A refuge for a snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals
I’m headed to work, but I thought I’d just throw this up there for you all:
The Daily Show has the tape of Sean Hanity’s early days.
Martin Sheen would like the emoprogs to chill the fuck out.
Google’s Android OS and Apples iOS gain market share against RIM Blackberry
Todd Palin’s Alleged Prostitute Releases “Tell All” book.
Boys Will Be Boys: Media, Morality and the Cover-up of the Todd Palin Shailey Tripp Sex Scandal is the true story of how Shailey Tripp (Wait, what?), a young single mother of two special needs children became sexually involved with Todd Palin, husband of former Alaska Governor and 2008 GOP Vice-Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.This book explains the many factors that culminated in Shailey becoming not only the mistress of ” Alaska’s First Dude” but also a prostitute working for him which ultimately resulted in Shailey being arrested in March of 2010.
I mean it. We, the human race, deserve to die a fiery, pulverized death if so much as one tree is killed for this abomination.
Also too, open thread.
I’m an Android user. I like the iPhone, but my carrier doesn’t have it. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and C-Spire carry the iPhone, but US Cellular does not. Anyway, I LOVE my Android phone.
One of my favorite apps, a cloud storage app called ‘Box’ as in “put it in the box,” is currently offering 50GB of free storage for life if you download the app and activate an account by the end of March. The 50GB can be accessed from any device that accesses the web. If you have data you need to protect, for example, stuff you put in your Box, you should use Encrypt It for simple, straight forward AES 256-bit encryption.
Of course, I use Evernote just about every single day, as well as various Google apps. The Facebook app finally got decent, and I spend my lunch hour every other day with headphones on streaming TV shows from Netflix. Pandora is essential to me, as is Shazaam, an app for finding the names of songs by taking samples of them. Android’s first real credible analog to the iPhone’s Siri is Speaktoit Assistant. I could go on and on about various apps that I use or that I’m impressed with, but I’m pretty sure you’re already bored to tears. I’m pretty happy with my Samsung Mesmerize, the US Cellular version of the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon, and I don’t anticipate getting a new phone until USCC has 4G service in the OKC metro in the second half of this year. We also have a Toshiba Thrive tablet that we use for all sorts of stuff, but it doesn’t have a cell modem built into it. We tether it via bluetooth to one of our cells when we want to use it mobile.
What mobile apps do you guys use for your various platforms?
Open Thread, while we’re at it.
Via Buzzfeed, here are 25 pictures of Mitt Romney looking “perfectly normal.” And he does.
But what struck me is how happy he looks in most of the pictures. He doesn’t look stiff and wooden and like the Mitt we all know and loathe. And I guess I just don’t get it. Look how happy he is in those pictures on the beach, playing with his grandkids. If I were in Mitt’s shoes, with a half a billion or however how much money he has, there is simply nothing you could do to make me go through the fresh hell of running for and then serving as President. He’s spent what- ten years traveling the country eating in shitty little dives, putting up with the bullshit of every potential voter. I get pissed when the animals wake me up at night, the last damned thing I want to do is get a 3 am phone call and then have to make life or death decisions. Or get up every day and spend the whole day reading briefing books and making horrible decisions (in my estimation, by the time something gets to the President’s desk, the options are to choose between bad or worse).
Why would anyone in his situation do that to themselves?
You know, posting the picture of my fat mug a couple weeks ago was kind of quite liberating. It’s not like I have really been hiding anything- I’ve been pretty open I’m a fat, blonde haired, blue eyed, pasty skinned white guy. But for some reason I never posted a picture, because I guess I just feared the reaction or the inevitable photoshops. I guess I never realized that most of you are just as ugly and pudgy as me.
But that is neither here nor there, as there has been something else I have wanted to talk about for quite some time. I kept it a secret, not because it was the right thing to do, but because I guess I was scared I would be dismissed, or scared that maybe I was alone, or maybe because I just wasn’t ready to deal with it.
At any rate, a couple of summers ago, a few months after I got Lily, I started to have some really weird physical symptoms. I would have this really unnerving tingling sensation in my fingers and toes, and I would every now and then get these horrible sessions of just feeling panicky. I ignored it for a long while, because things were just going so well. I had Lily, and we were walking for 5-7 miles every morning on the rails to trails, my blood pressure was low, everything else was fine, and I went to the doctor and they said everything was fine and that I should keep on my current trajectory, as I was doing everything I was supposed to do physically.
