He Hastens...

and Chastens His Will To Make Known...

(name that tune.)

But if you'd try some time...

well you just might find...
you'll get what you need...


(Can't tell you -- in my live-and-learn type of life -- how many times that bears repeating, if to myself only...)

You lose out on 100% of the shots you don't even bother trying, as the cliche goes...

Here's to tomorrow then: another new day.

Jack: Eighteen years have passed, but have they?...By gosh, old times certainly are starting all over again.
Eugene: Old times. Not a bit. There aren't any old times. When times are gone, they're not old, they're dead. There aren't any times but new times.

You Can't Say That ...

in Israel.

In a brief “Note to Readers” published Tuesday on the front page of The Jerusalem Post, the newspaper announced that it had parted ways with a columnist who wrote last week on his blog that terrorist attacks on Israelis were “justified” because Palestinians living under Israeli occupation since 1967 “have a right to resist.”

The note from the English-language daily read in full: “Due to a professional disagreement with Larry Derfner connected to his personal blog, he will no longer be working at The Jerusalem Post.”

According to Mr. Derfner, he was fired by the newspaper even after he had published a lengthy apology on his personal Web site for what he described as a poorly worded attempt to shock Israelis into considering the possibility that the continued occupation of Palestinian land seized by Israel provokes terror attacks.
...
Mr. Derfner’s reference in his post to the prominent role in Israeli history played by members of the Irgun, a militant group that helped to drive Britain from the region in the 1940s, is a reminder that the people branded terrorists by their enemies are often celebrated as resistance fighters by their supporters.

As The Lede reported in 2009, during Israel’s offensive in Gaza that year a British parliamentarian named Gerald Kaufman, who was close to some of Israel’s founders, pointed out that Tzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima, Israel’s main opposition party, was the daughter of two members of what he called “the terrorist Irgun Tzvai Leumi.”

It will be interesting to see, as the roosters start coming home crowing, if America continues to emulate her Middle East ally, as we have in our torture policies, our tightened up (but ineffective) security policies, our First Amendment? Another attack on our home soil, who knows what the fearful will push?

Already our media prefers to promote fluff, rather than asking the hard but necessary questions. And questioning Israel is clearly off the table. So unless the Pali's roll over and play dead, as seems to be Israel's masterplan, I suspect we'll see more of that fight, which really does belong over there, brought home here.

Nothing like a little fear to strike the hearts of Americans, and make them give up on all the principles and practices that got us here thus far. Me? I hope we continue to resist -- and clearly outline the differences between Israel and the United States. Granted, those distinctions are becoming smaller and smaller as more presidential administrations pass through ... "captured" by the process, by the dollars, by the politics of it all, you might say.


Read the Whole Thing. (Don't be Afraid.)

They say that what you mock...
Will surely overtake you.
So you become a monster,
so the monster will not break you.

General Assignment.

This morning, I photographed -- discreetly, I hope, and on invitation -- members of the Muslim community in Barron breaking their fast, ending Ramadan, and beginning the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday with prayers in the soccer field next to the apartment so many live in, here in town.

We have an Islamic Cultural Center here, and a good-sized population, many of whom work at The Turkey Store, but it is still a separate community in many ways. Still, the children are in the public schools, and in a few generations, no doubt there will be more of a cultural mix.

Was glad when the elder stopped in yesterday, and invited us to come and cover the morning services. Turned out to be a beautiful morning, and I remembered what I like most about this job: getting out and about, meeting new faces, and learning new things...

Happy Tuesday to you.

Over there, over there...

Two Cohen's -- liberals of note -- take on the arduous task in the press of trying to convince the American people that the Khaddafy threat in Libya justified hot U.S. intervention, under cover of NATO, for moral reasons.

Like many of my generation, I became an interventionist in Bosnia. Sickened by carnage, and by the lies and ignorance of Western politicians who prolonged the carnage, I understood that caution — or more accurately hypocrisy masquerading as prudence — can be as criminal as recklessness.

A war with very specific reasons and equally specific crimes committed overwhelmingly by Serbian forces was dressed up as a millennial conflict beset by Balkan fog and moral equivalency in order for craven Western leaders to justify an inaction that killed.

So I sat in Sarajevo and fumed and tried to pierce the fog with words. I tried to say who was killing whom beneath the gaze of blue-helmeted United Nations “peacekeepers” and below the fatuous flights of NATO planes patrolling empty skies. Was Sarajevo to be another Munich?
...
Libya, in the wake of this damage, was a risk for President Obama. There were many reasons for not intervening — a third war in a Muslim country was not what America needed and the homegrown quality of the Arab Spring has been central to its moral force. But to allow Muammar el-Qaddafi to commit a massacre foretold in Benghazi would have been unforgivable.

The intervention has been done right — with the legality of strong United Nations backing, full support from America’s European allies, and quiet arming of the rebels. The Libyan people have been freed from a crazed tyranny. Unlike in Iraq, burdens were shared: America flew the intelligence missions and did the refueling while the French, British, Dutch and others did most of the bombing. Iraq was the wrong prism through which to look at Libya. I’m glad I resisted that temptation. Another cycle has begun.

In the end, I think interventionism is inextricable from the American idea. If the United States retreats into isolationism, it ceases to be itself — a nation dedicated, however much it falls short, to a universalist ideal of freedom.

Show us the Libyan concentration camps.
Show us the skeletal men, reminiscent of Bosnia.

The sad truth is, the administration forget to sell Ghaddafy as a dangerous enemy -- he was more a laughable joke than any true threat to our national security. To us here, most importantly, and to innocent life, plenty of which was sacrificed up in the pre-emptive NATO campaign.

And is it so wrong for Americans to care more about the lives -- and livelihoods -- of their own struggling sons and daughters, rather than worrying about what a decades-long dictator might have in store for his own people (emphasis on that key word: might...), over there? Spend our resources on fixing our own problems, preventative maintenance here to protect our citizens over pre-emptive bombing from above there, to kill some lives to save others...

Especially when, it's hard to tell, their good guys from their bad...

So, up goes the hype meter, it seems:

Libya under Moammar Gaddafi was not Germany under Adolf Hitler. But lives were at stake, mass murder was threatened and the man doing the threatening was capable of unspeakable acts of terrorism. Did any of this have anything to do with our vital national interests? Not really. But we had the wherewithal to avert the killing. That gave us the moral obligation to do so.

U.S. policymakers now grappling with the question of America’s role in the world ought to look to the past as well as the future. We were once an uncaring nation, not selfish by any means, but tone-deaf to the cries of victims elsewhere. We defined our national interests narrowly and dismissed morality as the preoccupation of amateurs or special-interest pleaders. Larson’s book is instructive on this score. Martha Dodd may have slept with the enemy, but, in moral terms, she was no worse than the country she represented. It just slept.

Yawn.
You see this creeping up a lot in the press lately: making the case that only isolationist pacifists would see this one as a time not to respond... Personally, I think the administration, and their press people, badly misread the public temperature for more foreign wars. And we're way more skeptical that what our hardware (and manpower, in other places) is doing "over there" really is helping "protect" us, over here...

Congressman John Lewis of the CBC got it right recently, when he said, eventually, all our foreign interventions and pre-emptive actions will come home to roost... Hmm, where did we hear that one before?

* and is it still wrong to notice, so many of these liberal men excited for our taking out the "wrong" Arab dictators, who coincidentally threaten Israel with their own actions, are of Jewish descent themselves?

It'd be like only having Cuban-American immigrant men opine on whether or not the time is wise to pre-emptively remove a Cuban dictator who surely is a madmen threatening the lives of his people?

Sha-la-la-la ... Shame on you.

Donna Shalala, who was caught posing with convicted Ponzi schemer Nevin Shapiro, makes promises, promises down in Miami, now that the football team's caught up in a potential career-ending controversy...

Wait a minute. I forgot.
These administrations never go under because of the corruption occuring all around, and under, them. Even with the pictures, even with the cashed checks. Blame it on ignorance, willful ignorance...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Miami President Donna Shalala said it's been "quite painful" dealing with the scandal that could blacken the name of the university's athletic department for years to come.

