"Just look at the diversity of those who embrace it. Couture runways like Chanel and Gucci have been littered with them in recent years, Matthew McConaughey endorses them, quarterbacks rely on them, the wrestler Mick Foley hid chicken wings in them and tweaked-out E.D.M. festivalgoers would be lost (and less high) without them.... The fanny pack is utilitarian by design and aspirational in application, because a hands-free life is an engaged life — a life worth living...."
That's at the NYT, where one of the comments is: "I never did understand the objections. Who doesn't appreciate a sexy leather tool belt slung low on the hip? Why, they're mesmerizing! It's the same thing. Makes you sashay a bit...."
But: "Small cross-body bags are the only way to go. All the ease of a fanny pack and you don't look like a dork." I recommend something like this (unless you're out hiking or something).
dork লেবেলটি সহ পোস্টগুলি দেখানো হচ্ছে৷ সকল পোস্ট দেখান
dork লেবেলটি সহ পোস্টগুলি দেখানো হচ্ছে৷ সকল পোস্ট দেখান
৫ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১৫
২৭ আগস্ট, ২০১৫
"The fact that he kept his job was because he was an African-American gay man. That’s pretty hard to say no to."
Said former news producer Greg Sextro, quoted in The Daily Beast's "Vester Flanagan Threatened Colleagues, Played the Race Card for Years/The cold-blooded Roanoke killer kept getting fired, kept threatening co-workers, and kept claiming he was the real victim."
Sextro called Flanagan "the biggest dork I’d ever met in my entire life... a really nice guy. A horrible reporter, but really nice... just a goofy guy." And: "I cannot see him doing this ever. He had to have been pushed to the limit to do something like that."
Also in that article, this quote from Flanagan to the judge in his 2013 discrimination lawsuit: "I am hereby requesting a trial which will be heard by a jury of my peers.... I would like my jury to be comprised of African-American women." Not African-American gay men. African-American women.
Sextro called Flanagan "the biggest dork I’d ever met in my entire life... a really nice guy. A horrible reporter, but really nice... just a goofy guy." And: "I cannot see him doing this ever. He had to have been pushed to the limit to do something like that."
Also in that article, this quote from Flanagan to the judge in his 2013 discrimination lawsuit: "I am hereby requesting a trial which will be heard by a jury of my peers.... I would like my jury to be comprised of African-American women." Not African-American gay men. African-American women.
২৪ জুন, ২০১২
Utilikilts.
Instapundit brings up the topic this morning, pointing to Manolo, who says he gets the idea:
Now, you might say, well, that's part of the American Dream. No safety net. You can win or lose. Free markets! Capitalism! He just lost. And hitchhiker in a Utilikilt soliciting entries to a spiral notebook turned out to be a loser. But he took his shot, and had his day in the sun. There's nothing to cry about.
But here's the mistake I see: He shouldn't have bought his own domain. If he'd gone with americandreamorbust.blogspot.com that website would still be there, and whatever the project was, it would be preserved. He paid to get a more-ambitious-looking URL, but then, he didn't keep it up, and the links that he got now go nowhere.
This is why I stay on Blogger. It seems weaker, perhaps, not to have one's own domain. But I think it's stronger. It's stable. It's a floor of permanence under your project. It's not vulnerable to the winds of change.
Beware the winds of change.
Especially if you're wearing a skirt.
You are the unconventional, free-spirited, manly-dude, who wishes to show the world that you march to the beat of your own Iron John drum circle, even as you not-so-surreptitiously air your junk out in public.I learned the word "Utilikilt" on October 18, 2010, when Meade and I were "very politely accosted" on State Street (Madison, Wisconsin) by a young man with a spiral notebook who was getting people to write the answer to his question "What is your American dream?" I didn't write in his book, but while Meade was writing — "To live in freedom" — I interviewed him about his project and his attire:
However...
Real Scottish kilt, worn properly = The Sexy.
Utilikilt, worn by you = The Dorky....
I said I was especially interested in the subject of men in skirts...Because I saw the potential for getting men out of shorts (which really are The Dorky)...
.... and he agreed to be photographed...Photographs at the link...
... and introduced me to the term Utilikilt. There was some talk about its usefulness to, for example, a carpenter.We talked to him about his project, and he said he was hitchhiking all over the country — would you pick up a man in a Utilikilt? — getting answers to his question, and naturally he had a website, which I linked to. The website was americandreamorbust.com, but I guess it went bust, because it's not there anymore.
I observed that it would be a useful defense against plumber's crack (since the back isn't attached to the front beneath the legs, so there's no downward pull when you crouch), and he made the less subtle point that it wasn't good if you had to use a ladder.
Now, you might say, well, that's part of the American Dream. No safety net. You can win or lose. Free markets! Capitalism! He just lost. And hitchhiker in a Utilikilt soliciting entries to a spiral notebook turned out to be a loser. But he took his shot, and had his day in the sun. There's nothing to cry about.
But here's the mistake I see: He shouldn't have bought his own domain. If he'd gone with americandreamorbust.blogspot.com that website would still be there, and whatever the project was, it would be preserved. He paid to get a more-ambitious-looking URL, but then, he didn't keep it up, and the links that he got now go nowhere.
This is why I stay on Blogger. It seems weaker, perhaps, not to have one's own domain. But I think it's stronger. It's stable. It's a floor of permanence under your project. It's not vulnerable to the winds of change.
Beware the winds of change.
Especially if you're wearing a skirt.
১৬ অক্টোবর, ২০১০
How the downward spiral begins.
"I was too timid to buy a 'DiGiorno for One' at the store because I didn't want the cashier to think I was a dork so I bought full sized one and now I'm stuffing my face."
ADDED: Here's what to do next time. Chat up the cashier, saying: "These things are great, but you know, they say 'for one' and it's actually plenty for me and my wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend." And if the cashier is attractive to you, say: "They say 'for one,' but which 'one' are they talking about? I only want to eat like half of this." If she/he smiles, say: "You want half?" Etc. etc.
ADDED: Here's what to do next time. Chat up the cashier, saying: "These things are great, but you know, they say 'for one' and it's actually plenty for me and my wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend." And if the cashier is attractive to you, say: "They say 'for one,' but which 'one' are they talking about? I only want to eat like half of this." If she/he smiles, say: "You want half?" Etc. etc.
২৪ জুলাই, ২০১০
২ জুন, ২০০৯
৩০ নভেম্বর, ২০০৮
৭ অক্টোবর, ২০০৮
Live-blogging the big "town hall" debate.
6:14 Central Time: I'm just setting up the post so you'll know I'm doing this again.
8:11: After they blame each other for the financial crisis, Obama tells us we don't want to hear them blaming each other. We just want to know how to stay in our homes and pay our bills. McCain sounds a little shaky and winded. He's wearing a shiny dark suit and a pink and red striped tie. Obama -- in an unshiny suit and a blue-purple tie -- seems relaxed. He's got a casual way of sitting on the stool.
8:20: The first 3 questions have been about the crisis, the third being, quite sensibly: How can we trust you guys who let us get into this trouble in the first place? McCain points to his record, and repeatedly tells us he's reached across the aisle. Does that make you trustworthy? The 2 men seem mainly to be recycling their old talking points more than speaking directly to the crisis.
8:28: An old woman emails in her demand that people be asked to make sacrifices. McCain repeats his ideas about cutting spending, and makes a second reference to an overhead projector that Obama procured for the Chicago planetarium. Again with the earmarks. What was the dollar figure on earmarks? I heard $1 billion. That seems like nothing compared to the $750 billion bailout. And what is the sacrifice? Not getting more earmarks? Obama reminds us of the way Bush told us after 9/11 to "go out and shop." Bush, it seems, could have demanded sacrifices, but Obama doesn't say what we should have sacrificed then or now, though he does advise us to be energy efficient. It's really not too inspiring, but I think Obama is trying to seem cool, solid, and not at all exciting. In the background, we see McCain writing, awkwardly, on a note pad, and maybe some of us think about McCain's sacrifices.
