Camille Paglia, professor of humanities, worries about “a landscape of death in the humanities.” I would agree with that, had it actually made any sense, although probably for different reasons:
This whole thing about global warming – I am absolutely incredulous at the gullibility of people. What is this hysteria over drowning polar bears? And finally I realized, people don’t know polar bears can swim! For me, the answer is always more facts, more basic information, presented without sentimentality and without drama.
2. SIP:
Andrew Sullivan believes Elena Kagan should be outed as a lesbian. Or as a straight lady, if she swings that way. Maybe if you tried a different hairdo, the boys would show more interest, Elena. We’re just concerned for you, dear – you don’t want to end up an old maid on the high court! Or maybe you don’t like boys? In any case, she is an unmarried woman of a certain age, and that demands a public explanation:
The NYT’s bizarre profile of Kagan, which plumbs every minute aspect of her most intimate and private life while saying nothing whatever about her emotional relationships, home, dating, or indeed anything that might even touch upon her sexual orientation, gay or straight, is so contrived in its avoidance of the obvious it is almost comic. To put it bluntly: the NYT can produce 4,500 words on a person and barely address the three most common Google searches on her name. There is some kind of disconnect here, no?
I, too, am outraged at the disconnect between NY Times reporting and popular Google searches. I mean, how long are they just going to ignore the important issues of “jessica abla sex taep” and “dragon age no cd torrent”? The People demand answers!
Senior White House officials say they now know the Pakistani Taliban was behind the failed attack on New York’s Times Square.
The accused bomber, Faisal Shazad, has told investigators the he trained in tribal areas of Waziristan where both Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban operate.
US Attorney-General Eric Holder says the Pakistani Taliban helped facilitate the attack and they probably helped finance it.
Can I make a tactical suggestion? If you find the Center for Advanced Study in Terror Arts and Sciences where Mr. Shazad received the technical training which led him to build a “bomb” out of bottle rockets and Miracle-Gro, and then gave him the operational training such that he was somehow incapable of setting fire to fucking gasoline, please do not do anything which would lead to any disruption of classes. I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in. If anything, the US government should be making sure they have the best facilities and most attractive campus for training people how to fail six different ways at terrorizing anyone.
Of course, I have once again failed to learn the proper from this fiasco. The proper lesson we must learn is that – as when that genius failed to ignite his explosive underwear which wouldn’t have worked anyway – is that we need to get TUFF ON TERROR. Because we want the terrorists to know that we are TUFF, and that we are certainly not big pussies. Consider: big pussies aren’t TUFF, so if we act extra TUFF we couldn’t possibly be big pussies because big pussies are big pussies and not TUFF like us! If A then not not A. It’s elementary logic, people. D’hoy.
Liberals complain that Obama hasn’t changed tactics in the War On Terror, but that is not true. He has, for example, banned torture and stepped up drone attacks against suspected enemies. Conservatives complain that Obama has no strategy for winning the War On Terror, but that is not true, either. Obama simply has a different strategy than the one favored by the neocons, namely that we must focus on defeating terrorist organizations and stabilizing friendly regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan - fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here, to coin a phrase. What Obama has left essentially untouched, and unquestioned, from his predecessor is the grand strategy – that terrorists all over the world, no matter how incompetent or incapable of posing any meaningful threat to the United States, need to be fought using the tactics and strategies and weapons and logic of War. Niggling arguments about how best to conduct a war against impotent, semi-functioning losers are certainly fascinating, as pointless things so often are, but the very simple truth is that there is not a correct way to fight a war which does not need to be fought. There just isn’t much of consequence to say about such a thing.
The goal of terrorism is to provoke a reaction, a reaction based in fear, a foolish, panicked reaction which weakens and undermines the much stronger enemy. (This is obviously not a foolproof strategy, and terrorists generally fail to get what they want – terrorism is the strategy of the powerless, and the powerless usually don’t get their way no matter what strategy they employ, because if they did they would have to change their name to “the powerful”.) The “success” of a terrorist attack is not measured by how many people it kills, but in what reaction it provokes. A really successful attack would provoke an expensive, ill-conceived, and counter-productive over-reaction – such as, to pick a random example, a bloody credibility-sapping war against an abstraction which is continued in order to defeat enemies which didn’t exist before the war was started. It’s fun to laugh at the failure who bungles the execution of a stupid plan which wouldn’t have worked anyway, and it’s fun to laugh at the failures who claim credit for “training” this slapdick. It’s much less fun to think about who the real failures are.