The NCAA and the school are investigating whether the athletic department, including 15 current student-athletes, broke rules in their dealings with convicted Ponzi scheme architect and former booster Nevin Shapiro. A person with knowledge of the process told The Associated Press last week that eight football players have been declared ineligible, though the school remains hopeful they will soon be reinstated by the NCAA.

"These past two weeks have been quite painful for me," Shalala wrote in a letter published in Sunday's editions of The Miami Herald. "It is way too early to know all of the details ... but the allegations alone cause serious concerns."

She added: "Here's my commitment: I will do, and we will do, everything possible to find the truth, learn from any mistakes and take measures to prevent any such behavior from happening again."
...
The letter marks the third time Shalala has issued a statement about the scandal. Aside from one interview with student media at the university, she hasn't been available for questions.

"We have committed to the NCAA every possible resource to get to the bottom of all this," Shalala wrote. "We promised the NCAA we would not comment on any specifics until the investigation runs its course. We continue to honor that commitment."

Sha - la- la- la ...

How Can the Economy Be Fixed?

I don't know, but tuck this into the back of your noggin: Mr. Paul Krugman shares a nearby mail slot at Princeton to the newest Obama administration economic advisor, Mr. Alan Krueger.

So that's nearby access, anway...

See, if Paul can slip some advice into Alan's pigeon-hole ... maybe some of those colorful charts and graphics ... and the administration doesn't believe it's coming from Paul the Outcast (I just follow these things peripherally, don't make a career of it) ... who knows?

There have been funnier ways of getting a foot into the door, I've heard, and so long as you reach the right ears, does it really matter whether you come in, with trumpets, through the front door, or find your way in by side access?

We don't need no steenkin BIKE LANES !

Here in rural country, often you see farm implements on the road. If possible, farmers know it's unwise to move these things during what passes for "high traffic" times, up here. Consider your neighbor, and all.

Mostly, it's Minnesota plates that think it's ok to do 65 on the back roads. Nope. It's 55. Folks with limited leisure times will ride you for doing the speed limit, and take the best opportunity to pass you. Ok -- go to it.

Smarter farmers will stick to the right as much as possible, riding the shoulder too, to allow cars to pass -- when safe -- on the left hand side. It's courtesy of the roads. If you are doing 20 in a 55, and you know you need to be passed on single-lane roads, you hug the right shoulder and allow vehicles to pass when safe.

In Madison, it looks like the idiots have the run of the day:

If you are a big-ego'ed biker, imagine the lift you must have when you realize, in a single-laned road, you can slow down everyone behind you by refusing to get to the right (you know, someone might open a parked car door on you) and allow them to safely pass. Why, you could easily tie everyone up for blocks, simply because you are a biker, and instead of employing common sense, you are intent on exercising your right as a "vehicle" entitled to your own rate of speed, with others behind you obligated to follow until it is safe to pass...

It's like driving a beater that can only do 10 or 20 mph, on a back road, and not getting over to allow others to pass, when you can.

I'm glad, have I said this before?, that I live in a place where you share roads more often with farmers than bikers.

Because, I fear, if she sticks to road riding instead of the designated bike paths that are paid for with state money and go to helping bike riders get where they are going safely, Althouse is finally going to get recorded that "fight" she and her new husband are so obviously begging spoiling for...

(That's an observation, btw, not a threat. You won't find me inching behind those bikers on Madison roads. Not when there are much better -- and healthier too, both in a safe way and a fresh-air way -- options upstate. That in-town coal plant always had me wondering, like I did watching all the skinny vegans sucking on their cigarettes...)

ps. What kind of a boy-man is retired in his 50s, and spends his days videorecording hippie protests hoping for a crowd reaction, and encouraging his ladylove to ride bikes on the roads where there is obviously traffic resentment? Keep this up, and we'll probably see professor-smear all over the roadway, and surely no one, even the Madison haters and the hype mongers, wants to see that?

ADDED:
Commonsense in the comments:

rhhardin said...
It's a misguided experiment, that will produce a strong bicyclists are assholes stereotype.

There's enough room for bikes and cars both without lane markings at all, if the bikes stay out of the way where it's obvious that they can.

I do 8,000 miles a year that way and it works fine.

and,
obviously: there's something political going on below the surface here -- hello Madison! -- other than just finding efficient modes of transport for all types of vehicles:

MadisonMan said...
When I'm biking on Kendall, if there's a car behind me, I yield. It's called being polite. I don't care if I have the right-of-way on that Bicycle Boulevard.

If I'm on the Bicycle Boulevard on the east side, however, I don't yield because people on the East side expect bikers to be inconsiderate SOBs and I don't want to disappoint.

and response:

Ann Althouse said...
MadisonMan, you're part of the problem! Kendall is for bikers. Car drivers who venture there will find themselves slowed down. It will not be a shortcut anymore.

It's kind of like, making certain roadways "off limits" for cars, but doing it in an underhanded way (Ride so slowly you inconvenience everybody but bikers and clunkers going waaaay under the posted speed limit.) instead of out-and-out advocating for more bike lanes (bikes only) that can exist side-by-side with marked out car lanes.

Sad, and will be deadly too, I predict...

One more comment:

Unless Madison is willing to invest quite a bit in a campaign to inform drivers of this oddity, I can't see how this won't cause far more trouble then its worth. The law may say one thing, but frankly, the law has limits. Legally, you may be able to take up that lane. But should you?

or two:

Please be careful. Having the right to obstruct traffic doesn't provide a magical force field to protect your back tire from a car's front bumper. Back home, the bikes-in-the-street movement has taken off over the last five years, and that's been followed by a marked increase in the number of memorials to mowed-down cyclists. Knowing you had the right of way is small comfort when you're, you know, dead.

UPDATE: Joe Soucheray of the Pioneer Press balked when this nonense came to St. Paul. He's right.

Traffic circles have already been rejected by residents along Jefferson and signs -- preciously called "sharrows" -- that were painted on Jefferson near Snelling Avenue were painted mistakenly and had to be painted over.

In other words, despite the best intentions of Transit for Livable Communities, the non-elected activists who got their mitts on a million dollars of federal money for the Jefferson Avenue project, Jefferson pretty much still looks like what it is supposed to be, a significant east-west artery for motorists.

But at least we now know the importance of that median. It's entirely symbolic. Without it, Jefferson remains exactly what it has always been: a serviceable avenue for our preferred mode of transportation. And there will still be bicyclists; they just won't have brass buttons.


...
Let me try to explain something, but probably to no avail. I have been an avid bicyclist and might be again, particularly as I shy away from motorcycling. I believe that bicycling is a great exercise.

But that's it. Winter? Forget about it. Bicycling is not our preferred mode of transportation. Yes, there are people who can commute to work on a bicycle, but their numbers are few. And there is no way Mom is going to get her five kids onto a bicycle and haul home school supplies from Target.

Now, TLC, which is in the so-called nonprofit business of compelling bicycle riding, might wish otherwise, but they are delusional. Why taxpayers should fund that delusion is where we find ourselves as these people can essentially dangle that million dollars in front of the city's public works department. The proposal goes before the city council Aug. 17. Every one of us can look around the city and find dozens of better uses for that million dollars.

or, Never Underestimate the Cost of a Pampered Ego.


ADDED: Here's a recent story, upstate, of a healthy man who lost his life ... riding his bike on an "empty" country lane.

He was clearly "in the right", but ended up dead nonetheless, as the bigger vehicle took no mercy and the biker was unable to practice defensive maneuvers, being as he was riding -- legally -- with his back to traffic.

Landgraf taught physical education for the Bloomer School District for 25 years, retiring in 2006. He stayed on as the head coach of the Blackhawks track and field team. In his 27 seasons as head coach, his teams won three Heart O' North Conference championships (1995, 2010 and 2011) and one Middle Border Conference championship (1992). He also coached the BHS cross-country ski team.

