Enough with all the singlism and matrimania.

Writes Bella DePaulo:

What may be less obvious is that if reports [of the supposed health benefits of marriage] were more accurate and less caricatured, that would also be good for anyone who is, or wants to be, coupled. When singles are stigmatized, there is a risk that some people will be tempted to couple and marry for the wrong reasons — to escape the cultural muck that comes with being single. When singles are no longer marginalized or demeaned, then people who want to couple can do so from a position of strength. Rather than running away from singlehood to escape the stigma, they can move toward marriage or coupling as something they want to embrace.

Ah, but what if they don't? 

The pleasures of singlehood must be kept hush-hush. It's not a legitimate life style, you hear?

"Haven't drawn a jedi in awhile."

The last blog post from Justin Wright, a promising young animator who just died of a heart attack at age 27. From his college profile:

Justin’s journey to Pixar has another plot twist. He got introduced to the famous studio because of a heart transplant. When Justin was born, his heart had all sorts of complications: cardiomyopathy, a complete block, a hole between the upper two chambers, a hole in the mitral valve —the list goes on. Finally, when Justin was 12, his heart had been through too many surgeries and procedures to be of much use, not to mention that it was the size of a deflated soccer ball inside his slight 70-pound body. It was time for a transplant.

With a lot of time spent in hospital beds recovering, Justin drew pictures (a hobby he says he started as a kid when he got bored in church). His doctor at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children's Hospital noticed Justin’s interest, and one day, after Justin was fully recovered, took him on a tour at Pixar, where he had some connections. Justin was enthralled—this was what he wanted to do....

He credits his heart transplant with giving him the courage to make risky decisions... “I knew I’d been allowed to stay on this earth, and that I was lucky.....”

Want something, do what you want, take some risks, and know that you are lucky to be alive.

I'm only linking to this ripe piece of anti-Althousiana...

... here ... because something moved me to participate in the comments and I think you may enjoy my remarks over there.

I say "'A Man for All Seasons' is an old-fashioned, stagy movie that is not an interesting piece of film art and does not become so because an old man dies" and tangle with a few readers whose display of dumbness ought to make Roy think again about what level he thinks he's writing on.

Here's a piece in today's NYT explaining the "Man for All Seasons" phenomenon of the 1960s:

“A Man for All Seasons,” which came out in 1966, is a movie of a sort they don’t make anymore: smart, literate and, by today’s standards, a little earnest. Schools organized field trips so that students could be bused to see it, and it earned a huge popular following as well. It won Academy Awards for best director and best picture, and Mr. Scofield picked up the Oscar for best actor. There were also Oscars for best adapted screenplay, best costumes and best cinematography.

“A Man for All Seasons” was so evocative and so good-looking — and such a draw at the box office — that it spawned dozens of imitations. For a while you could hardly go to the movies or turn on highbrow television without seeing people in doublets, hose and ruffs, writing with quills.

Highbrow? "Highbrow" has been defined downward. "A Man for All Seasons" and the anglophilic stuff like it was exactly what "middlebrow" originally meant.

Also middlebrow (and pathetically nerdy): insulting people with a quote from a Nathaniel Hawthorne story you read for high school English class.

AND: Thanks to everyone who criticized me for disrespecting a movie I've never seen. I've heard this criticism many times — like back in 2005, when I was taken to task for knowing not to waste my time seeing "King Kong." But this time, thanks to this new wave of criticism, I had the revelation that had evaded me for years. I finally realized what's really going on. How do you know you won't like it if you haven't tried it? It's guys who flip out when they hear that from a woman. It strikes to the very core, doesn't it? How do you know you won't enjoy sleeping with me?

"Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver..."

James Carville says "the timing is appropriate, if ironic." Ironic.... It's like rain on your crucifixion day.

"How do you rate Obama’s speech? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?"

A Rasmussen poll asked "How do you rate Obama’s speech? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?"

30% Excellent
21% Good
26% Fair
21% Poor
1% Not sure

Rasmussen's own analysis of the poll compresses the "excellent" and "good" responses and highlights the 51% figure, but given the quality of the writing and delivery, the press response to the speech, and the question itself, the answer should be "excellent."

Even people who are deeply disturbed by Obama's connection to Wright and think he should have simply and clearly denounced the man should still think it was an "excellent." "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a excellent speech: We study it 300+ years after it was delivered, but we're not buying the message. I think Americans will study Barack Obama's speech 100 years from now, maybe even 300 years from now, whether he becomes President or not. At the very least it was a good speech, yet 49% would not even concede that.

