The OWL and the Batya Cat.

 Hey, look at me.  I managed to make a reference to Batya Unger-Sargon, without grabbing for the low hanging fruit of making a play on Batya's name, and subbing, sarcastically Batty.  Anyway.

For those of you not familiar, she is the allegedly former left of center, allegedly a journalist.  But even if she somehow qualifies as an opinion journalist?  On account of having such a gig?  I don't really consider opinion sharers to be journalists, on account of not following the ethnical, and other rules for real journalists.

Anyway, that maga, domestic Hitler fluffer has been making the rounds, wherever she seems she still can, to spew a favorable opinion of a layman's analysis of the insanely corrupt indictment against Former FBI Dir. Comey, and spew related dishonest talking points.  And she is one of the liars making the dishonest argument that the American "left" if not more specifically Democrats, are the worst offenders regarding violent rhetoric.

Now, a fact check.  In the past year, alleged incidents and "plots" from people identified as left of center has gone up and above the right wing loons.  But note, is more for 2025 then it has been in decades.  My response to that is firstly.  Lumping actual completed criminal acts together with "plots" is adding too much to the graph.  If you want an accurate picture, separate that shit. Make the chart just about actual acts of violence, not people thinking about maybe doing violence.

And after that?  Since we have a right wing, authoritarian regime that is out there in a unprecedented way for America, cracking down on the population?  With political bigotry, bias, and prejudice aforethought? Shit.  Why would any right wing Americans need to go out and commit hate crimes against the people they hate on their own?  

Wanna go beyond merely owning the libs and the browns and the Blacks?  Wanna  kick their asses and bust their skulls?  Join ICE!  They are recruiting!  Promising bonuses, and new and recently lowered standards! 

The overall 2025 figure does not include acts of violence committed by the Federal government and any right wing controlled states or cities.  Get my point?  The figure isn't cooked as much as it is technically inaccurate as far as actual, political violent acts committed.  And state sponsored violence is not beyond the category of political violence.  It's not exempt as data, even if arrests and convictions for that are not the rule.

Anyway, the OWL saw fit to do one of her stir the pot posts.   She shared without comment or context, some tweet from Batya, where she asserts with out any evidence at all:

"but the organizations producing that data are cooking the books so they can smear the Right with the Left's crimes.?

Reference to what I said about not following the ethnical, and other rules for real journalists.  

Further reference to what is the actual source of the data Batya blows off as cooked books, and smears.  And that would be DOJ stats, State and local stats.  Data culled from Federal and state and local criminal court filings.  And the kind of researchers who have jobs to track that shit, and if it's a proper honest academic job?  What ever they publish is instantly subject to informal if not quickly, formal peer review.

Parting shot (metaphorically speaking.)  Lately on my facebook wall, I have been posting pics and memes often with either of the following:

"Fucking republicans!"

Or "Fucking maga republicans."

And I am remind of the time I told a republican nut job lady I made the mistake of getting emotionally involved with, to fuck off.

She immediately accused me of making a violent reference.  So yes.  There is nothing new about fucking republicans escalating any criticism, push back, resistance, or negative comment as if it were some violent threat against them.  Because they are liars.  And delusional.  And very thin skinned.

Fucking Credentials Fucking Matter, Bitch!

 Disturbingly ironic, that people who love to pay lip service to the myth that is meritocracy, approve of an audit not only not  conducted by any kind of financial auditor.  But not by the best trained for the job.

Let me be clear.  I have already wished (because wishful thinking isn't real, no harm in it really,) a lifetime of night terrors for any maganazi.  Anyone who ever voted for DJT.  Lately, I call him the orangenazi. So just to be sure I include all who approve of doge.  I like the usage, doge-bag.  Same goes for any such person.  I wish a lifetime of night terrors for anyone who approves of the  doge-bags audit of gvt. departments and agencies, by people who lack any credentials in financial auditing.  Never mind, the specialty of government financial auditing.

What the fuck is wrong with these motherfuckers?

I am not going to call the O.W.L. a TERF, but

 but I leave it to people with more skin in that game to do it.

Here is how she published the shit on her blog:

She doesn't buy into TERF dogma there, per se. But she "platforms"  Sullivan, who I admit to loathing, who himself is selling TERF dogma there, per se.

 Fact.  She is a blogger,not a journalist.  However, she is the sole plenipotentiary of her blog.  All editorial decisions are presumed to be hers.  So if she makes a decision to platform TERF dogma, per se?

