One of the more gag-inducing developments in the area of government transparency is the ability - in certain locales - to look up the inspection history of your favorite restaurants.
In school right now, we're studying the muckrakers of the Progressive Era. My students have been loudly registering their disgust with Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and its unflinching look at the meat-packing industry. Who can match the eloquence of seventeen-year-old girls when they sing out "Ewwwwwwwwwwww" in a synchronized chorus?
We discussed the passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act and the creation of the FDA, but for some reason they're still feeling uneasy. Jaws has been harpooned, but nobody's sending out e-vites for a beach party just yet.
In the end, I guess I would rather know than not know. But if something is awry over at the Pig Pit (which got unconscionably overlooked this year in Metroland's "Readers' Picks" edition), don't tell me. Actually, strike that. They catered my friend Brendan's wedding reception and, as far as I'm concerned, they could make their BBQ sauce from the tears of orphans; I'd still eat there.
The winds of March are as inevitable as the vernal equinox, and they can be as variable as the moods of the season. They can be as cold as February, as warm as May. They can bring snow, and they can bring flocks of birds from the Southland. But fundamentally, March wind is the dying breath of winter, the first triumphant gasp of spring. It is clearing of the air. It may howl or whisper, soothe or punish, but it is the wind of change, the voice of seasons in transition.
March winds act as they do because they come down from the still frigid Arctic and up from the steadily warming tropics. Vast weather systems are marching across the land and when they meet, as they do here in the Northeast in March, strange things happen. March weather is the counterpart of the storms that so often accompany the autumn equinox. But in autumn it is the surge of oncoming winter beating back the rearguard of summer. Now it is on the other way around. Winter is on the defensive and will be routed in the end.
So we take the buffeting and the comforting as they come, as we take mud and ice, cold rain and melting snow knowing they are a part of March. We often wish they weren't. But before we can have spring, winter must be torn to tatters. And that is what happens by the time March has blown itself out. March is no picnic, or even a time for one, but it isn't blowing December our way. It is blowing us right into April, and May, and summer.
I plan on disseminating much more commentary on the topics of religion and spirituality (especially with regards to modern educational debates over evolution and creationism), but for now let it suffice to say that the central, underlying message of Easter is True. As were the spring-time pagan rites that preceded it and upon which it was based. It is a popular misconception among fundamentalists that somehow Christianity erased all that came before it. Just as it is a profound misunderstanding of mythology to assert that disproving the "facts" of a particular story somehow hangs a canopy of doubt over the entire enterprise of related beliefs. Both perspectives commit the cardinal sin of literality.
Reading Borland's editorial, is it any wonder that the ancients cast the elements in the roles of warring gods? I don't care how many Doppler radar systems we have trained on the atmosphere. For all our technological sophistication - our attempts to murder by dissection - the essence behind these primordial forces remains intact and unknowable.
And how about the line that claims, "March wind is the dying breath of winter"? Is there anything more hopeful, more deeply attractive to our core instincts than the notion that the season of death is not the end? Death, too, can be conquered. Death, too, can die.
And if that's true, well, then the sky's the limit.
One of the questions I hope to explore with this blog is the potential for spirituality on the internet. Despite my gentle ribbing of e-meditation and questioning the validity of standardized ethical tests, I nonetheless believe there exists a tremendous potential out there for enrichment. Even if that only means hosting creative sites seeking to look at the old in a new way. The internet is both noun and verb, archive and conference. It has no equal in terms of accessibility, thought-provocation, or initiating connectivity. And if spirituality isn't about helping people gain access to and connect through ideas, then I'm much less spiritual than I thought.
Take this one out for a test drive:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Lastly, a prayer for all of the cats I offended with a recent post. It comes from Christopher Smart, an 18th-century poet, who wrote this adoration to his cat "Jeoffry" while confined to an insane asylum. Click on the link here to read the whole poem. Sample quote:
For he is of the tribe of Tiger. For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger. For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses. For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation. For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat. For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon. For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit. For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt. For every family had one cat at least in the bag. For the English Cats are the best in Europe. For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped. For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
Strangely moving, isn't it? Thanks to my friend Liz for sharing it with me way back when.
