At the Snow Tree Café...

... we've saved you a seat.

I love when Ask Metafilter has already dealt with the question I have.

In this case, it's that I need a good substitute for the word "clusterfuck." I can't just use that word in class, but it does often seem to be the mot juste, and I need a synonym.

I'm glad to see it's come up on Ask Metafilter... not that there is a good answer. Debacle? Trainwreck? Imbroglio?

I think clusterfuck is unique. 

"The Arawaks were guided to Dominica, and other islands of the Caribbean, by the South Equatorial Current from the waters of the Orinoco River."

"These descendants of the early Taínos were overthrown by the Kalinago tribe of the Caribs. The Caribs, who settled here in the 14th century, called the island Waitikubuli, which means 'tall is her body'. Christopher Columbus named the island after the day of the week on which he spotted it - a Sunday ('Doménica' in Italian) - which fell on 3 November 1493 on his second voyage."

In the place that we call Dominica,  today's "History of" county.

"The Obama administration threw its support behind a broad claim for marriage equality on Thursday..."

"... and urged the Supreme Court to rule that voters in California were not entitled to ban same-sex marriage in that state."

The latest brief, filed late Thursday, does not, however, ask the court to declare such bans unconstitutional nationwide; instead, it has focused its argument on Proposition 8...

The identified problem exists only in states that offer domestic partnerships, depriving same-sex couples of the dignity of the term "marriage."

Businessweek "Warns That Minorities May Be Buying Houses Again."

Horrendous magazine cover for which they've issued a sorry-if-you-were-offended apology.

Me too, says Lanny Davis...

... when everybody's talking about Bob Woodward.

Race, education, and conspiracy theories swirling around a Madison School Board election.

This is complicated. Too complicated to begin to read as I'd originally presented the material. So I've changed the post title and written this paragraph to try to ease you into something that will seem very intra-Madison, but it has some big, general themes that outsiders should relate to.

The Cap Times tries to untangle things.

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to figure out that the Bradley Foundation’s supposed functionary allegedly behind [Ananda] Mirilli’s candidacy is Kaleem Caire, CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison and architect of 2011’s controversial Madison Preparatory Academy proposal for a charter school aimed at African-American children.



Caire proudly claims his stint of more than a decade ago as CEO of the Bradley-funded Black Alliance for Educational Options, which supports greater parental choice options to improve education, especially for students of color.

Mirilli told me her campaign [for a seat on the Madison school board] was haunted by the idea that she was pro-voucher and anti-union, even though she says she is doubtful of the efficacy of vouchers and was not recruited by Caire as the local grapevine seemed to have everyone convinced....

Mirilli, a Latina, adds that she was encouraged in her run by a trio of former School Board members who filled her in on what it requires. She was not convinced that Madison Prep was the answer to the district’s woes, she says, but stresses that Caire’s putting the achievement gap issue on the public agenda has been incredibly valuable.

“We have to talk about a racial analysis; when we are looking at a curriculum or a strategy or a program, we need to look at whether it is culturally specific to the group we are targeting,” Mirilli says.

So... a conspiracy theory was used to defeat Mirilli... or is this a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory? I'm glad the Cap Times is getting into the act — along with David Blaska — trying to figure out what is going on. Mirilli was defeated in the primary, and one of the 2 winners — Sarah Manski — withdrew 2 days later, leaving us with only one live candidate on the ballot. Mirilli's name can still be written in.

Mirilli says she's not going to do a write-in campaign, but she hasn't said she won't serve if elected. I'm voting in that election, which is the same one with the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and I can't figure out anything to do other than to write in Mirilli.

I'm sorry if this is a little too intra-Madison for most of my readers, but perhaps you will take some interest in the topics of school vouchers (which Governor Walker has proposed expanding to include Madison) and charter schools (you may remember my posts about Kaleem Caire's Madison Prep, which was voted down by the Madison school board in 2011).

"Strains credulity to think that ice releases thousands of illegals..."

"... and no one there ran it up the food chain. Not even a 'heads up?' Hmmm."

The old buzzword "deniability" popped into my head.

ME (out loud): "Deniability. Who do you associate with that word."

MEADE: "Nixon."

ME (having Googled, reading from Wikipedia): "Kennedy. 'Plausible deniability is a term coined by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to describe the withholding of information from senior officials in order to protect them from repercussions in the event that illegal or unpopular activities by the CIA became public knowledge.'"

I love Wikipedia. I love that there's a whole long article on the topic "plausible deniability." The name Nixon comes up — in a list of 6 "major flaws" in the "doctrine." The Nixon-related flaw is:

It rarely worked when invoked; the denials made were rarely plausible and were generally seen through by both the media and the populace. One aspect of the Watergate crisis is the repeated failure of the doctrine of plausible deniability, which the administration repeatedly attempted to use to stop the scandal affecting President Richard Nixon and his aides.

Also at the article, under the heading "other examples":

The Murder of Thomas Becket

King Henry II of England is often said to have stated of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Becket was indeed murdered, although the king denied that his plea was to be taken in such a way.

We don't live in a monarchy, and efforts to insulate a U.S. President from criticism should fail and will fail if we haven't lost track of our role as citizens.

(And, as noted a few posts ago, these Washington writers are nauseatingly dependent on clichés. The food chain, heads up. "Food chain" isn't even the right cliché. Perino meant the chain of command. That other chain. Django Unchained. Chain of Fools. Chains, my baby's got me locked up in chains. Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. Ball and chain. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Chain smoking. Hey, I'm only yanking your chain.)

Apparently, people hate Anne Hathaway.

But why?

Psychology professor says:  "When times are good we prefer actresses with rounder faces...They convey these ideas of fun and youth."

But Hathaway hath a narrow face, which "suggests she would be popular when times are more challenging... As the economy improves, Hathaway...  may just be a reminder of bad times."

The haters have been chided by Lena Dunham (of "Girls" fame):

"Ladies: Anne Hathaway is a feminist and she has amazing teeth. Let's save our bad attitudes for the ones who aren't advancing the cause," Dunham tweeted.

I hope you can tell that's sarcasm. (Dunham is a genius. Interpret her words accordingly.)

I haven't been reading the anti-Hathaway scribblings (and I've never seen Hathaway in anything), but I would simply assume that women reject idealization of someone that thin.

"I'd never met or heard anyone who'd had a laryngectomy."

"I thought, 'Omigod, I make my living on the telephone and now I'm going to sound like Elmer Fudd on Thorazine for the rest of my life.'"

"When Pope Celestine V quit his job in 1294, his successor locked him in prison and kept him there until he died."

"Pope Benedict XVI will not suffer the same sad fate. When he resigns today, not only will he not be jailed, exiled or even sent to a retirement home, he will get to stay in the Vatican."

This worries some Catholics who think having two popes in the house will make things a little crowded. Some even fear there is a nefarious scheme at work that will allow Benedict to exert undue influence on his successor.

Good luck working out the ex-Pope logistics. 

ADDED: "He has no intention of interfering in the position or the decisions or the activity of his successor. But as every member of the church, he says fully that he recognizes the authority of the supreme pastor of the church who will be elected to succeed him."

Richard the Lionheart's heart... preserved in a lead box... analyzed by forensic experts.

The English king died in 1199.

After his death, his body was divided up - a common practice for aristocracy during the Middle Ages.... [The] heart was embalmed and buried in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Rouen....

The heart, which was wrapped in linen, also had traces of myrtle, daisy, mint and possibly lime...

"That consciousness of using very high-quality herbs and spices and other materials that are much sought after and rare does add to that sense of it being Christ-like in its quality... Medieval kings were thought to represent the divine on Earth - they were set apart form other lay people and regarded as special and different...."

The Very Senior White House Person who threatened Bob Woodward was Gene Sperling, economic adviser to the President.

Politico reveals the name and presents the text of the email:

I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. My bad. 

So there's also that conversation, which involved yelling, and we don't have the transcript of it.

