I just got a request I can't refuse. The family of 22-year-old Shiri Negari, an Israeli victim of a suicide bombing on a bus, is refusing to let her be just another statistic. They have started a website telling Shiri's story, and have asked bloggers and media to link to it. Here it is.

A few follow-up points on the politics of dancing, then I'm off this meme. I think that Glenn and I just have to agree to disagree:

- It was me who first used the example of Vodkapundit as a fun right-winger, not Glenn.

- The problem with writing lists of bloggers is that you inevitably leave off blogs that you're very fond of. Case in point: Avedon Carol's The Sideshow. I love the Sideshow, read it all the time, and meant no slight to her or any other blogger. Furthermore, Avedon writes a separate webpage, "Feminists Against Censorship", which address sex and pornography from a feminist perspective. (As you might have guessed, she's against censorship, and calls Dworkin a "horrible fruitbat".)

On a tangentially related note, I think that if I don't mention Zizka's VanitySite soon, he's going to come to my house and boil my bunnies :)

- Additional commentary can be found skippy the bush kangaroo and Roy Edroso

There. I wash my hands of it.

Did anyone else notice that "http://tedbarlow.blogspot.com" temporarily took you to a bizarre personal site called "Superjudge", or is it just me?

Glenn Reynolds has responded to my post about who's more fun, liberals or conservatives. I know that he's right when he says that the “hair-shirt left” is much more active in academia, so he probably has a lot more contact with them than I do. When I was in grad school, I definitely saw them. But, everywhere else in the world, liberal buzz-killers don’t matter.

Do you remember Catherine MacKinnon’s passionate speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention? Remember the surprisingly strong showing that Andrea Dworkin made in the Democratic primaries in 1999? Remember the buzz after Catherine MacKinnon joined the McLaughlin Group? Remember the short-lived cable talk show, “Andrea Dworkin is Making Sense”? Remember the millions of dollars that the Radical Feminist Coalition steered into the 1988 presidential race? Of course not. Radical anti-sex feminists can occasionally be seen at open mike night at the Coffee Clatch, but no one else is paying attention. In contrast, conservative buzz-killers are part of the backbone of the Republican Party, where they exert tremendous influence and help write the platform.

I also think he’s being unfair here:

Ted says that no one on the left defends Andrea Dworkin anymore, and produces an extensive list of blogosphere citations to prove it -- only to be brought up short by Dworkin defenders in his comments section.

He must be talking about Ampersand, who wrote this:

Hey, there. I've posted a response on my blog. It was a little tempting to endorse Andrea Dworkin's ideas about sex, simply so I could have the fun of being at the top of your blog for a week. :-p

Not to worry, I didn't. But I did find one or two nice things to say about Dworkin.

If you read Ampersand's post on her site, it’s about what we owe to radical feminism (rape shelters, domestic violence awareness, classification of spousal rape as a crime). She points out that Dworkin has cared about the Saudi oppression of women since Jimmy Carter, but she also specifically criticizes Dworkin’s take on sex and porn. It's a matter of interpretation, I suppose, but I don't see this as undercutting my argument.

I think that this question is dead easy to answer- Where are the lefty VodkaPundits? For the purpose of this discussion, I'm going to define a non-partisan "VodkaPundit" as "a blogger who has a sense of humor, who generally writes as if he's smiling rather than shouting. Bonus points if it sounds like he or she has a fun life."

By those criteria, Oliver Willis, skippy the bush kangaroo, Ain't No Bad Dude, WarLiberal, and Jim Treacher are cut from the same cloth- they mostly write short, funny, punchy comments, and they're clearly having a blast. Just a few other chipper, funny lefties include the beloved Poor Man, Matt Welch, Tres Producers, Xoverboard, This Modern World (who may be a little too angry to be counted) and Matthew Yglesias.

Finally, I should point out that, in all modesty, I am friggin’ hi-LAR-ious.

The fallout of Bush's speech will be interesting. It seemed to win the approval of quite a number of center-lefties, including Matthew Yglesias, Josh Marshall, Jeff Cooper, William Saletan, and me. I think that the policy set forth- get UN backing to force Iraq to agree to unfettered inspections, or face war- is considerably better than the policy of demanding regime change no matter what Saddam does. William Saletan's perspective is especially insightful.

For the diplomats and their heads of state back home, it isn't a new question. They have asked and answered it many times before—about Saddam Hussein. He has been the troublemaker, the man requiring constant attention and negotiation, the man who might do something reckless if he were left unhappy. Now another cowboy is riding into town, less crazy but with much bigger guns: the president of the United States. This was his message to the General Assembly: If you don't want an imminent American invasion of Iraq, make me an offer...

If you think that an American invasion of Iraq is unwise and that the world would be better off with unfettered U.N. weapons inspections backed by the serious threat of force, you're probably right. But if you get what you want, thank Bush.

