Here we go again: "Let’s name names."

Jennifer Rubin in WaPo: "Enough platitudes: Let’s name names."

If you forget the past, you can reuse the old slogans.

IN THE COMMENTS: James K is first to embarrass Rubin by quoting her "Surely logarithms exist to detect the lion’s share of racist and anti-Semitic material..."

Logarithms!!!

Henry says:

Surely logarithms exist to detect the lion’s share of racist and anti-Semitic material

How about thermometers? Surely thermometers exist that will do that?

Algorithm. Logarithm. Whatever it takes.

Edmund, accepting that Rubin meant algorithms, said:

First, no there aren't such algorithms that don't also punish satire, commentary, or legitimate speech. Second, they have hired some people to police things and we have found that they tend to ban/suspend mainstream conservatives, not just extremists. Third, twitter is barely profitable - they made their first profit last year after 12 years in the red. Profits seem to be about $400 million/year. So at $25/hr salary and $75/hr total cost (for bare-bones benefits and facilities), that's about 5 million hours of labor, or about 2400 people. To police 335 million users across the world. Facebook has a lot more profit and might be able to set up a more robust audit scheme, but as I said above "Who will watch the guardians?"

UPDATE: WaPo eventually changed "logarithms" to "algorithms."

"I've got to admit that if I had to say right now, who is more likely to be telling us what is closer to the truth — no stakes, no burden of proof, just who is more likely — I'd have to say her."

I wrote in the comments to a post that linked to a WaPo article and simply quoted Christine Blasely Ford's husband.

He'd said, "Her mind-set was, 'I’ve got this terrible secret.... What am I going to do with this secret?' She was like, 'I can’t deal with this. If he becomes the nominee, then I’m moving to another country. I cannot live in this country if he’s in the Supreme Court'... She wanted out."

I've reflected on why that quote tipped me to have the thought quoted in the post title and to want to reveal that. I've challenged myself: Am I a tool of the patriarchy? The husband says something, and now I believe?!

But I don't believe. I don't take anything at face value. I blog from a position I call "cruel neutrality," and I begin, always, with the prosaic awareness that people don't say everything they think, that they may sometimes outright lie but also almost always shape their telling of the truth, and that memory isn't a video recording that can be played but a mysterious process of the human brain, and that we are all blessedly human.

So I'll forgive all the commenters who misread what I wrote and fought me over the idea they got in their head when they read what I wrote. And let me quote a few commenters who were closer to getting what I was saying.

Henry said:

I've got to admit that if I had to say right now, who is more likely to be telling us what is closer to the truth — no stakes, no burden of proof, just who is more likely — I'd have to say her.

Your key phrase is "closer to".

Kavanaugh's problem is that he can't admit to anything. The most innocuous story will be seen as proof of her most serious allegations. "Closer to" could be "I was at a party and tripped and knocked her over and it was pretty embarrassing." That's closer to her story than "I have never done anything like what the accuser describes -- to her or to anyone" but it's still a long long long long way from "I'm an unsuccessful rapist."

Francisco D said:

I am going to give Althouse the benefit of the doubt.

She feels that Christine Blasey Ford is more likely telling the truth.

Althouse is describing an emotional reaction, nothing more. She is not indicating how she has processed the available evidence and what her thoughts on the matter are.

Walk don't run begins with something that isn't close to describing me at all, because it's about performing the role of juror after all the evidence has been presented, when I specifically hypothesized a requirement to suddenly answer a question when there has been no comprehensive presentation of evidence. At a trial, a burden of proof would apply and a defendant would be facing the consequence of a deprivation of liberty. That's not my hypothetical situation.

Anyway, here's how walk don't run begins:

I was a juror in a rape case some years ago. The case should never have never have been brought to court it had so many holes in it. During the deliberations that took a couple of days I outlined 7 aspects of the case that provided reasonable doubt. All of us agreed except one female juror who insisted that she had to convict the accused. Her explanation was that she had been raped and could not find her way not to convict the accused. The facts did not matter to her. It was all an understandable emotion. I think something similar is going on with Althouse.

But I see that walk don't run only says he/she thinks "something similar" is going on with me. It may be similar, but it's also different. I would never abuse the role of juror in a real legal proceeding. The question with Kavanaugh is whether he should be confirmed to a lifetime position as Supreme Court Justice, but even that is outside my hypothetical because that is what is at stake, and I said I'm telling you what I feel without regard to the stakes, and I'm only saying what I think is more likely.

