Living Out Lout
Yesterday, I had to be in the Valley for drinks at 6:30 with a friend of mine. She'd invited a whole bunch of people, and lives in the Valley, so there was no persuading her to change it to someplace that wouldn't require me to get a rage-ectomy after spending an hour in parking lot-style rush-hour traffic.
At 3 p.m., I decided to beat the rush (hour) by leaving Santa Monica, and the wonderful cafe I go to, complete a "No Cell Phones" sign (for people who don't display manners without signage), and go to a Starbucks in the Valley. Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, to be exact.
I had no idea how horrible an idea this was. I got there, ordered from the very pleasant employees, and sat down to a most unpleasant cell phone conversation from this charmer, who only went outside for a smoke at the half-hour mark...while still on his phone.
He argued and argued, loudly, on his cell phone, for over a half an hour. I actually recorded 26 minutes of his loutery, but unfortunately, the acoustics and my wonderful little Olympus (here's a more recent model), which I use for phone interviews, and which downloads right to my computer, didn't work out too well.
Oh, and because I know somebody will ask, that's my Verizon mobile broadband modem. Gregg got it for me, same as with all my technology, which has to mean it, and the service, are the best out there, or were at the time he got it for me. It's great -- I can be on from just about anywhere, at any time, and packet sniffers can't burrow into my business like they can with a computer on a Wifi network.
I was going to put his conversation on my site, as you have no presumption of privacy if you are shouting in a public place. Sigh...next time. I was sitting near a musician and a sound engineer, who were not on their cell phones, and with whom I had a very pleasant conversation. The sound engineer later recommended mikes and places to go to get them.
Back to boor's conversation, he's outdoors in the photo, but all but about five minutes of his argument on his cell phone -- and at one point, he was on two cell phones at a time -- took place indoors. Loudly. He went on and on and on trying to badger somebody into canceling some membership. I was reading the paper, so I didn't want to listen to music, and put on my (usually terrific) earplugs, Hearos Ultimate Softness (fit small earholes!), but they only filtered out some of his argument because he was so loud.
This was actually kind of fascinating -- not the conversation itself, but the fact that the guy would have such a private and aggressive conversation so loudly for all around him to hear...to be forced to hear...and for such a long time.
At one point, I looked at him and he actually looked back and shrugged, as if to say "These people!" (on the phone). Arrrrgh. I was tired, and didn't feel like getting into it with him. Also, he didn't look like the type who'd be persuaded by a manners argument; i.e., that you have no right to anybody else's attention. But, I got so frustrated, and he kept talking about his "rights" and his "right" to cancel his membership on the phone that at one point, I sort of muttered, "Why do you think you have a right to our attention?" but he was too engaged in his shouting to listen, or just heard and ignored me.
The shocking thing was, in this Starbucks, most of the people indoors were shouting into phones. Some little business dude in an ill-fitting white shirt and a tie was actually using his phone in speaker mode! A girl stood up and did a monologue into hers.
A model (female, vacant eyes) behind me did the same, even after hearing me tell the recording engineer I was recording the lout's conversation to put it on the Internet. And some little blonde cur of a girl, in a blue wool double-breasted coat, and with sunken eyes, sat in a chair across from me and barked like a Yorkshire terrier into her phone.
There was one guy later, a handsome black guy in a cool hat -- believe his name was Derek Brown, because we chatted on my way out -- who only looked like he was talking on a phone. He actually was, but had manners, so you could only see him in action, not hear him.
What I want to know is, how anybody, but especially the guy having the long argument on his cell phone -- high stress, horrible to listen to -- thinks, under any circumstance, that this is okay to subject other people to? What was his momma doing, and with whom, when she was supposed to be teaching him that other people matter?
Hello, Mullah, Hello, Faddah...
An AP story about summer camp for the Islam-inspired killers festering in Britain:
Clad in mud-smeared combat fatigues, the young Muslims trained on picturesque British farmland, hurling imaginary grenades, wielding sticks as mock rifles and chopping watermelons in simulated beheadings.A four-year inquiry, which came to a close Tuesday with guilty pleas from the last two of seven gang members, has exposed a network of alleged British terrorism training camps meant to prepare recruits for mass murder.
Security officials believe hundreds of men — including a gang that made a failed attempt to bomb London's transit network — passed through camps set up across the English countryside.
..."The exposure to that ideology — that radicalism, that extremism, that 'them-and-us' mind set — starts here on our streets in Britain," a former extremist, Ed Husain, told Britain's first police counterterrorism conference in Brighton.
Husain said British officials had been too tolerant of Islamic radicalism taught in universities and mosques during the 1980s and '90s.
Whoopsy!
Old, Tired, And Pretty Damn Un-Sexy
That's how Lindsay Lohan looks in the shots Bert Stern "recreated" of his famous Marilyn shoot.
Booze and sun do bad things to a girl's face and body, even a girl in her 20's.
What's Wrong With Hillarycare
From the September Reason, Ron Bailey has a great piece on all the economic ridiculousness of it. I've blogged it before, but people seem to forget the nuts and bolts of why it's so awful, so I'm doing a rare rerun. Bailey writes:
At the center of Sen. Clinton's plan is a requirement that every American get and keep a health insurance policy. The good news is that such an individual mandate could be the cornerstone for a thorough-going reform of health care into a private consumer-driven system. The bad news is this is not the direction that Sen. Clinton's plan takes. The senator is right when she declares, "Part of our health care system is the best in the world, and we should build on it; part of the system is broken, and we should fix it." Sadly, she's misdiagnosed what part is broken and what part is best.The chief broken part of health insurance in the United States is the faltering system of employer-based health insurance. Since 2000, firms offering their employees health insurance have dropped from 69 percent to 60 percent. Clinton's plan maintains the employer-based insurance system by mandating that large employers continue to buy health insurance for their workers.
As Harvard business school professor Regina Herzlinger notes, such a mandate is indistinguishable from a payroll tax. Currently, the big companies that don't offer health insurance to their employees tend to be retailers and banks. Herzlinger points out that if they are required to pay an additional $5,000 for health insurance for a clerk earning $22,000, the companies will immediately start substituting capital for labor. In other words, economically vulnerable clerks would be fired and replaced by automated systems or by offshore workers. Instead of just lacking health insurance they would now be out of a job.
Sen. Clinton's plan would also allow Americans to purchase their health insurance through the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) or through another government program modeled on Medicare. "Under Clinton's plan if you're uninsured you're going to go to one store, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program," says Herzlinger. The problem, as Herzlinger sees it, is that this one store offers products designed by federal bureaucrats. She likens FEHBP insurance policies to going to buy a car and finding that only two-door subcompacts by various manufacturers are available. The cars offer different colors and hubcaps, but they are all two-door subcompacts. In other words, there is little consumer choice. The situation is even worse for the Medicare option.
Stretching the car analogy a bit further, Sen. Clinton compares her health care plan to the mandate that all drivers carry car insurance. But it's a bad comparison. Employers don't buy their workers' car insurance or home insurance. Why should they buy their employees health insurance? When someone leaves his or her job, they don't have to change or lose their car insurance. It's portable. A modern health insurance system would really make insurance the personal responsibility of each American.
Another worrying feature of Sen. Clinton's health insurance plan is that she would mandate "fair prices" for pharmaceuticals. This implies the imposition of limits on drug company profits. It is true that the drug companies have given themselves a black eye by abusing the patent system in some cases to prevent competition and keep prices temporarily high. That should be stopped. However, imposing price controls on drugs would dramatically slow the development of new and more effective drugs which is certainly not in the best interests of patients.
In addition, the outline of Sen. Clinton's plan is decorated with a number of vague promises such as reducing costs by stressing prevention and a focus on efficiency and modernization, asking providers to work collaboratively with patients and businesses to deliver high-quality, affordable care, and reducing wasteful health spending. Who could be against any of those good things? Clinton says that the $110 billion needed to pay for her plan would come from raising taxes on people with incomes over $250,000 and from $56 billion in costs savings. "Claiming that she can save $56 billion through the marvelous efficiency of the U.S. government is just absurd," retorts Herzlinger.
I'm especially against workplace-offered healthcare, which discriminates against the growing number of self-employed like me, whose healthcare dollars get taxed first. And then there are barren bitches like me, too, and men who don't have kids. If your workplace offers subsidized healthcare, and you're an unmarried, childless employee, you're subsidizing the guy with a wife and five children.
Let's just say no to socialism, 'kay? We've seen that it doesn't work -- well, except, maybe, for all the people sucking free or subsidized off the hog.
Victoria's Secrets
They're thataway.
Beats "The Boulevard Of Burning Cars" -- which I'm guessing you'll find in the Parisian suburbs.
Put Your Fork Down, America
From Science Daily, a Cornell study asks why the French don't get as fat as Americans:
It's the French paradox redux: Why don't the French get as fat as Americans, considering all the baguettes, wine, cheese, pate and pastries they eat?Because they use internal cues -- such as no longer feeling hungry -- to stop eating, reports a new Cornell study. Americans, on the other hand, tend to use external cues -- such as whether their plate is clean, they have run out of their beverage or the TV show they're watching is over.
"Furthermore, we have found that the heavier a person is -- French or American -- the more they rely on external cues to tell them to stop eating and the less they rely on whether they felt full," said senior author Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management, now on leave to serve as executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion until January 2009.
A terrific little book to change this sort of thinking is Diets Don't Work, by Bob Schwartz: Essentially, how to only eat when you're physically hungry, not emotionally hungry.
I think the Cornell researcher gets it only partly right. First of all, French portion size is much, much smaller, and the food is better and tastier. In America, you often get a tough, tasteless side of beef. In France, you get a small, delicious piece of steak. You're satisfied by the taste, so you don't have to keep eating and eating.
Even frozen food is tasty, and not because it's filled with weird chemicals and taste enhancers, but because it has butter and fat. I sometimes get microwaveable French TV dinners when I'm in France and on deadline, just in case things get to crazy for me to do more than walk to the refrigerator. You get a small piece of fish, with butter sauce...delicious.
Also, when they talk about "all the pastries" the French eat, the French aren't gorging on pastries all the time. And if they do have a pastry, it's the size of a small hockey puck, and so rich you can't really finish the whole thing. Here's another photo I took through the window of a closed patissérie. Note the size of grapes and berries for scale.
And French people aren't wolfing down whole baguettes, and then sucking down huge dinners. First of all, they eat meals; they aren't snacking constantly. (It's considered rude to walk around chowing something down.) Meals are to be enjoyed slowly, while seated. And baguettes are served cut up, to go with the meal.
Here's a snack I ordered at an ordinary little cafe, after shopping. Note the size of the knife for scale. And note that I ate about half a piece of bread, and without great paranoia of using butter.
Not exactly the snack size you get at Starbucks, huh? And no, I didn't finish my little snack...because I asked my stomach how it was doing, and it said, "Fine, thanks! That'll tide me over 'til dinner!" Not, "Cram it all in, baby!"
I didn't always eat this way. I was raised to be a member of the "Clean Plate Club." Very unhealthy and unsensual eating. But, being a thinking girl, I considered this mode of eating, and read Schwartz' book, and trained myself to eat only when I was hungry. And then I started going to France, and learned to only put high-quality food in me. And when you have good food, with fat in it, you don't want to cram down piles of it. A little is very sastisfying. One piece of French chocolate, as opposed to a one-pound Hershey bar.
Here, in America, people mistakenly eat these fat-free or low-fat diets that I believe cause them to binge. Fat, which fills you up and satisfies you, is replaced with sugar and empty carb calories, and you eat that fat-free cake, and 20 minutes later, you're hungry like you just crossed the dessert and haven't eaten for days. Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories, has the science on why this type of eating is wrong, and has exactly the opposite effect that all the people starving themselves, and counting calories down to the half, hope it will.
You Never Know Who You'll Run Into In Paris
I needed a book to read in France, because Elmore Leonard's Swag, the book Gregg gave me to read on my trip, was so good I finished it in a couple days.
I bought a used copy of Elmore's 52 Pickup, a book Gregg has on his shelf in the States -- grrrr...for 5 eu, which translates to $7.50 -- at The San Francisco Book Company, near rue Casimir Delavigne, in the 6th arrondissement, where I'd rented an apartment. On the bright side, they were very nice there.
I ended up picking up Swag anyway -- 4 eu/$6 -- because Gregg wanted the edition they had here. Oh, and P.S. I highly recommend both Swag, a hilarious book, complete with the 10 rules of bank robbing written on cocktail napkins, and 52 Pickup, a page-turner also set in my old hometown of Deeetroit.
I've just started reading George V. Higgins' The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, a book which influenced Elmore. I believe Swanie (the legendary H.N. Swanson, his agent) recommended he read it because the book is wall-to-wall dialogue.
And speaking of Elmore's writing, I highly recommend Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules Of Writing -- a book Gregg put together from Dutch's New York Times piece, complete with some cool illustrations by Joe Ciardiello.
The Easily Insulted Again
I just posted another Advice Goddess column, A Man On The Meek. It starts out like this:
Guys these days will find any excuse to avoid asking women out: It’s too hot, it’s too cold, the moon’s in Aquarius, or isn’t in Aquarius, or making a move could cause a woman to have an epileptic seizure, go into diabetic shock, or start speaking in tongues. And sure, those last few are serious concerns, especially if she’s epileptic, diabetic, or has given some indication she’s possessed.But, assuming the woman’s head doesn’t start whirling around like it’s on the spin cycle, and she doesn’t ask you to drop by for coffee in a Satan voice, a guy could make the leap that she’s less in need of an exorcist than a cute guy to take her to the movies on Saturday night.
I got this e-mail about it:
Hello Amy.I wrote back:
My name is Michelle, and I wanted to write to you about your article I read online, “Man on the Meek”.
What I need to express might sound like I'm being overly sensitive, but I promise I have a very good reason. I have epilepsy. I won't bore you with details of what to do, what not to do, etc. I can give you those details if you wish, but your article didn't touch on them, and they're not important to me right now.
What is most important to me, though, is the stigma that goes with epilepsy. I've personally been affected by this stigma, to the point of losing a job over it. People don't know how to react to the news "I have epilepsy", and so they usually react poorly (cringe, grimace, “oh, I’m sorry”) In fact, quite a few of them are so uneducated about epilepsy that they will even go so far as to shun me. Most people have a “Hollywood” education about epilepsy.
And that's why I was saddened to see references to “epilepsy” and “possessed” within the same paragraph. Quote: “or making a move could cause a woman to have an epileptic seizure, go into diabetic shock, or start speaking in tongues. And sure, those last few are serious concerns, especially if she's epileptic, diabetic, or has given some indication she's possessed.”
In my life, the stigma is still here. Although it’s lessened over the last generation, it’s still around. But it doesn’t help when people write articles that imply some of these incorrect, old, outdated, inaccurate urban legends about seizures!
I don’t want you to write a recall/ change / edit article. I just want you to know that what you wrote does NOT help the people with epilepsy get away from the stigma of it. I want you to understand, and accept that the longer the stigma is around…the ignorance abounds.
Thank you,
Michelle
So sorry I have offended you, but being possessed was a joke and the others were medical problems. I have ADHD and I joke about how I have to leave the house four times and can't remember which flight my boyfriend comes home on (We've been dating five years and he takes it twice a month). My friend John Callahan jokes about being quadriplegic. And the Tourrette's people are exploring using humor -- I know, because I was going to make a joke about Tourrette's and I called their press person to see whether she thought it was funny. Clearly, you and I have a different approach. Best,-A
Note that I said I'm sorry I offended her, which isn't the same as being sorry for what I wrote. And then, I wrote back again:
PS FYI, just to let you know, you haven't "educated" me about epilepsy in the slightest -- other than the fact that you're offended. Perhaps you should change your focus?
She writes back:
Amy, if you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask me…I’ll give you the best information / links that I can find. Michelle
Well, gee, that was helpful. Guess the effort only extends to the effort to COMPLAIN.
"God" Is Pro-Abortion
Not that I believe in the bugger, as I see no evidence there is a god, but I posted yesterday on how Huckanut defines an egg as a person, and "endorsed a proposed Colorado Human Life Amendment that would define personhood as a fertilized egg."
According to evilbible.com, god was not even wishy-washy "pro-choice." No, he was for ripping little fetuses right out of the mommies -- well, when the mommies were the wrong kind of mommies (not M.O.T., ya know -- Members Of Tribe).
The details are here, where they complain that, out of Christian determination to control women, they're force to rely on biblical statements like:
...“thou shall not kill”,”I kneweth thou in the womb” and their favorite: “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth...“--Exodus 21:22-24The problem here is that the man who injures a pregnant woman in the process, shall repay her according to the degree of injury inflicted on her, not the fetus. I am often dumbfounded at how Christians can assume that abortion is wrong judging by these feeble verses when the Bible clearly advocates infanticide and many other atrocities against children and pregnant women. I can no longer allow such ignorance of the Bible and deem it necessary to expose the true agenda. I am tired of the many young Christians who are brainwashed by their clergy. They are only taught the “love and mercy” parts of the Bible and never bother to read what is not so openly preached. The Church thrives off of speaking in half truths and concealing their blood soaked robes.
Here, from evilbible.com, are some of the Bible's abortion-promoting verses:
Hosea 9:11-16 Hosea prays for God’s intervention. “Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, 0 Lord: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. . .Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” Clearly Hosea desires that the people of Ephraim can no longer have children. God of course obeys by making all their unborn children miscarry. Is not terminating a pregnancy unnaturally “abortion”?Numbers 5:11-21 The description of a bizarre, brutal and abusive ritual to be performed on a wife SUSPECTED of adultery. This is considered to be an induced abortion to rid a woman of another man’s child.
Numbers 31:17 (Moses) “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him.” In other words: women that might be pregnant, which clearly is abortion for the fetus.
Hosea 13:16 God promises to dash to pieces the infants of Samaria and the “their women with child shall be ripped up”. Once again this god kills the unborn, including their pregnant mothers.
2 Kings 15:16 God allows the pregnant women of Tappuah (aka Tiphsah) to be “ripped open”. And the Christians have the audacity to say god is pro-life. How and the hell is it that Christians can read passages where God allows pregnant women to be murdered, yet still claim abortion is wrong?
How do the 'thumpers miss this stuff? Do they even read the damn book? Or do they just try to slam the rest of us over the head with it?
Personally, I'm not just pro-choice, but pro-abortion. In fact, I think more people should have been aborted, such as those Jerry described the other day in a comment, who were in a bar using their cell phones on the speaker phone feature.
