Month: September 2010

Million Masturbator March

by digby

I know there’s a lot of controversy about Stewart and Colbert’s dueling marches on October 30th and the more serious One American march on October 2nd, but I think this is the one that isn’t just another finger wagging cry for attention, that will truly make people stand up and take notice:

Carrying signs reading, “O’Donnell: Hands Off Our Masturbation,” the angry masturbators clogged downtown Wilmington, stopping traffic for blocks.

Harley Farger, a leading Delaware masturbator and planner of the Million Masturbators March, said it was difficult to organize masturbators “because they’re used to acting alone.”

Mr. Farger, the executive director of the pro-monkey-spanking group MasturNation, said that the “wank and file” of his organization believe that masturbation is an inalienable right guaranteed by the Constitution.

“Our country was founded by rugged individualists,” he said. “And you know what individualists like to do.”

He said that Ms. O’Donnell’s anti-whacking position was “ill-timed,” adding, “In this economy, masturbation is one of the few simple pleasures people still can afford.”

Be sure to click the link (if you know what I mean) and check out Howie’s awesome “choke the monkey” video of the song “Firing the Surgeon General.”

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Goldilocks With A Tan

by digby

The second time today I thought I was reading The Onion:

The Necessary Man

Ignore the fake tan. John Boehner could actually be a good speaker of the House.

No that isn’t David Brooks, although I’m sure he’ll get right on that. It’s Newsweak.

Don’t you want to know why he’ll be such a good speaker?

In truth, Boehner is one of the few players in American politics with the potential to give both Republicans and Democrats what they need in the wake of November’s anticipated GOP landslide. For the left, that means an experienced legislative negotiator on the opposite side of the aisle. For the right, it means a leader who can rack up tangible accomplishments for the party to run on in 2012—while also keeping the new, red-meat caucus from eating him alive.

He’s juuuuust right.

And for “the left” that’s great news because he’s an experienced negotiator, which presumably means that he knows just how to screw us. In Villagespeak, that’s just what we need:

…GOP speakers have worked with Democratic presidents before and gotten results. In the mid-1990s, for example, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich buckled down and, over the course of dozens of long, wonky White House bull sessions, hammered out plans to reform welfare, balance the budget, pay off $405 billion in debt, provide health care to uninsured children, and make Medicare and Social Security more sustainable—even though Gingrich was better known for partisan warfare than compromise.

Golly I can hardly wait.(I don’t know what the hell they are talking about with Medicare and Social Security, but you sure don’t hear anybody touting this great accomplishment.)

This reminds me of some village wisdom from a decade ago:

“Given the present bitterness, given the angry irresponsible charges being hurled by both camps, the nation will be in dire need of a conciliator, a likable guy who will make things better and not worse. That man is not Al Gore. That man is George W. Bush.”

How’d that work out for us?

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The Anti-wanker vs the Bearded Marxist

by digby

When I read this I thought I was reading The Onion for a minute:

An article Democrat Chris Coons wrote for his college newspaper may not go over so well in corporation-friendly Delaware, where he already faces an uphill battle for Vice President Joe Biden’s old Senate seat.

The title? “Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist.”

In the article, Coons, then 21 years old and about to graduate from Amherst College, chronicled his transformation from a sheltered, conservative-minded college student who had worked for former GOP Delaware Sen. William Roth and had campaigned for Ronald Reagan in 1980 into a cynical young adult who was distrustful of American power and willing to question the American notion of free enterprise.

Coons, the New Castle County executive who is running against GOP Rep. Michael Castle for the state’s open Senate seat, wrote of his political evolution in the May 23, 1985, edition of the Amherst Student.

The source of his conversion, Coons wrote, was a trip to Kenya he took during the spring semester of his junior year—a time away from America, he wrote, that served as a “catalyst” in altering a conservative political outlook that he was growing increasingly uncomfortable with.

“My friends now joke that something about Kenya, maybe the strange diet, or the tropical sun, changed my personality; Africa to them seems a catalytic converter that takes in clean-shaven, clear-thinking Americans and sends back bearded Marxists,” Coons wrote, noting that at one time he had been a “proud founding member of the Amherst College Republicans.”

I don’t know what they’re going to do with that, but let your imagination run wild and then assume it’s going to be twice as absurd.

