"I will not make you a slave, you will live in my 200 story castle where unicorn servants will feed you doughnuts off their horns."

You are "'more awesome than a monkey wearing a tuxedo made out of bacon riding a cyborg unicorn with a lightsaber for the horn on the tip of a space shuttle closing in on Mars, while engulfed in flames."

"Hey! Barack Obama emailed me that he's running for President!"

"Good thing you got that post up yesterday."

"Oh, he can still back out. Of course, he has to say he's running. Then later... some beautiful elaborate I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes.... that sort of thing. Hmmm... I should reply to this email."

"Can you reply to that email?"

"Yeah. They want you to reply. In fact there's a big old donate button."

"How about a doughnut button? He ought to have a doughnut button."

"A lot of people think the whole Obama presidency is a big old doughnut button."

"Yep."

"The average person thinks... this body is made of cigarettes and coffees and cakes and pies and doughnuts and french fries."

Jack LaLanne. The Good Lord Above has taken his wonderful body back, after 96 years of trying to talk us into get in shape.

“People thought I was a charlatan and a nut,” he remembered. “The doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.”

Lots more Jack LaLanne video here. Here's one you probably don't need. And here he is with his dog Happy ("Right in the mouth with the foot he's putting"):

"Do Not Feed Donuts To Your Obese Children."

"Every time I read something about childhood obesity... this Tim Minchin song starts to play in my head. Yes, it's harsh, brutal even, very nearly bullying. But... um... you gotta admit that there's a grain Cinnabun or two of truth to it."

Says Dan Savage — who needs to say more about what he really thinks about the role of bullying in the process of growing up. He writes about bullying a lot and I think his promotion of this song shows he's not too consistent about it. Is it that it's bad to bully gay kids but good to bully fat kids — because it's good to be gay but bad to be fat? Bullying is a mechanism of social control. Is the mechanism itself wrong, or is the wrong limited to using the mechanism for the wrong end?

By the way, it's Cinnabon — "bon" as in "C'est Si Bon" — and you can be a fan of it on Facebook.



ADDED: The awesomeness of that Jane Morgan video made me pick it over a couple of fabulous alternatives. Check out Eartha Kitt and Louis Armstrong.

"'Cloaca,' what you see in front of you, might be a shit machine..."

"...but actually it's about a whole range of other ethical and moral issues, from the food we eat to what we do with feces."

It's Wim Delvoye's "Cloaca No. 5," a "'machine/sculpture' that recreates the phases of human digestion, from chewing to defecation," on display at the Université du Québec à Montréal gallery. You can buy the freeze-dried fake shit in the gift shop. Is it a faux pas to make a gift of faux poo? Perhaps you'll want to keep it for yourself.

Now, I'm reading about this not because I have a Google alert on "cloaca," but because the nostalgically nicknamed Fred4Pres linked to it in the comments to that post about Maureen Dowd. He quipped:

I know lots of op-eds, like Maureen Dowd's column, that have been doing this for years.

I read, mildly amused, and then I'm stunned:

Mr. Delvoye, who will be in Montreal today for the opening, has been exhibiting various versions of Cloaca -- the name is Latin for sewer -- since 2000. His other work has included biker-style tattoos on live pigs and mosaics using tiles that carry images of his own feces.

Wim Delvoye — I'd forgotten the name, but he inspired the blog post that I've often said was my best: "Tattoos remind you of death."

How I love when things come full circle, and perhaps — it seems — so does Mr. Delvoye.

Now, here in the middle of the night, I'm reading the comments on that old post about mementos, and even as I delight at the names of some commenters who are still with us, I see some that I'm sad to have lost. Like Goesh, who says:

I was blessed to have been born and raised on a farm, and we used to finger-paint the pigs. We just assumed they would like it. What pig wouldn't want to look pretty, and we enjoyed it too. Kids are kids as they say. If you scratch a pig on the stomach, it will plop down on the ground. Let's face it, it is pretty darn hard for a pig to scratch its own belly if you think about it. They can rub against things to get their sides and back and butts scratched but not their bellies. Once the pig was lying down, one sibling would keep scratching his/her stomach while the rest of us made pretty pictures. When Porky and his pals would get sent off to market, we would always check to see if any of our art went with them. Often bits of it did and we always wondered what the butchers thought when our pigs came down the slaughter line. My younger brother once remarked that maybe they wouldn't kill them if they saw our paintings. This recollection yields a bit of a sad feeling, but hard reality sets in as I recall that Keith, my younger brother, relished bacon as much as the rest of us did.

