Friday, October 26, 2007
Shlag is Automatic!
I took my parents and my boyfriend to Peter Luger for my parents' thirtieth wedding anniversary, and it was one of the greatest meals I've ever had in my life. I was fully prepared going in that it would be astronomically expensive and the service would be gruff and Teutonic, but on both counts I was pleasantly surprised--even if my father can rack up a sixty dollar bar tab in about an hour. If you order Porterhouse for Three for four people, it's about $130 and you walk out with a third of the meat uneaten. I had one drink, because I was offering to drive my parents back to Long Island (which they declined, but I'm still glad I didn't get drunk, since it would have been an extra forty bucks and I might not remember the event as perfectly).
Essentially, we didn't deviate from the script. For appetizers, we had the tomato-and-onion and a side of bacon. I've never in my life eaten tomato in pieces, with nothing on it. I'm a finicky priss. This time, I was slicing it up like a filet. With the house sauce on it it was incredibly meaty and rich. Same for the Vidalia onion. However, it was the bacon that really blew me away. It was the thickest, fattiest, most perfectly salted and crispy slice of bacon I've ever had. It looked like a hot dog autopsy. As good as the meat was--and I'm a bit chagrined to admit it--it was the bacon that was truly a mind fuck.
But the meat--they give you two enormous medium-cooked t-bone cuts with the pieces of meat half cut off into a sort of niblet, with the plate elevated at one end so that all the bloodied butter pools together. I ate until my breathing became labored with the pressure of meat on my lungs, and even then, as the waiter was about to bag our remnants begged someone to eat the final piece he extricated from the anonymous chunks left over. His plea was so earnest that I couldn't say no, and he was right. And the spinach and German potatoes were fantastic. The portions were tiny compared to the porterhouse; it seems they restrict the mandate for gluttony to meat.
As far as service goes, I was expecting something along the lines of the Muppet Movie when the dude with a hairnet throws plates of frog-legs as Telly Savalas and his myth. Instead, it was courteous with the ideal amount of pleasant chit-chat, i.e. "Is this your first time here, or are you regulars?" It was somewhat collective, with a panoply of middle-aged Germans working together around the dining room. They can carry twice the number of plates that I can. When they bring you your meat, they serve it in a hybrid-French service manner. Everything was prompt and no-nonsense. My father kept marveling at the decor, which is basically a zero. The tables are ancient oak, without any finish or tablecloths; there are rows of dusty steins lining the ledges and the bar, which lacks a footrest of any kind (believe me, it's quite distracting) might have been assembled in 1887. The lighting is overpowering and entirely overhead.
But after 120 years, it's done gone and branded itself. Marketing their own sauce might have been the watershed moment, but at least you can't buy a t-shirt. The self-commemoration is muted, limited basically to an insider's appreciation. If there were anything the least bit flamboyant, the entire operation would fall into the kitsch column. In spite of a casual dress code, it manages to avoid a kind of old-school tackiness by maintaining its singularly fantastic food (or at least, that's my guess, having only been there this one time). It's only replicated itself once, although who knows if they'll dismantle the building to make way for more Williamsburg condos and re-assemble it in Vegas.
Frank Bruni of the Times wrote a bullshit review a month ago. He does touch on the lighting issue, and I agree that the shrimp cocktail was lackluster, but most of his complaints are frivolous. Wah! The waiter threw gold coins at me! He sighed impatiently when my idiot friend inquired about the goddamn fish! I don't want to leave Manhattan to eat dinner!
Whatever, dude. My only real complaint is that there wasn't a wide range of choices of wine by the glass. (And they're not cheap--if they do that lunch burger deal for like ten bucks they can track down a suitable red wine to pair with their beef). For dessert, we ordered cheesecake and chocolate mousse cake. (They were out of German-American Bund-t cake). As the server left, I called after him about shlag. "Oh, yes. Shlag is automatic!" he said, walking away. I thought that was hilarious. The standardization of the meals really betrayed the underlying efficiency. Shlag is ubiquitous! Shlag is omniscient! And it was really good.
Bottom line: it's probably the best steak in the universe. No matter what the NY Times may shrewishly bitch, with its signature anti-style, Peter Luger is probably the best novelty restaurant there is.
Essentially, we didn't deviate from the script. For appetizers, we had the tomato-and-onion and a side of bacon. I've never in my life eaten tomato in pieces, with nothing on it. I'm a finicky priss. This time, I was slicing it up like a filet. With the house sauce on it it was incredibly meaty and rich. Same for the Vidalia onion. However, it was the bacon that really blew me away. It was the thickest, fattiest, most perfectly salted and crispy slice of bacon I've ever had. It looked like a hot dog autopsy. As good as the meat was--and I'm a bit chagrined to admit it--it was the bacon that was truly a mind fuck.