Then she indeed has platformed TERF dogma, per se.

Oh.  Comes to mind.  I would actually be willing to watch more than a couple minutes of the O.W.L. if she sparred with Natalie Wynn of the Contrapoints channel  on YT.  Not only on the subject of the excuseless wickedness of TERF dogma, but many other topics?  Natalie would make the O.W.L. seem like a gibbering, incoherent lunatic.  My guess. I could be wrong.  I am sure I am not.

"I Wish Black Folks Didn't Civilise Y'all". The Read Of The Century... T...

One of my stock phrases of late goes like:

White people are only 15% of the world population.  White supramacists need to stop the bullshit, and learn their place.  And be  nicer to the rest of us.  Because they are not special people.  They are just people.

And my other favorite of late, is the idea that there is no such thing as "western" culture.  And most of what white supramacists think of as the good parts of their alleged culture, came from some place else.

This Coming From a Man, Who Wrote a Book Reverse Demonizing His Enemies . . .

And by reverse, I mean wrote a book titled "Woke Racism."  Using "religion" as a pejorative" Tsk,  tsk!

To explain, McWhorter has a years long anmosity with the new wave, current Civil Rights thinkers and leaders.  As that is what 'anti racism' is. It's the same essential wine, but different vintage.  None of that shit is new.  I was thinking the same shit, back in the 70s!

And I am about to do here, something I really disfavor;  criticising a piece with out really reading it.  However, I am being very narrow here.  I can't access the full thing.  So I am sticking to this quote, and McWhorter's personal history.  I will stop short of calling him  a hypocrite.  But if he ever were to read this, I would suggest he listen to MJ's "Man in the Mirror," over and over, until he gets the meaning, and how it applies to him.

Anyway.  the bulshit quote:

"In our moment, we talk a lot about the dismaying degree of partisanship in our nation. We declare fealty to the ideal of being open to the ideas of others. Yet [Mitchell] Jackson exemplifies a sense that when it comes to [Clarence] Thomas, none of this interest in comity applies and that it qualifies as insight to discuss him as a horrid, pathetic figure."

Writers who write books  trashing their ideological advesaries should not be saying shit like that.  

It's bullshit to make bank writing a book trashing your ideological advesaries, and then calling out people for basically doing the same disreputable shit.

There is a word for that, other than bullshit.  I won't use it here, though. 

But personally.  Even if I claim to be a retired political internet troll.  And I do get harsh here sometimes.  But no one reads me here, so does it matter?  Anyway, I will always admit.  I loved it.  I loved trolling.  I loved throwing shit at people, metaphorically speaking. I don't really play that shit anymore.  Not one on one, at least.  And I never did it professionally.  And peeps have monetized that shit.  And that is not a new idea, but I digress.

By you ain't gonna  catch me acting like I did not help invent that shit.  I was Godzillia back in the day.  Meatphorically speaking.

Been there.  Done that.  Wore out the T-shirt years ago.

And before I let you go.  Conservatism is at it's worst an evil ideology. On it's best days it is merely horrid, pathetic."  So in my view each and every conservatives is a 'horrid, pathetic figure."  Let's not cry over people dumping shit on Uncle Justice Thomas.  A person who is likely to do that is also like to do the same to Rush Limbaugh.  Fucking get real!  If one is really, truly a liberal, you pretty much have to think conservatism is horrid, pathetic, and wrong, if not evil.  Otherwise, why bother wanting to change shit?

The pseudo-intellectual's guide

Dedicated to both professors, Glenn Loury and John McWhorter.  I have given up on consuming their publishing, for now at least.  Greatly based on this reason, but as well , there is more.  That whole  hurts my pretty brain thing?

My one major addition to this vid's substance?

How to tell if someone else is a pseudo-intellectual?  They call them self an intellectual.  

And just in case someone wants to believe I am just being jealous?  My dream job is not their gigs.  My dream job is being a writer/crew on some TV show like SNL, any of the major network late shows.  Basically any show that uses current affairs as the inspiration and topic source, as long as the show is sufficiently liberal.  And shot here in the Greater NYC area.

Fuck living anywhere else.  Unless and until I need to flee the country.  Which might be the case come 2025.  I have all but given up on America.  But that is a topic for another post.

Glenn Loury thinks there used to be systemic racism. But not no 'mo!

 And he thinks and says the people who disagree with him are the idiots.

