tryingtogrok.new.mu.nu

June 10, 2009

WELL SAID, CASSY

I read this yesterday and can't stop thinking about it. Cassy Fiano did a great job of addressing the inanity.
Abducted Dutch Journalist: I was repeatedly raped by the Taliban, but itâ€™s OK because they respected me

Posted by: Sarah at 07:37 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 This reminds me a little of the situation with the kidnapped Italian journalist in Iraq. I remember reading an article written by an American journalist who was flying in on the same plane as her to Baghdad, and when he mentioned to her that he was going to be embedded with American soldiers, she was pretty uppity about it to him, saying that he was going to be totally biased (as if she weren't in her comment/response), and his reply was basically: well, perhaps, but it sure will be a darn sight safer...and she totally puh-puhed him....acting like she was going to be totally safe. She was woefully under-prepared for the realities.

Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at June 10, 2009 12:09 PM (irIko)

2 I'm also reminded of the Northrup Grumman employees who were held by the FARC along with a bitchy woman who would rat on them when they had an escape planned and do other things to try and gain the favor of her kidnappers (at the expense of the other hostages).

Which reminds me - I need to read that book (Out of Captivity).

I'm seeing WAY too many cases of this. It makes me feel like vomiting.

Posted by: airforcewife at June 10, 2009 02:04 PM (NqbuI)

Hmmmâ€¦rape and respectâ€¦rape AND respectâ€¦ I have to ponder that one for a bit.

OK, Iâ€™m done. WTF is wrong with this woman?

Something makes me doubt that if it was American soldiers who had done this instead she wouldnâ€™t be so understanding or forgiving. Just a thought.

Yup, Islam is a religion of peaceâ€¦ a few rapes, some hangings, stonings, floggings, beheadings, flying planes into buildingsâ€¦Whatâ€™s not to love?

Posted by: tim at June 10, 2009 02:53 PM (nno0f)

4 *Snort* I am totally laughing at Tim's comments about if this had been American soldiers...SO TRUE.

Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at June 10, 2009 03:51 PM (irIko)

5 When I first heard about this, I wasn't surprised at all. This woman is not the aberration she should be. No, she is one of many in the West who have a double standard when it comes to the Other.

As a member of this alleged Other, I am greatly offended at the notion that we can't help ourselves, that we are chemically driven animals unlike white liberals who think they're the only beings with free will ... the only 'real' people.

So when they say "everybody is angry with Wilders", they really mean themselves, the only ones who matter to them. They look down upon the rest as nonpeople: either exotic animals from abroad or embarrassing domestic throwbacks.

They fear animals and will say anything to avoid being eaten. They share our instinct for survival, but they express it in absurd ways. They have one eye on their lives and another on the 'real' people. What will everybody think? is the question that permeates their brains. Of course, everybody excludes us and the Other. They have to say the small-r right thing if they want to maintain their place among the Western elite. If De Rijke started going Wilders, would she ever be able to work for P Magazine again? The survival instinct intersects with Leftism once more. Say nonsense, stay employed. Truth, morality ... all these things are secondary, maybe even unnecessary to them.

Perhaps these elites are the real 'animals'. They've given up what distinguishes men from beasts. They want life ... preferably a luxurious life ... without the tools needed to sustain life. The ends without the means. The yucky details. Let the throwbacks take care of it. Defend their country, do their plumbing, and all that other ugly stuff.

The elites need us. But do we need them?

Posted by: Amritas at June 10, 2009 04:16 PM (+nV09)

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June 07, 2009

RNC SURVEY

My husband received the 2009 Republican Party Census Document in the mail the other day. I thought I might fill it out to let them know what we think. Sadly, I quickly realized that all the questions were worded so as to elicit Yes answers, and all of them pertained to some imaginary form of the Republican Party that is nothing like the one that actually exists right now. Such as this gem:

Should the Democrats' so-called Stimulus Bill with its wasteful pork-barrel spending be repealed?

Now of course I answered Yes to this, but I had the huge urge to scribble in the margin: You no-good, yellow rats. You and Pres Bush opened the door for all this with the bank bailouts and now you're going to act like your hands are clean?

All the questions were worded so that any typical Republican would answer Yes to all of them. I answered Undecided on one Patriot Act question and No to a euthanasia question, not so much because I'm fully decided on that issue but just because I was starting to feel like my Yes answers were being taken for granted. If you design a survey with the intent of obtaining all Yes answers, you probably aren't very serious about really checking the pulse of your constituents.