Landgraf was one of only three people to participate in every Birkebeiner and was one of the event's founders.

The Sawyer County Sheriff's Department received a report Friday at 6:50 p.m. about a bicyclist who was hit by a vehicle on STH 27 near Boylan Road, town of Sand Lake. The Stone Lake Ambulance was dispatched along with Sawyer County deputies. A helicopter was also dispatched to the scene.

According to the Sawyer County Sheriff's Department, Anna Amparo, 24, Hayward, was operating a blue Mitsubishi Galant southbound on STH 27. Amparo turned around in her seat to speak to her two children. When she turned back around to face forward, she struck Landgraf. Amparo attempted to swerve to avoid striking Landgraf, but she was unsuccessful. The impact threw Landgraf from his bike, and he landed in a ditch, sustaining life-threatening injuries.

Landgraf was transported to Hayward Area Memorial Hospital and then transported to St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth by helicopter.
Amparo and her children were not injured.

The crash scene was reconstructed by Wisconsin State Patrol. Citations have been issued to Amparo from the Sawyer County Sheriffs Office.

AND IN THE END ...
Clearly, it's not just an ego thang. It's an ego, AND a money thang!

Ann Althouse said...
"Really? Was Kendall paid for with gas tax money? If so, it's for cars, and everyone else is a guest who owes the owners, car drivers, the right of way. They paid for it, and they're paying for its upkeep."

I paid over $13,000 in property taxes last year. I don't want to hear about it.
and

MadisonMan said...
If so, it's for cars, and everyone else is a guest who owes the owners, car drivers,

I own a car. So I paid for Kendall. Behave on my property.

8/29/11 2:25 PM

8/29/11 2:18 PM

or,

Don't mind the stares.
We've PAID for these chairs...

And the right to slow down everybody behind us, because ... we can.

The Boomer's Final Rallying Call.

My Saturday.

Relax, folks.
It was a "planned" burn.

(Doubleclick to read the door sign.)

'Til It Shines...

Song for a bright Monday morn?

Oh, here's one:

See the rich man, lost and lonely
Watch him as he dines...
Sitting there just testing all the wines
'Til it shines
Mmmm, till it shines
'Til it shines
Oh, 'til it shines
'Til it shines ...

'Til it shines, then ...

Happiness is ...

a newfound Buddy.

Pat Summit...

and Glen Campbell too...

In his first interview since being diagnosed with Alzheimer's in June, the singer told ABC's Terry Moran that he has been "blessed" to have five successful decades in music.

Regarding his health, Campbell revealed he hasn't yet "felt" the effects of the degenerative disease, which robs people of their memory.

"I've always been forgetful anyway," he said in the interview, which aired on "Nightline" on Tuesday. "I'm only what — 78?"

Campbell's wife, Kim Wollen, jumped in to correct him: "75."

"Oh, so I've got a couple more," he joked back.

Wollen was on-hand to help her husband with certain questions he had difficulty answering, like the details of their relationship.

"Did you find me or I find you?" he asked her. "I think we found each other," she said.

Campbell also discussed his new album, "Ghost of the Canvas," and his upcoming farewell tour, which kicks off at the end of August.

"Music is a natural memory aid, and we're finding out, we think it really does help his memory and help keep him from declining," Wollen told Moran.

"So it's really good for him and all the love he gets from all the fans is really encouraging, so that's why we want to do it as long as we can, because it's healthy for all of us. Music is good medicine."

I'm right. I'm right. I'm right. *footstomp*

" He was right then, and I’m right now — and if you find it strains your personal credulity, so what?"

Poor Krugs.
Being so ... "right!" and still sidelined, and more interested in being a blog ... "winner!" than in getting his ideas listened to...

All your career, you work hard to learn things, even pick up a prize or two, plus the travel junkets to the cushy "talkey talk" seminars and lectures, and yet ... still, you're just warming the bench on the sidelines.

Just you, and your ... "rightness", of course.
Snuggle it close and let it keep you warm. The more you play the sulky teenager, the less you'll be listened to for all your "right" ideas that you're unable to communicate effectively to the people in power, I suspect...

Oh well.
So what?
"Na-na, Na-na", eh? There'll still be a mandatory textbook market for all your "right" ideas, I suspect.. Winning!



ADDED:
To spell it out, for the slow people in the pack, I think he might be onto something with his analysis. It's the sorry ... communication skills, and contemptuous attitude that is a big turnoff to so many, I suppose.

But why would one invest so much time in this study of people and their money-making choices, if you deliberately want to sideline yourself by being so offensive, no one even wants to get near you or your ideas? That one is beyond my pay grade. Sad childhood perhaps? An "everybody is against me!" mentality that makes you want to turn others off immediately, so you can blame them for rejecting your "right" ideas before you even give them a chance to consider taking your work seriously?

Again, beyond my pay grade. Maybe it's justification for the elitist isolation he chooses, but then prefers to portray as being driven there -- an outsider, that is. (and I don't mean that in an outdoors kinda way...)

Symbolic Cracks ...

in the Nation's Foundation?

Cracking was found in the stones at the top of the Washington Monument Tuesday evening, the National Park Service reported.

The National Park Service temporarily closed the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and the Old Post Office Tower as a precaution following Tuesday’s earthquake.

The cracking in the Monument was discovered during a secondary inspection. Structural engineers will evaluate the cracks Wednesday and determine how to repair them before the Monument is reopened.

If the job market, manufacturing reports, housing starts and overall Dow performance weren't enough to convince you, perhaps structural cracks in the foundation will?

Coincidental sure, but let's not overlook the symbolism...

Some people still haven't gotten the message of what our shared country faces, looking ahead. Untouched today, perhaps, they expect their tomorrow's will present as happily, making light of the countryman's ills and well, pretty much partying on like it's 1999.

It's not.

The more preventative maintenance work we do today, together, the better options we will have available to us in the coming years. Voters get that, I think.

Finally, we're more likely in the coming presidential election to vote less on popularity ("reminds me of a kid brother") or personal style, and more on who we honestly think can get the job done.

That's why -- I'm still holding out hope for Mitt Romney, a more mature candidate with a track record of working in difficult situations, and doing what it takes -- in a hard cold business sense -- to get the work done.

Remember the Salt Lake -- really, the U.S. -- Olympics fiasco before he stepped in? Corruption, running way over budget, with many wondering if the thing could be pulled off? Don't care much about his hairdo or personal relationship with Christ -- he successfully got the job done.

He is politically groomed -- no surprises, no feet in mouth, no jumping into situations like the black professor/white policeman where it does not dignify the office of the President to intervene.

Let the celebrities handle the public service announcements ("Parents: get involved in your children's educations" or, "Remember: for healthy bodies, choose the best available healthy options available to you today and take care of yourself for a healthier tomorrow.)

Let the president worry about the nation's economy, doing what he can with the tools available to him, to take on the bigger, more important issues tody. We can assure equal opportunities under the law by continuing to enforce the rules on the books; we don't need additional legislation, or Court games, to manipulate the system, righting the wrongs of the the past by penalizing other innocent players today.

Let's not give in to the temptations to play the race card, or "blame Whitey", as so many young media building their career stars are wont to do. Raised on a diet of racial strife, some already are dividing us up by skin tone, and pointing fingers too. Of course, there will be a healthy pushback since this liberal guilt is not shared by all.

Case in point?

But I must point something out to folks who equate collecting public assistance and “dependency” with being black. When Obama was a child, his mother did collect food stamps. His white mother.

Respectful pushback?

She presumably need the help in feeding her biracial son, and herself, after the black man who impregnated and married her left the family without enough resources to take care of his own. Thankfully, their were maternal grandparents, and other men, able to step in and help his family feed the chubby youngster, supplemented with the government help.

That's the reason you don't toss out things like: His white mother.

Because thankfully, not all of us are at an age, where we came up in a world where blacks were routinely discriminated against. We know low-esteem women who are passed from man to man, and accept that role, bearing babies for many. Often, these are indeed, white women. We've sat in classrooms, or shared schools at least, with other students who had the exact same opportunities to lift themselves via education, hard work and will. We've competed honestly, we've completed our races.