We were very lucky - my friends and I - growing up where we did. Our neighborhood was surrounded to the south and the west by woods, farm fields, and horse trails. There was even an honest-to-goodness creek running through it all. Good for your various minnows, frogs, and other creatures that go "splash" in the night.
Spring was exciting, to be sure, but the other day I remembered a winter ritual we had. "Ice-cracking," I guess we called it, but it only happened a handful of times, so I'm not sure it warrants any special nomenclature.
Essentially, we would wait until the first week of freezing cold weather. That point in late December or early January - sometime over Christmas break - when the wind was bitter, the night skies were crystal-clear, and breathing had that bracing edge to it, like when you drink ice water after eating peppermint.
We'd head out to the "top" of the creek (where the large drainage culvert emptied out behind the local store) and work our way down with sticks, rocks, and shovels, shattering all of the new ice along the way as we went. It was partly our pre-adolescent impulse to destroy; a visceral desire for all things to be loud and broken, which my generation had not yet learned how to channel effectively through hyper-violent video games. It was partly a rage against the seasonal imposition of "indoor time." We were outdoor kids and being cooped up against our will always rankled. And, whatever else it was, it was fun.
One winter, nearly frost-bitten, I fell on the ice. Though I couldn't feel it, a jagged rock cut my knee deeply, a gash I didn't discover until I got home and peeled off the jeans that had absorbed the blood. To this day, there's a small, horizontal patch of thick tissue just to the right of the kneecap.
There's no need for me to go out there and risk life & limb today. The snow is melting, the frozen land is thawing, rain is plopping against my window, and baseball is on t.v.
I'm lying on the floor, wearing cargo shorts, and the old wound is visible. Like the twelve-year old I was, I still wear my scar with a great deal of pride.
Brian Schneider, the new catcher for the Mets, just hit one out of the park.
Major premise: We're all allotted a certain, finite amount of ironic appreciation in our lives.
Support: Sooner or later, our souls' eye-rolling catches up with us. If we spend too much of our time deconstructing the world, eventually we're left with nowhere to stand. We become like that jaded pair in the Simpsons' "Lollapalooza" episode, who comment on Homer's freakshow stunt:
Teen 1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool. Teen 2: Are you being sarcastic, dude? Teen 1: I don't even know anymore.
Minor Premise: I believe I'm approaching my own high water mark. Sardonic humor approaching critical mass. Will soon collapse in on itself. Can't go on...describing symptoms...much...longer.
Conclusion: I'm going to post all of the cat-related material I've enjoyed - ironically - in the past year or so. It'll help me turn a corner, I think. And it's what I meant by "exorcise daily" so there's nothing wrong with starting to follow one's own advice.
First, there's this monstrosity that hangs in my kitchen right now:
Technically, it belongs to my roommates. But I laughed so heartily at theirs a couple years back that they bought me my own. When it comes to domesticated animals (who seem to prefer drinking out of the toilet, incidentally), "dignity" strikes me as a somewhat unrealistic goal. But this HAS to border on abuse. I comfort myself with knowing that somewhere there is a spinster-in-training making these calendars and NOT subjecting the children she doesn't have to the sick twists of the beauty pageant circuit.
Next there's the well-known internet meme, the "lolcats":
Not really a guilty pleasure since I feel like everybody wins. Most of the pictures - if staged - at least appear to be cruelty-free. The captions are added afterward, so these present no danger to the cats' self-esteem. Not that it could hurt to knock them down a peg or two. But I've got no hard feelings. These cats serve the community. Many of them are teaching grammar to my students.
I know it's a long shot, but for some reason I hope that of all the things NASA could beam into outer space, alerting our presence to extraterrestrial life, this website arrives first.
Anyway, I hope you found some of these funny. And, if you didn't, you can help me get me out of purgatory here.
Fans of Tenacious D, the Greatest Rock Band in the World™, will love Merriam-Webster's word of the day today:
muckety-muck • \MUCK-uh-tee-muck\ • noun
: an important and often arrogant person
Example Sentence:
A contingent of hospital muckety-mucks swept into Adelaide's room, peered at her over their glasses, briefly discussed her case, and swept out again.
Did you know?
The Chinook of the Pacific Northwest were avid traders, and in the course of their history a trade language developed that came to be known as Chinook jargon, based on a combination of Chinook and other American Indian languages with English and French. The Chinook jargon term "hayo makamak" meant "plenty to eat." By a process called folk etymology, in which a word of another language is transformed to a more familiar-sounding term, "hayo" was identified with "high" and the spelling and meaning of the entire phrase was transformed. Beginning in the 19th century, the term "high-muck-a-muck" referred to a self-important person. Since then, the expression has taken on several variations, including "high mucky-muck" and "high-muckety-muck," and nowadays the "high" is often dispensed with entirely.
If you'd like to listen to the best (approximate) usage of this word in a song ever - without the effort of a rigorous, exhaustive search - look no further than this video for "Wonderboy":
For those REALLY in the know, it will be not be news to learn that my inclination toward shameless public singing began very early.
In fourth grade, I landed the part of "Pharaoh" in Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and soon after became one of the workhouse boys in a local high school production of Oliver! The stints in musical theater thereafter dwindled, but the commitment to my vocal craft did not.
As soon as I was old enough to drive I was singing behind the wheel, turning the car into my own personal venue with my name on the marquee. Each successive trip prolonged the "extended engagement." What did Celine Dion do at Caesar's Palace? 600 shows? Big deal. Try belting out Meat Loaf during rush hour. Let's see her hit every syllable of "It's the End of the World As We Know It" while maintaining proper following distance. I did it. And I felt fine.
Things went on like that for while, until I tried karaoke.
The place: Dunmore, Co. Galway, Ireland.
The song: "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Aaron Presley.
Ever since, I've been caught in a trap. I can't walk out. Because I love it too much. Baby.
I've gone through phases of boom and bust. Participation may vary. Over the years, it's been such a great diversion, an excuse for friends and family to gather & warm themselves around a glowing screen. Still, I think I peaked in Montreal, New Year's 2003, when I scored late night free food for my cohorts on the strength of a rendition of "Lean on Me" that I crooned into the counter microphone of the Burger King on St. Catherine Street. A distant second would have to be performing Eminem's "Lose Yourself" for Willis' bachelor party and a rowdy crowd on (the real) Bourbon Street. After that, New Orleans would never be the same. Mostly because that was about a month before Hurricane Katrina.
PS. Sorry to badmouth Celine. She's been responsible for so much joy in my life. And she is fucking amazing:
One of the better fringe benefits of teaching my senior honors elective, "The History of Ideas," is that I get to spend ample chunks of time online seeking out cool resources under the pretense of "lesson prep."
I've found a number of good websites since the summer, many of which I hope to pass along on this blog.
While researching ethics, I came across two interactive morality quizzes. They proved to be good discussion starters if for no other reason than their many defects. Teaching high school, I never cease to be impressed by my students' seemingly innate ability to call "bullshit" when they see it. I guess we don't learn how to start shoveling it until college.
Got a few minutes? Try out Harvard's Moral Sense Test and Time Magazine's Morality Quiz. Post a comment with your scores/choices and your general impression of the experience. My own opinion is that these tests, like many others, are deeply flawed. They are rigid, ill-defined, and (worst of all) often arbitrary in the guise of being objective.
But don't listen to me. Make up your own mind. It's the will to power and it works out pretty well for Calvin:
To this day, I still have no idea why they booked Stephen Colbert to speak at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2006.
It is, without exception, the best use of satire I have witnessed - in real-time - in my life. A thrill that is comparable, I imagine, to reciting Voltaire at Versailles or passing out copies of A Modest Proposal in London.
When the history books are written and Bush's legacy is determined - an eventuality that seems to occupy his mind more than the present demands of the office - I would not at all be surprised if Colbert's speech was counted as the first, best, most serious and well-articulated challenge to this administration.
Below is the footage in three parts that clock in - together - at a little over 26 minutes. Well-worth it for the visible discomfort the speech causes an unsuspecting Bush. Hmmm. "Unsuspecting Bush." That's kind of redundant, isn't it?
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
The only sad aspect of the video is how long it took someone to grow a pair big enough to talk like this. And to laugh so loudly at a man who has worked so tirelessly to insulate himself from criticism.
So the well of clever post titles has already run so dry that I've resorted to "Ace of Base" references?
*Sigh*
However desperate it may be, the subject is nonetheless accurate. Walking this afternoon to my car, I crossed the sidewalk - flooded with snowmelt and rain - and then a narrow strip of tender, muddy earth. This, after the news predicted the possibility of school-closing snow or sleet.
Spring is not here, but it's on the way. And this makes me happy in the long run, the short run, and with respect to the persistent relevance of Hal Borland's Twelve Moons of the Year. Today, at least, it seemed like an updated translation of Virgil's Eclogues; a magical, eternal almanac that's never wrong; the Soothsayer's Guide to the Equinox.
Here's today's installment:
"The Signs" ~ March 5
The temptation is strong, on a bright day in early March, to go looking for signs, green signs. The air has a chill, but the sun rises almost east and the shadows of the naked trees point a new hopeful direction. Brooks begin to burble, at least by midday. Surely there must be some quickening of green life. One goes to look, beside the brook and the road and in the meadow and woodland.
There are signs, but only a few. Spring is cautious. Our March is not a green month. In a sheltered cove beside a flowing brook there are a few blades of new grass in fine withered clumps. In a boggy place are the primitive purplish-green hoods of skunk cabbage, which has no respect for ice and little respect for time. Beside a sun-warmed rock in the edge of the woods are small, young leaves of the hardy wood-nettle. But no violets, no anemones, no bloodroot. Dig in the woodland litter and you may find their budding roots, but it is promise that you find, not green, only green to come.
The quickening is there. But it is a response we feel and sense rather than see. The earth, the soil itself, has begun to lose its cold and gather warmth. The slow pulse has begun imperceptibly to quicken. There is a restlessness down at the roots, a stirring of slow sap. And that is where the green begins. The green itself is a precious thing, not to be trusted in March.
There are signs, yes; but few green ones. The going and the looking is a sign itself, a sign of vernal hope. The green will come, inevitable now. We feel the quickening, which is why we go.
*Sigh* again.
In terms of genre, it is fitting that the disastrous portents of climate change should sound like a science-fiction novel. Such events would spell the end for the poetry of words - and actualities - like "burble" and "skunk cabbage, which has no respect for ice."
Also, that line "The green itself is a precious thing, not to be trusted in March." That's just good execution on Borland's part. Starts you off all innocent and then closes with the defense against a cruel deception - winter in spring's clothing - a worldly warning to those who would be taken in by the coquettish flirtations of a lamb-like lion. Reminds me of Emily Dickinson's "Indian Summer," except, you know, without all the agnostic overtones.
More tangibly, this is what's at stake: our accumulated wisdom, our personal understanding of the planet and of ourselves. And humanity's connection to nature - already so distant and disaffected - will become, at best, a bedtime story, strictly to be doubted by the young and old alike. Casual exploitation and ennui replaced by raw, conscious animosity and the ninth-grade literary analysis of "man vs. nature" writ large times a million.
But, as I've said, it hasn't happened yet (so long as you're not an Inuit or a resident of Tuvalu). In the meantime, we still have spring. I am going to enjoy it this year more than ever.
*Bonus points to those readers who picked up on the coincidental similitude between the editorial and lines from The Highlander. There can be only one. Borland came first.
Here is some cool cartography to go along with the flags I posted earlier. I inherited my dad's love of maps, but not his ability to read them. When it comes to the various sub-disciplines within history, I have my strengths and weaknesses. Geography definitely falls into the latter category.
No matter. Into the fray.
The first details the amount of money wasted due to bad traffic. And you thought your commute was bad:
The next is The New York Times'day-by-day account of the violence in Iraq (Jan. 2007). Still a very arresting background image for the debate over recent tactics & the possibility of an end-game as we approach 4,000 casualties (minus Blackwater contractors & the horrific toll on Iraqis themselves) and TRILLIONS of dollars. Yes, that was plural. How high do the numerical denominations have to get before they sound like they were made up by a fourth grader?
And, lastly, from Strange Maps is this subtle reminder of the United States' still-quite-considerable economic potency despite recent market indicators to the contrary. What's your state's GDP? Besides the obvious biggies, please note the equivalents for New Jersey, Tennessee, & Alabama:
I'm no fan of Full House and have, on more than one occasion, drunkenly theorized that the Olsen Twins were prophesied in Revelations. But my students, ever helping me to keep my finger on the pulse of pop culture, referred me to this one-off from collegehumor.com:
I decline to hyperlink collegehumor.com because, with the exception of a few charming, understated moments like the one above, it tends to hover somewhere between "lame" and "openly hostile to women." Maybe it's because the frats were pretty-well emasculated at Boston U., but misogyny never figured very largely into my sense of humor.
