Trump at the Economic Club of NY with a broken Teleprompter and a guy sitting at his elbow chomping on food throughout the speech.

This is harrowing.

Trump starts out:

"We're having a lot of fun on the campaign and on the trail. I just wanted to say that—and it's always a lot of fun when you come up and the people don't have the teleprompter working but that's OK," Trump said, looking down occasionally as he spoke at the lectern.... Lucky I brought some notes."

He shows some notes. He speaks. He gets to the line: 

"Everything that is broken today can be fixed. And every failure can be turned into a truly great success. Just look at the way I just melded into the teleprompter that just went off..."

That is, the Teleprompter that had gone off before and is back on now.

"Who else could have pulled that off, OK? Who else?"

But he's still not aware of how ridiculous that guy behind him looks, with that endless chewing, chewing...

"New Apostle of Hygienic Living Founds System on This Rule: 'Breathe Deep/Chew Long/Drink Enough/Eat Little.'"

"BACK TO NATURE" MOVEMENT GROWS/Civilization to Save Itself by Abandoning Artificial Modes of Life."

A New York Times article published November 16, 1907. A summary of the rules:



Found through a search for the word "eugenics" in the NYT archive. Context:

Perhaps you'd like to try the diet of the first celebrity dieter.

It's the Lord Byron diet:

... a thin slice of bread and a cup of tea for breakfast and a light vegetable dinner with a bottle or two of seltzer water tinged with Vin de Grave.

Other 19th century dieters:

Nietzsche tried a traditional restricted calorie diet and [Henry] James went in for Fletcherism, an elaborate system of chewing each morsel of food several hundred times.

Fletcherism, eh? Horace Fletcher, "The Great Masticator" said we should only eat when "Good and Hungry" and never while angry or sad.

Seeing — at the linked Wikipedia article — that Mark Twain visited Fletcher, I decided to find some searchable text and happened upon this collection of 300+ Mark Twain works in the Kindle format for $1.99. I was hoping to find something about Fletcher. I didn't. But that's a side issue. I'm absolutely delighted to have a single searchable text of 300+ Mark Twain works. For 2 dollars. What a world we live in! What would Mark Twain have thought of it? Anyway, nothing about Fletcher, but what about chewing? Any morbid fascination with chewing? There's this dialogue:

"Do you love rats?"

"I hate them!"

"Well, I do, too--LIVE ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your head with a string."

"No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum."

"Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now."

"Do you? I've got some. I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must give it back to me."

That was agreeable, so they chewed it turn about, and dangled their legs against the bench in excess of contentment.

ADDED: The 1919 NYT obituary for Fletcher:

The theory is, in brief, that everybody eats too much and that the cure is to be found in thorough mastication of food....

During [WWI] Dr. Fletcher... was given the full opportunity... to demonstrate the worth of "Fletcherism" though which he taught the 8,000,000 starving Belgians to get the full nourishment from their food. Early in 1912 he had himself subsisted on a diet of potatoes for fifty-eight days.

AND: There's also the first scene in Tennessee Williams's "Glass Menagerie," where our first glimpse of Tom's problems with his mother play out in the context of her admonitions about chewing:

"Gum may be good for body, mind."

"Chewing gum is an easy tool students can use for a potential academic edge."

Potential, kids. It's all about potential. I hope you've chewed enough gum to notice that "potential," in that construction, refers to how it's only just a possibility that gum might make you a bigger, better, stronger, sharper person.

Research funded by the Wrigley Science Institute.

Justice David Souter describes the Supreme Court term as "sort of annual intellectual lobotomy."

That slipped out along with some lofty comments about how people need to read more and how he's forced to do his serious reading in the summers between Court terms.

That makes some people, like Tony Mauro, the author of the linked article, wonder about rumors that he may be leaving the Court:

If he thinks of his work on the Court, even sarcastically, as a nine-month-long, brain-evacuating experience, it is easier to see why he would want to leave it behind -- if nothing else, to catch up on his reading.

Others I'm sure would put that more harshly: If you don't appreciate the great work of the Supreme Court, get the hell out.

Me, I would speculate that he's fine with the Supreme Court work and he was just being funny — and effusive about the value of serious literature.

ADDED: On reflection, I think the problem he's talking about is something I experience as a law professor. I love the work, but it requires me to devote most of my reading time to judicial opinions and lawprof articles and books. This kind of reading is useful raw material for doing what one loves to do, but it isn't enriching on a deep enough level.

My main problem with Souter is that he is one of the judges who writes the long tedious opinions that I have to chew my way through. May I suggest that if he wants more of a challenge during the Court's term that he devote himself to writing better sentences? Just on the Strunk and White level, could you please edit the hell out of those damned things?

If you don't like what reading that stuff does to your brain, why do you do what you do to my brain? If the Term for you is a lobotomy, consider that you are also the lobotomist!

"'Cloaca,' what you see in front of you, might be a shit machine..."

"...but actually it's about a whole range of other ethical and moral issues, from the food we eat to what we do with feces."

It's Wim Delvoye's "Cloaca No. 5," a "'machine/sculpture' that recreates the phases of human digestion, from chewing to defecation," on display at the Université du Québec à Montréal gallery. You can buy the freeze-dried fake shit in the gift shop. Is it a faux pas to make a gift of faux poo? Perhaps you'll want to keep it for yourself.

Now, I'm reading about this not because I have a Google alert on "cloaca," but because the nostalgically nicknamed Fred4Pres linked to it in the comments to that post about Maureen Dowd. He quipped:

I know lots of op-eds, like Maureen Dowd's column, that have been doing this for years.

I read, mildly amused, and then I'm stunned:

Mr. Delvoye, who will be in Montreal today for the opening, has been exhibiting various versions of Cloaca -- the name is Latin for sewer -- since 2000. His other work has included biker-style tattoos on live pigs and mosaics using tiles that carry images of his own feces.

Wim Delvoye — I'd forgotten the name, but he inspired the blog post that I've often said was my best: "Tattoos remind you of death."

How I love when things come full circle, and perhaps — it seems — so does Mr. Delvoye.