But the tingling in the hands and toes persisted. And I started to freak out. I was doing everything right, eating right, exercising a ton, and Lily and I were walking for hours every day and I was hitting the gym. Plus, I had Lily in my life, and was really the happiest I had been in decades. I just love everything about that dog. She doesn’t do tricks, she isn’t a hunter, she has no real skills other than sitting on my lap and looking at me in a way that melts my heart, and every now and then sitting up and licking my face. Now, you all know I love Tunch, but my outlook on life just changed once I got Lily. She is without question the best thing to happen to me in my adult life.
So I couldn’t figure it out. What was wrong with me? Why were my fingers and toes going numb? I started using google and WebMd, trying to figure out why, in the peak of my happiness, I would be having numb fingers and toes and every now and then having these hot flashes. And I discovered a whole gambit of things that I could have had- MS, diabetes, you name it.
And then, inexplicably, things got worse. The numb fingers and toes were just a prelude, it seemed. Now I was getting spells of dizziness, with a shortness of breath, sweating, and an uncontrolled panic. I went to the doctor again, and told her- “I think I am losing my mind or something. I just keep freaking out. Why is this happening to me? Why do I just want to take a cold shower and hide under my comforter with Lily? Why do I keep feeling panicked like I am dying? RUN SOME TESTS, GOD DAMNIT!”
This went on for a while- maybe two months. And every day, the panic would build, and I would wonder what was happening to me and whether I was just going insane. I would lie in bed, in terror, thinking “Just make this stop.” I would self-medicate, drinking a ton to try to just go to sleep. It was awful.
Finally, my wonderful doctor, after all the tests had been run and I was not diabetic, I didn’t have MS, there was no brain tumor or anything else, just looked at me and said- “You are just having panic attacks. I want you to go talk to a therapist.” She tried to prescribe me drugs (I think it was Xanax or something), but I passed because I have a sister who is a heroin addict and other relatives who have pill issues, and I just don’t want to deal with that crap. I already drink way too god damned much and eat too much, I don’t want to add pills and other crap into the mix.
Long story short, I went to a therapist for a couple of months. It turns out I was having fairly typical anxiety attacks, very common, and we did a number of different things, including breathing exercises, and now, I am of course a completely fucked up individual, but no more than any of you all and I’m not having tingling fingers or toes. In fact, that was the weirdest thing of all- just two sessions with this woman, talking, and the numbness and panic attacks stopped.
But that isn’t the point of this story. The point is, that as it was happening, I confided in a few people- DougJ, commenters JSF and Laura W. and Genine, as well as my boss (my boss is the first person I told, because I am truly blessed in that my boss is probably my closest friend) and my parents and a couple of close friends (long time readers remember Tammy and Brian). But I kept it from you all. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I felt weak, like there was something wrong with me. I didn’t want people to know because I was afraid that it would be somehow used against me or used to discredit me.
In short, I was a coward. I’m not proud of the way I reacted, and I am not proud that I didn’t use this forum to educate others. I’m really not. I was a wimp. I guess maybe I was just focused on getting myself healthy, which really should be the most important goal. But I’d like to try to do it now.
There is nothing wrong with you, and we need to work to remove the stigma regarding mental illness. I was mentally ill- there is no other why to describe what I went through. It was horrible, it was terrifying, it was scary, and worst of all, it was lonely. You have no idea what it is like hiding under your blanket, crying, terrified, while you have to put on a pretty face for a blog and keep up a job. I would lie there, thinking to myself, “I wish these chest pains were just a heart attack and I would die.” You are not alone. You are not unique. Reach out for help, and get it. People will understand, and more of them than you realize have already gone through the same thing. Hell, in the world we live in, it is amazing that there are people who are not depressed, anxious, or having anxiety attacks.
I was wrong. I’m better now, I take no medication, and I realize that what I went through is something that while traumatic, is completely normal and completely treatable. I also realize that I was lucky. I had loving family members and friends, I had spectacular medical care, and I had what it takes to make it through what was for me a summer of hell. And everyone should have the same.