Notice that I could have gone on to examine what I would do if there were never any more evidence than there is right now and it were my job to vote whether or not to confirm Kavanaugh. Nothing in my statement would prevent me from adding that I thought — given all the other evidence of his excellence and good character and the absence of other negative reports — what we've heard about what he may have done when he was 17 and his possibly false denials are not enough to justify a no vote.

Anyway, walk don't run goes on to say:

On the other hand, to give Althouse some slack, Kavanaugh seems just too good to be true - perfect scholar, perfect athlete, perfect coach, perfect husband, perfect father and perfect jurist. I wish he seemed more human with some failings and frailties like the rest of us. I don’t think Althouse likes or trusts that and that perfection strangely makes him less trustworthy in her eyes.

Yes, that's what I wanted to quote. Kavanaugh is vulnerable precisely because he's presented himself as good all the way through. Any hint of a stain wrecks his purity. He's the opposite of the man who nominated him, who's a crazy tie-dye pattern of stains. Nothing shows on that man. It's so annoying to his antagonists, who keep adding to the stain pattern and making it even harder to see any new problem. What has Trump really done that's so bad?, I ask myself from time to time. There are so many stupid things, like saying a hurricane is tremendously wet. I have trouble remembering what (if anything!) is supposed to be so awful. But with the wonderful paragon Kavanaugh, the accusation stands out like a red wine spill on the cream-colored carpet.

"Remember how great...?"

Why am I posting this old TV ad? Here's the sequence: 1. I did a post on some banal Dan Balz column "8 questions for the midterm elections: A blue wave or not?" 2. In the comments, Henry made fun of Balz for writing "blue wave... blue tsunami... blue tornado.. a strong tide, a riptide or just a blue surge" and further mixed the metaphor by quipping what any intelligent, humorous person should quip, "blue serge," 3. As Henry pointed out, there's an old song "Blue Serge Suit," and I looked it up and found a Cab Calloway version to embed, 4. I made a new tag, "Cab Calloway," and added it retrospectively, 5. One of the old posts was "Records From My Father, Part 5: 'Remember How Great...?'" which was #5 in my "Records From My Father" series, in which I wrote about the album "Remember How Great?," which was actually put out under the Lucky Cigarette brand, 6. That had me thinking about the old Lucky Strike slogan, and because of the resonance with today's most famous slogan — "Make American Great Again" — I wanted to show you that ad.

"The Senate may be out of reach for the Democrats in 2018, but please, if there is a God, let O'Rou[r]ke kick Cruz' sorry Canadian can to the curb."

Top-rated comment on "8 questions for the midterm elections: A blue wave or not?" by Dan Balz (WaPo).

ALSO: At WaPo, "Trump blasted ‘Lyin' Ted’ Cruz again and again. Activists want to remind Texans with a billboard":

On the market for a billboard, outside the biggest stadium in Texas we can find. #TxSen pic.twitter.com/VDSR5pzSzH

— Antonio (@AntonioArellano) September 1, 2018

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry delves into the Balz article and finds a fantastic paragraph and riffs:

Metaphor madness!

But is it a blue wave (enough to get to 23 pickups), a blue tsunami (Democratic gains of well beyond 25), a blue tornado (picking off Republicans but in a more haphazard and therefore less predictable pattern), a strong tide, a riptide or just a blue surge (that would keep Democrats short of their goal)?

One of these things is not like the other.

If not blue tornado, what? This [is] probably where Mr. Balz should have used riptide.

He has too many categories as it is. He needs to use riptide in place of tornado and figure whether strong tide and blue surge are the same or different.

But is it a blue wave (enough to get to 23 pickups), a blue tsunami (Democratic gains of well beyond 25), a blue riptide (picking off Republicans but in a more haphazard and therefore less predictable pattern), or just a blue tide (that would keep Democrats short of their goal)?

Blue surge, makes me think The Blue Serge Suit, a high-school-compilation staple when I was a kid, which is about a different kind of victory altogether.

Ha ha. I thought of blue serge suit before I got to Henry's pursuit of mixing up the metaphor even more than Balz did by throwing in a tornado. Maybe Balz was thinking of a Sharknado. Anyway, Henry prodded me to find this cool song:

He isn't hep to jive, he's only half alive
Hep cats call him square
You won't believe this, Jack
But all his clothes date back
To '29, I swear
He wears a blue serge suit with a belt in the back
No drape, no shape, just a belt in the back...
He wears high shoes and a pair of spats
If you dig that junk it'll drive you bats
Maybe someday he's gonna crack
And burn that blue serge suit with the belt in the back

"Process: Wild things live in this word. These stories come from sources who strongly wished to remain anonymous..."

