right message and the right candidate and the blessing of weak opposition. Hochul won by 48 percent to 42 percent over Republican Jane Corwin, a self-funded millionairess delivering an austere 2010 message a few months too late. “Tea Party” candidate Jack Davis drew 9 percent of the vote, but, given that two late polls showed voters abandoning Davis for Hochul, it’s fair to assume that Hochul would have won regardless of whether Davis, a former Democrat, had run.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
"So far, B-cycle bike-share program is glitchy."
It's Madison’s bike-share program. We were out biking — on our own bikes — yesterday, and we noticed one of the "stations." Meade took some pics.
These guys were trying to figure it out:
Here's what they were reading. Here are the bikes, waiting for release by credit card:
They look heavy, though easy to mount (what with that "girl bike" styling). They don't look like something people would want to steal, but stealing is a bad idea, because they've got GPS devices embedded in them.
I hope the glitches are worked out and that people use them, because we've got them.
These guys were trying to figure it out:
Here's what they were reading. Here are the bikes, waiting for release by credit card:
They look heavy, though easy to mount (what with that "girl bike" styling). They don't look like something people would want to steal, but stealing is a bad idea, because they've got GPS devices embedded in them.
I hope the glitches are worked out and that people use them, because we've got them.
"The tanned Duchess of Cambridge blew Michelle Obama out of the water."
Insane Daily Mail headline. It's supposed to relate to the fashion:
For their first meeting yesterday, Kate wore a simple but stylish £175 bandage dress in fashionable ‘nude’ from Reiss, one of the few truly British fashion brands left on the planet....Fashionable nude and impossible pink... apparently.
Michelle Obama, on the other hand, looked like a little girl in a too short pink bolero (I hate boleros – and only six-year-olds should wear pink!) that my fashion spies tell me is not even vintage, it’s just old. Ouch.
At the Square Events Café...
... you can be hip or square.
(Enlarge enough to read the 2011 Calendar of Events for Monroe, Wisconsin.)
"Are you supposed to be Suzie Doozie, the fearsome litigator during work, then put on an apron and magically transform into Suzie Homemaker at nights and weekends?"
"What's the point of that schzoid existence? Will your kids be better adjusted because you share daddy's name? Shouldn't they respect you for your independence?"
Vivia Chen on the trend of women keeping their maiden name professionally but adopting their husbands' names for social/personal matters.
I've gotten married twice, and both times I kept my original name. The first time, it was 1973, and my reasons were: 1. I strongly identify with my name, 2. I imagined myself becoming a significant artist with that signature, 3. "Althouse" was more distinctive and more balanced with "Ann" than my then-husband's last name, 4. Feminism, and 5. I thought keeping your name was the wave of the future, and I didn't want to be stuck on the end of the old wave. My ex-husband's name was also highly expressive of a tradition that was not mine, but I would have been offended if anyone had accused me of rejecting the name for that reason. In the years of that marriage, which continued until 1988, I rankled at being called Mrs./Ms. + [presumed married name], and I did not always completely hide my disdain for the (to me) backward individuals who assumed a mother's last name is the same as her children's.
The second time I got married, in 2009, I seriously considered adopting my new husband's last name, but once again, I did not. I saw good reasons on both sides. For keeping Althouse: 1. I'd been Althouse for so long, it would be weird to be anyone but Althouse, 2. It would be a lot of work changing my name on everything (when you can still call me Mrs. Meade whenever you want), 3. I have done a lot of writing with the name Althouse on it, and 4. Having failed to align my name with my sons' name, it seemed wrong to take my husband's name the second time around. But I came close, because I'm not starchily ideological about names. It's more about feelings and aesthetics right now. "Meade" is an aesthetically pleasing name, but "Ann Meade" is too plain, and Meade is Meade, not me. But I did feel that it would be a unique and thrilling expression of love to take the name! And I'm perfectly happy to be called Mrs. Meade — or Ms. Meade or Professor Meade — by anyone, at any time. It wouldn't make me feel "schzoid" (or schizoid!) or make me worry about overly housewifely or whatever it is Ms. Chen is concerned about.
Vivia Chen on the trend of women keeping their maiden name professionally but adopting their husbands' names for social/personal matters.
I've gotten married twice, and both times I kept my original name. The first time, it was 1973, and my reasons were: 1. I strongly identify with my name, 2. I imagined myself becoming a significant artist with that signature, 3. "Althouse" was more distinctive and more balanced with "Ann" than my then-husband's last name, 4. Feminism, and 5. I thought keeping your name was the wave of the future, and I didn't want to be stuck on the end of the old wave. My ex-husband's name was also highly expressive of a tradition that was not mine, but I would have been offended if anyone had accused me of rejecting the name for that reason. In the years of that marriage, which continued until 1988, I rankled at being called Mrs./Ms. + [presumed married name], and I did not always completely hide my disdain for the (to me) backward individuals who assumed a mother's last name is the same as her children's.
The second time I got married, in 2009, I seriously considered adopting my new husband's last name, but once again, I did not. I saw good reasons on both sides. For keeping Althouse: 1. I'd been Althouse for so long, it would be weird to be anyone but Althouse, 2. It would be a lot of work changing my name on everything (when you can still call me Mrs. Meade whenever you want), 3. I have done a lot of writing with the name Althouse on it, and 4. Having failed to align my name with my sons' name, it seemed wrong to take my husband's name the second time around. But I came close, because I'm not starchily ideological about names. It's more about feelings and aesthetics right now. "Meade" is an aesthetically pleasing name, but "Ann Meade" is too plain, and Meade is Meade, not me. But I did feel that it would be a unique and thrilling expression of love to take the name! And I'm perfectly happy to be called Mrs. Meade — or Ms. Meade or Professor Meade — by anyone, at any time. It wouldn't make me feel "schzoid" (or schizoid!) or make me worry about overly housewifely or whatever it is Ms. Chen is concerned about.
Manal al-Sharif, the woman leading the right-to-drive campaign, is arrested by the Saudis.
Was she arrested for driving or for speaking out about the driving ban?
Isn't the real question is whether women should be allowed to drive, not whether organizing on Facebook incurs harsher punishment when you commit a crime? Think about some other crime — some crime that obviously should be a crime. I hesitate to describe a crime, but let's say some Saudi man thinks women who drive should be dragged out of their cars and beaten. He sets up a Facebook page to promote that opinion and gets 12,000 supporters. Then — twice — he drags a woman out of a car and beats her. Now, he is arrested. Let's say that in Saudi Arabia men who beat women for driving are normally just asked to promise not to do it again. Would you object to making an example out of the man who used Facebook?
Ms. Sharif was arrested after two much-publicized drives last week to highlight the Facebook and Twitter campaigns she helped organize to encourage women across Saudi Arabia to participate in a collective protest scheduled for June 17.If she drove to promote the right to drive, that is the form of speech that is civil disobedience. It draws attention to the commission of the crime, and it's not surprising that it attracts arrest. Isn't that the purpose of conspicuous violation — to get arrested and make everyone notice and want to help you? This is working for Manal al-Sharif. But Howeidar's point is that she's really arrested for speaking out on Facebook, not for the driving per se. She wasn't treated like other female drivers, who are let off easily. And there's something wrong with targeting the person who used Facebook to organize.
The campaigns, which had attracted thousands of supporters — more than 12,000 on the Facebook page — have been blocked in the kingdom. Ms. Sharif’s arrest was very likely intended to give others pause before participating in the protests in a country where a woman’s public reputation, including her ability to marry, can be badly damaged by an arrest.
“Usually they just make you sign a paper that you will not do it again and let you go,” said Wajiha Howeidar, who recorded Ms. Sharif while driving on Thursday. “They don’t want anybody to think that they can get away with something like that. It is a clear message that you cannot organize anything on Facebook. That is why she is in prison.”
Isn't the real question is whether women should be allowed to drive, not whether organizing on Facebook incurs harsher punishment when you commit a crime? Think about some other crime — some crime that obviously should be a crime. I hesitate to describe a crime, but let's say some Saudi man thinks women who drive should be dragged out of their cars and beaten. He sets up a Facebook page to promote that opinion and gets 12,000 supporters. Then — twice — he drags a woman out of a car and beats her. Now, he is arrested. Let's say that in Saudi Arabia men who beat women for driving are normally just asked to promise not to do it again. Would you object to making an example out of the man who used Facebook?
Should psychiatrists offer opinions about the mental conditions of various characters in the news?
The official rule of the American Psychiatric Association is that they can speak generally but it's unethical to give a professional opinion about an individual. The rule grew out of a case involving Barry Goldwater:
If the experts don't do it, the pseudoexperts will. As for the fear of lawsuits, libel law is constrained by free speech values. Mere opinion in not libel. And public figures have to meet a high standard to prove libel.
Why then did Goldwater win his lawsuit? The linked article, by psychiatry professor Richard A. Friedman and published in the Science section of today's New York Times, says:
And when I say "the New York Times standard was met," I mean the legal standard from the case New York Times v. Sullivan. I do not think the New York Times standard of journalism was met for this article!
Just before the 1964 election, a muckraking magazine called Fact decided to survey members of the American Psychiatric Association for their professional assessment of Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the Republican nominee against President Lyndon B. Johnson....Goldwater sued for libel and won, which led to the APA rule barring opinions. Obviously, it brings psychiatry into disrepute when ordinary people can see it used dishonestly to promote a political goal. But I don't see why it's so bad for psychiatric experts to speculate and opine about public figures. We the people need to think about the events in the news, and some expert opinion is helpful. Let us decide which experts are worth hearing from. The political hacks will be enjoyed or condemned as we see fit. But some analysis is going to be good. Frame it as speculation and hedge appropriately: I would need to meet with the individual to make a professional diagnosis, but here's what I can say....
The survey, highly unscientific even by the standards of the time, was sent to 12,356 psychiatrists, of whom 2,417 responded. ... Half of the respondents judged Mr. Goldwater psychologically unfit to be president. They used terms like “megalomaniac,” “paranoid” and “grossly psychotic,” and some even offered specific diagnoses, including schizophrenia and narcissistic personality disorder....
There were several attempts at a psychodynamic formulation of Mr. Goldwater’s character. One unsigned comment called the candidate “inwardly a frightened person who sees himself as weak and threatened by strong virile power around him,” and added that “his call for aggressiveness and the need for individual strength and prerogatives is an attempt to defend himself against and to deny his feelings of weakness.”...
If the experts don't do it, the pseudoexperts will. As for the fear of lawsuits, libel law is constrained by free speech values. Mere opinion in not libel. And public figures have to meet a high standard to prove libel.
Why then did Goldwater win his lawsuit? The linked article, by psychiatry professor Richard A. Friedman and published in the Science section of today's New York Times, says:
The Supreme Court awarded the senator $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages — and, more important, set a legal precedent that helped change medical ethics for good.Of course, any lawyer knows that the Supreme Court doesn't award damages. It only affirms the lower court's decision. But what is this Supreme Court case and how did it deal with the free speech issue? Hello? New York Times? Don't you wonder how this case would square with New York Times v. Sullivan (second link, above)? So did Justices Black and Douglas, dissenting from the denial of certiorari in Ginzburg v. Goldwater! Justice Black wrote:
This case perhaps more than any I have seen in this area convinces me that the New York Times constitutional rule is wholly inadequate to assure the 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open' public debate which the majority in that case thought it was guaranteeing....
This suit was brought by a man who was then the nominee of his party for the Presidency of the United States. In our times, the person who holds that high office has an almost unbounded power for good or evil. The public has an unqualified right to have the character and fitness of anyone who aspires to the Presidency held up for the closest scrutiny. Extravagant, reckless statements and even claims which may not be true seem to me an inevitable and perhaps essential part of the process by which the voting public informs itself of the qualities of a man who would be President. The decisions of the District Court and the Court of Appeals in this case can only have the effect of dampening political debate by making fearful and timid those who should under our Constitution feel totally free openly to criticize Presidential candidates. Doubtless, the jury was justified in this case in finding that the Fact articles on Senator Goldwater were prepared with a reckless disregard of the truth, as many campaign articles unquestionably are. But, even if I believed in a balancing process to determine scope of the First Amendment, which I do not, the grave dangers of prohibiting or penalizing the publication of even the most inaccurate and misleading information seem to me to more than outweigh any gain, personal or social, that might result from permitting libel awards such as the one before the Court today. I firmly believe it is precisely because of these considerations that the First Amendment bars in absolute, unequivocal terms any abridgment by the Government of freedom of speech and press.So the jury found that the New York Times standard was met, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court declined the case, with Justices Black and Douglas arguing for greater free-speech protection.
And when I say "the New York Times standard was met," I mean the legal standard from the case New York Times v. Sullivan. I do not think the New York Times standard of journalism was met for this article!
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