Son of What Am I Missing? The Highly Suspicious Ilya Shapiro Incident.

 

I don't think I have riffed on this shit here, yet.  But it deserves my cult of free speech treatment.

Nutshell. "Libertarian" asshole lawyer, then at the right wing biased Cato Institute, gets offered a job at Georgetown Law.  It should have been obvious to him, that was a bad fit. The fit is so objectively bad, I will accuse him of at least knowingly setting himself for a potential starring role as a right wing victim (of their own bad judgment,) if not deliberately so. Because right wing victims (of their own bad judgment,) get lauded by other right wingers, as they advance the right wing narrative about how right wingers are victims, ignoring that part abut how they mostly are victims of their own bad judgment.  Shit. Earlier today, I saw a post by Ann Althouse about this asshole, with a link to some interview where the asshole crows about how happy he is to be (finally?)  controlling the narrative.  That is not proof positive this was was a set up, and that he deliberately scammed, punk'd, "owned" Georgetown Law.  But if it quacks like a duck?  Let's move on.

Even before he started his job there, he got in trouble for some white supremacist bullshit he tweeted about how P. Biden would appoint a "lesser Black woman" for the SCOTUS vacancy, than his believed superior candidate, who happens to be a man, but of Indian background.  Like most of them do, this white supremacist denied intent to be taken for a white supremacist, or to deliberately say white supremacists bullshit.  

I can easily believe he knew enough to know talking about a Black woman that way was going to lead to accusations of his being, and/or saying white supremacist bullshit.  He is supposed to be a constitutional law scholar.  Even if he doesn't believe in equal rights for all, he has had to have read about the cases, and has to know.  This is the world we live in, where saying shit like he said will lead to accusations of his being, and/or saying white supremacist bullshit.  

First things first.  Why the fuck are seemingly intelligent people posting their trollish thoughts on Twitter, still?

Secondly, why do well educated, savvy white supremacists opine in public about anything relating to Black or brown men or women?  

Thirdly, how old can someone get before we can judge them harshly not only for what the fuck they say, but the mere fact they get whiny when judged harshly for merely saying anything at all, without any reservation for judging them?  I will say 14.  By the time someone is 14 they (assuming not home schooled,) have been socialized not only to do what they are told, and not give lip to their teachers, but more is the point, they are experienced in being judged by their peers. And other kids too.  And older kids.  That shit can really be merciless.  Point is, at 14 you know the risk!

Back to the individual asshole.  So he got sidelined, and his investigation took until the end of the term, for them to say, opps  sorry.  come on back.  And within a day or two after publicly rejoicing in his vindication, he decided to quit.  And a few days after that, he scored a gig with the right wing biased Manhattan Institute.

All that is just the set up.  Now for my real comment.  the What Part Am I Missing part?


Asshole has been complaining all over the interwebnetubes about how modern academia is too overly populated with like minded liberals.  So he quits the liberal enclave and returns to the comfort of more like minded people, at a right wing biased shop?

And he thinks he is some morally superior creature?

And other like minded people do too?

What am I missing?

Baby Boomers Should Know Better. The Free Speech Movement

 Of the late 1960s was not about some radical, absolutist interpretation of free speech as a right.  It was about college students fighting bans on political activities on campus, and protesting a war, and protesting racism, sexism.

It was regular people challenging institutions.  It was not about everyone being able to talk about anything they want, anywhere, anytime.  The First Amendment is a rather limited thing regarding speech.  And those kids back in the 60s were fighting institutional if not government limits on their political speech.  And that is the kind that is most protected under the First Amendment.  

Some retired baby boomer, Constitutional Law professor, should know that much at least.

Ann Althouse.

I'm ten or so years younger than her and I remember the real movements were the Anti War, Feminist, and Civil Rights movements.  And the talk about free speech was tied to and in service of all that.

Edit to add:

"It's interesting how much free speech the opponents of free of speech already have."  -- Ann Althouse.

"If you are trying to make a case that anyone needs more "free speech,"   you have not met your burdens of pleading, proof, or persuasion.  You fail on all counts."  --  Me.

Oh The Irony.

 To explain.  There is a fauxtraversy over some law review refusing to publish some racist drivel from some known to harbor racist thoughts, law professor.  Some wing nuts are trying to frame this as some censorship thing.  As if publishers and their editors don't get to decide what they publish?

Fucking idiots! Free speech is an ideology, not a right.  No one has a right to say what ever they want in what ever medium they want, or access to  any audience they particularly want.

Grow the fuck up, bitches.

35, not w/in 30.

 I was wrong.  It took notorious Blogging Queen Bee Ann Althouse thirty five days to restore her racist Republican dominated comment section.  It is slightly different I suppose.  More moderated to start.  But it is called a comment section.

Oddly enough perhaps, as I never tried to post there, I am not allowed to post with my account here, there.  For years I have resisted useless exchanges on line, save the now rare pissing match on FB.  The general, usual rule is, I don't swim in that shit.  My need to tell racist Republican idiots they are, mostly died off 10 or more years ago.  

But concerning my pre banned status?  As I like to say, every one censors and edits.  Even those who follow the cult of so called  free speech.  Slight correction.  They have it set up weirdly.  No one actually can post directly.  She still is clearing shit, submission by submission.  Anyway . . . 

Anyway.  She has this bad habit of directing lots and lots of hate on Michelle Goldberg.  She is one of my favorite writers and, bias alert, on my FB friends list.  So I don't like the fact Althouse allows her racist Republican haters to hate on her.

Goldberg doesn't deserve it.  And Althouse should know better than to post or allow to remain  on her blog some one hating on Goldberg saying she is isn't Jewish, even if the commenter claims to be Jewish.

That is flat out anti Semitism no matter who says it, particularly when some one else publishes it.

Do better!

Stop Complaining. And shut the fuck up!

