Vanilla Decadence

I was crossing the street on my way home this evening when I chanced (well, no, they were talking loud enough close enough for me to hear without any effort on my part) to overhear a conversation about Augustus Caesar and his successors (they remembered the existence but not the name of Tiberius; of course they knew of Caligula, but they thought that Nero came directly after, and I could not let that pass).  I mentioned (in reminding them of Claudius) Tacitus, Dio Cassius, Suetonius and the TV series, and apparently one of them has been listening to a recording of I, Claudius.  But lately she has OD'ed on Roman intrigue. So she's watching The Tudors.

I mention that to remind the avatars of Suetonius, Dio Cassius, and Tacitus that they are still on the case, historically speaking.

That was serious fog this morning.  I mean capital-F, capital-O, capital-G.

First Subbasement

Chris Floyd reported a couple of days ago on the Chilcot Inquiry:

The documentary evidence shows that every single purported reason or justification for the war -- the WMD, connections to 9/11, the repressive nature of Saddam's regime -- was false to the core, and known to be false by the leaders who put these explanations forward.

and:

The right honorable minister might consider asking the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by the invasion and by the virulent extremists it loosened and empowered: would you want to go back to what existed -- i.e., you -- before 20 March 2003? The right honorable minister might want to ask the more than four million people driven from their homes by the war and the savage sectarian conflicts and "ethnic cleansing" it unleashed and abetted: would you want to go back to what existed before 20 March 2003? The right honorable minister might want to ask the tens of millions of Iraqis who have lost their loved ones: would you want to go back to what existed before 20 March 2003 -- and see if there were any alternatives for a better life other than a massive, unprovoked military invasion, mass death, mass destruction, chaos, collapse, civil war and violent terror from occupiers, mercenaries, sectarians and criminals?

FYI

Orcinus is back.

In Memoriam

Fred Morrison, who invented the Pluto Platter, which we know as the Frisbee.

Quickie

1. Pitchers and catchers report in 5 days, and Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas have retired.  (The latter played here for a year and didn't hurt much; got hurt, of course.)
2. The fabulous bugsybanana has compared the Democratic Party as a whole to the Washington Generals, and I think she has a point.  Ow.  (Article she's referencing is here.  Wikipedia article is here.

Two More Things

• Black women pilots, not stopping with Bessie Coleman.  Via The Root.
  

  Among other members are Sheila Chamberlain who was the United States Army’s first African-American female intelligence combat pilot, serving active duty during Grenada/Panama Invasion and Persian Gulf War. Major General (Ret.) Dr. Irene Trowell-Harris was the first African-American woman in the National Guard’s history to become a general officer, and the first woman to have a Tuskegee Airman Chapter and a mentoring Award named in her honor. And Shirley Tyus is the first officer to fly the Boeing 777 for United Airlines on routes from United States to France. She is also, United Airlines’ first African-American female pilot.
  
  As a Military Intelligence pilot, president Beverly Armstrong took a stint in Korea for a military intelligence mission on the Nor. Korean border, where she was recruited by the Air Force International Guard and became the first African-American woman they ever sent to flight training. “I don’t think that we have put a spotlight on the fact that Bessie Coleman made her contribution actually two years before Amelia Earhardt [American History’s note of first female pilot],” says Armstrong. “Bessie Coleman made her contribution almost 100 years ago and we have less than one woman a year to show for it!”

• Skippy on the (political) tea baggers:
  

  most telling of all is [Canadian conservative] mr. kay's realization that, as we in blogtopia (ywctp) have posited elsewhere, the multi-millionaire media managed to ignore the bulk of crazy in nashville, and concentrated on star power, cleaning up the entire proceedings for mass consumption:
  

  perhaps the most distressing part of all is that few media observers bothered to catalog these bizarre, conspiracist outbursts, and instead fixated on sarah palin's saturday night keynote address. it is as if, in the current overheated political atmosphere, we all simply have come to expect that radicalized conservatives will behave like unhinged paranoiacs when they collect in the same room.

  well, the left has. we're not sure about the pundit class.
  
  or capt. america, either.

