Omakase.

I've put Amazon "Omakase" ads up in the sidebar:

Omakase is a Japanese word meaning 'leave it up to us'. It is commonly used in Japanese restaurants for a meal where the chef uses their experience and knowledge to select and prepare the meal for a customer without specific directions.

Amazon somehow reads the contents of the blog and constructs ads based on what it learns. Some of its learning is impressive. Like, right now, it's putting up links to George Orwell writings. But some of it is off. I keep getting books by guys named Althouse. I've seen the name Jay Althouse before. He does music books for kids. He's no one I know. Then, I was wondering why there was a book about welding. Had I ever mentioned welding? But, again, it's just an author named Althouse. You might think anyone named Althouse is someone significant to me. It's funny how often people have asked me: "Do you know [first name] Althouse?" The answer is always "no." I will blog about it if this fact ever changes, but I have never in my entire life met anyone named Althouse who was not a member of my extended family, which is really small.

Anyway, I like the Omakase program at Amazon. It's pretty smart. But they need to iron out the kink that believes anyone with my last name is making something my readers are likely to be interested in. But I'm sure some of you are interested in teaching music to kids. And welding.

"The most overrated essay in the modern canon... turgid, self-righteous and philosophically hopeless."

I'm just noticing how harshly Stanley Fish slammed George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." This is in a review of a book that I've been reading lately: Geoffrey Nunberg's "Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism Into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show." Great title, no? It's a book about using language to sell your political program. Nunberg is quite taken with how well the right has done this and is trying to prod liberals to do better:

[A]ll Nunberg can think to do is claim for the left an advantage that is irrelevant to his book's project: "Liberals have a linguistic advantage of their own, in the form of truth." That is to say (and he says it), the right's success is built on a structure of "distortions." "We" are truth tellers; "they" are political liars.

This notion is particularly odd given an earlier section of the book in which Nunberg does a nice critical number on what is surely the most overrated essay in the modern canon, George Orwell's turgid, self-righteous and philosophically hopeless "Politics and the English Language." Commenting on Orwell's distinction between words politically inflected and words that plainly name things, Nunberg points out that plain language is as political as any other and will probably be all the more effective because it "seems to correspond to concrete perception." The point, as he has been saying all along, is not to strip all of the political overlay from your language but to make the language that carries your political message the lingua franca of the public sphere.

Perhaps Orwell's essay fails to impress Nunberg and Fish because, over time, we citizens have gotten deeply in touch with our natural human revulsion for elaborate euphemisms and bureaucratese. The last sentence of Orwell's essay is: "One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs." Maybe enough time has passed, and we've absorbed his lesson. The jeering has gotten easy and reflexive. We forthrightly love straight talk these days, and we're not bamboozled by, but instinctively mistrust those who get caught up roundabout rhetoric -- as Senator Kerry learned in the last election.

Dammit, I love the old Orwell essay.

Let's all go read it again. Or just read Orwell's great set of writing rules:

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

We've seen it before, but it's still helpful. (Now let me read this one more time before posting and see if I can find some words to cut.)

I hate to disturb you, but...

The Capital Times has a long, appreciative piece on the 9/11 denialist Kevin Barrett.

UPDATE: I saw the paper version and can tell you that this story -- with photograph -- runs across the front page, above the fold.

Drinking the vitriolic acid here at the University of Wisconsin.

Glenn Reynolds quotes one of my readers who commented on this post yesterday. The quote, from Telemacchus, is:

Enough. I've read and re-read all the material on the Barrett case and then discussed, thought some more, and discussed again. In the end, we're going to act locally because our unease coming out of this just won't ease. As the father of an inbound freshman who completed SOAR and is a month away from moving into the dorm, we're pulling the plug on UW here, and actively calling back some of the schools we turned down. Yes, it is because of this Barrett class, not this one nut alone, but of the even scarier indifference and lack of systemic accountability involved throughout this process. It really is a truth teller as to what is in store for us the next 4 years, and so, we are opting out. My wife and I are both highly educated and of a fairly liberal bent ourselves, but clearly this 9/11 incident has legs and is indicative of a deeper core cancer at this institution.

