Althouse unfair to F. Scott Fitzgerald?

Midway through my journey of isolating and writing about sentences from "The Great Gatsby," I find myself confronted by one creeley23 — a commenter within the confines of this Althouse blog — who says: "Hmm... rereading the first ten pages of Gatsby I see that Ann is picking klunky, atypical sentences out of the text."

I have chosen things like: "Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing-room blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, that rouged and powdered in an invisible glass." And: "A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea."

But, in my defense, I have also chosen: "A breeze stirred the gray haze of Daisy’s fur collar." And: "Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry."

Remember, the original idea was:

What I like [about "The Great Gatsby"] is that each sentence is good, on its own. Seriously. Test it out. "As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon." Every sentence is a writer's inspiration....

I feel like starting a blog devoted to individual sentences in "The Great Gatsby," chosen randomly, and continuing until all the sentences have been used up.

I didn't start a new blog, obviously, only a daily discipline on this blog. I confess to not proceeding by random selection. But I haven't gone searching for "klunky" sentences. I've flipped around in near-random style, though. I don't use the first thing I see. Opening up Chapter 1 right now, I see  "I told him" and "We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch." These are examples of non-"klunky" sentences that I would reject, but not because I'm gunning for F. Scott. My initial motivation was love. I thought of all the high school students — I remember being one — who were assigned this book and made to read the whole thing. That being the task, the really interesting sentences are speed bumps. They're completely annoying. You can't take the time to figure them out. What should be loved is hated. Later in life, I reread the book and enjoyed it, because of the worthiness of individual sentences.

Here's a way the book could be taught in a high school class. (But maybe they'd fire you!) Class, this is a book with some very weird sentences. Who can find one? Students read individual sentences out loud and the teacher cuts and pastes the sentences, so they are projected on the board. Encourage the students to pull out things that are the most outlandish and impossible to understand. Encourage laughter. Email the list of sentences to the class and have them reply to the email cutting out all but one sentence, the sentence they'd most like to talk about. Quickly read the email and pick a sentence that got a lot of attention. Puzzle through what it might mean with the students so that they appreciate the fun of getting wrapped up inside one sentence. Give them 20 minutes to write about one of the other sentences.

Must they read the book? Tell them they can read the book if they want. But tell them they can go to Wikipedia and read the plot summary and the list of characters there. The idea is to spend time with particular sentences and to figure out why someone would write like that. Must they love F. Scott Fitzgerald? No! They can be like Palladian — the original commenter genius of the Althouse blog — who said:

Has anyone calculated how long this Gatsby project is going to go on? How many sentences are in the book? How many sentences have been covered so far?

I ask partially out of curiosity and partly because I hate "The Great Gatsby". Why couldn't we have done Chaucer or "Paradise Lost" or something?

I said:

I don't think the project asks you to like "The Great Gatsby." It should work for the haters. Bring that hate!

Palladian said:

That's true! I think the general tone of the comments on these threads led me to think of them as reverential, but your writing about them is actually neutral and occasionally negative.

The watchword watchphrase of this blog has long been "cruel neutrality." And, indeed, I see that even before I responded to Original Commenter Genius Palladian, he was responded to by Upstart Commenter Genius betamax3000, who said:

"the Inquisition that goes on forever. Interminably."

(That's a quote from the post, which is about a "Gatsby" sentence that includes "interminable inquisitions.")

Ann has gone full Althouse Snow Globe Theory now:

"She sets the Snow Globe with cruel neutrality for us to shake and see patterns from the flitter. There is not the expectation of sentimentality. She is asking us to look, together; however, often there is no resolution, each reader seeing only his own flitter of understanding."

And there betamax3000 is quoting himself, from this earlier thread, about one of the least "klunky" sentences that has ever found its way into the "Gatsby" project:

"They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening, too, would be over and casually put away."

When can we put this "Gatsby" project away, like a dinner and an evening consumed blandly and casually in the Midwest, where all the Gatsby characters belong?

"I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all — Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life."

That's a sentence I've been saving, in my holding pen of sentences — "klunky" and not-"klunky" — that might get the nod some day on this project, and I guess I've given that one the nod today.

But is today the last day? Is it time to move on to "Paradise Lost" or "The Divine Comedy"?

If the assignment were — in this non-existent high school class — to read straight through "The Great Gatsby," you would know when you were done. The hard task your real teacher tasked you with has a knowable end. It's not interminable, even though the word "ceaselessly" is the 4th-to-the-last word. You get to "ceaselessly" and there's "into the past" and you are done. Your reading of "Gatsby" has receded into the past, like last night's huge, hard-to-digest dinner. You wake up with a stomachache. You can't take too much. You only want to nibble at the edges of some stale ideas, like maybe a blog post, a blog post about one sentence. You can nibble, and — in the comments — you can dribble. Like betamax3000 on last night's "Something was making him nibble" post :

Re: "Oh! For a minute there, I saw 'nimble,' and I was flummoxed."

I like nibble better. Not just because it makes me think of squirrels nibbling on a nosh. I often find myself nibbling at the edge of stale ideas. Of course, it is easier to nibble at the edges when the stale idea is square-shaped, like a behind-the-sofa-cushion Cheez-It: there are corners. Corners are the perfect nibble starters. Plus, Cheez-Its -- and the non-square Cheeto, for that matter -- leave your fingers orangey, like all the best ideas, stale or not.

So one morning when the sun was warm
I rambled out of New York town
Pulled my cap down over my eyes
And headed out for the western skies
So long New York
Howdy, East Orange*.

(*"Even when the East excited me most with sprawling, swollen orange fingers: you're gonna have to take notes faster, friends)

Which brings us back to a point: Naked Dylan Robot would love to hear Fitzgerald try to sing some of Fitzgerald's sentences. Naked Dylan Robot would laugh and laugh.

"Everybody's sturdy physical egotism must get stoned."

"When the winds of changes shift
May your malnourished peremptory heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever slightly worn, young man, with shell-rimmed glasses and scanty blond hair."

For a writer whose rep is based in large part on making words sing his words just don't... sing. Maybe Naked Albanian Phonetical Dylan Robot could give a try, but I don't think it would get there. Nor Naked Phoenician Dylan Robot, for that matter*.

(*this is -- of course -- self-contradictory: per Wikipedia "in Phoenician writing, unlike that of most later abjads such as those of Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew and Arabic, even long vowels remained generally unexpressed, and that regardless of their origin". No Naked Dylan Robot of any proud heritage could forsake the long vowels: exps: oooohhhhhmaaa-ma is this reaaaaaaally the eeeeend, etc etc).

Perhaps Naked Dylan Fitzgerald Cow could make a go of the following:

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word "MOO
And you say, "For what reason ?"
And he says, "Hoo?"
And you say, "What does this mean ?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home".

-- but Naked Dylan Fitzgerald Cow is a Talent. And not afraid to nibble, stale or no. Someone should make a Snow Globe for Naked Dylan Fitzgerald Cow: Ann could put it next to her Robot on her desk and take a picture. I would call in sick to work the next day.

Is your tummy feeling better now? Maybe saltines and ginger ale would help. That's what my midwest-born-and-raised mother would offer me when I was feeling queasy. But you've got to eat something. You must go on — ceaselessly, interminably — when the project is one sentence a day. One day at a time. One sentence at a time. One nibble at a time. One blog post at a time.

"Predictable Althouse is predictable."

Says a familiar lefty commenter, provoking me to say:

Does that include the idea — see Ipso Fatso, supra — that I'm surely going to vote for Obama?

I love that I'm so obviously totally for him and against him.

Somebody please explain.

It's really quite weird. My regular right-leaning readers keep seeing me as secretly devoted to Obama, no matter what mockery I indulge in. They think I'm just trying to trick them into thinking I've got what I like to call cruel neutrality. And yet the left-leaning readers assume I loathe Obama.

What's so annoying about this is that I want to write things that are fresh and surprising. And seeming to be both for and against Obama should work for that end, and yet it doesn't, because everyone seems to assume I'm on the side that they are not. They think I'm predictable — but which way?

Oh, maybe I should be the opposite of annoyed. Pleased. Because I'm not giving anybody what they want, and yet people — some people, who are they? — keep reading. To be denied what you want and still want more from that source... I'm going to be happy to be that source.

Cruel neutrality, baby.

President Obama, may I give you some campaign advice?

I'm independent, moderate, and pragmatic, and I voted for you in 2008 because I thought I saw those qualities in you. I still see those qualities in you, but the you that has those qualities is one of two Obamas, and the other Obama — Radical Lefty Obama — is a person I will not vote for.

I think you alternate between these 2 personas, and I sense that you've done it for so long that it feels normal and comfortable to you, but I want to urge you to pack up Radical Lefty Obama and stow him away with the rest of your Harvard Law School memorabilia. I know you — the Moderate Obama — have impressed some very useful people over the years by parading about as Radical Lefty Obama.

