"With Governor Daniels deciding over the weekend not to run, it is slowly dawning on the Republican mind that the party’s choice may effectively come down to Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty. This prospect produces a range of emotions running from disappointment to panic," – Rich Lowry, NRO.
Sarah Palin is simply unmentionable as a possible contender.
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Rupal Parekh rags on Buffalo's new slogan, "Buffalo. For Real," and maps the country's other terrible city slogans.
David Samuels suspects Obama is eschewing symbolic triumphs for a more pragmatic approximation of peace:
What Obama anticipates […] is that an agreement probably won’t be reached, in which case the Israelis will withdraw from most of the West Bank, where the Palestinians will establish a sovereign and non-militarized state. As that happens, the Israelis will continue to hold onto Jerusalem, and the Palestinians will continue to refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and demand the right of return. In fact, both sides are likely to harden their respective positions—the Israelis in the face of national trauma, and the Palestinians in the face of short-term triumph.
What Obama has very cleverly done therefore is to appropriate the Israeli proposal to establish a Palestinian state with interim borders—albeit on terms that the Israelis don’t particularly like. Yet each side stands to gain something very real from an interim arrangement that they would be unlikely to gain from an actual peace deal: The Palestinians would receive almost all of the territory they claim for an interim state—except Jerusalem—while holding on to their national dream of one day reclaiming all of Palestine from the Zionists. The Israelis, meanwhile, get a U.S.-sponsored end to the tar-baby of occupation and boatloads of shiny new weapons while holding on to major settlement blocs and an undivided Jerusalem. Hamas doesn’t have to sign a peace deal with the Israelis, and the Israelis don’t have to sign a peace deal with Hamas.
Well, he may be, if San Francisco's ban on male genital mutilation passes. For what it's worth, I support a religious exemption for Muslims and Jews. But routine mutilation for no reason at all? Let a man decide when he's old enough to make the decision about his own body, and what others may do to it without his consent.
A reader writes:
Andrew, please: one word makes all the difference. Some gay leftists believe. Or many gay leftists believe, if you prefer. Twice you fail to make this crucial distinction in your post, and so twice you make a sweeping and thus ridiculous statement about what “gay leftists” believe.
Another writes:
Could you explain more specifically who you’re referring to when you write “the gay left”? As a liberal-minded, twenty-something gay myself, I can assure you that I do not hold those views you ascribe to me. As one who associates with other liberal-minded gays (and several conservative ones as well), I can assure you that none of my friends holds those views either. Maybe by “gay left” you mean something different than liberal gays, but what that could be, I don’t know.
By “left” I do not mean gay liberals, like, say, the HRC. They opposed marriage rights for so long for pragmatic and tactical reasons – because it embarrassed their Democratic Party pay-masters. By left, I mean those who opposed the push for military service and marriage rights from the get-go as a surrender to bourgeois conservatism. They wanted all gays to have no choice but to be associated with the New Left and, like many ideologues, spent a great deal of energy purging and demonizing those gays who dissented.
Much of the gay left, mercifully, has now abandoned their stance (but not Michael Bronski, it appears). I wish I could claim some credit but most of it goes to George W Bush, who unified the gay movement around marriage rights in a way no gay writer or leader could. But among those who once virulently opposed gay civil equality in these areas: leftists like Bronski, Paula Ettelbrick, Peter Tatchell, Richard Goldstein, Michael Warner and a whole slew of others whom the late and great gay journalist, Randy Shilts, called the Lavender Fascists. Evan Wolfson, the real hero of the marriage equality movement (and a hardcore liberal himself) recently noted:
”[Marriage equality] was the subject of big divisions within the movement, within the legal groups and within Lambda,” he says, noting there were two distinct approaches
from opponents. ”There was the ideological opposition, and the strategic or tactical or timing opposition… That was the biggest dividing line, the biggest source of arguing amongst a group that might quibble or haggle over a particular legal idea but basically agreed over a whole range of things,” says Wolfson. ”The one thing that people would argue about more than any other was marriage.”
”Nobody was going to challenge that we needed to get rid of sodomy laws,” Ettelbrick explains. “No one was going to challenge that we needed antidiscrimination laws to deal with everything from HIV to sexual orientation.” But marriage ”was hotly debated.” She adds, ”I think it was a really important part of our movement that’s seldom been fully addressed, to tell you the truth.” …
A ”defense of sexual freedom” was provided during the debate by people like Michael Warner, who countered Sullivan’s book, Virtually Normal, with his own book published in 2000, The Trouble With Normal. ”At a time when the largest gay organizations are pushing for same-sex marriage,” Warner writes in his preface, “I argue that this strategy is a mistake and represents a widespread loss of vision in the movement.”
