Archive Listing
February 21, 2005 - February 14, 2005

Saturday, January 10, 2004

MORE SWARTHMORONS. We probably shouldn't talk about them every day, but they're just so funny. What do you suppose American professors of literature talk about when they get together? That's right. The war in Iraq.

This past week, about 8,000 professors and graduate students gathered here [San Diego] for the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association. Most came for job interviews, to catch up with old friends, and to attend some of the 763 panels of scholars. But among the panels on topics ranging from Hawthorne to Asian cinema to "The Aesthetics of Trash" were a surprising number of sessions dealing with the war in Iraq, terrorism, patriotism, and American foreign policy.

Not that there was much actual debate. In more than a dozen sessions on war-related topics, not a single speaker or audience member expressed support for the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan. The sneering air quotes were flying as speaker after speaker talked of "so-called terrorism," "the so-called homeland," "the so-called election of George Bush," and so forth.

You can read the whole article here. The only good news in the piece is a quote from a professor who acknowledged that many of his students are libertarian conservatives. He said, "Most of the debate at the MLA would completely alienate my students." He's still got time to fix them though.

THE DREXELITE CONSENSUS. Just yesterday on NPR, a "news" segment reported on the projected million species (mostly plants) that would beome extinct over the next hundred years because of global warming. Of course, to NPR global warming is a fact, even if it's only a highly suspect theory to many of us lowbrow members of the ignorati. What's kind of interesting is that Michael Crichton (Harvard medical degree and all) turns out to be one of the ignorati himself.

And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won't get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and "skeptics" in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done.

When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?

It's not just global warming that Crichton is taking on here. He applies a stern lash to the whole phenomenon of consensus science and its apocalyptic offspring, including nuclear winter and secondhand smoke. This is one article that's worth reading and rereading from beginning to end, but we'll share one more trenchant quote:

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc². Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

MAWRITES ON PARADE. Today's "mad cow" is Molly Ivins, who tackles (surprise!) mad cow disease in addition to her usual diatribe about George W. Bush. It turns out that the sick cow from Canada is Bush's fault. Then she says:

Nor is mad cow disease the only consequence of heavy meat and poultry contributions to the Republicans. (In the 2000 elections, corporate food production combines donated $59 million in both hard and soft money, 75 percent of it to Republicans.) See the chapter "Ready to Eat?" in my book Bushwhacked for the anatomy of a listeriosis outbreak that killed several people.

As Lou Dubose and I conclude, if you must eat while Republicans control both the White House and Congress, you may want to consider becoming a vegetarian.

We have a theory, which we're going to contribute to the media ocean in the form of a rumor. Please repeat it often, to everyone. It must be true because it explains so much. Molly Ivins is HOT for George W. Bush. She can't think about him without getting all weak in the knees. She's been trailing after him for years and can't get to first base -- not so much as a look (you know the sort of look we mean, the kind that sees right through the clothes to the throbbing, needful woman underneath). That's why she's so damn mad. That's why she gave her book the curiously double-entendre'd title Bushwacked. That's her -- crazy with scorned lust for the Big Guy. She derides him as the shrub because what she wants most is to climb the tree. Sound too dirty-minded for dear Molly? Well, she was once a sewer editor. Yes, she was. You can look it up here.

Friday, January 09, 2004

Power of Principles — With that "rinse" wouldn't he have been terrific playing against M. L'Inspecteur Clouseau in the best Pink Panther of all? Perhaps the fear of having his gray show after a few months in a hole warmed him to the thought of cooperating with the Great Satan . . .

MAWRITES ON PARADE. Most of the time they come right at you, fists clenched and jaws locked in rage. But they're at their most dangerous when they remember to use feminine wiles as they slink toward assassination. Don't believe it? Then your lesson for today is Peggy Noonan, who has finally noticed Howard Dean and decided to do something about him. She says she really really wanted to like him. Sure she did. But he disappointed her:

He is not a happy warrior but an angry one. In the past I have thought of him as an angry little teapot, but that is perhaps too merry an image. His eyes are cold marbles, in repose his face falls into lines of mere calculation, and he holds himself with a kind of no-neck pugnacity that is fine in a wrestling coach or a tax lawyer but not in a president.

