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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(Uh . . . not you, Andy.)

The boy is just having too much fun . . . he sounds like the look on Clinton's face when he got deposed about that damned cigar:

Rasmussen: McCain Leads Obama in Ohio By "A Shitload;" Trends Predict Possibility of "A Serious Skull-Fucking"

I think that's what it said, anyway. So, I skimmed. Sue me.

It's 51-44, actually, if you're a "Numbers Fag."

This month, McCain enjoys a solid 58% to 32% among unaffiliated voters in Ohio. That is a major improvement from the five-point deficit the Republican received from this demographic a month ago. Among men, McCain leads 59% to 36%, but the Republican trails among women 50% to 45%.

Okay, enough with the polls. We see which way this trainwreck is heading.

. . . . . . . .

Eagleton Scenario? Under/over: I say Palin drops out by next Monday.

Bank on it.

Drudge Slug -- NYT TUESDAY: FAR FROM CERTAIN OBAMA WILL MEET AMBITIOUS FUNDRAISING TARGET... DEVELOPING....

Now it's just starting to feel dirty.

Not even good-dirty.

Honestly, the posts I want to write now are along the lines of: "Obama wasn't a bad guy. He probably meant well. And I do understand the excitement about electing our first black president; I could get excited about that too, were the candidate in question simply [not] so far to the left of me on so many issues..."

Honest[l]y, that's what I want to write. I feel bad.

He sometimes has this jolt of remorse toward the end of his posts—not enough to actually edit the term "skull-fucking" out of his headline, but remorseful remorse nonetheless.

That's pitch-perfect Ace, right there. And it is magnificent.

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"Um, no," I reply. "I'm just looking at my SiteMeter stats."

"How many times does that make, today?"

"I dunno. Can't count that high. Are you accusing me of ego-surfing?"

"Yes. Yes, I am. 'Who's reading my blog? How popular am I? Who likes me today?' It's like being in cyber-high school."

"Maybe," I tell him.

He leaves the room, and I mutter under my breath, "except even I wasn't getting thousands of hits a day in high school. And I was cute back then."

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succumbs, and lets the Palinmania wash over him like the water from a natural hot spring deep in the woods of the Northwestern wilderness:

I'm not in this for analysis. I'm in for gloating. And I need to be winning to be gloating.

You ever try gloating when you're getting your ass kicked? It doesn't play.

It's been a while since I could really, genuinely, deeply gloat.

Thank you, John McCain and Sarah Palin, for once again letting me laugh.

And thank you, too, liberals. DKM (Daily Kos Media). Barack "Community Organizer" Obama. Power Glutes Andi. Keef Olbermann. You have played no small role in elevating my spirits and bringing joy into my life again.

In fact, to be honest, it has relatively little to do with McCain or Palin and almost everything to do with you.

You shit-for-brains clown-nosed jerkoffs are just about the best thing I've got going on in my life.

You are the wind beneath my wings. I . . . . I think I love you guys.

Was that too forward? I don't want this to get weird. Let me take back the l-bomb and just say: Don't change. Don't change a blessed thing.

After that, the post gets ugly in a hurry. But the soaring rhetoric above? It was so sweet, so . . . beautiful. I nearly cried.

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. . . so you don't have to. Don't follow the links back, though! (Patterico didn't get the memo on that.)

My favorite Andrew Sullivan contradiction WRT Sarah Palin is that the public supposedly needs to see Trig's birth records, to verify that the baby is her own—but he's apparently appalled that Trig was present last night, used "as a prop" for Palin's campaign. Can't we make up our minds about whether Palin's family life is something that needs to be endlessly discussed in the public sphere?

Veep candidates usually bring their families to conventions. Deal. Next, we're going to be hearing about how awful it is that Bristol isn't wearing a scarlet "A" on her maternity dresses.

Though I think it would be awfully nice if we could lay off of Andrew on the gay thing. Were any of us making a fuss about that when he supported the War on Terror? It's beside the point for most of us, and you know it, Boyz.

h/t: A tweet from Flap.

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1 I don't know about the Moron-in-Chief, I really don't. He sounded pretty damned serious to me. But OK, never mind ol' Ace. You were asking about Patterico. I've got an idea Patterico's pretty much fairly incensed at AS right about now. Treating Sarah Palin's children they way he did, plus calling them 'fair game', I suspect Patterico lifted a page out of Ace's handbook and decided that AS's, erm, ass, is 'fair game' too. Hence the 'Glutes' remark. Could be worse. The post you linked to didn't have Patterico write about the 'milky loads' in the main body. So, not complete all-Acey, if there's such a term. And Beldar's kinda mad at AS too. I won't lose too much sleep over it. It's just your bog-standard juvenile name-calling; just so happens, the facts are documented on Excitable Andy, is all. Thing is, I never knew (read) a pre-crazy Andy Sullivan. So it's kinda hard for me to judge, you know? I'm just going with the flow and buying me some Pringles, since popcorn doesn't work out all that well in a muggy climate. Sarahcudda rocks! is what I think But the rain washes out my DirecTV and Vista's networking troubles rears its ugly head again

