Urushiol

Nothing drives a man wild like a little contact dermatitis! You don't really want to kill anyone, you just want to make them wish they'd died. Found in the Poison Ivy plant , when you touch someone, the itch can last forever.

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Quizzes and Personality Tests]]> http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2008/05/ummm_ok.html http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2008/05/ummm_ok.html Quizzes Fri, 09 May 2008 17:32:54 -0500 Via Glenn Reynolds, have these women lost their minds?

Dr. Helen,

My wife has recently informed me that husbands are now expected to give their wives “push presents.” Quite frankly, the idea and the term disgust me. She is not pregnant, nor is she materialistic, shallow, or prone to feeling entitled to anything. To the contrary, she is an exceptional woman, and I don’t believe she was motivated to tell me this out of materialism. Thus, I found this somewhat out of character for her. I tried to convey my disgust to her, but she just did not seem to understand what I found so offensive about the idea.

I had never heard of this, but it is not only offensive but demeaning. Why don't you just put a fish in her mouth when she's done pushing and have done with it?

Have I been living underneath a rock? That said, this seems like the right response:

What a woman is saying when she expects a gift is that sex — and by extension, child-bearing — must be compensated by a man. This exchange boils down to legal prostitution (nothing wrong with prostitution in my book, but call a spade a spade). The problem here lies in the fact that wives who want this type of exchange often think of themselves as above being a prostitute, but indeed, they are not — they are just dishonest prostitutes who are pretending to be something else. And what about the act of paying for children? A diamond in exchange for a child? Isn’t this a little sick? And if this kind of exchange is okay for women, why not for men?

Perhaps husbands should start expecting “pro-presents” when they get a promotion — wives should be expected to get hubby a new car or perhaps some kind of fun technology he has been wanting, that new big screen TV, perhaps? If the wife has no money, surely there are other things she could do to show how much she cares that her husband is moving up the career ladder. I’ll let the guys fill in the blank here.

If women find the above suggestions insulting, then think how men might feel when women expect gifts from them for having their children. Something that is precious, amazing and part of the human experience has now been turned into a business transaction.

What was it I said yesterday? Something about doing things for the other person because you enjoy the doing, not because you secretly expect something in return?

It seems to me that is part of being an adult, whether you're a man or a woman.

It is a riveting tale, full of sound, fury, desperate yearnings and Giant Princess-Eating Spiders From Hell. In the wee hours of the morning, your hostess donned her game face and tripped off through the Beltway traffic to quench her mad, unrequited passion for the First Pooch.

On her way in, the Princess tried her best to look suspicious and up to something. After all we've heard from the likes of Keith Olbermann about draconian security measures and innocent civilians being whisked off to Gitmo to have the frilly panties of fascism pulled over their frantically protesting heads to the undulating strains of Christina Aguilera CDs, it seemed not unlikely that with the right behavior, she ought be able to get herself pulled aside and frisked by one of those good-looking young Secret Service agents at the gate. But to her chagrin, the big bullies had the temerity to call her "Ma'am" and politely wave her through the line.

Whatever. The nerve of some people... and with all the taxes she paid, too.

In previous visits to the Big House, the Princess had a close encounter with the Commander in Chief of the war on terriers. We exchanged barks down a long hallway, but she was unable to convince him to abandon his watch. Perhaps this time would be different? Perhaps this was to be her lucky day?

The sun was shining on the South Lawn, illuminating gaily decorated picnic tables bedecked with red and white tablecloths. As she loaded her plate with a luscious array of fresh fruit and a to-die-for cheese empanada, her eyes scanned the crowd search for a glimpse of that rakish, devil-may-care fellow who made her heart beat faster. But he was nowhere to be seen.

After a brief petite dejeuner, the Princess, Carrie, Cyndi and a new friend the Princess met on her way into the fete (Gloria) strolled over to greet a few friends. There was HF6, munching away on goodies.

About 6 feet behind her stood Secretary Gates. Her back was to the Secretary of Defense.

Pau was Hawaii casual. Perhaps Blue Hawaii casual. "Yeah.... whatever. We do this sort of thing all the time. The SecDef and I... yanno...we're peeps. If I pay too much attention to him, he'll probably want to TALK to me... [yawn]. Men..."

The SecDef was quite good looking in person. Much better than the way he looks on TV. He also struck the Princess as being extremely patient and gracious. He gave a short introductory speech, and then the President arrived with the guests of honor.

Still no Barney. Grrr.

As the Princess sat quietly listening to the President's speech, she espied an enormous, woman-eating spider crawling up the back of the person at the table directly in front of her. Frantically she looked around for one of those worthless Secret Service agents.

