"I guess I just had my first taste of the filthy side of this business."

In the previous post — about the accusation that Oscars host Seth MacFarlane was sexist for singing about "boobs" — I asked: "but what was said about male nakedness?

Commenter EDH pointed to this:

"My duck does a wonderful trick. My duck can lay an egg!"

Via EDH in the comments to "Signs that people are tired of thinking about politics," which highlighted the Washington Post article about the amazing fact that a bird laid an egg. And who better than Shirley Temple to epitomize the desire for distraction from politics?

"Althouse, 'embarrassed' by flashing her... 'its'?"

Observes EDH... with an apt clip.

The Invisible Man.

I went looking for the classic Claude Rains depiction of The Invisible Man. (Here's a nice variation, staged by a photographer.) Here's the great old movie.  The Invisible Man wraps himself up like that to get as close as he can to having a human face.



I went looking, because I saw the news today. Oh, boy... an unlucky filmmaker the feds dragged in. And though the news was rather sad, well, I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph.



This was a man who, unlike The Invisible Man, had a face. But we haven't seen his face before, and he's not inclined to let us see it now... now that he's at the center of an international rage-storm, and our government seems to want the maniacs to focus their attention on him.

In the comments at the earlier post, EDH said: "The picture reminds me of the 'Invisible Man.'" And I said I'd thought of that myself. And I wonder whether the filmmaker intended the allusion. He's a man of movies. The movie he's associated with right now is so badly made, but we don't know the story of the man who got caught up in that crude, low-budget production. We don't know that he doesn't know film, that he's incapable of making an allusion to the Hollywood classic.

We'll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, murders of great men, murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction.

"Don’t sell yourself well? Think of 'you' as a superhero version of yourself."

"Make a list of your best qualities. Dress the way SuperYou would dress. Talk the way SuperYou would talk. Be SuperYou. Role play. It’s a part. Experiment. This is play."

Advice, from Susannah Breslin, via Instapundit.

Is it good advice? I don't think I want everyone following it. I think Obama follows it.



That's a great video from JibJab, which I'd never seen before. It went up in June 2009. Really interesting to watch now. I just happened upon it, Googling "Obama superman" to illustrate my little "I think Obama follows it" remark.

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH links to this hilarious "Dragnet" clip ("Would your entire life fit into one small room?"):

Christina Romer, the woman who was taken aback when the man (Obama) said "It’s clear monetary policy has shot its wad."

It was Romer's first meeting with the President-elect in November 2008. According to Ron Suskind's book "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President," Obama had "a woman problem: too few of them in key jobs" and he was trying to bring in Christina Romer. And "It’s clear monetary policy has shot its wad" is what Obama said to her before even "hello." Is that how you talk to a woman?

Remember the old movie line "You had me at hello"? According to Suskind, "For Christina Romer it was love at first sight." What woman in love wants to say "You had me at shot its wad"?

It was a strange break from decorum for a man who had done so outstandingly well with women voters. The two had never met before, and this made the salty, sexual language hard to read. Later it would seem a foreshadowing of something that came to irk many of the West Wing’s women: the president didn’t have particularly strong “women skills.” The guy’s-guy persona, which the message team would use to show Obama’s down-to-earth side, failed to account for at least one thing: What if you didn’t play basketball or golf? Still, for the moment, the comment didn’t faze Romer. She was curious to hear what he thought.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Obama extended his hand, now ready to greet her. “I guess we need to focus on fiscal policy,” he said.

“No, you’re wrong,” Romer corrected him. “There’s quite a bit we can still do monetarily, even with the historically low interest rates.”

Isn't that just like a woman... not understanding that the need for a refractory period?

IN THE COMMENTS:jakebadlands said:

Not only does this phrase have other, non-sexual meanings, is the sexual meaning even the primary one?

Though being in the presence of Mr Obama, I imagine Ms. Romer's thoughts could not help but turn to the sexual.

X said:

says more about Romer and her dirty mind that lacks knowledge of guns.

EDH said:

Musket Love?

"The two had never met before, and this made the salty, sexual language hard to read."

I wonder if that "salty" part was a Freudian slip in Suskind's part?

The actual origin of "shooting your wad" is from musketry.


In some current American slang it is a reference to male ejaculation; however the phrase has a very long history covering most of the time that muskets have been in use up to the present. The wad is a piece of paper put in the muzzle along with the projectile and gun powder. If the shooter is too hasty -- say in a tense battle -- they may not include the projectile. The result is a fire without the intended bullet; only the wad will fly out...a wasted shot. Hence, "shooting your wad" can mean expending your energy fruitlessly. The OED also references the wad as in a roll of paper money; in this case "shooting your wad" means blowing all your cash at once. [Link.]

The Effigies of Madison, Wisconsin — 1906 version.

An emailer writes:

I just finished John J. Miller’s “The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football” which describes how intercollegiate football almost became banned 100 years ago. Reading in your blog about the double standard regarding effigies in the latest Madison demonstrations, I thought you might enjoy this excerpt from Miller’s book (p. 211). The year was 1906.

“At the University of Wisconsin, frontier historian Frederick Jackson Turner railed against football, calling for its prohibition or at least its suspension, and tried to mobilize administrators and professors against it. On the night of March 27, when a rumor hit campus that football would be banned, hundreds of students took to the streets, chanting “Death to the faculty!” They surrounded Turner’s home. The professor faced them on his porch. “When can we have football?” shouted a student. “When you can have a clean game,” he yelled back. Turner tried to engage the young men, but they replied with catcalls. Later in the evening, they built a bonfire. The fire department showed up as the mob tried to burn three professors in effigy. The firefighters managed to save the last one. It was labeled 'Prof. Turner.'”

Fascinating! Pro-football protests! These effigies were burned, not hung. We've been debating about whether the Prosser effigy was actually hung, since it is sitting down. Obviously, there are many ways to torment an effigy. There is hanging. Burning. And, as commenter EDH said:

The garrote, a specific form of execution, is often performed seated.

The garrote, unlike a proper hanging, kills by suffocation, so it is, in fact, much closer to the choking accusation leveled by Justice Prosser's character assassins.

But enough about effigies. Let's go back to the history of football. Here's Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine interviewing John J. Miller about "The Big Scrum." A very substantive interview with crisp, quick speaking, so... worth clicking.

Gingrich implodes.

"Newt Gingrich’s top staff quit en masse Thursday...."

Gingrich was intent on using technology and standing out at debates to get traction while his advisers believed he needed to run a campaign that incorporated both traditional, grassroots techniques as well as new ideas.

One official said the last straw came when Gingrich went forward with taking a long-planned cruise with his wife last week in the Greek isles....

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH said: "Here's Calista Gingrich to tell us what she thinks":



ADDED: Roger L. Simon writes:

Two of the key operatives who just left Gingrich’s staff -Dave Carney and Rob Johnson – have been major advisers to Gov. Rick Perry. Does this mean Perry is about to jump in the presidential race? Sure looks like it.

AND: Callista was the problem! So says Fred Barnes:

Aides to Newt Gingrich have resigned from his presidential campaign in protest of what they felt was a takeover by Callista Gingrich, the candidate’s wife since 2000.

"I am just about to go crazy today. I just can't seem to escape the 'gay caveman' story."

Oh! The tribulations of paleoanthropology blogging. UW professor John Hawks must hit the ground running when news breaks from the Stone Bronze Age. The news folk are after him for an academic opinion and he says: "Dudes! I could be wrong, but I think that to have a 'gay caveman', you need a skeleton that is both gay and a caveman. And this ain't either!"

IN THE COMMENTS: Maguro said:

So it's probably not a gay caveman after all, merely a Bronze Age Bea Arthur.

What a letdown.

EDH said:

We have rare prehistoric video!

"I ate too much fried food, too much ice cream, too much everything."

Says Bill Clinton. To which I say "ahem."

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH said, "Jennifer Flowers, in her first tell-all interview with Penthouse, said 'he ate pussy like a champ!'" Heh. The chimp could chomp like a champ.

The blogger's response to a legalistic letter: mockery.

"... copious mockery, so that it becomes highly ranked in search engines where other people you threaten can find it and take heart."

There are new moves in the law game, and the old moves may backfire. It's fun to watch the way power evolves on line.

ADDED: Obviously, I need to link to BoingBoing to help the strategy.

AND: Nice to see Instapundit linking to BoingBoing again for this, really helping the strategy. And I like his "You're ugly too" kicker:

Plus, even the clothes were ugly. As ugly as the behavior. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Just thought I’d point that out.

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH said:

Well, if they are required to take it down, they should replace it with a crudely drawn stick figure with the caption "artist rendering" underneath it.

Chip Ahoy responds:

Somewhere in New Jersey: School kids learn to praise Obama.

