The Brittle Hum of the Republic

Claude Levi-Strauss

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A very important intellectual figure has just died.

One afternoon, chatting with one of my Sociology profs in her office, I was handed an idea which has proved to be a source of continuing illumination into all the ways in which we humans can be seen to imagine reality.

That idea, from the fertile mind of this amazing man, was that when we consider abstract notions, we begin by using or assuming a pair of binary opposites – good/evil, black/white, etc. We impose that conceptual framing or architecture over what we are trying to understand or make sense of. It may not be, indeed probably rarely ever is, an accurate reflection of the real world but using this simplistic conceptual framework allows us to begin thinking about whatever the abstract subject is.

One interesting aspect to consider here is how some people in certain circumstances seem to be unable to formulate a more nuanced or complicated conceptual mapping (shades of grey, to use the cliche) but stand firm in their insistence/certainty that the simplistic framing of binary or polar opposities represents the most valuable and fundamental truth of things, a ‘truth’ which is in danger of being lost if one allows nuance and complexity. These are the humans that scare me.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Detritus

Walt Whitman sells Levis

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Now here’s a bloody bright ad.    You move through wondering if it might actually foment a youth movement…

 

h/t Andrew Sullivan

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Detritus

The Muslim threat to American rationalism

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Is the John Hagee/Joe Lieberman alliance of right-wing American Jews and evangelical Christians — based on the premise that God demands that all land, including the West Bank and Gaza, be possessed by Jews — devoted to the advancement of “the Western way of reason”?  Is the platform of the Texas GOP — which calls for the criminalization of all sex between gay adults; the denial of all custody rights to gay people, even over their own children; the teaching of creationism in all public schools; and the denial of medical care to prisoners other than those who can pay for it — an example of “the Western way of reason”?   How about the Catholic Church’s proselytizing against birth control in areas of the world drowning in poverty, AIDS and overpopulation?  Are torture, Guantanamo, Bagram, disappearing people, immunizing war criminals and multiple decade-long wars shining examples of “the Western way of reason”?  How about invading a country on totally false pretenses, shattering and destroying it, and causing the deaths of at least 100,000 human beings?

Hey – look over there.  Muslims.  They’re waging war on reason and taking over.  We have to unite to stop them. Glenn Greenwald

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Propaganda · Religious right
Tagged:

Drat

Monday, October 26, 2009 · 5 Comments

h/t Andrew Sullivan

→ 5 CommentsCategories: Detritus

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Monday, October 26, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Lynn Vincent made headlines when she was selected as the ghostwriter for Sarah Palin’s soon-to-be-bestselling memoir, “Going Rogue.” As an editor at the Christian World magazine, Vincent has railed against abortion rights, gay marriage and the theory of evolution. She is also the coauthor of the book “Donkey Cons,” which purports to prove, among other claims, “how Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy were elected with the help of the mob.” Her coauthor on that book, Robert Stacey McCain (no relation to John McCain) has spoken outagainst interracial marriage.

ghostwriters from outside the solar system

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Future of the GOP and conservative movement
Tagged: ,

Dolphin football

Sunday, October 25, 2009 · Leave a Comment

h/t crooks and liars

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Detritus

If Gypsy’s ruled the world

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 · Leave a Comment

h/t crooks and liars

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Today's music

Cheney v 2.0

Thursday, October 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment

As I suggested below, the RNC types may be setting up Liz Cheney for a political run at the presidency or, perhaps more likely, the VP slot.  It’s a bit difficult to game out what these incredible jerks are up to.

As announced recently, Cheney is being pushed forward as one of the heads (along with Bill Kristol) of “Keep America Safe”. Maureen Dowd writes:

Kristol joked to Politico’s Ben Smith that the venture might serve as a launching pad for Liz to run for office. (A Senate bid from Virginia, where she lives, or Wyoming, which she still calls home?)

That raises the terrifying specter that some day we could see a Palin-Cheney ticket, promoted by Kristol.

Sarah would bring her content-free crackle and gut instincts; Liz would bring facts and figures distorted by ideology. Pretty soon, we’re pre-emptively invading Iran and the good times are rolling all over again.

Michelle Cottle at TNR adds her thoughts here

We’ll recall that one of the valid and biting arguments against George W Bush running for the presidency was that he was a mental lightweight and that the addition of Dick Cheney to the ticket (Cheney was in charge of choosing a VP and chose himself) added “gravitas”.  This notion was all the rage in punditry at the time.  And (with the help of the Supreme Court) it worked.  An immature, ex-alcoholic, anti-intellectual with a C average gained the position of President and did the posturing while Cheney pretty much ran the show.

We might be looking at a reprise.

