Althouse: "It’s ready to die, brother. If I drop dead, I am coffin-ready."

July 24, 2011

"It’s ready to die, brother. If I drop dead, I am coffin-ready."

"I got my tie, my white shirt, everything. Just fix my Afro nice in the coffin."

Cornel West.

64 comments:

Methadras said...: HA!!! Urkel wasn't marxist enough for you? Leftards never cease to amaze.; 7/24/11, 1:30 PM
Paco Wové said...: Totally off topic here, but posts seem to scroll off of the main page really fast -- yesterday's posts are gone already.

Is this an intentional change? If not, could it be set back to the way it was? If so, could it be set back to the way it was, anyway?; 7/24/11, 1:37 PM
edutcher said...: This is the guy who insists Cleopatra was black, too.; 7/24/11, 1:37 PM
Robert J. said...: A perfect instance of the Nutty Professor stereotype. Black or white, it doesn't matter: Nutty Professors are a type all to themselves.; 7/24/11, 1:38 PM
Luke Lea said...: I must say that's the best performance I've ever seen Cornel West give. He usually comes across as a clown, but this time he comes across as the king's fool.; 7/24/11, 1:40 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Is this an intentional change? If not, could it be set back to the way it was? If so, could it be set back to the way it was, anyway?"

It was intentional, to make the page load more quickly. It loads in half the time.

It only takes a click on "older posts" to get more, so I think it's better. I'm concerned about people with slower connections, mobile devices, etc.; 7/24/11, 1:40 PM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/24/11, 1:40 PM
Sal said...: Is he expecting martyrdom? Waiting for the white man to gun him down because he's so, you know, uppity?

Or does just have high cholesterol?; 7/24/11, 1:42 PM
Ann Althouse said...: He *just* has a uniform and a sense of humor.; 7/24/11, 1:54 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Urkel wasn't marxist enough for you?"

You might as easily ask "Reagan wasn't Marxist enough for you?" for all the similarity Obama has ever had to a Marxist.

In other words, your delusions do not make up reality.; 7/24/11, 1:59 PM
mesquito said...: Brings to mind the sad, tentative embarassing Blogging Heads about West, featuring John McWhorter and Glen Loury.; 7/24/11, 2:00 PM
A. Shmendrik said...: Yikes! In the position Obama is in now, you would be certain he had lost all grasp on reality if he followed this kind of advice.; 7/24/11, 2:00 PM
XWL said...: "INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED."

Above, quoted from the bottom of the linked piece.

MY HELPFUL TRANSLATION:

Cornel West is a rambly mess. His speech patterns and thought processes are embarrassingly incoherent, so as not to make him look the fool he so clearly is, we re-ordered the word salad that spews from his lips into a semblance of something that mimics cogency.; 7/24/11, 2:01 PM
madAsHell said...: He wears black so no one can that he wet.; 7/24/11, 2:11 PM
madAsHell said...: arrrggghhhh....so no one can SEE that he wet.; 7/24/11, 2:12 PM
Kirby Olson said...: Obamagirl is mad at BO too. He never called. There should be a league of avengers for those who backed Obama, but he never called. Ann, you could join that group.

I never joined that group, but he calls me all the time. Like, every day. Twice on Sundays. He's a bore. I wish he'd stop calling me and get a life!

You'd think he'd be busy with Petraeus, or busy with Sarkozy, or busy with Geithner.

But no, he chooses to call me. Constantly! 4 am. Another call from the president. This time he wants to talk about the correct ingredients for Salade Nicoise. Morning comes. He wants to know how much milk to put on his Cocoa Puffs -- what's the right consistency. Those calls are relatively short.

Some nights he calls and wants me to read Immanuel Kant to him so he can get some sleep. Other nights, he just wants to hear again my story of how I went to Finland (I refer him to my novel, but he wants to hear it firsthand!).

I have no idea why other people want him to call. BO's not really so good on the phone. He has no phone etiquette among other things. He just uses me for what he wants while sometimes browsing the computer. I can hear the clicking in the background. He doesn't think I know.; 7/24/11, 2:15 PM
Quaestor said...: Do you mean West wears leaky undergarments?

Cornel West. What a beacon.; 7/24/11, 2:20 PM
john said...: In his administration, he’s got a significant number of very smart white brothers and very smart Jewish brothers. You think that’s unimportant?

