Cliques Who Still Roam the Halls of High Schools

As I mentioned to Avedon, what I knew about the Dave Weigel business was what I'd read at Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay, and I'd written off the Washington Post as a source a while ago (and should probably do the same with the New York Times, but there really are no trustworthy sources of information out there), except that it seems to involve something called "journolist."

Disclosure:  I'm not on it.

At the beginning of an essay on "intelligence" and "special knowledge" being hooey that those in power use to invent rational reasons to do what they want to do anyway, Mr. Silber brings up Opera-L as an exemplary mailing list.

With regard to opera in all its manifestations, Opera-L is a staggeringly monumental resource. If you want to know about the bald Latvian tenor who sang Radames in the third set of performances of Aida at the Imperial Inn and Hostelry (in the Performance Annex) in Prstblk in 1907, you can put the question to the list. You'll have the answer within hours -- with sources provided, along with the specific dates of the engagement. If there is conflicting information, you'll be informed about that, too.

...

It is the "lethal monopoly on the terms of public debate" that groups like Journolist are specifically designed to perpetuate. This is the kind of "expert" knowledge that Ambinder, Klein, et al. are so in love with: the claim to "special" insight and understanding that serves to consolidate and continue the power of the ruling class, and to keep all those "ordinary" people in willing submission. After all, we wouldn't want to challenge the wisdom of our "betters," especially when they are dedicated only to acting "for our own good."

Go; read the rest. I have pictures to take.

We Think He Was in the White House Basement Until Late 2008

The CIA's Director, Leon Panetta, has admitted that they haven't known for years where bin Laden has been holed up.

Not since "the early 2000s" have U.S. officials had "the last precise information about where he (bin Laden) might be located," Panetta said.

"Since then, it's been very difficult to get any intelligence on his exact location," Panetta said. "He is, as is obvious, in very deep hiding ... He's in an area of the tribal areas of Pakistan."

A Simple Desultory Philippic

Favorite Snake Goddess calls "Compost!" on Camille Paglia.  (Wait; it comes up a bit slowly.)  Really, it is a Thing of Beauty.

Honours of '10

SF Giants retire Monte Irvin's uniform #20.  (He was one of the players referenced in the article linked to here.)

In Memoriam

• Fred Anderson, club owner and saxophonist; and
• Pete Quaife, bassist, Kinks.

How It's Done

I may have mentioned that I moderate comments on posts older than ten days old, due to aversions to both spam and trolls, and that I look, stylistically, to the moderation mechanics of Making Light.  (Yes, I sometimes disagree with them.  What else is new?)

Anyway:  On a post from 2005, mostly dormant, someone jeers, several people attempt correction, and the moderator steps in after further jeers.  After more exchanges (and gardening advice and tales of Tomatoes) the moderator posts a warning.

Perpetrator has not yet flounced.

Those Who Cannot Learn from History

are claiming the government should not be holding BP accountable.

Thanks to Republic of T.

Oh, And...

Republicans being Republicans.  (Via Mills River Progressive, with continuation at Crooks and Liars.)  Where are all those great ditch-digging jobs, anyway?

Three Unconnected Things

1. Quality media and what the reporter is wearing.  Via Harper's.
2. Via Angry Black Bitch:  Angela James and Cammi Granato to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
3. There is still slavery today in the United States.  (Via The Root, through Race Wire.)

Just Like Me, They Long to Be

So I'm needing to think more about what devotion means, and what it means to be devout, and why, when I think about becoming closer to God, I get an image of "cat lady," which shouldn't matter (and isn't true), especially when I have not quite wrapped my head around certain doctrines yet.

(In this portion of the journey, I sit on a bench and admire birds a lot.)

Things to Read

1. Of copyright, the Net, apologies, and trust.  (bfp at flip flopping joy.)
   

   sing my songs because you smile fondly when you remember how out of tune I was when I sang. Sing my songs because you know me, and can’t wait to see me again. sing my songs because we both learned them working to flip the same burgers. Because my kid busted your car window. because i helped you coax your dog off the street and back home. Because you were there. And i wrote a song for you to say thanks.

2. Why Judith Butler turned down an award.  (Posted at flip flopping joy; original here.  Statement by SUSPECT.)
   

   This increasingly accepted truth is by no small measure the fruit of the work of homonationalist organizations like the Lesbian and Gay Federation Germany and the gay helpline Maneo, whose close collaboration with Pride ultimately caused Butler to reject the award. This work largely consists in media campaigns that repeatedly represent migrants as ‘archaic’, ‘patriarchal’, ‘homophobic’, violent, and unassimilable. Nevertheless, one of these organizations now ironically receives public funding in order to ‘protect’ people of colour from racism. The ‘Rainbow Protection Circle against Racism and Homophobia’ in the gaybourhood Schöneberg was spontaneously greeted by the district mayor with an increase in police patrols.