DEAR MEXICAN:I know that Mexicans and pochos can be black, white, Asian and indios, but I just got my United States Census form. Figured you would be the best person to ask about Question No. 9—Race.
I know I’m not white, (I’ve been pulled over too many times for BS reasons), I’m not black (I haven’t been beaten by the chota like my black amigos), I am not Asian (I sucked at math and have a perfect driving record), and I am not Native American (I don’t have long hair or a dream catcher). The census has been kind enough to allow me to identify myself as Hispanic of Mexican ancestry, but not as my race. Instead, I get to make up my own race. Any suggestions?
Viva La Raza
DEAR WAB: I haven’t heard so much unnecessary whining from Mexicans about an issue since Carlos Menstealia decided to call himself a beaner. Primer point: Since when are we supposed to take the U.S. Census’ racial classifications seriously? This is the same clump of the government caca pie that has spent a good century trying to exactly determine whatMexicans are—“white” one decade, of “Hispanic” origin the other, maybe “masters of Aztlán” soon. We’ve proven a clusterfuck for the government because, well, that’s what Mexicans are to this country—a grand, glorious, tequila-soaked chingazo to American racial taxonomies, and anything we can do to further destroy racial classifications in this country is bueno. Government can’t decide what we are? Good.
All this said, the ninth question in the census—despite its rigid caste classifications—doesallow people to decide what race they are (the Mexican picked “CHINGÓN” as his raza and urges the rest of ustedes to do the same) if you don’t like thinking of yourself as a gabacho, negrito, indio or all the different chinitos they list. Prefer the conquistador in your blood over the mestizo? Fill it in. Think you’re full-blooded Nahua despite the bigote on your lip and your güera grandma? Fill it in. Happy with Question 8, which has a category for anyone who has any roots to Mexico? Check it. But stop the grand existential dilemma and teeth-gnashing over the imperfect census, banda: Do we really expect anything right to come out of Washington regarding Mexicans and public policy? It’s been one disaster after another since 1846.
Washington is still able to look down on Arizona. Or at least they used to be able to, as the fine legislature of that proud state has recently changed clarified their immigration law to explicitly ban racial – read: skin color – profiling, in favor of the far less offensive “dangerous criminal Mexican-looking person profiling”. So, instead of using a paper bag to determine if someone of indeterminate race doesn’t belong in Arizona, police will use a paper bag with a picture of the Frito Bandito on it.
You’d think that would pretty much make everything all better, but apparently big whiners like Los Suns de la Reconquista, the President of the United States of MECHA, and even Shakira can still find something to complain about. ”Blah blah blah,” they say, “let’s just let hordes of swarthy foreigners trample our marigolds at 3AM like the terrorists want.” Just imagine an Arizona where Shakira was allowed to move around at will:
Wouldn’t it be better for us all if we could finally agree to get our noses out of each others’ respective bedrooms, and accept the fact that human sexuality is a many-varied and wondrous thing, and that, yes virginia, homosexuality and bisexuality and the many uneven distributions of sexual preferences in solitary individuals is COMPLETELY NORMAL. Totally. Normal. And good. Spice + Life.
Or, in the absence of that long overdue social accord, we can continue to produce legions of horribly repressed and contorted men who work themselves up into a froth of bigotry and hate in order to mask and suppress their own desires, and in the process create intense anguish (including and especially their own) by urging people to question, reject and feel shame for their own healthy human impulses.
After which, inevitably, those same twisted men will don multiple wet suits, tap dance in bathroom stalls, cruise certain highway rest stops or hire dashing young men to help them “lift the luggage” so to speak. Because that’s all they wanted to do in the first place.
For the last sixteen months the GOP has been screaming that government is evil, that it is the problem, that we need less regulation in order to be more productive, more profitable, and that rules and oversight aren’t needed because the free market will take care of things. You know what? If the booms aren’t “effective” and the resources of BP are “not adequate” to deal with a disaster of this magnitude, then why the hell are you letting them operate offshore oil rigs off of your coastline, you jagoff? You’re the Governor, Mr. State Sovereignty Teapublican guy. Stop the drilling until this disaster is resolved, and don’t start it until you can be sure it can’t happen again.
