Oh, And...

Christopher Lee got knighted.

Oh, And...

Hmmmmm.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pretty comprehensive.
(via Brilliant at Breakfast)

From the Daily Howler

1. New York Times science writer inserts irrelevance into article on the speed of light, and;
2. What Olbermann gets right (and what he gets wrong) about the health insurance situation.

Link to article (it's the same article) is here.

Two Things

1. We're having an anniversary.  Here's hoping we don't have to have the whole lesson all over again.
   

   Stagnant wages, shrinking personal savings, and record household debt, have created conditions similar to those in the Great Depression. The symptoms have been masked by the trillions in monetary and fiscal stimulus, and by the cheery talk in the media. But people are poorer and they are acting like it.
   

   With videos.
   
2. What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding.
   

   If anything, a draft makes any government's decision and ability to engage in destructive "wars of choice" more likely, not less (and Vietnam is but one example of that principle). Moreover, the American public's astonishing, even sickening, ability to remain apathetic and immovable even when heinous crimes are committed by their government has almost certainly increased immeasurably in recent decades. If the endless crimes committed by the Bush administration demonstrated nothing else, they surely demonstrated that. As the Bush administration launched two wars, were there massive, ongoing demonstrations, protests or, most importantly, systematic acts of civil disobedience? There were a few large protests before the Iraq invasion (which were almost entirely ignored), but otherwise, there was nothing. As the Bush administration tortured, brutalized and regularly set aside the most basic protections of individual liberty, and did all this in broad daylight, did outraged citizens bring government to a standstill, demanding that these depredations cease? They did not.
   

   
   

The right fears a Nanny State precisely because they can't help, um, soiling their own beds in the morning.

Remembering History

Scott Horton on the reason for knowing exactly what Stalin wrought.

In America today, the name and image of Stalin are invoked heavily by fringe critics of Barack Obama. The critics disagree with his policies on health care and see in it the basis for increasing power of the state. The role the state will play in the healthcare system is a legitimate political issue on which well-informed citizens can have different views. But the comparison to Stalin makes clear that these critics really have no inkling of who Joseph Stalin was, what he did, and why his name lives in special infamy at hallowed spots like the pit at Chon Tash.

Tutorial with Santayana

It's déj
à
vu all over again.

THE highly decorated general sat opposite his commander in chief and explained the problems his army faced fighting in the hills around Kabul: “There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another,” he said. “Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize.

The sauce was OK, but I forgot the ginger and the chicken Italian sausage and apparently didn't crush nearly enough garlic... The mushrooms were successful, though.

In the process of cooking up red sauce with meat.  Later.

Philosophy

Arthur Silber on definitions, political paradigms, and living ecstatically.

A taste:

I note that I well understand the concerns that prompt IOZ's question, "why must you call yourselves anything at all?" -- which is in part why I always offer an explanation, however brief, as to precisely what I mean by the terms I employ, excepting only those contexts in which the meaning should be obvious. But using terms such as those I utilize here and in the above excerpts is not only useful, but unavoidable. We do, in fact, live in a particular culture at a particular time. All terms, including those of political self-description, have associations and meanings, even when they are vague and approximate, or represent even dubious connections. That is why it behooves us to explain what we mean when we use them. In the political context, we are building on thought which has evolved over hundreds, even thousands, of years. In significant part, we thus formulate our views in response to how those ideas have altered over time, as well as to how societies have changed. And when we conclude it is necessary or desirable, we reshape those ideas and their associated terms to our own ends, and/or we alter the terms we employ as required.

I enjoy the meticulous way he sets up his arguments whether I agree with him or not. (Also, a day or so ago, he had a clip of Noel Coward doing a song with which I was unfamiliar.)

Why we fought a revolution.

Sample:

It seems to me we fought a revolution over this kind of exploitation, the attitude that “you little people are here to serve us aristocratic foks.” The economic exploitation of colonies is a theme which runs deep through British colonial history, and one often hears the argument that this is what led to the fall of the British empire. How ironic these arguments are now parroted by America's free-market conservatives, our own home-grown brand of elites who confuse greed with patriotism.

No Rooting Interest, But Here's the Balance Beam

Aside from the previously mentioned Swisher/Damon/Stairs/Blanton:

Chad Gaudin, Pitcher, Y
Pedro Martinez, Pitcher, P
Miguel Cairo, Shortstop, P
Mike Harkey, Bullpen Coach, Y
Davey Lopes, 1B Coach, P
Mr. Damon was on the 2004 Red Sox.
Mr. Blanton was on the 2008 Phillies. [ETA: As was Mr. Stairs. Huh.]
Mr. Swisher was on the early oughts contending A's.

Too close to call.  Marginally favoring Phillies.

All We Are Saying...

One of the Velveteen Rabbi's reports on the J Street conference, which is Muslims, Jews, and Christians working for peace.  (I wonder if that's the Maureen Shea I went to school with...?  Naaaaahhh!)

Malcolm Gladwell Article in The New Yorker

On concussions and football.

“We were in the cold tub, which is, like, forty-five degrees, and he starts passing out. In the cold tub. I don’t know anyone who has ever passed out in the cold tub. That’s supposed to wake you up. And I’m, like, slapping his face. ‘Richie! Wake up!’ He said, ‘What, what? I’m cool.’ I said, ‘You’ve got a concussion. You have to go to the hospital.’ He said, ‘You know, man, I’m fine.’ ” He wasn’t fine, though. That moment in the cold tub represented a betrayal of trust. He had taken the hit on behalf of his team. He was then left to pass out in the cold tub, and to deal—ten and twenty years down the road—with the consequences. No amount of money or assurances about risk freely assumed can change the fact that, in this moment, an essential bond had been broken. What football must confront, in the end, is not just the problem of injuries or scientific findings. It is the fact that there is something profoundly awry in the relationship between the players and the game.

Dogfighting is also woven in.

ETA:  The NFL's study and whether its methodology is flawed.

Oh Well

I see the Yankees are going to the Series.

Phils v. Yanks last happened in 1950 (Philadelphia in those days still had two teams), and the Yankees swept.

So far on my ex-A, ex-Met, extra points for championship teams (that would be the '86 Mets and the '89 Athletics) factor scale, Johnny Damon and Nick Swisher balance out Joe Blanton and Matt Stairs.  Research is indicated.

Sighting at an Apple Store:

A performance of MacBeth in which the actors read the script off iPhones.

Huh?

The Swedish royal family/house?

MBA Crybabies

I can't even begin to describe the profundity of the contempt I have for the executives who plundered the pockets of Americans, profited richly from their high-class pyramid schemes, fucked the economy in the process, got bailed out by the American taxpayers, and now balk at any suggestion their business should be more tightly regulated (i.e. regulated at all) or that they should make a little less money. Disgusting.

Via Shakesville, referring to execs jumping ship ahead of pay cuts.  As in "We'll have to tighten our belts and give up the third yacht, dear."

In Memoriam

Soupy Sales, comedian.

Firetruck.

Reform 101

Stoneself explains the health care reform effort situation.  (It's not for you; it's for me.)

Fourth in the Series

Sometimes, I'm just so frustrated I have to scream.

Giant Rat of Where, Again?

Well, the Phillies beat the Dodgers to win the pennant and advance to the World Series.  The Yankees and Angels play tomorrow.  We shall see.

Also, Sara Paretsky talks about V. I. Warshawski and the new book.

Also:

The fall's new moon, with
nameless blimp in silhouette
floating overhead.

We're a Political Blog

"We're coming to your town,
we'll help you party down,
we're a political blog!"

(Tune:  "We're an American Band," and I could probably further filk it if I felt like it, but my brain is lying on the floor and panting at me.)

1. Via Mills River Liberal, this piece from Consortium News on "The Politics of the Public Option."  A sample:
   

   What the industry does want is a bill that forces nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, including healthy young people, to buy private insurance, many with government subsidies, a potential bonanza. The industry also wants the federal government to act as the enforcer to coerce these people by hitting them with stiff fines if they don’t sign up.
   

   
   
2. Dr. Grumpy on the medical business and the warpage attendant thereupon:
   

   At a meeting to address these concerns the floor manager was asked why this problem kept occurring. She explained to us that her year-end bonus was based on how far under-budget the floor was, and that she needed to run the floor understaffed because she was trying to afford a down payment on a new car.
   

   
   

Any questions? (Besides why all this extra space has been inserted even though I've deleted blank lines 3 times already.)  ETA:  Fixed; thanks! to Daisy.

An Observation

From Politics After 50:  Medicare not broken.

(And the occasional fraud cases appear to be doctors, mostly.)

In Memoriam

Vic Mizzy, songwriter.

Creepy, spooky, mysterious, kooky, altogether ooky.  Because "I get allergic smelling hay."

Step Out in the Night...

So I found myself climbing into the shower and hum-singing "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed," which is what I do when Richie Havens enters my thoughts and I can't quite manage "Run Shaker Life."

