Slideshow excitement!

No, really. I was impressed and pleased. Here's a (slightly edited) CC of an email I just sent off to InfoQ, a site I just learned about. I'm posting it here just in case any of you also like to watch video presentations online. (And also to show that it is possible to write just three times in one and a half sentences.)

I just finished watching Steve Vinoski's talk, "Innovation: What Every Developer Absolutely Needs to Know." I have never watched a talk on InfoQ before, so maybe I'm about to mention something you've had in place for years. If so, I apologize.

In any case, I really enjoyed the way the slides automatically advanced with the progress of the video. It made for a significantly better viewing experience than watching a video and trying to deal with the slides myself, whether in-browser or as a separate download. Thanks and kudos to whoever came up with the concept and implemented it so smoothly.

Brendan Keefe

P.S. If you're wondering about the utm_source in the subject line, that refers to an email newsletter I get, called Status Code. Here's the web version of the email.

To: Libby Reinish, FreePress.net, Re: "You vs. Obama, Murdoch and Limbaugh"

Libby:

I might be inclined to support the idea of protesting further media consolidation, but sorry, I am not going to participate in any action which equates Barack Obama with Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh. We already have enough trouble in this country with mindless loudmouths yelling "they're all the same." (See also #firebaggers and #emoprogs.)

I believe this "all the same" attitude exacerbates the problem of the rightward drift of the Democratic Party, not to mention the undue clout given to the wingnuts, by aggravating the apathy among people who are more or less liberal. Especially young people.

I am well aware that it's believed necessary to scream in Subject lines to get attention in the Inboxes of this Internet, but this time, your approach has backfired.

Brendan Keefe

---

[Added] on a related note, see Zandar, via Frank Chow. I will treasure this phrase for days:

... despite being arrogant and subservient at the same time while remaining worse than Bush.

Add your voice!

[Update] If you use Firefox, check out the add-on RightToClick. Details in Comments below.

__________

No, this time, it's not an issue of global importance, like some others I've asked for your help on. This time it's personal.

Below is a copy of an email I sent this morning. If you're bugged by the same thing, why not let them know? Thanks.

Sent: 1/24/2012 08:45:10 AM
To: "Feedback, NYT" <feedback at nytimes.com>
URL: (pretty much every page on the site)
Comments:

Hello,

Do you think that now that you're charging for access to the site, you could eliminate the hugely annoying Javascript that breaks the context (right-click) menu? Please?

[Added to this CC: Screenshot here, in case you don't know what I'm talking about. [-- ed.]]

I mean, let's face it. It doesn't work to stop copying, if that's why it's there, because both the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-c and the Copy choice under the Edit menu still work. And if the reason you're doing it is to get people to use that pop-up search thing, that's really a bad decision. That thing almost never works. It didn't work when it was "powered by Ask," and it doesn't work now that it's "powered by Wordnik." It is mystified, just to take one example, by people's names, which is the thing I'm most likely to want to look up while reading an article.

What I'd really like to do when I highlight some text and right-click on it is what I get to do on practically every other site on the Web: search for that highlighted text using what I have specified as my browser's default search engine. (The results of such searches, by the way, open in a new tab, so it's not as though even this is going to lose you visitors who don't know what the back button is.)

Please fix this. It is a glaring annoyance on an otherwise very fine site -- the only one I pay to access. Worse, it is an amateurish and failed attempt at something that seems motivated by nothing so much as Web-phobic newspaper bosses from the last century.

Thank you.

Brendan Keefe

P.S. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to discuss further.

Net Neutrality and the Congressional Black Caucus

That fine organization, Color of Change, whom you know from their Turn Off Fox campaign (see sidebar) has put together an open letter and a petition addressed to the Congressional Black Caucus. CoC says some in the CBC are either misinformed or excessively catering to their corporate donors, and calls upon them to reconsider the stances they have been taking.

You can read the letter and sign the petition here. If you want more background, have a look at the email CoC sent out to its members this morning.

I added this postscript to mine:

Dear CBC Members:

I understand that all non-billionaire members of Congress have to take money in order to stay in office, and I believe that most of you do so because you sincerely think there are "greater good" principles at stake.

But I will tell you this: if you knuckle under on this one, and allow yourself to be bought off by Big Telco, you have lost forever your right to claim that you speak on behalf of the little guy, let alone anyone who is downtrodden.