But the meat--they give you two enormous medium-cooked t-bone cuts with the pieces of meat half cut off into a sort of niblet, with the plate elevated at one end so that all the bloodied butter pools together. I ate until my breathing became labored with the pressure of meat on my lungs, and even then, as the waiter was about to bag our remnants begged someone to eat the final piece he extricated from the anonymous chunks left over. His plea was so earnest that I couldn't say no, and he was right. And the spinach and German potatoes were fantastic. The portions were tiny compared to the porterhouse; it seems they restrict the mandate for gluttony to meat.
As far as service goes, I was expecting something along the lines of the Muppet Movie when the dude with a hairnet throws plates of frog-legs as Telly Savalas and his myth. Instead, it was courteous with the ideal amount of pleasant chit-chat, i.e. "Is this your first time here, or are you regulars?" It was somewhat collective, with a panoply of middle-aged Germans working together around the dining room. They can carry twice the number of plates that I can. When they bring you your meat, they serve it in a hybrid-French service manner. Everything was prompt and no-nonsense. My father kept marveling at the decor, which is basically a zero. The tables are ancient oak, without any finish or tablecloths; there are rows of dusty steins lining the ledges and the bar, which lacks a footrest of any kind (believe me, it's quite distracting) might have been assembled in 1887. The lighting is overpowering and entirely overhead.
But after 120 years, it's done gone and branded itself. Marketing their own sauce might have been the watershed moment, but at least you can't buy a t-shirt. The self-commemoration is muted, limited basically to an insider's appreciation. If there were anything the least bit flamboyant, the entire operation would fall into the kitsch column. In spite of a casual dress code, it manages to avoid a kind of old-school tackiness by maintaining its singularly fantastic food (or at least, that's my guess, having only been there this one time). It's only replicated itself once, although who knows if they'll dismantle the building to make way for more Williamsburg condos and re-assemble it in Vegas.
Frank Bruni of the Times wrote a bullshit review a month ago. He does touch on the lighting issue, and I agree that the shrimp cocktail was lackluster, but most of his complaints are frivolous. Wah! The waiter threw gold coins at me! He sighed impatiently when my idiot friend inquired about the goddamn fish! I don't want to leave Manhattan to eat dinner!
Whatever, dude. My only real complaint is that there wasn't a wide range of choices of wine by the glass. (And they're not cheap--if they do that lunch burger deal for like ten bucks they can track down a suitable red wine to pair with their beef). For dessert, we ordered cheesecake and chocolate mousse cake. (They were out of German-American Bund-t cake). As the server left, I called after him about shlag. "Oh, yes. Shlag is automatic!" he said, walking away. I thought that was hilarious. The standardization of the meals really betrayed the underlying efficiency. Shlag is ubiquitous! Shlag is omniscient! And it was really good.
Bottom line: it's probably the best steak in the universe. No matter what the NY Times may shrewishly bitch, with its signature anti-style, Peter Luger is probably the best novelty restaurant there is.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Sometimes the New York Times is So Conservative I Have to Shit in My Pants
Here is an article in its entirety.
Liberal Base Proves Trying to Democrats
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: October 12, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 — Of the three most recognizable Barneys in America, one is a singing purple dinosaur, another is a prehistoric cartoon character and the third is a gay congressman from Massachusetts.
Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, is as closely tied to the issue of gay rights as Barney Rubble is to Fred Flintstone. But recently, Mr. Frank has been under siege by gay rights groups.
They are angry because Mr. Frank has removed specific language about “gender identity” from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill that would protect gay men and lesbians in the workplace and that gay rights advocates say would now leave transsexuals and transgender individuals vulnerable.
There is almost no chance that President Bush would ever sign the bill. But the bitter tug of war between gay groups and one of their best friends on Capitol Hill is the latest example of how Democrats in Congress, since regaining majority control this year, have been torn between making compromises needed to pass legislation and satisfying the unrelenting demands of the party’s liberal base.
Mr. Frank, in an hourlong news conference on Thursday, defended himself and said he would press ahead with the bill knowing that by not including the transgender language he could attract enough votes to get it approved. But he also expressed frustration that the Democrats were hampering themselves.
“There is a tendency in American politics for the people who feel most passionately about an issue, particularly ones that focus on a single issue, to be unrealistic in what a democratic political system can deliver,” Mr. Frank said, “and that can be self-defeating.”