Now, here in the middle of the night, I'm reading the comments on that old post about mementos, and even as I delight at the names of some commenters who are still with us, I see some that I'm sad to have lost. Like Goesh, who says:

I was blessed to have been born and raised on a farm, and we used to finger-paint the pigs. We just assumed they would like it. What pig wouldn't want to look pretty, and we enjoyed it too. Kids are kids as they say. If you scratch a pig on the stomach, it will plop down on the ground. Let's face it, it is pretty darn hard for a pig to scratch its own belly if you think about it. They can rub against things to get their sides and back and butts scratched but not their bellies. Once the pig was lying down, one sibling would keep scratching his/her stomach while the rest of us made pretty pictures. When Porky and his pals would get sent off to market, we would always check to see if any of our art went with them. Often bits of it did and we always wondered what the butchers thought when our pigs came down the slaughter line. My younger brother once remarked that maybe they wouldn't kill them if they saw our paintings. This recollection yields a bit of a sad feeling, but hard reality sets in as I recall that Keith, my younger brother, relished bacon as much as the rest of us did.

We know the finger-painted pigs are long gone, but what of Goesh? He used to write poetry here too, under the moniker Lonely Donut Man/LDM.

But where are the snows of yesteryear?

Old blog posts remind you of death. Those pseudonymous commenters who are no longer with us — how can I know if they are, as they say, no longer with us? What if Goesh has scarfed his last doughnut and pooed his last poo?

I considered spelling "doughnut" his way, as a tribute to our lost poet. I looked up the old posts — here and here — where I talked about my spelling preference. The first one has some poetry by Robert Frost (and the speculation that he ate frosted doughnuts). The second one, in the comments, has a poem by Lonely Donut Man:

Verily thou could'st reference my lovely, lonely verse
its subtle allusions to the trans-fatty acids curse
O! Sugary, longing words of lust n'er terse
Lo!The collusion of flesh and grease, which be'th the worse?

I hope Lonely Donut Man still waddles on this earth. If only he'd return I'd feel such... mirth!

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo said:

In the blog commenters come and go
talking of loaves and donut holes.

Ricpic said:

How jejune and utterly predictable of the avant-garde it is
To make a production of pinching a loaf and spraying a whiz.

"It is a very touchy subject. Some people see it like a drug; some people see it like coffee."

"You have to understand our background and understand the significance of it in our community."

So says Abdulaziz Kamus, president of the African Resource Center, about khat — a substance that is illegal in the United States legal and popular in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

Now, I don't much understand the background and the significance of khat in the community Kamus is talking about, but I understand a lot about the background and community of the United States and its media, so my observation is about the L.A. Times article at the link. I can see what they are up to. They are reframing a drug problem in terms of multiculturalism.

Look at how this article begins with a cozy colorful picture set in "Washington" (which I presume means Washington, D.C., since the 4th paragraph contains the phrase "in cities such as Washington and San Diego"):

In the heart of the Ethiopian community here, a group of friends gathered after work in an office to chew on dried khat leaves before going home to their wives and children. Sweet tea and sodas stood on a circular wooden table between green mounds of the plant, a mild narcotic grown in the Horn of Africa.

As the sky grew darker the conversation became increasingly heated, flipping from religion to jobs to local politics. Suddenly, one of the men paused and turned in his chair. "See, it is the green leaf," he said, explaining the unusually animated discussion as he pinched a few more leaves together and tossed them into his mouth.

For centuries the "flower of paradise" has been used legally in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as a stimulant and social tonic.

See? It's a charming culture. You're not supposed to notice that you could mobilize your writing skills and do PR for any recreational drug like this. You're not supposed to notice that the actual scene is nothing more than some men lolling about having a drug-fueled argument.

But in the United States khat is illegal, and an increased demand for the plant in cities such as Washington and San Diego is leading to stepped up law enforcement efforts and escalating clashes between narcotics officers and immigrants who defend their use of khat as a time-honored tradition....

Increased immigration from countries such as Ethiopia, Yemen and Somalia has fueled the demand in this country and led to a cultural conflict.

"We grew up this way, you can't just cut it off," said a 35-year-old Ethiopian medical technician between mouthfuls of khat as he sat with his friends in the office....

"In my mind, [the arrests are] wrong," said an Ethiopian-born cabdriver who was arrested in November in a Washington, D.C., khat bust and spoke on condition of anonymity. "They act like they know more about khat than I know."

I admit I don't know about your culture's drug, but I know my culture's drug, multiculturalism. The L.A. Times is dealing it here. It is not a stimulant. It is a depressant: It numbs judgment.

So let me pour another cup of coffee and say that I do not want my medical technicians doing drugs in the office and I don't want my cabbie high.

Annoying and pretentious terms.

Collected by N. Stephan Kinsella (via Metafilter). The list is excellent -- reminds me of one of my all-time favorite books: Flaubert's "Dictionary of Accepted Ideas." The list is also pretty long, so let me select a few that especially annoy me:

Quoting “Mr. Dooley”; Quoting Will Rodgers; Quoting Yogi Berra; Quoting Boswell and/or Samuel Johnson (especially the stupid one about what is impressive about a walking dog is not that he walks well but that he walks at all); Quoting Shakespeare and/or calling Shakespeare “the Bard”

Yes, especially Mr. Dooley. Especially the one about the Supreme Court: "''No matther whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme court follows th' iliction returns.'' Ugh! Dialect... so long after everyone's abandoned dialect humor. It's a thoroughly conventional idea, so don't repeat the most conventional way to say it. Find a new way, or shut up.

... Hey-presto!

I've never heard anyone say "hey-presto!" but that's why I hate seeing it in writing.

journeyman; yeoman’s work

Yes, please stop saying yeoman's work. No one around now has a vivid mental picture of a yeoman working, so it's an image without an image.

nonpareil (having no equal; without compare)

That annoys me by making me think of that candy I inexplicably enjoyed when I was a girl. You know what else is annoying? Young women getting nonpareils all over their lips. Somehow, I don't find it annoying in a guy. I'm more I don't know what that is, but I want one of those.

tony (as adjective, “The tony club in downtown Manhattan.”)

