A possible future Aussie prime minister is caught on tape picking ear-wax out of his ear and eating it. Eww. YouTube here, if you want to lose your lunch appetite.
“Movember”
You can just feel the mustache trying to make a come-back. And now it does, on the back of troubled prostates.
Clinton Panic Watch
She’s shifting more resources to Iowa.
“A Little Backbone, A Little Guts”
John Edwards is doing his party a favor, I’d say. This ad could be criticized for leveraging his wife’s illness and for the lack of any minorities among the "American people" cited. But it’s for Iowa, not the most ethnically diverse state in the country. And it has punch.
The Clintonites Panic II
And what else do they do? They play the gender card. Her chief apparatchik, Mark Penn, said in the conference call today that
criticisms from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would backfire and that he was already "detecting some backlash," particularly among female voters.
Those female voters are saying, "Sen. Clinton needs our support now more than ever if we’re going to see this six-on-one to try to bring her down," Penn told those on the campaign call…
Gerald McEntee, AFSCME’s president, mentioned the debate during his endorsement speech, and took Penn’s and Mantz’s view of the results.
“Some of you may have seen last night’s debate,” McEntee said. “Six guys against Hillary, and I’d call that a fair fight. This is a strong woman.”
Gail Collins picks up the meme this morning:
Hillary Clinton stood on a stage for two hours Tuesday night, being yelled at by six men. Now this is what they mean by pressure… She took it all and came out the other end in one piece. She’s one tough woman. Kudos… [Y]ou do have to give her a few points for not letting the guys push her around.
Er: she did let the guys push her around, got rattled, and revealed the fact that her candidacy is pure calculation. No points. But, more importantly, this line of defense is deeply sexist. You can’t say that Clinton’s gender is irrelevant in the political campaign and then give her points for not fainting under the pressure of male criticism. Can you imagine anyone ever saying that Margaret Thatcher should have gotten points for withstanding the parliamentary barracking she got on a regular basis – because a woman isn’t expected to be able to stand up against a bunch of men? Please.
And then you realize that Clinton’s flacks don’t even believe in the ability of women to be involved in politics without apology, excuse or cheap and easy invocation of the female defense. They use feminism the way they use everything else: as a tool to gain personal power. What’s next? Congratulating her that she didn’t burst into tears? And can we please retire this hideous "Hillary" thing? She’s Senator Clinton. And she can’t play the gender card both ways.
(Photo: Mannie Garcia/Getty.)
The Clintonites Panic
And what do they do when they panic? They ask for more money.
It’s On Now
"After the most secretive administration in memory, an administration that consistently misled the American people, we need a president who is going to be open and forthright. I think [the Philadelphia] debate really exposed this fault line. Senator Clinton left us wondering where she stood on every single hard question from Iran to Social Security to drivers’ licenses for undocumented workers… Her big answer on whether she would release the papers from her White House years was particularly troubling because she is running on her record as first lady as much as on her record as a senator. How can people fully judge that record if the documents from those years remain locked away?" – Barack Obama, turning up the heat at last.
(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)
The Voice Of Liberal Learning
Adam Kirsch revisits W. H. Auden’s poetic address to the Harvard Commencement of 1946. The poem Auden delivered that day, “Under Which Lyre,” reminds us, in Kirsch’s words,
that all the official apparatus of the university is extraneous to its highest purpose, which is to cultivate freedom and inwardness. It is a message that still needs to be heard today, when the expense of higher education forces so many students to look at it as an investment, rather than an adventure.
I love the ending:
Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor’s thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.
Amen.
The Rise Of The Green Building
It’s happening as the term "green" is re-branded as well:
This shift isn’t occurring because corporate America’s heart suddenly started bleeding green. “Just five or six years ago, the term ‘green building’ evoked visions of tie-dyed, granola-munching denizens walking around barefoot on straw mats as wind chimes tinkled near open windows,” Harvard Business Review ribbed in June 2006. “Today, the term suggests lower overhead costs, greater employee productivity, less absenteeism, and stronger employee attraction and retention.”
And every increase in the price of gas helps nudge this revolution along. Look on the bright side.
The Power Of Muslim Women
Their sexiness is now allegedly disturbing the sleep patterns of Muslim men:
“We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen,” Nik Abdul Aziz said. “Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed.”
By women being attractive? I rest unmolested nightly.