This is what and who I mean by the gay left. (For a glimpse into the internal struggle within the gay rights movement, this piece – rare in the gay press – is very helpful.) It was once extremely powerful and to oppose its victimology argument and its insistence that all gays be corralled into one far left political positions was to go through a political wood-chipper. I know it seems bizarre today, and with Bush, the left might have retained more power for longer. But it was the defeat of the arguments of the gay left that allowed for the emergence of a movement for civil equality in marriage and military service. Bronski’s attempt to rewrite history represents the final gasp of that dead end.
(Photo Illustration by Todd Franson for Metro Weekly. Original cake photo by James Steidl/iStockphoto)
The NYT reports that, despite the recession, crime is down. Tyler Cowen is reminded "of a fallacy committed by (some) intellectuals":
Occasionally you will read it insinuated that if inequality continues, or continues to rise, “the public will take matters into its own hands,” or something like that. Apart from being potentially factually false, such an outcome is neither endorsed nor condemned by the intellectual. The writer is hinting that the losers from such a rebellion would deserve what is coming to them, without having to say so.
There is a real conundrum here. Why have crime rates collapsed so drastically and stayed low even during an historically awful period of unemployment? I don't know the answer to that and I'm sure criminologists will be pondering it for decades. What I do know is that America's social order has not collapsed, even under intense pressure. As crime remains low, marriage is experiencing a comeback. Perhaps the creation of one of the largest inmate populations in world history has more knock-on effects than anyone anticipated. Just thinking out loud.
A reader writes:
Ok, this was hard. I’ve given up after looking for over two hours today. I can’t see any clues, but of course, someone will immediately recognize the middle round tower as being a medieval keep that only <fill in country> has. I think the view is somewhere in Eastern Europe. I searched Estonia, Poland, Latvia and the Czech Republic. Nada. East of London is my guess.
Another writes:
Well, I’m completely stumped. I’ve tried to work out what that white tower is – minaret, lighthouse, water tower – and failed. I’ll go with Sarola, India, solely as that city is on a river of about the right size, and hope that this is one of those rare weeks it’s decided by proximity.
Another:
This one is much harder than last week! Shah Alam, Malaysia? That’s a slightly educated guess based on the extremely unlikely chance that those two fuzzy buildings way in the background are the KL tower and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Shah Alam has a lot of rivers and bridges, and it is far enough from the city to make the large towers seem not so big, so that is the guess. If this guess is on the wrong continent, I will not be surprised.
On a completely separate note, I did not mean to be a sore loser last week. I am madly in love with the VFYW contest, and I appreciate the weekend distraction. Please don’t ever take it away. I may go through withdrawals.
Another:
I’ll guess Dagupan City, Philippines and hope for proximity. It seems that the most important areas of knowledge to guess these contests (absent known landmarks) are 1) a knowledge of roof lines; 2) a knowledge of boat types; and 3) a knowledge of satellite dishes.
Another:
I’m not sure that river is wide enough to be the Mekong, but I’m guessing the photo was taken from Sri Chiang Mai, Thailand looking across to Vientiane, Laos.
Another:
That cargo boat places this in southeast Asia or China. I scoured Laos, mainly because it’s smaller than China, so the search was possible at all, without success. That river’s too small to be the Mekong or Yangtze, but I figure it’s a tributary to one or the other of those, or any of about a trillion other minor waterways. A Vietnamese co-worker tells me he escaped Vietnam as a child, crouched down with his family, in one of these sorts of cargo boats. The water level’s low, which could be tidal, but I think it’s more likely the result of the drought they’ve been having around Wuhan, Hubei, China.
So that’s my pick, even though I scoured the surrounding area for that bridge, and came up empty. The cement levee cylinders didn’t help, but there are many cement factories around Wuhan. I take heart that it’s unlikely any Dish readers had their honeymoon here.
Correct on China. Another:
The river is fairly wide, with no flood protection on the banks, this rules out a few provinces with flooding problems. The man in shorts shows that the weather is quite warm already. Therefore, my guess is Hubei Province in China.
Another:
I’m pretty sure this is just north of Wuchang, in Hubei Province, China. Although Google street view doesn’t work there, I can at least focus on the exact area the window looks out on, and since the river is in front, and the window behind – it’s pretty obvious where the shot was taken. See here for an aerial view.
