January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
What vegans say.
My favorite out of a whole lot of videos I watched after getting sucked into the YouTube genre "Shit [blanks] Say."
"Los Angeles Makes Condom Use Mandatory for Adult Film Actors."
The NYT reports:
“Clearly this is about the government overreaching and intruding into consenting adults’ decisions,” said Diane Duke, the chief executive of the Free Speech Coalition, a trade group for the pornography business. “Our standards and protocols are extremely effective and are working. They are taking something they know nothing about and imposing their morality on our industry.”Can you make the argument that constitutional rights are violated?
On the day Democrats file 1 million recall signatures, Governor Scott Walker does an interview with Rush Limbaugh.
We're already discussing the filed petitions here, so this post is about the interview. Here's the transcript, which reveals what I think will be Walker's central theme in the recall campaign:
WALKER: People have seen no matter how many attack ads from the big government union bosses, the bottom line is the reforms are working.Walker is going to argue the facts, the results.
RUSH: And so they're living the reforms that you've made, they're actually demonstrable.
WALKER: Yeah, we have a great choice here. We don't even know who the candidate is against us yet other than we know the real opponent will be this money coming in from out of state from these government unions, but in the end it's a real choice. You can go back to the days of double-digit tax increases, billion-dollar budget deficits, and record job loss, because in the three years before I took office Wisconsin lost 150,000 private sector jobs, or we can move forward and ultimately be in a position where we can move the state forward. We've had a net increase of jobs this year. We balanced the budget without tax increases. We did it the old-fashioned way. We made structural changes that think more about the next generation than just about the next election. And we were able to protect core services by making these reforms. That's where I think the majority of people in our state want to go... I think the facts, if given a chance to get out, will ultimately allow us to yet again earn the trust of a majority of people in our state.
Whiteout at Culver's.
In Rochelle, Illinois. Less than 100 miles from home. Restored by cheeseburgers and onion rings, we soldier on.
UPDATE: We're safe at home in Madison.
Democrats say they are filing 1 million signatures on the recall Walker petitions...
... which are due today. With only 540,208 needed, they'll have to find an awful lot of invalid signatures if a recall election is to be averted.
The paper petitions, weighing 1.5 tons, were delivered by truck to the state Government Accountability Board's office two blocks from the Capitol in Madison. The board, which runs state elections, will then take them to a secure state building that will be guarded by Capitol Police until all the petitions are electronically scanned over several days.
Next begins the months-long process of reviewing the petitions. If the accountability board determines enough valid signatures have been filed it will call elections, which may occur in June or later.
At the Austin Café...
... we're not in Austin. We're halfway home to Madison. Greetings from Springfield, Missouri — one of America's many Springfields — where we won't be much longer. It's time to throw our things back in the car and head straight back into winter.
Please use this post to talk about whatever you want. I'll be reading on the iPad in the car.
I thought there wasn't supposed to be any current controversy over contraception.
That's the approach Mitt Romney took at the January 7th debate when George Stephanopolulos peppered him with questions about Griswold (the old Supreme Court case).
But in fact there is a live controversy. It's not about whether states can ban contraceptives (the issue in Griswold). It's about the Obama administration's rules implementing health insurance requirements:
But in fact there is a live controversy. It's not about whether states can ban contraceptives (the issue in Griswold). It's about the Obama administration's rules implementing health insurance requirements:
Should colleges where religious authorities preach against some methods of contraception be required to offer health insurance that covers those contraceptive methods at no cost?...
The rule, which will take effect Aug. 1, exempts religious employers from the requirement to offer health plans that cover contraceptives only if the employers meet specific guidelines. The organization’s purpose must be to inculcate religious values, it must primarily employ and serve people with the same religious beliefs, and it must be considered a nonprofit organization under provisions of the tax code that cover churches and religious orders.
But many religious colleges say the exemption is too narrow: “even Jesus couldn’t live it,” Galligan-Stierle said, because he ministered to people of other faiths.
Facebook gives Politico access to Facebook's private status messages and comments.
But you're not supposed to mind because the process is automated.
[E]very post and comment — both public and private — by a U.S. user that mentions a presidential candidate’s name will be fed through a sentiment analysis tool that spits out anonymized measures of the general U.S. Facebook population.
January 16, 2012
Andrew Sullivan misunderstands why I did not read his "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?" article.
He writes:
Now, quite possibly Newsweek sold the article short, and I was fair enough to Sullivan not to presume to know what he said. But he has melded his web presence — once fiercely independent and alive — to the rotting corpse that is Newsweek, and he bears some responsibility for his predicament. Judging from his blog post, I think he wants his article to be taken as a sane, sober, balanced assessment of Obama's presidency, but he has opted to wrap himself in Newsweek — how much money is that worth to him? — and doing that, he loses many of the readers he purports to mean to speak to and persuade.
But how sober and balanced is he really? I can't help noticing that in talking about me, he wasn't fair. He called me "right-wing," and yet I'm a political moderate, liberal on the social issues, and I voted for Obama.
So there I was, en route from Texas to Wisconsin, pulling in the 3G on my iPad, and I could see that I had an engraved invitation from Andrew Sullivan to read his article. I read it out loud, as Meade drove. (Meade is my husband, and — speaking of personal insults to me from Andrew Sullivan — Sullivan insulted us for deciding to marry!)