I do understand your problems with a couple of our statements in the fall — but feel on the other hand that you focus on a few specific trees that gives a very wrong perception of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here.

But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. 

These Washington folk are fond of clichés — moving the goal posts, forest for the trees, seeing eye to eye. I would lose my mind!

I know you may not believe this...

As a reader, I translate that into I don't even believe what I'm about to say myself.

... but as a friend...

More filler and one more thing that's not believable, but maybe there's a Washington kind of "friendship" that we outsiders don't quite get.

... I think you will regret staking out that claim. The idea that the sequester was to force both sides to go back to try at a big or grand barain [sic] with a mix of entitlements and revenues (even if there were serious disagreements on composition) was part of the DNA of the thing from the start....

If "I think you will regret" is supposed to be the threatening part, the accusation is weak. Sperling is bullshitting — blathering the administration's position wordily — but only explicitly saying Woodwood is wrong and predicting that Woodward will ultimately agree that the President didn't "move the goalposts." But I didn't hear the tone and content of the earlier discussion. And Sperling's apology and subsequent verbosity — I'm eliding a chunk of it — suggest that he knows he crossed a line.

The email ends:

Not out to argue and argue on this latter point.

Which of course he just did.

Just my sincere advice. Your call obviously.

My apologies again for raising my voice on the call with you. Feel bad about that and truly apologize.

That sounds pretty meek, but — again — implies that he was awful earlier.

Here's Woodward's response:

Gene: You do not ever have to apologize to me. You get wound up because you are making your points and you believe them. This is all part of a serious discussion. I for one welcome a little heat; there should more given the importance. I also welcome your personal advice. I am listening. I know you lived all this. My partial advantage is that I talked extensively with all involved...

So, Woodward is conciliatory and seemingly all about maintaining his continued access to Sperling. What happened next that motivated Woodward to go on TV and say he was threatened and that it was "madness"?

Woodward is a master at this game, so let's figure out what he's doing. He said he welcomes a little heat. Then he makes some big heat of his own. Why?

The return of Guido, the Italian Sausage.

"The hot sausage reportedly was dropped off at TJ Ryan's bar in Cedarburg."

Two men - one wearing a hoodie pulled tight over his face - lugged the larger-than-life link into the bar just before 8 p.m. Wednesday, plopped him on a bar stool and warned staff, "You did not see anything," said bartender Jen Mohney.

"Are there any atoms in my body that used to belong to Abe Lincoln? What about Hitler?"

"In other words, do particles of matter on earth get mixed so well by natural processes that when we die, our particles are evenly distributed over the whole world, a little bit everywhere? Are we made of everyone?"

"The Genius of America" — a 30-foot mural that's been hidden behind a curtain.

Because a figure in the lower right corner was deemed offensive.

But late last year, the department... decided to delicately pull back the curtain — for a single hour, once a month — to allow people to make up their own minds....

Not a single objection was raised, which... might offer proof that “over the last decade and a half our sensibilities... have evolved.”

"Is this the way you're meant to interact with other people? It's kind of emasculating."

"Is this what you're meant to do with your body?"

Woodward's gone rogue!

"A 'Very Senior' White House Person Warned Me I'd 'Regret' What I'm Doing."

"Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlined unintelligible gestures inside."

Today's "Gatsby" sentence. It almost feels as though we've seen this one already. I had to check to make sure it was new. It has that visual obscurity, that life slightly out of reach, that we feel we've seen so many times.

Forms leaned and voices sang. Laughter existed, disembodied from the laughers and disconnected from whatever the jokes were. And then there were cigarettes, little lights that made it possible to discern gestures. We couldn't really see the people — they were forms — and there was a bit of sound — but it was for jokes we never heard — and there were gestures, barely seen, marked by the glowing ends of cigarettes — and the gestures — unintelligible — could not be understood.

How distanced and left out we feel! Inside those taxis, there is real life, people going places, talking about things, leaving us behind.

"Together with northern Somalia, Eritrea and the Red Sea coast of Sudan, Djibouti is considered the most likely location of the land known to the ancient Egyptians as..."

"Punt (or "Ta Netjeru", meaning "God's Land"), whose first mention dates to the 25th century BC."



Djibouti is today's "History of" country.

Kerry: "And now I will speak in English, because otherwise I would not be allowed to return back home."

A good joke or disgusting condescension? 



(I loathe Kerry, but I actually love hearing him French it up big time. Quelle accent!)

Did the Manskis target Ananda Mirilli?

This is very intra-Madison, but worth paying attention to. David Blaska reports, based on talking to Mirilli, that Sarah Manski was recruited to run against Mirilli and "the Manskis spread a rumor that [Mirilli] was recruited by the Great Right Conspiracy to run as a stalking horse for school vouchers."

Forty-eight hours after taking out the troublesome minority candidate – her job accomplished – Sarah Manski withdrew from the race, assured that the school board would appoint “somebody good” if it came to that....

The Manski campaign was fueled by plenty of big-name Democrats, including the Democrat(ic) leaders in the Wisconsin State Assembly and Senate, Peter Barca and Chris Larson, even though they’re from Kenosha and Milwaukee, respectively....

"Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying ‘Oh, by the way, I can’t do this because of some budget document?’ "

"Or George W. Bush saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to invade Iraq because I can’t get the aircraft carriers I need’ or even Bill Clinton saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters,’ as he did when Clinton was president because of some budget document? Under the Constitution, the president is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement, I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country. That’s a kind of madness that I haven’t seen in a long time."

"White House was not involved in ICE's decision to release detainees..."

Carney says.

White House teflon, more slippery than ICE.

At the New Snow Café...

... your path is clear.

"Gatsby, Galbraith and the Myth of Coolidge’s Crash."

By Amity Shlaes (who has a new book on Coolidge):

The corollary to the “The Great Gatsby” in the literature of economics is another old “great,” “The Great Crash 1929,” by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith’s narrative, like Fitzgerald’s, is subtle, conjuring complex characters. Yet the effect of both books is the same: to display the 1920s as a decade full of false numbers and false people, reckless pilots who caused an economic wreck so catastrophic it necessitated 10 years of Depression.

Oh, no! They lost the Italian Sausage!

"The Journal Sentinel says that someone wearing the [Milwaukee Brewers] sausage costume went 'barhopping in Cedarburg' after someone stole it from the Cedarburg Winter Festival."



ADDED: His name is Guido.

"[A] majority of the Court seems committed to invalidating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act..."

Writes Tom Goldstein after the oral argument in the Supreme Court today:

The vote seems quite likely to be five to four. The more liberal members pressed both the narrow argument that an Alabama county was not a proper plaintiff because it inevitably would be covered and the broader argument that there was a sufficient record to justify the current formula. But the more conservative majority was plainly not persuaded by either point. It is unlikely that the Court will write an opinion forbidding a preclearance regime. But it may be difficult politically for Congress to enact a new measure.

Adam Liptak recounts the "tough questioning... from the Supreme Court’s more conservative members":

Justice Antonin Scalia called the provision, which requires nine states, mostly in the South, to get federal permission before changing voting procedures, a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked a skeptical question about whether people in the South are more racist than those in the North. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked how much longer Alabama must live “under the trusteeship of the United States government.”

The court’s more liberal members, citing data and history, said Congress remained entitled to make the judgment that the provision was still needed in the covered jurisdictions.

“It’s an old disease,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said of efforts to thwart minority voting. “It’s gotten a lot better. A lot better. But it’s still there.”

I look forward to reading the transcript later today. The issue isn't whether there are still some racial inequities in voting procedures, but whether federal law can continue to treat some states differently from others based on a calculation using statistics from 1972.

ADDED: Here's the transcript (PDF). I'll extract some good parts when I can.

"If schoolteachers were overwhelmingly male and girls were suffering as a result..."

"... there would be a national outcry and Title IX-style gender equity legislation would be touted."

