Cole on the GOP

John Cole of Balloon Juice weighs in on why the GOP is "in shambles:"

For starters, people got tired of being associated with these drooling retards. Then, when they realized that these drooling retards had ideological allies running the show in the Bush administration and then began to experience their idiotic policies, they moved from disgusted to outright hostile.

Like me. It had nothing to do with Burke, and everything to do with what the party had become. A bunch of bedwetting, loudmouth, corrupt, hypocritical, and incompetent boobs with a mean streak a mile long and no sense of fair play or proportion.

Elmo Volunteers to Explain War Injuries to Children

From MSNBC:

NEW YORK - It’s not your typical Sesame Street episode. There are no lessons in letters or numbers, but there are plenty of hugs and lots of talk about feelings.

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces the hit kids’ show, is working on a DVD that will be distributed to military families. It’s designed to help injured veterans talk about their disabilities with their children.

{snip}

More than a million children have parents who are in the military and have been deployed in the last six years. And roughly 18,000 military personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan have been wounded or injured seriously enough to be evacuated.

In the new production, Rosita, a fluffy blue mop-headed muppet, is upset because her father has returned home in a wheelchair. Rosita angrily refers to the wheelchair as “that thing” and reminisces about the days when she could dance to salsa music and kick a ball with her dad.

With encouragement from Elmo, Rosita musters the nerve to talk with her parents about how she is feeling.

“Sometimes I feel a little sad, because things are so different now,” Rosita says during a family outing to the park. “I wish your legs were OK, Papi, and I wish you didn’t have to go to the doctor so much. And I just wish things could go back to the way they were!”

Rosita’s father tells her that although he may have changed, his love for her hasn’t. And he persuades her to hop on the back of his wheelchair so the two can try a new kind of dancing.

{snip}

Knell said Sesame Street is trying to model behavior and provide the vocabulary for parents who need extra help. “In many cases, Mommy and Daddy or caregivers may not have the tools necessary to deal with these very tough-to-teach issues,” Knell said.

Psychiatry professor Stephen Cozza of Uniformed Services University, which trains military doctors, said a parent’s injury or emotional problem is often “a big white elephant in the room that nobody’s talking about.”

{snip}

While the program doesn’t directly address emotional disorders faced by an estimated 20 percent of returning veterans, the DVD can help frame family conversations around that too, Cozza said.

Leslye Arsht, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, said Sesame Street is doing something that isn’t easy for the military to tackle alone.

“There is no more credible voice for 3- to 5-year-olds than the voices of Elmo ... and parents trust him too,” Arsht said.

Army Maj. David Rozelle agreed. An amputee who spends time counseling others, Rozelle was injured in Iraq before becoming a parent to two young children.

“These little people our kids trust so much can explain limb loss and help kids cope,” he said. “We don’t do it very well ourselves.”

The statistics on deaths and injuries obviously only deal with the very tip of the iceberg. The costs of the war are nearly incalculable.

Murder, Negligent Homicide, or Taking Care of Business?

Interesting debate at Blackfive in the comments regarding the incident involving US Marines at Haditha.

The official, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, said in a recommendation obtained by the North County Times that rather than face murder charges, squad leader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich should be tried for the lesser offense of negligent homicide in the deaths of five children and two women.

Ware recommended 10 other murder charges against Wuterich be dismissed.

"I believe after reviewing all the evidence that no trier of fact can conclude Staff Sgt. Wuterich formed the criminal intent to kill," Ware wrote in reference to the women and children. "When a Marine fails to exercise due care and civilians die, the charge of negligent homicide, and not murder, is appropriate."

Blackfive blogger Uncle Jimbo made what I thought to be a reasonable analysis:

While I know that many would have preferred that no charges at all be filed, I believe that LTC Ware's judgment is proper. The actions taken by SSgt Wuterich were not designed to kill innocent Iraqis, but they certainly did, and his choices should be scrutinized. It took a generous reading of the ROE to justify the shootings and he may not even face the negligent homicide charges. But in my mind it shows that accountability matters to the Marine Corps and even if he is convicted on those charges, he and the other Marines involved are owed a huge apology from the lummox Murtha.

But most of Uncle Jimbo's readers don't see it that way. And that is troublesome.

"Mom, You've Got Homework Again in Mr. Frye's Class!"

Interesting approach. Somewhat amazed the guy is getting away with it.

From The New York Times:

The parents of Damion Frye’s ninth-grade students are spending their evenings this fall doing something they thought they had left behind long ago: homework.

So far, Mr. Frye, an English teacher at Montclair High School, has asked the parents to read and comment on a Franz Kafka story, Section 1 of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Their newest assignment is a poem by Saul Williams, a poet, musician and rapper who lives in Los Angeles. The ninth graders complete their assignments during class; the parents are supposed to write their responses on a blog Mr. Frye started online.

If the parents do not comply, Mr. Frye tells them, their child’s grade may suffer — a threat on which he has made good only once in the three years he has been making such assignments.

The point, he said, is to keep parents involved in their children’s ’ education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement. So, Mr. Frye said, he decided to help out.

“Parents complain about never getting to see their kids’ work,” he said. “Now they have to.”

Some parents, he added, seem happy to revisit their high school years.

“There was one parent last year who would write pages and pages of stuff. It was great, so good to read,” said Mr. Frye, who graduated from Montclair High in 1994.

Others are more resistant. “When my daughter told me about the homework, I looked at her and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I graduated. I’m done,’” said Lydia Bishop, a local real estate broker whose daughter Vanessa was in Mr. Frye’s class last year. “I did it very resentfully, but I did it.”

Inaugural Friday Cat Blogging

This is Mr. Allen. Allen is about 20 - 25 lbs of declawed fluffy love. Strictly indoor patrol. Loves to wrestle. Very talkative (part Siamese). Major part of my and Genna's life.

The lamely named Little Kitty. Little Kitty showed up last winter. Genna called me from the driveway to tell me to bring some cat food out. A famished kitty gobbled it up and has been on steady patrol ever since, putting on several pounds. Genna sprang for a $200 outdoor, padded, insulated cat house only to watch Little Kitty snuggle up in a planter full of potting soil.

Putting food on the deck for Little Kitty kind of started a soup kitchen for the local wildlife. We get plenty of possums and there's a wily raccoon who has figured out the feeding schedule. Additionally, there was this cream colored kitty that we would see flash by upon occasion but who would run off the instant he was spotted. Very slowly he got used to us and now comes up to us for pets and will even let us hold him. Missing tail, hence the not-quite-as-lame name of Bobby. Bobby has the most musical purr, singing/purring one note as he breathes in and another as he breathes out.

Rainbow Over Whiteside Cove

click for much larger image

Taken from the deck of my grandmother's house last spring after a monster thunderstorm had just passed through the valley.

Xenophobia Meets the Stupids

• Mexican-American citizen owns business that looks to be a bar in Reno, Nevada.
• Flies Mexican flag above American flag on pole in front of business.
• Someone takes a break from busy life and calls local TV station to inform them of national emergency.
  
• Slow news day plus questionable decision made by news editor equals news team dispatched to bar.
• As cameraman approaches, a feller who claims to be a vet and claims that the provenance of the long knife in his hand also is from the US Army, lowers flags and liberates Stars & Stripes while tossing the Mexican flag to the ground. Makes profound statement.
• Cowed bar owner retrieves Mexican flag and goes back into bar.

But then it really goes to weird, as the local anchor who clearly was doing her makeup in civics class offers up this profound inanity:

"Federal law states it is illegal to fly any flag above an American flag."

And then she goes on to give proof she doesn't understand what it means for something to be a federal law nor does she understand federalism:

"The penalties for these laws vary from state to state."

This excellent website lays out all of proper flag etiquette, which for better or worse, as the site explains, has never risen to federal law. The anchor would have been correct to note that the bar owner was indeed violating flag etiquette as opposed to a federal law. {There is federal flag CODE but, again, not any criminal law}

There are state laws about flag displays. In Nevada for instance, there is a law which states:

"...it is a misdemeanor for anyone to deface or defile the U.S. flag or the Nevada state flag. The law also forbids the use of such flags for advertising or publicity purposes."

What's interesting here is that it is illegal to use the flag for advertising which is why car dealerships across the country vie to see which one can fly the biggest flag....because they support the troops.

Wolf over at milblog Blackfive has put his finger on who is to blame for this sad state of affairs:

"Teachers, Professors, Police, Politicians, Neighbors, Lawyers, Politicians, The President, The Governor, The Mayor, Congressmen, Senators, Legislators, Bosses, Students, Colleges, Schools, Principals, Politicians, Kids, Parents, Internet, TV, Radio, Howard Stern, Mancow, Foreigners, Al Qaeda, Islamists, The French, Movies, Hollywood, California, Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, Politicians, Schools, Councilmen, Lawyers..."

I and my fellow teachers are at the top of the anti-flag conspiracy. Hmmm. We all fly one in our classrooms. Actually, I have several, including my favorite, the Gadsden flag (pictured at the top of this post) which was first seen on the battlefield of Bunker Hill in the American Revolution, considered by many historians to be the first American flag, which is hoisted in all its 3x5' glory.

I love my country and I love the flag, all versions of it. But I sure don't like xenophobia. And xenophobia married to militarism with a stiff case believing anyone who doesn't support a war of choice is unpatriotic, is gross, obnoxious, and has nothing to do with what the flag, and more importantly, what the Constitution stands for.

If Wolf's lessons of democracy are what we are to be inculcating in Iraq, if the "deciders" have a firm a grasp of civics as the Reno anchor, then the whole enterprise is doomed, not to mention the trouble we've got here at the house.

{The YOUTUBE video cuts the anchor commentary, but you can watch the whole un-edited nastiness here}

Mark Morford Goes to Whole Foods

..Why the hell can't this be the way of American business overall?

It's like some sort of drug, something warm and happy and dangerous and visceral they inject into the lighting system or mist all over the carefully constructed mountains of pornographic produce or slather all over the nearly religious seafood and meat departments because, oh my sweet Jesus with a Le Creuset ramekin and 10 pounds of artisanal Gruyere, there really is something frighteningly addictive about the glorious hellbeast grocerypalooza known as Whole Foods.

It's like this otherworldly vibration, this wickedly overblown slice of succulent, obnoxious, must-have lifestyle nirvana for the health-conscious semi-progressive well-moneyed hipster set and also those who really, really want to think of themselves as such.

And best/worst of all, it's all overlaid with this amazing sheen of healthy, pro-green, socially responsible attitude that effortlessly chips away at your cynicism and seems to suggest a bit more of a statement than just, you know, "Hey kids, if you shop here, if you buy into the ethos and if you eat the right kind of organic lettuce and can afford our huge tubs of crab-artichoke bisque, well, you are on the right track. You are, in fact, approaching enlightenment."

{snip}

Because here's the thing: While it's terribly easy to accuse the joint of being the very embodiment of pseudo-progressive ideals wrapped in pitch-perfect marketing that goes so far beyond a mere grocery store, so far beyond the place you need to dash into to grab some sour cream and a pack of condoms, there is indeed something more to this joint's existence, something that, in the age of bloated Wal-Marts and tract homes like a cancer and a president with a fifth-grader's vocabulary, is actually worth celebrating.

I mean, my God. Merely skimming the company's own press releases, reading up on its various foundations, its commitment to transparency in how it does business and the issues it faces as a so-called "do-gooder" company, its current No. 5 ranking in the Forbes list of the 100 best companies to work for, its surprisingly progressive positions on supporting local farmers and promoting sustainability and humane animal treatment, its commitment to community, its overall dedication to minimizing chemicals and additives and all the mountains of toxic crap our country swims in like a noxious river, well, it's tough not to sit back and go: Wait, if they can do it, why the hell can't this be the way of American business overall?

{snip}

Because it turns out — hey wow and go figure — you can actually make a great deal of money by, you know, caring about the products you sell and the people you sell them to. It turns out it might actually be possible to run a large, profitable corporation and still have something resembling a conscience, an idea that seems almost antithetical to the brutal capitalist ideal of money-uber-alles.

Yes, Whole Foods is far from perfect. Yes, the large-scale "industrial organic" model the store adheres to, as Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" so expertly lays out, has its share of major drawbacks. Yes, maybe I've just been suckered in and drunk the organic Kool-Aid. And yes, far too many of the yuppie moms who shop there have the same $400 strollers and the same Range Rovers and the same perky haircut. Whatever.

The truth remains: Would that more businesses behaved this way. Would that more corporations were cursed with a conscience, a sense of community and decency and an overall ethos of holistic health. Plus the damnable place makes you want to eat better and cook more and spend your kids' college fund on fresh duck sausage and 10 bottles of tawny port and a case of organic grass-fed free-range lube. What's not to like?

One might not like the fact that Whole Foods is "corporationy" but in Asheville we have two other alternatives, Earth Fare and Green Life which I basically cannot tell apart except for the fact that for some aesthetic twitch, I still prefer Dorothy Lane Market in Dayton, OH.

Questionable Devolving to Bizarre

From Education Week:

Questionable...

The issue of whether teachers should be permitted to carry guns in schools has once again triggered heated debate among educators and lawmakers, this time in Oregon and Michigan.