3. On the bully culture and the media's complicity.  (A. McCarthy at Echidne of the Snakes.)
   

   Media that promotes the opposite of equality and treating people and the world decently should be opposed, it’s not the equal of media that promotes good, it appeals to the worst in us, the most selfish in us. It’s selfishness is seductive and gives it power that media promoting unselfishness will not have. It should be opposed.

Senator Al Franken

Via Brilliant at Breakfast, video of a speech at the American Constitution Society National Convention by Al Franken. Transcript here.[.pdf]

[crossposted]

After Joe Escaped the Snake Pit

Via Noli Irritare Leones, an update on Darfur/Chad/Central African Republic, with recap.

Quartet

• Group suggests age-appropriate sex education; pearls are clutched.

  This exposes a big problem with the most popular models of sex education in the Western world, whether they be comprehensive sex education that aims to teach students about contraception and STD prevention, or the abstinence-only model that is so popular in the U.S. Both models at their base attempt to not teach young people how to be sexually healthy human beings who respect their own bodies and the bodies of their partners, who know how to draw and respect boundaries, who understand how to both give and receive pleasure, and who have the tools they need to assess risk and keep themselves and their partners as safe as they reasonably can. They attempt to prevent young people from having sex by emphasizing all of the negatives and failing to mention any of the benefits — and then, if we’re lucky, they do harm reduction. And while harm reduction can certainly be important, it shouldn’t be the be all and end all of teaching other people how to be sexually healthy.

  Via The Curvature.
  
  Hmmmmm. Healthy sexuality, fluid gender roles, and non-privileged persons being people who must be respected--all of these terrify some people. (Yes, the word is "terrify.")
  
  Why?
  
  What do they lose? (OK, in the case of non-privileged equality, what tiny scraps of self-worth escape the "we're not special!" vortex, but other than that? Really?)
• The other side of the conservative mouth, Constitutionally speaking. (via Angry Black Bitch.)
• Anna Van Z excerpts an article from Rolling Stone on the Gulf oil gusher and the corporate policies that made it possible.

  We owe no allegiance, no unquestioning solidarity to any political party or movement. We think for ourselves, and question everything. When we see the public interests being utterly betrayed at every turn, in every realm of life, we speak up. Loudly. We take action. That's what citizens do. That's what individuals capable of independent, rational thought do. That's what real Americans do. We owe that to each other, to the earth and all the beings that also live here - and we owe that to future generations.
  The nonsensical group-think that the liberal conformists espouse is utter hypocrisy and a cop-out.

• And the Supreme Court declined to review the Maher Arar case.

  The nation’s greatest attorney general, Robert Jackson, reminded the world in 1946 that “legal responsibility cannot be the least where power is the greatest.” He insisted that no doctrine of state immunity could be invoked by individual government actors to shield them from the consequences of committing certain serious crimes, including torture. In 1946, the Justice Department fully backed him up. That was in an era when the Justice Department counseled the president about his obligations to act consistently with his international treaty commitments. Today, notwithstanding President Obama’s assurances in Oslo, we see only evidence that the Justice Department holds those international commitments, specifically those under the Convention Against Torture, in contempt.

  And apparently some legislator retracted his suggestion of land mines at the border. So we haven't yet become East Germany. Yet.

(Crossposted to the other blog because grrrrrrrrrrr.)

Singing the old romantic songs got him prison time.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

If you saw a statement like this:

Andrew Pugno, an attorney for Prop. 8's backers, said in an interview that the sponsors aren't asking Walker to nullify the 18,000 marriages, but only to rule that government agencies, courts and businesses no longer have to recognize the couples as married.

Wouldn't you suspect the speaker of being a trifle disingenuous?  That's hairsplitting.  People don't (usually) marry solely for external validation, but official recognition is a part of the marriage deal.

I hope someone addresses that at length (closing arguments in the lawsuit take place today).

Perhaps Covalent Bonds

The myth of ideal family structure.  Via a comment in Body Impolitic.

Fortnight of the Solstice

I would love to know why my signing-in seems to expire.

I had a ticket (thanks, Lisa!) for Die Walküre, and woweewow, was that terrific. Iron Tongue at Midnight's selection of reviews are up; one of them was from Parterre Box, which has probably been online for several years (I had a brief subscription back in the '90s).  I had forgotten that I enjoyed that take on opera.  Apparently I have not been to the opera since early this century, which is probably my own fault.  Still.

So we are in the Fortnight around the Solstice, the best two weeks in the entire year.  I'm now 2/3 of the way through David Copperfield.  And I'm making a muslin for trousers, which are also going to have the zipper migrated, because zipper in the back?  Whaddya think this is, a skirt?

Variant Badness

• Women of ill repute, as contrasted by Susan Palwick.
• Update on Wikileaks matter.

57

57.

(My late brother's posthumous birthday call.)