The important break in the numbers is between "excellent" and the rest, and 70% said the speech fell short of "excellent." This is, I think, disastrous for Obama.

Asked how "concerned" they are "about Obama’s relationship with his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright," only 21% said they were "not at all concerned." 42% were "very concerned." Asked whether the speech was "racially divisive, unifying, or neither," only 30% — 30% again — thought the speech was "unifying," which is what Obama intended it and his entire campaign to be.

Obama's popularity has been built on unifying us and transcending race. If only 30% of us heard unification in that speech, then the speech and the connection to Wright have been massively destructive to what is the chief substance of his reputation.

ADDED: Obama told white people to feel guilty about race just when they'd been so happy thinking that loving him, just him, was the answer to racial problems. When we saw him consorting with someone who seemed to hate us, we needed reassurance that Obama loves us, and loving Obama was enough. But he didn't say that, and now we're confused. Our boyfriend was telling us he needs to see other people, and we don't understand the relationship anymore.

Ruffage!

Best comments thread ever?

Thanks, everybody!

I should go away more often.

Have we ever had a fully bearded VP?

Gordon Smith does the research.

Euthanasia problems.

Driving through the snow just now and listening to BBC radio, I heard the tail end of a discussion about euthanasia. A man, who sounded perfectly cheerful and physically well, was talking about how he missed his dead wife and how he'd accomplished what he wanted in life. He was ready to close the book on life and thought he should be able to get a prescription for death with dignity. There was an expert on the show, a doctor who worked under the euthanasia regime in the Netherlands, and he said that even in his country that man would not be able to have what he wanted, because the law limited him to killing patients with physical illnesses. "It's a problem," he said. It's a problem!

Now, connected to the internet, I'm searching the BBC site for that program. I can't find it, but I see is this article about a woman with a frightful tumor on her face who sought euthanasia:

Former schoolteacher Chantal Sebire, a mother of three, was found dead on Wednesday after a court rejected her request to let doctors help her die....

Ms Sebire, 52, had appealed on French television last month for the right to die, saying she could no longer see properly, taste or smell. She described how children ran away from her in the street.

Okay. I'm back. Let's see what I need to catch up on.

1. Richardson endorses Obama. Racial rifts healed?

2. Passport file breaching. It's not just for Obama anymore.

3. Economy bad. But we're Americans. We assume it will bounce back.

4. Over a foot of new snow here in Wisconsin.

5. Spitzer in whore-addiction therapy. Next stop Oprah.

6. Arianna is now bigger than Drudge. But Drudge does it all with one page.

If you want to hear from me...

... I'll be on the radio.

Meanwhile, talk about what you like here. It's a coffeehouse.



UPDATE: That was a lively "Week in Review" show. Listen at the archive here. Lots on Obama and some good discussion at the end about the Iraq war and a laughable ad from the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

The loneliness café.

Radio alert.

I'll be on the "Week in Review" show with Joy Cardin on Wisconsin Public Radio at 8 AM Central Time t0morrow morning. That's 9 AM ET.

Go here to listen on-line live. You can call in. We'll be talking about whatever news stories of the last week people want to talk about. And you'll be able to listen to the archived show here, later.

ADDED: The other guest — the "left" to my (supposed) "right" — is former Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager. I've been on with her before. It should be really lively — especially with this past week of news.

"An aide to John McCain was suspended from the campaign today for blasting out an inflammatory video...."

Politico writes:

Soren Dayton, who works in McCain's political department, sent out the YouTube link of "Is Obama Wright?" on twitter at 12:31 today with the tag, "Good video on Obama and Wright." It has since been taken down....

McCain and his campaign have repeatedly said that they would stay away from personal attacks on Obama, but the temptation has increased as Wright's words have dominated the race in recent days.

Here's the video, which I am not embedding with approval. It's plainly offensive and intended to stir up racial hostility:



ADDED: Let's look at some of the reaction (as collected at Memeorandum). Matt Lewis at Townhall objects to suspending Dayton, because all he did was pass the video along, Obama deserves to be attacked about Wright, it may inhibit others in the campaign from "doing their job," and Twitter culture is such that "Dayton most likely didn't think he was Twittering in an 'official' capacity."

Ed Morrissey writes:

I’m conflicted by this. I know Soren, and he’s a pretty good guy. He didn’t create the YouTube, and... it doesn’t do anything except show Wright, Obama, and his wife Michelle speaking for themselves.