Meanwhile, Christine O’Donnell explains her wicca-dabbling:

“How many of you didn’t hang out with questionable folks in high school?”

You have to laugh or you will never stop crying.

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Very Serious People

by digby

H/t to slackwire and RP

Living In Hell In Beverly Hills

by digby

Another wealthy, whining conservative telling everyone how good he has it while complaining that he has to pay taxes. Here’s Ben Stein:

I am a fairly upper income taxpayer. Not anything even remotely close to sports stars or movie stars or financial big boys. But I am above the level Mr. Obama says makes me rich. So, in the midst of a severe recession, I am to have my taxes raised dramatically.

I am not quite sure what my sin is.

I worked for almost every dollar I have, except for a small percentage my parents left me by virtue of hard work and Spartan living, and most of that was taken by the federal estate tax. I have a hell of a lot less than I did before the stock market and real estate market crashes. I didn’t get a bailout or any part of a stimulus program, except for traffic jams as the roads in Beverly Hills got worked on for the 10th time in the last 10 years (or so it seems).

I pay my income taxes, and after them and the commissions I pay my agent, I am left with about 35 cents for every dollar I earn.

I own some real estate in California and Idaho and the District of Columbia. Naturally, I pay property tax, supposedly mostly to educate local children. Not far from me, the city of Los Angeles just spent about $600 million to build the most lavish school in America for about 4,000 children. That’s my money. Naturally, I had no say in it. My wife and I have no children in public schools and only did for about eighteen months long ago. I still pay my school tax ever year.

As far as I’m concerned, his “sin” is being a spoiled, talentless, arrogant cartoon celebrity who adds no value to anything in this misbegotten society and yet thinks he’s some kind of Galtian hero. If I have to listen to one more of these petulant scumbags argue about how they’re being punished for their “hard work” I’m going to stab my ears with chopsticks. It’s class warfare all right — launched by crude, wealthy American slobs who have no class.

For a far more erudite and scholarly critique than this one, please read Brad DeLong’s deft evisceration of that sniveling University of Chicago professor’s self-pity party from yesterday about having to pay taxes on half a million dollars a year. Here’s just a little taste:

Professor Henderson’s problem is that he thinks that he ought to be able to pay off student loans, contribute to retirement savings vehicles, build equity, drive new cars, live in a big expensive house, send his children to private school, and still have plenty of cash at the end of the month for the $200 restaurant meals, the $1000 a night resort hotel rooms, and the $75,000 automobiles. And even half a million dollars a year cannot be you all of that.

But if he values the high-end consumption so much, why doesn’t he rearrange his budget? Why not stop the retirement savings contributions, why not rent rather than buy, why not send the kids to public school? Then the disposable cash at the end of the month would flow like water. His problem is that some of these decisions would strike him as imprudent. And all of them would strike him as degradations–doctor-law professor couples ought to send their kids to private schools, and live in big houses, and contribute to their 401(k)s, and also still have lots of cash for splurges. That is the way things should be.

Read on to see why this fellow feels cheated because he can’t live like Richard Branson when he clearly deserves to. Me, I’ll be sharpening my pitchfork. After all, according to these people I’ve got nothing to lose.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Von liebe und schnitzel

By Dennis Hartley

Bitte, baby: Pheline Roggan and Adam Bousdoukos in Soul Kitchen

You know, it’s great when you can find a nice palette-cleanser to tide you over during these dog days at the multiplexes, as the last crumbs of empty-calorie summer fare are cleared from the table to make room for the heartier fall menu. Soul Kitchen is one such cinematic soufflé; it bakes up light and fluffy, stopping just this side of demanding any deeper contemplation, yet it is still substantial enough to leave you feeling pleasantly full.