Other questions annoyed me too, like:

Should Republicans filibuster judicial nominees who bring a personal, left-wing agenda on social issues to their jobs as judges?

Yes, but they also should filibuster any nominee with a blatant right-wing agenda. Judicial agendas are a bad thing, no matter which side. Don't get all high and mighty.

Should the Republicans continue to support the State of Israel?

Seriously, if anyone answered No to that, I wouldn't know how to keep my cool. I'm furious that it was even considered one of the 27 most important questions the RNC wanted to ask its supporters.

So I get to the end of the survey and start to think that my participation is pretty worthless. What have they learned from me? That I follow the basics of the right-wing talking points 93% of the time? That seems like a pretty worthless thing for them to learn about me...especially when I feel like they aren't answering Yes forcefully enough to most of these questions. Or they're totally missing the boat by not asking questions about immigration or gay marriage to really test their base and see how people feel.

So I was disgusted by the survey and didn't really think it was worth my time to mail it in. Then I noticed the final question:

Will you join the Republican National Committee by making a contribution today?

Yes, I support the RNC and am enclosing my most generous contribution of $500, $250, $100, $50, $35, $25
Yes, I support the RNC, but I am unable to participate at this time. However, I have enclosed $12 to cover the cost of tabulating my survey.
No, I favor electing liberal Democrats over the next ten years.

And that's when I about flipped my lid.

Those are my choices? Either I mail you $250 or I love socialists? Really? That's the absurd choice you printed on this lame survey? It couldn't possibly be that I don't want to send you any money because this Democrat Lite you've been shoving down our throats for years is flawed? It's not possible that I think you're all a bunch of spineless sycophants who no longer represent me? That you're all just a bunch of wimps who are afraid of looking racist, sexist, classist, timecist, or whatevercist, so you grant the premise, thereby compromising our values and losing all moral ground?

And you want twelve wing-wangs just to cover the cost of this preposterous survey? You sent me a survey that you crafted so I'd answer Yes to every question, and then you want $12 for the pleasure of having me reassure you that you're on the right track? Not even close.

And don't think I didn't remember the irony of this paragraph from Tyler Cowen's book:

Does the Republican or Democratic National Committee make you angry? Run up the costs of their operation.
Choose one non-profit you do not like and send them twenty bucks. Once is enough. Mention that you are thinking of putting them in your will, or perhaps let it drop that you play at the local polo club or own a yacht. Keep your name on their mailing list. Send in all future changes of address. This action will drain that cause, and it's like-minded allies, of hundreds of thousands of dollars for years to come.

You're lucky I'm only mad right now and not devious.

You want my support? Stop wasting money. Stop wasting it within your own organization by constantly sending me mailings begging for money and asking me to please use my own first-class stamp to help you cut down on costs. Stop wasting money once you're in office by playing Democrat Lite and pretending that this massive disaster we're facing doesn't exist. And I'm not even talking about Obama; I mean the fingers-in-ears we've been doing for years over Medicare and Social Security, the War on Drugs, Education, you name it. Stop taking in our tax dollars and pretending that you can fix anything. You can't. The only fix is to tell the American people to keep their own money, suck it up, and take care of their damn selves.

Stop wasting money. Stop asking for money. Stop creating surveys you already know the answers to.

And you can have my opinions for free.

Posted by: Sarah at 01:35 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 So, I'm not really sure where you stand on this, Sarah... *snort*

I agree totally. On the same wasting money tangent - Air Force Guy sends back all unsolicited credit card applications with trash in them. As heavy as he can make them, since they're all pre-paid envelopes. Someday they'll stop sending that crap out.

That stupid survey wasn't to actually GET opinions, it was a psychological ploy to make people think they're opinions are valued and matter and to make people have the feeling they are contributing to the national direction. The Democrats do it, too - I got tons of obnoxious "surveys" soliciting money because of my party registration before we moved out of CA.

Did they send a prepaid envelope with it? I would totally print out your blog post and send it back to them with the notation that they don't NEED false stupid survey money begging - they should actually ask for people's opinions.

Probably won't do anything, but it might make you feel better.

Posted by: airforcewife at June 07, 2009 02:54 PM (NqbuI)

2 YOU should run for office. If you were on a ticket, I'd vote for you and I'm NOT a Republican.

Seriously though, you understand what the Republican party is supposed to be and you fiercely protect that. That's so much more than what I see from most Replublicans and the politicians that are supposed to be representing them.