Right, if it's actually a club for guys named Tony it would be kind of charming.

smudge-pot (something used in tort cases for first year law students)

LOL. Love the appearance of law school on the list.

man of letters (“Edmund Wilson was a man of letters.” First, who the hell was Edmund Wilson? Second, what the hell is a man of letters?)

LOL... to the point of tears. Maybe there's a problem with the whole format "[noun] of [noun]" in place of "[adjective][noun]." I'm about ready to make a blanket rule. Kinsella seems so easily annoyed that he might object to "blanket rule." What the hell is a "blanket rule"?

vouchsafe (to give by way of reply )

That reminds me. Judges need to stop saying "cannot be gainsaid." And I'm delighted that if you Google that phrase, the #1 hit is this old post of mine.

worry a bone (a dog chewing/playing with a bone)

let slip the dogs of war (“slip”?)

Don't make us think, unnecessarily, of dogs. No, I don't want that as a blanket rule, because one of my favorite verbs is "dog." Not many animals get to be verbs -- bug, man, fish, cow, horse (around), monkey, ape...

bids fair (“seems likely”, as in, “Kenneth Starr’s report bids fair to become a classic, bawdy epic.”)

Had to include that, since it fits one of today's blog themes.

Kinsella also has a list of "cool terms."

epistemology

orangutan

What up?

ergonomic

“walking papers”--as in when your wife tells you if you screw up again she will sign your walking papers

I wonder what if he likes "riot act," a term that definitely annoyed George Carlin:

It's like the Riot Act. The Riot Act. They always tell you they're gonna read that to you. Have you heard this thing at all? Like when you're a kid, they threaten you.

"You wait 'til your father gets home. He's gonna read you the riot act!"

"Tell him I already read it myself. And I didn't like it, either; I consider it wordy and poorly thought out. He wants to read me something, how about 'The Gentlemen's Guide to the Golden Age of Blowjobs'?"

Enough now. Your turn.

What the nonfiction writer promises the reader.

Watch the whole diavlog, based on Richard Preston's book "Panic in Level 4." I especially loved this segment about a genetic disease that causes people to cannibalize their own bodies. They need to be guarded constantly, lest they bite off their own fingers and so forth. Preston tells us to think of a person who compulsively bites his cuticles or chews the skin off the inside of his lip and then imagine the volume turned way up.

ADDED: About that embedded clip. Preston talks about the nonfiction writer's contract with the reader. I don't think all nonfiction authors are really offering what he says and certainly, as a reader, there's nothing about a nonfiction author's offer to tell the truth that makes me agree to suspend disbelief. So it's not a contract with reciprocal duties. And in some cases, I might want to read someone precisely because I am entertained by the very aspects of the work that are not on the up-and-up. (I'm thinking of Hunter S. Thompson.) In most cases, I just know that to get what I want, I have be alert, looking for lies and distortion.

I read a lot of judicial opinions and political writing, and I'd be a chump if I read that writing with the idea that they had offered to tell it straight and I was therefore bound to accept their assertions at face value. But I'm not a chump, and in fact, for me, most of the pleasure of reading that stuff is looking for the flaws and reading between the lines.

"For those of you who carry just a wallet, how the heck do you do it?"

Dr. Helen got sick of carrying a purse, but finds it hard to edit down to just a wallet. She asks for advice. I was a staunch purse-avoider for many years. I was over 40 before I started carrying a purse and even then, I did it only some of the time. So I'm almost an expert.

First, get a very slim wallet. Dr. Helen links to the one she bought, and I can see from the picture that it is way too bulky. It's made of thick, pebbly leather and folds over twice. Ugh! This beautifully designed wallet by Comme Des Garcons is the best slim wallet I've ever encountered. Yes, I wish it were cheaper, but it's a beautiful design. When you're wearing pants with decent pockets, you can carry that in one pocket and your keys in the other.

But if you need anything more — cell phone, lipstick — it might get too bulky. A jacket can add some pockets, but the best solution is really a very small purse with a thin shoulder strap. And that's probably more comfortable and free than stuffing things in your pockets. The right kind of tiny purse with your essential things can be put inside a larger handbag, so that it's easy to switch from heavy to light. For example, I love this big bag, and I can put my laptop, papers, multiple pairs of glasses, cameras, books and everything in it, along with the much smaller bag that is easily taken out and used separately.

Finally, don't think so much about how annoying the big bag is. Look at the problem in a positive way. It's interesting to try to figure out ways to do all sorts of things more efficiently. The handbag issue is just one example of the many things in life that could be simplified and improved. It's good to develop your awareness of this and to enjoy thinking creatively about how to become more efficient. For example, think of how encumbered you are by the project of consuming several meals a day — all that shopping, cooking, chewing, cleaning up. The equivalent of the skinny wallet here is the Posh Spice approach to food — no meals, just a restricted set of snack items. Posh has chosen soy beans, pretzels, diet Coke. I think you could put together a much better selection, like maybe smoked almonds, carrots, and latte.

Travel light!

ADDED: Dr. Helen blames women for the lack of pockets in women's clothes. She states that women are "slaves to fashion." Eh. Some are. Some aren't. Here's her evidence:

Try going to the opening of a local Sephora (a make-up store, for those of you who aren’t “in the know”) and watch the parade of women swoon and swarm through the store as if they are on a drug-induced high. Then take a look at the puzzled faces of the men or boys they’ve dragged to the place while they watch the mysterious behavior of these women who are practically foaming at the mouth about make-up and tell me that this fashion — along with a lust for purses — is anything but the desire of the women themselves doing the longing.

But I've been lusting and longing for beautiful women's clothes with well-designed pockets for decades. That doesn't cause it to be in the stores. I think free markets work pretty well, but I still don't believe what is in the stores equates to what we really want.

But I must say, I was in Sephora the other day (to spend $22 for lip balm — "sweet and tart blackcurrant oil cushions the lips with plumping fatty acids"), and the women were in some crazy dream world. One woman raves to another that this cosmetics line is all natural, and the other oohs with excitement and surprise. But some women had in fact dragged men along with them, and way these men looked made me want to slap them back to consciousness and shout at them to get the hell out of there. I'm not saying that men must be very masculine or that there's something wrong with a man who actually wants to go into Sephora and buy something. (They have plenty of men's products, and beautiful salesladies will eagerly help you select great gifts for women.) But these particular men looked as though they had atrophied into mere appendages of women. They were willingly and weakly standing there discussing the women's products. They were placidly accepting their diminished existence. That's how I saw it anyway.

