Flashback '08: The Audacity Althousity of Hope.

Originally blogged on May 11, 2008, under the heading "The Althousity of Hope." 

I went back into the archive to find that after reading the comments on the second post of this morning, "Are educated, intelligent adults allowed to complain that they didn't get what Obama's smiling 2008 campaign persona made them feel they could get?" 

Commenter Kelly said:

Seems like it was only yesterday I saw all the cool kids walking around with a copy of Dreams From My Father tucked under their arm. Everything they needed to know about The One was right in there, or so they thought. The book was as shallow as its author.

And I thought, no the book the cool kids were walking around with was "The Audacity of Hope." See? It's right there on the table.

The comments at the May '08 post fascinate me. People say I look lonely — lonely on Mother's Day! — and I have to point out that obviously, I'm not alone, since somebody else is taking the picture, and my book is under my hand, which means the Obama book is the other person's book. But commenters persist, observing that you don't have to be alone to be lonely, and it's figured out that under my hand — my fisheyed hand, which is mocked as a baseball mitt, a man-hand, an alien hand, and a Lisa Simpson hand — is the book "Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After."

And Meade — the man I hadn't met but married a year later — said: "Like motherhood, marriage is way overrated."

I revealed why I had the book "Singled Out": I was preparing to do a Bloggingheads episode with the author Bella DePaulo. 

Here's a July '08 post about that Bloggingheads. In the comments, Meade quotes something I say in the episode: (referring to my then-unshared health insurance and pension benefits) "I've often thought I should just charitably marry someone... I'd just marry them to be nice..." He says:

Gee, I'm single now, happily single, and thought I'd just remain that way.

But considering all the benefits, I guess I'd really be a fool not to take a close look if Althouse were to, just out of niceness, propose to pity-marry me.

What could I offer in return? Let's see - I could prune those redbuds, take out the garbage, trap squirrels.

I don't respond, and the next morning, Meade persists:

I could fetch her newspaper, scrape snow and ice off her car, shovel the front walk. Draw her bath. Pick her up at the airport. Rinse and dry her wine glasses. Form a circle-of-safety to protect her from Hillary Clinton-type madwomen who randomly come up to innocent people on urban sidewalks and punch them in the back. I make excellent salads, grill superb steaks and vegetables. Play a piano sonata. Pick up dry cleaning. Wait patiently while she shops for shoes.

Again, I ignore it, and hours later, but directly underneath that, I write:

I have very valuable benefits that I'm not using because I'm unmarried. Maybe I should go for a cash transaction.

And Meade says:

Okay. Forget the services. I have cash - very very valuable cash.

So what are the benefits and just how much valuable cash do you suppose they're worth?

I say nothing, but — as Ignorance is Bliss says 2 comments down but a year later — "You know the weird thing is that in 1 year she actually will marry him." And a year after that, there's a comment from my son John:

Wow, Meade, way to come up with a plan and follow through!

The narrative arc is long, in life and in blog posts, like this one which I will end with the revelation that the cool kid with "The Audacity of Hope" who took the non-selfie on Mother's Day '08 was my son John.

"Hail, Hail to Old Purdue!/All hail to our old gold and black!"

"Hail, Hail to Old Purdue!/Our friendship may she never lack/Ever grateful, ever true...."

On a beautiful fall Saturday morning, here in Madison, Wisconsin, the UW marching band can be heard practicing, which includes practicing the opposing team's fight song, and Meade — who grew up in West Lafayette — provides the lyrics, about gold and black and friendship and gratefulness.

I ask Meade if it's okay for me to blog that and he says, "I think you've already done it," which makes me think I'm being accused of posting first and asking permission later, but he really means I've already blogged — in some past year — about his singing along with the UW marching band playing the Purdue song. I go looking into the archives, and find, first, a post from April 2008, which can't be right, because I didn't meet Meade until January 2009, and the post in question shows New York City, where I was living at the time. The post, called "Morning fog update," shows what was my view of Manhattan. Meade arrives in the comments:

Simon said: "How much are you going to miss this view when your year's up?"

Meade said: "Yes, and how much we will miss these morning fog... updates!"

Ann Althouse said: "Great trees in NYC right now, and I'm about to get a new lens, so look out. Also remember that dead rat on the sidewalk in NY?"

There's a gap in the conversation where a commenter expunged her own comments, but apparently she said something that referred (possibly disparagingly) to things that could be photographed in Madison. And Meade says:

Yes! A marching band playing "Hail Purdue!"

And a dead rodent.

With fantasy fog...

...Where the Wabash spreads its valley,
Filled with joy our voices raise...

I find the old dead rat post — "Things that exploded in Brooklyn Heights recently" — where there's a discussion of how to buy a light bulb in NYC and a couple of commenters who never comment here anymore are advising me about shops in town, and there's Meade:

I hate to risk spoiling a New York hardware store bonding moment for you good folks but back where I come from we have universities, seats of great learning -- where women (and a few unnecessary men) go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts -- and with no more brains than you have.... But! They have one thing you might not have! A Google!

I resist my future husband:

Thanks, Meade, but I actually have this other really odd halogen bulb to replace. I don't want to mail order it. I want to show it to some hardware store guy who will give me the right bulb.

Meanwhile, Meade responds to a commenter who said "Yes but do you have swarthy olive skinned counterm[e]n to flirt with attractive visiting professors. Telling her how she would light up when the proper bulb is inserted in her socket. So to speak." With the metaphor in play now, Meade writes:

"Yes but do you have..."

Even better. We have links. Lots of links. Links pointing to pages and pages of swarthy olive-skinned counter[people], if that's what you're into.

Disease-free links. Unambiguously gendered links.

("Unambiguously gendered links" refers to another commenter's wisecrack that some NY hardware store employee is "AC/DC.")

Organic free-range links. Links that would never even THINK of stalking fair-haired Professoras and trying to put their bulbs into sockets in which they don't belong. And links that, frankly, just don't have the nerve to ask, "'ey, YOU! Are you clickin' on me?"

Shy unassuming links just busy doing their jobs and quiet[l]y living their linky lives.

The other commenter says: "Yeah, but [can] you get a link drunk and walk her home and talk your way into her main frame?" And Meade says:

No, but if you give a link a nice slow neck rub, draw the link a sudsy warm bath, and serve up some browned baby-back ribs with a glass of Merlot, she just might let you take a look at what's on her laptop.

So to speak.

And here's a post from August 2009, the month we got married, noticing Meade's comments in a July 2008 thread:

Gee, I'm single now, happily single, and thought I'd just remain that way.

But considering all the benefits, I guess I'd really be a fool not to take a close look if Althouse were to, just out of niceness, propose to pity-marry me.

What could I offer in return? Let's see - I could prune those redbuds, take out the garbage, trap squirrels....

I could fetch her newspaper, scrape snow and ice off her car, shovel the front walk. Draw her bath. Pick her up at the airport. Rinse and dry her wine glasses. Form a circle-of-safety to protect her from Hillary Clinton-type madwomen who randomly come up to innocent people on urban sidewalks and punch them in the back. I make excellent salads, grill superb steaks and vegetables. Play a piano sonata. Pick up dry cleaning. Wait patiently while she shops for shoes....

Fry up some bacon... provide the vocal track when the UW marching band plays the Purdue fight song....

ADDED: Meade reads this post and admires his selection — back in April 2008 — of the Purdue song lyric "Where the Wabash spreads its valley/Filled with joy our voices raise." Subtly erotic, he observes now. Less than a year later, I would meet him in that Wabash valley....

"I'm sorry, did Elbow just call the Solidarity Singers 'the gray-haired retirees and public workers that gather for the daily event.'??"

"Hahahaha! I mean, he is absolutely right but none of the SS would admit to the fact that they are just bored like-minded liberals scared to death that finances matter. One might think that Detroit would put some sense into this crew of 'gray-haired retirees' but I won't hold my breath. Carry on! Just get a freaking permit."

"Who's going to save you when you get attacked?"

Here's what today's rally at the Wisconsin Capitol was like for me:



If you don't know the "last time" that's referred to at 1:08, it's when I was attacked on August 12, 2011.

Note that I am taunted for not having a husband at my side, and how, later, Meade is mocked for failing to save me from the earlier attack. That's some weird sexism. I appear alone in a crowd and people I don't know address me by name, ask repeatedly "Where's Laurence?" and add "Who's going to save you when you get attacked?" Yes, they are smiling and the vocal intonations are sassy. Well, the video is there for your assessment. Please discuss.

