"Everytime I think the Democratic race card players could not get more vile..."

"... more deranged, more patronizingly demeaning to blacks, someone manages to defy even my vivid imagination."

This time, it is the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, which issued a truly amazing screed... claiming that critics of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice are motivated by race and sex, as demonstrated by the facts that most are male and a significant percentage come from former confederate states....

It's an obvious scheme — actually, I am not amazed — to scare conservatives into believing that there are some Democrats who may not be criticized. If you accept the pushback, it will occur again and again. It's bullying, really. The key is to recognize it and confront it soundly, or it will go on and on.

Everyone holding power is open to criticism. Anyone resting on the argument that black/female politicians cannot be criticized is actually arguing that black/female individuals should be excluded from power. That is the racist argument that should be moved to the center. That is my answer to the bullying.

"A great example of where ['Liz and Dick'] doesn't dare go as far as reality is the way the movie depicts the end of Taylor's marriage to Eddie Fisher."

"In real life, as in the film, Burton really did demand that Taylor pick between him and Fisher, and she chose Burton—right in front of Fisher."

In Liz and Dick, this scene marks the end of Taylor's marriage to Fisher. In real life, though, the cuckolded Fisher hung on for quite a while longer. According to Furious Love, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger's incredible book on Burton and Taylor based on their diaries and letters, Fisher called Taylor's villa days after the confrontation and Burton answered. “What are you doing in my house?” Fisher asked. “What do you think I'm doing?” Burton responded. “I'm fucking your wife.”

ADDED: Here's "Furious Love," which is only #30 in the "Rich & Famous" subcategory of the "Leaders & Notable People" subcategory of the "Biographies and Memoirs" list at Amazon. Who's leading among the "rich & famous"? Bruce Springsteen, followed by Rod Stewart. Aging boomers prefer a rock 'n' roll milieu for their vicarious memories.

"It is obvious that none of you has the faintest notion of the bitter disappointment each of you has in your own way dished out to us."

A father writes to his adult children:

We are seeing the miserable death throes of the fourth of your collective marriages at the same time we see the advent of a fifth.

We are constantly regaled with chapter and verse of the happy, successful lives of the families of our friends and relatives and being asked of news of our own children and grandchildren. I wonder if you realise how we feel — we have nothing to say which reflects any credit on you or us....

Fulfilling careers based on your educations would have helped — but as yet none of you is what I would confidently term properly self-supporting....

None of you has done yourself, or given to us, the basic courtesy to ask us what we think while there was still time finally to think things through. The predictable result has been a decade of deep unhappiness over the fates of our grandchildren. If it wasn't for them, Mum and I would not be too concerned, as each of you consciously, and with eyes wide open, crashes from one cock-up to the next. It makes us weak that so many of these events are copulation-driven, and then helplessly to see these lovely little people being so woefully let down by you, their parents....

More at the link, plus this story about the man (Nick Crews), the kids that have disappointed him, how his email got shared with the world, and the world's response (embrace!).

Crews has been swamped with encouraging messages from friends and former colleagues. “They’re saying, ‘I feel exactly the same about my children.’ Or, ‘You’ve said what I wish I’d said a long time ago.’”...

“I bought into the fashionable philosophy of not interfering; letting the children find themselves. When they were getting into trouble — at school, or later with their relationships — I would just bite my lip and tell myself, ‘Don’t butt in, it’s their lives.’”...

"I was trying to express my frustration at these wonderful grown-ups who had yet to make the best of what they had. They have read the criticism, but not seen the enduring love through the lines.”

He pauses: “I haven’t done well as a father, have I?”

Via Walter Russell Mead, via Instapundit.

"He doesn't like living in NYC and says he would love to move west, but people in New York seem to believe that it is the only place to get a job."

A mother asks an economist — Dan Ariely — for advice, and what she gets contains some helpful general concepts for all sorts of decisionmakers:

I suspect your son is suffering from two decision biases. One, the status quo bias, has to do with our tendency to take our current situation as our reference point and to see any change as negative (or at least difficult) and with a high potential for regret. The second, the unchangeability bias, is the idea that when we face large decisions that seem to be immutable (getting married, having kids, moving to a distant place), the permanence of these decisions makes them seem even larger and more frightening. With these two biases combined, it's only natural that your son is apprehensive about moving West....

The the status quo bias and the unchangeability bias... that slots right into my own thinking about a couple major life decisions.

(The link goes to the Wall Street Journal, and here's an alternate link to the same item on Ariely's blog. It's a hassle not to be able to get useful links from the WSJ going to articles that I'm able to see as a subscriber. It makes having a subscription partly a disadvantage. I can find things I want to show you, but I can't easily tell if you'll be able to see them. A NYT subscription doesn't work like that.)

