Embarrassing

It'd be pretty hard to make an argument that Fox "news" and NPR are simply two sides of the same coin: the former is a self-admitted propaganda machine for right-wing views, caught in multiple instances of deliberate and deceptive manipulation of the news; the other, which provides mostly non-political programming along with news and specials, the latter of which tend to be about issues liberals think important (silly stuff like the environment, science, world affairs, education), but which has no announced political motivation. There's no comparison between a discussion by or with politicians or opinionators on NPR and something similar on Fox. This can be measured in more than decibels, but it's a reasonable baseline. Show me a Charlie Rose on Fox, a Jim Lehrer, a Shields/Brooks discussion; for that matter, anything remotely like The News Hour in general. Or Nova. Or The American Experience. Or, since I just realized we're talking NPR and not PBS (which I consider the same, and are similarly funded), All Things Considered, or This American Life, or Fresh Air.

Okay, I'll give you Celtic Thunder. And pledge night.

Unlike the managing editor at Fox and his emails, the NPR guy who got caught by the latest act of the notorious scam artist has nothing to do with programming or content. And, unsurprisingly following the usual Foxobreitbartian script, the footage the scammer released had been deceptively edited. But it is disappoining to those of us (me, anyway) who regard NPR as a useful and informative stop on the information highway. In fact, it's even personal: one of my best friends from college, with whom I keep in comparatively close touch, is slightly involved. A director of The Aspen Institute, which had already hired the NPR guy before his flagrante, he'd been negotiating a deal for something or other with Juan Williams and Vivian Schiller when that other brew ha-ha'd. In an email response to mine, in which I noted his outfit was in the news a couple of days ago, he said only, "Ugh."

Especially in these tough times, I can't argue strongly that tax money ought to support any media organization; even one that stands alone in producing in-depth and thoughtful programs on important issues, which takes its audience for reasonably intelligent, which is the one place where you're likely to find difficult subjects given the serious treatment they deserve. To lose such a resource -- especially by dint of carelessness on the part of a person unrelated to content, at the hands of a right-wing trickster hyped incessantly by the entire panoply of RWS™ -- would be a great loss to anyone interested in politics at a meaningful level.

So, yeah, it's embarrassing. Even more so since NPR managed to make everything worse in the way they handled it. (Among other things, they could have pointed out what the guy said, even if manipulated, was true!)

Unable to defend themselves despite being right... hmm... maybe they are liberals.

What Took 'Em So Long?

From the moment she appeared on the scene, this reporter (I've always wanted to write that. Actually I never wanted to until just this moment. Seems silly. But the subject is silly) has been pointing out the shallowness, vacuity, and danger of the former half-term governor. Finally, some of the so-called conservative intellectuals are noting the same thing:

This year, the conservative intelligentsia doesn’t just tend to dislike Palin — many fear that her rise would represent the triumph of an intellectually empty brand of populism and the death of ideas as an engine of the right.

“This is a problem for the movement,” said Will about what Palin represents. “For conservatism, because it is a creedal movement, this is a disease to which it is susceptible.”

The line of modern conservatism that can be traced back to National Review founder William F. Buckley would be broken by Palin, Will said.

“There’s no Reagan without Goldwater, no Goldwater without National Review and no National Review without Buckley — and the contrast between he and Ms. Palin is obvious.”

Asked if the GOP would remain the party of ideas if Palin captures the nomination, Will said: “The answer is emphatically no.” (Related: Liberals like Palin candidacy)

Columnist Charles Krauthammer, without talking about Palin specifically, noted that “there’s healthy and unhealthy populism,” and there is concern about the rise of the latter.

“When populism becomes purely anti-intellectual, it can become unhealthy and destructive,” said Krauthammer.

Wehner, now a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, cited the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous 1980 declaration that the GOP had become “a party of ideas.”

“Conservatives are very proud of that,” Wehner said. “But she seems at best disinterested in ideas or least lacks the ability to articulate any philosophical justification for them. She relies instead on shallow talking points.

(I thought George Will had better grammar than that...)