Saudi Equals Stupid
This country would be filled with semi-retarded goatherds but for the oil under the ground. From Pajamas Media, "Saudis Continue Steaming Toward The 7th Century," by Youssef M. Ibrahim, on the latest hilarity in Saudi Arabia -- encouraging men to have harems to promote intra-country tourism:
Here’s an official plan submitted to invigorate tourism in Saudi Arabia: Marry four women, domicile them in corners of the kingdom, travel to visit each during the year, and — boom — you’ve stimulated airline business, hotel occupancy, and car rentals. This was submitted by none less than Hassan Alomair, director of self-development in Saudi Arabia, at a Jeddah conference for the development of internal tourism.The project combines piety with efficacy by uniting Sharia’s entitlements to multiple wives with economic stimulus, Mr. Alomair argued. Sharing the dais was the female dean of the school of literature at King Faisal University, Dr. Feryal al-Hajeri, who remained silent as he prescribed his harem-induced economic scheming.
Not so with the readers and bloggers on the Saudi daily Al Watan’s website, which lit up on February 12 with commentary. “Why not make it four cows? He can fly around to milk them,” one said. “If that is the mentality of our director of self-development,” another asked, ”how are the others in that department?” There was plenty of accord with Mr. Alomair too. Some saw his idea as a “pillar” for building a true Islamic society, a “refuge” for unmarried Saudi women, and a “cure” for a widening spinster phenomena.
Dumbfounding episodes of this variety occur weekly in the Arabian Gulf and are regularly exposed by a growing contingent of brave reporters. Remember the girl condemned to 200 lashes for protesting being raped and that Saudi businesswoman arrested at a Riyadh Starbucks and jailed for having coffee with a male subordinate? The girl of Qatif was pardoned under world pressure but most victims of Saudi religious dementia are never heard from. Alas, if anything, new installments keep on illustrating a Saudi government sailing into the 21st century with social laws of the 7th century.
The End Of The Lion
Sorry, couldn't resist. Paris, just outside musée Jeu de Paume.
I invited my photographer friend Sue Rynski to visit the museum with me.
There, I saw the worst "art" I've seen in years; some of it by this guy.
Looks like it could be good, huh? Black and white boxing photographs, maybe? Nuh-uh.
Blame my flawed French and my rush to find something exciting to see at a museum. I read in Pariscope that they had a bunch of paintings confiscated from Jews during the war. Only they didn't. Read too fast. The place was a storage facility during the war for paintings confiscated.
These days, they're showing a bunch of dull photographs and poorly shot, uninteresting videos, and then, the coup de disgrace, an "homage" to Austrian expressionist Oskar Kokoschka, whose work I'd hoped to see (in the stuff confiscated from the Jews).
Instead, as an homage to Mahler's wife, who Kokoschka had an affair with, we have Savary's tragic waste of a bunch of perfectly good toilet seat covers.
Islam Goes To College
We've seen too much of this in Europe, and I suspect we'll be seeing more and more of this in the U.S.A. -- attempts to make it nice and comfy in our free, secular, democratic society for the Muslims whose primitive religion commands them to convert, kill, or tax and humiliate the rest of us as dhimmis.
They can't do that yet, thanks to the size of our population. So, they'll just make a mockery of separation of church and state and other hard-won western values -- and, most obscenely, by using our laws and ideas about "tolerance" whenever possible.
Abbie Ruzicka writes in BU's Independent Free Press that Harvard is trying women-only gym hours to accomodate the Muslims -- which means men can't go to the gym during that time, and at an institution that gets Federal funds:
Men have not been allowed to enter the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center during certain times since Jan. 28, after members of the Harvard Islamic Society and the Harvard Women's Center petitioned the university for a more comfortable environment for women.Harvard Islamic Society's Islamic Knowledge Committee officer Ola Aljawhary, a junior, said the women-only hours are being tested on a trial basis. The special gym hours will be analyzed over Spring Break to determine if they will continue, she said.
Aljawhary said that she does not believe that the women-only gym hours discriminate against men.
"These hours are necessary because there is a segment of the Harvard female population that is not found in gyms not because they don't want to work out, but because for them working out in a co-ed gym is uncomfortable, awkward or problematic in some way," she said.
Though the policy was in part initiated by the school's Islamic group, Aljawhary said women-only hours are not a case of "minority rights trumping majority preference" and said women of different faiths have showed interest in the hours.
"We live together in one community, it only makes sense for everyone to compromise slightly in order for everyone to live happily," she said. "This matter is simple: Can't we just display basic decency and show tolerance and inclusion for people not a part of the mainstream majority?"
Sorry, if you can't work out in the presence of people with penises, pay your money and join a ladies gym. Preferably one back in Saudi Arabia. Oh, sorry, are women lacking opportunity and rights there? Well, don't bring that sort of thing around these parts. We won our freedom from the British 200-plus years ago, and our forefathers did a pretty nice job writing up the Constitution and Bill of Rights. How about we not bend over for people who'd like to see them ripped up and replaced with Sharia law?
Or, as commenter Gregg said below Ruzicka's article:
There's nothing quite like conforming to the least common denominator to really torpedo the entire concept of Western civilization. If Muslim women are worried about their "modesty" then maybe they should step out of the 7th century.
Jen06 commented:
"We live together in one community, it only makes sense for everyone to compromise slightly in order for everyone to live happily," said Ola Aljawhary.Yeah, and how much in the way of compromise are you agreeing to?
"Aljawhary said that she does not believe that the women-only gym hours discriminate against men."
Of course it does! It discriminates against men who need to use the facilities (due to schedule etc.) at those particular times!
What if I belong to Aryan Nations and 'working out' with black people makes me 'uncomfortable'. That doesn't discriminate does it?
I thought "separate but equal" was unconstitutional.
Paco commented:
Why stop with re-segregating the gym? Go all out and emulate everything they do in the apartheid Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I read they arrested a woman because she illegally "mixed" with men other than her relatives at a Starbucks in Riyadh. So let's have special hours for women to go to Starbucks by themselves in Boston.Whatever it takes to make Muslims feel comfortable. That's all that matters.
I'm especially disturbed, but not especially surprised, that the Harvard Women's Center is advocating FOR discrimination, which I guess they really don't have a problem with, provided somebody's discriminating against men.
Huckanut Thinks An Egg Is A Person
Electra Draper writes for The Denver Post:
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Monday endorsed a proposed Colorado Human Life Amendment that would define personhood as a fertilized egg.The former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister also supports a human-life amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Huckabee spoke favorably about the Colorado ballot initiative, sponsored by 20-year-old Kristi Burton and her Colorado for Equal Rights group, during his Friday visit to Colorado Springs.
On Monday, Huckabee lent official support to the measure."This proposed constitutional amendment will define a person as a human being from the moment life begins at conception," Huckabee said in a statement.
"With this amendment, Colorado has an opportunity to send a clear message that every human life has value," Huckabee said. "Passing this amendment will mean the people of Colorado will protect the sanctity of life from conception until natural death occurs."
Burton's initiative, if approved by voters in November, would extend state constitutional protections to every fertilized egg, guaranteeing the right to life, liberty, equality of justice and due process of law.
Approval would lay the foundation for making abortion illegal in the state.
The Worst Of America Comes To France
I don't think it's an accident that they have "no limit" in English.
In France, for those who don't know, people eat small portions of really tasty, high-quality food. The amount of steak that, in America, is often served to one person, in France, would be food for a family of five.
I really don't understand why Americans stuff themselves, and with really mediocre or horrible food. People must feel sick afterward, again and again. My parents used to applaud us for finishing our entire dinner, but I realized, after a while, that my dinner didn't care whether or not I finished it, and that my parents were really cheering us for overeating. Ick.
These days, in America, a restaurant dinner typically comes home with me, and usually becomes at least another lunch, and maybe even a lunch and a dinner. I'm the cheapest date on the continent.
Accomplishment, Gaza-Style
Jewish parents in Israel, like Jewish parents everywhere, want their kids to make something of themselves. Muslim parents in Gaza, all too often, want their kids to make other people into blood, guts, and bone fragment. Yael Kaynan analyzes "Gaza's Culture of Self-Destruction" on Pajamas Media:
Imagine for a moment what Palestinian society is going to look like when the day comes when those “others” their children are taught to so hate are no longer the enemy to be vanquished. Because children in Gaza are not taught to consider peace with their enemy to be an option, consider instead a scenario in which the conflict ends with the stated goals of Hamas: they have managed to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child living in the Zionist country and returned the land to Muslim and Arab rule. Indeed, this is not only the goal of Hamas but also the desire of many average citizens in Gaza, as was made clear by the comments of a simple taxi driver in the wake of the most recent suicide bombing in Dimona, “In the name of Allah, may all of the attacks be like this. That we will exterminate the Israelis. It will be easier for us. We will reach the South, Tel-Aviv and the heart of Israel.”Thus, envisage, if you will, that there are no more Jews and no more Jewish State. The people of Gaza have thrown the mother of all parties in celebration, they’ve danced in the streets, fired their weapons in jubilation, consumed large amounts of sweets, children have passed out flowers on every street corner — and then what? Do the citizens of Gaza think that the violence, hatred and disregard for human life, for their own lives, that they’ve worked so hard to instill in their children is simply going to disappear along with the Israelis they’ve managed to exterminate? Do they think that these children, now grown, are going to suddenly unlearn violence?
Research in sociology and social psychology has long shown that once there is no longer an external enemy to focus on, those same violent tendencies and expressions used against the enemy will bloom within a society. Violence will erupt and it will be neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member, clan against clan. The people of Gaza will be shocked, “How could this young man do such a thing to a member of his own people?” He can, and he will, because he has been taught that human life has no value, that his own life has no value, and that killing someone is a first resort. The new enemy will be other Palestinians.
If you think I am wrong, remember how Gazan treated Gazan during the Hamas coup. Remember how attacks against members of Fatah resulted in headlining stories such as “Among yesterday’s dead was a 14-year-old boy and three women, all killed in a Hamas attack on a Fatah security officer’s home.” Remember the words of a Gaza citizen, minutes before he was dragged out into the street and killed,
“They’re firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We’re not Jews,” the brother of Jamal Abu Jediyan, a Fatah commander, pleaded during a live telephone conversation with a Palestinian radio station.Far from being “collateral damage” — that is, women and children killed by accident in the attempt to kill an armed fighter — women and children within Palestinian society can and will become the targets to be murdered by other members of their society.
...It has already happened and the “real” enemy was still just across the border. It happened despite the fact that whenever a group has an external enemy to focus on they experience far greater social cohesion within their own group, far less violence and crime within their own society. When that external enemy is removed, crime and violence blossom within — this occurs in normal societies where children are not raised on a daily doctrine of violence against others. It occurs when the society does not worship death and destruction and in cultures where they do not pass out candy and flowers in celebration of the murder of a helpless old woman — so imagine for a moment what Palestinian society will look like should they get their wish.
I Bludgeoned Her With A Feather
I am getting really sick of the easily insulted. A girl sent me an e-mail asking me to review her new book and inquired as to what I'd charge for this. The between-the-lines message in her fee inquiry: "I am a self-published author who needs to be hit with the clue stick."
I write back whenever I can to an inquiry like this because I think it's kindest to let people know you're not a possibility, rather than letting them wait and wonder. And especially when the person seems to be an inexperienced, self-published author. One with lines in her press release as terrible as this one (which I'm only pasting in because it isn't trackable on Google):
Lost in the curves of the forest, a magic comes forth and we are no longer just readers cradling a captivating tale but vibrant page travelers kissed by a rose.
My reply:
Sorry, doesn't sound like my thing, and no reputable person charges to review things.
Instead of writing back to say "thanks," or not writing back at all, the girl writes back as follows:
i was only inquiring if you would charge for your time. your email is a bit biting. i just wrote as an inquiry because i enjoy your writing. sorry for bothering you. may i suggest that you be a little nicer in responding to your emails of inquiry. i am a reader of yours. i wouldn't want to think you are not a nice person. thanks for your reply.
My favorite part: "I wouldn't want to think you're a nice person." Frankly, the mere title of the book made me hurl, but I refrained from saying so, which took some effort. If the girl reads my work, she must only read every other word, because the title of the book alone practically screams, "DON'T SEND IT TO ALKON."
I also refrained from responding that I don't usually care whether anyone thinks I'm "a nice person," as long as my behavior fits within my framework of what's right.
Here's my reply to her e-ninnyism (and do give me points for restraint, because there was restraint-a-plenty throughout):
Uh, I get 100 e-mails on some days, from total strangers, who'd like a reply. I replied to be polite because I didn't want you to wonder - thought it would be nicer to let you know I'm not a possibility for you. There are many writers who are "not for me" -- some of them are quite famous and respected. I also tried to help you out by telling you that no reputable writer will charge to review your book. Your e-mail to me below was a really bad idea on your part, and quite immature, and I suggest you simply respond "thank you" if somebody else is kind enough to take the time to tell you not to bother. FYI, the only books I mention in my column are those by anthropologists and psychologists, and occasionally, I'll throw in a line by Elmore Leonard. If I wrote back in a mean way, rather than simply an informative one (hoping to let you know I'm a dead end so you won't waste your time) you'd be a little pile of ashes on your chair right now. -Amy
One more thing I left out: If you're an author, and you're over 12, and you can't bother to write back using the shift key for "I," and for the letters at the start of sentences, please never write to me again.
Oh, no...the girl doesn't know when to quit. She wrote back:
i accept completely that my inquiry is not something that you are interested in but to threaten to WANT to turn me into a pile of ashes on my chair is simply uncalled for. what a terrible thing to want to do to someone and to put it in writing. any more letters from you and i am going to forward your last email to my local police department. i think you are an excellent writer and to threaten to want to do something to a reader is violent and simply uncalled for. it is tragic that this is how you treat your readers of inquiry.I wrote back to her, once again, with restraint:
Uh, you need a lesson in reading comprehension if you think that was a threat. Note the IF in the statement.If I wrote back in a mean way, rather than simply an informative one (hoping to let you know I'm a dead end so you won't waste your time) you'd be a little pile of ashes on your chair right now.Wait - this is another e-mail from me. Should I expect a visit from the police? Because I'll have my boyfriend pick up a little extra chicken in case they're hungry.
Dial 1-877-ASKLAPD for non-emergency calls. I believe you'll hear some laughter in the background as you report me for abuse of metaphor.
How Green Was My Valley
My road to the Paris Métro.
It's Really Simple: Don't. Spend. What. You. Don't. Have.
Yawn. Yet another piece on people struggling with credit card debt, this time, on CNN.com:
Consumers have racked up more than $2.2 trillion in purchases and cash advances on major credit cards in just the last year. And it's become a habit for them to spend more than they have. The overall credit card debt grew by 315 percent from 1989 to 2006, according to public policy research firm Demos.To compound the problem, fewer people are paying their credit cards bills on time. The percentage of people delinquent on their credit cards is the highest it's been in three years, according to CardTrack.com.
With banks tightening their standards and the drumbeat of recession getting louder, there's no better time to grab control of your debt now.
The above CNN piece was headlined "When credit cards put you in jeopardy." I don't know about you, but I never got the version of credit cards where the little things have the power to jump up out of your wallet and sneak out for a shopping spree at Saks Fifth Avenue.
I learned how to shop from the French. I buy a couple of beautiful articles of clothing a year -- expensive, beautiful things. And when I say "a couple," I mean, at most, two. Like a big, beautiful boiled cashmere sweater/shawl I got two years ago at Loehmann's that's the softest, warmest, lightest article of clothing I own. Donna Karan black label, retail price, $1325; Loehmann's price, $225. I wear it whenever I fly, and whenever I get cold. And it's an article of clothing I'll keep forever.
The rest of the time, I buy my cotton shirts (stretchy, nice ones) at LA cheapo store Style Express (two for $6), and bargain shop at designer resale stores (heading straight to the sale rack, where I last picked up a vintage Halson evening dress for $30). I do buy the occasional sweater and piece of vintage plastic jewelry on eBay.
Last year, I went into Ann Taylor to meet a friend who was trying something on, and I was shocked by the idea of spending $19 on a shirt, retail (let alone what people pay in department stores), and a crappy, semi-trendy, cheaply made shirt at that.
And as for household needs, because I don't spend to the gills, I'm able to buy in bulk to get stuff like Pellegrino cheaper (I buy eight cases at a time, plus stamps and other supplies to get free business delivery from Costco). And I buy off-brand laser printer toner on eBay for about $13-25 per (as opposed to paying $90 for HP toner at Staples).
I have a laser printer because ink jet printers are a form of ongoing extortion, in ink costs. These companies give you the printer for free, or practically for free, not because they're nice, but because you're going to be into them for ink, perhaps into the thousand$.
And what else? I pay more than I owe on my car every month to ramp up my credit rating, which was already good.
And I diminished my chances of suffering the emotional and financial losses from identity theft by freezing my credit.
Saving money every month is important, too, because, well...do you really count on Social Security being around and solvent when you get doddery? I mean, we've just had the biggest Big Democrat in The White House in years, and he's a Republican.
The Illness Called Islam
Pat Condell is in rare form. Rare form.
Shoe Are My Sunshine
The snappiest pair of rain boots I've ever seen, and they were only 75 euros...much cheaper than the last pair of boots I fell for in Paris. Tragically, it seems we aren't meant to be, as I spotted them on my last night in Paris after the stores closed.
The same goes for another method of in-the-rain transportation, soon to be previewed in Paris by Honda -- but not soon enough. Here's the CRZ, another new hybrid from Honda that will supposedly to be on sale in 2008 (hmmm). I find it rather ugly and Trans-Am'y.
Here are a few versions of The Air Car, which should also be The Invisible Car, because it's ugly as fuck. On a positive note, it runs on something we don't have to buy from the assholes blowing our soldiers up in the Middle East.
hybrid via Instapundit
Matt Welch On The Real McCain Scandal
In short, McCain has a history of getting a lot of money for various lobbies and doing favors for campaign contributors. But, watch the whole thing, as Reynolds would say.
Reason editor-in-chief Welch laid out The Real McCain in his terrific book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, which more people should be reading now that McCain is looking like he's going to be the Republican nominee.
McCain's anything but the straight-talker he portrays himself as, and rather, in Matt's words from the video above, is a very "unexamined candidate."
By the way, McCain's campaign is just swimming in lobbyists.
Blacks Being Conned Into Islam
Start 'em young! Yes, start your children out backwards, especially your girl children, by making them wear headscarves as an entrée to a life of Muslim submission and lesser status, just by being born with a vagina. I snuck a photo of this little neo-Muslim on the Paris Métro.
What made their fundy Muslim attire creepier for me was this guy with them (older than he looks here...maybe husband to the one next to him and father of the kid) who had a cockney accent, looked and talked like a punk thug, as did the male friend who told him to get off at Concorde. The women with them did not speak.
