The Daily Bleat will be word-free for the rest of the month. Sure, there will be photos of the Gnat, 1940's pickle mascot images, and stuff like that, but no more stories about Target shopping carts and patterned paper towels searches until next year.
I need a break; overwork & other small factors have made me sound testy and peevish. At least more than usual. Frankly, I’m tired of this thing, but I’ll give it up when you pry my cold dead hands off the keyboard . . .Well, okay, James. I mean, okay, take a break (I'm not really ready to pry any cold, dead hands off of anything); you HAVE sounded rather testy and peevish lately, so rest up, finish your book, and vent your spleen on your editor for a while.
The rest of you can check out the photo of the Gnat in her Fairy Princess Halloween costume. Then tell me if you don't think the poor kid is well aware that she's being exploited, and is making detailed notes in her Mermaid Barbie Widdle Kiddle Diary so that she can write a Daddy Dearest tome in about twenty years.
6:53:43 AM
Today's Town Hall
Nothing exceptionally goofy today, just the usual mean-spiritedness, some same-sex marriage doomifiying, and a batch of Bush boosting. Oh, and a giant snow penis.
Suzanne Fields
Bush's speech in London was the best speech ever, but college professors don't care because they are all liberals and would rather make fun of the President than learn from him; and besides, they all write like doofuses, because they use big words and stuff.
Anyone looking for the "vision thing" can find it in the clarity of the presidential argument and the felicity of his language. It should be required reading in college English and history classes and assigned for critical papers and oral debates.Well, since the clear arguments and felicitous language in the speeches are the contributions of the speech writers, who presumably learned much of their craft from college professors, I don't know if Suzanne really has much of a point here. Sadly though, it seems that the "spontaneous verbal syntax" is all Bush's, and pretty much expresses the clarity of his ideas.
[snip]
It's fair game to make fun of a president's spontaneous verbal syntax, and sadder still when academics who suffer jerking knees won't attempt to deal in a forthright way with the president's ideas.
John Leo
John claims that everybody thinks they're victims now, and provides a "news of the weird"-type list of people who are suing or complaining about various things to prove his point.
In February, a giant representation of the most prominent feature of male anatomy appeared on the Harvard campus, built out of snow by members of the men’s crew team. Amy Keel, class of ’04, decided that the snow sculpture was an assertion of male dominance as well as an implied threat to women. So she and her roommate knocked it down. In sympathy with the knock-down, Women’s Studies lecturer Diane Rosenfeld lamented that the sculpture follows on a long line of public phallic symbols, including the Washington Monument and missiles. Wendy Murphy, a lawyer and visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, deplored the administration’s silence: "What if students had built a snow sculpture of a Nazi swastika or a Confederate flag?" This may have been Harvard’s first suggestion that all men are born with the equivalent of a Nazi-Confederate symbol built right in.While I don't think that a giant snow penis implicitly threatens any women (except, perhaps, for petite snowwomen --it really CAN be too big for some women), I kinda like the idea that it replace the "Southern Cross" as a symbol of white racist pride.
George Will
George says that while the President vowed, in response to the MA court ruling about same-sex marriage to "do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage," this vow erroneously implies that the law can fix an institution that society has trashed, and also claims, without any proof, that homosexual marriage would somehow trash this already unsanctified institution even more. However, George doesn't think that same-sex marriage shouldn't be imposed by "judicial fiat," because it will make everybody hate and resent gays (like they do abortions), and will open the door to polygamy.
The binary idea of marriage -- friends and foes of gay marriage agree it is an institution involving couples -- arose because there are two sexes. But if the meaning of marriage and the right to marital status is sufficiently defined with reference to ``autonomy of the self ... (in) certain intimate conduct,'' what principled, nonarbitrary ground is there for denying the right of marriage to, say, a threesome whose members insist that it is necessary for their self-fulfillment through intimacy?However, Andrew Sullivan choses to see this piece as a victory, since, "so many of the truly excellent conservative writers - Will, Goldberg, Brooks, Horowitz spring to mind - oppose this amendment. " And if the trully excellent conservative writers are sorta on his side, then he CAN be a gay Republican!
Bob Novak
Bush had better come out in support of a federal constitutional ammendment to prohibit gay marriage (and do it right now), or his fundamentalist Christian supporters are going to be angry. And you wouldn't like them when they're angry.
Charlie Cook, a respected campaign handicapper, has called this issue "frivolous and insignificant" when compared with casualties in Iraq and unemployment in America. Not in the opinion of Bush's social conservatives, who over the last two weeks have made clear to the White House that this -- even more than abortion -- is their great concern about the nation's social fabric.
These Bush backers see the president under worldwide assault as a Christian, particularly in a Europe where atheism is on the rise and religion on the decline. They cannot imagine he will not endorse a constitutional amendment. They cannot understand why he has not done so already on an issue that has been percolating for months.Well, they see THEMSELVES as Christians under worldwide assault, especially after they read David Limbaugh's book which tells them they're being persecuted, and they figure they own the President, and he's better do something for them ASAP, or they're voting for Roy Moore in 2004.
Diana West
The European Union's Racism Commission failed to release a report which said that a great many of the anti-Semitic incidents it reported were caused by young Arabic Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups (and the left, says Diana--although I don't think the report actually said that). Diana blames the PC-loving elite media for failing to report on this extremely important story because it doesn't confirm their belief that it's the jackbooted right who do all this kind of thing.
