Saturday, July 11, 2009
you can get so much done in the summertime
Whoops, another "sacrifice":
So here's a fun game that will keep us all amused until next year: Try to name a substantial progressive policy goal that will not get thrown under the bus by the Hoover...er...Obama administration. EFCA and healthcare are already at around 90% probabillity of total disaster. So they're out. Expansion of settlements in Palestine? Noop. Reining in Wall Street? Uh uh. Passing a sane energy bill? Mmm...nah. Gay rights? Military tribunals? Permanent presence in Iraq? Torture? Bueller?
Let's see...hm...maybe there's...nope, damn. I'm drawing a blank. Anyone?
posted by Scats : 7/11/2009 11:06:00 PM
The Senate Finance Committee (SFC), in an effort to make health care into a bi-partisan effort, is considering a restriction on abortion funding with the passage of health care reform. This could mean not allowing a public health insurance plan to cover the cost of abortions for women.
So here's a fun game that will keep us all amused until next year: Try to name a substantial progressive policy goal that will not get thrown under the bus by the Hoover...er...Obama administration. EFCA and healthcare are already at around 90% probabillity of total disaster. So they're out. Expansion of settlements in Palestine? Noop. Reining in Wall Street? Uh uh. Passing a sane energy bill? Mmm...nah. Gay rights? Military tribunals? Permanent presence in Iraq? Torture? Bueller?
Let's see...hm...maybe there's...nope, damn. I'm drawing a blank. Anyone?
posted by Scats : 7/11/2009 11:06:00 PMFriday, July 10, 2009
perfect
harvey on the present crisis
Thursday, July 09, 2009
All Play and No Work
Has anyone seen My Kid Could Paint That, the 2007 documentary about the child painter "prodigy" (or prodigy or "'prodigy'") Marla Olmstead?
I'm kind of obsessed with it.
If anyone has seen it, I'm interested to know what you think. I have a lot of questions about the film and about the film's subject.
One of them, I guess, is what the fuck is the deal with that NYTimes art critic. Another is why didn't Bar-Lev seem to include in the film a single person who really knows something about painting? (The Times critic must, in theory, be such a person, though he is either unable or unwilling to say anything of substance about modern art, or to offer any insight that sheds any light on the work produced by the Olmsteads.)
posted by Blicero : 7/09/2009 01:37:00 AMWednesday, July 08, 2009
those wacky belgians
Belgian anarchist artist Jan Bucquoy failed on Monday to seize power in Belgium in his latest of three attempts to carry out a coup d'etat, according local media.
According to the Belga news agency, Bucquoy, an artist from Belgium's northern Flanders region, was brought in for questioning by two police officers after he planted a red and black flag bearing the image of a banana in the royal palace's garden.
Bucquoy famous for his cult comedy films and decapitating a statue of a former king in Brussels' renowned Grand-Place.
He even tried to found a party called Banana in the past and proposed that top government jobs be handed out by lottery.
His attempt to seize the royal palace was hardly a secret plot as it was widely publicized on the internet beforehand, but it was the latest since his last failed coup d'etat in May 2005.
posted by Scats : 7/08/2009 11:42:00 AMTuesday, July 07, 2009
rot in hell
kids say the darndest things
the Weekly Standard:
via GYWO, via hiaw
posted by Scats : 7/07/2009 12:37:00 PM
(W)e don’t know what (Sarah Palin) will do in the private sector. Will she write a thoughtful book? Become a syndicated columnist whose ideas make her a “must read” for everyone? Will she found an important new think tank? An important journal? Spearhead an effort to help the unemployed? Decide to launch a business? Or maybe she will start a new political party?
via GYWO, via hiaw
posted by Scats : 7/07/2009 12:37:00 PMDigginity
As amused as I am at how much of an Obama fan Brooks has become, a gargantuan omission in this piece must be pointed out.
Brooks is missing the key dialectic of modern America that appears with the advent of Hollywood-- the oscillation between dignity and indignity, the pop culture of sacrifice designed to periodically drag those with dignity down to disgrace for profit, that is the very heart of our inherently perverse culture.
What fascinates me is the seeming desire that so many of these people have for this public flaying, one surely generated by the very idiotic burden of walking around with "dignity" yoked around one's neck.
posted by James Hussein Dixon : 7/07/2009 06:55:00 AM
Brooks is missing the key dialectic of modern America that appears with the advent of Hollywood-- the oscillation between dignity and indignity, the pop culture of sacrifice designed to periodically drag those with dignity down to disgrace for profit, that is the very heart of our inherently perverse culture.
What fascinates me is the seeming desire that so many of these people have for this public flaying, one surely generated by the very idiotic burden of walking around with "dignity" yoked around one's neck.
posted by James Hussein Dixon : 7/07/2009 06:55:00 AM