The Oregon case involves a lawsuit filed by a high school teacher in the 12,400-student Medford school district who contends she should be allowed to carry a licensed concealed weapon on campus.

The teacher, who has a restraining order against her ex-husband, denied to authorities that she was carrying a gun at school. But she filed suit in the Jackson County Circuit Court on Sept. 18, under the pseudonym “Jane Doe,” claiming that her concealed-weapons permit should allow her to carry a gun on school grounds.

Oregon law allows anyone with a concealed-weapons license to carry guns into public buildings, but most school districts have rules barring employees from carrying weapons onto school grounds.

Bizarre......

In Michigan, meanwhile, state Rep. David Agema, a Republican, has introduced a bill that would give districts the option of allowing a teacher with firearm certification to have access to a registered gun on school grounds.

“We have recent federal reports that al-Qaida is targeting our schools, which are sitting targets,” said Trevor Z. Pittsley, a spokesman for Rep. Agema. “This bill is not at all about guns. It’s about keeping our kids safe.”

I admit that I have been caught fully unaware that AQ had me and my fellow teachers and students in their cross-hairs. I'm sure a handgun will thwart their pitiful plot. Maybe we can use it to shoot the survivors in the death throes of an anthrax attack.

Contemporary Political Discourse

Ed Brayton of Dispatches From the Culture Wars gives us Maxim #1: (using the revived Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill spat as an illustration)

When I offered the possibility that the stories Hill told may well have been true and still not be a genuine case of sexual harassment, I was immediately attacked from both sides; the liberals claiming that I was obviously a sexist who thinks all women are liars, while the conservatives were claiming that I'm obviously biased against Thomas, probably because he's black, for even suggesting that he could possibly have made a few crude comments. And that, sadly, is pretty normal for political discourse these days.

It's not enough that our political opponents be wrong, they must be evil. We can't just explain why we think they're wrong, we have to imagine some glaringly obvious character flaw that explains why they're wrong. I'm sure I'm guilty of this from time to time myself, but it's something we should all try and avoid as much as possible.

Partisan politics is far too much like sports rivalries. Once you begin to identify yourself as an advocate of X and an opponent of Y, it is all too easy to set up cognitive filters that distort the way we see reality. The X filter strains out any information that might cause one to question X, while the Y filter strains out any information that might cause one to consider Y.

We build up simplistic dichotomies with entirely different standards for belief and we begin to think solely in terms of Us and Them. If one of Us is accused something wrong, we demand absolute proof before we'll accept it; if one of Them is accused of doing something wrong, the mere allegation is all the proof necessary. After all, we all know what They are like, don't we?

Yep

Pulp Fiction Suitcase

What was in the suitcase that Jules and Vincent had to retrieve?

This makes sense to me.

Sir Al

click for larger image

Moonshine Patriot's take on the Diane Sawyer/Jenna Bush Interview

From the Moonshine Patriot

Sawyer: who is the disciplinarian in the family mom or dad

Jenna: Grandma Barbara that woman is pure evil

{snip}

Diane: describe yur fiancee

Jenna: he's outdoorsy he's a lumberjack and he's okay

Diane: but he's really political

Jenna: no not really he only worked with karl rove to get ahead
Diane: does he get to sleep with Not Jenna

Jenna: yes i will be traveling alot

Diane: what will you do differently from Chimpy and the Joker

Jenna: well based on their example and my whole family i think we'll just skip the whole having kids thing

Diane Sawyer: yes three generations of imbeciles is probably enough

Diane: your dad is teh most powerful man in teh hemisphere

Jenna: yes I’ve learned to read and met black people

Diane: you wrote a book

Jenna: yes its like bob marley meets a Bennetton ad

A Heart Touched, a Mind Opened

Things we never said come together
The hidden truth no longer haunting me
Tonight we touched on the things that were never spoken
That kind of understanding sets me free
--Elton John


Mark Morford reports:

It was one of those surreal, suspended moments, an unexpected little hiccup in the otherwise bleak sociopolitical continuum where you couldn’t help but pause and gasp and sit back and let your bitter cynicism and your hard-won ennui fall away and actually allow yourself, for now, just this once, really and truly believe what you were seeing.

Could it really be happening? Was there really any way in hell a straight white male BushCo-era Republican would dare step up to a live microphone in front of a TV camera in a major American city and honestly admit that, well, he was wrong, and he is very sorry, and he has now officially reversed his position and now fully supports gay marriage and will actually sign a city council resolution acknowledging and advocating same?

And furthermore could this politician, during said cynicism-defying announcement, actually choke back tears — real, human tears, not the fake, creepy kind you see from, say, Ted Haggard or Larry Craig or Lynne Cheney after four martinis and an hour staring at her husband — such a genuine display of emotion that you can’t help but think it might actually be coupled to a living, breathing human soul?

Yes, it happened. Just recently, down in San Diego. Jerry Sanders is the politico, and he’s apparently very much a (moderate) Republican mayor and a former police chief, and he apparently has a gay daughter no one really knew was gay and members of his mayoral staff are also gay and somehow, some way, both these facts played into his decision to reverse his position on gay marriage and go public in what has to be one of the most honest, humble and heartfelt public displays of ideological evolution by a Republican since … well, I can’t even think of any. Can you?

Coming Home

My hometown of Highlands, NC lost its soul for me sometime in the 1980s. Fritzie Sheumaker traveled back to Highlands recently to visit her father's grave at the Highlands Cemetery and wrote this wonderful account. Her writing captures the town the way it was.

When I was growing up, I thought all cemeteries were like this one -- unbelievably sited, landscaped, and secluded. If you ever go to Highlands, the cemetery is a must see, especially in the fall when the leaves are in full crimson and gold. The trees nestle the graves, creating a sacred space and the orientation is sloped towards the west so that the setting sun is visible before it fades below the ridgeline, casting long shadows over the soft rolling grass terraces.

Coming Home

"Bul-l-l-y!" Buzz Beaty would call loudly across the street whenever my father would drive by the corner filling station. Any number of fishing buddies, hunting cronies, and drinking companions habitually lounged outside the two-pump Sinclair Gas and Oil. Propped back in a motley collection of second-hand chairs, the men acted as sentries whose main purpose was keeping up with the comings and goings of townsfolk and visitors in tiny Highlands, North Carolina. Affectionately called Billy by most, my father would raise his arm in salute to the group, and, more often than not, drop by for an exchange of comfortable old fish stories, inside jokes, and outrageous lies. Long before Gomer and Goober, the gas station group included native sons with names like Buzz, Dead-Eye, Jimbo, and Pee-Wee.