What will Hillary Clinton put us through for that 5% chance she has of winning the nomination?

David Brooks writes:

For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound....

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Brooks must have thought that last line was too clever not to use, but it's actually only a childish flipping of a phrase to its opposite, and, worse, it's not even true. She has the audacity of hope. By calling hope hopelessness, Brooks enables himself to ask why she goes on and to pretend there isn't the obvious answer: she has hope of winning.

Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish...?

How is what's she's doing any different from what every other candidate does as long as there's a chance? To say it's "selfish" or "narcissistic" to think you're special is to criticize everyone who has what it takes to campaign for the presidency.

Brooks reviles Clinton for "her relentlessly political life... encased in the apparatus of political celebrity," with an "impersonal" campaign that's "like a machine for the production of politics" that "plows ahead... following its own iron logic." So... she's a politician with a campaign. That's special because.... ?

Brooks challenges her to step outside her own machine and stop it, to "surprise everybody with a display of self-sacrifice." Why? Why should she behave differently from every other politician?

Her opponent is wounded by a problem of his own making. Brooks would have you think the Clinton campaign is chewing away at him with scurrilous, pointless attacks, but Obama's problem with Jeremiah Wright is something important about him that we need to think through. Meanwhile, she's reaped some important victories in key states and stands to win big in Pennsylvania — which will be a test of how deeply the Wright controversy has hurt Obama. For her to stay in now is not bizarrely robotic behavior. It utterly normal.

Or does it just seem wrong coming from a woman? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the lady displayed self-sacrifice?

ADDED: Ed Morrissey writes about the Brooks column. Bottom line:

[T]he Hillary-must-quit contingent seem to forget one thing: she’s still winning states, and people still want to vote for her. Obama hasn’t won the nomination, nor will he win it in the primaries. Why should she quit under those circumstances? By all indications, Hillary will likely win almost all of the upcoming contests, with just North Carolina as a potential exception.

The same people who dreamed up the superdelegate structure and who made it impossible for the primaries to select between two evenly-matched candidates want to be let off of the hook for the disaster they created.

I'm not convinced the superdelegate structure is a disaster. It's a structural safeguard. I don't buy the argument that "democracy" must prevail when you're talking about voting (or, worse, caucusing) to pick a candidate for an election that takes place up to 10 months later. A candidate who's popular in February may look weak by the end of the summer. New information emerges, world events change, different issues come to the foreground, and the other party commits to its nominee. The superdelegates have the power to save their party from a disastrous candidate.

Jeralyn Merritt frames the facts to show that the candidates are about even:

So, Hillary's ahead in popular vote and electoral votes, in the big states and the states most likely to go Democratic in November. She's ahead in the big states that are critical for Dems in November. Obama's got a small lead in overall pledged delegates and has won more Republican states that have a slim to no chance of going blue in November.

The superdelegates need to consider who will bring it home for Democrats in November. The results so far indicate that person is Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama.

Are you watching HBO's "John Adams"?

Beldar is:

He's shown as a gentleman farmer who can relish teaching young John Quincy the utter necessity and joy of going elbow-deep while hand-mixing the contents of the manure-cart, and yet who immediately thereafter, upon hearing the boy's stated desire to become a farmer, firmly announces that it's to be the schoolbooks and "then the law" for the lad. (Some of you will see this — manure-spreading and lawyering — as entirely uncontradictory, just not in the same way Adams himself would have.)

It's a long slog through these episodes, even as the big events of American history pop up with regularity. Just when you think it's dull — let's palpate poop and pontificate — suddenly there's a famous battle right at their doorstep. Or there's John (Paul Giamatti) hunched over his extremely slow-walking horse, and around the next corner is the Boston Massacre. Watch men sweat and bore each other with tedious orations in the candlelight and — hold on — they'll get around to signing the Declaration of Independence. Then HBO will require you to gaze into the earnest, profound, somber visage of Paul Giamatti for several minutes to make sure you don't forget to think, think, think about what it all means. So it is overbearingly serious, but I can take it. If those little kids could put up with having the juice of a dying man's smallpox pustule jabbed into their arms, I can put up with the televised longueurs. Good will come of all this, one hopes.

Maybe you read David McCullough's book. I did not. I subjected myself to his "Truman," and I did not want to read another tome stuffed with way too many pages depicting what a good relationship some great man had with his wife. (Are McCullough's books the opiate of the married?) But I trust HBO, so I'm watching the mini-series. Still, every time I see tableaux of Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney (John and Abigail) smiling wanly, heads tilted together, fingers entwined — there are many! — I confirm my decision to skip that book. (But the Anchoress loved it.)

Let's look for commentary.

Lawprof Rick Garnett:

There were more than enough stirring "rule of law" and "importance of zealous counsel for the accused" moments [in episode 1] to justify recommending the episode to first-year law students. The episode ended with a dramatic speech on "liberty" by Adams (in a church), and with his departure for (I gather) the First Continental Congress. So far, the show seems to be doing a good job of highlighting Adams's struggle to keep-in-balance his "conservative" (that is, his unease-with-revolution) instincts with his "liberty" commitments.

Garnett seems intent on staying in character as a "prawfsblawger." (He's a law professor and he blogs about law — even if he's watching television.)

Paul Silver "swelled with pride and awe at the courage, tenacity, inspiration and skill of our founding parents." Is it okay for us to feel pride at what they did? I kept thinking that we never go to such trouble for anything today. I was feeling more ashamed, thinking I — and maybe everyone I know — would be on the side of the argument that said the war was a foolish risk and we need to bear with things a lot longer and hope for the best from the king. (By the way, didn't you think of Jeremiah Wright when someone said "God save the King" and one of the patriots responded "God damn the King"?)