We expect males to solve their own problems. There's no tradition of helping and help-seeking as there is with females. Ironically, that tradition of helping females is patronizing and paternalistic. Whether it's good for government to serve female interests like that or not, it's hard to transfer that nurturing attention onto boys. Is portraying boys as victims good for boys? It's especially problematic if you are going to disparage the female teachers:

It seems that teachers -- overwhelmingly female -- just might be prejudiced against boys and it's hurting their grades.

Might be...

By the way, the egregious example of prejudice against boys that I've seen came from a male teacher. It was exactly the kind of stereotyping of boyish behavior that the author of the linked article — Instapundit — is talking about.

Make no mistake: I think there is a problem with boys in school. But what is the solution?

Here's a hypothetical I made up for discussing the problem in my law school constitutional law class. In a place I call Gendertopia, where policy is based scientific research indicating that there are male and female gendered learning styles, there's a plan for 2 high schools, both of which will receive equal resources. The male-style school will have labs, contests, aggressive sports, and strict discipline from the teachers. Music class is all about using Apple Logic Pro 9. The female model school has group projects and mutual tutoring, positive reinforcement and self-esteem, yoga and dance classes, and — for music — a strings program. Violins, violas, and cellos are distributed.

Do you like my solution? (Don't assume all the boys go to one school and all the girls go to the other school.)

"There were moments of joy and light but also moments that were not easy..."

"... there were moments, as there were throughout the history of the Church, when the seas were rough and the wind blew against us and it seemed that the Lord was sleeping."

A last message as Pope, from the man who, starting tomorrow, will be titled Pope Emeritus.

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH said:

Quit your complainin'!

It's not like he was married to Jennifer Garner. 

"Why Are Teen Pregnancy Rates So Low in North Dakota? Fracking."

Headline from a story that is not purveying some environmentalist scare.

How does North Dakota do it? “It’s not by having such great sex ed, contraception access, and abortion providers,” Guttmacher senior researcher Laura Lindberg told me, listing off solutions favored in more liberal states. No—North Dakota has one Planned Parenthood in a 700,000 square-mile state. Seventy-five percent of North Dakotans live in counties with no abortion provider. State law mandates abstinence-only education in its schools....

The scare is for progressives who want to believe their anti-teen-pregnancy policies work best. So it can't be that all the policies they've opposed — abstinence only education! — actually work. The theory is presented that North Dakota — with all that fracking — has a booming economy and females delay pregnancy when economic prospects are high (and when there's a plentiful supply of men to choose from).

Now, here's the craftily written last paragraph of the article (which appears at Slate and The Washington Post):

Add it all up—a sparsely-populated state heavy in white men, low in sex education, and bursting with oil—and you don’t find many helpful clues for crafting national policy....

It's important for progressives to exclude the good results in North Dakota, which call into question whether the progressive policies are the correct policies. Time to quote a professor:

“North Dakota is just off-the-charts, demographically,” says June Carbone, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and co-author of Red Families vs. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture. The state may prove that white, middle-class teens will probably do OK in the absence of comprehensive sex ed and well-funded reproductive health centers, as “they’ll learn from their families, their peers, their doctors, and the internet.” But that doesn’t change the fact that “the pernicious impact of abstinence-only education is its combination with poverty,” Carbone says. “The best contraceptive has always been a promising future, and North Dakota is one of the few places in the United States right now that is booming."

Off-the-charts, demographically... white, middle-class teens will probably do OK... I can think of a way to translate that into blunter language that would — speaking of scary — sound really awful.

What Ben Affleck said about marriage at the Oscars and why people are criticizing him.

Accepting the award for Best Picture, he said (addressing his wife):

"I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good, it is work, but it’s the best kind of work, and there’s no one I’d rather work with."

What's wrong with that?

The criticism centers around this statement as lacking in cuteness, and focusing on the negative. It wasn’t the “right forum” for this type of declaration, it was a possible indicator that “something is wrong” in the marriage, he should have just stuck to “I love you and adore you and you’re perfect” -- basically whining that a major Hollywood star was uncomfortably honest about his relationship and said overly blunt things about marriage in one of the most public forums on the planet.

Obviously, that's a summary from someone who doesn't agree with the criticism.

The critics are imagining themselves in the position of the wife and thinking they'd want to hear a nice compliment. But I bet Affleck planned his speech, with the help of his wife Jennifer Garner, and that the 2 of them decided they had an excellent opportunity to speak to everyone about marriage and this was the message they wanted to give: Work on it everyone. We — the pretty people, who seem so ideal — we have to work on it and we do work on it.

The line is crafted. 10 years was edited into 10 Christmases. It's been years and it's included family traditions and deep values that take a lot of attention. The first sentence creates some tension. Is he saying that the wife took care of the home front, making his life stable and pleasurable, while he went out in the world and furthered his career? The second sentence prolongs the tension — It’s good, it is work, but it’s the best kind of work — and we finally get to the resolution: there’s no one I’d rather work with. That means he is also doing this work. And that's subtly stated. He didn't praise himself as he said those last few words which reveal that he is a partner in the work. It's all carefully about her.

Well, there's also the "no one" — the nonexistent person he would prefer to "work with," that is, to have a marriage with, because it's marriage that equals work. The temptation of adultery is that it looks like a vacation from a marriage that seems like work. Imagine the opportunities strewn in front of Ben Affleck. There's a twist on that last line that creates anxiety for the sensitive listener: There's no one other than Jennifer that he'd like to work with (be in a marriage with), but does he ever play?

Judge by day, stand-up comedian at night — not acceptable under state ethics rules?

Part-time municipal judge Vince Sicari appeals to the Supreme Court of New Jersey to overturn the decision of the state ethics committee, which found an ethics violation.

Kim D. Ringler of the state attorney general's office argued in favor of the ban, saying municipal judges represent the most frequent contact the public has with the justice system. Some of the characters Sicari has depicted on TV could confuse the public and reflect badly on the judiciary, she said.

"His actions detract from the dignity of his judicial office and may reflect adversely on the judge's impartiality," Ringler said of Sicari's performances....

Sicari makes $13,000 a year as a part-time judge... He never cracks jokes on the bench and never lets on that he moonlights as a comic, [his lawyer] said. On stage, he doesn't touch lawyer jokes, the lawyer said.

On Tuesday, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner questioned whether Sicari's comedic routines touched on topics considered commonplace in the comedy world, including "remarks demeaning individuals on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation or socio-economic status," which are prohibited under judge's rules of conduct.

Britcher said Tuesday that much of Sicari's comedy is derived from personal observations outside of work, such as his upbringing as an Italian Catholic.

On Monday night, Sicari headlined at Caroline's comedy club in New York and brought down the house with his acerbic takes on current events, including the scandals surrounding Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorius. None of the jokes targeted the legal profession, but his humor did touch on the categories Rabner mentioned.

He headlined at Caroline's comedy club and he's not even tapping the material he must have in his head about lawyers? What a drag it is to be a judge! The requirement of sobriety is easy for some, a terrible burden for others.

I hope Sicari wins his case, but if he loses, I hope he dumps his day job and lets us hear all the lawyer jokes he's been keeping to himself in his effort to avoid confusing the public and reflecting badly on the judiciary. If you're really good, Mr. Sicari, bust loose and confuse the hell out of us with all the bad reflections you've got.

Several justices questioned whether the public had the ability to separate Sicari's position as a judge from roles he has played on the ABC hidden camera show "What Would You Do?" in which he has portrayed homophobic and racist characters.

Associate Justice Anne M. Patterson asked about a person who watches such a skit on TV and then comes into court for a traffic ticket hearing. "Is that person going to have their confidence in the dignity of the judiciary affected?" Patterson asked.

Ringler, arguing that the roles of judge and comedian are incompatible, cited the example of the actor Larry Hagman, who was said to have been berated in public by fans who associated him with his role as the conniving J.R. Ewing in the long-running television series "Dallas."

Oh, no. People are dumb, and people must go before judges....

"Supreme Court Weighs Future Of Voting Rights Act."

Nina Totenberg reports on the case that is up for oral argument this morning.