Update: Scott Horton has more on “Keep America Terrified”

h/t Andrew Sullivan

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Future of the GOP and conservative movement

The illustrated book of Genesis, delivered by the hand of Crumb

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 · Leave a Comment

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Detritus
Tagged: ,

Bright and imaginative as hell, but one understands the “banned” status

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment

h/t andrew sullivan

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Detritus
Tagged:

Kinda cool

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Infrared telescope discovers huge ring around Saturn previously unseen…

NASA photo

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Detritus
Tagged: ,

Cheney?

Monday, October 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Interesting bit in this Carville/Matalin interview on CNN yesterday. It isn’t Carville’s observation that Glenn Beck is both nuts and seriously stupid about everything. Rather it is Matalin’s attempted narrative…

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/05/beck-pundits-sunday/

“So what he [Beck] has tapped into is really, really what I think is going to be the dispositive future for us. Maligned mothers.”

I’ve heard Matalin use “dispositive” before and it’s always awkward because the word is almost never used outside of a legal context and because few people know the term (I had to look it up to make sure my sense of it was correct).

But aside from that, the really interesting point here is the “future for us” (Republicans/conservatives) will be “maligned mothers”.

First, have any of you heard Beck talking about maligned mothers? I haven’t.

Second, it’s pretty obvious who Matalin is speaking of here and that’s Palin. More accurately, the Palin of propaganda narrative…media/liberal victimized and maligned female with offspring. Dollars to donuts that narrative will be a/the key narrative in Palin’s book.

How does this serve (or hope to serve) Republican propaganda and electoral purposes? As with PUMA, Clintons4McCain etc, it’s an attempt to pull women towards voting Republican, obviously. Second, it’s another means to make the mainstream media (the non conservative noise machine media structures) look invalid or biased. Third, it’s a means to forward Palin as a candidate OR to use Palin (who won’t run) as a supportive voice in forwarding another female candidate. And if that’s it, that other female would be Liz Cheney.

(cross-posted at Plumline)

Update: It is difficult to imagine that the Republican crowd does not have hopes and plans for Ms Cheney.  But I wanted to note an opinion on Palin advanced by Joe Trippi last evening.  He suggested that she would be used for fundraising (which of course also means motivating an activist base).  That’s a smart take on this and a clear possibility.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Future of the GOP and conservative movement
Tagged: ,

Where it all started

Monday, October 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I know, I’ve said this before.  But I think it bears repeating.  Clearly, Jesus was born in Denmark.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Center-right nation
Tagged:

Youssou Ndour

Monday, October 5, 2009 · 2 Comments

h/t Crooks and Liars

And if this doesn’t make you cry a bit, I don’t like you.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Today's music
Tagged:

Greenwald, Scahill and Flanders on the modern media

Monday, October 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

This is an extraordinary discussion.  Don’t miss it.  God knows how many arguments I have had with other leftie/liberal types on the accuracy and credibility of Noam Chomsky’s analysis of modern media as handmaiden to the powerful and wealthy but it has been many more than it ought to have been.  These three very bright people get it.

Here

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Media failures · Propaganda
Tagged: , , , , ,

Short history lesson

Thursday, October 1, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Moral decay? Or deregulation?

Andrew Leonard is unhappy with my colleague David Brooks for suggesting that rising debt in America reflects moral decay. Surprisingly, however, Leonard doesn’t make what I thought was the most compelling critique.

David points out, correctly, that something changed around 1980 — that consumers started spending a larger share of national income and that debt began increasing. Although he doesn’t point this out, this was also when the federal government first began running substantial deficits even in good years.

David would have you believe that what happened then was a decline in Calvinist virtue. But, um, didn’t something else happen around 1980? Can’t quite remember .. someone whose name begins with the letter “R”?

Yes, Reagan did it.

The turn to budget deficits was a direct result of the new, Irving-Kristol inspired political strategy of pushing tax cuts without worrying about the “accounting deficiencies of government.”

Meanwhile, the surge in household debt can largely be attributed to financial deregulation.

So what happened? Did we lose our economic morality? No, we were the victims of politics.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Economic stuff

Goys, God, dentistry and “A Serious Man”

Thursday, October 1, 2009 · Leave a Comment

The chances you have something better to do right now than read this are close to zero.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Detritus
Tagged: ,

Under the heading of “Holy Shit!”

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 · 3 Comments

Matt Yglesias drops this graph into a short discussion on a recent Krugman column or post.  Note, if you will, the two lines that show a 1 to 1 correspondence.

The institutionalization of militarism.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: Economic stuff · Military matters
Tagged:

Sarah Palin, author

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Sarah has penned a book and it will be out just in time for Christmas.  And the title apparently is “Going Rogue”.

Let us briefly weight the number of tons of bullshit in just the above.

Update: Palin’s ghostwriter is revealed

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Bullshit Blunderbuss
Tagged:

Boom dee adda

Monday, September 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

h/t Andrew Sullivan

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Detritus
Tagged: