Behind Closed Doors In Washington

2006-07-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

I thought this

was a great way for Bostonians to deter those obnoxious kids from PIRG.

Nudity and Dogs

2006-05-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of new sketches:
This is a copy of a sketch by the French artist Ingres.

And this is drawing of my dog, Shorty. The scan sort of washed out the darker areas, and cut off part of his ear. But you get the general drift.

And this is a sketch of a picture I copied out of a book on how to draw buildings.

More Sketches

2006-03-20T21:18:00.000-08:00

I copied this from a book of sketches by Michelangelo. It's of a "Libtan Sibyl" from the Sistine Ceiling.

This is my copy of a sketch by Peter Paul Rubens, of his wife, Isabella Brandt. There is a painted portrait of her in the Uffizi Gallery, but I like the drawing better. Unfortunately, I fucked up the top of her head by placing the whole picture too high up on the page.

Neue Kunst

2006-03-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

I copied this from a book of sketches by various old masters. But I have trouble with the shading, so that's what I'll be focusing on.

This Is Not From The Onion.

2006-02-09T16:56:00.000-08:00

But it should be. An Italian group is protesting the Olympics. Why? Just because.

Ooooh...

2006-02-06T18:24:00.000-08:00

SNAP!

More Art

2006-02-04T15:47:00.000-08:00

Horse and rider. One note -- it is much harder to draw a horse's ass than you might think.

Retired Phrase of the Week

2006-01-31T04:27:00.000-08:00

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

When I was in middle school, a kid in my class got in trouble for acting up in class, and was sent to the principal's office. As he was on his way out of the classroom, another kid shouted, "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out." That remark got him sent to the principal's office as well, but it earned him the admiration of his peers and an alpha-male social status that lasted well into high school. This was the power of the phrase among 12 and 13 year-olds.

So I was sort of amused to hear John Kerry employ a defanged, assless version of the phrase during the 2004 presidential election campaign. It eventually became sort of a campaign slogan .

Well, ever since 2004, "don't let the door hit you on the way out" has become a cliched slogan for "straight-talkers" of all stripes to employ. I instantly stop listening to someone who says it, and instantly stop reading someone who writes it. It is time to retire it, and time to stop using it.

So long, "don't let the door hit you on the way out." Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Art

2006-01-29T19:13:00.000-08:00

I am teaching myself to draw. I do it in fits and starts, and mostly on weekends because I am too tired to focus when I get home during the week.

I started with a self-portrait:

One Sentence Encapsulating What I Dislike About The Knee-Jerk Ralph Nader Types Of My Generation

2005-12-21T17:16:00.000-08:00

"It’s a bitter pill to swallow but most countries are way too racist to handle freedom." -- Vice Magazine article on "Boomers We Like"

The Word of the Day Is "Consistency"

2005-12-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

Washington Post headline: "Bush's Approval Rating Surges After Vote In Iraq"

CNN headline: "No Bump For Bush Despite Iraq Speeches"

"Victory?"

2005-12-14T20:17:00.000-08:00

I suppose it's the mark of a lazy blogger to incessantly link to other people's writings without ever doing your own. But it's late and I'm tired.

And when you have James Howard Kunstler to read late on a Wednesday night, all you really need to do is say, "yeah. Me too. I agree with him."

Our Insane Way Of Getting Around

2005-12-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

I drove from my apartment in Washington, DC to Alexandria, VA today. It was a trip that totaled a whopping 8.7 miles, according to Google Maps.

Travel time? In the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia, on a Sunday afternoon -- 45 minutes.

What's even more insane than a 9-mile car ride taking three quarters of an hour on a weekend is that there was very little traffic far ahead of me and relatively little far behind. Somehow, I timed my trip such that I was wedged in a Truman Show-esque cluster of traffic that seemed designed for the sole purpose of preventing me from ever leaving the city.

Where Does the DI Go?

2005-11-20T07:24:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling nostalgic for Dean Wareham bands:

Galaxie 500 -- The Peel Session

Luna -- Lunapark

And I got peer pressured into reading this:

Hitchens -- Why Orwell Matters

Letter To A Friend Describing My Engaged Encounter Weekend

2005-11-01T21:03:00.000-08:00

Dear ****,

You may recall that last spring, [my wife and I] had to spend a weekend attending a "Catholic Engaged Encounter" at the [major metropolitan area airport] Hilton. I meant to blog about it, but it would require hours upon hours to really fully encapsulate the absurdity of the whole exercise. After reading your most recent post, I thought I would give you a peek at the underside of the iceberg you discussed on your blog about the CFC. Maybe I'll post this on mine.

Engaged Encounter is a pre-marital counseling program (also referred to as a "ministry" by those in the know) which couples who wish to be married in a Catholic church are often required to attend. The format is thus: one or two married couples (typically an older couple with experience running the program and a younger couple with less experience) lead the weekend-long program by giving a series of presentations. I've heard that the value of the program depends heavily on the couple involved, although the materials are uniform for all Engaged Encounter programs (and uniform in their lack of all but comedic value). The couples leading our Engaged Encounter were cringe-inducing.

Anyway, each couple takes turns giving a presentation on a pre-ordained topic, reading prepared remarks on the given topic in order to avoid rambling (without much success). The prepared remarks describe lessons learned in the couple's married life. After sitting through the alternately boring or awkward presentation, each couple would be separated, and all the men or all the women (it alternated with each presentation) would leave the room and go to a pre-assigned hotel room. There, they would hand-write answers to questions contained in their Engaged Encounter workbook. (I've scanned and attached just a few pages from my workbook). After 15 minutes or so, the person left behind in the conference room would go the hotel room, where you and your partner were supposed to read each other's answers and discuss accordingly. In practice, [my wife] and I would watch TV in the room, go to the hotel bar or discuss how unhelpful the questions were.

The topics of each presentation ranged from (and I quote from my EE workbook): "Becoming A Family," "Decisions in Marriage," "Openness in Communication," and "Forgiveness in Marriage." These were the recognizable topics that one might expect in a pre-marriage counseling session. But there were other topics that were and would remain vague and unknowable -- hodgepodges of cliche-ridden, Christian new-ageyness such as (quoting again here): "Encounter With Me/Encounter With We," "Called To Be One," "Two By Two" (<--doesn't that suggest wife-swapping to you?), "Sharing the Vision," and "Marriage Morality." And let's not forget the really galling, awkward, comedic gold-mine, "Sexual Intimacy in Marriage."

The topics of each presentation were not the only terrible cliches. Within each presentation, we were invited to dwell on:

whether I believe that "God doesn't make junk,"

"specific characteristics [that] I see in myself that make it more difficult for others to know and love me,"

when and whether "I set aside my feelings and made a conscious decision to love [my partner],"

"areas of our relationship [that] I realize loving [my partner] takes a decision,"

"what marriage as a vocation mean[s] to me,"

"How I feel about using sex as a means of getting my way?" [<-- this question seemed oddly out of place],

and "what areas do I wish that we would be more open in discussing intimacy in our relationship (e.g. sexual relations, couple prayer, family)."

Over the course of the weekend, I wrote snide remarks, doodled and generally tried not to laugh out loud. [my wife] and I had to sneak outside to our car at the end of each day's program in order to drive back to our apartment in [major city], because the hotel rooms were doled on a single-sex, roommate basis for purposes of chastity and morality. Each day's session lasted a good 12 hours, and it was a bitch to drive from the [major metropolitan area airport] Hilton to [major city] and back again the next morning. But we felt that it was as much a matter of principle as anything else. We'd been together for almost three years, and slept in the same bed for the vast majority of that time. Why change now, just to make a few strangers happy?

By far the creepiest part of the weekend was the Saturday night prayer service. Late at night on Saturday, before the day's program ended, there was a prayer service. Keep in mind that this was your average, beige-carpeted hotel conference room. We had just returned from a break to find that the neat rows of chairs had been rearranged into a large rectangle with a small table at the center. On the table were 50 or so large, unlit candles. A boombox had materialized from somewhere and the wife from one of the presenter couples put on a Josh Grobin CD. We were invited (ordered) to take a seat and write out a "Betrothal Pledge" to our fiancees. Then someone dimmed the lights. I thought to myself that ordinarily, the dim lights and loud, shitty music would distract me from writing out a solemn and heartfelt ode to my future wife. But since I was, in fact, simply writing "all work and no play makes Michael a dull boy" over and over, it didn't really matter. Then, after about 20 excruciating minutes, Betrothal Pledges written and tucked away, the presenting couples turned off the lights completely. They walked to the center of the rectangle holding large, lit white candles and explained that they would walk around the room to each couple and pray with them before giving them their own white candle. Sure enough, both presenter couples, working from different sides of the room, started to go from engaged couple to engaged couple, giving out candles and huddling with each couple in prayer -- a sustained, creepy four-way hug -- before lighting the engaged couple's new candle and moving on.

Fortunately, [we] were positioned so that we were the last couple that either of the presenter couples would reach. So we had the entire prayer service to plot our move in panicked, emphatic whispers:

"There is no fucking way I am hugging any of those fucking people and I am sure as SHIT not praying with them," I hissed.

"I know, Sweetie, I don't want to, either," [my wife] nervously replied.

"This is so fucked up. I have a STAR on my name-tag for fuck's sake!" I said, looking down at the plastic name tag pinned to my sweater, with a five-pointed star next to my name that I had not seen on any other name tags, and which I vaguely suspected was supposed to mark me out as the non-Christian (I turned out to be way off -- the star had something to do with my room assignment and nothing at all with my religion).

"The star doesn't mean anything." said [my wife].

"Sweetie, a) Jews don't take well to wearing stars on their breast, and b) when you do make a Jew wear a name tag with a star on it, you don't close the doors and turn off the lights!"

"Well, I'm freaked out, too!"

"Well, then we'll just tell them that we're not comfortable with whatever it is they're doing," I said.

"Can we do that?" [my wife] asked.

"Well, it's not the Middle Ages anymore! They can't torture us. Can they?"

Anyway, when our turn came to hug 'n pray, I stood up and looked down into the guy's eye and said in a loud voice, "I'm sorry, but we're not comfortable doing this." He smiled, and graciously said in his best, unerring Ned Flanders voice, "Sure! No problem at all! You can still have a candle if you want one, though." And that was that. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like maybe Monty Python bursting into the room dressed as cardinals, screaming "no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" But I was met with a friendly smile and a hands-off "no problem" attitude. Even so, we left immediately.

*** In the interest of fairness, let me hasten to add that I don't intend this as a comment about or a critique of the Catholic faith. I'm not trying to make fun of it, nor to insult its adherents. My wife and in-laws are Catholic, and through them, I've developed a real appreciation for the religion. But the Catholicism practiced by my wife and her family is not same thing as the stupidity unleashed in that airport hotel conference room last spring. Last time I went to mass with my in-laws, I wasn't told that "God doesn't make junk." I'm after the faux, canned religion that sounds like it came out of a Deepak Chopra book or "Chicken Soup for the Soul."

2005-10-25T04:50:00.000-07:00

In this morning's Washington Post, columnist Eugene Robinson has a crude essay on Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. He criticizes her, in essence, for being too-far removed from the black experience and for not being bitter:

How did she come to a worldview so radically different from that of most black Americans? Is she blind, is she in denial, is she confused -- or what?

It's as if Rice is still cosseted in her beloved Titusville, the neighborhood of black strivers where she was raised, able to see the very different reality that other African Americans experience but not to reach out of the bubble -- not able to touch that other reality, and thus not able to really understand it.

One of the things she somehow missed was that in Titusville and other black middle-class enclaves, a guiding principle was that as you climbed, you were obliged to reach back and bring others along...In the interview, she mentioned just one black professional she has brought with her from the National Security Council to State.

I can't stand this kind of bitter, parochial claptrap. In Robinson's world, must every powerful, successful person march in lockstep with his or her ethnic group? Must every successful black figure be dismissed as a "striver" when they don't tow a given party line? What does that say about achieving a "colorblind" society?