"... fearing that to have their names attached would threaten their chances in an already desiccated job market. But even if this was just gossip, I would believe it. When it comes to the American academy, I trust raw, red rumor over public statements any day of the week. Academic celebrity soaks up blood like a pair of Thinx. A letter to NYU’s president, Andrew Hamilton, a draft of which leaked in June, argued that Avital’s 'brilliant scholarship' qualified her for special treatment....  That Avital’s defenders are left-wing academic stars is not particularly surprising if you’ve spent much time in the academy... When scholars defend Avital — or 'complicate the narrative,' as we like to say — in part this is because we cannot stand believing what most people believe. The need to feel smarter is deep.... We would be intellectually humiliated to learn that the truth was plain: that Avital quite simply sexually harassed her student, just as described.... It’s possible that Avital genuinely believed that her student loved her, that he wanted to protect her from the scary, hostile world. In that case, the alleged assaults would have literalized the romantic tone she required he use. 'Hold me,' they would have said. 'Make me feel loved.' There is a phrase for all of this: cultish subjection...."

From "I Worked With Avital Ronell. I Believe Her Accuser," by Andrea Long Chu in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

What I chose from that article I chose for clarity, not abstruseness. Mostly. There's one abstruse thing that's the very thing that made me decide to blog it, which you see in the beginning of the post title:

Process: Wild things live in this word.

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry said:

Now that I'm reading the article, there are references to the wild throughout.

"She had just wanted to be coaxed, like a deer to a salt lick."

"That afternoon, quite without knowing it, like burrs attaching themselves to some passing animal, the students had been persecuting Avital."(1)

"...abuses like Avital’s grow like moss, or mold."

Interesting that this kind of wild is Victorian -- the wild of tooth and claw, mold and decay. The academy is not civilized.

Thoughts on the morning after the Roseanne debacle.

I'm skeptical. Did ABC really cancel "Roseanne," or are we sucked into high-drama theater with more scenes to come? Is this like the Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un show, where it's on, then it's off, then it's on?

There's so much politics-and-showbiz going on, and I'm not going to sit passively in a comfy chair as a good little audience member. 

I predict Roseanne Barr will have more scenes to play, perhaps some slow rolling out of apologies as the new TV season approaches and new episodes are teased about how Roseanne Connor said something racist and kind of might actually be a racist or maybe Dan is a secret racist and Darlene comes to the rescue and the little he's-not-transgender boy shows us how to love again.

What soppy goo we slurp up every day! It's always something new. For example, right now, I'm seeing "Roseanne Barr blames sleep aid Ambien for racist tweet" (Reuters)...

“It was 2 in the morning and I was Ambien tweeting-it was memorial day too-i went 2 far & do not want it defended-it was egregious Indefensible,” she wrote. “I made a mistake I wish I hadn’t but...don’t defend it please.”

What does "it was memorial day too" even mean? Roseanne has a disorderly mind — or speaks as though she does — but she's done a bang-up job of grabbing our attention and that draws into question how orderly our minds are. Step back. Get skeptical. You only have the hours and minutes in your life that you have. You must use that time as it happens in the now. Every second you pay attention to one thing, you lose a second that would have gone somewhere else.

How many seconds of human time can Roseanne or Donald Trump or Kim Jong-Un amass? Kudos to them for their unfolding victories in the game of paying attention.

IN THE COMMENTS: Eleanor said:

Personally, I think Roseanne saw some of next season's scripts, didn't like the way the story was going, and wanted out. She'll rehabilitate herself, maybe another network will pick her up, and she'll get more control of the show. If not, she can afford to enjoy her retirement, knowing she put liberal hypocrisy on grand display.

Leland said:

I think it is cancelled. She insulted the Obamas by insulting Valerie Jarrett. And the comment was definitely ugly, despite years of Chimpy McHitler. Fair enough, what she tweeted about VJ was not nearly as bad as dressing up as Hitler and pulling ginger bread men out of the oven. That latter joke didn't keep ABC from hiring her in the first place.

Yes, the problem of likening humans to apes, an interesting variation on the age-old resistance to the notion of evolution. We are primates, all of us, the same order as the apes. Bush was "Chimpy McHitler," and let's not forget that time Trump sued Bill Maher for joking that Trump was the son of an orangutan.

Oh! And I see that people have not forgotten. There's already: "Roseanne Supporters Are Calling For HBO To Fire Bill Maher For Calling Trump An Orangutan" (Hollywood Life).

Henry said:

I don't think Roseanne walks this one off -- at least not until she does a full Mel Gibson disappearance for a few years.

Pre-production on the next season was already underway. It wouldn't surprise me if Disney tries to reboot the show without Roseanne. Maybe she dies off-screen and Dan remarries Betty White.

Roseanne's next page is to go full Charlie Sheen. She's not getting her show back.

Yes, I thought that too. Do the show without "Roseanne." Before the reboot, the series had ended with Roseanne's husband dead. So come back with Roseanne dead. Was she really the without-which-none of the show? She's a bad actor compared to the others. John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf are at the complete opposite end of the scale — great actors. Sara Gilbert ("Darlene") seems to have been the brains of the reboot. She could become the central character. Build the new season around John Goodman, Laurie Metcalfe, and Sara Gilbert, and leave the dead weight of Roseanne behind.

Sal said:

My new script idea: Roseanne has an encounter with some black guy. He complains about her apes reference and she gives him ten bucks. His eyes light up!

LOL. (He's referring to this. I love comments that incorporate stuff from other posts.)

AND: daskol said:

Great actors are moons and need a planet. Great TV writers too, and even clever Sara Gilbert is merely a moon without a planet. Roseanne is a planet.

I advise Neil Gorsuch to bring a sandwich to oral arguments and eat in front of everyone.

Let's see how that happened.

1. I wrote a post called "We sent you Unclubbable Neil!" in which I tweak Jeffrey Toobin for writing "Perhaps Gorsuch will, as the years pass, prove to be a more clubbable colleague...." and consult the OED for the definition of "clubbable" and the older word "unclubbable."

2. The commenter Henry remembers that the word "unclubbable" appears in the description of the The Diogenes Club, in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter":

There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.

3. I do a little reading on Diogenes:

Diogenes... became notorious for his philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He criticized and embarrassed Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting attendees by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also noted for having publicly mocked Alexander the Great.

4.  Distracting attendees by bringing food and eating during the discussions? I say:

Note to Neil Gorsuch: Emulate Diogenes by bringing a sandwich to oral arguments and eating.

5. Why a sandwich though? Where did that come from? It's the most food food to me. Warren Zevon said: "Enjoy every sandwich." And I don't know what Diogenes ate, except that it is sometimes said that he died from eating raw octopus.

Now, leave Neil Gorsuch alone while he prepares for the next oral argument:

"@BarackObama played golf yesterday. Now he heads to a 10 day vacation in Martha's Vineyard. Nice work ethic."

A 2011 tweet from Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump's 17-day holiday causes a stir" (BBC). The article also quotes Trump's book "Think Like a Billionaire": "Don't take vacations. What's the point? If you're not enjoying your work, you're in the wrong job."

Is Trump a hypocrite? One answer is, it's not really a vacation. He's just relocating to his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. He's calling it a "working vacation," and even though you can call things whatever you want, presumably all presidential vacations are to some extent or another working vacations.

More important: "The entire West Wing staff is required to vacate the premises in August while the building's 27-year-old heating, air conditioning and ventilation system is replaced.... Other maintenance includes repairing steps on the side of the executive mansion facing the National Mall as well as painting, replacing carpets and curtains, and fixing, ahem, water leaks in the press office."

So, BBC asks "Why is Trump being criticised?" That's just a funny question, isn't it? Whatever Trump does, he will be criticized. There's a large sector of media that watches whatever Trump says and does and asks: What's the best way to say that's bad?

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry quotes — "The entire West Wing staff is required to vacate the premises in August while the building's 27-year-old heating, air conditioning and ventilation system is replaced.... Other maintenance includes repairing steps on the side of the executive mansion facing the National Mall as well as painting, replacing carpets and curtains, and fixing, ahem, water leaks in the press office" — and quips:

Wait! So the White House actually is a dump?

A conversation about the politics of the commenters on the Althouse blog.

There was an open thread on this blog last night, and while many of the comments were about the Super Bowl...

Patriots getting schlonged.

Bigly.

Coin toss wins. What a rip.

Like Hillary beating Bernie in Iowa caucuses.

Cubs... Trump... Pats... I'm liking the way things are going.

... there was some interesting talk about the politics of the Althouse commenters.