But isn't that just like a man? Never around when you want one, always sticking their noses into your business when the MasterCard bill shows up. Taking matters into her own hand, she leapt to her feet and wrestled the Giant, Woman-eating Spider to the ground, it's 8 legs thrashing violently. Dusting her hands off, she quietly returned to her seat as though saving perfect strangers from ginormous arachnids were nothing out of the ordinary.

Still no Barney.

Moments later, she felt a nudge. HF6 whispered in her ear:

"Dear Lord WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE... THE GIANT WOMAN-EATING SPIDER IS HEADING STRAIGHT FOR YOUR JUGULAR!"

It was true. The Giant Princess-Eating Spider From Hell was on a collision course with my left toe, making a beeline (OK fine - a spiderline) straight across the lawn towards my foot. And_not_a_Secret_Service_Agent_in_sight, thank you very much.

And still no Barney.

That's it. Barney and I are through. The Princess cannot keep desperately hanging around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue like some deranged groupie, wrestling with oversized insects in the hopes of one day being noticed by a diminutive pooch.

She has her pride, you know. And there is always Barneycam.

[sniff]

Two

Three

Well I never went to college, babe
I did not have the luck
Rolled out of Indiana in the back of a pickup truck
With no education higher
Than the street of my hometown
I went lookin' for a fire
Just to burn it all down

You've got a real fine love
You've got a real fine love
One I am unworthy of
You've got a real fine love, baby

I thought I had a line on something
Maybe no one else could say
And they couldn't find it in their hearts
To just get out of my way
Then out of nowhere, and from nothing
You came into my life
I'd seen an angel or two before
But I'd never asked one to be my wife

Well you can sprinkle all your teardrops
Across the evening sky
But you cannot hide the twinkle
Of starlight in your eye
Well I left my map way back there, baby
I don't know where we are
But I'm gonna pull my pony up
And hitch my wagon to your star

Well now the babies are all sleeping
And the twilight's givin' in
She looks like you, he looks like her
And we all look like him
Well maybe it's just the little thing
The way I feel tonight
A little joy
A little peace

Some of the artists of the 1960s are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate aging baby boomers.

Herman's Hermits --- Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker

Ringo Starr --- I Get By With a Little Help from Depends

The Bee Gees --- How Can You Mend a Broken Hip?

Bobby Darin --- Splish, Splash, I Was Havin' a Flash

Roberta Flack--- The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face

Johnny Nash --- I Can't See Clearly Now

Paul Simon--- Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver

The Commodores --- Once, Twice, Three Times to the Bathroom

Marvin Gaye --- Heard It through the Grape Nuts

Procol Harem--- A Whiter Shade of Hair

Leo Sayer --- You Make Me Feel Like Napping

The Temptations --- Papa's Got a Kidney Stone

Abba--- Denture Queen

Tony Orlando --- Knock 3 Times on The Ceiling If You Hear Me Fall

Helen Reddy --- I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore

Leslie Gore--- It's My Procedure, and I'll Cry If I Want To

Willie Nelson --- On the Commode Again

Now this sounds like a game to the Princess. She came up with a few of my own to start you off:

Papa's Got A Brand New Dose of Viagra - James Brown

I Knew A Place...once - Petula Clark

All Day (And Several Times At Night) - The Kinks

Have at it, peoples. To help you out, here's a great link to old song titles.

'Cause I'm a wooooooman

"Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires."

- Notebooks of Lazarus Long

What is a real woman? Via Tigerhawk, the question seems to be generating some interesting commentary:

...there’s really not a lot of mystery about what everyone agrees a “real” man is. We all know “real” men are:

Mentally, emotionally, and intellectually strong, even if not physically (crippled and elderly men can still be “real” men). Hardworking, honorable, honest, dutiful, protective of family and country. Brave, courageous, rational, reasonable, kindhearted, and respectful. Knowledgeable about how to survive in rough times and how to solve problems. And so on.

What I started wanting to know when I was about 16 was just how in the hell any of those things were (or should be) exclusive to men. I realized even then that in fact, they are not. All adults should have every one of those personality and character traits as a matter of course.

So then I started wondering why anyone bothered with the phrase “real man” at all. Don’t they just mean “real adult”? As a young girl, shouldn’t I strive to be exactly the kind of person I kept hearing a “real man” would be? I thought so, and I still do. Maybe that’s why you never hear me whining about how my butt looks in these jeans or crying that no one pays enough attention to me. Who gives a crap? I don’t need any reassurances about silly shit because apparently, I am a “real man”, secure in my own “manliness”. Even though I’m a woman.