Thinking like this, really does hold one back:

There is no way to sell the idea that being a black man in America gives you tremendous benefit.

It's a dated mentality, much like that which separates pre- and post-Title IX women, who -- even if they were not athletic -- gained in amazing ways when the playing field were open to all achievers, regardless of superficial characteristics. Some seized the opportunities available to them in this new ball game, and forged ahead.

Others presumed discrimination, or sadly accepted the words of those who would denigrate them based on superficialities without fighting back and making the most of what was there before them.

I remember the day a biracial lifeguard of mine, up in New Richmond Wisconsin (please, don't read too much symbolism into the little city's name), came to my desk excitedly telling me of her acceptance to UW Madison. She had applied only a week or two before, the acceptance letter came so quickly...

She knew, however, why her acceptance came so much sooner than her equally talented teen co-workers and classmates, some of whom even had greater grades, rankings, test scores, and community contributions. (Kids in high school who work so closely in small academic communities like that are generally honest about their strengths, knowing without external measures, who is truly the smartest amongst them in understanding the materials. They know the best grades often is not the indicator of who best knows the material, and understands it best.)

This young woman got in, while others patiently waited for a fuller examination of their own records, because she had checked a box, written an essay, describing herself as a product of her white mother, and her black father, a professor at the University of Wisconsin -- River Falls campus nearby. She and her brothers were loved, and not only fully accepted in the community she was raised in, but she considered herself as one of the them. No distinctions, until people in the bigger world begin classifying by racial makeup, determined to compensate for the sins of the past.

Access to opportunity previously denied is what they are meant to redress.

Except, this young woman herself was never denied opportunities based on her coloring. There really aren't band of white racists roaming the countryside randomly picking black or biracial children to enslave or "keep out" anymore.

What message was sent when she was favored in the process? She came to me to share her good news, mostly because she was unable to share her good news right then in the lifeguard breakroom, understanding that others were still waiting to hear if they'd be accepted in also. She knew, and said so in so many words, that only one characteristic distinguished her record from that of those with whom she shared the higher-level classrooms and worked alongside. I knew too, but understood where she was coming from, and was glad to hear her happy news, even if she was waiting to tell others, because, through no fault of her own, she was on a different track now...

The Boomers, especially the more middle- and upper-classes, indeed might have lived under segregation. They might have personally benefitted on the backs of others, more qualified candidates who were held back or excluded. Those days, people, are indeed over, much as many -- in the oppressor and in the previously oppressed categories -- might find personal gain in pretending they are not.

My grade school, which sat on the edge of the quarry had Pedraza's, McCann's, Lindquist's, O'Brien's, Rodriquez's, Tatgenhorst's, Korenic's, Bulanda's, Anderson's and Andersen's, and on and on and on... Ethnic names, many newly relocated into the small town from the racial upheavals in the southern parts of the city that drove us from our homes, even if we'd have chosen to stay...

We never saw ourselves as a mini-melting-pot though, we were just kids going to class and playing our games on the playground. Only in looking back, at that delicious roster of names, could I appreciate what I was provided. My father chose public school educations, not for the cost -- he would have killed himself working the overtime to do what it took to get his children the best educations possible -- but because the public schools had science laboratories, full gyms, and every opportunity available to would-be-learners that the local Catholic school in the next town over (South Holland) simply could not match at the time...

Our high school -- Thornwood -- was integrated, even if less minority children participated in the advanced classes, and took part in the rich offering of extracurriculars outside of academics. Eventually though, TW became more an "athletics" school, showcasing the talents of Cliff Floyd (baseball), and especially Eddy Curry (basketball). The recruits, the attention paid to the latter, who jumped from high school hoops into the pros, too soon if you ask many, elevated the school's status. City parents sent their children on RTA buses, even when they didn't live in the district, to take advantage of the opportunities.

My friend's parents, who have since moved away, said later, they should have spoken out, once the "integration" numbers had the white population of students at 50%. If the original justification for drawing boundaries and implementing busing were to achieve equality, an artificially engineered formula based on numbers and percentages and superficial characteristics, the lines should have been redrawn when that goal was achieved, and then, fully overcome.

Instead, now the school is a strong percentage "minority", and many whites, seeking the best academic opportunities for their own daughters and sons, and wary of the cultural changes that come with being a cultural minority, moved away to northwestern Indiana and further downstate in Illinois. The school's reputation is nothing compared to what it once was, the programs offered. I don't see who benefits when there is a takeover of neighborhoods and school buildings, but not the successful culture and opportunities that built them up in the first place.

Let's talk about race, sure, but let's keep the conversation honest. Let's not allow the Boomers, and those perhaps sheltered themselves, to look at this as "His white mother was on government programs." Those conversations do nothing to advance us as a while, nor are they accurate that it's not advantageous in the way things are currently structured, to be a "previously oppressed minority here to embrace discrimination today to right the wrongs of the past."

Back to my gradeschool... it too is in dire financial constraints, and they've pretty much cut back all there is to cut, as so many schools in less affluent areas have done. We really are all in this together, and making demands and putting children at risk, in the end are not the legal answers when the money simply is not there.

Sure, we can see everything through a racial lens. Instead of using our minds and working toward building something better, we can sue (and sometimes lose) and whine and demand and compare, but at some point, when the money gets tight, we have to get over our own feelings of discrimination and begin to get beyond our simplistic racial characteristics and choose to see the reality.




Conclusion? The rise of the entitlement mentality and the decline of the educational standards are no coincidence. We've got to be fair, today, in our social policies, and understand the limitations of artificially favoring this one over that, and measuring people's worth in terms of color of their skin.

We need to fix the rules of the game, and let the people individually fix themselves and their communities. Really, it's the only hope we've got. Stop living in the past, and start confronting the ugly realities of today. It will be a hard slog, no doubt, but we owe it to ourselves to make it happen.

NYT columnists to Obama: Rent some movies.

David Brooks recommends "Cinderella Man", a boxing movie:

If I were presumptuous enough to offer them advice (who me?), I’d suggest they watch the Russell Crow movie “Cinderella Man,” about a boxer who’d been through a few savage rounds, but managed to persevere through hardship caused by others and himself.

And Friedman plumps for "Tin Cup", a golfing flick:

Meanwhile, Mr. President, on a rainy day, rent the movie “Tin Cup.” There is a great scene where Dr. Molly Griswold is trying to help Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy, the golf pro, rediscover his swing — and himself. She finally tells him: “Roy ... don’t try to be cool or smooth or whatever; just be honest and take a risk. And you know what, whatever happens, if you act from the heart, you can’t make a mistake.”

Me? I'm not so sure that passively sitting back, watching movies for inspiration, is going to do the trick. That might work for a teenager, maybe, still searching for an identity that melds with his/her temperament and talents...

But at this late stage/age?
If he doesn't know who he is already, and what he's gotta do to get the job done, can't you columnists just c'mon and admit it already? For all his potential and likeability, Barack Obama simply wasn't ready for the job and never should have been unconditionally pushed by the press like that into assuming a role he wasn't ready for.

Watch some movies now, to figure yourself out and how to box your way out of this current mess? If only it were that easy.

You want a fighter?, you elect one in the first place.

Fellas? If I may? I know he's your personal friend but,
Stop being so silly already...



ADDED: I really am thinking, out here, what a crying shame it is that our supposed national writers (observers) are so insulated themselves (Life is Good! nttawwt -- in any other profession) that they really are missing out on what is going down in the country these days. Honestly, it's not such a simple fix.

Credit Krugman, at least, for getting the basic diagnosis correct.

Tear Down This Wall. ... NOT !

Norma Essex, 76, of Centerville, Minnesota, who built a 4-foot retaining wall herself at age 62, is my new hero for the day:

Two days after a 76-year-old Centerville woman finished serving a house-arrest sentence following a long-running building code dispute, city officials said the case stemming from a backyard retaining wall is closed.

