Here's a relevant question,
is it a worthwhile payoff to pursue nation-building abroad, directly with our own military, or would it be more efficient to pursue these means indirectly, as outside support to whatever organizations within their own countries are strong enough to build and sustain necessary frameworks? Which way is more proven to bring success -- gifted institutions, or support and guidance when natives are capable of assuming responsibility for their own organizations and leadership choices?

Or... should we be sticking to business at home, and playing a more contained defensive game abroad?

I'm looking at the man in the mirror, so to speak.

What is she prattling on about now?

The craziest redhead since Lucille Ball wades into the political fray again, with her tenured intellectual legal insight.

This appears to be a live-feed of thoughts, as she reads a newspaper column. (I haven't even read this column yet, but I've got to get in on this "Liberal Suicide March" action. Link! )


I can't keep up: for Obama, against? Conservative, or typical Madison lib who just happens to still drive a car and eat red meat? (I think it evolved out in the Next Generation...)

Sadly, this morning's blog post does nothing but "obfuscate" matters.

I've found, when excerpting large chunks, best keep clear who's writing. Particularly when the writers' voice are not clearly identifiable.

Is the good professor at Wisconsin agreeing with Brooks? (column paraphrase: The Dems are beating themselves again, with no clue as to working realities of life.)

Or is she still still a-hopin', a-wishin' and (definitely not) a-prayin' that Barack Obama will be the one, the secular savior that will be able to easily wipe clean our messes, put a smile on the childrens' faces, and send us all out to play in diverse, Benneton-clad groups in tall grasses under sunny skies full of fluffy white clouds?

I mean, come on.

She lost me with the silly justification of the two GWB votes, way back when. (I believe there were ways of intellectually justifying a non-Kerry vote, but that was another road not taken.)

This shared momma-son tweet, from the morning-after the election still makes me cringe a bit (too close for comfort?, too ignorant of the normalities of long-time integrated progress to realize the destruction of elevating a junior senator because of the historical first blackness thing? I don't know, but I know my instincts... that was just as creepy then as it is today, and these are the cream-of-the-crop of our educated lawyer class ;-)


So is it that my former law professor at UW is just playing an entertainment game? Doesn't matter what she's writing, so long as she can rip at a big NYT columnist -- Brooks here, Dowd throughout?

Criticism is cool, don't get me wrong. Educated criticism a rarity. But to play under the banner of educated criticism, and to have no consistency or even a credible political/legal/intellectual "voice" established yet... hmm. (Btw, did the new husband -- landscaper and creative financier, I believe... -- write this one then, or is it the law professor's thoughts Instapundit Glenn Reynolds linked to?)

Maybe I'm just lagged from a car journey yesterday, but that's too complicated to follow for too little intellectual payoff. How bout this? :

Sports Tips for Older Girls:

1) It's fine to appreciate good play, no matter which side makes it. It's good sportsmanship even. Fine also to have fair criticism of play, again on either side.

What really makes you look bad -- a newbie fan, if you will -- is shifting your allegiances here and there throughout the season (or even the game itself, if you'd have the audacity). You study the players, and (naturally to most?) develop your hunches and then stick to them: if your team wins, they win.

I mean, nobody likes a cheerleader who can't figure out the basics of the game enough to make up her mind and stick to it -- for a season, or a complete game at least.

If you lose, you lose. You can't say, "Oh, I knew he was going to lose (or win) all along, and just was prattling on about nonsensical side issues for kicks."

Ruth used to add up the names on the roster for the hockey games, even before the players came out skating their warm ups, and her theory went with the deeper bench. The bigger schools with varsity ranks in the 20s, she generally went with them over the smaller rosters.

Then, when they came out skating, and eventually took to the opposite benches, she'd use her eyesight across the rink (and then confirm with me) the counts, knowing that sometimes flu's or academic suspensions or whatever, could sometimes lead to discrepancies in the actual count and the roster names.

She'd also look at the speed and size of the kids playing, I think, but generally I remember she usually commented on how it would be hard, and they'd need to use all they had, for a significantly smaller bench to measure up in the end, particularly in the final period if the game was played hard.

Point is: no matter your theory, it helps to observe, compare, and stick with whatever it is you've decided to measure. That way, you don't come across as a finger-in-the-wind fan when the game is being played -- a most important time -- with no internal consistency whatsoever in what you admire in a player or value in a a team. Nobody admires a bandwagon cheerleader, if you catch my drift...

So, does that help any? Sometimes we get so locked into one way of thinking, I think, reinforced by like-minded others, related or not, that we make poor assumptions and can't see how we're coming across.




Oh, for the record, I liked Brooks today*. He's been doing too much covering himself lately for my tastes too: (paraphrasing) "Rahm Emannuel and Team Obama from the meritorious Ivy Leagues have put together a well-educated almost genius healthcare plan, in theory, that if Obama has the charm and dignity to pass with no changes by senatorial fatcats, will be the only hope of a quick fix because there are no other actions and we've got to put our faith in somebody credentialed and educated to lead us in these uncertain economic times, afterall. That's the way it's always been, and we can't get ourselves through this one without divine help from above, the problems are just too big for mere mortal Americans alone now..." yadda yadda.


---------------------------------------
* I read the Brooks column last night before checking the proffy blogs this morning.


ADDED:
Some one of these days, we'll have to talk about Afghanistan. If I may, Friedman's column bears remarking on: do we really want to expend the military money and lives necessary to educate schoolgirls, or would there be better organizations than the U.S. military to make that committment, if indeed we judge that it is a mission worth undertaking?

Sometimes the "I was there and saw!" coverage -- whether from congressional junkets or veteran newspeople excursions -- is off, perhaps skewed by emotional influences of what you wish could be easily changed when opening eyes to reality.

Blog fodder.