Posted by: Val at June 07, 2009 04:54 PM (5btL/)

3 It's amazing how reliant some organizations and businesses are on tiny response rates. How many Republicans fill out junk like this - and mail it back? How many people buy the junk being sold by spam?

Your key line is:

"If you design a survey with the intent of obtaining all Yes answers, you probably aren't very serious about really checking the pulse of your constituents."

They want you to tell them they're OK. But they're not. And they'll keep doing whatever they want anyway. And call it "right-wing" and "conservative".

Notice the use of vague words like "left-wing" and "liberal". I doubt the survey allowed you to define them from context. From my perspective, the Republicans are becoming increasingly left-leaning liberals. By not defining these terms, they hope the respondent will assume that the Republicans are the 'good guys' fighting against a vague yet menacing enemy whose details are left to the imagination - it's as eeeevil as you want it to be.

I plead guilty to having used such vague terms myself, but I think you and I at least agree on what they mean for us. I don't think the RNC thinks of themselves as "left-wing" and "liberal". They define themselves as The Other. We're Not Them. I'm Not Obama. That is not an attractive message, as McCain should have learned (but probably didn't). It's a defeatist message. It lets the enemy define you. It reeks of weakness.

This whole letter is one long expensive confession of weakness. Help us! Reassure us!

But you won't.

I have never been a Republican and I certainly am not going to sign up now. Their opposition has been pathetic. The presidential election was embarrassing.

And I think the party will only become more self-destructive over time. I'm no insider - I barely can stand to glance at them at all - but I suspect they think they failed because they weren't cool enough. Not Obama enough. They want to be duh-lightfully D-lite and expect you to express your approval of this new duh-rection with your money. When the money - and the votes - stop coming in, when more people like us refuse to support their travesty, while the Original D take over, the Meghan McCains will think they need to move even more leftward and drive the party straight over the cliff.

I don't see any happy ending.

The American people don't want "to keep their own money, suck it up, and take care of their damn selves." The Omerican peOple want the gOvernment to take care of them. This includes the so-called Republicans, moderates, and even libertarians who cOnverted during the last election. Even non-cOnverts haven't thought out the issues the way you have. How many Republicans vote out of habit instead of - it's soooo hard! - thought?

This survey is crafted for the reflex Republicans, the mindless who will vote for anyone bearing the sacred letter, regardless of what it stands for, bailouts, amnesty, whatever. They are only capable of instinctively reacting to icons. To them, the R is all that matters.

But it is ideas, not mere labels, that really matter. How do we sell our ideas to a complacent, poorly educated populace including reflex Republicans? Are they willing to listen? Can they even understand us? When they get back Air Force Guy's stuffed envelopes, do they even know what that means?

The only language their superiors understand is money and power, and I'm not giving it to them. No payments, no votes, nada. Just opening their envelopes makes me feel like I'm wasting my time.

I've seen bloggers like you, commenters, so-called ordinary people, blow away these alleged superiors in terms of both intellect and knowledge. Those in power are so often those who least deserve it.

We can't expect a McCain to become whatever we want him to be. What is he going to do, rely on printouts of TTG to keep him straight? No, he's just going to remain a D-lite-fool maverick.

Since those in power do not and will not stand for us, I see only two ways out. Either we take power ourselves or leave the system. Like Val, I would love to vote for you. Move over, Palin, this Sarah is the real deal. I have met you. You have the charisma to win people over. More importantly, you have the ideas, the ability to think, the desire to grok. Alas, all that is lost on our people. Some of them might even confuse you with Palin! I am ashamed of Omerica, this thing our nation has become. The gulch looks more attractive all the time. Yet it too is not realistic.

What are we going to do?

What if Un-Liberaled Woman is right? What if Mike Judge really is our generation's Nostradamus?

Will we just have to sit back and laugh like Judge's earlier creations Beavis and Butt-Head?

Will those who say "uh-uh" to both Republicans and Democrats today be saying "huh-huh" someday?

Posted by: Amritas at June 07, 2009 10:20 PM (b3Ptv)

4 When I get one of these pieces of tripe, I fill it out in red pen, adding in my own answers, instead of the "toe the party line answers."

Any questions that piss me off get special consideration--like anything on immigration, gets the response of "your last candidate for president was a fucktard when it comes to immigration. Borders exist for a reason, and if your candidate isn't willing to enforce them, I won't vote for him."

