Keep your eye on the ball:

Newark, Blast Ring 4: Radioactive mutants from the National Jewish Democratic Council today tapped an angry Morse code press release message on the lid of the fallout shelter of another Jewish organization, demanding that it "immediately disinvite" controversial Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin from its fortified underground bunker.

"As an evangelical extremist Republican, Sarah Palin is no friend to surviving American Jews, or the former country of Israel," said NJDC chairman Mark Stanley. "Allowing Palin into a Jewish refugee shelter creates not only a partisan circus, but a health hazard for fellow Jews who will be exposed to her dangerous Alaska redneck cooties."

A spokes-tapper from the organization, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, defended the invitation of Palin to the join the group in the bunker, noting it had given similar invitations to several Democratic politicians after former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared at the United Nations last week strapped with a 50-megaton nuclear device. However, all of the Democratic invitees canceled under pressure from the NDJC.

"Just because Senators Clinton and Schumer were vaporized in the attack last week is no excuse for you to continue hosting Sarah Palin," responded Stanley. "It is an affront to all Jews that you would actually share your freeze-dried kreplatch and tzimmes with this dangerous meshuggah shiksa."

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Via a notation from Ana Marie Cox on Twitter, A.O. Scott in The New York Timesdiscusses Wallace's voice, which he attempts to separate from Wallace's life.

Good luck, Buddy.

Special bonus: the headline is "The Best Mind of His Generation." Get it?

When, as an undergraduate with a head full of literary theory and a heartsick longing for authenticity, I first encountered David Foster Wallace, I experienced what is commonly called the shock of recognition. Actually, shock is too clean, too safe a word for my uncomfortable sense that not only did I know this guy, but he knew me. He could have been a T.A. in one of my college courses, or the slightly older guy in Advanced Approaches to Interpretation who sat slightly aloof from the others and had not only mastered the abstruse and trendy texts everyone else was reading, but also skipped backward, sideways and ahead. It was impressive enough that he could do philosophy — the mathematical kind, not just the French kind. But he also played tennis — Mr. Wallace, in fact, had competed seriously in the sport — and could quote lyrics from bands you only pretended you’d heard of. Without even trying, he was cooler than everyone else.

All this shone through Mr. Wallace’s fiction. He had the intellectual moves and literary tricks diagrammed in advance: the raised-eyebrow, mock-earnest references to old TV shows and comic books; the acknowledgment that truth was a language game. He was smarter than anyone else, but also poignantly aware that being smart didn’t necessarily get you very far, and that the most visible manifestations of smartness — wide erudition, mastery of trivia, rhetorical facility, love of argument for its own sake — could leave you feeling empty, baffled and dumb.

Another way of saying this is that Mr. Wallace, born in 1962 and the author of an acclaimed first novel at age 24, anchored his work in an acute sense of generational crisis. None of his peers were preoccupied so explicitly with how it felt to arrive on the scene as a young, male American novelist dreaming of glory, late in the 20th century and haunted by a ridiculous, poignant question: what if itÂ’s too late? What am I supposed to do now?

Yeah, well: one could almost say the same thing about female writers. Almost.

Cox characterizes the piece as "deft." Maybe. Certainly, the point is well taken that a high I.Q. and $3.50 can buy one a Chai Latte at Starbucks. So, you know: we've got that going for us.

I still think that what he did was really, really stupid.

And with that, I think I'll go to bed.

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Jan's appetite tonight at dinner will be either greater or less than usual, and her sense of smell with be more sensitive/acute. She's also due for an extra dose of estrogen soon, which should put her in a good mood once it kicks in.

If she won't or can't drink more than a half-glass of wine, that will clinch it.

Hm. The plot thickens.

For my own part, I've decided that married-without-children is a sensible middle ground between spinsterhood and motherhood. All of the benefits of marriage, without the downside of a demanding family life. Which frees me up to do . . . whatever it is I'm doing. So there.

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. . . in his own way:

I hate to tell you this, but we didn't "rape the earth." It was consensual. The earth was begging for it, Frank. And if you don't mind sloppy seconds, get in line.