8:37: Tom Brokaw is in control! Obama will not be permitted to say something about taxes because "it's important." Ha ha. As I was writing "it's important," O said "it's important" again.
8:41: McCain thinks he's making a big funny by saying "I'll answer the question!" Because, you know, Obama didn't want to go on to the next question before. No one laughs, but he looks so happy with his wisecracks. "Too many lobbyists workin' there," he says, and I think he's trying to sound Palinesque.
8:44: McCain's plan seems to be to sound passionate and caring. And to say "Lieberman" frequently.
8:46: Jac is live-blogging too: "9:30 - Cringe-inducing word choice from Obama: "A lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11..." He can safely assume we all remember."
8:47: I love Brokaw. Watch the damned lights! He finds it hard to believe the candidates aren't watching the lights. Obama pops up and says he's just trying to keep up with McCain. In other words, he did it first! That seemed a little dorky and childish.
8:50: I was just admiring Obama's elegant gestures with his long, thin hands, when McCain positioned himself in the background and made a hand gesture that can only be described as holding an invisible grapefruit in front of your chest.
8:55: Obama says that health care should be a right. (McCain called it a "responsibility.") Obama seems relaxed and smiling but also oddly pissed that McCain has been "throwing a lot of things out there."
9:01: We've finally arrived at foreign policy, and McCain seems very relieved. Obama takes the subject of Iraq and ties it to the economy: Iraq has a surplus, so why are we spending our money over there? He's made this argument many times, but it has more resonance this week.
9:05: What is Obama's standard for when we should intervene for purely humane reasons, where there are no American interests? I hear no statement of doctrine. What is McCain's doctrine? We should intervene whenever there is a genocide if we have the means to improve the situation. (That's why he stood up to Reagan about Lebanon.)
9:14: Obama says McCain has called him "green behind the ears." Some sort of moss or fungus?
9:27: The question is how we would respond to an attack by Iran on Israel, and McCain makes a strong connection to the military man in the audience who asked the question. Obama's answer recycles material about energy independence. He talks about negotiations and diplomacy. Okay, and then? What if there is an attack? Will you be there? I can't tell.
9:30: "What don't you know and how will you learn it?" A cute question. Cute and disturbing. Obama decides to just deliver his prepared closing statement. The last 8 years sucked. Can't getthe same a different result doin' the same thing, so we need change. McCain says what he doesn't know is what we all don't know: the stuff that's going to happen in the future! [CORRECTION, made at 6:53 am: We'd really be screwed if evening doing something different made a different result impossible. I apologize for the accidental pessimism. I will endeavor to confine myself, in the future, to pessimism of the intentional kind.]
9:34: I began this live-blog with a big mug of lapsang souchong tea, but about 15 minutes ago, I switched to cognac:
9:42: Wow. Over 600 comments! I'll need to go in there and see what you folks are saying. For now though, let's do a little poll:
9:55: I was scrolling through my HDTV recording, looking to photograph the "invisible grapefruit," and I noticed that Obama was wearing an earpiece. I photographed the freeze-frame and have set up a new post to display it.
10:09: I reconsider the perception of an earpiece. I don't see it in other frames. I'm sure a real secret earpiece would be way less visible, inside the ear canal.
11:21: I'm reading the comments, and the general opinion is that the debate was very boring. It was boring to me, because they were saying things I've heard before. Maybe some people are listening closely for the first time, and for them, it might have been interesting. But it should have been new and exciting for all of us, given the events of the past week.
6:55 am: When I woke up this morning, I decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won.... Ah, what am I doing in this old post? Making a couple corrections. My new morning perceptions will be in new post.
8:11: After they blame each other for the financial crisis, Obama tells us we don't want to hear them blaming each other. We just want to know how to stay in our homes and pay our bills. McCain sounds a little shaky and winded. He's wearing a shiny dark suit and a pink and red striped tie. Obama -- in an unshiny suit and a blue-purple tie -- seems relaxed. He's got a casual way of sitting on the stool.
8:20: The first 3 questions have been about the crisis, the third being, quite sensibly: How can we trust you guys who let us get into this trouble in the first place? McCain points to his record, and repeatedly tells us he's reached across the aisle. Does that make you trustworthy? The 2 men seem mainly to be recycling their old talking points more than speaking directly to the crisis.
8:28: An old woman emails in her demand that people be asked to make sacrifices. McCain repeats his ideas about cutting spending, and makes a second reference to an overhead projector that Obama procured for the Chicago planetarium. Again with the earmarks. What was the dollar figure on earmarks? I heard $1 billion. That seems like nothing compared to the $750 billion bailout. And what is the sacrifice? Not getting more earmarks? Obama reminds us of the way Bush told us after 9/11 to "go out and shop." Bush, it seems, could have demanded sacrifices, but Obama doesn't say what we should have sacrificed then or now, though he does advise us to be energy efficient. It's really not too inspiring, but I think Obama is trying to seem cool, solid, and not at all exciting. In the background, we see McCain writing, awkwardly, on a note pad, and maybe some of us think about McCain's sacrifices.
8:37: Tom Brokaw is in control! Obama will not be permitted to say something about taxes because "it's important." Ha ha. As I was writing "it's important," O said "it's important" again.
8:41: McCain thinks he's making a big funny by saying "I'll answer the question!" Because, you know, Obama didn't want to go on to the next question before. No one laughs, but he looks so happy with his wisecracks. "Too many lobbyists workin' there," he says, and I think he's trying to sound Palinesque.
8:44: McCain's plan seems to be to sound passionate and caring. And to say "Lieberman" frequently.
8:46: Jac is live-blogging too: "9:30 - Cringe-inducing word choice from Obama: "A lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11..." He can safely assume we all remember."
8:47: I love Brokaw. Watch the damned lights! He finds it hard to believe the candidates aren't watching the lights. Obama pops up and says he's just trying to keep up with McCain. In other words, he did it first! That seemed a little dorky and childish.
8:50: I was just admiring Obama's elegant gestures with his long, thin hands, when McCain positioned himself in the background and made a hand gesture that can only be described as holding an invisible grapefruit in front of your chest.
8:55: Obama says that health care should be a right. (McCain called it a "responsibility.") Obama seems relaxed and smiling but also oddly pissed that McCain has been "throwing a lot of things out there."
9:01: We've finally arrived at foreign policy, and McCain seems very relieved. Obama takes the subject of Iraq and ties it to the economy: Iraq has a surplus, so why are we spending our money over there? He's made this argument many times, but it has more resonance this week.
9:05: What is Obama's standard for when we should intervene for purely humane reasons, where there are no American interests? I hear no statement of doctrine. What is McCain's doctrine? We should intervene whenever there is a genocide if we have the means to improve the situation. (That's why he stood up to Reagan about Lebanon.)
9:14: Obama says McCain has called him "green behind the ears." Some sort of moss or fungus?
9:27: The question is how we would respond to an attack by Iran on Israel, and McCain makes a strong connection to the military man in the audience who asked the question. Obama's answer recycles material about energy independence. He talks about negotiations and diplomacy. Okay, and then? What if there is an attack? Will you be there? I can't tell.