Here's what I said to Telemacchus back in the comments:

If you really feel that way, you should write to Farrell and others. I suspect they are reading this. (They are a bit inept if they are not.) But you should write. Write an op-ed or a letter to the Cap Times, the State Journal, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And the Isthmus. Taking the strong action you describe is quite meaningful. You should want it to be felt.

Is having the quote on Instapundit more powerful?

Telemacchus goes on, beyond what Glenn quoted:

How shameful that UW, a former great school, has allowed the winds of the far radical left to blow into and take root in the fertile fields of the Wisconsin heartland. Remember shame? It was once a useful social tool for folks to police their own ranks, clearly a lost concept here at UW. For all the swirl here, this dilemma does lend itself some of the more old fashioned solutions. Resignations are in high order here. Names must be taken. Asses must be kicked. And we will move on.

Please note that I am not endorsing all these statements. I believe the University of Wisconsin is a great institution. It's a huge place, people! Even if Barrett represents a problem that's bigger than one part-time instructor's despicable plan to teach an idiotic conspiracy theory, it only relates to part of the university and not, for example, to the sciences. Yet I understand the urge to punish the university for something you find so offensive and the decision to steer clear of a place that feels wrong to you. The university, in not firing Barrett, cites free speech values, but Telemacchus is also speaking. Free speech is a marketplace, and to choose a different university is to act in that market. I was encouraging students to shun the class as a way of participating in the marketplace of ideas. Shunning the whole university is a much stronger move.

I worry about the extremity of the "old fashioned solutions" Telemacchus advocates. His idea that this is a problem of "far radical left" politics should make us all wary of backlash. There is a huge difference between teaching ridiculous bogus science in a religion course and teaching humanities and social science courses with what is or could be perceived as a political slant. How is what Barrett is doing left-wing politics? You could say that no one on the left is openly complaining about him, but that doesn't mean they like or even accept what he is doing. Why would anyone who cared about left wing politics want to be associated with Barrett? He's obviously wrong! It would only make your beliefs seem like a load of lies and idiocy. I think people on the left and the university are simply trying to isolate and endure him as he passes through the system in his one semester. Do you hear any university lefties praising him? Do you hear anyone here praising him? I think not. You're only hearing the most minimal statements, all designed to encapsulate him so that he can pass through the system doing the least harm. These bland statements are like the milk you're supposed to drink if you swallow vitriolic acid. Refusing to fire him is like following the do-not-induce-vomiting advice. I think they are right that firing him would do more damage than passing him through the system.

But they do need to figure out how to avoid drinking any more vitriolic acid.

IN THE COMMENTS: Mary asks how we know Telemacchus is not a fictional character telling a fictional story. I acknowledge that I had the same question. I invite Telemacchus to email me and identify himself.

The Goodridge separation.

They gave their name to the Massachusetts case that required the state to allow persons of the same sex to marry, and now they have separated. Julie and Hillary Goodridge lived together for nearly two decades. They began their lawsuit -- with two other couples -- in 2001, and they married two years ago, after they won the right they fought for. Who can know whether it was the pressure of the lawsuit that broke them up? Perhaps even marriage itself hurts a relationship, especially if you'd become very stable in the unmarried state. It must be painful to try to deal with private problems when you know you symbolize something to the general public.

They have not filed for divorce. I can see why you would choose to stay married even as you go their separate ways to try to avoid having everyone opine wildly about you and draw all sorts of conclusions about the cause you believe in. But now the separation has gotten attention, and people will say all sorts of things. But if you support same sex marriage, it shouldn't be because gay relationships meet some higher ideal that heterosexual relationships. It's a matter of equality, and that includes the potential for breaking up.

"Do people come up to you on the streets now and just ask you to speak?"

Entertainment Weekly fawningly asks Malan Breton, the newly auf'd "Project Runway" contestant, with the oft laf'd at accent. His answer:

Once upon a time, many, many years ago, I worked at a restaurant. Women used to offer to take off their clothes if I would read them the menu. It was hilarious.

And what's he up to now?

Right now I'm in the process of doing two couture gowns — one for an A-list celebrity; another one is a B-, C-list celebrity. I've been in talks with a ballet company in New York to do costumes. In 2008, I'm going to be releasing a series of 13 short films. Hopefully soon I'll be working on a theatrical show. I'm auditioning now. I'm going to be fine. I'm incredibly motivated. In the next five years I'm going to see my name along Donna Karan and Helmut Lang. There's no question in my mind.

