Friday Malamute Blogging

Yes, sometimes Kodi's awake.

Idiocy in Black and White

If Shelby Steele were anyone other than Shelby Steele, he would bitch-slap George Will for deeming him “America’s most discerning black writer.” Given Steele's belief that only small men--“bargainers, bluffers and haranguers”--populate today's black intellectual cohort, getting hailed as the nation’s most discerning black writer must feel a bit like being lauded as the highest point of natural elevation in the state of Illinois. Surely Will could have been a bit more generous in light of Steele’s eagerness to help the cause by donning once again the hair shirt of turgid prose and psychobabble he first wore in The Content of Our Character. But to give credit where credit is due, Steele is right in saying that race and racism don’t adequately explain persistent inequality in our society. Ironically, though, this half-wit has then gone on (again and again, I might add) to explain the nation’s problems exclusively in terms of race: white guilt, black dependency, the soft bigotry of low expectations. “We blacks,” Steele writes, “always experience white guilt as an incentive, almost a command, to somehow exhibit racial woundedness and animus." We do, do we?

The real issue here, though, is neither Steele’s mental defectiveness nor Wills’ colossal arrogance but the way both of these men collude in a more sinister project. By laying the blame for current ills at the doorstep of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” they seek to deflect attention from the way the policies of “neoliberalism” create and exacerbate inequality in the present. (On Neoliberalism everyone should read David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism.) These policies confer "rights and freedoms on those 'whose income, leisure and security need no enhancing', leaving a pittance for the rest of us." The victims of these policies include and extend well beyond those Americans who happen to be black, and we need a politics that starts from an acknowledgement of that fact.

Remembering II

My dad never conveyed to me that he felt he deserved any special consideration for his 23 years of military service. Certainly he had sacrificed: three extended tours of duty away from us. But perhaps because he had never been under fire during the Korean, War, or in Thailand, during the Viet Nam War, he didn’t feel he had any unique claim on the nation’s gratitude, or on whatever platitudinous phrase politicians generally trot out for these sorts of holidays.

As I recall, when he spoke of the military what he talked about most readily was the social dimension of his service. He had joined the military at age 17, not long after President Harry Truman, under pressure from Civil Rights organizations, had issued executive order 9981 establishing equality of treatment and opportunity in the US Armed Forces. And although in some respects the promised equality of treatment was never fully realized for my dad (he never received the radio training that the recruiter assured him he’d get) the service was a ticket away from the hard life of a sharecropper’s son in a small segregated Arkansas town and into a world that was multiracial and—to the extent that the children of officers and enlisted men and women attended the same schools—corrosive of class differences. We—my brother, sisters and I—never felt inferior to anyone else: a sense of self we owed both to my mom and dad.

Nonetheless it is one of life’s ironies that the Cold War military from the 1950s through the 1970s provided a concrete sense of what life in a more egalitarian society might look like. I’m not sure, but this may be one of the reasons he continued to serve for as long as he did. I do know that he embraced an egalitarian vision that we should not only memorialize but also strive to realize.

Remember the Veterans

This is for my father, who served in WWII. He came home from the war 100% disabled and deeply troubled. He died when I was 10, never to know his grandchildren. I can still hear his beautiful voice singing "Would You Like to Swing on a Star?"

This is for my Uncle Quirino who was killed in WWII. His remains were shipped home more than five years after his death. This is for his brothers, my uncles: Ernesto, Marcos, Lalo, Abelicio, Quilo, and Benito. All veterans of WWII.

This is for my brothers Philip, Jr., Joseph, Valentino, and Glen. All veterans of the Vietnam war. Philip served two tours of duty in Vietnam.

Remember those who gave their lives.
Respect and value those who survived.

A War Criminal AND a Traitor

Wow.
Henry Kissinger sent tens of thousands of young American GIs to die for a cause he knew wasn't necessary.

During secret talks with Zhou Enlai in June 1972, Kissinger explained U.S. Vietnam strategy. Following his "decent interval" approach, Kissinger argued that the White House could not accept Hanoi's proposals to eject South Vietnamese leaders from power, but would accept the political changes that could occur after the United States withdrew forces from Vietnam: "if, as a result of historical evolution it should happen over a period of time, if we can live with a Communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina."

Wow.

Basically all these guys gave their lives, NOT because we had to win the war, but because we couldn't afford to look as if we'd lost.

Kissinger should be hung.

(with thanks to the professor)

Friday Malamute Blogging

A Kodiak moment

Clueless Personified

Jesus Christ (via Atrios)

714

Barry Lamar Bonds ties the Babe's homerun record.

If Barry's taking something to help him keep his eye on the ball, then I can think of a few people who ought to be on that drug.

I'm just sayin'...

Hee Hee

Friday Malomar Blogging

Bagel bed schmagel bed...this is more like it...

Friday Malamute Blogging Etc.

Here's Kodi in what used to be his latest most expensive bed. As with all previous beds the relationship soured when Kodi discovered the fun of the bed isn't in the sleeping but the unstuffing.

In other news:

Woot!

President Bush’s job-approval rating has fallen to its lowest mark of his presidency, according to a new Harris Interactive poll. Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, down from 35% in April and significantly lower than 43% in January. Approval ratings for Congress overall also sank, and now stand at 18%.

Champagne and ponies.

Flanagan Shenanigans

Cry me a friggin' river.

Ezra sez.

Barbara Eherenreich isn't a Democrat. Nor is Salon a Democratic organ, nor the Upper West Side the official Democratic headquarters. Flanagan isn't being attacked by the "Democratic Party," she's just pissy because the "Democratic Party" hasn't mounted a frontal assault against those who disagree with her lifestyle choices. Indeed, this is just an extension of Flanagan's normal romantic arguments to politics: she is a weak, vulnerable women in need of protection. Whether the answer is a strong man or an attentive party, the common problem is always her protested helplessness, which she insists all women share. The Democratic Party did nothing to Flanagan save not take sufficient notice of her assailants. And for that they get lambasted in the pages of Time. Flanagan also writes:

I have made a lifestyle choice that they can't stand, and I'm not cowering in the closet because of it. I'm out, and I'm proud. I am a happy member of an exceedingly "traditional" family. I'm in charge of the house and the kids, my husband is in charge of the finances and the car maintenance, and we all go to church every Sunday.

Her husband is a topflight television executive. She is a writer for The New Yorker. They have a nanny. They are exceedingly rich, and she has to make no tough economic choices between time with the kids and money for the rent. There ain't nothing "traditional" about that.

So sez I. Work-at-home-mom does not equal stay-at-home-mom. It's a fine distinction she can't seem to grasp. Her blindness to that distinction, willful or no, is also in a sense what makes her argument about "choosing" the life of a housewife problematic. Regardless of whether she's at the TIME magazine office, or sitting at home in front of the computer in her bathrobe, Flanagan is still acting as a public person. She is mistaking the domestic sphere as merely her physical space not the intellectual space she inhabits. Because her workspace allows her to pass to and fro between that intellectual public space and that domestic private space she has the luxury of choosing--or rather appearing to choose--the life of a housewife.

One the attractions of a career in writing is the hope of achieving the freedom to work at home and hopefully balance life between career and family. I freely admit that it was on my mind when I decided to go into academia. The reality I’m beginning to find (and this is as a single person ) is that sometimes that clear delineation between workspace and home is necessary both for productivity and for peace of mind. Flanagan would probably do better exploring the pitfalls of this particular problem instead of taking one kind of life choice and calling it another.

As far as claiming to be the “beaten wife of the Democratic Party,” oh please shut the hell up. In the first place--hello--bad metaphor. If it’s meant to be ironic it fails miserably, coming off as both overdramatic and morbid given the context. In the second, as far as people the Democratic Party have left behind, you honey are at the rear of the pack.

Friday Malamute Blogging

I'm a million years late to the Friday pet blogging party. Call it laziness or whatever. But here's the pride and joy of the house, Kodiak, seen here in his infancy. In future posts I hope to, with the help of red rabbit, look back fondly over the many mishaps of puppy rearing, and of course keep you updated on current escapades. Suffice to say, that our darling pup has a destructive streak that rivals a certain lil' bastard we all know and love. His kill list includes: two crates (one labeled "gorilla proof"), two giant dog beds, uncountable stuffed toys, at least five pairs of shoes, three milk crates, a lovely expensive Picasso book, at least one paycheck, and several pieces of mail. He hasn't moved to electronics yet, but we have our fingers crossed for this year.

Thank You, Stephen!

Talk About Missing the Point

I'm going to go ahead and jump in with my two cents about Steven Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondent's dinner. You can see the video here, and Atrios has hightlights here.

First of all Colbert is balsiness personified for entering the vipers' den and refusing to pull punches.

That being said, what the hell were they expecting when they invited him to speak? Methinks the geniuses in DC don't get the joke that is The Colbert Report. It's easy to get lost in the jocularity and over the top bloviating, but if you missed the way in which he eviscerated both Michael Brown and Caitlan Flanagan earlier this month, then you clearly have no idea of how lethal Colbert can be when let loose among the stupid, the cowardly, and the hypocritical. Or rather, you didn't, until now.