Ok.  I fell off the wagon, and started watching his latest vid.  Mainly because, he wasn't chatting with McWhorter, or some out of the closet conservative.  And because in the first section, the topic was what did he think of his role as a "public intellectual?" Now recently, I have added to my list of pet peeves, how there are so few genuine intellectuals out there, but instead how we are drowning in pseudos.  Now to be fair to the Professor.  He is an academic and scholar, and a Doctor of Econ. And he is an author.  But the mere fact he can have opinions about a lot of issues, and can comment on a lot of issues, doesn't make him an intellectual.  Here is where I can remake my drunk uncle at the bar, reference.  I am not saying Loury has no more insight than an uneducated oaf on his third beer at the local bar.  But I am saying drunk uncle at the bar can have opinions about a lot of issues, and can comment on a lot of issues.  Ain't anything special about that!

Now I am going to actually google the def., but I am thinking about one of the key terms in Patent Law;  novelty.  I think in order to be a genuine intellectual, there has to be some novelty, at least in point of view, way of approaching an issue, if not coming up with new answers to social problems. 

Here is a legitimate def. from Dictionary.com:  

noun

a person of superior intellect.

a person who places a high value on or pursues things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, especially on an abstract and general level.

an extremely rational person; a person who relies on intellect rather than on emotions or feelings.

Hmmm,  Loury has education and skill, but . . . he drifts to emotion over the rational, way too much.  In the vid I watched just some of, before writing this?  He fought back on his counterpart's take on affirmative action, however, admitting the plausibility of that.  She well articulated the idea that maybe we need to do affirmative action now for a while, so we don't have to in the future.  But he essentially rejected it based on his feelings.  He shifted to his usual right wing conservative dogma, like I say above, denying the continuation of systemic racism.  And that is one of the least intellectual things to do;  to deny the actual existence of the problem, or the sub issue, and go on some ignorant, repetitive, dogmatic rant, regurgitating the party dogma, without the tiniest bit of reference to any facts, evidence, or reality based reference.  Anti intellectualism at its finest, or worst, depending on which side of the mirror you prefer.

I stopped watching after that embarrassing, yet for him, predictable  . . .  what is my new way of dismissing lunatic right wing dogma?  Oh yea.  Mardi Gras vomit, mixed with pig shit, of a rant.   But let me take another look at the list of sub topics. 

• Glenn: My raison d’être is to give voice to my contempt for the failures of my people  27:23

 I have heard that Mardi Gras vomit, mixed with pig shit, of a rant before. I have previously called his, that rant as little more than recycled Booker T. Washington, self reliance ideology.  But with Loury it is more vicious, more judgmental, more conservative, more ugly.  And he likely wonders why the majority of black folk who are not already bougie who hear his opinions, want him to fuck off?  Hell.  I am bougie, and I am a lawyer, and I want him to shut the fuck up with that conservative, Mardi Gras vomit, mixed with pig shit.  

Edit to add:

Since I did post a  link, I felt obligated to watch more.  Now his usual Booker T. Washington, self reliance ideology is  there  in his rant, underlying it.  But he gets more emotional.  And I am not a psychologist.  But I will just say something about his emotional state.  WTF??

But his contempt for what he calls his people  is burning brighter than ever before.  So to that I say as well.  WTF??

Oh, and I watched/listened to the whole thing.  Eventually. His guest, Stephanie Lepp is a revelation.  She definitely is not a conservative (socially.)    She self describes as an adherent of promiscuous pragmatic pluralism.  I don't want to short her "presence" or being.  She is what I would call a very cool chick, if I were describing her.  And she comes out of the arts, and is very open minded about many things.  And one of the best moments is when she introduces Glenn to the idea that evolution is beautiful, but not pretty. That it can get messy sometimes. That reminds me of one of my favorite lines, from a Dune book, one of the latter ones actually written by Frank Hebert.  and the line is definitely not original, but timeless.  "Real boats rock."  I am sure she would get my meaning.

Anyway, it was fun to see/hear her basically refute, torch, pulverize, hydrogen bomb, the lie that is at the center of conservatism.  People and society evolve.  You can fight it, but it will happen.  Glenn tried as feebly as he could to to resist the reality of what she was saying, trying to dismiss that kind of talk as relativism, and promoting the conservative lie (in most cases) about ultimate rightness of things.  She basically put him in his place with saying, well ya. Some things are just flat out bad, wrong, and not worth keeping as we evolve, like slavery.  But her argument was that there were a few such absolutes.  But look around the world.  There are many way for societies to do stuff.  

