Lèse Majesté

You tell 'em, Mo

Maureen Dowd can be irritating, but she gets things right an awful lot of the time. Lately she's been focusing on the Catholic church's cover-up of sexual abuse by priests. Her column yesterday described the flash of insight she had about the whole mess while talking to a group of educated professional women in Saudi Arabia:

I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women’s rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men’s club than a modern nation. They told me, somewhat defensively, that the kingdom was moving at its own pace, glacial as that seemed to outsiders.

How could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?

I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.

Read it. It's worth a few minutes of your time.

Bet Against the American Dream

This week's episode of This American Life is about Magnetar, a hedge fund that arguably is at the heart of the economic meltdown we're supposedly recovering from. By way of illustration they included a Broadway-style show tune about the company's manipulation of derivatives, and this video shows the recording of the tune:

As entertaining as it may be, it's pretty derivative itself (you should pardon the expression) of The Producers, and the lead singer does a pretty good Nathan Lane, I'd say. Not surprising since he was one of the actors who took over the role of Max Bialystock after Lane created the role in the Broadway musical version of the show.

The story was a joint effort by This American Life, NPR, and ProPublica. A text version of the story is up now on ProPublica's Web site. Makes for good reading, if it doesn't make you want to head to the ramparts in revolution.

Tweety Bird gets it wrong yet again

The Daily Kos has a good piece on just how badly Chris Matthews got it wrong in discussing the healthcare endgame with Congressman Alan Grayson. Not only gets it wrong, but browbeats the guy who is on the inside and knows the planned strategy:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What a jerk. Matthew proves himself once again to be the evil love child of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, dedicated to embarrassing the left on a daily basis. Care to lay odds whether his colleagues at MSNBC will call him out tonight for being so utterly wrong on this? Or whether he'll provide anything remotely resembling an honest apology to Grayson?

A well-deserved award for Michelle Bachmann

With the end of the year inevitably come awards in all kinds of fields.  Ginandtacos.com has chosen the Anoka lunatic for a well deserved award, albeit one whose name I'm not going to quote here. You'll have to read the official announcement on their site. It's delicious, and takes some lovely swipes at Joe Lieberman along the way.

A few passages from the announcement:

Michelle Bachmann is the new It Girl of Teabagging – the combination sex symbol / Great Conservative Leader for people who think Sarah Palin is a bit soft and a little too book-smart.

Like all great specimens of pure Bircherite insanity, Bachmann forces us to ask repeatedly, "Is this idiot for real?"

Bachmann's award-winning year is more about reliability; no matter what issue becomes salient or what events transpire we can rely on her to represent the lunatic fringe. You can set your watch by her consistent, surreal insanity.

Prairie Home Bigotry

Well, if there were any question whether Garrison Keillor's recent stroke left him with any permanent mental deficit, he has put the question to rest with the rant in his latest weekly column. After a lengthy, misinformed attack on Unitarians, he landed himself smack in realm of Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the "War on Christmas" camp:

If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.

Christmas is a Christian holiday -- if you're not in the club, then buzz off.

Wow. Talk about taking the Twin Cities back to its roots...its roots as one of the most anti-Semitic communities in the nation. Reviving the tradition of restricted clubs, no less...modeling the inclusive teachings of his beloved savior, right?

If you think he was writing this as satire, read the whole piece. He really believes this crap. Not a shred of irony to be found about Christians stealing so many of the traditions of Christmas from pagans. No recognition that it was in fact the Unitarians and Universalists of Boston who led the campaign to make Christmas a major holiday - after the Christian Puritans literally outlawed its celebration. Or that Charles Dickens, who practically defines so many of the modern traditions of its celebration, was a Unitarian in spirit if not fact when he wrote A Christmas Carol.

No, what we have here is a prime example of small town mainstream Protestant bigotry. In prime form. Anoka would be proud.

WTF?

Toby "boot up your ass" Keith playing at the Nobel Peace Prize concert? Are you freaking kidding me?

Chinese food == Linux ?

The TED conference is always a fascinating mish-mash of stuff. I've stumbled across a rather interesting presentation by NYT reporter Jennifer 8. Lee on the TED site (apparently recorded at Mondavi's TASTE3 conference, which I must learn more about). She discusses the spread of Chinese food across the U.S. and across the world, noting how vastly it has mutated but also how successful recipes or concepts spread almost virally although she doesn't use that word. Instead, she proposes that Chinese food is analogous to Linux and open software versus McDonald's Microsoft:

Heath Ledger's video for Modest Mouse

Before he died Heath Ledger had envisioned a video for Modest Mouse's song King Rat and persuaded them to let him direct it. His production company completed the animated piece and has now released it as a fundraiser for Sea Shepherd. You'll see the connection as he turns whaling completely upside down:

The story of the project is told here.

The return of Nipplegate

Unbelievable. The Supreme Court has a real grasp of the critical issues of the day. They just ordered the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to consider reinstating the $550,000 fine that the Federal Communications Commission imposed on CBS over Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl. Good thing we have them guarding civilization against the evil bare breast.

Religiosity = support for torture ???

Somehow, I'm not surprised:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

After all, the image of a torture victim is an icon to so many of these folks...