I'm thinking his whole life is a theatrical show.

My wild yard.

I picture hawks gliding around looking for prey -- with their hawkeyes -- and then swooping down and grabbing the unlucky furry thing. But this morning, in my front yard, I had a hawk stalking a bunny on foot. He had his tail fanned out and he was stalking. The bunny froze, then sought refuge under the car. The hawk walked right under the car. Now, that seemed awfully strange, especially since the bunny was larger than the hawk. What's going on?

I hope the hawks are coming back to live in my yard again. I've been noticing a lot of new bird activity here in the last week. I'm seeing goldfinches for the first time. They like to hang out in the beams above the window where I usually sit. And they seem to be building a nest. I welcome them too.

The main birds that love my yard year after year: cardinals. I love them too.

Meanwhile, that rabbit has a hole right in my front yard. I don't mind if a rabbit makes its home in my yard, but he's put the hole in a bad place. Any suggestions as to what I should do? Roll up a newspaper, set it on fire, and stick it in the hole? Is that wrong? Is that illegal? Would it work?

IN THE COMMENTS: Tibore explains the ways of the hawk... as learned watching cartoons:



The mention of cartoons inspires TioMoco:

What to do with the rabbit hole? Put a mailbox with the name "B. Bunny" next to it. That wascally wabbit always makes me chuckle...

And Icepick think I need this:



Tiggeril has a solution that reminds me of something Artie Bucco did in this past season of "The Sopranos," but you'll have to picture me with a gun in my front yard here in Madison, Wisconsin. Or... oh... I guess Elmer Fudd is the better pop culture reference, since we're doing cartoons. Or not, since I don't want to be the loser.

Ernst Blofeld tells a story with a great punchline. It's got rabbits, hawks, and Marines.

Bad song lyrics.

Well, it's bad to get engrossed in such an obvious, easy topic, but here's the article, and here's the Metafilter discussion. I'm less interested in the plainly stupic lyrics than the more specific mistakes, like Bruce Springsteen getting baseball terminology wrong ("speed ball" for "fast ball") and this one:

THE SONG: Relient K, "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been"

THE LYRIC: "I watched the proverbial sunrise/coming up over the Pacific/and you might think I'm losing my mind/but I will shy away from specifics"

THE VERDICT: Not just the "duh" rhyme of "Pacific" and "specifics," but more importantly, why the proverbial sunrise? How is a sunrise proverbial?

Notice how the criticism -- which is trenchant -- doesn't even point out the oceanic boo-boo. I guess Mr. K couldn't think of a rhyme for Atlantic. Let me suggest: pedantic.

IN THE COMMENTS: I'm told there is no "Mr. K" ... and that I'm either not recognizing the concession that the speaker is supposed to seem crazy or that I'm being too West Coast-o-centric.

Divorce madness.

The previous post is about a ridiculous -- and ridiculously long -- article in the NYT about how women cheat on their husbands [and boyfriends] with the contractors who work on their house. It begins with an anecdote about a guy -- David Mager -- who made a joke about his wife longtime girlfriend and the contractor -- "Maybe I should just get you two a hotel room... It would be cheaper" -- only to discover later that they really were having an affair. One theme in the comments to that post is: Why the hell did the guy further humiliate himself by telling his story to the New York Times and letting them take his picture?

An article I read in the NYT this morning suggests an answer. As usual, I didn't read the article straight through. I jumped around looking at parts that interest me, forming questions, and searching for answers. This is a divorce proceeding, and the husband is a well-known -- not by me, of course -- football player: Michael Strahan.

She accused her husband of beating her, secretly videotaping her sister undressing and carrying on affairs with three different women, including one nicknamed Cupcake. He complained that his wife last year spent $22,500 on photographs, $27,000 on clothes for their 20-month-old twin daughters, and $1,700 in sign language classes — even though neither daughter is hearing impaired.

I'm completely on the side of the wife at this point. The offenses are not comparable at all. If they are rich -- and they are -- buying expensive clothes for the children is quite ordinary and even laudable. She puts her efforts into the children, and twins are a lot of work. Dressing two girls beautifully, while not the loftiest undertaking in the world, is worthwhile and, I would think, what the typical rich man would love for the mother of his children to do. Having the girls take enriching classes is also something good. To make it seem extravagant to teach them sign language when they are not hearing impaired is perfectly obtuse. Learning any language develops mental skills, and wanting to be able to communicate with people who don't speak your language or to translate for them is altruistic. Paying for education is the norm.

I scanned the article for something supporting Mr. Strahan's side and saw that there was a pre-nuptial agreement. Ah! I was ready to switch to his side. The agreement should be enforced. But what's this?

The 41-year-old Mrs. Strahan, a former cosmetics store manager, and her husband entered into a pre-nuptial agreement in 1999, the year they were married, that was to have set aside 20 percent of Mr. Strahan’s earnings annually. The accumulated amount would be hers in the event of a divorce. On top of that, she says she is owed half his assets and is seeking $14 million.

But Mr. Strahan’s lawyers have argued that the Strahans agreed to verbally void the arrangement shortly after their marriage, and that she is owed only $7 million of his estimated $23 million.

He's the one trying to get out of the agreement! He not only got her to sign a pre-nuptial agreement. He now wants her to get even less than she agreed to!

The article generalizes about how vicious both parties sound, but Mr. Strahan has no material:

For instance, the 34-year-old Mr. Strahan in a radio interview during the trial said his wife of seven years was a “very, very disturbed person” who spent to excess but at the same time had more frugal tastes like Target, Kmart and Houlihan’s Restaurant.

What sense does that make? That's the normal way people spend money. You go to a nice clothing store, but you still go to Target for housewares. You might even buy some clothes there, especially for children: socks, underwear, pajamas. This isn't a sign of a mental problem!

Strahan, I see, is a big football star with a $46 million contract and commercial endorsements. Why wouldn't he pay up quietly, following the pre-nuptial agreement? Why would he want his daughters to see this? Why would he impair his own earning power? He's done commercials for Campbell’s Chunky Soup -- a product women buy and feed to children. He's ruining the image you need for wholesome products like that.

How do you explain his behavior? Maybe his lawyers are playing him for their share of the big pot of money, but you can only be played if you've got a mind for it.

I'm thinking Michael Strahan and David Mager are case studies in divorce madness. They've lost all normal judgment and perspective. Mager is a lot easier to understand: His wife not only spent a lot of his money, she spent it providing cover for the man she was having an affair with. Strahan, what explains him? He's beyond belief! He cheated on her, he won't even meet the terms of the pre-nuptial agreement, and he's dragging the mother of his daughters through the fire for -- what? -- spending some money? Absolutely incredible!

CORRECTION: Mager wasn't married. The story is about his "longterm girlfriend." The couple had two daughters, however, and "shared" (owned?) an 18th century country house. ADDED: Too bad I'm committed to the post title "Divorce Madness." Mager's not being married makes his humiliation less poignant, more humiliating.

This is the most ridiculous article I've ever seen in the NYT.

Really, I can't get over them publishing this. It's really long too. Is David Mager someone they know or something? Even though I'm an older woman myself, and I love reading the NYT, I find myself frequently scoffing at the way so many of the articles seem designed to titillate older women. This thing seems like porn plots reprocessed for ladies who want but can't bring themselves to watch porn. And it's not just the sex. It's the real estate.

"Do you really think anything is ever going to get better as long as there are 6.2 billion people?"

"Don’t you see that the wars we are fighting now are for resources? It’s just going to get worse; it’s utterly tragic and I have no solution. I’ve been writing about this for a long time.”

I want to like novelists. Really, I do. For example, T.C. Boyle. I read him sometimes. That is to say: I subordinate my mind to his and let his thoughts become my thoughts. But then I read quotes like this, and it sets me to wondering all over again about this practice of reading novels. They're written by novelists, you know.

ADDED: Roy thinks I'm objecting to Boyle's politics. He specializes in calling me an idiot, in numerous posts, but he never seems to begin to understand my writing. Here, he comes to the defense of writers. But do writers even want to be defended by a man who is such a poor reader?

"I still have every expectation this will be a very positive educational experience for our students."

Says UW Provost Patrick Farrell. "Some are upset about Mr. Barrett's viewpoints on 9/11 and don't want to pay much attention to what makes for a quality educational experience."

Upset? Viewpoints? Farrell goes for a lightweight, breezy tone, making no effort to engage with his critics, who -- I dare say -- aren't going to believe that Farrell is paying "much attention to what makes for a quality educational experience."

I wish I could link to the article on Barrett in the Isthmus (a local paper), which ends with his expressing complete certitude that anyone reading the evidence would have to believe that the U.S. government carried out the 9/11 attacks. Where is the educational experience in learning from someone who is teaching completely outside of his field of expertise and expressing certitude in an obviously wrong theory? Ironically, Farrell's scholarly expertise is engineering.

Farrell relies on private conversations he had with Barrett, but Barrett's remarks in the Isthmus make it damned hard for ordinary Wisconsin citizens to believe that he could have given the appropriate assurances. And to tell us that we just aren't "paying attention" is insulting. I simply can't understand why Farrell doesn't take the criticisms seriously and speak to the citizens who are so outraged about this. If examining controversial ideas is such a "quality educational experience," why aren't the citizens of Wisconsin entitled to a little of it? Why brush them off and tell them that they just don't get it, they are not paying attention?

Meanwhile:

Sixty-one state lawmakers sent a letter Thursday calling on University of Wisconsin-Madison to fire [Barrett].

The letter signed by 52 Assembly representatives and nine state senators, including Republican leaders, condemns a decision earlier this month by UW-Madison Provost Pat Farrell allowing Kevin Barrett to teach an introductory class this fall on Islam.

Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, said the letter, which called Barrett's views "academically dishonest," sent a strong message to top UW leaders....

The lawmakers sent the letter to the governor, university leaders and Barrett instead of approving a formal resolution offered by Nass during the last day of their session last week. Republicans did not take up the resolution, saying it was not the right day for political bickering.

Oh, yeah, it's all just politics. Sorry, forget it. Nobody actually cares about students and education in any kind of a principled way. Now, go. Get out of here. Go pay attention to some damned thing.

Audible Althouse #59.

This one's about The Abode of Chaos, those three hickory trees that are threatening the life of a boy, and the man who's suing for the right to tan naked with his terrier.

And here's that old post I refer to: Tattoos Remind You of Death.

It's a new podcast. You can stream it right on your computer -- no iPod needed -- right here. But all the cool people subscribe on iTunes:

"I see that all the time. That doesn't make me sad."

Says Kevin Smith, to the NPR interviewer who's asking about sequels to "Clerks" where the characters keep getting older. What about a 45-year old guy manning the register at a convenience store? This is in the last 2 minutes of the linked clip, where Smith goes on at length about how some folks aren't that ambitious, they just want to get by, and somebody's got to do jobs like flipping the burgers.

Smith also talks about his Christianity about midway through the audio clip, right after a bit from his new movie "Clerks II," where the characters discuss whether the Transformers are blasphemous. Smith says: "I'm a pretty spiritual cat. I'm a prayer, sir." He's praying "hardcore" for "Clerks II" and even "busted out the rosary beads."

I found that all charmingly un-Hollywood.

Crazy storms....

Here in Madison last night and again just before dawn. Lightning can strike you through the window, can't it? I was worrying about that a few minutes ago. The strikes were so close. My grandmother told the story of standing at the kitchen sink and then coming to, lying on the kitchen floor. She'd been struck by lightning, she said. I was never sure whether to believe it, but as a young girl, I used to worry about sleeping with a bobby pin in my hair. I imagined the metal would attract the lightning.

In the middle of the night, last night, the blinds were crashing back and forth, and this morning, I saw that one screen -- were the attachment levers all the way down? -- had blown in and was lying on the floor, leaving a large window completely open for what must have been hours. Did anything fly in? I'm going to assume nothing was flying around out in the rain in the dark or, if it was, that it wouldn't have found that opening. There were leaves scattered on the floor though, and my computer was sitting in a puddle of water. It's working, but its keyboard seems to be shot. Yes, I know, normal people close the windows in a big, windy storm.

“It’s a granularity of media that we in the commercial media could not scale down to."

"Niche media is ‘me’ media, and the blogosphere is the ultimate manifestation of that." Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired, the author of “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More” reacts to the Pew report about bloggers.