Month: December 2011

Via Brett Greenberg. Earlier iterations of the pepper-spraying Pike here and here.

Using Robert Draper's Romney profile [NYT] as evidence, Ackerman argues that Mitt's ignorance is an act:

The man who can spot-translate French to search for historical lessons about weighty meta-issues in civic and geopolitical culture does not also believe that diplomacy should the province of military super-viceroys. He does not also believe that there is an undifferentiated Islamist menace. He most certainly does not believe that the Russkies are coming. 

But he does believe that Americans will not elect a president who can spot-translate French to search for historical lessons about weighty meta-issues in civic and geopolitical culture. And so this is what he pretends to be. All while he claims that Obama has insufficient respect for America.

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com Video archive here.

I've pointed this out before. But I trust Rasmussen to poll older white conservative voters who form the base of the GOP, if little else. And I presume their methods and samples are uniform. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that Rasmussen's latest poll of Obama against a generic Republican shows the generic dude – let's call him Bob Forehead (in honor of Stamaty) -  with a 6 point lead.

But Rasmussen reveals at the same time that every GOP candidate but one fails to match Bob Forehead even before the shape of the general campaign next year gels. That one is not Romney. Rasmussen's latest poll of Obama vs Romney reveals that Obama would beat Romney by six points. So that's a 12 point gap in a conservative-skewed sample between Forehead and Romney. In contrast, Rasmussen now has Gingrich 2 points ahead of Obama.

Romney underperforms Forehead by 12 points, Gingrich by only four, in the polling group likeliest to capture the most GOP-friendly sample. Romney is losing his electability card. Which is one of the very few cards he has with the base of his own party.

The president's rhetoric doesn't match his record:

Why? I understand that the crackdown in California began in California, not Washington. But Holder and Obama could surely try to stop it. The same concerns in DC – this time about intervention by Republicans in Congress – have crippled the medical marijuana program. Does Obama still not get the salience of this, especially for the younger part of his base who regard Prohibition as insane? Can he not stop the California crackdown? Can he not restate his formal position that he does not back using federal resources to track down and punish people obeying state laws?

Or is he really that scared?

The caption from the above YouTube reads, "A surreal expression of male bonding, troubling yet comforting in the almost innocent charm that shines through." A reader writes:

I used to subscribe to a news group about male locker room nudity that spilled a lot of ink on this subject.  One of its recurring themes, echoed in the comments to Trevor Macomber's post, was that there is something neurotic about the younger generation's relationship with their bodies and being naked among other men and that younger men have no sense of male bonding and camaraderie through nudity.  Most of the posts in that group were by men who had grown up with male locker room nudity as the norm, but were also gay. What I considered to be intellectually dishonest about most of the posts in that news group, as well as Macomber's commenters, is that no one seemed to acknowledge the most obvious change between the previous era and today that would account for the younger generation's different attitude: an awareness that there are gay men in the locker room deriving sexual pleasure from seeing their fellow locker room occupants naked.

I am a 34-year-old gay man, and most men I know, straight or gay, do not enjoy the idea of unwanted ogling by another man in the locker room.  I have no issues with being naked in front of other people, men or women; I have been to nude beaches and Swedish saunas with my husband, FKK mineral baths with a straight girlfriend in Bad Homburg, and Spa World, the Korean bath house outside of D.C., with a mixed group of straight and gay male friends.  But when I am in a gym locker room I adopt Macomber's "Last Off, First On" (LOFO) strategy for underwear, and if I can see that someone is staring at me while I change, I change under a towel, forgoing nudity altogether.  Not because I am ashamed of my body or neurotic, but because I want to deny the rude starer their nasty bit of gratification.  When I see comments from men bemoaning this type of behavior among the younger generation, I wonder how many of them are really mourning the death of the era when younger, fitter bodies were more regularly on display for the unilateral pleasure of closeted gay men.