Like yesterday, you gave that Republicans-are-extremists speech, and the New York Times loved it:

Mr. Obama provided a powerful signal on Tuesday that he intends to make this election about the Republican Party’s failure to confront, what he called, “the defining issue of our time”: restoring a sense of economic security while giving everyone a fair shot, rather than enabling only a shrinking number of people to do exceedingly well. His remarks promise a tough-minded campaign that will call extremism and dishonesty by name.

Notice how, in expressing its love, the NYT portrayed Radical Lefty Obama as Moderate Obama. It's Moderate Obama that American voters find so appealing. You don't need all that left-wing economics and race-and-gender demagoguery. I think what people like about you — you, who are famously, sublimely likeable — is the normal person who seems to be in harmony with everyone. We — many of us — voted for you because you seemed to offer to bring us together, to end the rancor.

Be that Obama.

Note to Mitt Romney: If Obama doesn't want to be that Obama, you can be that guy.

Cruel neutrality.

That's my brand, here on the Althouse blog. And yet I see that some commenter named Richard wrote:

Ann, you'll vote for Obama anyway this cycle. I like your blog and all that, but it's your M.O. to criticize , then vote contrary to your criticisms.

Now, now. I don't like that. In 2008, I took a vow of cruel neutrality....

Who am I supporting in the presidential contest? You shouldn't know, because I don't know. In fact, I'm positioning myself in a delicate state of unknowing, a state I hope to maintain until October if not November. In the meantime, I will spread the attacks around and give credit where credit is due....

So I'm taking a vow of neutrality, but it won't be dull beige neutrality. I think partisanship is too tedious to read. This is going to be cruel neutrality.

3 years later, I've got exactly the same attitude. And, seriously, if you're distracted by the issue of me actually, in the end, needing to vote for somebody, I would rather — in addition to a 2012 vow of cruel neutrality — vow not to vote at all.

I'm not committing to abide by the results of this poll, but give me some input:

In 2012, Althouse should...
	Not take any vows related to political blogging.
	Vow to tell us exactly what she thinks and to vote for the candidates of her choice.
	Take a vow of cruel neutrality again and, in the end, tell us about it and vote for that person.
	Take a vow of cruel neutrality and, in the end, vote without telling us whom she votes for.
	Take a vow of cruel neutrality and a vow not to vote at all in 2012.
pollcode.com free polls

"I'm not aware of any meetings about 'the antiwar march hare in Madison.'"

My new iPhone's Siri program just got closer than ever before to understanding a question I asked, which was: "When is the anti-war march here in Madison?" I know there's an anti-war march today, and I'm trying to find out when. To be fair, Googling my question doesn't pull up the answer either.

But I love the robotic intelligence that substitutes — for "march here" — March Hare:



Hey! It's a tea party!

UPDATE: I just asked "What time is the Badger game today?" and was understood exactly and the phone immediately brought up the official UWBadgers site. So... go iPhone. And... go Badgers!

UPDATE 2: The phone seems to have figured out how to understand me. I asked "What's the best blog written by a law professor?" and it got it word for word. It wouldn't express an opinion however, but asked if I'd like it to "search the web" for the answer. That is, want me to Google that for you? I tested it with "Who's the best Republican Party candidate for President?" and, again, it offered to search the web. The iPhone is opinion neutral. And it's not cruel neutrality. You need a human being to get cruel neutrality. The robot provides bland neutrality.

Charging with fists raised at Althouse: from the right, it's Robert Stacy McCain, from the left, it's Thers.

I'm thinking of ducking down the alleyway and letting the 2 men collide with each other. I'll find a high vantage point and watch the fracas. First one to unball his fists and put his palms up defensively loses... unless the other one, sensing a touch to the chokepoint on his neck, backs off and shrieks "You choked me."

Robert Stacy McCain should be pleased that Thers decided to attack me on the same day, because I wouldn't have rewarded his attack with a link if it wasn't funny to find myself in the "Clowns to the left of me/Jokers to the right" position.

McCain's post is titled "Ann Althouse: Rube." The word "rube" denotes a dumb rural character, but McCain uses it not for it's actual meaning, but because he's noticed there's a way that Glenn Reynolds uses it, and he seems to imagine that using Glenn's word will bring Glenn in on his team. Which is fine with me, because I've ducked down the alleyway, and Stacy is going to be fighting Thers, who might have "Eli" with him. I doubt if Glenn answers to the dogwhistle "rube," but I do think the fracas will be more amusing with Glenn there. (By the way, the expression "hey, rube" is traditionally "a rallying call, or a cry for help, used by carnies in a fight with outsiders." It's not a way of saying "I think you are a dummy from country.")