Amy Walker, if that is her real name, displays some serious chops in this video.
Her skills would be very much in demand in a scenario where English continues to become a global language. Not to say that is either possible or preferable. How's her Cantonese?
In my opinion, her agility shifting between accents is even more impressive than the mastery of any one of them in particular. It's a two-minute video, but make sure you don't bail out early. Her "transatlantic" voice at the end is worth the price of admission (free!) all on its own. I've been watching classic films lately and her take on the generic movie star is nigh on perfect.
There are many reasons to regret the impending climate change. The most central of these (economic devastation, environmental catastrophism) have been well-documented.
The more peripheral ("eco-guilt," the Death of the Great American Road Trip, the unfortunate vindication & subsequent poignancy of Kevin Costner's Waterworld, not to mention polar bear zombies-of-the-sea...) have received less attention.
When I'm feeling especially Gore-y, I get anxious thinking about the details of my own habitat. I think globally, but I worry locally. And, why not? After all, THE GLOBAL CLIMATE is a fairly recondite system, as perplexing and unfathomable - to me - as quantum physics or the fact that Con Air grossed over $200 million at the worldwide box office. Meteorologists seem to have difficulty predicting the wind speed in a dome stadium. What makes us think they can accurately project the particulars of how our wanton consumption will ultimately doom us? My guess is that when the last "i" is dotted and the last "t" is crossed, when the last drop of oil is burned and the last virgin is coaxed into an apocalyptic tryst, we'll all have a big laugh about how wrong our forecast was.
Joking aside, I love Upstate New York. We have four beautiful seasons, of which fall is king. It'll be a sad sight when I wake up here in late September and the leaves are brown. Or green. Or gone. And if somebody starts messing with my apple sauce or other autumnal staple foods, well, then I'm just going to lose my shit.
There's a book I enjoyed during my junior year of college called Twelve Moons of the Year. It's an anthology of nature editorials written by Hal Borland (1900-1978) for The New York Times, a body of work thirty-five years and 1,900+ columns in the making. I don't remember being particularly homesick that year (with the notable exception of some of my time studying abroad in England), but Borland wrote in a very clear, comforting way about an anonymous landscape that easily could have been my beloved Mohawk-Hudson Valley. He wasn't a revolutionary and he wasn't a wonk. Just an appreciator of the Earth with lots of different ways to say "thanks." An acolyte of the school that maintains we were given the responsibility of stewardship of creation, not the privilege of dominion over it.
Occasionally, he's boring. But he's boring in a steady, dependable, grandfatherly fashion. And, occasionally, he's exciting. Like when his prose takes a hard turn toward the romantic and gets away from him. I always forgive him. There are exactly two situations in which it is acceptable - nay, preferable - to over-write:
(1) describing natural beauty (2) wooing women.
So, in the interest of nostalgia and without even attempting to secure copyright permission, I think I will from time to time transcribe some of Borland's better pieces. It so happens that the entries for "March 4" and "March 5th" both make allusions to the beginning of spring. They are quietly hopeful, which is, as it also so happens, how I am feeling right now. For the time being, global warming is still beyond the threshold and Borland's words still apply. Perhaps there will come a day in the not-too-distant future when this book is an even curiouser relic to me than it is now, but it's not here yet.
"Song Again" ~ March 4
By early March you can begin to hear April, even on dour and lowery days. The winter birds now find time for a few songs when they have stocked their inner fires and pause for a few minutes and pause for a few minutes in the lengthening daylight. Despite snow or ice or sleety rain, the unseen forces of spring are beginning to work in the very fiber of life, and the birds respond.
Dooryard chickadees that have twittered companionably for weeks now indulge in full phrases, five and even seven notes, and there is the lilt of song, not mere greeting, in these notes. Tree sparrows, which can sing even in a snowstorm, now make even the dark days somewhat brighter. And song sparrows come out of the thickets and achieve the melodies that inspired their name, songs as lively and bubbling as an April brook.