Blacks are especially stupid to become Muslim, since Mohammed referred to blacks as "raisin-heads" (Sahih Al Bukhary vol. 1, no. 662 and vol. 9, no. 256) and "pug-nosed slaves" (Sahih Moslem vol. 9, pgs. 46-47), and said they would steal when they're hungry, but when they're full, they're "promiscuous" (Sahih Moslem). Mohammed also said those with black faces would not go to heaven. Oh yeah, and he had black slaves himself, which he reportedly mistreated.
Here's more, on Islam Review, from Btilly, a guy who calls himself "a rasin head":
Today, many are using the jails to attract black men who feel disenfranchised. Many college professors have succumbed to the teachings of Islam, mainly as an ego booster, regardless of the lies and wrongs exposed about the radical Islamist teachings. Dressing like Arabs, even though Arab poets, such as Jarir made fun of African Muslims by calling them a donkey's penis wrapped in paper.Most Blacks do not know the true nature of Islam. Since many were raised under Christianity, they think Islam is similar to the kindness espoused under Jesus message. Many have become radicalized and it is such a shame that Blacks have been destroyed by con men of many colors.
...The leaders of Black Islam never tell the converts that Africans and Arab Muslims sold tribalists to the Europeans. Black converts are never told that Arab Muslims castrated African boys at the age of 9-12 and made them fight jihads and become eunuchs to watch over the Arab Muslims harems. That is why no raisin heads are in Arabia today. More African slaves were sent to Arabia via the Eastern Slave Trade than the Atlantic Slave Trade. Arabs still sell Africans as slaves today.
And there are blacks in Arabia, actually, which he mentions a moment later -- black illegal immigrants, called Takrunis.
As for how the big con got started in the USA, here's a little background from thereligionofpeace.com:
One of the most bizarre manifestations of African-American pride is its contemporary identification with Islam. Like Kwanzaa, however, Islam has a far shorter and less memorable history in Black America than most of us realize (or is usually prudent to point out).The story goes that in 1930 Allah appeared to the people of Detroit in the form of a mysterious man named "Fard." Allah's human form seemed to be of African and Arab descent and claimed to have been born in Mecca, a descendent of the prophet Muhammad. He preached a message of racial identity and claimed that Islam was the true religion of the black people of America before they were robbed of it by the White man.
In fact, Fard was really just a small-time conman named Wallace Dodd Ford, who served three years in San Quentin for drug-dealing. He drifted into Detroit at a time when many African-Americans were beginning to form racial identity groups around charismatic personalities such as Marcus Garvey. Of course, racial consciousness was hardly just "a black thing" at the time, as the 1920's were also when Ku Klux Klan influence peaked in America.
Interestingly, Ford was neither of African or Arab descent, as he claimed. He was a mix of European and Polynesian. But he did recognize an opportunity when he saw one, and the street preacher soon built up quite a following among those who could appreciate an overtly racist theology that persists to this day in spite of its zaniness.
According to Ford, and his Nation of Islam, Africans were the original and only people of the world (divine and uncorrupted) before whites were invented by an evil scientist named Yakub in a malicious experiment with tragic consequences. Islam is the true religion, and, at some point, a spaceship will be sent by Allah to eliminate the white people from the earth.
...Ford was not just an imaginative preacher of hate, but a skillful con artist as well. He charged people $10 in the middle of the Depression to divine their "original" Muslim name for them, and he had affairs with several women. In 1933 (and again in 1934) he was asked to leave town by the police following a ritual killing committed by a devoted follower. The second time around he managed to disappear so effectively that many believe he was killed by his heir, Elijah Muhammad.
...Like Ford, Elijah Muhammad was also a fraud. He fathered several children from illegitimate relationships and disillusioned several of his followers in the process.
The piece continues with a few words on blacks and Islam today:
...Perhaps the most conspicuous example of overt racism in Islam is the genocide in present-day Sudan by the Arab-Islamic government and the refusal of Muslim organizations around the world to condemn it. Over two million black Africans have died from Arab aggression in the Christian south. And 200,000 more were killed by Arab militias over the last three years in Darfur. The Arabs are known for rampaging through villages and hacking black Africans to death in the name of Jihad while screaming things like, "Kill the slaves!"Although the Darfurians are mostly Muslim as well, there is little to no attention placed on their plight by international Muslim organizations. Despite being repeatedly challenged on the issue, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), for example, has never bothered to condemn the Islamic Republic of Sudan for the Arab massacre of Africans.
Compare this to the outrage, sympathy and money that is poured out on the Palestinian people... who are Arab. Yet, the number of Palestinian civilians killed in their relentless conflict with Israel over the last 40 years is less than the average number of Africans killed by Islam each month.
Even in the earliest days, racism against blacks was a fringe part of Islam. At one time there was a law that mandated the death penalty for anyone suggesting that Muhammad was black. Perhaps it is for this reason that quite a few hadith mention the "whiteness of the prophet" - explicitly referring to his skin color.
Africa and African-Americans owe absolutely nothing to Islam, because it has done nothing good for them. It inspires slavery, but not abolition. It may not be the White man's religion, but that certainly doesn't make it the Black man's.
If you're dumb enough to be black and Muslim, read this again, and see my italics below:
Compare this to the outrage, sympathy and money that is poured out on the Palestinian people... who are Arab. Yet, the number of Palestinian civilians killed in their relentless conflict with Israel over the last 40 years is less than the average number of Africans killed by Islam each month.
What's dumber than being a black Muslim? Being a black Muslim woman. Luckily for black Muslim women, most probably live in secular democracies, where rape is punished as a crime, and not just if four men happen to have witnessed it, like in Islam. Under Islam, without four witnesses, it's considered a crime on the part of the woman, who could be beaten or stoned to death for adultery.
Spring Flours
Well, the truth is, the flours and sugars and all are always out in great varietal beauty in Paris. These I shot through the bottom of a mostly closed window shade, at a pâtisserie in the Marais, after hours.
...and Flore in the spring.
Yesterday, I saw some of my favorite people from Flore, the man and lady who sit next to me upstairs with their two Yorkies. They're there every day, and we always talk when I'm next to them. This time, the lady came all the way back down and outside after depositing her dogs to say hello and ask me how I was, which I thought was very sweet.
Two or three Paris visits ago, I was sitting upstairs, and a waiter I'd been chatting with left me a couple of chocolates, which I was saving in a little stack on my placemat to eat.
The shifts changed, and the mean little short waiter came over, all brusque, no "Bonjour...ça va?" and cleared them away. He knew I wanted them, and did it to be mean, and it was so starkly mean it made me feel close to tears.
When I chatted in my broken French with a guy I often see there about what happened, and how awful I thought it was, I think the doggie couple heard and intervened with somebody in the management. Amazingly, about 20 minutes later, the waiter came back, gave me two chocolates and apologized...sounding rather sincere, too!
The Perils Of "Free" Healthcare
First of all, take economics 101: If we have socialized medicine, it's not going to be free health care, it's going to be very expensive health care, because we're all going to be paying for it; we're just going to be taxed and taxed for it.
And when some politician says, "Sorry, kids, we have to pay for it somehow," and raises your taxes, and raises them again and again, what do you do? Tell them the country should buy cheaper Bandaids?
There's a story in today's IHT, by Sarah Lyall, of what happens when British patients go in for private care; in this case, Avastin, a drug I know about because it help keep Cathy Seipp with us a little longer. The problem is, as Lyall puts it, "how to handle patients with complex illnesses who want to pay for parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free from the health service":
One such case was Debbie Hirst's. Her breast cancer had metastasized, and the health service would not provide her with Avastin, a drug that is widely used in the United States and Europe to keep such cancers at bay. So, with her oncologist's support, she decided last year to try to pay the roughly £60,000, or $116,000, cost herself, while continuing with the rest of her publicly financed treatment.By December, she had raised £10,000 and was preparing to sell her house to raise more. But then the government, which had tacitly allowed such arrangements before, put its foot down. Hirst heard the news from her doctor.
"He looked at me and said, 'I'm so sorry, Debbie. I've had my wrists slapped from the people upstairs, and I can no longer offer you that service,' " Hirst said.
"I said, 'Where does that leave me?' He said, 'If you pay for Avastin, you'll have to pay for everything' " - in other words, for all her cancer treatment, far more than she could afford.
Officials said that allowing Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.
Patients "cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the NHS and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs," Health Secretary Alan Johnson told Parliament. "That way lies the end of the founding principles of the NHS."
But Hirst, who is 57 and was first diagnosed with cancer in 1999, went to the news media, and so did other patients in similar situations. And it became clear that theirs were not isolated cases.
In fact, it is widely acknowledged by patients, doctors and officials across the health care system that patients suffering from every imaginable complaint regularly pay for some parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free.
..."People swap from public to private sector all the time, and they're topping up for virtually everything," he said.
For instance, he said, a patient put on a five-month waiting list to see an orthopedic surgeon might pay £120 for a private consultation, and then switch back to the health service for the actual surgery from the same doctor.
"Or they'll buy an MRI scan because the wait is so long, and then take the results back to the NHS," Charlson said.
In his paper, he also wrote about a 46-year-old woman with breast cancer who paid £250 for a second opinion when the health service refused to provide her with one; an elderly man who spent thousands of pounds on a new hearing aid instead of enduring a year-long wait on the health service; and a 29-year-old woman who - with her doctor's blessing - bought a three-month supply of Tarceva, a drug to treat pancreatic cancer, for more than £3,150 on the Internet because she could not get it through the NHS.
...But in a final irony, Hirst was told early this month that her cancer had spread and her condition had deteriorated so much that she could have the Avastin after all - paid for by the health service. In other words, a system that forbade her to buy the medicine earlier was now saying that she was so sick she could have it at public expense.
Hirst is pleased, but only to a point. Avastin is not a cure, but a way to extend her life, perhaps only by several months, and she has missed valuable time. "It may be too bloody late," she said.
On a side note about Cathy, she's often in my thoughts -- randomly, when there's something in the media that she would've written about (in her sharp, biting, Seipp-ian way), or when I think of something she chastised people for.
Just last night, on the way to dinner, I mentioned to my friends Richard and Vincent that Cathy said something along the lines of "Gum chewing is vulgar!"...and any time I thought of popping a piece in my mouth, her words came echoing back to me. I enjoy this -- it's like a little visit from Cathy, although it doesn't do much for the economics of the Trident company.
Sundown In Paris
Caught this shot as I was going in the door to go send my column to all the papers. Deadline never looked so good.
Turks Are Angry About The Head Scarf
I sure don't blame them. I get angry, too, especially when I see black tents with eyeholes moving through the corridors of the Galéries Lafayette department store here in Paris -- walking symbols of the backwardness of Islam, and of the way Muslim women are accorded the rights of a dog. (See how, for example, in Islam, women who are rape victims are punished as adulterers.)
And here's how Turkey is changing, from a story in the IHT by Sabrina Tavernese:
ISTANBUL: When two women in Islamic head scarves were spotted in an Italian restaurant in this city's posh new shopping mall this month, Gulbin Simitcioglu did a double take.Covered women, long seen as backward peasants from the countryside, "have started to be everywhere," said Simitcioglu, a sales clerk in an Italian clothing store, and their presence is making women like her more than a little uncomfortable.
"We are Turkey's image," she said. "They are ruining it."
As Turkey lurches toward a repeal of a ban on head scarves at universities, the country's secular upper middle class is feeling increasingly threatened.
Religious Turks, once the underclass of society here, have become educated and middle class, and are moving into urban spaces that were once the exclusive domain of the elite. Now the repeal of the scarf ban - pressed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, passed by Parliament and now just awaiting an official signature - is again setting the two groups against each other, unleashing prejudices that have as much to do with class rivalry as religion.
Okay, I'm sure there's some snobbery here, but these people see their society lurching visibly backward. Of course they're upset.
Plus, Muslim women in Europe breed like bunnies, and in France, they, their husbands, and their litters of children are on the dole. In Britain, the idiots in government are giving these primitive religious fanatics, with their multiple wives, multiple helpings of the dole. And, Dutch citizens, and not just the Muslims, are howling for "tolerance" for Islam in the Netherlands -- the country where poor Theo Van Gogh was murdered on his bicycle for daring to make a film criticizing Islam's treatment of women.
Well, tolerance will eventually equal death -- certainly of European society, and probably of quite a few people when Muslim populations increase enough to be a majority or near-majority.
Remember, this is a religion that preaches that good Muslims must convert, kill, or dhimmi-tax and humiliate all infidels, who get lesser rights in a Muslim society. The Muslims just haven't had the population numbers to do all of this in Europe so far.
Can these European nations be party to their own destruction any more helpfully?
More from Tavernise:
Hasan Bulent Kahraman, a professor at Sabanci University in Istanbul, put it this way: "Cleaning ladies are all in head scarves and no one says anything. But if a judge wants to cover her head, the problem is triggered."But Turkey is different from the United States, secular Turks argue. The fight here is not about skin color, but a religious belief that seeks to impose an ideology, they say. Islam dictates specific rules for daily life, many of them extremely limiting for women, and secular women argue passionately that Islam's growth in Turkey will inevitably lead to a society that is less free for women.
"To associate the head scarf with freedom sounds a little cynical," said Ayse Bugra, a political economist at Bogazici University in Istanbul, "since it is clearly about limiting the way in which a woman can appear in public."
Women are "clearly inferior" in Islam, whose rules limit inheritance for women and allow men multiple wives, she argued, pointing out that Turkey's president, Abdullah Gul, at the age of 30, met his wife, Hayrunnisa, when she was just 14.
"If you ask her, did she choose freely to wear the head scarf, she'd say yes," Bugra said. "What does that mean?"
The Islamic Version Of Tolerance
Raping women is tolerated, for example. Tolerated? Well, it certainly isn't punished. Via TheReligionOfPeace.com:
Question: Why are rape victims punished by Islamic courts as adulterers?Summary Answer:
Under Islamic law, rape can only be proven if the rapist confesses or if there are four male witnesses. Women who allege rape, without the benefit of the act having been witnessed by four men who subsequently develop a conscience, are actually confessing to having sex. If they or the accused happens to be married, then it is considered to be adultery.The Qur'an:
Sura 2:282 - Establishes that a woman's testimony is worth only half that of a man's in court (there is no "he said/she said" gridlock in Islam).Sura (24:4) - "And those who accuse free women then do not bring four witnesses (to adultery), flog them..."
Sura (24:13) - "Why did they not bring four witnesses of it? But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah."
From the Hadith:
Bukhari (5:59:462) - The background for the Qur'anic requirement of four witnesses to adultery. Muhammad's favorite wife, Aisha, was accused of cheating [on her polygamous husband]. Three witnesses corroborated the event, but Muhammad did not want to believe it, and so established the arbitrary rule that four witnesses are required.
Additional Notes:
Rape is virtually impossible to prove under Islamic law (Sharia) and even in more moderate countries. If the man claims that the act was consensual sex, there is very little that the woman can do to refute this. Islam places the burden of avoiding sexual encounters of any sort on the woman.
Isn't that special.
I'm wondering how the Muslim ladies manage that. I'm reminded of my crack, yesterday, to some whiner on the Paris Métro. It was very crowded, and after I got on, a bunch of people packed themselves in behind me.
The Muslim ladies in the folding seats to my left failed to get up (as you're supposed to when the train is packed) and I was crushed into the guy behind me, who got all complain'y. (Loving how you pick up on French-think with French-speak), I blurted out, "Excusez-moi, monsieur, il n'est pas possible disparu. Or whatever the word for 'to disappear' is in French."
Translation: It is not possible to disappear. Or whatever the word for 'to disappear' is in French." I'd accidentally used the past tense for "disappear" -- couldn't remember the infinitive...and yes, I added, loud and proud, in English, "Or whatever the word for 'to disappear' is in French.
When you come here as a tourist once or twice, you have a certain timidity, I think, even if you speak French very well, which I do not. When you come here often, and especially if you're me, you're less of a pushover, and you speak out about stuff that tweaks you -- and aren't too worried that your French might suck while doing it. The French, I think, respect you for this, and find it kind of cute.
Anyway, whinyman got the message. And I enjoyed that -- being at the point where I can sent a message to a bratty guy on a train in France. And the kid in front of me with the luggage turned around and grinned at me, as did a bunch of other people.
But, back to a more serious subject -- Muslim women who are victims of rape. If you are one of them, I'm guessing you have two choices: 1. Disappear during the act, like a bunny in a magician's hat. (Very practical!) Or, 2. Kill yourself afterward -- if your relatives or other Muslim men don't murder you first.
Great! Problem solved!
Anybody got a speed-dating issue?
My Alarm Clock
Of course, in Paris, there's a gospel choir singing directly across from my window at 9 a.m.
They're good, too. Song is "Follow Me." Actually, those appear to be the only two words in the song.
Looks like they're shooting a commercial.
Bitch Stole My Toothpaste!
I knew she was up to no good. Rich-looking woman, about 50, designer purse (huge, football-shaped, and annoyingly trendy with little pictures on it), long curly hair, face with a lotta mileage. Kilométrage?
She was in front of me at the cashier at the rue de Rennes Monoprix (best described as the Target of Paris, but with a gourmet food and wine store). But, she wasn't paying, she was arguing with the cashier. The manager comes over. Ugh. Too late to move to another line.
The woman's credit card was declined, and she got huffy with the manager as if Monoprix was to blame. He wouldn't budge on whatever she wanted him to budge on (smart guy). She scowled and whipped out a 100 eu note, which she handed the cashier. I sensed that she was a scammer, and muttered something of that nature to myself in English.
Okay, my turn. Except the woman was still standing where the person being rung up typically stands, and she wasnt moving...she was fussing in her purse or something.
She finally inched her entitled ass down toward the end, where you bag your stuff that's come down the metal incline from the cashier. A difference between France and the U.S. -- you usually bag your own groceries in France. The French are fast at this. I am...always improving.
Anyway, the woman was taking forever and then some...and my stuff was being rung by the cashier...and I just knew the woman would pull something. And sure enough, I'd paid for four tubes of my favorite toothpaste, Vademecum avec blancheur et plantes, and I checked, and the bitch had walked off with one of them.
The manager was steps away, so he went and got me another, but it was the wrong one, blah blah blah, and he had to go back, and that lucky woman, she got away without me coming after her and photographing her for my blog...and sending it out to French bloggers to get it out for her fancy friends to see. Headline with the photo: The Bitch Stole My Toothpaste.
And sure, it could've been an accident. But, I'd bet you, not just $100, but 100 euros it wasn't. And people who know me well know this: I never bet unless I'm going to win.