I find each and every bitch who complains about so called cancel culture, or pimps viewpoint diversity, and/or breaking away from groupthink to be extremely tiresome.  The idea that people should be free from being judged, and judged harshly for their expressed opinions is truly alien to me.  Then again I started performing in public when I was nine.   I am no stranger to taking the risk. So . . .

I believe in the freedom to fail, to fail spectacularly, and have people say, "You suck!" And I believe that when I suck people have the right to run for the exits.

It is not so much that I want to live in a world where everyone is petrified to express themselves for fear of being judged. But I want to live in a world where no fucking one whines and complains when they are told they suck, their opinions suck. Or even told, fuck man, your opinions suck so bad you need to get the fuck away from me. And stay the fuck away from me, you fucking freak.

I don't ask much of the world. Do I?

Conservative Whine Boxes.

I am a frequent watcher of bloggingheads, a link to which can be found on my blog roll, here.  Over the weekend I happened on a post where a regular host, Professor Glenn Loury. featured some French native, Philosophy PhD candidate named Philippe Lemoine.  This  rather over-the-top conservative has gained some notoriety for a recent piece of his published over on National Review about, of all things,  police brutality against blacks in America.  His genius eureka of a discovery?  The media exaggerates it.  I call him an over-the-top conservative as I have seen his twitter feed. In a word, it is immature.  He is to my mind best described as a less flamboyant Milo Yiannopoulos.  And I make that comparison for three main reasons:

(1)  foreign born white conservatives, and
(2) internet tough guys, who
(3)  have no problem taking to the internet to talk about subjects they, for all intents and purposes, know nothing the fuck about, but for their ability to republish the same old tired  bigoted conservative bullshit, that is older than dirt.  (Hint. I will get back to that.  Promise.)

I had trouble watching this video.  I have only managed a few bits, as I am one of those people who not only feel instantly put off by  rank bullshit and flat out lies.  I am also the kind of person who often feels like I have seen this same bad movie before, but with other actors.  In other words, I am easily turned off by not only  bullshit, but recycled bullshit, all the moreso.  But ok.  Once again, I am going to try to make it through the first segment:

• How a Frenchman became interested in race and crime in the US"

Ok.  I made it to the point where  I stopped watching before, because my bullshit  alert when off in full klaxon mode.  A Frenchman who has for the most part been living in the bubble that is  Tier One American Academia (for just the past few years in America,) and he was surprised that the stories he heard about blatant racism in America  did not match his experience?  As they say in France, Mon Dieu!  Encroyable!

On no he didn't?  He just threw shade on Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow."  I heard a lecture given by her a year ago, as part of NYU Law's  Derrick Bell Lecture Series on Race In American Society.  Brilliant woman who knows her topic academically  and in her bones.  Just for the record, Philippe Lemoine. We African Americans don't need even our native born white countrymen whitesplain'n what it is to be black in America to us, never mind, foreign born white conservatives!  Just saying!

So I went past the intro and then jumped to the last part, and that blurs into the topic I really mean to discuss:  the Conservative Whine Box.  Now it won't kill me to hear or read one more conservative whine about how unfair the world of academia is so discriminatory against  them  as if they are some kind of aggrieved minority.  But in adopting the victim posture, they not only invalidate all their alleged beliefs in meritocracies  and anti victim hood (by advocating for justice and fairness and affirmative action for their team,) but they are using the totally wrong model, and as well, rely on some truly bullshit assumptions. 

Sorry  fuckwads.  You are the pro capitalists.  You are the ones who sing the praises of market forces, but only until the marketplace of ideas reject your ideas, which if they were bread, would be stale, moldy,and rancid.  But I get ahead of myself.

In the chunk of that bloggingheads post, the conservative Frenchman  goes into that tired whiny  . . .  we are oppressed . . .  bullshit. And when researching him, I read a longer form of that tired old whine by him on some other site, as a comment to some other person  article.  And that reply to that article is what caused me to think, write about that bullshit.

First, the false assumptions.

(1)  There is something inherently solid and worthy about the left/right political and or ideological dichotomy.  That is patently false.  Look to any nation with a parliamentary and or otherwise robust multi party system.  The USA  is actually an anomaly, globally speaking.

(2) conservatives believe their opinions  are entitled to respect.  Nobody has that right.  If you think so, you are wrong.  

(3)  One of the things the conservative Frenchman says  in that last chunk of the bloggingheads  video that is totally false (well  nearly, I would have to imagine at least,) is that liberals don't know conservative arguments.

Alors!  Can a person say anything more ignorant?  Conservative as a term describes people who follow the way people thought and did shit in the past. We liberals know what the fuck you conservatives think because you have not come up with a single new idea since 
Baby Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a dinosaur.  As the joke goes.  

But my main point  is #2.  Even if academia is not the total national market, it is an important market in the realm of the marketplace of ideas, as that is where a high concentration of the best educated people are clustered.  And just as most people rejected New Coke, most academics reject conservatism.  I am not sorry, for sure.  But if I have to rub your face in it for you to get the point, let me rub some more.  It is not unfair to reject a product because you find it distasteful. That is how the market fucking works.  Just as it would be fucked up if we forced people to buy and drink New Coke, it would be equally if not more fucked up to make academics and students drink the nasty tasting swill that is conservatism.  

The problem is not in the marketplace.  The problem is with the product.  Make and market a better, or more appealing at least, product.

Will you fuckwads finally shut the fuck up! You don't fucking have fucking free speech rights in your workplaces.

I will be brief. The fuckwads defending that fuckwad ex google engineer for being fired for protesting diversity policies, and in doing so crossing the line into  hostile workplace behavior?

#1.  Save if you are a government employee, or work in one of the few states that offer more than usual?  You have no free speech rights in the workplace.  And in the few states which afford  some greater protection, it isn't much.

#2.  As a former Employment Law lawyer, I would counsel anyone, assume you have no free speech rights in the workplace.  You are not getting paid by your employer to express your true and actual self.  You are getting paid to do the fucking shit that is your fucking job.