The Television Without Pity discussion is good and irreverent, as usual:

Mmm, juicy pustules! (Imagine convincing people it was a good thing--especially when they were barely past believing in witchcraft.) I found it pretty dry, and I admit I was doing the Sunday bill-paying, work prep routine so wasn't wholly focused. But Tom Wilkinson was wonderful (although seemed tall for Ben Franklin, I don't know why). The Declaration reading sequence was pretty darn great, realistic or not, though. Sad but not surprising that the founding of Our Great Republic was so beset with bureaucracy and tit-for-tat....

[Tom] Wilkinson was rather good - I was worried about the scenery chewing, but then [Ben] Franklin was probably a smart alecky scenery chewer in real life so the acting fits. I'm neither here nor there on the fake nose, but [David] Morse [as George Washington] is doing rather well also.... One of my favorite scenes was after the vote to declare independence with the room so quiet - the collective thought of "what the hell did we just do? Yeah we really are doing this" just hanging in the air.

Ha ha. Well put. TWoP is such a refreshing read. There really is way too much pity everywhere else.

Oh, I forgot to check mainstream media. Well, here's Tom Shales for the Washington Post

Dramatizing America's colonial and revolutionary years is full of pitfalls and has resulted in many a leaden movie -- from the cartoon buffoons of the musical "1776" to the British-as-mad-fiends hysteria of Mel Gibson's imbecilic "The Patriot." Mythic historical figures can come across as strutting, one-dimensional impersonations. But shrewdly adapting a book by the dedicated David McCullough, writer Kirk Ellis and director Tom Hooper have created characters who live and breathe and also, on occasion, bleed. They talk in complete sentences -- a charming habit long since abandoned here in the Colonies -- and yet the dialogue never seems stiff and unwieldy, as often happens in historical productions.

And here's Alessandra Stanley for the NYT:

[I]n this historical drama, Mr. Giamatti is a prisoner of a limited range and rubbery, cuddly looks — in 18th-century britches and wigs, he looks like Shrek.

And that leaves the mini-series with a gaping hole at its center. What should be an exhilarating, absorbing ride across history alongside one of the least understood and most intriguing leaders of the American Revolution is instead a struggle....

This series has a “Masterpiece Theater” gravity and takes a more somber, detailed and sepia-tinted look at the dawn of American democracy. It gives viewers a vivid sense of the isolation and physical hardships of the period, as well as the mores, but it does not offer significantly different or deeper insights into the personalities of the men — and at least one woman — who worked so hard for liberty.

Race and religion, Barack Obama and Clarence Thomas.

It's 3 a.m. ... And Ruth Anne Adams — commenter extraordinaire, historian of the Althouse blog, and Maternal Optimist blogger — is sending me email:

I spent a good bit of time reading the thread and the comments ["Barack Obama responds to the criticism over Jeremiah Wright"]. I kept thinking about Clarence Thomas' description of the nuns who, in the face of a segregated South, instilled in the students that they were all God's children, all worthy in dignity to learn and grow up in God's grace. I just think that there's something to chew on/turn over/mull. How did these two very prominent Black men look at the evil that is America's history with race and see it manifested in their personal religious worship? Clarence Thomas, as you may not know, has returned to full Communion with the Catholic Church. He did a fabulous interview with Raymond Arroyo of EWTN [Program #6, nun talk begins at 5:50 minutes into interview] when his book was published last year and he talked of the bitterness and hatred he could not carry. And I see Pastor Wright fomenting that bitterness and hatred.

In the Catholic Church, there are a few 'out there' parishes and the faithful know where they are. They are magnets for unorthodoxy of all kinds. If I were a politician and gaining some credibility because I called myself Catholic but I was going to these wayward parishes, I would justifiably get lots of flak. If I belonged to a 'Christian' white supremacist church, especially for 20 years, I couldn't wipe away that stink fast enough to become a credible candidate. Why is the reverse not obviously true? Is there a difference with John McCain accepting an endorsement from a daffy Catholic-hating powerful pastor with a brief visit and Barack Obama entrenching himself in his home parish? I think the Anchoress makes some reasonable points, but I think she's too generous to Barack. We're starting to see a pattern of America hatred with those people who are close to Obama. Glints of it appear when Michelle speaks [hey! has she been muzzled?] Most voters can't abide hating America to that extreme.

I bounced these off of you because I remember you simul-blogging Thomas' memoirs in the fall and I suspect you have a good basis to answer these questions that I'm merely musing about.

Glad you're back in Madison! The blog is so different there.

Ruth Anne :)

Thanks! And the blog's different without Ruth Anne in the comments, but I think she — and someone else you've probably missed — will be back in a week or so.

"How can somebody be removed from a job because of the size of his moustache?"

Asks the Supreme Court of India.

Victor Joynath De was grounded by Indian - formerly called Indian Airlines- in 2001 for refusing to shave off his handlebar moustache....

A moustache, if worn, should not extend beyond the upper lip, says the rule book...

The spokesman said that some passengers could be unnerved by such a striking facial feature.

Unnerved. I love that.

But really, doesn't there need to be some limit on moustachery when you're serving the general public?



That's not Mr. De. That's just the most extreme example of a moustache — or "mustache" — I was able to find on the internet in less than one minute. I'm just trying to prove my point that it would be not just unnerving but revolting to have a man with too much moustache serving you food.

"Mustache" is an amusing word. What is its etymology?

1585, from Fr. moustache, from It. mostaccio, from Medieval Gk. moustakion, dim. of Doric mystax (gen. mystakos) "upper lip, mustache," related to mastax "jaws, mouth," lit. "that with which one chews," from PIE base *mnto- "mouth" (see mouth). Borrowed earlier (1551) as mostacchi, from the It. word or its Sp. derivative mostacho. The plural form of this, mustachios, lingers in English. Dutch slang has a useful noun, de befborstel, to refer to the mustache specifically as a tool for stimulating the clitoris; probably from beffen "to stimulate the clitoris with the tongue."

Oh, come on now! That last sentence was uncalled for. I'm unnerved.

"The Republican presidential candidates explain their judicial philosophies."

That is, they try to tip us off on who'd they'd put on the Supreme Court.