Comprised of equal parts romantic comedy, foodie film, and (mildly) raunchy screwball farce, German writer-director Fatih Akin’s breezy story concerns a somewhat grubby but amiable young restaurateur named Zinos (co-scripter Adam Bousdoukos) who has converted an abandoned warehouse in Hamburg’s Wilhelmsburg quarter into a funky eatery called “The Soul Kitchen”. Operating on the cheap, Zinos is not only the manager, but the cook as well, serving up your basic beer ‘n’ pizza, schnitzel and French fries menu to a not-so-picky neighborhood clientele. If Zinos seems a bit harried and distracted, it’s due to the impending departure of his journalist girlfriend Nadine (Pheline Roggan) to China. Zinos’ separation anxiety comes to a head when he joins Nadine and her family for dinner at another restaurant, where the two have an embarrassing public spat. Just a few moments later, that restaurant’s head chef, Shayn (Birol Unel) quits in a huff after losing his shit when a customer demands that his gazpacho (a Spanish soup, traditionally served cold) be heated up for him. The two sulking men are soon commiserating outside, where the pragmatic Shayn asks, “So, do you have a job for me?”

Although Shayn immediately admires what he refers to as the “Romanesque” ambiance of the spacious Soul Kitchen, it doesn’t take very long for him to ascertain that Zinos’ pedestrian menu could use some sprucing up. At first, the regular customers are bewildered by the nightly fresh sheets and the upscale food presentations on their plates. “Where’s our fries, burgers and pizza?” they demand-to which the mercurial Shayn curtly rebuffs “Get your pizza at the supermarket! Culinary rascists!” before storming back into the kitchen. Things settle down, the word gets out, and business picks up as the restaurant gains hip cachet. Zinos is not quite out of the woods yet, however. His brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtrau), a convicted thief, shows up unannounced on his doorstep, fresh out of prison on work release. He needs “employment” (on paper) which will help him keep his present status. Zinos reluctantly takes him on, much to the chagrin of his bartender and his lone waitress, Lucia (Anna Bederke). Still pining for Nadine, Zinos decides to cast his fate (and responsibilities) to the wind to join her in China. Desperate to find someone to manage the restaurant in his absence, he signs full power of attorney over to Illias (uh-oh). Now toss in one of Zinos’ old school chums (Wotan Wilke Mohring) who (for his own nefarious reasons) has taken a keen interest in the brisk business at the restaurant, and stir. Things, as Arte Johnson used to say, get velly interesting (“…but schtoopid!”).

Bousdoukos (whose passing resemblance to Jim Morrison is amusing, considering the title) and Bliebtrau have good chemistry as the brothers. Keep an eye out for the great Udo Kier in a minor role. Although many elements of the narrative feel familiar, the combination of energetic performances, well-chosen music (featuring everything from Louis Armstrong and Ruth Brown to Curtis Mayfield and Burning Spear) and Akin’s fresh directing approach make up for it. Sometimes, it’s all about the presentation, right?

Previous posts with related themes:

Eat them up, yum: Top 10 Food Flicks

…and one more thing

I also wanted to alert our Seattle area Hullabaloo readers to SIFF’s Festival of New Spanish Cinema, coming up next week (September 23-26). I’ll have some highlights for you in next Saturday’s post; in the meantime if you want more information about events, films, show times, and tickets, just click on the link above. Le veré la semana próxima!

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The Experiment

by digby

What a concept:

Grayson is running in 2010 in much the same way he won in 2008, with a counterintuitive Southern strategy. Rather than running as a tepid, timid Blue Dog Democrat, Grayson spends lots of money — some of it his own — and is not afraid to go negative: He derides Webster as “Taliban Dan.”

Most critically, Grayson mobilizes and energizes his diverse base: African Americans, Latinos, Jews, gay men and lesbians, union members, pro-choice activists and younger “‘Daily Show’ Democrats,” who, like him, do not hesitate to criticize their party’s leadership for insufficient fervor and a promiscuous eagerness to compromise. Their enthusiasm and their commitment, Grayson says, can make up for their smaller numbers in the otherwise moderately conservative district. If he manages to win despite the expected GOP wave — regardless of his margin — the lesson for Democrats will be clear.

“If Grayson wins,” said Aubrey Jewett, associate professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, “and especially if many other congressional Democrats lose, the lesson for the Democratic Party will be clear: A winning strategy for Democrats in swing districts involves energetically advocating progressive positions rather than muddling policy differences for the moderate voters.”

[…]

Despite the sense that this is going to be a Republican year and that Grayson is ideologically out of sync with the 8th District, local experts are not willing to count him out. Thanks to his personal funds and to contributions from his enthusiastic base, Grayson enjoys a large campaign cash advantage over Webster. On September 6, at a Labor Day rally sponsored by the AFL-CIO, he said that his latest internal poll had him up 40–27, though FiveThirtyEight, a widely read blog that tracks congressional races, rates the contest a toss-up.