So that is that. I’ve kept it close to the vest for quite some time, but I’m just at a point in my life that I truly do not give a shit anymore. In short, I hope if you are depressed, or something is just not right, you won’t be embarrassed or feel guilty, you’ll talk to a friend or family member or doctor and take care of yourself. There is nothing wrong with you and no reason to be ashamed. Take care of yourself.
And one last thing- you all may think they are just snark artists, but you have no idea how genuinely good a people that JustSomeFuckhead and DougJ are, not to mention LauraW and Genine. If it were not for the people I met on this website, I don’t think I would have made it through the darkest hours.
Yes, somebody actually painted this. And no, I don’t think it’s satire. You have to sort of love the rooster, though. He’s as free as a bird now.
The question is: where’s Waldo?
You see this is why conservatives are failing when it comes to waging the culture war in the arts, and why they at once turn to political means rather than cultural means to wage that war. It’s also why we see so many conservatives devolve into self-victimization.
Conservatives have a hard time making conservative films or television shows – though occasionally you’ll find a show like 24 which espouses some conservative ideas about war and national security. I think the success of 24 was in weaving some conservative ideals into a show that focuses mostly on the action.
You rarely hear conservative music outside of Nashville. Country is one of the few successes at transposing conservative culture war politics into pop culture.
We do see plenty of sexism and other illiberal views in our mainstream pop culture, of course. See Alyssa Rosenberg’s deconstruction of the Superbowl ads for one example.
But for some reason, conservative attempts at pop culture simply don’t pan out for the most part. So we get complaints about liberal media or liberal Hollywood or whatever. But it’s not liberal Hollywood’s fault that conservatives can’t do art. (Nor is it entirely obvious that Hollywood is liberal, but that’s another story for another time.)
And it’s not as though no good conservative art or literature has ever been produced. It’s just that today’s conservatives have lost any sense of proportion or subtext. Everything is so overt and over-stated. I think that The Lord of the Rings is a basically conservative text. It’s just not explicitly conservative and doesn’t say anything nasty about Obama.
Today’s conservative pop culture is reactionary, which is fitting I suppose. There was a mockumentary conservatives made a couple years ago that attempted to not very cleverly spoof Michael Moore. But an attempt to beat Moore at his own game is probably going to fail, if only because it’s little more than preaching to the choir (and this isn’t even to say that Moore isn’t deserving of his own criticism – the left is actually very good at leveling its own critique at Moore.) It’s the same in politics: conservatives aren’t so much interested with their own ideas about governance as they are about responding to and obstructing the ideas of their opponents.
And perhaps that’s the crux of the issue. Conservative art mimics conservative politics rather than the other way around. And so it can never really be art.
I added this to the other post, but thought I should let you all know what is going on in a new thread. Thanks for the kind words.
My mother just called, and she doesn’t know any specifics other than he had a mild heart attack. I tried to get her to tell me if they tested for Troponin and the extent of the damage, but none of that made any sense to her. She is staying until they put him in a room, and I am assuming they have him on blood thinners and maybe a mild sedative. I just don’t know. All my medical training was as an EMT and then combat lifesaver training and most of it starts and stops with lidocaine and 2 Pam Chloride. I’m just going to assume that this is the best possible news, but in my book “mild heart attack” is like “slight case of herpes” or “minimal stroke” or “treatable cancer.” None of it is good. Tomorrow they are going to do a cardiac catheterization to examine what is going on and may do a stent. I’ll keep you updated, but I am going to start drinking.
*** Update ***
Just got off the phone with dad, and he sounds ok, but he sounds scared. I hate this shit. I want to be ten riding my bike again.
Norm Ornstetin writes that outside groups are outspending candidates 2-1 in the Republican primary so far.
I don’t think that the ratio will be anything like that in the general election, because the campaigns themselves will spend much more money. Also too, there are fewer persuadable voters in a general, so the ads probably make less difference anyway.
Here’s a thought: maybe the biggest effect of Citizens United will be to ensure continued top-down establishment control of the Republican party, at least in terms of winning primaries. I wonder how grassroots Tea Party types feel about this.
I’d like to try to get in touch with conservative bloggers about this. Here’s what I’m thinking of asking.
What is your take on Citizens United? Apologies if you’ve addressed it before, but I know that (1) a lot of conservatives supported the decision at the time and (2) a lot of conservatives don’t like Romney and feel the Republican establishment is forcing him down their throats. Given that the forcing is taking place via SuperPACs (to a large extent), do you see any kind of backlash against Citizens United among conservatives?
Who would be some good people to ask? And if you’re a conservative blogger who reads this blog (I doubt there are many of you who do, but you never know), let me know in the comments or via email. I’ll happily link to any responses as well, even if it’s from people I never agree with.
1. I get the feeling that the MPAA really wanted SOPA/PIPA to slip through Congress in the dead of night. The more people wake up to the bills’ loopy enforcement provisions the angrier we get, and angry constituents have started to make even the bills’ sponsors very nervous. Keep the pressure on.
2. Sixty percent of Americans think that Barack Obama at least met Republicans halfway this year in trying to get important legislation done. How many think that Republicans made a good faith effort to work with Obama? Guess.
The Trial Counsel has rested in PFC Bradley Manning’s Article 32 hearing at Fort Meyer, VA. Today the Defense may begin to rebut the Trial Counsel’s case. This is not a trial, but more like a Grand Jury hearing (with a jury of one), except that the Defense has the right to call witnesses, present evidence, and cross examine Trial Counsel’s witnesses. The Defense is under no obligation at all to put on a Defense, but given the vigorous defense and cross examination of Government witnesses so far, there is no reason to believe that PFC Manning’s defense team will slow down now.
MSNBC has a story about how lawyers and counselors who specialize in gender identity issues have been concerned with the Defense’s focus on PFC Manning’s apparent gender identity disorder.
Yesterday, as the Government concluded their presentation, their final witness was former SPC Jihrleah Showman, who testified that she was Manning’s immediate supervisor in his work and that she witnessed his deterioration and reported it multiple times to the company First Sergeant, (E-8) Paul Adkins. Adkins has since been administratively demoted to Sergeant First Class (E-7). They demoted him administratively for his failures of leadership in this episode. The more I learn about this story, the more I am convinced that Manning’s chain of command failed him at multiple levels. Adkins, in particular, had multiple episodes in which he is shown to have known or believed that Manning had no business being downrange or handling classified information. He was reduced administratively, which pretty much torpedoes his career, but I believe he should’ve been court-martial’ed. As a senior NCO, he cannot be given any punishment under Article 15, UCMJ, so the only criminal proceedings he could face would be a full court-martial. I do believe that a case could probably be made that his negligence rises to a the level of criminality, but the Convening Authority for him probably didn’t agree and so went with administrative punishment.
NONE of that—the gender identity issues, the mulitple failures of his chain of command to properly supervise and discipline, the failures of the other Soldiers, Officers, and NCOs in the T-SCIF in Iraq excuse Manning’s knowing behavior. The RCM 706 board returned a finding that Manning was able to assist in his own defense, and that will mitigate against a case of insanity. It seems that is the direction that Manning’s defense team is heading. They haven’t cross examined the technical witnesses extensively or at all except to ask one of them whether or not anything on Manning’s portable hard drive seemed “strange” to which the investigator replied “it’s a computer drive, Sir.” They have, however, extensively cross-examined the witnesses who interacted with Manning on a daily basis, and introduced documentation regarding his supposed gender identity disorder as well as the multiple failures of leadership that I’ve mentioned above.
The hearing is expected to continue through the week, and at some point in the next thirty to sixty days, the Investigating Officer, who is presiding at this hearing, will make a report to the Convening Authority regarding what disposition he recommends. It is entirely within the purview of the CA to dispose of these charges as he sees fit, and that decision is not subject to review.
UPDATE: According to Joe Gould, the Army Times reporter covering the hearing, Mr. Coombs, PFC Manning’s attorney, has called only two witnesses of the 48 he had on his list, and has rested his presentation. He made a motion to continue the hearing directly to closing arguments, but the Trial Counsel requested adjournment until tomorrow. Coombs apparently agreed to this (if I read his tweets correctly) and both sides will present final arguments tomorrow. The Investigating Officer will have until the 16th of January to present his findings and recommendations to the Convening Authority, the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, unless he requests more time to prepare. I have found nothing at this time regarding the two witnesses Mr. Coombs called. Apparently, according to Mr. Gould, 10 of the Government’s witnesses were also on the Defense list.