It's all the more schitzophrenic to be attacking Rice for her perceived insults to the black community while events like this go by with barely raised eyebrow.

Did I Ever Tell You About My Honeymoon?

2005-10-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

We went to Quintana Roo, in the heart of the Mayan Riveria of Mexico.

We visited the ruined Mayan city of Chichen Itza,

hung out on beautiful beaches,

.....oh, and my wife ran off with two Mayans:

Hitch-Galloway Debate

2005-10-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

This is a very cogent account of the September 14 Hitchens-Galloway debate.

Had I read this a few weeks earlier,

[Hitchens knew well his audience of cosmopolitan socialists—after all, he was once one himself. By repeatedly calling for “internationalism” and “solidarity,” he understood how to appeal to their sympathies. And he also knew how to push their buttons. The highlight of the evening arrived when, fed up with the boorish crowd, he addressed them directly:] “There are probably some people among you here who fancy yourself as having leftist revolutionary credentials,” he said, in a discussion of Kurdish and Iraqi opponents of Saddam’s regime. “And, in fact, I can tell that you do by the zoo noises you make and the scars you can demonstrate from your long underground twilight struggle against Dick Cheney. But while you’re masturbating in that manner, the Iraqi secular left…[is] fighting for [its] lives against the most vicious and indiscriminate form of fascist violence that any country in the region has seen for a very long time.”

...I would have printed the paragraph out onto pamphlets and distributed them to the people who showed up for the International ANSWER anti-war gathering on the mall.

The Sick Joke As Art

2005-10-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

Tim Blair has a piece on the puzzlingly stupid and mindlessly inhuman "art" * of Monika Behrens, who thinks it's clever to attempt irony when dealing with the issue of hostage decapitation and train bombing.

* -- if "art" is the word we're using these days.

The Exact Opposite of Tolerance Masquerading As "Tolerance"

2005-10-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

If a Kosher-keeping, orthodox Jew in Britain raised this same utterly moronic issue, he would quite rightly be laughed out of the room (and lectured about what a prick he is because of Israel).

When Muslim sensibilities come into play, on the other hand, a rule must be quickly and breathlessly instituted in the name of "tolerance."

Surely, occasionally having to countenance the image of a cartoon piglet on a co-worker's coffee mug or desk calendar is the "tolerant" thing to do here, rather than forcing a co-worker to expunge every trace of Piglet-related paraphernalia.

Are workers at this office forbidden from bringing ham sandwiches for lunch?

Escape From The Asphalt Jungle

2005-09-30T16:11:00.000-07:00

Today was so beautiful, that I decided to go hiking on the Capital Crescent Trail this afternoon. The trail starts along the Potomac River in Georgetown and wends its way around Northwest DC to Silver Spring, MD.

So Shorty and I got in the car and drove to Georgetown. Parking was at a decided premium, and I started to get that familiar tight feeling in my chest as I negotiated the streets and scanned the curb for a spot -- while waiting patiently for the determinedly slow-footed pedestrians to cross the street at each stop sign. No doubt they were competing to see who cross the slowest.

Finally, after a near-accident caused by hyper-aggresive driver (the type with crooked baseball caps driving "souped-up," early model VW and a large Chinese character sticker on his window), a parking space emerged just yards from the trailhead. I parked, grabbed my bag, my camera, the dog and hopped out of the car.

As I fished around in my pockets for some quarters before realizing that the parking meter was broken. A number on the base of the meter gave a D.C. Public Works phone number to call and report the problem -- and presumably avoid getting a ticket from D.C.'s notoriously venomous and retarded parking enforcement officers. Here's an almost verbatim transcript of my call:

RING...RING

"Hello, you have reached the District of Columbia Department of Public Works Parking Meter Division. To report a broken parking meter, press 1 now."

[SOUND OF THE NUMBER 1 BEING PRESSED]

RING...RING...RING

"Hello, you have reached the District of Columbia Broken Parking Meter Repair Hotline. No one is available to take your call.

[IRRITATED GRIMACE]

If you are calling to report a broken meter...

[WHY ON EARTH ELSE WOULD I BE CALLING?]

please remember that you can still be ticketed if the meter is expired...

[INCREDULOUS GUFFAW, CELL PHONE VIOLENTLY SNAPPED SHUT]

And so I walked towards M Street, to one of Georgetown's many sandwich shops to get something to eat and a bottle of water for the hike, and decided on the first place I saw that did not have a huge line. I tied Shorty's leash securely to a piece of pipe coming out of the sidewalk right next to the door and ran in to order.

And literally the second my foot crossed the threshold, Shorty started barking that load, insistent bark which is the hallmark of the poorly behaved dog. Everyone in the deli looked to the doorway to see what the commotion was about, then looked at me to see what kind of inconsiderate bastard leaves his dog tied up outside to bark and cry while other people try and eat lunch and have fifteen minutes of peace and quiet to themselves.

I resolved to order as fast as possible before Shorty had an anuerism and to minimize the disturbance to others.

This is an almost verbatim transcript of my conversation with the monosyllabic, glassy-eyed employee who was wearing super-baggy "shorts" that almost swept the floor:

SHORTY: BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK!

ME: [with my money already out of my wallet, held out to the employee, invoking the international signal of "I'm In A Hurry"] Could I get A...turkey sandwich on an everything bagel with mustard, no mayo, swiss cheese and two bottles of water to go, please?"

EMPLOYEE: Ummmm....... you want lettuce and tomato?

ME: [tense]What? Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry, yes please. That's all, thanks. How much is that?

EMPLOYEE: You want the bagel toasted?

ME: [tenser]Sure. Yes.

SHORTY: BARK! WOOF? BARK!

EMPLOYEE: You want cheese?

ME: [with confused look, since I thought I already asked for this; tenser still] Um, yes please. Swiss.

SHORTY: BARK BARK BARKBARKBARK! CRYYYYYY...BARK!

EMPLOYEE: Swiss cheese?

ME: [No, asshole, Swiss chard, WTF did I just say? tense-to-very tense] Yes. Swiss cheese.