I hope I'm not having a premonition, but it occurs to me that it has been many years since I've heard anything by him other than the version of "Freedom" he sang at Woodstock.

Luckily, he too has a website (which plays "Freedom" when you open it), and this time I'm making a note of it.

Current tour schedule stays east of the Rockies.

(crossposted to other blog)

The 700 Club

First:  Digby calls out the media.  And about time.  

If you don't hear the derision in those comments [a previously quoted exchange]... you aren't listening. And it's coming from allegedly liberal journalists pretending to have some direct conduit to a Real America that Democrats and "the left" just don't understand. You hear it over and over again. But these aren't liberals in any operational sense. They are wealthy, celebrity aristocrats donning "country garb" and pretending to be serfs at the harvest festival.  [editorial interpolation mine]

Second:  This is approximately my 700th post here and I continue to find it fun to throw links onto the screen to see if they stick.  It's the on-line equivalent of the long-lost and -forgotten spiral notebook at long-gone Labyris Books, originally for recommendations for books.  (Sometimes I think of the whole blogosphere that way.)  I mostly post political stuff here, when I post political stuff (it's important and it makes you want to tear out your hair and scream and retreat to Monty Python, am I right?  Nudge nudge), and, for those new to this venue, baseball, music, and anything I feel like.  Comments for the first ten days are open; after that they're moderated, so if you want to pick a fight with me about the Czech t-shirt?  I check moderation once a day. Usually.  If you comment and my response is laughter or "Yes, that's right," I will generally not write out a comment; comments are for your voices, all seven of you.  I  journal elsewhere, usually with different material.  And that's enough about me.

Third:  It has finally dawned on me that I really need to combine the Time Insensitive and Blog 'n' Roll, but don't want to have to do all that by-hand transfer.  Also, I am very, very tired of "All the Single Ladies."  If ya liked it, then ya shoulda put the Cone of Silence on it.

Glimpse

A brief recollection of mid-20th century Afghanistan.

History of the "Bloody Shirt"

Or "Bullies Painting Themselves as Victims." Also known as "You're all picking on me! And I didn't do nothing! And that quote's a lie, and they said it was OK!"

Dave Neiwert points out:

To Bill O'Reilly and Juan Williams and the rest of the Fox crew, the outrage is never the atrocities they actually uttered, only the effrontery of having those atrocities held against them. They all want to make a victim of the bully and a bully of the victim. Their narrative is that the real story is not the atrocities that Rush Limbaugh utters but only the attempt by his political enemies to make political hay out of it.

And he quotes Stephen Budiansky's The Bloody Shirt: Terror After the Civil War (excerpted by the NY Times) about the bloody garment canard:

Once again the beating was a fact, the alleged Northern reaction to it a fantasy. Furious at the insult to Southern honor Sumner had committed in a speech attacking slavery and the morality of the slave owner, South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks had approached Sumner in the Senate chamber, stood over his desk, and beat him on the head thirty times with his gold-headed cane until Sumner crumpled to the floor in a pool of his own blood.

And sure enough, Southerners were soon saying that Sumner’s bloody coat had become a revered “holy relic” in Yankee and abolitionist circles. Sumner, they said, had carried his own blood-encrusted garment to England to show the Duchess of Argyle, when she invited him to dinner; had placed it in the hands of an awe-struck John Brown, before his fateful raid on Harper’s Ferry; had put it on public display in Exeter Hall. “All the abject whines of Mr. Sumner, for being well whipped,” wrote one Southerner in 1856, a few months after the event, “all the exhibitions of his bloody shirt to stale Boston virgins who, in vexation of having failed to secure a man, would now wed a Sumner, have proved futile.” Years later, years after the Civil War, scornful stories about Northerners exhibiting Sumner’s bloody shirt were still being circulated in the South. Not a scrap of it was true.

There's more.

Promoting

I added FWD/Feminists With Disabilities yesterday, and get to promote a language-related post today! All right! But all the articles (so far) are engaging and interesting. Go read!

Oh, OK. A taste:

So, if someone says “this television show is lame” and you turn the sentence into “this television show has difficulty walking,” it doesn’t really make sense, right? Just like when you say “this social activity which I am being forced to do by my parent is a homosexual man,” it doesn’t really make sense. And this should tell you something. It should tell you that the word you are using has an inherently pejorative meaning.

Running up to the 700th Post

Loquaciousness, c'est moi, as long as the Internal Censor is off having pizza with other people's Internal Censors, networking to decrease what can be said. In the last week or so I ran across a couple of "Why do I do this blog thing?" things and since I don't really have an answer for that, other than as an outpost for my style of silliness, I give you two of the questioners: Daisy and Sady.