What's important is our comfort in the knowledge that black "brothers" can't be racist.

(Pity the guy; 30 years ago that afro was his ticket to unlimited boinking of undergrad coeds. Now he just looks like he's trying out for a part in Good Burgers II.); 7/24/11, 2:24 PM
AllenS said...: Seems to me that what makes the page load slow is the content of the right hand column. Google this and that. I also noticed the short page, and I don't care for it. We have conversations that go on in the comment section, and this makes it harder to check and see the back and forth. But, you go ahead and tweak.; 7/24/11, 2:35 PM
Simon Kenton said...: Another rube on the verge of self-identification.

WV - butbuc; 7/24/11, 2:56 PM
edutcher said...: Ann Althouse said...

"Is this an intentional change? If not, could it be set back to the way it was? If so, could it be set back to the way it was, anyway?"

It was intentional, to make the page load more quickly. It loads in half the time.

From my own humble perspective, thank you, Madame.

A lot of bloggers are so obsessed with how cool their page is going to look with tons of videos embedded and all that they refuse to see the page is a pain for the average user to load.

Thanks for thinking of the little guys (and girls).

Robert Cook said...

"Urkel wasn't marxist enough for you?"

You might as easily ask "Reagan wasn't Marxist enough for you?" for all the similarity Obama has ever had to a Marxist.

Ideological purity is all down at the Daily Worker.; 7/24/11, 2:59 PM
yashu said...: Echoing Paco & AllenS on the shorter page: the disadvantage is that it doesn't foster-- & thus cuts short-- long conversations in the comments, sometimes spanning more than one day, which are a hallmark of this blog.; 7/24/11, 3:12 PM
Crimso said...: "I'm concerned about people with slower connections, mobile devices, etc."

I like it. You're like the Cornel West of internet connectivity. Us poor downtrodden (i.e., DSL folks) need someone who cares.; 7/24/11, 3:34 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: You might as easily ask "Reagan wasn't Marxist enough for you?" for all the similarity Obama has ever had to a Marxist.

In other words, your delusions do not make up reality.

Do you have any idea how hilarious this crap is coming from you, Kookie?

You have a grasp on reality?; 7/24/11, 3:41 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: I like the quicker load.; 7/24/11, 3:44 PM
LYNNDH said...: I am curious as to what he wants/ed BO to do for the "poor and working class?" I mean a plan, not just say he is doing nothing for the group. And, just whom are in this group? This is a serious question.; 7/24/11, 3:48 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: This is a serious question.

West is hardly taken seriously.; 7/24/11, 3:56 PM
Bartender Cabbie said...: Just another race baiter and "professional angry Black Man." Good job if you can get it.; 7/24/11, 3:59 PM
ricpic said...: No ones ever measured up to Stalin in Cookie's eyes.; 7/24/11, 4:01 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: "Just fix my Afro nice in the coffin."

Hey - no prob. Anything I can do to help,...; 7/24/11, 4:07 PM
MikeinAppalachia said...: LYNNDH-
Do you recall the "Obama's gonna pay for my gas and mortgage", or to that effect, statements?
That may be what West expected.; 7/24/11, 4:08 PM
Kylos said...: I appreciate the shorter page load time as well.

However, the real problem is not page length, but embedded content, specifically flash videos.

I've noticed that my cpu idles 20-30 percentage points higher when I load Althouse, even without clicking on any videos. Using a flash block plugin makes althouse much more bearable. Videos can then be enabled on demand instead of making my computer run hot.; 7/24/11, 4:15 PM
William said...: A just God will put him on the elevator at 4am with Gingerella, and they will spend all eternity discussing how racist she is to be ignoring his sexist advances.; 7/24/11, 4:36 PM
AllenS said...: My CPU usage goes up to 100%. Sounds like my computer is going to throw a rod.; 7/24/11, 4:40 PM
john said...: AllenS -

To properly surf this site, you need high performance PC oil, especially for today's hotter-running search engines. Throwing a rod is one thing, but the mother board main bearing should be your primary concern.

It goes in your CD slot.; 7/24/11, 5:00 PM
Chip S. said...: I also appreciate the shorter loading times. A way to keep comment threads going from older posts would be to add the "recent comments" feature to the RHS.

