We arrived in our vacation spot (my parents' home) last night. Alas, they have limited intertube access (the network key was set my malevolent monkeys and cannot be recovered because it is their holiday today), so I'm posting quickly on the only working computer to say that I'm not going to post much. Happy day, I hear you say. 
I'm on my (semi)annual reading of the Sandman. I own the 10-book series (which I bought off ebay) and there's a fascinating balance between books 4 & 5 - Season of Mists vs. A Game of You. I love Mists, and I used to hate Game, until I read the background in the Sandman Companion, and Neil Gaiman (NG) revealed that Mists is a masculine tale and Game is feminine: HB: I've heard you refer to various collections as "male" or "female." Could you talk a bit about that?What I find amazing about this is that he accurately describes my subconscious reactions to each book - I didn't articulate why I liked one over the other, I just did (and I *hated* Game). Now I see that (a) this was intentional by the author, and (b) it wasn't because one book was 'better written' than the other - although that can happen with authors, especially the limited ones - but with Gaiman it was purposefully a different type of story, and that it resonates with different needs and tastes; (c) I'm relieved, in some homophobic way, that I am, even subconsciously, very male. Sorry, but that's how it is.
NG: Sandman was always designed to move from male stories to female stories. Preludes & Nocturnes is a guy's tale - it has a male hero, the Sandman, who triumphs over various difficult challenges. The next book, The Doll's House, is fundamentally Rose Walker's tale, and it deals with women, relationships, and the tearing down of walls. The following book, Season of Mists, is again a Sandman story, in which Dream uses his courage and wits to deal with a problem of diplomacy. And then there's A Game of You ,which is about women, fantasy, and identity. (TSC p117)
"Little boys have fantasies in which they're faster or smarter or able to fly. Where they hide their faces in secret identities and listen to people who despise them admiring their remarkable deeds. Pathetic bespectacled rejected [Peter Parker] is secretly [Spiderman]. Gawky, bespectacled, unloved [Clark Kent] is really [Superman]. Yes? ...Now this was another mind-blowing insight because it rings true - at least for me as a masculine man of the male persuasion (to paraphrase my man Dave Barry). And knowing what I've seen from 'female' stories, this also rings true (witness the plot of "The Princess Diaries" for corn's sake).
Now, little girls, on the other hand, have different fantasies. Much less convoluted. Their parents are not their parents. Their lives are not their lives. They are princesses, lost princesses from distant lands. And one day the king and queen, their real parents, will take them back to their land, and they'll be happy for ever and ever.
Just another note, I have been thinking about patterns in Jewish art, especially in science fiction and fantasy (where the Jewish contribution, especially in comics, has been substantial). Is The Sandman a good example of Jewish-influenced art? Well, on one side, yes, because Gaiman mentions his feelings of solitude and strangeness that drove him to literary research and observation, a hallmark of artists - especially those in narratives - came from being Jewish in "C of E" boarding schools:HB: ...What effect did religion have on you when you were young?However, the world he created is polytheistic and pagan - different from the monotheistic/dualistic world I expect from the modern Jewish identity (think Superman and Kafka). Then again, Gaiman has delved in Zohar and Aggadata - which is super-duper-crazy-pagan.
NG: I'd say the most important factor was my growing up as a Jewish kid in a Church of England school.... because it made me feel like an outsider. In a sense, it made me view everything as myth. (TSC p105)
2008 Election Flashbacks Continue:
Cute Kid Alert.
The picture core I use for my self-made demotivator of the 2004 Election is of the iconic "agony of defeat" ski-jump crash of hapless Yugo/Slovenian skier Vinko Bogataj.The melodramatic introduction [of Wide World of Sports] became a national catch phrase that is often heard to this day. While "the thrill of victory" had several symbols over the decades, ski jumper Vinko Bogataj, whose dreadful misjump and crash of March 21, 1970 was featured from the early 1970s onward under the words "...and the agony of defeat", became a hard-luck hero of sorts, and an affectionate icon for stunning failure. ....Yes. Yes I had agonosis for years and was only diagnosed a few minutes ago! But Youtube has cured all of we agonosis suffers, and those with similar afflictions, which is why we can say we live in a glorious agem - freed from television's cruel schedule. (Note, I may have to make a better 'tube):
Bogataj's mishap is also commemorated in Rich Hall's book Sniglets as "agonosis," which is defined as "The syndrome of tuning in on Wide World of Sports every weekend just to watch the skier rack himself."
