The Dish

Alan Greenspan seconds Michael Moore.

It’s a real phenomenon:

Using nationally representative data on consumption, we show that Blacks and Hispanics devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods (clothing, jewelry, and cars) than do comparable Whites. We demonstrate that these differences exist among virtually all sub-populations, that they are relatively constant over time, and that they are economically large.

Sorry but can’t resist:

More bloggy grief for Sam:

Reading Harris is like watching professional wrestling or the Harlem Globetrotters. It’s great fun, with lots of acrobatics, but it must not be mistaken for an actual contest.

These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, –
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!

– Emily Dickinson.

We’re lucky he was born in another time and place. The same goes for Emily Dickinson:

Dickinson is a handy touchstone of shyness, though perhaps she wasn’t quite the recluse we want to imagine. She was, after all, well known in Amherst as a knowledgeable botanist and master gardener, which implies that she rubbed a few shoulders. And she carried on lively correspondences with many people; though a shy person might hide behind pens and stationery, Dickinson’s letters display an openness and humor that are far from bashful.

The most telling observation comes, perhaps, from Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dickinson’s editor: on first meeting her, he observed, “she talked soon & thenceforward continuously . . . sometimes stopping to ask me to talk instead of her — but readily recommencing.” Introverted, perhaps; protective of her poetry, certainly; but simply shy?

In any case, though, paroxetine would certainly have changed things, probably not for the better . . .

"… those to whom destiny lends might, perish for having relied too much upon it.  It is impossible that they should not perish.  For they never think of their own strength as a limited quantity, nor of their relations with others as an equilibrium of unequal powers.  Other men do not impose upon their acts that moment for pausing from which alone our consideration for our fellows proceeds: they conclude from this that destiny has given all licence to them and none to their inferiors. 

Henceforth they go beyond the measure of their strength, inevitably so, because they do not know its limit.  Thus they are delivered up helpless before chance, and things no longer obey them.  Sometimes chance serves them, at other times it hinders, and here they are, exposed, naked before misfortune without that armour of might which protected their souls, without anything any more to separate them from tears," – Simone Weil, "The Iliad, Poem of Might," in The Simone Weil Reader, ed. George A. Panichas (Moyer Bell, 1977), pp. 163-164.

(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty.)

His supporters are having a blast, it appears:

It’s impossible to not get the sense of how much damn fun this whole thing is, for all of us, how much spontaneous glee and bursting energy there is fueling this thing. And many of us are people who haven’t had anything to smile about regarding our country in far, far too long.

Politics as fun? It’s amazing the difference when you actually believe in something other than acquiring and holding power.

And it isn’t Mickey Kaus.

Military contributions to the Democrats are sky-rocketing:

Since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, members of the U.S. military have dramatically increased their political contributions to Democrats, marching sharply away from the party they’ve long supported. In the 2002 election cycle, the last full cycle before the war began, Democrats received a mere 23 percent of military members’ contributions. So far this year, 40 percent of military money has gone to Democrats for Congress and president, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Anti-war presidential candidates Barack Obama and Ron Paul are the top recipients of military money.

Scott Horton has more.

And they’re threatening to save the planet: