Why did the NYT publish a very long article on the white people in Michelle Obama's ancestry?

There's the funny (Star-Trek-evoking) name Tribble, and they could forefront some old lady in Georgia who acknowledges that it's hard "to face this kind of thing." And there are those others who "have declined to discuss the matter beyond the closed doors of their homes, fearful that they might be vilified as racists or forced to publicly atone for their forebears."

Said forebears were slaveholders, though the common ancestor was the child of an interracial union that occurred after the Civil War, the former slave who was impregnated lived until 1938 and never said it was rape, the father was probably not the owner but his son (a man "of modest means" who had grown up with her), and some of the descendants say things like "To me, it’s an obvious love story that was hard for the South to accept back then."

The NYT reminds us that former slaves tended to avoid talking about slavery, and: "This willful forgetting pervaded several branches of the first lady’s family tree, passed along like an inheritance from one generation to the next." That is, Michelle Obama herself has nothing to say about her white ancestry.

Why bring this up now? One answer is that there's a book coming out this week — "American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama" — and this article is adapted from it. But that doesn't explain why the NYT would publish a long article and feature it, with a slide-show, in the middle top of its front webpage.

I can't stop myself from presuming that the editors believe this is a story that will help Barack Obama get reelected. But why would this work? Why delve into racial bloodlines? We've been talking about racial bloodlines with respect to Elizabeth Warren (the Senate candidate with a dubious claim to a small percentage of Cherokee ancestry). But that issue isn't helpful to Warren.

I'm going to theorize that the NYT — like some people on Obama's campaign — would like voters to occupy their minds with the subject of race and, especially, to inhabit the emotional narrative of America's trajectory out of a shameful past. This subject is, at the very least, a distraction from the present-day economic woes that plague Obama's second-term ambitions. But it also has the potential to restimulate the 2008-style "hope," which, for many voters, seemed to imbue Obama with the power to heal America's lost-festering racial wounds.

We're not healed yet. And it's not too late to give up the hope that Obama was the answer... even if the dream of racial healing seems to have deteriorated into hackneyed partisan electioneering.

"Austrian Politician Photographed Having Sex In Forest By Hidden Wildlife Camera."

Oh, no!

Have you ever considered this possibility when you were having sex in the forest?

IN THE COMMENTS: AprilApple points to the part of the linked article that says the politician "will get up to $25,000 in compensation if the court rules his privacy was invaded." That does shed a different light on it — a less gentle, dappled light.

I'm now getting somewhere on my project of erasing on the 9 defunct Macs...

... that have piled up at home and in the office since 1991 (when I got my first computer with a hard drive). Man, have I been putting off this task. Thanks to everyone who chipped in with tips on the previous post. But no one talked about the new paint colors on the second post.

Here's another shot:

At the Invalid Argument Café...

... we're having a colorful conversation.

Palin refers to Obama's "cocaine snorting, and what he ate — Fido? Rufus?"

"I think it’s funny that the cocktail circuit gives me a hard time for eating elk and moose. Anybody here have a pet moose? There’s a difference."

"It's no accident that religions around the world have used unison singing and chanting, because unison singing and chanting is itself a mechanism for high fidelity."

Says Daniel Dennett, in a discussion with Richard Dawkins. Both atheists, they're talking about the way religion evolves.

I was interested in the quote beyond that context, because I've had to listen to so much political singing and chanting here in Wisconsin over the past year or so. Political chanting troubles me. See, e.g.:

"Occupy Wall Street, Occupy State Street, Occupy Everything and Never Give It Back!"

"Wisconsin 'Singalong' Protesters Confront Workers and Chant About Boycotting Their Employer."

"Do you really want to use rote chanting to train kids to protest against authority?"

"For boys who never question the boy code, it slowly turns into the 'bro code' or the man-box as they enter adulthood."

"When men stop questioning their own gender conditioning, it keeps them stuck in an immature stage of development that Sociologist Michael Kimmel calls 'guyland.' Guyland is when a man refuses to grow up and then behaves in ways so as to not be seen as unmanly, gay, or feminine. The way out of the man-box is straightforward and yet, will require more 'work.'"

Are you suffering out there in your "man-box"?

The veterans monument and the giant bunny statue.

"When the veterans want to do something, we allow them to do those things. Why can't the town of Dedham put the bunnies that show the spirit of Dedham where they want to go?"

Aerial photographs of Dutch tulip fields.

Nice!

"My fish died when I wasn't home. Asked my cousin to give him a proper flushing.."

"She sent me this."

Tarantula with fungus "antlers."

Afflicted, fascinatingly.

"The best punishment for a man who would take your wife is to let him have her."

A tl;dr summary to something that was actually not too long responding to a call for "instant karma" stories.

"Whenever I'm feeling down I look at this old picture of my friend."

"Gets me every time."

(Via Reddit.)