Folks, the hand of the free market just ripped a wellhead to pieces and is completely screwing over the Gulf. It’s going to cost several billion dollars to fix. I’m sick of people saying that the magical free market will be responsible and keep anything bad from happening. Well guess what? The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, this oil rig nightmare, and our economy back in 2008, they all got “fixed by the magical free market” where deregulation caused untold damage to our economy and hey, even killed people.
And now the Republicans are demanding that the government “fix the problem”? Screw you guys. Government is a lumbering vampiric dinosaur to you morons until you need the government to solve your problems for you. Then it’s “I demand the government does something about this!” And it’s the same Teabagger assclowns doing the loudest yelling and screaming.
Hypocritical assholes. Jindal, get your ass in gear and a mop and bucket and clean up your own mess. State’s rights! Tenth Amendment! Don’t Tread On Me! Hey Teabaggers? Get out there on the coast and help him since you hate the federal government intruding in a state matter so dearly, you hate Washington’s beltway interference. Start scrubbing.
Government is the “greatest evil of all” until a real evil pops up, an environmental disaster caused by corporate greed. Suddenly for you guys it’s nanny state time. Now you need the government’s help. Now it’s government’s responsibility to look after your needs. Now it’s time for the federal government to spend taxpayer money to help you. Now, the folks in Washington are needed instead of illegitimate tyrants who need to be deposed by a Second American Revolution.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, Tweets about “Hockey Dads” and policy in 140 characters or less (we’ll refrain from commenting on how it might not actually be a good thing to reduce the policies of the United States to a text message), posts ghost-written rants on her Facebook wall, goes on fake-bus tours to promote her un-fact-checked memoir and appears for $100,000+ speaking fees to reliably conservative groups to make fun of journalists, read off her hand and spout a bunch of catch-phrases. For that, and the fan-boy and -girl raves of her followers, she’s considered one of Time‘s “100 Most Influential People of 2010″ — and a “leader” at that, with multiple heads of state, military commanders, the first female Speaker of the House and the CEOs of major corporations. Can I get a “What the motherfuck?”, people?
Plus what, exactly, is Sarah Palin leading, other than fools around by the nose and HarperCollins’ book sales figures? She’s not leading Alaska anymore, she’s not leading the Tea Party movement (given that it’s a headless hydra), she’s not leading 2012 Presidential polls and she’s certainly not leading anything but a small minority of Americans who, like Ted Nugent, praise her carefully-crafted “authenticity” the same way they praised Bush’s. I guess we can be thankful Time didn’t stick her in the Thinker category, but all the same, Palin’s hardly a leader or an innovator.
Clinton, on the other hand, is leading this country’s foreign policy. She’s logged 127 days abroad in the 15 months since her confirmation in 54 different countries. She oversaw the appointment of the first-ever United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. She’s been visible on everything from Haiti reconstruction to denuclearization to climate change to Israeli peace negotiations to putting pressure on Pakistan to remapping our relationship with Russia to wresting control of U.S. policy towards China away from the economists and financiers at the Treasury Department, and she shows no sign of stopping. Is anyone still talking about Bill Clinton’s potential influence at State? Nope, because no one really believes that he has any. Anyone still talking about her as the top of the team of rivals? Nope, although there are rumors about her replacing Biden as VP candidate in the 2012 race. Anyone still calling her shrill, or a bitch, or speculating that she only got elected on the basis of her husband’s infidelity rather than her own hard work and skills? You bet your ass they aren’t. Hillary Clinton is leading the fucking State Department, she’s leading this country’s foreign policy and she’s leading the charge to replace the image of America as a bunch of stupid cowboys with one of a thoughtful nation committed to the ideals of democracy and freedom we constantly profess.
So, why the hell is Palin on this list and not Clinton?
While I certainly have my differences with the Obama/Clinton foreign policy in certain areas, the comparison being drawn is to Sarah Palin. Who, when she’s not spouting horrific, bellicose, ignorant foreign policy ideas, can see Russia from her house – or at least she could when she was still governor of Alaska. A job the super influential “leader” quit midway because the pay was better in the private sector/lower 48.
