"I see it now... You brought to my attention the beauty that is supposed to be in life."

"Life is like a road and we are all supposed to walk down it, transforming into different people at every crossroad. Sometimes we hit road blocks. Sometimes we're not sure how we'll continue, but we always transform into something that can get us through the day."



(Via Metafilter.)

Occupy Wall Street protesters stereotype men as sexual predators.

Oh? Am I being unfair? Here's the story:

Zuccotti Park has become so overrun by sexual predators attacking women in the night that organizers felt compelled to set up a female-only sleeping tent yesterday to keep the sickos away.

The large, metal-framed “safety tent” — which will be guarded by an all-female patrol — can accommodate as many as 18 people and will be used during the day for women-only meetings, said Occupy Wall Street organizers.

If there were a few attacks by black people, would they set up a white-only section? Why stigmatize all the men as criminals based on the acts of a few?

Some of the male OWS protesters remained in denial over the growing number of sex attacks.

“Sexual harassment gets called rape, and it’s not,” one scoffed when told of the women’s tent.

One scoffed. One of them. Those men.

“There’s no way that it’s happening as much as people are saying it has. It’s just word spreading and getting misunderstood.”

Half-wracked prejudice leaps forth... doesn't it? And if you don't make the women feel secure, they won't come around there anymore. What's a protest movement without women? All male... and you'll just look like a bunch of angry losers.

The Boilermakers came to town.

This was their big moment:



See Boilermaker Pete there? And the small contingent of black-clad fans from Indiana?



But we won. Yay! It was 62-17, which... I don't know... I heard there was something called "running up the score." Seems to me, we overwon it. Too bad the previous 2 weeks we underwon it.

Thanks to "The Elder" for sending us the tickets. First time I've been inside Camp Randall, and I've been living within walking distance of the stadium since 1984.

"Mic Check" jackassery disrupting a speech by Governor Scott Walker.

Here's the report in the Chicago Tribune:

The Republican governor, who appeared before about 300 people at a public policy breakfast at Chicago's Union League Club, saw his speech interrupted by union-backed Occupy Chicago protesters for about six minutes before they left the event.

About 50 people who purchased tickets to the breakfast began chanting minutes into Walker’s remarks, reciting slogans such as “Union busting. It’s disgusting.” And “We are the 99 percent.” They also criticized Walker for being allowed free speech rights while blaming Mayor Rahm Emanuel for Chicago police arrests of 300 protesters who refused to leave Grant Park after an 11 p.m. curfew.

The rudeness is sickening. I don't understand how the protesters imagine that they will win support from anyone that way. They do seem driven to preventing Walker from ever speaking, but in fact, he did speak after they left. He said:

"The bottom line is, no matter how loud you shout, the facts are the facts. The facts are that our reforms have worked and continue to work in the state of Wisconsin.”

It only makes him look better.

AND: Speaking of things that make me queasy... that spelling "mic":

What's the correct spelling — "mic" or "mike"? It's mike, obviously! Do you know any guys named Michael who spell their nickname "Mic"? Imagine 2 Michaels, Mike and Mic: Which one do you want to have a beer with?

ALSO: There's a big debate about spelling in the comments at that last link. I participate a lot in the debate, saying things like:

Yeah, and no one says I'm riding my bic.

No one protests "no nucs."

Note to Cain accuser: Saying "very specific instances" does not equal specifying instances.

The still-unnamed woman communicates through a lawyer:

The lawyer, Joel P. Bennett, who represents a former employee of Mr. Cain’s at the National Restaurant Association, said the accusations did not center on a single exchange that could be easily misinterpreted, which is how Mr. Cain has characterized it. Mr. Bennett said there were multiple episodes that led his client to file a formal complaint with the restaurant association.

“Mr. Cain knows the specific incidents that were alleged,” Mr. Bennett said during a brief news conference outside his Georgetown office. “My client filed a written complaint in 1999 against him specifically and it had very specific instances in it, and if he chooses not to remember or to acknowledge those, that’s his issue.”

This is maddening. Very specific instances. Okay. That's what we need to hear about. What are they?! They don't become very specific instances because you say "very specific instances"! That's still completely abstract. Get specific. Get specific to the point where we can judge for ourselves whether the details amount to something that counts against Cain and that exposes you to a defamation lawsuit if the details are false.

Mr. Bennett described his client as “anxious” to rebut Mr. Cain’s comments while maintaining her desire not to become “a public figure.” 

You want to accuse and remain impervious to any tests of your truth-telling.

Mind-boggling!

The internet is having a big laugh over cruelty to children.

Hey, lie to your children and make them cry, and do it all on video so we can get a laugh. Go ahead, appropriate your child's innocence and trust, make him suffer, and give it to millions of strangers to howl over.

BUT: There is justice in the world. And the day will come when the child will have a video camera of his own, and he or she will film the parent getting emotional.

A YouTube video featuring a Texas judge repeatedly striking his 16-year-old daughter with a leather belt has gone viral on the Internet this week — racking up 2.4 million views since it was posted Oct. 27, and eliciting angry reactions from people around the world.