I think he could have gone longer with what I have been calling Mardi Gras vomit, mixed with pig shit. But he really got what she was saying, I think.  And they were running out of time.   I know I flame him a lot, but there still is a functioning, rational being in his skin.  I expect him to revert back to usual form.  But these rare moments of seeing things clearly are why I take a break form his shit, but come back to see if he has anything useful to say.  Or admit.

I confess I am way too fond of my new pet, my line about how conservative dogma is just Mardi Gras vomit, mixed with pig shit.  But rest assured.  I will come up with another way of criticizing the forces of evil.  I always do.

Anyway.  Loury is still working on his memoirs.  I am way behind on books written by people I respect, so I expect the best I can do for him when that comes out, is to read a review.

Oh.  One last thought re respect.   I would have respected him if he rejected the status of being a public intellectual.  I think that shit is like being a patriot, or righteous and pious.  Anyone who thinks they are, usually isn't.

I might not be an educator, but I grade hard!

Let Us Not Go Too Far Down the Road. Maybe Just a Little Bit.

 

So I saw a tiny bit of a vid of the contrarian black guys from Blogging Heads on You Tube.  They had a chat on the cutting edge topic:  can blacks be racist?  Of course they said yes. I only got a minute into the vid, just in order to confirm that predictable for a black contrarian, fact.

Now before I go too far down that road, I am trying to be better about just letting people be wrong.  That is in line with my prime life directive to minimize agitation.  Despite the fact the world is so fucking agitating.  

Anyway,  at this point I honestly think that, and I also try to avoid absolutes.  I try to be a more honest communicator than those guys.  But I believe they both are greatly, even if not exclusively, seeking the approval of white people.  I could go long on that.  But.  I looked at the comments to the video.  And what did I find there but  a shit load of approving comments from admitted white people.

It is what it is.

But let's take a quick trip, not too far down the road. All the following words have different definitions, even if some are more related in concept than others:

prejudice, racism, chauvinism, intolerance, bias, bigotry.

I will stop there, as my point should be made already.  Many puny earthlings fuck that shit up out of ignorance.  Some do it deliberately to cater to an audience.  Personally  I like best the definition for racism that is included in the United Nation's

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

"1. In this Convention, the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life."

Merely saying mean shit, when one is not at all part of the power structure, and by that I mean in the in group, is at minimum prejudicial and intolerant.  But it is not racism in the real meaning of the word.  Now the debate can rage forever that if a black person in America has some hate for white people?  They can be called a racist.  I am not going to fight and die on that hill.  But since during the past year I have shifted my focus to white supremacy (greatly, but not only because of useless, sideshow distractions like the professors' chat on this nonsense of a topic, which of course enables and is complicit with the white supremacists.)  I am going to say  the question is pretty much irrelevant.  Except for what I said in the parenthetical part.  These guys keep on breaking what I have repeatedly called the first rule:

Thou shalt  not help the  white supremacists.

And they keep on doing it.  They have a right to be wrong, though.  And I ain't gonna change their minds, even if they read this.

It is what it is.

Critic of "Wokeness" CLASHES With Leftist Magazine Editor

I was hoping someone would deconstruct McW. and his bizarre book.  This guy does a very good job.  I won't go long, but McW., several times, sort of admits he is full of shit, but pretends to be some kind of Republican politician and doubles down on his bias.  I was thinking, wait till I finish it before commenting.  But a little before the 30:30 mark he gives up the charade.  Called repeatedly on his deception by omission of key facts that contradict his thesis?  He goes for the ultimate bullshit excuse. 

My book would have been 400 pages instead of 200 if I put all that in there, and no one would read it.

His antagonist, Nathan James Robinson,  is actually quite fair,  in the sense he is polite.  And not a lawyer, because he is not really trying to corner McW.  as much as he is trying to peel the layers of the onion.

But here is my take.  McW. admits a lot of animosity between him and some of the people he slams.  And since he bothered to bang out a 200 page book to slam them?  Well, res ipsa loquator. Or in the common tongue,

it is what it is.

And he sort of admits, first time I have seen him, heard him, that he really doesn't believe it when he says it's a religion.  He gives up that, if not fully at least in a sort of, opps  did I admit that sort of way.