Jack Wayne said:

I think everyone that reads this blog has noticed the increased number of lefty commenters. It started about 6 months ago. At first I thought it was a paid Soros performance trying to sway the election. Find a moderate blog and swamp it with lefty sentiments. It kept up after the election and now we see a determined effort to bring down Trump. What I'm having trouble understanding is the end game and why pick on Althouse? The end game is Pence followed by Ryan. Is that a reasonable goal? I think not but lefties are acting nutty right now. The other question of Althouse is more opaque. The best I can come up with is that the lefties feel the need to herd Althouse back into the fold. But I think that effort is doomed. Any lefties in the know are welcome to tell us what you are trying to accomplish.

Henry responded with:

What I've wondered for a long time is why the comments section has so many social conservatives in it, ranging from instapundit-style libertarians to outright misogynists. The question in my mind isn't why so many lefties, but why the balance has always been against them.

Jack Wayne said:

Henry, my POV is that lefties are not rational, hence they are the target in a blog that does not delete comments like so many lefty sites do.

Yancey Ward said:

Henry asked why Althouse draws so many from the right side of the political divide?

The explanation is fairly easy — she pulls no punches for the most part. I know from her writing that she leans left, but she almost never tolerates bullshit from either side — so there is something here for people from both sides to both agree with and disagree with. However, the main reason the commentators here lean right more than left is simply this — she doesn't delete their comments for simply disagreeing with her — a very rare thing for bloggers who are to the left.

Since I won't generally even read a blogger who practices such censorship, I noticed about a year ago that I was suddenly down to just Althouse who could be identified as a liberal, and who had a comments section. I have lost some bloggers on the right, too, who do this, but nowhere near the percentage. My theory is simply that liberals and progressives are just less tolerant of differing opinions, and the commenters from the left are less likely to frequent a comments section where they might encounter an actual opponent.

And you know what — I think her commenters have probably had an effect on Ms. Althouse — she definitely has drifted to the center in the last 4 years.

Of course, we could all just be commenters paid by Putin.

Gloria Steinem hopes Donald Trump will lose "in a very definitive and humiliating way."

She wants humiliation. What is that about?

It made me think about something else I read this morning: "MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Caught on Hot Mic Ogling Melania Trump." That's in Variety, which is going after Matthews for saying, "Did you see her walk? Runway walk. My God is that good." I have trouble even seeing what's wrong with that. Modeling was her chosen profession and she has real skills that people admire. Variety puts Matthews's remark into what's supposed to look like a pattern: "The pundit has been accused of sounding sexist on live television many times before. Here’s a look at some of his sexually regressive greatest hits." That sounds awful, but I don't see the pattern. Just because you make a list doesn't mean you have a list of things that belong together. But what I wanted to pull out of that list — because I'm trying to understand why Steinem wants to see humiliation — was something about humiliation:

(3) January 9, 2008: Argues Hillary Clinton Is Successful Because Bill Clinton “Messed Around”

Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Matthews credited said she appealed to voters as a suffering wife, “I think the Hillary appeal has always been somewhat about her mix of toughness and sympathy for her. Let’s not forget the reason she is a U.S. Senator, the reason she is a candidate for President is because her husband messed around. We keep forgetting it. She didn’t get there on her merits, because everyone felt, ‘My God, this woman stood up under humiliation.’ Right? That’s what happened.” Matthews later apologized and admitted he “sounded nasty.”

What is it about humiliation? We have a creepy love of it — a fascination — do we not? I confess to using the word myself on the night of the Indiana primary: "CNN talk is all about Trump but the big news is Hillary's humiliation."

It should be enough that the better candidate wins and the loser concedes with dignity. Why do we want to stare into the pain of the one who is defeated? What's wrong with us? Those questions relate to what I said on Tuesday and what Gloria Steinem said about the coming election, but it's a weirder dynamic that Chris Matthews talked about, the embrace of the humiliated woman, the desire to see her win because of her humiliation. It makes me wonder whether we really accept the truly independent, strong, successful woman. Maybe we need our woman pre-crushed.

But I'm looking back to the last time Hillary Clinton was elected, which was 9 years ago. Maybe we've changed, and that humiliation happened 18 years ago. Whatever taste for humiliated women America may retain at this point, is Hillary still crushed enough?

IN THE COMMENTS:  Henry said:

Althouse wrote: Modeling was her chosen profession and she has real skills that people admire.

This reminded me of a weird line in the Melania profile [in The New Yorker that] you linked the other day:

Through a quirk in immigration law, models, nearly half of them without high-school diplomas, are admitted on H-1B visas, as highly skilled workers, along with scientists and computer programmers, who are required to show proof of a college degree.