“Candidates such as Grayson do not need to appease the more moderate party establishment,” said Terri Susan Fine, associate director of the University of Central Florida’s Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government. “Independents and weakly affiliated Republicans, more concerned with issues and less with partisanship, may join with other Democrats to re-elect Grayson.”

The Citizen’s United plutocrats along with the Republican party are throwing a lot of money this race, so his so-called cash advantage isn’t all that. We need to keep helping him.

But his “counterintuitive” (for beltway strategists) experiment is the one to watch for progressives. He’s done virtually everything we’ve asked of him, her’s been an outspoken leader, he’s pushed through difficult legislation, all as a freshman. If he can survive this coming slaughter, it’s a big lesson for other Democrats.

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Base Politics

by digby

There’s a lot of back and forth today about Obama’s remark the other day at a big money fundraiser criticizing “Democrats” for failing to properly appreciate his accomplishments. Here’s what he said:

Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get — to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed — oh, well, the public option wasn’t there. If you get the financial reform bill passed — then, well, I don’t know about this particular derivatives rule, I’m not sure that I’m satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven’t yet brought about world peace and — (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.) We have had the most productive, progressive legislative session in at least a generation.

Well, I think at least one thing is clear. Robert Gibbs wasn’t freelancing with his similar comments.

Regardless of whether you agree with Obama’s characterization there, I think most people would agree that it’s an odd way to fire up the troops. There seems to be some misapprehension on the part of the DC Dems that trying to browbeat people into appreciating you is smart politics. I’m thinking maybe a little ass kissing at this point might be a little bit more effective.

More importantly, it’s a complete misreading of what ails the base. It’s not about a bunch of liberal bloggers being pissed about the health care bill or the wars. Sadly, there just aren’t enough of us to make a difference. And it’s not about a bunch of liberal pundits in DC fretting about “tidal waves.” Susie Madrak hits the nail on the head about what’s depressing Democratic turnout:

[T]hose of us left living on a wing and prayer thanks to your “half full”, half-assed economic policies just don’t have a sense of humor about our continuing plight. I know it’s been a long time since your mom got food stamps, but you might want to give that empathy thing some thought.

It’s not that rank and file Democrats are congenitally unable to celebrate all the wonderful accomplishments of the Obama administration. It’s that, like Americans everywhere, they are hurting financially and don’t have good feelings about the future. The Republicans are fired up and believe that they can take action to change it by voting for teabaggers. But Dems are stuck in a holding pattern waiting for things to hopefully turn around. They have nowhere to focus their angst so they tune out. In those comments, the president is, at best, ignoring their real issue and saying they don’t know how good they have it. It’s not helpful.

Now it’s true that the administration isn’t making this argument in big speeches and Townhalls, so it’s hard to know how much of the real base (as opposed to the types who attend $30,000 a plate fundraisers) hears this stuff. But I think they can feel it. The Democratic leadership rarely focuses their rhetoric directly at the base. They run from the labels that make their voters identify with them and they only belatedly take on the opposition in red meat terms (and not very believably.) They clearly think progressivism and partisanship are negatives that will cause them to lose. So if you are a partisan Democrat, it’s not unnatural to feel as if they consider you to be a problem.

Unfortunately, midterms are almost always partisan elections, driven by the hardcore base of both parties. Behaving as if your voters are petulant and unappreciative may be therapeutic, and it may even be true, but it doesn’t get the job done.

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“A truly amazing pasticcio of mendacity, ignorance, and small-minded cupidity”

by digby

Please just read this marvelous analysis by Michael O’Hare of the reality behind the incessant bitching and moaning about letting the tax rates revert to where they were in 2000 by those who make a quarter of a million dollars a year or more. When you crunch the numbers it turns out that most of these assholes will actually either be unaffected or will be asked to pay a nominal amount more than they are already paying. And yet they are rending their garments about how they will be forced to fire the servants and bring down the recovery if this horror comes to pass.

These people really, really need to put down their delicious $8.00 Sprinkles Red Velvet cupcakes for a minute and re-read their French history.