!

It doesn’t do anything except show Wright, Obama, and his wife Michelle speaking for themselves.

!

However, McCain has nothing to gain and a lot to lose by getting involved in this controversy....

McCain needs to take some action to show how seriously he wants to remain a disinterested observer in the coming meltdown. That means Soren has to get publicly disciplined, unfortunately. I doubt he’ll be on the sidelines for long. It may not be fair, but … it’s politics.

Wow, I'm amazed at Morrissey's insensitivity to that video. My concern was that McCain hadn't distanced himself enough from Soren Dayton and that the campaign should have had safeguards in place in advance to avoid any connection to this kind of trash.

James Joyner writes:

Does the video play on the fears that some whites have about angry black men? Sure. Mostly, though, it seeks to undermine Obama’s portrait of himself as mainstream. It’s more than a little unfair but that’s the nature of these mashups....

Would I like to see campaigns waged on a higher plane than this? You bet. But it’s not going to happen....

I might add that the Obama campaign has benefited from at least three other viral videos. The “Hillary 1984” video was very powerful in knocking down the original frontrunner. The “Obama Girl” video was vapid but got a lot of attention for demonstrating Obama’s appeal to young voters. The “Yes We Can” video was an internet sensation which spawned numerous imitators, including a “McCain 10,000 Years” video which itself went viral. So, now, another vapid video is working against him. That’s politics.

Going viral with racial material is different. It's a rough world, and Twittering and YouTube are going to be part of politics, but the campaign needs to have standards and set limits.

Daniel DiRito writes:

Yes, Senator McCain has suspended a staff member who was found to be distributing the video. Unfortunately, the GOP has refined the tactic of disseminating fear and falsehoods while maintaining the deniability of their candidates.

I'm not quite sure how those 2 sentences fit together, but the McCain campaign should be absolutely above using this kind of racial material.

Oliver Willis writes:

The base impulse of the modern conservative movement - especially the blogosphere and talk radio contingents - is to always appeal to base elements. Racism, sexism, smearing opponents as the worst things possible, they come as easy to the right as breathing. Dayton just made the mistake of getting caught in public. Don’t think the campaign and the party aren’t doing the same or worse behind closed doors.

The McCain campaign needs to ensure that Willis is wrong.

Mickey Kaus on the Obama speech: "I thought it was a disaster for him."

Since people seem to want to talk about the Obama speech, and the number of comments on the previous post is getting close to the point where you have to know where to click to see the newer ones, I thought I'd put up another post — especially since Mickey Kaus is so interesting on the subject for so long on this new episode of Bloggingheads — with Bob Wright — whose interestingness is constrained by: 1. illness and 2. affection for Obama.

The "elite commentators" may be having "Obamagasms" over the speech, but "in terms of reaching the voters he needs to reach, i.e., white male voters, especially non-college-educated white male voters, especially in Pennsylvania, he... actively alienated them." First, "the chutzpah": Obama gets in trouble, and "he uses it as a teaching moment to lecture people on race." Second, he equates black rage and white anger and "is very condescending" toward white people. Third, he "completely misses the boat" about crime and welfare, the 2 issues that brought white men back to the Democrats after the Reagan Era.

But I'm not going to transcribe it all. Go listen.

"To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable," said Geraldine Ferraro.

"[Obama] gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred."

No word yet about how Obama's white grandmother liked the way he equated her occasional private remarks — whatever they were — with Jeremiah Wright's years of stoking hatred as he led a large attentive crowd.

Good luck finding anything interesting in the newly released Hillary Clinton records.

These are her "public" schedules only. Based on these records, she was a very First Lady-y First Lady:

[T]he schedules released Wednesday are filled with references to innocuous public ceremonies and tours and political events — surrounded by whited-out boxes of deleted material. On March 28, 1995, to pick one example, the schedule shows that Hillary Clinton landed in Lahore, Pakistan, and was "given flowers by a boy and girl dressed in traditional Pakistani clothes." Clinton then visited a village home where she was "served cold soda." On June 1, 2000, researchers will discover that Hillary Clinton flew to Waco, Texas, where she visited the "Audre & Bernard Rapoport Academy." "HRC proceeds to read 'Where the wild things Are' to approximately 71 kindergarten thru second graders," the schedule reads.

I guess we could use this to razz her about the "experience" she's claiming.