2nd amendment-- "If your candidate can show me one instance, just one, in all of human history, where limiting access to handheld weapons has made the population safer, I'll vote for him. Otherwise, he should be running on a platform of repealing all gun "control" legislation."

Healthcare--"It's not a right to have healthcare provided by the government. Show me where it says that in the constittution, or take the correct stand on it--all people have a right to emergency, lifesaving healthcare. They also have a right to pay for it, and the free market has produced the greatest healthcare system in the world, and screwing with that is ridiculous. If they want free healthcare, they can join the military."

Then, when the begging starts, I write, with big bold letters on the donation form--"Since I turned 18 and my opinion mattered, I've voted along republican party lines, for the most part. However, I'll not give youany of the money I earn until you actually put forth candidates who are truly conservative and understand the role of government the framers intended. Stop trying to be "democrate lite" and start acting like conservatives. Clean house and drop those who are supposedly republican, but vote according to popularity polls. (John McCain, for instance.) Start taking a hard line on who you support for office, and clean house within the party, evicting those with questionable voting records and even more questionable morals. Until then, you won't see a goddamn dime from my wallet."

Then I sign my name and give contact information if they want to discuss issues with me.

So far, /crickets/.

They apparently don't need my money that badly.

Posted by: Charles Ziegenfuss at June 08, 2009 10:39 AM (meX2d)

5 As a direct mail professional, let me assure you that this isn't a real survey, it is a fundraising piece. The survey is the hook to get people involved. It isn't about gathering data, it's about gathering donations. You took it seriously (as they hoped you would) but then it made you angry, understandably.
It was never intended to be any kind of serious survey.

Posted by: Amy at June 08, 2009 12:44 PM (9fDOS)

I get about 50 pieces of political direct mail a week, and most of it is just awful. Lots of sleazy fake surveys like the one you're writing about. Also lots of envelopes with 15-digit "official" sequence numbers on them, trying to make it look like it's some kind of big deal. (This was also a favorite of low-life mortgage brokers.) The message from direct mail like this, of course, is "we think you (our prospective customer/voter/contributor) are an easily-manipulated moron."

I think every industry forever bears the stamp of the era of its greatest success and growth, and in the eyes of most direct mail people (maybe Amy is an exception), it's always the 1950s, or rather some 1950s stereotype in which all the prospects are yokels, easily taken advantage of by the slick operators from the big city.

Posted by: david foster at June 08, 2009 03:53 PM (SpkYG)

7 I don't do THAT kind of direct mail, more like official correspondence from companies, statements, things like that, along with other types of print/marketing materials. Nothing political for me. But I am aware from industry publications and the like that this is a predictable way to get people to open the piece, read it, get drawn in to answering the 'questions' and then hopefully donate.
It's definitely hokey, as are the pieces where key sentences are underlined, like the sender actually took your letter and individually emphasized key parts. Or how about the ones that look like a page torn out of a newspaper with a post it attached?
All kinds of tricks exist. What I also find interesting is that this whole direct mail approach has now moved over into the online world and they are trying to use a whole bag of tricks to get you to open emails, click on banner ads, follow links, etc.

Posted by: Amy at June 08, 2009 07:15 PM (9fDOS)

8 Sarah! You're my new best friend! errr. wait. maybe that's old best friend. Anyway, the Republican party has a total inability to produce a piece of mail or information without pissing off a giant bulk of the intended audience. I'm not quiet about that fact, and I don't think that it's inherent to the GOP. But, when you're freaking not in control of the presidency or congress, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, one would think you'd find some better marketers.

You want my vote? my money? my time? quit freaking spending *any* time on these pointless pieces of crap. Did someone have a deadline and had to get something in the mail and this was the best they could do? Seriously? It's insulting.

Run for office. Or don't, really - why would you want that? Be the man behind the man and let's change these idots who think they can keep pulling the same crud again and again. I'm forwarding your post to my congressmen. And to the people who've suddenly placed me on their rediculous email campaign. I'll likely get a crap form-letter response, but hey, it's worth a shot.

Posted by: Lane at June 08, 2009 10:34 PM (5Uhc4)

9 Groan!

Posted by: Lucy at June 11, 2009 12:07 AM (0nTD7)

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June 05, 2009

CRUNCHBERRIES

Need a belly laugh? Read the comments here: Heartbroken cereal litigant loses suit over non-existence of "Crunchberries." (via CG)

Posted by: Sarah at 01:12 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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MORE OVERSHARING

A bit more oversharing and more stuff that will make me look depressed. And then I'll go back to working on my long Afghanistan post.