Anyway, Stacy's in a dither because, last Friday — predicting Obama's 2012 campaign strategy and referring to the emotionalism of the 2008 Obama campaign — I dropped a footnote to say that even though I voted for Obama, I wasn't caught up in the emotionalism. I observed it and critiqued it. I was in my high vantage point. I was sober and rational, but — confronted with the 2 major party candidates — I picked Obama. I have never apologized for that choice, because I still think McCain — John McCain — would have been worse, and the Republican Party would be in a far weaker spot right now if McCain were President. You can disagree with me, but don't portray me as another "Yes We Can" dreamer. My 2008 posts are all there in the archive. You can see how distanced I was from the Obama love cult.

But Robert Stacy McCain doesn't seem too familiar with the Althouse blog... or even the one post he purports to write about. He's bouncing off of some other blogger's post about me (in the style of Emily Mills who attacked me using material she got not from my blog but from some other blogger who purported to know what I'd written). (Stacy also nicks a photograph from my Flickr stream and uses it without complying with the Creative Commons license I was nice enough to provide.) Anyway, Stacy's point seems to be that I was wrong to vote for Obama. But my post wasn't even saying I made the correct choice, only that I chose based on sober reasoning, not emotionalism.

In any case, R.S. McCain doesn't say I should have voted for John McCain or that every rational person choosing between McCain and Obama would have picked McCain. In fact, sounding damned emotional, he says: "If you put a gun to my head and told me to vote for John McCain, I’d tell you to go ahead and pull the trigger." He calls McCain "a treacherous bastard." Okay, then, why wasn't it rational to vote for Obama? At the point of voting, either McCain or Obama was going to be President. Pick one. No, R.S. McCain voted for Bob Barr. Like that was rational!

At least McCain's commenters are critical. Donald Douglas is the first commenter, linking to his own post: "Ann Althouse a Rube? Nah, Robert Stacy McCain's Just Trolling for Traffic." He accuses McCain of liking to post my picture, and Douglas posts another picture of me. (Douglas does make that picture link back to the Flickr site, but he too fails to follow the Creative Commons license, because he doesn't include the photographer's name. Douglas chose a picture taken 30 years ago by my first husband. McCain chose a picture taken last year by my present-day husband.)

Now, let's swivel leftward and see what's going on with Thers. Thers has been attacking my blog for many years, and usually I ignore him. I don't know why he's so fixated on me. He didn't post a picture of me, so take that for what it's worth. He illustrates his post with a video clip called "Detachable Penis" from a band called King Missile, so apparently he's trying to waggle his wiener in my direction. Thers is writing to defend his confrere Eli, whom I took a shot at yesterday, because he said something stupid that everyone was attacking yesterday because it was on Memeorandum. I don't know who, exactly, detached Eli's penis, but I got my cut in, and I understand that it caused Thers sympathetic pain.

Thers quotes me saying something that exemplifies the way I speak when I'm observing the fray from a high vantage point: "People who are immersed in politics ought to take a good look at their own minds." His idea for a comeback is pretty prosaic. Do you even have to go over there and read it? You can guess: I don't follow my own advice. It's the "I know you are but what am I?" Pee-Wee Herman-type riposte that's supposed to answer a personal attack, which that quote of mine isn't. And Thers, of course, doesn't follow my advice either. He's not self-reflective. He attacks me:

All the evidence shows that Althouse has been long separated from her mind; if she originally removed it in order to give it a proper gawking, that is a perfectly laudable motive. 

A grisly image. A man who's musing about his detachable penis pictures a woman with her brain removed from her skull.

And let us be charitable! 

A reflexive line, by a man whose conscience perhaps nagged him. He knows that after the Tucson massacre, we weren't supposed to be using graphic metaphors like that. He could have edited that out, but writhing over Eli's detached penis, he had to lash out.

Perhaps there is a perfectly sound reason that as soon as her mind departed her skull it promptly escaped, never to be heard from again; and very likely all she had on hand to fill the resultant cranial void was Franzia and guano.

He's straining so hard for comedy, and he can't decide whether to call me a drunk or a shithead. And what's with the Franzia? Didn't he get the memo about Paul Ryan? Yesterday was the day to attack right-wingers for drinking expensive wine.

Then he gets to my little joke on Eli: "I have no interest in these hysterical little men who obsess about whether their 'base' is getting served or stiffed." He rolls his eyes and says:

Althouse is watching consonants whirling through onion rings, yet once more. 

See? Go to those links. He's been reading my blog for a long time, and he remembers my old comic riffs about genitalia. Unlike Stacy McCain, he's familiar with the archive here, and he's been trying to to get the better of me in the genitalia humor department for years. But he can't. He says:

She’s got a dirty mind, don’t she, Yossarian? The dirtiest. 