The provision at issue in Wednesday's case applies only to specific parts of the country where discriminatory voting procedures were once rampant. It covers all of nine states, mainly in the South, plus parts of seven other states. To head off discriminatory voting procedures before they happen, the law requires covered areas to get approval from federal officials before changes can take place. So, for example, if an Alabama town wants to change polling places, or to change from an elected board to an appointed board, or to annex another part of the county, it has to first get permission from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington, D.C.

Congress came up with the formula in 1965 to cover areas of the country that had a history of blatant, even violent, discrimination in voting; but the formula has not been changed since 1975, and it still relies on election data from 1972. That's the crux of the issue before the court now: Whether times have changed so much that Congress, in reauthorizing the law in 2006 without updating the formula, violated the Constitution.

The congressional vote in 2006 was overwhelmingly and astonishingly bipartisan, with the Senate voting unanimously to extend the law and the House voting 390-to-33.

Are you so easily astonished? Politically, it's hard to vote against this law, with its dramatic historic momentum. But the Court needs to address problem of treating some states differently from others, relying on a formula that uses statistics from 1972.

Under the law, any jurisdiction with a clean record for 10 years could bail out, and some have done just that. There is also a provision to bail in jurisdictions that can be shown in court to have consistently misbehaved. But basically the law was unchanged — all the areas that had been subject to preclearance before 2006 still were — and Congress simply extended it for another 25 years.

"Aaron Swartz Was Right."

"The current academic publishing system is prettied-up extortion. He defied it, and the rest of us should too."

I'd like to read that article, but it's in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and a subscription is needed for access.

Ironically.

ADDED: From the article (by Peter Ludlow):

If anything, Swartz's ["Guerilla Open Access Manifesto,"] understates the egregiousness with which this theft of public culture has been allowed to happen....

[T]he articles in JSTOR were written with government support—either through agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, through state-financed educational institutions, or through the tuition of students and the donations of alumni.

Once a student graduates from her college she no longer has access to JSTOR—even though her tuition supported the research that went into the data represented there. She may go on to be a generous donor to her college and still not have access to JSTOR. You have to be a faculty member or student to have access, even though, to some degree, everyone helped pay for that research....

Until academics get their acts together and start using new modes of publication, we need to recognize that actions like Aaron Swartz's civil disobedience are legitimate. They are attempts to liberate knowledge that rightly belongs to all of us but that has been acquired by academic publishers through tens of thousands of contracts of adhesion and then bottled up and released for exorbitant fees in what functionally amounts to an extortion racket.

When Swartz wrote his manifesto he pulled no punches, claiming that all of us with access to these databases have not just the right but the responsibility to liberate this information and supply it to those who are not as information-wealthy....

Aaron Swartz's act of hacktivism was an act of resistance to a corrupt system that has subverted distribution of the most important product of the academy—knowledge. Until the academy finally rectifies this situation, our best hope is that there will be many more Aaron Swartz-type activists to remind us how unconscionable the current situation is, and how important it is that we change it.

Much more at the link, if you can get in there.

"Ever wished you could hear the Wonkbloggers just…talking?"

Mmmm. 

No.

I wish I could unhear you just... talking?

Quit talking like that!

What the hell is going on in our culture?

"I am tired of being called a shrieking harridan for pointing out inequalities so tangible and blatant that they are regularly codified into law..."

" I am tired of being told to provide documentation of inequality...."

As though feminist academics haven't filled books (decades of books) with answers to that shit already.... I am so fucking fatigued by this anti-intellectual repetitive shell game...

A famous man making sexist jokes on a primetime awards show watched by millions of people is so banal and status-quo in our culture, that to me—a woman professionally committed to detecting and calling bullshit on sexism—it just feels like a drop in the bucket. Luckily, there's nothing better than a depressing dose of apathy to remind you to FUCK THE BUCKET....

Just some item about the Academy Awards show over at Jezebel. I thought you should know.

"Rand Paul Explains His Surprise Vote For Chuck Hagel."

"The president gets to choose political appointees."

Yes. Exactly. Torment them. And then give the President what he wants.

And hold him accountable for the consequences.

"The Danish people were amongst those known as the Vikings during the 8th–11th centuries...."

"The Danish Vikings were most active in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy where they raided, conquered and settled (their earliest settlements included sites in the Danelaw, Ireland and Normandy)...."

Paris was besieged and the Loire Valley devastated during the 10th century. One group of Danes were granted permission to settle in northwestern France under the condition that they defend the place from future attacks. As a result, the region became known as "Normandy" and it was the descendants of these settlers who conquered England in 1066.

In addition, the Danes and Norwegians moved west into the Atlantic Ocean, settling on Iceland, Greenland, and the Shetland Isles. Brief Vikings expeditions to North America around 1000 did not result in any settlements and they were soon driven off by natives....

The Danes were united and officially Christianized in 965 AD by Harald Bluetooth... In retaliation for the St. Brice's Day massacre of Danes in England, the son of Harald, Sweyn Forkbeard mounted a series of wars of conquest against England. By 1014, England had completely submitted to the Danes.

Sweyn Forkbeard... in Denmark, today's "History of" country.

"An improved SAT will strongly focus on the core knowledge and skills that evidence shows are most important to prepare students for the rigors of college and career."

Oh, really? 

And what will that be — writing godawful sentences like that one?

These powerful experts attempt to explain their new project. Can you understand what they are talking about? They claim they have "three broad objectives":

• Increase the value of the SAT to students by focusing on a core set of knowledge and skills that are essential to college and career success; reinforcing the practice of enriching and valuable schoolwork; fostering greater opportunities for students to make successful transitions into postsecondary education; and ensuring equity and fairness.

• Increase the value of the SAT to higher education professionals by ensuring that the SAT meets the evolving needs of admission officers, faculty, and other administrators, and that the SAT remains a valid and reliable predictor of college success.

• Increase the value of the SAT to K–12 educators, administrators and counselors by strengthening the alignment of the SAT to college and career readiness; ensuring that the content reflects excellence in classroom instruction; and developing companion tools that allow educators to use SAT results to improve curriculum and instruction.

So... there are 3 ways you plan to increase the value of the SAT... but what the hell are they? The only difference I see in the 3 ways seems to be the 3 different groups who are assessing value (students, higher education professionals, and K-12 people). But what exactly are you changing? Bizarrely bad communication from the people who test the communication skills of the young. Detestable!

"Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Surveillance Law."

"In a 5-to-4 decision that broke along ideological lines, the Supreme Court on Tuesday turned back a challenge to a federal law that authorized intercepting international communications involving Americans."

This was a predictable decision based on existing standing doctrine.

Why shouldn't shoes look like...

... feet?

"We have a whole press corps that doesn’t take Obama on... we’re in a period where the press has no respect."

"Woodward’s sort of the exception, but I’m uncomfortable with the idea that we turn reporters into budget negotiators or blame assessors."

Purchase of the day.

From the February 25, 2013 Amazon Associates Earnings Report:

"Marineland Penguin 200B/350B/170B/330B Rite-Size C Filter Cartridge 6 pk "(Earnings to the Althouse blog = $2.55)

... and 98 other items purchased — at no additional cost to the buyers — through the Althouse Amazon portal.

Thanks to all who support this blog by not letting it tank.

Oh, and...

"Obama plans to 'listen,' not present Mideast peace plan: Kerry."

Don't present. Vote present.

Actually, I'm being unfair. SOS Kerry didn't use the old Obama-hater's buzzword "present." He said "sort of plunk":

"We're not going to go and sort of plunk a plan down and tell everybody what they have to do... I want to consult and the president wants to listen."

The insinuation is that those who present actual plans are clods.

Remember how Kerry, when running for President, was always supposed to be the man of nuance, in whose delicate hands we should place the troubles of all of the world? It was supposedly so important to snatch the power out of the clumsy paws of George Bush.

UPDATE: Saying hello to Secretary Nuance: "Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday fired a rocket into Israel for the first time since a cease-fire reached three months ago ended an Israeli offensive against the militant Islamist group Hamas...."