She, of course, and her deluded supporters -- given their proud anti-intellectualism -- will consider this a badge of honor, which will cause them to crank their aggrievement and self-pity even higher.

The opening sentence of the linked article features Ms Palin's claim of sexism because people hate a strong woman. Sorry, Sarah. It's not about strong. It's about superficial, self-absorbed, and stupid. I come from a state with a serious, smart, and hard-working governor and two similarly-described senators. I voted for them all, enthusiastically.

Women, every one.

P.S: Hard to sign onto the "Party of Ideas" thing, given the sort of un-mathematical, unserious, unoriginal, and unsupported-by-history stuff spilling out of the teabagged Congress of late. But since the term makes no claim to good ideas, I guess it's literally true, if a little Foxobeckian. One is not surprised. Anyone buying it?

Heading Down

In the 1960's, following the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, my dad chaired a committee charged with looking into the matter of race and educational opportunities in the Portland public schools. Its report was groundbreaking, controversial, and garnered significant national attention. I'm told it was taught in government courses at Harvard, which must mean something. Especially to teabaggers.

Composed of a diverse group of around forty community leaders, educators, parents, clergy, and highly multi-cultural, the committee membership managed unanimously to sign on to its recommendations, an achievement of my dad's powers of persuasion, I'd aver. Among its most noteworthy conclusions was the realization that kids from poor neighborhoods came to school hungry, and lacking in basic knowledge -- numbers, colors, alphabet -- that kids from other neighborhoods took for granted. Rather than recommending mandatory busing, they proposed "model schools" in disadvantaged neighborhoods that would provide a decent breakfast and pre-education to help the kids catch up. (Busing was an option for any kids whose parents wanted it. The lack of forced busing was the most controversial aspect.) What it amounted to, among other things, was the precursor realizations to what has become Head Start. That committee was ahead of its time.

So maybe I take it personally; but the Republican proposal to cut billions from Head Start is particularly egregious to me, and it demonstrates as well as anything how heartless and short-sighted the teabagger legislators are. They simply don't care about poor kids.

I realize that sounds like a typical bleeding-heart declaration; but how else can it be interpreted? Care they do, about frozen zygotes. Care they don't, about actualized but poor kids and the lost opportunities they represent. It's indefensible. Except, of course, as yet another way to make sure we don't -- perish the thought -- return tax rates to reasonable levels. Kids who need help? Screw 'em. The wealthiest two percent? Tell us what you need.

This is what it looks like when tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans is the non-negotiable and top priority of Republicans. You cut services for people about whom you don't care, who don't have the money to contribute to your campaigns. You choose today's purse, your own purse, over tomorrow's productivity, over the future of the country you claim to love. You rationalize it any way you can, with Foxobeckian disinformation and demonizations; but what you do is hurt the vulnerable and walk on by.

I've asked it over and over: at what point will the people who elected them realize the destructiveness and selfishness of the teabagger agenda? Will it be before, or after the country is hopelessly robbed of its future?

A New Angle

I think they don't give their idea enough credit: without all those buildings in the way, I'm certain the prayer waves will be much more effective. It's a line-of-sight thing: prayertons are like photons. It's genius.

Must be why god invented helicopters. (Okay, it was Leonardo. But the point remains.)

Motoring Toward Recovery

General Motors made a significant profit for the first time in seven years. Employees will get profit-sharing bonuses. I'd call it good news, especially since the RWS™ called Obama's rescue efforts doomed to failure, a government takeover, communism, and even some bad things.

It was the first profitable year since 2004 for G.M., which became publicly traded in November, ending a streak of losses totaling about $90 billion.
In addition, G.M. said 45,000 union workers would receive profit-sharing checks averaging $4,300, the most in the company’s history.
“Last year was one of foundation building,” G.M.’s chief executive, Daniel F. Akerson,said in a statement. “Particularly pleasing was that we demonstrated G.M.’s ability to achieve sustainable profitability near the bottom of the U.S. industry cycle, with four consecutive profitable quarters.”