As I said to the cashier (in French, except for the word itself), "We have a word for people like that woman in the United States: 'shifty.'"
At least this woman asks for it.
And at least this one leaves you a little note to let you know what you're being sucked for.
On a side note, maybe it's just me, but, like those guys who paint their skin silver and stand still for tourist coinage in probably every major city in the world, if I picture a meter maid in any major city in the western world, it's this woman (a better shot of her here).
Foster-Farmed
There's a reason domestic violence shelters are called "women's shelters," and Glenn Sacks has the sickening story of a 12-year-old boy who wasn't allowed to go into a shelter with his abused mother, but was instead packed off to foster care:
One morning during the conference I had breakfast with two remarkable ladies, Erin Pizzey and Patricia Overberg. Pizzey founded the first battered women's shelter in the world in 1971, and Overberg was the first battered women's shelter director in California to admit male victims of domestic violence to a shelter. As bad as things are, both of them told me things which were amazing and horrifying. Pizzey told the following story:A woman was being abused by her violent husband and sought shelter. She had three children, two young ones and a 12-year-old boy. She wanted to go to a battered women's shelter and, of course, take her children with her. However, the feminists who run the battered women's shelters in England have a policy that no boys aged 12 or older are allowed into the shelters.
The woman was presented with the equivalent of Sophie's Choice. Either she could return to her violent husband, and risk both herself and her children, or she could submit to the feminist policy. She chose the latter. Rather than allow the boy to stay with his mother and his siblings in the battered women's shelter, the boy instead had to wait in the police station, while his mother and siblings went off to the shelter. The English equivalent of child protective services was called, and the boy was picked up and placed in foster care!
Overberg told me the same thing happens in California and in much of the United States.
I don't doubt what Pizzey and Overberg say, but I still find it a little hard to get my head around. For one, one could make the feminist argument that this policy keeps abused women in violent relationships because they will not want to leave their abusers if they cannot take all of their children with them. Secondly, I find it a little hard to believe that even the feminist true believers who run the shelters could be so bigoted and uncaring.
I don't doubt this for a minute. When I was doing research for my column on how men, too, are the victims of domestic violence, I found that few shelters are open to men, and I don't think it's an accident.
If you're a woman who's been a victim of something, it's much easier to blame all your problems on men in general, and to put all your energy into despising them and discriminating against them (as you, all the while, profess to be against discrimination), than to take responsibility for how you got yourself into your messes.
Am I suggesting we should blame the victim? Well, here's my very personal take on that notion:
Often, the victim does bear some responsibility. Take me, for example: I used to live in a pretty isolated section of downtown New York City, just past a big UPS garage. I had a rule that I’d only take Greenwich Street home when the UPS guys were there loading and unloading. After moving to California, I came back to visit and lah-dee-dah wandered down Greenwich late one night -- followed, unbeknownst to me, by some creep who ran up behind me and helped himself to a big grope. I screamed and thrashed, I ran, I was fine. Did I tell myself I was a victim? No, I told myself I was a moron -- and resolved to never again meander around New York City with my street smarts dangling off some palm tree back home.
Lucy Goes To Jail
On the rare occasions she's naughty, I make threats about sending her to "doggie jail" (my bed, where she has to sit alone in the dark, with the bedroom door shut), but never one like this!
Gregg, who's taking care of Lucy while I'm in Paris, actually had to move some furniture and didn't want her underfoot, so he put this thing over Lucy lying on her velvet pillow.
Gregg: "That's what happens when you weigh two pounds -- some guy can put you under a Staples crate."
More Gregg: "The new bad girl of Hollywood...in stir. Don't let that yellow ribbon fool ya. She's a devil doll."
Even more Gregg: "When we walk, we adhere to the Westminster Dog Show Convention. She'll do these little championship trots."
Gregg is a total pushover when it comes to Lucy, which is especially hilarious, because he's a big guy-guy from Detroit. The first night she was there, he told me he "had to" walk her at 3 a.m. (even though he'd walked her late in the previous evening). I said, "If she wants to go out at 3 a.m., the answer isn't 'Okay!'"
And he wonders how everybody knows it's not his dog he's walking. The biggest flamer in West Hollywood would be embarrassed to be seen with Lucy.
D'Ya Think She's Jewish?
I have no religion now (nor even an astrological sign), but I grew up Jewish in suburban Detroit. Back then, if there was a story in the Detroit News or Free Pressabout some guy with a (could be Jewish-y) name like Schaeffer who did some bad thing, my father would turn to my mother and ask, grimly, "D'ya think he's Jewish?"
The way I see it, Jews tend to feel a sense of shame (or perhaps shame mixed with fear of persecution) when other Jews behave badly. If only we'd see that from Muslims, when, for example, some nutter of their ilk blows up a store, like this woman did in Iraq on Sunday. Via CNN:
A female suicide bomber struck Sunday in a predominantly Shiite area of central Baghdad, killing at least three people in an attack that occurred as Iraqi officials have been stressing the capital's increased security.Police in the Masbah commercial area said they thought the woman was suspicious and asked her to stop. The woman, who wore a black Islamic robe, fled to a nearby building and the explosives detonated, said an officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.
If, as the claim goes, most Muslims are "moderates," how come there's always such deafening silence when a Muslim blows shit (and people) up in the name of Allah?
I mean, if atheists were bombing churches in the name of rational thought, I sure as hell would be speaking out against them.
When "I'm Sorry" Means "Fuck You!"
There are apologies, and there are sincere apologies, and usually far too few of the latter.
A few trips ago, when I was in line to check in at the airport, guy kept running into the back of my ankle with his motor home-sized luggage. Not only was I wearing new boots I didn't want messed up, it hurt when he crashed into me. The third or fourth time, I told him to please mind his luggage a little better, and he snarled, "I said I was sorry!"
Well, sure, he said so, but if he truly were sorry, and cared in the least, he would've seen to it that he didn't crash into me again and again. Plus, in my mind, the apology snarled in a "fuck you" tone is worse than no apology at all.
There's a pretty good piece on the apology by Holly Weeks in Portfolio. Weeks writes:
Mending fences is not only the right thing to do on a personal level, it also makes good business sense. So why do so many people and institutions fail at it?To start with, most people find being in the wrong to be embarrassing. And when they are embarrassed, they may go into denial and try to minimize the offense, as NSTAR did. In other cases, the offender may try to blame the victim, as the senior executive did with the junior vice president.
Even if an apology is offered, it may be unrecognizable as such because the embarrassment or anger of the person giving the apology distorts it. This can be a disastrous mistake; credibility, once lost, is very hard to gain back.
Three sides to an apology
So how do you build a good apology? Apologies involve three elements: Acknowledgment of a fault or an offense, regret for it, and responsibility for the offense. You can put them all together, but a sincere, effective apology need not necessarily express all three; whether it should depends on the circumstances.Because we don’t separate out acknowledgment, regret, and responsibility, we are often at sea, finding it unnecessarily painful to apologize when it would actually be reasonably easy to do so. Instead of getting caught up in blame, we can acknowledge another’s anger or dismay, or regret an offense, even when we don’t feel responsible for a wrong.
I do that when people get all freaked out about some bit of humor in my column. I'm not sorry I wrote it, I'm sorry they feel offended by it. Which isn't the same as being sorry I offended them, because I'm probably not. I might be disturbing to read, maybe even offensive, but at least I'm not a liar.
Just Another Saturday In Paris
Here's the view of Notre Dame at night as photographer Sue Rynski and I walked back to the 6th arrondissement from Richard Nahem and Vincent Gaglioso's party in the Marais.
There, I saw a number of Paris blogger friends, including La Coquette and Polly Vous Français, who recently blogged about the fire at one of my favorite places, the taxidermist Deyrolle.
From earlier in the day, here's lunch at La Rotonde (actually, my friend Mark's lunch, because I just had the pumpkin soup, having had a pain au chocolat from Gerard Mulot for breakfast not long before).
Never a dull moment with Mark, a friend since the 80's from New York, now living and working in Paris, but who I think still refers to himself as "a wop from The Bronx." Here I am listening to one of his stories.
Dinner was at Bastide Odeon, where we sat at the table in front of the rust wall hanging at the link. We always sit upstairs -- warmer and cozier. Here's my main course, the roasted chicken (or, more precisely, Volaille fermière rôtie à l’ail confit, pommes de terre « Rougette de Villegagnon).
Totally tender and delicious. I don't usually order chicken, but I was tired, and forgot that volaille is not the word for veal. (Veal is "veau.")
I also forgot to photograph my appetizer and dessert before I dug in -- sorry, but if you'd seen them, you would've done the same. The appetizer was a soup made out of a root called topinambours, aka Jerusalem artichokes. Chocolate & Zucchini blogs about them here:
It's not everyday that one gets to discover a whole new, previously unpublished vegetable. It's not everyday that this new vegetable seems to belong to a little tribe of bulb-headed, purple-hooded munchkins. And it's not everyday that said munchkins turn out to have a delightful taste, halfway between an artichoke and a sweet potato.As I'm well aware, topinambours (or Jerusalem artichokes) are news only to me : they've been around for centuries, mostly used in France to feed cattle (the illustrious Limousin cow in particular). They were also one of the very few vegetables that could be found during the war, and those bad memories led people to turn away from them as soon as things got better, thus condemning the poor topinambour (and she rhymes) to oblivion as a légume oublié, a forgotten vegetable. Thankfully, légumes oubliés are all the rage these days, and they have been turning up again on produce stalls here and there, to the joy of those of us who love a little change and vegetable adventure.
And sorry to be boring, but my soup tasted like pureed squash -- delicious, but a bit like the pumpkin soup I had for lunch.
I got it because I generally order off the specials at a good restaurant, and with rather reckless abandon, as the specials are probably the stuff the chef is most excited about making, and are probably the tastiest. And/or are just the most adventuresome to eat. Here are yesterday night's:
I also got the dessert special, the cerises (morello cherries) with the pistachio-crusted ice cream. Delish! Gobbled half down then remembered I'd meant to photo it. Whoops!
The Age Of Idiots
Are Americans hostile to knowledge? Patricia Cohen writes in The New York Times of a few new books on the subject, including Susan Jacoby's The Age Of Unreason:
Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, (Jacoby) said, but they also don’t think it matters.She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map.
Ms. Jacoby, dressed in a bright red turtleneck with lipstick to match, was sitting, appropriately, in that temple of knowledge, the New York Public Library’s majestic Beaux Arts building on Fifth Avenue. The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.
Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:
“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.
The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”
“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.
At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”
Ms. Jacoby doesn’t expect to revolutionize the nation’s educational system or cause millions of Americans to switch off “American Idol” and pick up Schopenhauer. But she would like to start a conversation about why the United States seems particularly vulnerable to such a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism. After all, “the empire of infotainment doesn’t stop at the American border,” she said, yet students in many other countries consistently outperform American students in science, math and reading on comparative tests.
In part, she lays the blame on a failing educational system. “Although people are going to school more and more years, there’s no evidence that they know more,” she said.
Ms. Jacoby also blames religious fundamentalism’s antipathy toward science, as she grieves over surveys that show that nearly two-thirds of Americans want creationism to be taught along with evolution.
Ms. Jacoby doesn’t leave liberals out of her analysis, mentioning the New Left’s attacks on universities in the 1960s, the decision to consign African-American and women’s studies to an “academic ghetto” instead of integrating them into the core curriculum, ponderous musings on rock music and pop culture courses on everything from sitcoms to fat that trivialize college-level learning.
Avoiding the liberal or conservative label in this particular argument, she prefers to call herself a “cultural conservationist.”
It isn't just the U.S. where a generation of know-nothings are coming up. In blog comments, I think, I recently mentioned Roger Cohen's column on the kids in what was once East Germany who aren't real clear on a funny thing called "communism."
Are things different now than they've ever been? Are we raising a generation of idiots -- "dumb and proud," as one commenter below the New York Times piece wrote? In America, school is free -- what's the problem?
Here's another comment, in full, from somebody else on the NYT piece:
As an American living in Sweden, I occasionally travel back to the U.S. on visits. It never fails to astonish me that what passes for news there is mindless, repetitive and focused primarily on celebrities. When vastly greater swaths of news time are spent on some celebrity's being sent to jail as opposed to informing Americans how our Constitution is being undermined and subverted by the Bush administration, not to mention what's happening of significance elsewhere in the world, it reveals exactly why too many citizens are ignorant of not only the rest of the world but of their own country.With half the people polled in a reputable national poll believing that evolution and natural selection are myths and that "creationism" is worthy of being taught in the nation's schools, it's to be expected that America is becoming dumbed-down under the influence of the irrationality of religion, particularly fundamentalist religion. It boggles the mind that one of your leading Republican candidates for the presidency holds blinkered views like this and is a former fundamentalist preacher in the bargain. Imagine a guy like that in the Oval Office or just a heartbeat way from the presidency.
So why are so many American actually and properly perceived as being hostile to global knowledge, indeed, knowledge essential to a nation's survival? Start by taking an honest look at what purports to be "news" there and at the unhealthy dominance of religion in American life. More could be said on other malign influences, but start with those just mentioned. Prediction: if America continues on its present path, look for it to become a second-or-third rate nation no longer looked to as worthy of emulation.
— dbsweden, Sweden
Oh, by the way, here are a few e-mails I got last night and this morning from a guy who apparently reads my column in the OC Register:
Ya theirs nothing i wouldent do for love. Lol joking well almost . I got a long short story but iam already overexposed and pretty sure embarising someone i love even tho iam not in love wont help plus from what i read u love being condinsendind and cenicle without actualy tring to help people patch things up. Ya iam way beyond your help as our minds more then likely would conflict worse then third world countries tring to bid on the black market.
I wrote back:
Sorry, your e-mail is too hard to understand. Please have somebody help you write it if you want advice. I'm guessing English is your second language. If not, you should consider going back and getting tutoring or your GED.
The person responds:
Thats a nice slap of bullmalarky. I got my diplmoma, i am a natural born citizen and in colage sorta
And then responds again:
Iam actualy PA Harrisburg born and have been a Newport local for over ten years. So if i speak a second language its county redneck. Of course i speak fluent jive as well and alot of others as well just none of the comman second languages or the uncomman ones like elvish lol. I definatly dont speak fruit but i do speak flirt . Iam extreamly paticular with my flirt.
Can you imagine how somebody like this gets through life? I think about all the times I've been able to fix something by being able to communicate in comprehensible English. (The application of reason is always a plus, too.) This past month, for example:
1. I got $25 off on my cable bill from the office of the president of Time-Warner by writing a snarly letter.2. I got the MRI I need for my boobs by exchanging a series of e-mail with my doctor, and refused medicine I knew I didn't need (and turned out to be right).
3. I had a wee mouse problem in my house (sigh) and instead of paying $1,000-plus for pest control, I wrote a snappy e-mail to a reality show that advertised on Craig's list, and got two free house calls from the pros, plus Lucy and I have a rather cute TV appearance out of it, I think.
Oh, wait! The person (a guy, it turns out) just wrote back:
Sorry! Iam no perfectionist. If i wanted i can be a tutor for grammer and spelling. I dont see the necessity in being so. But your right help those who believe in your abilities. I dont know enoufe to. Besides if she and i are going to patch things up in the unlikly event we should do fine on our own as we are both intelectuals.
Yes, I can see he's a regular Harold Bloom.
Paris Isn't Burning
Lookie here, there are naked titties all over the Paris Métro, and Parisians aren't rioting in the streets or anything (well, except for the Muslims, but that's a different story).
Here on the #4 line, we have The Milky Way:
A number of French school children ran right past the poster, totally ignoring it.
Here are more bare breasts, from a museum, Musée Guimet, of Asian art:
We ended up there after Pierre took us across the Seine to the Goethe House to look at some photographs of German lesbians, but it turned out the exhibit was back in the 6th arrondissement, a couple of blocks from the apartment I'm renting. Whoops!
No problem! Always something to see in Paris! In this case, stone horses, little carved elephants, and big goddess titties. Here's another set:
Betcha didn't think of Asian goddesses and such with such big honkers. In fact, the darker one above kinda looks like she got the Hollywood starlet set. The kind you could probably break a tooth on a year after they're installed.
But, back to the American terror at even a hint of nudity, here's what Amy Winehouse had to do to her titty tattoo so the poor, infantilized Americans wouldn't riot in the streets...or run screaming to their preachers, calling for the heads of the network honchos...shish-kabobbed, medium rare, with green peppers in between.
Think I'm exaggerating? Think about the teacher who got suspended after she took her kids on a school field trip to a museum with (gasp!) nude sculptures.
Back in France, yes, even the mannequins have visible nippies...and boy was it cold here on Friday!
A Proud TSA Security Guy Has Something To Say
Sure, the TSA catches people -- all those Senatorial shoe bombers like Ted Kennedy who can't get their names off the no-fly list.
Well, Kennedy probably had one of his staffers go to the top to get it done. But, if you want to experience real security (as opposed to toy security) get on a plane in The Netherlands, or get on a plane bound for Israel. There, the security people have their jobs for good reason -- and not because McDonald's wasn't hiring that week.
I mean, I understand the impulse to be all "yeah, team!" -- no matter what team you're on. But what we have is not security, but the appearance of security, and the TSA people looking through your undies and screaming at you to take out your laptop are merely the clowns running the circus.
Here's the comment left by some apparent TSA guy on my post, The Devolution Of Security -- a post which quoted the TSA's motto on their blog, "Terrorists evolve. Threats evolve. Security must stay ahead. You play a part."
Uh, yeah. You keep working to stay ahead, TSA dude; I'll keep taking off my socks and dumping my lipgloss in a ziplock baggie and pretending I'm helping you save the world:
To whomever travels.....I work for the TSA in a Law Enforcement role. I have to commend the Men and Women of the TSA for all the hard work they have to do on a day and out basis. They are just regular folk like you and me trying to provide a sevice fo all to travel.
I once was a TSO when I first started with DHS, and what they do is not random. For the most part these " Random Screenings" are implemented by the Airline and not the TSA. So to say that they don't know what they are doing seems silly to even think. They have done a great job for all of us by "Protecting and Serving" their Country.
If you have such a problem with Taking off your shoes, removing your jacket, or putting out all your liquids in a baggey....Then DON'T FLY!~!
Or better yet.... They can just have people not get screened...put you all on that same plane... and "Pray to God" that someone doesn't have an I.E.D.
THINK ABOUT IT......
Even if some might be "working hard," what they're doing is hardly working, if you read the accounts of all the test bombs they let through. But, hey, they got that pie your granny made you. An incendiary apple and brown sugar device if I've ever seen one!