We know the finger-painted pigs are long gone, but what of Goesh? He used to write poetry here too, under the moniker Lonely Donut Man/LDM.

But where are the snows of yesteryear?

Old blog posts remind you of death. Those pseudonymous commenters who are no longer with us — how can I know if they are, as they say, no longer with us? What if Goesh has scarfed his last doughnut and pooed his last poo?

I considered spelling "doughnut" his way, as a tribute to our lost poet. I looked up the old posts — here and here — where I talked about my spelling preference. The first one has some poetry by Robert Frost (and the speculation that he ate frosted doughnuts). The second one, in the comments, has a poem by Lonely Donut Man:

Verily thou could'st reference my lovely, lonely verse
its subtle allusions to the trans-fatty acids curse
O! Sugary, longing words of lust n'er terse
Lo!The collusion of flesh and grease, which be'th the worse?

I hope Lonely Donut Man still waddles on this earth. If only he'd return I'd feel such... mirth!

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo said:

In the blog commenters come and go
talking of loaves and donut holes.

Ricpic said:

How jejune and utterly predictable of the avant-garde it is
To make a production of pinching a loaf and spraying a whiz.

Here's the post where you can wish me happy birthday.

I brought doughnuts:



(When I started to add the "doughnuts" tag, Blogger tried to autocomplete that to "douchebags." That can only happen because I actually do already have a "douchebags" tag. At my age!)

"The usual Althousian misogynistic exceptionalism."

Ann Bartow agrees with something I said -- and quotes it in full -- after "extracting" it from this "much longer" post supposedly "larded with the usual Althousian misogynistic exceptionalism." She offers no reasons for why that description applies to the rest of my post. She just hurls the insult. So, to respond in kind, let me say: Lame! Pathetic! Unscrupulous!

IN THE COMMENTS: Some object to the insult to me, but Electric Citizen objects to the insult to lard:

Lard o'mercy.

Every baker knows that despite lard's heavy reputation (it is pig fat, after all), nothing makes a flakier or better-tasting pie crust. Lard also makes the lightest and tastiest fried chicken: buttermilk, secret spices and ancient cast-iron skillets are all well and good, but the key to fried chicken greatness is lard.

Michael H. is all:

Electric Citizen - One of my earliest childhood memories was of my father's mother, a German immigrant, making doughnuts in her kitchen. She would make the dough, let it rise, roll it out, and use two glasses to punch out doughnut shapes (one for the doughnut, a smaller on for the hole).

She'd drop the doughnuts into a vat of hot lard atop her old gas stove. After a few moments, she'd turn the half-cooked doughnuts over with wooden dowels, then a minute later spear the hot doughnuts and drop them onto a plate. She'd sprinkle them with sugar, and as soon as they had cooled just enough to be picked up by small fingers, my cousins and I would each grab one and run to the porch.

The aroma of the doughnuts cooking in hot lard, and the melt-in-my-mouth sweetness of the fresh doughnuts has been so indelible imprinted that I cannot to this day, some 60 years later, smell doughnuts without recalling fond memories of my grandmother.

(Of course, she couldn't blog, so she never realized her full potential as a woman).

And suddenly, everyone is reminiscing about grandmas and cooking with lard.

Well, not everyone. Plenty are still going after Bartow. (And -- how unfair! -- there are zero comments chez Bartow.)

Ruth Anne says Bartow has used the old device of "insulting upward," which will get you traffic, but -- boo hoo! -- still no comments. I wonder why.

Henry said:

Can we assume from Ann Bartow's statement that what she doesn't quote she finds offensive? If so, here's what offends her (all quotes and emphasis from Ann's original post):

1. "It's unlikely that female lawprofs have a special disadvantage."