{snip}

Highlands always grew in the summer months. During the winter, its population was little more than 500, and most of those folk were related to five or six big families. June brought what we called "the summer people," mostly wealthy Georgians and Floridians escaping to the cool mountain air. Their summer "cottages" were usually large homes with spacious lawns and breathtaking views, and many year-round Highlands residents made their living building, painting, repairing, or cleaning these houses. Summer was a bustling time, and even the boys at the Sinclair station had to cut back on their lounging time. Still, the only traffic jam in the 1950's was two cars stopping at the town's one traffic light at the Bill's Soda Shop corner.

Bill's was a great place for ice cream or cherry Cokes. The little shop boasted a Formica counter and vinyl covered stools as well as several tables for two with curved-back ice cream parlor chairs. Two huge pinball machines dominated one wall. They had impressive light and sound effects, and the rousing TILT alarms could be heard on the sidewalk outside. A big attraction was the magazine rack where browsing was welcome and expected. One end of the rack held comic books, and I bought my childhood copies of Superman, Archie, and Little Lulu at Bill's.

Across the street was the Highlander Restaurant with substantial country fare offered inside and a row of newspaper vending machines outside. In summer one could buy the Miami Herald and Saint Petersburg Times (only a day or two old), but in winter only the Asheville Citizen box held papers. The Highlander smelled of coffee and fried everything, and its shiny red counter stools were usually full. My father would bring me here for hot chocolate after we had dropped my sister and cousins off at school. Sipping the hot liquid, I would listen to Daddy talk politics with the regulars.

Next door was Potts' Market. Owned by my mother's uncle, the grocery was a compact affair of shelves and produce bins up front and the meat case in the rear. Cousin Steve, in his blood-stained apron, managed the artful cutting of roasts and steaks to display in the glass case. We did our shopping here, of course, but often our groceries were delivered to the back door at home. The Potts family dominated the adjacent US Post Office as well, with my mother, cousin Bud, and my Uncle Nick all working to sort and post the Highlands mail. "My daddy doesn't have a job, but my mama works at the post office," my sister had once announced to neighbors. Since Daddy traveled and had no office to visit, Becky concluded he surely was unemployed.

{snip}

Leaving downtown, we passed the new post office. A few old homes on this street looked the same, but rows of condominiums had replaced many familiar landmarks. At the stop sign, I noticed the lot once occupied by Crane's Riding stable was now home to a row of silver Airstream trailer homes. They were neatly positioned and surrounded with bright flowers. The same stream where we had watered the horses bubbled through, and I had to admit even a trailer park was an improvement over the stable. Neatness was never a strong suit for the Cranes, and the area around the stable was always squishy from a trickling water hose, mud, and horse manure. The building itself was a tumble-down row of stalls with ill-fitting doors and lopsided walls. Bridles and halters hung haphazardly on nails, and the Cranes themselves had learned a lot about lounging from the boys at the Sinclair station. Nevertheless, my sister and I had enjoyed many rides with Oscar and Chester Crane as we imagined ourselves as characters in National Velvet or My Friend Flicka.

{snip}

Positioned on three tiers of sloping hillside, the cemetery was surrounded by dense forest. Well beyond the tops of the most distant trees, a line of the stately Appalachian mountains rose and fell against the blue sky. The mountains extended to the horizon and the farthest peaks were themselves a dark blue. The air was clear and as quiet as a majestic cathedral. Here and there among the headstones were outcroppings of granite, making the man-made markers look almost natural. It was a beautiful scene with the right to be termed a bit of heaven on earth. As I welcomed the compassionate embrace of family and friends gathered at Daddy's graveside, I thought, Daddy, it is exactly as I remembered. Welcome home.

I knew Jimbo and Dead-eye. I spent my youth playing pinball at Bill's, ate God knows how many meals at the Highlander and rode the worn out horses at Crane's. I relished the 50 cent movie matinées at the Galax Theater. A kid on a spyder bike with a banana seat, I could go anywhere as long as I was home by 5:45 for dinner.

One detail left out was the window between the theater lobby and a diner called Prof's, owned by a long-time teacher and principal, Prof Newton. You could get a hot dog, cheeseburger, fries, cherry smashes -- anything -- at the Prof's window and go enjoy the flick. I grew up in paradise.

"A Big Family of Shits"

Louis Auchincloss tears back the veil on a slice of upper echelon WASP society and its not so pleasant impact on the country.

From the Financial Times:

As Vidal complained in the same essay for the New York Review of Books, “of all our novelists, Auchincloss is the only one who tells us how our rulers behave in their banks and their boardrooms, their law offices and their clubs. Yet such is the vastness of our society and the remoteness of academics and bookchatterers from actual power that those who should be most in this writer’s debt have no idea what a useful service he renders us by revealing and, in some ways, betraying his class.”

{snip}

“It is a myth,” he continues, that a once great and powerful class of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants has been pushed aside; the ruling class has simply eliminated the ethnic and religious bars to entry, and expanded. “Proust studied this very carefully,” he says. “He understood that society would take in anybody it wants.”

Indeed, at the very centre of American politics is the great dynastic Wasp story of our time, the Bush family (both presidents: Philips Andover – America’s Eton – Yale, Skull and Bones). Surely this is the grist for a great society novel? Auchincloss demurs. “I just think the Bushes are a big family of shits,” he says with a sibilant hiss, “they might have existed anywhere.” The statement sits oddly with the photograph on the mantelpiece, which is of the Bushes welcoming Auchincloss to the Oval Office after he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2005. “That’s because all the grandchildren are there,” he replies, noting that he has received an enormous amount of grief from friends over the picture. As befits a lawyer, his defence is a touch legalistic: “I didn’t accept a prize from George W Bush, I accepted a prize from the President of the United States. Who am I to turn that down? The grandchildren had a lovely time!”

“I used to say to my father,” he says, “ ‘If my class at Yale ran this country, we would have no problems.’ And the irony of my life is that they did.” He pauses before invoking a 20th-century American foreign-policy who’s who: “There was Cy Vance, Bill Scranton, Ted Beale, both Bundys, Bill and McGeorge – they all got behind that war in Vietnam and they pushed it as far as they could. And we lost a quarter of a million men. They were all idealistic, good, virtuous,” says Auchincloss, “the finest men you could find. It was the most disillusioning thing that happened in my life.”

Moonshine Patriot on Hitch and Moveon

Todd: Moveon is like Chris Hitchens they're fun and you used to like them - but then they keep showing up at parties drunk and pissing on the carpet yelling ‘fuck you all’

More here.