"Kerry defends liberties, says Americans have 'right to be stupid.'"

Lucky for him.

Typical rich bastard, always looking out for his own interests.

"The non-inflammatory antonym for 'libertarian' that you're looking for may be dirigiste."

Noted. (I had used the admittedly inflammatory "fascist.")

The OED defines "dirigisme" as "The policy of state direction and control in economic and social matters." Here are the examples, going back only to 1951:

1951 Archivum Linguisticum 3 220 Linguistic dirigisme, standards of correctness in a constantly evolving language.
1952 V. A. Demant Relig. & Decline of Capitalism iv. 94 These are but a few of the reasons for the increasing dirigisme of economic life on the part of the state.
1957 Times 26 Feb. 4/3 Their [Sinn Fein] programme is a strange amalgam of bombast, Chauvinism, and dirigism.
1967 New Scientist 9 Nov. 329/1 He warned his listeners against ‘too much dirigism’, reminding them of the USSR where crude political interference had forced men into politically neutral fields....

And for the adjective:

1957   Economist 12 Oct. 16/2   The French hope that the new community will pursue a ‘dirigiste’, or at least a Keynesian policy regulating and guiding investment on a European scale, and ensuring that the Germans do not upset the whole scheme by deflating too much.

I don't know. I'm feeling inflamed.

As long as I've got the old OED open — sorry I can't link to it — let's check out "fascist":

One of a body of Italian nationalists, which was organized in 1919 to oppose communism in Italy, and, as the partito nazionale fascista, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), controlled that country from 1922 to 1943; also transf. applied to the members of similar organizations in other countries. Also, a person having Fascist sympathies or convictions; (loosely) a person of right-wing authoritarian views. Hence as adj., of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Fascism or Fascists.

The examples that go beyond the original reference to a self-proclaimed fascists seem to begin around 1960:

1960   S. M. Lipset Political Man v. 133   Fascist ideology, though antiliberal in its glorification of the state, has been similar to liberalism in its opposition to big business, trade-unions, and the socialist state....
1961   H. Thomas Spanish Civil War viii. 71   The Socialists..were described by [Communist] party jargon as ‘social fascists’.
1963   Times 27 Mar. 10/2   As the main body of demonstrators began to move away,..screams of ‘Fascist pigs’ and ‘Gestapoism’ continued.
1969   Times 17 Nov. 10/4   Taunts of ‘Sieg Heil’, ‘Fascists’, and the occasional smoke bomb from youthful demonstrators were bound to invite trouble.

The OED also notes a "Draft additions December 2005" definition:
depreciative. In extended use (with preceding modifying word): a person who advocates a particular viewpoint or practice in a manner perceived as intolerant or authoritarian. Cf. Fascism n. Additions, health fascist n. at health n. Additions. Recorded earliest in body fascist..."

1978   Business Week (Nexis) 22 May 10   Psychotherapy-as-recreation..has contributed in no small way to the kindred plagues of jogging and vegetarianism that are now so thoroughly disrupting wholesome social intercourse across our land. An acquaintance aptly dismisses such folk as ‘body fascists’.
1987   Courier-Mail (Brisbane) (Nexis) 10 Sept.,   Members of the NCC have been dubbed ‘green fascists’.
1997   Canad. Lawyer Jan. 46/2   It'll be fun to see what happens when the tobacco fascists run headlong into the human rights fascists.
1999   Independent 24 Mar. ii. 1/2   Now a half-naked male swigging Diet Coke and being ogled by stenographers in horn-rim specs is just as likely to upset gender fascists.

So it's like "soup nazi." Looking up "Nazi":

2... b. hyperbolically. A person who is perceived to be authoritarian, autocratic, or inflexible; one who seeks to impose his or her views upon others. Usu. derogatory.

1982   P. J. O'Rourke in Inquiry 15 Mar. 8/3   The Safety Nazis advocate gun control, vigorous exercise, and health foods.
1995   Independent 3 Nov. (Suppl.) 8/2   According to Hutchins, current fitness theory is peddled by ‘nazis’. Aerobics Nazis.
2000   Minx Aug. 71/2,   I learned to be more open and not such a Nazi in the studio.

Interesting use of "usu." When is it not derogatory to call someone a Nazi?

"As a movie lover, she was honored to present the award and celebrate the artists who inspire us all — especially our young people."

After Michelle Obama got criticized for horning in on the Oscars, her communications director issues that as a response.

I loathe that kind of PR — so saccharine and insincere. Look at all the assertions crammed into that sentence. 1. MO is a movie lover. 2. MO was honored. 3. MO was honored as a movie lover. 4. MO presented the award in order to celebrate the artists. 5. Hollywood movie people are artists. 6. Artists do art for the purpose of inspiring everybody. 7. Hollywood movies are made for the purpose of inspiring people. 8. Hollywood movies actually succeeding in inspiring all of us. 9. Young people are especially inspired by movies.

It's such an inane load of nonsense that it seems low and peevish of me to point out so many distinct elements. It was only ever intended to waft over you as a vague fog of a feeling that something appropriately lofty and bland has been said. That's the only relevant meaning.

Oh, wait. Look at this. Something else is being said. We have here a professor of women’s history from Ohio University who has delved into the study of First Ladies. This comes not from the PR department but from academia. Professor Katherine Jellison says: "I get the feeling that she is for the first time maybe really relaxing and enjoying her celebrityhood."

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my celebrityhood...

18 foreign tourists plummet to their deaths as a hot air balloon explodes over the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor.

Terrible. Apparently, there was a gust of wind and the gas pipe broke. This attention-grabbing incident is an occasion for looking at the more general question of traveling to Egypt. The attractions are obvious, but the downside is so bad:

Tourism revenues in Egypt dropped 30 percent to $8.8 billion in 2011, following the uprising in January and February. Government officials reported a slight resurgence in those numbers in 2012....

Across the country, anger at Egypt’s newly elected Islamist government and its failure to bring economic and political stability to the country has fueled a rising tide of violent protests and clashes, which further threaten the tourism sector. 

So here's a country where people who are supposedly upset about instability take to the streets and make things even more unstable. Noted. I would never go there. But it's not just the violent protests and the occasional popping balloon:

Fatal road and train accidents are common in Egypt, due to badly maintained infrastructure and poor law enforcement....

[And] an increase in sexual harassment and assault on Egypt’s streets has added to the fears of women travelers.

Terrible. Why does anyone go there? But they do. And they let some local company send them up a thousand feet in the air in a balloon.

"When does a fantasized crime become an actual crime?"

"A federal prosecutor, Randall W. Jackson, told jurors that [New York City police officer Gilberto Valle] had been plotting real crimes to kill actual victims, while Officer Valle’s lawyer, Julia L. Gatto, contended that he had merely been living out deviant fantasies in Internet chat rooms, with no intention of carrying them out."

One outside expert, Joseph V. DeMarco, an Internet lawyer and former head of the cybercrime unit in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, said in a recent interview that beyond its sensationalism, the Valle case highlighted the fact that there were “dark corners” of the Internet “where a whole range of illegal and immoral conduct takes place, and the general public has only a vague and fleeting knowledge that these places exist.”



He noted that the Internet, as a medium of expression and communication, also made it possible for people with interests as benign as stamp collecting or as grisly as cannibalism to find and validate one another in community forums.

“If you were someone mildly interested in cannibalism 30 years ago, it was really hard to find someone in real space to find common cause with,” Mr. DeMarco noted. “Whereas online, it’s much easier to find those people, and I think when you have these communities forming, validating each other, encouraging each other, it’s not far-fetched to think that some people in that community who otherwise might not be pushed beyond certain lines might be.”...

Ms. Gatto, Officer Valle’s lawyer, said in her opening statement that if the jurors had been scared by what the prosecution had described, “who could blame you?” The allegations were shocking and gruesome, she said, “the stuff that horror movies are made of. They share something else in common with horror movies,” she added. “It’s pure fiction. It’s pretend. It’s scary make-believe.”