At the Dogfight Café...

... that's my seat!

***

"Café" = open thread. Like that? The best way to say "yes" is — if you happen to have any shopping you need to do — enter Amazon through this link, which will not cost you anything.

"We write ethically when, as a matter of principle, we would trade places with our intended readers..."

"... and experience the consequences they do after they read our writing...."

Those who write in ways that seem dense and convoluted rarely think they do....

The ethics of writing are clearer when writers knowingly use language not to further their readers’ interests but to disguise their own....

A more complicated ethical issue is how we should respond to those who know they write in a complex style, but claim they must, because they are breaking new intellectual ground. Are they right, or is that self-serving rationalization? This is a vexing question, not just because we can settle it only case-by-case, but because we may not be able to settle some cases at all, at least not to everyone’s satisfaction.

Joseph M. Williams, "Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace."

This makes me think about legal opinions, but there is so much more. Imagine if, whenever we wrote, we thought about ethics.

"It is hard to love people whom we do not respect..."

"... but it is harder still to love those whom we respect more highly than we respect ourselves."

A maxim of Le Duc de La Rochefoucauld.

"Work as Play... disciplined fun is more fun than impulsive or hedonistic fun."

From the David Foster Wallace essay "The Nature of Fun."

(The entire essay appears in the collection "Both Flesh and Not: Essays.")

"How about a friendly kiss goodbye"... to Larry Hagman.

A great clip reel, via Throwing Things.

"Power-hungry Bay State Democrats — eyeing another potential Senate opening if U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry joins the Obama Cabinet..."

"... are quietly discussing reinstating a 2004 law that would let Gov. Deval Patrick appoint a permanent replacement to help keep the seat under party control until at least 2014."

... The move comes eight years after Democratic lawmakers stripped then-Gov. Mitt Romney of his appointment powers in an effort to keep Republicans out of the office, and three years after they changed the law again to let Patrick appoint a temporary replacement.

Elizabeth Smart's book will be "frank" but "appropriate" and not "salacious."

Says Chris Stewart, who's writing the book and who will be a member of the new Congress.

"She has taken a professional outlook on this and is able to talk in an impressive way about these things frankly... She’s not shying away from this story."

The story is of a 14-year-old, kidnapped, held captive, and raped for 9 months. Tricky to tell that story frankly yet appropriately. How do you ensure that the reader is not titillated? You can't.

"My mother is a baptized Christian, so she made me go to church every Sunday, and I prayed four times a day until I was 14."

"And at lunchtime kids at school would giggle at my praying...I stopped praying. And two weeks later, nothing happened to me, so I didn't pick it up again."

Ang Lee, in an interview about his movie "Life of Pi," which is based on a novel with a strong religious theme. He does, he says (like so many others) like to think of himself as spiritual.

"After years of holding steady... the United States abortion rate has fallen to an all-time low."

"It dropped 5 percent between 2008 and 2009, the most recent years for which data is available, the largest decline in the past decade."

Why? One suggestion is that the bad economy has caused people to be more careful about contraception. Another is that more women are using birth control devices that eliminate the user-error factor.

"A federal jury believed the University of Iowa’s law school illegally denied a promotion to a conservative Republican because of her politics."

"However, jurors said they felt conflicted about holding a former dean personally responsible for the bias. They wanted to hold the school itself accountable, but federal law does not recognize political discrimination by institutions."

[Teresa]Wagner was turned down despite enthusiastic praise for her interview performance by members of the faculty appointments committee and members of the law school administration. Not all on the faculty were supportive, however. Carolyn Jones, the law school dean at the time, said she rejected Wagner for a faculty position because of opposition within the faculty. According to testimony, Jones said “she always adopts the faculty’s recommendations.”

Faculty members testified that they opposed hiring Wagner because she had performed poorly in the job interview. But an associate dean expressed concern in an email that Wagner might be opposed by professors who “so despise her politics.”

"Wagner is a Republican who has worked for anti-abortion organizations."

At the 3 Dogs Café...

... sit!

Northumberlandia...

... the Lady of the North.

Critics aren’t sure what to make of it. “It’s quite difficult to take it seriously,” said Tim Richardson, a London-based landscape historian and critic. “This massive woman you climb up.”

"An absolute presidential tyranny."

"Egypt is facing a horrifying coup against legitimacy and the rule of law and a complete assassination of the democratic transition."

"I want all 3 dogs to sit!"

Just now... at Meadehouse.

At the Capitalism-Is-Doomed Café...

... hang out and talk about whatever you like, and if you'd like to show some affection for the blog called Althouse, please shop Amazon through the Althouse portal.

"Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I really don't know what Christmas is all about."

It's all about... terror!