Posted by: Gregory at September 04, 2008 11:52 PM (cjwF0)

2 I don't believe Ace is really anti-homosexual. I don't believe Patrick is, either. They are both royally pissed off at Sullivan, but it seems to me that this comes about as a result of reading Andrew Sullivan, which is one's first mistake. Of course, if Patterico didn't have such a strong stomach, he couldn't read the Los Angeles Times and critique it as thoroughly and ruthlessly as he has over the years. So I'm glad that . . . someone's doing it. But Ace, anti-gay? Doubt it. Patterico, anti-gay? Absolutely not. They're just fighting dirty--that's all.

Posted by: Attila Girl at September 05, 2008 12:42 AM (TpmQk)

3 Argh. I dunno if my post got eaten or not. Stupid argle bargyle whrgrbl Streamyx broadbandmyass connection. Just in case it didn't get through, yeah, I read it pretty much the same way. Anti-Andy more than anything else.

Posted by: Gregory at September 05, 2008 08:49 AM (DytQX)

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Teenaged Maddy will be podcasting today on BlogTalk Radio about the crisis in Darfur (possibly with her twin sister, Amanda). The girls' channel is here, and they will be taking calls and broadcasting live starting at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 p.m. Pacific (those of you in Flyover Country—Illinois or whatever—will just have to do the arithmetic . . . 'cause you know me and the adding/subtracting thing).

The idea for this very important podcast is to promote the work that Teens for Peace do on behalf of Darfur and other war-torn areas.

Anyway, Maddy is very bright and engaging. Please listen in tonight, and call in with your questions about Darfur, and what the average person in an industrialized nation can do about the situation there.

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See Dubya will be leaving Malkin's site, or at least taking a sort of hiatus.

He's one of my favorites; I hope his new gig makes it all worth it!

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. . . than my straight male SoCon readers are. If that's possible.

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Just got response to a question I sent to some new-media friends and colleagues: Is it time for bloggers to boycott Andrew Sullivan in a more formal way now, given the salacious and destructive nature about his speculations regarding the Palins' family life?

I heard this from a gay conservative political activist I know:

He [Andrew Sullivan] is hurting himself more than anyone else with his juvenile rants. Had dinner today with another gay writer, also a conservative, but more sympathetic to Andrew that I. This is it for him. He won't even read Andrew's stuff any more.

Yup. Yet another gay conservative, a friend, once remarked that Sullivan was "an important voice" in the 6-12 months after 9/11. It's been sad to see Sullivan's analyses degenerate over the years, to the point that I'm not sure the National Enquirer would hire him now.

But, given that, the man's writing does not belong in the pages of The Atlantic. Not next to Loh, Hitchens, Steyn, Fallows, and Rauch.

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He's wondering why the "respectable" right-of-center blogosphere isn't boycotting Andrew Sullivan, who is apparently peddling that silliness about how Sarah Palin is really her last baby's grandmother, not his mother, and how the child was really carried/born by her teenaged daughter.

It's silly stuff, and we all know it. Not just because Palin is on-record as looking pregnant in her third trimester, and not just because her colleagues noticed that she was pregnant toward the end, when her loose clothing just couldn't hide it any more, but because it's simply unheard-of for a teenaged girl to have a child with Down's. The odds of Down's start climbing at around 35, and steeply, too.

They spike when a woman reaches her 40s. And of course they do: we're using up the last of our eggs. The not-very-good ones.

Anyway, Ace says a bunch of stuff about Excitable Andy, which you may read if you care for that sort of thing.

And, as usual, I long for that brief time in history in which it was Off Limits to discuss the children of Presidents (and Presidential aspirants). For the wrong reasons, perhaps. After that infamous "Saturday Night Live" sketch, Hillary Clinton made some phone calls (or so the story goes—perhaps it was Magic Fairy Dust that descended, instead) and the word went down in nearly every studio in Los Angeles that Chelsea was not to be the subject of any parodies. Period.

And I felt that the whole thing was a bit heavy-handed, but I was hoping that it would set a precedent—that we might see some privacy for the offspring of politicians, even if their spouses are normally forced to share the spotlight to some degree.

Yeah, yeah—and I'll be looking for the Great Pumpkin, too, this Halloween. What's it to you? Aren't people basically good? Why is everyone staring at me like that? No, I am not an idiot. Just not terribly bright. There's a distinction to be made, there. I think.

But as for Ace's suggestions:

1) I haven't linked to Sullivan in years. I haven't read him in years, unless it was something in The Atlantic, in long form, that I'd already paid for. (As everyone knows, that is the one magazine I get on paper. At my mail drop. Unless you are going to count the subscription that my mother got me to Prevention, which magically renews itself every year.) I'm on-board with boycotting his blog, and anything he writes online.

I don't see any reason any respectable blogger would link to Sullivan, who has been off his rocker for at least four years now.