Colbert on Blogs

Pretty scathing critique of armchair activism

Coen Bros. Movie Premise

Man dies after armless artist's head-butt:

SNELLVILLE, Ga. - Police are investigating the death of a man who collapsed after he was head-butted by an armless man in a fight over a woman. Snellville Police Chief Roy Whitehead said the two men, Charles Keith Teer and William Russell Redfern, scuffled Monday afternoon in the driveway of a suburban Atlanta home.

Police say Redfern, who was born with no right arm and only a short stump for his left arm, kicked Teer and Teer hit Redfern during the fight, which was due to long-standing bad blood over a woman who once dated Teer and now dates Redfern.

After bystanders separated them, Redfern "came back and head-butted (Teer) one time," Whitehead said.

Teer complained of feeling dizzy, collapsed and died, Whitehead said.

{snip}

Known by the nickname "Rusty," Redfern made a name for himself in the late 1980s for pen and ink drawings he does using his foot.

{snip}

According to the site, he started Redfern Originals Inc. in 1987, producing Christmas cards, stationery and limited-edition prints.

At least it happened in Georgia and not North Carolina

Doghouse Riley on the Patriot Scandal

Doghouse Riley is an irascible, aged Hoosier with wicked, literate, funny-as-hell acid in his pen. He posts on a wide variety of socio/poli/cultural issues as well as mockingly complaining about his wife henpecking him to complete home improvement projects.

He nails the Belichick spy story in my opinion.

NICE of NBC to make room in its innovative Sunday Night Football halftime show (it's four guys sitting around a table, but...only two of them are ex-jocks! And they aren't all yelling all the time! ) for an Al Michaels taped interview with Pats owner Robert Kraft (opening question: "Bob, did you have any knowledge of this practice before this week?" surprising answer: "Of course I did, Al. I've been directing it for years from my personal nuclear sub. There's just something so exciting about it. I started peeping into girls' restrooms when I was four, you know"). Because god knows in the roughly two hours of football I'd watched to that point--just football, no pre-game, halftime, or Sunday morning analysis type--I'd heard only twenty minutes or so of low-cal apologias for systematic electronic cheating of the remarkably hubristic American sort. In a game! We can no longer expect all our fellow citizens to agree that a game should be played by the rules.

Don't get me wrong. It's nice to see the Corporate Apology Kabuki in action every now and then. It reminds us why we have a Fourteenth Amendment.

One of the unexpected insights of old age is this: in a Universe of constant change, the only changes that actually matter to people are the ones which are beneath insignificance. If you buy a new suit, the third time you wear it in public young people will nudge each other and snigger at the ancient relic you've draped yourself in. A supreme non-talent like Ms Spears fumbles and stumbles her way through a lip-sync'd stroll among professional dancers--which aside from her inexplicably fascinating personal life is her one claim to fleeting fame--and the whole country goes out of its collective gourd. Yet the administration runs a Reader's Digest version of Vietnam and gets re-elected in the teeth of it a year-and-a-half later.

Make sure you read the whole thing.

The Tell-Tale Tape Recorder

The guilty convict themselves.

From The NYTimes:

Cable talking heads and gossip Web site owners covering the latest O.J. Simpson news can’t believe their lucky stars that an audio recording apparently from the incident has somehow emerged.

But the ex-wife of one of the suspects says it’s actually quite common for folks around the football great and former murder defendant to have a tape rolling.

“Many people carry recorders around him to see if they can catch him slipping to make money,” said Debbie Alexander, 41, former wife of Walter Alexander, 46, of Mesa, Arizona.

No doubt I now grew VERY pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND -- MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON. I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why WOULD they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. O God! what COULD I do? I foamed -- I raved -- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly , and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! -- no, no? They heard! -- they suspected! -- they KNEW! -- they were making a mockery of my horror! -- this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! -- and now -- again -- hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER! --

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

A Better iPhone for ....$133

From The Japan Times:

SANCHUNG, Taipei

At the end of an alley in Taiwan's most violent city, a black Mercedes-Benz sedan blocks a sliding-glass door that opens only from within. Inside, technophiles can buy iPhone knockoffs for two-thirds the legitimate price.

With a touch-screen and Apple Inc.'s logo on the back, the "iClones" look just like the real thing. Apple won't offer iPhones — which combine a phone, music and video player with wireless Internet — in Asia until 2008. The owner of the shop in Sanchung, a Taipei suburb, says he began selling "aifungs" in December, six months before the iPhone went on sale in the U.S.

"We can't ignore iPhone because it's so hot," says Ben, who spoke on condition he be identified only by his first name because selling pirated phones is illegal.

The clones show how fast Asian counterfeiters move. Ben says his company designed the fakes from pictures posted on the Internet before Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January. Knockoffs cost the global economy $650 billion annually, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates. Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock wouldn't discuss how much the company loses as a result of phony products.

{snip}

"The guts aren't hard," Ben says. "The hard part is the design and the exterior."

{snip}

In Sanchung, Ben's clones carry a notice in fractured English that reads: "Waring. It will break the law without authorized by Apple Inc., if you use 'iPhone' logo on any electronic pruducts."

While the knockoffs resemble iPhones, they don't use Apple software. Ben says his phones have the advantage of working on any network, while iPhones connect only to AT&T Inc.'s system.

"It's the exterior we are imitating," Ben says. "If customers want functions, we can offer more and much better functions than the real phone."

"My iPhone-Fu is Greater Than Your's Mr. Jobs."

More iPhone clones and killers here.

Global Warming = Drowning in a Sea of Mammoth Shit

Actual mammoth dung....no shit!

I guess we might as well drill ANWAR if this is what we've got to look forward to:

DUVANNY YAR, Russia - Sergei Zimov bends down, picks up a handful of syrupy mud and holds it up to his nose. It smells like a cow pat, but he knows better.

“It smells like mammoth dung,” he says.

This is more than just another symptom of global warming.

For millennia, layers of animal waste and other organic matter left behind by the creatures that used to roam the Arctic tundra have been sealed inside the frozen permafrost. Now climate change is thawing the permafrost and lifting this prehistoric ooze from suspended animation.

But Zimov, a scientist who for almost 30 years has studied climate change in Russia’s Arctic, believes that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will accelerate global warming faster than even some of the most pessimistic forecasts.

“This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impossible to stop,” he said.

When the organic matter left behind by mammoths and other wildlife is exposed to the air by the thawing permafrost, his theory runs, microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years spring back into action.

As a by-product they emit carbon dioxide and — even more damaging in terms of its impact on the climate — methane gas.

According to Zimov, the microbes are going to start emitting these gases in enormous quantities.

Here in Yakutia, a region in the northeastern corner of Siberia, the belt of permafrost containing the mammoth-era soil covers an area roughly the size of France and Germany combined. There is even more of it elsewhere in Siberia.