Yesterday morning, I remembered what deployment feels like.

My husband is again gone for training, his last week of it before he deploys. And as I spent my fourth day without him, I remembered how bad it sucks. I miss him too much this week, and it's a pain I had quickly forgotten after he returned in December.

I'm not really ready to let him leave again.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:08 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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LUDICROUS

Mary Katharine Ham wrote an article about oversharing online. Guilty as charged. The thoughts in my previous post were weeks in the making, but they prompted people to check on me and make sure I'm not depressed. For the record, I'm fine. I am so burnt out on the whole issue that it mostly doesn't register as sadness anymore. The fact that I have a baby stroller, a dresser full of baby and maternity clothes, and a even most of a nursery set up, complete with crib filled with handmade stuffed animals, is no longer sad to me; it's just absurd. It's so ludicrous I can't begin to be sad over it anymore. It makes me laugh. When we go to sell our house, that spare bedroom will be a nursery whether we have a baby or not. I don't care who you are, that's funny.

So really, I'm not even thinking about this anymore. The IVF is less concrete than the dentist visit I have scheduled for September. I don't want to do it, so I have pushed it out of my mind. I haven't even called the doctor back in over a week. Don't care. I'm done thinking about it.

But I still like laughing at the Johnny Jump Up in my garage.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:26 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 You schedule your dentist visits months in advance!? Knowing you, you probably made an appointment back in September 2008. Oh, and there should be no guilt if there's no crime. I can see you raising your hand and saying what Ham wrote, "I make a conscious decision to broadcast my life every day, and I accept the consequences." Big Brother's not going to bail you out if you truly overshare.

Posted by: Amritas at June 05, 2009 07:43 AM (b3Ptv)

2 I had a closet full of baby clothes myself, long before M1 came along. I'm sure you are prudently gender neutral in your selections. I, however, was convinced if I ever had a baby, it would be a boy so that's ALL I had hanging in that closet.

Everyone is absurd.

Maybe that's why I like you so much?

At any rate, it's your blog. Share what you wish. As for MKH, well, that's a post in itself!

Posted by: Guard Wife at June 05, 2009 07:51 AM (qk9Ip)

3 Guard wife is right, we are all absurd. We aren't all sharing it because we are wimps. You aren't a wimp. If there had been blogs when I was your age there is no telling what I might have shared, or might not! I think we are in some way living vicariously with the blogs we read. I feel very close to some of the people I read. I guess it's my feeling that great minds think alike, or maybe just voyeurism. Right now I can ONLY read on the computer so keep all the posts coming. I won't be getting new glasses till my eye checkup on the 18th. Then I have the other cataract done on the 30th, I hope. Till then just keep sharing all you can and keep me entertained. Thanks;D

Posted by: Ruth H at June 05, 2009 04:32 PM (4eLhB)

4 Interesting article. What social networking (and blogging) say about ourselves and our society fascinates me. I have been going rounds in my own head about what value blogging has for my own life lately, and I keep coming back to what Ruth touched on... I definitely do some living vicariously through blogs I read. And they also help me to feel less alone, reading about the commonality of this absurd human existence. But there is no doubt in my mind that it's nearly impossible not to "overshare" in some way.

I had lots of baby stuff too before my daughter was conceived that was both treasured and a source of heartache. Some days it was all I could do to not set it on fire in a fit of rage.

Posted by: dutchgirl at June 06, 2009 11:58 AM (2mwTw)

5 Ruth, you too are sharing by commenting. Commenters are as much as part of the blogosphere as bloggers. Sarah has attracted a good bunch of people. I'm here for them - including you - as well as Sarah herself.

I've only met a couple of bloggers in real life - Sarah and my blogparent James Hudnall - but I came to know them so well that our first meetings felt like we were picking up where we had left off online. This is not to say that imaginary and real life are wholly interchangeable. On the contrary, it was amazing to feel the positive energy that Sarah radiates in person without any high-tech filtration.

dutchgirl, I wonder how much of society is touched by blogging. Many people I know are bloggers or at least blog readers and most people I know are involved in online social networking, but there are still many people who are outside this virtual realm and who may never enter it because they don't (or can't) read. So I wonder what social networking and blogging says about us sharers as opposed to the nonsharers.

And not every social networker is much of a sharer - how many MySpace pages contain only the barest information? How many actually blog every single day, as Guard Wife has been doing lately? Why do some share more than others? You can learn a lot more about Sarah from her blog than you can learn about me from mine.