If somebody really wants to blow something up, they can get the explosives onto the plane in myriad ways. If Bin Laden is still alive, he must get a good laugh at how all the Americans are wasting hours of their lives standing in line with their socks on to get on airplanes.
You want anything coming near real security, stop letting illegals through the Mexican border, have actual security at our ports, and hire Bruce Schneier.
Amy's Backyard
Early morning at the Medici Fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
The Brat-Free Bar
What's next, bringing the kids along to Live Nude Girls!? Some parents are all ornery that their kids aren't welcome in the local bar. Alex Williams writes for The New York Times:
THESE days little children are brought along to places that would have been considered inappropriate a generation ago: four-star restaurants, cocktail parties, rock concerts. But for all the sniping from adults who resent this territorial invasion, the onslaught shows no sign of letting up. In fact, one of its latest flash points is the local bar.When the owners of Union Hall — a moody, dark-paneled bar and brunch spot in Park Slope, Brooklyn — recently posted a sign that read “Please, No Strollers” under another one reading “No One Under 21 Admitted,” they did not see it as a declaration of war with the neighborhood’s sizable population of young parents.
“The word gets out that this is a place for baby buggies to go, we end up with 8 to 10 strollers, or 15,” said Jim Carden, an owner. He explained that the goal was simply to make sure that the preferred transportation for toddlers of the stay-at-home parents who had adopted the lounge as an afternoon hangout would not crowd out the regular patrons.
Perhaps he underestimated the neighborhood’s vocal and proactive parents. Local parenting blogs were soon bristling with denunciations.
“This was a perfect winter moms’ group place for those of us with infants going stir-crazy,” wrote one woman on onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com, wondering testily why local mothers could not at least drop in for “a beer once a week when it’s not crowded.”
...A woman in Boston, recently posting to yelp.com, a national, user-generated city-guide site, seemed appalled to see a 7-year-old next to her at a bar. (“There were cubes, crayons and candy on top of the bar,” she wrote. “Does anyone else think there’s something wrong with that?”)
I sure do. If I wanted children, I'd have them. If I wanted to drink around screaming children, I'd bring a thermos full of Chardonnay to Chuck E. Cheese.
If you bring your children to someplace that's largely an adult establishment -- a coffee bar filled with adults, for example -- your kid had better well be trained to sit down, shut up, and eat their muffin.
If your child can't sit still, shut up, and eat their muffin, well, leave them home until you can get them trained. P.S. You accomplish this by acting like their parent, not saying, "Yesss, massah" to their every demand.
Yoohoo, Christians...Did You Forget To Riot?
An AP report says that makeup with messages offensive to some Christians was pulled from the shelves in Singapore after they complained it was disrespectful:
A cosmetics range with cheeky taglines that extolled the virtues of "Looking Good for Jesus" has been pulled from stores in Singapore after some Roman Catholics complained the items were disrespectful, a newspaper reported Tuesday.Promising to "Redeem your reputation and more," the product line included a "virtuous vanilla"-flavored lip balm and a "Get Tight with Christ" hand and body cream, as well as bags and other items sold by British retailer Topshop and produced by Blue Q, The Straits Times said.
Wing Tai Retail, which manages Topshop in the city-state, removed the range late last month after receiving complaints, the newspaper said.
Wait, that's all that happened? Where are all the Christians rioting and hurling around death threats like the Muslims?
via lujlp
Amy's Front Yard
Just hit Paris, here's my view.
Kiss Me, I'm Danish
Not really, but I'm Danish in spirit, as not one, but three of Denmark's newspapers plan to reprint a cartoon Thursday that depicts the barbarian Mohammed wearing, of course, a bomb-shaped turban. Via the AP in Editor & Publisher:
The announcement follows the arrests of three people suspected of plotting to kill Kurt Westergaard, who drew one of 12 Muhammad caricatures.Publication of the drawings in 2005 and then again in 2006 led to protests in Muslim countries.
The papers say they are taking the action to show they will not be intimidated by fanatics.
Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet.
I hold certain things to be important or good -- rational thought, dressing in something other than sweatpants, reading, and fine food...just to name a few (I'm at the airport leaving for Paris, so excuse me for dashing off a rather cursory list). If you don't take to these things, I promise not to shoot you, stab you, slash your throat, or burn your embassy down.
Likewise, if you think I'm going to come to some horrible end (entirely without evidence), and I think you're ridiculous for believing, without evidence, in god and all the rest -- can't we just peacefully agree to disagree?
And if western freedoms of speech and all the rest don't work for the backward sheepherder mentality held by even those holding cell phones as they set bombs in London, well, fuck off and go back to the tent in the desert.
thanks, Crid
The Parasites Within
Reality check for all the "tolerance"-preaching types in western society, from an interview with ex-Muslim Abdul Kasem on FrontPage:
Kasem: Many western governments have a lofty ideal—to create a society, where people of different race, religion, culture, and tradition live together in peace and harmony, without losing their root identity. For many years, this policy has sprouted large-scale migration from many impoverished Islamic nations to wealthy countries, such as the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, and a few European nations.Happily adopting this Kafir (Islamic term for non-Muslim) multiculturalism, many migrants have successfully integrated with the host nation. This has enhanced their life style, quality of living, and a good perception of human bondage. They are pleased to practice their respective religions with full freedom, and maintain their tradition and culture without encroaching on others’ freedom to do so. There is, however, one exception—Islam. Islam is at odds with this Kafir Multiculturalism, even though Muslims use this policy to their advantage.
The Kafir Multiculturalism promotes religious tolerance, freedom of expression, and democracy. It accords equal opportunity for all, irrespective of race religion, ethnic origin, gender, and sexual orientation. In this policy of Kafir Multiculturalism, the Islamists have found a great opportunity to advance their agenda—to create a pan Islamic world. All the cardinal principles of Kafir Multiculturalism are working in favor of the Islamists. That is why all Islamists are in full support of Kafir Multiculturalism.
But Islamists’ support of Kafir Multiculturalism is just a deceptive ploy to hide their real motives. Behind the veneer of their broad smile, talk of peace, love for freedom and interfaith understanding, there is a vicious plan. This plan is the design to replace the Kafir Multiculturalism with Islamic Multiculturalism. This is similar to the Islamists’ attempt to replace the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948 with the 1981 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. We should have no delusion that the Islamists are right on target with Islamic Multiculturalism, and they are advancing uncompromisingly, confidently, and stealthily towards their goal. Their weapon—it is none other than Kafir Multiculturalism—exactly the same way they had used UDHR as a weapon in the past.
...To force the western world to accede to their demands, the Islamists are in action, full swing, with great aplomb. Being aware of the PC mentality of the western politicians, the Islamists lobby non stop their plan for Shariazation of the western civilization. We might wonder why the Islamists are so confident about their success. The answer is that they have unflinching trust in the Qur'an. Here is what the Qur'an says:
The believers must make war on unbelievers and hypocrites and show firmness…9:73
On the plain language description of this verse, ibn Kathir writes that Allah has commanded the Muslims to fight with sword the disbelievers, to strive against the hypocrites with tongue and has annulled lenient treatment of them. Perform with sword jihad against the disbelievers, and be harsh with the hypocrites with words. This means establishing Islamic penal laws, i.e. Sharia laws against them.
This is Islamic Multiculturalism in action—in full nakedness. This verse says that Muslims should use terror to force Islam on infidels; where that is not possible, use tongue (that is lobbying) to implement the Sharia laws. What a great idea, come to think of it. In one front, the Islamist terrorists are working to cast terror in the minds of the unbelievers, at the same time the so called moderate Islamist are joining the ‘dialogue’ sessions with the infidels, and submitting their demands. The message is so loud and clear—‘if you do not accept our demand peacefully, we will invite the terrorists to get what we do not acquire through negotiation.’ This is such a simple but a powerful strategy of blackmail, if only the infidel PC politicians had read and comprehended the above verse. The Islamic Multiculturalism strategy is there, in the Qur'an, fully written, if only the Kafir policy makers take the time to read the Qur'an.
I Take A Performance-Enhancing Drug Every Day
Yep, I popped six five-milligram Methylin today. Luckily, I have a prescription for the stuff, also known as Ritalin, for ADHD.
Do I have a "disease" or a "disorder?" I don't think so. Just a different kind of brain function -- better in some ways, and worse in others for dealing what life and work throws me -- and Ritalin helps me focus. But, calling the results of my brain makeup the rather pathetic-sounding "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" is what helps me get the drug that helps me work.
A close friend of mine, a pretty renowned professor, now dead, used to snort coke to write his papers. Far as I know, he didn't do coke every day, or even weekly, just occasionally for fun and when he had a journal article due.
I know another pretty renowned professor who's pretty much a pothead. In other words, instead of coming home from work and having a beer or a martini, he smokes a doobie.
These guys were, or are, respectively, high-functioning, extremely productive members of society. No, contrary to what the MADD women will tell you, or the Just Say No! types say, all drug use is not abuse. And all drug or alcohol use will not leave you a toothless whore in an alley, or a human fritter in a flaming car crash.
I know, some people can't deal. Some people will operate heavy machinery after popping, sucking down, or snorting something or other. Okay. But, don't punish the rest of us. And isn't there a Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches, which to me, is peering into the blood and urine of all of us, looking for "substances"?
From lectlaw.com:
FOURTH AMENDMENT [U.S. Constitution] - 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.'
Oh, sure, it's voluntary a lot of time -- as in, volunteer it or you don't get the job. Matt Welch had to give it up to work at the LA Times before he went back to the relaxed debauchery of Reason.
Oops - Greg Beato has a very good piece on this -- "The Golden Age: How Americans learned to stop worrying and love workplace drug testing" -- in the March Reason magazine, but I wrote this whole thingie, and it seems it's not online yet.
Beato makes some of the same points I do: "What about the surreptitious line of coke that helps a salesman meet his monthly quota?" And how come Air Force pilots are the only ones who get to legally enhance their performance with "go and no-go pills? Couldn't we all use a Dexadrine now and then to get to 5 o'clock?"
It Isn't The Size Of The Man But The Distance Of The Woman
One of the most unfortunate sex myths out there is the one that suggests most women can have an orgasm from hotdog through the Lincoln Tunnel-style sex.
Wrong-o!
Many or most women need direct clit stimulation to come. In other words, yes, it's very possible she's faking it -- on behalf of your myth-driven ego, big boy...so try not to get too peeved.
Regina Nuzzo writes for the LA Times about orgasm research by Emory's Kim Wallen:
...Simple physiology may have a lot to do with orgasm ease -- specifically, how far a woman's clitoris lies from her vagina.That number might predict how easily a woman can experience orgasms from penile stimulation alone -- without help from fingers, toys or tongue -- during sexual intercourse.
In fact, there's even an easy "rule of thumb," Wallen says: Clitoris-vagina distances less than 2.5 cm -- that's roughly from the tip of your thumb to your first knuckle -- tend to yield reliable orgasms during sex. More than a thumb's length? Regular intercourse alone typically might not do the trick.
...Preliminary work has revealed that only about 7% of women always have orgasms with sex alone, he says, while 27% say they never do. The current research hold-up: developing a reliable, at-home technique for measuring C-V distance, especially one that can deal with stretchy skin.
Women with a large C-V distance should not be discouraged, Wallen says. "Personally, I don't think the inability to experience no-hands, penis-only intercourse with orgasm says anything about a happy sex life," he says. "Maybe it could allow couples to be a bit more inventive in how they have sex."
He acknowledges that the measure might become one more standard women feel they need to live up to, like breast size. "People would ask, 'Is your distance really small?'"
My recent column on penis size is here. And here, from that column, is the good news for men with small penises having sex with girls with really small "distance":
The good news comes from Dr. Eugene Fine, another urologist I interviewed a while back: "Most of the anatomy in a woman that's responsive to sexual pleasure is right at the front door. Just get in there and ring the bell."
Civilization Envy
Cold war general Jack Wheeler on the Islamization of Europe.
He rambles a bit, but he has some good points. He points out that there are villages in India and other places where nothing's been different for centuries. Somebody tries to make an improvement or a change, and they're accused of witchcraft or otherwise kept down or killed.
Wheeler says Islam, communism, and Naziism are or were all "religions of envy." "The only way to counteract" a religion of envy, he says, "Is to not be afraid of it."
"So the only chance that Europe has to reject the...envy of the Muslims, and regain a sense of civilizational confidence in the moral worth of western civilization and the accomplishments of their own history. And until that happens, Europe doesn't stand a chance."
More on this from an interview with Wheeler on FrontPage:
We are not in a war on “terrorism” and the enemy is not “terrorists,” but as you say, Islamic Jihadism. We should call this The War on Jihadism. The crux understanding of Jihadism, or Moslem Terrorism, is that it is a form of envious rage. All three of the great barbarisms of modern times have been pathologies of envy. Nazism, preaching race-envy toward “rich exploitative Jews”; Communism preaching class-envy toward “rich exploitative capitalists”; Jihadism preaching culture-envy toward “rich exploitative America/Israel/the West.” A clear example is the Nazi-type hatred Arabs have for Israel. The root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is envy. The Jews created a civilization out of the wilderness and a garden out of the desert, while the Arabs – even with their centibillions of petrodollars -- continued to mire themselves in medieval tyranny and poverty.Israel is a fount of creativity and achievement, a bastion of Western Civilization built by scratch out of a desiccated wasteland, sparsely populated by Arab nomads herding sheep, goats, and camels. And that is why the descendants of those nomads hate and envy it so much.
It is also why they hate America so much. Jihadis do not hate America for its vices but for its virtues, for its freedom, its prosperity, for its cultural success. Just as Nazis hate Jews for their success, just as Marxists hate capitalists for their success, so Jihadis hate America, Western Civilization, Judaism and Christianity for their success.
Jihadism, Nazism, and Communism are all totalitarian ideologies masochistically obsessed with destroying what they are envious of. Jihadists may claim their goal is a Salafist Caliphate, just as the Nazis claimed about a 1,000 year Reich, and the Communists a New Socialist Man. These are utopian pretexts to hide the fundamental goal of annihilating the object of their hate.
That’s always the pathology of envy: the willingness to destroy yourself as long as who you are envious of is destroyed as well. The suicide bomber is an ultimate expression of envy.
And more, from Wheeler's FrontPage interview, on how the European left plays into Islamist hands:
Just as the totalitarian left is motivated by envy, the liberal left is motivated by the fear of being envied. It is a very ancient and primitive fear, exactly the same as a primitive tribesman’s fear of envious Black Magic or a peasant villager’s fear of the envious Evil Eye. People in our society who are susceptible to this fear – such as heirs who inherited rather than earning their wealth and Hollywood celebrities who do so little to earn their millions – become liberals as a psychological strategy to avoid being envied. Liberalism is a not a political philosophy. It is the politicalization of envy-appeasement. Thus liberals are masochists as well – for the more one fears being envied, the more one is driven to masochistic self-humiliation in attempts at envy appeasement. Liberals have a compulsion to apologize to those that envy them, apologize for being white, for being male, for being successful, for the success of their country, their culture, their civilization. This renders liberals incapable of passionately defending America.
The Trunk Monkey
Make ads like this and I might not DISH-skip through the commercials.
Who's Running Against Hillary, Chairman Mao?
The daughter of the woman behind Hillarycare calls her the "most fiscally conservative candidate running" and "the only candidate who tells you how she'll pay for everything."
Yeah, with your money. I'm sure you'll be happy to learn that the guy who eschewed health insurance to get a plasma screen can get a nice comfy room at Cedars-Sinai.
via Drudge
A Girl And Her Existential Angst
The Truth About Marriage
And why I don't get married, have kids, or live with my boyfriend. Wise quote from Lori Gottlieb in a piece in The Atlantic:
Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business.
Marriage was seen as a business partnership until about 200 years ago, writes Stephanie Coontz in Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage.
Now, you can stay together because you pledged you'd stay together, or because you need to stay together to be right about raising the kids. But, love, like any feeling, can be ephemeral. You cannot promise to continue feeling a certain way. You can only promise to stay with a person after you stop.
More from Gottlieb's piece -- on women's search for Mr. Right degenerating into the search for Mr. Right Now...degenerating into the search for Mr. RIGHT NOW!:
...The more it behooves a woman to settle, the less willing she is to settle; a woman in her mid- to late 30s is more discriminating than one in her 20s. She has friends who have known her since childhood, friends who will know her more intimately and understand her more viscerally than any man she meets in midlife. Her tastes and sense of self are more solidly formed. She says things like “He wants me to move downtown, but I love my home at the beach,” and, “But he’s just not curious,” and “Can I really spend my life with someone who’s allergic to dogs?”I’ve been told that the reason so many women end up alone is that we have too many choices. I think it’s the opposite: we have no choice. If we could choose, we’d choose to be in a healthy marriage based on reciprocal passion and friendship. But the only choices on the table, it sometimes seems, are settle or risk being alone forever.That’s not a whole lot of choice.
Remember the movie Broadcast News? Holly Hunter’s dilemma—the choice between passion and friendship—is exactly the one many women over 30 are faced with. In the end, Holly Hunter’s character decides to wait for the right guy, but he (of course) never materializes. Meanwhile, her emotional soul mate, the Albert Brooks character, gets married (of course) and has children.
And no matter what women decide—settle or don’t settle—there’s a price to be paid, because there’s always going to be regret. Unless you meet the man of your dreams (who, by the way, doesn’t exist, precisely because you dreamed him up), there’s going to be a downside to getting married, but a possibly more profound downside to holding out for someone better.
My friend Jennifer summed it up this way: “When I used to hear women complaining bitterly about their husbands, I’d think, ‘How sad, they settled.’ Now it’s like, ‘God, that would be nice.’”
That’s why mothers tell their daughters to “keep an open mind” about the guy who spends his weekends playing Internet poker or touches your back for two minutes while watching ESPN and calls that “a massage.” The more-pertinent questions, to most concerned mothers of daughters in their 30s, have to do with whether the daughter’s boyfriend will make a good father; or, if he’s a workaholic, whether he can provide the environment for her to be a good mother. As my own mother once advised me, when I was dating a musician, “Everyone settles to some degree. You might as well settle pragmatically.”
I know all this now, and yet—here’s the problem—much as I’d like to settle, I can’t seem to do it. It’s not that I have to be dazzled by a guy anymore (though it would be nice). It’s not even that I have to think about him when he’s not around (though that would be nice, too). Nor is it that I’m unable to accept reality and make significant compromises because that’s what grown-ups do (I can and have—I had a baby on my own).
...It’s one thing to settle for a subpar mate; it’s quite another to settle for a subpar father figure for my child. So while there’s more incentive to settle now, there’s less willingness to settle too much, because that would be a disservice to my son.
