Onyx Lynx

As noted by the Daily Howler, re: last week's NY Times thinkpieces (all right, one showed disengagement of cogitation, but it was supposed to) by the Friedman and the Dowd.

Friedman begged for adult conduct from our “political and financial elites.” As is standard in the press corps, he didn’t mention his own journalistic elite, which was clowning in typical ways right across the page from his column

Americans voting against their own interests--via the BBC.

"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.
"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

(Quote from Thomas Frank, who is cited in the second half of the article.)

Schooling a black female Republican (giving the commenter being educated the benefit of the doubt).

But the women I admire such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), the late Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-TX), the late Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the late Audre Lorde, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Jasmyne Cannick, Dr. Marisa Richmond and the late Coretta Scott King stand and stood up for what is right, not right wing.

And then it gets good.

(In case you're wondering:  Because in the election of the Massachusetts Republican Brown to the Senate, the existence of a previous Republican Senator from Massachusetts is mentioned only in terms of how long ago it was.  Senator Edward W. Brooke has practically been erased.)

that the Senate has been obscuring and/or trying to ignore.

All he had to do to make the pain of throttled legislation stop, was make the Republicans actually show what things they were against. Make them stake some claim to principles larger than, "preventing the Democratic Party from doing anything."

Now, with the election of Brown, we have to listen to all that balderdash about, "the needed 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate."

Well, it ain't so. All that needs to happen is to use a tactical nuke. Don't change the number on cloture. Let them have their ability to hold the floor open. But make it a real filibuster again. None of this gentlemen's agreement to have morning filibusters and afternoon sessions. Nope

You'd think Chancellor Palpatine really was the Senate...

Thanks to pecunium.

From Avedon Carol's The Sideshow, because it deserves repeating:

You know, it really is stupid to think that moving the Overton Window farther and farther to the right is harmless. It is not harmless to let people think that spending on good things (stimulus, Social Security, real universal health care) is bad for the economy, but spending on bad things (stupid wars, subsidies to bloated corporations) is vital and necessary. It is not harmless to buy into the same right-wing memes that have brought us to our current crisis in the first place. It is not harmless to refuse to fight back against lies that the only problem is spending, and that it's spending that the public is against. The public's problem isn't that we aren't being mean enough.

The public is against spending when "spending" means taking all their money and giving it to rich, irresponsible bankers and insurance companies. People who assume this means the public is really against all spending - that is, people who have their heads getting stuck in the ever-narrowing Overton Window while making cracks about how whacky the left is for worrying about Overton's Window - are the real stupid.

(Quick and dirty according-to-Wikipedia definition of Overton['s] window, in case someone thinks it's related to the Defenestration[s] of Prague.)

Terrance at Republic of T has a simple list of actions the Democrats should take to reposition themselves as progressive:

• Remember that they still have a majority — more of a majority than Bush the Younger had when he pushed through much of his agenda — and then act like it.
• In other words: present a decisive, progressive agenda and own it.
• Present solutions that are firmly grounded in progressive values, and that directly address the needs and concerns of the other 99% of Americans — not just the wealthiest 1 %.
• Remind people exactly how conservatives and their policies got us here, and hold them accountable.
• If conservatives only want to be “The Party of No,” let them. And make them own it.
• Invite them to offer any ideas they have that (a) haven’t already been tried with disastrous results, or (b) are not so obviously flawed that they will only make things worse. (Like a deficit focus that would mean cutting services at the precise moment Americans are in the most economic pain and need them the most.)
• When they fail at that, move forward on your [own] without them.

The rest of the post fleshes this out.  (Also, why one tosses used teabags.)

(ETA:  Emphasis in original; word in brackets added, was probably intended, and does not change the meaning, but I kept tripping over its absence.)

Via Shakesville:  Haggis is legal again.  [ETA:  In the U.S.A.]

...is "super recognition."

Blowing up the sun.

"Maybe we can rub Mercury and Venus together real fast over a big pile a sticks," says me.
"Maybe we can lure a new sun with candy and toys and stuff it into a sack and take it home," says Giblets[.]

Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, to the white courtesy phone please.  We need historians, and you guys have the sort of scope to tackle this particular project, since you saw it largely from the other side.  (Gibbon, sweetie, you saw the Empire as a good thing.)

Meanwhile:  the Supreme Court has sold us to the corporations and the U. S. is Toast.  (Oh, the name will be kept because it still has goodwill value, but the actual enterprise will be parcelled out and sold to quick-buck fraudsters.  Watch.)  Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast and Anthony McCarthy at Echidne of the Snakes wrote eulogies that I hope are greatly exaggerated, because that's a real ugly future even in the best-case scenario.

Driftglass also has something to say about this situation.

For deep background, check out Arthur Silber.  No, the whole blog; he links to deeper sources, which link to still deeper sources.  And then he ties the findings into a coherent whole, and, let me tell you, is sounding more sane and purposeful by the day.