There aren't any simple answers to that last question because blogs are mirrors of us, and people are complicated. We've all got our reasons. The reasons we tell others. The reasons we keep to ourselves. The real reasons we'd rather deny. What a messy species we are.

Yes, blog readers can be voyeurs. But seeing the messes of others, seeing how others cope with them, even triumph over them, can help us deal with our own messes. Personal blogs at their best give us perspective.

Posted by: Amritas at June 06, 2009 09:32 PM (b3Ptv)

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June 04, 2009

ONLY SLIGHTLY BIZARRELY UNLUCKY

CaliValleyBoy's first birthday is this weekend, and it's a sad reminder of my own fate. If our first baby had lived, that baby would also be celebrating a first birthday soon. I imagine we would already be thinking about trying for Baby #2 in that alternate reality.

We would have a one-year-old child instead of a vial of frozen sperm and a prayer.

Yesterday I stumbled across the first post I wrote about preparing for baby:

Of course, anyone who knows me well is probably laughing, because they know there's no way on earth I'll get pregnant until I've read both books cover to cover and used different highlighters to color-code important information within. My husband and I are the ultimate planners. We spent months researching the type of dog we wanted, for pete's sake. My husband did so much research on our Mazda5 that he knew more about it than the salesman (an advantage which helped him get it at invoice). Right now he's been spending all his free time making intricate spreadsheets comparing different mortgages and the time value of our money to see how we can save $300 over the next five years. We're pretty intense people when it comes to Decisions That Affect Our Future, but heck, we even consult Consumer Reports to decide which dishwasher soap to buy. So while it might've seemed funny to the girls at Goodwill, those who know us aren't shocked that I bought pregnancy books for the baby we'll probably have in 2008.

"The baby we'll probably have in 2008." Sniff.

I had a bit of a freak-out on Facebook the other day when I was hit yet again with how frozen in time I am. Back in early 2007, one of those darling boys from middle school passed through town and met me for dinner. He was thrilled about his new son and wanted his wife to start trying for another baby right away. She was resisting. I had just started trying too, and he said it was the greatest thing in the whole world. He wanted another one right away, but he was losing the debate.

It seems like he finally triumphed, because his wife just had their second baby. And that conversation came flooding back to me: his life has moved forward and mine has not.

I got interviewed this week for an article in a local paper about prenatal genetic screening. The writer said I sound remarkably upbeat and positive and full of perspective. And I am like that, most of the time, at least outwardly. But other days I threaten to set everyone else on fire.

At least I'm not one of these people.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:41 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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June 03, 2009

TEST POST

Testing...
All my posts from today disappeared.
Plus a long draft.
Yuck.

UPDATE: Pixy fixed it.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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EXACTLY

(via CG) Jonah Goldberg:

Obama and the Democratic Party indisputably share the broad outlines of her approach to racial issues. But rather than calmly defend [Sotomayor], they hide behind the robes of the first Latina Supreme Court pick and shout "bigot" at anyone who fails to throw rose petals at her feet.

And that is pretty much what liberals always do when it comes to race. They invite everyone to a big, open-minded conversation, but the moment anyone disagrees with them, they shout "racist" and force the dissenters to figuratively don dunce caps and renounce their reactionary views. Then, when the furor dies down, they again offer up grave lamentations about the lack of "honest dialogue." It's a mixture of Kabuki dance and whack-a-mole.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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PRECIENT

One of my great pleasures of blogging is knowing that there are a few of you out there who read Atlas Shrugged because of me. For those of you who haven't gotten around to it yet (and there's one in particular, and you know who you are...ahem), may you find your motivation here: Randâ€™s Atlas Is Shrugging With a Growing Load

The hard-money monologue of Randâ€™s copper king, Francisco dâ€™Anconia, used to sound weird. Who even thought about gold in the early 1990s? Now, Dâ€™Anconiaâ€™s lecture on the unreliable dollar sounds like it could have been scripted by Zhou Xiaochuan, or some other furious Chinese central banker:

â€œPaper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, â€˜Account overdrawn.â€™â€

Posted by: Sarah at 11:30 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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FOUR YEARS

I can't believe you've been gone for four years. I miss your presence and voice on the internet as much now as I did the first day.

Mike Reed, Bunker Mulligan, one of my first and favorite imaginary friends...