#3.  I tell people  don't make yourself too much at home at work.  It is work.  It is not your home or social club.   Leave your lame assed  bullshit  personality  on the curb or in the parking lot.

More of a Clarification Than Correction. I was Quoting Stanley Fish

When I said free speech isn't free, months ago, here. But now that the idea is in play based on seeing the very same guy I basically fought against before now defending that idea that free speech has limits, quoting that line, I thought it was a good idea to repost some of Prof. Fish.

I say repost as even if I did some digging around my archives, I do not remember what chunk or bit I published before. Might have been this interview. Might have been directly from his book. In any case, here goes.

Q : You have written that free speech is a conceptual impossibility as the condition of speech being free in the first place is unrealizable. Why is this so?

A : The condition of speech being free is not only unrealizable, it is also undesirable. It would be a condition in which speech was offered for no reason whatsoever. Once speech is offered for a reason it is necessarily, if only silently, negating all of the other reasons for which one might have spoken. Therefore the only condition in which free speech would be realizable is if the speech didn't mean anything. Free speech is speech that doesn't mean anything.

Once meaning, assertion, predication get into the act the condition of freedom has already been lost and, as I would say, well lost because you want speech to mean something; you don't want to live in a world where people's utterances are weightless -- neither commit to anything, nor illuminate or challenge you in any way. The impossibility of free speech is one of the happy facts of our condition and not a fact to be lamented. There's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too.

From Here.

This quoted chunk is from the near end of the interview. I recommend anyone not too familiar with Prof. Fish's theories to read it all. And it is not all that long. Rather short. Really.

Friday Quickies

After beating up on silly person Ann Althouse for a couple days (metaphorically speaking,) I will compliment her, for taking sides (something she avoids doing often, and such avoidance to my mind is at least a "cheat.") The issue is some draconian Time Place Manner + costs restrictions on protests at the Wisc. State House. Kudos to her for calling Walker out on what she described as,"Plainly unreasonable."

Even her silly husband gets a gold star. Correction. Half a gold star. I could accuse him of stealing from me when he argues,"Free speech isn't free." I think I had a fight with him here on this very board trying to convince him of that. I guess that shit finally sunk in. I know. I am being too kind. Like any "good" wing nut he reached for any argument that served the moment, no matter ideological consistency. But still I compliment him on finally getting the connection between speech and money. Speech often if not usually has a cost to it. Again, kudos for that. But don't pretend your megalomaniacal, wanna be despot object du man crush - Gov. Walker is NOT taking steps to crack down on criticism of his own punk ass. Well you can try to pretend that. But I won't. I am here to remind you of the fact. Go Here for that shit.

One last remark in this vein. From one of the Minions there:

"The Governor looks better when he stands up to the mob than when he tries to prevent or silence it. That ought to be obvious."

My reply to that (here not there, I don't post there, yecchh.)

Didja miss the part about Walker being a megalomaniacal, wanna be despot?

Moving on. Cain is still circling the drain. He's all but done. But his sociopathic brain is not processing that (obvious to nearly all others) fact. At this point I will say the following. Call me mean, but I want him to drag this out as long as ugly as possible and utterly self destruct in a way that will eclipse even Rod Blagovitch. Go Herbie Go. You can go your own way. On an elevator straight to hell!

Michelle Bachmann? Who? Some folk still think there is a chance for her to get her mojo back in doing well if not winning Iowa. Remains to be seen.

Resurgent Newt. Proves to me that the GOP base is full of a bunch of amoral, hypocritical idiots. And they must be stopped! But realistically if not seriously. Mittens needs to show his A Game now. He's been ice skating so far. And he has shown his ability to be nasty vicious against P. Obama. But using surrogates as attack dogs now is not enough. Mittens, you got to at least spend some of your own money on some ads to damage Newt. Some people use the analogy of a land battle. The proper one is sea battles from the 18th and 19th century. I am not going to get any further here, but you need to drill your gun crews, and know what kind of shot to load for what desired effect, for your passes and exchanges. You likely don't want to go for solid shot at the waterline. Not to start. Not yet. Get my meaning?

Oh. I have rambled long. So I will just repeat the most important thing I have said here:

Proves to me that the GOP base is full of a bunch of amoral, hypocritical idiots. And they must be stopped!

Ann Althouse. Infamous Internet Hostess of Hate, Racism, Homophobia, Misogyny. Racism. You Name it.

All under the cowardly umbrella of what I call the cult of free speech.

Now she's got the very strange (to my mind at least) habit of taking what usually is a dead on witless bit of stupidity from her comments section, or shit from their blogs, and pimping it as a separate post. She did that today for one of her more . . . for lack of a better word, unstable contributors. He's a brother man who can out rant both Bill O'Reilly and wasshis face? Denis Miller even if both were on some extra pure crank.

Anyway, brother man laid down a tribute to Patrice O'Neal, recently deceased black comedian, on his blog. Then Althouse promotes that on the home page of her own hate indulging site, as a separate post. Then the fun begins. Now turns out that this Patrice O'Neal had some skills. He had some interesting observations about, particularly, black white issues. Not as funny as Katt Williams, to my mind, but funny and insightful enough. But O'Neal had a deep misogyny streak. He actually has a vid (of sorts) of him guesting on some radio show where he rants about how he (we??) hate women. Likewise there's the one clip of him vamping on how women's lib has led to oppressed men? What the fuck? How immature and undeveloped can a man be? Talk about having issues much?

Anyway I am not going any more into that part. The guy who wrote the tribute to O'Neal said this, which is less directly hate mongering and more just plain ignorant:

"No political correctness, no caring about anyone's feelings (but no harm intended) or any of that - these are just ideas, finally free, and they must (and will) be dealt with. Fortunately, people do laugh at what he says."