Ms. Gatto suggested that the stakes for Officer Valle, who has been charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, went far beyond his case. She said cases like his test “bedrock principles, the freedom to think, the freedom to say, the freedom to write even the darkest thoughts from our human imagination.”

IN THE COMMENTS: Nonapod said: "Real space? The term meatspace is often used as a silly antonym to the cyberspace, but this gives it a whole new meaning."

"We are professionals, we have to dress nice, but we are paid less than kids who work at McDonald’s."

Says Tammy Williams, a woman pictured in a highly sympathetic light of the front page of the NYT today. The article is "Low Pay at Weight Watchers Stirs Protest as Stars Rake It In." You see, celebrity weight-losers like Jennifer Hudson get big money to lend their credibility to ad campaigns but ladies who hold the little meetings in their homes only make $18 each time they have people over.

Why on earth does Williams think what the stars are paid has anything to do with how much she should be paid? Those stars are selling their reputation and attaching that reputation to a product. Jennifer Hudson = Oscar-winning actress dieting. It costs money to lure someone into making a swap like that.

But more importantly, it's not obvious that the "kids" who work in fast-food restaurants don't deserve more money Williams. Nothing's stopping her from applying for a job at McDonald's. Obviously, she looks down her nose at the noisy, greasy counterwork. She seems to think what she's doing is genteel. That's part of the benefit of the job. She likes it. She can "dress nice," and not in some tacky uniform. She can remain cosseted in her home. She doesn't to  expose herself to the riff-raff that show up for cheeseburgers. That's why she's paid less.

It's absurd to whine about being an oppressed underclass while looking down on workers who do genuinely difficult jobs.

And, by the way, those "kids who work at McDonald's" are engaged in the business of making customers for Weight Watchers. Show some respect!

Hippophagy.

What's so bad about hippophagy?

Which prominent Republicans are signing a Supreme Court brief supporting same-sex marriage?

"The list of signers includes a string of Republican officials and influential thinkers — 75 as of Monday evening — who are not ordinarily associated with gay rights advocacy, including some who are speaking out for the first time and others who have changed their previous positions."

Among them are Meg Whitman, who supported Proposition 8 [a ban on same-sex marriage] when she ran for California governor; Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Richard Hanna of New York; Stephen J. Hadley, a Bush national security adviser; Carlos Gutierrez, a commerce secretary to Mr. Bush; James B. Comey, a top Bush Justice Department official; David A. Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s first budget director; and Deborah Pryce, a former member of the House Republican leadership from Ohio who is retired from Congress....

Actually, this isn't such an impressive list of names. It seems pretty pathetic to me.

[T]he presence of so many well-known former officials — including Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey, and William Weld and Jane Swift, both former governors of Massachusetts — suggests that once Republicans are out of public life they feel freer to speak out against the party’s official platform, which calls for amending the Constitution to define marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.”

Or it suggests Republican governors of New Jersey and Massachusetts aren't that conservative.

But then there's Huntsman:

Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor, who favored civil unions but opposed same-sex marriage during his 2012 presidential bid, also signed. Last week, Mr. Huntsman announced his new position in an article titled “Marriage Equality Is a Conservative Cause,” a sign that the 2016 Republican presidential candidates could be divided on the issue for the first time.

This is the first reference I've seen to Huntsman's article, and I'm constantly scanning the web for news stories, especially on the subject of same-sex marriage, especially with the Supreme Court decision pending. Why isn't Huntsman more influential? It's uncanny that this man, a former governor, very nice looking, doesn't get more play among conservatives. Here he is trying to tell conservatives what's conservative, and I don't have to read his article or any response to it to know that conservatives will reject what he's saying out of hand, designating him not a conservative.

But how about not rejecting it out of hand? Put aside your Huntsmanophobia for a moment. He connects marriage equality to free market capitalism:

Marriage is not an issue that people rationalize through the abstract lens of the law; rather it is something understood emotionally through one’s own experience with family, neighbors, and friends. The party of Lincoln should stand with our best tradition of equality and support full civil marriage for all Americans.

This is both the right thing to do and will better allow us to confront the real choice our country is facing: a choice between the Founders’ vision of a limited government that empowers free markets, with a level playing field giving opportunity to all, and a world of crony capitalism and rent-seeking by the most powerful economic interests.

Adam Smith was not only an architect of the modern world of extraordinary economic opportunity, he was a moralist whose first book was The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The foundation of his thought was his insight that free markets and open commerce strengthened our moral fiber by reinforcing the community of shared and reciprocal economic interests. Government, he thought, had to be limited lest it be captured and corrupted by special business interests who wanted protection from competition and the reciprocal requirements of community.

We are at a crossroads. I believe the American people will vote for free markets under equal rules of the game—because there is no opportunity or job growth any other way. But the American people will not hear us out if we stand against their friends, family, and individual liberty.

I'd say that's a bit under-theorized. There's so much padding at the beginning of the article — Republicans need to win over the younger generation and so forth. The ending is a mishmash — a mere hint of an idea that might make sense. What does he say other than equality is good and free market capitalism is also good? There's this odd concession that law doesn't matter, because this is something that people are going to understand emotionally. Rather than make an "abstract" legal argument — why is law only abstract? — he appeals to emotion. You should be for equality because equality is the right principle. First of all, that's abstract. Secondly, the go-with-your-heart, emotion-is-the-answer approach is what leads so many people to oppose same-sex marriage.

The other argument seems to be that the economic issues are what's really important, so let's get this pesky marriage issue behind us so we can move on. People will "vote for free markets" if there are conditions of equality. That suggests that marriage equality is the kind of equality in the marketplace that Adam Smith was talking about. Is it? Maybe, but Huntsman doesn't even attempt to connect that all up. As I said: under-theorized. That's my abstract legalistic view and my from-the-heart emotional view.

Scientists think they've found the lost continent of Mauritia, underneath the Indian Ocean.

It was once part of the supercontinent known as Rodinia, which looked like this as it was breaking up 750 million years ago:



See Mauritia in there between what was on its way to becoming India and what became Madagascar? How do they know it's Mauritia? According to the linked article, it has to do with zircon.



It all fits together.

"Crotches kill."

A Canadian ad advising drivers not to text while driving.

"It’s pretty racy for a Government of Alberta ad, but sex does sell and it did get people’s attention," Edmonton radio personality Rick Lee tells CTV News. "It’s good to see the Government of Alberta is taking the step to connect with younger listeners, and listeners in general, and taking the racy approach is a good way to do it I think."

Oh, Canada.

"For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery..."

"... and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes."

That's today's sentence from "The Great Gatsby."

What kind of flowers does your world — artificial? — smell like? Is your snobbery perky and inoffensive? What kind of musicians are playing the music that sets the rhythm of your year? Assuming your life is sad and suggestive, what new tunes are summing things up for you?

"The Internet in its wisdom has provided GIFs of the best reactions" to the Oscar song-and-dance routine "We Saw Your Boobs"...

"... including Naomi Watts’, perhaps best described as 'the death of a smile'..."



"... and Charlize Theron’s, perhaps best described as 'ice-cold daggers hurled directly from the eyeballs.'"

Purchase of the day.

From the February 24, 2013 Amazon Associates Earnings Report:

Globe-Weis Index Card Storage Drawer, Green (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $2.58)

... and 64 other items purchased — at no additional cost to the buyers — through the Althouse Amazon portal.

Thanks to all you rank and filers who support this blog.

"The Kingdom of Bohemia was, as the only kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, a significant regional power during the Middle Ages...."

"In 1212, King Přemysl Ottokar I... extracted the Golden Bull of Sicily (a formal edict) from the emperor, [declaring] that the Czech king would be exempt from all future obligations to the Holy Roman Empire except for participation in imperial councils..." 