Also: The Removes. (Like The Ramones, only with blood.)

South Carolina Politics

Senator Lindsey Graham at a town hall meeting in Greenville, SC via Daisy's Dead Air.

Quote of the Day

"Who says Republicans aren't good conservationists? They recycle more useless shit than anyone else I know."

--Melissa McEwan, Shakesville.

Context.

The CBC's Idea of the 10 Funniest Monty Python Sketches

For however long they're up, ten YouTube videos of Monty Python sketches and bits from movies, and I have to say right up front that you should not watch the Mr. Creosote vid if you are either eating, planning to eat, or finished with your meal. Just saying.

State of the Playoffs

Let me see. The Yankees swept, the Angels swept, and the Dodgers swept. That leaves Philadelphia and Colorado (what, they couldn't use Denver as the team name? No baseball fans could find Denver or whatever suburb they're using on a map? Denver. Denver, Denver, Denver!) and Philly might win tonight. As might the Rockies. Some suspense might be nice.

[ETA: Phillies won.]

Of course, at least one sportswriter has leapfrogged the pennant playoff.

Baseball needs a World Series for the ages, one that reinforces its roots and, yes, its relative purity. Granted, this is a lot to ask one World Series matchup to accomplish, but baseball needs an authentic fall classic.

It needs Yankees-Dodgers, for the good of the game.

Excuse me while I remove sharp objects from the vicinity.

This guy is a chowderhead. Because, "the good of the game," my gluteus maximus. "The good of the game" translates into "putting the steroid era behind us" and "restoring the purity and innocence of the game." (My quotes, not his, not that that isn't what he means.) I can't find now the snarky remark I made years ago that media executives would prefer a Yankees-Dodger World Series every year for the ratings, but the moaning over the low ratings of the World Series when it's held anywhere else indicates exactly that, and the only reason the championships are not abolished in favor of Yankees/Dodgers every year is that that makes it too clear that the fix is in. You know, for "the good of the game." (I think we can dismiss the purity and innocence arguments on their face. It's 2009, people.)

Guess Who?

Aaaauuugh! [drama pose] Fafblog! [/drama pose]

Q: What about bombing their cities and burning their children and raping their livestock and feeding their people to thousands of millions of man-eating ants and piling their skulls into a heaping bonfire on the White House lawn while the President and the Cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff dance naked in circles ejaculating wildly into the flesh-filled smoke? Is that on the table?
A: It would be irresponsible for this option not to be on the table, given that all other options, as we have said, are on the table.
Q: What about leaving Iran alone? Is that on the table?
A: No. That is not on the table, because it is not an option.
Q: Are you sure? It looks like an option.
A: It may look like an option, but in fact it is the East Tunisian mock option, which over the course of many years has evolved to mimic the distinctive coloring and plumage of the true American option, in order to better evade and intimidate predators.

Happy birthday, Mr. Lennon.

Schooling

Mr. Krugman speaks of learning.

The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.

On the right, that result is probably desirable.

Unexpected Music

OK. It is not yet 7:00 am EDT and President Obama has just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Wow!

I suppose I'm being persnickety.

Asked why the prize had been awarded to Mr Obama less than a year after he took office, Nobel Committee head Thorbjoern Jagland said: "It was because we would like to support what he is trying to achieve".
"It is a clear signal that we want to advocate the same as he has done," he said.
He specifically mentioned Mr Obama's work to strengthen international institutions and work towards a world free of nuclear arms.

Interesting. The conservatives will probably hold that against him, too. [Edited because pessimism in the morning uncalled for.]

On Coups

Noli Irritare Leones puts together a short primer on coups with particular attention to the March 2009 coup in Madagascar.

Quotation is from the Oxford Council on Good Governance, which is cited in the above posting [OCGG Security Recommendation No. 4 on the Mauritanian coup of 2005(.pdf)]:

The US has in this context pursued a short-sighted policy towards Mauritania. This policy guided by fixed principles and the focus on fighting against a perceived Islamist terrorist threat in Mauritania without respect for and knowledge of the specific Mauritanian context, was doomed to fail and gave rise to last week’s events.

What's Going On

1. The Twins beat Detroit Tuesday and were beat by the Yankees Wednesday and are now resting up; also there seems to be (as seen in Modell's sports clothes store at the mall) serious Swisher fandom in Yankeedom. (That's two first basemen the Yankees have gotten from the Athletics lately, and Giambi is kicking around somewhere post-release. You think they'd learn...)


