Monday Miscellany

Sorry for the light posting friends.  It's been a bit busy around the homestead and yesterday was one of those rare, absolutely perfect spring days, so I stayed more or less untethered from the computer all day, except to do my mother-in-law's taxes -- they don't call me Mr. Excitement for nothing.  

- I was having a very pleasant evening -- it's beautiful again here tonight -- enveloped in that springly spirit of bonhomie, when I made the mistake of finally going online and finding this.  Sweet fucking Jesus on a Ritz cracker -- the Pulitzer Prize to Kathleen Parker.  I am pretty sure I just threw up on my keyboard.  Talk about wingnut affirmative action.  This clown can barely string together a couple of coherent sentences and she gets the fucking Pulitzer.  Living proof that we live in a void, a grand cosmic joke, with an indifferent creator who runs a 50s laugh track while gazing upon our horror stricken faces.

- Speaking of faces that strike horror into my heart, I was amused and astonished to see that goat fucker extraordinaire Mickey Kaus is running for the Democratic nomination for Senate in California with the slogan "take our party back."  Are you kidding me?  Our party?  The arrogance blows me away -- a candidate who devotes the greater part of his web site to attacking unions -- a guy who fucking hates the United Auto Workers -- tries to claim that the Democratic Party is his.  Mickey -- listen up -- fuck you you arrogant piece of shit, you fucking rat bastard.  Unions made the modern Democratic Party.  The only group that could remotely claim greater pride of place in the Democratic hierarchy would be African Americans (whom Mickey spent the 90s attacking).   He should be shunned.

- I groaned as I watched Phil Mickelson hugging his wife -- who is suffering from cancer -- after his stirring win in the Masters golf tournament last night.  No, not because I am a cold-hearted bastard or a Michelson hater, but because I knew, just absolutely knew to a certainty that columns would be written today contrasting Michelson -- exemplary husband, family man, and winner -- versus Tiger Woods -- serial adulterer and loser.  And this, by Thomas Boswell, was a bit of that.    But this -- nicely skewered by ari over at TEOTAW -- not by some hack sportswriter, but by Blogging Heads godfather (and Kaus pal) Robert Wright, was even worse than I had imagined, albeit written before the morality play on the greens had concluded.  Wright, who I imagined I liked as a writer, really goes over the top on this one -- and then doubles down -- arguing essentially that we all have a stake in Woods' fidelity -- or, in seeing that he is punished for transgressing.  To wit:

I want to defend the proposition that, in its own way, the Tiger Woods scandal is as important as Kandahar and the Catholic Church. Leaving aside the question of whether we should shower condemnation on Woods — a hard question that I don’t purport to have a compelling answer to — one thing I feel sure of is that this Tiger Woods thing matters.

Seriously.  It goes on and gets worse.  It's classic right wing claptrap really -- all of life is about rearing children and monogamous marriage is the best means of doing that and therefore, we all need to throw metaphoric stones at the adulterer because otherwise, we'll all be abandoning our responsibilities and buying lap dances with Tiger.  

- I saw the movie "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" on Saturday -- it's a bit grisly and should be avoided by those troubled by very non-stylized violence, much of it sexual.  But if you are only going to see one Swedish language, feminist revenge thriller this year, this is the one to see.  I noticed that in Sweden one can be a movie actor and look one's age, not be ridiculously fit, etc.  (well except for the tattoo girl who is sinewy beyond belief).  (The credits took me back to this moment.)  Anyway, with that caveat -- and I'm quite serious about it -- it's a pretty compelling film.

Comments

[Sara Anderson]

The Kathleen Parker thing threatened to ruin the good mood I had imposed on myself for the day. But I prevailed, and Parker disappeared to the "forgot she was a person" place in my brain.

[low-tech cyclist]

Good Lord, that italicized paragraph is almost Sarah Palin-level stupid. Better sentence structure than Palin is capable of, but the core thought is right down there with anything the Starburst Lady can manage.

[Sir Charles]

Sara,

You've obviously got that pea soup zen thing going.

l-t c,

Read the whole wretched thing. It's unbelievable.

[litbrit]

Oh gawd, I totally get what you're saying re: Tiger the Terrible.

Listen, if he were my husband, they'd still be picking bits of his skull out of the neighbors' Palmetto berms, but he isn't, and I honestly don't see why his story of infidelity is different from that of any other celebrity in that it has absolutely no effect whatsoever on *my* life.

People need to stop idolizing sports figures and actors as "heroes to our young people" and "role models". They aren't--they are just extraordinarily talented people who manage to parlay said talent into exorbitant salaries. And sometimes they give back--funding earthquake relief efforts or acting as spokepeople for various good causes--and sometimes they don't. Heroes and role models are people like teachers, firemen, our own parents...arrrgh, I'm preaching, sorry. But anyway, yeah, they really don't need to harp on the Good Husband meme, but still, they do, as they did yesterday.

Maybe they felt we all needed a palette-cleanser after the Tiger Woods and John Edwards scandals, and here was someone who plays golf AND is faithful and supportive to his cancer-stricken wife!

Also, Sir C, this: Mickey -- listen up -- fuck you you arrogant piece of shit, you fucking rat bastard made my whole night, Mr. Excitement. Now I really AM looking forward to observing you in court one day!

[Sir Charles]

It's my subtlety that has won me a following.

[Sir Charles]

Woods, of course, behaved abominably.

But I resent the notion that we know anything about any of these marriages -- I tend to think we don't really know that much about the marriages of many of our close friends and relatives. They are secret and complex places.

And as I noted at ari's place -- being great at something, being utterly transfixed and obsessed with something like athletic or artistic accomplishment, being as hyper-competitive and self-possessed as Woods has been his whole life, is not often the path to happy domesticity.

[big bad wolf]

i am sure of this: the tiger thing doesn't matter.

except i am a little concerned about this buying lap dances with tiger thing. he's not really my type.

so mickey the meth obseseed is running against barbara boxer? wow. that's a mismatch in any real world. boxer is one of the really good ones

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

It is interesting there is such a convergence of seemingly disparate topics at this time. We have of course the overall polarization of politics around the two extremes, those who want to try to address and redress real problems head on, and those who insist on tilting at superstitious windmills.

We also have the stark reality. When corporations rule, people die. Yet pulitzer prises are doled out to pundits who are clueless to the reality. And worse.

Clinton's sexual propensities were deserving of a millions of dollars expenditure witch hunt that proved in the long run that he has a difference of opinion with the evangelical perverts. Yet no one is really investigating the false pretenses surrounding the sacrifice of thousands of soldiers and perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

No one is investigating the looting of the treasury and the malappropriation of billions in cash let alone the trillions in investment that have impoverished millions.
It is called an economic down turn.

Most distressing of all perhaps is that even a small minority of our peers are so ignorant and deluded that they can be easily manipulated to think the fault for all this dire circumstance is recent and not in fact rooted in the pernicious avarice and greed of the rich and super rich.

We will ultimately learn by the price we pay.

The WV mine disaster is just a demonstration of a systemic process. Human beings are just grist for the mill, once they can lend their labor to the cause of enriching the already rich. Before that, they are the most precious of commodities. Without an excess of labor the profit margin might be hurt.

I know, I am raving, my arguments are largely incoherent because they are just cobbled together in order to make a brief comment.

It is too easy to view things from an overly parochial perspective and not realize that there are many parallels to the things we experience as individuals.

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

[Sir Charles]

KN,

I think your comment is actually pretty damned coherent. And they kind of segue in to what I was going to say to big bad wolf --

You can know all you need to know about a writer by his choices of topics, and in the case of a political writer by what his obsessions are. And in Kaus's case, he has spent virtually his entire career and all of his energy attacking unionized workers, people on welfare, immigrants, and liberals. I can't recall him ever devoting any time to corporate misfeasance or malfeasance, the greed of the financial class, war, torture, illegal wiretapping -- has he ever attacked the powerful?

[big bad wolf]

rave on KN

and

http://www.lyricscrawler.com/song/96616.html

and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f62pPag0ph8

[kathy a.]

very good rant, KN.

SC -- mickey who?? and tiger affects my life in no way whatsoever.

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

Sorry BBW I can't follow your links becuase my feeble satellite uplink and old OS will not tolerate such connections. Pity in a way but also we should consider that any exclusive type of discourse is really a loss. To some at least just a few words of explanation would do.

SC

I am actually a member of the privileged class, a scientist. Yet I understand the broad perspective because I am not solely concerned with my own welfare.

I learnt decades ago that I could benefit others with my knowledge and in so doing, also benefit myself. I also learnt that the extent to which I consolidated the benefit to myself, instead of sharing it with those who made it possible, made for a largely unproductive situation. Perhaps I made a mistake and instead of taking advantage of my peers and thusly accumulating vast wealth that could now be used, I instead chose to share.