9:30: "What don't you know and how will you learn it?" A cute question. Cute and disturbing. Obama decides to just deliver his prepared closing statement. The last 8 years sucked. Can't get
9:34: I began this live-blog with a big mug of lapsang souchong tea, but about 15 minutes ago, I switched to cognac:
9:42: Wow. Over 600 comments! I'll need to go in there and see what you folks are saying. For now though, let's do a little poll:
9:55: I was scrolling through my HDTV recording, looking to photograph the "invisible grapefruit," and I noticed that Obama was wearing an earpiece. I photographed the freeze-frame and have set up a new post to display it.
10:09: I reconsider the perception of an earpiece. I don't see it in other frames. I'm sure a real secret earpiece would be way less visible, inside the ear canal.
11:21: I'm reading the comments, and the general opinion is that the debate was very boring. It was boring to me, because they were saying things I've heard before. Maybe some people are listening closely for the first time, and for them, it might have been interesting. But it should have been new and exciting for all of us, given the events of the past week.
6:55 am: When I woke up this morning, I decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won.... Ah, what am I doing in this old post? Making a couple corrections. My new morning perceptions will be in new post.
২৯ আগস্ট, ২০০৮
Live-blogging the McCain VP announcement. UPDATE: "MCCAIN PICKS SARAH PALIN."
8:26: I don't know what it says about me, but I got up this morning and didn't think about the McCain VP announcement on my own. It wasn't until I turned on the TV news that the subject occurred to me. On the day Obama announced his pick, it was the second or third thought in my head after waking. This could mean that in my heart of hearts, I really have decided on Obama. It could simply mean that I'm more interested in Obama.
My blogging over the months clearly shows much greater interest in him, and that could be for any number of reasons. Some people might say, I'm just monitoring him, looking for things to attack, but an easier explanation is that he is just more interesting. He's new and different. His ongoing battle with Hillary Clinton made him more interesting. And she obviously also made his VP selection far more interesting.
On TV, on Fox, they are saying what they know is that Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty are out. [CORRECTED TEXT: I'd written "is up" for some strange reason.] Ah so, it's going to be a woman. I'm hearing this for the first time at 8:37 Central Time. I will reveal that, instantly, a chill ran through my body when I heard that, and I have broken a sob or two as I write this.
8:37: The Fox reporters are talking a lot about Sarah Palin. Exciting. To continue my theme of why I've been less interested in the McCain VP announcement, it might be that I'm just drained from watching way too much Democratic convention TV or that the Obama announcement was more interesting because it was first. But it might very well be that the Obama campaign had a great idea with its text-message announcement and, in particular, having us go to bed at night knowing or almost knowing that it would come in the middle of the night. That made me think of it immediately on awakening because the thought was: Quick, look at the web, get the answer now. I thought the text-message approach was annoying and dorky, but I should probably concede that Obama got inside my head.
8:52: There's talk about a jet leaving Fairbanks, Alaska late last night, and a woman in her 40s getting on board. Now, here's Charles Krauthammer saying that McCain should pick someone "as bland as possible." He refers to Palin as "a rookie out of Alaska" and says it might make sense to do something like this if he was seriously trailing in the polls and needed "a hail Mary." Krauthammer's idea of bland: Pawlenty would have been best. Second best: Romney. Or even Fred Thompson.
8:52: I haven't heard any talk from these Fox guys about the importance of jazzing up the Hillary devotees. I wasn't a Hillary devotee, as you know, but I am in the demographic group that locked onto her emotionally. Can you understand how we feel about women? I remember when Bill Clinton announced his first Supreme Court nominee. Most or all of the talk had been about males. Bill dragged out the selection process, and finally the announcement came: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I remember a conversation with my neighbor that day when I got home from work:
9:13: I was just checking Wikipedia to make sure I had the right year for the Ginsburg appointment. Scanning the article, I see that when she went to college (at Cornell), one of her professors was Vladimir Nabokov. Random new fact of the day.
9:21: I've switched to CNN, and at the bottom of the screen I see the words: "Sources point to Palin as McCain's running mate; CNN has not confirmed."
9:33: Here's the WaPo article: "Speculation Mounts on McCain's Running Mate Pick: Alaska Governor Palin Said to Be on McCain's Short List for Vice President":
CNN CONFIRMS!!!!
9:37: "MCCAIN PICKS SARAH PALIN." On the screen. Tears! Chills!!!!
9:42: On CNN now, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who keeps talking about how little we know about Palin, but is guessing that "she'll hold her own." There's some talk about how "we'll all be eating mooseburgers."
9:42: A key puzzle about Palin has to do with abortion. They're discussing this on CNN now. Palin is a woman and may excite the Hillary supporters. But if Hillary's supporters were big on the abortion issue, they shouldn't like Palin, who vividly embodies pro-life. But you know, even people who believe abortion should be legal (like me) can have immense respect for individuals like Palin who live their own lives according to pro-life values, who make their choice to continue their pregnancies. And those who care about the rights of the disabled -- like many liberals -- should have great respect for a woman who did not discard the fetus she knew would be born with a serious disability, as was the case with Palin.
9:47: Oh, good lord, Hutchison is mispronouncing "Palin." She's overtly unenthusiastic!
9:53: The best attack of Palin is, of course, that she is inexperienced. It's a little hard for Obama people to say that, though, because their guy is inexperienced. Does that mean the best attack is silenced? No, it will transmogrify into an effort to catch her saying something that sounds inexperienced. I haven't heard her enough to have any idea whether she has the nerve and the mental capacity to sound right all the time. She's never been exposed like this before. So many people will be salivating at the chance to make her look bad.
10:16: Let's think about Palin in a debate with Joe Biden. How will that work? In the comments, Henry says:
10:21: More from the comments. This is from Peter V. Bella:
10:38: I'm going back to my first post about Sarah Palin, which was only last June. Excerpt:
My blogging over the months clearly shows much greater interest in him, and that could be for any number of reasons. Some people might say, I'm just monitoring him, looking for things to attack, but an easier explanation is that he is just more interesting. He's new and different. His ongoing battle with Hillary Clinton made him more interesting. And she obviously also made his VP selection far more interesting.
On TV, on Fox, they are saying what they know is that Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty are out. [CORRECTED TEXT: I'd written "is up" for some strange reason.] Ah so, it's going to be a woman. I'm hearing this for the first time at 8:37 Central Time. I will reveal that, instantly, a chill ran through my body when I heard that, and I have broken a sob or two as I write this.
8:37: The Fox reporters are talking a lot about Sarah Palin. Exciting. To continue my theme of why I've been less interested in the McCain VP announcement, it might be that I'm just drained from watching way too much Democratic convention TV or that the Obama announcement was more interesting because it was first. But it might very well be that the Obama campaign had a great idea with its text-message announcement and, in particular, having us go to bed at night knowing or almost knowing that it would come in the middle of the night. That made me think of it immediately on awakening because the thought was: Quick, look at the web, get the answer now. I thought the text-message approach was annoying and dorky, but I should probably concede that Obama got inside my head.
8:52: There's talk about a jet leaving Fairbanks, Alaska late last night, and a woman in her 40s getting on board. Now, here's Charles Krauthammer saying that McCain should pick someone "as bland as possible." He refers to Palin as "a rookie out of Alaska" and says it might make sense to do something like this if he was seriously trailing in the polls and needed "a hail Mary." Krauthammer's idea of bland: Pawlenty would have been best. Second best: Romney. Or even Fred Thompson.
