Hey Kevin, Madame Secretary Called

Now it can be revealed! Kevin Dujan's fifth imaginary friend!

--And she wants her cardboard cut-out back, so it can be given to someone who respects her more, like Jon Favreau.

So much craziness, so little time. My apologies to my ones of readers, who have followed this halting narrative ever since Kevin Dujan, (aka "Harvey Bilk", or lately, "Uremic Heap") decided to use me and my then-dormant blog for lucrative target-practice, but life keeps intervening, or else I just don't have the drive of the Mad the way he does. I can barely manage to be one person, for instance, whereas he's managed to dupe his readers into believing that he's a bunch of "boiz," all of whom need support (samoleons)!

I will be continuing to put up posts, and have half-a-dozen going on sale shortly, because, although they're past their freshness date, they're still okay, and won't give you any more of a stomach ache than can be had by reading his awful, awful, blog. So stay tuned, and thank you so much for your more than patience.

brought to you as always by Mrs. Polly of Snarkopolitan, the undead blog, constantly falling behind the skulduggery of the skulduggerers, center cannot hold, worst full of passionate intensity, etc etc.

Memorabilious

Looking for a new culturally enriching experience, or just want to take your sweetie someplace a little different for date night? You really haven't been anywhere until you've experienced Heidi Li's latest project, The Museum of Misogynistic Memorabilia.

The MoMM is not yet in a bricks-and-mortar condition, but Heidi Li (JD, PhD) is working on it. She has her mission statement:

"The point of displaying misogynistic memorabilia, ranging from the horrifying to the offensive to the sophomoric is to showcase the ways in which women or their rights and interests have been hatefully characterized both historically and in our own time."

And, from Heidi Li's rather grandly named Founder's Blog: "Memorializing and witnessing the propaganda and tools used to oppress has played a vital role in raising awareness of how oppression occurs."

Well and good. Dr. Heidi Li is not covering the entire, depressing, vast history of misogyny itself, but merely hateful characterizations of women through "propaganda and tools". She still has a rich field of exploration. From attic vases depicting vengeful cuckolded goddess Hera, to catchpenny prints of women as witches and hags, to controversial portrayals of women in hip-hop, Dr. Heidi Li is certainly not lacking for material from which to draw. So let's take a look at the offerings.

The MoMM's online stores consist of, so far, ten exhibits, divided into two parts:

"General Collection" and "Bloopers". "Bloopers" has the notation: "People say the darndest things!"

The "General Collection" currently consists of seven items: four picture files and three articles. The articles' focus is as follows:

1. the misogynistic labeling of 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton;

2. the misogyny racial bigotry connection during the 2008 Democratic Primary season, and
"NOBODY LOVES A FAT WOMAN: Portraits of Female Obesity in Early American Cinema."

3. Portraits of Female Obesity in Early American Cinema."

This last immediately caught my interest for reasons we need not go into, need we?

It turned out to be a Georgetown student paper for a 2006 Media Historiography class, spring semester (Dr. Heidi Li is a law professor at Georgetown). Wretched co-opted self-hating fifth-columnist that I am, I was immediately enchanted by the title of a 1905 film, "Airy Fairy Lillian Tries On Her New Corsets". I tried to see if any of it was available on YouTube (Sorry to say, no). But the author of the paper, Joseph Kerr, in his description of the action, unkindly notes:

"Airy Fairy Lillian, wearing a sheer slip and underwear, attempts to put on her corset, an item of clothing, which ironically is supposed to help a woman look slim, but with a body the size of this, a corset is like putting a band-aid on an ax wound."

That is certainly a description any feminist will find it hard to forget, so thanks Dr. Heidi Li!
Let's just move on to the pictorial exhibits, none of which are original content:

4. Obama's chief speechwriter gropes a representation of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

5. Hillary Clinton nutcrackers. ( Dr. Heidi Li doesn't mention Corkscrew Bill, who is just what you imagine. He's available from stupid.com, BTW. Along with the Obama Yes We Can Opener)

6. Selected items for sale related to the theme "Bro's Before Ho's" (two items, one a T-shirt with a picture of Obama and You-know-who, for sale on Amazon. Amazon. Yes.)