“The deposits of organic matter in these soils are so gigantic that they dwarf global oil reserves,” Zimov said.

U.S. government statistics show mankind emits about 7 billion metric tons of carbon a year.

“Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tons of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases,” Zimov said. “If you don’t stop emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere ... the Kyoto Protocol (an international pact aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions) will seem like childish prattle.”

Hmmm. I say we throw Mr. False Prophet himself, Senator Inhofe in the lake of sulfur:

"As I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003, "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations."

"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Revelation 20:10

Haunted Child's Room

If you are easily scared, keep the lights on. Truly unnerving.

http://view.break.com/312640 - Watch more free videos

Beyond Dilettantism...

Enrevanche points us to a very cool Ask Metafilter thread:

"What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization within your field) to laypeople?"

As Brother Barry points out, betcha can't just order one book.

I think my first one will be bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress. Publisher's Weekly review:

Cultural theorist hooks means to challenge preconceptions, and it is a rare reader who will be able to walk away from her without considerable thought. Despite the frequent appearance of the dry word "pedagogy," this collection of essays about teaching is anything but dull or detached. hooks begins her meditations on class, gender and race in the classroom with the confession that she never wanted to teach. By combining personal narrative, essay, critical theory, dialogue and a fantasy interview with herself (the latter artificial construct being the least successful), hooks declares that education today is failing students by refusing to acknowledge their particular histories. Criticizing the teaching establishment for employing an over-factualized knowledge to deny and suppress diversity, hooks accuses colleagues of using "the classroom to enact rituals of control that were about domination and the unjust exercise of power." Far from a castigation of her field, however, Teaching to Transgress is full of hope and excitement for the possibility of education to liberate and include. She is a gentle, though firm, critic, as in the essay "Holding My Sister's Hand," which could well become a classic about the distrust between black and white feminists. While some will find her rejection of certain difficult theory narrow-minded, it is a small flaw in an inspired and thought-provoking collection

More on the Fallon/Petraeus Thing

When I came out of semi-retirement, it was fated that Chap and I would likely resurrect our ongoing blog feud over the war.

Yep.

Chap and some other mil-blogs have taken on the issue as to whether Admiral Fallon called General Petraeus an "ass-kissing little chickenshit." You can read Chap's first take on the matter here, my first comment, and then Chap's rebuttal.

Here's my next round:

{Chap wrote} What equally bizarre information are you using to expect that the cabinet-level appointee is expected and encouraged by the President to follow a different strategy than the President’s? Put in another way, what evidence do you have to think that this is so, since it flies in the face of what the military is about?

That bizarre information is American military and political history. The most accessible data to me are the pol-mil machinations of the Lincoln Administration and the Union Army. You can go read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals among many other books to get a good idea of the infighting within the Lincoln administration. They did not speak with one voice; leaks, backstabbing, even an attempt to un-nominate Lincoln right before Atlanta fell were all part of the scene. Lincoln's lack of control, both in the military and political sense, of the Army is legendary and hardly needs to be rehashed. Other easily accessible examples are VP picks -- not done because the top guy loves 'em or is in agreement with him but historically done because it brings factions together -- JFK/LBJ, Ike/Dick, Carter/Mondale etc. Cabinet appointments are also are made with the notion of pleasing various disparate factions.

Our substitutes for parliamentary government are Presidencies which are quite frequently coalitions of different factions much as ruling majorities operate in parliamentary systems. The stronger the President's faction, the less he has to rely upon coalitions and sharing of power. The weaker the President's faction, say in the wake of a 2006 election where, to use his word, he took a "thumpin", the more concessions have to be made to other factions. In this particular case, the concession was to his father's faction, the global realists -- enter Bob Gates. Does Gates see the world in vastly different terms than the President? Don't think so. But his pivotal role and endorsement of the ISG and its findings put him squarely at odds with a president who did not want to change strategy. It is logical to assume that Gates would select people, like Fallon, to further his views in an attempt to rudder the administration towards ISG goals.

There's no slam at PAOs with the spokespuppet comment. I'm a spokespuppet and I tell my students that. The state of NC, the State Board of Education, the NC Dept of Public Instruction, all under the heavy influence of NC Citizens for Business and Industry, wrote the course of study I have to deliver and which my students are tested on and my school and district evaluated. But unlike the PAO, I have tenure and can mouth off about being a spokespuppet without real fear of retribution. He, on the other hand, has to follow orders, or so I've been told, or there are severe consequences in store.

Let's backtrack just a bit. I was remiss in my first comment to not mention the fact that there was a bit of corroboration outside the admittedly dubious Inter-Press News Service. And that corroboration came from the editorially neoconservative paper, The Washington Post, which reported on Sept 9th:

"The polite discussion in the White House Situation Room a week ago masked a sharper clash over the U.S. venture in Iraq, one that has been building since Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Middle East operations, sent a rear admiral to Baghdad this summer to gather information. Soon afterward, officials said, Fallon began developing plans to redefine the U.S. mission and radically draw down troops.

One of those plans, according to a Centcom officer, involved slashing U.S. combat forces in Iraq by three-quarters by 2010. In an interview, Fallon disputed that description but declined to offer details. Nonetheless, his efforts offended Petraeus's team, which saw them as unwelcome intrusion on their own long-term planning. The profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq only exacerbated the schism between the two men.

"Bad relations?" said a senior civilian official with a laugh. "That's the understatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it."

Again, no direct confirmation of the slur, but corroboration of an environment from which it may have well sprung.

Ironically, I find the response Blackfive got from CENTCOM to be perhaps the most damning:

Jim,
Thanks for your inquiry.

The story is inaccurate. Admiral Fallon and General Petraeus have an outstanding relationship.

LCDR Scott Miller
CENTCOM Public Affairs

That's a textbook non-denial denial. The story is "inaccurate?" How so? Did Fallon say General Petraeus was a "BIG......?" We have no idea. Why not categorically state that Admiral Fallon never uttered either the purported sentiment nor anything remotely like it? Outstanding relationship? First, what's that mean exactly? Second, I can have an excellent relationship with someone, especially someone I respect, get frustrated and/or disappointed with one of their actions or utterances and call them on it in harsh terms, and still have a good relationship. Good relationships don't preclude harsh words between comrades.

In spite of all the space I've burned, I don't think this is the main issue. What is the issue is a man of most excellent reputation and service being placed in a horrible situation, both militarily and politically. General Petraeus has not only been asked to pick up the pieces of a failed military policy, he has been ordered to stand in for the President as a spokesman for the war, not unlike the LCDR at CENTCOM, to defend a policy he would not appear to endorse 100%.

And has that happened before?

"Several factors kept the chiefs from challenging the president’s subterfuges. The Professional code of the military officer prohibits him or her from engaging in political activity. Actions that could have undermined the administration’s credibility and derail its ... policy could not have been undertaken lightly.

The president was lying, and he expected the chiefs to lie as well or, at least, to withhold the whole truth. Although the president should not have placed the chiefs in that position, the flag officers should not have tolerated it when he had."

That would be from one Colonel H.R. McMaster, current adviser to General Petraeus, from his Dereliction of Duty, a commentary on Vietnam. Col. McMaster has been passed over twice for promotion to Brigadier General in the past two years but one shouldn't infer anything from that as there is never anything to see; we should all just move along since Machiavelli has been rendered inoperative in the American armed forces.

Chap updates here & here.

I respond back here.

Friedman: No More Friedman Units

After both inventing the concept of the Friedman Unit as well as being one of its most prominent abusers, Thomas Friedman has decided to stop playing kick the can with Iraq and calls for setting a date for withdrawal:

The sad thing for the American people is that we have no commander in chief anymore, framing our real situation and options. The president’s description on Thursday of the stakes in Iraq was delusional. An Iraqi ally fighting for “freedom” against “extremists”? There are extremists in the Iraqi government, army and police. There is a civil war on top of tribal, neighborhood and jihadist wars, fueled not by a single Iraqi quest for freedom, but by differing quests for “justice,” revenge and, yes, democracy. The only possible self-sustaining outcome in the near term is some form of radical federalism.

{snip}

There is an opportunity now for Democrats, and Americans will be listening — but they need to articulate a concrete endgame policy, and it would have to include at least three components:

First, a detailed blueprint with a fixed withdrawal date tied to a negotiation with Iraqi factions on a federal solution tied to a military redeployment plan to contain the inevitable spillover from Iraq."

Finally.

Of course, it will be three Friedman Units from now before a Democrat is in the White House and before a withdrawal date could be set without fear of a veto.

Zeitgeist

Play 'em both at the same time for maximum effect. Not quite the same as playing Dark Side of the Moon with the Wizard of Oz but definitely causes altered states of consciousness.

Greenspan & Powell: BFF

Perhaps the two greatest enablers of the macro-misteps of the Bush Era are former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Fed chief Alan Greenspan. Powell enabled the President and the country into a disastrous war; Greenspan did the same with the subprime mess. And now they both want to totally absolve themselves of any responsibility and blame it all on Dubya.

Retch.

From The NYTimes:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — Alan Greenspan, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades, in a long-awaited memoir, is harshly critical of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the Republican-controlled Congress, as abandoning their party’s principles on spending and deficits.

In the 500-page book, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” Mr. Greenspan describes the Bush administration as so captive to its own political operation that it paid little attention to fiscal discipline, and he described Mr. Bush’s first two Treasury secretaries, Paul H. O’Neill and John W. Snow, as essentially powerless.

Mr. Bush, he writes, was never willing to contain spending or veto bills that drove the country into deeper and deeper deficits, as Congress abandoned rules that required that the cost of tax cuts be offset by savings elsewhere. “The Republicans in Congress lost their way,” writes Mr. Greenspan, a self-described “libertarian Republican.”

That's some libertarianism he practiced, artificially and unwisely keeping the discount rate so low so long as to enable Bush's re-election while not looking after the long-term health of the American economy. Milton Friedman spins in his grave wondering where Paul Volcker is.

Follow the Oil Money

Why is this man smiling? Could it be because of failure of American policy in Iraq?

From NYTimes, Paul Krugman writes (from behind the firewall):

...oil is pretty much the only thing Iraq has going for it. Two-thirds of Iraq’s G.D.P. and almost all its government revenue come from the oil sector. Without an agreed system for sharing oil revenues, there is no Iraq, just a collection of armed gangs fighting for control of resources.

Well, the legislation Mr. Bush promised never materialized, and on Wednesday attempts to arrive at a compromise oil law collapsed.

What’s particularly revealing is the cause of the breakdown. Last month the provincial government in Kurdistan, defying the central government, passed its own oil law; last week a Kurdish Web site announced that the provincial government had signed a production-sharing deal with the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, and that seems to have been the last straw.

Now here’s the thing: Ray L. Hunt, the chief executive and president of Hunt Oil, is a close political ally of Mr. Bush. More than that, Mr. Hunt is a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a key oversight body.

Some commentators have expressed surprise at the fact that a businessman with very close ties to the White House is undermining U.S. policy. But that isn’t all that surprising, given this administration’s history. Remember, Halliburton was still signing business deals with Iran years after Mr. Bush declared Iran a member of the “axis of evil.”

No, what’s interesting about this deal is the fact that Mr. Hunt, thanks to his policy position, is presumably as well-informed about the actual state of affairs in Iraq as anyone in the business world can be. By putting his money into a deal with the Kurds, despite Baghdad’s disapproval, he’s essentially betting that the Iraqi government — which hasn’t met a single one of the major benchmarks Mr. Bush laid out in January — won’t get its act together. Indeed, he’s effectively betting against the survival of Iraq as a nation in any meaningful sense of the term.

The smart money, then, knows that the surge has failed, that the war is lost, and that Iraq is going the way of Yugoslavia. And I suspect that most people in the Bush administration — maybe even Mr. Bush himself — know this, too.

Bonus question: On what relevant corporate board does Mr. Hunt sit?

Sometimes, Words Fail...

From the Daily Mail:

The 12-week-old macaque - who was abandoned by his mother - was close to death when it was rescued on Neilingding Island, in Goangdong Province.

After being taken to an animal hospital his health began to improve but he seemed spiritless - until he developed a friendship with a white pigeon.

The blossoming relationship helped to revive the macaque who has developed a new lease of life, say staff at the sanctuary.

I wish I had both been there to see it and actually make this incredible photograph.

h/t: Mr. Pink

Ye Olde Deluder Satan

From the Raleigh News & Observer:

As a lawyer, Mary Easley squared off with bad guys she sent to jail. As North Carolina's first lady, she is picking a fight with Captain Morgan and a buxom robot with a keg of Heineken stashed in her chest.

Easley intends to keep young people from drinking by pummeling the alcohol icons with straight talk. In a program she announced Wednesday, North Carolina teachers will tell middle schoolers that beer brewers are lying to them.

In coming years, middle school students will learn how to unravel the slick alcohol ads that inundate their televisions, computers and magazines. Can that woman really weigh 100 pounds if she is chugging 2,000 calories worth of rum and Coke a day? Will popping the top of a beer bottle really act as a cattle call for gorgeous men?

"We can't control how much they see," Easley said as she rolled out a lesson plan due to start arriving in middle schools by January. "Advertising is endemic in our culture."

Indeedy, advertising is endemic in American culture. More to the point, bullshit artistry is endemic to the United States of a Sucker Born Every Minute. As author and former advertising exec Earl Shorris noted, we are A Nation of Salesmen. I applaud any effort to stem a youngster's path towards alcoholism and I believe the First Lady of North Carolina has it right that middle school is precisely when the intervention will be most efficacious.

My concern is that the program's format calls for demonization of one particular substance and a focus on deconstructing the manipulative practices to peddle demon rum, Heineken, and wine coolers. And that lesson plan is in itself deeply and unnecessarily manipulative. Moreover, the lesson is silent on so many other messages which are manipulative. Like, how many women (or men) consume the 11 rum and Cokes a day, at a 182 calories per drink, necessary to come to the First Lady's hypothetical daily total of 2,000 calories? Moronic messages like that delivered to savvy middle schoolers (and they are savvy) will merely lead them to use Diet Coke as a mixer for the three or four drinks (at a 133 calories per, or 4 x 133 = 532, or 44 fewer calories than a Big Mac) they'll have to drink to get the desired buzz. Does that scare tactic have any traction at all in an nation of overweight youth? What about the abiding, enduring cynicism which will inevitably set in the minds of the students as the sharper ones dissect the manipulation inherent in the anti-alcohol curriculum? Is that psychological scar tissue worth the program's potential benefits?

Why not teach that ALL advertising is manipulative and teach the techniques employed? Why not teach that ALL political messages are manipulative and teach the techniques employed?

The answer is rather simple, of course. Puritanical targets are easy and nonthreatening -- tobacco, booze, and trans-fat are evil but learning how to think and evaluate marketing and political messages for oneself is inheritantly dangerous to the status quo.

And so what could be a broad, powerful unit for students on psychology and Machiavelli, with analytical skills which could be employed for a lifetime, is foregone for pushing what is ultimately state-sponsored propaganda.

This Bud's for you Mrs. Easley.

Apples Not Falling Far From Trees

Andre has a red flag, Chiang Ching's is blue
They all have hills to fly them on except for Lin Tai Yu
Dressing up in costumes, playing silly games
Hiding out in tree-tops shouting out rude names

Whistling tunes - we hide in the dunes by the seaside
Whistling tunes - we piss on the goons in the jungle
It's a knockout

If looks could kill, they probably will
In games without frontiers - war without tears
If looks could kill, they probably will
In games without frontiers - war without tears
Games without frontiers - war without tears
Games Without Frontiers by Peter Gabriel

Updating the post below, from the Raleigh News & Observer:

A high school's controversial ban on clothing bearing flags stemmed from gang-related fights among students, Sampson County's school superintendent said today.

The Sampson School system on Wednesday lifted the flag ban at Hobbton High School after it came under fire from parents and the American Civil Liberties Union, among others.

The policy had prohibited students from wearing clothing with any kind of flag, including the American flag. As reports circulated by e-mail and on Internet chat rooms, a flurry of protests erupted.

{snip}

In a statement this morning, Superintendent L. Stewart Hobbs Jr. said school officials had imposed the ban because of problems last year with students wearing foreign flags on their clothing.

Students were showing their gang colors through the flags, leading to fights and other disruptions, Hobbs said. So the principal thought it best to ban all flags in light of a previous free speech suit against the Sampson County schools, Hobbs said.

Moment of Clarity

"Well, yeah. I was just sitting here, eating my muffin, drinking my coffee, when I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity."

Senator Warner: Are you able to say at this time if we continue what you have laid before the congress here, this strategy. do you feel that that is making America safer?

General Petraeus: Sir, I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq.

Warner: Does that make America safer?

General Petraeus: Sir I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted in my own mind what I have focused on and what I have been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the multinational force Iraq.

Crazy Leftist ACLU Defends Student's Right to Wear Flag

From the Raleigh News & Observer:

A Sampson County{North Carolina} High School that had come under fire for its ban on T-shirts bearing the American flag has reversed that policy.

In a recorded telephone message to parents and teachers, Superintendent L. Stewart Hobbs, Jr. said that the ban on flags is no longer in effect at Hobbton High School. Future dress code decisions will be made at the district level with approval of the school board.

Gayle Langston of Turkey had sounded the alarm about the policy when her daughter Jessica was told on Friday not to wear her flag shirt again. She wanted to wear her flag shirt on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Langston said.

{snip}

The American Civil Liberties Union also stepped into the fray, penning a letter to district officials decrying the policy.

"..This rule is a violation of the students' right to free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution -- with regard to American flags, as well as the flags of any other country," said the letter signed by Katherine Lewis Parker, legal director of the group's North Carolina chapter.

Constitution-loving whackos...lock 'em up I say.

"Ass-kissing Little Chickenshit?"

"Allow me to give you a tiny bit of advice. If you want your own boat someday...the very worst thing you can do is worry about yourself or try to impress me. I can't stand save-asses, and I won't abide kiss-asses."

Earlier this week, The Washington Post informed us that comity between Centcom Admiral Fallon and Surge-Meister General Petraeus was lacking:

The polite discussion in the White House Situation Room a week ago masked a sharper clash over the U.S. venture in Iraq, one that has been building since Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Middle East operations, sent a rear admiral to Baghdad this summer to gather information. Soon afterward, officials said, Fallon began developing plans to redefine the U.S. mission and radically draw down troops.

One of those plans, according to a Centcom officer, involved slashing U.S. combat forces in Iraq by three-quarters by 2010. In an interview, Fallon disputed that description but declined to offer details. Nonetheless, his efforts offended Petraeus's team, which saw them as unwelcome intrusion on their own long-term planning. The profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq only exacerbated the schism between the two men.

"Bad relations?" said a senior civilian official with a laugh. "That's the understatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it."

The Inter-Press News Service provides another piece of data on the Armageddon hypothesis:

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

More proof that Petraeus is a Democrat.

Sick to My Stomach

A minister wearing a button stating: "I love the Iraqi people" is:

(a) Denied entrance to the Petraeus Hearing by Capitol Police.
(b) Is gang tackled by six of the cops; they slam the minister, who is not yet under arrest, to the hard floor which...
(c) ...breaks his leg.
(d) The minister is then arrested for "assaulting a police officer." I guess as he was slammed to the floor, his fractured leg grazed another cop.

What was it we were trying to establish in Iraq exactly?

A guy wearing a button promoting love has his leg broken. A minister who was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant in August can't enter a room to witness testimony? I think we've taken the whole Christian Nation thing a bit too far if we're snapping legs of those who preach love. People will start to think we're behaving like the Roman Empire....