--bjk

You never know what might work until you pitch in and try. Please add your voice.

Olde English 1700

This past Saturday, KK mentioned a short interview with Jim Bouton on NPR, and while looking for it online (found it, and holy cats, has it really been forty years?), I also happened across this post on Baby Got Books.

As is my occasional wont, I chose a gnat at which to strain, in lieu of the … meat … of the rest of the post. In this case, it was the term road beef, which is apparently the less savory? more succulent? way of referring to Baseball Annies, at least according to that paragon of our modern society, Jose Canseco.

Here is the comment I left over there.

I looked at some of the Google results for “road beef,” and at first, I was going to take you to task for saying Canseco had originated the phrase.

However, the results from long ago appear to be an artifact of (1) the archaic f-for-s substitution and (2) more worryingly, the Google’s OCR’s inability to recognize that “roaft beef” is not “road beef.”

Nonetheless, this bit from 1761 is worth passing along, I think, at least for those who enjoy juvenile double-entendre-ing as much as I do. It’s from p212 of “The London magazine, or, Gentleman’s monthly intelligencer, Volume 30.”

["Road" instead of "Roaft" purposely left in. -bjk]

Air, A lovely Lafs, &c.

Road Beef ! belov’d by all mankind,
If I was doom’d to have thee,

When drefs’d and garnifh’d to my mind,
And fwirhming in thy gravy,

Not all thy country’s force combin’d,
Shou’d from my tury fave thee.

Renown’d Sir Loin, ofttimes decreed
The theme of Englifh ballad,

E’en kings on thee have joy’d to feed,
Unknown to Frenchman’s palate.

O how much doth thy tafte exceed
Soup-meagre, frogs, and fallad.

(Link.)

Given the rep I suspect I already possess among waitresses, I'd probably do best not to order the steak the next few times I eat out, don't you think?

PM Discussions with Twin, #145: The Crazific--

Oh, no, wait. That's that other guy, who writes better blog posts than I do.

In any case, continuing in the spirit of re-posting things I have been yelling at someone who already pretty much agrees with me, here is something I said to Twin after he told me a story about a friend getting a job after finding out his unemployment benefits were going to run out sooner than he thought. (His friend had been getting some additional education and planned to finish that before his bennies ran out, then go out on the hunt with his new credentials. He ended up getting a job that he would have wanted anyway, which, as Twin pointed out, would be the kind of story the Republicans in Congress would love to tell you.) Maybe re-posting this will be an infinitesimal drop that will add up with a bunch of others, and eventually amount to enough of a cleansing torrent that we can get some of these bastards out of office, and out doing real jobs, like producing reality teevee or lobbying for Big Pharma.

We now join our rant, already in progress …

Well, sure. It is Econ 101, if not Human Nature 101, to say that if you give a group of people money for doing nothing, some of them are going to be happy to just sit and collect.

The problem I have with the Republicans is that in all their self-righteousness about this (not to mention their frequent dog-whistling), they fail to acknowledge several other things that are just as true as the above. For example: some people will make good use of the time and stipend to better themselves, as with your friend's example. This sort of behavior is to the benefit of the economy and society.

As you also point out, there are different degrees of difficulty in getting another job. Skill set, age, skin color, geographic location, and probably several other factors are non-trivial here.

I'd also say, though it's probably hard to be empirical about, that a significant chunk of people in any group start feeling very uneasy about doing nothing but sitting around on the dole. Just as it is human nature to enjoy free lunches for a while, it is also human nature to get sick of being in this position -- pretty quickly, on average -- and to desire, greatly, to have a sense of self-worth, to feel as though one is pulling one's weight, being self-sufficient, contributing to the general good, etc.

It should also be said that unemployment benefits do not exactly allow one to live the life of Riley, particularly if the recipient is not the second income-earner for a household, but the primary one. This is even more the case for those who need the UBs most -- typically, such people have been living paycheck to paycheck or close to it, due to the unbalanced nature of our system. Blue- and pink-collar workers are often the first to go, the least well-positioned to able to deal with a sudden loss of income (and benefits), and among those who find it hardest to get another job.

Therefore, as part of the governance of an entire nation, it is the depth of heartlessness and pigheadedness to vote against extending a program merely because you can imagine that someone, somewhere is taking a little bit of advantage of it. Especially when you are also ready to go to the mat to protect things like military hardware contracts and agribusiness subsidies.