Haven't heard much from the RWS™ about this, and I can't imagine why.

Meanwhile, I'd like to point out that I used to own one of those '49 Caddies pictured above, and drove it, to multiple thumbs-up, on perfect days. Much as I loved it -- used to go to the garage just to open and close the doors, heavy they were, and chunked closed like a safe; my wife made a patchwork cover for it, complete with hole for the antenna and perfectly contoured for the pubescent fins -- I finally concluded I couldn't give it the attention and care it needed. I'm glad GM is back on its feet, but they'll never make a car as solid as that again; and most certainly never with that back seat like your grandma's couch.

The gas cap was under the left tail-light lens, which popped up.

Simple

(If the chart is too small to read, it's bigger here.)

I'd say something pithy here, but, really, it speaks for itself.

Lamentation

From James Joyner a conservative writer, beginning with a quote from another political writer, Kevin Drum:

I still read some conservative blogs, but I read a lot fewer than I used to. The problem is sort of a Catch-22: reading the loony tunes blogs isn’t worthwhile except for entertainment value, so I mostly don’t bother. Conversely, the more moderate types have interesting things to say, but they’re so out of touch with mainstream conservatism that they often don’t seem worthwhile engaging with either. I mean, what’s the point in arguing over some technocratic point that’s a million light years away from the views of actual, existing conservatism, which doesn’t yet admit that cutting taxes reduces revenues or spewing carbon into the air heats the globe? It all has a very ivory tower feel to it.

This is a recurring theme and, while I certainly read plenty of conservative pundits–and, indeed, still consider myself one–like Kevin, I read fewer than I used to. I prefer rational, facts-based analysis and find more of it across the aisle than on my own side.

Partly, it’s a function of the fact that academics and policy wonks with strong academic backgrounds are more likely to produce the kind of writing I find interesting and those groups tilt to the leeward side. But I’m not the only conservative who has noticed that even mainstream journals on the right have gone crazy. And the David Frums, Bruce Bartletts, and Daniel Larisons have largely been written off as RINOs angling for invites to liberal cocktail parties.

Are the rational conservatives simply being outshouted? Out-promoted? Or are there just too few to matter anymore?

I mention this only because it's exactly what I've been saying here, pleading. It seems self-evident that a movement so disconnected from reality can't forever prevail. And yet whereas it's nice to know there are still thoughtful conservatives out there, I see no evidence of decline of teabaggerism any time soon.

If the comments I get on this blog are any sort of nanocosm of right-wing thought, we've got a hell of a long trek back to rationality. Almost exclusively, my negative commenters are unable to provide any meaningful arguments to support their disagreements; in fact, I detect a sort of smug self-satisfaction that suggests they actually think they are being cogent.

And that's the most depressing fact of all.

De-Fense, De-Fense

Fear not, though:

The U.S. continues to spend the most in absolute dollars, accounting for 60 percent of the world's total defense spending.

But you know what M.C. Hammer said.

Gin

My aunt is the last of her generation of my relatives. First gone was her husband, my mother's brother; then another aunt, then my dad, and, four months ago, my mom. I've written about them all. Now, my aunt is diagnosed with metastatic cancer in her liver and brain. As always, she faces her challenges with grace and strength, taking what comes to her and doing what needs doing. Ninety-three and sharper than me, mentally, she's about to begin radiation to her brain, and, most likely, some sort of chemo for her liver. She wants to wring as much out of life as she can; and I don't doubt that when it becomes clear there's no more to be wrung, she'll accept it with the grace that has always determined her life. It's not always been easy for her. But this isn't the time for that...

For many years, she was a model; her picture has graced the pages of The New Yorker, among others. In her nineties, she remains an elegant beauty, with the cheekbones of Audrey Hepburn, the clothes of (fill in the most tastefully dressed and coiffed person you've ever seen.) Until this most recent setback, diagnosed after falling at her home (where she's lived alone for years and insists on it), she attended theater, museum shows, and has had a full dance card of dinner dates with her many friends.

We've spent the last three days at her bedside in the hospital, along with her daughter. Tonight I sneaked her favorite Citadelle Gin into her room, doled out her preferred tablespoon in water and ice. Refilled once. Along with a couple other of her friends, we drank more gin, some wine, had sandwiches and cookies and, to the chagrin of her doctor who came in during the festivities, my aunt enjoyed some decidedly not salt-free potato chips. (To her credit, after a brief look askance, her doc said, "What the heck, you can have whatever you want." Not sure she noticed it wasn't water only in her glass, nor the lime wedges in what we were drinking, the brown bag at my feet...)

Last night it was pastrami on rye.

Far as I'm concerned, that's exactly the way a ninety-three year old lady ought to be cared for in the hospital: good food, good friends, and gin.

Pissing On Us All

Take that, Nancy San-Franciso-Values Pelosi, you liberal bitch.

Here is the perfect metaphor for everything the current teabagger congress is all about: Because recycling is a goddam liberal idea, styrofoam is back in the Congressional dining room. God forbid that anything -- anything -- that smacks of progressive ideas, that smells of environmentalism, that suggests petroleum is negative in any way could be countenanced by those ideological icons of ignorant idiocy.

“Foamed polystyrene” is a miraculous invention that manages to be completely awful through every step of its near-eternal “life cycle” — it is manufactured with petroleum that must be imported from Middle East dictatorships, toxic “styrene oligomers” migrate into the food it holds, it’s highly flammable and produces black poisonous smoke, and most of the 25 billion polystyrene cups tossed every year will take more than half a millennium to degrade. And that’s why the Republican-led House of Representatives made it an immediate priority to cancel the House cafeteria’s four years of biodegradable food and beverage packaging. It’s part of the GOP leadership’s “return to the mid-1990s” program. Nancy Pelosi sure was a yucky woman trying to do some sane environmentally-minded things, wasn’t she? Thank the American Jesus that woman is no longer in charge of anything.

No, I suppose it's not the most important thing in the world: what Rs do in their dining room has virtually nothing to do with the global impact of styrofoam -- not any more than what they do in Congress has anything to do with fixing our country. But it is representational; it's absolutely revelatory of the superficiality, the venality, the unseriousness that makes for elected teabaggers. The only thing that's important is to spit on everything that might be construed as thinking beyond their own self-interest.

And the people who elected them need no excuse to follow suit: how silly, how elitist, how intellectual, how scientific ferchrissake, to make the effort to recycle, to reduce toxicity in the environment. Piss on you, planet earth; piss on you, liberals. We're in charge now, and we've got asses to kiss, money to make, base people to appease.

What dangerous people these are; how willfully careless, cynical, destructive. How dismissive of reason and thought. And how proud they are of it. High fives all around, laughing all the way to the bankers.

Conceptus

Rooting around a little more in some questions I raised recently, about death and afterlife and babies and the infirm, I realize I should have addressed this as well: it's estimated that more than a quarter of all conceptions end in spontaneous abortion. (For the excitable, that means they die and are expelled without any outside intervention.) The actual number is likely to be significantly higher, since many pregnancies occur and end without the woman even knowing. This makes god the most prolific abortionist of all time.

Which raises the question, preceded by a couple of givens according to those opposed to women's choice: Life, we are told, begins at conception. God, we are told, knows our whole life even before we're born. So, what of those blastocysts, those embryos, those concepti -- stillbirths, for that matter; anencephalics, too -- that die at god's hands, before even leaving the womb?

Based on the religious arguments against abortion, it would seem every combination of egg and sperm, at no matter what time after their joining, represents a fully-rightful human life. So what happens when they expire from godly causes? If they're god-loved humans with pre-planned lives, surely they go to heaven. But in what form? Are they, like my iMac, my Macbook, preloaded with iLife? And the software takes them to what point in their pre-known lives? If they become what they'd have been anyway had they not been aborted by god, what's the point of going through all this life on the home planet? Or would he actually keep them as they were, maybe wiggling in petrie dishes? I'd think not, but what do I know? Related question: since they'd never lived "outside," never had any relationships, with whom would these former clusters hang out? Obits are full of declarations of heavenly reunions; in fact, the certainty seems to be the main selling point for real estate on the streets of gold. Isn't this a problem?

And what's the difference between abortions by god and abortions by man? Surely he wouldn't hold the fetus responsible for the act of its mother? (Not that there's much evidence of godly fairness in the doling out of earthly misfortune, but still...) So what's all the fuss about abortion, such a tiny fraction of which are at the hand of man? It's all human life, right? If so, they must surely go to heaven, yes? If they don't, they're not humans in the religious sense, right? But we're told they are...

I'd think these are all questions that the anti-abortion crowd, who seem to be the main contingent of Republican leaders since November, forsaking all serious interest in the economy, education -- in short, in our future -- to subject women to their religious beliefs, ought to be able to answer. Expected to answer. Required. To be consistent. Because it's not just about their religious beliefs: if that were all it was, I'd be as silent on the subject as Mike Huckabee was on Bristol Palin's pregnancy as opposed to that of Natalie Portman's. (Ms Portman, of course, is a walking dog-whistle for the RWS™: Harvard educated, Hollywood employed, smart, liberal. Scientist. And, let's not overlook: Jewish.)

But the fact is, it's political. I fully understand why many people are against abortion; like nearly every other human being, I'd hope it would continue to become ever more rare. (I'd also hope that those who'd force women to have babies would be willing to fund programs that make unwanted pregnancy less likely, and programs that help feed and clothe and educate the kids born into hopelessness. Which will never happen.) Nor do I have a problem with churches demanding their members reject it; just as I have no problem with churches that refuse to sanction same-sex marriage.

But when a group does everything it can to force its religious beliefs on an entire nation, including those who believe otherwise, it's a different matter entirely. And the above questions, if tainted with a little sarcasm here and there, are completely serious: if you demand that our country subscribe to your religious beliefs, the least you should do is to answer them.

While making sense.

Compare And Contrast

I can't imagine being at any rally and yelling. Clapping, maybe. Carrying a sign, possibly. But not yelling. Nevertheless, what's going on in Wisconsin -- despite Fox "news" attempts to make it seem like a war zone (Tobin being "hit" was complete bullshit) -- compares to that behavior toward little Muslim kids, among others, as pea-shooters compare to bazookas. Talk about "hate in their eyes..."

God bless America.

Sheen, Qaddafi, or Beck?

Here's an entertaining little exercise. Worth a moment of your time.

Huck Me

The more I see of good ol' Mike Huckabee, the more I realize what a contemptible phony he his. It took me a while: there was a time when I thought his humor, his bass-playing rock'n'rollery, his aw-shuckery made him a likable guy, even as I disagreed with pretty much everything he said. There are, after all, several people I call friends from whom I'm as far apart as possible politically and religiously.

But really, as he gets closer to a presumed run at the presidency, Mike Huckabee is revealing himself to be a shameless, rudderless, morally bankrupt hypocrite; and his wrapping himself in some sort of ethically bereft blanket of Christianity makes it all the worse. Smiling, beatific, full of love for his fellow man, he oozes despicable and disgusting deceptions, while pretending to be something else entirely. This "Obama grew up in Kenya" episode puts to rest any illusions anyone might have that he's a good guy. I don't care what his policies and religion are or aren't: he's a classic scumbag, well-honed homilies notwithstanding.

I don't want to waste my energy recounting what I'm referring to. For those who don't know, it's here and here and here.

And let's not overlook to whom he's speaking: one of the most bigoted and hate-filled spewers of the RWS™, and that's saying a hell of a lot. He who panders to such a man is as far from presidential as Glenn Beck is from thoughtful.

Mike Huckabee, smiling like a saint, says Obama didn't play Little League and attended a madrassa. And hangs with the Mau Mau. He says he "misspoke" when he said Obama grew up in Kenya, but when you put "Indonesia" in the place of that, the rest of what he said makes no sense at all: he meant it. The idiot. The cheap deceiver.

