SEE YOU IN GITMO. Scrolling through the logs, I find that my site was recently visted from wdcsun27.usdoj.gov and tias-gw2.treas.gov. I also found a similar usage pattern here, which suggests that I am on some government nut watch list.
My questions are:
1.) Does this kind of thing ever happen to you? and
2.) Which one of you ratted me out?
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Monday, October 16, 2006
BULLSHIT LIBERTARIANS REDUX. Jennifer Roback Morse is best known to us as the B-list sex scold responsible for bon mots such as these:
Would you classify Roback as your garden variety Jesus freak? Well, guess again!
To be fair, when Morse brought out her anti-gay-marriage, anti-contraception, anti-fornication libertarianism, "Much to my disappointment, my libertarian and economist friends seemed uninterested." (Later, when, "much to my surprise," Roback "spent the next five years talking to social conservatives," she was amazed at how much she -- a libertarian, remember! -- got on with the Christers. "I appreciated the fact that they’d talk to me." As well she should have.)
This isn't so much a dig at true libertarians -- if there are any -- as a further demonstration that the most common use of libertarianism is as a cloaking device for right-wing nuts.
The Left hates sex. Do not be deluded by the fact that the Left is hyper-active about sexual activity. Far too many on the Left are profoundly uncomfortable by any evidence of sex differences between men and women...It's hard to pick a favorite out of so rich a trove, but a sure contender would be, "The feminist movement introduced an unbelievable amount of tension into the relationships between men and women." She also hates Plan B and, weirdly, artificial insemination.
And make no mistake about it: men do sometimes go over the line and become obsessively jealous, even dangerously jealous. But, one thing is for sure. A woman knows that she matters to a guy who gets jealous...
For many people in modern America ...sex is a recreational activity, and a consumer good... the sexual partner has become an object that satisfies [one] more or less well.
Some heterosexuals believe they are entitled to unlimited sexual activity without pregnancy... Some homosexuals, particularly the professional activists, find it incomprehensible that sexual activity could be anybody's business but the two parties involved. So these activists can make common cause with heterosexuals who hold these views.
Would you classify Roback as your garden variety Jesus freak? Well, guess again!
I suppose some people now consider me a social conservative, even though I never intended to be any such thing. I still consider myself a minimum-government libertarian, who has thought through the implications of the family for the size of government. I have come to the conclusion that you simply can’t have a minimum government without a robust institution of marriage.They sure aren't making libertarians the way they used to -- if they ever did.
To be fair, when Morse brought out her anti-gay-marriage, anti-contraception, anti-fornication libertarianism, "Much to my disappointment, my libertarian and economist friends seemed uninterested." (Later, when, "much to my surprise," Roback "spent the next five years talking to social conservatives," she was amazed at how much she -- a libertarian, remember! -- got on with the Christers. "I appreciated the fact that they’d talk to me." As well she should have.)
This isn't so much a dig at true libertarians -- if there are any -- as a further demonstration that the most common use of libertarianism is as a cloaking device for right-wing nuts.
NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED. Some days this gig is easy. All I really have to do is show you a post by a noted buffoon...
But I do anyway, because I'm an asshole.
More: Gay Troop Leaders Can Take Teenagers Camping, But Gay Republican Congressmen Can't: The Democrats and MSM are determined to root the boy-lovin', disease-spreadin' faggits out of the Republican Party....and, if you have a better than 8th grade reading level (60% of my readers do!), you will see immediately what is stupid about it. I don't even have to think up a joke line like "His sense of irony reached full flower when he told his Mom 'Yes, Hitler' at age 10." Or make any observations about how he sure talks a lot about gayness for a he-man right-wing chest-beater. Or double back with something like, "But of course I would say that, because my liberal secret & counterintuitive hatred of gays means that I cannot accept the bitter truth that this he-man right-wing chest-beater is totally OUT and PROUD."
Thank God we have a party willling to fight the Pink Menace.
But I do anyway, because I'm an asshole.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
SEVEN RUNS IS NOT ENOUGH. Another slugfest, this time going our way, thank God, but I am still worried. Fox ran a ten-second clip of the '86 Mets tonight, and it reminded me that our boys back then were observably on speed -- whether metabolized via "the high hard one" previously mentioned by commenter Reginald, or by adrenal surges owing to alcohol or nicotine withdrawal (as when Keith was barred from smoking in the vommies), we can't be sure. But those Mets were juiced, and juice is what's needed in the post-season.
Despite tonight's offensive Wachet Auf, our present crew looked almost as fat 'n' happy in the dugout as they looked fat 'n' unhappy the night before. Hell, before the runs started raining, they seemed positively glum. You may read that as professionalism and confidence, but I see it as lack of drugs. The reflexive awakening of muscle memory alone can explain tonight's laugher. Tom Glavine pitches tomorrow on three days rest; keep laughing. Or recognize that winning teams can make mistakes just as easily as losing teams, and this series can turn on a dime -- or a dime bag.
St. Lou is a cowtown, but surely the Mets' team doctor has underworld connections somewhere in the Midwest. Let's go into the tie-breaker, not just psyched, but psychotic. Most of our muscled players won't even feel a jab in the ass. Some might not disdain to inhale a pharmaceutical "antihistamine." LET'S BLOW, METS!
All credit to the adequate Mr. Perez (thankyouGod, thankyouGod), the hot bats, and Jose Reyes for that little sleight-of-hand in the third -- the umps didn't like it but the rest of us were tickled to death.
Despite tonight's offensive Wachet Auf, our present crew looked almost as fat 'n' happy in the dugout as they looked fat 'n' unhappy the night before. Hell, before the runs started raining, they seemed positively glum. You may read that as professionalism and confidence, but I see it as lack of drugs. The reflexive awakening of muscle memory alone can explain tonight's laugher. Tom Glavine pitches tomorrow on three days rest; keep laughing. Or recognize that winning teams can make mistakes just as easily as losing teams, and this series can turn on a dime -- or a dime bag.
St. Lou is a cowtown, but surely the Mets' team doctor has underworld connections somewhere in the Midwest. Let's go into the tie-breaker, not just psyched, but psychotic. Most of our muscled players won't even feel a jab in the ass. Some might not disdain to inhale a pharmaceutical "antihistamine." LET'S BLOW, METS!
All credit to the adequate Mr. Perez (thankyouGod, thankyouGod), the hot bats, and Jose Reyes for that little sleight-of-hand in the third -- the umps didn't like it but the rest of us were tickled to death.
THE FEDERALIST. Finally finished Chernow's Alexander Hamilton. 700+ pages is a lot of time to spend with anyone, and if Chernow is exhaustive he can also be exhausting, as can his subject.
Little Al was a dynamo, and his energy and intellect clearly awestrike his biographer, who gives us lots of stuff like "Eliza Hamilton remembered the sleepless night when her husband gave immortal expression to a durable piece of constitutional law." The bulk and scope of Hamilton's achievements -- auto-didact, indefatigable pamphleteer, Revolutionary War hero, political activist and intriguer, legal pioneer, most of The Federalist, Bank of New York, Bank of the United States, and oh yeah, the framework for American financial policy which largely persists to this day -- are lilies that hardly need such gilding.
But Chernow slobbers over these. Perhaps in consequence, whenever Hamilton goes clearly off the rails -- the Reynolds affair, the Miranda escapade, "The Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq." etc -- Chernow professes astonishment. How could the greatest man in the world make such stupid mistakes? It seems never to have occurred to him -- or he chooses, out of infatuation, not to admit -- that Hamilton was something like a mad genius. His was such a roaring cascade of ideas that some were bound to be indiscriminate, sometimes even insane, and, as even Chernow acknowledges, Hamilton was not one to back off. That's what got him killed.
So enamored is Chernow that he feels it necessary to heap abuse on all who opposed Hamilton: Jefferson ("Dr. Pangloss... Hamilton wasn't the only one who suspected him of cowardice"), Madison ("lacked the charismatic sparkle that made the brashly confident Hamilton a natural leader" -- yet was President for two terms, hm), Monroe ("a plodding speaker and a middling intellect"), and most of all Burr, who is painted as a "supremely cynical" voluptuary, which paint is given a whole Hamilton-posthumous chapter of infernally black lacquer ("William Plumer wasn't the only person who gagged at Burr's incongruous presence in the Senate... this aging roue sampled opium and seduced willing noblewomen and chambermaids with a fine impartiality." Chambermaids! Such very Republican égalité, wot?). Readers not under a spell similar to Chernow's may regard Hamilton's fatal "affair of honor" with Burr -- and Hamilton's persistence, even unto his death agonies, in framing the fault with Burr -- as Wilde regarded the death of Little Nell. And if we have read Vidal -- who gets a slighting mention here -- we may be forgiven for yet feeling that debauched old Aaron played it well and fairly, and was within his rights.
Still, Alexander Hamilton is a good read. Chernow scraped every source and makes it tell. In the heretofore murky matter of Hamiliton's younger days, this book makes it possible to imagine that skinny, intense boy, fired by intellectual passion and ambition, feverishly working in the counting house, reading borrowed books, and cajoling propertied men (the beginning of a lifelong habit) to get out of his poverty, illegitimacy, and nearly savage environment, and into history. Chernow famously visited the ancient prison where Hamilton's mother had been detained, and this seems to have galvanized his sense of mission. We are made to feel both Hamilton's restless energy and his survivor guilt ("What a world of scarred emotion and secret grief Alexander Hamilton bore with him on the boat to Boston") so strongly that it comes back to us all through the book in what breathing spaces Chernow's worshipfulness allows. And it is bracing to see a Founder's reversals as well as his triumphs -- to see Hamilton pelted with stones as well as with garlands -- and humanizing to see him flirt with Angelica Church, suck up to George Washington, and negotiate wary truces with Burr.
I wish, in the vastness of the book, he had allowed us larger portions of Hamilton's prose. I sometimes imagine that Hamilton is the model that makes modern political writers of whatever stripe think they can touch glory by waxing eloquent about the Defense of Marriage Act and other tediosities. But George Fucking Will can scribble through ten lifetimes before he gets close to what Hamilton achieved. Perhaps because of his early deprivations, Hamilton learned to yoke words to ideas right out of the box -- he drafted well in his head, and his mania propelled his reasoning and his eloquence with equal vigor. That explains his follies as well as his masterpieces.
I thank Chernow most heartily for the favor of lingering long over the gloriously incivil newspaper and pamphlet wars of the post-Revolutionary period. The accusations of treason, Jacobinism, atheism, "Angloman"-ism, monarchism, and Caesarism -- like the Journals-Affiche of Revolutionary France, an inspiration to bloggers everywhere. Come, let us slander! The example of our Founders demands it.
Little Al was a dynamo, and his energy and intellect clearly awestrike his biographer, who gives us lots of stuff like "Eliza Hamilton remembered the sleepless night when her husband gave immortal expression to a durable piece of constitutional law." The bulk and scope of Hamilton's achievements -- auto-didact, indefatigable pamphleteer, Revolutionary War hero, political activist and intriguer, legal pioneer, most of The Federalist, Bank of New York, Bank of the United States, and oh yeah, the framework for American financial policy which largely persists to this day -- are lilies that hardly need such gilding.
But Chernow slobbers over these. Perhaps in consequence, whenever Hamilton goes clearly off the rails -- the Reynolds affair, the Miranda escapade, "The Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq." etc -- Chernow professes astonishment. How could the greatest man in the world make such stupid mistakes? It seems never to have occurred to him -- or he chooses, out of infatuation, not to admit -- that Hamilton was something like a mad genius. His was such a roaring cascade of ideas that some were bound to be indiscriminate, sometimes even insane, and, as even Chernow acknowledges, Hamilton was not one to back off. That's what got him killed.
So enamored is Chernow that he feels it necessary to heap abuse on all who opposed Hamilton: Jefferson ("Dr. Pangloss... Hamilton wasn't the only one who suspected him of cowardice"), Madison ("lacked the charismatic sparkle that made the brashly confident Hamilton a natural leader" -- yet was President for two terms, hm), Monroe ("a plodding speaker and a middling intellect"), and most of all Burr, who is painted as a "supremely cynical" voluptuary, which paint is given a whole Hamilton-posthumous chapter of infernally black lacquer ("William Plumer wasn't the only person who gagged at Burr's incongruous presence in the Senate... this aging roue sampled opium and seduced willing noblewomen and chambermaids with a fine impartiality." Chambermaids! Such very Republican égalité, wot?). Readers not under a spell similar to Chernow's may regard Hamilton's fatal "affair of honor" with Burr -- and Hamilton's persistence, even unto his death agonies, in framing the fault with Burr -- as Wilde regarded the death of Little Nell. And if we have read Vidal -- who gets a slighting mention here -- we may be forgiven for yet feeling that debauched old Aaron played it well and fairly, and was within his rights.