Note: I hope that my readers all realize that Robert Stacy McCain is no relation to John McCain, et al.—unless, presumably, one goes back to Ireland. In which case they are probably both distant cousins of my husband's, and I'm related (via England) to James Whitmore.

And, for the record, Stacy is one of the last few holdouts in terms of not voting for his "crazy cousin John" for President. (Personally, I thought it would be me, but I fell like a libertarian domino around March of this year.)

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Racists!

Double-Plus Undead put a content warning on this one. But if I started doing stuff like that, wouldn't I have to "NSFW" my whole blog? (Still: even less SFW than usual.)

Aw, come on. 'S funny 'cause it's true.

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Arrgh, it be talk like a pirate day again. But they'll not be telling you which pirate ye need to be talkin' like. How about this one?

And here I be at the Auto Repair Place, wearing a T-shirt other than my Disneyland "Pirates of the Caribbean" shirt, with its skull-and-crossbones flag that be glowin' in the dark. Unfortunately, it be havin' polyester fibers it its fabric, so it be an easy T-shirt to overheat in.

I be thinkin' of cuttin' the sleeves off of it and makin' it into a muscle shirt. To show off my buff arms.

Christophe Twitter-tweeted the most half-assed Pirate talk I've ever seen in my life, in "spirit of the day": "R." Is that the text-talk/Leet speak version of Pirate-patter? Also, how would that sound in LOLCAT?

Hm. Nokitty be hoistin' the Jolly Roger. But we can haz:

more animals

Pirate Duckies!

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Nope. I don't think it was like Obama's "57 states" (he was just tired that night, the way I saw it).

I think she really is that ignorant. YMMV.

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Over at Malkin.

Extra credit: who wants to guess at the male:female ratio among users of "Anonymous"?

Among the males (which, let's just assume it's 99.99999999, for the purposes of discussion), how many have been laid?

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Is Zed looking for a new job?

Or is Muir just trying to make his girl-readers swoon with that suit?

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we'd be able to appreciate what idiots we are.

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1 I think part of the problem was that you let lobbying do stuff to the AMA and your healthcare systems. While I don't support wacko stuff like lobotomies (unless the guy's a serial killer or something, and even then I think just hanging him would be much less cruel), confining the insane is pretty much the best idea ever. Yes, it does tend to remove them from the public eye, and hence you get crazy shit like electroshock therapy (I don't care if it works or not, ain't nobody gonna stick electrodes up my ass and pump 300V into me). OTOH, I dunno. Maybe it can be difficult to draw the line as to what's mildly eccentric and what's [ahem] moonbat nuts. For example, I speak to myself. Very frequently. How should that be classified? Hmm. Maybe we should just have a 'reservation' for them? Corral all the crazies, and the greenies and the hobo hippies and put them in a nice, natural, picturesque environment... ...And then sell hunting licenses and day passes to those who practice the AoSHQ Lifestyle(tm). /I kid, I kid

Posted by: Gregory at September 18, 2008 12:43 AM (cjwF0)

2 Of course, that presupposes that the morons are actually able to take on the hobos--maybe, maybe not: some of those hobos are tougher than they look. I KNOW . . .

Posted by: Attila Girl at September 18, 2008 09:40 AM (TpmQk)

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The major problems in the world!

No need to congratulate me; just send me money.

1) Too many bloggers live on the East Coast, and 2) too many bloggers keep normal hours, rather than being night owls.

So sometimes, after 1:00 a.m. out in the Golden State, one is forced to conclude that the entire Atlantic Seaboard is cozy and snug in its little keyboard-free beds, and unlikely to update its web pages with any juicy new goodness.

Which leads to the rather horrific conclusion that perhaps I ought to go to bed.

I will try.

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Hawkins has a new poll up.

He mentions "nuclear proliferation." I dunno: I mostly want to make sure that we have the biggest nukes. Does that mean that I'm further to the right than John is?

If so, I don't think it's ever happened before . . .

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whom I don't know. They don't seem to be bloggers, or blog-readers, or colleagues, or political junkies, or people from my personal life.

Should I follow them? Should I block them?

I mean, there are people I don't know out there, and they are reading my thoughts.

Isn't there something creepy about that?

Is it a violation of my privacy?

I mean, it sounds like these people could be utter strangers. I'm concerned.

Perhaps I'll pull the Twitter account.

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Jim Manifold:

I submit that Sarah Palin is the most Heinleinian candidate for Vice-President of the United States in this countryÂ’s history (indeed, possibly the only one other than Truman in 1944).

Heinliein was so interesting: he was pulpy, libertarian, and fun.

Via Insty.

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1 Yes. She. Is. I caught that very soon after her candidacy was announced. To the degree that in some ways I've kept some of the best bits under my hat. Don't want to scare the "moderates" or anything. Though I have been mulling a post for the last couple of days where I pull out all the stops and lay it out: "Why I *Really* Want To Vote For Palin", and lay out all the juicy ways that she is so very much my candidate. Stuff that sends the Andy Sullivans of the world into snot-drooling hyperventilation.

Posted by: Desert Cat at September 17, 2008 03:05 PM (6go9w)

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At least, straight women will, if you've got a statue outside of N.Z. Bear outside that PorkBusters Museum.

Not sure what his wife will think of it, though. 'Course, she'll probably disapprove more of the earmark than the attempt to immortalize her husband.

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. . . is rolling in the long green. Yippee!

I think that means there's hope for the rest of the undercapitalized blogosphere . . . . Coolness.

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For some reason, Greenberg's Wikipedia entry is locked to new/unregistered users.

The one that got away.

Wonder what that's all about.

I hope she doesn't have any self-portraits online, or someone is liable to start P-shopping her. Only it might be elephant-poop raining down on her head, rather than the monkey-shit she photoshopped onto the picture of McCain. Or perhaps it'll be moose turds. Sky's the limit, really.

These dyed-in-the-wool Democrats? Experts at mobilizing the veterans' votes.

And some of the print media are impoloding. Average Americans can only be manipulated up to a point. After that, one has to step off the gravy train.

UPDATE: Gerard continues to follow and update this story. I think those of us who have worked in print publishing—particularly on high-end four-color monthly titles, for which the standards can be quite exacting, and the hours, long—have a special feeling of empathy for The Atlantic over this scandal. And though it will be linked in a lot of people's minds, this affair isn't really related to the Atlantic website's carrying of Andrew Sullivan's blog.

The Greenberg photography scandal has to do with the fact that The Atlantic's Editor, James Bennett; Deputy Editor, Scott Stossel; Art Director, Jason Treat; Publisher, David Bradley; Circulation Director, Dave Bergeman (whom I have worked with; he's a nice guy, and very honest)—and its entire art, production, editorial, advertising, online, and promotional staffs—were stabbed in the back by a vendor who betrayed their trust.

Jill Greenberg is the person who puts razor blades in apples on Halloween. She is the reason we dare not trust our neighbors, have trouble doing business on a handshake, and look behind ourselves when we're walking alone on city streets.

This is not a partisan issue—though it will be linked to media bias by many. This is, at the end of the day, a human decency issue.

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I've been considering ending it with The Atlantic. Certainly, the magazine's website is cluttered with various tidbits of anti-McCain/anti-Palin propaganda (such as this uncharacteristically idiotic James Fallows post about Palin and "The Bush Doctrine").* The editors' choice of a photographer for this month's issue is a disgrace. And the continuing presence of Andrew Sullivan on their roster of bloggers is an ongoing black eye, and an insult to their readers' intelligence.

I have started to fantasize about leaving them for another print magazine, like National Geographic or Popular Mechanics. (And, yes: I must have one print magazine; web access from my bedroom can be iffy, and I don't like reading myself to sleep with a laptop, in any event.)

But then, The Atlantic is still running Christopher Hitchens, who continues to call 'em as he sees 'em.

And then there is this priceless Benjamin Schwarz piece about Christian Lander, the man behind the legendary blog Stuff White People Like.

Schwarz:

For those whose “politics” are almost entirely gestural, not only do the personal and the political insidiously entwine, so do the aesthetic and the political. The logic, born in college dining halls and now embraced by people well into adulthood, that holds that donning a colored plastic bracelet or a kaffiyeh is an act of personal and political self-definition can and does attach the same significance to snowboarding and to selecting one’s iPod playlist. When everything is “political,” of course, nothing is.

Perhaps I should give SWPL a look; I guess I've always been put off by the name, seeing the name "white" as a racial designation rather than a cultural one. But Benjamin Schwarz makes it clear that Landers is just going that final ironic mile:

LanderÂ’s most entertaining and spot-on entries dissect White PeopleÂ’s elaborate sumptuary codes, their dogged pursuit of their own care and feeding, and their efforts to define themselves and their values through their all-but-uniform taste and accessories (Sedaris/Eggers/The Daily Show/the right indie music/Obama bumper stickers/uh, The New Yorker).

So why call this group “White People”? Lander is almost certainly being mischievous. After all, dismissing something or someone as “so white” has long been a favorite put-down among those who like to view themselves as right-thinking, hierarchy-defying nonconformists—that is, White People.

My issue with these "nonconformists," of course, is that they tend to buy their politics "off the rack." Which is a fine place to get one's clothing, but not the best venue for approaching the moral or administrative issues of the day.

Currently, The Atlantic and I are in counseling, and attempting to use "active listening" techniques to improve our communication styles.

So there is hope.

* Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase "the Bush doctrine," and points out that there are four separate incarnations of it: something that Palin may or may not know, but Charlie Gibson and James Fallows apparently do not. I tend to wonder whether Fallows' iffy internet connection led to him only seeing or reading the heavily edited version of the Palin interview, in which ABC went out of its way to make her look bad. It is also worth noting that Krauthammer has, in the past, been sharply critical of Governor Palin.

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I'm nauseous, hormonal and just feel crappy.

No, it isn't the flu; no fever. Just some kind of peri-menopausal thingie. I'm fine, but I'm taking another day off.

On the other hand, Gerard is on fire. So go read him his entire main page; lots of bloggy goodness there.

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(Gin-blogging; could you tell?)

I really used to think that Allah P harbored tremendous amounts of sexism—perhaps even misogyny.

Now I believe he's terribly enlightened—though perhaps a bit depressed. I think that suggests that either (1) he's been getting laid more in the past few years, and/or (2) I was even more puritanical and judgmental a few years back than I am now. [[[shudder]]]

Now, of course, I'm convinced that not only is Ragnar the most sexist creature in the Rightosphere, but he's also an asshole the likes of which I haven't seen since . . . well, since the last time I watched broadcast news.

And he's green. Seventeen or eighteen years old, tops.

* * *

Oh, yes. Assholes who happen to be male:

When I was nine years old, my brother was 11. No offense, kitten-boy, but you were horrible. (I was thinking of buying a house down the block from yours sometime in the next few years; that way, my mother and I could just check in on you and your wife from time to time and make sure you two are alright—and that the boys don't need more iTunes gift certificates, so they can buy stuff from "Scars on Broadway.")

Then I was ten, and he was 12. This did not help matters whatsoever. He decided to teach me chess, which he accomplished by showing me how the pieces moved, and imparting nearly no strategy to me. In an odd turn of events, he found it easy to beat me rather rapidly when it came to chess.

So, see? It was a win-win situation: he got to win, and I got to lose, which was almost certainly good for my soul.

Surely that gives me the moral high ground in the years to come, and if it does not--well, I'll take it by force.

Perhaps my nephews need a place where they can go to shoot pool, and have a few beers. Like the garage/bonus room in the old days in Santa Monica.

I would hate to be a bad influence, of course. But my mother and I think we should live somewhere nearby, so that we and the dog could . . . enhance your lives! And I, for one, promise not so supply your sons with weed. Unless they ask me really, really nicely. For a nominal fee, I will not tell then (too many) stories from your days as a party boy.

* * * * *

[Actually, I'm completely making this up; the mom will be moving up to east LA: Pasadena, La Canada, or something like that.]

* * *

Fortunately, I shot the television a few nights ago with my .40-caliber Glock. My husband seems testy about it, even though I invited him to "watch the idiot box go boom!"

He's been muttering under his breath. I've only been able to pick out "football," "high-definition?" "sports bars" and "fuckin' bitch."

He does seem quite angry at the forces of radical feminism that have tried to shut down debate from equity feminists over the last few decades. So angry, in fact, that he barely speaks to me any more.

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