Such journalistic silence does more than deprive us of information. It sucks the oxygen from the free exchange of ideas, stifling debate before it occurs. This undermines more than the state of the press. It adversely affects public discourse everywhere, lending credence to the pernicious notion that subjects of grave importance -- Muslim anti-Semitism and European denial, for example -- must be consigned to furtive whispers, if they are mentioned at all.
Frankly, the fact that some Arabs are anti-Semitic isn't big news to me. And if the EU is trying to not make a big deal about this now because of some fears that it might lead to further violence, well, I guess those papers that feel this is newsworthy should cover it, but it wouldn't exactly suck any air out of MY debate room if only the Financial Times, where Diana got the story, is so inclined.
Armstrong Williams
America needs to support Israel so that if anybody picks on Isreal, we have a reason to get involved in the war and bring about the War of Armageddon and usher in Christ's Second Coming. Besides, it gives the region somebody to hate (presumably America), now that the USSR is no more.
In a nutshell, the close relationship between the U.S. and Israel sends a signal that any violent fundamentalists in the region will have to answer to the United States.
[snip]
Remove our staunch support of Israel and a tide of violent fanaticism sweeps over the region, destabilizing the entire area. This is especially true since the collapse of the Soviet Union, who had previously funneled huge amounts of resources into the region. This post-Soviet vacuum gave rise to increased religious fanaticism as the populace looked for a new enemy to train their anger and fears upon.He makes supporting Israel sound like a real good time, doesn't he?
Paul Jacob
Paul Jacob is against any campaign finance regulations, since they limit the special interest groups' rights to give as much money as they want to candidates. ALL special interest groups hope to influence politicans, and so the only fair thing is keep out of it and let a kind of Darwinian "surivival of the fittest" settle things.
Independent political groups have always had their causes and agendas, regardless of how urgently others seek to muzzle them and/or allies speaking similar messages. Anything political groups say can be interpreted as having partisan implications, whether or not the name of a candidate is mentioned in a particular paid-for TV ad or paid-for bumper sticker. The only way to keep independent groups from "disproportionately influencing" political outcomes is to shut them up entirely.
Campaign finance laws penalize everybody who benefits from the freedom to participate in political life. That includes small contributors who would never be subject to CFR limits on spending themselves but who support particular causes that they must hope will be well promoted. On net, CFR benefits only those who believe they can wield the CFR bludgeon to maintain and advance their own power.Herbert London
Americans, used to instant coffee and DSL computer lines, can't wait for Bush's reconstruction plans in Iraq to work out, and want to withdraw the troops before we can see how great those reconstruction plans really are.
Although President Bush made it clear after 9/11 that the war on terrorism would take years, after several months the American people are starting to stir.Um, but we thought that it would actually be against 9/11 terrorists, not just countries we goaded into prolonged wars.
In fact, there is now a test of wills. President Bush contends U.S. forces will not be forced to leave Iraq. Conversely, several Democratic candidates have called for immediate withdrawal and others have come close to suggesting this as well.
Should impatience prevail, the consequences would be disastrous for American interests. The terrorists would be emboldened; the U.S. would be seen as “a paper tiger: - a claim often used by the terrorists. Clearly the advocates for withdrawal are playing with fire. But do they realize a condition the president overlooks?
Perhaps Americans cannot stay the course. Perhaps the culture of affluence has produced an impatience for anything but immediate success.I think that we should stay in Iraq until the country has a reasonable chance at maintaing a stable goverment which won't be overthrown by the first band of thugs who comes along. We should send MORE troops and spend MORE money and do this thing right, so we don't have to do it again next time in ten years. But we shouldn't stay just to show the world that we're tough -- after all, if we used the money and resources on fighting those OTHER terrorists (the ones that actually attacked us first), we could probably win the war that was declared on 9/11 and then not care who was calling us names behind our backs.
And as to whether the "advocates of withdrawal" "realize a condition that the President overlooks"? Well, that's certainly a possibility, seeing how much he seemed to have overlooked before getting us into this thing. And I wouldn't blame their concerns on too much MTV if I were Herb.
Mike Adams
Let's make fun of diversity by letting Mike pretend to be the Minister of Diversity!
NOTE: The new Minister of Diversity (Minidivy) does not appreciate remarks concerning the spelling and grammar in his diversity memos. What some consider “typos” or “fragments” are merely diverse methods of expression. Attempts to impose one’s grammatical reality upon others are potentially racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, heterosexist, ethnocentric, or some other equally offensive term not yet fashionable.See how fun that was!
Well, that's about it for Town Hall. Like I said, not all that goofy today. But just wait -- coming up later this week will be all our old favorites, and then goofiness will reign supreme.
6:43:06 AM
Anybody have any idea what this Kiddy Korner post from K.Lo might mean?
THERE'S A TIME AND A PLACE [ Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Hillary Clinton raises questions while with troops abroad.
I read the article and it just seems to be about Hillary making sensible and straightforward statements like:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the United States "must stay the course" in both Afghanistan and Iraq and called for more military personnel to finish the job.And
Clinton said she was "moved and inspired" by the gritty courage of uniformed American men and women in both difficult theaters. But she and Reed said the Pentagon needs to speed the delivery of more body armor for American troops and deployment of the armored version of the Humvee truck.No questions being raised by Hillary, as far as I can determine. And if it calls to mind some questions on the readers' part, such as "Why the hell don't those troops already have that body armor?", then isn't this exactly the time and place that they should be raised.
So, what exactly is Kathryn's point? Except that maybe Hillary was talking to reporters while with troops abroad time place.
4:54:46 AM
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