Serious Business

Lower Manhattanite on the earthquake in Haiti.  Read it.  It's long, it's excellent, and in a decent universe would already have a Pulitzer.

(The fact that one of the best writers going today is not doing columns at "influential" dailies and [unnamed hacks] are is the reason I laugh when I hear about the alleged death of newspapers.)

Inviting ID to Prove It, Buster

Another reader of Harper's points out soft Intelligent-Design underbelly.

A Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Alike

So I'm I think in the shower.  I hear a clock radio start up.  I get out of the bathroom.  The upstairs south side of my parents' house has been grafted to the back of my apartment.  My mother and a baby are in the apartment's bedroom (I have no idea who the baby is).  I turn on the light and explain that [my brother] has to use the bathroom.  Mom reminds me that [my brother] is actually dead.

Two Things

jurassicpork goes wild:

House Minority Leader John Boehner, speaking through a sign language interpreter as he held his breath, said, "If the President doesn't think that our plan to cover only 6,000,000 out of 47,000,000 uninsured people isn't a good start, then our counter strategy is simply to hold our breath until he notices there's another sheriff in town and that's the GOP."

Rep. Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor did not rule out the possibility that the breath holding strategy would not be followed up by foot-stamping or pants-wetting.

Note: See title of posting first.

In the annals of patronization, some are accused and some merit the accusation; skippy provides prime fodder for investigation.

but now we come to the money quote, the very reason we wrote this piece to begin with. in answering a question about semantics (which basically posited that every political view argues that it is right, and condescension is inherently involved therein), alexander comes up with this gem:

i'm unaware of conservatism's top leaders and main establishment voices arguing that modern liberalism is structurally and systematically distorted and invalid.

now, bear in mind that alexander dismisses glenn beck as a "gadfly," so we assume he'd do the same to the example of rush limbaugh or ann coulter or michelle malkin.

however, we find it disingenuous of alexander to use markos moulitsas as an example in his original column, and then establish the parameter of "conservatism's top leaders and main establishment voices" as the only valid examples to be able to use in the debate.

What I always hear when I'm being condescended at is that possibility x might work very well in closed situations such as academia, but won't fly in real life.

And yet what I hear from conservatives is that their possibility x will work because self-interest, personal responsibility, or the honor system in open situations will insure success in real life.

Um, no.

And we shouldn't have to repeat the lesson every second generation.

Surprise!

Like a broken heart, boredom can actually contribute to death.  (via Making Light)

I think in The Forbidden Tower, someone remarks "The mind writes deeply in the body," and evidence for that statement keeps dribbling out.

In Serious News

Pitchers and Catchers report in 12 days.

Thump Thump

Which should remind me to write down knock-knock jokes next time.

Anyway.  Driftglass pinpoints what Andrew Sullivan Will Not See.

Because every bit as much as any Birther flake or Death Panel stooge -- every bit as much as Sarah Palin -- Andrew " Reagan-Thatcher pragmatic Christian Tory" Sullivan hangs onto his position and paycheck only by tirelessly hawking his own brand of discredited, self-absolving, self-deluding revisionist bullshit ("Bush Betrayed 'Real' Conservatism"). Mr. Sullivan dresses his crackpottery up by nudging the time-line back a little bit, but the object is the same: to exempt himself from the same, harsh judgment he wants to lavish on the Palinites by excusing himself from the much larger and more destructive crime of helping to create the environment in which moral monsters like the Palinites could flourish.

And because Mr. Sullivan builds his critique of the Palinites on fundamentally corrupt ground, his observations of them not only come across as deeply dishonest, but also loudly and unintentionally hilarious.

And then Drifty goes to town.

Warning:  Strong language and Dave Chapelle performing a bigot.