8:52: I haven't heard any talk from these Fox guys about the importance of jazzing up the Hillary devotees. I wasn't a Hillary devotee, as you know, but I am in the demographic group that locked onto her emotionally. Can you understand how we feel about women? I remember when Bill Clinton announced his first Supreme Court nominee. Most or all of the talk had been about males. Bill dragged out the selection process, and finally the announcement came: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I remember a conversation with my neighbor that day when I got home from work:
Neighbor: So what do you think of Clinton's Supreme Court pick?That was 15 years ago, and I was more radical then. But the feeling remains. It means something. I was resistant to Hillary (because I think she betrayed women by attacking women to support Bill), but I know the feeling of women my age wanting to see women get through to the top.
Me: I'm so glad he picked a woman.
Neighbor: Really. You care about that?
Me: Yeah!
Neighbor: I mean, we already have a woman on the Court. It's not a first. At some point, it's not special to pick a woman. When will you not care about it anymore?
Me: When there are 5 women on the Court -- in proportion to the population. 5, not 4, because women are more than 50% of the population.
9:13: I was just checking Wikipedia to make sure I had the right year for the Ginsburg appointment. Scanning the article, I see that when she went to college (at Cornell), one of her professors was Vladimir Nabokov. Random new fact of the day.
9:21: I've switched to CNN, and at the bottom of the screen I see the words: "Sources point to Palin as McCain's running mate; CNN has not confirmed."
9:33: Here's the WaPo article: "Speculation Mounts on McCain's Running Mate Pick: Alaska Governor Palin Said to Be on McCain's Short List for Vice President":
Three senior Republican sources said they had been told Palin was McCain's choice. But those accounts came amidst conflicting reports about whether Palin had arrived here on a chartered plane last night or was still in Alaska.Yikes. I Google for a list of the states in order of population and see that Alaska is the 4th smallest state by that measure. [AND: I was about to add that we think of Alaska as really big, but it's tiny by population. Only Wyoming, Vermont, and North Dakota are smaller. Biden's state -- I mean Delaware -- is bigger.]
Republicans have never nominated a woman for their ticket, and Palin's scant experience would make her a surprise choice. She was elected governor two years ago, and before that was mayor of Wasilla (pop. 6,715).
CNN CONFIRMS!!!!
9:37: "MCCAIN PICKS SARAH PALIN." On the screen. Tears! Chills!!!!
9:42: On CNN now, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who keeps talking about how little we know about Palin, but is guessing that "she'll hold her own." There's some talk about how "we'll all be eating mooseburgers."
9:42: A key puzzle about Palin has to do with abortion. They're discussing this on CNN now. Palin is a woman and may excite the Hillary supporters. But if Hillary's supporters were big on the abortion issue, they shouldn't like Palin, who vividly embodies pro-life. But you know, even people who believe abortion should be legal (like me) can have immense respect for individuals like Palin who live their own lives according to pro-life values, who make their choice to continue their pregnancies. And those who care about the rights of the disabled -- like many liberals -- should have great respect for a woman who did not discard the fetus she knew would be born with a serious disability, as was the case with Palin.
9:47: Oh, good lord, Hutchison is mispronouncing "Palin." She's overtly unenthusiastic!
9:53: The best attack of Palin is, of course, that she is inexperienced. It's a little hard for Obama people to say that, though, because their guy is inexperienced. Does that mean the best attack is silenced? No, it will transmogrify into an effort to catch her saying something that sounds inexperienced. I haven't heard her enough to have any idea whether she has the nerve and the mental capacity to sound right all the time. She's never been exposed like this before. So many people will be salivating at the chance to make her look bad.
10:16: Let's think about Palin in a debate with Joe Biden. How will that work? In the comments, Henry says:
[P]eople with almost not debating chops routinely "win" political debates.I was just reading that in the comments, and now, I notice it's the topic on CNN too. I flip over to Fox for a second, and there's a smiling Palin, in a light green t-shirt and eating a vanilla ice cream cone. Voice over: "People love her."
Often these debates are "won" entirely on facial hair and body language. Palin could "win" a debate with Biden just by not looking like a warmed-over stiff.
Even if the debates were real debates, the fact that Palin is inexperienced politically has no bearing on her debating skills.
We know she'd cream Biden in 1 on 1 basketball. The debates have about the same relationship to political experience as that.
10:21: More from the comments. This is from Peter V. Bella:
Man, the leftist whackos and nutroots are going to come out of the woodwork like cockroaches. Pallin wears fur, she hunts and eats moose burgers, she is a life long member of the NRA, and the worst, the absolute worst crime -- her husband is a fisherman who works in the oil fields in the off-season. Yep, a regular working stiff. The kind of guy they hate and are jealous of. Not a lawyer or a fuzzy headed policy wonk; not a professor of basket weaving or Mayan Mysticism, not someone who lives off the teat of government grants; but a real, solid, hard core, working man. A guy who gets his hands dirty every day. The average Joe American.10:35: On CNN, they're reading messages off their website, including the statement that McCain "is trying to out-minority Barack Obama." Earth to nameless CNN website commenter: Women are not a minority.
What makes her even more odious is she actually worked with her husband on the fishing boats. She really, actually worked for a living. The Gospel chorus is lining up to rage and rant; “my God, how can he pick someone like that? Working people, why, they, they, they, know too much about real life!”
PETA, the anti-gun nuts, ELF, KOS, MYDD, Huffingglue and probably a host of others will be gnashing their teeth, pounding their drums, shaking their chubby little fists and green tamborines, and going into full, foaming at the mouth, rabid attack mode. They are going to have heartastrokes over this.
10:38: I'm going back to my first post about Sarah Palin, which was only last June. Excerpt:
Alaska! With Hawaii represented by Barack Obama, it would be cool to give the other latecomer state some respect at this time. It's always troubled me that Hawaii's been so far off and disconnected from the rest of the United States, and it's good that there's another disconnected state to keep it company. (You know when I was a kid in the 1950s, I heard discussion of Alaska becoming a state, and when someone said "I hear Hawaii is coming in too," I thought the islands were somehow floating over and would connect to the west coast.) Alaska's important too: oil-related. We're going to be talking about gas prices, and having the governor of Alaska will resonate.10:39: We're over 200 comments, so switch the commenting to the new Palin post, here. And I'll carry on there too.
৫ মার্চ, ২০০৮
"American Idol" — the boys were pretty good last night, all retro-80s.
Each did a little intro interview on what was supposedly their "most embarrassing moment." But David Hernandez had a story about a booger, and not anything about his time as a stripper in a gay bar or the way that's now splashed all over the internet. And Danny Noriega told us about a time he fell down stairs, and not about that YouTube video everyone's clicking on — the one where he hopes Santa Claus will rape your mother. (NSFW, but it does have some sly humor to it. Why do people think this one man who breaks into your house at night is okay? Santa does have a bit of a rapist M.O.)
But about the singing. I loved David Cook making that dorky Lionel Ritchie song "Hello" into something rockish. And Jason Castro sang "Hallelujah," such a great song, winningly enough. Michael Johns sounded too much like he was just horsing around with the 80s the way he did "Don't You Forget About Me." Ditto Luke Menard with "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go." Another thing about Johns was that he bleated and seemed cheesy. Menard, on the other hand, made me reminisce about how passionate and exciting George Michael was in the original Wham version, which is my favorite 80s single. (Chez Althouse, it got played a lot on a Fisher-Price record player back then.) Danny Noriega sang some damned thing that I didn't like and couldn't even recognize as a song. David Achuleta sang Another Day in Paradise" earnestly and prettily and used his after-song interview to deliver a mini-sermon about the homeless, for whom he cares. David Hernandez — I've already forgotten what he did. Has the bad press wrecked my opinion of him? Chikezie? What was that thing he sang?
ADDED: Jacob at Television Without Pity gets very heavy-handed about Danny Noriega:
But about the singing. I loved David Cook making that dorky Lionel Ritchie song "Hello" into something rockish. And Jason Castro sang "Hallelujah," such a great song, winningly enough. Michael Johns sounded too much like he was just horsing around with the 80s the way he did "Don't You Forget About Me." Ditto Luke Menard with "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go." Another thing about Johns was that he bleated and seemed cheesy. Menard, on the other hand, made me reminisce about how passionate and exciting George Michael was in the original Wham version, which is my favorite 80s single. (Chez Althouse, it got played a lot on a Fisher-Price record player back then.) Danny Noriega sang some damned thing that I didn't like and couldn't even recognize as a song. David Achuleta sang Another Day in Paradise" earnestly and prettily and used his after-song interview to deliver a mini-sermon about the homeless, for whom he cares. David Hernandez — I've already forgotten what he did. Has the bad press wrecked my opinion of him? Chikezie? What was that thing he sang?
ADDED: Jacob at Television Without Pity gets very heavy-handed about Danny Noriega:
[W]hat I can't fucking abide is this idea that some dumb kid is going to see Danny on the screen... and realize that this is a way to get approval, attention, and acceptance. Taking the Danny route means putting all the scary things about gay people and stuffing them into a tiny little asterisk, while magnifying all the childish, feminine, negligible things -- all the things that put you in the category of not mattering -- and expanding them so that they cover your whole personality, with just a tiny little asterisk of things that we can, as a culture, forgive. As long as we don't have to see them, think about them, or otherwise confront them in a way which isn't hilariously powerless....
Maybe Danny's the Marilyn Monroe of the show and knows that fulfilling an archetype this insanely well is actually a power play. I can see that, actually. I just don't like what it does to everybody else -- also, now that I think of it, a problem with people like Marilyn, who excel at putting on the face like that.
৪ মার্চ, ২০০৮
Live-blogging the Texas and Ohio primaries.
6:15 ET: Let's just get this post set up. And I wanted to let you know that I'm going to be doing some commentary on C-SPAN at 8 ET and 9:30 ET. Meanwhile, here's Jonathan Alter's Newsweek analysis saying there is no way that Hillary can get enough delegates, even if you project the rosiest possible results for her in all the rest of the primaries.
7:28: Obama's victory in Vermont is declared, but we're very close to the time when they will spill the exit poll results on Ohio. Exciting!
7:30: CNN won't call the Ohio race on the Democratic side. It's "competitive," we're told and I take that as bad news for Hillary.
7:32: The CNN exit poll shows that 59% of the Democratic voters were women, which ought to help Hillary. It also seems to skew old, which should help her. The Texas primary ends at 8, and then the Texas caucus starts at 8:15. Both my sons are caucusing in Texas, so I may get some photos and first-hand reports. I should add that McCain has been declared the winner in Ohio and Vermont.
7:43: Politico on how Hillary could come back. And here's Dana Milbank on Clinton "moving the goalposts." "My husband didn't get the nomination wrapped up until June" — she keeps saying that.
7:54: CNN is showing 60 to 38%, Hillary over Obama, in Ohio. But it's competitive! Keep watching! Only 1% of the vote in.
8:08: My son John is waiting in line for the caucus at Red River Church in Austin, TX. The line looks long to him.
8:25: I just did my first of 2 little bits on C-SPAN. Did anyone watch?!
8:46: John is reporting from the caucus, which he just got out of at 7:46 CT. The pews in the church were completely filled up. A party leader addressed them, saying it was "historic" and "we've never seen anything near this level of interest." There were lots of kids there. And some dogs. It pretty much seemed like voting, except that you could see what people around you were writing down. The party leader who directed them to come up to the tables to write down their choices said: "You can come up and it will be like taking communion." John heard someone chide him for saying that, but it wasn't clear whether he was kidding.
9:18: Congratulations to John McCain for clinching the nomination. Now, here's Mike Huckabee, conceding. He will "do everything possible to unite our party and to unite our country." He observes that the 2 most dignified campaigns are the ones in the Republican Party. A nice little speech, which isn't over, but it's down to the list of thanks, so I'll publish this update.
9:26: Huckabee is still talking. Some woman sold her wedding ring to make a contribution to his campaign. Would you even want that money? I wouldn't. I'd rather not hear about that. But he features it in his speech. Anyway, I note the percentages in Texas and Ohio: Hillary is winning Ohio by a much wider margin than Obama is winning Texas. She's got a 20 point margin: 59 to 39%. And Ohio is the state the candidate needs to win. [ADDED: I mean Ohio seems to be the state to win in the November election.] Huckabee is still talking, running on about the men who died at the Alamo. Finally, he's done. I hear McCain should speak soon. I hear that from C-SPAN, which is telling me to hang around until after the McCain speech.
9:50: McCain is speaking. Given the alternatives, he says, his election "is in the best interests of the country we love." That's a nicely modest way of putting it. He didn't grow up thinking the country owed him anything. But he felt "part of a kinship of ideals" that made him think he owed a life of service. Now, he's working the national security theme. We need to "combat Islamic extremism." On to trade: his adversaries "want to pretend the global economy will go away." On health care, he'll work to bring down costs without "ruining the quality of the world's best medical care." Energy: alternative sources. (He stops to cough. Don't look old!) And he wants to listen. We're "the captain of our fate." "We don't hide from history. We make history." Hope, values, principles, greatness, trust.
10:08: Wolf Blitzer keeps saying Ohio is "very competitive," even while looking at numbers showing a blowout by Clinton. What kind of numbers do you need to see before you stop saying that? Meanwhile, it's 50/48 in Texas. I'd say things look pretty good for Hillary (who also won Rhode Island, as expected). Obviously, she's not going to bow out. So, settle in folks, and wait for Pennsylvania, and all the ugly little globules of mud that will dribble out over the next 6 weeks. How about that Rezko trial? Should be delightful.
10:55: CNN calls Ohio for Hillary Clinton. And Clinton is currently ahead in Texas: 50/48. I'll have some photos from the Texas caucus very soon!
11:01: "Has anyone started calling her The Comeback Kid yet?" says Wolf Blitzer.
11:13: Okay, the pictures from the Texas Caucus are up (in a new post).
11:16: Clinton looks happy. She's all aglow. "For anyone who's ever been counted out, but refused to be knocked out..." She wants to symbolize the fighting spirit. Ohio is special, the key state that must be won if the presidency is to be won, and she's won it. She reels off a list of other states she's won — and it's a surprisingly long list. Obama's run of 11 victories in a row had obscured those victories, which include some awfully big states. "We're just getting started." She makes a big deal out of saying her website address, and the crowd chants it along with her, which strikes me as incredibly dorky. She going to be a fighter and a champion. "We're ready for health care!" "When that phone rings at 3 a.m...." She thanks a lot of people, including the 2 most important people in her life, Bill and Chelsea. Then, she also thanks her mother (an unnecessary slight snub to Mom). She gets a new chant going: "Yes, we will." Get it? "Yes, we can" refers to capacity, but it's not enough just to be able to do something, you have to actually do it.