Still, Alexander Hamilton is a good read. Chernow scraped every source and makes it tell. In the heretofore murky matter of Hamiliton's younger days, this book makes it possible to imagine that skinny, intense boy, fired by intellectual passion and ambition, feverishly working in the counting house, reading borrowed books, and cajoling propertied men (the beginning of a lifelong habit) to get out of his poverty, illegitimacy, and nearly savage environment, and into history. Chernow famously visited the ancient prison where Hamilton's mother had been detained, and this seems to have galvanized his sense of mission. We are made to feel both Hamilton's restless energy and his survivor guilt ("What a world of scarred emotion and secret grief Alexander Hamilton bore with him on the boat to Boston") so strongly that it comes back to us all through the book in what breathing spaces Chernow's worshipfulness allows. And it is bracing to see a Founder's reversals as well as his triumphs -- to see Hamilton pelted with stones as well as with garlands -- and humanizing to see him flirt with Angelica Church, suck up to George Washington, and negotiate wary truces with Burr.
I wish, in the vastness of the book, he had allowed us larger portions of Hamilton's prose. I sometimes imagine that Hamilton is the model that makes modern political writers of whatever stripe think they can touch glory by waxing eloquent about the Defense of Marriage Act and other tediosities. But George Fucking Will can scribble through ten lifetimes before he gets close to what Hamilton achieved. Perhaps because of his early deprivations, Hamilton learned to yoke words to ideas right out of the box -- he drafted well in his head, and his mania propelled his reasoning and his eloquence with equal vigor. That explains his follies as well as his masterpieces.
I thank Chernow most heartily for the favor of lingering long over the gloriously incivil newspaper and pamphlet wars of the post-Revolutionary period. The accusations of treason, Jacobinism, atheism, "Angloman"-ism, monarchism, and Caesarism -- like the Journals-Affiche of Revolutionary France, an inspiration to bloggers everywhere. Come, let us slander! The example of our Founders demands it.
CLUBHOUSE. On a cold night in 1977 Peter Doherty and some others took me on my first trip to CBGB. It was a weekday and the show was ill-attended (we took one of the tables up front; they had waitress service). The Erasers and the Feelies played. The first wave of CBs stars had already graduated, though some of them would pop in occasionally. The current headliners were supposed to be part of some Second Wave (they were both wonderful bands, by the way). The talk at our table was scenester in the extreme, so I mostly kept my mouth shut. I had just seen the Talking Heads and the Ramones for the first time, and knew I had some catching up to do. I got the impression that the dank, stale-beer smell was part of the curriculum.
It made sense that the nexus of New York punk rock was such a ratty joint. A greybeard such as I have become will taunt the kids today for their backwards-looking rock gambits, but the old punk scene was full of magpies mining la boue for lost gems, and sometimes turds. This was said to be a rebuke to what was considered the smooth and stupefied state of the lively arts of the time. It was also a form of passive aggression: one could expect outsiders to be uncomfortable. I have a hunch you won't like it here, the potato chips are soggy, they water the beer, etc.
I became a habitue, saw many splendid shows (Ramones, Dead Boys, X-Ray Spex, B-52s) and a lot of lame ones. Eventually I hauled myself up on that stage and played some splendid/lame shows myself. I got accustomed to the smell, the smashed toilet, and the pleasurable clubhouse atmosphere that you get just by showing up and doing a little work. Nostalgie de la boue? No, it was happening right now! I always had a hand to shake or a back to pat or a face reading clearly, "Oh, this guy again" when I walked in the door.
All those hours spent loading in and loading out and drinking and hearing, or yelling, "You rock" or "You suck." Long after I stopped playing regularly, I considered it part of my life, until the day came when I realized I could count the time that had passed since I darkened Hilly's door in years, and if I walked through again it would be as a stranger.
Last autumn I was called back for the great final wave of CBs benefits. I commandeered a corner of a garishly-lit "dressing room" and practiced my parts while the act on the other side of the graffiti-scarred plywood boomed and blasted. I kept a close eye on my equipment. I tried to time it right so I would get back from the bar with a beer before the set started. I taped my set-list to the wall. I wondered what it sounded like out front. I clammed on a change. I struck a heroic pose. I heard people clapping.
That was my farewell to CBGB: running my tired old muscles through the old routine and seeing how ill it suited me, as a lapsed Catholic might take in a Mass and find himself surprised how hollow it all is when you've lost your faith. But it wasn't all bad. Whatever my level of disengagement, it was still a show, and shows are always good, whether they Rock or Suck. And CB's was holding the door open, though the closing bell was insistently ringing. A friend in Seattle wrote me the other day:
The final services are tonight. The furnishings are being hauled to Vegas, I hear, perhaps to become part of this -- not an outrage, just macabre, like the varnished corpse of Elmer McCurdy hanging in a carnival's haunted house.
You won't catch me grieving, quite. Ah! as the heart grows older/It will come to such sights colder. It's another me I would be mourning, and I retain a lively interest in the present one. My sympathies are with those who have one less place to play but, as my Seattle friend and '68 Elvis knew, if you're looking for trouble, you will eventually come to the right place. Hilly's unique rental deal kept overhead low for a long time, so it will be hard to find something like that in New York now. Maybe New York isn't it. But somewhere it is. Somewhere there's always a clubhouse.
It made sense that the nexus of New York punk rock was such a ratty joint. A greybeard such as I have become will taunt the kids today for their backwards-looking rock gambits, but the old punk scene was full of magpies mining la boue for lost gems, and sometimes turds. This was said to be a rebuke to what was considered the smooth and stupefied state of the lively arts of the time. It was also a form of passive aggression: one could expect outsiders to be uncomfortable. I have a hunch you won't like it here, the potato chips are soggy, they water the beer, etc.
I became a habitue, saw many splendid shows (Ramones, Dead Boys, X-Ray Spex, B-52s) and a lot of lame ones. Eventually I hauled myself up on that stage and played some splendid/lame shows myself. I got accustomed to the smell, the smashed toilet, and the pleasurable clubhouse atmosphere that you get just by showing up and doing a little work. Nostalgie de la boue? No, it was happening right now! I always had a hand to shake or a back to pat or a face reading clearly, "Oh, this guy again" when I walked in the door.
All those hours spent loading in and loading out and drinking and hearing, or yelling, "You rock" or "You suck." Long after I stopped playing regularly, I considered it part of my life, until the day came when I realized I could count the time that had passed since I darkened Hilly's door in years, and if I walked through again it would be as a stranger.
Last autumn I was called back for the great final wave of CBs benefits. I commandeered a corner of a garishly-lit "dressing room" and practiced my parts while the act on the other side of the graffiti-scarred plywood boomed and blasted. I kept a close eye on my equipment. I tried to time it right so I would get back from the bar with a beer before the set started. I taped my set-list to the wall. I wondered what it sounded like out front. I clammed on a change. I struck a heroic pose. I heard people clapping.