Now, what the fuck? Why can’t I just say I’m a “real woman”? Because no one ever talks about that. Except in the context of how “real women” have curves and “real women” don’t look like Heidi Klum. Of course, of course it always comes back to looks and sex when you’re talking about women. Google it. The first result you get on “be a real woman” is a site that says stuff like:

A woman shouldn’t solve man’s problems. This prerogative is male. A man is the one supposed to take care of a woman.

A real woman can’t ever be had over the barrel. She is always well-dressed with her hair and make-up done. Be ready that anything can happen all of a sudden. You’ll say it is hard to look nice all the time – for a real woman it’s a habit.

A real woman always has a couple of really good and expensive dresses in her wardrobe. They play the role of a parade costume for cases when it’s necessary to make an impression.

A real woman can let herself twist men round her little finger. She may stay mysteriously silent, complain that she’s bored, act stupid or start a passionate scientific argument. Nobody can make a woman answer a question if she doesn’t want to, and nobody can force her explain the reasons for doing/not doing this or that. Acting so capricious and unbalanced is a simple way to get a man attached to a woman. Don’t hesitate to make a man spend as much money on you as he can afford – he will never leave an object of capital investments.

A woman knows her worth, but makes everyone believe she’s priceless…She knows how to make men dance to her tune and she really enjoys it.

Christ with a cigarette.

The other results you get from the search “be a real woman” are almost completely equally pointless or niche-like, nothing general about all women and what it takes to be a “real” one. There’s stuff about being a good chaste Christian woman, stuff about “real beauty”, and stuff about sex changes. By the end of the FIRST PAGE of results, the search phrase is not even found. But Google “be a real man.” It goes on and on, page after page, about honor and strength and hard work and discipline and how to fix shit around the house.

Once again I feel the most appropriate question to ask at this juncture is what the fuck?

You know what I think? I think women have utterly FAILED each other. It has almost nothing to do with men, at all. Men have this shit worked out, they have a code by which they judge each other, and it’s a good code for the most part. There’s no mystery among men about how to behave in order to be taken seriously and have a life you can look back on when you’re old and feel pride.

What do women do? We sit around and we either bitch about men or we bitch about other women. Men don’t do what we want them to do, and other women are competition for all those men we don’t even want because they don’t obey us, so we’re never happy.

What we don’t do, or at least I don’t see it very often and believe me, I’ve looked, is establish our own code for judging others based on qualities that really matter, like men have.

Oh dear. I'm about to say some things that are going to make a whole lot of people very, very angry.

Again. Yee ha.

First of all, I agree with Rachel to a limited extent. But I also take issue with part of her argument. She blames the difference in standards squarely on women, claiming that men have defined their own standard for themselves and that women have, unlike men, singularly failed to do likewise:

I think women have utterly FAILED each other. It has almost nothing to do with men, at all. Men have this shit worked out, they have a code by which they judge each other, and it’s a good code for the most part. There’s no mystery among men about how to behave in order to be taken seriously and have a life you can look back on when you’re old and feel pride.

But is this really the case? I don't think it's that simple at all.

Neither men nor women exist in a vacuum. We react to rewards and disincentives, to signals we receive in response to our actions as we interact with other human beings. These are all cues we use to adjust our behavior and bring it into line with what society expects of us. To the extent that some of us are adept enough to figure out how to give other people what they want (i.e., to trade what pleases others for what we want in life), we are "successful". We get hired, date, marry, breed offspring. And it's not a simple equation either. Mere physical attractiveness isn't the only thing that matters. We've all seen people who aren't all that good looking, but who charm their way through life by virtue of their vitality or their ability to win the affection of others. But at the end of the day, I have always suspected that what really drives all of this is biology.

So the "real man" qualities Rachel quoted:

Hardworking, honorable, honest, dutiful, protective of family and country. Brave, courageous, rational, reasonable, kindhearted, and respectful. Knowledgeable about how to survive in rough times and how to solve problems. And so on.

A woman shouldn’t solve man’s problems. This prerogative is male. A man is the one supposed to take care of a woman.

Because - according to the biological imperative - men love the chase and despise anything won too easily we learn (sorrowfully, because duplicity is not our nature) to cultivate at least the appearance of being hard to get:

A real woman can let herself twist men round her little finger. She may stay mysteriously silent, complain that she’s bored, act stupid or start a passionate scientific argument. Nobody can make a woman answer a question if she doesn’t want to, and nobody can force her explain the reasons for doing/not doing this or that. Acting so capricious and unbalanced is a simple way to get a man attached to a woman. Don’t hesitate to make a man spend as much money on you as he can afford – he will never leave an object of capital investments.