7. Lucy Burns serving time for fighting for women's suffrage

It seems that 75% of the misogyny in the world is directed at Hillary Clinton, and happened during 2008. It looks very much as if an exhibit in each category has been hurriedly thrown in as a token offering to all the rest of womanity. The Lucy Burns picture, while historically important, doesn't fit the stated parameters of the MoMM. It isn't an example of misogynistic characterization, it's flat-out woman's history. And, as a Juris Doctor might say, it opens the door to a more complete, vibrant, depiction of the triumph of women as more than simply victims.

Dr. Heidi Li does not go through that door. Instead, she gives us a gallery of "misogyny bloopers":

8. Howard Kurtz, Katie Couric, and Cognitive Dissonance.

9. Ms. Magazine January 2009 Inauguration Special Issue Cover -"Despite then President-elect's lack of any track record in establishing measures to protect or promote women and their rights, Ms. Magazine decides to pose him in "Super Man"-like fashion and declare him a "feminist.

"
10. Carville on Favreau - (the Ragin Cajun thinks that since Hillary accepted Favreau's apology, the incident should be over.)

Once again, there's a ringer thrown in to disguise Dr. Heidi Li's reduction of all womanhood to a single pantsuited politician. And her definition of "Bloopers" is somewhat eccentric: generally, the perpetrator of a blooper is trying to say something else, recognizes the mistake, and looks forward to picking up residuals from being included in the next episode of Bloopers, Blunders, and Misogynistic Logical Fallacies.

Dr. HL may think that whomever disagrees with her is perpetrating a blooper, but she is not the ultimate arbitor of blooperhood. If it were as subjective as that, I might classify her entire site as a blooper, and she seems very much to have meant it to be the way it is---aside from spelling it "Misyogyny Museum" on her title page.

So the exhibits of the MoMM are: Hillary, Hillary, Fat Women, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Lucy Burns, Katie Couric, Hillary, Hillary.

Dr. Heidi Li has an ambitious agenda. She has solicited for both funds and material for the MoMM, so that it may grow into a properly curated traveling exhibition. The exhibits so far can all be obtained with the click of a mouse button in under ten minutes and in the months since the MoMM's inception, few have been added. But the need to press on with the fundraising is fierce, so fierce that Dr. Heidi Li is willing to press even when the circumstances might call her taste into question.

When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was operated on for pancreatic cancer, Dr. Heidi Li sprang into action:

Heidi Li, on February 5th, 2009 at 9:44 pm Said:
I know Ruth Bader Ginsburg slightly, and her husband, Marty Ginsburg, who is my colleague on the Georgetown faculty rather better. They are wonderful people, and of course my heart and thoughts are with them. A humble suggestion: If you care to send 51 Percent any amount (including .51 cents, with a message of support for Justice Ginsburg, not only will that be noted on the website, but I will make sure that all results and messages reach Justice Ginsburg).

I used to have a piece that would have been perfect for the MoMM. My father was obliged to go to Las Vegas on business, and I asked him to bring me back the tackiest thing he could find. He returned with something that more than fit the bill: a ceramic ashtray depicting a naked woman in a bathtub, on the side of which was lettered: "I HAD A TUB OF FUN IN LAS VEGAS". I loved that ashtray, and was heartbroken when it was lost in a move. Actually, I don't think the MoMM would be interested--not Hillary-centered enough. And I was just not politically conscious enough to be offended when my father gave it to me.
*************

Note: There is a National Women's History Museum in Washington, D.C. They have their eye on a building to house their collections, and are seeking funding. They have a wonderful website, and the difference in attitude between the NWHM and the MoMM are exemplified by this statement:

If we - and future generations - are to learn all the lessons of the past upon which to build the future, we must be aware of the true experiences and contributions of women. Clearly, men cannot get there alone. Together, all things are possible.
----Karen Stasen, Founder, National Women's History Museum

A FIELD GUIDE TO FRAIDY CATSwe can handle anything except criticism. or scrutiny. or questions. or dissent. or disappointment. or logic. or rationality. or independence. or information. or research. or reality. or the time/space continuum. or
When I tell friends that I've been PUMAwatching, they say, "Cats? Shoes? What are you talking about?" and I have to remind them about PUMA, or Party Unity My Ass, that noble organization founded on resentment of Hillary Clinton's supposed maltreatment by the Dems and encouraged delightedly by McCain operatives pinching themselves that so many of Hillary's followers could be so easily manipulated.

Since PUMA managed to convince itself and the McCain campaign that it ROARED with eighteen million voices, it led McCain to pick the Alaskan Albatross that ultimately sank him, so I am grateful to PUMA on that score. In fact, PUMA roars with just about enough voices to keep the comment sections of a few dozen blogs populated, assuming each commenter posts multiple times and visits more than one blog a night.

The election proved that PUMApower in fact ROARED with enough hot air to blow up the forty or so orange PUMAballoons at any of PUMA's underpopulated rallies, but not much more than that. Hillary Clinton's debt was not retired with the help of PUMAdollars, or even affected, and Hillary went on to blow PUMA's minds by getting over her disappointment and moving on with her life, worst of all by working with HIM.

Born out of frustration, inability to accept opposition, and sheer will to destruction, having failed to obtain the nomination or to throw the election, now PUMA exists to promote hatred of HIM. That one. A veneer of faux feminism encrusts PUMA, many of whose members seem to be reinventing the feminist wheel, circa 1972: "I thought the ERA had passed!" said one.

But PUMA blithely exchanged Hillary's feminist values for those of John McCain, who opposed equal pay for equal work, voted to impeach Hillary's husband, happily told rape jokes, verbally abused his wife ("at least I don't slather on the makeup like a trollop, you c**t") and disparaged young Chelsea's looks. They went as well for anti-intellectual mannequin and Republican frozen cheesecake Sarah Palin as if the indifferent scholar and neo-con pinup were a reasonable substitute for detail-oriented Ivy-League magna-cum-laude policy wonk Hillary, thereby endorsing the idea that genitalia trumps everything, from ideology to policy.

Irony is lost on PUMA.

PUMAs are currently congratulating themselves for the dubious distinction of being chosen as Time's eighth-hottest buzzword of the year, right in between "tweet" and "rick-rolled"*. The eighth-hottest buzzword of last year, BACN, has of course gone on to dominate conversation at watercoolers nationwide ever since, so the fly-about-to-be-encased-in-resin elegaic quality of the eighth-hottest buzzword designation shouldn't worry PUMA at all.

Why even pay attention to this group if the country no longer does? Why bother if it is so laughably ineffective? Why bother with PUMA instead of leaving them to their own devices in their insular PUMASPHERE?

Because PUMA seems to have the beginnings of a classic hate-group, and needs to be watched.

The FBI classifies hate-group formation as happening in 7 stages:

Stage 1: The Haters Gather

"Irrational haters seldom hate alone. They feel compelled, almost driven, to
entreat others to hate as they do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of
self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal
insecurities. Further, individuals otherwise ineffective become empowered when
they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.

Evident on PUMA threads is the constant one-upwomanship of trying to come up with newer better stronger insults for Obama and anyone who supports him.. PUMA pets and indulges the most extreme of its Obama-haters, Jenniforhillary, admiring her for her "spirit". Only once has any PUMA ever challenged her, and that was on whether her attack on Al Franken was merited, not on the legitimacy of wishing slow painful castration on him per se. And, as per usual, nobody else protested.

Stage 2: The Hate Group Defines Itself

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which
enhance the members' status and at the same time, degrade the object of their
hate."

PUMA adopted the hapless big cat as their superkewl icon, and from there followed a flood of neat images of pawprints, demonstrations and spamming parties known as "prowls", and the PUMA war-cry, PUMA HAKA! (a HAKA is a Maori war chant) And RRRoarrrrsss. There is much of the junior college sorority in this, and would not be alarming if PUMA left it there. Even if there are slightly psychotic overtones in their belief that Hillary was wearing an orange pantsuit at her convention speech as a secret message of PUMAdarity with them.