Another:
My guess is the Jialing Hotel in Yan’an, Shaanxi province, China. The river and boats look like China and there is a distinctive pagoda sitting across the river. Short answer is that Google maps suggests that there’s a hotel across and down the river from a small hill and pagoda in Yan’an, with a bridge splitting the two. And I’d guess that we’re on the fourth floor. While I’ve never been to Yan’an and can’t be certain, I’d like to think the Dish’s sense of humor would enjoy basing the weekly contest on the home of Chinese Communism, a bastion of atheism, on the day of the “rapture.” Of course, if I do get it right, it might make me wonder if some sort of cosmic shift didn’t happen after all …
Heh. Another nails the correct Chinese city:
Bridges can be pretty distinctive. The construction of the one in the photo is similar to that used in the Luoxi Bridge in Guangzhou, a somewhat famous bridge. A search for similar bridges uncovered the bridge in Yuanling, Hunan, China over the Yuanshui River, completed in 1991. It looks like the photo was taken north of the bridge facing south.
It seems the photo was taken from a window, perhaps from the fourth floor, at the Golden Phoenix Hotel Yuanling (at least that is how Google translates the hotel name) at Chenzhou East Street No. 2. There appears to be an identical power line support pole as that in the photo next to this hotel. A photo from another window in that hotel has a similar view.
I do not have any software to manipulate photos except for Paint. I am attaching a few photos of the area along with a couple of the hotel.
The second of three readers to correctly guess Yuanling:
The window is in Yuanling, Huaihua, Hunan Province, PR China, on Chenzhou East St., near where it turns to the north, ???? Hotel (“Good Home”) indicated in the photo above. Here‘s the bridge (yuanshui) and here‘s the pagoda (??? or “Singing Phoenix Tower”).
The third correct guesser didn’t send any images, but he was the only one of the three to have correctly guessed a difficult window in the past without winning. He writes:
Dr. Frankenstein, you might be pleased to know that you are not the only game in town this week. My daughter and new husband are playing View From Their Honeymoon and sending us mystery shots of their location. But they didn’t account for the skills of the gang of VFYW veterans arrayed against them and we knocked them off pretty quickly. It didn’t hurt that they happend to choose a place in the French West Indies, our stomping grounds from last week.
This week’s photo is of the Yuanling Yuanshui Bridge in Yuanling, Hunan, China. I think it was taken from The People’s Hospital of Yuanling, 6th floor, last patient room to the east, closest to the river, and facing south southeast.
Update: The above reader sent an image at the last minute:
We have yet to hear back from the submitter of the photo as to the exact vantage point of the photo, so we will update the results when we do. Update: Our submitter responds:
Sorry for the delay in my correspondence, I just returned to the East Coast from China at ~4am this morning after traveling over 30 hours, and promptly collapsed. I just checked the site and I am amazed at the accuracy of the winners, as there is a tie. Both readers who sent images of the hotel in Yuanling were correct (there could be a thread on the exact meaning alone of the hotel’s name, believe me, as there was a discussion at the time). I’m also pretty sure that both of them circled the correct room (though there are still some cob webs in my head). Congrats to the winners! And thanks again for using my pic, made my whole month!
This is the first contest in which we’ll have to award the prize to two contestants, as there isn’t a clear way to break the tie.
(Archive)
One final email, from a reader who guesses “Miri, Malaysia, near the Baram River bridge” and seems to be vying for a Poseur Alert a la Colbert:
What is often unremarked about the phallic symbol in the tradition of the window view is that it so rarely comes in commensurate context. If it doesn’t quite announce itself, its retinue – street signs, pavements, garbage bins – whisper its name like starstruck little girls. This week, that changes. This week, Your Window offers a masterpiece of content and composition – a glistening white tower, yes, but one subservient to the vaginal null spaces under the subtly tapered deck of a segmental precast concrete bridge. And framing it all, the brutal masterstroke of the segmented window itself: four openings in bold homage to the bridge bents, topped by a defiant mullion to parallel the timid tower on the distant verdant hill. A stark Modrianesque repetition of verticals and horizontals, structure and space, that resembles nothing so much as a middle digit protruding from a fist. The sexual affront is even accompanied by a visual pun — the impotent sail-less “junk” puttering feebly by. And yet, this vulgar gesture is both insult and invitation, as it hints at the experience of actually crossing that bridge, and being gestured at by the shaft on the approaching shore.