Bloomin' Subconscious

Apparently when sudoku is being particularly intransigent, I become a Monster of Filk, although the only thing I remembered was "On Top of Mount Wicca."  (And only that line.)

About a Slogan

The slogan is "The personal is political."

I've heard it for almost 40 years now.

flip flopping joy's bfp, in the context of the death of Gloria Anzualda and her own coping strategies, analyzes the motto's meaning and how it has changed. Brief sample:

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. The personal is political as an organizing strategy was NEVER meant to be what it has become today. In a world where “choices” and boot straps dominate our ideology, I’m not surprised that the “personal is political” has become about lipstick wars and “what choices will best support the movement” show downs.

But that’s not what the concept ever meant or what it was intended to interrogate (personal choices). In fact, as an ideology, it explicitly refused to interrogate women’s choices–as it argued the choices women make are all choices of survival. Some may be privileged choices that are made by women who are further away from the burn of survival than other women are–but they are still choices of survival.

[crossposted to Dreamwidth]

Politicians Behaving Badly

Via Daisy's Dead Air: Jenny Sanford has written a book.  Daisy Deadhead's reaction:

But this is the logical end-result of the Republican-approved family, in which the wife dutifully takes the husband's lead and obeys his orders. What other power does she have, except simpering and martyrdom and inducing the hubby's guilt to get what she wants? Us loud gals here in the south who dare to ask men questions, are the "bad" girls, against which women like Sanford are judged. WE demand answers of men, so in contrast, they do not. See? They are the nice girls.

And we see what being nice gets you, hm?

But wait! There's more!

Andrew Young (no, the campaign aide) has also written a book in which no one comes off well.  (There's a stack of haloes in Heaven marked "Returned for fit."  Trust that.)

One thing I like about the speed of our modern era: we used to have to wait YEARS to get these fabulous scandal-mongering books about presidential campaigns. Now, the campaign workers are racing to their laptops to type them out before the concession speeches have even been given...

Not Cynical Enough

Scott Horton on the Department of Defense caught in its own lies by Seton Hall University law faculty and students.

The more the DOD speaks, the less sense its story makes. There is a great deal more in the Seton Hall report, and I urge readers—and reporters—to download the whole thing.

Something in the Air

Accidental Hedonist makes something of the same point I made about food last year.

Link originally from cofax7 on someone's Network page at Dreamwidth.

Happy Blogroll Amnesty Day!

I left a comment at skippy's, but I still want to thank anyone I added in the last year; you've been terrific to read and great folks to know!  And thanks to the readers and the lurkers.  I hope I have either entertained you or made you think.

May you be blessed.

Light Programme

Please remove all beverages and food from the area and swallow anything in your mouth.  Twice.  Clear your nasal passages.  Your keyboard and screen will thank you.

Thank you.

An Englishman in New York.

In honor of fannish foreigners; why they haven't killed us, we'll never know...

Warning:  There is sexism.  British humor sexism, but sexism.

An excerpt:

Finally, I am out of the Death Zone and into the Zone Of Perpetual Terror. I've been drenched, burned, ridiculed, deafened and ran-over twice, but it's all worth it, because I now get to spend nine hours in constant fear of losing my job. In England, provided you're not in the service industry, it's ludicrously hard to get sacked. Americans, however, have this thing called At-Will Employment, which basically means that an employer can fire you if he's uncomfortable with the size of your eyebrows.

Hallu-hallu-cina-cina-cina-tion-tion-tion

[Beginning of dream, with credits, lost.]