So... a reference to "Catch-22"... disembodied. The book is funny. The detached reference? The sad waggling of a man who would be erudite, who's trying to show that he's smart and the woman is dumb. A literary reference. I typo'd "litterary" a Freudian slip, indicating that I think his writing is trash. He ought to pick that thing up.

I've got a "dirty mind"? Oh, okay. Thanks. I suppose Freud had a "dirty mind" too. Isn't it funny the way lefties are, at bottom, puritanical about sex? Sex is dirty? As Woody Allen famously said: "Only if it's done right." And if it's done left, it's done with a detachable penis. Put some ice on it.  Maybe you can get somebody to sew it back on.

Quick, because here comes Robert "Stacy" McCain, fists a-flying!

"What I said was the same thing that the audience here today heard me say, which is, if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out, then we should."

"Now, that I think has to be our policy, because they are threatening to kill more Americans," said Barack Obama at the Town Hall Debate, on October 7, 2008.



Meade woke up this morning wanting to look that up. Speaking of things clarified during sleep, I woke up on the morning of October 8, 2008 and "decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won the debate.... It was Barack Obama...." That was the post where I abandoned my vow of "cruel neutrality" as an observer of the 2008 campaign, and said my vote for Obama was "almost inevitable." After the election, when I analyzed my path of decisionmaking — in the post called "How McCain Lost Me" — I said: "So this was the crucial tipping point. Dear readers, it was right there, the morning after the Town Hall debate."

And now, 2 1/2 years after he voted for McCain, here's Meade, drawn back to that same debate. He IM's me the link to that clip about Pakistan. We talk at some length, and he tells me I made the right decision. So you wish you'd voted for him? Yes.

I was asked to explain why I've made so many of my Tea Party photographs black and white.

The subject came up in the comments to this morning's post, which had 3 black and white photographs. Let me post a few more, and then I'll give my answer.















So, what am I doing with black and white? I'll copy my raw musing from the comments at this morning's post:

Why black and white?

I experiment, tweaking each picture in different ways. Sometimes I like what black and white does.

When does that happen?

1. When the color elements are random or distracting or loud or inconsistent with the mood/theme of the picture.

2. When the shapes and forms are good and you want to give them maximum prominence.

3. Sometimes cutting out the color seems to unify everything.

4. Cutting out the color can give the picture a timeless or historical look or a profundity that works.

I'm drawn to black and white in these pictures as a way of eliminating the casual "picnic" feeling and making things seem more serious and significant.

By the way, my Tea Party pictures are notably neutral. I'm not promoting or criticizing these people with my photographs. I'm observing them and presenting them for what they are. I hope you appreciate that.

That's written more roughly than what I put on the front page here generally. I hope you understand.

Here's an interesting comparison between black and white and color: black & white and color. It makes a big difference, doesn't it?

I'm doing some cruel neutality today.

Have you noticed?

Yes, it was a wet dream — wet with John McCain's sweat.

Remember that hate email I got yesterday?

it was pointed out to me that you have wet dreams of Obama... now I understand the brain dead posts on your blog...

I now see where the emailer got that "wet dreams" idea. Over on Conservatives4Palin, there's a post that tries to deal with my "Sarah Palin is dumb." It flails without landing a blow, then dissolves into an inane rant about Kathleen Parker (who?) and how my real goal is to get on MSNBC and meet Keith Olbermann (huh?). Nearly at the bottom, right before the advising me to "pick a side of the road to drive on" — they know nothing of the joys of cruel neutrality — it has:

One more question, Ms. Althouse... Are you still seeing Barack Obama in your dreams? I am just curious.

That links to this old post of mine, from just before the 2008 election:

Have Barack Obama and John McCain turned up in your dreams? I've had one dream about each candidate now. A while back, Obama turned up in a dream. He was just a nice person who said hello. Last night, McCain finally turned up. He was wearing a thin, sweat-soaked shirt, and he angrily challenged me with a question about the war -- did I think it was almost over? -- and when I answered -- yes -- he stomped off and loudly declared that I had proved his point that everyone was getting that question wrong.

So there you have it. It was a wet dream. Wet with the sweat of John McCain.

I got so mad at George Packer last night.

As expressed in this post and its comments. Here I am in the comments:

I don't mind people attacking me for doing that post itself ["[I doubt that] Obama wore an earpiece that was clearly visible on HDTV"], which was done at the end of a long session of live-blogging. But what angers me are these broad statements about how insular and narrow-minded I've been, when I have spent the last year (and more) being incredibly balanced, to the point where my readers really didn't know which candidate I was going to vote for. [Links added.]