I'll analyze the language later this evening, but I thought you'd enjoy chewing over it.

ADDED: As I expected, these statements are pretty much the same, but there are some subtle differences. McCain goes first, so I'll list the 4 basic things he does, and then we can see how the others deviate from the McCain model:

1. Assert a strong belief that judges should only interpret the law as written and not usurp the role of the legislature by declaring that the law is what they want it to be.

2. Imply that you nevertheless expect them to reach outcomes that you like by pointing to the outcomes you expect the judge to reach.

3. Refer to separation of powers and federalism.

4. Invoke the name "John Roberts" and one other Justice who represent the judicial ideal.

Romney omits #2 (the most dubious point), but lest conservatives think he's not going to give them what they want, on #4, he invokes John Roberts and adds not just Samuel Alito (McCain's other Justice) but also Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Huckabee omits #2 and 3, and, like Romney, he names all 4 conservative Justices.

(I'm ignoring Ron Paul, who seems as though he might want to repeal the 14th Amendment.)

"I haven’t paid much attention to [the 'vast right-wing conspiracy'] for about 10 years."

Said Hillary Clinton, today on "Meet the Press." Well, does it exist? " I really don’t have any idea. ... I’m just too busy to worry about that.”

ADDED: Here is the transcript of the show. There's plenty in it to chew over. Let me highlight the last question, which has emotional impact — I think — even though she absolutely walls us out of her private world:

MR. RUSSERT: Doris Kearns Goodwin said, "What's the biggest public adversity a person has ever faced?" What's yours?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, I think we all know that, we lived through it, didn't we, and it's something that was very painful and very hurtful.

MR. RUSSERT: What did you learn from it?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, first of all, it is who I am as a person. I believe that you have to withstand whatever problems come your way. You have to make the decisions that are best for you. You're going to get a lot of advice coming from many different quarters to do things that don't feel right to you, that don't reflect who you are and what your values are. So you have to be grounded in who you are and what you believe. And you're not always going to make the right decisions, but you have to be guided by what you think is important, and that's what I've done.

She couldn't say "I have always deeply loved my husband" or "I believe marriage is 'til death do us part."

IN THE COMMENTS: Reader_Iam says:

She couldn't say "I have always deeply loved my husband" or "I believe marriage is 'til death do us part."

I don't think she should have to.

The former is none of our business, and as for the latter--well, so far her choices are demonstrating what she believes with regard to her own marriage; of course, only time will tell if that turns out to be the case in the long run. As is, of course, true of all marriages.

I don't think she owes us that look into her private feelings. I'm just saying she's the kind of person who chooses not to see that question as an opportunity to show warmth and intimacy or to pontificate about family values. It wasn't meant as a criticism.

What did you learn from it?

Frankly, I have to hand it to Hillary, because I'm not sure I could have bitten back my gut response to that question, which is, "Oh, f*** you."

That would have been one of the all-time great TV moments. #1 on some VH-1 "100 most outrageous TV moments" list. It'd be better than this:

Here's where I pick out all my favorite quotes from the things I've collected on this blog over the past year.

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Joe Biden on Barack Obama.

"And to say that we are going to feed more American young men and women into that grinder, put them in the middle of a tribal, sectarian civil war, is not going to fix the problem...." Chuck Hagel, sure the surge would fail.

"I am self-involved, mercurial and comfortable eating dinners of frozen waffles in my underpants."

"Is Coulter truly oblivious to her gender weirdness? It's no coincidence that words like 'tranny' and transvestite' clog the anti-Coulter blogs." Camille Paglia, getting ugly.

"I'm pretty much going to stay out of it until the course — the case has finally run its final — the course it's going to take." President Bush, declining to say if he'll pardon Scooter Libby.

"Since the slaughter raised no real issues, it was a blank slate on which anyone could doodle." Christopher Hitchens on the Virginia Tech Massacre.

''He still didn't put the butter up... I was like, 'You're just asking for it, you know I'm giving a speech. Why don't you just put the butter up?''' Michelle Obama.

"An aging roué, who is almost too facile, and a grimly ambitious feminist lawyer, with a tough but conventional mind." Noemie Emery -- in The Weekly Standard -- on Bill and Hillary Clinton.

"We believe bottled water has become less about the physical act of hydration and more about being a companion to people."

"We like the United States of America, but we do not like your Waschbaeren!"

"I suggest to you with respect, Your Honor, that you're a few French Fries short of a Happy Meal..."

"If you don't like your life, change it." Something simple but profound that Laurence Olivier once said, noted on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

"Maybe his solution will be to get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his lawn." Something hilarious John McCain said about Mitt Romney.

"I will follow him to the gates of hell." "You sure wouldn't want to be where Saddam Hussein is, where we helped put him." Hell talk from John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

"Teachers taught, and students listened. Teachers commanded, and students obeyed." Justice Clarence Thomas.

"I believe that Ann intentionally keeps her camera focused on the books behind her... so that she is filmed in a flattering soft focus." Some ADS sufferer on Bloggingheads.

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Justice Antonin Scalia.

"Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them ’permanently’ meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee." Winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

"I wallowed in a morass of general and specific dislike and pity for most people but me especially..." Young Hillary Clinton.

"Clinton's low-cut shirt simply reflected a few centimeters of sartorial miscalculation..." Robin Givhan.

"He quickly matched my urgency in the clothes-removal efforts and we were naked and happy in no time." Al Gore's daughter writes a novel.

"We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America."

"Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear." Mother Theresa.

"I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate...."

"He knows enough to know he's not descended from apes!"

"So here’s the rule. You never repeat right wing talking points to attack your own, ever. You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever. You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don’t. Do. It." Jane Hamsher tells Elizabeth Edwards what to do.

"What politics has become requires a level of tolerance for triviality and artifice and nonsense that I have found in short supply." A quote from it's-easy-to-guess-who that I wrote 10 questions about.

"He's typing and drinking and threatening to 'shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.'" Maureen Dowd, describing Stephen Colbert as he's writing a guest column for her.

"Si te gusta el sexo oral, vote por Caragol por consejal." My favorite foreign language quote of the year.

"And another thing - the crotch, down where your nuts hang - is always a little too tight, so when you make them up, give me an inch that I can let out there, uh because they cut me, it's just like riding a wire fence. These are almost, these are the best I've had anywhere in the United States. But, uh when I gain a little weight they cut me under there. So, leave me , you never do have much of margin there. See if you can't leave me an inch from where the zipper (burps) ends, round, under my, back to my bunghole, so I can let it out there if I need to." LBJ, ordering pants.

"The rage he harbors raises questions about whether he can sit as an impartial judge in many of the cases the Supreme Court hears." New York Times editorial about Clarence Thomas.

"It strikes me as a self-hurt book." Jon Stewart on Chris Matthews' self-help book.

"Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I'm in a card game. Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a 'before' in a Charles Atlas 'before and after' ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy — he ain't so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I'm robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain't much to look at, but who's built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything's going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say?" Bob Dylan.

"I knew this was no fetish-laden intrigue with a woman of another race, but a gift from God." Clarence Thomas, on meeting his second wife.

"I'd done what I thought was right, and I took heart from George Benson: I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows/If I fail, if I succeed/At least I live as I believe/No matter what they take from me/They can't take away my dignity." Clarence Thomas, steeling himself by listening, over and over, to "The Greatest Love of All."

"What I wanted was for everyone — the government, the racists, the activists, the students, even Daddy — to leave me alone so that I could finally start thinking for myself." Clarence Thomas describing how he felt after reading Ayn Rand.

"He insisted that we bathe in what he called a 'teaspoon' of water, using laundry detergent instead of soap. 'Waste not, want not,' he repeatedly warned us. We weren't allowed to use towels to dry ourselves, either, since Daddy thought washcloths were good enough to get us dry (as well as being easier to launder than towels). Whenever he thought we hadn't gotten ourselves clean enough, he finished the job himself, a terrifying experience that we did everything we could to avoid." Clarence Thomas, on the baths of childhood.

"Sen. Clinton is claiming basically the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency as her own, except for the stuff that didn't work out, in which case she says she has nothing to do with it." Barack Obama.

"And I would never spend my money on a Chinese girl skeleton. That would be crossing the line. It's a Chinese boy, for the record." Marilyn Manson.

"Maybe yellow blotches, wrinkles, and phantom fetuses really get a pubescent neotenic mole salamander in the mood for love." Go Fug Yourself.

"At the moment, Giuliani and fellow moderate Mitt Romney are attacking each other for being insufficiently Tancredo-esque." David Brooks.

"I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified." Cass Sunstein.

"Blogs are walking up to legal scholarship and slapping it in the face. Blogs say to legal scholarship: 'How dare you! Evolve or Die!'" From the Bloggership Symposium.

"If you don't pass universal health care by July of 2009... I'm going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you." John Edwards, megalomaniacally.

"It's basically akin to someone sitting on their couch and chewing up food and spitting it all over the floor and the walls and the furniture month after month until it piles up and congeals and grows into mold, turning the room into a repulsive, health-threatening mess." Bad Simile of the Year, from Glenn Greenwald.

"Oh gee, I can't figure out what I think. Don't pick on me by asking that question! That's a gotcha question!" Rudy Giuliani spoofs Hillary Clinton.

"Everything I'm saying here is my wife's position, not just mine." Bill Clinton, remembering to talk not only about himself.

"I'm not doin' hand shows today." Fred Thompson.

"Well, Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well."

"WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO ?? PLS TELL BOB HELLO BOB."

When will they arrest you in Wisconsin for commenting on a blog?

Here's the news from West Bend:

An Oak Creek High School teacher who allegedly praised the actions of the Columbine School shooters and threatened local teachers on a Web site blog was arrested Thursday. The 46-year-old Cudahy man was arrested with the assistance of Oak Creek and Cudahy police departments after West Bend police were notified of a threatening post on Nov. 16.

The actual blog [sic, blog comment], posted at 6:50 p.m. and provided in a release by the West Bend Police Department, states: “Looking at those teacher salary numbers in West Bend made me sick. $60,000 for a part time job were you ‘work’ maybe 5 hours per day and sit in the teachers lounge and smoke the rest of the time. Thanks God we won on the referendum. But whining here doesn't stop the problem. We've got to get in back of the kids who have had enough of lazy, no good teachers and are fighting back. Kids like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold members of the Young Republicans club at Columbine. They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time! Too bad the liberals rip them; they were heroes and should be remembered that way.”

The man, who admitted to posting the message, was arrested and a search warrant was served at his home. He is in custody at the Washington County Jail and charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communication systems will be referred to the Washington County District Attorney’s office. The Cudahy man has no previous arrest record that the police department is aware of, according to a statement.

Unlawful use of computerized communication systems? Are you wondering about the scope of that crime (in case you might want to rein in your comments around here)? It's part of the law against stalking, here. (Wisconsin statute, § 947.0125 — scroll down to "Unlawful use of computerized communication systems"). It's not limited to threats of violence. It even covers a person who "[w]ith intent to frighten, intimidate, threaten or abuse another person, sends a message on an electronic mail or other computerized communication system with the reasonable expectation that the person will receive the message and in that message uses any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggests any lewd or lascivious act." That's a tad overbroad. It's a Class B forfeiture if someone "[w]ith intent solely to harass another person, sends repeated messages to the person on an electronic mail or other computerized communication system." Apparently, repeating yourself is a crime around these parts.

The man who was arrested did not even direct his message at a target. He merely posted an overheated political statement saying that a certain sort of person — not even named individuals — ought to be shot.

Now, another angle here is that the blogger — Owen of Boots & Sabers — provided the police with the IP address of the commenter. The police contacted him after someone saw the comment and filed a complaint, and Owen "assumed that [the police] would find him, chew him out a bit for being an idiot, and leave it alone."

At first blush, I think [the arrest is] a gross overreaction for a comment left on a blog. Yes, the comment was idiotic and over the top, but it hardly constitutes a direct threat to anyone. It was explained to me that it was not believed that the commenter had any intent to harm anyone, but that the mere presence of a comment appearing to condone such violence had to be punished because it might encourage someone else to engage in violence against schools....