2. "You have 'disproportionate child care responsibilities' and you're a law professor and that's not your choice? Do something about it!"

3. Agreement! At least until Ann writes: "Stop whining, blaming others, looking for protectors, and blog... if you want to."

The inverse of these comments is that female law professors are at a special disadvantage, they're stuck with the kids, and they can't do anything about it.

In short, fish really do need bicycles and society is to blame.

Jdeeripper said:

Bartow also failed to explain what the hell "misogynistic exceptionalism" means.

Althouse is as exceptionally misogynistic?

Althouse thinks she is an exceptional woman and not like the other inferior women?

Althouse thinks she is so exceptional that only other people can be misogynistic not her?

I think she made the comment because 1. she didn't read the post in full and 2. she is winking to the other feminists that she knows Althouse is a traitor but she still wants to link to a post she partly agrees with.

Lurker80 said:

I find it interesting that Bartow linked to the whole Feministing scandal from 2006 as evidence that you are in part responsible for attacks against feminists. Amazing. As if feminists are not allowed to criticize each other. (Unless it's about Palin, because of course she's not a "real" feminist.)

Her link does bring back memories, though. I first learned of your blog through the Feministing controversy back when I was trying to determine whether I was a feminist at all. I'm so grateful that I stumbled upon this blog and learned that feminism is a broader category than Feministing and BitchPhD would have you believe.

Wurly said:

Margaret Thatcher? Misogynistic exceptionalism.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick? Misogynistic exceptionalism.

Sarah Palin? Misogynistic exceptionalism.

Basically, its a woman who succeeds on a foundation other than victimhood. That, in modern feminism's mind is "exceptional". The example that the "exceptional" woman sets--that you can succeed on your own terms without claiming the identity of a victim--sets back the cause of feminism, and is therefore misogynistic, because only modern feminism can speak for women. That's why Ann fits the category. Watch out Ann, I hear next week's Newsweek has a column explaining why you aren't really a woman.

Joan said:

I think Bartow thinks it's fair to call Ann misogynistic (anti-women) because as so many have noted already, Ann doesn't play along with the women-as-victim story.

I confess, I had to look up exceptionalism, and now I'm really stumped as to what Bartow means, because exceptionalism means (if I'm getting this right) that normal rules don't apply because you're special, that is, exceptional.

I think it is grammatically incorrect to use a negative modifier like "misogynistic" with "exceptionalism", which implies special treatment due to superiority. It's a contradiction in terms, unless Bartow means to say that it is Ann herself who wields her exceptionalism to further her misogynistic goals.

I've been reading here since the early days, and have never found Ann misogynistic although she does occasionally over-react to blogospheric slights. Labeling her with exceptionalism is a gross exaggeration, if that was Bartow's intention.

Does that represent Bartow's best work? That alone could explain why there are few prominent women law prof bloggers. If you came across Bartow first, you'd think, "Ick, who wants to read this?" and never click on her blog again. To be a successful blogger, it's not enough to have opinions, you have to express them clearly and support them as well. It also helps a lot if you don't whine.

Pogo said...

Misogynistic exceptionalism expialidocious!

Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
If you don't whine loud enough
You'll be called ferocious
Misogynistic exceptionalism expialidocious!!

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay

Because I was afraid to speak
When I was just a lass
My mother said I was too weak
And the ceiling it was glass
But then one day I learned a word
That saved my pretty ass
The biggest word I ever heard
And I stuff it in my bra:

Oooohhhh, Misogynistic exceptionalism expialidocious!!

UPDATE: Bartow finally got a comment, savaging me for writing "Women are ... prone to"... but oops... I didn't write that. Bartow omitted quotation marks or indenting to show that I quoted a phrase from the article I was writing about. Let's see if Bartow takes the trouble to correct her lone commenter. If not... pathetic, lame, unscrupulous.... And I want an apology for making it look like I wrote something I didn't write. And the person I was quoting was only laying down the conventional argument. Sigh.

Drive-by photography — L.A.