We bloggers like to think we're important. All too often though, we just end up listening to the sound of our own bloviation. How many times do any of us do anything which has a lasting impact, that truly changes the world we live in?

How many of us can say we have ever saved a human life?

The United States is a spoiled and complacent nation. We tend to see liberty as our birthright, whining like spoiled children when we are expected to do what free men all over the world understand is the duty and responsibility of each generation: to defend our rights, lest our children grow up to know a world in which every word is uttered under the shadow of fear. We lap up the deranged ravings of journalists like Keith Olbermann when they froth at the mouth about how our civil liberties have been eroded under the evil Bush administration. But we in this country have no idea what having our "civil liberties eroded" really feels like:

While the USS Cole bombers are all free in Yemen, my friend the Yemeni journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani will be sentenced May 21 in a bogus trial and likely will get the death penalty or a long prison term. He is charged with insulting the president and demoralizing the military with an article about the Sa’ada war. He is an internationally renowned journalist and one of Yemen’s most prominent and outspoken democracy advocates

...Since he was released [from prison] in 2005, Al-Khaiwani has been beaten, kidnapped, censored and imprisoned. His paper was cloned, his website blocked and his children threatened.

Al-Khaiwani was badly beaten during his arrest in June 2007. His daughter, six year old Ebba, was slapped by police so hard that she fell unconscious. After Al-Khaiwani’s arrest and release on bail, he was kidnapped and badly beaten again. The US State Department issued a statement from DC noting his abduction pointed to, “disturbing trend of intimidation and harassment of Yemen’s journalist community.”

Al-Khaiwani was charged on July 4 with aiding the rebel movement by publishing war news. As you may know, the war in Sa’ada has been called a state sponsored genocide with strong parallels to the Sudan. I published photos of the damage in Sa’ada caused by indiscriminate (or deliberate) government bombing. I interviewed rebel spokesman Yahya al-Houthi, and posted it. (This website is now banned in Yemen.) By the standard of “demoralizing the military”, I’d also be subject to the death penalty if I was in Yemen. So would half of the bloggers here in the US.

As al-Khawiani’s sentencing approaches on May 21, fear is growing in Yemen and internationally that a guilty verdict in his case will open the door for a brutal crackdown on Yemen’s already endangered journalistic community.

Here in America, journalists can and do insult the President:

Why are you wasting my time with Colbert, I hear you ask. Because he is representative of what too often passes for political courage, not to mention wit, in this country. His defenders -- and they are all over the blogosphere -- will tell you he spoke truth to power. This is a tired phrase, as we all know, but when it was fresh and meaningful it suggested repercussions, consequences -- maybe even death in some countries. When you spoke truth to power you took the distinct chance that power would smite you, toss you into a dungeon or -- if you're at work -- take away your office.

But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew that going in. He also knew that Bush would have to sit there and pretend to laugh at Colbert's lame and insulting jokes. Bush himself plays off his reputation as a dunce and his penchant for mangling English. Self-mockery can be funny. Mockery that is insulting is not. The sort of stuff that would get you punched in a bar can be said on a dais with impunity. This is why Colbert was more than rude. He was a bully.

They can, and all too often do, disparage and demoralize the military:

Challenge the good General on his testimony. Challenge him on the facts if you wish. But check the ad hominems at the door. Just because he wears the uniform of the day doesn't give you carte blanche to take cheap potshots at medals that commemorate battles where better men than you will ever be have fought and died for ideals they believed were worth fighting for, even if you do not.

How about a little respect? I don't see the good General treating his questioners with contempt. From where I sit, Mr. Cavett, you are beating up on the military precisely because you know they cannot - by law - fight back. How about a little decency, which used to be called ordinary politeness in the civilian world.

We listen to an almost endless amount of blather from American journalists about how they are 'speaking truth to power'. The truth is that they risk nothing and suffer no consequences for their so-called truth telling. It requires absolutely no courage to insult and demoralize those you know will not strike back at you.

Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani (unlike Keith Olbermann or any of his compadres else here in the U.S.) is a man who truly has been speaking truth to a brutally repressive dictatorship. He has paid dearly for his defense of journalistic freedom. In 2005, Jane mobilized the blogosphere in his defense.

In response to the uproar she created, the Yemeni government spared al-Khaiwani's life:

This is the guy I made the online petition for in March 2005 and the bloggers all helped and he got amnesty. Since then he and I have become good friends. He loves democracy as much as I do. And he’s paid the price for it.

Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani is a vivid reminder that liberty comes with a steep price tag: free men must be willing to risk their lives to defend their rights. Let the Yemeni government know that the world is watching, and that the United States of America does not condone the sadistic and brutal repression of Yemen's free press.

