"I was at first nauseated, then realized it was an opportunity"

The words above were spoken by the woman pictured to the left. Her name is Deborah Lawrence, "a collage artist [who] frequently combines politics and satire in her work." The object in her hands is a Christmas ornament commissioned by "a local arts organization" selected by Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA).

First Lady Laura Bush asked members of Congress to pick local artists to create ornaments representing their districts for display on the Christmas tree at the White House. It sounds like a pretty neat idea to me.

So why is McDermott's office denying that it, or he, "had [any] role in the design of the ornament"? Because this is the only one of the 370-some ornaments that was rejected. Why was it rejected? Because it is a pro-impeachment ornament.

Lawrence...told The Washington Post she saw the ornament as a perfect way "to highlight Jim McDermott because he's a hero of mine."

"I was at first nauseated, then realized it was an opportunity," she said.

An opportunity. To personally insult the outgoing President. She couldn't put politics aside, even for Christmas, even for what is ultimately a trivial gesture intended as a little positive PR for Washington state's 7th district.

I was at first nauseated, too. But I still am.

(USA Today | White House rejects impeachment ornament)

Makes = Rewrites

So, who is it that doesn't know the difference between "making history" and "rewriting history", the Democrats or NPR?

Obama Rewrites History, Clinches Nomination
History was made last night when the Democratic Party nominated Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as its candidate for president of the United States. He's the first African-American presidential nominee of a major party. [NPR]

Glad they put that second sentence in there. Might have missed that point. Wonder why the media have been so reticent about that?

So, what has Senator Obama rewritten, exactly?

Gitmo on the Platte

Denver is going to regret hosting the Democratic National Convention--if they don't already, then certainly by the time the convention actually starts.

The owners of Sly's Salon thought it was Just Wrong that local homeless were being given free passes to movies and the local zoo. "It was like, 'What are we going to do with them,' trying to sweep them under the rug." So they organized a cut-a-thon, donating more than a hundred 'cuts and 'dos to folks identified by local homeless-support agencies. Nor did it end there: State Beauty Supply donated bag lunches; other supply houses donated hair-care products.

"It's the heart-felt reward to give to the community and give back," said one recipient. You'll have to explain to me just what the hell that means.

Local hospitals are staffed at large-scale medical crisis levels, to cope with vast numbers of out-of-towners who will most likely be suffering from dehydration and altitude sickness. Most of these people have never been in Denver in August. It's a mile above sea level, and although most healthy people seem to survive it just fine, it does take some getting used to--and if you already suffer from asthma or similar health conditions, it could hit you pretty hard.

And then there's that "secret jail", actually a vacant warehouse temporarily converted to a holding / processing facility by the city department of corrections, in anticipation of the necessity of mass arrests during the convention. They estimate it should allow them to process arrests in one-third of the time it would otherwise require. This seems perfectly logical to me, and I'd be surprised if most cities hosting really large, really public events don't do something similar.

Are they really anticipating mass arrests at the Denver DNC? They'd better be. Recreate 68 is aiming for exactly that. "When things blow up because the police have to enforce a permit that the Democrats got, don’t blame us for that,” said Glenn Spagnuolo, an organizer for the Recreate 68 Alliance. "Blame the Democrats for trying to silence dissent in the city of Denver." Michelle Malkin quotes liberally (you should excuse the expression) from the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post.

But surely they deserve the benefit of the doubt. They may have some valid points to... Oh, look, they endorse Cynthia McKinney for President. Never mind. They don't know her like we know her.

All in all, it may be a good week to be on the other end of the continent.

Is This an Ex-Candidate?

Okay, how many ways are there to say "the Clinton campaign is dead" with Monty Python jokes?

Dana Milbank at the Washington Post likes the "dead parrot" sketch.

Customer: "That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk."

Pet-shop owner: "Well, he's, he's, ah, probably pining for the fiords."

He can't spell fjords, but that's okay, who can? And who can resist describing the Clinton campaign as a "prolonged squawk"? (I really like the caption for the accompanying picture of the candidate boarding a plane: "Hillary Clinton, pining for the Rose Garden.")

But as you can see from the cartoon, there are other possibilities. But then you probably read Fark, too.

"But I'm not dead yet!"
"Yes you are. You'll be stone cold dead in a moment."

What I can't figure is why we didn't see this prolonged deathmatch coming. The Democrats are a party of loosely-allied minorities, and here we have two of them set at each other's throats. This could not possibly end well.

"You're black. Republicans will never vote for you."
"You're a woman. Republicans will never vote for you."
"You're too young."
"You're a Clinton."
"I've had the superdelegates locked up from day one."
"Only because they're afraid of your husband."
"Everyone thinks you're a closet Muslim."
"Everyone thinks I'm Tiger Woods."
"Nobody really knows you."
"Everybody knows you, and nobody likes you."

The first candidate to eat a wafer-thin mint will explode. All over the nightly news.

He must be running, all the papers say so

Former President Bill Clinton in LV
Originally uploaded by Domain Barnyard

Project for Excellence in Journalism | Clinton Finishes Third in Battle for Campaign Coverage (But it’s Bill!!!)
The man who would be First Spouse made more news last week than any Republican, or than the other Democratic contender, John Edwards.

Well, that sort of begs a question, to say that Bill Clinton "made news". What exactly did Mr Clinton do that was newsworthy? Stick his nose in the Presidential campaign? No, ex-Presidents have done that before. Say something unexpected? Not really.

