Tuesday, August 10, 2004

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/10/2004 10:23:18 PM

Pontificating on the fad of the moment. So I just got back from the panel discussion at Makor on blogs and politics. I took illegible notes and will attempt to transcribe some of them later. Short version:

Moderator: Our panelists are all journalists who are now going to pontificate about blogs, which are not journalism. Guys?

Daniel Radosh: Blogs are entertaining, have no political influence, and my position as media professional is safe from all you geeky little people. Nothing personal.

Jeff Jarvis: Power to the people! It's a conversation! We are not a nation divided! Iran! Down with the priesthood! No more gatekeepers!

Geraldine from Salon.com: Uh, whatever they said. I could care less. I didn't even know what a blog was until they hired me to write one. When is this thing over?

QandA's: Let me tell you my wacky conspiracy theory! Let me promote my new book during my question! Let me ramble incoherently! What's a blog?

And a good time was had by all.

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/10/2004 03:47:23 PM

Anyone but Kerry Dept. Most recent "Anyone but Kerry" entry here. The previous ABK entry has links back to all the others, at the end.

If you're wondering why I haven't written about the Swiftboat Vets accusations against John Kerry, I did.
In May.

Recent developments:

Instapundit is following the story closely. When you have hundreds of readers a day sending you material, you can put together impressive collections of facts like this entry about Kerry's Cambodia claims. (More links to more link-filled links here.)

QandO factchecks the usually reliable Factcheck.org. (I don't think FC is being partisan, I think they are just not responding quickly enough to the flurry of contradictory information swirling around this issue right now.) But Spinsanity picks an overlooked nit.

Here's another overlooked point:

Many of you seem to be asking why the enlisted crewmen of Kerry's boat would support him. Here's a fact that many don't know. On the day Kerry received the Silver Star. He put his crew in for medals also. 2 Bronze Stars w/combat V and 3 Navy Commendation medals w/combat V were awarded based on Kerry's lies in addition to his Silver Star.

People, this was group medalgate! This was the most highly decorated boat in the history of the war for 1 action. It was a minor fire fight against about 20 local VC by 3 boats (18 crewmen) and about 70 South Vietnamese troops on the boats.

And yes, I'm a member of swiftvets and a decorated riverine sailor. We are not "shills" for Republican Pary. We are not Pro Bush. We're simply Anti-Kerry for the reasons stated at www.swiftvets.com.

This guy posted anonymously, but this would be easy to check.

An email exchange with one of the vets sponsoring the ad.

I thought this was a clever slogan. It sure is one more example of that whole flip-flopping thing.

If you still think - after finding out journalists overwhelmingly support Kerry - there is no liberal media bias, note the difference between the scrunity given Bush's national Guard duty and Kerry's Vietnam service, for example:

It's interesting to note that when the Bush was AWOL/deserter/liar story was in full play a few months back, the press went so far as to interview a dentist that had signed an exam record to question whether his signature had been forged. I guess the point was to try and establish that the record was altered to help Bush. Now we have the Swift Vets' charges and the press can't even be bothered to look critically at what they say actually happened. And there's 250+ of them! I've always felt there is media bias but even I am astonished by the utter lack of analysis of anything Kerry has ever done in Vietnam or public life.

Kerry almost certainly falsely stated that he resigned from Viet Nam Vets Against the War BEFORE the fateful meeting at which the plot to assassinate several pro-war US Senators was debated. Yet when both FBI records and some of his supporters verified that Kerry had spoken forcefully against the proposal to murder Senators (to Kerry's credit at the time), most of the press did nothing. Can you imagine if Bush had been caught in such a falsehood, saying that he didn't attend a meeting where others were proposing to murder US Senators when he had been present and helped to persuade them not to do it?

And he gives several other examples of "nothing to see here, folks, move along."

More on media spin of the SwiftVets story.

Some people really don't want the story to get out. However,

The veterans group said it has at least 5,000 new contributors and has raised more than $230,000 since the ad started running last week.

Heh.

Finally, you may want to visit a comprehensive "factchecking John F Kerry's ass" site, which isn't getting much attention right now since the SwiftVet.com story is in the news. It focuses more on Kerry's testimony against the war after he came back, rather than his conduct in combat.

Lots more where that came from (says the woman who bookmarks everything and keeps them all in neatly labeled folders). Keep checking back.

UPDATE: More from my fellow NYer Scott at Slantpoint. More links from Glenn on the Cambodia issue, which I don't find as devastating as the fact that no one in Kerry's chain of command supports him, and only one of his fellow swiftboat officers (his peers) supports him. That's a lot of co-workers and bosses unwilling to give a good job reference to someone who plays up the old job where they worked with him in his resume cover letter, and ignores his career of the past 20 years. Would you hire this man for CEO of USA Corp.?

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt interviews someone who served with John Kerry. (On his very own swiftboat, even.) If you scroll down, you can watch the mini-news-cycles as they spin around. Lileks on same:

I was assembling thoughts for my weekly editorial column, and I realized that I couldn’t write about Christmas in Cambodia. Not possible. The news cycle for editorial pages sometimes takes a week; it is a stately procession with the pundits atop their floats doing the queen-wave. Here comes George Will! Here comes Maureen Dowd! Oh, I love a parade. It’s the summation of the conventional wisdom! In sequins! This doesn’t work in this fresh century, when news cycles are banging and revolving like pistons in a lawn mower.

. . . Christmas in Cambodia was finally mentioned Monday on Fox news, which may be the tipping point. The other channels are now free to discuss the issue by discussing the controversy, which is the standard excuse. For Fox to break a story – well, it’s like Paris Hilton hiking up her skirt to show a new tattoo that depicts details of a planned Al Qaeda attack. Consider the source! But the tattoo seems unusually detailed, and coincides with reports from other sources. Perhaps that’s the food chain of the future: Drudge > blogs > Fox > CNN > New York Times > Maureen Dowd. A relay race with a lit stick of dynamite as the baton. Can she bury it in a pail of sand in time? Stay tuned!

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/10/2004 02:19:15 PM

The fad of the moment. Sorry for the short notice. Tonight, at Makor, a panel on political blogs, with Jeff Jarvis, Daniel Radosh, and others. The link has directions, time, cost, etc.

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/10/2004 09:04:03 AM

A New York State of Mind. Random NYC cool stuff:

NYWiki.com is a wiki by and about New Yorkers. If you live here or have in the past, or know interesting things about New York, go over there and contribute.

The font of freedom is Gotham. The story of how a typeface was chosen for the WTC memorial.

A site about New York's ethnic neighborhoods, past and present.

Overheard in New York. Just what it says.

Monday, August 09, 2004

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/9/2004 11:03:47 AM

Bush Derangement Syndrome Dept. I have written admiringly of Leon Wieseltier on this blog on several occasions. When he is dissecting bad arguments, as in his evisceration of Tony Judt's "bi-national state" nonsense last year, or explaining a complex subject, such as the intersection of global antisemitism and American exceptionalism, he is inspiring and compelling. However, Weiseltier seems to unquestioningly accept the conventional East-Coast-Dem-lib wisdom on US foreign policy, contra the evidence, for which I fisked him a few months ago.

But Weiseltier's finely tuned moral outrage always has a bracing effect on whatever issue is on the table, and here he applies it to a pretty despicable example of the self-important rage of the chattering classes, a hate-Bush tract thinly disguised as a novel. Near the end of the piece he again seems to find credulous whatever the Democratic Party tells him, but first he eloquently decries the debilitating and dangerous condition which Charles Krauthammer calls Bush Derangement Syndrome:

Liberals must think carefully about their keenness to mirror some of the most poisonous qualities of their adversaries. It was never exactly a disgrace to American liberalism that it lacked its Limbaugh. But demagoguery now enjoys a new prestige. Thus, a prominent liberal thinker writes a book against George W. Bush that refreshingly prefers ideas to innuendoes, and a sympathetic reviewer in this newspaper laments that ''instead of 'Reason,' which the left already has too much of, the Democrats need a book titled 'Brass Knuckles.' '' The argument for liberal demagoguery is twofold, tactical and philosophical. There are those who believe the Democrats cannot succeed without the politics of the sewer. These are the same people who believe it is the politics of the sewer to which the Republicans owe their success. This view significantly underestimates the depth and the nature of George W. Bush's support in American society, and significantly overestimates the influence of the media and its pundit vaudeville on American politics. Rush Limbaugh did not elect a president and neither will Michael Moore. All the professional manipulation of opinion notwithstanding, reality is still more powerful than its representations. If it is not, then all politics is futile.

The philosophical argument for liberal demagoguery is that it is merely an expression, or an exaggeration, of American democracy. But then this must be true also of conservative demagoguery, which also claims to speak (but rather less plausibly) in the voice of the common man. It is when politics becomes a competition in populist credentials that demagoguery, and the sophistry of the slippery slope, flourishes, and the voice of the common man is stolen. The demagogue's gravest sin is not incivility, it is stupidity. Does the Bush administration love capitalism too much? But it is also possible to love capitalism too little. The greatness of capitalism, after all, is that it may be politically corrected. Was American power used improperly, or for ill, in Iraq? But it is also possible for American power to be used properly, and for good. Is the friendly opinion of the world a condition of American security? Often, but not always.

So far, so good. Now Weiseltier adopts the Party Line:

The incompetence of the Bush administration in world affairs, too much of which was ideologically ordained, does not alter the fact that the United States must sometimes deploy overwhelming force against extreme wickedness. It will be disastrous, for liberalism and for America, if the indignation against George W. Bush becomes an excuse for a great simplification, for a delirious release from the complexities of historical and political understanding that it took the American left decades to learn. . . . The good news is that the politics of Bush-hatred may be at odds with the culture of Bush-hatred. Neither John Kerry nor John Edwards appears to live in the universe in which ''Checkpoint'' was set or in the universe in which ''Checkpoint'' was written. Whatever the merit of their opposition to the Bush administration, the spirit of their opposition is not dark. They are not taking the radical bait.

How I wish that were true. But it isn't.

Slate's Timothy Noah is also disturbed by the novel and its author's ambiguous relationship to his characters.

UPDATE: Roundup of opinions on Checkpoint. Includes long excerpt from a piece by PJ O'Rourke, which I would love to read except the typeface and color make it almost impossible to decipher. :-(
Consensus seems to be : It's a joke, son. Unfortunately, I know far too many people who actually think like Baker's unhinged protagonist, and to claim Baker is being too subtle for us hamhanded literalists is just another way to not take the problem of partisan hatred seriously. Weiseltier takes Baker seriously, and rightly so.

Saturday, August 07, 2004

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/7/2004 09:41:22 PM

The Fence, cont. Daniel Gordis, an American-born Israeli, writes about viewing the Fence with a Palestinian co-worker. She shows him her Arab town in hopes he will recoil at how oppressive it is, but he has a different reaction.

It was, as my friend expected, an unsettling day for me. But not for the reasons that she'd thought. No one can deny the massiveness of the wall. No one can deny that it's ugly as sin. Or that it poses real hardships. Or that it may not have been built in all the right places. But no one can deny, either, that the reason that we, like many other Israeli parents, worry much less about whether our children will make it home is because of that wall. And that the reason that Jerusalem, and much of the rest of the country, has been exceedingly quiet recently, for almost five previously unimaginable months, is also because of the wall. And that before the wall, this was a different country. A country terrorized. By people who came from places like Abu Dis. Who, for the most part, can no longer get in.

It was their absolute unwillingness to even mention Israel's need for the fence that, contrary to her expectations and her hopes, slowly but inexorably eradicated most of the misgivings I'd had about the fence, at least in principle (there are without question some spots that have to be moved). My friend and her sister are Israeli citizens, in addition to being Palestinian (a long story). They live on opposite sides of the fence. (Another long story.) But both speak Hebrew, both work in West Jerusalem, and both understand Israeli culture as well as anyone else. And neither, in an hour of talking about the fence and a day of touring the area, ever mentioned any reason why Israel might do such a thing.

Previous post on the fence, with lots of links.

Friday, August 06, 2004

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/6/2004 06:52:22 PM

Love makes the world go round. A hat tip to Protocols for this story on Paul Wolfowitz's inspiration for his zeal in spreading democracy in the Middle East.

The US deputy secretary of defence was one of the original architects of the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein and remains an enthusiastic advocate of spreading democracy in the Middle East, despite the setbacks in Iraq. For his detractors, it is evidence that he is pursuing an agenda hostile to Arab regimes, particularly ones as virulently opposed to Israel as Saddam's. Critics have also latched on to the fact that his sister, Laura, a biologist, lives in Israel as proof for their theory. . . .

In fact, there is a woman from whom Mr Wolfowitz does draw support and backing for his views, but she comes from a very different - and unexpected - background. The Telegraph can reveal that his closest companion and most valued confidantes is a middle-aged Arab feminist whose own strongly held views on instilling democracy in her native Middle East have helped bolster his resolve. Shaha Ali Riza is a senior World Bank official who was born in Tunis, grew up in Saudi Arabia and holds an international relations masters degree from St Anthony's College, Oxford. . . . Ms Riza's childhood in Saudi Arabia did much to shape her commitment to democracy, equal rights and civil liberties in the Arab world as she experienced at first hand the kingdom's oppressive regime, particularly for women.

More here.

This does not seem incongruous with anything else I know about Wolfowitz, but as the article points out, it will surprise those who demonize him. I am also going to guess that the secrecy of their relationship is for her physical safety, given the misogynistic and zenophobic hatred and violence too many of her ethnic group like to engage in.

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/6/2004 04:47:20 PM

Technology. I've had it with Blogger. That's all I'm going to say.

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/6/2004 04:12:39 PM

The latest meeting of the recovering progressives support group. Previous meetings here and here.

In the last support group, we pretty much vented about trying to discuss politics with friends and family members. Today we're just going to hear some testimony to cheer us up and steel our resolve.

First, the uber-blogger himself is one of us. A reader emails:

Before the war in Iraq, I would imagine you were usually considered a centrist. Now, whenever I see you mentioned in the media, it's "Conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds." . . . if you are for the war, no matter how liberal your other beliefs are, you are conservative. If you are against the war, you are normal. What gives?

Glenn responds:

I've pretty much given up fighting it, because yes, that seems to be the definition. Pro-gay-marriage, pro-choice, pro-drug-legalization, but pro-war? You're a "conservative."

Sound familiar?

Lynn, another self-described liberal, says she's ready to start stumping for Bush, and she's in a swing state too:

I'm pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, against the establishment of religion (any religion) in our public schools and courthouses, against total repeal of the Federal Estate Tax and in favor of (reasonable) regulation of firearms. I'm a card carrying member of the Environmental Defense Fund (with a few reservations). . . . I know all too well that this country has enemies who have declared war against us and intend to win. And I know that their plans for America don't include the right of women to make reproductive choices. Or fashion choices, or travel choices, or choices of their spouse or just about any other choices. I know that their plans for America don't include the right of gays to live, let alone to marry, or the right of anyone to practice a religion other than theirs.

I know that with all its problems and complications, our justice system stands head and shoulders over what they have in mind for us. And I know that in order to put the kabosh on their plans, we need a President who has a clear grasp of who the enemy is and of who our friends are. That President isn't George W. Bush, in my opinion, but he's a hell of a lot closer than the alternative.

Now let me introduce Phyllis Chesler, who has been a high-profile feminist activist dates since the 60s:

"I put an American flag in my window right after 9/11, and I was challenged: 'Have you gone soft in the head and become a patriot?' " she says. "I see no problem between the kind of ideals I hold and the fact that I hold them in America. America has given me the kind of freedom that I would not have in Saudi Arabia, that I would not have in Afghanistan."

She knows about Afghanistan. Her first husband was an Afghan Muslim, and she lived with his family in Kabul in the early 1960s. For six months, she says, she "was pretty much held hostage." It was an experience that profoundly influenced her. "I first learned how different the Judeo-Christian West and the Islamic East really are long ago . . . when I was a bride living in Afghanistan in an era of pre-Taliban gender apartheid," she writes. "Afghanistan had never been colonized, so there were no Westerners to blame. It was there that I learned how not to romanticize wily, colorful, Third World tyrants."

That experience helped forge her feminist views, and she sees a bitter irony in progressives' opposition to the war on terror, which began by destroying the repressive Taliban regime. . . . "I didn't understand Americans who are progressives, feminists, liberals and leftists, why the day after we invaded Afghanistan, everybody began treating this as if we had just invaded Vietnam," Ms. Chesler says. "We were in a time warp, we were back in the '60s. You would think ... there would be some euphoria. Suddenly, women can go about and put their faces into the sun. It's a good thing. And girls and women can go to school and become literate. It's a good thing. And yet, the habit of criticizing one's own government was so deeply ingrained that they could not see this invasion as a good thing, even momentarily."

Several months ago I posted a story by recovering progressive Samuel, one of the regulars at Roger Simon's blog. Here he is again on his conversion away from the Democratic Party.

Finally, Moe Lane has some thoughts about his political niche:

It's interesting to be part of the Left of the Right (which isn't the same as being in the Middle). Nobody seems to know quite what to do with us, you understand. We're too wishy-washy for the True Conservatives, too frustratingly obtuse for the True Liberals; the Centrists don't understand why we and the Right-Democrats won't join them in a broad coalition and the Just Plain Nuts keep giving us odd tracts to read.

UPDATE: More depressing testimony, but unfortunately too true, from my experience.

UPDATE: Why so many of us are in the closet:

That's always the problem: it's always someone we're dating, or a family member or someone else we similarly don't want to piss off. We can flame each other on the Net all we want, but when it comes to the people we really care about, we can't just tell them off, can we? I've had to keep quiet in a thus-far year-long ongoing e-mail conversation with someone I'm collaborating with on a creative project, because he keeps peppering every message with moronic slurs about Bush and Republicans. . . .

Also why Bush might get a bigger turnout than the mainstream media think: too many artists, teachers, office workers, etc. who can't say what they think for fear of their jobs and social lives, but who can vote as they please. Thank God for the secret ballot.

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/6/2004 03:24:12 PM

Party hardy, dude! I've been to several of these "Party for Bush" events. Last month 4 of us LGF-reading-quasi-liberals (well, Peggy says she's not a liberal any more at all!) got together to visit two parties of the many that took place on the same night, one on the Upper East Side and one on the Upper West Side. We felt so glamorous and continental, all we needed were floor-length fur coats and satin gowns, and tuxes and top hats, and 30s-era taxicabs. Anyway, the stereotypes are so true, folks:

UES: terraced penthouse, preppie suited middle-management types, catered finger food, and a well-stocked bar including Pimm's #1. (Mary envisioned watercress sandwiches and plaid martinis but we didn't see any of those. But I bet you could have asked the bartender for a plaid martini and gotten one.)

UWS: outdoor pub on the Hudson pier, beer and Cokes, jeans and t-shirts, cute metrosexual dot.com entrepreneurs, paunchy grizzled techie nerds.

Frank wrote an account of the most recent party on the pier, where I met him and several of his friends. (Turns out most of them read LGF too.) We didn't get into who had always been a conservative, and who was still a liberal but hawkish, but we all had anecdotes about feeling lonely and a bit intimidated by the preponderance of virulent anti-Bush opinion in our town.

Hmmmm. Time for another recovering progressives support group meeting.

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/6/2004 10:56:19 AM

Antisemitism watch. Silent Running is covering a wave of grave desecrations and burnings in New Zealand. (You can click back from that URL to more posts.) Pix here.

Silent Running also covered an appearance at a Melbourne university by Daniel Pipes, who got the same reception he usually gets by anti-Israel protestors. Start here and click back.

Random tidbits: A friend of Melanie Phillips gets an earful at a bookshop in Oxford. Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook poses at a protest against Israel's "apartheid" wall in London. Lots of defacing with swastikas in San Francisco.

UPDATE: More from Roger.

UPDATE: More here and here on the San Francisco incident. What were defaced were campaign posters for a Democratic candidate for district supervisor, who is an Israeli-born Jewish businessman.

UPDATE: On the New Zealand grave vandalizing.

UPDATE: NZ parliament passes a motion against antisemitism.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

 
posted by William Leon 8/5/2004 11:48:07 AM

Jewish dating: JDate is for Congressmen:

If you are a Jewish woman between 42 to 52 who has "an old soul" and is "sensual, gracious, humble, fair, down to earth, playful, funny, musical, with a kind generous and loving heart," then we may have found a good match for you.

A member of J Date, the online Jewish dating service, this bachelor describes himself as an avid swimmer, humorous/witty, intellectual, stubborn and romantic. He's a 51-year-old divorced father of two teenagers from Fair Lawn, N.J., who likes rock 'n' roll, jazz, hiking and biking and reading.

He's a Libra. He makes more than $100,000 a year. He's 5 feet 8 inches with brown eyes. Job description: U.S. Congress.

He's Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), who describes himself in his profile on J Date as a devoted father to his 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son. He says he is "emotionally and financially secure and swims one to one and a half miles, three to four times a week. He enjoy "great food, wine, conversation, movies, music, theatre, books, family, friends, new people and the pleasure of a wonderful woman to be with me in the real world, or alone with me in our own."

Rothman says he has a job "that I truly like and believe is noble and important in many ways." And on a more philosophical, metaphysical level, the Congressman says in his pitch to eligible Jewish women, "I do my best, every day, to appreciate and enjoy life's continuing and sometimes exhausting journey, with its steep climbs, comfortable straightaways, as well as its eye-opening turns, twists, sharp drops and, as often as possible, blissful, mountaintop experiences. As I tell my kids: 'Every day is a gift.'"

His pitch seems to have been working. Rothman tells HOH that ever since his sister recommended J Date to him about a year ago, he has met "some really wonderful women" - journalists, doctors, lawyers and even a clinical psychologist (the woman he is seeing now), thanks to J Date.

In his online profile, Rothman says that special woman waiting out there should "have the willingness and natural disposition to continue to be open to learn what might be fun (so will I), what the truth is and what is just. She should be a person who loves and understands children and will know how - if and when this comes to pass - to try to establish just the right relationship with my kids."

He also hopes she is between 5 feet, 2 inches and 5 feet, 9 inches tall. "As I want to be with this wonderful woman, I hope she thinks I'm a wonderful man and wants to be with me, too."

Rothman said Friday that his goal is to get married again and joining an online dating service seemed a good way to go about achieving that. "I'm a modern guy. And this is what modern, single guys do." (Roll Call, p. 16, August 2, 2004)

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/5/2004 02:20:07 AM

Blog roundup. Gerard van der Leun is taking some time off. Which gives the rest of us some time to catch up with all the brilliant posts over at American Digest.

Norm Geras celebrated his first blogaversary last week.

Jeff Jarvis' list of must-read blogs. I would have put Winds of Change much higher. And after the DNC Atrios isn't anonymous anymore.

Sgt. Mom has some words for the Hollywood crowd. She also goes to town on "the usual international crowd"'s stereotyping of Texans.

Like I keep saying, there's always good stuff over at Gary's.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/4/2004 10:18:00 PM

Quote of the Day. I haven't visited Electrolite in quite some time, because politically we occupy such different consensual realities, and their crowd is kind of chummy and self-righteous, and it's not fun to go over there unless you are part of that particular echo-chamber. [ Kind of like LGF, right?- ed. Yeah, different echo chambers. So what's your point? ] But I really like the quotes on the right side of the page, like:

Peace means something different from "not fighting." Those aren't peace advocates, they're "stop fighting" advocates. Peace is an active and complex thing and sometimes fighting is part of what it takes to get it. (Jo Walton)

If there is no willingness to use force to defend civil society, it's civil society that goes away, not force. (Teresa Nielsen Hayden)

For a Westerner to trash Western culture is like criticizing our nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere on the grounds that it sometimes gets windy, and besides, Jupiter's is much prettier. You may not realize its advantages until you're trying to breathe liquid methane. (Neal Stephenson)

I'm a fuzzy-headed warm-hearted liberal, and I think fuzzy-headed warm-hearted liberalism is an ideological stance that needs defending, if necessary, with a hob-nailed boot-kick to the bollocks of budding totalitarianism. (Charles Stross)

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. (Gustav Mahler)

Sounds good, right? They get it, right? Hell, that last sentiment could be the motto of this blog. But we come to vastly different conclusions about how to get from here to there.

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/4/2004 09:08:35 PM

Remodeling. Kesher Talk is going to upgrade real soon to a better platform, we are going to get comments back, the permalink problem will be fixed, and the look and feel will be friendlier. And we might start taking ads. Stay tuned.

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/4/2004 08:29:54 PM

Random cool stuff. Sorry I was AWOL last week. Blogger ate half a post I was working on for hours and I just went into an extended "feh" moment. It was an update on the Temple Mount destruction, meant to be posted on Tisha B'Av. I'll finish it in a day or two.

On a more uplifting note, I bring you: Cool Stuff! (For previous Cool Stuff entries, google "kesher talk" "cool stuff".) I apologize in advance for lack of attributions; I don't remember where half this stuff comes from.

I do remember that this series on the origins and finer points of coffee came from Donald Sensing.

The Inflation Calculator lets you calculate, for example, that something which cost $100 in 1885 would cost $1953.61 in 2003.

Bruce Sterling riffs on the random poetry of spam.

Ancient Egyptian humor.

If you need a Science Fair project real quick: Measure the speed of light using Milky Way Stars®

 
posted by Judith Weiss 8/4/2004 01:44:29 PM

Anyone but Kerry Dept. Lots of fun parody stuff. Email them to your friends, print them off on your color inkjet and post them all over town. Make bumper stickers.

Let's rumble in Davenport!

When you're a Vet
you're a Vet all the way
from your first Purple Heart
'til you throw them away!

When you're a Vet,
If you spit on the man,
who served, just like you
back in ole Vietnam...

You're never alone
You've got a "Winter Soldier"
You're home with your own
And just like you've expected:
"By the way, I served in Vietnam."

(You have to check out Michele's photoshop)

Speaking of terrorist alerts . . . .

Going down with the ship, er, swiftboat.

John and Teresa get corny.
I am John F Cornholio and I approved this message. And more Cornholio.
[ UPDATE: Children of the Corn. ]

Let America Be America Again.

The John Edwards Hummel plate. On a similar theme: Kerry's Security Services. More on Kerry's foreign policy and the European veto.

Speaking of foreign policy, here's Moore the Hutt in the Carter box. Remember Carter?

The Kerry Hamster Dance.

The bunny suit picture with rotating captions.

Kerry's mentor and fellow senator.

The speech.

Lurch and Opie. Edwards practicing VP demeanor.

Lots more Kerry-Edwards parody here.

(Most recent Anyone But Kerry post here, and use the links at the bottom of the post to click back to previous ABK entries.)

UPDATE: Flush the Johns roadside art.

Friday, July 30, 2004

 
posted by Rachel Barenblat 7/30/2004 04:41:44 PM

Darfur. The Holocaust Museum has declared a genocide emergency in Darfur, Sudan and will be opening an exhibit on the Darfur situation on August 2. (Thanks to Mystical Politics for the link.)

Ethan Zuckerman posted about Sudan earlier this week, a post that's fairly depressing but very much worth reading. His post ends with a couple of suggestions for how we can help.