If for no other reason, do it to annoy Keith Olbermann. And pass the link on to everyone you know.

A slow turning, baby
But you learn to sway
A slow turning
Not fade away
Not fade away

Turn it up.

In a tale fit to freeze the very marrow of your bones, not only the administration of Dartmouth College, but those 18-22 year old intellectual bully-boys have inexplicably managed to make a fully-equal and intellectually capable female professional look like a complete idiot:

Often it seems as though American higher education exists only to provide gag material for the outside world. The latest spectacle is an Ivy League professor threatening to sue her students because, she claims, their "anti-intellectualism" violated her civil rights.

Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will "name names."

The trauma was so intense that in March Ms. Venkatesan quit Dartmouth and decamped for Northwestern. She declined to comment for this piece, pointing instead to the multiple interviews she conducted with the campus press.

Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. "My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful," she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. "They'd argue with your ideas." This caused "subversiveness," a principle English professors usually favor.

Quelle horreur! Can one imagine anything more unprecedented or alarming to a progressive eco-feminist than a classroom full of American college students arguing about ideas? Unless, perhaps, it is the prospect of a classroom full of young people Questioning Authority?

Clearly the dominant patriarchal hegemony is rife with rigid, authoritarians threatened by anyone who challenges their ideas... by which we mean Ms.Venkatesan, who not only cancelled a week's worth of classes in a fit of pique, but sent the following unintentionally hilarious email to her students:

Yesterday evening, to the students of her winter class, Ms. Venkatesan dispatched this message:

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:56:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Priya.Venkatesan@Dartmouth.EDU
To: “WRIT.005.17.18-WI08”:;, Priya.Venkatesan@Dartmouth.EDU
Subject: WRIT.005.17.18-WI08: Possible lawsuit

Dear former class members of Science, Technology and Society:

I tried to send an email through my server but got undelivered messages. I regret to inform you that I am pursuing a lawsuit in which I am accusing some of you (whom [sic] shall go unmentioned in this email) of violating Title VII of anti-federal [sic] discrimination laws.

The feeling that I am getting from the outside world is that Dartmouth is considered a bigoted place, so this may not be news and I may be successful in this lawsuit.

I am also writing a book detailing my experiences as your instructor, which will “name names” so to speak. I have all of your evaluations and these will be reproduced in the book.

Have a nice day.

Priya

But it gets better (oh yes - you knew it would). Ms. Venkatesan sent a similarly illiterate email to a smaller group of students against whom (she said) she was planning to file suit specifically. Joe Malchow responds with withering commentary:

At least seven members of the Class of 2011 received this grave epistle, indicating that they are to be named as defendants in a legal outing under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The students, of course, are entirely safe; as they do not employ the writing instructor, it can only be said that their evaluations of her performance—de rigueur, frank, and ostensibly anonymous—did not flatter, and that she is upset. But of course the students could not have discriminated against her.

Ms. Venkatesan also informs Dartblog that she is “pursuing a legal suit against members/former members of the Dartmouth community,” those being Christopher H. Lowrey of the medical school and his four-person research team. “Another faculty member,” Ms. Venkatesan tells us, “that figures prominently in my list of grievances…is Thomas H. Cormen, Ph. D., Director of the Writing Program (now the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric) and Professor of Computer Science.”

This column solicited a thought or two from Priya Venkatesan, and was rewarded with the following:

The students I am naming in this suit were mostly from Winter 08 term with a few from Fall. Essentially, I am pursuing litigation to see if I have a legal claim, that is, if the inappropriate and unprofessional behavior I was subjected to as a Research Associate and Lecturer at Dartmouth constitutes discrimination and harrassment [sic] on the basis of ethnicity, race and gender. This includes not just students, but a few faculty members that I worked with. At this stage, I am making a detailed list of names in a chronology of what people said and did while I was at Dartmouth in a very factual manner and approaching a New Hampshire attorney who specializes in professional malpractice with the chronology and he will make the determination if I have grounds for litigation.

A redaction of errata seems a suitable place to begin. A class action suit? This involves a population of plaintiffs similarly aggrieved; Ms. Venkatesan is contemplating legal action against a population of defendants similarly, in her mind, guilty. Classes bring suit; they do not answer it. Thus it is not a class action, but a series of civil complaints against students and employees of the College and, perhaps, the College corporate.

Title VII does not include language about harassment—only about discrimination. Courts have occasionally elected to find harassment illegal under the code, but only, like discrimination, employer-perpetrated harassment. Since students are not Ms. Venkatesan’s employers, they cannot be named as defendants in a Title VII case.