It appears to me that the commenter is attempting to do one of two things. Option 1: the commenter is a right wing whack job that isn’t violent, but likes to engage in outlandish rhetoric. Option 2: the commenter is a liberal who is trying to discredit conservatives by acting like option 1.

As you can see from the story, the commenter is actually a union teacher from Oak Creek, but it gets more interesting than that. The commenter was also once the president of his local teachers’ union. This leads me to believe that Option 2 is the truth. This commenter is just a liberal union teacher who was trying to make conservatives look bad by pretending to be one and acting like an imbecile.

Oh, no! It would be funny, except that it's not at all funny. The guy doesn't deserve to be arrested.

In a later post, Owen considers whether he should have voluntarily turned over the IP address and decides that he feels "no obligation whatsoever to protect commenters’ information from law enforcement," and he, understandably, is averse to having some stupid comment on his blog draw him into a problem with the police. But do you think, considering how much this law burdens free speech, that we ought to say no when we think there is no credible threat or serious harassment aimed at a particular individual? I'm not knocking Owen for what he did, because he was caught off guard and, it seems, somewhat intimidated by the police himself.

Live-blogging the Democratic debate.

1. Isn't it fascinating that the candidates aren't standing at their lecterns? Wolf Blitzer thinks so, as he announces each candidate and we wait while each one walks out to screamy — or not so screamy — cheers. The candidates stand in a line, lamely clapping, boring the hell out of us, and Wolf takes to chatting with the news commentators, who all blab about pressure on Hillary Clinton. Wolf elaborates the ground rules and expresses his hope to get into a "real conversation." One good idea: if you try to change the subject you lose your turn. We're 8 minutes into it, before the real questioning starts.

2. Hillary is asked if she "parses" her positions. Obama is drawn in: Does he think HC "triangulates." Answer: They have different health care plans. There's some testy argument about who's for universal health care. Hillary looks stressed and angry — and quite bright pink. She's yelling hoarsely. My ears! The audience is heckling and cheering alternately, and Wolf Blitzer is waving his arms about making things seem chaotic. It seems like a free for all. It's so abrasive. Hillary starts laughing — as if to say she's feeling loose and comfortable.

3. "Hell, no, I wouldn't support any of these guys," says Joe Biden, making me laugh, after all the others say they'll support the Democratic nominee, whoever it is.

4. Obama says he supports driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Or... did he? That was garbled. Later, he gets to yes. Edwards? No. Hillary: no. Richardson: yes. Most of them chew Wolf out for asking the question forcing them to answer without the condition of comprehensive immigration reform.

5. Did Wolf hear him right? Did Richardson say human rights are more important than American security? Richardson pauses and there's a look of fear. Will this be used against me? But he's already said it. He says it again: yes. Obama is asked the same question, and he tries to say there's not necessarily a conflict. Wolf doesn't pin him down. Dodd is clear: national security is obviously first. Hillary too puts national security first. Kucinich is all: "Hello? Hello?" They still don't call on him.

6. Is Hillary playing the gender card? That's the question. Of course, she denies it. Follow up: What did you mean by "the boys' club"? She refers grandly and vaguely to the "impediments" there may have been along the way to progress. Wolf asks if anyone thinks she is playing the gender card. Edwards takes over, but totally fails to talk about gender. When he says HC takes money from lobbyists, the audience boos him loudly. Who knew the pro-lobbyist sentiment was so strong? Anyway, no one wants to talk about gender.

7. After the break, the candidates are sitting now, and the questions come from the audience.... I'm not going to summarize all the talk about policy. I found this part pretty dull, which I suppose means it was a big victory for Hillary. The final question was from a UNLV student who asked Hillary: "Diamonds or pearls?" — a twist on the old "Boxers or briefs?" question famously asked of Bill Clinton in '92. She says — smiling — that people accuse her of not making up her mind, but here she can be clear: "Both." Which is mildly amusing, but then Biden goes "I want diamonds." And that — with a big laugh — happens to be the end. Goodnight, everybody!

IN THE COMMENTS: Enigmaticore wrote:

I have changed my vote intentions. I was not going to vote in the Democratic primary in my state, although I can.

But I am going to, and I will vote for Biden, even if he has no shot of getting the nomination. I had written him off because of his slim-to-none-nomination chance, but damnit, he's fun and he's right on a lot of things.

Reader I_am writes (after many, many comments on the subject of merit pay for teachers):

Wow. A thread on a national politics, specifically a presidential-candidate debate, has turned into one relating to the public schools in our own communities.

Blake responds:

1. This is the second night in the row I've seen positively civil debates here between people who hold polarized viewpoints. It's "best of Althouse commentary".

2. I would humbly suggest that the President of the United States is a virtually trivial role compared to the problems of education. A society survives on the quality of its education, and ours has been dismal for several generations now. It's not only more important than any short-term issue, it's also more important than any long-term issue, because those being mis-educated today will be trying to handle those long-term problems tomorrow.

Jes' sayin'.

"I will discover to my shock and chagrin ... Glenn Greenwald has already written about it, and I’m totally hosed."

TRex frets:

[S]ome days I think I’ve got the post to end all posts lined up in my head and I will discover to my shock and chagrin that Digby or Glenn Greenwald has already written about it, and I’m totally hosed. Approaching a topic after one of those two has already handled it is kind of like approaching the all-you-can-eat food bar at Ryan’s Steakhouse after Rush Limbaugh has come through. There’s, like, nothing left.

Well, a lot of times Glenn Greenwald just chews up food and spits it out all over the floor and the walls and the furniture month after month until it piles up and congeals and grows into mold, turning the room into a repulsive, health-threatening mess. Then, there's a lot left.

What is it with these lefty bloggers and their food metaphors? It's enough to make you think they're all... doughy.

ADDED:


"Wheeee! I'm blogging!"

SPECIAL MESSAGE TO TREX:


"Wheeee! I'm blogging!"


AND: David Lat says: "Ann Althouse: We love it when she gets medieval -- or should we say me-diva? -- on a hapless blogger's a**." Hey, that's good for the banner!

UPDATE: TRex writes, then deletes, something about me.