Couldn't it be said that the mass media's news editors would rather cover Bill Clinton than any of the Republicans in the Presidential race? That they consider him more interesting than, say, Mitt Romney? Or than even the liberals' favorite Republican, John McCain?

Newton's Third Law

I'm detecting a pro-reproduction bias in the Daily Mail. See if you agree.

Daily Mail | Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni [Vermelli], 35.

"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

I'm all for it when people with little to no parental inclinations decide not to reproduce. The "reporters," though, make no attempt to hide their disgust and horror. They barely manage not to chortle when the woman admits that she and her husband "have a much nicer lifestyle as a result of not having children," which they describe at some length.

Daily Mail | Woman told she'd had a miscarriage - then has triplets instead

When she was told she had suffered a miscarriage, Beverley Cunningham was devastated.

At the age of 40, she feared her last chance to have another baby had slipped away.

But only 24 hours later, after a scan to confirm the miscarriage, she and her husband Andrew were given the most incredible news.

Mrs Cunningham was still pregnant - with triplets.

At odds of nearly a million to one, she had conceived quads naturally, but had miscarried one of them at 12 weeks.

The story tries to present this as a feel-good story of a woman's triumph over a medical setback, having long-desired children despite the odds. The detail that these are children number five, six and seven glides by almost unnoticed.

But check the message board at Fark.com for conjecture that one of these children is...evil.

(Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.)

"The real world is really tough"

This year's "whiny college graduate unprepared for the job market" letter to the editor is in the Buffalo News.

Upon graduating, I was helplessly launched headfirst into the “real world,” equipped with a degree in history and $32,000 in student loans. Before ricocheting back home, I would learn two important lessons: 1) There are no well-paying — let alone paying — jobs for history majors. 2) The real world is really tough.

(That should be "there are no paying — let alone well-paying — jobs for history majors". That's how the "this, let alone that" structure is used: The first example is general, the second more specific. Otherwise it makes no sense. But then you're a history major, not a language major, aren't you?)

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I had no intention of living in a society that was as unfair as this one. To seek a haven devoid of the ruthless 9-to-5 ebb and flow of contemporary America, I moved to Alaska.

As a liberal arts major, I dreamed of making a profound difference in people’s lives.

Doing what, exactly? What kind of life would you judge your history degree has prepared you for? What did you have in mind?

Instead, for a year, I lived in Coldfoot, a town north of the Arctic Circle that resembles a Soviet Gulag camp. My job as a tour guide for visitors...

This "Soviet Gulag camp" of a town has a tourism industry? Why, yes it does. It isn't the bustling metropolis Cicely is, but it has its charms -- apparently lost on Ken, here.

I've read this letter five or six times now, and it keeps getting funnier every time I read it. I just wish the paper had done a sidebar interview with his parents.

---

See also:

• Life Lessons (Shawna Gale, the grad from Yale)
• Does this mean I come with course credit?

Evil Oil

I can understand why some are upset at the price of gas. After all, we live under a fairly consistent message from Big Media that Big Oil is eeeeevil. The idea that Big Oil always lies while Big Media never does strikes me as amusing.

But what drove me up the wall this time is the following post from Wise Bread, one of several budget-living blogs I enjoy:


What she's upset about is a packet of BP-branded sunflower seeds (for planting, not eating), bearing a drawing of a little girl who wouldn't look out of place in the world of Hello Kitty. What I'm... well, upset is too strong a word, we'll say bemused by, is the fourth tag in her cluster of keywords. It contains a name not otherwise used in the post, nor is the position that person holds referred to at all. The implication is that the current oil prices are so obviously Bush's fault that it requires no explanation at all.

That's a pretty big leap to make from a package of sunflower seeds.

So, of course, I went Googling. Here's what I found:

• A 2005 brochure from the Energy Information Administration breaking down the components of the cost of a gallon of gasoline
• A chart of the same information, current as of March 2007 (The government, via taxes, makes about twice what the oil companies do on each gallon sold.)
  
• Conoco-Phillips' attempt to answer the question, Why Are Oil Company Profits So Large? (Answer: Because the industry is large. But if you look at the profit margin, the net profit as a percentage of sales, the oil industry, while profitable, is only slightly more so than industry at large, and significantly less so than, say, computers, beverage/tobacco, or pharmaceuticals.)
• BusinessWeek's cover story from 5-15-06, "Why You Should Worry About Big Oil" (Because the easy pickin's are gone, and satisfying the world's demand for petroleum is only going to get harder -- and more expensive.)

Ooh. That's too hard to think about. Hey, look, Birkenstocks are on sale!

LATER: Wouldn't want anyone to think I'm ignoring opposing viewpoints. I'm not. Some of the best unintentional comedy is found there. (Same reason I listened to Air America from time to time.) "There is simply no competitive market in this industry." Please, no more, I can't breathe.

Rational discourse

It would be unfair of me to draw any general conclusions regarding the thinking or reasoning power of the average "progressive" based on one stray posting at Wonkette. I am, however, impressed that those who chose to comment on the "issue" are so determined to hate conservatives that they cannot accept a statement from George F. Will at face value even when they agree with its substance.



If you happen to view the video before you follow the link, you may wonder what the fuss is about. It's 24 seconds into the video, when George Stephanopolous asks Will about Ann Coulter (a reference, one supposes, to her recent remarks pertaining to John Edwards), Will falters, recollects his thoughts, and says "...the less said about whom, the better."

At least, that's what I heard him say. The progressives seem equally sure he said "...the less said about him, the better."

That's it. That's all.