EMPLOYEE: Turkey, right?

ME: [extremely tense]Yes! Turkey.

SHORTY: BARKBARKBARK! GROWL...BARKBARKBARK!

EMPLOYEE: Um...what kind of bagel?

ME: [staring at him for a moment, convinced that he is purposely being a dumbass; about to explode]Everything. [pause] an everything bagel.

EMPLOYEE: [after pausing to consider my order, and slowly ringing it up] That'll be....um......$9.25.

[I hand over a 20 dollar bill, Shorty still wailing like a banshee]

EMPLOYEE: um.....do you have anything smaller? 'cause, um.......

ME: [NO I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING SMALLER! JUST TAKE MY GODDAMN MONEY AND MAKE MY GODAMN SANDWICH SO I CAN GET OUT OF HERE!] Hmm? Oh. No. Sorry.

[I paid and proceeded to wait fifteen minutes for my sandwich. I was the only person at the counter the whole time. Shorty continued to bark even after I untied his leash and started walking him down the sidewalk.]

Food and drink in hand, I made for the beginning of the Capital Crescent Trail, crossing a footbridge over the C&O Canal...

The trail began just beyond this apparently unused bridge...

...and had some beautiful scenery:

...an old fireplace from the remains of a house:

this is the C&O Canal about two miles upstream from the photo I took on the footbridge in Georgetown:

Ted Leo and Thievery Corporation, But Who Else Will Be Down On The Mall This Weekend?

2005-09-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

I saw a link to this article by David Corn on Instapundit. It delves into the background of International ANSWER, a vocal left-wing anti-war group. and one of the organizers of tomorrow's anti-war rally on the National Mall here in DC.

Int'l ANSWER is described as being tightly interwoven with the Workers World Party (WWP), which in the past has lauded the North Korean government of Kim Jong Il for resisting the influence of multinational corporations, supported the Soviet Invasion of Hungary in 1956, and argued against the war-crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

ANSWER has a history of drawing less-radical people who oppose the war to its demonstrations by hiding the extent of its hard left buffoonery. These aren't merely stridently liberal, anti-war, NPR-and-Trader Joe's types. These are bring-back-Uncle-Stalin and Mao's Little Red Book types.

UPDATE: Instapundit has linked to another article on ANSWER and their problems with Jews.

Wailing Cassandras

2005-09-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

This is a list of quotes from various presidents and legal directors of NARAL, NOW and other liberal women's organization regarding the nominations of past Supreme Court justices: Powell, Stevens, Kennedy and Souter. It's an interesting read, because all the quotes sound exactly the same -- hysterical predictions of dire consequences for women if any of the justices are confirmed and precisely what we are hearing about the Roberts nomination. Of course, the "back-alley butchery" that one woman predicted would follow Souter's confirmation has not come to pass.

Google Earth Is The Greatest Invention Ever....

2005-09-11T16:49:00.000-07:00

I've wasted countless hours since downloading it -- taking aerial tours of the Grand Canyon, the house I grew up in, my apartment in DC, my apartment from law school, Mecca, the Imperial Gardens in Tokyo, my wife's childhood home, my parents' former house in England, New York City, and Boston. In that order.

Open Discussion Thread

2005-09-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

...on why Sleepless In Seattle totally, completely, utterly sucks ass.

An Email To Andrew Sullivan

2005-09-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

"Andrew,

You write:

[Bush's] nomination of Roberts for Chief Justice seems like a strange gamble for me. Someone who has not yet been on the Court should now be leading it? I know there are precedents, but this strikes me as a way to buy time.

Bush's nomiation of a newcomer like Roberts to be Chief Justice is anything but strange -- of the 16 Chief Justices that have served since 1789, 13 have been selected from outside the Supreme Court -- meaning that 81% of Chief Justices were "someone who [had] not yet been on the Court." (03/2005 Denis Steven Rutkus and Lorraine Tong, The Chief Justice of the United States: Responsibilities of the Office and Process for Appointment, CRS Report for Congress, link here)

You dismiss this fact so blithely that I wonder if you even bothered to check and see how many sitting justices were elevated to Chief before you posted the quoted remark, which qualifies more as a "strange gamble" than the Roberts nomination.

-- Michael Lichtenstein

Cliche-Ridden Washington Post Crap

2005-08-29T04:10:00.000-07:00

This is the worst-written article I've read in a long time. It's crammed full of faux-cheeky journalist's humor. I realized this as soon as I saw the phrase "latte generation" and "whatever."

Peak Oil Fallout

2005-08-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

I only just noticed this article in today's Sunday NYT about the peak oil theory.

And I only just noticed this response.

I'm about to go to bed and shan't write about this for several days. What do you guys think?

Where The Red Fern Grows

2005-08-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

Shorty is hurt.

He has a herniated vertebral disc. He kept waking me up last night, crying and nudging my hand as if he expected me to make it better. This morning, he could barely walk, so I took him to the vet.

Several x-rays (and $400+) later, he's splayed out on a cushion next to me, stoned on cortizone and something else.

Not only did the x-rays turn up a back problem, but the vet also found a piece of lead buckshot lodged in Shorty's abdomen. Apparently it happens to dogs from rural areas, and Shorty was rescued from a shelter in Floyd County, VA.

Poor guy.

Thank You, James Howard Kunstler.

2005-08-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

I could feel a weight lifted off my shoulders as I read this.

John Roberts

2005-07-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a DC Bar symposium on potential nominees to the Supreme Court. The speakers were all court correspondents, and one of them, Tony Mauro (Legal Times and American Lawyer) wrote an even-handed profile of Roberts. Here's the link.

The crux of the profile is that Roberts is a very conservative, very intelligent and very well-liked judge. He had a fabulously successful career as an advocate before the Court -- he won 25 of 39 cases argued -- and has the reputation in some circles as the best oral advocate before the Court in the last decade or so.