If I had some vast wealth now I might be capable of exerting an influence in national and global politics, but the simple fact is I was too ethical to exploit the loopholes and turn lies into some kind of investment advice.

So I am not a mover or a shaker. But I have certainly been through the blender of corporate selection. I have been systematically excluded from the largess simply because I was willing to share it with those who really made it possible.

Perhaps I was unwise to not adopt the guise of corporate largess. Perhaps I could have done more for those who actually make wealth, by lying about how wealth is made. I will probably never know. But this I do know, labor is intrinsic to all economics. I see myself as equal to the man who weilds the shovel. No more no less.

[Corvus9]

I really don't feel like reading the Robert Wright pieces, because I really like Non-Zero.

Anyone kvetching about the Pulitzers: remember, they are named after the man who practically created Yellow Journalism. It's like if the Oscars were called the Griffiths. Don't take them personally.

Also, I don't enjoy the Kaus as Goatfucker meme. It originally emerged due to his trumpeting of the "John Edwards had a child out of wedlock, while cheating on his cancer-stricken wife" story, and well...on that count, say what you will about Mickey Kaus (Like that he is an anti-union motherfucker) but going with the goatfucking meme always seems like a Sore Loser move to me. On that account he was right.

[oddjob]

I resent the notion that we know anything about any of these marriages

Unfortunately, at this present time in the USA the lines between celebrity gossip journalism, sports journalism, and political journalism have been pretty much erased.

[low-tech cyclist]

You can know all you need to know about a writer by his choices of topics

Speaking of which, have you guys been checking out Ezra in just the past day? His eyes are open, and he's angry.

[low-tech cyclist]

I resent the notion that we know anything about any of these marriages -- I tend to think we don't really know that much about the marriages of many of our close friends and relatives. They are secret and complex places.

If there's one thing I've learned from nearly two decades of marriage, that's it. Well said.

Really the only time we see the secret places inside another couple's marriage is if, in mid-breakup, they start hurling those secrets at each other, along with the crockery, where others can see. And even then, the view is as through a fun-house mirror, though with decidedly less fun involved.

[Sir Charles]

Corvus,

I had actually forgotten the context for the goat fucker epithet. To me it fit Kaus so perfectly that I will likely continue to use it even if he was right on the Edwards story. At the risk of further sounding like a sore loser, I can't help but feel that Kaus was right for the wrong reasons.

As I say, I despise this asshole mostly for his pretense of being a Democrat and some sort of progressive. He's a total fucking reactionary and right wing apologist -- a guy who dedicates his entire blog putput to attacking the core constituencies of the Democratic Party. I want him reduced to the status of a non-person in progressive circles. I really wish Josh Marshall would extinguish his link to him, but understand that Kaus gave Marshall a lot of links in his early days, so probably feels it would be ungrateful to do so.

l-t c,

Ezra is doing a nice job. His empathy for others not similarly situated -- and his thirst to master actual subject matter rather than tactics -- is what sets him apart from a lot of other bright young things in the journalistic world.

As for the marriage stuff, Wright's attitude really disappointed me. He's always struck me as a thoughtful guy and he's been married for 21 years (I've been for 22)and has kids and must know the truth of what I said. Instead, like some David Brooks douche bag clone he gets all sanctimonious in an arena that really calls for humility.

[big bad wolf]

KN, i was link riffing off donne and rave. the first was the lyrics to the van morrison song "rave on john donne," the second was a youtube (without video (moving pictures are overrated, i think) of springsteen tearing up buddy holly's rave on.

so nothing important, just trying to be fun, and van and bruce do their thing better than i could ever describe it.

i certainly didn't mean to exclude and i would embed if my old self had any idea how that magic worked.

i will keep in mind that an introductory phrase should be included

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

BBW - It would be appreciated by us bandwidth constrained folks.

Ironically I have a heavy duty mapping system here that can do some amazing computations but I keep it a stand alone machine because the information it processes is too valuable to risk it being lost by a network hack.

I live a pretty deprived existence. Both Morrison and Springsteen and many others as well I greatly enjoy but hardly ever hear anything of because I don't have my own library and all the local stuff is what you might call momentary synth-pop. Some of it is pretty jerky but for a white haired fossil like me, hard to dance to.

Hell after a day in the field it is an effort to drink enough whiskey to get a good night's sleep.

[Sir Charles]

KN,

But you've got to keep trying.

Consider opting for the higher alcohol content brands as endorsed above.