So I'm most certainly taking up that suggestion of His Aceship. It will involve zero change in my behavior.

2) But I have no intention of eschewing the other Atlantic bloggers: I love McArdle and Coates, and I'm not giving them up. Nope.

3) The paper edition of The Atlantic also publishes Mark Steyn, as well as Christopher Hitchens, who (despite his still being A Man of the Left) has gone through hell on earth with the literati for being as much of a free-thinker as he is. He's bucked the orthodoxy many times, and paid dearly for it.

The Atlantic publishes Sandra Tsing Loh, who is brilliant, non-doctrinaire in her thinking, and an acquaintance/friend of mine from high school.

And Barbara Wallraff! I couldn't give her up. That would hurt. Physically.

Therefore, my immodest proposals would be:

• Don't bother reading Sullivan—and most certainly not his blog;

• Send a letter to the editors of The Atlantic, expressing your concern over the potentially libelous, patently illogical and almost certainly false allegations he is making about the Governor of Alaska, and (more importantly, of course) her teenaged daughter—who, even if she had born a child out of wedlock, would be entitled to some privacy regarding same.

It hardly makes sense, after all, to get the government out of our bedrooms, only to invite the media into our delivery rooms.

No, no. I won't be boycotting the other Atlanto-bloggers, and you may pry my copy of the magazine (including Wallraff's "Word Court") from my cold, dead fingers.

But I do plan to get in touch with the editors, and tell them that it's time for Sullivan to go—as a blogger, and as a contributor to the magazine. I'll do it on paper, because that's my primary relationship with these folks, and because I own bitchin' stationery I rarely use. You might [a] simply want to go to the online version, and either lodge a "Letter to the Editor" there, or use their contact form.

Or, [b] use Joy's patented "fuddy-duddy" method:

The Atlantic
Editor: James Bennett
600 New Hampshire Ave., Northwest
Washington, D.C. 20037

or [c] try this: letters@theatlantic.com

Ace is right about one thing; Sullivan is out where the buses don't run. So the frustration with him has been building for a while.

I had thought that getting married would settle him down, but, you know: it doesn't work for every man, does it?

Do the right thing.

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Genghis at Ace of Spades has an interesting article up on humor—in which a handful of academics attempt to dissect what is funny, and what is not, and how people react to "inappropriate" jokes.

As my Argentine-Italian boyfriend Sefaro used to say, "analyzing humor is like trying to pick up a butterfly with firetongs."*

I think the people behind this study are rather missing the point: it takes a special blend of hostility and polish for someone to become truly funny. I'm not saying that all funny people are sick mo-fo's—only that there has to be a region of the brain that's twisted in order for someone to have even developed the neurons that make them "funny."

For instance, I'm not funny; I can be witty, but mostly I just cross that line into "insane," rather than sublimating my general hostility into "jokes." (Early in life, I tossed a coin, and it landed on "heads." So sue me.)

A close friend who does comedy writing tries her best to be mentally healthy, but is also fond of recounting The Parable of John Cleese: supposedly, after he went through years of psychotherapy, he said the experience had made him "happier, but less funny."

There are nice people who do standup. Successfully. Really, there are. But to make "academic analyses" of humor in which one purports to be objective about the most subjective subject in the world—what is funny, and what is not, in any given context—is the ultimate in . . . well, hubris.

And hilarious.

* As an entomologist, Sefaro should know about how one picks up butterflies. I asked him and the other field-biology nerds on our grouplist for help a few months ago in identifying the bugs that were all over our breezeway and balcony, and he responded that they were Rosalia funebris, Banded Alder Borers, and I was "lucky." He'd wanted a one of those in his collection for years.

"Well, I responded, "I've got five of 'em on my balcony right now, and seven or eight in my breezeway—I can't tell exactly how many, since they are humping like bunnies—or, maybe, like banded alder borers. Want me to snag one for you? And, if you'll excuse the expression, do you want it dead or alive?"

"Well, dead," he told me, right in front of all my high-school-era buddies. (Men are sensitive like that.) "But don't bother. There's a special protocol to collecting specimens, and I don't think you'd get it right."

Well, I've got almost a year to learn it. At which point I can send him one perfectly preserved banded borer every fucking day for a week. All of 'em pinned to pieces of polystyrene and fixed, for good measure, "in a formulated phrase."

Sefaro, by the way, turned me on to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." And to Vivaldi. And to Borodin. He couldn't quite get me into chess, because one cannot reflect properly that game without learning notation. And somehow chess notation struck me as numeral-like. I couldn't surmount the hangup.

Also, to play a good game of chess requires that one stop drinking Canadian Club for hours at a time. Though I do remember that at one point in the 1980s, before Sefaro was married (much less a father) a bunch of us were, um, tripping, and he attempted to play a game of chess against the household Mac. He saved the history of that game in a file entitled "Hey, Man." I could have fallen in love with him all over again just for that, but it was just too late, then. We knew each other too well.

"All things must end."

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