As you've noticed, I'm going through a lot of backposts, and while much have to deal with the 2008 election, I'm also fixing up the earlyblog which takes me back to 2004. Oh boy, if you're finding yourself not hating Bush as much as you used to, go back and read newspapers from 2004-2005. That'll get you hating again.
Yes, yes, Pengu is disturbing because it appears that the masochistic penguin *likes* being swatted hundreds of yards downfield by a Yeti with an ice Louisville Slugger. But, hey, for all I know penguins do enjoy such delights - even if it results in landing snout deep in the tundra. But for those of you who enjoy virtual sports and have few PETA qualms, here are the 4 Trophies/Titles to compete for. I will accept competing scores to my own with a valid screenshot. Those who photoshop these for their own advantage will be exposed eventually through DNA evidence.
As I just explained, one of the heroes of my 20s, Senator Joe Lieberman, has turned into a real monster. This was apparent soon after the 2006 Midterms and, according to my social-psychological calculations, was the major trigger for is now 3 year long psychotic episode. There have been many effects, his endorsement of McCain and speaking at the RNC Convention are major league sins, but his recent behavior about health-care-reform is just unspeakable.In 2000, when Al Gore selected Joe Lieberman as his running-mate, Jesse Jackson decided to throw a tantrum about it, portraying Lieberman as some sort of crypto-reactionary creep. My reaction at the time was that Jackson was acting like a jerk and helping hand the election to the Republicans.Now, while I will write Kleiman and suggest to him that in 2000 Joe wasn't so bad, I feel torn about lending any credibility to Lieberman and his rishus. But the crucial point of Kleiman's post isn't the original author, but from one of his commenters Ed Whitney" who says :
Of course I had no idea how close the election would be; as things turned out, Jackson’s move was probably the difference between having George W. Bush as President and not having him as President, which means the difference between war with Iraq and no war with Iraq. So Jackson was, indeed, acting like a jerk.
But, as Joe Lieberman has amply demonstrated, Jackson wasn’t wrong.
"[Lieberman's] goody-goody sanctimony combined with regressive politics was captured by Calvin Trillin in The Nation in 2000. He wrote his contribution to the tune of "O Tannenbaum" that went in part:OK, got that? Some random blogger, in reminiscing about how bad Lieberman is, needs to quote treife-celebrating, Xmas-ogling, self-hating Jew Trillin to write an anti-Semitic jingle against Lieberman (in 2000!) set to a Xmas carol.
Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
A Democrat who’s newish,
Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
We’re awfully glad you’re Jewish.
Though welfare kids may live on gruel,
At least you’ll always go to shul,
Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
Your Shabbas rides are fewish."
Defending Myselfmany people are correct only by chance. For example, the smartasses who said that John Edwards was *of course* cheating on his wife... basing their assertions on the sole facts that (a) Edwards was good-looking, and (b) they disagreed with Edwards' policies/profession/accent.I feel the same way about Lieberman, and not just because I have counter-proof: what Lieberman is doing now is new and while his sanctimoniousness is a constant, and makes his wickedness especially galling (a holier-than-thou villain is hard to take), it is not his current crime. So those who say they were right for hating him in 2000 are deluded: his sanctimoniousness wasn't a crime then, nor now. His moderate-contrarianism wasn't a crime then, nor now. He's not being just 'contrary' now, he's being a Republican, and it's because his only friends now are Republicans (McCain, Graham - who, it should be said, are being shoved off by their own party).
Not liking somebody, and thus attributing to the disliked person all sorts of crimes, does not make your criticisms prophetic. You just got lucky.
However, if you said that Edwards was a wife-cheater because of certain provable factors (e.g. you knew of some shady behaviors, you read in his book that 'cheating on your cancer-stricken wife ain't the worst thing a person can do', or if you personally slept with him), then - fine - you can be considered a perceptive prognosticator.