That was my farewell to CBGB: running my tired old muscles through the old routine and seeing how ill it suited me, as a lapsed Catholic might take in a Mass and find himself surprised how hollow it all is when you've lost your faith. But it wasn't all bad. Whatever my level of disengagement, it was still a show, and shows are always good, whether they Rock or Suck. And CB's was holding the door open, though the closing bell was insistently ringing. A friend in Seattle wrote me the other day:
Anyway, I have two shows this weekend, and I just loaded in to the second scummy punk bar and am waiting to play as I write this. The odd thing is, and the reason I'm bending your ear, is that it seems that in the Northwest at least, the Eighties Punk Rock Experience has been faithfully recreated. Sometimes I feel like I'm running around in a theme park of my twenties, only I'm not on drugs this time around. It's eerie, but really fun.So faith abides in some great souls.
The final services are tonight. The furnishings are being hauled to Vegas, I hear, perhaps to become part of this -- not an outrage, just macabre, like the varnished corpse of Elmer McCurdy hanging in a carnival's haunted house.
You won't catch me grieving, quite. Ah! as the heart grows older/It will come to such sights colder. It's another me I would be mourning, and I retain a lively interest in the present one. My sympathies are with those who have one less place to play but, as my Seattle friend and '68 Elvis knew, if you're looking for trouble, you will eventually come to the right place. Hilly's unique rental deal kept overhead low for a long time, so it will be hard to find something like that in New York now. Maybe New York isn't it. But somewhere it is. Somewhere there's always a clubhouse.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
SHIT. The Trachsel fiasco appeared to cut the heart right out of the team, which isn't a good sign. The Mets can count on adversity in this series, so they better find some snap-back fast. Maybe Tug McGraw can haunt them. Kudos to Suppan and a great fielding Cards team.
FUCK. It is ominous to lose a slugfest to the Cards with three straight coming up in St. Lou. Crap from Wagner is shocking but we can dismiss it as an anomaly -- starter John Maine has always been a wildcard at best and if we get to six games we can't be overconfident about him. Our Mutts are capable of batting explosions, but so are their opponents. It'll be a tough run. I'd pray, if my faith weren't utterly shattered by Rod Dreher's conversion to the Orthodox Church. Dreher was the last prominent imbecile Catholic ring-kissing blogger I could believe in, and though we all should have known that he would succumb to the first sect that waved a sweeter pot of incense and crunchier plate of mashed yeast at him, his apostasy yet wobbles the fundaments. What's next? A Republican pullout from Iraq? Shea it ain't so!
Friday, October 13, 2006
A MIRACLE HAS OCCURRED! The Ole Perfesser has posted about a corrupt Republican without adding that the Democrats are just as bad!
Maybe he was just distracted by a passing Jetta, or a piece of string. Or perhaps he was overanxious to talk about breasts (and, less approvingly, the creatures to whom they are attached).
What's next? Roger L. Simon talking about a movie that he's actually seen?
Maybe he was just distracted by a passing Jetta, or a piece of string. Or perhaps he was overanxious to talk about breasts (and, less approvingly, the creatures to whom they are attached).
What's next? Roger L. Simon talking about a movie that he's actually seen?
CRAZY JESUS LADY TAKES A DIVE! CJL's in rare form today, giving us all the proof we should need that liberals hate free speech:
By the same formula, Republicans are one-quarter boy-crazy middle-aged men, and the other three-quarters Denny Hastert's midsection.
Also, the Lady tells us, liberals and Democrats lack "grace," and "What also seems missing is the courage to ask a question. Conservatives these days are asking themselves very many questions..." Oh, I bet they are! Like "How much of this government money can I stuff into the trunk of my car before the voters turn me out?" and "Is now the time to start screaming about fags getting married, or should I wait until the week before the election?" and "If they caught Foley, does that mean they can catch me, or the guy that sold me this cocaine, or the prostitute that is currently sucking my dick?"
All that's left is to try and figure the Crazy Jesus Lady's real angle here -- for she is only mad north-northwest, and when the wind is southerly she can tell a hack from a handjob. While "Drunk/behind deadline" is a temptingly obvious choice, it is possible that she knew from the start how thin her argument was, and presented it in all its pathetic insufficiency to achieve not a political but a social effect.
The other OpinionJournal writers are every bit as bad as Noonan -- but not nearly as famous, Reagan-associated, or grandly declamatory in style. She may think that they think that they are not good enough for her. What else explains the nervous glances and evasive half-smiles that greet her when she wheels her shopping cart into their offices? Why else do they never accept her invitations to vespers?
And she has been so lonely since Reagan died and Dan Rather stopped sending her even the restraining orders. Well, she's not some bra-burning feminazi -- if a crappy tautology will do more than a lower neckline on her strait-jacket to make her seem more approachable, she can do that.
Oddly enough, in the very same OJ edition Daniel Henninger bitches out YouTube for making his favorite right-wing politicans look like feebs and assholes. (He also lets us know that he uses YouTube to look at jazz, not junk like you people watch.) I've seen Henninger on TV, and he looks and acts like a depressed undertaker after a shot of sodium pentathol.
The Crazy Jesus Lady and the Gloomy Culture Crank! A match made in heaven!
UPDATE. I have to add that while I believe the Minutemen certainly deserve all the contempt they get, I also think they should have been permitted to speak without the bum-rush.
I say this knowing that Noonan and every other conservative will continue to talk as if Democrats all advocate censorship, but what the hell. Maybe a few of them can read.
- A couple dozen rowdies interrupted a showing at Columbia of Ku Klux Klan: Special Mexican Unit thereby depriving evil godless New Yorkers of their chance to learn the truth about those exotic Spanish people, even though Jesus was outside handing out flyers;
- A Columbine Dad told millions of CBS viewers that abortion made Jesus kill the Amish, but a couple of bloggers didn't agree, which is retroactive censorship of both Columbine Dad and Jesus;
- Barbra Streisand told a heckler to shut up. The heckler's name was Jesus Christ.
- Rosie O'Donnell is fat, whereas Jesus looks fetchingly slim on the cross.
By the same formula, Republicans are one-quarter boy-crazy middle-aged men, and the other three-quarters Denny Hastert's midsection.
Also, the Lady tells us, liberals and Democrats lack "grace," and "What also seems missing is the courage to ask a question. Conservatives these days are asking themselves very many questions..." Oh, I bet they are! Like "How much of this government money can I stuff into the trunk of my car before the voters turn me out?" and "Is now the time to start screaming about fags getting married, or should I wait until the week before the election?" and "If they caught Foley, does that mean they can catch me, or the guy that sold me this cocaine, or the prostitute that is currently sucking my dick?"