Via Drudge ("SHOCK VIDEO").

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH asks:

Can anyone explain the difference between how are these children are being used to elevate Obama and the Robotic Floor Tiles in the previous post?

UPDATE: More info on the school and the reason for the performance:

[T]he superintendent of Burlington Township schools says [it] was held in February as part of Black History Month "to honor the contributions of African Americans to our country."

But Andrea Ciemnolonski, the parent of another one of the students in the video, said the song was part of a second-grade project on a variety of topics related to the month of February, such as Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day and Presidents Day....

"Alteredbeat," the YouTube user who posted the video on the Internet, told FOXNews.com that the video was first put online by Charisse Carney-Nunes, an activist and author of the children's book "I Am Barack Obama," which her Web site says "allows children to see themselves through the inspirational story of President Obama." Carney-Nunes has been promoting the book during visits to schools on the east coast.

It seems that it's easy (and dangerous) to confuse the typical inspirational stories used to celebrate Black History with Obama's present-day political power.

Don't look now, but...

... I'm Instapundit. This week, anyway. One third of, anyway.

(Feed me suggestions, please!)

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH said: “Enable comments! We have stormed the Bastille!”. Ha ha. I did it!

For Althouse blog insiders only.

"Treacle, we'd like to introduce you to our very good friend Titus."

In which of the states is it easiest to talk to strangers?

I haven't traveled to all the states, but I've been to most of them. And while there is a lot of variety among people in different places, you can tell that there is something of a local personality. You may not notice it when you live there, but it really stands out when you travel through. For example, a few years ago, I traveled back to Wilmington, Delaware, where I grew up (and my father grew up). I was struck by how taciturn the people were. I wanted to strike up conversations. I grew up here! I ate in this restaurant in the 1950s! But I couldn't get a response from anyone. Crazy lady from out of town thinks she can talk to me. At least it helped me understand my father better.

But what's the best state if you want to travel through and have some nice, random conversations with strangers — where they won't just be polite and pretend they like you because that's the right way to act or because they want your business, but where they truly openly and easily just go right ahead and roll right into a conversation about any number of things, not boring you with their life story or problems or anything like that, but laughing at your little observations and offering up little morsels of things they happen to know? I'm going to say: Indiana!

ADDED: All this talk of Indiana made me want to dig out this passage from Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle":

Crosby asked me what my name was and what my business was. I told him, and his wife Hazel recognized my name as an Indiana name. She was from Indiana, too.

"My God," she said, "are you a Hoosier?"

I admitted I was.

"I'm a Hoosier, too," she crowed. "Nobody has to be ashamed of being a Hoosier."

"I'm not," I said. "I never knew anybody who was."

"Hoosiers do all right. Lowe and I've been around the world twice, and everywhere we went we found Hoosiers in charge of everything.

"That's reassuring."

"You know the manager of that new hotel in Istanbul?"

"No."

"He's a Hoosier. And the military-whatever-he-is in Tokyo . . ."

"Attaché," said her husband.

"He's a Hoosier," said Hazel. "And the new Ambassador to Yugoslavia . . . "

"A Hoosier?" I asked.

"Not only him, but the Hollywood Editor of Life magazine, too, And that man in Chile . . ."

"A Hoosier, too?"

"You can't go anywhere a Hoosier hasn't made his mark," she said.

"The man who wrote Ben Hur was a Hoosier."

"And James Whitcomb Riley."

"Are you from Indiana, too?" I asked her husband.

"Nope. I'm a Prairie Stater. 'Land of Lincoln,' as they say."

"As far as that goes," said Hazel triumphantly, "Lincoln was a Hoosier, too. He grew up in Spencer County."

"Sure," I said.

"I don't know what it is about Hoosiers," said Hazel, "but they've sure got something. If somebody was to make a list, they'd be amazed."

"That's true," I said.

She grasped me firmly by the arm. "We Hoosiers got to stick together."

"Right"

"You call me 'Mom."'

"What?"

"Whenever I meet a young Hoosier, I tell them, 'You call me Mom."'

"Uh huh."

"Let me hear you say it," she urged.

"Mom?"

She smiled and let go of my arm. Some piece of clockwork had completed its cycle. My calling Hazel "Mom" had shut it off, and now Hazel was rewinding it for the next Hoosier to come along.

Hazel's obsession with Hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false karass, of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done, a textbook example of what Bokonon calls a granfalloon. Other examples of granfalloons are the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows--and any nation, anytime, anywhere.