2. Irving Penn, photographer.


3. Via Brilliant at Breakfast, Keith Olbermann talks about health care and the current system.

   Olbermann is the kind of rich, famous person who gives Republicans fits, because he hasn't lost his soul just because he's got some money. Here's a man who recently lost his mother to breast cancer, and has spent much of the last month navigating the health care system with his ailing father, to whom he appears to be clinging like a shipwreck survivor clutching at a fragment of deck chair.



4. From the Daily Herald, via sirriamnis, via supergee: Kid smacked (verbally) down by alleged adult lawyer over library.

   "I used to go to the library knowing there were people there to help me find a book. Now there is no one to help me," Sydney said solemnly. "It will never be the same without the people you fired."
   
   Sydney nestled back into her seat, but that didn't stop 69-year-old criminal attorney Constantine "Connie" Xinos from boldly putting her in her place.
   
   "Those who come up here with tears in their eyes talking about the library, put your money where your mouth is," Xinos shot back. He told Sydney and others who spoke against the layoffs of the three full-time staffers (including the head librarian and children's librarian) and two part-timers to stop "whining" and raise the money themselves.

   Mr. Xinos himself:

   "You may like the library, but when you call 9-1-1, you want a policeman or a fireman before someone to tell you where the books are in the library," says the man who has talked of privatizing, outsourcing or even closing the library.
   
   "I understand that my philosophy is conservative," Xinos says, adding that government just needs to catch bad guys, put out fires, fix the streets and make sure buildings are sturdy.
   
   He campaigned, successfully, against a plan to bring subsidized housing for seniors into town by declaring, "I don't want to live next to poor people. I don't want poor people in my town."
   
   A poor kid who grew up in Berwyn and worked in his dad's cafeteria in Chicago, Xinos went to law school and served in the Marines.

   Maybe he was shushed by a librarian. Ya think?

Alive and Well

Lower Manhattanite, that is.

(It's pretty hot.)

In Memoriam

Sarah E. Wright, writer.

Ms. Wright’s novel was among the first to focus on the confluence of race, class and sex. Republished by the Feminist Press in 1986 and again in 2002, “This Child’s Gonna Live” remains in print today.

Rundown

Tigers and Twins are tied (fit to be, anyway) and will perform the 1-game playoff dance (yes) Tuesday.

In Memoriam

In alphabetical order:

• Marek Edelman, commander in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising;
• Mr. Magic, deejay;
• Donal McLaughlin, graphic designer;
• Douglas Watt, theater critic.

We're Not Children Anymore

The second part of what Arthur Silber was saying this week. A paragraph:

I do not maintain that these issues are obvious; I have remarked before that it took me several years of intensive reading and thinking to grasp them as I do now. But the truth of this overall argument is no more "secret" than the allegedly "secret" information upon which the Daddy State relies when it decides to hurl us into the abyss. But the Daddy State desperately wants you to believe that it possesses "special, secret information" which you can never access. In this way, the Daddy State maintains and expands its power, as it commands obedience from subjects who are forever condemned to ignorance on the most momentous questions.

Speaking of Baseball

Colorado has clinched the NL Wildcard, and is still contending in the Western Division. The Tigers and Twins seem determined to take it down to the wire.

And Jerry Izenberg, columnist emeritus at the Newark Star-Ledger, writes about Pop Lloyd Weekend in Atlantic City, the reunion of Negro League players, who grow few and old.

They gather this weekend accompanied by tunes of glory. The gray hair will fade, the waistlines will melt and their laughter and their tears will say to all of us:
‘‘Never forget we were here. Never forget we were history. Never forget that the past we forged was America’s prologue.’’

Speaking of the Emperor's Wardrobe

Driftglass is so very On the Case.

Villagers: But isn't saying mean things about Republicans just as bad as praying to Allah for the Sun to explode?

No.

Villager: Isn't saying mean things about Republicans as bad as setting fire to a bus full of widows with an Easter Bunny!

No.

Villagers: Feeding live babies to a dog?

No.

James Carville: Boy howdy, ah tell you at least this man haid the guts to come right ohn The Situation Room ™ and say what he said!

Wolf Blitzer: Yes. He did come on The Situation Room ™.

Villagers: Yes. Yes. How very brave of him come on the The Situation Room ™.

Yesterday

Chick chicky boom chick chicky boom chick chicky boom.

And now I need to email people and practice yelling "Get off my lawn!"

Rock-tober

Phillies have clinched. Boston is the AL Wildcard. There don't look to be any come-from-behind or sudden-collapse surprises this year. Darn.