All that's left is to try and figure the Crazy Jesus Lady's real angle here -- for she is only mad north-northwest, and when the wind is southerly she can tell a hack from a handjob. While "Drunk/behind deadline" is a temptingly obvious choice, it is possible that she knew from the start how thin her argument was, and presented it in all its pathetic insufficiency to achieve not a political but a social effect.
The other OpinionJournal writers are every bit as bad as Noonan -- but not nearly as famous, Reagan-associated, or grandly declamatory in style. She may think that they think that they are not good enough for her. What else explains the nervous glances and evasive half-smiles that greet her when she wheels her shopping cart into their offices? Why else do they never accept her invitations to vespers?
And she has been so lonely since Reagan died and Dan Rather stopped sending her even the restraining orders. Well, she's not some bra-burning feminazi -- if a crappy tautology will do more than a lower neckline on her strait-jacket to make her seem more approachable, she can do that.
Oddly enough, in the very same OJ edition Daniel Henninger bitches out YouTube for making his favorite right-wing politicans look like feebs and assholes. (He also lets us know that he uses YouTube to look at jazz, not junk like you people watch.) I've seen Henninger on TV, and he looks and acts like a depressed undertaker after a shot of sodium pentathol.
The Crazy Jesus Lady and the Gloomy Culture Crank! A match made in heaven!
UPDATE. I have to add that while I believe the Minutemen certainly deserve all the contempt they get, I also think they should have been permitted to speak without the bum-rush.
I say this knowing that Noonan and every other conservative will continue to talk as if Democrats all advocate censorship, but what the hell. Maybe a few of them can read.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
FIELDERS: CHOICE. Jeff Weaver and Tom Glavine were great tonight. So were both bullpens. But it was gloves what won it. Carlos Beltran doubling Pujols off first from the outfield took the juice out of St. Lou early, and Adny or Endy or Inky or whatever-it-is Chavez' sno-cone catch in the fifth kept the tarp nailed down tight. The infield was impermeable. Even Willie Randolph, who looks in all interviews now like he's being grilled by cops, spoke up for the defense in the post-game. Beltran's homer was a rare moment of batter confidence, and all we needed.
Fox 5 coverage from the Shea parking lot tonight made we wish badly I could be out there. Mets fans are spectacularly stoopid. They don't have the confidence of Yankees rooters, and their enthusiasm is more retarded and untelegenic. To paraphrase Robert Ryan in The Wild Bunch: They're mooks, and I wish to God I was with them. (Sign of the night: CARDINALS TASTE LIKE CHICKEN.)
I'm beginning to love Tom Glavine. I hated him, of course, when he was Brave and affectlessly whipping our asses year after year. But at the butt-end of his career, waiting on win number 300, Glavine was The Professional, blandly blotting out rallies and walking off the field like he had just cut a man's throat in an alley and didn't want anyone to look at him. He's a nice counterweight to drama queens like Wright and Reyes.
I'm still nervous. We really have only three starters, and sooner or later the middle relief is going to resemble a five-car pileup on the BQE. And if we get to the Series, I suspect the Tigers will be as strong and supple as their namesakes. But I'm happy to have the opportunity to fret.
Fox 5 coverage from the Shea parking lot tonight made we wish badly I could be out there. Mets fans are spectacularly stoopid. They don't have the confidence of Yankees rooters, and their enthusiasm is more retarded and untelegenic. To paraphrase Robert Ryan in The Wild Bunch: They're mooks, and I wish to God I was with them. (Sign of the night: CARDINALS TASTE LIKE CHICKEN.)
I'm beginning to love Tom Glavine. I hated him, of course, when he was Brave and affectlessly whipping our asses year after year. But at the butt-end of his career, waiting on win number 300, Glavine was The Professional, blandly blotting out rallies and walking off the field like he had just cut a man's throat in an alley and didn't want anyone to look at him. He's a nice counterweight to drama queens like Wright and Reyes.
I'm still nervous. We really have only three starters, and sooner or later the middle relief is going to resemble a five-car pileup on the BQE. And if we get to the Series, I suspect the Tigers will be as strong and supple as their namesakes. But I'm happy to have the opportunity to fret.
BULLSHIT LIBERTARIANS. "Listen, I'm a small-government conservative. When New York banned all smoking in public places, I protested. When they came for foie gras in Chicago, I ridiculed. But when Mayor Bloomberg proposed banning trans fats in New York City restaurants, I murmured: 'Gee, is that really so bad?'" -- Maggie Gallagher.
So, "small-government conservative" is pretty much a synonym for "hypocrite," right?
Or, to elaborate, whenever somebody who evinces a strong smell of conservatism starts talking about his libertarian cred -- like this guy, who declares himself "a conservative-libertarian hybrid" while denouncing gay marriage ("Just because something is immoral does not mean that it should be legal") -- hide your freedoms.
You probably have your own favorite bullshit libertarians. Here's mine, at the moment: a self-indentified "libertarian conservative" who says "Where I part company with many libertarians is that I find them too doctrinaire." One of those doctrines is apparently the fallacy that black people are not inferior to whites: "...people of African ultimate origin do have much lower average scores on general problem-solving ability (IQ) than do people of European ancestry and... variations in IQ are largely genetic." Or maybe that part's his libertarian side. With these folks it's hard to tell.
I'd love to hear other contenders. Please remember, however, that the Ole Perfesser already has his own wing in the BL Hall of Fame.
So, "small-government conservative" is pretty much a synonym for "hypocrite," right?
Or, to elaborate, whenever somebody who evinces a strong smell of conservatism starts talking about his libertarian cred -- like this guy, who declares himself "a conservative-libertarian hybrid" while denouncing gay marriage ("Just because something is immoral does not mean that it should be legal") -- hide your freedoms.
You probably have your own favorite bullshit libertarians. Here's mine, at the moment: a self-indentified "libertarian conservative" who says "Where I part company with many libertarians is that I find them too doctrinaire." One of those doctrines is apparently the fallacy that black people are not inferior to whites: "...people of African ultimate origin do have much lower average scores on general problem-solving ability (IQ) than do people of European ancestry and... variations in IQ are largely genetic." Or maybe that part's his libertarian side. With these folks it's hard to tell.
I'd love to hear other contenders. Please remember, however, that the Ole Perfesser already has his own wing in the BL Hall of Fame.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
HALF BAKED. 'Member when, in Star Trek? They scrambled up their molecules? And they could go from one place to the other, like, through the air?
UPDATE. "Virtual communities in some ways already mean more than real ones..." ("You do have friends, don't you?" "Well... the Superfriends.")
What I realized in thinking about this is the extent to which modern nation-states are all about geometry: They have an inside, and an outside, and the presumption is that if most of the dangers are kept outside everything will be fine. If some sort of practical matter transportation came about, we'd have to think about a different way of looking at things: The "virtual geography" of transport connections would mean more than the real geography of rivers, mountains, oceans, and other formerly important natural barriers. That seems pretty revolutionary.Dude, chill, they haven't even invented telespre-- telepreta-- tel-e-por-ta-tion yet. Hey, did you eat all the Fritos?
UPDATE. "Virtual communities in some ways already mean more than real ones..." ("You do have friends, don't you?" "Well... the Superfriends.")
PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE. When YouTube wouldn't show her video, Michelle Malkin went into her customary dhimmitude froth. But the right wing's brightest lights have adopted a less manic approach: they're promoting the Zucker parody ad by making it seem like forbidden fruit:
I think the ad's pretty funny -- but it's no Daisy!
UPDATE. Now Stanley Kurtz is doing it, too. Ugh. When they try this hard to be cute, they remind me of Samuel L. Jackson dancing for Ruby Dee in Jungle Fever.
Don't show this ad!Of course, the ad's lack of network presence is not due to evil MSM censorship, but because the Republican Party correctly figured voters would see it and think, "So, Clinton and that fat lady -- are they running for something?"
Noooooo! It wouldn't be nice! Must be niiiiiiiiiice. So they're not showing it, and it's a good thing no one can see it.
...
I AGREE WITH ANN ALTHOUSE: It's a good thing that nobody is showing this ad. It's a regular triumph of good taste that it's not being shown anywhere at all. . . .
Though I'm glad I got to watch Kim Jong Il slam-dunking, even if it was in a commercial that no one at all will ever see. Because, you know, they're not showing it anywhere.
I think the ad's pretty funny -- but it's no Daisy!
UPDATE. Now Stanley Kurtz is doing it, too. Ugh. When they try this hard to be cute, they remind me of Samuel L. Jackson dancing for Ruby Dee in Jungle Fever.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
AND IF PRINCESS LEIA AND I COULD HANG OUT, I BET SHE WOULD REALLY LIKE ME. Steven Den Beste, blowhardiest of legacy bloggers, mocks liberals as dreamers who retreat into fantasy worlds of entertainment programming:
Everyone likes a good fantasy. But the major difference between them and us is, we indulge our fantasies by creating film and TV shows, whereas they indulge theirs by creating unnecessary wars.
Also, they smell really, really bad.
Lose the 2000 election? Well, create a TV show where the Democrats actually won in 2000. Wish Hillary would win, but fear that she won't? Make another TV show about the first woman (a Democrat, naturally) to be President. Want the War on Terror to end? Just write the history of the future and and have a future President (a woman) end it. Hate George Bush, and wish he was gone? Then make a movie about his assassination.Meanwhile, the official weblog of National Review magazine is devoting itself to a protracted discussion of Battlestar Gallactica and other sci-fi dorkery. Specimen:
I hear ya. And, let's also acknowledge that the whole "We come in peace" storyline is hardly new to sci-fi. But, come on. It seems an enormous stretch to think that the producers were going for occupied France first and Iraq second. The whole suicide bombing thing, the one-eyed Tighe, etc made the comparisons to Iraq incredibly ham-fisted. Indeed, what's annoying is that the French resistance vibe people are getting is part of what makes the Iraq comparison so offensive. It's a one-step remove from comparing the Iraqi insurgency to the (romanticized) French resistance.Try to imagine this speech yammmered by young Jonah at a Goucher coed, and punctuated by the crunching of Cheetos.
Everyone likes a good fantasy. But the major difference between them and us is, we indulge our fantasies by creating film and TV shows, whereas they indulge theirs by creating unnecessary wars.
Also, they smell really, really bad.
MORE RINGING ENDORSEMENTS OF BUSH NORTH KOREA POLICY ROLL IN! "...we may be left with no choices other than war and blackmail." -- "Captain" Ed Morrissey
I bet they're tickled that this pushed Foley off the front page! Now, instead of looking like teen-sex enablers, the Republicans look like our unsmiling concierges to the Apocalypse. Much more mediagenic!
Meanwhile, Mario Loyola (whom I imagine as a young Andy Garcia in the first half of The Godfather III, a hot-tempered enforcer ready to start stabbing at the slightest nod from his boss) is going the "It's all Clinton's fault" route. The die-hards' portrayal of the former President has become over-complicated, though: it's hard to envision even the Clenis killing real Americans at Ruby Ridge and Waco, running drugs through the Mena Airport, selling us out in Darfur, Libya, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, and getting his dick sucked all at the same time. If I were they, just before blowing my brains out, I would try to offload some of these atrocities onto a different straw man. How about Richard Simmons? Nobody likes him.
UPDATE. Reader Mary Caliendo points out that McCain has picked up the blame-Clinton ball. The Senator also asks China to "step up to the plate." If he means the plate piled with riches we constantly serve up to the Red East in return for their sweatshop labor, I'd say they were there already. And it will be interesting to see -- if we get to see -- how China might respond to pressure from the U.S. on this: do they fear our wrath as much as we fear the loss of their cheap manufactures, or their grip on one trillion U.S. dollars?
I bet they're tickled that this pushed Foley off the front page! Now, instead of looking like teen-sex enablers, the Republicans look like our unsmiling concierges to the Apocalypse. Much more mediagenic!
Meanwhile, Mario Loyola (whom I imagine as a young Andy Garcia in the first half of The Godfather III, a hot-tempered enforcer ready to start stabbing at the slightest nod from his boss) is going the "It's all Clinton's fault" route. The die-hards' portrayal of the former President has become over-complicated, though: it's hard to envision even the Clenis killing real Americans at Ruby Ridge and Waco, running drugs through the Mena Airport, selling us out in Darfur, Libya, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, and getting his dick sucked all at the same time. If I were they, just before blowing my brains out, I would try to offload some of these atrocities onto a different straw man. How about Richard Simmons? Nobody likes him.
UPDATE. Reader Mary Caliendo points out that McCain has picked up the blame-Clinton ball. The Senator also asks China to "step up to the plate." If he means the plate piled with riches we constantly serve up to the Red East in return for their sweatshop labor, I'd say they were there already. And it will be interesting to see -- if we get to see -- how China might respond to pressure from the U.S. on this: do they fear our wrath as much as we fear the loss of their cheap manufactures, or their grip on one trillion U.S. dollars?
Monday, October 09, 2006
NYUK, NYUK, NYUK. So how's the Most Powerful Nation on Earth doing against the Axis of Evil -- or, as I like to think of them, Moe, Larry and Curly? Iraq -- originally the Curly of the outfit, though now downgraded to Shemp or perhaps even Joe Besser status -- has been "liberated" and "pacified" -- that is to say, it's a basket case, where daily life has become so dangerous that authorities recently had to stick a flak jacket on Condi Rice before escorting her from Baghdad Airport. Even the Donald Rumsfeld publicity bureau known as OpinionJournal today declared in an offhand tone that "if another 10,000 or 20,000 or however many troops would reassure Iraqis in the months ahead... then by all means President Bush should deploy them."
Iran, the Larry of the outfit, is treading water, with Ahmadinejad working a global charm offensive while riding herd on his opposition back home.
And North Korea, proving a worthy bearer of the mantle of Moe, just blowed up a big bomb. Remind him to kill us later!
We all knew this was coming, given the ham-handed U.S. approach to NK nuclear negotiations. Though previous administrations had managed to maneuver North Korea away from H-bombs, Bush treated and spoke of the Korean nuclear situation in oh-well, whattaya-gonna-do terms, as if it were out of his control: "I think what we have to do is plan for the worst and hope for the best."
Now Kim's got a working bomb, and naturally the conservative response is: we have GOT to keep the Democrats out of office, or they might fuck up even worse than we have! "...we know what the Democratic Party and its media surrogates will want to do -- begin a comprehensive and multi-lateral campaign to BLAME BUSH!!!" cries Dean Barnett. References to 9/11, WWII, and Awakening the American People to their Grave Peril naturally follow.
"When the conflagration comes, it will burn as surely as night follows day," intones Josh Trevino from atop a plinth, toga rippling in the wind. "The puerile predator in Pyongyang will do no less. We have failed to prevent: now it falls to us to deter, and in time, avenge." Avenge what? Maybe he means the North Korean "slave state," generally; Trevino once lived near it, of which joyous days he still has happy memories of "leftist students assaulting our housing compound," apparently forging a lifelong bond between Trevino and his noisy neighbors. Or maybe he seeks vengeance for this: if we nuke North Korea, maybe the radiation will seep over into Seoul, and that guy Trevino couldn't get arrested in '05 will finally get his.
Others also appear optimistic -- not for the imminent bloodshed, but because of the possibility of Republican political advantage. "Mr. Kim drives Foley off the front page -- or does he? Well, he better," sez Roger L. Simon. But his heart's not in it -- not like the old days of the Iraqi cakewalk and flag lapel pins! "Foley was starting to get boring," yes, but still there is a "fundamental lack of seriousness of a great part of our society, especially in the political and media classes" -- not like Simon, playing Stratego with Victor Davis Hanson and Michael Ledeen all night long! "In a way I hope the Democrats win in November, so that they are forced to face reality." Wow -- he's so rattled, he's forgotten we're all traitors!
In short, thanks to the persistence of human stupidity, this urgent worldwide crisis promises to be as hilarious as any other.
UPDATE. At Ace of Spades HQ, poster "Dave from Garfield Ridge" (who reveals, to our horror, in comments that "my day job touches on a lot of what I write about...national security stuff...") repeats the new wisdom: "The big lesson today is the most obvious one, a lesson most any reader here could have imparted long before we got here. Namely, that any nation that wants nuclear weapons will eventually get them, and will get them by any means necessary." Gee, if they've felt that way since "long before we got here," when Bush gave his original Axis of Evil speech, why didn't he just say, "We give up"?
Actual sensible commentary here.
Iran, the Larry of the outfit, is treading water, with Ahmadinejad working a global charm offensive while riding herd on his opposition back home.
And North Korea, proving a worthy bearer of the mantle of Moe, just blowed up a big bomb. Remind him to kill us later!
We all knew this was coming, given the ham-handed U.S. approach to NK nuclear negotiations. Though previous administrations had managed to maneuver North Korea away from H-bombs, Bush treated and spoke of the Korean nuclear situation in oh-well, whattaya-gonna-do terms, as if it were out of his control: "I think what we have to do is plan for the worst and hope for the best."
Now Kim's got a working bomb, and naturally the conservative response is: we have GOT to keep the Democrats out of office, or they might fuck up even worse than we have! "...we know what the Democratic Party and its media surrogates will want to do -- begin a comprehensive and multi-lateral campaign to BLAME BUSH!!!" cries Dean Barnett. References to 9/11, WWII, and Awakening the American People to their Grave Peril naturally follow.
"When the conflagration comes, it will burn as surely as night follows day," intones Josh Trevino from atop a plinth, toga rippling in the wind. "The puerile predator in Pyongyang will do no less. We have failed to prevent: now it falls to us to deter, and in time, avenge." Avenge what? Maybe he means the North Korean "slave state," generally; Trevino once lived near it, of which joyous days he still has happy memories of "leftist students assaulting our housing compound," apparently forging a lifelong bond between Trevino and his noisy neighbors. Or maybe he seeks vengeance for this: if we nuke North Korea, maybe the radiation will seep over into Seoul, and that guy Trevino couldn't get arrested in '05 will finally get his.
Others also appear optimistic -- not for the imminent bloodshed, but because of the possibility of Republican political advantage. "Mr. Kim drives Foley off the front page -- or does he? Well, he better," sez Roger L. Simon. But his heart's not in it -- not like the old days of the Iraqi cakewalk and flag lapel pins! "Foley was starting to get boring," yes, but still there is a "fundamental lack of seriousness of a great part of our society, especially in the political and media classes" -- not like Simon, playing Stratego with Victor Davis Hanson and Michael Ledeen all night long! "In a way I hope the Democrats win in November, so that they are forced to face reality." Wow -- he's so rattled, he's forgotten we're all traitors!
In short, thanks to the persistence of human stupidity, this urgent worldwide crisis promises to be as hilarious as any other.
UPDATE. At Ace of Spades HQ, poster "Dave from Garfield Ridge" (who reveals, to our horror, in comments that "my day job touches on a lot of what I write about...national security stuff...") repeats the new wisdom: "The big lesson today is the most obvious one, a lesson most any reader here could have imparted long before we got here. Namely, that any nation that wants nuclear weapons will eventually get them, and will get them by any means necessary." Gee, if they've felt that way since "long before we got here," when Bush gave his original Axis of Evil speech, why didn't he just say, "We give up"?
Actual sensible commentary here.
SHORTER ANN ALTHOUSE. Good news! The voters don't blame Republicans for Foley -- they blame fags!