11:51: Andrew Sullivan is very upset:
12:04: My other son, Chris, also caucused in Austin (at McCallum High School). He describes the caucus as extremely chaotic and confusing. He had volunteered to work for Hillary Clinton. He was at the rally in Austin last night, and he drove all over town today putting up Hillary Clinton signs. At one place where they needed people to hold up signs, Bill Clinton made an appearance and shook everyone's hand. Chris was impressed by Bill Clinton's handshaking technique. It's very quick but fully engaged, with an instant of eye contact that leaves you feeling that you met Bill Clinton. There were a lot of schoolgirls at the event — perhaps 6th graders — and they were ecstatic about shaking Bill's hand. They were jumping up and down, almost crying, and saying "I shook his hand!" They were acting, Chris said, the way you would expect them to act if Justin Timberlake had kissed them. Chris contrasted the experience with coming within arm's length of Hillary and Chelsea at the rally last night. They were not shaking hands, but giving autographs, and he didn't have the same sense that he met them, not that he faulted them for that. There was some pushing in the crowd that was infringing on two old women in front, and Hillary came over and told them to stop. Chris said that Hillary and Chelsea looked exactly like the do on television, and that was "surreal." As for the disorganization at the caucus, Chris said that people didn't understand the rules. Could they just sign in and leave, or were they supposed to stay? Staying seemed to have to do with being chosen as a delegate for the state convention [actually it was the county convention], and they needed something like 40 delegates for the 300 voters in that precinct. What were they supposed to do if there weren't 40 caucus goers left in the end? The voters themselves had to "kind of take over and figure out what was happening." And this was in Austin with educated, politically involved caucus-goers, but there are 8,000 precincts in the state. Imagine the confusion on that scale. Caucuses are horrible, he said. Anyway, he ended up as one of the delegates for Hillary at thestate county convention.
1:09: And now, Clinton has won Texas — the primary, that is. So the Obamomentum is broken.
So no matter how you cut it, Obama will almost certainly end the primaries with a pledged-delegate lead, courtesy of all those landslides in February. Hillary would then have to convince the uncommitted superdelegates to reverse the will of the people. Even coming off a big Hillary winning streak, few if any superdelegates will be inclined to do so. For politicians to upend what the voters have decided might be a tad, well, suicidal.And here's a WSJ piece trying to figure out what Hillary needs tonight to keep going:
Should the senators split the states' contests -- or if Sen. Clinton wins, but only by narrow margins -- the debate will turn to how to interpret the results. Two smaller states, Rhode Island and Vermont, also vote today. Clinton aides have started to imply that even just one big win today would allow her to claim she had broken Sen. Obama's momentum, justifying a continuing competition....7:20: I've just been setting things up here with the webcam and the lighting. Now, I need to check out what's going on, so I'll have something to say.
"We expect on Wednesday the momentum of Sen. Obama will be significantly blunted and new questions will be posed as to whether he is the right candidate for the Democratic Party," said Mark Penn, Sen. Clinton's chief strategist, in a conference call with reporters. "Then this nomination will go straight to the convention."
7:28: Obama's victory in Vermont is declared, but we're very close to the time when they will spill the exit poll results on Ohio. Exciting!
7:30: CNN won't call the Ohio race on the Democratic side. It's "competitive," we're told and I take that as bad news for Hillary.
7:32: The CNN exit poll shows that 59% of the Democratic voters were women, which ought to help Hillary. It also seems to skew old, which should help her. The Texas primary ends at 8, and then the Texas caucus starts at 8:15. Both my sons are caucusing in Texas, so I may get some photos and first-hand reports. I should add that McCain has been declared the winner in Ohio and Vermont.
7:43: Politico on how Hillary could come back. And here's Dana Milbank on Clinton "moving the goalposts." "My husband didn't get the nomination wrapped up until June" — she keeps saying that.
7:54: CNN is showing 60 to 38%, Hillary over Obama, in Ohio. But it's competitive! Keep watching! Only 1% of the vote in.
8:08: My son John is waiting in line for the caucus at Red River Church in Austin, TX. The line looks long to him.
8:25: I just did my first of 2 little bits on C-SPAN. Did anyone watch?!
8:46: John is reporting from the caucus, which he just got out of at 7:46 CT. The pews in the church were completely filled up. A party leader addressed them, saying it was "historic" and "we've never seen anything near this level of interest." There were lots of kids there. And some dogs. It pretty much seemed like voting, except that you could see what people around you were writing down. The party leader who directed them to come up to the tables to write down their choices said: "You can come up and it will be like taking communion." John heard someone chide him for saying that, but it wasn't clear whether he was kidding.
9:18: Congratulations to John McCain for clinching the nomination. Now, here's Mike Huckabee, conceding. He will "do everything possible to unite our party and to unite our country." He observes that the 2 most dignified campaigns are the ones in the Republican Party. A nice little speech, which isn't over, but it's down to the list of thanks, so I'll publish this update.
9:26: Huckabee is still talking. Some woman sold her wedding ring to make a contribution to his campaign. Would you even want that money? I wouldn't. I'd rather not hear about that. But he features it in his speech. Anyway, I note the percentages in Texas and Ohio: Hillary is winning Ohio by a much wider margin than Obama is winning Texas. She's got a 20 point margin: 59 to 39%. And Ohio is the state the candidate needs to win. [ADDED: I mean Ohio seems to be the state to win in the November election.] Huckabee is still talking, running on about the men who died at the Alamo. Finally, he's done. I hear McCain should speak soon. I hear that from C-SPAN, which is telling me to hang around until after the McCain speech.
9:50: McCain is speaking. Given the alternatives, he says, his election "is in the best interests of the country we love." That's a nicely modest way of putting it. He didn't grow up thinking the country owed him anything. But he felt "part of a kinship of ideals" that made him think he owed a life of service. Now, he's working the national security theme. We need to "combat Islamic extremism." On to trade: his adversaries "want to pretend the global economy will go away." On health care, he'll work to bring down costs without "ruining the quality of the world's best medical care." Energy: alternative sources. (He stops to cough. Don't look old!) And he wants to listen. We're "the captain of our fate." "We don't hide from history. We make history." Hope, values, principles, greatness, trust.
10:08: Wolf Blitzer keeps saying Ohio is "very competitive," even while looking at numbers showing a blowout by Clinton. What kind of numbers do you need to see before you stop saying that? Meanwhile, it's 50/48 in Texas. I'd say things look pretty good for Hillary (who also won Rhode Island, as expected). Obviously, she's not going to bow out. So, settle in folks, and wait for Pennsylvania, and all the ugly little globules of mud that will dribble out over the next 6 weeks. How about that Rezko trial? Should be delightful.
10:55: CNN calls Ohio for Hillary Clinton. And Clinton is currently ahead in Texas: 50/48. I'll have some photos from the Texas caucus very soon!
11:01: "Has anyone started calling her The Comeback Kid yet?" says Wolf Blitzer.
11:13: Okay, the pictures from the Texas Caucus are up (in a new post).
11:16: Clinton looks happy. She's all aglow. "For anyone who's ever been counted out, but refused to be knocked out..." She wants to symbolize the fighting spirit. Ohio is special, the key state that must be won if the presidency is to be won, and she's won it. She reels off a list of other states she's won — and it's a surprisingly long list. Obama's run of 11 victories in a row had obscured those victories, which include some awfully big states. "We're just getting started." She makes a big deal out of saying her website address, and the crowd chants it along with her, which strikes me as incredibly dorky. She going to be a fighter and a champion. "We're ready for health care!" "When that phone rings at 3 a.m...." She thanks a lot of people, including the 2 most important people in her life, Bill and Chelsea. Then, she also thanks her mother (an unnecessary slight snub to Mom). She gets a new chant going: "Yes, we will." Get it? "Yes, we can" refers to capacity, but it's not enough just to be able to do something, you have to actually do it.
11:51: Andrew Sullivan is very upset:
To keep oneself from despair....Chez Althouse, the drinks have been: 1 Bolthouse Farms "Vedge" and 3 waters. It fits with my cruelly neutral viewpoint.
I just had a Jager shot, and hope to get drunk very soon. So this is my last post of the night. Here's what I'll do in the morning: find out who won the most delegates in the March 4 states, and check someone else's math (yes, I'm not going to get it wrong myself) to see who subsequently has the numbers to win. And then take a deep breath. And say what I think. Right now, emotion clouds the mind. Oh, and Jager.