“This is a moment of truth for responsible liberals in the Democratic Party,” he added.
The tension between Democratic lawmakers and their base has been most visible on the Iraq war, where the insistence by some of the most outspoken antiwar groups on setting hard deadlines for the withdrawal of American troops has often handcuffed Senate Democrats trying to reach a bipartisan deal on legislation to change the war strategy.
To the delight of Republicans, it has also played a role in a host of other issues, including a fight over increased fuel economy standards in the energy bill, and demands for more spending on environmental programs in the farm bill.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi disappointed Democrats seeking major changes to the federal farm subsidy program — changes that Ms. Pelosi had supported in the past. Instead she adopted a more moderate approach that made some changes but left most of the subsidies intact and that she called “a good first step.”
On the energy bill, the Democrats struggled to navigate the demands of two powerful factions in their base: organized labor groups tied to the auto industry and environmental groups. Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, thwarted Ms. Pelosi’s efforts to increase fuel efficiency standards.
The liberal group MoveOn.org started a campaign that included radio advertising branding Mr. Dingell, who is 81, “Dingellsaurus” for opposing the energy standards that the group said would combat global warming.
Representative Adam H. Putnam of Florida, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said Democrats were struggling with tensions between the party’s liberal wing, which provided money and support for the 2006 elections, and the views of many freshmen Democrats who won office in moderate or conservative districts.
“The freshmen who actually won seats in districts that had voted for Bush, in conservative-moderate districts, having nothing in common with Code Pink or MoveOn,” Mr. Putnam said, referring to the antiwar groups.
“The base turns on them in every single case,” he added. “So at some point they have to stop falling into the trap of constantly playing to the base and try to solve problems.”
Democrats point to a series of legislative achievements this year, including an increase in the minimum wage, new lobbying and ethics rules, and an overhaul of student-aid programs, and a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, Brendan Daly, said she was providing responsible leadership.
“One of the things she says is that an activist — that’s their role to be persistent and unsatisfied and try to push the envelope,” Mr. Daly said. “But when you are in a position of leading, in Congress, you have to be realistic at some point.”
Sometimes, though, the in-fighting can seem unreal, as with the recent fury directed by gay groups at Mr. Frank.
“Barney Frank is not gay enough?” asked Representative Thaddeus McCotter, Republican of Michigan, one of the most conservative members of the House .
Even Mr. Frank acknowledged the weirdness. “The likelihood that somebody is going to run against me in my district on the grounds that I have been insufficiently pro-gay is not very high on my list of concerns,” he said.
He has put gender identity protections in a separate bill that is not expected to be acted upon this year.
But many gay rights groups said they were truly angry and bewildered, especially because the compromise involves a bill unlikely to be signed by Mr. Bush. A coalition of some 280 groups sent Mr. Frank a letter urging him to include gender identity in the bill to be voted on soon. “What we are talking about is stripping out a part of our community for a symbolic vote, which in our opinion does not advance the struggle for civil rights for our people,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
“If the goal here is for the new majority to demonstrate that it is responding to a core constituency,” Mr. Foreman said, “passing a non-inclusive bill is not going to accomplish that.”
Some Republicans in the House have said they wished Mr. Frank had included the language on transgender and transsexual people because it would have made it easier for them to vote against the bill.
Mr. Frank, at his news conference, said that including gender identity would kill the bill while approving a compromise measure would be a momentous step. “It is an important sign to the rest of the country that we are making progress,” he said.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “an announcement that this new Democratic Congress led by a woman who has been as committed to full rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in every aspect of her career, that she had to kill a gay rights bill and couldn’t do anything at all would, I think, be the most negative message we could send.”
First, Barney Frank's bill. While admitting, right at the outset, that "there is almost no chance that President Bush would ever sign the bill," David Herszenhorn goes on for paragraph after paragraph torpedoing the alleged stupidity of the Democrats' 'liberal base.' Even though the bill itself, irrespective of the language or provisions it contains, is so wacky and far to the left--imagine, protection for gay people enshrined in the law of the land--that our arch-conservative president would, without a doubt, veto it, the writer goes out of his way to browbeat the stupid, angry activists who don't understand how Congress works. Imagine, the very audacity of pushing for unpopular civil rights legislation! Those stupid hippies, this isn't the United States of Dolores Park! Trannies are way, way too fucked up to be included in 'realistic' legislation. They're like, boys who wish they were girls! This is Congress we're talking about. They only deal with serious things.