You know, I'm going to vote for Obama (94.67% chance), but these assholes make it a really distasteful exercise.

Later, I added: "Now I feel like voting for McCain... and pushing the inside the ear transmitter theory..."

That was after reading this, from Original George:

Before dismissing the idea that Sen. Obama was wearing or does wear a hearing device, in less than 60 seconds on the net, I found many, many websites advertising CIC hearing aids. Go here.

They fit entirely inside the ear canal. They cost about $1,000. They're the size of a large seed or piece of corn. Probably sold by every audiologist.

So....could there be a radio receiver that size? Why not?

And, lo and behold, another five seconds on Google, and up come many in-the-ear-canal radio receivers...like here.

The mistake the Professor made, if she made one, was not to invest a few minutes research. Best thing to do would be to call two or three manufacturers of these gizmos and see what they think.

Heck, if I were running for President, I'd use a radio so I could be fed reminders and tips, and I'd be gobbling Provigil. Anything for an undetectable edge. Lifts in the shoes, hair dye, Wheaties, whatever.

A night's sleep put me at some distance from my rage so that, even with harassment from the excessively early-rising marching band, I was feeling cool-headed enough. And then, reading more deeply into the comments, I was cheered by our little friend, our favorite insect, blogging cockroach:

i don t know about sir archy or even titus
but i am a 100 percent sorta brown blooded
american cockraoch born right here
in cambridge mass if you want to count
that as america which i am sure some of you don t
and i ve got to say i think that hatchet job
done to professor a was terrible
that s the trouble with blogging
it s supposed to be easy and breezy
but there are people who deconstruct every
breadcrumb that gets stuck under the letter r
for example that really happened and i couldn t
write a damn thing with r

railroad crossing look out for the cars
can you spell it without any r s...

anyway soon people started to say
i broke my right front leg off and other
stupid theories and my blog went to hell
until tommy came back from camp
and fixed the keyboard

tommy is the boy whose computer i use

anyway tommy and i took the blog private
and maybe i ll start again
but this sure is a cautionary tale

i have a confession to make
tommy subscribes to the new yorker
oh the shame
he s very bright and sophisticated for 12
hell he s bright and sophisticated for 34
so he started reading the new yorker
in the office of his fancy private school
and next thing he had to have a subscription
mom and dad got him one for his birthday

i m glad that hit piece is only online
as i would have to find and eat the page
if it were in the magazine
so tommy wouldn t see it
and while there are some magazines
with yummy casein coated glossy paper
i only eat the new yorker as a last resort

"Sorry, I'm out of here until after the election. Vote for Obama, I've known you would for a long time..."

"... but don't belittle the real questions surrounding him. Your rash of recent posts come across as a strained attempt to justify that decision on something other than aesthetics and blind hope." A commenter departs.

IN THE COMMENTS: Too Many Jims (author of the indispensable Monitoring the Cruel Neutrality) writes:

It has been amusing reading the comments for the last week or so. Before that Prof. Althouse would post something and almost immediately a liberal commenter... would pop into the comments and say that Prof. Althouse was a vapid, unthinking apologist (usually for Bush). Republican commenters would deride the commenter and say he was upset because Prof. Althouse is really an intelligent, independent minded, academic woman who has drawn liberals' fire because she has dared wander off the reservation.

Now, the republican ox is being gored and republican commenters are whining like the liberal commenters that Prof. Althouse is a vapid, unthinking apologist for Obama.

Part of me (approximately 10.73%) thinks that Prof. Althouse has not made a decision and/or is leaning toward McCain but that she made the "leaning toward Obama revelation" as part of a blogging as performance art project. Specifically, to see how the announcement would be received by commenters and the blogosphere.

Prof. Althouse is fond of saying that she has found that the left side of the blogosphere is looking for heretics, the right side is looking for converts (my apologies if I mangled that expression). What better way to test that theory.

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon wants to be frontpaged and tagged.

AND: Oh, I get it now.

I get email.

This just arrived:

Ann;

I literally stumbled on your "blog" last night and tried to actually read some of it, feeling as though I was reading some highschool girl's diary to her girlfriend, complete with buzzwords and inside jokes. I assume that your writing is meant for a very small circle of friends who know or think they know what you're talking about.

"The debate was bad in ways that debates are often bad. The ultra-badness comes from being bad now."

What better example of liberalspeak.....meaningless even while at best it seems to suggest a negative reaction to the "debate!" Huah!