Not "you" you, of course. And I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. But, as with the McCain situation, sometimes I just have to type these things out.

Pardon Our Venting. Mood Under Construction.

I've been chatting with Twin about the Man Who Will Be Senator Forever Since You Bastards Wouldn't Give Him The Presidency He So Richly Deserved After All Of His Service And By The Way Have You Forgotten THAT HE WAS A POW, and well, why should Twin have to absorb all of my bile, even if he did ask for it? So here is your chat transcript (leaked from GangOfJournolist12).

Originally Posted by TwinSwords

Key graf:

"... McCain has noticeably veered right on issues ..."

[TPM link]

Originally Posted by bjkeefe

Yep. Been noticing this for a while now.

Also.

Originally Posted by TwinSwords

So, even if the tea party candidate loses, we end up with a Republican Party that's to the right of where it was before. Right? Or is McCain sui generis? Or another possibility, is McCain not really moving to the right, but only paying lip service to the tea baggers?

Originally Posted by bjkeefe

My first reaction when I saw the poll numbers and how far he is ahead of Hayworth was: So why did you have to lurch so far to the right, Mr. So-Called Maverick Who Puts Country First? Fuck you, your craven careerism, and your junkie's need for the spotlight.

But you know what? Ever since the early 2000s, when it became clear that McCain was laying the groundwork for another run, after getting beaten on his right by W, I have had no respect for him expect [corr: except] in a Machiavellian sense: (1) he knows he owns the Villagers, (2) no matter how far right he campaigns, he knows he'll be able to get a good chunk of low-info voters and bonehead "I hate the divisiveness" centrists, precisely because of (1), (3) he knows he will never be able to get most of the left, no matter what he does, due to the (R) after his name, so he's figured out a working strategy that has kept him in office since 1982.

As to how much more St. John will stay to the right once safely ensconced for another six years, well, I would ask, how much further could he go? I can't think of a single damn thing he's done to buck the party line on any issue of any importance since McCain-Feingold and some decade-old talking points on immigration reform.

I wanted Hayworth to win because I figured he'd be easier to beat in the general, and that if he got past that, then he'd be an better face of the GOP to go after once he was in office. I am sick beyond words of the phoniness of John McCain and how so few in the MSM will ever call him on it, and that's not even taking into account his disgraceful choice of St. Sarah for a running mate.

P.S. I wanted to double-check that 1982 date, and while Googling, I happened across this more tempered view (via someone who belongs in that previous paragraph): Dick Polman's "The tragedy of John McCain." A good read, that may help you understand where the bug up my ass came from, should you care, and worth it for other reasons, as well.

(pic. source)

---

As it happened, Twin took a break from the back and forth above (due to "work" or some shit) and then when he came back, to see my message requesting his permission to share the above, he had in mind a new line he wanted to pursue. Since this is my blog and I wanted to have the last word, because that's how I do I'd like to encourage others to jump in, I have posted Twin's next response in the Comments. Pile in! Or on!

A Note to Ed Whelan

Here's a copy of an email I just sent to one of the yahoos who blogs over at National Review Online. (Yeah, that National Review.) I have added a link to the body of the text, so that you will know what's going on.

To: Ed Whelan
Subject: Stay classy, Ed

Ed:

Just saw that you outed publius, evidently because you couldn't win a blogospat on the merits.

A low blow. And typically Republican. No wonder you all are so far in the minority.

Brendan Keefe

For the record, I used to be fairly vehemently opposed to anonymous posting online, and I did not see a difference between that and pseudonymous blogging. I have since changed my mind about that -- there are too many stories out there about people suffering real consequences from having their meatspace identities made public. An online pseudonym is effectively a distinct entity, I now believe, and if people want to publish under online identities, that's fine with me. I'd rather have them being honest about their thoughts, and if using a pen name helps, that's all to the good, as far as I'm concerned. In any case, outing a person against his or her will by revealing personal information is reprehensible behavior, and I felt that way even before I understood the difference between anonymous commenters and pseudonymous bloggers.

(h/t: Sadly, No!)

---

[Added] Pretty funny that Ed Whelan currently draws a wingnut welfare check from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, isn't it? The EPPC says they are "dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy."

