Althouse: At the Stars of Persia Café...

May 24, 2012

At the Stars of Persia Café...

... you can shine all night.

33 comments:

bagoh20 said...: I invented flowers.; 5/24/12, 11:36 PM
JAL said...: I have never seen or heard of one of those. Cool.

In your garden?

You made me want to plant some allium a couple weeks back ...; 5/24/12, 11:46 PM
wyo sis said...: It looks like a giant lavender gone-to-seed dandelion. Quite unique.; 5/24/12, 11:52 PM
rcommal said...: Huh.; 5/25/12, 12:18 AM
rcommal said...: ... you can shine all night.

Oh, nonsense. Never have you believed such a thing.; 5/25/12, 12:20 AM
Anonymous said...: Flashes of lightening through my bedroom window, no starshine tonight.; 5/25/12, 12:54 AM
Synova said...: Saw the most amazing shooting star the night after the solar eclipse. (Saw that too, as Albuquerque was right on the path for the total eclipse.)

We'd gone to eat with a friend from college that we hadn't seen since our wedding 25 years ago, and his wife, after the eclipse and then when we got home I looked up and there was a satellite so we were all looking up at the sky and there was a meteor that started in the West and traveled almost the entire arc of the sky, pulsing, in a nice bright, wide, swath, and burning out in the East.

It was very cool.; 5/25/12, 1:11 AM
rcommal said...: It's been many years, now, and for that reason I think it's worth revisiting the original impetus.

What was that about, again?

I wonder. (I ponder.); 5/25/12, 1:20 AM
rcommal said...: Just remember that,FTR,I recall when Althouse crossed the line and made it clear that I wasn't worthy of respect.

Oh, well, so it goes. Whatever.; 5/25/12, 1:58 AM
edutcher said...: I have a feeling we're at Olbrich Gardens again.

Nice shot.; 5/25/12, 6:05 AM
People Died, The President Lied said...: Michael Barone makes his point using the Wisconsin recall as an example:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/05/24/cocooned_liberals_are_unprepared_for_political_debate_114255.html; 5/25/12, 6:21 AM
Ann Althouse said...: rcommal... I don't get it.; 5/25/12, 7:25 AM
MadisonMan said...: Earlier this week, I was greatly enjoying the slim crescent of the moon next to Venus in the early night sky. That view won't be back for a while.; 5/25/12, 7:28 AM
Simon said...: Here's my question for the evening: What is S.E. Cupp's "more speech" remedy? How does more speech help her?; 5/25/12, 7:42 AM
Hagar said...: The valley is full of smoke from the forest fires down south, and I need to go out to mow the yards.; 5/25/12, 7:50 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Here's my question for the evening: What is S.E. Cupp's "more speech" remedy? How does more speech help her?

She can Photoshop the entire Hustler staff in various, compromising positions.

Oh, but it's Hustler.

I don't know. I've been wondering the same thing.

As technology improves, are people going to start marketing pornography where faces have been replaced so that the actors look like celebrities? As long as the boxes and videos contain large disclaimers and are called "satire," is that going to be protected speech?; 5/25/12, 8:03 AM
rhhardin said...: If you're going to have icosahedral symmetry, twelve of the flowers have to have five petals.; 5/25/12, 8:11 AM
KCFleming said...: I dunno, but given his sensibilities, Larry Flynt photoshopped as a dog being humped by an Obama dog, or another lefty-as-a-dog, might become a meme that he detests.

Or one could take the Brett Kimberlin approach and kill the First Amendment.; 5/25/12, 8:13 AM
Patrick said...: She can Photoshop the entire Hustler staff in various, compromising positions.

She could make it look like they were at church. Hit 'em where they live I always say.; 5/25/12, 8:21 AM
Simon said...: [Forgive the vulgarity:] Freeman, that wouldn't really be much of a balancing of the scales, since we already knew that everyone who works for Hustler is a cocksckucker.

This seems like a great illustration of the limits of the "more speech" approach. If there is a more speech remedy, I can't think what it is. The only legal remedy I can imagine is damages, and doesn't this case force the "more speech" people to concede the limits of their approach?; 5/25/12, 8:39 AM
bagoh20 said...: "...faces have been replaced so that the actors look like celebrities?"

Already done with stills a lot. If you google images of most celebrity women, with safesearch turned off and go down a few pages, you almost always find such photoshopped images.; 5/25/12, 8:39 AM
Simon said...: Quite aside from the moral implications and the personal implications for Cupp, it's hard to imagine a strategy better-calculated to make women think twice before entering the public eye—and this isn't just conservative women, mind you—than to make clear that if you do, then for as long as Google exists, your name will forever after be linked to pornographic images of you. Normal people, without exception, would be mortified by such a prospect. There IS a war on women, but it's not being fought by the GOP, or over abortion—it's pornography, and it has no more respect for a woman's party than for her person.; 5/25/12, 8:41 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "As technology improves, are people going to start marketing pornography where faces have been replaced so that the actors look like celebrities? As long as the boxes and videos contain large disclaimers and are called "satire," is that going to be protected speech?"

One question is whether anyone takes the image to be a true depiction. (See Falwell v. Hustler.); 5/25/12, 9:15 AM
Ann Althouse said...: As for Cupp, I see lots of people doing the "more speech" routine on her behalf.

But that can backfire. I'm sure Hustler loves the attention.

Maybe everyone benefit: Oh! The war on women! It's against conservatives too! etc etc

I say bullshit.

I mean: cowpie of distortion.; 5/25/12, 9:18 AM
jungatheart said...: I'm thinking of planting some, rh. I'll check it out if I do.; 5/25/12, 9:57 AM
RecChief said...: It strikes me that this [the S.E Cupp photoshop]is a case where social mores would have prevented the amount of publicity that this has gotten. It's my opinion that the Left in this country has succeeded in not only making this widely available, but mostly accepted, at least to the point that most people just shrug when confronted by this. This is not so much a legal question regarding freedom of speech, but one of what speech should be bound by good taste, and the mechanisms that we have for instilling what is acceptable socially have been diminished or destroyed. In my opinion.; 5/25/12, 10:35 AM
Pastafarian said...: Althouse, are you saying that SE Cupp benefits somehow from this?

I don't think she would have traded the humiliation and degradation for the publicity. She's not Kim Kardashian.

Or did I misinterpret your comment?; 5/25/12, 11:06 AM
tim maguire said...: AFAICT, the SE Cupp thing is much ado about nothing. A tasteless magazine printed something tasteless.

So what?

The best response is not more speech, it's no more speech. Ignore it as unworthy of response.

Period.; 5/25/12, 11:11 AM
Simon said...: Pastafarian said...
"I don't think she would have traded the humiliation and degradation for the publicity. She's not Kim Kardashian."

No normal woman would. I'm not sure that even a Kardashian would; that's in the rarefied orbit of porn stars, Paris Hilton, and other professional degenerates. Normal women—normal people—would be mortified by the prospect of their name being linked to every search for their name for the rest of the existence of the internet. And so the answer to Tim's question, "so what," is the same now as it was above: For the reason just mentioned, this kind of degrading treatment is a barrier to entry intended to keep women out of public life. Don't think that this is just cheap titillation for the degenerates who read Hustler; this is a weapon of war, designed to intimidate women into keeping quiet. It's outrageous, and it ought to be punished.; 5/25/12, 11:37 AM
Ron Nelson said...: Larry Flynt has been searching for years to find whether there are any boundaries for his disturbed editorial decisions. Although the law suggests there are, he simply has come across it yet. Although S.E. would be doing us all a great public service if this were deemed a step too far, I doubt she is inclined to garner any more publicity for Hustler and make this image any more noticed than it already is.; 5/25/12, 12:26 PM
tim maguire said...: I don't think that's the case, Simon. Just now I googled "s e cupp" and got 353,000 results. The only mention of the Hustler connection is a few lnks of news in reaction. Quit the reaction and it's already off the fornt page. Within a week or two it will be off the first 5 pages. Nobody looks further than that.

Even in the age of the internet, ignore it and it will go away.; 5/25/12, 1:00 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Althouse, are you saying that SE Cupp benefits somehow from this?"

I'd never heard of her. Suddenly, everyone's talking about her, championing her. I think it promotes her.

Did Rush Limbaugh benefit Sandra Fluke? Obviously, yes. But the was much gasping about it.; 5/25/12, 10:47 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Ann Althouse,

I'd never heard of her.

Wow - you're like Obama in Jeremiah Wright's church. Rush has mentioned her tons of times. He likes the sound of her name. He likes saying it, for the humor in it. She's also been a fixture on Bill Maher's show.

Weird what you miss, I guess,...; 5/26/12, 12:29 AM