That was from his own blog, and published a couple weeks ago before the comedian died. I think that statement counts as witless. Or at least some bizarre knee jerk cult of free speech (Or Anti Political Correctness) ejaculate. Notice how he puts the people do laugh, almost as an after thought? That's telling to me. Personally I take those anti Political Correctness peeps as general bigots. It's a low level hate mongering, but still it is just a dilute of the purer shit.

Anyway, this really is not about that guy. This really is about the racist comment I found at the end of the thread (at least end when I read it first.) And I am publishing that racist asshole's name just for the records:

paul a'barge said...

So, I watched the first half of the first clip. Sigh. Funny? Sure. Creative? Not. Cheap? You bet.

I've pretty much lost all patience with black males. Done. Moving on.

11/30/11 11:20 AM

Emphasis added. And that thread can be found here.

Wow. Just wow. What's next for Professor Althouse? Publishing David Duke's arguments against being expelled from yet another European country for being essentially an unrepentant racist piece of shit? I mean really. There really is not too much distance to travel between that racist level of shit, and VDARE, if not Stormfront.

Addendum: I intended to go back to another thread on Althouse's Hater Friendly site. There were a few comments a couple days ago on a Herbie Cain themed thread, that were so vile, so repulsive, that I almost posted about them. Then I changed my mind. But here goes. This is the kind of really ugly shit she lets fly on her page.

One minion's idea about what should happen to Cain's accusers:

"If there's a God, he'd be running a hot poker through the lot of 'em."

Another minions view:

"Buncha grifting litigious lying whores."

Moving on, one poster flaming another:

"STFU, Byro-sorepaw, LDS queer-pagan garbage."

More fraternity among minions:

"Just so you guys know, Mark also wants to forcibly rid the country of all illegal aliens at any price in addition to being a racist cunt."

"Talk about pot-kettle-black. Like anyone takes you seriously around here, queer bait."

And how about this. One minion talking about Barney Frank:

Funny he hated the “Douche B@gs” he worked with, so suddenly Mr. Witty is just a grumpy old Queen, I guess the mask is dropping…he was a nasty, venal human being propped up by a LSM Meme and fear of being “Homophobic” who ran in a gerrymandered district, in one of the most Blue States in the US.

I'll stop there. This is all taken from one thread on Althouse's blog, mind you. And just between you, me, and the walls, I think the one guy who was being called a racist cunt from the other guy would rate as a racist in my book. (Another addendum. He definitely is a racist!) But the use of cunt there was sorta excessive. (Even another addendum. He might actually have deserved cunt, too!) But I doubt the one playing the race card would "pass" my test either. Funny but both fuckers seem way to the right of me, so it's possibly another example of Wing Nut cannibalism, going on there. I love knock down drag out GOP Primary Season. Watching GOPers eating their own (metaphorically speaking) is one of my favorite spectator sports.

Saturday Quickies. To Start . . .

Bill Maher, on Perry's Niggerhead Rock problem. And related matters:

“Overtly racist bullshit thinly painted over. Honestly, could anyone have written a better metaphor for the modern Republican party?” Go Here.

As mentioned all over the reality based web, it seems the right wingers are alternatively mocking the "Occupy Wall Street" movement as either a bunch of lazy kids who need to stop smoking pot and get a job, or they are the next coming of the Sans Culottes. Make up your fucking minds, or at least get a tighter grouping of analogies, ya twits.

Does that mean that Eric Cantor can be appropriately labeled as America's Qaddafi? Or would America's Baghdad Bob work better?

Moving on, kudos to Ann Althouse. I still think she sees the world through monochromatic filters (sociologically and culturally speaking,) but she was very respectful about Derrick Bell's passing. She even put up a notice to the racist shit baggers in her comments section to behave. But I have to say, she did not do a good enough job of deleting the hate speech her racist minions threw up. And no it was not blatant racist insults being thrown up. But short of that, yup. It was racist. I repost the Bill Maher quote: “Overtly racist bullshit thinly painted over. Honestly, could anyone have written a better metaphor for the modern Republican party?"

{FYI. I am going to love that quote and quote it to death, I recon.}

Moving on, apparently that silly assed theatre professor posting the violence glamorizing threatening workplace signs got a symbolic victory. The Uni reversed the original decision, but to their credit are reviewing the policy. And even if postulants in the Church of Free Speech are declaring some spiritual victory, I sneer in their general direction and say, I know how the next act of this play will go.

The Uni will now have to get more specific about what constitutes impermissible violent speech, and differentiate between appropriate teaching context and impermissible non teaching context. And they must try to write up a shopping list of dos and don'ts, or otherwise some sort of allegedly clearer but more specific guidelines. Or some combination of the two. Maybe they will form a committee (or vest some existing committee) to serve as watchdogs over the application and enforcement of the newly clarified rules and regulations. So you stupid right wing fuckers. Your victory is merely Pyrrhic. You saved one asshole's violent imagery whoring posters. But you created another sub if not full layer of Uni Bureaucracy. Talk about one step forward, two steps back.

That's what you get when you blindly pursue ideology over the practical realities of . . . reality. If I had to bet, I would bet that in in the near future, that professor will be viewed quite dis favorably, in the Uni community, once the new system gets in place. People will complain and say it was all that fucker's fault. He should have shut the fuck up and not complained about that first poster getting pulled down the first time. Cause what we are dealing with now is so much fucking worse.

Ok. I have had enough of this shit. For now.

Wing Nut Apologizes for Wrong Reason. Ain't That the Standard Bullshit Play?

Well ya might have heard that cuntry music star Hank Williams Jr. got hisself in a shit load of trouble for breaking, in spectacular fashion, Godwin's Law against P. Obama. It was done on "Fox and Friends," Monday. He made a direct comparison of P. Obama to Hitler. It was such an extreme level of racist redneck right wing hate speech that Gretchen Carlson disavowed the statement as soon as Williams was done on the segment. Ya. You know you are an extreme racist redneck right wing wing nut, when a Fox News on air host disavows your hate speech before the spit on your microphone has a chance to evaporate.