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Training For Servitude

by digby

I don’t know how many of you have ever watched the Discovery Channel reality show “The Duggars” but I have on occasion and it’s fascinating. I never knew exactly what religion they practiced, but it was clear it was some sort of fundamentalist Christian sect that didn’t believe in birth control. And I wondered if they were involved in the Quiverfull movement. Apparently so:

Last weekend, [43 year old] Michelle Duggar—mother of 19, grandmother of one, and star of the hit reality series on TLC 19 Kids and Counting —was named Mother of the Year by the Christian Reconstructionist group Vision Forum at its “Historic Baby Conference.”

According to Vision Forum’s statement, the conference “featured encouraging messages on the blessing of children and the culture of life, special lectures and panel discussions for mothers, forums on child-training, and presentations for the whole family that explored the wonder of God’s creation through the intricacies of the womb.”

The event, the award, and the TLC show are excellent illustrations of how a Reconstructionist worldview has trickled into the broader American culture in ways that are not always obvious.

Vision Forum and its president, Doug Phillips (who is the son of conservative movement icon and Constitution Party founder Howard Phillips) are strong advocates of the biblical patriarchy movement. Since the 1970s there has been an influential biblical feminist movement, advocating equality in evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Changing attitudes led to many controversies which I documented in my book, Evangelical Christian Women: War Stories in the Gender Battles. Biblical patriarchy was a direct reaction to this biblical feminism.

While Christians traditionally hold that God is beyond gender (even while often using masculine language for God), in “The Tenets of Biblical Patriarch,” Doug Phillips asserts that God is male, and explicitly not female; that the human male is the “image and glory of God in terms of authority, while the woman is the glory of man.” That is, men are in the image of God in terms of authority over their households; women are created in God’s image in a decidedly different way, sometimes called “reflected glory.”

Christian Reconstruction “dominion theology” is rooted in the creation story in Genesis in which God creates Adam and Eve and tells them to exercise dominion over the Garden of Eden. As in other Reconstructionist writings (Rushdoony, for example) Phillips argues that while men are to exercise dominion, women are to assist their husbands’ dominion by serving in the home. Women in the “exceptional state” of being unmarried, according to Phillips, may have “more flexibility” but it is not the “ordinary and fitting role of women to work alongside men as their functional equals in public spheres of dominion.”

The show doesn’t proselytize about any of this. And watching the show I developed a fondness for the family. They are all very loving and sweet and supportive of one another and the little kids (there are so many of them!) are just adorable. You can certainly see why a TV producer would find this family appealing.

But as I watched, it became clear that there was something more odd about them than just their unusual numbers. And after a while I realized that it was the oppressiveness of their insularity, particularly for the older girls, who seem to be emotionally underdeveloped and nearly obsessed with childbearing. It’s the entire focus of the females, as you might imagine, who are basically raising children from the time they are able to pick one up. Their world is just so small and they seem to have no agency at all even when they are in their late teens.

They all seem quite happy, with good humor and a lot of affection among them so maybe this is just my own cultural bias kicking in. (And this is a TV show in which they are evangelizing for a certain way of life, so who knows what goes on beneath the surface?) But regardless of their good cheer, it’s quite clear that by the time these kids get to adolescence they have been so isolated that they aren’t prepared for any life but the odd one in which they’ve grown up — which in patriarchal social arrangements is the point. The girls are raised to see themselves as solely designed to serve men and give birth and that’s what they do.

Eventually I started to avoid the show after watching an episode that featured them socializing with another like-minded extra-large family from Tennessee. Mom said they had to keep a strong eye on the teens because they might get “feelings” if they spend time with one another. It was clear to me then that they were basically keeping their kids in prison until they entered a church sanctioned marriage. All that good cheer suddenly seemed brittle and sad.

Oh, and by the way, the Christian Reconstructionists/Quiverfull people really do believe in Christian fundamentalist Theocracy. If they were ever to achieve real political power, they would legislate this way of life. Indeed, their allies are working hard to outlaw abortion and birth control by any means necessary, which would be an excellent practical step toward their goal.

Jim Bob Duggar is a former elected politician who served in the Arkansas house of representatives. He has not ruled out running for office again.

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