I actually agree, tentatively, with the substance of Frank's objections. It seems hypocritical, if not dangerous, to live and work in New York, under city and state employment protections, and hold Mississippi homos hostage to a provision that would certainly damn the legislation. And you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But if Bush is going to veto the bill anyway, no matter what, it seems incumbent to pursue inclusive language. To do otherwise is tantamount to saying "America might be ready for lesbians in the workplace, but FTMs? No way." You don't compromise on purely symbolic votes. That's why symbols mean things. They're supposed to be bold and unambiguous.
However, it's the tone and form of this Times article that I find so horrendous. It originates from a loathsome, insider perspective that considers all citizen activism to be a gnat-like distraction from the business of the adults who live and work among all the pretty white pillars. It reminds me of the scene from "The Pelican Brief" where outside the court are protesters holding signs saying "Overturn Roe v. Wade" and "Ban the Bomb!" as if people who believed those things would be standing side-by-side ranting at The Government. The attitude that vocal critics who aren't columnists or lawmakers are all just one big amalgamated mass of irrational blowhards is totally baseless and condescending, more so because irrational blowhards are basically the only kind of people on TV and in government.
But wait, there's more. Who is this article really attacking? Homophobic Republican congressmen? No! The Democratic party's "unrelenting demands" of the party's liberal base are to blame. Who cares if Nancy Pelosi is a catastrophic disappointment and Harry Reid's goal of appearing strong to voters will remain rather elusive with his strategy of capitulating to Bush on every minor detail? Fuck those hippies, especially when they're gay hippies! Those chaotic, well-organized, mellow, touchy, type-A free spirits must be kept as far as possible from power.
Even more stupefyingly, the article quotes a Michigan Republican's thinly veiled sarcasm: "Barney Frank isn't gay enough?" This is incredibly revealing. It's the single most frustrating tactic in existence. Rather than call McCotter out on his bullshit, they're using his words to make the point that gay people should be satisfied they got one of their own in the door and whenever there's a disagreement, the responsible and serious adult is always right and the salivating hordes are always wrong. It doesn't matter if Barney Frank is kowtowing to a reality that doesn't actually exist, except in the talking points of That McCotter and his comrades. How gay do you gays want it? Too gay, Congress has concluded. Transgender people are, like, gayer than gay. Not going to happen. Some Republicans in the House have said they wished Mr. Frank had included the language on transgender and transsexual people because it would have made it easier for them to vote against the bill. You can almost taste the contempt. Activists are so stupid that they're playing right into the GOP's hands...by doing something the GOP never would.
The best course, naturally, is to govern to the right of George Bush. It's a surefire way to convince Americans that Democrats are serious and to repeat the stunning electoral coups they had 2002 and 2004. You know, after last year's stunning rout for the grassroots. Not that political reporters seem to care much about the governance of the nation. They just want to maintain their Versailles and will do anything to keep the hoi polloi out of it. Far more important than the passage of legislation is the need for the media-government alliance to crush the activists. The New York Times, a supposed paragon of liberalism, will even join rhetorical forces with a conservative Republican if necessary to make this point. It's the paramount concern of all parties.
The second most important thing is to parrot the innermost desires of GOP re-election strategists as gospel truth. The far left [sic] wants to cram its agenda down America's throat, every Democrat who won in 2006 is actually a conservative from Lubbock, the electoral map will be infrared in 2008, blah blah blah. That way, no matter how far to the right conservatives lurch, liberals have to leap towards them or else get hammered for being obstreporous and 'far left.' Compromise has to be the operative word in everything they do, since the purpose of National Review is to make Republicans principled and audacious (to put it kindly), the apparent reason for the Times's little quasi-editorials is to demand that the Democrats be quivering jellyfish, even on symbolic votes pertaining to social justice. Way to go, liberal media.
Liberal Base Proves Trying to Democrats
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: October 12, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 — Of the three most recognizable Barneys in America, one is a singing purple dinosaur, another is a prehistoric cartoon character and the third is a gay congressman from Massachusetts.
Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, is as closely tied to the issue of gay rights as Barney Rubble is to Fred Flintstone. But recently, Mr. Frank has been under siege by gay rights groups.
They are angry because Mr. Frank has removed specific language about “gender identity” from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill that would protect gay men and lesbians in the workplace and that gay rights advocates say would now leave transsexuals and transgender individuals vulnerable.
There is almost no chance that President Bush would ever sign the bill. But the bitter tug of war between gay groups and one of their best friends on Capitol Hill is the latest example of how Democrats in Congress, since regaining majority control this year, have been torn between making compromises needed to pass legislation and satisfying the unrelenting demands of the party’s liberal base.
Mr. Frank, in an hourlong news conference on Thursday, defended himself and said he would press ahead with the bill knowing that by not including the transgender language he could attract enough votes to get it approved. But he also expressed frustration that the Democrats were hampering themselves.
“There is a tendency in American politics for the people who feel most passionately about an issue, particularly ones that focus on a single issue, to be unrealistic in what a democratic political system can deliver,” Mr. Frank said, “and that can be self-defeating.”
“This is a moment of truth for responsible liberals in the Democratic Party,” he added.
The tension between Democratic lawmakers and their base has been most visible on the Iraq war, where the insistence by some of the most outspoken antiwar groups on setting hard deadlines for the withdrawal of American troops has often handcuffed Senate Democrats trying to reach a bipartisan deal on legislation to change the war strategy.
To the delight of Republicans, it has also played a role in a host of other issues, including a fight over increased fuel economy standards in the energy bill, and demands for more spending on environmental programs in the farm bill.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi disappointed Democrats seeking major changes to the federal farm subsidy program — changes that Ms. Pelosi had supported in the past. Instead she adopted a more moderate approach that made some changes but left most of the subsidies intact and that she called “a good first step.”
On the energy bill, the Democrats struggled to navigate the demands of two powerful factions in their base: organized labor groups tied to the auto industry and environmental groups. Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, thwarted Ms. Pelosi’s efforts to increase fuel efficiency standards.
The liberal group MoveOn.org started a campaign that included radio advertising branding Mr. Dingell, who is 81, “Dingellsaurus” for opposing the energy standards that the group said would combat global warming.
Representative Adam H. Putnam of Florida, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said Democrats were struggling with tensions between the party’s liberal wing, which provided money and support for the 2006 elections, and the views of many freshmen Democrats who won office in moderate or conservative districts.
“The freshmen who actually won seats in districts that had voted for Bush, in conservative-moderate districts, having nothing in common with Code Pink or MoveOn,” Mr. Putnam said, referring to the antiwar groups.
“The base turns on them in every single case,” he added. “So at some point they have to stop falling into the trap of constantly playing to the base and try to solve problems.”
Democrats point to a series of legislative achievements this year, including an increase in the minimum wage, new lobbying and ethics rules, and an overhaul of student-aid programs, and a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, Brendan Daly, said she was providing responsible leadership.
“One of the things she says is that an activist — that’s their role to be persistent and unsatisfied and try to push the envelope,” Mr. Daly said. “But when you are in a position of leading, in Congress, you have to be realistic at some point.”
Sometimes, though, the in-fighting can seem unreal, as with the recent fury directed by gay groups at Mr. Frank.
“Barney Frank is not gay enough?” asked Representative Thaddeus McCotter, Republican of Michigan, one of the most conservative members of the House .
Even Mr. Frank acknowledged the weirdness. “The likelihood that somebody is going to run against me in my district on the grounds that I have been insufficiently pro-gay is not very high on my list of concerns,” he said.
He has put gender identity protections in a separate bill that is not expected to be acted upon this year.
But many gay rights groups said they were truly angry and bewildered, especially because the compromise involves a bill unlikely to be signed by Mr. Bush. A coalition of some 280 groups sent Mr. Frank a letter urging him to include gender identity in the bill to be voted on soon. “What we are talking about is stripping out a part of our community for a symbolic vote, which in our opinion does not advance the struggle for civil rights for our people,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
“If the goal here is for the new majority to demonstrate that it is responding to a core constituency,” Mr. Foreman said, “passing a non-inclusive bill is not going to accomplish that.”
Some Republicans in the House have said they wished Mr. Frank had included the language on transgender and transsexual people because it would have made it easier for them to vote against the bill.
Mr. Frank, at his news conference, said that including gender identity would kill the bill while approving a compromise measure would be a momentous step. “It is an important sign to the rest of the country that we are making progress,” he said.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “an announcement that this new Democratic Congress led by a woman who has been as committed to full rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in every aspect of her career, that she had to kill a gay rights bill and couldn’t do anything at all would, I think, be the most negative message we could send.”
First, Barney Frank's bill. While admitting, right at the outset, that "there is almost no chance that President Bush would ever sign the bill," David Herszenhorn goes on for paragraph after paragraph torpedoing the alleged stupidity of the Democrats' 'liberal base.' Even though the bill itself, irrespective of the language or provisions it contains, is so wacky and far to the left--imagine, protection for gay people enshrined in the law of the land--that our arch-conservative president would, without a doubt, veto it, the writer goes out of his way to browbeat the stupid, angry activists who don't understand how Congress works. Imagine, the very audacity of pushing for unpopular civil rights legislation! Those stupid hippies, this isn't the United States of Dolores Park! Trannies are way, way too fucked up to be included in 'realistic' legislation. They're like, boys who wish they were girls! This is Congress we're talking about. They only deal with serious things.
I actually agree, tentatively, with the substance of Frank's objections. It seems hypocritical, if not dangerous, to live and work in New York, under city and state employment protections, and hold Mississippi homos hostage to a provision that would certainly damn the legislation. And you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But if Bush is going to veto the bill anyway, no matter what, it seems incumbent to pursue inclusive language. To do otherwise is tantamount to saying "America might be ready for lesbians in the workplace, but FTMs? No way." You don't compromise on purely symbolic votes. That's why symbols mean things. They're supposed to be bold and unambiguous.
However, it's the tone and form of this Times article that I find so horrendous. It originates from a loathsome, insider perspective that considers all citizen activism to be a gnat-like distraction from the business of the adults who live and work among all the pretty white pillars. It reminds me of the scene from "The Pelican Brief" where outside the court are protesters holding signs saying "Overturn Roe v. Wade" and "Ban the Bomb!" as if people who believed those things would be standing side-by-side ranting at The Government. The attitude that vocal critics who aren't columnists or lawmakers are all just one big amalgamated mass of irrational blowhards is totally baseless and condescending, more so because irrational blowhards are basically the only kind of people on TV and in government.
But wait, there's more. Who is this article really attacking? Homophobic Republican congressmen? No! The Democratic party's "unrelenting demands" of the party's liberal base are to blame. Who cares if Nancy Pelosi is a catastrophic disappointment and Harry Reid's goal of appearing strong to voters will remain rather elusive with his strategy of capitulating to Bush on every minor detail? Fuck those hippies, especially when they're gay hippies! Those chaotic, well-organized, mellow, touchy, type-A free spirits must be kept as far as possible from power.
Even more stupefyingly, the article quotes a Michigan Republican's thinly veiled sarcasm: "Barney Frank isn't gay enough?" This is incredibly revealing. It's the single most frustrating tactic in existence. Rather than call McCotter out on his bullshit, they're using his words to make the point that gay people should be satisfied they got one of their own in the door and whenever there's a disagreement, the responsible and serious adult is always right and the salivating hordes are always wrong. It doesn't matter if Barney Frank is kowtowing to a reality that doesn't actually exist, except in the talking points of That McCotter and his comrades. How gay do you gays want it? Too gay, Congress has concluded. Transgender people are, like, gayer than gay. Not going to happen. Some Republicans in the House have said they wished Mr. Frank had included the language on transgender and transsexual people because it would have made it easier for them to vote against the bill. You can almost taste the contempt. Activists are so stupid that they're playing right into the GOP's hands...by doing something the GOP never would.
The best course, naturally, is to govern to the right of George Bush. It's a surefire way to convince Americans that Democrats are serious and to repeat the stunning electoral coups they had 2002 and 2004. You know, after last year's stunning rout for the grassroots. Not that political reporters seem to care much about the governance of the nation. They just want to maintain their Versailles and will do anything to keep the hoi polloi out of it. Far more important than the passage of legislation is the need for the media-government alliance to crush the activists. The New York Times, a supposed paragon of liberalism, will even join rhetorical forces with a conservative Republican if necessary to make this point. It's the paramount concern of all parties.
The second most important thing is to parrot the innermost desires of GOP re-election strategists as gospel truth. The far left [sic] wants to cram its agenda down America's throat, every Democrat who won in 2006 is actually a conservative from Lubbock, the electoral map will be infrared in 2008, blah blah blah. That way, no matter how far to the right conservatives lurch, liberals have to leap towards them or else get hammered for being obstreporous and 'far left.' Compromise has to be the operative word in everything they do, since the purpose of National Review is to make Republicans principled and audacious (to put it kindly), the apparent reason for the Times's little quasi-editorials is to demand that the Democrats be quivering jellyfish, even on symbolic votes pertaining to social justice. Way to go, liberal media.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Hillary's Inevitability
The strangest reality of US political discourse is the inescapability of fake news stories. This week's bullshit about Barack Obama not wearing an American flag lapel should never have existed in the first place, but the deft manner in which he torpedoed it as an issue (except on conservative blogs, where, predictably, the episode served to disqualify him as a Person To Be Taken Seriously, since Jonah Goldberg was on the fence till just now) weirdly prolonged its shelf life. Obama may now be credited for defusing an atomic bomb on his blazer by left-leaning Serious People, maybe even People you know.