And at first, when the asshole figured out he might just have stepped in some shit, he made some statement that did not even count as a standard non-apology. But the pressure of the cost of his stupidity bore down on him (fucker started losing money, actually,) and he finally went that far. Here is the wing nutty racist redneck's NON apology.

"I have always been very passionate about Politics and Sports and this time it got the Best or Worst of me. The thought of the Leaders of both Parties Jukin and High Fiven on a Golf course, while so many Families are Struggling to get by simply made me Boil over and make a Dumb statement and I am very Sorry if it Offended anyone. I would like to Thank all my supporters. This was Not written by some Publicist."

(My commentary) Just for once I would like to see some offensive wing nut/redneck/racist/hate monger/bigot (which and all ever that fits) actually apologize for being an offensive person, or acting offensively, instead of . . . "If it offended anyone." But I hope against hope sometimes. I do play Mega Millions and Powerball.

You Have It Wrong. Professor Wing Nut Asshole.

I caught my first obnoxious whiff of This Shit, at Ann Althouse's blog, but it's one of her re posts from that odious wing nut law professor who styles himself "Instapundit."

In reply to him, and all like minded law wing nut (or wing nut curious) professors:

No asshole. I have never been a law professor. And odds are I have a better chance of winning a car in a contest, than that. (BTW I have won a car in a contest. But only the one time, so far.)

But I have been an employment lawyer.

I was an employment lawyer for a statewide AFSCME Council. So I had to deal with some members who worked on state college and university campuses.

So discount my expertise in this area at your own risk. But here is the reality, the fact you wing nut assholes ignore:

There is no (so called) "Academic Freedom" exception to ordinary work place laws.

There is no (so called) "Academic Freedom" exception to EEOC subject matter actions.

There is no (so called) "Academic Freedom" exception to Title VII Workplace Harassment type claims.

You stupid assholes can worship all you like at at altars of the false gods of "Free Speech," and "Academic Freedom" all you fucking like. But as lawyers, you look particularly ignorant when you do that. Shit. At least the professor who's the subject matter of the source story has a fucking excuse. He's a Theatre person. I was a Theatre person before I was a lawyer. I know how . . . unconventional thinking is the convention for Theatre folk. That guy seems to have needed a good chat with someone like me, who knows both disciplines.

But for law professors to pretend that there's some exemption to ordinary work place law merely because the work place is an academic institution? Again, I repeat. Law professors who forget that shit look particularly ignorant.

So I say, at least. For what it's worth.

PS: (and I haven't posted this yet so this is not an edit. This is an explanation/elaboration.) I get it, that some of you peeps who work in academia have a belief that your workplace is so different than others. You are fucking wrong. Delusionally wrong. That is why I have no trouble cursing your asses out. It's not that I, with out exception, expect better from law professors. But law professors who don't get that obvious truth particularly deserve to be cussed out. Wake the fuck up, will ya?

Oh. Disagree with the result if you must, but (and I don't have the cite) but one of my favorite examples of how the academic workplace is no different than others, was the case where the lecturer/professor complained about the poster/painting in the classroom. It was a Bottcelli nude Some such. And she won the case. I personally think that was an absurd outcome. But I get it, that the law goes there. Sometimes the law delivers absurd results. Now if the Theatre professor was using that quote on stage/in class as a teaching tool, ok fine. But hanging on his door? I can see that as wrong (particularly as he was warned, and instead of "yielding," he doubled down with the over the top shit.) Likewise, one of my favorite speeches, from Shakespeare's Henry V would be too hostile for door art. I'll only post the last chunk, as it is a long speech:

Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

Act III Scene iii.

Ann Althouse says:

"Perhaps respect for religion should lead us away from using the words "sacred" and "sacrifice" casually."

She's All For Free Speech, Except When She's Not!

Oy vey!

And I am going to put on my arch agnostic hat and say I am fucking sick and tired of fucking religious people trying to get me to respect religion, when truth is, I don't. Not much. Not really all that much more than any other belief system, hobby, or other human time-killer activity. And to be honest, there's a lot of things in the arts and sciences I respect way more. Like, idaknow? All the arts and sciences?


But hey. Like I say, religion doesn't have to be oppressive. But lots of religious people are.

Wing Nuts Lie, About Free Speech. Hypocrites.

They really don't believe in the real, as in constitutional doctrines and philosphy regarding Free Speech.

Case in point, the Right Wing (led by Fox) attack on Media Matters. As if they are the first not for profit org that has . . . an ideological bias? Judy Miller is positively frightening with her opinion. She basically said she wanted all such orgs stripped of tax exempt status.

What the fuck?


Well ya know. There a line. Somewhere. Tricksy. It is. And that line is actually marked down in the law and or the regs. You can't enjoy the status of tax exempt if you are promoting a particular party or candidates. That's the bright line.

Seems to me spending most of your time as a media watchdog accusing one particular media publisher as being biased, and a bunch of god damned liars is no where near half near that bright line.

But wing nuts are fucking hypocrites who really don't believe in our American Freedoms.

Where the fuck are the preachers of the Gospel of Free Speech on this one, Professor Althouse? This really doesn't even fall into that bullshit class of vapid twaddle called by it's kooky adherents, "Culture of Free Speech." This is clear First Amendment shit. And Fox News and it's allies are indirectly gunning for the normal, understood meaning of free speech as protected speech here. So what says you all?

I spent my (Sunday of) 4th of July Weekend defending the First Amendment. How did you spend it?

Hey Lady! I Use More Energy to Roast a 4 1/2 Lb Chicken.

Shit on a shingle. I take one night off the Internet, away from my usual stops, and the natives go batshit. And of course I am talking about that law professor who's so eccentric to my mind, that I can't resist the "Rubber Necker" pull of her blog.

Today's (or make it yesterday's) freak-a-zoid post involves cooking pizza.