Teach your children well...

Imagine starting something when you're 59 years old, and becoming a fixture — an icon — doing it for 30+ years.

Andy Rooney, dead at 92.



ADDED: Did you ever notice how nobody notices Joe Piscopo anymore?



That was from 1984, when it was considered hilariously obvious that Andy Rooney was too old and too boring and repetitious to be on TV anymore.

AND: Here's the late Phil Hartman doing Andy Rooney, back when people had the idea that Andy Rooney was racist and homophobic:



From the CBS News article at the first link:

Rooney was also mistakenly connected to racism when a politically charged essay highly insensitive to minorities was written in his style and passed off as his on the internet in 2003....

Many assumed he wrote the screed because Rooney's longtime habit of writing or speaking plainly on sensitive topics had left him open to attacks in the past by activist groups. The racist essay was one of the many false Rooney quotes and essays bouncing around the Internet. The racism charge angered and hurt Rooney deeply, especially because as a young soldier in the early 1940s, he got himself arrested in Florida for refusing to leave the seat he had chosen among blacks in the back of an Army bus.

At the height of the AIDS crisis, Rooney had his biggest run-in with a group and it had dire consequences. In February 1990, the gay magazine The Advocate interviewed him after he associated the human choices of drugs, tobacco and gay sex with death in a CBS News special, "A Year With Andy Rooney: 1989." The magazine printed racist remarks attributed to him from the interview, which he vehemently denied making. A torrent of negative publicity followed, after which then-CBS News President David Burke suspended him for three months. The outcry for his return was deafening. Burke reinstated him after only three weeks, saying Rooney was not a man "who holds prejudice in his heart and mind." The ratings for "60 Minutes," CBS' only top-10 hit that season, dropped while Rooney was off the air.

How loathsome is CBS?

Guy Fawkes Day in a Guy Fawkes mask.

So it's Guy Fawkes Day today. What are you going to do in your Guy Fawkes mask?

Now -- more than four hundred years after the gruesome death of the man who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament with barrels of gunpowder -- members of the Occupy and Anonymous movements are hoping to provide their own reason to remember Guy Fawkes Night.

On Saturday, November 5, hundreds of protesters wearing the sinister black and white Guy Fawkes masks plan to march on Parliament in central London.

"It will be a night our government never forgets," Malcolm, a member of hacker group Anonymous, said with a smile. "Our government should be expecting us."...

So... people wearing the masks are threatening violence?

"They're very meaningful masks," said Alexandra Ricciardelli, who was rolling cigarettes on a table outside her tent in New York's Zuccotti Park two days before the anniversary of Fawkes' failed bombing attempt.

"It's not about bombing anything; it's about being anonymous – and peaceful."

To the 20-year-old from Keyport, New Jersey, the Fawkes mask "is about being against The Man – the power that keeps you down."....

Uh... that sounds really stupid. Maybe call up a professor and find out what he says:

"You can seize hold of it for any political purpose you want," [said Lewis Call, an assistant history professor at California Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo.] "That's the real power of it."...

"Gradually over the centuries, the meaning of Guy Fawkes has dramatically changed... The reputation of Guy Fawkes has been recuperated. Before he was originally seen as a terrorist trying to destroy England. Now he's seen more as a freedom fighter, a fighter for individual liberty against an oppressive regime. The political meaning of that figure has transformed."

Fawkes is Fawkes, but don't forget: A mask is a mask:

"People hide behind the masks, put the masks on and their identity is hidden. Therefore they can do a lot more than they would if they didn't have the masks," [said a 33-year-old man at Occupy London who didn't want to be named] after emerging sleepy-eyed from his tent.

At the Sandhill Café...

... you can hang out all night.

ADDED: Unfortunately, that dot that seems to be on the lens is not on the lens. It's somewhere inside the camera. Any ideas on how to remove it?

"I can only conclude that your decision to issue a subpoena, authorized by a party-line vote..."

"... was driven more by partisan politics than a legitimate effort to conduct a responsible investigation."

"If god (however you perceive him/her/it) told you to kill your child — would you do it?"

"If your answer is no, in my booklet you’re an atheist."

"The recall effort against Republican Gov. Scott Walker has unexpectedly begun."

"But instead of being filed by Democrats and grass-roots organizations who have vocalized their intentions to recall Walker for months, the petition was filed by David Brandt of Muskego."

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which had announced its intention last month to launch the recall Nov. 15, quickly branded the move a "dirty Republican ploy," but it's not clear what Brandt's loyalties are.

Screwup or dirty trick?

ADDED: Apparently, Brandt is a Walker supporter:

The unusual move of having a supporter file recall paperwork immediately angered Walker opponents, who suspected it was made to give the governor a chance to begin raising money before organizers begin their actual recall campaign.

Officials with GAB confirmed Friday that the formation of Brandt's committee would allow Walker to begin fundraising now, a full 11 days before the Democratic Party of Wisconsin had planned to officially start the recall effort on Nov. 15.