If you didn't already know, Whelan has lately been one of the leading attack dogs out there spreading FUD about Judge Sotomayor. Previously, he worked in the Bush White House, in the Office of Legal Counsel, around the time all those fun torture memos were being drawn up.

Those Republicans and their Orwellianisms, huh?

[Added2] More here and here.

An email to Mike Allen of Politico

I don't much visit Politico's site anymore. Now that the campaign is over, I don't have any interest in the Very Latest, ten-minute-shelf-life gossip, and I find their increasingly rightward slant by turns ham-handed and pathetic. However, that bastard TBogg tortured tricked me into reading an excerpt from one of their posts, and it was so far over the top that I … that I … fired off an angry email! Maybe I will even Twitter about this! Bow down, Mike Allen! YOU OWE ME AWE.

I sent the "email" through the microscopic complaint box on his fancy profile page. This box doesn't even have a subject line, just to be sure you get the hint that there is no chance in hell he will ever read it. Here is a CC, so that you may laugh at my ineffectual bleatings, along with instead of him.

Mike:

In your post "Obama consulted widely on memos," you allowed a "former top official" in the Bush Administration to comment anonymously. The official was not talking about anything that could have hidden behind the usual "not authorized to speak on this issue" dodge. He or she was not sharing any sensitive information. From your description, he or she is not even part of the government anymore. He or she was only giving what might politely be called an opinion, and would more honestly would be called fear-mongering spin.

You should not have used this person's statement if he or she was too gutless to go on the record. You let yourself get used as a mouthpiece. This is either obvious bias in favor of the GOP or the worst form of stenography on your part.

I know it is your organization's policy to try to "win" every news cycle, but this one gets marked down in the loss column. Journalistic independence and credibility still count for something, you know. Or should know.

Brendan Keefe

Another Sure-to-be-Futile Plea

CC of an email I just sent to the crew of something I used to look forward to:

To: The Gabfest
Subj: Gripes about the 3/13 show

Gabfesters:

The podcast this week was brutal. It has brought to a head the vague irritations that have been growing over the past few weeks. It seems to me that lately, the bulk of what you've been talking about is either unwarranted privileging into mainstream discourse of the mud-slinging from the right-wing noise machine, or talking about the talk about the talk about stupid stuff no one should waste time talking about.

I swear, the Cocktail Chatter segment has been the most substantive part of the podcast for at least a month. Maybe you should start with that part instead of ending with it, because the topics you touch on there sound far more interesting than drivel about the First Lady's arms or the perceived "smugness" of the Obama Administration. If the Cocktail Chatter topics go nowhere, fine, you can go with your planned stuff. But if you get to talking about them and have to drop the all-important "how do we feel about how others feel about how people feel about Michelle's biceps?" topic, so much the better.

And for the love of all that is holy about the English language, will you please, please, please stop saying "optics?" That word is more stale than "thrown under the bus," even though that's exactly what should happen to it.

A nearly erstwhile listener,

Brendan Keefe

Thug

For my money, James Wolcott is exactly right. While I won't pretend to know Arnold Kling's inner feelings, there's no getting away from the choices Wolcott lays out: "... he's either fatuously clueless--too innocent for this wicked world--or weaselly disingenuous, and a drama queen either way."

Here's a repost of the comment I left on Kling's blog, where he and many of his fans did protest too much:

I think Bob Murphy has said the smartest thing in this entire comment thread. [*] As is so often the case, a little humor can carry a lot of truth.

Look, like it or not, people hear and read a lot of meaning into words. I almost never use niggardly because too many people misunderstand it. It's really not the end of the world for me, and it's not hurting my back to bend a little backwards to show some sensitivity, even if they're wrong and I'm right to use it as a synonym for cheap.

Similarly, it is disingenuous to pretend that no one should hear thug without some people hearing a racist codeword. The fact is, the word has been used for exactly that purpose for at least a couple of decades now. Not by everybody, not always, but not never, either.

I grant that there is some hysteria among Obama supporters, being rabbit-eared for racist speech. But there's an obvious reason why that is so, and why it's entirely understandable, even if it's not always correct.

It really isn't the end of the world to restrict oneself from using thug in connection with Obama. To show this extra bit of sensitivity and awareness does not at all mean that you're forbidden from criticizing him. Be your age, Steve Sailer and others.

I'll tell you one more thing for free: it has been my experience throughout my entire life that those who howl the loudest when being chastised for using a problematic word tend overwhelmingly to be the ones most likely to want to slip in some real racist sentiments with their words. If this does not describe you, then just calm yourself, realize that there are half a million words in the English language alone, and find some other ones to use to express your disagreements with our first black president.

---

* To save you the tedium of searching through that comment thread, what Bob Murphy said was this:

Arnold,

Just don't say the Republican stimulus package is niggardly.

A Word From The Grammar Grinch

(A comment first posted on Salon)

Mr. Keillor:

A nice set of sentiments and an enjoyable read, overall.

I do have to say, though, that it appears as though Joan Walsh made some poor choices during her recent cutbacks -- does no one proofread at this joint anymore?

I was first irked by this:

This city enables one to leap or pipe pretty much whenever you feel like it ...

I can appreciate that "enables one to leap ... whenever one feels like it" sounds a bit stuffy, but if you're going to use the second person, use it. Don't be ashamed of it. It's perfectly acceptable in all but the most formal of writing these days.

This is just inexcusable:

A man gets a keener sense of the divine in a church that is not your own.

Particularly coming from a man who insists on saying. "Whom are you kidding?"

Nitpickingly yours,
Brendan

Good Gabfest This Week

This week's Gabfest was especially good. If you haven't heard of this podcast, and you like insider political bantering, give it a listen.

Here's a copy of the email I sent to them afterwards. (Warning: minor spoilers. If you're planning on listening, you may want to skip this for the moment.)

Hi, all,

David made an argument for the US supporting strongmen-type leaders in other countries, in the interest of favoring order over freedom, and said that not only was this something that "worked" from the perspective of US self-interest, but was also better for the people in those countries.

While I take his point about there being something to be said for an orderly, if repressive, society when looked at in terms of the amount of hassle an ordinary person would have to deal with day-to-day, I was glad that Emily and Hanna pushed back against this. One point that they did not make, which I was shouting (virtually) at my speakers was this: it is empirically true that favoring strongmen over encouraging democracy and other reforms has directly caused any number of the problems we're dealing with today. I don't claim democracy is a panacea, but there's no getting around the reality that decades of suppression have aggravated a number of regions and peoples, and further, that the US has been easy to portray as the enemy by discontented groups because of its historical role in these matters.

My two cents. In other bloviating ...

I liked the spousal bickering. I thought David's lead-in the Cocktail Chatter was hilariously catty -- "a great piece on XX Factor that neither of you wrote." I'd give that a zing.

Hanna's Cocktail Chatter about the schism in the Episcopal/Anglican Church was a good topic. I did happen to know about this from reading the NY Times article last night, so it didn't seem so insider-y to me. However, good comeback by her to the torment that Emily and David were laying on her -- "Twilight was an excellent movie."

Finally, it was a major relief to hear Emily and not to have to suffer through Ann Althouse in the same conversation. I hope to see you on Bloggingheads.tv more often, Emily, but not at that price. I encourage you to agitate for different partners.

Good show, all around. Thanks.

No, I have no idea why I felt compelled to share that with the world, either. But there it is. Maybe it will be of interest to the group that is the intersection of the set of people who read this blog and the set of people who listen to the Gabfest. Legions!

__________

On an unrelated note, the Firefox spell-checker does not like afterwards. It prefers afterward. I am aware that I am in the habit of using the former, since I keep getting this red underline treatment. I haven't overridden the spell-checker's behavior by adding afterwards to the personal dictionary for some reason, being unsure whether I'm wrong about this.

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English says, "Both variants are Standard in American English." Paul Brians implicitly seconds this, I guess, since he does not flag this as an error. Garbl, however, does not approve of the trailing S.

Your thoughts?

And when we settle this, we can move on to the considerably thornier toward/towards dilemma. And you thought the Episcopal Church schism was news.

CC: Email to Instapundit

Following a link from TBogg to a recent Instapundit post, I was moved to send the following to Glenn Reynolds:

Prof. Reynolds:

I was pointed to a recent post you did on media bias. I read that one and the earlier one of yours that you linked to from within that post. I also remember reading, a few days back, a post you did passing along a report from an anonymous source in a "major outlet's newsroom" (I think that's how you put it), describing how that outlet was "in the tank" for Obama.