This doesn’t undermine my case for settling. Instead, it supports my argument to do it young, when settling involves constructing a family environment with a perfectly acceptable man who may not trip your romantic trigger—as opposed to doing it older, when settling involves selling your very soul in exchange for damaged goods. Admittedly, it’s a dicey case to make because, like the divorced women I know who claim they wouldn’t have done anything differently, because then they wouldn’t have Biff and Buffy, I, too, can’t imagine life without my magical son. (Although, had I had children with a Mr. Good Enough, wouldn’t I be as hopelessly in love with those children, too?) I also acknowledge the power of the grass-is-always-greener phenomenon, and allow for the possibility that my life alone is better (if far more difficult) than the life I would have in a comfortable but tepid marriage.
But then my married friends say things like, “Oh, you’re so lucky, you don’t have to negotiate with your husband about the cost of piano lessons” or “You’re so lucky, you don’t have anyone putting the kid in front of the TV and you can raise your son the way you want.” I’ll even hear things like, “You’re so lucky, you don’t have to have sex with someone you don’t want to.”
The lists go on, and each time, I say, “OK, if you’re so unhappy, and if I’m so lucky, leave your husband! In fact, send him over here!”
Not one person has taken me up on this offer.
More from Gottleib on "settling" here.
Why Obama Didn't Take California
Or more of it, at least.
I heard many Los Angelenos who typically don't vote in the primaries say they were voting in this one -- to do as I did: to vote against Hillary.
I'm an independent (actually, a fiscal conservative, secular govermentist, libertarian/personal responsibilitarian), but after my deadline, I trotted my ass over to the polling place and got a ballot for an Independent voting as a Democrat. I don't particularly identify as a Democrat, but, first and foremost, I don't vote for people who believe Adam and Eve saddled up the dinosaurs, and who'd like to see bits from the Bible dropped into the Constitution.
The ballot was very confusing -- easy to miss the fact that you actually had to ink in two spots to vote for president: One to say you were voting for a presidential candidate from a particular party, and the second to actually vote for the candidate. If you missed filling the first bubble, your vote in the second bubble, for the candidate, didn't count,
Now, I'm wondering exactly how many of those not counted votes there were. The AP's Don Thompson wrote:
Concern over the county's so-called double-bubble ballot arose on Election Day, when the Courage Campaign, a Beverly Hills-based voting rights group, challenged the balloting process for independents.The group has been inundated with complaints from independent voters who said they were not told to fill in the second bubble and fear their votes might not be counted, chairman Rick Jacobs said.
"People took the trouble to vote and they deserve to have their votes counted," he said Thursday.
He has asked the Los Angeles County Registrars Office for a full review of the ballots where the presidential race was rejected because the extra bubble was not filled in. There are about 94,500 such ballots.
Any review would not change the outcome of the race - Clinton beat Obama by 396,168 votes statewide and 162,745 in Los Angeles County. But it could affect the allocation of delegates, which is done on a proportional basis by congressional district.
About 190,000 ballots were cast by decline-to-state voters in Los Angeles County. About half of those voters correctly filled in the extra bubble.
County elections officials will now sample 1 percent of the flawed ballots to see how many were supposed to be counted in the Democratic or American Independent presidential primaries.
If the number is significant, there may be a way to count some of those flawed ballots, said Eileen Shea, a spokeswoman for the county elections office.
"We take it very seriously," she said.
Yeah, right. Next time, take it seriously before hundreds of thousands of people vote.
Pimping Chelsea
Come on, does anyone really think Chelsea Clinton's pulling up to The Four Seasons in a big purple Cadillac with zebra fur seats and gold-plated wheel covers because of what David Schuster said about her?
Schuster, of MSNBC, said it was "a little bit unseemly to me that Chelsea's out there calling up celebrities, saying support my mom, and she's apparently also calling these super delegates," in a conversation with Bill Press. He then added, "Doesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"
It was as if he'd called for the girl's beheading. Or accused her of actually being out on the street corner spreading for bread. Schuster was suspended by MSNBC in short order.
Pathetic.
For a country that pounds its collective chest about the glories of our freedom of speech, we're far too prissy about thought and language in our media -- which is why British newspapers are far more interesting than ours. Of course, there may be new hope for the LA Times -- just several years in the wake of Mr. Prissy Pulitzer Whore John Carroll's "no funny headlines edict," and other such moves to keep from waking the readers while pretending to be The New York Times.
Mr. Prissy Pulitzer Whore? Uh, yeah. He was, and all else at the paper suffered because of it, and we love language here at advicegoddess.com. Salty and otherwise. So go ahead and speak your mind. Or speak your fucking mind. As you please. Just try to say something witty or interesting.
Back to the more conventional media, it seems if you're a man decidedly on the left talking about a man who's rather popular with the right, and you pepper your convo with the pretentious use of "sir," it's no biggie to use similar language:
And in pimping General David Petraeus, sir, in violation of everything this country has been assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years, you have tried to blur the gleaming radioactive demarcation between the military and the political, and to portray your party as the one associated with the military and your opponents as the ones somehow antithetical to it. --Keith Olbermann
Oh, and by the way, "pimped out" is used the way Schuster used it, but the usual meaning of "pimped out" is actually "tricked out."
Hey, Anybody In The UK Looking For An Altarboy?
Because I'd like to recommend the horse's ass also known as the Archbishop of Canterbury for the position. He recently called for new laws against "thoughtless or cruel" words against religion, just as the government is planning to repeal the old ones. Ruth Gledhill writes for The Times/UK:
The Archbishop, delivering the James Callaghan Memorial Lecture in London this afternoon, said it should not just be a few forms of extreme behaviour that were deemed unacceptable, leaving everything else as fair game.“The legal provision should keep before our eyes the general risks of debasing public controversy by thoughtless and, even if unintentionally, cruel styles of speaking and acting,” he said.
...Dr Williams said: “It is clear that the old blasphemy law is unworkable and that its assumptions are not those of contemporary lawmakers and citizens overall. But as we think about the adequacy of what is coming to replace it, we should not, I believe, miss the opportunity of asking the larger questions about what is just and good for individuals and groups in our society who hold religious beliefs.”
What is good and healthy is freedom of speech. Without it, dangers to the society don't go away, they're just allowed to fester underground.
A quote from his speech (full text at this link):
The fact is that 'in the real political world which we all perforce inhabit, words do wound, insults do hurt, and abuse – especially extreme and obscene abuse – does provoke both anger and violence' (Webster, p.129).
Uh, not amongst the civilized. When I was 13, Nazi groups planned to march in Skokie, Illinois. The Jews in Skokie merely planned a counter-demonstration, and ACLU attorney David Goldberger found himself in the weird position of being a Jew defending the civil rights of the Nazis.
And no, there were no Jews rioting, throwing burning trash cans through building windows, or the like in response. That's what Muslims do when their tender sensibilities are offended by mere drawings. For making a film that criticizes the reprehensible treatment of Muslim women by Muslim men, you're liable to be gunned down, then knifed. For writing a book critical of Islam, an international death threat...now in rerun!
Clearly, the answer isn't curtailing speech and imperiling democracy, but curtailing the violent and undercivilized.
We'll Always Have Parris
The Times/UK's Matthew Parris reads the reality act on Archbishop of Canterbury's speech suggesting Sharia law as a dandy addition to Great Britain:
Those who read his speech properly will see that his entire argument turns upon the freedom of the group member to “opt out” of the “supplementary jurisdiction” and choose British law instead. But repressive faith groups make it culturally difficult - sometimes well-nigh impossible - for a member to opt out.
Such as gays, women, and atheists, all of whom do extremely poorly in terms of rights under Islam...such as the right to continue living.
"It's Unamerican Not To Like Pussy"
I heart new LA Times owner Sam Zell, who reportedly said:
Some of my best friends go to gentlemen's clubs. It's unAmerican not to like pussy.
Maybe my column will actually run in my local paper one of these days.
Special Laws For Muslims
If you want to live under Sharia law...stay in Iran, Iraq, or whatever stuck-in-the-Middle-Ages country you came from. In the running for spotted dick of the year is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Roman Williams. From the BBC:
Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.
For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.
He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".
Again, if modern western society doesn't work for you -- stay where you are.
If, within your own backward community in a western society, you would like to subject yourself to primitive religious dictates, well, have at it. But, under the absolutely daffy and dangerous notion that religious nuttery would be incorporated into or recognized by the law of the land, well, the already oppressed women of Islam could be further oppressed. To name just one example.
Cover Girl
This isn't a brand of makeup, but an order in Iraq, as in, "Cover, girl!" Because if you don't, you just might end up dead, and maybe even be murdered as your child looks on.
So, no blush, Iraqi ladies. And no makeup, and you'd better wear one of those giant Hefty bag thingies over your head with the little eyeholes cut out. From CNN.com:
The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.
"Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."
Her fear is justified. Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year -- 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
One glance through the police file is enough to understand the consequences. Basra's police chief, Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, flips through the file, pointing to one unsolved case after another. Video Watch Khalaf show evidence of the brutality »
"I think so far, we have been unable to tackle this problem properly," he says. "There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads."
"When I came to Basra a year ago," he says, "two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant."
The killers enforcing their own version of Islamic justice are rarely caught, while women live in fear.
Boldly splattered in red paint just outside the main downtown market, a chilling sign reads: "We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you."
The attacks on the women of Basra have intensified since British forces withdrew to their base at the airport back in September, police say. Iraqi security forces took over after British troops pulled back, but are heavily infiltrated by militias.
Sick fucks.
Once again, who here thinks democracy is possible in barbarianville?
Have You Thanked Your Neighborhood Cop Today?
The next time you pass a cop in your neighborhood, you might offer your thanks. The police are often criticized because there are a few bad apples on the force (as there are bad apples in every profession), but these people put their lives on the line every day to protect the rest of us, and a little acknowledgment seems to be in order.
Here's one of them it's too late to thank, LA SWAT officer Randal Simmons:
Richard Winton,, Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Andrew Blankstein write in the LA Times of how Simmons was shot and killed on the job the other night (officer James Veenstra was wounded, but is expected to pull through):
The incident began about 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man called 911 and said he had killed three people at a home in the 19800 block of Welby Way in the Winnetka area of Los Angeles. Over several hours, he made a series of additional calls to 911, police said. Police said the suspect told them that three people were dead at the home and that two others were still alive inside.At one point a dispatcher told police that moans could be heard in the background, leading authorities to believe there were wounded victims inside.
The decision to enter the home came early this morning, more than three hours after the initial 911 call, when officers determined there might still be people in distress inside, said Assistant Police Chief Jim McDonnell.
At that point, McDonnell said, SWAT members had been at the scene only about 15 minutes. The decision to go in immediately, instead of taking a more patient approach, he said, was made out of concern that people were either being killed or were about to be killed inside.
"This was one where you have to go in right away," he said. "If you think people are being executed, you don't wait."
...Officer Randal Simmons, a veteran of the unit, was mortally wounded in the head as the officers broke through the door, police said. Sources said a round entered Simmons' neck, lodging in his brain stem. He was rushed to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where he died just after 1 a.m, officials said.
Simmons, a 51-year-old married father of a teenage son and daughter, spent his off-hours mentoring youth in South Los Angeles -- a sign of how passionate he was about his work and the community where he had been a gang officer for years, colleagues said.
...Originally from New York, Simmons had been a football player at Washington State University, and friends said he hoped to play professional football before an injury ended his chances.
...Simmons ended up in the LAPD academy, and then as a patrol officer, starting in 1981. He worked Pacific Division gang units in South Los Angeles, and then joined the SWAT unit.
"He was always there to support, mentor and help," said LAPD Capt. James Craig, a close friend and academy classmate. "He was a kind person."
Red Square
Hillary Vissarionovich Clinton. From a construction site in Venice, California.
Panda Rage
Stuart Elliott writes in The New York Times of people who were offended by commercials with a Panda talking in a Chinese accent:
Vinod Gupta, the chairman and chief executive of InfoUSA in Omaha, the parent of Salesgenie.com, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that a commercial featuring two animated pandas speaking with what were intended as Chinese accents would be withdrawn.“We never thought anyone would be offended,” said Mr. Gupta, who developed and wrote both commercials himself.
“The pandas are Chinese,” he said. “They don’t speak German.”
Still, “if I offended anybody,” Mr. Gupta said, “believe me, I apologize.”
Mr. Gupta said he planned to keep running the other Salesgenie commercial, featuring an animated salesman named Ramesh who speaks with an Indian or other South Asian accent.
The reason, Mr. Gupta said, was that “more people seem upset about the pandas than Ramesh.”
“People have been making fun of my accent for years,” said Mr. Gupta, who described himself in the interview as half-Indian and half-Jewish. “And I love it.”
In the salesman spot, the sales leads that Ramesh finds on Salesgenie help him satisfy his demanding boss at Acme Widgets and win a sales contest. The spot appeared in the first quarter of the game on Sunday. In the pandas spot, the Salesgenie leads help the animals keep open their store, called Ling Ling’s Bamboo Furniture Shack. It appeared in the third quarter.
Link to video is here.
If I call you a panda, is that some sort of slur? Can somebody please explain why a panda with an accent (French, Italian, Chinese, whatever) is offensive? My problem with the commercial? It's not funny, and the animation sucked.
Exporting Democracy
We've seen it doesn't work. Jonathan Rauch writes in Reason of Amitai Etzioni's argument that we export security instead, "the soil in which democracy can take root":
If you want to discuss foreign policy in the age of terrorism, try consulting an ex-terrorist. As a teenager in the 1940s, Etzioni was a fighter in the Palmach, a Jewish insurgent group that tried to bomb the British out of what was then Palestine. The group aimed at infrastructure, not people, but Etzioni says the experience gave him a lifelong appreciation of the awfulness of war and the centrality of security.Today, pondering the presidential race, Etzioni sees ample criticism of Bush, but nothing resembling an overarching alternative to the Bush Doctrine. American foreign policy needs a positive vision with a moral basis. But exporting democracy, Etzioni says, isn't it.
Why not? First, the Bush Doctrine suffers from Multiple Realism Deficiency Disorder. Democracy grows gradually from within, by stages, and cannot be imposed from without. The Bush Doctrine thus promises what it can't deliver. In any case, Washington often has little practical choice but to cooperate with friendly authoritarian regimes, such as those in Egypt and Saudi Arabia; we can't expect cooperation from regimes we're working to overthrow.
All of that you have heard before. Etzioni's signature contribution is an intriguing second argument. Putting democratization at the center of U.S. foreign policy, he says, is counterproductive. It turns against America millions of the very people it needs to win over: illiberal moderates.
The Muslim world is full of people who aver support for democracy. But comparatively few mean liberal, secular democracy, which is what Americans mean. Instead, they mean a combination of democracy and theocracy that Americans would not recognize as liberal-democratic at all. For example, they tell pollsters they want democracy while also saying their governments should be more Islamic.
These people reject American-style social liberalization, such as equality for women, which Americans regard as a democratic linchpin. On the other hand, the great majority of them abhor violence. Thus, writes Etzioni, "major segments of the Muslim world are neither pro-liberal-democracy nor pro-violence."
These "illiberal moderates," he argues, are "a kind of global 'swing vote,' " far outnumbering both illiberal extremists (who support violence) and liberal moderates (who support Westernization). A democratization agenda that implies American-style liberalization strikes illiberal moderates as a threat to their religion, not a promise of freedom. No wonder the Bush Doctrine offends them in droves.
But most of them will gladly support an American foreign policy in which basic security heads the agenda. Note the word "basic." To provide basic security, in Etzioni's framework, a government need not have a spotless human-rights record, independent courts, or even elections. It must merely protect its own people from genocide and ethnic cleansing, and refrain from invading other countries, supporting international terrorism, and posing a nuclear threat. If a regime provides that much internal and external security, the United States should promise not to overthrow it—even if it is unsavory or unfriendly in other respects.
Of course, the United States will still care about, and advocate, democratization and other core values. But top priority should go to basic security, on which everything else depends.
Realists insist that stability is the precondition for democracy; neocons, that democracy is the precondition for stability. Etzioni is saying that basic security is the precondition for both, a lesson stingingly learned in Iraq. "In Iraq our problem was that we did not focus on security," he says. "We focused on trying to build another America."
Etzioni's book -- Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy.
Sit Next To A Man In Starbucks, Go To Jail
Doesn't that sound ridiculous? Well, ridiculous is everyday life in Saudi Arabia, especially if you're a woman. Sonia Verma writes in The Times/UK that religious police there arrested an American businesswoman for sitting next to a male colleague in Starbucks after the power went out in her office and she needed to use the Wifi:
Her ordeal began with a routine visit to the new Riyadh offices of her finance company, where she is a managing partner.The electricity temporarily cut out, so Yara and her colleagues — who are all men — went to a nearby Starbucks to use its wireless internet.
She sat in a curtained booth with her business partner in the café's “family” area, the only seats where men and women are allowed to mix.
For Yara, it was a matter of convenience. But in Saudi Arabia, public contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited.
“Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked ‘Why are you here together?'. I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin,” recalled Yara, who wears an abaya and headscarf, like most Saudi women.
The men were from Saudi Arabia's Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a police force of several thousand men charged with enforcing dress codes, sex segregation and the observance of prayers.
Yara, whose parents are Jordanian and grew up in Salt Lake City, once believed that life in Saudi Arabia was becoming more liberal. But on Monday the religious police took her mobile phone, pushed her into a cab and drove her to Malaz prison in Riyadh. She was interrogated, strip-searched and forced to sign and fingerprint a series of confessions pleading guilty to her “crime”.
“They took me into a filthy bathroom, full of water and dirt. They made me take off my clothes and squat and they threw my clothes in this slush and made me put them back on,” she said. Eventually she was taken before a judge.
“He said 'You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell'. I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless,” she said.
Yara's husband, Hatim, used his political contacts in Jeddah to track her whereabouts. He was able to secure her release.
“I was lucky. I met other women in that prison who don't have the connections I did,” she said. Her story has received rare coverage in Saudi Arabia, where the press has been sharply critical of the police.
Yara was visited yesterday by officials from the American Embassy, who promised they would file a report.
The UK, France, and the Netherlands have much smaller populations than we do, and thus, a much bigger problem with Muslim immigration. How long before the story above describes life in the UK, France and the Netherlands...to name just a few? And is there any solution for the non-Muslim citizens there except to move to the United States before, thanks to the immigrants from Muslim countries reproducing like bunnies, their laws are changed, their freedoms are gone, and their lives are ruled by Islam?
Some realize this. From the comments on the Times' site:
...The UK has a sizeable proportion of Muslims who live here and are hell bent on imposing their culture on the indigineous population here. We have on particular Muslim cleric here saying there will be "rivers of blood on the streets" until the West converts to Islam. I've seen the same in Australia, France, The United states and I'm betting any other western culture you care to mention...Adam, London
And here, comment from a Muslim:
...Perhaps if this country (England) had a stronger moral code in operation and enforced by law there would be less crime. There is freedom of choice here for which I'm personally pleased but I would prefer clearer guidelines from the government and law enforcing agencies in a wide area of life in Britain. Perhaps Sharia law is worth considering after all?abda, bournemouth
Hey there over in the U.K., apply for U.S. citizenship before it's too late! (Not that we in the U.S. are immune from this -- again, we're just bigger, and it'll take more time for the Muslim population to overtake that of the rest of us.)
How many of you think, that in our lifetimes, women in the U.S.A. will be forced to wear the burkha, and paintings in our museums will have the faces covered with big swaths of white paint, just to name a few?
Bare France
A certain Air France flight should have been equipped with a stripper pole in the cockpit.
NSFWFTWWFP. (Not Safe For Work For Those Who Work For Prudes.)
Pistol-Packin' Mama
A hilarious lesson in gun control, as in, she who has a gun controls.
Dog Fight In Aisle Two
My old editor, who used to work for Gary Larson, warned me of "the crazy cat people," the cat owners who will send piles of angry e-mails and letters if you say make the slightest crack against cats. Well, the dog people aren't as nuts, but they sometimes come close. As Norman wrote:
It's a pity we can't tap into the heat generated on this thread to use as an energy source.
He's talking about one of my Advice Goddess columns I just posted, Man Bites Relationship. A woman writes:
Three months ago, my boyfriend rescued a 2-year-old, 85-pound, neutered dog from a shelter. I have a little 35-pound dog I love dearly. She’s been with me seven years. We wanted to introduce them because we want to build a life together. It didn’t go well. His dog attacked mine both times. I said this should be a no-brainer: If he can’t turn his dog around through training soon, he should get rid of it. He eventually agreed to work with his dog, but over the last month has just gotten more attached to it, and has been reading books that tell him his dog’s “doing nothing wrong.” He finally said I’d have to risk my dog with his one more time, “just to find out.” I can’t do that. Is a brand new dog all it takes for a year-long relationship to get derailed!?--House Broken
Apparently, yes.
My answer and the heat-filled comments are here.
Tad To The Bone
San Francisco eats.
Gregg loved the way they couldn't quite manage to fit New York on the signage.
photo by Gregg Sutter
The Devolution Of Security
Now even the Transportation Security Administration has a blog.
It's actually called the "Evolution of Security," and, most hilariously for anyone who's gone through the security puppet show at airports these days, it's subheaded, "Terrorists evolve. Threats evolve. Security must stay ahead. You play a part."
Me: "Loose dips sink ships."
Nothing I love like the way the TSA promotes the perception of safety instead of actual safety. It's reflected in their section, Gripes & Grins. As is to be expected, not a whole lot of grins, although there was the occasional "smile and the world smiles with you" type breaking into the complaints about what a bunch of chimps many of these TSA people are. Here are a few of the comments:
•mike_s said... Why does the TSA run special low delay inspection lines for first class airline passengers? Since when is one taxpayer entitled to discriminatory treatment and special service from a government agency?•anonymous said...
I'm a 63 yr old woman, and I do NOT appreciate the TSA woman in West Palm Beach who felt it necessary to reach down inside the front of my slacks. How embarrassing!• anonymous said...
Thanks for starting a blog. We used to fly to Michigan twice a year to visit my in-laws. Thanks to the TSA, I no longer have to do that because flying has become too much of a scary hassle. I figure you guys have saved me over $3000 in travel costs over the last couple years. Better still, I don't have to hear from my father-in-law about how I should go to church more often. Relatedly, I should give thanks to the TSA for allowing me to rediscover my home state of Oregon as all of my vacations are spent within driving distance. Turns out, I live in a beautiful state with a rich cultural heritage. I'll see you all at the old-time fiddler's contest in Sumpter, Oregon this September!•constitutionalistron said...
Do people employed by the TSA realize they are continually engaged in warrantless searches (and, not uncommonly, seizures)? The entire process is illegal, is it not? Is it made legal by the fact the federal government pays screeners to engage in the act? Here's the fourth amendment, for you consideration: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Violation of this very explicit federal government restriction is a fundamental flaw in the TSA organization, not to mention the rude, incompetent behavior of screeners. I don't believe you have the integrity to reply to this comment, either, by the way.•anonymous said...
The tsa's efforts to screen passenger would be more credible if you could show some reasonable evidence that all this screening has prevented any terrorist acts.Because there were no terrorist acts in flight in the U.S. during the history of commercial aviation before 9/11, it is not credible to cite the absence of such attacks since 9/11 as evidence of efficacy.
In the meantime, tsa passenger screening is costing billions of dollars annually in direct costs, and probably tens of billions in wasted time and unnecessary aggravation of the traveling public.
Where's the cost-benefit analysis?
• glenn53 said...
Wow where to begin?Ok lets at least address the real problem.
Why do you have people gather in huge lines where any bomber could take us all out waiting to be checked????
You need to be checking the cars entering the air port. that way they may blow up a car or two. as it stands now they could take out thousands of people before they ever were screened. this isn't rocket science.
You are just setting up false security, while putting us all in harms way.
Take a step back and do the right thing.
-Glenn
•gordo said...
I recently traveled from JFK to Charlotte, NC and the TSA had inspected my checked baggage. When I arrived in Charlotte, I noticed the TSA sticker on the tag, but no notice had been left. When I opened my bag, the items inside were tossed about and the inside zipper was open with my cell phone charger hanging out. My $300 Canon digital camera, its charger and leather case were missing. I filed a claim with TSA, but it was denied. They're supposed to be checking our bags, but instead things go "missing". My concern (aside from someone stealing from my baggage that was supposed to be secure) is that if anyone can steal something out of the bag, then anyone can also put something, such as a device or bomb in the checked baggage as well. What is the purpose of screening the luggage if the TSA personnel is part of the problem?• brian said...
MISSING THE TARGET - I'll never forget returning from fighting for our safety in Iraq, in full military uniform (I'm a Sr Officer) and being pulled aside in full view and being "strip searched" because there are some tiny metal clips on the sides of the uniform pants that "beeped". Have we gone so far in the U.S. we can't figure out who are the good guys and bad guys? If folks aren't smart enough or aren't allowed to figure out who is the most likely real threat, they are ineffective. Ongoing facts prove that out.•pilotone said...
I'm a Pilot. I have been fingerprinted by the FBI and given the highest security clearence including Ramp clearence. Yet at the TSA check point we still need to get half naked in front of customers that trust us to get them to their destination. I don't get it? We (Pilots) don't need weapons to create another 9/11. We are already flying the Aircraft. Is it necessary for us to go through such intensive screening? In Tel Aviv the hotel van picks us up at the hotel and drops the entire crew off planeside. No security screening. If Isreal trusts us. Why can't you. (TSA)• anonymous said...
It concerns me that everything you check for is in reaction to a past incident and that you're not anticipating future terrorist ploys. For example, we didn't have to take our shoes off until the Shoe Bomber tried unsuccessfully to set his foot bomb on fire. We could take liquids in until someone tried to make a bomb from their seat in coach by mixing small amounts of liquids they had carried on board. Now the TSA agents make me take off my shoes and throw away my deoderant, while some mastermind is thinking of the next diabolical plan that you are not anticipating. I have no confidence in Homeland Security or TSA's ability to protect us if you are always looking for the things they thought of last year and are not anticipating what they may try next. But what do you expect from the government?• bootz said...
This is an EXCELLENT article:IDs and the illusion of security (Amy: by Schneier, of course)
PLEASE READ IT! Basically it says that the only secure form of airport chacks are random searches -- everything else is prone to loopholes. But please, read!
Personally, just as I think there's some chance I could die in a fire, bike accident, or car crash, or be crushed by a meteorite falling out of the sky, I think there's also some chance I will be killed by terrorists. I deal with this fear by living in the moment. If I go, I go, but I prefer not to live in the moment in fear or be felt up by burly women at the Las Vegas airport, as I was a few years ago. (It's called "underwire," you dumb bitch, and they've been putting it in bras for years.)
Excuse Me If I Resent You For Wanting Me Dead
Silly Ian Buruma op-ed whine in the LA Times. Buruma does his best to make the danger that is Islam sound like a mere pissing contest between the European right and left:
When "tolerance" becomes a word of abuse in a place like the Netherlands, you know that something has gone seriously wrong. The Dutch have always taken pride in being the most tolerant people on Earth. And in less feverish times, no one could possibly have taken exception to Queen Beatrix's speech last Christmas, when she pleaded for tolerance and "respect for minorities." But Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing, anti-Muslim Freedom Party, was so disgusted by the queen's "multicultural rubbish" that he wanted her to be stripped of her constitutional role in the government.Wilders, a popular rabble-rouser whose party occupies nine seats in the Dutch parliament, has compared the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf," wants to stop Muslims from moving to the Netherlands and thundered that those who are already there should tear up half the Koran if they wish to stay. In his eyes, tolerance toward Islam is cowardly appeasement. He thinks that Europe is in peril of being "Islamized." "There will soon be more mosques than churches," he says, unless true Europeans have the guts to stand up and save Western civilization.
Uh, yeah...isn't it obvious that's the case?
Ian, dear, tolerance=death, or doesn't the name Theo Van Gogh mean anything to you? I mean, I know you wrote a book with his name in the title (well, actually, it used to be in the title)...but have you actually connected with what was done to him? Hint: He's no longer with us, and it isn't because those tolerators of tolerators, those representatives of The Religion Of Peace, merely tickled him with their opinions.
Have you heard how Ayan Hirsi Ali must live like a caged animal, thanks to the barbarians who want her dead -- merely for speaking her mind about the primitive beliefs they cling to?
We need less "tolerance," not more.
The Cloud Club
More from the ride home from San Francisco to L.A.
"Why I Am An Abortion Doctor"
Great piece by Dr. Garson Romalis in Canada's National Post, subheaded, "I can take an anxious woman, who is in the biggest trouble she has ever experiences in her life, and by performing a five-minute operation, in comfort and dignity, I can give her back her life":
I have been an abortion provider since 1972. Why do I do abortions, and why do I continue to do abortions, despite two murder attempts?The first time I started to think about abortion was in 1960, when I was in secondyear medical school. I was assigned the case of a young woman who had died of a septic abortion. She had aborted herself using slippery elm bark.
I had never heard of slippery elm. A buddy and I went down to skid row, and without too much difficulty, purchased some slippery elm bark to use as a visual aid in our presentation. Slippery elm is not sterile, and frequently contains spores of the bacteria that cause gas gangrene. It is called slippery elm because, when it gets wet, it feels slippery. This makes it easier to slide slender pieces through the cervix where they absorb water, expand, dilate the cervix, produce infection and induce abortion. The young woman in our case developed an overwhelming infection. At autopsy she had multiple abscesses throughout her body, in her brain, lungs, liver and abdomen.
I have never forgotten that case.
After I graduated from University of British Columbia medical school in 1962, I went to Chicago, where I served my internship and Ob/Gyn residency at Cook County Hospital. At that time, Cook County had about 3,000 beds, and served a mainly indigent population. If you were really sick, or really poor, or both, Cook County was where you went.
The first month of my internship was spent on Ward 41, the septic obstetrics ward. Yes, it's hard to believe now, but in those days, they had one ward dedicated exclusively to septic complications of pregnancy.
About 90% of the patients were there with complications of septic abortion. The ward had about 40 beds, in addition to extra beds which lined the halls. Each day we admitted between 10-30 septic abortion patients. We had about one death a month, usually from septic shock associated with hemorrhage.
I will never forget the 17-year-old girl lying on a stretcher with 6 feet of small bowel protruding from her vagina. She survived.
I will never forget the jaundiced woman in liver and kidney failure, in septic shock, with very severe anemia, whose life we were unable to save.
Today, in Canada and the U.S., septic shock from illegal abortion is virtually never seen. Like smallpox, it is a "disappeared disease."
I had originally been drawn to obstetrics and gynecology because I loved delivering babies. Abortion was illegal when I trained, so I did not learn how to do abortions in my residency, although I had more than my share of experience looking after illegal abortion complications.
In 1972, a couple of years after the law on abortion was liberalized, I began the practise of obstetrics and gynecology, and joined a three-man group in Vancouver. My practice partners and I believed strongly that a woman should be able to decide for herself if and when to have a baby. We were frequently asked to look after women who needed termination of pregnancy. Although I had done virtually no terminations in my training, I soon learned how. I also learned just how much demand there was for abortion services.
Providing abortion services can be quite stressful. Usually, an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy is the worst trouble the patient has ever been in in her entire life.
I remember one 18-year-old patient who desperately wanted an abortion, but felt she could not confide in her mother, who was a nurse in another Vancouver area hospital. She impressed on me how important it was that her termination remain a secret from her family. In those years, parental consent was required if the patient was less than 19 years old. I obtained the required second opinion from a colleague, and performed an abortion on her.
About two weeks, later I received a phone call from her mother. She asked me directly "Did you do an abortion on my daughter?" Visions of legal suit passed through my mind as I tried to think of how to answer her question. I decided to answer directly and truthfully. I answered with trepidation, "Yes, I did" and started to make mental preparations to call my lawyer. The mother replied: "Thank you, Doctor. Thank God there are people like you around."
Read the whole thing -- including the two episodes where nutbags tried to murder him (in the name of "life," of course).
There's no definitive answer on when a person becomes a person. I believe it's when the fetus emerges from the woman and starts breathing on its own. If you believe differently...don't have an abortion. As for your belief that other women shouldn't have abortions, from my column (linked just above) for Pajamas Media:
Don’t want women to have abortions? Pay them to have the babies. Pay for the care of the babies after they’re born -- and don’t forget the college educations. And keep funding programs to show people why your point of view is right and mine is wrong. I celebrate your right to speak your point of view. I am, however, completely opposed to your attempts to force your point of view on me. Once again, the solution here parallels the only fair resolution to the meat is/isn’t murder argument: Go ahead and have your Tofurky, but without cramming it down my throat, too.
thanks, Deirdre
Pennsylvania Takes On Crack Dealing To Elementary Schoolers
Oops, sorry...it seems they're too busy going after a stay-at-home mom who opened an eBay business in 2004 so she could help pay the bills while caring for her cancer-stricken 6-month-old daughter. Bob Fernandez writes in the Inquirer:
Mary Jo Pletz was really, really good at eBay. But now the former stay-at-home mother and gonzo Internet retailer fears a maximum $10 million fine for selling 10,000 toys, antiques, videos, sports memorabilia, books, tools and infant clothes on eBay without an auctioneer's license.An official from the Department of State knocked on Pletz's white-brick ranch here north of Allentown in late December 2006 and said her Internet business, D&J Virtual Consignment, was being investigated for violating state laws.
"I was dumbfounded," said Pletz, who led the dark-suited investigator to a side patio area, where he grilled her. "I told him I would just shut down," she said.
The Pletz case has unleashed a political storm in Harrisburg over what - if anything - should be done about regulating Internet auctions in Pennsylvania.
Two bills have been introduced. One would require Internet sellers who run a business to get an electronic auctioneer's license that would cost about $100 a year. The other would leave Internet auctions as the Wild West of retail.
Thousands of jobs and the fate of a new-economy industry in Pennsylvania could be at stake. There are 400 so-called Internet retail drop-off stores in Pennsylvania, according to state officials, and 14,000 state residents who earn most of their annual income selling on Internet auctions.
EBay opposes state regulatory action on Internet auctions around the nation and warns that it could threaten the livelihood of an estimated 430,000 people who "earn a substantial portion or all of their incomes selling on eBay."
An "electronic auctioneer's license"?
State Rat-resentative Michael Sturla, writes Fernandez, "has proposed the bill to create the electronic auctioneer's license. The license would require the Internet seller to buy a $5,000 bond for about $40 a year. This would protect consumers, he said."
Oh, please. I shop on eBay for much of the stuff I buy, and I protect myself just fine by reading people's reviews and by understanding that you probably can't get something for nothing.
What, I'm going to sue Pennsylvania for $20 if somebody fails to send me the paint-by-number I bought?
via ifeminists
News From The Amazon
Here's an interesting one from my stats on Amazon buys by readers clicking through from Amazon links on my site: A Lesbian History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Women Since 1500.
I love seeing what people who read me order on Amazon. (And thanks, because I get a kickback when people click through from links from from my site to buy -- even for stuff I haven't recommended -- which helps me pay for site costs and for the work I put into my site.)
In perhaps unrelated news, somebody also bought Funky Monkey Snacks Carnaval Mix, 1.0 Ounce Bag (Pack of 12). And a pulse oximeter, BCI Digit 3420 Finger Pulse Oximeter.
The Painted Road
The ride home from San Francisco to L.A.
If I Get One More Telemarketing Call About Barack Obama
I'm voting for Pat Buchanan.
And no, I don't give a shit about who Scarlett Johansson thinks I should vote for, so don't bother putting her voice on the recording.
The Meaning Of Gun Control
A woman has a stalker named Ryan Lee Bergner -- a guy who's slashed her tires, accosted her at work, and broken into her house -- break into her house again and come after her. And she's only able to defend herself because a friend had given her a gun the day before.
Below is the chilling tape of her 911 call:
The shooting was deemed self-defense and defense of property by the local prosecutor. Steve Zabroski writes in a NWI.com story:
The Nov. 12 shooting of Bergner as he cornered the 51-year-old woman in an upstairs bedroom closet capped a month of escalating terror -- chronicled in a series of police reports filed by the woman -- which included break-ins, vandalism and assaults in her workplace.They had briefly dated over the summer, but Bergner couldn't accept that she didn't want to be his girlfriend, and wouldn't take "no" for an answer, the woman said.
That fatal Monday night, she was watching television at 10:30 p.m. when she heard a window breaking, and called 911.
An audio recording of her conversation with the emergency dispatcher, from the initial break-in to her escape from the dying Bergner six minutes later, was released by Hammond police on Wednesday.
"I'm so scared," the woman said to the 911 operator, who told her to lock herself in a bedroom until police arrived.
Bergner had already broken into her house two days earlier, she reported to police, destroying a clock-radio and stealing several of her undergarments.
"I heard him turn a light on, a hallway light," she told the dispatcher as she hid in a closet, armed with a pistol a friend had given her for protection.
"What are you doing?" she can be heard asking over the sound of her bedroom door being kicked in. "Stop it! Please stop it! Just stop it!"