PUMA mythologies are so extensive and evolve so much that it's impossible to follow them, much less refute them systematically, starting immediately with PUMA's creation myth: that Hillary was cheated out of the nomination because she was a woman.

PUMAs embrace anyone who offers anti-Obama mythology; the most notorious may be noted anti-Semite Andy Martin, originator of the Obama-is-a-Muslim myth. Martin attended the PUMA convention in Washington and is seen in PUMA's pictures shooting the breeze with assorted Pumas. Andy Martin, Lyndon LaRouche follower Webster Tarpley, and Andy Berg, all have the PUMA welcome mat put out for their theories about Obama's nationality (he's a Kenyan/British/American/unAmerican Usurper. "Did you know that if Obama reads a national security document it's treason?" asked a PUMA on PUMAPAC.

Stage 3: The Hate Group Disparages the Target

"Hate is the glue that binds haters to one another and to a common cause. By
verbally debasing the object of their hate, haters enhance their self-image, as
well as their group status."

PUMA shows its stress lines when the subject veers off Obama. Even Hillary-worship doesn't hold up reliably any more since Hillary consented to campaign for Obama, much less work for him as Secretary of State. The gulfs between atheist/lesbian/pro-choice PUMAs, Catholic pro-life PUMAs, Conservative PUMAs and lifelong Democratic PUMAs become noticeable, and though PUMAs have never reproved each other for the bleak and gorey scenarios they like to envision being visited on their enemies (Obama, Obots, and nonPUMA men), they do have hissing contests over whether a PUMA has disrespected other PUMAs' beliefs. This frequently results in a theatrical, and sometimes permanent, exit.

Puma blog postings frequently begin with a "feminist" subject. Sometimes they will start out highlighting a figure from women's history, which seems a valuable enough effort. But the veneer of feminism inevitably melts away where all roads lead to the One, or rather, disparagement of the One. The "feminist" post is often simply an incitement to outrage over yet another example of the very real misogyny and ill-treatment of women the world over. The trouble here is the focus of the outrage: it isn't focussed on the perpetrators, it's spread to whomever the PUMAs wish to be angry at (More on this further down, with the John Favreau debacle). And more than anything else, PUMAs wish to be angry at Obama.

A visit to PUMA sites will net many new terms of abuse for Barack Obama that you may never have heard applied to any presidential candidate before, even though terms of abuse for presidential candidates are a cherished American art form. At main Puma site Pumapac.org , you'd encounter the following:

NOBAMA
Obie
Obambi
teh precious’
Obamatrons
The Cheetos
Obots
Barry
backtrack
Barky Barry Von Cash
the O-Borg
No
count Fraud Ojambo
Ofart
ohonewhothinksheisking
Baruk the Crook, the
fraud President elect,
Baruk the Cruk
Barock the Crock
NewOrleansPuma 11.30.08 at 3:14 pm
Baseek the Sheik
Pres
Omigodicantbelieveitsnotbutter’
Oslime-o
Ojingo
emptysuited
hypocritical lying thievin’ flim flam gutter rat
Nobie
Oblobit
baracobambi
oblah blah
Obummee

This is a short list. Notice that some of the names are frankly racist and xenophobic: "Ojingo", "Ojambo", "Baseek the Shiek". That's a dirty little PUMA non-secret: assorted flavors of racism, from the vague racist overtones of comments such as:

Nijma 01.03.09 at 2:41 am

mountainsong, yeah, chicago; if the bots get rambunctious, there’ll be plenty of
prowling to do, but if they behave, things can stay quiet.
If Teh One
enacts our agenda and stops dissing women, our reason for living will be
gone and we can go to the dance club all week long. On the other hand,
if it’s all bit*hes and ho*s and Ludicris, and no jobs for
women, we’ll have a
lot of free time to blog, and no money for cover charges

to frank, overt racism such as this picture of Obama as a lawn jockey in front of the White House, excused by the caption,"Why is this not okay?" The supposed reason for photoshopping Obama around as a shoeshine boy is that Jon Favreau, a young speechwriter of his was photographed with his hand cupping the non-existent breast of a cardboard Hillary. Incensed, PUMA immediately struck back by demanding Favreau be summarily fired, gustily predicting he was on the road to real sexual criminality, and posting demeaning pictures of innocent women photoshopped onto Hillary's cardboard body, so that the speechwriter was then molesting Donna Brazile and Michelle Obama. That's the kind of thinking that got PUMA where it is today.

Where PUMA is today is a splenetic organization that tolerates, indulges, even encourages hatefulness as long as it's directed toward Obama and Obama supporters, whom PUMA pictures as glassy-eyed kids and wild-eyed socialists referred to as "Obots". They do not admit the possibility that adult people not very much different from them could rationally decide not to hate Obama as they do, so they turn Obama's followers into non-human "bots".

Stage 4: The Hate Group Taunts the Target

"Hate, by its nature, changes incrementally. Time cools the fire of hate, thus
forcing the hater to look inward. To avoid introspection, haters use
ever-increasing degrees of rhetoric and violence to maintain high levels of
agitation. Taunts and offensive gestures serve this purpose."

This stage must necessarily have changed since this paper was published in 2003 because of the increased prevalence of the Internet. Whereas hate groups who used to long for contact with "the other" to express their hatred had to go out looking for them, now it is possible to find all the enemies they could ever want online.

PUMAs see themselves as wounded, martyred, woman warriors, but they are not likely to follow this model beyond step 4 into physicality, although some observers at the notorious Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting had their doubts.

They do constantly increase the rhetoric and outrage: Murphy of PUMAPAC posts ever more terrible news items about attacks on female victims, which keeps her blog followers in a permanent state of foam-flecked spitting fury. She frequently uses these posts to drive the PUMAs into donating to PUMAPAC, although PUMAPAC's accounting practices are a little hazy.

Here is one of PUMAPAC's most active members, Jenniforhillary, on her hope for the country under Obama:

jenniforhillary 11.08.08 at 8:49 am
I am in a economy proof business, my
parents have money, and I will NOT SUFFER. We have one year of food PLUS, we
have our gardens, we have our weapons, our bullets, our network. We are
prepared.
That being said, I CANNOT WAIT for the suffering to begin. I
hope there is starvation, I hope there is rioting, and i hope that there
is massive death…

Heartwarming. Jennifer is indeed in a recession-proof business: her mother's estate-clearance company. Massive death certainly wouldn't hurt Mom's balance sheet. Of course, after Jennifer dropped that one in the PUMA punch-bowl, did that spoil it for the rest of the PUMAs? Anyone care to challenge Jennifer on her cheery PUMIHILISM? No? Of course not. One PUMA responded,

GBPuma 11.08.08 at 10:03 am
jenniforhillary 11.08.08 at 8:49 am
I agree 150%…….they have no concept of
the suffering they have created and they
deserve everything they are about to
get

Jenniforhillary (or Jennifer X, as she sometimes calls herself now that Hillary has lost the way to the Light) is not a fringe member, but actually hosted one of the most unintentionally hilarious radio hours ever to go out to bewildered listeners of public radio station KPFT. On the phone for the entire hour with Jennifer X was PUMAPAC founder Darragh Murphy, who listened calmly and approvingly as Jennifer shouted over and dumped callers who tried to challenge any of her PUMAganda. The two PUMAs thought the show had gone swimmingly and Jennifer was much praised on PUMAPAC for her facility in Obot-wrassling. They were surprised to learn that KPFT did not feel quite as enthusiastic about a regular PUMA hour as they did.

The inability to tolerate dissent demonstrated by the PUMAGANDA flaming dirigible of a radio show is completely in keeping with the PUMAs' policies on their blogs: absolute censorship of opposing views. On both the Confluence and PUMAPAC, only pro-PUMA comments are allowed. "Riverdaughter", the founder of the Confluence, offered the explanation that it isn't censorship when she does it because only governments can censor, although that isn't what the American Heritage Dictionary says (any person "vested with authority" can be a censor as, say, the administrator of a blog).


This is what makes the Confluence's Weblog nomination as Best Liberal Blog something of a farce; as a big L blog, exhorting followers to vote for the Republican ticket is just plain not Liberal, and as a small l blog, what is more illiberal than the closemindedness of censoring comments? Riverdaughter's The Confluence is more egregious in this than even PUMAPAC; one of their bloggers, the not awfully gracious myiq2xu, loves to "edit" comments he doesn't like and republish them:

Mountainaires, on January 1st, 2009 at 2:28
pm Said:
To Riverdaughter and myiq2xu who responded to my comment
previously.
myiq2xu: if you are the "moderator" who went in and edited the
quotes from Richard Falk, then you deserve to be insulted for doing it. Before
you start changing quotes, you ought to know what you’re talking about, which
you clearly did not. There were no food or medical supplies being transported
into Gaza at the point of my comment, and your insertions were inaccurate. You
could have posted your own comment responding to mine, and posted your
inaccuracies under your own name. Instead, you hid like a coward behind a power
title of "moderator" and altered my comments. Shame on you.
Next time please
post your own comment in reply to mine if you don’t like my opinion. Stop going
in and altering a comment which has my name on it."

One of the rare PUMen, myiq2 has an agenda of his own: Here he is talking about PUMAs on the blog Balloon Juice:

myiq2xu March 14th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
...
What is Hillary’s core
constituency? Women.
Older, yet “liberated” women.
At 47 years old, I am a
“boy toy.”
Since they are post-menopausal, that means they don’t swell, they
don’t tell, and they’re grateful as
hell.--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
myiq2xu March 14th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
...
Go to a rally where you are
one of the few guys (and the only single guy under 50) and there are about 100
unattached women. Okay, lots of them are widows, but it’s still good for a
person’s self-esteem.
Honestly, I’ve never had women fight over me
before.--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
myiq2xu March 15th, 2008 at 12:01
...
I was trying to help you get a
“coming out” present.
No STFU before you mess things up. I think the redhead
puts out.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
myiq2xu March 15th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Rodney Carrington Live at the
Majestic is on the Comedy Channel.
“I went home with a fat girl once a bunch
of times.”http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9901

(Hat tip: Yes To Democracy)

PUMA laughs off Myiq2's jokey misogyny, but sexism is fine as long as it emanates from PUMA. http://pumapac.org/2008/12/10/does-estrogen-poisoning-make-us-more-ethical-and-less-violent/ So are violent fantasies, as long as they are about violence against men (you may want to skip the next few paragraphs; they're quite ugly):

"murphy 12.11.08 at 12:54 am "One in nine men will be arrested for a violent
crime. Half of those violent crimes will be assault with a weapon, rape, or
robbery. Numbers dont lie. The answer is Decimation."

And, from the immortal Jennifer X:

"AL FRANKEN should have his pencil penis removed sans pain medicine and left to
bleed to death (does that say enough)…."

Yes, that does just about say enough, Jennifer.


Stage 5: The Hate Group Attacks the Target Without Weapons

" This stage is critical because it differentiates vocally abusive haters from
physically abusive ones. In this stage, hate groups become more aggressive,
prowling their turf seeking vulnerable targets..."

It is at this stage that the FBI separates the sheep from the goats: hate groups who do not progress to violence are assessed as "immature" hate groups. This model was drawn up primarily to assess skinhead groups, and I should make clear that I certainly do not regard PUMA as akin to skinhead groups, focussed as PUMA is on hating one distant and well-protected man, and satisfied as PUMAs are with blogging their hatred.

But PUMA still has disturbing similarities to groups going through the stages described by the FBI, including the psychological underpinnings.


Stages Six and Seven, respectively, are attacking the Target with weapons, and destroying the Target.

Although PUMAs don't back away from expressing violent fantasies about those whom they view as their oppressors, they assume it is understood that these are just fantasies. What is alarming is the tolerance for some PUMAs, like JenniforHillary, who seem to be spinning out of control without any kind of check. Rather than talking her down, PUMAPAC consistently feeds her hysteria, paranoia and despair and sits back applauding the show. While PUMAs are hardly likely to resort to skinhead-style battles on the street, there are individuals in the PUMAsphere who are clearly psychologically disturbed, such as Jenniforhillary. While PUMA is applauding itself for its womanly lack of physical brutality, they might do well to remember there have been female Presidential would-be assassins in recent memory, such as Squeaky Fromme.


Murphy and Riverdaughter are playing a dangerous game; playing on the fears and wounded psyches of women scattered across the country, trolling in fringe right-wing websites for bad news to keep the glue of Obama-hate bonding their followers to them. They may themselves be convinced that it is feminism and empowerment that they're spreading, but what they are actually doing is imitating the negative stereotype of feminists as overprivileged, humorless, castrating loons.

*Tired of Rick Astley. My Rick doesn't roll that way.

GRAND ALLUSIONS Now come on, we all know Hillary's been waiting for SOMETHING to dislodge that upstart Obama. Not the A-word, as far as we know, but SOMETHING. Rev. Wright Redux, another BitterGate, anything, and when Obama tripped up, Hillary would be "positioned" to slide right in.

Even mentioning Kennedy assassinations, this week of tragic weeks, is insensitive. And she knows these people. But it isn't the first time she's brought up the RFK tragedy in context with staying in the race. She's gotten used to flinging historical references to great movements, epochs, and watersheds in combination with her name and ambitions: her campaign and the Suffragettes. Her campaign and Abolition. Her campaign and Zimbabwe. Her familiar usage of these great events as if they were furnishings in her own state house shows her outsized ego. Yes, the first woman to get this far as a presidential candidate is historic. But history isn't hers to play with.

One Lump Or Two?

Happy Mother's Day, Snarkomom!

There is no tasteful way to render a jar of testicles. So I just forged ahead. Bill's are in there somewhere, along with Charlie Schumer's and the entire New York delegation. Because would you want to face the disappointed Senator after voting against her? Didn't think so.

I can't tell you how weird it is to be drawing cartoons about Hillary that a year ago would only have appeared on right wing end-time sites:

I still want to be a Hillary's Hellcat!

Nuclear Hillary

It's a good look for her. She is become destruction.

Goddam Weasel

So now he's doing schtick?

He does have a degree in sacred music, but does that qualify him to do stand-up? Bits of Chris Rock, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby all mashed up with liberation theology and some really bad impersonation (that British accent, yeesh).

I only caught one act of the Reverend's traveling Bitter Medicine Show. It isn't a crime to defend oneself, especially against the bland repetitive stupidity of the 24 hour looping cable heads, but the Reverend certainly seemed to be enjoying himself overmuch.

And then he plugged his book.

And then he plugged Farrakhan.

And then ----

There is a famous Goya painting of Chronos eating his children that I could have parodied, but three and a half people would have been amused, and the other half person (comprising in total 95% of my devoted readers) would have been befuddled.

Chronos was one of the Titans, the precursors to the Greek Gods. He thought he'd be cute and ingest the competition---his children---because of a prophesy that the Titans would be slain by them. But Zeuss lived to do just that. I'll have to go back to my Edith Hamilton and firm up the story.

Also, in the Goya painting, Chronos was about to snack on a little naked figure, and I wasn't about to do Obama nude.

So here is Obama as Saint Sebastian instead. Enjoy, three and a half readers.

Political Discourse in Twenty-First Century America

They tell you in Blogging school, first thing: unless you're aiming for a real niche market, don't nauseate your readers. So I hate to mention last night's Democratic debate. It stunk up the joint.

ABC thoroughly scraped its barrel bottom, where dwell Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous. The Costello and Costello of ABC did their best to put the moron in the oxymoron of TV journalism.
The first policy question, noted Andrew Sullivan, didn't occur till 53 minutes into the debate.
No, "debate" isn't the word for it. Show. The ABC Dumb Show.
Until minute 53, it was flag pins, Bosnia and bitterness. Mostly bitterness. On the part of the viewers.
ABC switchboard: 212-456-7777. Direct comment line: 818-460-7477.

Mr. Polly's position is that Reverend Wright, the flag pin question and the bitterness question are simply good excuses for whites looking for an excuse to not vote for a black. He thinks the country is too racist. I disagreed with him. I thought young people really don't have latent racism, really are beyond it, even if older voters still harbor prejudices they may not even recognize.