For the record, I didn't believe the rumors that Edwards was cheating on his wife because I didn't think that someone as successful as him (self-made multi-millionaire, young Democratic senator in a red-state) would do something so destructive and stupid. I mean, it was Spitzer-esque! And even then, I had some glimmering that Spitzer was a sexual-schkutz because he intermarried. Ya see, that's a provable indicator. Sex crime here leads to sex crime there. But Edwards? Why would someone running for president - someone who constantly references his wife's terminal cancer - have an affair on the campaign trail.
So, Smarty Pants, What Happened?"He received a dual Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics from Yale University in 1964 and was the first member of his family to graduate from college. At Yale he was editor of the Yale Daily News and a member of the Elihu Club. He later attended Yale Law School, receiving his law degree in 1967. "But he's not in the league of Bill Clinton or even Al Gore.
But the chapter that started in November 2000 would not end, not only because of the presidential campaign, but because of personal tragedy.All of that corroborates what I heard in New Haven, and it should be said, that the Tribune story was in August 2006 - before it became totally clear that Lieberman was cracking up.
Since Lieberman first ran for the State Senate in 1970, Jimmy O'Connell was Lieberman's eyes and ears on the Connecticut ground, one of those political pros who seemed to know every Democrat in every town-and someone who could tell the boss where he may have to make a phone call or a diner visit to calm an angry town chairman.
In December, 2001, O'Connell, 53, was found slumped in his car off an exit ramp off I-91 in Windsor, the victim of an apparent heart attack.
Three and a half years later, Lieberman's mother Marcia died. Lieberman for years has taken comfort and advice from four strong women: Brown; his wife Hadassah; Washington chief of staff Clarine Nardi Riddle; and his mother.
Joe and Marcia Lieberman were not only close, they were political soulmates. Marcia Lieberman had traveled the country with her son in his national campaigns, vigorously defending him before voters and reporters-and one of the few people able to tell the senator when things didn't seem right.
After her death in March, 2005, Lieberman seemed different to his extended family, less inclined to dive into intraparty politics. Ornstein, for one, said he regular lunches with the senator stopped.
The primary loss of 2006 has been, correctly, credited as the moment when Lieberman The Good became Bizarro Lieberman. For any outside observer, it's when he felt that his true friends were not Democrats - who abandoned him - but his Senate pals McCain and Graham. But with the above data, you can see why 25+ year political veteran (10 years in State Senate, 6 years as state AG, 3 terms as CT Senator) felt betrayed by a political - not personal - setback. Because he's not a natural pol; he actually felt he had "friends" in politics; and since his political & moral compasses had, by that year, both died, he made decisions not as a politician but as an aggrieved, friendless, persecuted old weirdo. 
Back at the beginning of the year, I worked on the epistemological task of updating my blog-labels. One change was to add titles to politicians, e.g. instead of plain old Bill Clinton, he became Citizen Bill Clinton. I explained the change thusly: Herr is a title for evil politicians (and the appropriate gender specifics, e.g. Herr Cheney, Frau Coulter);Since that time, early January, I've added a few more categories:
Citizen for good guys (for the most part; I'm being generous by including Krugman here);
Comrade for bad leftists (e.g. Ralph Nader).
For professional reasons, my brother is leaving tonight, [yeah yeah on a jet plane like there's propeller ones still around], for Portugal. You guesers (Portuguese-ers) better treat him well. I don't want a repeat of the 16th Century, or, ironically enough, I will get Medieval on you.
This Citizen Dog reminds me of a long time pet-peeve of mine: people cannot see most of the pain a person can suffer. Unless there's a cast/bandage/missing limb, the pain is invisible. And many of our words for ailments or injuries are not menacing enough: headache, allergy, a cold, and depression. These terms each have either a range (headache can go from mild to migraine), or are used colloquially (when a person is feeling 'depressed' it can mean either they are feeling the blues or are clinically diagnosed and can be a suicide-threat). 