I can't claim any familiarity with his record other than what I read this evening. Evidently, the Alliance for Justice morons will claim that he is a worse nominee than Jerry Fallwell because he was the sixth attorney whose name was on the government's brief in Rust v. Sullivan. But what I have read about him, from more sober people of either political persuastion, is that he is unlikely to be the right-wing bomb thrower that NARAL, et al, are claiming.

Also, I happened to meet John Roberts last fall at an alumni event for Holy Cross -- his wife is an alumna (as is mine). On a totally superficial level, I have to say that he was incredibly friendly, approachable and easy-going.

UPDATE: DailyKos is hyperventilating about the length of time it took to nominate Roberts in light of the Rove/Plame story (i.e., this nomination was a frantic, harried attempt to distract from the "yeah, that's what I heard, too" scandal). Good message discipline, Kos.

There's also this nonsequitur of a comment:

So who is this guy Roberts? He has only two years of judicial experience, and his legal advocacy can be dismissed as doing the bidding of his bosses.

Pure, unadulturated hokum. (1) Would Kos object to the lack of judicial experience of Earl Warren, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Abe Fortas or Hugo Black, all of whom had no judicial experience, never mind two years? (2) Doesn't all legal advocacy boil down to doing the bidding of one's bosses, i.e., one's client?

MARRIED!

2005-07-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

Item 1 Of The Plan For The Destruction of American Culture Has Been Completed

2005-06-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

What to do with a centuries-old New England town which saw an historically unique and complex unravelling of the social fabric in the 1690s which undermined the authority of the Puritan government in Massachusetts?

Erect a giant, bronze middle finger in the town center.

The Passion of the Clinton Haters

2005-06-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

The New York Times makes for typically frustrating reading today. Again. I am still astonished at the fall it has made from being the paper of record to being a another smirking locus of smart-ass liberalism. Take Alan Ehrenhalt's review of John Harris' "The Survivor:"

MILLIONS of Americans despise Bill Clinton. They have done so since he became a presence in national politics in the early 1990's, and they continue to do so today, more than four years after his retirement from public office.

Hmmm. Well, "millions" seems like rather a sweeping number. And surely the passions of all but the most devout Clinton-haters have cooled into mere residual Clinton-dislike. But I get the basic point.

The passion of the Clinton haters is a phenomenon without equal in recent American politics.

What? Has Ehrenhalt been living in a cave for the past five years? That is a remarkably sweeping assertion, and one so demonstrably false that it is refuted by a cursory Google-search in just 0.05 seconds. [ed -- well, that could be said about more than a few NYT writers.]

The Poor Man's Radiohead

2005-06-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

At last, the New York Times covers a story simply begging to be blown wide open. This has been a source of tension between my fiancee and me for several years now.

I Passed The Bar

2005-05-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

Puzzling Statement, Weird Art

2005-05-03T19:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what to make of Russian sculptor Constantin Boym's bonded nickel series "Buildings of Disaster," 1998-2003.

Using scale-models, Boym constructed a wide spectrum of disaster buildings -- ranging from (in order of seriousness):

a) The cataclysmic (Chernobyl),

b) The diabolic (the World Trade Center Towers, the Oklahoma City Federal Building),

c) The infamous (the Texas Schoolbook Depository, the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas),

d) The tragic (the Dakota apartment building where John Lennon was shot)

e) The not-really-a-disaster-but-still-a-very-serious-situation (the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant),

f) The politically-disastrous (the Watergate hotel),

g) The not-really-related-to-a-disaster-except-if-you're-making-some-opaque-political-point (the Pentagon),

h) The not-even-a-building-but-still-really-sad (the Alma Tunnel in Paris where Pricess Diana was killed),

i) The not-a-building-and-not-even-remotely-disastrous (the O.J. Simpson car chase).

UPDATE: Sorry, the links all go to the main page. I thought they would lead to each individual sculpture, but they don't. And I'm too lazy to take them out.

Pithy Quotes From Hitchens...

2005-04-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

Just finished Christopher Hitchens "Letters To A Young Contrarian." It has alot of pithy quotes that will no doubt get a lot of exercise at cocktail parties to come. I'm not sure that I learned much beyond that, although I enjoyed the book very much. Some highlights:

1) Laughter can be the most unpleasant sound; it's an essential element in mob conduct and is part of the background noise of taunting and jeering at lynchings and executions. Very often, crowds or audiences will laugh complicitly or slavishly, just to show they "see" the joke and are all together.(p. 116) -- this reminded me of the comments section of Zach's blog.

2) It is told of Freud that when he was trapped in Vienna by the Anschluss, he asked the Nazis for a safe-conduct to leave. They granted this on condition that he signed a statement saying that he had been well-treated. He asked for permission to add an extra sentence and to their delighted surprise wrote: "I can thoroughly recommend the Gestapo to anybody." (p. 117)

3) An unforgetable moment in Doctor Zhivago puts the cynic Komarovsky in the saddle: a salon of bourgeois riffraff falls silent and uneasy as the crod of workers sings the revolutionary anthem underneath the balcony; he punctures the tension by exclaiming, "Perhaps they'll learn to sing in tune after the revolution!"(p.119)

New York Marathon

2005-04-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

So I had my bachelor's party this weekend. I drove up to New York City with my friends Mike, Lee and Jim. There, we met up with my other friend, Zach, who planned a night of fun in Brooklyn.

The itinerary was a mystery. We caught a cab for Greenpoint, then took a walk.

...and ended up at the Brooklyn Brewery.

The best part of the tour was the free beer at the end.

Leaving the brewery, we couldn't find a cab and spent 45 min. taking the subway back to the hotel.

Then, after meeting up with a group of high school, college and law school friends, we headed out to dinner at a Viennese restaurant.

After dinner, we took a quick cab ride to a club in Williamsburg called Northsix :

to see The Fucking Champs:

...the show rocked.

Later, we went to another bar in Williamsburg with pictures of naked ladies on the walls:

...this was followed by a stint at the Royal Oak, also in Brooklyn.

Some random drunk girl messed up our group picture.

We closed out the Royal Oak at 4:00 am and went to a diner in Brooklyn Heights for breakfast.