No, these are not the sinister, shadowy nether regions of Di Chirico’s arcades, for through these six lights we see it all: the muddy river, the cloudless sky, the earthy flow of time, and boundless sunlit space. Your Window reveals the bridge and tower, even as the water reflects to us the invisible truth of the sky. Our helplessness has never been clearer. Your Window asks, Where am I? And our search, like the view itself, brings into relief the cosmic joke of our existence, the juxtaposition of sex and laughter, of river and sky, of teasing and screwing, of fooling around and fooling around. In this brilliant view, the divisive taunt and the inclusive joke become one.
We must ask, finally: Are you fucking kidding me? And Your Window replies: Yes, both.
Bernard-Henri Levy goes another round. Self-parody:
I maintain that those who are surprised that one doesn’t take the side of the “poor, immigrant woman” as a matter of principle against the “rich and arrogant white man” who supposedly has raped her are reinventing a kind of class justice in reverse. It’s no longer, as before, “poor bastards, the rich are always right” but “rich bastards, the word of the poor is sacred.” This prejudice is as disgusting, no more, no less, than the precedent, and this reversal recalls—at least in France—the notorious affair of Bruay-en-Artois of the early ‘70s, when, because he was a bourgeois, a notary was decreed guilty of a crime, one which, it was later determined, once the winds of hysteria had died down and his existence was already a shambles, he had not, in reality, committed. And thinking about it makes a shiver go down one’s spine.
Good God. He's now in Ben Stein territory. Yes, of course, the courts will and should determine this. Yes, of course, tabloids are tabloids – although I retain a grain of deep Fleet Street respect for the New York Post headline "Frog Legs It." Yes, I agree, the perp walk is de trop. But are we not supposed to notice the reports of the alleged victim after the alleged rape? That she was barely able to speak, kept spitting out of her mouth, had DSK's sperm on her dress, and was clearly traumatized? How does BHL explain that, after a mere romantic interlude in a hotel room? Did she come on to him? Seriously? And even if she did, her trauma does not seem as if consent continued in the violent encounter. Can you even imagine what Strauss-Kahn looks like naked? Does he actually think that could be attractive to anyone – if you were not attracted to his personality or power?
Now we read reports that he is trying to bribe her impoverished family in Guinea and this:
Meanwhile, in another development yesterday, it emerged that Strauss-Kahn allegedly shouted, "Do you know who I am?" as he assaulted the victim, according to a new report. "Don't you know who I am? Don't you know who I am?" Strauss- Kahn repeatedly inquired during the incident, according to Fox News.
"Please, please stop. No!" she cried as he pinned her to the bed, law-enforcement sources said. "Please stop. I need my job, I can't lose my job, don't do this. I will lose my job. Please, please stop!"
In a heartless reply, Strauss-Kahn, allegedly told her, "No, baby. Don't worry, you're not going to lose your job," sources said, adding that he again repeated, "Don't you know who I am?" While she begged him to stop, he allegedly pressed the attack, dragging her down the hall and forcing her to perform oral sex.
The maid finally escaped by pushing him into a piece of furniture in the $3,000-a-night Sofitel suite, she said. Sources said that the Frenchman has a gash on his back where he hit the armoire and that blood was found on the sheets. Investigators also confirmed a DNA match between Strauss-Kahn and a semen sample found on the maid's shirt.
The core of sexual abuse is an abuse of power: power of physical strength or social standing. It is a violation of a core human freedom and a way to enforce the subjugation of women to men. In many ways, the power differential matters more here than in many other crimes. That is why I refused to dismiss the credible claims of Paula Jones and Anita Hill who were treated as a social inferior told to "suck it" in a hotel room, and an employee for whom sexual abuse was part of the deal. It revealed something ugly in the souls of Bill Clinton and Clarence Thomas.
The woman here, more to the point, is apparently an asylum case from West Africa. Can you imagine what she escaped? To come to America and allegedly be raped by the head of the IMF is almost a parody of a power-differential. I have no interest in pursuing people's consensual adult sex lives. But this – judging merely from the victim's traumatized reaction and the physical evidence – was not that. Maybe there is something we do not yet know. Maybe DSK has a thing for armoires and blood to turn him on. But from what we do know, DSK is already a molesting brute.
The Big Picture and In Focus survey the damage that killed at least 116 people. A meteorologist on the ground in Joplin, Missouri is overcome with emotion while trying to file a report. For Joplin, predictions of an apocalypse this weekend were not disproven. May God have mercy on their souls.
One problem, as Ambers notes:
Romney’s problem is similar to Obama’s: he doesn’t play well with downscale voters. He comes off as the manager who fired them, or who cut their wages—the "Richie Rich" know-it-all. Obama’s demerits with these voters are different, but a general election race between the two would leave a large number of those voters up for grabs.
The Dish 