Also, after a video has been fronted for a while, maybe it could be put below a fold.

As for Cornel West, I was amused by how much he was annoyed when Obama named Larry Summers as his original chief economic advisor. Summers is truly a uniting force in American politics--everybody dislikes him.

BTW, AA, thx for the tag in the "Kos" thread. It's like going from "pledge" to "member" status in the Althouse frathouse.; 7/24/11, 5:01 PM
Phil 314 said...: I like the quicker load.

So does Titus; 7/24/11, 5:41 PM
Penny said...: The Reverends West, Sharpton and Jackson need to understand that brother Obama is President now.

If they're looking for another Reverend Martin Luther King, perhaps one of them would like to step up to that leadership position instead of being the cardboard cutouts that they are.

Being dragged out for a limo ride to inner city protests for photo ops with angry government union workers waving preprinted banners in the middle of the afternoon on a work day hasn't seemed to work out so well for all those poor working people you care so much about.; 7/24/11, 5:46 PM
Chip S. said...: Penny, Cornel West does love to preach, but he's not a Reverend, AFAIK.

He does aspire to being the High Priest of Hip, but I don't think that's possible for a Princeton professor.

Really, dude, Princeton?; 7/24/11, 5:56 PM
Gary Rosen said...: "Just fix my Afro nice in the coffin"

It's a wig, we can have it ready for you before you even croak.

William 4:36PM +1; 7/24/11, 6:02 PM
paul a'barge said...: Oof-dah!!! Day's one crazy Negro.; 7/24/11, 6:06 PM
Kirby Olson said...: It would be fun to pit Amanda Marcotte against Cornel West in a kind of gladiator bout of the single-issue people. Toss in a very good MArxist arguing for class. That would make good TV. Race, gender, class: reality TV.

Have them tear each other's arguments up. It would get good ratings.

Let them put their toxic verbiage too good use and destroy one another.

The phone's ringing. The president's calling. Excuse me. He wants to talk with me about why he never calls Cornel West.

"That brother's so boring!"; 7/24/11, 6:09 PM
garage mahal said...: Urkel wasn't marxist enough for you?

Methadras is knee deep into Breivik's 1500 manifesto. Mmmmm mmm mmm!; 7/24/11, 6:12 PM
F said...: No movements? Ah hah, there's the problem. Send him some prunes -- that'll improve his outlook on life. F; 7/24/11, 6:23 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I bet an afro would look better than most other hairstyles in a coffin. The hairstyle would retain its shape better and be less prone to simply falling limply to the back of the head.; 7/24/11, 6:31 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Think of the convenience of developing a personal uniform. Rhhardin has proclaimed the benefits of such. Sounds like an excellent idea.; 7/24/11, 6:34 PM
Humperdink said...: Cornel West ...... he came, he saw, he surcame.; 7/24/11, 7:06 PM
Toad Trend said...: "How can Obama be the president you want him to be when he’s facing this Republican Congress?

Wow.

So, its the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS that won't let black jesus 'do what he want'.

Right? Isn't that what the NYT question implies?

Never mind that black jesus whizzes all over folks that would like to show a little freaking pride in their country.

No, that's right, WE BAD. In the 'bad' sense. And white folk, well, they BAD TOO.

Republicans? They WHITE, so, they BAD.

Pathetic. P A T H E T I C; 7/24/11, 7:44 PM
miller said...: The key thing that's overlooked here isn't that Cornel dissed Obama. It's that MLK behind him would never be increasing the wars and decreasing support for the oppressed.

You don't have to agree or disagree with either side to see the unreality of the bust of MLK sitting in the background.

Like putting a bust of Jesus behind you as you commit some heinous action.; 7/24/11, 8:19 PM
madAsHell said...: Professor Althouse,

Ya prolly need to put a leash on Carol_Herman.

She can blow everyone's post into yesterday!; 7/24/11, 8:21 PM
BJM said...: Proof positive that stupid IS forever.; 7/24/11, 8:25 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Is it fair to view West as a diversity ho?; 7/24/11, 8:41 PM
Palladian said...: "Think of the convenience of developing a personal uniform. Rhhardin has proclaimed the benefits of such. Sounds like an excellent idea."