In Memoriam

• Marvin Isley, Bassist, Isley Brothers
• Peter Keefe, "Voltron," Americanized anime style 
• Crispian St. Peters, "The Pied Piper" and a soulful version of "You Were On My Mind," which made him a 2-hit wonder

Lord Stanley's Cup

to the Chicago Blackhawks.

It just isn't Philadelphia's year, is it?

In Memoriam

Andréas Voutsinas, director, acting coach, and actor.

Beating The Onion to It

Taking the reverse case to its limits.

And, in (almost) conclusion:

For me, one of the more gut-wrenching aspects of today's monstrous culture, a culture that kills each and every manifestation of empathy, understanding and compassion with relentlessly systematic determination, is the combination of unending destruction, cruelty, violence and murder with the most abysmally wretched depths of stupidity.

Sic 'em, Arthur.

The Surrealists Scratch Their Heads

Much to-ing and fro-ing, reason forgotten; the image that stayed at awakening was Sir Paul McCartney in a flaming orange baby's-head mask, otherwise invisible, running through crowds of people, on a rescue mission.
'

1, 001 Days of Blatheration, Hatchetation, and Dry Heaves Chuckles

See, you should have set up the pool!  That last post was post number 1,000.  Driftglass is up to 2,500, and he has been posting substantial writing/opinion since 2005.  To misquote Shelley Berman, "I don't do that.  I just stand here."  My anniversary is the 29th, so that's not too bad.

Politically I haven't been saying much onaccountabecause:

1. My screaming can only be heard by dogs;
2. My blood pressure is already high enough (yes, I know, cut out the sodium and try to relax.  And quit thinking);
3. There are days when the assumption that alien pods have taken over government is all that keeps me from various actions that might be characterized as "crazy" if one were being charitable;
4. There is still the question of whether bin Laden has had to move out of the White House basement.

And personally, I have been very boring.  I'm reading David Copperfield, which has served to reacquaint me with an unfondness for the nineteenth century.  You know, the century the right wing reveres and would like to restore.  I'm procrastinating on everything including procrastination.  I'm thinking about right-wing beauty queens and why socialism replicates the history of Christianity and why the Church ended up imposing a rather authoritarian structure on a semi-anarchic religion (yes, the Roman paradigm, but not only the Roman paradigm), but ... the research.  (Or I could do the traditional Internet thing and make an incorrect statement. ;-))

Have a little Nina Simone for however long it's up, displaying piano skills and singing "Mood Indigo," which I never knew had words.

(My thanks to laughingrat at Dreamwidth for the term "hatchetation.")

Individuals as Conformists

"Rugged individualism" as a contradiction in terms.  (Echidne of the Snakes, Anthony McCarthy reporting.)

It Tolls for Thee

I note the apocalyptic tone in blogs lately.  The news has certainly been horrible, and human beings are only individually self-correcting; in the aggregate they seem to prefer to do stupid things over and over.  Folks, we've already done the 19th century, and it was not fun.  (Re-reading David Copperfield just refreshes the impression of how not fun the 19th century was.)

Two things:

1. Assuming you've heard that former (thank God) President Bush not only copped to torture, but said he'd do it again (link is to pecunium, who links to Huffington Post), I present Arthur Silber getting detailed as to the nature of the belly of the beast, which you should read.  Not kidding.
   
   

   Our politics -- now the politics of the Death State, which claims for itself the power to destroy anyone and everyone at its unanswerable whim -- will change only when enough people make profoundly different, intimately personal choices. So I should perhaps redirect the emphasis in my earlier question. Now, it should not be: "Why do you support?" Instead, it should be:
   
   Why do you support?

2. Jurassicpork goes after the Malefactors of Great Wealth.  (Aside:  I am perfectly willing to allow whatzisname to go back to his life, once he has personally finished cleaning up the oil spill.  Every trace.  With his tongue.  There, I've said it.  And the Canadian government should insist on that as a clause in the contract before allowing BP anywhere near the Arctic.)

The last thing I heard about the flotilla attacked by Israelis: Both sides have video. And the videos bear out the stories by each side.  But they don't reconcile.  (And I don't remember where I saw that.)

That Cognitive Disconnect Thing

Via Making Light:  Fred Clark of Slactivist expatiates on the relative amount of condemnation of gayness and/or sex in the Bible vs. admonitions to share one's wealth.  Hint:  it's no contest.

Ahem!

Did I just let a whole week go by without posting here?

Yeah.

My molars are ground back into my jaws, and there is nothing I can do about it besides bringing it to your attention, and mostly you've been bringing it to mine.

1. The Sharks, bless 'em, did not make the Stanley Cup finals, but I believe this was their best finish ever.  (Also:  Ice hockey in June.)
2. So Terrence at Republic of T meditates on Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times.
3. Echidne explores marriage and the nature of celebrity gossip.  (And why should we care what their house cost?)

All else has been pegging my Aarrrggghhhh-o-meter to 11...