OK, enough unseemly ranting. But this observation comes from a greater point which is the need to exaggerate a self-description in order for your listener to take you seriously. See the Dilbert above for my point; transcript (from here): That's right...cough-cough! ...I won't be in to work...cough-wheeze-cough... - Bad cold? Well, no, actually I have a bad headache... - But I don't know how to make a headache sound over the phone.[I actually worked on this idea, within semiotics, for my Princeton JP and one day I will publish it BE"H.]
Prompted by this Citizen Dog: I've long doubted this factoid. First of all, how many snowflakes are there in 1 snowfall on 1 day in 1 square mile? Millions? In the world at this second, there must be billions or even trillions of snowflakes. Today alone. And of those snowflakes none are 'alike'? Well what level of similarity are we restricting here? This seems to render the definition of 'alike' useless. 
It is next to impossible that two snowflakes are exactly alike due to the roughly 1018 water molecules which make up a snowflake, which grow at different rates and in different patterns depending on the changing temperature and humidity within the atmosphere that the snowflake falls through on its way to the ground united.So thank goodness, the resident genius of the Straight Dope is on the case: whose answer demonstrates that we think so much alike that I should declare here and now that we are not the same person:
Chances are, in fact, that there are lots of duplicates. What the snowologists really mean is that your chance of finding duplicates is virtually zero. It's been calculated that in a volume of snow two feet square by ten inches deep there are roughly one million flakes. Multiply that by the millions of square miles that are covered by snow each year (nearly one fourth of the earth's land surface), and then multiply that by the billions of winters that have occurred since the dawn of time, and it's obvious we're talking unimaginable googols of flakes. Some of these are surely repeats.See!
From Citizen Dog, April 09, 1998 an accurate window in my life and how I clean my office.
One of my favorite comic strips of all time is Citizen Dog by Mark O'Hare. In my infirm state, trapped by pain-paralysis, I've decided to go through the CD archives on Go-Comics. For the purpose of history, the above pic is the last one published. I'm glad to say that the rumor I had heard of MOH's demise is false and that he's working happily in comics (and, if his Wiki bio is correct, that he was instrumental in one of my favorite comic TV shows, The Ren and Stimpy Show.) You'll see more of the comics over the next few days.
Some people will always have it made
Some people will live in poverty for the rest of their days
Time marches on
Yesterday is better than tomorrow
Life is uncertain, let me hear you say, "Yeah"
Death is final, oh yes, it is
There'll be days of sunshine and laughter
But don't forget you gonna have to shed some tears, oh
CHORUS:
It's the law of the land, my brother, [oh]
Whether you like it or you'll understand, [ah hey hey]
It's the law of the land [hey hey, hey hey]
Laws made by Almighty Man
Live by the good book if you're able
You must lay your cards on top of the table
When you gamble, you either win or lose
In life's everybody's got to pay some dues, well
CHORUS:
It's the law of the land, [well well well]
Whether you'll like it or you'll understand, [you can't change it]
It's the law of the land, [ah how]
Laws made by almighty men, [oh hey]
[BRIDGE]
CHORUS (soprano)
Hey, it's the law, the law of the land
Whether you'll like it or you'll understand
It's the law, the law of the land
Laws made by almighty men
A teacher man can't be found
Until you find yourself, [think about it]
You might not like being who you are... but you'd better start likin' it
'Cause you sure can't be nobody else
In other words, I can't be you, [ain't no quit, yeah]
You can't be me, [well well]
That's how it feels (?), my sisters and brothers
And that's the way that the Good Lord meant to be, [hey ho]
CHORUS:
It's the law of the land, [well]
Whether you like them or you understand, [say say]
It's the law of the land, [hey yeah oh]
Laws made by almighty man [Look at here]
The tools(?) of a man's day is governed by a clock
For your own protection your doors you must lock
What goes around, comes around
And what goes up, [yeah], must come down, [aha]
CHORUS:
It's the law of the land, [well well well well]
Whether you like it or you'll understand
It's the law of the land, [well well well]
Laws made by almighty man, [aha]
It's the law of the land, [everybody else say]
Whether you like them or you understand
Depends what "goyish" means. Most people think it's a synonym for "Christian," or just "non-Jewish antgonist" but I'd say the range would be from 'another religion that's not Judaism' or 'super-duper pagan.' Christianity and Islam are serious monothesitic religions and so their most serious days could be the most 'goyish' but they also have pagan aspects (especially Xians). So the most goyish could be Easter on one side and possibly Halloween the other. See above for Citizen Dog's take on Halloween.
