Category: The Dish

Another take on John Galliano’s new male fashions.

Some astute judgments:

You had back-to-back posts on NRO’s Lopez and Levin yesterday, and I wanted to comment. I like The Corner, and check it almost everyday. But I find it’s much better just to skip Lopez and Levin, read Ramesh Ponnuru, skim the others and move along.  Here’s the deal: Lopez and Levin have three basic posts: (1) "A True Conservative believes X," (2) "A True Conservative does not believe Y," and (3) "Mr. [or Gov. or Sen.] Z is not a True Conservative because he does not believe X, or he does believe Y."  Of course, this is an easy way to make a living, but not very original or thoughtful. 

Let’s try it out:  A True Conservative believes "in waterboarding."

Sen. McCain is not a True Conservative because he does not believe "in waterboarding."  (OK, I cheated.  I’ve read your blog.)  But you get the point, because there’s really so little to get.  There are no candidates who approach what Lopez and Levin want, and no President could ever govern that way (see, e.g., Reagan).  But they love the talk.  Lopez and Levin want a small-tent Republican party: no libertarians, no moderates, no compassionate conservatives, no McCain, no Huckabee, no Rudy, no ideas of recent vintage.  And no discussion!  We’re talking to you Brooks, and to you too, Kristol.  Shape up or ship out.

Note: Lopez has one other basic post, the kind you linked to today.  "President Bush completes me because today he said [or did] X."  Thus, President Bush completes me because today he "was giddy around nuns."

B.R. Gowani writes that Islam should allow the depiction of God and Muhammad:

The real losers of this intolerance are the Muslim artists who would like to try their artistic skills in portraying their God, Prophet, and other members of Mohammad’s family but cannot do it for fear of government reprisals and the wrath of the Islamic fundamentalists. Perhaps, few of them would do it in an unflattering manner but many of the Muslims, I am sure, would paint and draw pictures which could make Islam, like other religions, more understandable to its followers and outsiders.

You can’t call her that.

Some like it cold:

This time it’s a real one. Storm force winds (64-72 mph), blowing snow, zero visibility. It’s been difficult to count storms this season because they come one right after the other. Front after front we’ve been getting pounded with gales, storms, and snow. We take weather observations twice a day, and the wind speed for the past month has been oscillating up and down like a restless animal. If you’ve been on this side of Antarctica this year chances are you’ve heard it too: it’s one of the worst weather years anyone can remember. Flights to the continent have been delayed. Helicopters have been grounded. And no matter how windy it is elsewhere, Cape Crozier lives up to its reputation by always being a little bit windier. It’s a hard place to get to – it’s always a good idea to include several days of likely weather delays in any Crozier plan.

Hat tip: Kottke.

The place just got its first Chinese restaurant. Insert your joke here.

I’ll tell you one thing: the Clintons could never have this much fun.

Inimitable:

It’s a dark day in Washington. My generation will, I suspect, be the last human generation in either a very good way (we will transcend our limitations, we will live incredibly long lives, we will expand our moral imaginations, and in the process we will become something better than human) or in a very bad way (we will all be killed by nanite goo). So I hate the thought of any one of us biting the dust and missing the adventure to come, though of course that is as it must be.

My bet is on the nanite goo. Rex Wockner sends me this column as a tribute of sorts. Gay men responded to Ledger and not just because he was surpassingly handsome. He really inhabited a dark place many of us escaped from, and he evoked it with enormous restraint and integrity. The darkness clearly haunted him, but he turned it into a thing of beauty and redemption. For a while.

An even-handed treatment.

Heath Ledger had finished filming post-production.