Finally, there is the bit about “pursuing litigation to see if I have a legal claim.” This is not an advisable course of action. In fact, legal experts consulted by this page suggest that litigating to explore the possible existence of a legal claim is the precise opposite of how the modern judicial system operates.

The big bully. He is undoubtedly motivated by a desire to crush her strong, womanly essence. And isn't that just_like_a_man?

In a final update, our Derring Doyenne displays more of the singular steadfastness of purpose and mental acuity that have made her a veritable poster girl for the eco-feminist movement.

All of which just goes to prove what we often remark: Charlotte Allen was right. Some women seem determined to play into the worst stereotypes about females. In fact, we just made that a category.

Moron...

Update: The Editorial Staff swears we did not make this up to make Ms. Venkatesan look smarter:

HEH. The biter, bit. "It seems that white feminists and Leftists are a big bunch of racists, too. . . . White Privilege was to blame… No wonder Amanda Marcotte thinks Free Will is overrated."

And doesn't this echo (eerily) our earlier Obama post?

You're not racist because of the content of your character, you're racist because of the color of your skin!

...if we are ever going to get past race, get past employing double standards, get past making knee-jerk judgments about each other, part of what we need to get past is this business of looking the other way when something is said that seems wrong.

After thinking about it, I still think that the 'typical white person' remark, in reference to Mr. Obama's grandmother, was objectively wrong. I still believe it does amount to subtle race baiting of a particularly pernicious kind, because according to the rules of the day it cannot be addressed or even responded to without exactly the response I got: "Leave him alone."

But I think that is misguided, because I was not attacking Mr. Obama, but calling out the conflict between what he had called for, and what he did. As someone who is running for President, I think his public actions and statements are fair game, so long as he is not attacked personally, and I did not do so. Furthermore, I believe that full equality demands the same standard be honestly and fairly applied, and I am (in this instance) treating Mr. Obama no differently than I would treat any other candidate. I have two problems with Mr. Obama's dismissal of his grandmother as a 'typical white person'. The first is that it conflicts with his memoirs...

...My second objection to Mr. Obama's characterization of his grandmother is that, as Morgan Freeman so eloquently stated, labeling people by skin color only perpetuates the very problems he claims he is trying to get beyond...

He could well have said that his grandmother reacted as 'a typical person' (i.e., we all sometimes make unconscious judgments on the basis of skin color). I think that would have been the first really honest and courageous statement Barack Obama has made about race. But he didn't do that. He was caught in the trap he accuses others of: the trap of unconscious bias. Does that make him a racist?

Of course not. I think it makes him human.

The problem with Obama's so-called honest dialog on race is that one side - Mr. Obama's - insists on playing the game with a stacked deck of cards. Barack Obama has deliberately courted comparisons with another seminal black leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If this is the standard Mr. Obama wishes to be measured against, he might care to pay close attention to the most famous of King's speeches.

In that speech Dr. King mentions the word "justice" no less than ten times. This is interesting, because our conception of justice has changed rather radically since 1968. Justice has, from the 15th century, traditionally been depicted blindfolded. This is no accident. The blindfold is meant to remind us that the administration of justice should be meted out impartially, taking into account neither the socioeconomic status nor the identity of the litigants. In other words, a just outcome should encompass neither fear nor favor. As King so eloquently put it, his dream was not of an America where whites and blacks gave in to their feelings about race relations, nor one where Americans viewed every transaction through the highly subjective prism of race. King dreamed of an America where a single unifying standard - integrity - would one day come to guide our dealings with each other:

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

So how did Dr. King's dream of a race-neutral America become so badly twisted? When did our conception of justice begin to include the notion that it is just to hold some citizens less accountable because of the color of their skin? When did the dream change from equal treatment to preferential treatment?

Michelle Obama: Barack has hit boiling point

Barack Obama is struggling to contain his anger and frustration over the constant barrage of questions about his character and judgment, his wife has revealed.

"Barack has been characterised as many things that have nothing to do with who he is."

So Barack Obama can't take a little of what he views as unjust criticism before the race is even half-way done? He's dangerously near the boiling point. One wonders what George Bush thinks about this after eight years of unrelenting criticism?

If only a major newspaper or two would give Mr. Obama a fair shake! How dare they ask questions about a candidate for the Presidency?

Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt admits the obvious - the Times early coverage of the most recent installment of the Jeremiah Wright story was a joke:

While The Times was aggressive with its coverage on the Web, it was slow to fully engage the Wright story in print and angered some readers by putting opinion about it on the front page — a review by the television critic of his appearances on PBS, at an N.A.A.C.P. convention and at the National Press Club — before ever reporting in any depth what he actually said, how it squared with reality and what it might mean as Democrats ponder Obama as their potential nominee.

Carol Hebb of Narberth, Pa., spoke for many when she wrote that she found the newspaper’s initial coverage “very strange.” If editors did not think Wright’s remarks were newsworthy enough to be on the front page, she asked, why did they put the review by Alessandra Stanley there? “I was very surprised that her piece was not accompanied by a ‘factual’ article reporting the content of Mr. Wright’s comments more completely and perhaps adding some meaningful context.”

...

Peter Weltner of San Francisco wrote that he wished The Times had examined what he said were falsehoods in Wright’s remarks — like the claim that blacks and whites learn with different parts of their brains — instead of “merely guessing why Mr. Wright said it.”

I’m with Hebb and Weltner. For a newspaper that showed great enterprise on the subject last year — breaking the story that Obama had disinvited Wright to deliver the invocation at the announcement of his presidential campaign, and publishing a deep examination of their relationship before most Americans had heard of Wright — it was a performance strangely lacking in energy at a potential turning point in the election.

Poor Barack! Isn't anyone willing to embrace embrace his healing politics of hope?

Conduct a thought experiment: Imagine that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to presidential candidate Barack Obama and preacher with controversial views, was not an outspoken black man but a white woman who penned her controversial ideas in a scholarly journal. If Wright's views were the only thing that mattered, his race, sex and public style ought to make no difference. Assuming she held the same views and shared a lengthy history with the presidential candidate, a white female scholar ought to damage Obama's popularity in the same way the pastor has done recently.

Actually, let's make it a real parallel, because in order for the comparison to be valid, there has to be some parallelism. You can't change the facts so the candidate and advisor are of different races and the advisor makes her remarks privately (thus raising legitimate doubt the candidate would have known of her views) and then ask, "Would people still be asking the same questions?" The scenarios represent two different fact patterns. An honest comparison is one in which the facts run exactly parallel, but only race is reversed:

Conduct a thought experiment: Imagine that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to presidential candidate Barack Obama and preacher with controversial views, was not an outspoken black man but a white woman who penned her controversial racist ideas about blacks... and not in a scholarly journal, but imagine she voiced them repeatedly, and publicly. Now imagine that Barack Obama were a white candidate. This is the exact parallel to the Obama-Wright situation: a political candidate of one race, whose spiritual advisor - not a political contributor, not someone at whose college the candidate gave a speech one time - of the same race, publicly and repeatedly voiced racist views, in the candidate's hearing, without his leaving or objecting.

If Wright's views were the only thing that mattered, his race, sex and public style ought to make no difference. Assuming she held the same views and shared a lengthy history with the presidential candidate, a white female scholar ought to damage Obama's popularity in the same way the pastor has done recently.

Actually, we have an historical parallel, though the association was not direct, intimate, or long-lived as it was in Obama's case: George Bush and the Bob Jones brouhaha. In the wake of then-Governor Bush's speech at that university, he was tarred as a racist simply for giving a speech at a school which had an objectionable rule not of his making.

Applying the reasoning of Obama's supporters, Bob Jones University "did not speak for then-governor Bush". After all, he said so. Assuming race does not matter and all candidates should be treated equally and fairly without respect to skin color, this argument alone should have been sufficient to end all inquiry and media attention into the matter.

Of course, it was not:

Reeling from criticism that he failed to condemn the school's ban on interracial dating and school leaders who have expressed anti-Catholic views, Bush sent a letter of apology, released Sunday, to Cardinal John O'Connor, Archbishop of New York. O'Connor is a nationally recognized Roman Catholic leader.

"I should have been more clear in disassociating myself from anti-Catholic sentiments and racial prejudice," Bush's letter read. "It was a missed opportunity, causing needless offense, which I deeply regret."

George Bush apologized. Bob Jones ended the offensive policy and admitted that they were wrong. Rev. Jeremiah Wright has done neither. Initially Barack Obama refused to distance himself from his spiritual advisor and said he was (contrary to media accounts that he had already distanced himself from Wright due to his controversial views) unaware of his toxic sentiments on race and America. And now Mr. Obama is "angry" ... that he has been found out, and that some people refuse to forget what he would like conveniently forgotten.

Obama has been "subjected" to precisely the same treatment then-governor George Bush was eight years ago, but on far stronger grounds. A twenty year-long association with a man one claims as a 'spiritual guide' provides ample grounds for questioning whether two people share the same philosophy. Merely stopping to make a campaign speech at a university hardly carries the same weight, and yet it was assumed that Bob Jones University "spoke" for Bush. The onus was on him to denounce the university, the burden of proof on him to show he did not share their odious views on race. That Obama would demand to be treated differently shows an arrogance that is literally breathtaking.