Finally, at we finished up the party at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade 6:15am. The fog was so bad that you couldn't see Manhattan, but I was so tired that I didn't care.

All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better time!

Springtime With Fat Tourists

2005-04-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

This is the best time of year to live in Washington, D.C.

The sky is spotless.

The air is fragrant with cherry blossoms.

The temperature is warm, but not hot.

The only problem is having to wade through denim shorts-wearing, ice cream-chomping, slow-moving, fat-ass tourists.

Veiled Conceit Guest Blog

2005-03-18T22:26:00.000-08:00

I just guest-blogged on Veiled Conceit. It's the post on the gay couple. Go check it out and let me know what you think.

No Talent Ass-Clown?

2005-03-15T17:24:00.000-08:00

Entertainment Weekly had an interview with Michael Bolton and asked him the question on everyone's mind:

: "You're referred to as a 'no-talent ass-clown' in Office Space. Is there a legitimate defense to this?"

MB: "Well, no, just Grammys and awards given by my peers...I have signed so many Office Space DVDs, and I have it, but I've never seen it. From what I've heard, they should do an Office Space 2, and I should meet Michael Bolton in it."

As to his first statement, the one about the Grammys and awards, was no doubt meant to show that Michael Bolton is an established and respected recording artist, thank you very much. But as far as I'm concerned, they tend to prove his being an ass-clown.

Otherwise, props are due to Mr. Bolton for displaying a general good humor about the drubbing he receives in Office Space. But who owns it on DVD yet has never seen it?

I Had No Idea

2005-03-14T15:26:00.000-08:00

how great wedding-related events are. Erin had her bridal shower over the weekend and we have great new stuff. Here's my kitchen, now outfitted with said great new stuff:

I can already here the comments about "consumer goodies." Guilty as charged. But I can slice an apple in one swift motion...

And Now For Sober, Serious Legal Scholarship

2005-03-09T13:39:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of my friend Lew, who says, "consider yourself warned."

I Hope The Legacy Highway Guys Don't Read This

2005-03-09T10:20:00.000-08:00

What's the new angle that Northern Virginia opponents to smart-growth regulation are pushing? "Snob Zoning." Because Northern Virginia doesn't have enough roads, strip malls and traffic.

I Knew There Was Something Wrong WIth People Who Played Dungeons and Dragons...

2005-03-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

Great article. The Israeli angle only makes it funnier, somehow.

Before The Office

2005-03-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

Courtesy Andrew Sullivan. It took me a while to really believe that these are photos of the same person. Come to think of it, I think Ricky Gervais ought to play Andrew Sullivan in any movie based on his life story.

Slow News Day and Because There Hasn't Been A Shorty Post Yet

2005-03-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

I hate to be one of those people, but it will happen to you, too, one day...

Miserable Day

2005-03-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Yuck! I had an interview today and had to walk through this crap* in a suit and tie, dutifully toting my resume/transcript/interview binder and wrestling with my umbrella (which I am now convinced is sentient and hates me, given how ferociously it was fighting with me the whole walk there).

Now, for the lighter side of unemployment. A few practice problems for my test tomorrow, and then an afternoon on the couch with Shorty and an old friend of mine:

*UPDATE: That auto-City-cam was embarrassing, with its stupid, beautiful, sunny vista (looking away from DC, oddly enough). Anyway, I've replaced it with a figurative representation of the walk to my interview.

How Is This Man In A Position To Teach Anything?

2005-03-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

This interview between Bill Maher and Ward Churchill left me more depressed than angry.

It of course comes as no suprise that Maher is a complete moron, a third-tier comedian who thinks his views have some kind of currency in the public debate. I am bewhildered that he his own television show -- it would make more sense to have Drew Carey discussing economic policy (except that Drew Carey might be more informed on that subject that Maher is on anything). If Bill Maher were someone I met at a party, I would dismiss him as a poorly read, awkwardly grasping fool aping the most recent Daily Kos posting.

But that's television, and I don't expect much from the people who throw this stuff together. For every "Chapelle's Show", there are 10 vanilla reality-forensic-makeover-investigation sit coms.

What really shocked me was Ward Churchill. I read dozens of articles and blog posts about his 9/11 comments, and as outrageous as they are, by now they are not a suprise. But utterly unexpected was how incredibly stupid, inarticulate and, well, uninformed he is. He sounded like a wino at the bus station:

Here are some pearls of wisdom courtesy of Ward:

-- the U.S. had it coming because of slavery.

-- the U.S. had it coming because of what happened to the American Indians.

-- the people in the World Trade Center were like Adolph Eichmann, because, like Eichmann, they were bureaucrats.

-- Adolph Eichmann was not a high-ranking Nazi, he was just a bureaucrat "who put together train schedules."

Nobody reading this site really needs me to clarify or correct these claims, because I think you know better already. The perpetrators of 9/11 weren't rebellious slaves or American Indians, nor were the victims slave owners or slave traders or cowboys. Adolph Eichmann was, in fact, an extremely high-ranking Nazi who did a great deal more than compose train schedules:

Adolf Eichmann (March 19, 1906 — June 1, 1962) was a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany, and served as an Obersturmbannführer in the S.S.. He was largely responsible for the logistics of the extermination of millions of people during the Holocaust, in particular Jews, which was called the "final solution" (Endlösung). He organized the identification and transportation of people to the various concentration camps. Therefore, he is often referred to as the 'Chief Executioner' of the Third Reich.

At the start of the Second World War, Eichmann had been promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer and had made a name for himself with his Office for Jewish Emigration. Eichmann had even been sponsored, by the SS Race and Settlement Office, to take a trip to Palestine and study aspects of the Jewish Homeland. Ironically, through this work, Eichmann made several contacts in the Zionist movement which he worked with to speed up Jewish Emigration from the Reich.

Eichmann's office was expanded in late 1939 to cover the entirety of the German Reich and Eichmann was transferred from the SD to the Gestapo in 1940. He was promoted to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer in late 1940 and, less than a year later, Eichmann had been promoted to Obersturmbannführer. He was assigned as the commander of the Jewish Division of the Gestapo Religions Department in the Reich Central Security Office (RSHA) with the code for Eichmann's position listed as "IV-B4".