I take by your implication from the latest of these posts that you would not claim that Fox News is an unbiased source of news. (Or perhaps you would.) At any rate, I would be curious if you'd offer some examples of news sources that you view as mostly having a neutral point of view, and/or a consistent ability to report the news objectively, particularly as it concerns the presidential election.

Thanks.

Brendan Keefe

I imagine he gets more email than he has time to answer, but if he does, I'll pass along his responses. Also, if anyone happens to notice this question being addressed on Instapundit, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know.

Crabbing at the Gabfest

The following is a copy of an email that I sent to the crew of Slate's "Gabfest" podcast. I have added links here; I sent them plain text out of fear of their spam filter.

Modified portions of the following were originally posted by me on the BH.tv forum.

---

To: gabfest@[you can probably guess]
Subject: Is there a second candidate for president or not?

Hello, Gabbers,

Here's a partial transcript from the opening of this week's Gabfest ("The Semisweet Gabfest"), David speaking:

"Today we're going to talk about the usual three topics. The first one will be Barack Obama and all the various excitements about him this week including the Jesse Jackson episode, and then we'll talk about Iran firing some missiles, and then we will talk the mystery topic, about a chocolate chip cookie recipe."

Exactly. The "usual three topics." I listen to the Gabfest every week, and I've concluded that by "usual," you mean "Obama for sure," "two other things," and "anything but He Whose Maverickly War-Hero-ness Shall Not Be Questioned." Once again, you neglected to say much of anything about the many twists and turns of John McCain and his campaign.

Why is he not worthy of the same scrutiny as Barack Obama? I mean, you spent minutes talking about the clothes, hairstyle, and future pets of Obama's daughters, for cripes' sake. Did McCain really do nothing this past week that might, just possibly, outweigh that in importance?

Maybe you could have talked about the increasingly obvious bias for McCain on the part of the Associated Press (that erstwhile paragon of objectivity) being documented by, among others, The Carpetbagger Report and Talking Points Memo?

Maybe gaffes are more to your taste? Okay, then how about McCain surrogates Giuliani and Romney questioning whether Obama is "American enough," surrogate-in-chief Joe Lieberman spreading the meme that Obama is "no friend of Israel," chief economic advisor Phil Gramm saying America is a "nation of whiners," or Carly Fiorina going way off the reservation and effectively criticizing the McCain record on women's health issues?

Do these seem as bad as Wes Clark's saying that having your plane shot down doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified to be president? Should the words "bus" and "throw" be used in the same sentence about any of these people?

Okay, those are only surrogates. Perhaps some doozies from the Straight Talker Himself? How about McCain joking about killing Iranians, again, this time with cigarettes, McCain calling Social Security "a disgrace," and then trying to spin his way out of it, or McCain lying about "300 economists" supporting his budget plan? How about a few minutes on McCain's desire to kick Russia out of the G8? Does he even know that he can't do this, by himself? Or is he flip-flopping and backpedaling on this, too? Is he losing his marbles or losing his integrity? Is it fair to ask this?

Granted, one or two of these was touched on in passing, and granted, some of them are a tiny bit more than one week old. True, too, David's bit of Cocktail Chatter did touch on the Sainted One, although he apparently could not resist hastening to throw in a line about Obama being "almost as bad on this." But still. Add it all up, and it comes darn near to zero coverage.

Look. You're hardly the only member of the MSM guilty of this neglect. In fact, you're one among a unanimity. But I thought Slate's shtick was determined contrarianism. How about showing a little of it, in this regard?

Thank you.

Brendan Keefe

Crunch This

Following a link from Roy to a post by Rod Dreher, I was moved to post the following comment. I expect it to be deleted, so here is a copy for the record. I have fixed one typo here, as noted in square brackets.

Rod:

I myself do not often visit your blog. Your appearances on BloggingHeads.tv convinced me that you were beneath consideration. I have had my say about your worldview in the forums over there (username bjkeefe). Occasionally, I drop by when Roy or someone else links to something that you've said that's particularly ludicrous, just to be sure you're not being quoted out of context. Invariably, you aren't.

In answer to your question about why people keep visiting your blog if they apparently hate it, I can only say: it should be obvious. Some of us find it a worthy use of time to shoot down wingnuttia where ever we find it. Some of us are convinced that the only way to defeat the right-wing noise machine is to fight fire with fire. We've tried reasoned discourse, and that didn't work. I[t] seems that the only option left open is to pound down the caffeine and rebut every single one of your specious claims, every time you all repeat them. You all named the tactics, starting at least three decades ago. This is the blowback.