12:04: My other son, Chris, also caucused in Austin (at McCallum High School). He describes the caucus as extremely chaotic and confusing. He had volunteered to work for Hillary Clinton. He was at the rally in Austin last night, and he drove all over town today putting up Hillary Clinton signs. At one place where they needed people to hold up signs, Bill Clinton made an appearance and shook everyone's hand. Chris was impressed by Bill Clinton's handshaking technique. It's very quick but fully engaged, with an instant of eye contact that leaves you feeling that you met Bill Clinton. There were a lot of schoolgirls at the event — perhaps 6th graders — and they were ecstatic about shaking Bill's hand. They were jumping up and down, almost crying, and saying "I shook his hand!" They were acting, Chris said, the way you would expect them to act if Justin Timberlake had kissed them. Chris contrasted the experience with coming within arm's length of Hillary and Chelsea at the rally last night. They were not shaking hands, but giving autographs, and he didn't have the same sense that he met them, not that he faulted them for that. There was some pushing in the crowd that was infringing on two old women in front, and Hillary came over and told them to stop. Chris said that Hillary and Chelsea looked exactly like the do on television, and that was "surreal." As for the disorganization at the caucus, Chris said that people didn't understand the rules. Could they just sign in and leave, or were they supposed to stay? Staying seemed to have to do with being chosen as a delegate for the state convention [actually it was the county convention], and they needed something like 40 delegates for the 300 voters in that precinct. What were they supposed to do if there weren't 40 caucus goers left in the end? The voters themselves had to "kind of take over and figure out what was happening." And this was in Austin with educated, politically involved caucus-goers, but there are 8,000 precincts in the state. Imagine the confusion on that scale. Caucuses are horrible, he said. Anyway, he ended up as one of the delegates for Hillary at the
1:09: And now, Clinton has won Texas — the primary, that is. So the Obamomentum is broken.
১৩ ফেব্রুয়ারী, ২০০৮
A sign that young people don't support Hillary Clinton.
Watch this clip of NY Governor Elliot Spitzer on "The Colbert Report." At 0:55, he states that he — as a superdelegate — has pledged his support to Hillary Clinton. There's dead silence from the audience, which had been cheering and responsive when he first came out (and gets noisy again at the end of the clip). Spitzer does a take — which is damned funny if you're an Obama supporter — as if he's thinking: What the hell, did I just imagine there was a studio audience?
IN THE COMMENTS: Fen is all:
IN THE COMMENTS: Fen is all:
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.Balfegor responds:
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
Yes, but she's just been replaced by a Mary Sue!
Well, I haven't tried to hide that over the years, I've become kind of fond Clinton II for being dowdy, dorky, uncool, and serious. I'm disappointed that the Democrats seem to be choosing Obama over someone I could actually have voted for.
১৯ এপ্রিল, ২০০৭
Movies and murder.
Two weeks ago, I photographed this mural, on a video store's wall, next to the Spider House Café in Austin, Texas:
At the time, I asked Chris, "Who's the guy with the hammer?"
I've got the answer now:
(In case you don't know French: "Gran Prix prize" means "Grand Prize prize.")
ADDED: More images from the murderer and the movie.
MORE: Are you worried about copycats getting inspired by the murderer's promotional materials? But the murderer looks like a complete dork with these movie fantasies! Maybe these videos will inspire some kids to get a real life and give up on their angsty nonsense.
At the time, I asked Chris, "Who's the guy with the hammer?"
I've got the answer now:
The inspiration for perhaps the most inexplicable image in the set that Cho Seung-Hui mailed to NBC news on Monday may be a movie from South Korea that won the Gran Prix prize at Cannes Film Festival in 2004.Will the Virginia Tech murderer change anyone's opinion about violence in the movies? Do the people who already avoid extremely violent movies have new power to shame those who like them... or perhaps to get major studios to shun them and prestigious organizations to refrain from giving them the "Gran Prix prize"?
The poses in the two images are similar, and the plot of the movie, “Oldboy,” seems dark enough to merit at least some further study...
In a Times review, Manohla Dargis wrote that the film’s “body count and sadistic violence” mostly appealed to “cult-film aficionados for whom distinctions between high art and low are unknown, unrecognized and certainly unwelcome.”
(In case you don't know French: "Gran Prix prize" means "Grand Prize prize.")
ADDED: More images from the murderer and the movie.
MORE: Are you worried about copycats getting inspired by the murderer's promotional materials? But the murderer looks like a complete dork with these movie fantasies! Maybe these videos will inspire some kids to get a real life and give up on their angsty nonsense.
৩০ জানুয়ারী, ২০০৭
"Some people call this 'Idol' country...."
Ah! We're in the South tonight, where -- chances are! -- we'll find the best singers.
We're in Birmingham, home of Ruben Studdard, Taylor Hicks, and Bo Bice.
Our first contestant, Erica Skye, is pleased to serve up what we know to be Simon's favorite song, except she calls it "Unchained Melodies." It's as if "Merrie Melodies" is intruding on the solemn grandeur of "Unchained Melody." She's a power singer, but ... she's not hitting the right notes. This is a deep shame that has prevented me from singing anywhere for decades, so I think it's kind of cool that a 19-year-old woman hasn't heard of this particular inhibition. But... she's crap... and she deserves the insults. "Erica, it was like a neverending torture." She's so horrendous -- yet powerful! -- that Paula is propelled off-stage. They tell Erica they hate her, and she does this little brushing gesture on her shoulder. Simon has to say, "What's that mean?" And Paula's response is bleeped.
Next is this crazy dorky girl who talks like a baby, but her singing makes me cry. Why? The singing is desperately mannered. There is something in it. There's a person in there. That's my theory anyway. Simon says no, but Randy says yes. They drag out the tension with Paula, and Paula agrees with Randy. We're not surprised, but we love this dear girl, Katie Bernard. She's this year's Kellie Pickler.
Next is Tatiana McConnico. She sings "I never loved a man the way that I loved you..." in a way that doesn't make us wish we could hear Aretha instead. Beautiful!
Bernard Williams II. He's going to rock with us! Paula thinks he's off-key. But Randy and Simon say yes, so he needs to find the key for Hollywood.
"I've got you standing in front of me, looking like some Easter Bunny nightmare experiment," Simon says to Margaret Fowler, who looks more fowl than bunny and in no way seems 26, which is what she claims. They demand the truth and eventually she admits she's 50.
Jamie Lynn Ward... she's 16 and her father shot himself, because her stepmom was cheatin' on 'im, and he's paralyzed from the waist down. She's not good enough. But Paula says something that makes them see the part that is good, and they let this sweet child through.
Chris Sligh is next. He says people tell him he looks like Jack Osbourne. I think he looks like Mark Volman. He sings "Kiss from a Rose" and gets a rise out of Paula. He's good.
There's still a third of the show left. but really it's not worth talking about. There's a woman whose hair is extremely long, but let's just leave all the rest unsaid.
We're in Birmingham, home of Ruben Studdard, Taylor Hicks, and Bo Bice.
Our first contestant, Erica Skye, is pleased to serve up what we know to be Simon's favorite song, except she calls it "Unchained Melodies." It's as if "Merrie Melodies" is intruding on the solemn grandeur of "Unchained Melody." She's a power singer, but ... she's not hitting the right notes. This is a deep shame that has prevented me from singing anywhere for decades, so I think it's kind of cool that a 19-year-old woman hasn't heard of this particular inhibition. But... she's crap... and she deserves the insults. "Erica, it was like a neverending torture." She's so horrendous -- yet powerful! -- that Paula is propelled off-stage. They tell Erica they hate her, and she does this little brushing gesture on her shoulder. Simon has to say, "What's that mean?" And Paula's response is bleeped.