It wasn't all fisheye photography in L.A. I don't always have my big SLR camera at hand, but I do always have my Sony DSC-T9 at hand and often in hand — where it fits as easily as a deck of cards. It was fun to use the T9 from the passenger seat. Yes, on my trip to L.A., I had the benefit of never driving. So I was always looking at the scenery — fascinating, because we avoided the freeway — and seeing things to snap. Here are my 4 favorite drive-by shots:

1. (Enlarge.) A chance collage that seems to have everything: Marilyn, Elvis, the Beatles, a dog, an ATM machine, a traffic light, Thai food, Mexican food, a smiling guy waiting for the Metro, graffiti, "sop," "flo," "order now," a manly arm receiving a California tan. Yes, of course, it's cropped. (Uncropped.)



2. (Enlarge.) Like Madison, Wisconsin, and unlike NYC, L.A. has signs telling you the names of the neighborhoods. Here you see a sign for Thai Town. Under the sign are 2 women. Neither appears to be Thai. They look like hardworking individuals — do they have jobs that require white shirts and long blue pants? — waiting for the bus. The apt words "Working World" appear on a newspaper vending box. There's also the L.A. Times, and 2 women in shorts and flip-flops who don't seem to have to go to work. I love the colorful buildings — ocher and pink on one side and white-orange-blue Mondrian-inspired on the other. I love the checked sidewalk in pink, white, and 2 shades of gray. Fruit, palm trees, street lights, quintuple traffic lights. A very blue sky resonates with a blue sign that says "Western." There's a smaller sign that says "Hollywood/Western" and I know those are the intersecting streets, but it makes me think of a Hollywood western, and then I notice the black and white photographs of actressy models in the windows in the lower left corner and return to the rock-solid women waiting for the bus.



3. (Enlarge.) I only wanted to drive by Grauman's Chinese Theater, so my feelings vibrated with the pink-haired girl who was just trying to slurp up some caffeine and get home with her groceries. I love her squinty sneer as she slump walks past the Jack Sparrow impersonator and toward the hands (like mine) pointing a tiny camera at the scene. In a differently pink shirt, to the right of the shot, we see a woman who's happy to play the tourist and take a shot of her friend who's about to attempt a movie-star pose while standing on a sidewalk star. (And it would have been a better picture if we could see the friend posing, as we can in the next shot.)



4. (Enlarge!) On our way to LAX, we pass a famous icon, the giant doughnut at Randy's Donuts, that Wikipedia informs me — in a ludicrously somber tone — "dates back to a period during the mid-20th Century that saw a proliferation of programmatic architecturely designed buildings throughout Southern California that were made in the shape of the products they sold." And I'm not going to perseverate —or proliferate any programmatic perorations — about the proper spelling of "doughnut." It's "doughnut." I established that rock-solidly — architecturely? — here.

Okay, everybody, elbows up!

Inflatable Bucky is here on Bascom Mall today:



Wiggle around:



He's got free doughnuts. And — in musical form, at least — tequila:



IN THE COMMENTS: george says:

Your god, he is large and inflatable.

We of the internet, too, raise our elbows in a moment of silent respect.

As well you should. Does your school have a better idol? You know, I was driving to work this morning, radio tuned to XM 60s on 6 (as usual), and they were playing The Beach Boys singing "Be True to Your School." Listen here and pay attention at 1:14. Does your school have a better song? The answer is no!

titusyourmoma says:

Does inflatable Bucky do or represent anything or is he just for school spirit?

Inflatable Bucky will fulfill your wildest dreams... if you truly believe... and raise your elbows in a moment of silent respect.

Middle class guy says:

Free doughnuts? The fat police have not arrived in Madison yet?

We flout authority.

Madisonman say:

Wow — you can open your window. I'm jealous.

I'm going to make a list of 10 things I like most about New York (which I return to today) and 10 things I like least. Not being able to open my office windows might make the least-liked list.

All that noise would be very distracting.

Well, there isn't a marching band playing out there all the time. You know, from my house, I hear the marching band when it practices and when it plays at the stadium.