"Some of the stuff in [Sarah Jessica Parker's] house was shabby chic, and let’s just say, Anna [Wintour] wanted less shabby, and more chic."

This is completely mundane to me. Of course, a house that a real family lives in is different from the norm for a glamorous lunch party. Whether Anna Wintour or some less divine stylist is doing the redoing, it must be redone.

But it became hilarious when Rush Limbaugh — who had never even heard the term "shabby chic" — tried to get his mind around it.

Have you ever heard of the term "shabby chic"?  That is how the New York Post describes Sarah Jessica Parker's house. The decor is shabby chic.  I've never heard it, either.  I don't know what it is.  But they had... It's in the Post. Apparently, people were over there Windexing doorknobs.  This place is made out to be an absolute pigsty that Anna Wintour had to go into and clean. No, I'm telling you that's how it's written.  There are people cleaning the doorknobs, washing the windows, taking a piano upstairs, moving furniture out, moving furniture in. 

Etc. etc. After the break, he's got a definition of the term — it's from Wikipedia, though he doesn't say so — and he's quoting and riffing:

"Shabby chic is a form of interior design where furniture and furnishings are either chosen" because they look old and worn out, with "signs of wear and tear." Or if they're new items, they're made to look that way. Flaking paint, dents, little chunks taken out of the wood table in the kitchen. I have pictures of some of this stuff.  It looks like you'd run into it in one of Hatfield or McCoy's cabins.  At least to me. "At the same time, a soft, opulent, yet cottage-style decor, often with a feminine feel is emphasized to differentiate it from genuine period decor."

Anyway, Anna Wintour didn't like it. She got it out of there.  It's not even her house.  It's Sarah Jessica Parker's place.  Anna Wintour shows up, and she probably said, "I'm not going in there.  I am not setting foot in this place! I'm not having my picture taken in a place like this."  So the story goes on. She moved the piano upstairs. They were spray painting stuff, washing doorknobs inside and out.  They're making the place sound like a pigsty. 

Limbaugh obviously wants it to be that Parker is a big old slob, but "shabby chic" is a decorating term that has nothing to do with things being filthy or even messy. And "one of Hatfield or McCoy's cabins"... that's a way to say "hillbillies" without saying "hillbillies." Limbaugh wants to say: this is the case of the biggest fashionista in the room calling another fashionista a hillbilly. The material is not there, because "shabby chic" is a technical decorating term. (My Google image search tells me it's very heavy on the color white.) But Limbaugh nevertheless follows his original impulse, that Wintour and her people insulted Parker by calling her home "shabby."

IN THE COMMENTS: I say: "Note to commenters: References to Parker's resemblance to a horse have been done, done, and overdone. Come up with something new." And Crack Emcee says: "Glad to oblige," and — quoting me "The material is not there, because 'shabby chic' is a technical decorating term. (My Google image search tells me it's very heavy on the color white.)" — says "Oh, that shit is HEAVY alright." Indeed!

ADDED: An antidote to the heavy at Crack's link. By the way, we're repainting our house, and we're repainting black and white. What we need to survive... together alive...

"I used to love blogging. I ate it, drank it, and slept on it at night."

"Then I became a consultant and professional blogger, earning a living giving advice and blogging for others.... Now I hardly blog at all. I returned to what I intended to do in the first place, before I’d ever heard of blogs: freelance writing."

Writes La Shawn Barber, who'd just run across an interview she did back in 2006, when she loved blogging. "Nothing profound. It just brought back memories."

From the old interview: "The more you blog, the more you love it, the more you have to say.... You need to blog because you like, or love, to do it."

The things that we do for love — and truly love — may be things we wouldn't love at all if it were paid work. Sex is an obvious example of that sort of thing. Here's a great old blog post by Penelope Trunk: "Bad career advice: Do what you love."

I am a writer, but I love sex more than I love writing. And I am not getting paid for sex. In fact, as you might imagine, my sex life is really tanking right now. But I don’t sit up at night thinking, should I do writing or sex? Because career decisions are not decisions about “what do I love most?” Career decisions are about what kind of life do I want to set up for myself?...

If you are lost, and lonely, and wondering how you’ll ever find your way in this world. Take a job. Any job. Because structure, and regular contact with regular people, and a method of contributing to a larger group are all things that help us recalibrate ourselves....

"It is in no way surprising that a Daily Caller reporter would act like a tremendous, disrespectful asshole..."

"... as 'act like an asshole' is essentially the Caller’s mission statement. Presidents shouldn’t be afforded god-like respect by the press or the citizenry, but 'don’t interrupt people while they’re talking to angrily shout disagreeable things at them' is just sort of basic politeness, really. (Of course, in a movie written by a liberal screenwriter — *cough cough* Aaron Sorkin *cough cough* — Munro would be a hero. And in a movie written by a liberal screenwriter, he also wouldn’t be an obnoxious right-wing Irish-accented twit, and also his question would not be paradoxically nativist nonsense.)"

Writes Alex Pareene.