Here’s a hypothetical, and don’t get mad: If this approach is so appealing to us in the center left, how will it play on the right if it actually happens? Let’s say that six months from now, we’re inspecting Iraq at will, while Saddam is still holding on to power. From a large-scale military perspective, that would probably mean the end of the War on Terror (barring another terrorist attack, which it would be foolish to rule out). After we’ve seen the practical problems with launching war on Saddam, whom everyone agrees is a horrible despot, it seems highly unlikely that we will ever muster the will and support to attack, say, Syria, or Iran. Saudi Arabia will continue to be blasted in the press and blogosphere, but there’s no way that Bush is going to touch them. He's the guy defending them from attacks on the right, remember?

From a geopolitical standpoint, sadly, this may very well be the best of all possible worlds. I don’t know enough to argue this point, and I don’t have any better ideas. But from a domestic political standpoint, can Bush back down and accept inspections from Iraq? I can’t help but imagine that people who strongly feel that “It’s clobberin’ time” will feel a little let down. (In the blogosphere and conservative press, there's a lot of you out there.) There goes the momentum, there goes the moral clarity. It seems to me that if we don't go to war, it would deflate his support on the right and seriously wound him in 2004.

Am I wrong?

Injuries reported in Freeport chemical plant explosion. That's about 50 miles south of here. It sounds pretty awful for the people in the middle of it, but everyone at the plant is accounted for.

Norah Vincent continues to dig herself into a hole. Sullywatch has his(?) spurs on while he dissects the latest self-inflicted wound from Norah. She threatens to sue the people who made fun of her, claims that bloggers making fun of "legitimate targets" like her are in it for the money (shades of "war profiteers"), and starts with this howler:

the most hotly decried portion of my earlier commentary on blogging read as follows: “The blogosphere is full of nasty riffraff and wannabe pundits who because they haven’t an earnest, original idea in their heads, fill their empty existences sniping impotently at legitimate targets. By legitimate targets I mean people who have actually had some measure of success in their professional lives, people who get published regularly in the mainstream press”

First let me clarify what I meant by riffraff. Many people who read the above passage assumed (erroneously, as it happens) that I was being an unconscionable snob, dividing the blogosphere into two camps, bloggers who are professional writers, and bloggers who aren’t—the former being legitimate, and the latter being riffraff. I meant no such thing.

Where in the world would we get that idea? Maybe from the actual words that you wrote?

(link via Atrios)

Now that's media criticism. Good job, Matt.

Glenn Reynolds hit on a particularly dumb meme today: The Right is more fun than the Left. Ironically, wacky wrong guy Alex Beam had to provide the hook. Says Glenn:

This is funny, but it's a serious problem for the Left. Like Sweden, it's cruised for a long time on a reputation for free-wheeling hedonism that no longer holds. The hair-shirt left is alienating to a lot of people -- I mean, which would you rather have, wild sex and high living or Andrea Dworkin and a spare lifestyle relieved only by an affected moral superiority?

Wow, a serious problem for us, eh? This discussion went from "The Nation is less fun than the Weekly Standard" (true) to "Liberals are less fun than conservatives" (dubious) to "Conservatives enjoy wild sex and high living, while liberals drudge through a spare lifestyle blah blah blah." I think we all know that the vast, vast majority of self-described conservatives frequently enjoy wild sex, then leave their fertilized eggs to hatch under the three moons of Centauri-B, where they live*. In this world, however, this portrayal of the comparative lifestyles of right and left strikes me as, at best, wishful thinking. The Right isn't just a bunch of fun-loving VodkaPundits; it's also where Jerry Falwell, Bill Bennett, Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson etc. live. You don't find liberals chasing smut out of libraries, fighting sex ed programs, or hounding the Surgeon General out of office for saying that children should maybe be taught that masturbation is normal. If you had told me in mid-1998 that I'd be defending the proposition "Liberals like sex," I'd be laughing hysterically. (Incidentally, I know that monogamous sex can be pretty wild- I haven't been to any orgies lately- but to say that this is true for conservatives and not for liberals is just silly.)

Glenn has fairly complained about liberals who look at the Right as if it's always and everywhere Birmingham in 1963. Then he turns around and talks about the left as if it's always and everywhere Berkeley in 1985. I think that arguing about whether liberals or conservatives are more fun is about as intellectually fruitful as arguing whether liberals or conservatives are better looking. Jeez, I'm a liberal, and I'm proud to be one, but I don't think that our breath is sweeter and our hamburgers are juicier. Chad Orzel said it well, and he happened to work Andrea Dworkin into it.

Uncertain Principles: What's going on here is the usual game of defining the political left as the sum of all its most extreme members, while conveniently excluding the lunatic religious element from the definition of the political right. The religious prudes of the right are, if anything, less savory than the Dworkin/ MacKinnon variety on the left-- if you're going to hold everyone left of Limbaugh accountable for the views of Dworkin and MacKinnon, then the right bears responsibility for Jack Chick and Focus on the Family, and they're a real laugh riot.