Yes. That's one half of it. The NYT Dining and Wine page published a recipe for pizza that required preheating the oven to 500 degrees for an hour, as prep for less than 10 minutes of cook time.

Feel free to shrug your shoulders now, and if you use your oven to roast things, do a double shrug.

Here's the other part of the bizarre equation. She tied that in with the NYT being in favor of green things generally, if not more efficient lighbulbs, specifically. Her argument was the NYT was some how hypocritical if they could on the dining and entertaining side endorse preheating an oven to 500 degrees for an hour, for less than 10 minutes of cooking, and on the other end, endorse more efficiency in lightbulbs.

And just to note it, and even if I am a notorious fan (and offender) of gratuitous use of the Eff Woid, her comment,"Shut up about my light bulbs. Just. Shut. The. Fuck. Up,"is not only unhinged from anything remotely resembling earth-bound reality, but using the 'shut up' remark, makes her the hypocrite. She's the one who preaches what I call the Gospel of Free Speech. She would call it the culture of free speech. Point is, I have even been trolled by her husband over my comments about her free speech bullshit. I told her husband (at least said in that thread) I think my right to tell people to shut the fuck up is a superior thing than any (culture of) Gospel of free speech.

It's deliciously ironic to see her play it my way. But still, I must call her out for hypocrisy in behaving consistently with my values instead of hers.

But that is not even the point. The free speech hypocrisy angle did not come to me until I started typing this post.

So let me link the shit now.

Free Speech Hypocrisy and an Irrational Slam Against the NYT Over Pizza.

And now we get to my non partisan, non political, non ideologically driven counter argument to her unhinged, illogical argument. When I read the part about preheat 500 degrees for an hour, and then the bullshit about that being such a waste of energy, my thought was,"What the fuck. I burn more energy roasting a 4 1/2 lbs chicken." And I checked my (god knows 50 year old) Good Housekeeping Cookbook. For a chicken weighing between 4 to 5 lbs, the roasting chart recommends 43 minutes per lb, @ 325 degrees.

That's almost 3 and a half hours cook time for a standard, small roast chicken.

So again I say, Ms. Althouse . . . What The Fuck is your Point?

Naturally, her minions in the commentary section were all stiff and sticky over this post. And I have gone longer with this than it deserves, but I will make the comparison to the mindless shit that I experienced when I was still wasting my time arguing with wing nuts on message boards. Some people are just so fucking stupid and so eager to land/score an imaginary point against their partisan, ideological rivals, they will sink to any depth of illogic and witlessness in that quest. Now I can not say I have had this particular shit thrown at me, but in the quest to score an imaginary point I have seen wing nuts ignore the commonly understood meanings of common vernacular metaphors on the level of,"It's raining cats and dogs." Now what Althouse is doing here is not exactly the same, but it clearly is a 'What The Fuck do you pretend to mean there' moment. Running an oven for an hour makes someone a green living hypocrite? What the fuck!


Edit to Add:

From one point of view, and that would be the one Ms. Althouse is/was totally blind to, one should view this recipe more as having a total 1 hr 8 minutes cook time than an 8 minute cook time. Puts the thing in proper perspective if you accept that the time it takes to get the oven up to proper temperature and heat state is every bit as important as the time the food is in the oven. But that would negate her silly argument, wouldn't it?

Similarly, just over the weekend, I was visiting family and I heard about what happened on one of those cooking contest shows that I usually miss. It was about the one with the ordinary people trying to cross over to professional status. Anyway, the contestants had one hour to cook a whole chicken. One of the contestants who advanced to the next round employed the following trick. First thing she did after they started the clock was to turn the oven up to full. That's how she guaranteed she would have a fully cooked chicken within the time limit. I think they call that technique blast roasting.

Cult of Free Speech Stupidity. Ann Althouse Pouts, and Pulls a Grade School Extortion Trick.

I know, back to her again. Last time I posted about her, I deleted it the next day, mainly because I was way too rambling, and that makes for bad blogging/argument. And I was unnecessarily harsh. But I am taking another pass here, as I noticed on her blog today she's still feuding with the peeps at Lawyersgunsandmoney, for deleting her husband's history there, when they deleted his posting account.

She referenced some post on some other blog referencing some post there on LGAM, but refused to post the direct link because of that, but added, and I quote:

"I'm not going to interact with people who have deliberately and finally cut of my channels of interaction with them. Restore everything and apologize and I will."

One person's believed stand on principle is another person's immature snit. I'd say. So would lots of others, I'd imagine. However, even if one does not want to drive traffic to people they, for what ever reason not want to drive traffic to, shit people. What good is that sort of stance? Better to do what I do (I argue,) and that is to at least play the role of the bigger, more mature person and just be nice. For example, I usually don't post links to her site, not that the tiny traffic I get here will ever change her stats. I just usually think it's not worth doing. I explain why I reference her, and get on with the argument. And this blog is more about me than anyone else. But hey. Here the gratuitous link:

Link Here.

However, that really ain't going to help anyone understand what I am talking about.

Ms. Althouse has some truly weird (to my mind) thoughts about free speech, as something that has meaning past the law. I mockingly call it a cult or a gospel. On a recent bloggingheads appearance she called it a culture of free speech. Some such. Likely, my post a few weeks back about Stanley Fish's ideas was likely greatly influenced by that appearance. Anyway, here are my general biases. I hate the Internet, but on the other hand I really hate the Internet. And I am prone to say things like, "Life's too short to take the Internet that seriously." So I don't get the Internet feud shit, as such, nor do I get the obsession over the post history being lost for now or forever. I mean really? Talk about crying over a dropped penny lollipop.