It's not a good idea to disappoint Peggy Noonan. Read the rest of it and see what happens to angry little teapots who step on the wrong toes. The Lamia closes in, as if for a polite waltz, and when she turns away her erstwhile partner flops to the floor like a gigolo skewered by a hatpin.

By comparison, long-time champion Mawrite Maureen Dowd seems woozy after her extended hiatus from verbal assault and battery. She plots her usual straight-line attack on George W. Bush, then suddenly veers away, as if confused and prematurely winded, into thickets of Lesbianism.

Showtime has a vampy new program about lesbians in L.A. called "The L Word." That landed Jennifer Beals and its other sexy female stars seminude on the cover of this week's New York magazine, with the headline "Not Your Mother's Lesbians." (I didn't know my mother had lesbians.)

Time to get back in shape, Maureen. The cause needs you (whatever the hell it is).

SWARTHMORON OF THE WEEK, PART II. Okay. Obviously there's something about the Hitler analogy they just can't let go of over at MoveOn.org. First, the facts. Then, an explanation that would help them if they wanted to understand themselves a little better. But they don't. That's why they're Swarthmorons.

IS THERE AN ANNENBURGHER IN THE HOUSE? You betcha. Have they got you scared, or at least nervous, about Mad Cow Disease? Well, they're only doing their job. The bad news for them is, this dog (er, cow) won't hunt:

USDA veterinarian Dr. Kenneth Petersen says: “The recalled meat represents essentially zero risk to consumers.”

Remember, though, Dr. Petersen is only a vet. Who is he to say? (Jeffersonians, Ch. 7, v. 9-19.)

Thursday, January 08, 2004

REMEMBER THE LUSITANIA? Anyone who knows anything about the punks of South Street won't be surprised that we begin with a reminder of World War I. Here's an excerpt from Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard:

For decades after World War I, French and British generals agreed on one thing: The Americans fought poorly and played little role. That notion is now all but dead. John Keegan in "The First World War" (1998) said the American entry provided "the sudden accretion of a disequilibrating reinforcement"--in other words, the straw that broke the back of Germany. John Mosier went further in "The Myth of the Great War" (2001). "America's role in the war was absolutely decisive," he wrote. "The string of German battlefield successes stopped abruptly on the entry into the line of the newly formed American divisions, the course of the war changed drastically, and . . . the General Staff of the German army recommended that Germany seek terms." Winston Groom states flatly in "A Storm in Flanders" that "America turned the tide in favor of the Allies at the last minute."

Read the whole column. Fred introduces a squad of new WWI books, and he's our first Punk of the Week for remembering that even the distant past contributes to the present.

REVENGE OF THE HILLITES. Speaking of the present, we're as interested in the idea of "South Park Republicans" as anyone. We wonder if the paleo-cons and the neocons and the religious-cons know anything about the strange bedfellows who come from South Park. Here's a glimpse. Here's another. (It's okay to laugh; it's also okay to torture yourself with questions about why you're laughing and whether you should be. That's called thinking.)

MAWRITES ON PARADE. God love'em, they're a worldwide phenomenon now, SO irate, SO contemptuous of their foes, SO implacably certain, SO funny. We'll try to keep you attuned to their most hilarious columns on the hard right and the hard left. Here's today's.

THE ED IN THE MACHINE. It's nice to see continuing high honors for the TV journalist who best represents the standards set by the original Ed. Some of the other awards seem well earned too (keep scrolling down the page).

YANK POLITICS. Suddenly it seems everyone is upset about Howard Dean. We can't think why. Personally, we like him.

THE SWARTHMORON OF THE WEEK. It's a cinch in this all-important first week of the election year. By acclamation, the prestigious SOW award goes to moveon.org.

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