Gunshots can clearly be heard on the recording. She later said Bergner was on top of her in the closet, his hands around her throat, choking her.
"What are you trying to do, kill me?" the mortally wounded Bergner asked.
"Are you trying to kill me?"
Police found her in her front yard when they arrived moments later, and found Bergner, wearing black leather gloves and a brown leather jacket, lying partially in the bedroom closet with three bullet wounds to his abdomen, a 9 mm pistol on the bed nearby.
Good thing she didn't simply try to protect herself with a restraining order, which too many people fail to understand is simply a piece of paper.
Buttcrack: The End Of Civilization As We Know It
Steve Stone writes for The Virginian-Pilot of wee furor at Abercrombie this weekend:
Police, saying they were responding to citizen complaints, carted away two large promotional photographs from the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Lynnhaven Mall on Saturday and cited the manager on obscenity charges.Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman, said the seizure and the issuance of the summons came only after store management had not heeded warnings to remove the images.
The citation was issued under City Code Section 22.31, Bernstein said, which makes it a crime to display "obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles." He did not say what was being done with the pictures and when the manager, whose name was not released, is scheduled to appear in court.
The manager, reached by telephone, declined to comment on the incident Saturday, saying that he was conferring with and waiting for guidance from Abercrombie corporate officials.
The mural-like black-and-white photographs were taken from the store at midafternoon.
Bernstein confirmed that one depicts three shirtless young men from the back, walking through a field. The man in the lead appears to be about to pull up his jeans, which have slipped down enough to reveal his upper buttocks.
The same image is displayed on the Abercrombie Web site.
The other image is of a woman who is topless and whose "breast is displayed with her hand covering just the nipple portion," Bernstein said. "You could still pretty much see the rest of the breast."
The seizure was "prompted by several customer complaints, and the management of Abercrombie & Fitch was notified of those complaints," Bernstein said.
I'm guessing they're responding with glee right now about all the free P.R. Oh yeah, and bail, for the poor store manager.
You know, they have huge naked tits displayed all over France, and the only part of their society that's really going down the tubes is the portion of it where the women are forced to cover up in niqabs and burkhas.
When Women Are Property
Islam means submission. Especially for women.
In an article headlined, "Family of teen Muslim invited men to rape her," Abul Taher writes in The Times/UK of a Muslim girl who arrived in the UK from Pakistan after being tricked into marrying a retarded man, and was then locked up and forced to have sex with men for money by the man's family:
A GIRL of 15 was tricked into a "telephone marriage" ceremony to a Sheffield man with a mental age of five in a ceremony recognised by sharia (Islamic law).When the girl arrived from Pakistan expecting to meet the handsome man she had been shown in a photograph, she found that he was 40 years old, unemployed and disabled.
To make matters worse, her mother-in-law decided to exploit her attractive looks by forcing her into prostitution.
The family invited men to the family home to rape her before she managed to escape to the police by bolting through the front door. She was taken into care and now lives in a refuge.
The case is highlighted in a report by the Centre for Social Cohesion, which has found that policemen, councillors and taxi drivers are turning a blind eye or even conniving in enforcing the Asian community's strict "moral code" on young women.
The girl's marriage last April was not recognised by the Home Office but was approved by the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain. She is typical of the runaway brides at risk of an "honour killing". According to official figures, 10 to 12 women are murdered in Britain in honour killings each year, but the government has been warned by MPs that this is a serious underestimate. Police often record the deaths as cases of domestic violence, while other girls are driven to suicide or taken away to their family's country of origin and never seen again. Many Asian parents would rather resort to violence against their children than see their reputation tarnished by the perceived dishonour of allowing them to become "westernised".
The report, Crimes of the Community, claims the problem is no longer an issue of first-generation migrants importing attitudes from "back home" but is "indigenous and self-perpetuating" because it is sustained by third and fourth-generation immigrants.
The study reveals the case of Saamiya, a 16-year-old girl from Birmingham, whose parents were so angry when they discovered she had a boyfriend that they flew her to Pakistan and told her they had arranged a marriage two hours before the ceremony.
"During the Islamic ceremony my dad was standing behind me with one hand on my shoulder and with his other hand he had a gun which was pointed at my back so that I didn't say 'no'," Saamiya said.
"To everyone else it looked natural — he was just standing there stroking my shoulder — but just before he had told me that he would shoot me if I didn't go through with it."
She was rescued from Pakistan by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's forced marriage unit and now lives in a refuge in the Midlands, but has been told that she will be murdered by her brothers. The girl told investigators: "I haven't been back home since then. My brothers say that they want to take me back to Pakistan so they can kill me basically. They'll just pay the police there to keep quiet... I don't want to be killed. I'm only 16. I want to live my life."
A commenter on the site writes:
I am always stunned at the hypocrisy of some people. "Many Asian parents would rather resort to violence against their children than see their reputation tarnished by the perceived dishonour of allowing them to become "westernised"." But you are quite happy to live here, and in this case, obtain benefits. If being "westernised" is so disgraceful why did you come here? How can you bear to live in this society? Is anyone forcing you to? One day decent people (and that especially includes those who have accepted the westerised way of life), will say "no more". I personally am fed up with being treated like a second rate citizen in my own country, while politicians pander to the whims of an ungrateful few.Graeme, London
I think many come to western society to take advantage of our freedoms and all the benefits and discoveries that come out of a free society -- with the intention of growing their population until they are in enough of a number to turn a free society into a primitive one like the ones they came from.
thanks, lujlp
Hole Foods
photo by Gregg Sutter
Men And Your Eggs
Laura Nolan writes for The Times/UK of men who won't do what many women want, and on the timeline that works for the women. She begins her piece most insultingly:
Men are like eggs. They must hatch or go bad. I came to this conclusion after seeing in the new year with a gang of university friends and hearing one of them, a single guy of 35 called Jamie, declare with complete sincerity that his resolution for 2008 was not to get a girlfriend.I groaned. His vow struck me as odd, not just because Jamie is a remarkably warm, kind and entertaining individual rather than some ropey Lothario, but because I knew him ten years ago when he was mustard keen to marry his then girlfriend. And when I thought harder about it, I realised that over the past decade Jamie has effectively been degenerating from the man he was at 25 years old to the boy he is today.
The person who fell in love and believed that when you found a great girl you counted your blessings and married her has morphed into someone in search of nothing more than a bit of fun, who views any relationship that he can’t get out of at the ping of a text message with genuine unease.
Where have all the men gone? Instead, we have an overload of man-boys – which leaves a generation of single, thirtysomething women who are their natural mates bewildered. I am one of those women.
I am often told that our problem boils down to bad timing. In our early twenties (the age at which our parents tended to meet and marry), we, arguably the first generation of properly educated and professionally ambitious women, were not ready to settle down and start having babies.
By our late twenties many of us did end up reconnecting with our first loves, or met men of a similar age who were still young enough to want to match and hatch. But for those who didn’t, life is increasingly complicated – and infuriating.
Women often complain to me that a guy "won't commit," as if it's his duty to commit to them. As I wrote to Jeff, who sent me the link to this piece:
I find it kind of amazing when women take the anti-Kantian tack of men as a means to their particular end. I think people, men and women, should do what works for them, and those who get insulted that another's behavior doesn't conform to their personal needs should find a way to rejigger those needs...or just accept that there's difficulty in getting what works for them. Whining about it is so unattractive.
Jeff wrote:
Polls show it. Census data show it. More and more, men are refusing to marry or relate to women as they did before. The author thinks men are becoming boys. I think men are reacting rationally to changes in female behavior. In your opinion, is there a problem? If so, what's the cause?
I wrote back:
I think men are reacting differences in possibilities for men, and I think that's fine.
There are men out there who do want to get married and daddy up, and they will. Other men are realizing that marrying is often a fast-track to divorcing, and divorce is typically a situation that benefits women financially, at the expense of men. I'm with this commenter (below Nolan's piece):
I find it a hilarious logical absurdity that women who are frustrated with relationships think that putting down men and belittling them, and treating them like children will get them to change their minds. First off, we are not "man-boys", we are realists. We don't want to marry because we've heard of the countless plethora of no-fault divorces and false abuse claims that rob a man of his entire livelihood. If you saw a puddle of quicksand, would you walk into it? A lot of us don't think it's worth taking the risk. As well, why the hell would a man want to marry somebody who clearly believes women are superior (and only because she can't get laid)? This is evidenced by the fact that the author of the article takes every opportunity to insult men in her article and their unwillingness to commit. I, like everybody, have had troubles with relationships in the past, and I admit, I even started to hate women. But I'm past that now. I realize that desperation is a huge turnoff, u should tooXtrnl, Edmonton, Canada
Nolan continues in her piece, apparently believing that the rest of us wake up or should wake up worrying that she hasn't found "true love" and great sex in a package with lots of hair, washboard abs, and a job running a hedge fund:
Does society really want usto settle for Mr Only OK rather than the real deal? Marriage strikes me as hard enough work without saddling yourself with someone for whom you don’t quite feel all that’s necessary.
Boofrigginghoo. This article is just dripping with a sense of entitlement reminiscent of the one written by the bitchily entitled Tanya Gold, as I blogged here in "Guess What? Men Won't Like You If You're An Insufferable Bitch."
Memo to Laura Nolan: Haven't they told you, dearie?...you can't have it all. Or, as another Times commenter, James Gold, retitled the piece:
"Humourless, Ageing, Jet-set Lady, Wonders Why Blaming Men For Everything, Hasn't Bagged Her A Husband."
Matt Welch Helps McCain Fans Extract Heads From Asses
McCain is the snake charmer candidate, and is working magic especially on all the people who are voting, well, not for character but for appearance of character. Those considering voting for McCain should read Matt Welch's terrific book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, which details how "The Straight Talk Express" is anything but.
In the LA Times, new Reason editor-in-chief Matt Welch shows, once again, how the myth of McCain carries the day, and people believe exactly the opposite about him that is the truth -- that he's anti-war when he's more hawkish than Bush:
It's no mystery why independents gravitate toward McCain. He's a country-first, party-second kind of guy who speaks bluntly and delights in poking fellow Republicans in the eye on issues such as campaign finance reform and global warming.But there's a bizarre disconnect in the warm embrace between McCain and the electorate's mavericks. They hate the Iraq war, while he's willing to fight it for another century. The most pro-war presidential candidate in a decade is winning the 2008 GOP nomination thanks to the antiwar vote.
A full 66% of independents think that the U.S. should completely withdraw from Iraq no later than 12 months from now, according to a Jan. 18-22 L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll. McCain, meanwhile, said last month that the U.S. might stay in Baghdad for another 100 years. He continually expresses bafflement at the idea that that might not be such a good thing. "It's not the point! It's not the point!" he snarled at reporters recently. "How long are we going to be in Korea?"
And yet he dominated the antiwar vote in New Hampshire, with 44% to Romney's 19%, according to CNN exit polls. Ron Paul, the only actual antiwar Republican running, drew just 16% of voters who said they were against the war. The three finished in the same order among antiwar voters in Michigan, even though Romney won the state overall.
The same pattern holds true in the case of voters who despise George W. Bush. In Florida, for example, McCain clobbered Romney 48% to 18% among those who described themselves as "angry" at the president, according to MSNBC exit polls.
So the voters most hostile to the war are backing a potential commander in chief who makes Bush look gun-shy. More than three years before the Bush administration elucidated the radical doctrine of preemptive war, McCain unveiled a plan during his first run at the presidency called "rogue-state rollback," in which "we politically and materially support indigenous forces within and outside of rogue states" -- including Iraq, North Korea and Serbia -- "to overthrow regimes that threaten our interests and values." And if the "odious regimes" crack down on freedom fighters, the U.S. should respond with force. In that campaign, McCain was the neocons' choice against the more internationally "humble" George Bush.
...Still, too many people, wowed by the candidate's considerable charm, have convinced themselves that launching wars is for icky people like that Bush fellow, not Our John. "He knows war," the Des Moines Register wrote, in one of roughly 17,000 newspaper endorsements of McCain over the last two months, "something we believe would make him reluctant to start one." For Californians tempted by such delusions, it's wise to recall the famous words of the last septuagenarian to successfully seek the presidency: Trust, but verify.
Ann Coulter, looking at McCainian conservatism, calls Hillary "our girl."
Here's another LA Times piece by Matt on how "the former POW is not as thoughtful as advertised about the lessons of Vietnam":
I recently obtained a copy of McCain's essay through a Freedom of Information Act request. And, quite unlike the senator's own descriptions of his nine-month course ("to study why and how my country had fought in Vietnam"), the paper isn't actually about any of that. It's instead a relatively technical assessment of how the military's post-Korean War changes to the Code of Conduct for POWs played out on the ground in Vietnam.
More from Matt on the crookedness of the "straight talk" here, in the LA Weekly:
Here's the funny thing about independent voters: They still love John McCain, think he's a straight talker. No matter how many times he claims to run a positive-only campaign on the same day he releases an attack ad; no matter how many ways he violates the spirit of his own campaign-finance legislation (do yourself a favor and Google "The Reform Institute"); no matter how unconvincingly he stammers his way through wanting to make permanent the same tax cuts he eviscerated in 2001 and 2003; no matter how inaccurately he slimes Romney and others for insufficient support of "our troops"; no matter how many immigration bills bearing his name he now opposes; and no matter how many times he confesses to manipulative, ambition-driven lies in his own damned books, independents still come out for their maverick — 42 percent of them in open-primary South Carolina, and 39 percent in New Hampshire....As a direct result of his long media honeymoon, much of what we think we know about McCain is wrong.
As Matt points out in his book, it's not straight talk, it's straight access -- the fact that McCain is the candidate most willing to talk to the media -- that gives McCain his reputation of being a truth teller, along with all the other McCain-serving myths about the man.
Personally, I think Obama has a very good chance of becoming our next president, not because of what he stands for, but because everyone is so utterly sick of the oiliness of all the rest, and he's only one who seems "inspiring." Am I saying that, in this country, we don't vote for character but for appearance of character? Well, pretty much, yes. Will McCain beat him or come in a close second for that reason? Probably.
Welcome Back To The Cave
We live in "evolutionarily novel" times -- meaning that we encounter all sorts of things every day that our stone-age-developed human psychology isn't very prepared for.
Good piece in Psychology Today by Maia Szalavitz on how poor our little antique brains are at risk assessment. An excerpt:
I. We Fear Snakes, Not CarsRisk and emotion are inseparable.
Fear feels like anything but a cool and detached computation of the odds. But that's precisely what it is, a lightning-fast risk assessment performed by your reptilian brain, which is ever on the lookout for danger. The amygdala flags perceptions, sends out an alarm message, and—before you have a chance to think—your system gets flooded with adrenaline. "This is the way our ancestors evaluated risk before we had statistics," says Paul Slovic, president of Decision Research. Emotions are decision-making shortcuts.
As a result of these evolved emotional algorithms, ancient threats like spiders and snakes cause fear out of proportion to the real danger they pose, while experiences that should frighten us—like fast driving—don't. Dangers like speedy motorized vehicles are newcomers on the landscape of life. The instinctive response to being approached rapidly is to freeze. In the ancestral environment, this reduced a predator's ability to see you—but that doesn't help when what's speeding toward you is a car.
II. We Fear Spectacular, Unlikely Events
Fear skews risk analysis in predictable ways.
Fear hits primitive brain areas to produce reflexive reactions before the situation is even consciously perceived. Because fear strengthens memory, catastrophes such as earthquakes, plane crashes, and terrorist incidents completely capture our attention. As a result, we overestimate the odds of dreadful but infrequent events and underestimate how risky ordinary events are. The drama and excitement of improbable events make them appear to be more common. The effect is amplified by the fact that media tend to cover what's dramatic and exciting, Slovic notes. The more we see something, the more common we think it is, even if we are watching the same footage over and over.
After 9/11, 1.4 million people changed their holiday travel plans to avoid flying. The vast majority chose to drive instead. But driving is far more dangerous than flying, and the decision to switch caused roughly 1,000 additional auto fatalities, according to two separate analyses comparing traffic patterns in late 2001 to those the year before. In other words, 1,000 people who chose to drive wouldn't have died had they flown instead.
More good stuff at the link above.
In The Tradition Of P.T. Barnum
Hitchens on Mother Theresa and other exploiters in the name of religion in Free Inquiry:
Even though I have sometimes described her as a fraud (for her collusion with rich oppressors of the poor like the Duvalier family in Haiti and for her other corrupt dealings), I would now hesitate to put Mother Teresa in the same category as a Falwell, a Haggard, a Sharpton, or a Robertson. These men have never done a day’s real work in their lives and are or were simple parasites who pinch themselves every morning at their good fortune at living the easy life of exploiting the gullible. For them, religion is nothing more than a trade, or a racket.The same, I think, can be said of the numberless clerics convicted of child-rape (why on earth do we allow ourselves the silly euphemism of “abuse”?). Their foul crime is not one of hypocrisy. No priest who sincerely believed even for ten seconds in divine judgment could conceivably endanger his immortal soul in this way, and those in the hierarchy who helped protect such men from punishment in this world are equally and obviously guilty of a hardened and ob scene cynicism.
To any humanist, for example, it’s perfectly obvious that the city of Calcutta would benefit from an influx of volunteer nurses, doctors, inoculators, sewage experts, and others, just as it would not benefit from the attentions of people who regard poverty and death as a secondhand share in the "mystery" of the Crucifixion. There are actually quite a good number of activists of the first type (I spent some time there once, watch ing the great Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado do his work for UNICEF documenting the massive campaign for vaccination against polio), but for some weird reason the only person anyone can name is a woman who spent her entire life campaigning against birth control—a stupid campaign that Bengal most definitely did not and does not need.
Is it not possible that the missionaries of "faith" regard the objects of their charity as mere raw material—human subjects for a tortured experiment in their own psyches? It seems that, the more Mother Teresa lost conviction in the teachings of her religion, the more energetically she silenced her doubts by ostentatious crusades against divorce, abortion, and contraception using "the poorest of the poor" as her backdrop and her excuse. And does this not degrade such work as she actually did? For her, the helpless beggar was just that—helpless, to be sure, yet for that reason easily available for her own exhausting propaganda. The case for assisting starving Bengalis is complete on its own terms, but most of the money raised for the "Missionaries of Charity" went—as Mother Teresa herself happily admitted—to the building of convents that were consecrated, in effect, to her own ambition and her own very extreme teaching of Catholic dogma. These preach ings went dead against the only certain cure for poverty—the emancipation of women from the status and condition of breeding machines—that the human race has ever discovered.
Read the whole thing, as Reynolds would say. Up there at the link.