In Colorado...

... there were hints of Wisconsin, to which we have returned.



"Recall Walker"— on a Colorado car! But we enjoyed our temporary place at Colorado's table...



A toast to Colorado...



(And to the Wisconsin Badgers, for whom we chewed our fingertips to the bone this evening.)

Undertheorized.

Alexis C. Madrigal at The Atlantic attempts to explain why the academic journal "Porn Studies" is needed:

[S]o many people look at so much porn... And yet the majority of Americans say looking at porn is "wrong." Porn is a national contradiction baked into the daily ablutions of hundreds of millions of people.

Baked into ablutions, eh? Okay. I don't see much contradiction in the belief that something is wrong and the doing of it anyway. Isn't that part of the charm? Madrigal continues:

So pornography remains undertheorized.

"Undertheorized" is a funny word. Almost as funny as "ablutions." But you see the point: To declare something "undertheorized" is to long for academic study. For example, I found a law review article (humorously) titled "The Under-Theorized Asterisk Footnote" (by Charles A. Sullivan):

The asterisk footnote... identifies the author... This footnote is used by every scholar but analyzed by none. This scholarly inattention is shocking given the remarkable growth and development of the asterisk footnote over the last 40 years. This Article is the first effort to address this gaping lacuna in scholarship. It is my hope (perhaps not my expectation) that it will launch a wave of asteriskian studies that will throw new light on the legal academy.

So... what else is undertheorized? What is overtheorized? What is better left undertheorized?

Who are the people who go into theorizing, and why would they specialize in porn?

(I remember when a certain type of feminist went seriously theoretical over porn. "Pornography is the theory, and rape is the practice." The theory is that it is the theory. But that theory fell out of fashion.)

Socks and sandals.

Believe it.

This is perhaps the worst-received Sartorialist photograph ever. From the comments:

Lucky your post’s title had Paris in it otherwise I would have thought it was ironic! Now I just think how decadent Parisians must be to find this edgy! Normcore huh! It reminds me of the French character in one of Nancy Mitford’s books who tells her English friends she’s discovered the most chic London store full of marvellous things and they’re all wondering what they’ve overlooked and it turns out to be ‘the Woolworth’.

“nomakeupselfie is the biggest load of rubbish I've ever heard."

"How does putting a selfie with no make up on support cancer?"

MORE: BBC:

Across the UK, social media timelines have been bombarded with the #nomakeupselfie hashtag. It has been used almost 15,000 times on Twitter and many thousands more on Facebook as well. So what prompted the unusual trend? Most of the pictures are accompanied by phrases like "cure cancer" and "cancer awareness" but - at least to begin with - they weren't associated with any specific goal or charity. This was not an orchestrated campaign.

Baffled by the trend, a backlash began in earnest. One confused tweeter posted: "Because not wearing make up is like... having cancer? I hope I'm missing the point here." Another said: "I don't get the #nomakeupselfie for cancer? How does it help? I'd rather donate money towards it that take a picture." Soon bloggers were entering the fray too.

Cancer Research UK says it has had more than 800,000 text donations since Wednesday - raising more than £1 million ($1.6 million).

Video at that last link has a reporter on video supposedly explaining the connection between no makeup and cancer. I've watched it, and I didn't hear an explanation. 3 things I thought of are: 1. No-makeup selfies get attention, and the women are thinking, now that I've got your attention, I'll encourage you to do something good, which is to give to a charity I like, 2. A makeup-free woman is somehow like a cancer patient, perhaps because she looks less vibrant (more sickly?), 3. A makeup-free woman is exposing the stark reality of her physical being which includes the vulnerability of the physical being to diseases such as cancer.

"Because serious muckrakers who parrot their husband's captive political POVs in a once-grand newspaper buy lipstick at Kmart..."

"... and smear it all over themselves, because, hey, they're serious people -- and also sexually desirable. Or something."

A comment on WaPo's "Why we wrote about the Koch Industries and its leases in Canada’s oil sands," which responds to Power Line's "Washington Post Falls for Left-Wing Fraud, Embarrasses Itself," which referred to a WaPo article by Steve Mufson and Juliet Eilperin titled (apparently falsely) "The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers."