I've worn the same type of outfit for 15 years- a black linen shirt (usually a button-front shirt but occasionally a black polo-type), blue jeans (often carpenter jeans), black vintage Ray-Ban Balorama sunglasses (the new ones are trash). The only variables (and luxuries) are shoes, socks and hats. For shoes, it was Ecco boots for years. Now it's usually either New Balance MR993s or Mephisto Bonitos.

For socks it's usually black cotton socks or occasionally Comme des Garçons socks.

For hats it's usually a Borsalino or Locke & Co. cap.

When I'm indoors or working in my studio, I wear the same black shirts, except ones that are too tattered and stained to wear outside anymore, (sorry Althouse) shorts (sometimes made by hacking off the lower legs of sweatpants or track pants), and black Sanita or wooden clogs. I never wear shorts out of doors however.

I generally wear things until they quite literally fall apart. So there you have it, now you too can dress like Palladian!; 7/24/11, 8:54 PM
Luther said...: Sounds like Mao, or Islam. No thanks.
.; 7/24/11, 9:23 PM
Palladian said...: Mao didn't wear 400 dollar shoes. Or pink argyle socks.; 7/24/11, 9:32 PM
Luther said...: I suspect though that his weave and material were a little different from the common cloth. Though for sure he didn't base his uniform upon cost.
Though he may have had a thing for argyle socks. Who knows.
.; 7/24/11, 10:02 PM
Palladian said...: "Though he may have had a thing for argyle socks. Who knows."

I always imagined lacy-topped pink cashmere stockings under that little costume he wore.; 7/24/11, 10:08 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Blue jeans have to be one of the greatest inventions ever.; 7/24/11, 10:12 PM
Anonymous said...: Methadras is knee deep into Breivik's 1500 manifesto. Mmmmm mmm mmm!

Garbage, I sure hope someone like George Soros is paying you to piss away what little integrity you had. I'd hate to think that you were giving it away or that you actually are as rectocranially impacted as your persona has been for the past couple of years.; 7/24/11, 10:34 PM
Luther said...: "lacy-topped pink cashmere stockings "

Nah. They would have to have been red.; 7/24/11, 10:41 PM
Zorro said...: Okay, so I just woke up. When did it become "Cornel" rather than "Colonel?"; 7/25/11, 2:32 AM
Mick said...: Of Course Obama is beholden to the Central Bankers and Wall Street! They installed him, and they picked him for a reason. He has little allegiance or attachment to America.

The Framers would never have allowed a man like Obama, born British, of a British subject father, and raised, associated, and influenced by a rats den of UnAmerican Communists and Marxists, to serve as POTUS.

His job is to overload the system and crash it (Cloward/Piven), destroying the sovereignty of We the People in the process. If the POTUS is ineligible (not natural born), then there is no Constitution. Why should he have to follow any Constitution by which he's not eligible to serve?
There is a reason that the Oath was flubbed, and done again in private.; 7/25/11, 7:36 AM
Michael said...: I like West as a character and i appreciate his dressing up for work. It shows some respect, a concept he clearly holds dear,for his students and his profession. I wear a suit daily so that my clients do not think i am stopping by on the way to golf. The way people dress today disgusts me. Go to an airport and observe the uniformity of crappy, comfy, attire. It is representative of our steep and accelerating cultural collapse.; 7/25/11, 9:34 AM
PianoLessons said...: Bill Cosby caught hell by telling the African American community they need to air their ‘dirty laundry’ about bad parenting. Who knew Cornell West (in his cemetery clothes and faithful Afro – which I just love) is the new Bill Cosby? Or is he just mad that Obama never called him or thanked him sufficiently and instead – “….Obama scolded him” for not carrying even more water for the boss man?

From The Washington Post May 18 2011

“West’s comments, which continued in a Tuesday night interview on MSNBC, intensified the criticism of Obama that began after the election. During the 2008 campaign, West said, he traveled to 65 campaign events for the presidential candidate. But West complains that he was not given inauguration tickets for his brother and mother and that Obama did not return his phone calls.”

“According to West, his relationship with Obama hit a low following a speech the president gave in July 2010 at the National Urban League’s centennial conference. West said Obama made a beeline to him after the speech and “cussed” him out, saying that West ought to be ashamed for saying Obama is not a progressive. White House aides did not dispute that Obama had scolded West.”

http://tinyurl.com/65vp46p; 7/25/11, 12:58 PM