What a lovely mashup of intellectual snobbery and fake distinction this is! Think of all the athletes, artists, actors, and musicians who work in the U.S. despite not being "highly skilled" workers like "scientists and compute programmers." Of course, through a quirk of immigration law they have O and P visas.

"Surprisingly, OkCupid found that people have become more sexually conservative in certain ways."

Would You Consider Sleeping With Someone on the First Date?



"While “no” responses increased among gay and straight people of both genders, the change was biggest among gay men and straight women. The number of gay men responding 'yes' declined from 83 percent to 57 percent, while straight women dropped from 48 to 25 percent. What’s more, fewer people now say they’d date someone just for the sex. In 2005, 49 percent of OkCupid users said they would, while last year just 41 percent did. The number of people who said love was more interesting to them than sex at the moment remained unchanged, at 75 percent."

From "How OKCupid Users' Views of Sex Have Changed Since 2005/A new report from the company finds that American daters are growing more traditional in some ways, and more open-minded in others" in The Atlantic.

IN THE COMMENTS: Mingus Jerry said:

The OKCupid users that were in it for the sex simply moved over to Tinder instead.  

Similarly, Henry (upthread) said:

The article fails to mention competing services that have grown in popularity in the last ten years, some of which promote hookups more aggressively. The change must just as likely indicate shifting markets as shifting mores.

"The prevalence of specifically racial offenses shouldn’t blind us to a kind of bigotry jiu-jitsu that often follows in the wake of these incidents..."

"... in which the offenders quickly flip the script to portray themselves as the victims of intolerance toward their own intolerant remarks."

One of many New Yorkerish sentences in a New Yorker piece grappling with the way playing the race card backfires. And I mixed my metaphors knowingly and with intent to be annoying, because I don't think The New Yorker — famous for its "Block That Metaphor" squibs — noticed it mixed metaphors of eyesight, martial arts, boating, script-writing, and portraiture.

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry says:

I'm trying to figure out the point of the word "specifically."

That seems to imply the existence of "vaguely racial offenses" which by definition must be even more prevalent than the specific ones. The world is awash in the brickbats of hamhanded script-flippers.

My offhand theory would be that "specifically racial offenses" are incidents where the use of race is explicit or at least implicit and intended, to be contrasted with pervasive disparities that can be perceived or understood to have a racial aspect, like incarceration or poverty or inadequate education. It's exasperating to comb through the author's tangled prose, but here are a couple sentences than might support my theory:

[Melissa] Harris-Perry’s apology was striking precisely because we inhabit a hallucinatory moment in which the lines of power, inequality, and, yes, victimhood are blurred. Untouched is the higher standard for those confronting real grievances, the kinds rooted in systemic, empirical inequalities, not the imaginings of the angry entitled.

I love the use of "precisely." It serves a function similar to "specifically." And here we are, living within a hallucination full of blurred lines. I guess that first sentence means that if anyone says anything at all clear, like Harris-Perry's apology, it's striking. In a world of blurred hallucination, we're surprised to discern anything.

Now, what's going on in the next sentence? What is "untouched"? Harris-Perry apologized for her specific racial offense, but there are also the "real grievances," things that are more important, but harder to discern. The real grievances are the "systemic, empirical inequalities," but they're nonspecific, so thoroughly woven into everything that if you try to point them out, people will hold you to a "higher standard." Instead of talking about what really matters, we pay attention to the wrong victims, the upstart victims, like Mitt Romney, who's able easily to command our concern, because of the specificity of Harris-Perry's offense.

Okay, I think I untangled that, and I do see the author's point. His name is Jelani Cobb, and I think for whatever reason, he's decided it's brilliant to write like that, and The New Yorker is refraining from the tough work of word editing, for which it was once renowned.

Are people burning out on the Obamacare debacle?

That's a question occurred to me when I saw this ludicrous list of "most read" articles in The Daily News:



Is everyone crawling deep into the low-information/aversion-to-politics hole?

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry said:

1. Not too sexy for Obamacare.
2. This cat is covered.
3. Drowning is not covered.
4. Early adopters don't.
5. Beer goggles are covered.
6. Fat kids cost the same as skinny kids.
7. Obamacare will make you go blind.
8. Whats with all the kids?
9. Self-employed Comedian live-tweets insurance loss.
10. Birth control is free. Don't you people listen?

All those commenters who wanted me to read "The Fountainhead."