King Přemysl Ottokar II earned the nickname "Iron and Golden King" because of his military power and wealth. He acquired Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, thus spreading the Bohemian territory to the Adriatic Sea. He met his death at the Battle on the Marchfeld in 1278 in a war with his rival, King Rudolph I of Germany. Ottokar's son Wenceslaus II acquired the Polish crown in 1300 for himself and the Hungarian crown for his son. He built a great empire stretching from the Danube river to the Baltic Sea. In 1306, the last king of Přemyslid line was murdered in mysterious circumstances in Olomouc while he was resting.

In the place that is now called the Czech Republic, today's "History of" country.

"Notorious prison is transformed into luxury hotel (and guests still sleep in the cells)."

In the Netherlands. 

Nice repurposing! I like it.

HuffPo can't tell the difference between nipples and darts.

Because... look!... darts nipples!!!!

If you see nipples, it's because that's what you want to see.

Maybe Anne Hathaway's breathtaking bust darts will bring back traditional style bust darts. It actually is something that looks new in fashion, and it's fascinatingly retro. In the 50s and 60s — before the "natural look" seemed like a good idea — bodices were constructed with darts.



Remember when a size 14 had a 34" bust measurement?! What's 14 today? Something like 40"?

"Former UNC dean of students says she was forced to underreport sexual assault cases."

"The complaint alleges [Melinda] Manning was told by the University Counsel’s office that the number of sexual assault cases she compiled for 2010 was 'too high' before the total was decreased by three cases without her knowledge...."

At the Snow Bike Café...

... keep rolling.

"Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry."

The Onion actually apologizes.

There actually is a line that even humor can't cross, and this is evidence of where that line is:

 
We get how this is a joke, but it's aimed at a particular child. Quvenzhané Wallis is the 9-year-old who had a Best Actress nomination for "Beasts of the Southern Wild." Wallis will also star in the new film version of "Annie," taking the part that Willow Smith declined on the ground that she preferring just being a kid.

Speaking of sex jokes aimed at young girls — and speaking of girls named Willow — this reminds me of the way David Letterman had to apologize for making a joke about Willow Palin. (To his credit, Letterman was under the impression that he was making a joke about Bristol Palin who was 18 at the time.)

"Government isn't an all-purpose social-utility machine just waiting to help us make better decisions..."

"... if only we'd be willing to give up our stubborn adherence to the principle of individual autonomy."

Even if we were to set aside all our cherished notions about how liberty is intrinsically good, it would still make sense to be skeptical of whether regulators know or care about the full consequences of their regulations.

And:

If helping people involves insulating them from the natural consequences of their actions, this could "nudge" them to be more irrational. For instance, everyone knows that students sometimes act irrationally: they procrastinate, they write substandard papers when they're capable of doing better, they turn work in late, etc. Given these realities, it's an open question how teachers should nudge students to do less of this kind of thing. The teacher who's willing to give any grade from an A+ to an F- might be more effective than the teacher who gives everyone a B+ or A-.

"Nudge" is in quotes because the author of the linked post — disclosure:  he's my son — is talking about an article — which we discussed recently — written by Cass Sunstein, who's made "nudge" his buzzword.

I wonder if the tendency to lean libertarian or fascist has more to do with how much you love autonomy or more to do with how much you trust government.

(Sorry about writing "libertarian or fascist." I know it's inflammatory. I was going to put "right or left," but it just didn't make sense. Some righties are out to control us, and some lefties — especially on some issues — love autonomy.)

"Can You Find the 'Savage' Sequester Cuts?"

Dan Mitchell savages the inane media hype about the sequester and provides this graphic:



(Via Instapundit.)

The completely inappropriate use of Michelle Obama — piped in from the White House — to announce the Best Picture Oscar.

Wow. I'm just seeing this now. How awkward. I was embarrassed to watch the clip. Jack Nicholson — the greatest actor of the modern era (or something) — comes out as if he's going to announce the award, observes that it's traditionally one presenter who does the announcement, then throws it to a White House feed where it's Michelle Obama, dressed up in her ball gown, in the company of White House toadies in tuxes. And then "Lincoln" doesn't even win, so we don't get the stunning climax of all of history that was what the producers may have thought they were setting up.

Abysmal.

IN THE COMMENTS: Drago said: "Those aren't 'toadies.' Those are the military aides assigned to the President. They have no choice but to be there when 'directed.' And those aren't 'tuxes,' those are military dress uniforms." I stand corrected. I'm sorry. I was going to watch the video again to check that detail but there was no scroll bar on the video and I could not put up with watching it in real time. Why were military personnel used as props for an entertainment industry awards show?

"John Kerry invents country of Kyrzakhstan."

He's fully cognizant of Kyrzakhstan....



I'm adding my "the blog has a theme today" tag. See if you can guess the theme!

"I guess I just had my first taste of the filthy side of this business."

In the previous post — about the accusation that Oscars host Seth MacFarlane was sexist for singing about "boobs" — I asked: "but what was said about male nakedness?

Commenter EDH pointed to this:

"Were the Oscars always this sexist, or are we spoiled by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Golden Globes?"

"Host Seth MacFarlane has been leaning on sexist punchlines all night, and people are noticing. Here are the transcripts, so you can calibrate your outrage and/or eye rolls accordingly...."

That's Maureen O'Connor at The Atlantic. Maybe she's just looking for traffic or a neat framework for presenting some of the jokes from last night's big show, but how can you judge how sexist the jokes are when only the jokes about women are taken out of context? What was said about men?

I know there was a big song-and-dance number naming lots of actresses and the movies where they bared their breasts, but what was said about male nakedness? All of those women chose to display their boobs — to use the word in the song lyrics (which you can read at the link above (video here)) — and they got whatever admiration or career advancement they got. Having taken the advantages offered — perhaps including ousting some other actress with more modesty or less impressive attributes — they're not immune from jokes at their expense.

We make fun of men all the time. It would be sexist to have a rule that you can only make fun of men. So, were there jokes about male genitalia? But male actors don't normally go waggling their willies around in big Hollywood pictures, so it's hard to say what the parallelism would be for "I Saw Your Boobs." (It looks funny to write "male actors," but "actors" is used these days for both sexes. Maybe we could use "mactors" or — I know, it's taken — "malefactors.")

Now, it might have been impolite or in bad taste to call out the names of actresses who were there, proudly seated at this ritual of self-celebration, and to sing out "I saw your boobs" at particular individuals, right when they wanted everyone to think they were such goddesses, in their lovely ball gowns, which were quite possibly designed to make a special show of the very boobage that the song was about.

But that's not the topic of sexism. That's the topic of whether you want the Oscars host to display respect and reverence to the assembled dignitaries or would you rather have some broad comedy that might appeal to the big TV audience? It's a question of taste and a desire to maximize the size of the audience, which was the same question that led to the baring of the boobs in the first place.

ADDED:  I don't really think Maureen O'Connor cares about sexism one way or the other. If she really thought McFarlane's jokes deserved condemnation, she wouldn't have written "are we spoiled by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Golden Globes?" — which is also a joke about boobs. I'd condemn that joke for being so stale.

Who was the first person to equate "Golden Globes" and actresses' breasts? The Golden Globes were first presented in January 1944, so I'm betting the joke goes back to 1943. We needed some sexy laughs back in 1943. I'll bet just about anything you might say about breasts was either sexy or funny or both back in 1943. But today? It's hard to say something new. Maureen O'Connor doesn't seem to know how to say something new. McFarlane did. Gasping about how that might have been sexist is really incredibly dull. One thing that actually makes some people sexist is the unwillingness of (some!) women to laugh at themselves. Come on. Laugh at women. Laugh at men. We all deserve it.

The stock market says "sequestration will not happen."

According to Jim Cramer on "Meet the Press" this morning:

I do think that the stock market itself is saying this isn’t going to happen. The defense index on Wednesday, it is all-time high. That says sequestration will not happen. The fact that the stock market is doing well despite the fact the gasoline prices are much higher, that’s hurting the consumer, payroll tax holiday goes away, that’s hurting the consumer. Again says that maybe something is not-- not drastic. Nothing drastic will come of this. Even despite the scare-- scare tactics, government by freak out. How right is that? I still feel pretty good.