Even without reading Larry Parker's words, I'm inclined to bet that he's right in everything he says that's critical of you. I can only salute him for his persistence on this particular front. I fight alongside him, but in different theaters.

You say that you are contemplating "the possibility of ending this blog." I can only say: promises, promises. Guys like you rarely stop proselytizing, and you all never miss a chance to play the victim card. I'd be willing to bet that you'll still be pouring out your patented woe-is-me, different-types-of-people-are-scary drivel twenty years from now.

I dare you not to delete this post.

CC: Letter to Adam Nagourney

The following is a copy of a letter that I sent to Adam Nagourney of the NY Times.

(Update: AN reply in the Comments)

Mr. Nagourney:

I just finished reading your piece, "For Obama, a Taste of What a Long Battle Would Hold."

It was a good overview, I thought, but omitted one key element that we have already seen deployed: It is clear that an ongoing strategy by the Republican Party will be to use surrogates like, most recently, Bill Hobbs, Bill Cunningham, and Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), to sling the mud, while John McCain remains above the fray and even gets to pick up bonus points for "condemning" these attacks.

Hobbs, you probably recall, was the Tennessee GOP media consultant responsible for the material later removed from that organization's web site. Cunningham was the conservative talk show host who introduced John McCain at a recent event, while managing to say "Hussein" early and often. Kingston's latest effort was to question Obama's patriotism, on MSNBC and elsewhere, because the Senator does not wear a flag lapel pin.

I am not claiming that these tactics are done at McCain's direction. They don't need to be, any more than the Swiftboaters needed daily marching orders from Karl Rove to carry out their attacks on John Kerry. It's clear to all involved how the game is played. Therefore, we can expect a steady stream of obnoxious statements, misleading images, and emails containing outright lies about Obama to spew forth, all while McCain jumps in front of cameras to distance himself, or at best, to issue the occasional "tut tut."

Admittedly, the blogosphere has been all over most of the recent slurs. On the other hand, I expect that you are writing for different readers, many of whom rely upon the Times as a principle or sole news source. I imagine that you are aware of the tactics I have described, but might be hesitant to print them, since finding sources who will confirm the implicit connections is difficult. On the other hand, there is no shortage of reporting, in the Times and other respectable media channels, about the content of the attacks themselves. If such events are considered reportable, then it seems equally reasonable to mention the phenomenon that I have outlined. It also seems reasonable to acknowledge that McCain will look to benefit -- in two ways -- from the gutter politics played by surrogates. To fail to mention this in a political analysis piece is disingenuous.

For the Record

Just posted a couple of comments on PWConservative, a blog with the tagline:

After Obama becomes President, All of us good people should move to Tanzania and elect Bush as our President for Life

Seems PWC is in a tizzy about the appearance of Eric Balfour in the "Yes I Can" music video. The really bad part, according to PWC, as noted by careful reader Jon Swift, is that Balfour has also appeared in Lie With Me, "One of the only modern films to contain unstimulated sexual material."

In case my comments get deleted, here's what I said:

Are you equally troubled by the support of George W. Bush by James Dale Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon?

Or that Mark Kulkis and Mary Carey paid $5000 to dine with the same president?

And what about frequent contributor to the RNC, Nicholas T. Boyias?

and:

I have another question: How did you recognize this guy in the first place?

---

Heh. That was fast. First comment already deleted. Also, "unstimulated" has been changed, possibly in reaction to another comment, by Amy:

It's 'unsimulated' sex, you reactionary Bozo!

Unstimulated sex -- that would be what you have with your wife.

Fish Bait

KK sent me a copy of "A Calumny a Day To Keep Hillary Away." Warning: Due to the number of comments, that page will take some time to load, which may make you think your browser is frozen. Just keep clicking the "stop" icon or hammering on the Escape key to stop the page from loading.

Anyway, here is my response.

Thanks for sending.

I saw this piece when it first appeared, as well as the preceding one that inspired it, and I didn't really make it through either. Stanley Fish used to raise the occasional interesting thought, but lately, he seems to me either out of touch (remember his Starbucks column?) or laboring under the misapprehension that musing without thesis or conclusion counts as thoughtful contemplation.