Ann, yours is the kind of spoiled silliness that Americans in flyover country have trouble understanding. I suspect that like Obama, you teach fringe elements of law school, more the liberal indoctrination theme, and I cannot possibly imagine you holding anyone in suspense over whom you will vote for in November!

You're certainly in the right place....Madison has more than their share of ding-a-lings!

Sincerely,

Charlie

(I added the link.)

I'm posting this as evidence of my cruel neutrality.

IN THE COMMENTS: Pete the Streak is moved to point us to The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

And Marcia said...

Sounds like Charlie's a bit grumpy.

Then again, I would be too if I had "literally stumbled on your 'blog.'"

Ann, you really shouldn't leaving it out like that. Someone could hurt themselves.

And you know, there is also a blog dedicated to the misuse of the word "literally": Literally, a Web Log. (The top post right now is about Biden: "I don’t know who this guy is. I don’t know his politics. But anyone who can use literally that many times in one speech has my vote.")

Did you know my cruel neutrality is being monitored?

Over here, by Monitoring the Cruel Neutrality, which just the other day finished analyzing my posts from March 4, 2008 (the date I took a vow of cruel neutrality) through July. A summary:

McCain negative (5)(6%)
McCain Neutral (71)(82%)
McCain Positive (11)(13%)

Obama ignored (1)(0%)
Obama negative (42)(15%)
Obama neutral (223)(81%)
Obama Positive (10) (4%)

July alone:

McCain negative (0)(0%)
McCain Neutral (19)(90%)
McCain Positive (2)(10%)

Obama negative (7)(13%)
Obama neutral (46)(82%)
Obama Positive (3) (5%)

I'd say I've displayed impressive neutrality, being far more likely to stay neutral than to go either positive or negative. But when I did go negative, it was much more likely to be against Obama, and when I did go positive, it was more likely to be about McCain.

Does it surprise you then to realize that I'm almost surely going to vote for Obama -- the chances are about 89% -- and that through the entire period of the vow it has been more likely than not that I would vote for Obama? It shouldn't!

In which I say who won last night's debate and almost abandon my cruel neutrality pose.

When I woke up this morning, I decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won the debate. It wasn't my first thought. My first thought was: Is it late enough to get up? I was pleased to see it was 6:15, and then woke up too much before remembering that I was up until 1 am, analyzing the damned debate, fretting about the illusive earpiece, skimming the 800+ comments, and mellowing out in contemplation of the absurdity of monkeys serving hot towels and drinks in a Japanese restaurant.

I put up a poll in last night's live debate post, and the answer I chose was the one that was by far the least popular. Who won? I said "both," the answer that got only 1% of the vote. I answered that like a kindergarten teacher that wants all the children to feel good about themselves. Oh, you were all just fine. You were likable enough.

What that means is, I don't expect that much from people or government. I don't get too high when I'm high, and I don't get too low when I'm low. Neutrality is a comfortable stance for me, so my "cruel neutrality" vow has been easy to keep, the opposite of a burden, a liberation.

Who am I supporting in the presidential contest? You shouldn't know, because I don't know. In fact, I'm positioning myself in a delicate state of unknowing, a state I hope to maintain until October if not November... So I'm taking a vow of neutrality... cruel neutrality.

It's October now, so I can say I kept my vow. It's not the vow keeping me neutral anymore. I don't like deciding, especially between 2 men I've long viewed as dangerously inadequate. The tumultuous financial crisis reminds me why I prefer to wait until the end: We get a better idea of what problems will plague the new President.

It is the response to the present crisis that mattered most last night, and the candidates tiresomely repeated old talking points. McCain kept trying to stoke outrage over earmarks, and Obama continued to lecture us about conserving energy. They clung to their old pet solutions when we are staring at a huge new -- I mean, newly perceived -- problem. Are they so utterly lacking in creativity and flexibility that they cannot offer us anything new in the face of dramatically changed circumstances? Or are they both just determined to play it safe and say nothing in these last few weeks that can be spun against them?

The first half hour of the debate was excruciating, with question after question about the crisis. The candidates' evasions were mind-numbing, and, despite my commitment to live-blogging, I had no words, not even little idle comments. I nearly gave up.

But this morning, I decided to make an effort to say which man had done the better job. It was Barack Obama. And I'm not saying this just because I admired his relaxed demeanor and youthful image and felt uneasy about the older man's jerky movements and desperate grimaces. I'm saying it because I am inclined to think that with the development of complex securities and the pursuit of profit along the edge of disaster, the free market failed spectacularly. When we need new regulation, Obama effectively associated McCain with his party's love of deregulation.