AND: By filing as if he were seriously attempting to recall Walker, Brandt makes it possible for Walker to begin fundraising (and it's unlimited fundraising):

Phone messages left at Brandt's home were not returned. In the handwritten form, he listed himself as the committee's treasurer and said he should be exempt from filing campaign finance reports because the committee would not raise more than $1,000 in a calendar year. That small amount of funding would make it impossible to collect and organize a half million signatures....

Cathy Waller, executive director of the Waukesha County Republican Party, said she did not know who Brandt was and did not believe that he has been active in county Republican politics. State Republican Party Executive Director Stephan Thompson said that he also didn't know Brandt and that the Republican Party was not involved in the filing....

Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said the effort also appeared fishy. "It smells like a fake petition drive," said McCabe, whose group tracks political donations.

For campaign purposes, that won't matter. Since the petition has been filed, under state law Walker can immediately begin receiving unlimited political donations from supporters to use for defending himself against a recall.

"Mic Check! Im Drew from internet. We would like to propose tonight the purchase of occupywallstreet.net for the use of all of us."

"It is time sensitive because the person who owns it desperately wants to sell it and will sell it to anybody but we have put a stop on that for the day. I realize that this is a weird situation, but we would rather that you own it than say the Koch brotherss. The amount is $8,000. Just so everyone knows, we are about to take a temp check..."

Occupy Wall Street hands over $8,000 to Mark R. Ellis, 53, of Sarasota, Florida, who registered occupywallstreet.net on September 23.

Ellis described himself as sympathetic to Occupy Wall Street, calling capitalism “extinction-causing software,” but said he has no plans to join the protests. Regarding the sale of occupywallstreet.net, he said, “It’s not about the money for me.” Asked why he didn’t hand over the domain name for free, Ellis said, “Because I’m a businessman.”

"Woman Said to Have Felt Hostility at Work After Complaining About Cain."

That's a hell of a headline. For an article by Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times. If the woman had been named, it could have read:

Jane Doe Said to Have Felt Hostility at Work After Complaining About Cain.

There'd still be that "said to." So imagine if there had been direct evidence, and if could been:

Jane Doe Felt Hostility at Work After Complaining About Cain.

There'd still be that "felt." So let's add another degree of solidity:

Jane Doe Subjected to Hostility at Work After Complaining About Cain.

There'd still be a lack of agency behind the hostility. If we knew who was sending out that hostility, it might have read:

Co-workers Subjected Jane Doe to Hostility After Her Complaining About Cain.

There'd still be correlation without necessary causation. Let's eliminate that for the purpose of further demonstrating the vagueness of it all:

Co-workers Subjected Jane Doe to Hostility Because of Her Complaining About Cain.

Even the article were bolstered with information that would support these 5 added degrees of specificity, the weakness of the story would remain: Which co-workers? What did they know about the complaint? What form did this hostility take? For how long? And the all-important: What connection did any of this have to something Cain actually did?

Madison officials warn bar owners who require a driver's license that they may be accused of race discrimination.

Astounding:

"It's been clearly documented who does and doesn't have driver's licenses in the state of Wisconsin," said Mark Woulf, alcohol policy coordinator for Madison, citing a vast divide between blacks and whites. "That alone raises eyebrows and could easily be determined to be discriminatory."...

A handful of Downtown bars have had the restrictive ID policy in place since the summer in response to a spike in violence that they say was mostly curbed once they started the policy....

Woulf said no formal complaints have been filed against a bar with the city's civil rights department, a first step that could lead to sanctions, including a bar's liquor license being pulled, if it's found to violate the city's equal opportunities ordinance.

Keeping track of digits.

This picture — over at Sartorialist — of a young woman reading a book in an outdoor café reminds me of something that happened yesterday. See? She's casually slouching in a big fuzzy coat. I assume that's fake fur. So... I was traipsing about on State Street yesterday, looking for something red to wear. (I'm going to the football game tomorrow. I've never gone to a football game!) And I wandered into a shop I like, where I often try things on and, in fact, I often buy things. Many times, over the years, I've dropped $300, $400, even $700 at a time on skirts/tops/jackets/whatever. I check out what's new, and there's a nice fuzzy coat, the sort of thing that seems as though it might be fun to wear slouching about in a café. It might amuse the students and my colleagues if I walked the law school hallways in that. I glance at the price tag. $395. It fits. It looks cute. It could be "me." La la la. Kind of retro hippie. I'm getting a Janis Joplin vibe. I overhear a salesperson say the words "four thousand dollars." Holy fuck. There's another digit on that price tag! I pretend I didn't just realize the coat cost 10x what I thought as I maneuver myself to the point where I can return that pelt to the hanger. Would I ever pay $4,000 for a coat? Maybe. I did buy an Armani suit that one time. But yesterday wasn't one of those times. Yesterday was the day I bought a red scarf — in "cashmink" — which is not something that entailed the participation of any goats or weasels.