Compare this with the atmosphere I experienced when I visited Sanduny, one of the oldest banyas in Moscow, with a group of straight and gay friends.  Given the predominantly "pre-gay" state of Russian society, the banya resembles the American male locker room culture of the mid-20th century where it never crossed a straight man's mind that the dude next to him was secretly fantasizing about his naked form. Men of all ages and body types are continuously naked while they transition between the furnace of the banya and a cafe-like area where they order food and vodka.  In the banya itself, friends beat each other with soaked birch branches to stimulate blood flow.  After taking in as much heat as you can stand, you dip into near-freezing plunge pools or huddle closely, still naked, with your friends under a wooden bucket while you pull a chain and ice-cold water is dumped on you from above.

Can you imagine this as part of mainstream American culture?  The increasing visibility of gay people in the United States means that more men, the majority of whom are straight, are going to take steps to minimize their nudity in the locker room.  It's not homophobia or neurosis; it's a natural reaction to the idea that you may be the subject of one-sided sexual gratification.

Another reader also brings homosexuality into the discussion:

I would suggest the possibility that old men aren't the only ones who are insensitive to the gymgoers nauseated by excessive locker room nudity. I believe a good many gay men are guilty. I'd like to point you to an article published in Dan Savage's Stranger a few years ago, on "Making Health Clubs a Safe Space for Heterosexual Men."

I think I speak for the great majority of straight men when I say that the sight of a penis that is not my own fills me with revulsion. On the other hand, when entering a room where male nudity is on display, the eyes are drawn to that nudity, in the same way they might be drawn to a giant rat that's entered the premises. One looks away quickly, but still the image is seared into memory. You – and I suspect other gay men – say "just look away," but by the time we do, it's too late.

Invariably, it seems, the nude man in question is standing in front of my locker, making it necessary for me to make a deeply uncomfortable circuitous path, just to extract my gym bag. God only knows the motives of old men who keep this habit; but in the case of gay men, I wonder whether it's a desire to showcase the fruits of their fitness labor. If so, I completely understand that impulse, especially since I doubt that many gay men are aware how uncomfortable it makes us straights. (Which is why your post presents an opportunity to increase awareness.)

I also concede that by definition locker rooms will always contain some nudity – straight, gay and other. Rather, my community of straight young gymgoers respectfully beseeches the gay and the male elderly communities to simply minimize that nudity, applying the same "Last Off, First On" principle articulated in the essay you linked to.

I agree with the need for civility of this sort in our post-gay world. It's manners. But I also think a man who regards seeing any other man's flaccid dick – even for a split second or so – as "revolting" or like a "giant rat" should chill a little. Dude, I'm not sure you speak for the great majority of straight men. Most I know are not that neurotic.

This is the Hermanator's "assessment of our key country relations" (click to enlarge):

Seth Masket feels personally insulted:

This map makes this 1980s parody of Ronald Reagan's worldview seem nuanced in comparison. Either this is the way Cain sees the world, or this is the way Cain thinks you see the world. Either way, it's horrifying.

Well, it doesn't get anything hugely wrong. It's only when you realize that this is all he knows that you gulp a little.

Amid reports that major evangelical groups might sit out the Iowa caucuses, Pema Levy wonders whether the demographic could ever give Gingrich the momentum he needs to beat Romney:

In past years, Iowa Republicans — known as fierce social conservatives — have voted based on their beliefs; they picked Mike Huckabee in 2008, even though he was unlikely to win the nomination. But this time may be different.

Social issues seem to be taking a back seat to the overarching issue of the economy. Iowa voters seem to be putting their thumbs in the wind to get a sense of where the nation is going, rather than the other way around. And what they are sensing now is an unmistakable Gingrich surge as he climbs nationally, holding a lead in South Carolina, and being second only to Romney in New Hampshire.

(Photo of Gingrich with his daughters and first wife, Jackie Battley.)

Greenwald mourns the innocent civilians killed during war:

It's acceptable to make arguments that American wars should end because they're costing too much money or American lives or otherwise harming American strategic interests, but piles of corpses of innocent children are something only the shrill, shallow and unSerious — pacifists! — point to as though they have any meaning in terms of what should be done.

Fridersdorf ponders this:

It seems fair to presume that every war will result in inadvertent civilian casualties. So unless you're a pacifist who rejects all wars, I'm curious: When politicians are arguing that we should launch a war, or continue to wage one, what weight do you assign to the innocent lives that will end?