Now let me get to the real point (sorry for the long set up.) Ms. Althouse has her Bachelor's in Fine Arts. Mine is in Theatre. Now (and she's not the only art grad turned lawyer who I have found to have confusion over these matters) it seems to me that people from that discipline are (often) lacking a reality-based understanding of the nature of communication, based on the fact they see their art, or call it communication, as fixed and permanent. Over at the theatre we don't buy into that bullshit kind of thinking. Our art is temporary. It's fleeting. During each successive performance, a different performance is given. Even if all the performances were archived, important nuance, and sometimes broader differences are totally lost in translation. And the video itself is a different communication. (For example, the Met Opera has been doing some brilliant HD transmissions of performances. But I can tell you with authority, it's not the same as being there. Being there is a physical experience, where your body reacts to the live acoustic orchestra, and the live singers. Ya can't really dupe that, even with Dolby surround sound. It is not the same.)

So that is what I learned in my studies. Communication is not permanent. Even the so called fixed art forms fade, and are lost over time. For practical and technological reasons (I was more of a tech than actor) I know that part very well.

There is another point lost on people from that side of the campus. They are likely not to get the following fact of the planet, if not universe:

You have no right to an audience.


Granted, a sculptor or painter has an opening, and throws a party and lets people in for free. Then they hope to sell pieces. At the theatre we would like to say, and sometimes will say shit like, we sell dreams, we sell fantasy. But truth is, we sell tickets to the show. We know we have no right to an audience. We have to convince them to cough up the money, to get them in the seats.

So take those two ideas, that the real nature of communication is impermanence, and that no one has a right to the audience. Accept that as true or not, but accept that that is my understanding of such things. Therefore know why I find being upset over lost Internet postings to be so much childishness. Please notice that I did pull away from specifically picking on Ms. Althouse. But she has repeatedly triggered these thoughts in me. She's a public example of this sort of free speech stupidity, or call it culture of free speech if you prefer. It's not really reality based. We can have a nice chat about the miles and miles of Hollywood film stock that have not only been lost in warehouse fires, but deliberately junked, and in some cases, still basically rotting away somewhere. Never mind, think about the many brilliant and lost performances from the Golden Age of TV. Or we can cry over the lost Library of Alexandria. But get real kids. It's not as if we have preserved the original performance of King Lear, Never mind, Oedipus Rex. Shit. We don't even have the reviews!

Ok. I spent more time and keystrokes than I intended. Done.

(Note. I have had postings wiped. I have had multi page websites wiped. I got over it. No big deal. It's only the Internet, for crying out loud.)

This Guy Agrees With Me About the Phoniness of "Free Speech" as an Ideology. So He Must be Brilliant, and Correct.

(Every now and then I make acknowledgement of the fact that I am not immune from a little confirmation bias. I am a human after all. Point is, this guy and I are actually correct on the matter.)

Ok. The two pronged setup. On the one hand, I am one of those "free speech" (beyond the 1st Amendment) is bullshit, people. I think that free speech ideologues are among the silliest people in the world. Then again, as a somewhat genuine artist, in the sense I have done performing arts, and writing art, and all kinds of visual art, I get it, that life is as much if not more so a course in editing, as it is creating. We edit. We discriminate. We pass judgment. We advocate and reject. We acquire and we dispose. We are human. It's what we do, even if we are not writing a song, or trying to write a poem.

Now for the other prong, this post on this subject (one of my favorite subjects) is accidentally brought to you by some trog over at the althouse blog. I will try to say the least about that place and those people, but I read some comment there where one of the right wing morons mockingly referred to Professor Stanley Fish's book, There's no such thing as free speech ...and it's a good thing, too. And I took that as encouragement to google the professor, and found a really interesting interview, he did a while back.

Although he comes at it from a different point of departure, we basically agree on the idea, free speech is not free to start, and everyone has their limits. Everyone will eventually get to their personal gag moment, the rejection moment, and say, enough. Stop with that nasty shit. But that's not all there is to be said about it. Granted he has a well researched and thought out series of positions here on the matter. But what stuck out more was what he said about the overlap between critical race studies and free speech advocacy. Specifically he was pointing out the conflict in holding both "values." Lucky for me I reject free speech ideology and have done so for years. I reserve and treasure my right to say to people I find way too offensive, to,"Shut the fuck up with that shit." And that's the higher value. For me. Anyway, here's the professor's less trashy way of saying it:

Those who utter racist speech (as we call it) would not accept that designation. The people that we think of as racist do not wake up in the morning and say to themselves "Today I'm going to go out and spew racist speech". What they say (and it's exactly what we say) is, "Today I am going to go out and tell the truth." Once you realise that racists don't think of themselves as racists but as tellers of the truth, then you realise that hate speech or racist speech as we designate it is not an anomaly, is not a cognitive mistake, is not a correctable error, is not something that can be diagnosed and therefore cured, but is in fact the rationality and truth telling of a vision we happen to despise.

The correct response to a vision or a morality that you despise is not to try and cure it or to make its adherents sit down and read John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, that's not going to do the job. The only way to fight hate speech or racist speech is to recognize it as the speech of your enemy and what you do in response to the speech of your enemy is not prescribe a medication for it but attempt to stamp it out. So long as Critical Race Theory and others fall into the liberal universalist assumption of regarding hate speech as some kind of anomaly which could be recognized as such by everyone, they're going to lose the game. They will win the game only if they really try to win it, rather than falling in with Justice Brandeis' pronouncement that "Sunshine is the best disinfectant".

This bromide flies in the face of all recorded history which tells us that forms of speech, once they get into circulation, do not wither away in the light of day; rather they attract the attention of some hearers, and begin to circulate in a more effective way. I know that this is heresy in the liberal discourse to which we all are, in some sense, committed. But it seems to me that I must agree with the American politician and journalist, Pat Buchanan, who once said, "If you can pollute the physical environment, you can pollute the cultural and mental environment".


Professor Fish, on how to deal with racist speech. Stamp it out!

I say the rest of the interview is worth reading as well. I just love these last graphs, because yes. It does confirm my bias. And it's correct!

Thank You Lord, for Making Me NOT Be a Republican.

An ex friend who who turned on me like a rabbit with rabies, once said to me words to the effect that one of the reasons I was a liberal was I did not want to be seen with the uncool kids.