My last comment.  Negro please.  If you are going to dabble in the social sciences?  Do the fucking work.  Anecdotes are shit, I tell you.  Shit as evidence of anything.

Oh. One bit further.  The math shit?  I was actually a weirdo kid in high school who could solve quadratic equations in my head.  And I had an intuitive sense, method, that did not follow standard methodology.  I actually flunked Algebra II  twice.  Until I had to retake it in summer school to go to my chosen Uni.  When forced to to it the usual way? I did it. 

But when someone at first denies that math is taught badly in USA no matter what color the students are.  And then admits, oh well.  I had it easier than most people?  Well  negro.  You admitted to being bullshit in your book  bro, backhandedly at least, again. And shit like that is is why I no longer think I could have a polite conversation with the man.  

Oh oh oh.  One last major piece of of bullshit?  You spent your entire adult life in academia, and you have the audacity to deny that faculty members have been trying to dog other faculty members in all sorts of petty and tricksy ways since even before Hamlet Prince of Denmark went off to Wittenberg?  Negro please!  I got sucked into the vortex that was my law school's faculty political abattoir as a student. But a kindly faculty member was my guide.  And I got out alive!

Nope. Not Gonna Try To Listen to Loury's Speech.

Firstly, listening to only one person talk?  I am a really hard grader.  If I don't like the voice a lot, I am more likely to stop. And if I also don't like the message?  I got better shit to do than hurt my pretty brain that way.  And both Loury and McWhorter are on provisional mute for me.  Mainly on account of that whole hurts my pretty brain, part.

Both "black guys on Bloggingheads" keep on repeating, over and over, words that convey the idea, directly or indirectly, that these two (may I use the moronic term McWhorter uses in his book?)  "elect," Ivy League professors, who are living so far up the pyramid, they are living better than 80% of the population, have what I call "buy in," to the abstract idea of America, and the very comfortable version of it they live in.  I repeat.  Better than at least 80% of the country;  not just the Blacks and browns.

Acknowledging my unfairness in going off on him with out listening to his speech, but at least I know his act.  And that is, as a sort of post modern Il Dottore, of Commedia dell'Arte fame, be the voice of the establishment, and try to get the rest of us to support the powers that be, and the social order as it is. You all know  that it is not so much that I believe all of it has to be burned down, literally.  But I am not invested in the current social order.  Tear that shit down!  And that is what is so fucking tiresome about Loury, and most well fed conservatives.  They exist to conserve the current social order.  Tiresomeness at its most damaging, to the rest of us.

But if I could speak directly to him I would ask,"Do you really think that telling the vast majority of Black and brown people who have little to no buy in, that they should buy in to the American myth, has a chance of  accomplishing anything?  Negro please!"

So I am going to have to pass on the speech.  But as my Commedia dell'Arte reference belies.  I have a perfectly adequate education. I am well versed in the features and components of Western Culture;  more so than most as I have an earned BA in Theatre, and we have to learn all that shit!  Conservatives tend to blur the line between culture and nation.  I assume he does that in his speech, as he has done so in the past. I think that is one of the many perception errors  conservatives make.  But they are the morons who keep fighting  this thing they call the culture war.  Granted.  There is a stream, a subset of American radicalism that is anti Western Canon.  But that is a noisy, pesky few.  It is not mainstream liberal orthodoxy.

I am happy to report that I like my European culture.  Shit, just this past Saturday I was at the Metropolitan Opera House watching Turanadot.  It was sublime. But buying into the culture of the culture, is not the same as buying into the social order.  I still want to tear down the toxic, corrosive, exploitative social order.  But leave the opera house.  Oh, and give nice, fat, dollar for dollar matching tax breaks that match contributions to keep the opera houses and such other high culture institutions up and running!

Anyway.  Assume that this is less of a crabby slam against Loury, than it is about . . . the need to fight the current social order.  And that means I take the occasional swipe at people who defend the social order.  Conservatism is the enemy of progress.  Conservatism is less of a philosophy than it is a system that seeks to protect the few at the top, and exploit the rest of us. If someone is selling that shit, I ain't buying. Even if I will gladly go to the opera and hang out with the mink coat ladies.  

Oh. And the American dream has been a myth for most Americans for most of the nation's history.  Please stop selling that shit!  Sure.  People need to make decisions, and hopefully they will turn out to be wise enough decisions.  But for most of America, since a bunch of slave owning land owning elects broke away from the British?  They set up a system that deliberately favored the haves over the have nots.  Let us never forget that. 