UPDATE. Crunchy Rod Dreher steps up to give Althouse a run for her funny. Dreher quotes a guy who thinks the Foley case shows that the GOP "elites" -- i.e., the kind who use a knife and fork when they eat -- are out of sync with regular Republicans. Dreher agrees, with a twist:
UPDATE II. My favorite Dreher commenter:
UPDATE. Crunchy Rod Dreher steps up to give Althouse a run for her funny. Dreher quotes a guy who thinks the Foley case shows that the GOP "elites" -- i.e., the kind who use a knife and fork when they eat -- are out of sync with regular Republicans. Dreher agrees, with a twist:
I socialize with many conservatives who are one way or another elites, and even if they (like me) oppose the demands of the gay rights movement (e.g., gay marriage) for reasons of political or moral principle, we honestly aren't made uncomfortable by being around gay people. It's not even an issue, so gay protests that conservatives are burning with fear and loathing of gays strikes me as way overblown, and an attempt to avoid actually considering our arguments on their own merits.Sounds like he feels bad that he isn't made uncomfortable by the mere presence of homosexuals -- because even that limited level of tolerance separates him from the Salt of the Earth and the Common Clay. Maybe it's time he went back to Bible Camp to learn how to be more judgmental.
But to be fair, this comment makes me think about how unrepresentative my relationship with gay folks is of the typical conservative's.
UPDATE II. My favorite Dreher commenter:
But personally (and this has nothing to do with the legal argument against gay marriage) I find homosexuality even more revolting than a man (or woman) having sex with an animal. Hey, does this make me a bigot?A: Yes.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
TOO MUCH INFORMATION. Regular readers may have noticed that I don't discuss my sex life much. Though it would make, as I think most people's would, a rich tale, full of drama and comedy and pathos, I yet cling to the old-fashioned notion that a gentleman never tells.
Not everyone feels that way, though:
Her idea -- and that of the comrades to whom she links in her post -- is, near as I can figure, that by finding humor in the current Congressional tsimmis, liberals have abandoned the high ground -- or the deep rut, depending on how you look at it -- of sexual liberty, which she now claims for herself.
As a sometime author of erotic fiction, I find The Anchoress' effort lacking in both style and prurience. Still, to each her own; at some early stage of sexual awakening, plain declarations of enthusiasm may provide sufficient titillation.
As for the political effect -- which I suspect is the real animator of this exhibition -- she needn't have bothered. As I have tirelessly observed, the Democrats have been cast, and well cast, as America's horndogs, and it will take more than a few Instant Messages to dislodge us. Besides, the election is only a month away, and near the event we may expect Republican operatives to haul out the FAGS A-GITTIN' HITCHED! banner to rally voters to their cause. Whatever amateurs may think, the pros know that there is more to be gained by promoting hatred of other people's sex lives than from celebration of one's own.
Speaking of amateurs, this phenomenon is mainly interesting as an expression of discontent among right-wing bloggers.
Sex-hatred has been a key factor in the Republican strategy for quite some time -- whether couched in terms of gay marriage, rainbow parties, wardrobe malfunctions, the Clenis, or any other available mechanism for welding Democrats to a realm of human life that apparently still baffles and disgusts a large number of voters.
The top conservative bloggers, despite their self-portrayal as men and women of The Peepul, tend to be professional word-workers with some education and prestige (law professors, speechwriters, journalists, students, etc). They have to know this Republican freakishness about sex is all bullshit. But they have gone along because it has been good for their Party and the non-sex-based causes it supports -- endless war on Muslims, low taxes on rich people, and such like.
By a willful misreading of the current scandal-twisted situation, some of them see an opportunity to speak up for sex without abandoning their Republican affiliation. This opportunity is so rare, and so delayed, that when they finally feel themselves free to speak out for sucking and fucking, it comes out explosively, in a pressurized stream of clumsily suggestive gibberish.
For all the harm their reign has done our country, let us be grateful at least that we are not so afflicted.
Not everyone feels that way, though:
I like various positions! With the lights on and off! In the daytime and the nighttime! In the ocean and in the windowseat! I like sex on Sunday mornings! Can I get an “AMEN” for Cunnilingus? AMEN for cunnilingus! Can I get a “You know how to whistle, don’t you” for Fellatio? “You know how to whistle, don’t you?” Can I get a “Ride’em Cowboy” for my husband? Yippeekayae! Can I get an “arghghghghg” for Readi Whip and maraschino cherries? Arghghghghghg! What, no brownies?This noisome display is not from The Vagina Monologues, but from The Anchoress -- normally a reliable right-wing scold who speaks of sex primarily as an agent of death, who has been driven to this uncharacteristically lurid extremity by the Foley scandal.
Her idea -- and that of the comrades to whom she links in her post -- is, near as I can figure, that by finding humor in the current Congressional tsimmis, liberals have abandoned the high ground -- or the deep rut, depending on how you look at it -- of sexual liberty, which she now claims for herself.
As a sometime author of erotic fiction, I find The Anchoress' effort lacking in both style and prurience. Still, to each her own; at some early stage of sexual awakening, plain declarations of enthusiasm may provide sufficient titillation.
As for the political effect -- which I suspect is the real animator of this exhibition -- she needn't have bothered. As I have tirelessly observed, the Democrats have been cast, and well cast, as America's horndogs, and it will take more than a few Instant Messages to dislodge us. Besides, the election is only a month away, and near the event we may expect Republican operatives to haul out the FAGS A-GITTIN' HITCHED! banner to rally voters to their cause. Whatever amateurs may think, the pros know that there is more to be gained by promoting hatred of other people's sex lives than from celebration of one's own.
Speaking of amateurs, this phenomenon is mainly interesting as an expression of discontent among right-wing bloggers.
Sex-hatred has been a key factor in the Republican strategy for quite some time -- whether couched in terms of gay marriage, rainbow parties, wardrobe malfunctions, the Clenis, or any other available mechanism for welding Democrats to a realm of human life that apparently still baffles and disgusts a large number of voters.
The top conservative bloggers, despite their self-portrayal as men and women of The Peepul, tend to be professional word-workers with some education and prestige (law professors, speechwriters, journalists, students, etc). They have to know this Republican freakishness about sex is all bullshit. But they have gone along because it has been good for their Party and the non-sex-based causes it supports -- endless war on Muslims, low taxes on rich people, and such like.
By a willful misreading of the current scandal-twisted situation, some of them see an opportunity to speak up for sex without abandoning their Republican affiliation. This opportunity is so rare, and so delayed, that when they finally feel themselves free to speak out for sucking and fucking, it comes out explosively, in a pressurized stream of clumsily suggestive gibberish.
For all the harm their reign has done our country, let us be grateful at least that we are not so afflicted.
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