I miss you.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:19 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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June 02, 2009

PERSONHOOD

(via CG) Megan McArdle wrote A Really Long Post About Abortion and Reasoning By Historical Analogy That is Going to Make Virtually All of My Readers Very Angry At Me. But she was wrong: not only did it not make me angry, I thought it was the most interesting thing I've read about abortion in a long time.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:51 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 I've never seen those analogies before, but they really do stand out.

I generally shy away from discussing abortion, even though my own views on it have changed radically over the years and I would be interested in the discussion. The thing is, as M.M. illustrates - at base one's beliefs on abortion are based on an un-provable intangible.

I think it is a baby. Period. But someone else does not. Period. I can't prove that it is a baby, just that it will become a baby. And they cannot prove that it is not a baby, just that it is not yet fully developed.

Once you come down to that base belief - it is or it isn't - it's like trying to argue for the existence of God. I believe in God, wholly. Someone else may not, and quite frankly the times I have "felt the hand of God in my life" is just not evidence that will stand up in court.

I do have more to say, but I'm going to sort it out in my head.

Posted by: airforcewife at June 02, 2009 12:00 PM (NqbuI)

2 Dr. Tiller's murder has upset me for a whole host of not entirely obvious reasons. This piece helped me gain some balance on the whole debate raging in my head. Thank you for sharing.

Posted by: Val at June 02, 2009 04:17 PM (5btL/)

3 This article didn't make me angry either. Thanks for linking to it, Sarah.

As a linguist - and like McArdle - I've been thinking of abortion in semantic terms for years. The conflict over abortion is a conflict over meanings. What does person mean? Where do we draw the line between person and non-person?

Semantics are not objective. There is no inherent reason that the word person has to mean what you or I think it means.

The trouble is that our society is based on subjective words which are the building blocks of our laws. And laws affect human lives.

People often use the word semantics to imply that an argument is trivial: "That's just semantics!" But in reality semantics can be a matter of life or death.

Posted by: Amritas at June 04, 2009 02:32 PM (+nV09)

4 Thanks for that link! It's a great write-up, and I really don't comprehend her commenters' wrath ...

Posted by: kannie at June 04, 2009 07:58 PM (5XpA4)

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ZERO CHANCE

I have a friend who voted for McCain and loved Palin...but who now is thrilled with Obama and would vote for him in 2012. And this friend wants me to be open-minded about considering voting for him too.

I'd love to dismiss this as the passing fancy of a politically unserious person, but I just can't seem to stop thinking about it. Every time I am confronted with the badness of Pres Obama, I have this urge to point it out to my friend as one more reason why things are far worse than I can stomach. Such as this graph from Cass' post:

I can't seem to let it go that this friend doesn't see the badness of Obama. CaliValleyGirl pointed out to me that now she understands how people felt about Pres Bush. How it feels to think your president is a buffoon who has no idea what he's gotten himself into.

In contrast to the Bush haters though, I don't think Pres Obama is evil. I just think he wants to live in a USA that looks nothing like the USA I want to live in. But he has the power now to get his way and I don't. I feel impotent as so many enormous changes are altering my country forever. I am aghast, and I am even more aghast that there are people who are not aghast.

And as much as I feel like bombarding my friend with email after email of all the horrifying things Pres Obama is doing, I don't. As Lawrence Auster said, "the badness of what Obama is doing, and the amount of it, and the complexity of it, is overwhelming and I frankly find it hard to take it in and form a view of it."

All I can do is politely tell my friend that, no, there is zero chance of me voting for Obama in 2012.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:01 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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June 01, 2009

THE 15 ON THE BUS

I am very late in bringing this up, but I still wanted to say it. During the last episode of 24, they finally catch the bad guy and realize that there is no evidence to charge him with and that he will probably get away with all of his bad deeds. One FBI agent wants revenge and turns to Jack Bauer for advice. He says the following, which I think the writers of 24 did a beautiful job with:

I can't tell you what to do. I've been wrestling with this one my whole life. I see fifteen people held hostage on a bus, and everything else goes out the window. I will do whatever it takes to save them, and I mean whatever it takes. I guess maybe I thought that if I save them, I could save myself.

FBI Agent: Do you regret anything that you did today?

No. But then again, I don't work for the FBI.

Agent: I don't understand...

You took an oath, you made a promise to uphold the law. When you cross that line, it always starts off with a small step. Before you know it, you're running as fast as you can in the wrong direction, just to justify why you started in the first place. These laws were written by much smarter men than me, and in the end, I know that these laws have to be more important than the fifteen people on the bus. I know that's right, in my mind, I know that's right. But I just don't think my heart could ever have lived with that. I guess the only advice I can give you is: try and make choices you can live with.