I'm done with my radical writing for the day, here at least, I suppose.  Oh. To explain, the image shows the topical break down of Loury's speech.   I don't think I will ever get to listening to it, even in chunks.  Too much hurts my pretty brain shit, I can easily tell.

 

Sometimes it is Worth it to Go Down the Rabbit Hole, Just a Bit.

So you see someone's tweet being reported as if they said something newsworthy, or worthy in some way.  And you never heard of them.  So you click on the link and go to their twitter page and you still are all . . .  who da fuck is this?  So you look around because you are there already.  And if you are lucky you hit pay dirt.  In my case to day, this line:  The actual line:

"During our show, I passed this storyline along fairly credulously."

The actual person's name is irrelevant.  Likewise, the story.  The point is doing that shit!   As a quick aside, the rest of the story is about how the writer chose to verify or not the story, after passing it along.  And they discovered they passed on bullshit.

Peeps are free to pass on bullshit.  Peeps are free to do all sorts of thoughtless, stupid shit.  And sometimes they pay for it.  Sometimes not.  And sometimes peeps admit it.

That is refreshing, when they do that!

PS.  The passed along credulously story was from the Daily Wire.  Tisk, tisk.

Let Us Not Name Names. But This is One of the Hallmarks of an Inferior Mind. My Opinion at Least. Universalizing.

                                                                                                                                                                

First, the ignorant quote, which will remain unattributed:

 "And I think if Americans were perfectly honest, we'd all confess to having a love/hate relationship with the guy."

No!  No!  Motherfucker, no!

Firstly, I am a native of the NYC area, and have lived most of my life in this area . . . . always in the North East, Atlantic Coast region.  And particularly, here in the Tri State Area, there are millions of people who have despised  Bozo for decades.  So no.  The quote is factually wrong.  Now for the rhetorical deconstruction.

It is a particularly bullshit form of argument to not only advance an ipse dixit argument   --   one for which there is no support, save the unsupported assertion itself.  But it is another level of bullshit when the argument is so wide in reach, there is no fucking way it can be true.  And further, no matter how much one could try to verify, one could never possibly collect enough data that could support it, and in trying, one would not only disprove it first, but quickly.  It's a baseless, and specific generalization. 

But here is the last bullshit part.  Or at least the last I will include.  It is universalizing.  It is that insipid form of argument when someone has their own opinion about some shit, and baselessly ascribes that to everyone.

Talk about nasty, sloppy, shitty, bullshit thinking and argument. 

But back to the way I and millions of my fellow Tri State Area neighbors think about Bozo?  There was this brit com  called "Chef."  The title character was played by the brilliant Sir Lenny Henry.  "Chef" had a recurring line, that went like, "I hate you with a passion you never will understand."

One should never underestimate the millions of people who truly hate Bozo, and have for decades.  Never mind, the thousands of people who were directly or indirectly fucked over by him, over the course of his life.  

I don't merely call bullshit on that quote.  I call fluffing!  And I mean, in the urban dictionary sense. 

Santa Should Leave Justice Scalia and Ann Althouse Copies of Strunk and White's

manual on writing.  And or if they already own a copy? Both should reread it.  Particularly  the part about effective communication:  

"Vigorous writing is concise." 

And as well:

"Clarity is not the prize in writing, nor is it always the principal mark of a good style. There are occasions when obscurity serves a literary yearning, if not a literary purpose, and there are writers whose mien is more overcast than clear. But since writing is communication, clarity can only be a virtue."

Now why am I barking up this tree?  Well, there was a story going around about how Justice Scalia got in it with some student, during a lecture  at Princeton U.  The student took issue with what on the surface seemed  to be a horrible, vicious comparison  by the justice, between  bestiality and homosexuality.  Althouse chose to revisit the topic this week, based on something that happened on her page yesterday.  She chose to defend  the justice on grounds of (merely) employing  a rhetorical device.  Now as a mostly honest person, who has had fun with language, and has  been known to use language to mess with people, if not fuck with their heads, I say that Ann Althouse was being full on, totally bullshit, with that defense,  I bet she knows damn well she was defending the justice for nothing more respectable than being an Incoherent Fucking Asshole   when instead, he could have been communicating clearly.