Bonus giant papier maché Scott Walker at the end.

ADDED: At 0:33, the woman says: "Your new husband — it's so sad." I think she means to rub it in that I am alone. I get the sense that these people are trying to make me and then Meade and me angry, which isn't going to happen. I really mostly just couldn't understand why they were so dumb. They seem to feel empowered by their numbers and my aloneness, but they can see I'm filming, and they're only interested in harassing me because I've put things on the internet in the past. Are they so into the moment that they don't have a clue that I'm going to put up this blog post?

25 most-watched Althouse/Meade videos of 2011.

1. Wisconsin Capitol protesters disrespect the Veterans Memorial. 66,919 views.

2. Wisconsin protesters get children to chant. 37,011 views.

3. Gov. Scott Walker compared to Hitler. 28,944 views.

4. 14-Year-Old Girl at Tea Party Rally in Madison Drowned Out by Chants and Boos. 26,219 views.

5. First-hand View of the Attack on Althouse at the Wisconsin Capitol Singalong. 25,674 views.

6. Attack on Althouse at the Wisconsin Capitol Singalong. 24,054 views.

7. Protest at the Wisconsin Capitol, Saturday, Part 15. 15,359 views. (Doctors give excuse notes to protesters.)

8. Protesters re-take the Wisconsin Capitol. 12,111 views.

9. Sarah Palin in Madison, Wisconsin. 11,766 views.

10. Anti-Scott Walker protesters get aggressive. 11,657 views.

The 9 most-read posts on this blog in 2011.

1. "Union thuggery against Althouse and Meade: 'We will hang up wanted posters of you everywhere you like to go.'"

2. "Attack on Althouse at the Wisconsin Capitol singalong."

3. "I receive a threat: 'whoever video taped this has no life and needs to be shot in the head.'"

4. "'I really hope that in the future, people will be able to do more of the 'contrast' and less of the 'compare' with regards to Iraq and Libya.'"

5. "Obama lied about a central fact about his own life which he used — powerfully — to push health care reform."

6. "A 14-year-old girl speaks at the Tea Party rally in Madison and is drowned out by chants, boos, and cowbells."

7. "How much respect did the demonstrators show for the State Capitol grounds?"

8. "18 seconds of raw class warfare."

9. "Protesters at the Wisconsin Capitol disrespectfully have taped signs on and piled junk against the Veterans Memorial."

"If Ann Althouse was assaulted, so was Justice Bradley. Or, if you prefer, if Justice Bradley wasn't assaulted, then neither was Ann Althouse."

Crazy-ass thread hijack over at Blaska's, by one Jeremy Schultz. Meade pushes back, as do other commenters. It's interesting to me, as a law professor, to witness this struggle with analogies. When people are pig-headedly committed, politically, their efforts to grapple with facts are comical... or irritating — depending on your emotional orientation. Me, I'm serene, even amidst the anti-Althousiana, especially when Meade is on task.

(Click on the relevant tags if you need more information on the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" allegation or the attack I recently experienced. Note that I didn't charge or rush up to the man who attacked me, nor did I evince anger or order him to do anything.)

The Nefarious Kansas Preacher provides 'Some observations and thoughts on my experience at the Madison 'Sing-a-long.'"

Our  preacher friend — who comments here as "caplight" — wrote (unrequested) his account of the incident that took place on August 12, 2011:

1. I came to observe and to talk to the protestors. Why? First of all, I wanted to see things for myself. I appreciate the yeoman’s work that Althouse and Meade have done to document much of the events in Madison these last six or so months. But I am curious and want to see things for myself. My location this past week afforded me a ready opportunity to observe and draw my own conclusions. Second, I think of Wisconsin as somewhat of a ground zero for the future of public sector unions and for an emerging discussion of the proper scope of government within the context of fiscal responsibility. I wanted to speak to those who believe they are fighting the good fight on behalf of a certain vision of the future. I wanted to hear it from regular people not from union executives and politicians.

Where are the other videos of Friday's attack on Althouse?

I've shown you my video. I'd like to see better video, with a more complete picture of the attack I described. I saw a few other people there with cameras who were making a point of photographing me. Where are their videos? I would think that Isthmus — and other lefty/liberal websites — would be interested in refuting my account of what happened. Where is the other video?

The obvious inference: The other video/photographs support my account.

Breitbart.tv picks up the attack-on-Althouse video.

167 comments over there.

Like the comments here on my blog* there's a lot of focus on: 1. the police officer in the second video who threatens my son with a disorderly conduct arrest (and jail) for removing an aggressive man's hand from his mother's arm; 2. how they would have decked the aggressor; 3. my disinclination to have my attacker arrested; 4. the motormouth man's appropriation of the name of Jesus to make political points.

By the way, I was filming a "discussion" between the Jesus Motormouthpiece and a real Christian minister (from Kansas). It was an interesting encounter, which I planned to use on my blog. The man who attacked me suddenly came up and called me "emotionally retarded." As is my wont, I turned my camera on the person who said something nasty to me. The physical attack came at that point.
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* My blog displays only 200 comments at a time. To get to newer comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and find "1 – 200 of 398 Newer› Newest»" and click on "Newer."

Attack on Althouse at the Wisconsin Capitol singalong.

As discussed in an earlier post, a man attacked me today at the Capitol. We captured the assault on 2 different cameras, and I'm not editing the material together (at least not at this point). First, here's what Meade got on the Flip camera. He wasn't deliberately filming me, so some of this is unframed or off camera.



The man doing all the talking about politics and religion is not the attacker. Please note how friendly and nonconfrontational I am. I don't put my camera in anyone's face. I'm just recording a guy who's basically performing for the camera. He's yelling at a friend who is a Christian minister (and a commenter here, as "caplight"). You can see my son Chris on the right, in dark sunglasses, at 3:00. The attacker is the man with the "solidarity" armband, visible clearly at 3:38.

In the middle of the screen, at 3:38, in the red "fist" T-shirt and holding a heart-shaped balloon, is the man who pointed me out in the rotunda yesterday and who (apparently) participated in the comments yesterday under the pseudonym "Dirty Hippie." He talks to the attacker just before the attacker yells "You're socially retarded" and attacks me. The attack is at 3:58, off camera. Meade yells "hey" a few times and gets the incident framed. At 4:00, you see Chris detaching that man's hands from me. At 4:04, I yell "police" and the 2 men mock me, yelling "police!" in their girlie voice. At 7:12, the talkative guy tells the police what "transpired." He clearly states that the other man grabbed my camera (and portrays himself as the peacemaker).

The second camera was held by me. I'm processing that now. It gives you a first-hand view of the attack and my discussion with the police.

ADDED: Here's my video, with explanatory text appearing as subtitles.

"Capitol altercation involves Solidarity Singers, political blogger" — i.e. Althouse

Here's the report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Solidarity Singers normally meet in the center of the Capitol rotunda at noon to sing pro-union protest songs, but they take their sing-along outside on Fridays.

A heated political argument ensued between one of the singers and another man who was observing the sing-along. Meanwhile, another singer confronted Althouse, who was filming the encounter. According to the singer, Kirby Jones, Althouse aggressively forced her camera in his face and he pushed it away from him. According to Althouse, Jones tried to grab her camera out of her hands and her son struggled with the man to hold onto the camera. Althouse's son had a small cut on his wrist after the altercation.

Of course, I have it on video. I was standing filming a man who was ranting about how Jesus would be on the anti-Scott Walker side. This man blows a vuvuzela right in my face more than once. He's yelling at a man who is a Christian minister, but was never given much of a chance to say anything. Then a very angry guy comes up and violently snatches my camera, but can't get it out of my hand. He tries a second time, and he also hits me. My son detached the man's hand from mine. Anyway, I have this on video, but I need to edit and upload.

UPDATE: I responded to the reporter's phone call and she's updated the text at the link to say:

... Meanwhile, another singer confronted Althouse, who was filming the encounter. According to the singer, Kirby Jones, Althouse forced her camera in his face and he pushed it away from him. Althouse denied that she forced her camera, saying Jones tried to grab her camera out of her hands and "swatted" her arm. Althouse's son struggled with Jones to hold onto the camera, and had a small cut on his wrist after the altercation.

I held my camera up with my elbow at approximately a right angle. The man yanked my hand toward him. Twice. He wasn't even anyone I was photographing, just a guy who got up in my face.

UPDATE 2: A post with video from Meade's camera and — soon — mine is here.