Norma Essex served the 10-day sentence at her home without incident. The sentence was handed down after she pleaded guilty in December 2009 to a misdemeanor charge of failing to obtain a permit for an obstruction in her front yard.

The city does not expect to pursue a civil lawsuit as a next step in the fight because too much money has been spent on the issue already, a Centerville city official said Monday.
...
Essex's house at 7333 Old Mill Road sits perched above Clearwater Creek. More than 14 years ago, she built a retaining wall behind her home to keep her small back yard from eroding down the steep bank. Because she did the work herself, she said, she thought she didn't need a permit.

In 2008, Essex trucked in dirt to build an extension to the wall. Her neighbors complained to the city, and the complaints eventually focused on three bricks that Essex placed on the edge of her yard to protect a sprinkler head from the neighbor's lawn mower, she said.

The neighbors argued she should have obtained a building permit for the bricks. Their objections reached City Hall, and at the request of the council, City Attorney Kurt Glaser decided to prosecute Essex for the retaining wall and the bricks.
Essex was charged with two misdemeanor counts of failure to obtain a permit for obstruction in the right of way and two misdemeanor counts for failure to obtain a building permit. Three of the four counts were dropped with the guilty plea.

She was given one year to get a permit for the bricks in her front yard or face a 10-day jail sentence. She removed the bricks, and the city then asked Essex to take down the retaining wall.

She refused, after being advised by landscaping contractors that tearing it down would do more harm than good. She was then given until Aug. 11 of this year to remove the wall. Essex did not tear down the wall. She started serving her 10-day sentence on Aug. 11, finishing Saturday.

Talk about civil disobedience: you do the "crime", you serve the time. With neighbors like that, I'd be in line to get a permit to build a bigger wall...

I'm sick and tired of you setting me up ...
Setting me up just to knock-a knock-a knock-a me down down down ...

or how about a little Petty instead?

Gonna stand my ground, won't be turned around
And I'll keep this world from draggin' me down
Gonna stand my ground and I wont back down.
...
Well I know what's right, I got just one life.
In a world that keeps on pushin' me around
But I'll stand my ground and I won't back down.

Only a Mother's Fears...

Last week we talked about the ratio of “light to dark” subjects on Motherlode, and one facet we did not get to is how becoming a parent magnifies the dangers everywhere in the world.

Right, because non-parents could never ever achieve the same degrees of empathy or concern when reading of a drowned child...

I’m not by any means paranoid and I’m not handicapped by fear, but I have a much greater understanding of emotional empathy, and things that might have previously seemed insignificant now stick with me to the core.

You can read the entire post on her blog here. Then use the comments below to talk about whether you can ever read the news the same way once you become a parent.

I think you have to call out the "parenting means a plus" mentality whereever you see it, because indeed, they undermine the value of childless people in insidious ways.

(Honestly, do you even understand the value of compassion and empathy, and do you think it's only achievable when certain hormones kick in? You underestimate the power of imagination and intelligence, I think...)

Aww.

Can you get an A" in Sexual Performance * ...

yet still remain, well ... impotent?

I think you can.

And as I keep trying to point out, basic macroeconomics has performed very well in this crisis, even though nobody wants to believe it.

But please, keep plugging away.
You never know when something will take, eh?

----------------

* That's probably a more impressive analogy than my earlier "Boy Scouts lost in the Woods, but not willing to follow the more knowledgeable (and insulting) senior Scout out."


(See ... here.)

Shock-a-locka ... BOOM!

What was that?

Aftershock!

Shut up already, damn.
A DC earthquake? An excellent time to quote Prince, ya know:

Tell me who in this house know about the quake? (We do)
I mean really, really ?
If U know how 2 rock say "Yeah" (Yeah)
If U know how 2 party say "Oh yeah" (Oh yeah)
But if U ain't hip 2 the rare housequake ... shut up already, damn!

Housequake - Everybody jump up and down
Housequake - There's a brand new groove goin' round (Housequake)
In your funky town (Housequake)
And the kick drum is the fault

U gotta rock this mother, say (Housequake) ... uh
We gotta rock this mother, say (Housequake) ... uh, uh

We're gonna show U what 2 do
U put your foot down on the 2
U jump up on the 1
Now U're havin' fun
Huh, U're doin' ... the housequake
Hey

Question - Does anybody know about the quake? (Yeah!)
Bullshit!
U can't get off until U make the house shake
Now everybody clap your hands, come on
Let's jam y'all (Let's jam!)
Don't wait 4 your neighbor
Green eggs and ham
Doin' the housequake

There's a brand new groove goin' round
In your city, in your town
Housequake - And the kick drum is the fault

Housequake (Housequake)
Housequake - U gotta rock this mother (U gotta rock this mother)
Housequake
Housequake - U gotta rock this mother down, come on
Housequake {x2

Now that U got it, let's do the twist
A little bit harder than they did in '66
A little bit faster than they did in '67
Twist little sister and go 2 heaven
Come on y'all, we got 2 jam before the police come
A groove this funky is on the run
Hey!

Shake your body 'til your neighbors stare at cha!
(Quake) {x6

Housequake - Everybody, everybody jump up and down
Housequake - There's a brand new groove (groove) that's goin' round
Housequake - In this city, in this funky town
Housequake - And the saxophone is the fault, check it out

If U can't rock steady, shut up already
Damn, U got 2 get off if U know what I'm talking about
On the 1 y'all say "Housequake"
Top of your body, let me hear U shout, say
(Housequake) My Lord!
(Housequake) My Lord!
(Housequake) Bullshit, louder, say it!
(Housequake) Ooh-wee

Shock-a-lock-a boom!
What was that? Aftershock!
Everybody, everybody U gotta rock, U gotta rock, come on

We're gonna shake, we're gonna quake
Cuz we got the baddest groove that we could make
We on the 2, y'all, the drummer's gonna tap
We gonna sing it and rock this mother 2 the max
And that's a fact
Housequake - Come on, say it (Housequake)
Come on, U can't follow it
We got the baddest jam in the land
Everybody shut up, listen 2 the band

Housequake

Shut up already, damn!

And the kick drum is the fault...

The New American "Hope".

Defined down by dummy Joe Biden:

In explaining the demographic concerns of funding for future generations, Biden cited the Chinese policy.

“But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China. You have no safety net,” Biden said.

“Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family. The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.”

“So hopefully we can act in a way on a problem that’s much less severe than yours, and maybe we can learn together from how we can do that,” he added.

I sure hope so, Joe!

That people will still have enough character and conscience to speak out, if that's ever seen as a "solution" here...

And remember: I'm a strong believer in "if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em". But predetermining family sizes for those who can, and forcing abortions/foreign adoptions for those who choose otherwise, that doesn't much sound like freedom to me.

Freedom still counts for something in America, right?

"Say it ain't so, Joe. Say it ain't so?"

Triumph of the Pageantry.

Sphinx Says: Let My People Go.
------------

What the MLK Memorial says to you...
in 6 words or less.

(If you take today's "spin" on what Dr. King was hoping to achieve, ultimately giving his life for, you wonder: would he be satisfied with the results? Or disappointed? I think Rep. Allen West, R-Fla. may have a point ... )

Look Up !

.

Why Rules of Law Matter.

In sum, the overthrow of Gadhafi is a success for the Obama Administration, and the British and French governments. But the jury is still out on whether they did the right thing.

Good analysis and argument here -- legally and politically -- but he undercuts his own take by starting off concluding ... Obama "deserves credit for helping..."

If it's an illegal -- and unwise -- move, in the long run, why would you credit the man with taking the action? Because gas prices might soon drop at the pump? Because you don't want to be seen as a "traitor" or terrorist dictator coddler?

Don't be afraid, Professor Somin*, to support the courage of your convictions conclusions. Don't hedge your bets, just to cover all your bases. If it doesn't add up, it doesn't add up.

The Endgame in Libya
Ilya Somin • August 22, 2011 8:33 pm
...
The Obama Administration deserves credit for helping achieve his [Gadhafi's] overthrow at a fairly minimal cost in American resources.