That his supporters are so blatently throwing the race card shows this country has a long, long way to go towards establishing that "honest dialog" Mr. Obama mentioned.

It was not his opponents who tarnished Barack Obama. Oh no: he took care of that matter all by himself.

Well, the stories of Knut's increasingly embarrassing encounters with bootleg sex tapes, anorexic Czech supermodels, designer drugs, and bad techno music continue to spin out of control, largely thanks to the environmental depredations of an uncaring Bush administration and its inexplicable refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocols. Naturlich, the NY Times laps up every last delicious detail:

Knut the polar bear cub abandoned by his mother was a sensation one year ago, a ball of adorable white fluff that seduced the nation and the world beyond, even landing on the cover of Vanity Fair with Leonardo DiCaprio. But lately, he has been Germany’s problem cub more than its darling.

As the bear has grown from a virtual living stuffed animal into a 350-pound adolescent, newspapers here have taken issue with everything from Knut’s weight to his sexuality, with one paper asking if the bear is gay. But the most enduring question is the one posed by animal-protection groups from the very beginning: how being hand-raised by humans would affect him when he grew up.

When Knut was nuzzling his handler, Thomas Dörflein, to the delight of an adoring public, the objections of outside experts were brushed aside. His antics weren’t bad for business either, bringing in an estimated $8 million in extra revenues for the Berlin Zoo last year.

But times change, cubs grow up and those experts may have been on to something after all. “With Knut, it’s clear that he has imprinted on humans, and when neither his keeper nor visitors are there he cries out,” said Thomas Pietsch, a biologist and expert on wild animals for the animal-welfare group Four Paws in Germany. Peter H. Arras, a zoologist and animal-protection advocate put it more succinctly: “He’s a psychopath addicted to human attention.”

That attention has fallen off significantly. Knut is now too large and too strong to play with Mr. Dörflein. And the largest crowds of spectators have moved south. In the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, a new young cub named Flocke, or Snowflake, claimed the crown of cuteness when she was introduced to the public earlier this month. A third cub in Stuttgart, named Wilbär, is being brought up the old-fashioned way, by his mother.

But the country’s newer star attractions did refocus attention on Knut’s well-being. Andre Schüle, a veterinarian at the Berlin Zoo, dismissed concerns about Knut’s health, physical or mental. “I am very, very pleased about his development,” said Mr. Schüle. Knut is a healthy polar bear, but as a natural result of aging, “the cuteness factor is falling,” Mr. Schüle said.

On a recent sunny afternoon, the number of spectators fluctuated between a dozen and just a pair. The fading star lay with his head on his paws, his fur stained a yellowish brown from rolling around in sand and dirt.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. What is left for our little liebchen but serial appearances on VH1's After the Music, the inevitable round of plastic surgery that precedes the failed comeback attempt and finally, in that most pathetic of admissions that it's finally over, the Nutrisystem endorsement?

We weep.

Poor Knut must share the fate of the MidWestern Corked bat, his beautiful and natural life ruthlessly snuffed out by rampant specieism.

Because VC readers just cannot get enough of Ass of Life-related news.

Below the fold are the 100 names of the horses eligible for the Triple Crown. The object: mate any two (even though they are both male - hey: we're an Enlightened Kind of Blog) and come up with a clever name for their progeny.

Example:

Hot Chili + Fierce Wind = Silent but Deadly

The lucky winner, as always, will received a thoroughly sloshed stuffed marmoset by parcel post.

"WWI... Led into war by Democrat Woodrow Wilson

"6 years"

"564 Billion spent"

"Over 116,000 dead"

Um, but that led to...

WWII... led into war by Democrat Franklin Roosevelt

"67 years... and counting."

"4.6 Trillion spent."

"Over 405,000 dead"

Korea... led into war by Democrat Harry S. Truman

"58 years... and counting."

"391 Billion spent"

"Over 36,000 dead."

Vietnam war... led into war by Democrat John F. Kennedy.

"9 years, and we walked away from an ally."

"840 Billion spent."

"Over 58,000 dead."

Gulf War I... led into war by Republican George H. W. Bush

"12 years"

"9 Billion spent (after Allied reimbursements)"

"Over 300 dead."

Gulf War II... Led into war by Republican George W. Bush

"5 Years"

"500 Billion Spent"

"Over 4,000 dead"

Narrator:
"Democrats: 73 years. 6.4 Trillion Dollars spent. 615,000 dead."
"Republicans: 17 years. 509 Billion Dollars spent. 4,300 dead"

"Based on this performance, are Democrats the right choice for America?"

Go now. Read the whole thing - there's more. And do feed his ego while you're over there. This was really quite brilliant.