In 1942, Eichmann was personally invited by Reinhard Heydrich to attend the Wannsee Conference where Germany's anti-Jewish measures were set down into an official policy of genocide. To this "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" Eichmann was tasked as "Transportation Administrator" which put Eichmann in charge of all the trains which would carry Jews to the Death Camps of Poland. For the next two years, Eichmann performed his duties with incredible zeal, often times bragging that he had personally sent over five million Jews to their deaths by way of his trains.

Eichmann's work had been noticed and, in 1944, he was sent to Hungary after Germany had occupied that country in fear of a Soviet invasion. Eichmann at once went to work deporting Jews and was able to send four hundred thousand Hungarians to their deaths in the Nazi gas chambers.

(from Wikepedia)

Sound like any bond traders you know? Sound like some middle manager in his shirt-sleeves writing up TPS reports, or whatever middle-managers do? Of course not. I doubt Churchill even gave the assertion much thought. Why bother, when all you need do on a crapfest like Bill Maher's show is blindly assert: "[insert infamous historical monster here] wasn't a big deal, he was just like [insert college-educated job holder's title here].

But how depressing that a university professor (with tenure, no less) can go on television and state as fact something that took me 10 seconds to look up online and disprove. How Ward Churchill came to teach anything to anybody is a mystery. Pathetic.

Next week's post: Michael vents about the assholes in the Bill Maher audience who actually cheered.

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis has a roundup of (mostly right-of-center) reaction to the Churchill appearance on Politically Incorrect. It serves to reinforce just how awful this show was on every conceivable level. There's also a Ward Churchill blog, if anyone's interested.

"Maybe A Missionary, With No Religious Agenda"

2005-03-05T14:53:00.000-08:00

This is a really funny interview with Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse.

The Heteronormative Monster Rears Its Ugly Head

2005-03-02T15:16:00.000-08:00

VERSUS

This is from a great Harvard Crimson article that must be read to be believed :

After some students were offended by Jada Pinkett Smith’s comments at Saturday’s Cultural Rhythms show, the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) and the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations have begun working together to increase sensitivity toward issues of sexuality at Harvard.

Students said that some of Pinkett Smith’s remarks concerning appropriate gender roles were specific to heterosexual relationships.

Pinkett Smith was honored as the Foundation’s “Artist of the Year” at its 20th annual Cultural Rhythms show, which she also hosted.

BGLTSA Co-Chair Jordan B. Woods ’06 said that, while many BGLTSA members thought Pinkett Smith’s speech was “motivational,” some were insulted because they thought she narrowly defined the roles of men and women in relationships.

“Some of the content was extremely heteronormative, and made BGLTSA members feel uncomfortable,” he said.

Black Cloud Haiku

2005-02-28T22:27:00.000-08:00

To hell with it all.
No job, no prospect of one.
Temp firm will not call.

Resume, letter.
Experience doesn't count.
No law review past.

Letter, calls won't work.
Contacts aren't sufficient.
Pencils now for sale.

Highway Madness

2005-02-26T09:44:00.000-08:00

I know that the few people reading this blog are already aware of the execrable "Legacy Highway Hotsheet." If not, then please check it out. The state of Utah is contemplating/attempting to spend billions of dollars on a highway connecting two growing suburbs of Salt Lake City, and it has become very controversial. The local planners (I use that term liberally because it is difficult to discern that any planning went into the development of the area involved) of Davis County, Utah who advocate the road have started a blog to build support for it. It's an interesting read not only for people who like to read and talk about urban planning issues.

I think the most interesting thing about the Legacy Parkway Hotsheet is the way this blog is used as a tool of political communication. Sure, there are lots of political blogs, from the chattering-commentator set to campaign blogs to ordinary people who want to spout off into the ether. This site is different because you have town officials creating a blog, making arguments in support of their road (usually unconvincing aphorisms about growth), and yet utterly shooting themselves in the foot by their inability to confront their critics in the comments section. They have yet to respond to their detractors in any concrete, issue-oriented way, beyond limp accusations of leftward political orientation, unemployment and mental illness. I've enjoyed hours of entertainment seeing these people revealed as the unorginal, uninsprired, and until now unchalleneged, weak minds and intellects who would waste billions of our tax dollars to achieve visions like these:

The Next Generation in Lame Op-Ed Cliches

2005-02-21T13:34:00.000-08:00

Andrew Sullivan's recent column in the Times is a pretty clear indication of the direction in which writers and commenters will be heading with their cliches.

Bar Blogging Update

2005-02-19T19:56:00.001-08:00

This is what's happening upstairs right now:

I mean, judging from the amount of noise that I hear, I'm pretty sure.

Bar Blogging

2005-02-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Not that kind of bar. I'm sitting at a desk drumming all nature of legal rules and pnemonic devices into my head. Here are some of my favorite:

MAD FIFI (Commercial Paper -- Real Defenses to a Holder In Due Course): Material Alteration, Duress, Fraud In the Factum, Infancy, Insolvency, Illegality and Incapacity.

MIMIC (Evidence -- Permissible Uses of Character Evidence): Motive, Intent, Mistake (absence of), Identity, Common Plan or Scheme.

WOSSUP (Commercial Paper -- List of Required Elements That Make A Negotiable Instrument): Writing, Order or Bearer, Signed by Maker or Drawer, Sum Certain, Unconditional Promise or Order, Payable on Demand, Payable in Currency.

This sucks.

Oh Wonkette...

2005-02-19T08:44:00.000-08:00

Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee member and Seymour Hersh target Richard Perle thought, for some reason, that it was a good idea to debate Howard Dean in Portland, Oregon. Why didn't he just meet Dean at the Young Lesbian Communists Summit with a big target painted on his ass?

Really? At 9:30 In the Morning?

2005-02-18T07:40:00.000-08:00

ACT ONE, SCENE ONE:

The scene is an alley outside of Michael's bedroom window. It is 9:00 on a brisk Saturday morning.