Lawyers know better.  My best piece of written work was in what we call a "Lawyer Letter."  My task was to effectively communicate the idea to the other lawyer that I was going to fuck up his client so badly, they would be very smart never to file the lawsuit against my client to start.  And of course I could not be concise, or clear about that.  I had to employ all kinds of sleight of hand and indirect, not exactly-really threats  to not only communicate the right level of, "Fear me  --  you can't withstand my wrath," but do it without  actually  being actually threatening.  And I was successful.  (Bitch backed down, and my client never was sued on the contract.)

But on the other hand, when lawyers write for court filings, it's usually the opposite we strive for.  Be concise.  Be clear.  Avoid being tricksy.  Play it straight.  And since Althouse is a law prof, she should know that better than I do.  She has to grade tests, every year, and has been doing that, for years and years.

Now I could go longer, but I will head for the door, almost presently.  Saying it politely, the justice is known for having a wicked  sense of humor.  Saying it bluntly, he is known to enjoy fucking with people.  (And he's far from alone among jurists, in that regard.  Ask some trial lawyers.  Many are likely to say too many judges/justices think that is the main part of the job.  Well, the part they most enjoy, at the least.  And they are too accustomed to getting away with fucking with people. )

No need for a rhetorical device here.  The truth  says it well enough.  So what Althouse was defending there was not rhetoric, or cleverness  (I have encountered so few actually clever people in my life that I wonder sometimes  if I have even met one.  But I digress.)  She was merely  defending the disreputable practice of fucking with people.

That's all it is dearie, no matter how much bullshit you use to over complicate it.

Torn Apart By Wild Dogs.

I love TV quotes. All ya'll know I post them when I hear them. But still my favorite over the past year was Lord Grantham of "Downton Abbey," saying to his ex driver, soon to be son in law, regarding his daughter: “If you mistreat her, I will personally have you torn apart by wild dogs.” Or some such. Love that line. But lately it's become associated with GOP politicians and pundits, to my mind. It must be that time in the political season.

Speaking of which, I think I can throw in some of the least independent thinking of the so called main stream media. Seems like they are, still too many of them, being led by the noses, as asses are, by the GOP spin machine. I am talking the Libya conspiracy shit. They did not take the bait for lots of stupid shit, I should say. Like birtherism. But publishing as if it were serious stuff, the faux rage over the Administration's first statement, corrected when data was updated, was juvenile. And running with Biden's totally easily correctly understandable "WE?" Well that is totally unprofessional. Use proper disclaimers and weasel words, people.

You Didn't Build That, Bullshit.

I was reading on some blogger's site  (silly person Ann Althouse) where she set up a false comparison between this  (so called by some) gaffe, and Romney's "Corporations are people too."  I think she messed up there, but there is something of note.  That is, taking P. Obama  for the meaning intended in the context of of his remarks, and Romney for his, we have two starkly different views of the nation and priorities and values. 

P. Obama is promoting the idea and ideal I already have said is the core message of the John Donne Poem,"No Man is an Island."  Romney is promoting corporatist oligarchy.  Choose what matters to you in the voting booth this year.   I'm on the side of real flesh and blood people.  Not bundles of property rights attached to a government charter that allows for joint enterprise in order to secure profits for shareholders.  The former is what our nation is, what is always was supposed to be about.  The latter is just the ugly cost and reality of "doing business."

Post on Althouse

It's Immoral, That Anyone Thinks Different From Meeeeeeeee!!!!

I did not get up super early today, only normal time.  So I am not even half way though the loop of net news and not-news yet.  But I point out this gem, not on account of the transgender issue.  (I don't really give a shit one way or another about how that could change the pageant world.)  But what I find interesting is the disgruntled contestant's  bullshit complaint.

She is the perfect example of a self bullshit, self and public liar, who conflates her own bigotry and bias as morals.

No dear.  It doesn't work that way,  No matter how pretty you are, and how shapely (if natural) your tits are.  Your biases are not necessarily moral imperatives, even if your church says, this is right, that is wrong.

[I refuse to be] part of a pageant system that has so far and so completely removed itself from its foundational principles as to allow and support natural born males to compete in it. This goes against ever moral fiber of my being. I believe in integrity, high moral character, and fair play, none of which are part of this system any longer.

Go Here For That Shit.


Come to think of it, if she really wants to level the field so contestants are judged only based on how nature basically meant them to look  (save cosmetics.)  Advocate for a no fake tits, no fake asses, no nose or chin jobs, and no padded bras or butt covers  rule.

But (based on what I know about pageants) hiney and boob spray are still allowed.  After all, they just hold shit in place.  They are not artificial parts.