McCain offered no defense of his party, only assertions that he had tried to get regulations passed. So, there he was, embedded in failure. He didn't stand by the principles of conservatism. Here's the transcript. The word "conservative" appears exactly once, when McCain said (about Social Security):

We know what the problems are, my friends, and we know what the fixes are. We've got to sit down together across the table. It's been done before.

I saw it done with our -- our wonderful Ronald Reagan, a conservative from California, and the liberal Democrat Tip O'Neill from Massachusetts. That's what we need more of, and that's what I've done in Washington.

I don't believe we really understand the problems or "the fixes," and I certainly don't believe that reaching across the aisle works magic. That's not a basis for solving a problem, but a technique that works to some extent when you have a solution.

Look at how McCain failed to promote conservatism. McCain brought up Ronald Reagan 3 times: once to say he opposed him about sending troops to Lebanon and the other 2 times to say it was wonderful the way he worked with the liberal Tip O'Neill.

McCain never presented the conservative alternative to Obama. He never even called himself a conservative last night. He was wandering all over that red carpet, microphone in hand, and I have the feeling, in retrospect, that he was truly bewildered, mouthing old phrases, trying to slip by. But one old phrase that was missing was "I'm a proud conservative." Remember when he used to say that?

Or did he? Remember this?



See? That was always the problem. And now, it's really showing. McCain has lost definition. He's stumbling along to the finish line, hoping to achieve his lifelong ambition, to seize the crown at last. But why? To show he can get along with Democrats? I worry about what awful innovations the new President will concoct in league with the Democratic Congress, but at this point, I'm more worried about McCain than Obama.

This is not a commitment to vote for Obama, and I'm still going to provide the service of observing events from my slouchily neutral posture, to which no vow currently binds me. But you see the trend, and the destination is almost inevitable.

ADDED: I should have paid more attention to this. I heard it last night, but couldn't understand how it would deal with the crisis. It seems like a massive government benefit going out to people who overextended themselves taking loans. Why not give money to all the frugal people who believed they couldn't afford to buy a house? I don't understand the theory, other than as political pandering.

It's time for another "cruel neutrality" check.

You know I've taken a vow of cruel neutrality, but people keep questioning my faith.

So how is Althouse doing with her "cruel neutrality"?
	Badly. I know she'll vote for McCain.
	Badly. I know she'll vote for Obama.
	Okay, but I think she'll probably vote for McCain.
	Okay, but I think she'll probably vote for Obama.
	Great, because I really don't know.
pollcode.com free polls

"Wow, over a third of your readers who responded seem to be rabid Obama-phobes."

"How do you manage to attract so many readers who don’t align with you politically? My theory is that right-wingers want to hear what non-doctrinaire Democrats (for instance you and Mickey Kaus) have to say and will listen to them just because they appear to be so sane when compared to the lefty flamethrowers. I wonder if David Brooks (if he didn’t have the NYT bullhorn) and similar non-doctrinaire Republicans attract the same attention from hardcore Obama supporters? If so, why are there not more mainstream voices and if not, why the difference between the leftys and rightys?"

Email from a reader. (He was referring to the poll in this post, where 38% of you answered the question "Should Althouse go to the Michelle Obama rally?" with the option "No, because Michelle Obama hates America.")

I said I'd ask you.

My instinctive response, which may say more about me than about you, is that "No, because Michelle Obama hates America" is funny, and that's a natural vote-getter that doesn't reflect true opinion. Look at any poll on Television Without Pity or Go Fug Yourself, and you'll see.

What lies beneath Althouse's purported cruel neutrality? -- a poll.

You know I like to say I've taken a vow of cruel neutrality. Here's a poll:

What lies beneath Althouse's purported cruel neutrality?
	She's planning to vote for McCain.
	She's planning to vote for Obama.
	She's preserving some undecidedness but will in the end vote for McCain.
	She's preserving some undecidedness but will in the end vote for Obama.
	She's really undecided and it's a toss-up who she'll vote for.
	She will retain her neutrality to the bitter end and ultimately abstain from voting.
pollcode.com free polls

Maybe it's time to end this cruel neutrality... and to dress up like a panda...

... and vote for Ralph Nader.

(Via Bloggingheads.)

"You know, I am a believer in … in knowing what you’re doing when you apply for a job. Uh, and I think that..."

"… if I were seriously to consider running on a national ticket, I would essentially have to start now, before having served a day in the Senate. Now there may be some people who are comfortable doing that, but I am not one of those people."

A devastating McCain ad, I think.

And I will remind you that I have taken a vow of cruel neutrality. I want to post devastating Obama ads too. Please point me to some!