Anyhow.  Tacitus, you take the political and economic sector; Suetonius, you get the narrative/history piece; DC, babe--you mind if I call you DC?--you get the gossip.  I want to see everyone back here in a week.  Clio's going to be here.

Happy researches!

Scott Horton (Harper's) goes after Marc Thiessen, torture apologist and promoter.

But perhaps the most interesting clip comes here, when Sands points out that Thiessen said he would submit to waterboarding and then backed down when he discovered what the process entailed. Thiessen goes berserk after this statement[...]

Do read the whole thing. There's also a link to the complete interview quoted.

Via jurassicpork:  Air America has gone bust.

I should be clear:  I was not their audience.  I loathe radio talk shows; I don't even like the occasional ask-the-listener portion of the morning music program I tune to.  (Probably it had to do with what is now called morning drive time's priorities; news, sports, weather, traffic, music.  I didn't mind a little joking around, but it meant that much less music, and I was all about the music.)  Whereas Mom way, way back wanted to listen to Rambling with Gambling, and Dr. Carlton Fredericks, and maybe Galen Drake, and possibly Ed and Pegeen Fitzgerald.  And Long John Nebel.  All of whom played no music and talked.  Endlessly.  Radio drama, which I could have stood, had gone bye-bye by 1962 (Mom listened to Helen Trent, I remember from, oddly, a Revlon ad for "Leap Year Red"), and I had (some unkind souls might mutter "and have") very little patience for blather.  The exceptions to this aversion were 1) a host whose name I have forgotten [ETA:  Barry Gray!] had Senator Kenneth Keating, who was up for reelection, on one night (this would have been '64) and the challenger, Robert F. Kennedy, and 2) Bob Fass and Steve Post, who unpredictably had guests, phone-ins, and music, and who usually put me to sleep.  (When they bored me, I listened to Alison Steele.  Who played music.)

So.  Not their audience.  But we've lost a countervailing presence (well, from what I've read in the last few years, we've been losing that for quite some time) to the wowzers, and that's a shame.

(Picked up from jonquil; check out some of the other videos by the same group.)

From pecunium, the results of the special election in Massachusetts and what it means.

George Jellinek, of the opera side of WQXR.

Radio stations have personality (as well as "personalities"); at least, the good ones do.  It's why you keep the "dial" tuned to one station in preference over another, even though the playlists are similar.

WQXR, until fairly recently the radio station(s) of the New York Times. played classical music. Actually, pretty much any orchestral music up to the early 20th century and limited amounts of 20th century serious.  (Although if you wanted to hear Partch and Glass, you had to go to WNCN, and after that station left the building, the non-commercial/listener-supported/educational stations at hard-to-tune positions on the "dial.")  Every so often rock would fail to move me, so I would tune into a nice hot bath of classical music (Mom was and is an opera buff, Dad bought a few classical and jazz albums when he first bought the stereo, WKBW featured the classics on, I think, Sunday, interspersed with the Mantovani, and I had Music Appreciation in high school.  One used to hear a fair range of musical genres before demographics) for, sometimes, weeks at a time.

So, yeah, Mr. Jellinek is one of those old acquaintances one never meets, but as soon as I saw the headline I heard his voice.

And a lovely voice it was.

1. Scott Horton of Harper's on the Guantánamo suicides.

   Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise. Some prisoners there are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

   And on the official response:

   Still, the fact that the Justice Department is unwilling to say who was at these brief interviews speaks volumes. It does not deny that the interviews occurred, nor that the descriptions of the meetings are otherwise accurate, nor even that the lawyers identified were in fact involved in the investigation. It simply insists that the team conducting these interviews not be identified.

2. *shudder* Statistics on the President's first year in office.  (The *shudder* modifies "statistics," not "first year in office.")
   Associated Press, via the Air America website, via Republic of T.
   
   ETA: Air America site has gone byebye, taking the stats with it.

George Leonard, early proponent of human potential movement (yes, Esalen is mentioned).

Arthur Silber excerpts Jeff Nall's article drawing contrasts between Dr. King and Pres. Obama.

Ice skating in Detroit.  By jdg.

And an interesting 294th birthday to that bad boy Benjamin Franklin.

Helpless banks' defender:  Michael Steele.

(I love Republic of T.)

God is not a twisted vengeful cockroach.  That is a hater's God.  I don't worship a hater's God.

Clear?

Several folks this time.  ("Folks" both in the sense of "people" and in my mom's specialized sense.)

Mina Bern, actress;
Ed Beach, disc jockey;
Donald Goerke, canned pasta and soup;
Art Rust, Jr., sports talk  (also, he had a column in Esquire, back when I subscribed);
Teddy Pendergrass, singer;
William J. Lederer, author.