The View from Paris

Ah, so much to blog about...so little time. First things first: the Mona Lisa. I've not seen a reproduction that does her justice. And, yes, I shot this pic clandestinely because now no photos are allowed on the first floors of the Louvre.


As we've walked around Paris the last few weeks it's quite clear that our French cousins don't share our fear of, and distate for seeing, the naked female form. That is, if by "we" I meant John Ashcroft--which I did.


I mean, that whole episode of Ashcroft covering up the statue of Blind Justice at the Justice Department must've given the French, and probably all of Europe, a huge cramp from the belly laugh they experienced for days on end. I would love to have seen Bernard Henri-Levy immediately disavow even thinking "We're all Americans."


If I was bringing back a souvenir for John Ashcroft this would be it.

The Passion of the Peeps

adopt your own virtual pet!

Here's something for your Easter basket.

After waiting outside overnight to be among the first to enter this year's White House Easter Egg Roll, families in line were surprised to learn that the White House had changed the ticketing policy for the annual event, PageOneQ has learned.

The unannounced change means that the families who waited in line the longest, in one case for twenty-four hours, will not be among the visitors at the event's opening ceremonies. The first families in line, who were not part of the LGBT family group, received tickets with an 11:00am entrance time, two hours later than the opening time listed in the White House press release.

Yeah, I don't put too much stock into the idea that this is the beginning of something new for President Bunnypants. Still, it's interesting to note that they're scrambling for all the good press they can get right now.

So Very Wrong

I'm almost afraid to post this, but I can't resist.

A nude Britney Spears on a bearskin rug while giving birth to her firstborn marks a ‘first’ for Pro-Life. Pop-star Britney Spears is the “ideal” model for Pro-Life and the subject of a dedication at Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg gallery district, in what is proclaimed the first Pro-Life monument to birth, in April.

Dedication of the life-sized statue celebrates the recent birth of Spears’ baby boy, Sean, and applauds her decision of placing family before career. “A superstar at Britney’s young age having a child is rare in today’s celebrity culture. This dedication honors Britney for the rarity of her choice and bravery of her decision,” said gallery co-director, Lincoln Capla. The dedication includes materials provided by Manhattan Right To Life Committee.

“Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston,” believed Pro-Life’s first monument to the ‘act of giving birth,’ is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears’ pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean’s head.

Oh. My. God.

Leaving aside the sheer tastelessness of this statue for the moment (and whoa Nelly, it is tasteless), one has to admire the ballsiness of the pro-lifers for taking the poster girl bad trailer park moms and setting her up as an icon for motherhood. Now I have to go rinse my eyes out and forget that I ever saw those pictures.

McGruder Owes Us

Anybody think he reads M&M's?

Short Takes

On the Oscars: Responding to Three 6 Mafia’s winning the Academy Award for best song, Steven Levitt, University of Chicago Economics Professor and author of Freakonomics, announces he’s going to find out if it really is hard out there for a pimp. Responding to critics, Levitt said, “I think we’ve got the right data sets, so back up off me!”

On higher education: John Tierney and David Brooks of the New York Times launch a petition campaign to reinstate Harvard President Larry Summers. The petition also calls for replacing the Harvard Arts and Sciences faculty with Times columnists and for abolishing nationwide all forms of job security for anyone earning less than $500,000 annually.

On Katrina: The Wall Street Journal, after insisting that pre-storm briefings provided to President Bush warned only that the levees would be overtopped and not breached, observed that everyone knows that for Bush “it’s all a matter of details and semantics. He’s always looking for the fine print and nuance.” To prove its point the Journal recalled Bush’s response to the pre-9/11 daily intelligence briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside US.” Reportedly Bush told those around him, “This only tells us about Bin Laden’s state of mind. He’s a determined guy. Hell, I’m a determined guy, and I’m not about to do anything. Get back to me when you’ve got something concrete.” Returning to the highlights of Bush’s Katrina response, the Journal wrote, “And finally, it takes a truly unique individual to make Michael Brown look like a capable public servant.”

On books: C-Span books will discuss Michael Eric Dyson’s latest release, Is Mrs. Wimberly Right? Dyson explains that Wimberly was the seventh-grade teacher who told him he’d never amount to anything if he didn’t learn to think before he talked.” The subtitle of Dyson’s book is: “Or is knowledge overrated?”

On the polls: After looking at his 34% approval rating in the wake of his efforts to sell authority for US ports to the highest bidder, to sell high-level government posts to campaign contributors, to sell Social Security up the river, and to sell an illegal and increasingly unpopular war to the American public, President Bush is heard to mutter, “It is hard out here for a pimp.”