All I did was buy the ebook "Atlas Shrugged" so I could blog about things Ted Cruz — "Political anarchist or genius?" — said in his (not a) filibuster yesterday. Having riffed on and sniffed at some bloody metaphors in the Ayn Rand tome, I was beset with comments telling me the Ayn Rand book I really must read is "The Fountainhead."

Surfed started it:

The Fountainhead was a better read, a more cogent and focused book and you get the same dose of the philosophy....

Addendum: In the movie Dirty Dancing (1987) Baby confronts Robbie to pay for Penny's abortion. Robbie refuses to take responsibility and preaches “Some people count and some people don’t” and then hands Baby a used paperback copy of The Fountainhead saying, “Read it. I think it's a book you'll enjoy, but make sure you return it; I have notes in the margin."

"The traveler never gets there."

Says Henry, commenting on last night's post about the traveler/tourist distinction.

Henry is a reader of this blog who has commented in the comments section here, back when my blog had comments, and who listened to what I said here:

I'm not going to endlessly discuss why I had to shut off comments on this blog. If anyone wants to argue with me...

Argue or otherwise talk to me...

... they can open up their own blog, write their comment there, link to me, and send me the link. I'll interact with them if they write well and say something interesting and not the same old thing that bogged down my comments section. That's essentially what Glenn [Reynolds] has done over the years — outsourcing the commenting. The would-be good commenters are to be bloggers themselves, and they need to show their stuff and be linkable, not hop on the high-readership platform that he's built up.

Or the semi-high-readership that I built up. It was, I said, time to run free of the semi-comfy home here at Althouse... time to travel... and never get there. I'm not there. I'm still traveling, and this next stretch of the road is narrow and rocky, and it's just me and Meade here in our little 2-seater. We can't drive a big busload over the terrain ahead.

As Henry said in his email to me, sharing that first link, above, it was perfectly easy to set up a Blogger blog. It might take one minute, and then you're off. Don't sit there in that old broken-down bus wondering when it will start up again. Climb out, stick out your thumb, and Google will whiz by presently and give you a ride.



It's a cool ride, and who knows where you'll go... and never get there.

What do you think of Garrett Epps saying Justice Alito "looked for all the world like Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High..."

"... signaling to the homies his contempt for Ray Walston as the bothersome history teacher, Mr. Hand"? Commenters at "Did Justice Alito roll his eyes while Justice Ginsburg was speaking?" let Epps have it. Does he even know the movie? Amartel said:

If Alito had ordered a pizza to be delivered to the well at the Supreme Court, or called Ginsburg a "dick" that would be, like, a totally different story.

Likewise, Youngblood says:

Spicoli doesn't act like that in the film. Now, if Justice Alito said to Justice Ginsburg, "You DICK!" or ordered a pizza in the middle of class, that would be a different story. But little niggling gestures of disrespect aren't really Spicoli-like at all.

And CatherineM:

What I find most offensive is the Spicoli reference. Has Epps ever watched Fast Times? Jeff called Hand a dick once for ripping up his excuse, but he never mocked Mr. Hand. He was incapable. He was too high.

That's his tell. Epps is lying. I object.

To sum up, here's Henry:

Jeff Spicoli is a hero. When did liberals go all in on being turgid squares?

I don't know, man, but the Supreme Court is about to close up for the summer, and maybe all Sam Alito needs are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and he'll be fine.  When it's October, and the Justices are back for oral arguments, maybe he will order that pizza....

"Liberals who are dreading the scandal-mania that is taking hold should note that it contains a potential upside..."

How many liberal columnists have typed intros like that and then paused, wracking their brains for something to write next?

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry said:

Oh cripes, it's just Greg Sargent reading the entrails for a utilitarian polyp.

I was hoping for something more tangible. Something like "Liberals who are dreading the scandal-mania that is taking hold should note that it contains a potential upside: We could steal our souls back." 

Why are the figures on our national stage so lacking in greatness?

I wonder — as I scan the news this morning for topics and stop to think about Howard Kurtz and Jason Collins. Kurtz isn't a bold or great writer. He was dependent on Tina Brown, and he crossed a line, got a little edgy but didn't bother to sharpen up for the attempted edginess, and he got cut. Tina Brown runs her various operations. Is she at the level that should awe us?