A friend and I are at a house, working on something (we are clutching stuff, but what the stuff is is gone) and talking (subject gone) for a while.  I discovered that the ceiling is leaking onto a bed (there is a circumstance in which that has actually happened, but this isn't the place).  The friend, sounding like my mom (paging Dr. Freud!  Dr. Freud to the red courtesy phone!), complained about my inability to get anything done and eventually directed me up a flight of stairs with ratty carpeting (instead of the folding ladder, which exists but isn't used in the dream) to a secret (and open) door at a half stair part of the way up.  Instead of mostly empty space just under the roof, there is a storage warehouse.  Really.  Except for the part over the bed, which didn't exist.  There were shouts from downstairs; that turned out to be either my sister and brother-in-law or two other friends (maybe they morphed a lot).  The female of the pair announced her pregnancy, with synonyms, and then we all had to leave.  Somehow, we got on a train and agreed not to go all the way to Penn Station, and I saw abandoned stations and sidings, and then I woke up.

Huh.

Not That We've Seen Any...

Via Mills River Progressive:  Special training to deal with "unruly people."

Beware of the Leopard!

Job hunting, magickal thinking, and conservative shibboleths.

Thanks to Republic of T.

February 3 is Coming

Wednesday is Blogroll Amnesty Day!




Because...

Also, I need to replace a few blogs and probably consolidate a couple of lists because Things Have Changed.  And I may need to expose the recipe for Gizzards to the outside world.

Watch skippy for details.

And the Journalists Are Part of the Problem

As noted by the Daily Howler, re: last week's NY Times thinkpieces (all right, one showed disengagement of cogitation, but it was supposed to) by the Friedman and the Dowd.

Friedman begged for adult conduct from our “political and financial elites.” As is standard in the press corps, he didn’t mention his own journalistic elite, which was clowning in typical ways right across the page from his column

Blink

Americans voting against their own interests--via the BBC.

"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.
"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

(Quote from Thomas Frank, who is cited in the second half of the article.)

Ms. Roberts at Transgriot For The Win

Schooling a black female Republican (giving the commenter being educated the benefit of the doubt).

But the women I admire such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), the late Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-TX), the late Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the late Audre Lorde, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Jasmyne Cannick, Dr. Marisa Richmond and the late Coretta Scott King stand and stood up for what is right, not right wing.

And then it gets good.

(In case you're wondering:  Because in the election of the Massachusetts Republican Brown to the Senate, the existence of a previous Republican Senator from Massachusetts is mentioned only in terms of how long ago it was.  Senator Edward W. Brooke has practically been erased.)

Simple Mathematical and Procedural Considerations

that the Senate has been obscuring and/or trying to ignore.

All he had to do to make the pain of throttled legislation stop, was make the Republicans actually show what things they were against. Make them stake some claim to principles larger than, "preventing the Democratic Party from doing anything."

Now, with the election of Brown, we have to listen to all that balderdash about, "the needed 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate."

Well, it ain't so. All that needs to happen is to use a tactical nuke. Don't change the number on cloture. Let them have their ability to hold the floor open. But make it a real filibuster again. None of this gentlemen's agreement to have morning filibusters and afternoon sessions. Nope

You'd think Chancellor Palpatine really was the Senate...

Thanks to pecunium.

Short and Sweet

From Avedon Carol's The Sideshow, because it deserves repeating:

You know, it really is stupid to think that moving the Overton Window farther and farther to the right is harmless. It is not harmless to let people think that spending on good things (stimulus, Social Security, real universal health care) is bad for the economy, but spending on bad things (stupid wars, subsidies to bloated corporations) is vital and necessary. It is not harmless to buy into the same right-wing memes that have brought us to our current crisis in the first place. It is not harmless to refuse to fight back against lies that the only problem is spending, and that it's spending that the public is against. The public's problem isn't that we aren't being mean enough.

The public is against spending when "spending" means taking all their money and giving it to rich, irresponsible bankers and insurance companies. People who assume this means the public is really against all spending - that is, people who have their heads getting stuck in the ever-narrowing Overton Window while making cracks about how whacky the left is for worrying about Overton's Window - are the real stupid.

(Quick and dirty according-to-Wikipedia definition of Overton['s] window, in case someone thinks it's related to the Defenestration[s] of Prague.)