Nonetheless, there are still serious questions about the legality and wisdom of the administration’s policy. Even a successful outcome doesn’t obviate the fact that the intervention was probably both unconstitutional and a violation of the 1973 War Powers Act. Adherence to the Constitution is not the only important value out there, and I’m willing to admit that there are situations where it can be outweighed by other considerations. Even if the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional, as critics claimed, getting rid of slavery was a good enough justification for violating the Constitution. I am skeptical that getting rid of Gadhafi is in the same class, however — especially since the administration could probably have gotten proper congressional authorization for its actions had it asked for it early on. Moreover, even if this intervention was both moral and effective, it sets a precedent for future unconstitutional uses of force, some of which may be neither.

I also have two prudential concerns about the administration’s policy.

First, it is far from clear that the new regime in Libya will be better than the old. The Libyan opposition is a hodgepodge that includes many different elements. Some are liberal democrats, but others are radical Islamists.

Second, it’s important to remember that the US and Britain cut a deal with Gadhafi in 2003, under which he agreed to give up his nuclear weapons program and stop supporting terrorism, while we agreed to normalize relations and forego efforts to overthrow him.
...
It seems that Gadhafi has upheld his side of the bargain, whereas the US and Britain have just massively violated theirs. I’m certainly not suggesting that Gadhafi had some kind of moral right to stay in power and have the US and its allies respect the 2003 agreement. However, it may have been in our interest to keep the deal regardless. Our blatant reneging will make it harder to make similar agreements with other dictators in the future. If foreswearing nuclear weapons and terrorism will lead to your overthrow in a US-supported revolt, any dictator would be a fool to make the deal — or at least to live up to its terms.

From the comments:

if I’m a tin-pot dictator and I see something like this, I would be doing my damnedest to get nuclear weapons as soon as possible. If Qaddafi had kept his nukes program he wouldn’t be facing the chop.

Yes, and I bet Mubarak wishes he had been more like Syria now, and just fired on his own protestors too. What we're teaching...


-------------------------
*

"And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that's what soma is."
...
"Evil's an unreality if you take a couple of grammes."

ADDED: On a related topic, the prosecutors have decided not to bring criminal charges against the alleged rapist in the New York City hotel room. Rules of law say it would be impossible to prove in the criminal courtroom.

Nobody's speculating in the media, of course, but my take is: He paid her for a blow job, then got rough. Maybe gagged her with himself, to the point where she maybe couldn't breathe and it got messy with semen, mucus, tears? But he paid, she consented to an act of prostitution, if not the cumming in her mouth, etc.

So she's a whore, he's a taker of more than he paid for (if it happened the way I think, I still call that rape, or an unlawful taking, even if the prostitution were legal there), it was an unsatisfactory sex contract, and the criminal charges got made. But in the long run, they couldn't be sustained.

So wisely (?), the prosecutor took no action, the true story will never come out, and no jury of his peers (heh!) will ever determine guilt or innocence.

Go "free" then, good sir. But take care next time, to pay and specify up front what exactly your kinks are. These white boys and their whores, I'm telling ya... keep it on the down low?

Walk in the Park.

Scary retro:



















.

Celebrate Good Times?

Now that the rebels have seized most of Tripoli and driven Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi into hiding, Mr. Obama claimed victory for his much-doubted strategy.

Come on!

Though Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists were still fighting in pockets, and the leader’s whereabouts remained a mystery , the United States and its allies were already grappling with Libya’s future. That means helping the rebels navigate what promises to be a violent, chaotic transition. After that, they must help Libya’s new rulers — people it did not know six months ago — set up a functioning, credible government in a country riven by tribal conflicts and a dearth of state institutions.

Mr. Obama acknowledged those hurdles, interrupting his vacation here to praise the Libyan people on Monday.

“Your courage and character have been unbreakable in the face of a tyrant,” the president declared, in a somber seven-minute statement. “Your revolution is your own, and your sacrifice has been your own. Now the Libya that you deserve is within your reach.”

The bombs and logistical support ... those were ours. You're welcome. Glad to be of help in assisting you with that independence thing...

But he also urged the Transitional National Council, which the United States recently recognized as Libya’s legitimate government, to pursue a peaceful, inclusive transition, saying, “True justice will not come from reprisals and violence; it will come from reconciliation and a Libya that allows its citizens to determine their own destiny.”

“In that effort,” Mr. Obama pledged, “the United States will be a friend and partner.”

Almost like ... a soulmate. No, really.
And it's not just your oil we're coveting either, baby...

Trust us?
What's to lose?

That could be a difficult, long-term partnership, analysts said, noting that unlike Egypt or Tunisia, where there were established state institutions to help smooth the transition from long-time dictators, Libya under Colonel Qaddafi — four decades of a cult of personality — has left little formal structure for the new rulers to build on.

“They are basically starting from scratch,” said Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Now will really be the test for the United States, because there are a lot of centrifugal forces that could pull this apart.”

Sounds ... expensive. Good thing we've properly squared away things here at home, now that it seems we're taking on a major overhaul of OPG -- other people's government.

ADDED:

Some 80 percent of Libyan oil production went to Italy and France. Libya, in normal times Africa’s fourth-largest oil producer, has one of the continent’s largest oil reserves of some 44 billion barrels, more than Nigeria or Algeria.

Mr. Cameron said that Britain and others would now assist Libya’s “effective transition to a free, democratic and inclusive” nation. Mr. Sarkozy said that France would continue “to stand at the side of the N.T.C. and all Libyans to achieve the liberation of their country from oppression and dictatorship and help them realize their aspirations to liberty and dignity.”

On Libya.

Why, I haven't been this excited since our military toppled the big statue of Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Iraqi people. Now ... we're done right, let the rebuilding and the democratic birthpangs begin all undertaken by the Libyan people themselves, and meanwhile, the oil prices will magically drop here at home. Right?


Really, all this cheering of destabilizing governments -- even corrupt governments -- reminds me of when a team over-celebrates winning a playoff and making into the championship game.

Remember: the real work, the biggest challenges, still lie ahead. So celebrate sure -- especially if you are a Libyan-American with some personal grievance against Ghaddafy, and have some favored "side" in either this Libyan faction or that. (Too bad all the other ethnics who would love the U.S. to commit resources on behalf of toppling the governments in their own homelands don't get to pick which "dictator" goes next, eh?)

But everybody else: hold off on those cheers and victory parties.

Just like in Egypt, the end score remains to be seen.

Flashback Post in the Past.

Don't ask me how I stumbled upon this one this morning, but here it is.

Still stands, I say.

Make it a great Monday.
Everyone, now...

Keeping Up with the Romas.

Beats keeping up with the Joneses, eh?

Seriously, the garden -- after the rainy season we've had this year (sorry Texas) -- is in abundance. I didn't stake any Romas this year, or cage them, and they are now maturing on the vines, with most of the extra leaves having naturally dropped off.

Every few days, they need a good solid picking. Pounds and pounds worth each walk through -- and I'm sharing with fellow gardeners, even. Luckily, Mal is having fun in his new kitchen, canning and freezing up a storm. I'm trying to convince him it's ok to be creative -- why not add some of the Thai basil now to the tomato soup stock?, but how can you complain, or criticize, really?

(The outdoor work, and all the winter meeting prep to get the gardens going is my contribution -- lest you think I laze whilst he works in a hot kitchen.)

The Buddy boy is having fun too -- did I mention he enjoyed his first river ride on our kayaks mid week? Back and forth between the two, and boy was his coat ever soft from wading at the sandbar. He's not a natural swimmer -- he paddles, tentatively feeling for the bottom, but is always happy when you turn him around once he's reached you, and send him back to the person on shore. My previous family dog was a black lab/collie mix, so she needed no encouraging to get in the water, more to get out...

I'm beginning to better understand the divorced weekend Dad/Superman status. Because when I'm with Buddy, we're out walking, car riding, or otherwise having fun, he seems to love the constant attention. Mal is the stability, being that his place allows 15-pound dogs. (The vet's scale said Buddy weighed in at 17 -- but he's been moving-moving a bit more, being around us.)