I know that Glenn was referring to the "hair-shirt left", but honestly, I don't see them. I haven't met anyone with "a spare lifestyle relieved only by an affected moral superiority" who wasn't a religious conservative since I graduated. This stereotype strikes me as a boogeyman; it's useful to keep conservatives smug , but it doesn't seem to be a very good description of the world.

Furthermore, I am sick of being saddled with Andrea Dworkin. Andrea Dworkin serves two functions in modern political discourse: liberals either ignore her or denounce her, and conservatives either ignore her or use her to tar feminists/ liberals as anti-sex fundamentalists. To prove my point, I did a little experiment: I did a Google search for "Dworkin liberal blog" in an attempt to find one liberal blogger saying something nice about Andrea Dworkin. Here's the closest I got:

Amptoons: There's been much snickering in blogdom regarding Andrea Dworkin's essay on female suicide bombers. But Andrew Edwards of Sketch has taken it a step further, by claiming that Dworkin "thinks that mass murder is an appropriate response to 'the stigma of being a woman'." Note the deceptive use of a sentence fragment there; Dworkin's essay in no way suggests that suicide bombing is "an appropriate response." Edwards should distinguish between understanding motives behind terrorism - which is what Dworkin's essay attempts - and saying that terrorism is appropriate.

It's not a denunciation- she's defending a particular Dworkin article against an interpretation that she considers unfair- but it's not an endorsement of her, either. From other bloggers, I found:

Matthew Yglesias: It's doubtful to me whether the MacKinnon/Dworkin line that porn should be restricted in the name of women's rights was ever endorsed by most feminist thinkers, and it certainly isn't today.

Armed Liberal: COULTER'S ROOMATE ... IN HELL
Andrea Dworkin and suicide bombing.

Between the Lines, an "anti-post-feminist" site: Post feminism only brought one good thing. It turned over both the lesbian-feminist and Dworkin view that love and sex with men is always a bad thing. Other than that it said "Most women are not in a position of discrimination anymore so we cease to care."

Sturtle, who may or may not consider himself a liberal: What I'm getting at is that after years and years of hashing these sorts of things out across conference tables from coast to coast, my personal take on all this PC "it's-mysogynist-it's-homophobic" rhetoric is that (a) phenomenologically speaking, we are programmed to understand the theatre as a place where fictions are told, fictions we can enjoy but soon forget; and (b) your average viewer is smarter than you give her/him credit for. I mean, Gone With the Wind is full of stereotypes and such, but you can't honestly think that when Joe Blow watches it, he's going to start thinking to himself, "Well, maybe slavery isn't so morally reprehensible after all." If Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon could learn this vis-a-vis porn, the world would be a better place.

Guy Campbell: I am so going to get thousands (or one) misguided hit on this page now. This is not actually a hardcore porn site. The heading is supposed to be an attention-grabbing lead in to an actual discussion of pornography (influenced by a semester of hardcore Sexual Politics). Is porn evil? Is it "murder eroticized" as suggested by radical feminist Andrea Dworkin. Can one dfferentiate porn from erotica? Is it simply an industrialised form of promotion of the suboordination of women, upon which male supremicist culture is contingent? Or is it a harmless turn on? (Concludes that it's not a good thing because it affects the way people experience sensuality, not because of exploitation.)

Roniweb: 4)what are your views on pornography, in light of your strong feminism?
Damn! I hate this question. Althou, I am no Andrea Dworkin, I don't like porn. I'm not totally anti-porn...I'm a fence sitter basically. I
see the beauty in erotica, but I don't see the beauty in plain porn. The influx of very-soft-porn mags (e.g. Maxim) makes me sick. Mainly because I see month after month a new starlet who IMO is a good actress strip down to her panties to make a name for herself. It's really sad.

A Voyage to Arcturus: Instapundit points to an Andrea Dworkin column (the suicide bombers one) which I'm afraid is all too typical.

Jo Grady, who probably doesn't consider herself a liberal: (Re: Faulkner's "Light in August"): That one paragraph has more wisdom in it than the collective works of Noam Chomsky. Our society will be healthier when more people in the liberal arts study Faulkner, and fewer study Noam Chomsky or Andrea Dworkin.

Spinsters: To James Tooley and Helene Cixous, Andrea Dworkin, and Jonah Goldberg, to ten thousand other promisers of paradise out to make sure women get it. If you are a woman you can be happy, so long as you don't deviate from the twelve step plan, so long as you not assert that your life is your own to live as you will for better of for worse.

Sketch: It's pretty ridiculous to call a hate-inspired act of murder a response to womanhood. As I read (Dworkin's) essay, and she says things like "Palestinian men push women into an anti-sisterhood camouflaged as nationalist liberation", she pretty clearly places less of a moral responsibility on the women bombers, suggesting that they've in some way been 'pushed' into martyrdom. I happen to think that women (and men) ought have a higher moral standard than that.