John Edwards isn't so lucky, as the $400 haircut will apparently remain wedded to his character like "potatoe" is to Dan Quayle or a ham sandwich with Mama Cass. That story is here to stay. To be fair, it was ridiculous to spend his contributors' money on something like that, although the angle of attack is of course the gender-betrayal of caring about one's appearance. Even though Bill O'Reilly wears makeup on television everyday, it's women alone who are supposed to enjoy being vain and seduced by frivolities, because it's women who are stupid that way, not men who want to be the next leader. Do you know a troop? Ask a troop what he thinks. Breck Girl. Haircut: bad. Breck.
What's weirder is how Hillary Clinton somehow manages to avoid all of these things. She doesn't even get caught in the meta-scandal where a non-scandal can still become topic for discussion when the candidate's handling of the non-scandal transcends the terms of the non-scandal itself until someone especially clever affixes the suffix "-gate" to the most salient plot point. She isn't so new to us that her character requires salvaging or redemption. She's like Marmite. Love her or hate her. There was a brief ruckus when she exposed some cleavage, but that was less about her than about the New York Times succumbing to Maureen Dowd's Coulter-lite attitude about all women. Hillary can't choose her gender and it wasn't even about her, per se.
There is also the "question" of whether America is "ready" for a woman president (or a black man; apparently we can't yet handle the thought of a black woman). What readiness means is beyond me. Forty percent of the populace will blink in incapacitated stupor for four years--the dumbest forty percent, but the one whose wants and prejudices inform our entire political discourse--because they, and therefore America, aren't fully prepared for the reality of gender equality. The facts of course belie this--more people will vote for a woman or a black man than a 72-year old, a Mormon or a twice-divorced man.
(Incidentally, I see the pragmatic concern with respect to the first, and the possible moral objection to the third, but the second one is just complete prejudice. What is it about Mormons that makes them so objectionable compared with Christians? The practice of polygamy, renounced officially in 1896? It's certainly not their belief in the bearded cloud with the booming voice who sends you to hell when you masturbate. Will no one ask Mormon Harry Reid about this?)
So, is the almost complete absence of petty non-scandals surrounding Hillary, the supposedly "most polarizing" Democrat of all, something worth noting? It might be too early. (The whole fucking thing is too early, really). But as of October 2007 she, the one you'd most expect, has not yet had to weather a single "gotcha!" moment. I wonder about the connections between being anointed the Establishment candidate by Democratic operatives and being a media darling. The recent candidacy most similar to hers is that of George W. Bush in 2000. She's related to a former president, for starters. (How weird that, if she should serve two terms, we will have had a Bush or a Clinton in one of the two highest offices for a thirty-six year period). While McCain put up a good fight, those "in the know" presumed Bush's easy ascendancy towards being the ultimate nominee, and that's what happened. Again, the slippery and nebulous ties between corporate media's owners, their interests and the possible overlap with that of GOP strategists is too vast and conspiratorial and enticingly easy, but certainly not nonexistent, even if only by coincidence. Hillary, though, isn't an easygoing newcomer rich kid who's charming the pants off of the Washington press corps.
Instead, she's a seasoned player and expert in calculation whose entire candidacy seems predicated on never making a single mistake and navigating a tacitly hostile media environment by playing it supremely safely while her rivals self-immolate on one or another media fabrication which no Karen Hughes could fix. There's no question that, if elected, she'll govern considerably to the left of where she's currently campaigning. Even if her atrocious pollster/adviser/strategist Mark Penn has a history of union-bashing and her general coterie is comprised of the worst of 1990s New Democrat focus-group insiders who despise the netroots and dread the possibility of the dirty hippies who've been right about everything since 9.12.01 gaining a firmer beachhead in politics by championing the election of more and better progressive Democrats.
So the inevitability narrative can only grow in power. It's a genius strategy for deflecting the mines before the media (which I confess I'm characterizing as a unitary and nefarious monster, a one-headed Cerberus, so to speak) pounces. If in eight months she's where she is now, there's no question Hillary Clinton will have been coasting to election all along!
John Edwards isn't so lucky, as the $400 haircut will apparently remain wedded to his character like "potatoe" is to Dan Quayle or a ham sandwich with Mama Cass. That story is here to stay. To be fair, it was ridiculous to spend his contributors' money on something like that, although the angle of attack is of course the gender-betrayal of caring about one's appearance. Even though Bill O'Reilly wears makeup on television everyday, it's women alone who are supposed to enjoy being vain and seduced by frivolities, because it's women who are stupid that way, not men who want to be the next leader. Do you know a troop? Ask a troop what he thinks. Breck Girl. Haircut: bad. Breck.
What's weirder is how Hillary Clinton somehow manages to avoid all of these things. She doesn't even get caught in the meta-scandal where a non-scandal can still become topic for discussion when the candidate's handling of the non-scandal transcends the terms of the non-scandal itself until someone especially clever affixes the suffix "-gate" to the most salient plot point. She isn't so new to us that her character requires salvaging or redemption. She's like Marmite. Love her or hate her. There was a brief ruckus when she exposed some cleavage, but that was less about her than about the New York Times succumbing to Maureen Dowd's Coulter-lite attitude about all women. Hillary can't choose her gender and it wasn't even about her, per se.
There is also the "question" of whether America is "ready" for a woman president (or a black man; apparently we can't yet handle the thought of a black woman). What readiness means is beyond me. Forty percent of the populace will blink in incapacitated stupor for four years--the dumbest forty percent, but the one whose wants and prejudices inform our entire political discourse--because they, and therefore America, aren't fully prepared for the reality of gender equality. The facts of course belie this--more people will vote for a woman or a black man than a 72-year old, a Mormon or a twice-divorced man.
(Incidentally, I see the pragmatic concern with respect to the first, and the possible moral objection to the third, but the second one is just complete prejudice. What is it about Mormons that makes them so objectionable compared with Christians? The practice of polygamy, renounced officially in 1896? It's certainly not their belief in the bearded cloud with the booming voice who sends you to hell when you masturbate. Will no one ask Mormon Harry Reid about this?)
So, is the almost complete absence of petty non-scandals surrounding Hillary, the supposedly "most polarizing" Democrat of all, something worth noting? It might be too early. (The whole fucking thing is too early, really). But as of October 2007 she, the one you'd most expect, has not yet had to weather a single "gotcha!" moment. I wonder about the connections between being anointed the Establishment candidate by Democratic operatives and being a media darling. The recent candidacy most similar to hers is that of George W. Bush in 2000. She's related to a former president, for starters. (How weird that, if she should serve two terms, we will have had a Bush or a Clinton in one of the two highest offices for a thirty-six year period). While McCain put up a good fight, those "in the know" presumed Bush's easy ascendancy towards being the ultimate nominee, and that's what happened. Again, the slippery and nebulous ties between corporate media's owners, their interests and the possible overlap with that of GOP strategists is too vast and conspiratorial and enticingly easy, but certainly not nonexistent, even if only by coincidence. Hillary, though, isn't an easygoing newcomer rich kid who's charming the pants off of the Washington press corps.
Instead, she's a seasoned player and expert in calculation whose entire candidacy seems predicated on never making a single mistake and navigating a tacitly hostile media environment by playing it supremely safely while her rivals self-immolate on one or another media fabrication which no Karen Hughes could fix. There's no question that, if elected, she'll govern considerably to the left of where she's currently campaigning. Even if her atrocious pollster/adviser/strategist Mark Penn has a history of union-bashing and her general coterie is comprised of the worst of 1990s New Democrat focus-group insiders who despise the netroots and dread the possibility of the dirty hippies who've been right about everything since 9.12.01 gaining a firmer beachhead in politics by championing the election of more and better progressive Democrats.
So the inevitability narrative can only grow in power. It's a genius strategy for deflecting the mines before the media (which I confess I'm characterizing as a unitary and nefarious monster, a one-headed Cerberus, so to speak) pounces. If in eight months she's where she is now, there's no question Hillary Clinton will have been coasting to election all along!
Saturday, October 06, 2007
San Francisco
Even if the number of visibly crazy people and otherwise ugly people is off the charts, I'm going to move there. The default San Franciscan is a fat, fortyish woman with no eyebrows and fire engine red hair who's shopping for a hat in a thrift store in the Upper Haight right now. In spite of that, I'm going to move there. When I told my cousin's partner's drunken aunt that the snobbish attitude of lifelong New Yorkers towards the rest of the planet constitutes its own form of unbearable parochialness, she threw up her hands and yelled that finally, someone agreed with her, and damn, I should meet her daughter (who lives on the UWS).
Anyway, pictures from Folsom:
I think I remember the front looking weirdly the same
Way better than a parabola (cf. above)
Where else can you dance in a cage suspended by a crane right next to a church?
Anyway, pictures from Folsom:
I think I remember the front looking weirdly the same
Way better than a parabola (cf. above)
Where else can you dance in a cage suspended by a crane right next to a church?