Perhaps Bill Clinton's rant against younger voters is because he feels this too. It's not that he's racist; he wants to blow Obama out of the----oops, unfortunate choice of words, he wants to torpedo Obama and regain the White House. For Hillary. Really.

Of course, Obama did remark that working-class Pennsylvania had problems that preceded Bush's presidency.

Bill took that as a slam against his spectacular legacy, and let the worser angels of his nature dictate what happened next: a full-out paranoid explosion. How dare Obama say that Bill never did anything for the working people of Pennsylvania! Well, Obama didn't say that. But let truthiness guide your spleen, and the rest is easy.

By now, you might suspect I'm not a fan of either Clinton. Not hardly.That being said, if by some exceptionally Byzantine politicking, Hillary gets the nomination, ugly as that thought is, I'll vote for her. Simply because she is likely to support policies I support. Policies. Policies. POLICIES!

Policy: "1. A plan or course of action, as of a government, political party, or business, intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, and other matters. 2.a. A course of action, guiding principle, or procedure considered expedient, prudent, or advantageous. b. Prudence, shrewdness, or sagacity in practical matters."---American Heritage College dictionary, 3rd edition.

We are not a reasoning culture. We are a reactive culture. After eight surreal, disastrous years of the guy we wanted to have a beer with, we don't know better. Are we voting for plans of action? No. We're voting for mascots of what we've determined is our team. Which is the warm and fuzziest? The other mascot's fans are so mean! (note: any resemblance to the Joker is unintentionally intentional)

I visited the Hilary Clinton website, to look at the blog. Like the comments sections of all the big blogs, it's full of cheerleading and teenage angst-filled grousing---from forty-year-olds. " Did you read what those others said on their blog? They're such snobs. I'm never voting for their team. Well they started it." And on the other blog: " No you did." "No you did." "No, you did."
Hillary and Obama's policies are virtually identical. McCain's policies and Bush's policies are virtually identical. Which is it you want now, health care or no health care? Fewer wars, or more wars? Decide.

If you want warm and fuzzy, buy a Beanie Baby. Of course, they're all made in China....

Dishing Cindy McCain

So a lowly intern lifted Food Network recipes for the McCain campaign! So they tell us. Another gift-wrapped three minute filler for cable news's Chattering Classes. Stretched to ten minutes.


Actually, this non-story says much about the quality of Lowly Interns these days:

1. Ethics: Even lowly unpaid interns should know enough not to plagiarize in anyone's name, much less that of a candidate for First Lady. After all, when they buy their term papers online, they pay for them fair and square.



2. Stupidity: Nothing says tradition like exotic fruit desserts! Obviously, Lowly Intern is too young to remember a time when every family didn't have the resources to whip up a batch of Passionfruit Mousse. I love going through my Gramma's recipe box and taking out that dog-eared card, written in her elegant copperplate, for oil-poached Meyer Lemons with Yuzu gastrique.



3. Tastelessness: Rachel Ray, for God's sake. They plagiarized Rachel Ray. Inventor of the Cheeseburger Salad.

And in particular, the passionfruit mousse recipe also calls for baby bananas and a blowtorch. How's that for elitist?

16 years ago,Elite Big Lawyer Hillary outraged the citizenry by announcing that she wasn't staying home baking cookies. Then in expiation she had to produce a chocolate chip cookie recipe for the nation's consumption. And she did, differing only slightly from the recipe on the chocolate chip bag. Although it really ought to be Bill's turn to show off his kitchen chops, at least with a barbecued something, it's still Hillary's cookie recipe in the paper (Hillary's F.U. Cookies) along with Lawyer Michelle Obama's Apple Cobbler and Beer Heiress Cindy's purloined passionfruit.

To be sure, the Obama Cobbler sounds good, fattening, and easy to make: toss a bag of frozen apples with sugar and spices, stash them in the fridge overnight, "so the spice goes all through the apples"--an evocative, compelling phrase---and sling them into a pan with sticks of butter and ready-made piecrust dough. Bake until "it's all crusty on top like Obama likes it." Obama? Hell, everybody! Nothing elitist about all crusty on top cobbler.