I think that's a pretty good discussion of the gray area in the interrogation debate.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:31 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 As far as torture goes (and your recent mention of how to break a terrorist)

I recommend the following methods for "breaking" a terrorist:
1. Establish with them that you don't care one bit if they live or die.
2. Convey the ideas that you don't see them as human.
3. Make them understand that you control every aspect of their life and well-being.
4. Rule #1 becomes their challenge: to convince you that the need to live.

That's how you mentally break anyone.

Much faster methods (better and far more effective than waterboarding) include the use of hammers.

My favorite method (and this'll likely make the weak-willed queasy, but has proven overwhelming success) uses time fuse. Time fuse burns at about 1 foot every 40 seconds. The fuse is wrapped around legs, arms, torso, anywhere really (even around the neck or head, but it's best when it can be seen.

The fuse is then lit,
and no questions are asked until it comes within a few inches of the skin. Tell them you will extinguish the fuse when all your questions are answered truthfully, and you know the answers to some questions, so you'll know if they are lying.

Then you just wait.

Being burned slowly, with the ability to make it stop simply by asking questions, while understanding that your captor does not care if you live or die, making your (truthful) answers the only key to survival (and to stopping the pain)... from what I understand, this is an incredibly effective technique. Not that I know anyone who has actually done it, mind you.

Posted by: Chuck at June 02, 2009 07:57 AM (meX2d)

2 More to the point, you either accept the use of torture as a valid method of treating an enemy, or you don't. You can't quantify it rationally with exceptions.

You are either for abortion, or you are against it. The crowd who says "it's murder, but okay if the mother is in danger, or a victim of rape/incest/whatever, or the baby is X", are now rationalizing what they just called murder.

Okay, I guess you can do it, but it's hypocritical, and worse, it causes us to use lawyers to determine when and if someone needs to be tortured. Who decides if the scenario is a "ticking bomb," if the target justifies torture, etc?

Captured terrorists should be tortured until all usable information is extracted, and then either killed or lobotomized before release.

Posted by: Chuck at June 02, 2009 08:04 AM (meX2d)

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Contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, WWII, and the Star Wars Trilogy.
--Bart Simpson--

If you want to be a peacemaker, you've gotta learn to kick ass.
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If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight!
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are usually just cheerleading sessions, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing but a soothing reduction in blood pressure brought about by the narcotic high of being agreed with.
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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
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Recent anti-Israel protests remind us again of our era's peculiar alliance: the most violent, intolerant, militantly religious movement in modern times has the peace movement on its side.
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As a wise man once said: we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Unless the price is too high, the burden too great, the hardship too hard, the friend acts disproportionately, and the foe fights back. In which case, we need a timetable.
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I am not willing to kill a man so that he will agree with my faith, but I am prepared to kill a man so that he cannot force my compatriots to submit to his.
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You can say what you want about President Bush; but the truth is that he can take a punch. The man has taken a swift kick in the crotch for breakfast every day for 6 years and he keeps getting up with a smile in his heart and a sense of swift determination to see the job through to the best of his abilties.
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Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
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America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large.
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Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.
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The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
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A man or a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasant and what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is both unpleasant and unprofitable, but if it is obviously right it is mere shirking not to undertake it.
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A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself.
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A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
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By that time a village half-wit could see what generations of professors had pretended not to notice.
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I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and everything seemed so shitty. And he'd say, "That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too."
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So Bush is history, and we have a new president who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists donâ€™t seem to have got the Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we havenâ€™t yet held talks without preconditions with.
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The book and the sword are the two things that control the world. We either gonna control them through knowledge and influence their minds, or we gonna bring the sword and take their heads off.
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It's a daily game of public Frogger, hopping frantically to avoid being crushed under the weight of your own narcissism, banality, and plain old stupidity.
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There are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
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It is in the heat of emotion that good people must remember to stand on principle.
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Please show this to the president and ask him to remember the wishes of the forgotten man, that is, the one who dared to vote against him. We expect to be tramped on but we do wish the stepping would be a little less hard.
--from a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt--

The world economy depends every day on some engineer, farmer, architect, radiator shop owner, truck driver or plumber getting up at 5AM, going to work, toiling hard, and producing real wealth so that an array of bureaucrats, regulators, and redistributors can manage the proper allotment of much of the natural largess produced.
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Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.
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