And speaking of doughnuts, why did Ozzy give up for doughnuts?

Holes and crime.

1. Someone punched a hole — a big fist-sized hole — in "Le Pont d'Argenteuil," an "invaluable," "magnificent masterpiece" by Claude Monet. Why? "It appears they were drunk," says the French Culture Minister. No one could just hate Impressionism that much. Imagine breaking in to a great museum — this was the Musee d'Orsay — and feeling like punching out one of the works of art. Is there a painting or sculpture out there that seems to you to be asking for it?

2. Meanwhile, in Farmington, Missouri, Scott A. Masters faces up to 30 years of prison after shoplifting a doughnut — or so it appears if you pick up your news from headlines. They also say he shoved the store clerk who tried to stop him, which makes it "strong-arm robbery." I'm sure there have been murders committed over doughnuts — and $5 Stetson hats. You go to prison for the murder. Masters — a fool — is talking to the press: "Strong-arm robbery? Over a doughnut? That's impossible. I've never had a violent crime in my life. And there's no way I would've pushed a woman over a doughnut." Any food you would push a woman over?

It was a cool and -- for me -- not hectic morning.

So that made it a good day to walk to work. (How fortunate I feel to have a job where I have to pause and think whether I want to write "walk to work" or "walk to school.") Along the way, the sky changed, so I got out my camera and took some shots at the peak of Observatory Drive:





Including this one of the observatory:



It was still rather sunny on Bascom Mall when I arrived at my destination:



There is the Beloved Donor Law School Building in the lower right quadrant of that last picture, and I was ensconced in the faculty library there, looking out on the mall when the storm hit. There were even doughnuts left over from this morning's Coffee and Doughnuts presentation. I'll have the glazed. And this coffee. And hours to go before I have to talk about Burnham v. Superior Court. Bliss!

"Cher (vitamin pill), Carrie Fisher (Brussels sprout)..."

"...Dick Vitale (melon), Ellen Barkin (shrimp), Homer Simpson (doughnut)" = celebrities and the things Heimliched out of them.

"Tom Brokaw (John Chancellor, Gouda cheese), Verne Lundquist (Pat Haden, broccoli), Pierce Brosnan (Halle Berry, fruit), Justin Timberlake (a friend, nuts), Billy Bob Thornton (his potbellied pig Albert, chicken Marsala)" = celebrities and who and what they Heimliched.

UPDATE: A beautifully written family Heimlich story.

"How do you make a case for trial lawyers to a bunch of 16 year olds?"

Lawprof "Oscar" goes to a local high school and debates about suing fast food restaurants for making people fat (and then stops for doughnuts on the way home).

Snow!

There's a light dusting of snow this morning, the first of the season. It brightens things up, like confectioner's sugar on a doughnut.

"So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax?"

Asks Maureen Dowd in an essay (not buried behind TimesSelect!) that agonizes over the dating and marriage prospects of powerful women:

[T]he aroma of male power is an aphrodisiac for women, but the perfume of female power is a turnoff for men. It took women a few decades to realize that everything they were doing to advance themselves in the boardroom could be sabotaging their chances in the bedroom, that evolution was lagging behind equality.

A few years ago at a White House correspondents' dinner, I met a very beautiful and successful actress. Within minutes, she blurted out: "I can't believe I'm 46 and not married. Men only want to marry their personal assistants or P.R. women."

Ah, who needs to get married if you can go to the White House correspondents' dinner and hang out with a beautiful actress!

After I first wrote on this subject, a Times reader named Ray Lewis e-mailed me. While we had assumed that making ourselves more professionally accomplished would make us more fascinating, it turned out, as Lewis put it, that smart women were "draining at times."

Or as Bill Maher more crudely but usefully summed it up to Craig Ferguson on the "Late Late Show" on CBS: "Women get in relationships because they want somebody to talk to. Men want women to shut up."

Women moving up still strive to marry up. Men moving up still tend to marry down. The two sexes' going in opposite directions has led to an epidemic of professional women missing out on husbands and kids.

So I've heard. Doesn't this make the men sound so unappealing that you wouldn't even want to marry them?