For the record: Obama played on a state champ basketball team in Hawaii; and the school he attended in Indonesia was the furthest thing from a madrassa. Isn't basketball as American as baseball? And who gives a shit anyway? Does Mike care? Obviously not. Dropping code words like a dog with diarrhea, he's only too happy to suggest our president is not one of us, is foreign, hates America, and, in case we've forgotten, is a black guy.

Mike Huckabee is a monster masquerading as Gomer Pyle. He's worse than a hypocrite and infinitely more dangerous: he's perfectly happy -- it's his goddam game plan -- to appeal to the lowest common denominator while claiming the moral high ground. He dishes his offal while prancing on tippie-toes like a blushing ballerina. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth (lately, it looks like it might be because he's swallowing it too fast again.)

It doesn't get more sleazy.

What a disgusting piece of crap.

_______________

This seems as good a place as any to mention the passing of Peter Gomes, chaplain and professor at Harvard for the last forty years, a Baptist minister, participant in the inaugurations of Ronald Reagan, and GHW Bush, named one of America's "seven most distinguished preachers," self-described "cultural conservative." Also gay. He wrote about guys like Huck the F*ck:

Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert.

It is dangerous, especially in America, because it is anti-democratic and is suspicious of “the other,” in whatever form that “other” might appear. To maintain itself, fundamentalism must always define “the other” as deviant.

But the chief reason that fundamentalism is dangerous is that, at the hands of the Rev. Pat Robertson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and hundreds of lesser-known but equally worrisome clerics, preachers and pundits, it uses Scripture and the Christian practice to encourage ordinarily good people to act upon their fears rather than their virtues.

Fortunately, those who speak for the religious right do not speak for all American Christians, and the Bible is not theirs alone to interpret. The same Bible that the advocates of slavery used to protect their wicked self-interests is the Bible that inspired slaves to revolt and their liberators to action.

The same Bible that the predecessors of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson used to keep white churches white is the source of the inspiration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the social reformation of the 1960’s.

The same Bible that anti-feminists use to keep women silent in the churches is the Bible that preaches liberation to captives and says that in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free.

And the same Bible that on the basis of an archaic social code of ancient Israel and a tortured reading of Paul is used to condemn all homosexuals and homosexual behavior includes metaphors of redemption, renewal, inclusion and love – principles that invite homosexuals to accept their freedom and responsibility in Christ and demands that their fellow Christians accept them as well.

The political piety of the fundamentalist religious right must not be exercised at the expense of our precious freedoms. And in this summer of our discontent, one of the most precious freedoms for which we must all fight is freedom from this last prejudice.

Think about that sometime when you're not spewing hate in sheepish clothing, Mike Huckabee, you embarrassment, you piggish little nasty.

Credit Bush

I think this writer is onto something: it turns out George Bush and the US deserve some credit for the wave of human rights demands sweeping the Arab world. Not how he'd want it, maybe; but credit nevertheless:

Some have linked the emergence of a strong human rights agenda in the Arab world with the policies of the last American president. In a way they are right: post-9/11 abuses overseen by the Bush administration were the tragedy that brought to light the urgency of claiming rights.

In the stunning popular uprisings that have been sprouting up throughout the Arab world, the desire for the realization of rights seems ubiquitous. For this, some have argued, George W. Bush deserves some credit. In fact, there is a link to be made between recent developments and Bush administration policies. However, it is not so much that we are finally seeing the fruits of the Bush era’s democracy and human rights promotion agenda, or that a liberated Iraq has now set an example for the rest of the region to follow. Rather, we are seeing the fruits of an Arab engagement with human rights which was in part spurred by the Bush Administration’s array of post-9/11 policies thwarting human rights....

“Abu Ghraib probably brought home the concept of human rights more strongly than anything else. People started debating human rights issues in talking about Abu Ghraib…What is your right to be treated like a human being in dignity?” an Arab activist told me in Amman in 2006.

It's a serious piece, and I find it worthy of some thought.

And if it's not ironic, I don't know what is.