And too many Haitians.  (Major nasty earthquakes every couple hundred years.)  Shakesville lists links.  And Shark-fu evokes the hope and spirit of the survivors--and dusts you-know-who.

[ETA:  Haitian history and links to Haitian history.  ]

Consuela Lee, jazz pianist and teacher.

Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and family, and preserved the diary.

Eric Rohmer, French filmmaker.

Anthony McCarthy writing at Echidne of the Snakes about economic value.

Almost as unremarked was that even as Barack Obama’s cracked financial team* was saying that they had to honor the contracted bonuses and salaries of the thieves and dolts who created the financial disaster, they showed no hesitation to screw contract workers in order to bail out the automobile companies, which had been driven into ruin by their own crew of executives.

[footnote in article]

And let's prevent the theft and erasure of Latino/a history. (Yes, the Texans again.)

Yahrzeit.

I've kind of fallen down on In Memoriam of late; anyhow, Dave Ettlin on two deaths (A. Robert Kaufman and Mark Owings) and the memorial service for Mark Owings, a co-founder of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society.

Southern Beale, I thought, went on hiatus a couple of months ago, so I wasn't actively poking at it every few days, but I happened to stop by today, and --

This offends me, and it offends me in the same way it offends Southern Beale:

These are the sins of American life for which we will be judged. Not gays and abortion and failure to post the 10 Commandments in the courthouse. It’s this. When the wealth of the powerful and enfranchised is used to oppress the powerless and disenfranchised, that’s sin. The Bible is very clear on that. And someday, whether you’re religious or not, we’re all going to have to answer for that--indeed, we already are. It's not just a Biblical law, it's not just a religious law, it's a universal law. It's karma.

Douglas McGrath makes a case for awarding a special Oscar to Doris Day.

[Description of plot of Pillow Talk.] I could go on, but I think you get my point. “A Streetcar Named Desire” it is not.

Yet she holds you. (So does Hudson, a superb comic actor.) How does she do this, when every development and twist seem to have been thought up by a nut who has never met any actual people? I’ll tell you. She treats that part just as she treated Ruth Etting: like a real person, with real feelings. She doesn’t enlarge it or wink at the audience. She doesn’t make herself act funny, which, of course, never is funny. She doesn’t condescend to the situations or suggest that she is slumming. She does what any smart acting teacher would advise: she commits.

No, I'm not making it up.

Awesome Dawson Made the Hall!

Driftglass goes Perry Mason on conservatives.  With added Steve Gilliard goodness!

Also, I need to hunt up a particular eloquence.

Shades of brown, beige, gold; auto-da-fe.  Images of bound feet; sounds of moaning.  Someone who was not Colin Firth sentenced to be burned at the stake.

Not pleasant.

Prof. Susurro of Like a Whisper gets at the (post-colonial and post-modernistic) fragmenting of the discourse:

In all cases, I am left wondering how we can organize together and learn from one another if we cannot even talk to one another across perceived or real misunderstandings and/or conflicts. Bridging ignorance has always been the burden of the people who are being ignored, it is a function of power over others and often when people talk about speaking in a conflict zone, they are really calling for the right to walk across someone’s back. And so, another pitfall of this modern moment is that pointing to conflict often triggers the feeling by one or more people that they are being asked to bend over in the muck so someone else’s feet don’t get wet. This is afterall, the standard operating procedure of progressives and conservatives alike. The fact that this is so often true, and that we are empowering ourselves as marginalized people to own our truths and refuse to let them be written over or erased, makes these moments of conflict so powerful. Yet, where post-colonialism asked us to consider our power, their power, and the meaning of Power itself in order to create something better, pomo simply rewards the person who at the end of the day exerts the most power in the most unique way.
[...]
My deepest concern for the last year in the feminist blogosphere has been the decided change from community building that has been central to the way multiple marginalized communities have used the internet over the last 5 years, to one of insularity and pomo games. If I disagree with you, I simply have to call you a liar, loud enough, long enough, and with just the right amount of indignation and it becomes true because truth is in the hands of Power. And if you disagree with me, you simply have to be louder, longer, and more clever than I to transform into a pariah for the same reason: truth is in the hands of Power. Anyone of us can deny the long fought for right of another member of our identity group/s to self-name by claiming that name offends and we do not use it or by declaring that a person who chooses not to identify in a public forum is X and therefore has no right to speak on Y without ever knowing if they are X or Y, because truth is in the hands of Power. And we can even silence discussions about identity and naming all together by claiming the right to use offensive language born out of oppression b/c “we” have reclaimed it in our localized community while the larger community/ies have not or it is still used to oppress us in the world at large, because truth is in the hands of Power. Even the politics of outing, or demanding one out themselves has ceased to be a tool we struggle against as oppressive and is now one “we” use to make movies or scandalous blog posts without apology, because truth is in the hands of Power.

There's more.

Interesting that both more community and more atomization are functions of the Internet.
[Edited to correct a misspelling.]