Too much of the coverage of death of Kim Jong Il focused on what it meant geopolitically, or specifically for the United States. Good news for Mitt Romney! Etc. Etc.
Reader E sends along a few articles that focus on the plight of the North Korean people, one about the outbursts of crying that North Korean media reported, and some surprisingly wise words from my least favorite editorial board:
Mr. Kim’s sole accomplishment — his survival in power — owes more to the self-interested calculations of surrounding powers than to his supposed wisdom. South Korea, a prosperous, capitalist democracy, feared the financial burden of a sudden merger with its impoverished northern half. China, with the most influence over the North Korean regime, feared a powerful, pro-Western, possibly nuclear-armed Korea extending to the Yalu River. The United States, in dealing with China, always had higher priorities on its negotiating card than the welfare of North Koreans.
o no one wanted a “collapse” of the regime, though nothing would have been more in the interest of North Koreans themselves. For in the percentage of his population that starved or went to the gulag, or both, under his command, Mr. Kim ranks with Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot.
What’s important about the transition of power in North Korea is what it means for the North Korean people, who have been treated terribly by their government for far too long.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the United States should try or should have tried to topple the North Korean government, but the country should be seen as something other than a geopolitical chess piece.
I was a little sickened by John’s post on Hitchens. Frankly, it made me reconsider blogging here at all. Not just because I’ve never thought much of Hitchens, not just because the post because garnered our first ever link from Politico, but because Hitchens (to his immense credit) is the last person on earth who would want an edict against having his corpse kicked.
Corey Robin (via) sums up Hitchens in the great man’s own words:
[On the use of cluster bombs by the US in Afghanistan] If you’re actually certain that you’re hitting only a concentration of enemy troops…then it’s pretty good because those steel pellets will go straight through somebody and out the other side and through somebody else. And if they’re bearing a Koran over their heart, it’ll go straight through that, too. So they won’t be able to say, “Ah, I was bearing a Koran over my heart and guess what, the missile stopped halfway through.” No way, ’cause it’ll go straight through that as well. They’ll be dead, in other words.
Sorry to be such a dick so close to the holidays. I usually read all the comments on my posts here, but I may not be too involved in these.
Update. John’s explanation makes perfect sense to me.
I attended a rather liberal college in the 90’s, years which might be the high water mark for feminist thought in America. It was a cozy supportive environment that gave people the chance to – maybe, in a very safe environment – talk about the things that we do not talk about. I showed up for protests and even organized some, but I missed plenty and would never have heard about an event called Take Back the Night! except that my girlfriend at the time dragged me to it. Women and their supportive male friends marched around campus for a few hours letting people know that they were not afraid to walk around campus in large groups. Or something. To be honest I got bored in a hurry.
The thing that might make my campus unique is that the march ended up in a little plaza with a mic and some rented speakers set up. Everyone settled down and after a minute or two someone walked up to the mic and told her story of being raped. Then another student stood up and told hers. A half hour passed and people had formed a sort of line for the mic, and those were only the people forward enough to step up and not wait for a quiet moment or a gentle push from a friend. Some talked about boyfriends. Some (many) talked about relatives. Others talked about hookups gone incredibly bad or strangers at a party or friends of friends. Men and women spoke.
The event left me speechless and crying. It was not so much any single story (those were bad enough); it was the numbers that killed me. It was a small campus and I could never imagine how many people whose faces I knew had the cast iron stones to stand up and tell it to strangers. How many people came but chose not to speak, and how many people could have come but did not, certainly represented an order of magnitude more.
A few years later I saw a play called Hysteria. Dr. Freud, it argued, in fact discovered how truly prevalent sexual abuse was in the Austria of his time, but the implications scared the shit out of him so he came up with elaborate alternatives (penis envy and so on) as a comfortable, bogus framework to explain away his obvious but dangerous observations. It would sound silly except, after what I heard that night, christ, I believe it.
All of which is to say that I doubt this new survey will surprise many people who have experience talking with their friends about the things we do not talk about.
I’ll be on Virtually Speaking this Thursday at 9 am EDT pm EST. Right now, Dahlia Lathwick is on discussing the upcoming SCOTUS decision on the health care bill.
Lord only knows how I stayed married this long without such expert advise.
Also: if you’re a complete wanker then wank about religion, because it’s not like anyone is going to prove you wrong.