Sorry to not have dished up many fresh posts lately. Busy, busy, busy in the summer offline; you know how that goes.

Hope you're enjoying fresh fruits wherever you're at, and maybe thinking ahead to winter. (I think we hit the low 60s for a high today, a record. Don't get me wrong: the coolness energizes, and things keep longer cold than in the heat. Still, it seems an odd summer when you look at the calendar -- a lingering late May, early June.)

A bloated healthcare plan...

for a bloating nation!

Quite the fit, eh?

Nevermind addressing root causes, or having the willpower and discipline to undertake needed preventative measures: this is the perfect plan for us today, really. Quick fix; everybody wins it seems -- a painless cure; the current symptoms are alleviated...

I wouldn't bet my life on it though.

Smile ...

if mediocrity makes you feel more secure.

Know why I like sports? Competition. You don't get far resting on your laurels, and there's no whining about diversity when there's not enough of your own kind represented.

Make the cut today, you're in. Not good enough? You sit out this one. Come back another day with a better game, and you get another shot at winning.

I'm glad, being 40, to have come up in a day when it was expected for girls to be athletically competitive too, to play by a set of commonly accepted, established rules. The game loses something when you try to keep making them up as you go, to benefit this side or that.

Too many women of a certain age, I've noticed, are content to parade the "first woman this or that" label, as if that's good enough to keep you as an alpha leading the pack. As if they don't have to defend their results.

Nope. That can often lead to the downfall of the pack, you see. How you play today matters, no matter how much you like to think you're set for life. Take care that browning beneath your feet isn't the life draining out of your laurels, crushed by your weight resting on them.

Where's the beef?

Georgetown University Law Professor (libertarian, and Cal City boy!) Randy Barnett takes an educated look at the Sotomayor hearings thus far, and offers his opinion on the Volokh blog:

...
I just listened to an exchange on the same topic with Senator Russ Feingold, which left me with 2 impressions. First, Feingold was much more articulate about the constitutional questions than was Orren Hatch. And, second, Sotomayor is giving entirely nonanswer answers to every substantive question she is asked.
...

SOTOMAYOR: One must remember that the Supreme Court's analysis in its prior precedent predated its principles or the development of cases discussing the incorporation doctrine. Those are newer cases.

And so the framework established in those cases may well inform -- as I said, I've hesitant of prejudging and saying they will or won't because that will be what the parties are going to be arguing in the litigation. But it is...

FEINGOLD: Well...

SOTOMAYOR: I'm sorry.

FEINGOLD: No, no. Go ahead.

SOTOMAYOR: No, I was just suggesting that I do recognize that the court's more recent jurisprudence in incorporation with respect to other amendments has taken -- has been more recent. And those cases as well as stare decisis and a lot of other things will inform the Court's decision how it looks at a new challenge to a state regulation.

The last part of her answer may be my favorite response so far in the hearing. To this point, it is impossible to tell from her responses whether she knows anything about constitutional law OR whether she simply does not want to offer any opinions that could possibly be criticized. I do not recall a confirmation hearings in which so little of substance is revealed by a nominee.

Thirsty Saturday.

"Michael is dead, and I don't feel so good myself." *

The local news went to Katie Couric last evening, and for 15 minutes there she was live in L.A. covering the funeral plans today. Nevermind the Afghanistan offensive, the fate of our soldiers there, or the fact that Michael has been dead 11 days now...

There was no "news" in L.A., just CBS serving up what they think people want. Like TIME magazine years ago, when they began to feature Joel Stein covering the news, I shake my head in amazement. (It would be interesting to run a poll of extreme Michael "grievers", I think, to see how many believe O.J. Simpson was innocent of murder. Large overlap, I'd guess.)

11 days, and only now the body is being put to rest... poor thing. In death, as in life, people circle, consuming the poor man and pricing him up. Shame.

You begin to understand too just how the child molestation in the Catholic Church was covered up for so long: untouchable, and unending forgiveness for those we (wrongly) worship. Not our guy. Not this one. Nevermind the bad and dangerous warning signs: what parent would neglect their child and put him in such a position? Exaggerated; gentle loving not rape; never happened...

Surely I'm not the only one who has wondered too, what if Michael had been born just a bit later? If he'd been able to be sexual, normally, as a gay celebrity in 1988 or 1998, instead of what he faced in 1978 in the days of shame and hiding?

Of course, maybe he'd be dead of AIDS by now, as celebrity erases some of the economic and societal pressures to conform to a more traditional normality and as we see in death as in life, the consuming vultures would never risk disfavor or shutting off the spigots that might consequentially result from enforcing limits, saying "no".

Since it will be nearly impossible to avoid today's spectacle, I imagine I'll be looking at those "grieving" faces who won "the lottery" to get in to the memorial service, and wondering, "Why is it so hard to accept that Michael -- your magician on the dancefloor -- was a gay man?"

Black acceptance of that simple fact might go further in advancing Michael's true legacy, than all the for-profit projects to come after his financially lucrative early death. Little boy from Gary got his own -- God bless ya kiddo; they killed you long ago.








Billie Holiday / Arthur Herzog jr.

Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own.

Yes, the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets don't ever make the grade
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child thats got his own
That's got his own.

Money, you've got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When you're gone, spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own
He just worry bout nothin'
Cause he's got his own.

---------------------------
* Apologies to the late Lewis Grizzard.

We need rain here, but otherwise, it's been a swell summer, sunny and dry. Namekagon and Apple Rivers, Silver and Shell Lakes -- the best thing about northern Wisconsin waters are they're north of any industry, and the intimate size allows shading on the banks. Works for me.

With silver bells, cockle shells...

and a pretty (enough) maid with a hoe.

Oh and a good irrigation system too, for this dry, cool spell we've been in...