Jason Collins was never a great basketball player. It's pathetic — a literal joke — that must we look at basketball to find men to look up to. (They are tall.) But this week, we're expected to admire this athlete we hadn't heard of before not for any athletic achievement but for the miniature feat of revealing — after years and years of hiding — that he's gay. Did he risk anything? His revelation comes at the end of his lackluster career, he's receiving plaudits from everyone on up to Barack Obama, and since his college days, he's had powerful political friends including Chelsea Clinton and (his erstwhile roommate) Joe Kennedy.

Is Barack Obama a great man? He's reached the top position. That takes some doing. He scrambled up over a number of people — were they great? — and he maintained his position, but is he great? We — some of us — like him. He seems like a good person — to some people, the ones who feel comfortable enough with him because at least he's not Bush, he's got a nice smile that reminds us of hope and Republicans seem mean, and it's not really his fault that there are so many problems.

And how about those Clintons and Kennedys and — as long as we're listing American dynasties — Bushes? There are no giants here. Why are the figures on our national stage so lacking in greatness?

It must be us. This must be our doing. Our preference.

IN THE COMMENTS: Jonas quotes George Carlin:

"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.'"

Henry and Balfegor both mention Steve Jobs as the last great man. When I wrote "Kurtz isn't a bold or great writer," I immediately thought Christopher Hitchens.

The optical illusion that is Mitt Romney.

Seeing Romney in person yesterday — from a distance of about 30 feet — I was struck by how tiny he looked. And yet, on line, his height is listed as 6'2". He looks tall in lots of pictures, like this one. Why did he seem so small in person? Is it an optical illusion? You'd think you'd get the most correct measure of a man when he's right there in the flesh.

I think Henry, in the comments last night, has the answer:

It's because he has a big head.

Yes! I did notice his head was huge. He was wearing a white shirt and blue jeans, not the business suit he always wore for the debates. A suit jacket enlarges the shoulders and the upper chest, making a very large-headed man seem to have more average proportions. But the head itself, unbalanced by a shoulder-padded suit jacket, fools the eye into seeing the body as small.

After all of the criticism of Sarah Palin for using target imagery in some campaign literature...

... it's it interesting to see the National Journal writing like this:

As they form a circular firing squad, Romney stepped back. Rather than engage his GOP opponents, as he's done most of his campaign, he's focused almost entirely on his No. 1 target, President Obama.

Romney has received cover from the primary's unprecedented volatility (at least since 1964), which has sent a bushel of candidates to momentary stardom atop the Republican field only to be torn down weeks later. Attacks from rivals and media scrutiny have followed each of these momentary front-runners...

And it's not as though Romney, his past rooted in blue-state Massachusetts, didn't supply his opponents plenty of ammunition. They have the bullets; they're just not firing them.

IN THE COMMENTS: First, the amusing. Mocks the writing in the National Journal — "This almost veers into Bullwer-Lytton territory" — Henry says "Why not go all the way?" and pens a rewrite:

While one candidate after another disintegrated like a clay pigeon at an English hunting weekend, former Governor Romney, encircled with the barrage balloons of his plastic bonhomie, so easily avoided the strafing attacks of candidates Bachmann and Cain, not to mention the kamikaze crash of Governor Perry, that the artillery spotters of the media could only wonder if their radios were broken: the guns of Sevastopol fire into the sea; the assassins' bullet bounces off the ghost shirt of the Mormon underwear; even the bloody dagger of professional ridicule fails to find the heart and the smiling to-be-tyrant only exclaims, "Gosh Brute, lovely day, wot?"

Second, the serious. Scott M wrote:

I don't know anyone that was taken in by the calls for a new civility after the AZ shootings. It struck me as just so much more "I want to feel good about something so this is what I'm going to say and assume it fixes the world" bullshit.

SGT Ted — noting that my "civility bullshit" tag "speaks for itself" — responded:

It struck me that after the AZ shooting that leftists and Democrat Party leadership were just trying to hang it around Republicans necks, when the shooter was a "leftwing pothead" according to his friends.

SGT Ted, Paco Wové said:

You should check out the Althouse comment threads from that day, for example. It took less than 30 minutes for the blame-orgy to start.

I just went back and read that long — 292 comments long — thread, and it's just appalling. 12 minutes after I put up a simple post — "U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot, along with at least 11 others, at a political event in Tuscon" — the get-Sarah business started: "Sarah Palin had AZ's 8th district in her gun sights." That came from someone who was taking a distanced attitude about what other people will be saying —"It would be interesting to follow the conversation on teh Internets today...." But soon it was "Remember, the DHS warned us of the rising threat of violent extremism from the political right" and so on, including much push back from commenters who didn't think we should be talking like that.