(Much more in the article, if you're interested in this sort of thing. It does include a sex tip involving a doughnut... if you're interested in that sort of thing.)

UPDATE: Don't miss the caption contest Drudge is running for the photograph of Dowd that appears with the essay. I'm sure the Althouse commenters can come up with better!

Morning on the 7th floor.

Tuesday morning, I arrive at my office on the Seventh Floor of Our Beloved Donor Law Building, grab my coffee mug (the one that doesn't tip over), and head over to the Lubar Faculty Library, where I put the mug in the coffee machine and hit the Large, Strong, and Start buttons. The machine grinds through its routine, and I wander about.

Hmmm.... the absence of doughnuts:



Thinking of what might have been, I gaze out the window:

Coffee and Donuts.

I prefer the spelling "doughnuts," but I'm writing "donuts," because, officially, we call what we do at the Law School "Coffee and Donuts." It's just a little morning session in the faculty library for students to listen to some faculty member talk about something or other, generally some activity aside from the usual Law School duties that the professor engages in. Today, at 8:30, I'm going to talk about blogging .

So, I need to get my act together a little earlier than usual this morning and must cut short this morning's blogging. But I'll be back later.

The tempting marketplace.

Obesity researchers are using mapmakers to graphically demonstrate that kids walk home from school past lots of places that sell the kind of food that makes them fat. Wouldn't it be better if there were only fruit stands?

Michele and Gene Burgese, who own Red's Hoagies across from Southwark, said they are happy to stock more fruit but doubt it will sell.

"Kids are kids," Michele Burgese said. "I don't think we ever sold an apple or banana to a kid," her husband said.

The only hope is to only sell fruit. Damn that free choice! People buy what they want. But if you smell fried chicken and doughnuts when you're walking down the street and hungry, you're going to want something lusciously fatty. I know what a fruit stand smells like. It doesn't make you feel like eating fruit. It makes you think I really should eat more fruit.

The hungry body feels powerfully drawn to foods that will pack on weight. This is the result of evolution in a world of scarce food, where people survived because strong instincts enabled them to zero in on the foods that would keep them going. We're not going to dawdle around this berry bush. We need to get something with fat and full of nourishment. Human organisms with an intense love of fruit died out in prehistoric famines.

The urge to eat fat is entirely healthy and normal. What is abnormal is that food is available everywhere. This is also a wonderful thing. Now, we're left to overcome our own healthy instincts because they've got a bad effect in our new, comfortable environment.

How can we possibly do that? Well, why are we not just saints in all aspects of our lives?

UPDATE: In the comments, there's a lot of discussion about whether it's better -- in fatness/slimness terms -- to live in the city or the suburbs.

A glamorous but slightly pervy rest stop on Route 90.

The Belvidere Oasis on Route 90 just north of Chicago is the most glamorous rest stop I've ever seen. It spans the highway, and you can get a Starbucks coffee and a Krispy Kreme doughnut and sit and watch the traffic stream underneath you:



They have two spiffy VW vans -- both with big Sponge Bob dolls in the front seats -- that each has four compartments filled with stuffed dolls to play that arcade game where you manipulate that gripper device to try to snag a prize before your time runs out:



Whoever loaded up the Flintstones compartment put the Betty Rubble dolls on top, face down, with their skirts pushed up so you could see their white underpants. And the one in front has a dirty fingerprint on the panties! (Click photo to enlarge.)



Oh, my!

Doughnuts and movies.

Why are we all gathered here this morning -- in the lovely Lubar Faculty Library at the University of Wisconsin Law School?



Well, for one thing, there are doughnuts.



Lots and lots of doughnuts. (I'm only photographing the leftovers!)



And Ralph Cagle is showing us clips from movies about law and lawyers.



See? It's Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinnie":



We do a "Coffee & Doughnuts" session on one subject or another most Thursdays during the semester. The idea is to show we're capable of thinking and talking about something other than law. Back at the beginning of the semester, I took part in one about blogging. So, at least for those students who are able to make it in early enough in the morning, we try to amuse you and ply you with sugar-glazed goodness.