The cover really does misrepresent the article. The internal headline is: "How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics." Note the difference between calling the critics "dumb" and saying Obama will "outsmart" his critics. Sullivan does a good job of marshaling the evidence that Obama has done a pretty good job — not that it's impossible to quibble. (Sullivan claims that Obama has "not had a single significant scandal to his name." What about Fast & Furious?!) But his central theme is that Obama has an 8-year rather than a 4-year plan, so we need to reelect him to "recapitalize him to entrench what he has done already and make it irreversible."
I know that last quote will make many of my readers think: That's exactly why we need to oust him! The changes he's made need to be reversed, and if we don't act now, it will be too late.
But maybe if you take the time to read the article, you'll agree that some of what Obama has done is admirable. It's still a separate question whether we should want 4 more years of him rather than the alternative. It might be better for the country to have Mitt Romney step in and give the Republican Party a chance to take ownership of the economy and national defense. Four years ago I saw the benefit of the Democratic Party having its turn in power after the Bush years left so many people feeling frustrated and excluded.
In short, Sullivan's article is elaborate and well articulated, but it doesn't answer all the questions, and it certainly doesn't answer the insulting and off-putting question "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?" I don't expect Sullivan to address the larger journalistic question in which his career is embedded, but it's obvious that Newsweek fully intended to drag in some readers with that red-meat title, and in doing that, it knowingly repelled others like me. I'm not the slightest bit apologetic for passing over an article that didn't appeal to me. I can't read the entire internet. Like every other reader, I have to make choices about what I'm going to read, and that's a choice that must necessarily be made without reading the article.
If I choose not to read the article, must I also choose not to blog about it? Of course not. I'm careful not to say anything I can't fairly say. I don't assert that I know what's in an article I haven't read, but criticizing media, I often have very good reason to write about why I'm not reading something. I analyze covers as covers and headlines as headlines. I think that's entirely appropriate.
I wondered when I wrote this what the reaction would tell me. Just browsing at a few of the right-wing blogs, I see that they have attacked it without actually, you know, reading it. Althouse is a classic example:If you look at my blog post, it's a reaction to the Newsweek cover, beginning with some analysis of the photograph of Obama and continuing to the question that Newsweek framed for the purpose of getting people to buy the magazine. Inside was Sullivan's article, which I did not have time to read. Not that Sullivan could know this, but we had to drive halfway across the country today. Another way of putting that is: I have a life. I can't read everything. Generally, I scan the web in the morning and find some things that feel bloggable to me. Today, it was the Newsweek cover photo and headline, and that's what I wrote about. Writing about the headline, I had the reaction that it doesn't work on me. It doesn't make me want to read. It's insulting! That is a journalistic failure by Newsweek.
I don't even want to read it. It just seems like red meat for Obama fans. And what a cliché! Republicans are stupid.Half the article is devoted to liberals and Democrats! But it would be too much for her to actually read it.
Now, quite possibly Newsweek sold the article short, and I was fair enough to Sullivan not to presume to know what he said. But he has melded his web presence — once fiercely independent and alive — to the rotting corpse that is Newsweek, and he bears some responsibility for his predicament. Judging from his blog post, I think he wants his article to be taken as a sane, sober, balanced assessment of Obama's presidency, but he has opted to wrap himself in Newsweek — how much money is that worth to him? — and doing that, he loses many of the readers he purports to mean to speak to and persuade.
But how sober and balanced is he really? I can't help noticing that in talking about me, he wasn't fair. He called me "right-wing," and yet I'm a political moderate, liberal on the social issues, and I voted for Obama.
So there I was, en route from Texas to Wisconsin, pulling in the 3G on my iPad, and I could see that I had an engraved invitation from Andrew Sullivan to read his article. I read it out loud, as Meade drove. (Meade is my husband, and — speaking of personal insults to me from Andrew Sullivan — Sullivan insulted us for deciding to marry!)
The cover really does misrepresent the article. The internal headline is: "How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics." Note the difference between calling the critics "dumb" and saying Obama will "outsmart" his critics. Sullivan does a good job of marshaling the evidence that Obama has done a pretty good job — not that it's impossible to quibble. (Sullivan claims that Obama has "not had a single significant scandal to his name." What about Fast & Furious?!) But his central theme is that Obama has an 8-year rather than a 4-year plan, so we need to reelect him to "recapitalize him to entrench what he has done already and make it irreversible."
I know that last quote will make many of my readers think: That's exactly why we need to oust him! The changes he's made need to be reversed, and if we don't act now, it will be too late.
But maybe if you take the time to read the article, you'll agree that some of what Obama has done is admirable. It's still a separate question whether we should want 4 more years of him rather than the alternative. It might be better for the country to have Mitt Romney step in and give the Republican Party a chance to take ownership of the economy and national defense. Four years ago I saw the benefit of the Democratic Party having its turn in power after the Bush years left so many people feeling frustrated and excluded.
In short, Sullivan's article is elaborate and well articulated, but it doesn't answer all the questions, and it certainly doesn't answer the insulting and off-putting question "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?" I don't expect Sullivan to address the larger journalistic question in which his career is embedded, but it's obvious that Newsweek fully intended to drag in some readers with that red-meat title, and in doing that, it knowingly repelled others like me. I'm not the slightest bit apologetic for passing over an article that didn't appeal to me. I can't read the entire internet. Like every other reader, I have to make choices about what I'm going to read, and that's a choice that must necessarily be made without reading the article.
If I choose not to read the article, must I also choose not to blog about it? Of course not. I'm careful not to say anything I can't fairly say. I don't assert that I know what's in an article I haven't read, but criticizing media, I often have very good reason to write about why I'm not reading something. I analyze covers as covers and headlines as headlines. I think that's entirely appropriate.
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