Crows have no song, but their calls are less raucous and less defiant now as they watch the weather in the naked treetops. And blue jays, those jeering dandies who can make the most harmless prank look criminal, whistle haunting two-note calls that echo like the exuberant mating call of the cardinal.
Winter slowly frays out. March melt and mud still lie ahead, and probably March snowstorms. April is still a hope and a promise, but its faint, far-off song begins to tremble on the distant hilltops. The birds hear it and now testify to its truth.
...could fill my curriculum. But I still love those crazy bastards. Here's an article from Slate on the bankruptcy of our educational system. It's a journalistic path well-trod.
Two important caveats:
(1) As someone dimly familiar with pedagogical theory and steeped in pedagogical practice, I can tell you that - based on the sample questions - this particular "Document" isn't so "Hot." Even the layperson should be able to detect that a standardized, multiple-choice exam of this kind is limited in its usefulness. As a diagnostic tool for comprehension deficiencies, this test places far too much emphasis on rote questions concerning what I term "historical vocab." This "vital" humanities content is basically word association masquerading as authentic knowledge. As a predictor of Trivial Pursuit scores, I have no doubt it is a very handy tool. As an assessment of genuine learning, it is sadly lacking. This test fails.
(2) High schoolers (based on my very limited sampling) ARE lacking in geography, chronology, historical reasoning, and, YES, the nuts & bolts of "who drastically underestimated the folly of a winter invasion of whom." However, more bogus testing of this type is not the answer. I could type all day about the paucity of our resources as teachers, the stupidity of federal educational policy in general, the inadequacy of No Child Left Behind in particular, and so on and so on. But I'm writing this during my prep period, so maybe I'm part of the problem.
Check for updates. I plan to administer the sample questions to my classes. My prediction is a score well-above the study's average. Our high teacher-to-student ratio and private-school setting are hardly normative conditions, however, and probably help validate whatever foolishness the article was trying to sell.
UPDATE: my students annihilated it. Jeopardy Teen Tournament, here we come!
I've got a few hours of daylight until my pledge sets in, so here are two videos about the irrelevance of voting. They allow me to post about the election while simultaneously expressing my (hopefully temporary) burnt-out malaise.
Ed Helms (The Daily Show & The Office) walks us through the labyrinthine process of democracy here.
And The Onion reminds us why all our dreams are for naught:
Well, my online poll came out 71% in favor of Obama.
Maybe I need to start seeking out friends with a wider diversity of opinion.
That ought to cast the net wide enough for now.
I'm a little nervous about tomorrow's contests, though I am almost positive that, barring any major surprises, little will change. Clinton will do well enough to justify sticking around and she'll be going all out to (unfairly) seat the Michigan & Florida delegates. Some things to keep in mind:
(1) Little more than two weeks ago, her lead in both Texas and Ohio looked prohibitive.
(2) I absolutely accept charges of a media bias that has been softer on Obama, with the following qualifications/questions:
His press this past week has been terrible.
What did she expect? And isn't she supposed to be the "vetted" one? The one with such a highly-developed immunity to opposition?
There is no way he would have been afforded the luxury of losing eleven straight contests.
Also - and I'm not sure how to spell this phonetically, but - "waaaaaaaaaaaaah."
(3) Clinton's campaign has changed the parameters of the March 4th narrative so many times, it would make your head spin to read it all in one sitting. Oh, why the hell not? Amusement parks don't open for a few months.
Regardless of what happens tomorrow, I will subsequently enforce a week-long, self-imposed ban on election-related posts. I'm bored with it. And with myself.
Note on the Cartoon: Thomas Nast's relatively impulsive decision to cast the Republican as an elephant has proved a lasting addition to political iconography. Hilariously, the caption on this particular illustration reads: "'An ass, having put on the Lion's skin, roamed about in the Forest, and amused himself by frightening all the foolish Animals he met with in his wanderings.' - Shakspeare or Bacon."
I love it. "Shakspeare OR Bacon." The inattention (or indifference) to proper attribution is SO wonderfully nineteenth-century. It also reminds me of my students' research papers. And, for those of you who were wondering, the answer is "Neither." It was Aesop.