As Bokonon invites us to sing along with him:

If you wish to study a granfalloon,
Just remove the skin of a toy balloon.

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH says:

I'm from Massachusetts, and if you ask me, the people around here are too god damn friendly.

So, I don't know where all these bastids get the silly idea that people from Massachusetts aren't friendly.

What the fuck are you look'n at?

(A dramatization.)

"The Optimum Population Trust... says each baby born in Britain will... burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland...."

Why old-growth oak woodland? Why specify your absolute favorite form of vegetation in comparison to a completely generic baby? We're just talking about carbon emissions over the course of a lifetime. Why not weigh one largish cornfield against the entire lifetime of love and service of somebody's adorable grandma?

Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming....

“I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” Porritt said.

Actively promoting abortion as a matter of fundamental morality?

Porritt, who has two children, intends to persuade environmental pressure groups to make population a focus of campaigning.

“Many organisations think it is not part of their business. My mission with the Friends of the Earth and the Greenpeaces of this world is to say: ‘You are betraying the interests of your members by refusing to address population issues and you are doing it for the wrong reasons because you think it is too controversial,” he said.

Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.

Yeah, why cure illnesses? Let them loose to off more people with carbon footprints. True, it's not as good as abortion, where you avoid the entire life of an old-growth forest killer. But a couple of middle-age disease deaths is the equivalent of an abortion, and these things add up. Just think of the immense progress in population control we could get with a major flu epidemic or bold new plague.

"We still have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe and we still have relatively high levels of pregnancies going to birth, often among women who are not convinced they want to become mothers."

High levels of pregnancies going to birth.... In the U.S., anyone at all mainstream has the decency to say they support abortion rights but that doesn't mean they are pro-abortion. This story is from the U.K., where, apparently, the political — the moral — discourse is different.[NOTE: The "anyone at all mainstream" sentence was not meant to apply to those who oppose abortion rights, and I did not anticipate that it would confuse some readers. My point is simply that in the United States, those who support abortion rights know they need to speak in terms of freedom of choice and not to affirmatively promote abortion.]

And one more thing. Why are we supposed to care about carbon footprints? Because of global warming? But why do we care about global warming? Because it will hurt people. If we see people as the problem, then there's nothing to care about anymore.

ADDED: There is a glaring error in this post! EDH, in the comments, prompted me: "higher atmospheric CO2 levels would help plant life." The new babies aren't harming the old-growth forest at all. They are feeding it! Tree lovers should appreciate the infusion of CO2. Now, supposing it's true and things do warm up. Won't the plants be happy? Antarctica could be re-forested.

"A more perfect... you... nyun!"

(Via EDH, in the previous thread.)

"The Sensitive Female Chord Progression."

It's everywhere, apparently. I'm not sensitive enough to chords to be able to hear things like this on my own (though it helps me a lot to know that a suspect progression can be tested by seeing if you can sing "What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?" over it).

(Thanks to EDH for sending the link.)

"So, is Bristol's baby's name one last dig at Hillary from the Palin family?"

"Sarah's first grandchild is named after Hillary's husband's nemesis...Linda Tripp! Sarah always manages to one-up Hillary!"

Wrote Zachary Paul Sire, somewhere in the long comments thread that spun out under my "Benjamin Button" commentary last night.

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry Buck says:

The Palins (I don't know about the Johnsons) just seem to like boys names that begin with Tr-

Track, Trig, Tripp ...

What's next? Trap?

EDH said:

No, Trog?

A remake by Oliver Stone, with Sarah Palin as Joan Crawford.

"Whatever the risk, this kill-crazy fiend from Hell must be destroyed!"

I prefer Trogg to make everything groovy. But if it's a dirty and sweet rock-star kid you want, call him Trex.

To stress conservatism, call him Trad.

Stay away from Trick, Truss, Troll, and Tran.

If you get twins, call them Tried and True.

"Is that James Dean gazing downwardly at a pastry case that looks like a jukebox?"

Says EDH, in the comments over here.

Play G-72 for me Jimmy, will ya, just for old time sake.

Or just get me a bear claw, if it ain't.

He's looking at this photograph...



... and I see what he means. Like David Hemmings in "Blowup," I enlarge the phantom image and tweak it as much as I can:



Yes, I think the ghost of James Dean walked in Madison last Friday. He had his collar turned up against the cold.