Facing the alley, across from Michael's apartment, are the back porches and decks of five rowhouses.

The scene opens with rowhouse-dwelling, hippie neighbor/douchebag surrounded by a motley collection of wooden stumps and not-quite-tree-sized-logs, slicing and dicing them with a gas-powered chain-saw.

CHAINSAW: BZZZZZZ!BBBBRRRRRRRRZZZZZ! BBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!

(A half-hour later, at 9:30, Michael comes to his bedroom window. He has been lying in bed listening to someone using a chainsaw 20 feet away for the last 30 minutes. Now, he stares out at his neighbor in amazement before opening the window.)

MICHAEL: EXCUSE ME.

(Hippie neighbor/douchebag does not hear Michael over the noise from the chainsaw)

MICHAEL: UM, EXCUSE ME?

(Hippie/douchebag still does not hear Michael. This goes on for 3-4 minutes.)

MICHAEL: EEEXXXXCCUUUSSSEE MMMMEEE!!!

Hippie/douchebag neighbor's wife is out on their back porch and sees Michael yelling in his window, like a crazy person, in his underwear. She tells hippie/douchebag neighbor to cut the engine on the chainsaw.

MICHAEL: IT'S 9:30 IN THE MORNING, DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HOLD OFF ON THE CHAINSAWING?

NEIGHBOR: (irritatedly, despite wife's sincere apology) IT'S NINE-THIRTY.

MICHAEL: YEAH. I KNOW. IT'S 9:30 IN THE MORNING ON A SATURDAY. SOME OF US ARE SLEEPING IN. DO YOU REALLY NEED TO DO THAT RIGHT NOW?

NEIGHBOR: WELL HOW LATE WERE YOU PLANNING ON SLEEPING IN?

MICHAEL: COULD YOU JUST NOT RUN YOUR CHAINSAW OUTSIDE MY WINDOW THIS EARLY IN THE MORNING ON A WEEKEND?

NEIGHBOR: sighs/exhales annoyedly

MICHAEL:(closes his window, not quite believing the exchange he just had) WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE.

ERIN: WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE.

SCENE

Are my hours so abnormal? Is it such a dyonysian extravagance to sleep in until 9:30 or so on a Saturday morning? Is it?

Another Pitchfork Moment:

2005-02-18T07:25:00.000-08:00

I'm embarrassed to say I approached this Pitchfork article by William Bowers with some interest. That's not a photo of William above, but it's how I imagine he looks. I thought the piece was going to be a column, or an article, or whatever, on being a consumer of music at a time when choices of music, medium, genre, are overwhelmingly diverse. But, naturally (this being Pitchfork), it descended into hipster babble"

what does it mean to "consume" music? That you merely buy it? That you download it? That you burn it, label it, and shelve it according to your personal Brian-Eno-centric decimal system? No, you say, because you are not just some acquisitive tool, or blind collector; you are a "fan," an appreciateur, an officionado, a participant in a grander cultural discussion. To truly "consume" music, you say, would require some scholarship, some sacrifice, some slow digestion. To recognize the flowerpot-wearing band in a poster on the wall of a "nerd" during a Simpsons episode, or to have "Whip It" in rotation on your "Crazy Eighties" playlist is not to consume Devo, you say. To consume Devo is to know their ideological and geographical origins, to be intimate with their failures, to study their DVDs, to know that the Strokes and many others are citing them as an influence on future records, to debate about Devo and win, to weep when Wilco plays "Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy" in New York at the beginning of 2005, to type post-Freudian analyses of Booji Boy for an imaginary journal, to feel ambiguous about Mothersbaugh's soundtrack work, to debate about Devo and lose, to spend precious hours searching for that Neil Young movie they were in, to design a cluster graph that attempts to sort out the significance of their run-ins with Bowie and Dylan as well as their reconfigurations of the Carter Family and the Rolling Stones, and most importantly, to explain to idiots that they weren't wearing flowerpots-- "Obviously, those are energy domes based on Mayan ziggurats, asshole!"

Behind Closed Doors In Washington

2004-09-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

Darling Picky says:
http://brain-terminal.com/video/frank-chu/windowsmedia-hq.php

Witty Screen Name says:

this guy I just feel bad for

Witty Screen Name says:

obviously crazy out of his mind

Darling Picky says:

behind closed doors

Witty Screen Name says:

the people screaming in the background need to shut up or be shot

Witty Screen Name says:

"humanoid spacifications"

Witty Screen Name says:

"behind closed doors in Washington"

Witty Screen Name says:

that's going to be the title of my autobiography

Witty Screen Name says:

maybe I'll create a blog with that name

Darling Picky says:

is that the main title or the subtitle

Witty Screen Name says:

main title

Darling Picky says:

you have to have a subtitle these days, though

Witty Screen Name says:

"Behind Closed Doors in Washington: How I Learned To Love The Spacifications"

Darling Picky says:

"Or, how i learned to stop worrying and love the spacifications"

Witty Screen Name says:

that's what I meant

Witty Screen Name says:

thanks

Darling Picky says:

http://poststuff.entensity.net/091604/media.php?media=lotion.wmv

Witty Screen Name says:

http://www.closeddoorsdc.blogspot.com/

Darling Picky says:

it's almost too easy to create new blogs

Darling Picky says:

what's the intended content?

Witty Screen Name says:

no idea

Darling Picky says:

seriously

Darling Picky says:

me neither

Witty Screen Name says:

something funny

Darling Picky says:

maybe the blog can be totally fictional drudge-style news flashes of prominent DC figures?

Witty Screen Name says:

i would have to make up the people so as not to get in trouble if anyone ever saw it

Darling Picky says:

"Karl Rove Found With Thai Hooker Wrapped in Rug in Trunk"?

Darling Picky says:

just an idea

Witty Screen Name says:

"Donna Brazile's Penis Falls Off Before Horrified Crowd At Union Station"?

Darling Picky says:

nice

Darling Picky says:

like a fake wonkette

Witty Screen Name says:

yeah -- but that neatly fits the definition of "with malice"

Darling Picky says:

true