If anyone can find any liberal blogger (and there's hundreds and hundreds of us) promoting the anti-sex ideas of Andrea Dworkin, I will put it at the top of my blog for a week. Until then, I'm going to politely ask that Andrea Dworkin's nutty, nutty personage not be used to tar "the Left". Thanks.

* Joke stolen from Dave Barry. Don't go all Goodwin on my ass.

UPDATE: Revised slightly after sleeping on it

Good news: It's still illegal in Miami-Dade county to discriminate against gays. A ballot initiative that would have made it legal to discriminate based on sexual orientation has failed by about 20% of the vote. (I say "about" because, you know, it's Florida.)

Grim Amusements has a good analysis. Here's a sample.

Apparently, Miami-Dade County doesn't have any law that prevents what amounts to referendum harrassment, so the conservatives can and will just keep getting signatures to shove this back onto each election ballot. Mind, both sides will be subject to some fatigue. It's difficult to get people to keep signing petitions, especially when the people putting the petitions out are known to be corrupt, and especially when the referenda keep failing. And it's difficult to keep trying to mount a defense, raising money and awareness. The question is, who will wear out first.

Really cool site, via More than Zero Sum:

Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics

The author explains the folly of the following common mistakes:

Flashing Bullets
Flaming Cars
Mac 10's
Windows
Glass Force
Falls
Scaling
Space Explosions
Visible Laserbeams
Sound

And then he rates a bunch of movies for their physics realism. A.I. comes under especially heavy attack.

Something to turn that frown upside down, featuring offensive links:

The Poor Man made an oblique reference to an old adage about fighting on the internet. (The adage is cruel and tasteless and... look, here it is! In poster form! You've been warned.)

A delightful example can be found here. Pointless Waste of Time wrote an article, 50 Reasons why Lord of the Rings sucks. This is a humor site. Like every movie review on the site, it is written as if the reviewer either hasn't seen the movie, or is a complete idiot.. For example:

8. Gold: The Stretchy Element.

The ring, which is seen to be at least two inches in diameter at the beginning to fit the polish sausage-sized finger of Sauron, suddenly fits Frodo's child-sized finger later. I guess this movie takes place in a world where rings magically change sizes on their own.

17. Invisible Implausibility.

Every time Frodo or Bilbo went invisible with the ring they should have also gone BLIND. Your eyes cannot function unless light is reflected off the cornea. If light passes through it (as must be the case with invisibility) sight is no longer possible. Also, rings do not turn you invisible.

20. Magic Mechanics.

Experts on the occult say in order for a wizard to floorspin a fully-grown man like Gandalf, he'd need three magical staffs, not two.

31. Homage or theft V?

The concept of the violent dwarf was based on Al Pacino.

50. What's that smell?

As bad as the Lucasfilm leaks were last year, the filmmakers of The Two Towers already have the novelization out in paperback. I've seen it at Barnes & Noble already. As if we needed any less of a reason to go see it.

Anyway, this got them literally hundreds of angry emails from dipshits, who immediately took off their comically oversized "Gandalf #1!" foam fingers and typed semi-coherent emails about how the books are, like, totally old, and elves do too behave that way, and so on.

The author wrote this reply,

And I understand your frustration. I understand your anger. After all, it was I who had Old Man Murray shut down after I found curse words on their site. I myself remember writing a negative Titanic review in 1997 and receiving a storm of protest from the Leo DiCaprio Worshippers Guild, the North American Billy Zaniacs and the International Union of People Who Love Crap.

and his friend wrote this, much more offensive reply. Giggles galore.

_________________________________________

Finally, no one can fail to look back and smile at this picture. "Remember the female golfer kissing the glass dildo, honey?" "Yes, sweetheart, how can I forget?"

Someone just Googled my site for "Photo of Osama bin Ladin in a coffin".

If only, dude, if only.

Free Pie has a story that deserves more attention:

This month Jr announced that he's giving $115 million to ExxonMobil, to buy back oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico, in order to curtail drilling off the coast of Florida. This will help his brother with that pesky election he's facing, as Floridians don't really like the idea of seeing drilling platforms off their coast.

Now, Exxon-Mobil (Jr's #2 donor) is not doing too badly here, either. US taxpayers are buying back leases for $115 million that they paid $13 million for. That's a pretty good deal for them.

This is the part where I write a pithy, humorous comment, right? How do you say "He's a crook" in Pithy-Humorous? How do you say "Isn't this the guy who kept saying 'It's your money' during the campaign" in Pithy-Humorous? How do you say "That $115 million sure would have come in handy some place other than the Florida coasts, George"?

Isn't it funny that this is the same guy who argued that domestic oil production was absolutely key to our security? Wasn't he just furious when the damn Democrats prevented him from opening drilling for oil in Alaska? How does that jive with giving away tax dollars to his second-largest donor in order to decrease domestic oil production?

Sorry, that wasn't pithy. How does "honor and integrity" sound?

As if I need another reason to feel soul-sick this morning, Damian Penny has a story of a woman proudly displaying an Israeli flag who was harassed, spit upon and nearly assaulted- by her fellow protestors at an anti-Nazi rally.

It boggles my mind, but I have no reason to doubt it. These self-righteous animals can go to hell. I can't stand it.

I fear that Bob Somersby is writing the first chapter about press coverage of campaign 2004. It doesn't look good. I swear, I could never be a politician. Not only because of this blog (although it doesn't help), but because I would lose my shit if someone covered me in the way that they cover Democrats.

Here's a fun contest: What would the press write about various bloggers if they were political candidates? Conservative and liberal bloggers are equally welcome as subjects. Write in the comments or email me.

Here it is: The best thing money can buy. 144 tracks of life-affirmation in one cool package.

Max Sawicky was kind enough to pass this on to me, about the booing of Colin Powell at the UN conference. It should be obvious that this falls into the "interesting" category; I don't have any way to confirm or deny this. I think that chanting and disrupting Colin Powell's speech was inappropriate and rude. But this account rings true to me, and I still find it hard to believe that there's a huge contingent of Mugabe supporters out there. Take it as you will.

Actually, the By the way was a reference to MANY papers that erroneously covered the situation as a response to Powell's comments about Zimbabwe. The protest started (with my group raising our banner Bush: People and Planet, Not Big Business) as soon as Powell finished his Thank-Yous. But the chanting started after our banners were taken - which happened to be at the same time as the Zim comment.

Let me be clear: Mike Green started the Shame on Bush chant. All of us doing the action joined in, and then hundreds of people followed suit. Did delegates do that out of a general disgust with the Bush agenda at the conference? Of course, absolutely - that's why they felt compelled to interrupt his speech over and over again - when he mentioned GMOs, when he mentioned "the US's leadership on climate change", etc - and even at the very end of his speech, as he exited the stage. Did some of them also do it because of what Powell said about Zimbabwe? Well probably. Many people who are staunchly anti-Mugabe nevertheless seethe watching the US use food aid to starving people in Africa as a political weapon against Europe's ban of GMOs.

But that's not why the action was organized, it wasn't the message of the organizers, and it wasn't why we started the chanting that let open a space for everyone's rage. The outrage and disgust at the Bush administration's agenda - including his snubbing the conference - were palpable during the entire conference. Ask anyone who was there.

Just to reinforce the point, the delegates also booed the US delegation when we entered our objections to the final document.

You know I haven't been to every UN conference, but I can definitely tell you that this type of booing and jeering is not part of the normal protocol. Americans would do well to stand up and listen when heads of state from around the world, in an official UN plenary, shout down the main US official for smashing progress on environmental conservation and poverty eradication. At least we now have part of the answer to that looming question, "Why does everyone hate us?"

Deborah
--
Deborah James, Fair Trade Director
Global Exchange

Hesiod took the words right out of my mouth about Jeb "What, Me Worry?" Bush. Apparently for Bush, responsibility is for the little people:

Meanwhile, Jeb Bush continued to embarrass himself and the State of Florida with his pathological buck-passing. The "Era of Big Responsibility," may have been over when his brother George assumed the Presidency, but it never even got started in Florida under Jeb. According to John Ellis,

"It's not an embarrassment to me...[i]t should be an embarrassment to the people running elections in Miami and Broward County. They should be embarrassed and they better fix it."

Yeah right.

Both Jeb and the new Sycophant of State, Jim Smith, are laying all of the blame for the voting problems at the feet of the election supervisors in Broward and Dade counties.

Granted, they deserve serious blame, and the people of those counties ought to hold them accountable.

But Jeb acts like this just came out of the blue, and he had no control over it. Nope. Obviously, we all know about the 2000 debacle. But, as late as a few weeks ago, there were prominent news reports that Broward County, in particular, was going to have major problems on election day.

Now, given what happend in 2000, and the reports of a potential repeat disaster in Broward County, you would think that the Governor and Secretary of State would take whatever steps were necessary to avoid any problems. If that meant actually sending people down to Broward county to assess problems and work on fixes, then they should have done that. If you continue to let incompetent people make mistakes and cause problems for your organization, it's YOU who's responsible. Any CEO who let this happen would be out on his ass. Especially if he arrogantly blamed others for his screw-up.

Not only that, the previous Secretary of State was the blitheringly incompetent Katherine Harris. She was so bad she gave partisan hacks a bad name. She would have to get a brain transplant and 10 years of college-level training to even graduate to "hack" status. Don't believe me? Well, she's so utterly clueless that she couldn't even handle her own resignation from office, without violating State campaign laws. Yet, for some reason, Jeb continued to let this bozo run Florida's election system for nearly two years.

This is the very opposite of a leader.

It might take me a day or two to get back into full-throated blogging. My fiancee and I attended a memorial service tonight that was, plainly speaking, really bad. There's not much point in blogging about it- it was a one-time event- but suffice it to say that for most of the ceremony, there wasn't a moist eye in the house. I didn't think it was possible.

In the meantime, two outstanding collections of recent writing on September 11th can be found at:

Heretical Ideas

and

A Perfect Morning.

Writers and broadcasters with varying degrees of clarity and talent have written of anger and loss, bravery and quiet, uncertainty and love. I should single out this one: Dave Barry is such a talented humorist that it's easy to forget how beautifully and naturally he writes about tragedy. (Via Instapundit.)

Like Matthew Yglesias, I’ve wondered what I could possibly say this week. I doubt that there’s one person reading this blog who gives a rat's ass what I was doing when the planes crashed. I didn’t lose anyone on September 11th, thank God. I was across the Atlantic, thousands of miles away from danger. My loved ones were perfectly safe. I can’t think of one word that can add an iota of honor or comfort to those that deserve it.

As I think back to a year ago, I keep coming back to the Onion, of all things. There was a short piece right after the attack titled “Not Knowing What Else to Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake.”

"I had to do something to force myself away from the TV," said Pearson, 33, carefully laying rows of strawberry slices on the white-fudge-frosting-covered cake. "All of those people. Those poor people. I don't know what else to do."

I haven’t seen anything since which better captured my reaction to September 11th. I wasn't overwhelmed so much by grief or rage (although I was filled with them), but by a horrible sense of impotence. What could I do?

Mixing the cake and placing it in the oven shortly after 3 p.m., Pearson sat at the kitchen table and stared at the oven door until the timer rang 50 minutes later.

For weeks, I literally couldn’t stop thinking about the people who died rushing into those buildings while others were rushing out. What do I do for a living? I spend all day taking numbers and turning them into other numbers. Other than money, there wasn't a goddamn thing I had to contribute. I couldn’t even give blood. I remember how, in the first days after the Towers fell, lines of volunteers formed to uselessly cart away rubble in buckets. I understood that impulse so well.

Pearson and the Overstreets stared at the cake in silence for nearly a minute, until Cassie hugged Pearson.

"It's beautiful," Cassie said. "The cake is beautiful."

I look at the pictures of the World Trade Center in flames, and I remember how I felt- so small and stupid and helpless that I could barely stand to look at myself in the mirror. I know how self-centered this sounds, and I'm sorry, but it’s true. Jeanne D’Arc has written about the danger of sanctifying our heroes. I know she’s right, but I can’t help it. If I didn’t believe that this world contained people like the passengers of Flight 93, I would have had trouble going on during those horrible months. But they do.

Thank you for reading.

Glenn Reynolds had a post over the weekend about people reading too much into his links. I had a small shock of self-recognition; I've occasionally gotten upset about something that gets an Instapundit link, and occasionally I've let it show. Sometimes a link is just a link. Sorry, Glenn, no disrespect intended.

The Rittenhouse Review (permalinks AWOL) has a righteous post about anti-gay activists who claim that not only are gays not discriminated against, they're the unfair beneficiaries of "special rights." I usually file this kind of claim under "too stupid to argue with", but Capozzola*
has fun with it:

"The real issue is special rights and special powers that some people in our community want," says Verdugo, head of the Miami-Dade Christian Coalition.

"Take Back Miami-Dade also contends that gays and lesbians are not the victims of discrimination," reports Roig-Franzia.

Oh, okay, it's not about equal rights and equal protection, it's now once again about that deceitful myth "special privileges," here known as "extending privileges . . . not . . . afforded to others."

The "privileges" enjoyed by gays in Miami-Dade? Massive tax breaks? Subsidized housing? Free health care? Affirmative action hiring quotas? The best spots on the beach? Discounts on gym memberships and sun screen?

No, but let's check in with Take Back Miami-Dade to see what they have to say.

"They have gay clubs; they have gay nights at clubs that are not gay; they have gay restaurants. Instead of discrimination, you see special treatment," says Rosa Armesto de Gonzalez, a lawyer and volunteer with Take Back Miami-Dade volunteer.

So that's how it works! A "straight" bar sets aside one night a week for gay men, a night also likely to play host to substantial numbers of straight women tired of harassment at the usual clubs and, believe it or not, an increasing number of straight men, not a few of whom dance among friends, male and female, straight and gay, with their shirts off among that decadent and similarly clad subset of the socially active population often referred to as the "homos."

Amazing. Gay men open bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and hotels, and refurbish countless architectural gems in run down neighborhoods from coast to coast, and are told that should settle the matter -- they should sit back, be happy, and return to their show tunes. Gays should recognize -- nay, admit, concede -- that the achievements of their friends -- their own community -- are special set-asides for their enjoyment only, as if virtually 98 percent of the American straight population hadn't already eaten at -- and enjoyed their time at -- a "gay" restaurant.

But aren't the nightclubs and restaurants enough? What are these faggots complaining about?

* It's "fuck up blogger's names" week here at tedbarlow- I mispelled Jim's name before, and I'm really sorry.

Sing it! From ABC's The Note:

Little gets The Note more psyched than when Dana Milbank offers the following sentence: "It is time for an update on Bush-speak … " But the most interesting item in Dana's latest Bush glossary is in the last graph. In reporting that Vice President Cheney dismissed the idea that the administration "'husbanded'" all the information on Iraq until close to the election for political purposes, Milbank gives well-deserved props to a rival by noting that Andy Card and Karl Rove "made the case to the New York Times 's Elisabeth Bumiller last week that they pretty much did what Cheney said they didn't do — waited patiently and deliberately to launch a long-planned rollout." LINK

Which caught our eye not only for the topic, but because it's a rare thing for a Post reporter to cite a Times reporter by name.

Then came this missive (reproduced in full because of its passion and provocativity) from Bay Area Democratic communications expert Chris Lehane:

"How can the White House say with a straight face that they had a Labor Day plan to promote Iraq. Doesn't that mean that they lied in August when they attacked the press for the focus on Iraq and denied that there was any planning going on during those meetings? Moreover, the litany of developments would seem to indicate that if it was their plan it was an incredibly stupid approach:

-- An Administration in disarray led to a press frenzy. Are they saying they purposely had Powell, Rummy, Cheney all out there saying different things? -- By going dark, the public approval plummeted.

-- What would have stopped them from talking about this at a mid-level as they did for 10 months in August and then ramp up in September?

-- They clearly did no spade work with GOP experts — leading to the Scowcroft, Kissenger, Baker onslaught; are they saying that was part of their plan?

-- They did little to no outreach to other foreign leaders — thus, creating a momentum all its own of foreign leaders bailing and leaving the US to go at it alone.

-- Do national security threats work on a Labor Day sked — meaning Iraq wasn't a threat worth talking about until Labor Day? It would seem if they were such a threat, you'd be wanting to deal with this on a constant basis. Comparing foreign policy to the unveiling of a new product line tells you all you need to know!

"I find it stunning that they would make this argument — it only reinforces that they were being disingenuous before, that it is all about tactics — not about whether there is a real threat — and that they liken this issue to marketing a product!"

You know what exploitation looks like? It looks like this:

Subj: Ted, who's looking for you?
Date: 9/9/2002 2:33:09 PM Central Daylight Time
From: newconnections@corp.classmates.com
To: edwardbarlow@aol.com

Ted,

For so many of us, this is a week of remembrance, sorrow, hope, pride, and a host of emotions that are sometimes just too hard to explain. Along with the rest of the country and the world, we all here are taking some time to reflect, remember, and remind ourselves that although we often find ourselves in tragic times, our world is filled with wonderful people, everyday heroes, and friends that are there for us. And because of them, tomorrow can always be a better day. Take a look below to see if you can find any friends that have been a part of your life.

Hudson High School (1988 - 1992)
8 new classmates
11 new/updated profiles
View now!

I was listening to NPR on the drive home today, which was about the experiences of American Muslim women after September 11th. I thought back to the immediate aftermath, the sick feeling that I had that we were about to see a wave of anti-Muslim/ anti-Arab hatred. I was so afraid that we'd compound the loss and shock of the terrorist attack with a blind lash of rage.

And... it didn't happen. It just didn't. Across the country, ordinary people reacted to Arabs and Muslims with such decency and compassion that I'm ashamed that I ever doubted us.

If George W. Bush did one thing right, it was loudly insisting, repeatedly and right away, that the Arabs among us are not our enemy. I haven't forgotten the round-ups of the Justice department, but his rhetoric was just what we needed, just when we needed it.

I know I'm late for these bandwagons, but if you haven't seen them yet, note:

- You can't trust everything a Bush says when he's talking about Iraq. Bush referred twice in a briefing to a report that showed that Iraq was 6 months from completing nuclear weapons, but the report didn't say that.

We saw two highly dubious forms of "evidence" this weekend- an exclusive interview with his "ex-mistress", who reveals that every morning he looks in the mirror and says "I am Saddam! Heil Hitler!" Caucasian, please...*

Also, according to Tom Tomorrow, Richard Pearle apparently told an Italian paper that one of the hijackers met with Saddam himself (I can't check it out, the link is broken.)

I don't want to overstate this, but the administration is pissing away its credibility here. They had better realize pretty damn fast that they're not going to win this argument with bluster and bullying. I hope.

* To be fair, I'm talking as if I know that this woman is a government plant. Of course I don't know that; she could be a freelance attention-seeker, a kook, or even the ex-mistress of Saddam Hussein. I'm just saying that the interview reads like a dime novel.

- Jeanne D'Arc has an important essay about trusting your bleeding heart.

- Finally, via Ungodly Politics, a truly sweet diss for Katherine Harris:

Congress, District 13
In the Republican primary, we make no recommendation

Mistakes and misjudgments, which continued right through Harris' confounding resignation as secretary of state, can no longer be dismissed as the products of inexperience. Mishaps aren't the exception but the expectation.

Likewise, the startling lack of clarity when Harris discusses public policies and her political vision -- without the aid of scripts or handlers -- can no longer be excused as a byproduct of a novice's uncontained enthusiasm. Desultory responses to questions are the standard, regardless of the stage of her career or the importance of the office sought....

The landscape is littered with people who underestimated Harris' drive and ability to deliver when she is focused. But her ignorance of the candidate-resignation law, even though as secretary of state she is Florida's chief elections official, showed that her failure to focus on the fundamentals of government is a chronic condition.

The mistakes might be mitigated if Harris had emerged from eight years in office with a well-defined political vision she could articulate. Instead, "I didn't have a platform when I started running" for Congress, she told us.

A little Komments Komedy:

- This isn't really important in the grand scheme of things, but I thought it was interesting.

In the comments to my argument that Andrew Sullivan owes Rachel Swarns an apology, "howard" has a comment worth sharing.

What i'll say for Sullivan is that he is certainly a ridiculous figure, but at least his politics have mutated into Identikit Right Wing Know Nothingism, so his work and his politics are consistent. Kaus has just plain turned lazy and simplistic, but even worse - it's not clear that he really believes what he's saying. His simply wrong screeds about the NY Times and Iraq are generally accompanied by some indication - some hedging device, really - that he's not sure he's pro an invasion of Iraq. What a chickenshit he's become.

- This is more important.

California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher engaged in freelance negotiations with the Taliban before September 11th, without informing or seeking approval from the State Department.

Rohrabacher claimed that the Clinton administration—out of office for eight months when the attacks occurred—had ignored his pleas not to negotiate with the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic party controlling most of Afghanistan since 1996. (A hardcore partisan Republican, Rohrabacher remained silent about numerous meetings between George W. Bush’s advisors and the Taliban throughout 2001.) On Sept. 17, 2001, the congressman declared, "There is rage in my soul."

Right-wing organizations across the nation immediately picked up on Rohrabacher’s anti-Taliban, anti-Clinton statements and hailed him a "hero."

In fact, Rohrabacher’s post-Sept. 11 finger-pointing was a fraud designed to distract attention from his own ongoing meddling in the foreign-policy nightmare. Federal documents reviewed by the Weekly show that Rohrabacher maintained a cordial, behind-the-scenes relationship with Osama bin Laden’s associates in the Middle East—even while he mouthed his most severe anti-Taliban comments at public forums across the U.S. There’s worse: despite the federal Logan Act ban on unauthorized individual attempts to conduct American foreign policy, the congressman dangerously acted as a self-appointed secretary of state, constructing what foreign-affairs experts call a "dual tract" policy with the Taliban....

Evidence of Rohrabacher’s attempts to conduct his own foreign policy became public on April 10, 2001, not in the U.S., but in the Middle East. On that day, ignoring his own lack of official authority, Rohrabacher opened negotiations with the Taliban at the Sheraton Hotel in Doha, Qatar, ostensibly for a "Free Markets and Democracy" conference. There, Rohrabacher secretly met with Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, an advisor to Mullah Omar. Diplomatic sources claim Muttawakil sought the congressman’s assistance in increasing U.S. aid—already more than $100 million annually—to Afghanistan and indicated that the Taliban would not hand over bin Laden, wanted by the Clinton administration for the fatal bombings of two American embassies in Africa and the USS Cole. For his part, Rohrabacher handed Muttawakil his unsolicited plans for war-torn Afghanistan. "We examined a peace plan," he laconically told reporters in Qatar.

IMHO, this isn't just a matter of 20/20 hindsight- the Taliban was not recognized by the US. Government, or any government other than Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAR. We knew perfectly well they were repressive totalitarian bastards. Rohrabacher had no more business negotiating with them than with the IRA.

Anyway, Atrios asks why no one seems to care about this, and Leah points out in his comments how Fox News interviewer + Republican guest = patty-cake:

Dana was on Fox this Sunday, with one of their lady anchors, I believe, talking up an invasion of Iraq; he explicitly mentioned ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban as the model for ridding grateful Iraqis of Saddam, and nary a word passing anyone's lips about Dana's Afghani adventures.

Boy, I hope this rally to protest the removal of "pro-homosexual" books from Montgomery County Libraries went well. Rob, if you hear anything else, let us know, OK?

I'm really sorry, Sean. I'm at the virtual blackboard now:

I will not misstate Sean Roper's name.
I will not misstate Sean Roper's name.
I will not misstate Sean Roper's name.
(repeat 497 times)

(By the way, if it makes you feel any better, I did the same thing to Megan McArdle, and I think she's the greatest.)