Update to the post below. WaPo claims the piece was "tongue-in-cheek." My guess is that had it been well-received, they would have lauded its commentary as "ground-breaking." Either way, now I'm just offended by bad comedy. Color me old-fashioned, but I prefer my humor pieces to be funny. Not necessarily hysterical, mind you, but a few jokes would be nice.
"Now, eventually, you may have dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour, right?" - Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
This opinion piece from Charlotte Adams in the Washington Post is almost too dumb for words. But then I don't want to help her prove her premise, which is, essentially, "women are morons."
It begins with her needling Obama's female boosters, saying they are driven more by a souped-up, orgasmic Beatlemania than by any rational thought. I for one am glad that at least my support for his candidacy comes from such a grounded, cerebral, self-respecting place.
The article devolves into a laughable "Who's-Who" of long-debunked cultural myths, gender roles, and selective pseudoscience all parading around in the service of a thesis that isn't worth a discarded tampon. (And isn't it just a shame how women become emotional werewolves once a month? What if all these Obama rallies get them "in sync" and Election Day falls within their cycle? OPRAH WILL RULE US ALL IN A SHADOW GOVERNMENT AT THE MERCY OF HER INSCRUTABLE HORMONES!)
Then there's this gem:
Take Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. By all measures, she has run one of the worst -- and, yes, stupidest -- presidential races in recent history, marred by every stereotypical flaw of the female sex.
Now, I'm no fan of my state's junior Senator. But to suggest that the Clinton campaign's ineptitude is a function of her gender is the same argument that was used a century ago to keep women from the polls. Back then, women held dominion over the domestic sphere, but their "childlike" brains were thought to lack the capacity for political thought. Constitutional issues aside, it's a wonder the suffragettes sought inclusion into such a sleazy, loathsome endeavor in the first place. Given the general reputation of politicians past and present, society's summary judgment to exclude women from government might have been a subconscious compliment. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, "women shouldn't care to belong to a club that wouldn't have them as members."
Yes, Clinton's current and former campaign managers are women. But her so-called brain trust, the bright lights who brought us such luminescent ideas as "let's go negative in Wisconsin," are male...to a man. And it sure doesn't seem like the cat-fighting has been restricted to the ladies. That phalanx of failure has resembled a circular firing squad of late. That's O.K. though. They're dudes. Dudes fight. It's in their nature. Plus their voices are deeper so their screeching has more gravitas.
She goes on:
I swear no man watches "Grey's Anatomy" unless his girlfriend forces him to.
(Yes, and no woman has ever sat through shitty entertainment to appease her man. NASCAR didn't get to be the best-attended sport in the country on the strength of testosterone alone.)
No man bakes cookies for his dog.
(Right, we're too busy kissing them on the mouth to shove baked goods down their gullets.)
No man feels blue and takes off work to spend the day in bed with a copy of "The Friday Night Knitting Club."
(Exactly. We hide our feelings for 95% of our lives, fuck off from work to enjoy a fishing trip, choke back tears while watching Field of Dreams or a "first-beer-with-Dad" commercial, and then die ten years before our wives.)
And then she really pours it on:
Women really are worse drivers than men, for example. A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women. The only good news was that women tended to take fewer driving risks than men, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be fatal.
My favorite part is the "insignificant" amendment to the findings she tacks on to the end. Her calculus is this: women are prone to mechanical mistakes resulting in minor accidents and that equals stupidity. Men, on the other hand, choose to take foolhardy chances resulting in catastrophic crashes and that equals better driving.
Good news.
All of this would be funnier if her opinion didn't have such widespread, unthinking appeal.
A couple of links to help you feel small (in the good way).
First, there's the Astronomy Picture of the Day sponsored by NASA. Great for a periodic meditation on everything outside our myopic, fragile, frantic little realm.
Then there's 80 Million Tiny Images: nothing less than a visual catalogue of every noun in the English language.
Fun idea: randomly click on ten of the nouns, write them down, and attempt a poem, short story, or some other type of cohesive piece of writing that incorporates all of the words you found. I may try one myself in the next few days if time permits. If you come up with a good one, email me and I'll post it (anonymously, if you prefer).
Too agoraphobic to contemplate the infinite right now? That's fine. Nobody should work that hard on the weekend. It all comes down to you anyway:
If there is to be peace in the world, There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations, There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities, There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors, There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home, There must be peace in the heart.