Power Line responds to the material at the first link with "The Washington Post Responds to Me and I Respond to the Post," and I got there via Instapundit, who said: "I’d really like to see a list of who’s married to/sleeping with whom in the Washington press corp, rather than having this drip out scandal by scandal."

Here's the lipsticky pic that Power Line includes at the "Responds to Me/I Respond" post that seems to have fired up the commenter I quoted:



When does it detract from your argument to go after a woman for her looks? When the aspects of her looks that strike you as ridiculous are things that she's done to herself? When your objection to her seems to have something to do with how she's deployed her looks to make herself part of a Washington power couple? When she's been really despicably deceptive and you want to lock onto an image to feel hate toward?

Why go after the female half of a co-written article? Because the male half has maintained the kind of natural look for himself that is really not much of a choice for a man. Only a woman's look — because there's such a range of choice — seems revelatory of the inner space of her mind. But be careful of getting drawn in to your fantasies of what's going on in that female mental vortex. You could get hurt. Badly. Quite aside from the way it distracts us from the meat of your argument.

Whither the meat?

"The Rhode Island School of Design alumna, who calls herself an artist first, actress second, is cautiously aware of the 'specialness' of her situation..."

"... but reasons, 'if someone was willing to show my work now, I don’t really care why. I’m honored to have the platform.'"

The actress-artist is Jemima Kirke (of the HBO show "Girls"). The article is in the NYT.

From the comments (links added):

First Shia Labeouf tries to pass off the work of Dan Clowes as his own. Now Jemima Kirke is ever-so-earnestly describing how the friends she painted deeply inspired her "art" rather than the Alice Neel coffee table books she clearly cherishes and studies. There is something fundamentally wrong with this Napster generation. Just because you can play a passable cover of "Needle in the Hay" does not mean you ARE Elliott Smith or that you actually WROTE the song. Ms. Kirke's attempt to pass off her work as anything other than homage is reminiscent of a classic headline from The Onion: "Judge Awards Heather Mills Writing Credit On Eleanor Rigby."

Many commenters carp about the similarity to the work of Alice Neel and some attack the Times for failing even to mention Neel. For contrast, when the NYT wrote about that painting George Bush did of himself in the bathtub, it did not fail to cite Pierre Bonnard — "Pierre Bonnard’s strangely chaste, luminous paintings of his wife reclining in a bathtub."

How do you feel about celebrity artists getting attention when lesser-known, better artists are ignored? Is it okay as long as any artists they steal from also get the press? Is it okay as long are there's no different treatment based on the politics of the celebrity artists? Or is it just all about the clicks and nothing here really matters?

"I need a taller college aged brunette female student to take a math placement test for me in person as I am out of state currently."

"If you believe that you can be of help please respond to this ad and let me know your math qualifications. Must know college level math. Willing to pay a neg fee. This could turn into more work in the near future if interested. Serious inquiries only as I need this done ASAP! Thank you!"

Casual, open cheating via Craigslist.

A bill in Massachusetts that would require you to get permission from a judge in order to have sex in your own home.

1. The requirement would apply during the pendency of a divorce, separation, or restraining order proceedings and only where there are children in the home.

2. The state senator who introduced the bill is Richard J. Ross, a Republican.

3. After Think Progress called attention to this in a post titled "Bill Forces People Going Through Divorce To Get A Judge’s Permission Before Having Sex In Own Home"...

Ross’ staff told ThinkProgress that the senator is "not in support" of the bill. It was filed on behalf of a constituent, Robert LeClair, as a courtesy to him. Massachusetts law allows legislators to put forth a citizen’s piece of legislation, as Ross did in this case, though there is no requirement that they do so.

4. What?!

5. Googling, I see that back in 2011, one Robert Leclair — identified then as a "local Massachusetts lawmaker" — was proposing the law himself (and not as a constituent of Ross's). We're told: "Leclair is a divorcee himself and also the former president of Fathers United for Equal Justice."

6. I'm very sympathetic to children caught in the upheaval that is divorce, and a new man in the home — stepping into Dad's old role — may sometimes/usually make life harder for them, but: a. Maybe if ex-husband weren't so intent on using raw power to control his ex-wife, she'd still be married to him, b. Just because something is recognized as a problem doesn't mean that your solution is better than the problem, c. Laws that on paper oversolve problems and that in reality cannot/will not be enforced at all make a mockery of the rule of law, d. Legislators who introduce bills that they don't even support should be banned from engaging in sexual activity in the home or anywhere else until they withdraw that bill.

Greetings from Madison, Wisconsin.

We drove 1,000 miles yesterday. Hence the late start today.

I need to adjust to the new time zone and altitude. I'll have something for you to read soon...

Here's a photo from Boulder. I like the curved building, the glass bricks, and the colors next to the deep blue sky, but I took this picture for the sign in the window, "Obama Stimulus Pizza" (what's on it?!):

"A quarter of high schools with the highest percentage of black and Latino students do not offer any Algebra II courses..."

"... while a third of those schools do not have any chemistry classes."

Black students are more than four times as likely as white students — and Latino students are twice as likely — to attend schools where one out of every five teachers does not meet all state teaching requirements....

Time to Split Boulder.

"Well, bisexual people are kind of like that dog... They’re misunderstood. They’re ignored. They’re mocked."

"Even within the gay community, I can’t tell you how many people have told me, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t date a bisexual.’ Or, ‘Bisexuals aren’t real.’ There’s this idea, especially among gay men, that guys who say they’re bisexual are lying, on their way to being gay, or just kind of unserious and unfocused."

Said a man who identifies as a bisexual. He also identifies as a lawyer, and he once represented a lady whose gay neighbors were — as the NYT article "The Scientific Quest to Prove Bisexuality Exists" puts it — "trying to have her dog put down." The man, Brad S. Kane, said he took the side of the dog — not the anti-dog gay guys — because the dog was "the underdog." "The dog needed help, needed a voice."

Nothing I've quoted above says "science" to me. I think there's a social quest to affirm the existence of bisexuality. People choose (or happen) to think of themselves that way and feel that it's mean not to accept them at their word. But that can be a prompt for scientific research. Somehow, I don't believe people really want a scientific answer to the question... unless it's the answer they want.

The lack of scientific orientation is apparent in the article title, which, you'll note, is not The Scientific Inquiry Into Whether Bisexuality Exists.

Suddenly, I feel like paraphrasing Voltaire: If bisexuality did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

Obama says that in midterm elections, Democrats "get clobbered..."

"... either because we don’t think it’s important or because we get so discouraged about what’s happening in Washington that we think it’s not worth our while."

But in a presidential election year, Democrats "do pretty well," because "[s]uddenly a more representative cross section of America gets out there."

"It’s virtually impossible for anyone other than Clinton to raise money or build a campaign infrastructure, the thinking goes, with Clinton hovering overhead."

"Yet Clinton’s allies believe it’s not true — and increasingly they are saying so."

In fact, they argue the opposite: that the former first lady is shielding other prospective Democratic contenders from months of attacks and scrutiny they’d probably face without her in the picture. There’s simply no need for Clinton to start a campaign this early, they say....

“I actually think it’s a good thing — if Hillary has frozen the field, it’s a good thing,” said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell... “To be honest, people start these campaigns far too early...The desire to keep a Democratic president will still be strong [within the party] … it’ll be a more compact campaign, and to that extent maybe a less damaging and divisive campaign.”

ADDED: A new Gallup poll has the top reason for voting for Hillary that she'd be the first female President. Only 18% though. Experience gets 9%. Importantly, 49% say nothing or no opinion.

"The senior guard Aaron Craft of Ohio State after his last-second shot bounced out, giving 11th-seeded Dayton a win over the sixth-seeded Buckeyes."

Caption to a great photo. Cool writing too:

Aaron Craft lay on the floor, his arms behind his head, staring up at the arena ceiling, as if the hardcourt were a poolside chaise longue.

Red was all around him, the jubilant scrum of Dayton players racing around the court, dancing and laughing, while Craft, Ohio State’s senior guard, just lay there, in the middle of it, the popped balloon at a raging party.

His mind raced: the last four seconds, the last four years....

Airbnb is, apparently, worth more than Hyatt.

$10 billion.

Why build all those buildings when you can build all that with your mind?