This Citizen Dog emphasizes a point I've made on other occasions, that Bert and Ernie are are archetypes - which is why they're on an educational show aimed at children. They exemplify personality types, just like Oscar as the child "grouch" (similar to Charles Schulz's Lucy), Grover as the earnest self-assured klutz, Big Bird as the mistake-ridden, invisible friend having, insecure klutz; Telly Monster as the worrywart; Elmo as the annoying late addition who angers GenXers who pre-dated him, Cookie Monster as the fat kid (and/or personal hero of millions), and Herry Monster as the, uh, hairy kid.
One thing that impressed me in New Haven, and now in Newton, is that the crosswalk buttons actually work. Not so in NYC, they were like elevator 'close door' buttons - something there to amuse the police on closed-circuit cameras. Like in the above Citizen Dog from January 04, 2009. 
All I can say about this Ezra Klein piece from today is 'Amen Brother.' Obama's critics from the loony left irk me no end: Ezra Klein - How liberal is Obama?: The first year of the Obama presidency has been a long tutorial on the difference between liberal ends and liberal means. If I told you America has a president determined to pass large amounts of Keynesian stimulus spending (that's particularly concentrated in impoverished areas), a near-universal health-care plan, and a bill addressing climate change, you'd say liberals had recaptured the White House. Ambitious liberals, even.H.t. Sullivan.
But though Obama's program is quite liberal, he doesn't seem to care much how it's achieved. A public option would be nice, but if it's not there, then that's fine, too. Full auction of permits is a good idea, but if most get given away to corporations, then that's how it goes. Infrastructure spending is good, but if tax cuts are the price of passage, then tax cuts there shall be. The best description of the administration's ideology probably came from Rahm Emanuel when he said, 'The only nonnegotiable principle here is success.'
You could imagine a lot of presidents more dogmatically liberal than Obama, but I wonder whether there are a lot of plausible hypotheticals in which they amass more liberal achievements than Obama. At the executive level, it might be the case that being too liberal is a liability to, well, liberalism.
From the TPM:Young Obama Statue Officially Unveiled In IndonesiaThe peanut gallery in the TPM comments think the right wingers will freak out. Even TPM pushes this with their headline: "Winger Bait."
Eric Kleefeld
December 9, 2009, 12:18PM
The new statue of Barack Obama in Jakarta, Indonesia, commemorating him from when he lived there as a child, has now been unveiled.The statute is made of bronze, and stands two meters tall, including the pedestal, with a nearly life-sized likeness of the young Obama. It is located at Taman Menteng Park, a site that was used as an athletic field by Obama's elementary school. It was paid for through a private non-profit group, called Friends of Obama.
Central Jakarta Mayor Sylviana Murni said at the unveiling ceremony: "There is a message through the young Obama statue that any child and anyone from any background can reach their dreams if they fight for it persistently."
I just heard that Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture and Society at Columbia University, passed away today at 77. His book Zakhor is a classic in Jewish studies (a must read). Barukh Dayan ha-Emet.
This may be my favorite, or at least most quoted, Citizen Dog: about the evil of the ear-blasting THX intro. Does anyone enjoy that? It seems designed by bullies and braggarts: "we need to hurt your ears, and waste your time, to show you how great we are." A pox on whoever invented that promo and for every filmmaker that includes it at the start of their film.
Around the X-mas season, I see the stress and pressure people have to buy personally-specific disposable consumer items for every acquaintance who they don't want to anger. And they write mass-Xmas messages about their whole family, with pictures, and then send those (or similar cards) to everyone they know. If they do neither, they will also incur wrath. Then they need to get together with the whole family in the depth of winter. There's a much higher suicide rate at this time of year as a result of all this family induced, 'friend' emphasized pressure. 