At the Ice Skate Café...

... slide in here if you want to talk about anything other than the Oscars. (The Oscars post is here.)

"No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart."

That's today's "Gatsby" sentence.

Amount/can challenge/what. That's the subject/predicate/object. The most important word is heart. The heart is modified by ghostly. It's a man's ghostly heart which is a storehouse — a storehouse invulnerable to new things. New things come in the form of the opposite of stored-up ghostliness:  fire and freshness.

A ghost is the opposite of a living person. What is perceived here is the impossibility of living. (The impossibility of living once you have lived.)

"Live-Snarking The Oscars."

Nikki Finke.

(Me, I'm not watching. I just completely do not care. I used to care, but I don't anymore. I value my time in a way that doesn't leave a place for going to the movies, let alone watching the awards show. I really don't care who wins anything at all.)

Purchase of the day.

From the February 23, 2013 Amazon Associates Earnings Report:

OXO SteeL Garlic Press, Stainless (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $1.60)

... and 50 other items purchased — at no additional cost to the buyers — through the Althouse Amazon portal.

Thanks to all you stinkers who support this blog.

"Sephora is a smoke monster, a rainbow, a Mobius strip of promises. There's no getting a grip on it. There is no end."

"There's only more. You can chase the dragon of self-improvement slash self-enhancement slash self-acceptance until the day you die; there's always a new fragrance, a new lip color, a new miracle cream right around the corner...."

You go in for a lip balm and come out with body polish, dry shampoo, BB cream, and Kat Von D's "Sinner" smoky eyes palette. (The are over 100,000 videos titled "Sephora Haul" on YouTube to watch should you have any doubts.) Oodles on display, a myriad of options, infinite possibilities. When you think you've finally found the solution, the crutch, the key, either you run out and need more; they stop making it and it vanishes like so much sparkly Guerlain Terra Cotta dust; or you find that what once satisfied you no longer does the trick.

100,000 videos. I tried watching one and got a couple minutes in... about 20% through. It really is a form of madness. You need to be careful going in. It's quite bizarre. You've got to admire the design of the place. A shop is a psychological manipulation and it's impressive when it's done well, but — as I said — you need to be careful.

"There are signs that this is the dawn of the new masculinity."

"Some recent news about men who are chucking their own careers to support the dreams and hopes of the women they love..."

The signs are a big law firm partner who quits to become "a supportive husband and do all I can to help [his new wife] achieve her mission to improve the world through music" and a new magazine — "Kindling Quarterly" — for stay-at-home fathers.

The Ladies' Home Journal in 1963.

 

Encountered searching for something else just now. I'm putting this up because I like how it looks simultaneously so old and...



.... so current. 

"The Arabs invaded Cyprus in force in the 650s, but in 688, the emperor Justinian II and the caliph Abd al-Malik..."

"... reached an unprecedented agreement. For the next 300 years, Cyprus was ruled jointly by both the Arabs and the Byzantines as a condominium, despite the nearly constant warfare between the two parties on the mainland."

In Cyprus, today's "History of" country.

"Alongside that do-gooder instinct is a strong desire for fairness because, being out in the world, reporters encounter a great deal of unfairness."

"We want to expose that and even rub your noses in it. In a way, we’re shouting, through our stories: 'This is unfair! Somebody do something!' Conservative and liberal journalists alike feel this way...."

That’s why many journalists have a hard time giving much voice to those opposed to gay marriage. They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing.

Says Patrick B. Pexton, the Washington Post ombudsman.

Ted Cruz's office says "in the mid-1990s, the Harvard Law School faculty included numerous self-described proponents of 'critical legal studies'..."

"... a school of thought explicitly derived from Marxism – and they far outnumbered Republicans."

That's in response to a New Yorker article quoting something Cruz said in a speech 3 years ago. (What Cruz said back then, at an Americans for Prosperity conference, was that when he was at Harvard Law School "There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.")

The Cruz spokesperson called it "curious that the New Yorker would dredge up a three-year-old speech and call it 'news.'"

Curious... there's a noncommittal word. I don't see anything wrong with digging stuff out of old Cruz speeches. He's a new character on the national stage, so it's not like old territory is being reworked. It was an inflammatory statement, and he needs to stand by it (and back it up), defend it as hyperbole, or concede he was wrong.
The New Yorker writer, Jane Mayer, was following up after Barbara Boxer had compared Cruz to Joseph McCarthy. That was pretty inflammatory too (as I said at the time). What Boxer said made it a valid line of inquiry for Mayer and not odd at all. What you say to your base will be heard by the outsiders too, and any politician needs to be prepared for that. Republicans hoping for a new star better not forget how badly Mitt Romney faltered when he had to deal with the 47% remark he'd used on the insider group. This Cruz quote is the same kind of thing. Don't minimize it.

Mayer talked to Charles Fried, the Harvard lawprof who was probably the one Republican referred to by Cruz. Fried says:

"I have not taken a poll, but I would be surprised if there were any members of the faculty who ‘believed in the Communists overthrowing the U.S. government".... Fried acknowledged that "there were a certain number (twelve seems to me too high) who were quite radical, but I doubt if any had allegiance or sympathy with anything called ‘the Communists,’ who at that time (unlike the thirties and forties) were in quite bad odor among radical intellectuals.” He pointed out that by the nineteen-nineties, Communist states were widely regarded as tyrannical. From Fried’s perspective, the radicals on the faculty were "a pain in the neck." But he says that Cruz’s assertion that they were Communists “misunderstands what they were about."

Clearly, it was rhetoric to call the Critical Legal Studies professors "Marxists" who believed in "Communist" revolution, and Cruz chose to do that at a particular place and time. Cruz is accountable for that. It's a shibboleth of the right to rely on the words "Marxist" and "Communist." It wasn't the way the lefty lawprofs of the time talked about themselves. I have a vivid memory of saying to a CLS lawprof — a very good friend, during a casual conversation — "I'd like to know about the connection between CLS and Marxism." She snapped: "There's none." I got the message: You sound right wing. It was understood that to sound right wing was to become toxic.

Here's a useful passage from the classic 1983 CLS book by Harvard lawprof Duncan Kennedy, "Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System":

Left-liberal rights analysis submerges the student in legal rhetoric, but, because of its inherent vacuousness, can provide no more than an emotional stance against the legal order. The instrumental Marxist approach is highly critical of law, but also dismissive. It is no help in coming to grips with the particularity of rules and rhetoric, because it treats them, a priori, as mere window dressing. In each case, left theory fails left students because it offers no base for the mastery of ambivalence. What is needed is to think about law in a way that will allow one to enter into it, to criticize without utterly rejecting it, and to manipulate it without self-abandonment to their system of thinking and doing.

"The best in business is on 'Argo' right now. She’s like Rahm Emanuel."

A non-random sentence from an article with the first sentence: "Political movies are expected to rake in the trophies at Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony."

So... "political movies" is supposed to refer to movies with political subject matter, but they win awards because people wage a political campaign for the award.

Too much politics! Remember when it seemed like movies were counterculture or art or something like that?

The "she" in the quote in this post's title is Sasha Stone, who's quoted predicting the award winners this year won't appropriate the occasion and make political remarks: "You don’t want to turn off half of America by making jokes about Republicans."

"Border collie Zoe & AMAZING dog tricks!"

"Americans are always talking about the American Dream."

"They refer to it in all their books and the concept has become a symbol of American culture. This is what made me want to read more about it. Can we apply its principles in Saudi Arabia and how can we achieve a better way of life?"

I was already in the middle of blogging this Saudi Gazette opinion piece by Samar Fatany, when I got about 2/3 of the way into it and saw:

Since the 1920s, several authors, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, have ridiculed the chase for the American Dream. In his book "The Great Gatsby", Fitzgerald, reflects upon the American Dream’s demise, and the pessimism of contemporary Americans.

Gatsby! He's everywhere!