But What If You Are a Bad Person?

Ann Althouse explains why she picks on "lefties" more than wing nuts, on her blog.

"So... because lefties put their arguments in starkly moralistic terms, it's tiresome to hear about the way righties overuse morality talk. I get the point. In fact, what bugs me the most about lefties — what motivates me to go after lefties much more than righties on this blog — is they way they set themselves up as the good people and prance and stomp all over the place shaming and blaming the people who won't agree with them. Having lived in Madison for the last quarter century, I am fed up with their domineering bullshit. The reason my blog appears to skew conservative — when I am a political moderate — is that I am not surrounded by pious, oveoverbearing right-wingers sneering at me and gasping about what a bad person I am."

 I guess for her it's more a matter of style than the actual argument?  If that is the case, it's pretty lame.  Well, I guess I could cut her some slack.  I really stop paying attention to people when they are sounding stupid, or being obnoxious, or being like a republican.  I know.  Redundant, that.  But seriously.  I remember seeing that episode of "South Park" about smug liberals.  Ya.  As if liberals have the market cornered on sanctimony.  As if!

And as far as her misuse of the word bullshit goes, I have noticed a pattern with her.  She calls shit she disagrees with, bullshit.  And that is a prime example of what Prof. Harry Frankfurt calls "Bullshit."

That S.E. Cupp Hustler Mag. Sexist Attack.

Given the title, you know where I am coming down, on this fracas involving con. writer S.E. Cupp's having been ridiculed in a patently offensive sexist manner by Hustler magazine.  They did a photo shop of her "fluffing."  At one  level, she's now in the same boat of hundreds of actresses, female athletes, and other fem celebrities.  On the other level, I'm not too keen about the photoshop attack, sexist or not.  But the sexist stuff is sorta foul.

Now as far as she goes, personally, I did a sort of decision tree.  Well, ya it's a foul attack.  But she's more a pundit than legitimate actual writer, actually.  But she's known mostly for being stupid, not mean.  So I decided she did not deserve it.  I have seen at least one writer somewhere drag in the bit about how (on TV at least) she does that sex kitten thing.  But ya know?  Again, that doesn't rate the attack.  And as just comes to mind, so many times I have heard/seen these cons brag about how hot there babes are.  And I think Cupp might have been (as in agreed to be) in one of those Women of Wingnutlandia calendars.  Even so, not justification.  But of course the whining that has come up out some of the other residents of  Wingnutlandia? 

No war on women unless it's tacky sexual references to our "babes."   There's a whole,"Don't call my bitch a ho," thing working here.  But that is not really the point.  Here's the point, as I found Andrew Sullivan quoting Adam Serwer:

"Where conservatives look at the Hustler "parody" as indicative of liberal contempt for conservative women, feminists see a larger problem about how women are treated that affects everything from health insurance to how much you take home on your paycheck. To have condemned Limbaugh for his sexism in the same unconditional manner would have been a distraction, because the real problem isn't sexism, it's liberals. For feminists, sexism is the problem, period."

The Daily Dish. "Is Sexism Necessarily About Politics?"


Re the quote?  I totally agree.

Conservatism is a Defect in Reasoning.

I have said similar things before.  It's easy to say it's a mental disease, but that is not truly accurate.  It's not something you cure someone of.  Freedom from conservatism is more of a function of getting someone to abandon a series of irrational beliefs.  Much in the same way a rational emotive psychologist gets neurotic people to abandon their redundant, self destructive thoughts.

What got me on this thread of an idea?  Some article written by some joker who was seemingly writing on the divide between insider  (country club) Republicans, and outsider (redneck) conservatives.  He  obviously identifies with the rednecks.  No matter how much money he might make, and that he might never be caught dead either at a NASCAR race or in the bleachers  watching AAA Baseball.

Here's the article.  I will super summarize it.  Conservatives is all that is good and right about the Right Wing, and the GOP is all that is wrong with it. What a fucking idiot.  Hack.  Sub species of Partisan. 

GOP vs Obama (re Killing Osama.)

Disgusting.  And stupid.  And bullshit.

I am currently watching McLaughlin group.  And Racist Pat Buchanan, and some shit from the Washington Examiner are accusing P. Obama of "Spiking the football."  What hyperbolic bullshit.

But the real story is that the GOP is basically arguing:

"How Dare Obama talk about successes?  That makes our guy look weak."