My commenters jumped when I quoted the word "Caucasity," but my question is whether the proper spelling isn't "Caucacity."

Here's the context of my quotation. NY Magazine writer Choire Sicha wrote "For obvious reasons (Caucasity), most of these reporters are on the joyless, scold-y White Twitter...."

In the comments, Lucien said: "'Caucasity'? Is that like 'whiteness'?"  And Clyde said: "'Caucasity'?! What bilge!" 

To answer Lucien's question, "Caucasity" clearly means "whiteness." Why use an odd word when there's a more common word? I'd say it's just for humorous effect. It actually takes race less seriously. "Caucasian" used to have a somewhat elevated quality, when race was palmed off as a biological science. To seize upon the big word and to further enlarge it with an ending is a standard humor move. It's actually quite old fashioned.

But I just want to question the choice of ending — "-sity," rather than "-city." I've googled Caucasity" and got thrown into the Urban Dictionary entry "Caucacity" — with the "c," not the "s":

"The professor was just offering up some red meat so the racists and phony hero's would crawl out of their caves and show their disgusting underbellies."

"This blog is one big troll and the commentariat are the unwitting subjects of a psychopathology experiment."

Said Howard in the post about the 5 teenagers who taunted and laughed and recorded video as a man drowned before their eyes.

I'll just say... The phony hero's what?

And let me give you an example of a commenter who used that thread as an occasion to tell a story of his own (phony?) heroism. Gahrie wrote:

I was a longterm substitute teacher at a middle school that took the entire 7th grade to the museums and beach in San Diego. The kids were allowed to go in the water, and at least half did. I was the only teacher in the water. Six kids, all of whom were chronic trouble makers I later discovered, got caught in a rip current and were trapped where the waves were breaking also. No one noticed but me, and I immediately swam out to them without thinking. All six grabbed on to me, and thank god I am a large man (buoyant), or I would not have been able to keep the seven of us up. The lifeguards eventually saw us and rescued all of us. They said I probably saved the life of at least a couple of the kids who were exhausted.

When I finally got the shakes and reacted, the scariest thing to me was that I didn't think about what I was doing, and instead just reacted.

And let's also see what the race-conscious analysis was like. (The drowning man was black, and people are assuming that the 5 teenagers are black.) First, here's Chuck:

I am going to give the [NY] Times a pass on their having not posted video. Although I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that if a black man had been drowning and the monstrous do-nothing onlookers had been white, that the Times would have posted all of it along with three [new] columns on the state of race relations.

And here's Clyde:

[T]o play devil's advocate: In Florida, any sizable body of water such as a pond has a very good chance of having an alligator in it. There's a very good chance that the black teens don't know how to swim. It's apparent from listening to the video that the victim drowned quickly and would have been dead long before help could arrive even if they had called 911. And since they were at the park smoking marijuana, calling 911 would just have gotten them involved with the police, which they obviously didn't want to happen, and you can't call 911 anonymously.

And, responding to Clyde, YoungHegelian:

Yes, all this is true.

I'd like to add, in my experience with teen-age boys, & especially the black teen-age boys in the DC area, that sort of goofy bravado is default behavior when caught in an unfamiliar situation. It's like you never, ever show fear or concern, for such would be seen as a sign of weakness.

You have no idea how many times I've been out driving & some young black man will just step out boldly to cross against traffic. And you know what? He'll never look up the entire time! It's almost as if when he makes eye contact with a driver, the jig will be up. Hell, I'd look up & around when jaywalking just to make sure I don't get splattered by some clown who's looking at his cell phone & not the road. Not these guys.

And, yes, it gets them killed. In my county in suburban DC (Montgomery County, MD), each year more pedestrians are struck & killed by cars then there are victims of murder.

And here's Big Mike:

I want to add that I'm very distressed to see the comments that raise a racial issue (or potential racial issue). I grew up in [a] small Midwestern quarry town, and the white teenagers among whom I grew up would have acted no differently. Well, except fifty-five years ago they wouldn't have had cellphones, they'd have been smoking cigarettes and not weed, and there was no 911, no Internet, no social media.