Ya think?

Anyway this nontroversey, or should we call it a FauxNewsTraversey, concerning virtually unknown rapper Common is bringing out the totally unhip conservatives. Case in point, Mrs. Palin, in yet another of her moronic diatribes continues the wing nut meme about how this unknown, and actually quite tame rapper is some kinda gangsta rapper. That's just so close to being a flat out lie, that she and anyone repeating that line of bullshit should be considered and called a flat out liar. But beyond the morality, or lack of it, issue, is the unhipness factor.

Now I am quoting from the Huffpo article and I will do it as exactly as I can. Here's what the square lady said.


"I'm not anti-rap. In fact, like Bret Baier, I know the lyrics to 'Rapper's Delight,' too. But I am saying just common decency in the White House -- wouldn't we like to see a reflection of all that is wonderful and great, a shining city on a hill that the White House is supposed to be, with events inside of that house that reflect the patriotism and the decency and the influence of America."

She Might Not Be On Crack, But She Be Wack!

Firstly, Bret Baier as a barometer of hip? Whatssamatter? Was Howdy Doody all booked up? Next, the creepy-weird Ronald Reagany reference. (And wasn't the Reagan metaphor the whole nation, not the White House?) Honey, when you claim to be all for "free speech" but then tell people what they should be (or should not be) booking as their acts, you are being the worst kind of censor there is: a hypocrite. I've attacked Ann Althouse for that hypocritical shit. And I agree with her, maybe as much as one out of a hundred times. I'll not hold back on calling Mrs. Palin a hypocrite for such a patently obvious instance of pure hypocrisy. It's like when the person starts off saying,"With all due respect . . . ," and then they let loose with a stream, a litany, a shopping list of disrespectful statements. (Before I get back to the main topic, I will repeat in sum, what I said to Ann Althouse's husband when he took issue to my taking issue with his wife's hypocrisy on "free speech." I'm all for criticizing shit one doesn't like. But don't run around telling people they should or should not communicate in a certain way while claiming to be a defender of free speech; that's hypocrisy. Embrace your inner critic, and throw the free speech idiot-identity under the bus!)

Enough of that, though. What really drives my mentioning this batshit crazy stuff is the reference to "Rapper Delight." Wassamatter Mrs. Palin? Was Blondie's Rapture too disco-ish? Was Ice, Ice Baby, just too whitewashed even for you?

Sheee-it. I graduated high school in the Greater NYC area back in 1980. I remember dancing my young ass to Kurtis Blow and The Sugarhill Gang back in the original day. And to call that rap is technically not incorrect, but that is to rap what the earliest Ragtime is to Jazz. It's more the precursor than the real thing. In this day and age, mentioning Rapper's Delight as your street cred for being a rap fan is as square as saying you love Fats Waller, to prove to the the Acid Jazz kids that you are hip.

And that is where I am going here. And remember long time readers, and for you short timers, I'm the guy more likely to go to see an opera than a Hip Hop show, but shit, I know how square Mrs. Palin outed her self as, then. But with her we have the quintessentially unhip and clueless conservative. Culturally and musically she's as paleolithic as the Stone Age. Remember. This is the snow billy who made her real tastes show when caught on cam singing along to Gretchen Wilson performing Redneck Woman.

Now is the world of culture and music so stratified that one can't be a fan of real Hip Hop and redneck anthems? Perhaps not as a hard and fast rule, but Mrs. Palin proves how long a trip that is.

Now Mrs. Palin. Listen up. Despite the fact I got a top score on some Internet old school rap knowledge test, I am far from being really in the know for Hip Hop. My current usable data base sorta peters out in the mid to late 1990's. but I know "50 Cent," is still hot. Russel Simmons is still actively a force in the Biz. Despite having his fingers in every kind of business imaginable, I would not count Puff Daddy out. But Jay-Z is a living legend. And the old school (not ancient but merely old school) gangstas who have survived are now movie and TV stars. And I don't mean niche market. Ice-T's been on Law and Order for over 10 years, now, and Ice Cube's a one man Hollywood Franchise. And let us not forget Snoop Dog. Who in America doesn't know Snoop Dog?

And you, Mrs. Palin, when thinking about what song gives you street cred as a rap fan, go back to the pre MTV days and dig out Rapper's Delight?

You would have done better to mention Amy Poehler's (award winning) Palin Rap. I mean REALLY! You were there in the studio, on the stage for the national debut of that joint. And it was only written like three years or so ago. Not more than thirty. And it has way more edge than Rapper's Delight, even if still a clean rap. Shit. Even the unaired hard one was still clean enough for TV, never mind the one that aired.

But ya. I am not a liberal because I am scared of being seen with the un cool kids. I'm a cool kid to start. That's a small part of why I am a liberal.

Will This End Birtherism? Hells Noes!

I have said that before, but now that the WH has released the other form, it does at least make those silly if not racist d-bag wing nuts look crazier and crazier.

Oh. And I am not swearing to it, but following bringing up that crazy reality TV moron on my FB page, it hit me. Remember the Week of Not Talking About Palin? I think we should try to do the same thing to that creature with the bad comb over haircut.

I do not think he will fade away if we just stop paying attention to him. The real world does not work in such clear causative ways, where human egos and insanity are concerned. But still. He's vulgar. He's a liar, and he's the worst of worst kind of cynical political and media whores. So let's avoid speaking of him. Ok?


Oh. And another quickie. Did ya hear about the lady arrested at the Rep. Allen West Town Hall?

Firstly I do not recall a single one of those insane, histrionic, loud and crazy tea baggers getting arrested. So this is a thing that makes me go hmmmm, right there. Talk about general hypocrisy. But beyond that, where's the crys about how the lady got arrested for using her free speech rights? WTF. Well I am not surprised. I have been saying it for a while now, how the GOP is basically hypocritical and bullshit on this issue. Scummy, they are!