"Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Manhattan's financial district early Monday to mark the 1-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement..."

"... choking traffic and crowding the area around the New York Stock Exchange but being met at most turns by walls of police who stopped them from occupying anything."

It's not so cute this time around, but it was at first, last time, to some people. Remember?

"Why I Love Mormonism."

An essay — in the philosophy column at the NYT by — Simon Critchley a philosophy professor at tthe New School for Social Research in New York.

But every now and then during one of those New York soirées, when anti-Mormon prejudice is persistently pressed and expressed, and I perhaps feel momentarily and un-Mormonly emboldened by wine, I begin to try and share my slim understanding of Joseph Smith and my fascination with the Latter-day Saints. After about 45 seconds, sometimes less, it becomes apparent that the prejudice is based on sheer ignorance of the peculiar splendors of Mormon theology. “They are all Republicans anyway,” they add in conclusion, “I mean, just look at that Mitbot Romney. He’s an alien.” As an alien myself, I find this thoughtless anti-Mormon sentiment a little bewildering.

I'm pretty sure Critchley has no intention of helping Mitt Romney. Read through the interesting twists and turns and you'll arrive at the line: "Of course, for Christians, this is the highest blasphemy." That's just peachy for Critchley, but maybe you Republicans — you Christianists — ought to flip out.

Romney 47%, Obama 45%.

The Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll for Monday. The swing state poll — looking at "11 key states won by President Obama in 2008 and thought to be competitive in 2012" — has identical numbers today.

"My mother was an isolated and intellectual person."

"She was so driven by writing, it was quite limiting. She lived on her own, so everything she wrote came from within herself. In the last year, as she was contemplating death, she even saw that as writing material."

Said Orlando Figes, quoted in the obituary for Eva Figes, "a refugee from Nazi Germany who became an acclaimed novelist, memoirist and critic best known for an influential feminist treatise, 'Patriarchal Attitudes.'"

"72% Put Freedom of Speech Ahead of Not Offending Other Cultures."

A Rasmussen poll of likely voters.

Only 15% consider it more important for the United States to make sure that nothing is done to offend other nations and cultures. 

Nothing. Make sure. That's such a strong statement of the value opposing free speech that it's not surprising that so few Americans would take that side.

The question asked was: "Is it more important for the United States to guarantee freedom of speech or to make sure that nothing is done to offend other nations and cultures?" I think the question should be: What is more important: freedom of speech or avoiding offending other nations and cultures?  Or: Should the United States government protect freedom of speech even when that speech offends people in other nations and cultures?

I was trying to remove the idea that the U.S.  could "make sure that nothing is done" — which seems so impossible that it's ridiculous to make that that superior value. But having composed alternative questions, I'm thinking the poll would still find overwhelmingly strong support for free speech.

This dog whistle whistles both ways.

"New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd set the Jewish political community on fire [Sunday] with a column about the Republican ticket's foreign policy proposals that, according to her critics, peddled anti-Semitic imagery," reports Politico.

You know all the racist things Republicans are always saying, as seen by Democrats? It's like that.

"Maureen may not know this, but she is peddling an old stereotype, that gentile leaders are dolts unable to resist the machinations and manipulations of clever and snake-like Jews," Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic columnist and leading journalist on Israeli issues, wrote.

Snake-like... because the title of the article is "Neocons Slither Back." Dowd may not write the headline, and though she does use the word "slither" in her text, she's quoting Paul Wolfowitz, and he was saying that Obama shouldn't be allowed to "slither through" without having to take — Dowd's words here — "a clear position on liberals."

Dowd proceeds to say "Republicans are bananas on this one." Of course, if a Republican said Obama was bananas, that Republican would probably be accused of racism, because bananas remind us of monkeys, and the monkey is an animal that is associated with some racist iconography, and it's assumed that anything you say about the President is said while thinking about his race — which makes it conveniently/absurdly dangerous to criticize the President.

At the Exit Café...

... you don't have to leave.

Why do so many more Americans think Obama will win than want him to win?

It's the media coverage, isn't it?

There’s also a less partisan explanation. That is that people tend to struggle to imagine someone other than the current occupant of the White House as the president until he, well, isn’t anymore — even if they don’t like him or don’t plan to vote for him.

Yes, we do have a way of picturing things continuing as they have been. And no one is really good enough to be President, but the incumbent is already President, so our resistance to picturing a person as President doesn't come into play.

"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union."

Said Rahm Emanuel, after the Chicago Teachers Union decided to extended its strike.

"This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children. Every day our kids are kept out of school is one more day we fail in our mission: to ensure that every child in every community has an education that matches their potential.”

"Letting women 'test drive' larger breasts before a boob job has led to them picking even bigger implants."

Woman who see what life is like with larger breasts (by wearing a big padded bra) end up choosing, on average, breasts 30% larger than what they originally thought they wanted. They tend to come in thinking a C-cup would be right, but end up seeing the D-cup as preferable.

The article makes it seem as though the decision to size up has to do with realizing extra-large breasts won't "interfere with daily life." But I'm wondering whether these women are discovering some social advantages that they are finding persuasive.

In any case, let women choose for themselves what they want. I don't like the idea of cosmetic surgery of any kind, but if you're going to get it, you should decide for yourself how big to go. I'd like to know more about what happens with these breasts over the years. If you're going to choose, you deserve information. There should be photos of how enhanced breasts look after 20 or 30 (or more years) compared to what happens to smallish breasts over the years.

Ah, but young women don't think about that do they? They'll say I don't want to think about how I'll look when I'm 50 or 60. Right?

Bingo and Joey win first place!

At The Dog Jog today, here on campus. Neither Meade nor I was the human being on the other end of the leashes, and Bingo and Joey are not actually our dogs. We just borrow them. But we thought you'd like to see them with their blue ribbons. Congratulations!

"Here is a lesson in creative writing."

That's the heading for a short bit of text by Kurt Vonnegut in "A Man Without a Country," which I just downloaded in Kindle because we were talking about punctuation in the comments to the "phony balance" post and I half-remembered something he said about semi-colons. The short bit under the heading goes like this:

The dance craze says Obama will win.

Last time we had a dance craze like Gangnam Style — check out Psy in Times Square — it was 1996:

In the United States, the song, and its corresponding Macarena dance, became popular during the same week as the 1996 Democratic National Convention. The song was frequently played between activities, and large groups of delegates and other attendants would be seen doing the Macarena dance. The song and dance became such a part of the convention that Vice President Al Gore, having a reputation for stiffness, made a joke about doing the Macarena dance during his speech. He asked, "Would you like to see my Macarena dance?" He remained motionless for a few seconds, then asked, "Would you like to see it again?"

I tried to find that Gore thing on YouTube, but I only found this:



When the Macarena was the craze, the President was reelected. He beat Bob Dole, whose tagline was "Where's the outrage?" And the answer was "Heeeeey Macarena AAAhAA!" The Democrats danced their way through the convention, and the old man asking for outrage was so out of step with the times.

"I think our approach right now is to not do anything until we’ve been requested to do it by the State Department."

Leon Panetta. He's the Secretary of Defense. Remember him?

Can the NYT stop providing phony "balance" and help readers know what to believe?

The NYT has a new "public editor," Margaret Sullivan. She introduced herself last week and explained her concept of the role: "Put readers first... Encourage conversation... Promote transparency and understanding."

The Times’s decision to open itself to criticism from the inside, criticism that is made public, is a clear indication of its desire to keep its standards high.

It's a clear indication of its desire to clearly indicate its desire to indicate that it desires to keep its standards high. We'll see what Sullivan actually does. This week, her column is about "the journalistic practice of giving equal weight to both sides of a story" — taking cover under the appearance of balance — instead of "more aggressive on fact-checking and truth-squading." Journalists, we're told, have been feeling "pressure" recently "to be more aggressive on fact-checking and truth-squading." Recently? Why recently?

"So, on a highly symbolic date, mobs storm American diplomatic facilities and drag the corpse of a U.S. ambassador through the streets."

"Then the president flies to Vegas for a fundraiser. No, no, a novelist would say; that's too pat, too neat in its symbolic contrast.... Too crude, too telling, too devastating."