Next is this crazy dorky girl who talks like a baby, but her singing makes me cry. Why? The singing is desperately mannered. There is something in it. There's a person in there. That's my theory anyway. Simon says no, but Randy says yes. They drag out the tension with Paula, and Paula agrees with Randy. We're not surprised, but we love this dear girl, Katie Bernard. She's this year's Kellie Pickler.
Next is Tatiana McConnico. She sings "I never loved a man the way that I loved you..." in a way that doesn't make us wish we could hear Aretha instead. Beautiful!
Bernard Williams II. He's going to rock with us! Paula thinks he's off-key. But Randy and Simon say yes, so he needs to find the key for Hollywood.
"I've got you standing in front of me, looking like some Easter Bunny nightmare experiment," Simon says to Margaret Fowler, who looks more fowl than bunny and in no way seems 26, which is what she claims. They demand the truth and eventually she admits she's 50.
Jamie Lynn Ward... she's 16 and her father shot himself, because her stepmom was cheatin' on 'im, and he's paralyzed from the waist down. She's not good enough. But Paula says something that makes them see the part that is good, and they let this sweet child through.
Chris Sligh is next. He says people tell him he looks like Jack Osbourne. I think he looks like Mark Volman. He sings "Kiss from a Rose" and gets a rise out of Paula. He's good.
There's still a third of the show left. but really it's not worth talking about. There's a woman whose hair is extremely long, but let's just leave all the rest unsaid.
১৭ ডিসেম্বর, ২০০৬
I'm sorry. This is just too unfathomably dorky...
... to talk about.
ADDED WARNING: Do not -- do not! -- do not make the joke Time Magazine is trying to get you to make. Do not let them succeed in their attempt to use you -- to use "you" -- to go viral. And since you probably already did, please stop now. You dork!
ADDED WARNING: Do not -- do not! -- do not make the joke Time Magazine is trying to get you to make. Do not let them succeed in their attempt to use you -- to use "you" -- to go viral. And since you probably already did, please stop now. You dork!
১৯ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০০৬
"Despite its pedigree, the programming remains anodyne and apolitical."
Writes Ginia Bellafante about that Gloria Steinem/Jane Fonda radio project (called GreenStone):
UPDATE: Here's the GreenStone website, where you can see what's on and also listen to the shows. For example, the Radio Ritas have these signature segments:
To listen to it in anything but thick wool socks and toasty pajamas seems a betrayal of its comforting purpose. Thus far all the hosts are genial female comics — Lisa Birnbach; Mauren Langan, Cory Kahaney and Nelsie Spencer, who make up “The Radio Ritas”; and Mo Gaffney and Shana Wride, who call themselves “Women Aloud.”Ooh, that's mean. Delightfully so.
But a humor of complacency stands in for a language of subversion, and the extent to which you will find the shows funny seems dependent on how seriously you ever considered buying tickets to “Menopause: The Musical.”
... GreenStone too easily obliges the idea that debate is just a synonym for bad manners, and in doing so suggests that the only corrective to invidious discussion is no discussion at all — or, rather, lots of little discussions about hosiery and slumber parties....This rings true. The academic feminists I have known snorted in derision at the name of Gloria Steinem. She was just working on a women's magazine after all. I remember seeing the first issue of Ms. magazine, displayed by a not-too-hip girlfriend of a friend's father. After she left, we made fun of her for thinking some dorky women's magazine would mean anything to the new generation.
At one point during “The Radio Ritas” last week, I found myself wondering if I were actually listening to Phyllis Schlafly radio. Ms. Spencer, talking about a study indicating that there were possibly negative effects to having children too young, remarked that maybe it was a good idea to wait after all.
Ms. Langan responded emphatically: “Let me tell you, it isn’t. Listen to Aunt Maureen, it isn’t. Get married at 30, have fun in your 20’s and have kids between 32 and 35. Don’t wait until your late 30’s or early 40’s, because you’re going to have somebody else’s egg, you’re going to have to get an Asian baby, which is fine,” she said before pausing. “I’m just saying there are different options.” It was at that moment that I recalled that Mrs. Schlafly had a daughter at 40.
GreenStone is not a renunciation of Ms. Steinem’s beliefs, as some will surely suggest, but an apt expression of the convalescent feminism she has advocated for nearly two decades: the idea that a better world can be achieved by feeling better. In her view epistemology is no substitute for emotion.
Ms. Steinem always disdained intellectualism, saying of academic feminists, in a 1995 interview with Mother Jones, that “nobody cares about them” and that their work was “gobbledygook.”
UPDATE: Here's the GreenStone website, where you can see what's on and also listen to the shows. For example, the Radio Ritas have these signature segments:
Trendspotting – Where they, get this, spot the trends!! So you can be … trendy!!!Hmmm.... don't get me started! Breasts are a big topic? Who could have imagined! Anyway, I love the idea that they have a special "shallow" segment as if it's in relief of... of what?
Shallow Corner – Do you have too much self esteem to read those heinous women’s magazines? Have no fear the Radio Ritas are here and to catch every vain, vapid moment in the fashion and beauty.
Foodie at Large – The Ritas span the globe for the cheesiest news in the world of food.
Whad'ya Do??? Moral dilemmas, etiquette faux pas, or everyday advice...there is no need to look any further, The Ritas know what’s best for you.
What’s Up With Guys? The Ritas invite men to weigh in on what matters to them…sports, breasts, size and panties.
৫ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০০৬
"Anti-dork spin: Maybe guys likely to have autistic kids tend not to become dads as early as other guys."
William Saletan is getting really good at taking a science story, predicting how it will be spun, and putting the spin in a pithy one liner.
১৪ আগস্ট, ২০০৬
The new Segway.
All the wires and machinery have been removed from the top. To tell you the truth, I'd love to have one of these things for getting around Madison, even though I think it might be embarrassing. Would it look too ridiculous? Can they handle the snow and ice? But do you really think think the fear of looking dorky is the real reason these things haven't caught on? They're just too expensive! Segway, Inc. missed its chance to be a big sensation because people who would have risked riding one just couldn't bring themselves to pay $5,000 to see how it would work.
Bonus advice to Segway: Give a hundred of them away to bloggers.
Bonus advice to Segway: Give a hundred of them away to bloggers.
৭ মে, ২০০৬
God bless the dork...
Overheard on State Street today:
I said I would never go back to high school. But... I'm a dork. Every time, after Latin class, I'm so happy. And I just think, I want to feel like that all the time. I want to teach high school Latin.
২৩ এপ্রিল, ২০০৬
"The Sopranos," "Big Love."
Did you watch? I thought both shows were relatively uninteresting tonight. Maybe it's just me. I'm always happy to watch Christopher act like an idiot -- and "When are you going to stop playing the Adriana card?" was a great line -- but much of what went on tonight bored me.
Ditto "Big Love." Nicky's credit cards, yawn. Somebody turns out to be gay -- what an original plot turn! Bill's car drives up and parks in front of the house -- fascinating, please show that a hundred more times. Loved the missionaries though -- especially when they rode away on bikes and did the dorky hand turn signals. Really loved every syllable uttered by Tina Majorino. She's brilliant!
Ditto "Big Love." Nicky's credit cards, yawn. Somebody turns out to be gay -- what an original plot turn! Bill's car drives up and parks in front of the house -- fascinating, please show that a hundred more times. Loved the missionaries though -- especially when they rode away on bikes and did the dorky hand turn signals. Really loved every syllable uttered by Tina Majorino. She's brilliant!
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