I could go on telling stories -- funny things the dog does, and endearing too. We're working well together -- Mal and I -- in taking care of him, I think, and it's kind of funny to see where we differ in our nurturing practices. (To me, when a terrier digs, at a mole, on ground where he's been verbally encouraged to dig to help eradicate a mole problem, it's ok when he gets dirty digging. Ditto when he gets excited "tracking" other scents, on leash, and takes such excitement in his feral side.)*

Of course, it helps that the dog sits still for the baths -- I agree you don't want him licking "dirty" paws, but hey, what kind of dog's life doesn't include a wet belly and blackened paws from a little outside fun anyway?

Hope your own weekend is worthy of your time and talents...

-------------------

* and don't get me started on the importance, for the dog, of playful wrestling/nipping on the ground. He knows when to not bite, and when it's ok to test his skills in play ...

Interesting Numbers.

UW Law Professor Victoria Nourse's net worth?
Would you believe ... $20 million?

Now I ask, all these well-to-do social justice people: what if you forgo the "public servant" route -- whether it be teaching at a public law school or working to effect social justice as a potential judge candidate -- and instead took your private money into the private sector to form private philanthropies where you could put your public policy preferences into practice? On your own private dime?

I'm often thought Ezra Klein should get out of the public sphere, and take his taxpayer-money-costing big ideals into private practice, where he could use private dollars to either sink -- as it seems the healthcare overhaul he and Krugman championed on the private Jourolist is doing now, at major cost to the economy -- or swim. Paddle, paddle, paddle ... and get somewhere on the strength of his own efforts.

Keep the taxpayers out of this private do-gooder secular religion. It's the only chance we got now, of getting out from under and remaining competitive before the Well To Do simply wipe out the middle- and working-classes.

I know they mean well, but these numbers just aren't adding up.

7th Circuit Nominee's Net Worth: Nearly $20M

Victoria Nourse, a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, would likely leap into the ranks of the wealthiest federal judges if she is confirmed.

Nourse reported a household net worth of $19.8 million in a financial disclosure required as part of the Senate confirmation process. That’s exceptionally high for a federal judicial nominee, even compared to those who come from private practice. Nourse has been a law professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison since 1993.

The disclosure report doesn’t ask nominees where their wealth comes from, but Nourse’s husband, Richard Cudahy Jr., is descended from the founder of meat processor Patrick Cudahy Inc. He works at the investment firm Robert W. Baird & Co.

(Nourse’s father-in-law, Richard Cudahy Sr., is a senior judge on the 7th Circuit. He is expected to retire if Nourse is confirmed, according to her answers to a separate Senate questionnaire (PDF).)

Most of the couple’s investments are held in seven separate family trusts, according to the disclosure report. The investments include a wide variety of stock in publicly traded companies, mutual fund shares and bonds. Their largest single investment, valued at $1.3 million, is in a fund run by GMO LLC., a mutual fund company with offices in Boston and San Francisco.

In 2009, Nourse made $198,291 as a law professor, spending the year as a visiting professor at Emory University. She also made $809 in book royalties.

I'm guessing: she gets tax help to "hide" some of the profits of those book royalties. Still, shouldn't she be home, helping to raise some Cudahy heirs? (I sexistly joke! Like Barry O. !)

And hey,
didn't Blago get his political job too, based on the power and wealth of his father in law? Anybody remember how well that one turned out?

Laws? We don't need no steenkin' laws.

Not when there's political pandering to be done:

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - The Obama administration said Thursday it will allow many illegal immigrants facing deportation the chance to stay in this country and apply for a work permit, while focusing on removing from the U.S. convicted criminals and those who might be a national security or public safety threat.

That will mean a case-by-case review of approximately 300,000 illegal immigrants facing possible deportation in federal immigration courts, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in announcing the policy change.
...
According to White House officials, the policy could also benefit illegal immigrants who have family members in the States -- among them partners of gay, lesbian and bisexual people, The New York Times reported. Richard Socarides, an attorney and former adviser on gay issues to President Clinton, told the Times: "The new policy will end, at least for now, the deportations of gay people legally married to their same-sex American citizen partners, and it may extend to other people in same-sex partnerships."


Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said the Obama administration was implementing reforms "against the will of Congress and the majority of American people we represent."

"It is just the latest attempt by this president to bypass the intended legislative process when he does not get his way," McCaul said in a statement. "The fact that we have a backlog and prioritize deportations is nothing new. This policy goes a step further granting illegal immigrants a fast-track to gaining a work permit where they will now unfairly compete with more than 9 percent of Americans who are still looking for jobs."

Other Republicans have previously criticized the DREAM Act and other immigration legislation that would provide a path to legal status as amnesty. Following Morton's June memo, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, introduced a bill to block the administration's use of prosecutorial discretion and called the use of that discretion "backdoor amnesty."

ADDED:

“I was pleasantly surprised by the boldness and breadth of Administration’s move,” Frank Sharry, Executive Director of the pro-immigration reform group America’s Voice, told me. The plan includes reviewing the deportation proceedings of 300,000 people already in the system, and allowing those who don’t have criminal records to stay.

Like Christmas in August, eh?
Getting more than you hoped for, even.
Remember tho Santa: the bills do come due in January for all these unpaid for "gifts"...

Although 22 Democratic Senators sent a letter to the administration requesting a formal process of “deferred action” for potential DREAM-eligible undocumented immigrants, the administration demurred, with President Obama telling immigration advocates privately and publicly that change needed to come through Congress. In his speech to the National Council of La Raza in July, the president said: “I need a dance partner here -- and the floor is empty.”

What changed?

Obama’s poll numbers among Latino voters began to slip. Both on the local and national level, immigration reform advocates upped the pressure, even protesting at the Obama administration’s headquarters in Chicago. While the debate over the administration’s aggressive enforcement policy largely occurred under the radar in the mainstream media, Obama was getting pilloried in the Spanish-language press for breaking his promises.

Whose side now?

Israel isn't just hitting displaced Palestinian refugees now. If they've upped the ante, killing Egyptians now too -- who used to be a solid American ally as well -- whose side do we take now? Assuming, the pursuit of actual justice is well behind us in these days of political gamesmanship?

CAIRO — Egypt has registered a formal complaint with Israel over the killings of three Egyptian officers at the Sinai border and demanded an immediate investigation, state television reported Friday, as tensions threatened the once stable alliance a day after armed attackers carried out deadly strikes near the Red Sea resort of Eilat in Israel.

A dead Palistinian is worth less than a dead Eqyption *, I dare say, and it seems the whole shooting match is evolving upwards...

Nothing to be concerned about here, of course.
We're uninvolved untouchables over here, right? *crickets*

---------------

* using Henry Kissinger's way of measuring the value of human lives.

Fat men are more authoritative?

Who knew?

Christie projects authority; Ryan radiates youth. Yes, the New Jersey governor “projects authority” in part because he’s extremely overweight. But I suspect that Americans are more likely to elect a heavyset politician who seems commanding than a brainy*, fast-talking politician who seems much younger than his years.

I guess today is the day all the young media talking heads come clean on the physical appearance prejudices they subscribe to out on the East Coast.

Trust me: Paul Ryan has as much chance of winning a primary, or a presidency as Tim Pawlenty did. But it's not due to his youthful looks, really... It's because he's overrated and inexperienced -- same as candidate Obama, actually -- but has a no historical black skin to add onto the package. (Remember the late Geraldine Ferraro positing a white "Barry O'Brien" wouldn't deserve a second look? Unfortunately, the superficial-characteristic voters are aplenty, it seems, even today...)

Maybe the macho, fat, straight-haired crowd is -- for some odd reason -- seen as envied by these more caged, corporate-scribe types? Fat is power? Out here in the Midwest, again we've got lots of the type, who knew??


ADDED: "This isn’t a charisma issue: Ryan has charisma and media savvy to burn. ... And it’s no insult to Ryan’s considerable gifts to say that conservatives who are counting on him to sell it [Ed. note: his fantasy budget plan] to the American people are putting way too much stock in his powers of persuasion."