Upon re-reading what you sent, I guess he doesn't particularly deserve either criticism in this case. However, I still didn't much care for it.

I grant that there is no shortage of irrational hatred for Hillary Clinton, and that a non-trivial element of sexism pervades coverage of her. However, the backlash is becoming just as bad. It is nearly impossible in some circles to express my dislike for Clinton or to try to articulate why I feel this way without getting branded as a sexist or lumped in with the people who still obsess over the "murder" of Vince Foster.

Why is it okay to label Mitt Romney "robotic" or "phony," or to say that Bush's speechifying grates on my nerves, or to call Giuliani's laugh "creepy," but not okay to say any of these things about Clinton?

Why is it okay, in short, to have a negative visceral response to any other candidate, but not her?

On the intellectual side, there are certainly plenty of reasons to prefer that Clinton not be the Democratic nominee -- her bad call on the Iraq invasion and continued refusal to acknowledge the mistake, a Senate history of pandering on idiotic issues like flag burning and video games, her secretive and disastrous handling of the national health care initiative the first time around, the hints of a willingness to go cutthroat on the campaign trail, to name but a few -- but again, if I raise any of these points, the response is all too often, "You're just a Clinton-hater, and you hate her because she's a woman."

Fish's Fred MacMurray allusion worked for me a little bit. It's true: part of the reason I hope she doesn't win is my fear of rousing the rabble on the right. It struck me as legitimate for Fish to say that this attitude can be seen as giving into them. But after thinking about it for a moment, I don't really buy it. The best chance the Republicans have to win is by running against Hillary, not to mention Bill. And even if she does win, she goes into office with nearly half of the population hating her, and virtually none of those people will ever let go of that feeling. Her presence alone will obviate the possibility of working together on problems that demand at least a little bit of unity, like Iraq, health care, an irresponsible tax structure, and global warming. If you thought Congressional Republicans' loyalty to every cockamamie Bush proposal seemed lockstep beyond any glimmer of reason, you ain't seen nothing yet.

If she wins the nomination, will I vote for her? Of course. If she wins the general, will I support her? Yes -- if a knife fight is the only game in town, I won't retreat to the sidelines. But I'd really like to try a different approach. Maintaining an attitude of us-vs-them over the past sixteen years has led to nothing but an inflation of the power of the radical right and endless delays in addressing our real problems. This is a good time to prefer a fresh face, to drop the cynical response to a call to work together, and to take a chance on hope.

Brendan

Holy Eye Roller

The following is a copy of an email that I sent to Alexei Barrionuevo of the NY Times.

Dear Mr. Barrionuevo:

Your story in today's Times, "In a Place of Solace, Finding Faith Among the Sorrow," reminds me why I am so glad that people like Harris and Dawkins and Hitchens and Dennet have been speaking up.

Okay, so it's sad that people got killed in an earthquake. And it's understandable -- one might even say "only human" -- that people who have spent their entire lives clinging to a belief system would try to force current events to conform to that belief system. I'm mystified by this behavior, but I recognize that it happens.

The thing that really irks me is the article's tone. There is no sense of the skepticism that one would expect when a reporter is covering a story where irrational claims are being made. There is no response to quotes like this:

"The only thing we can do now is pray and give thanks to God."

For dropping a church on the heads of those inside, and killing sixty of your friends?

In any other story, you would have gone all over town, looking for a statement from someone with a different point of view. Failing that, the trusty Rolodex would have been consulted. As a thought experiment, suppose I had mobilized my whole town to claim, "This church collapse shows there is no God." Do you think there's any chance at all, if you were covering my group, that you wouldn't flesh out the the story with differing viewpoints? Do you think your editor would let you get away with this, if you didn't?

Instead, we get treacly nonsense like this:

But the town's residents have drawn faith from what they see as small miracles.

So, a stone statue that was outside the church is plucked more or less intact from the rubble (unlike the scores of people inside, mind), and this is a miracle?

In any other realm of human thought, this would be labeled as insanity, or more politely, at least "temporarily disoriented thinking."

A common criticism leveled at the so-called New Atheists is that we try to paint all people who hold religious beliefs as completely mindless. This is untrue. I don't think that, and a careful reading of the above authors will show that, too. What we are asking is this: Isn't it about time to subject religiously motivated behavior to the same scrutiny as we do every other aspect of human affairs?

Brendan Keefe
Rochester, NY, USA