"I sort of like Trump's lack of polish (though not really his nastiness — there's a cruelty there that's troubling)..."

"... and if I thought he was trustworthy and demonstrated some capability in governing I'd be all for him. Though of course in a president, you do have to be careful with your words — not just in avoiding setting off financial panics (look at how closely investors consider Janet Yellen's statements) but in diplomatic affairs as well (see Dean Acheson's statements about our zone of interest that made Stalin and Kim think invading South Korea wouldn't provoke major U.S. involvement). A more 'earthy' speaking style, with consideration of the phrasing used, is my ideal."

Said Brando, in the comments to yesterday's post about the preference many people seem to have for Pence's style, the style of a career politician. I'd said: "A man with a style honed outside of politics will seem too rough, too unfinished, too strange." I didn't come right out and say it, but, like Brando, I sort of like Trump's style — with the same reservations.

Here's another helpful perspective from the comments, from Clyde:

I want someone who:

1. Is honest
2. Is savvy enough to deal with our adversaries in the world without beclowning him/herself (Clinton's political experience did not give her such help in dealing with the Russian Reset, Benghazi, etc.)
3. Will pursue policies that will benefit the people of our country, rather than enriching him/herself, and will give the American people more freedom rather than less.

Hillary Clinton is 0-for-3. This election is a binary choice. Donald Trump might not be good, but Hillary would certainly be very, very bad, probably even worse than Obama. It doesn't come down to whether someone is a polished politician or not. Clinton is more polished, but our adversaries would eat her lunch, just as they have with Obama. Trump? He's used to negotiating and wheeling and dealing.

But he's used to negotiating and wheeling and dealing where he can walk away from what he doesn't like without worrying about the fate the other parties and where he can fold up the parts of his operations that are not profitable.

What happens when you transfer that skill to government — suddenly and at the presidential level — and when you are bursting with exuberant confidence? It seems like an insane risk. 

Let's take closer look at those Clerihews.

Donald J. Trump,
Like him or lump,
Wants to build a huge wall;
We'll find out this fall.

— Clyde

Okay. Nice! That's from the comments to last night's "A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley."

Clyde
Tried
To follow the rules
Unlike some of those fools.

So did Curious George:

Professor Ann Althouse
Larry’s her spouse.
He helps her with blogging
And the sink when clogging.

Good! First line is the name of a ((famous)) person and nothing more. Second line rhymes, then 2 more lines that rhyme with each other. There's no rule about meter or number of syllables, but keep it amusing and delightful.

Curious George
Knew how to forge
A Clerihew about me, Meade
And the clogging he freed.

Now, Cath did one about me before Curious George, and she followed the rules:

Professor Ann Althouse
Allows us all t' grouse
In this welcoming forum
With varying decorum.

Cath
Hath
Written a Clerihew
For the literary few.

Another appropriately rule-following Clerihewer is mccullough:

John Kasich
Pronounced like basic
Wants to get along
But is getting schlonged

McCullough
Could cull a
Great word from the pile
And make us all smile.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said:

Ignorance is Bliss
Is seriously piss
'd, to Let's take a closer look he alluded
Yet his poem was excluded

Ah! Yes:

Ann Althouse, Professor
And Meade, who impress'd her
Con-Law she unmuddies
Plus Critical Breast Studies

"You never know what may happen. That young man was here two weeks ago..."

"... and now he has just died in an accident. It's so sad. I still can't believe it happened."

Goodbye to Oscar Taveras.

Taveras, one of the game's elite prospects, had belted a tying home run in the seventh inning of Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, the only game the Cardinals won before being vanquished by the Giants in five.

ADDED: I was alerted to this news by Clyde in the comments on last night's open thread. He wrote:

St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Oscar Taveras, 22, and his 18-year-old girlfriend, Edilia Arvelo, died in a car wreck yesterday in the Dominican Republic. Taveras was a talented young player and one of baseball's top prospects.

It just goes to show the fragility of life, and the role that circumstance often plays in people's fates. Often a split second can be the difference between a narrow escape and becoming a statistic. Recently, my brother's girlfriend's car was totaled when she was out driving and an old metal pole blew over and landed on the hood of her car, just missing the windshield. She wasn't seriously hurt, fortunately, but it was a close thing. Had she driven past that spot a second earlier or later and her car wouldn't have been hit at all. A split second later and it might have landed on the windshield or squarely on the roof, which would have been much worse.

In Oscar Taveras' case, it's not difficult to imagine circumstances where he would have been far away from the Dominican yesterday: Had the Cardinals won the NLCS rather than the Giants, Taveras would have been in St. Louis last night for Game 5 of the World Series, assuming the Series went five games, of course; but even if it had been a four-game sweep, he likely would have still been in St. Louis on Sunday, cleaning out his locker, etc. While the Giants won the NLCS in five games, in an alternative universe, it could easily have gone another way. In that alternative universe, Taveras might have had a long and productive major league career and lived a long life. Sadly, in this universe, he and his girlfriend are dead at tragically young ages.

"More tongues than a Miley Cyrus concert. Thank Dog they're not twerking!"

Clyde comments on the dogs.

By the way, can you identify the breed of the dog in the first photo (at the link, above)? The second photo is obvious, and the beautiful face in the third is what happens when you don't worry so much about breeding.

And here's another dog, a new puppy in town:

"Obviously not designed by a heterosexual man. It looks damaged and hideously asymmetrical."

Says Clyde, in the comments to the post about that very bizarre (and asymmetrical dress Cate Blanchett wore to the Paris premiere of "Blue Jasmine").

I say:

Heteros are bugs for symmetry and on guard for hideousness and damage? What evidence is there of that?

I see hetero men around all the time who don't seem to mind hideousness and damage.

Clyde says:

At the Canna Café...

... you cannot say the wrong thing.

IN THE COMMENTS: Clyde said:

If it was in Leadville, it would have been the Canna Bistro...

He's talking about the 5th picture here.

If you're thinking of saying something about Elizabeth Edwards in the comments to the previous post....

... you need to put it here instead.

ADDED: Let me front-page something Clyde said in the comments to yesterday's post noting the death of Elizabeth Edwards:

This is probably an inappropriate question, but if as some have speculated, she knew the end was near and stopped taking the drugs: Did she decide to check out in December before the Death Tax kicks back in in 2011? Dying before January would be very lucrative for heirs, as opposed to hanging on until January 1st and having her estate get slammed with a 55% tax (or I think 35% if the deal Obama made with the Republicans goes through)...

AND: Irene said:

Rich people like Elizabeth Edwards plan for death, and their lawyers draft dispositions that minimize the impact of the estate tax. She knew she was dying, and she probably had a plan that gave a good chunk to charity. She also had plenty of warning since her initial diagnosis, and she could take advantage of making lifetime gifts to her children.

If she didn't plan, then everything passes to John Edwards without any tax implications. They're still married, and there is an unlimited marital deduction for spouses.

I didn't realize they were still married. Did they stay married as a tax-planning scheme?

"The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet..."

Here's a picture of the bleakness of late October for you...



UPDATE: The words in the post title come from Bob Dylan's "Ballad in Plain D," which he did not sing at tonight's concert, here in Madison, from which Meade and I just returned.

The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet
The words to say I’m sorry, I haven’t found yet
I think of her often and hope whoever she’s met
Will be fully aware of how precious she is

IN THE COMMENTS: Clyde said:

I'll never look at those bucolic hay bales the same way again after ELO cellist Mike Edwards' unfortunate fate last month.

Now they look a little bit... Menacing.

Chip Ahoy responded:



Meade said:

Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can eat your cake and have it too

Yes, Bob did correct the classic expression when he sang "Lay Lady Lay" tonight. We both noticed and love all the cake....



... Thanks, Bob.