Oh dear. If Paul Ryan has "charisma to burn" and "considerable gifts", then please tell me how dull the typical East Coast political man must be?

I've written before, I suspect a blue-eyed, slight family man might be a novelty in East Coast political circles, but here in Wisconsin? He's not even registering more than a blip here, and this is his home court. Like Pawlenty, if your own people don't get excited by you, why do you think -- short of the East Coast media drool types -- the rest of the country will catch fire on his candidacy either?

His type is just a dime a dozen downstate, in the Milwaukee and Janesville suburbs. Sheltered white guys, with decent sized families, really aren't all that big a thing here. But that's what you get when you're electing on style, it seems, over substance.

Can't we just say of him, like Obama, the actual substance just isn't there?


ADDED: Oh, and have you properly vetted that "brainy" credential already, Ross? Say it with me now: Over-Rated**. Bank on it, and as always, time will tell...

** (probably because so many are just crushing on the blue-eyed, nice clean-cut, family guy thing. Style over substance, this is what you end up with on your plate short term: over-rated meat. Nice-looking maybe, but not too nutritious in the end. Ask Mr. Cristie, who surely knows a thing or two about quality cuts...)

Catching on.

Slowly but surely, they're wising up and climbing on board...

Young people should push, at the margin, for any cuts in Social Security/Medicare spending to be implemented sooner rather than later. Proposals to let everyone born before 1955 evade any cuts forever are unreasonably punitive to the youngest generation and yet are universal dogma in DC. Complain about this!

or not:

Last (which I didn’t say) the future will almost certainly be better than the past. The main risks to this outcome are in the foreign policy and ecological domains. So don’t sweat the fiscal policy too much.

and

It’s absurd to be spending large and growing sums of money preventing people from moving here while simultaneously facing a Social Security shortfall driven primarily by unexpectedly slow population growth.

Actually, it's all in the quality and needs of those who are permitted or prevented from moving here. Right now, in this wink-wink illegal system, we're primarily getting underskilled and undereducated Central and South Americaners, who immediately start having "anchor babies" that need the guaranteed healthcare and English educations.

That's why, it's better to regulate immigration and enforce the laws on the books than arbitrarily to enforce (read today's amnesty news?) to have the "whoever-makes-it-in-physically is in" non-system we have now, that creates two more classes of Americans: the ones who are actual American citizens with the accompanying Constitutional rights, and those working without and bringing down American standards across the board. Also shores up a healthy respect for the system of law from the newcomers if we actually, you know, enforce what we've got on the books.

These days though, I guess you need to pander to all the potential voters you can, citizens or not.

Bowing to pressure from immigrant rights activists, the Obama administration said Thursday that it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria, such as attending school, having family in the military or having primary responsible for other family members’ care.

The move marks a major step for President Obama, who for months has said he does not have broad categorical authority to halt deportations and said he must follow the laws as Congress has written them.

Cost Cutters works for me.

And the beat goes on ...

But who knows? Maybe my co-workers are just too polite or agreeable to judge the quality of my work by my shortish, wavy cut... I do like the color these days though. The sun, and the thickness -- resulting in various layers of natural color -- helps get out the drab in the summer.

Mal says Buddy and I have similar colored coats. But he's got poodle in him with the Yorkie, the latter which our vet describes as "tough". Meaning for their size, you learn you don't mess with the Yorkies. Probably has nothing to do with the hair styling though...

That's more the breed.

Hairy Dilemmas in D.C.

Another Atlantic blogger weighs in on a temporary appearance-related identity crisis. Chances are, your husband, and your mother (?), care more about your hairdo than your co-workers, I'm thinking, and you're making something out of nothing that nobody really cares about outside of 5th grade. Unless you think you got hired because of the pretty. Style over substance, no? Or are girl economists in D.C. really rated on their hairdos these days? (Plus, where the heck are the pics, if this subject rates a post??)

Friday Girl Talk: Can a Professional Woman Go Curly?
...
Moreover, for better or worse, smooth straight hair has become synonymous with "professional" in America. Show up with curly hair, and you might as well show up with waist-length beads and an incense burner. [Ed. note: Not sure this prejudice is accepted as a "true fact" outside of the author's mind; see below.]

I would like to fight this, especially since it smacks so much of ethnic prejudice. Why on earth have we defined the hair type that most Irish, Jewish, and black women have as less professional than fine straight hair that can be blow-dried in 10 minutes? I know it's close to my brains and all, but they're not actually connected.

But I do not want to be a curly-haired revolutionary at the cost of my career. As one black female journalist said to me, "You don't want TV bookers referring to you as 'the curly haired one'." I want to be "the one who can talk about taxes".

Nonetheless, I'm experimenting. I went curly for a Cato event last night that I normally would have straightened for. We'll see how far I'm willing to push beyond the straight and narrow.

This is just the Midwest speaking, but it seems to me, if you don't want to draw attention to your looks (whether it be height, hair, weight or skintone), you'd stick to ... talking about taxes, and not your height/hair/weight/or skin tone.

Seems like an easy enough one fix... no?

ADDED: The first 5 commenters, anyway, seem to have a Midwestern sensibility about them. What was that Garrison Keillor line?*

MikeR:
Sheesh. Ladies have to worry about a lot of weird stuff that men don't. Curl your hair if it makes you more comfortable.

----------
Jens Fiederer:
What a rebel!

Bask for a good long while in that feeling of danger before you take the logical next steps of visible tattoos and piercings, though, please.
-----------

vagabond2010:
Oh, no! Not another mental health day.

-----------
Meaux:
"Moreover, for better or worse, smooth straight hair has become synonymous with "professional" in America. Show up with curly hair, and you might as well show up with waist-length beads and an incense burner."

Really? There are some curly haired women in my office and I never gave it a second thought.
-----------
Evil_Spock:
I think this is one of those issues where what we think is professionally appropriate is much narrower than what is actually professionally appropriate. Like with wearing heels or jewelry or even makeup, you're paying a lot more attention to details of what you look like than the people around you are. There are androgynous/butch women who are professionally successful and high-profile, so I'm sure curly hair is fine.

Sometimes, the prejudices we put on others actually reveals our own ways of thinking:
for better or worse, smooth straight hair has become
synonymous with "professional" in America. Show up with curly hair, and
you might as well show up with waist-length beads and an incense burner."

Does she really think this of "non-confirming" Irish/Jewish/African American women, an if so, maybe then, isn't she part of creating the problem she's fighting back against?

First: Change your mind... and the rest will follow...


* Garrison Keillor: Beauty isn't worth thinking about; what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.

"While my President Gently ... Vacations."

Sounds like ole King Netanyahu is instituting a new Israeli policy over in his fiefdom. No worries, mate. I'm sure what they do over there has no consequences for us "gotch yer back no matter what" allies, safely protected behind our own defensive borders, over here, eh?

"I have decided on a principle – when you hurt Israeli citizens we respond immediately and with force. This principle was implemented today,” he said in a televised address. “The people who gave the orders to murder our citizens and then hid in Gaza are no longer among us."

Netanyahu commended the IDF and Shin Bet for a Gaza strike carried out earlier, which killed six people in Rafah, among them two top leaders of the Popular Resistance Committees.
...
Senior Fatah official Saeb Erekat warned Israel Thursday night against ‘irresponsible’ retaliation in the Gaza Strip in the wake of the terror offensive in southern Israel earlier in the day.

“We are warning Israel not to launch an offensive or impose collective punishment against the civilian population,” the senior Palestinian official said.
...
The explosions in Gaza were clearly heard in southern Israel communities as well, with many local residents reporting the blasts to Ynet via the Red Email. Southern resident Shani wrote: “I just heard three explosions reminiscent of what we hear when mortar shells land here…I don’t know what’s going on.”

At least they got a "decider" for a president anyway. We seem to have a reactor-in-chief, and no, that's not a nod to Mr. Reagan.