Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Your rejoicing, reverend father, appears to be premature:

http://news.yahoo.com/romney-looking-forward-returning-churchill-bust-white-house-132351151--abc-news-politics.html

What is it, by the way, with all this fuming and fretting over the bust of Winnie-the-Poobah? By now it must have frequent flyer points. Like the Maltese falcon, this little item has accrued suspicious interest. Instead of bothering to ship it back and forth, they should launch it like a grenade between our mutual capitals.

I was immunized against Winstonitis as a child. My father, born and raised in England, tacked a massive photo of his hero on a wall in the rec room. Many is the hour, to use a Churchillian orotundity, in which I read and played beneath that doughy eminence. Sometimes I'd steal a peevish glance upward. A most official portait: spot-lit to an alabaster whiteness, he glowered heavenward, jowly but resolute; and as beribboned as a porker at the state fair. His grandeur palled over time.

Churchill is popular in that other conceited client state visited by Romney a few days before he landed in the British isles also. This is what the towering figure of Liberal Democracy against Nazi barbarism had to say in Parliament not long before WWII broke out over whether the UK Government should allow creation of an exclusively Jewish state in what was then the Mandatory British territory of Palestine:

I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

oops, that should be Kenyan origin, not Kenya born.

Heh. I've always loathed Churchill, so this is music to my ears. "Beribboned as a porker at the state fair" is really good.

A little story about Churchill's bust. (If my link works.)

Following “a little story” link, I came across the reference to Charles Krauthammer as a “journalist”, which was irksome and amusing at the same time. This prompted me to do a wiki search on the fool and what do you know! Much to my dismay, this moron was raised in Montreal! He graduated from McGill, which explains a lot but it gets worse: he’s got a degree in Medicine from Harvard and he’s a board certified psychiatrist. Yikes, that totally explains it all!

Anyway, no doubt, President Mitten would probably commission a bust of Bibi to put side by side to the bust of Churchill at the White House.

Herr Krauthammer sounds like one of the intransigent holdovers from the low-grade Fascist regime of Franco once the world has moved on. You'd need a Luis Bunuel (Diary of a Chamber Maid is good on that score albeit in the French interwar setting) or a Carlos Saura to capture the essence of that seedy, holier-than-thou, military worshiping era.

"The Brits are quite sensitive about this stuff, since, after Israel, they are the most groundlessly conceited client state we have" !?

Does MJS really identify with the US Empire and its own gloating conceits?

it's an age old saying, and no one human is truly at fault ... but, I can't help but say, on this male oriented 'space' (not that this space shouldn't be male, cuz life is ruff ..... also) wazamatter cat got yoortung?

don't mind her bluntness, as she's every bit as indignant at the state of affairs as the lone doggies are, and somtimes she swipes out ALSO... just in case ...., horrifying, as that may be.

Good call, Boink. That sense of we-ness -- false though it certainly is -- nevertheless is hard to eradicate, and pops up, embarrassingly, at the most inopportune moments. It's really the old Kurt Vonnegut granfalloon, isn't it?

Diane, I really don't understand at all what you mean in calling this 'umble blog a 'male oriented space'. What on earth is male about it? Much less oriented?

Are you maybe indulging in essentialism -- as if there were certain games girls couldn't, or wouldn't, ever play?

You don't feel it because you're male Michael, and it would take up way too much space, and time I really don't have at the moment to address it fairly and correctly. It's not an insult, it's just a reality.

If you question it as a reality, for just a few things: make a list of your ten favorite authors and their gender; count your regular female (and clearly portray themselves as female) posters, as to male; and also .... take a look around at the "blog rolls" of the most commonly visited sites and see how many obviously female names/female run sites, versus male, pop up on the favorites lists.

A clue though, females tend to respond far more, to the slightest scent of discomfort, than males bother too (perhaps because they are not sure how to respond with sensitivity, being generally raised to be warriors and such?). And that is not at all to say there aren’t flaming Alpha Bitches out there, nor Sweet as Honey, considerate males (when one speaks to them one on one).

Just one another difference, in passing: female sites, usually don't allow the kind of vicious sniping (like the kind that goes on here) that can confuse newcomers as to who is who, without, at the least, making sure to identify them from the jump, if not boot them after they start doing real damage.

(shit, "bother to," not: "... too." And "one other difference," not: "one another ...")

I (male) do have to concur with diane here. The only regular commenter I remember is ms_xeno, and she was occasionally disturbed by some of the "maleness" of the place too.

Perhaps diane or merkin should be offered posting privileges. But please do not institute moderation and banning here. People who visit this site for a while know what to expect from the comments section, and can write a comment on a post or comment without reserve or self censorship, confident that they will be ignored or responded to just it suits the other drop-ins to the tavern.

I've been banned and I've been moderated for contributions to comments when debate and mild humor were my only intent. Once I was shunned, an altogether better response in my opinion. The moderation and banning were at distinctly female dominated sites. The shunning at a male dominated site. Dare I generalize from my experience?

If I recall correctly, Ms_xeno left an 'outta here' message and complained about something I didn't understand, especially given the sorts of things she had taken in her stride over the years. I wish she could be lured back but her own site seems not to be updated frequently.

It has been so hot in the southeast this month that I am up doing the clothes drying during cool hours.

One surefire way of making the "maleness" quotient go through the roof is linking to harangues of Trots or periodic pledges of allegiance to the immortal precepts of M-L (stuck in a rut around fantasies of Winter Palaces and 1917 though they are). The role-playing games are a big turnoff too for 99.9% of humans who are not well endowed with the GNU sense of humor.

I don't recall ms_x objecting to the general maleness; there were, IIRC, some specific things people said on a few occasions that irked her. I miss her too and wish she'd come back.

On principle I don't moderate or censor comments, though I did once pull the plug on a guy who I thought was monopolizing the comment cages with over-frequent and over-long contributions of a highly abusive character. But that's very exceptional. If I would have to do it more in order to make the place more female-friendly, then that's not on the cards.

I can see why the combative tone might make the place uncongenial to women(*), but I hope it's not splitting hairs to say that doesn't mean it's oriented toward men.

------------

(*) Or most women, anyway. I may have mentioned that I recently got embroiled in an email exchange on my college alumni mailing list with a zealous Democrat, of the female persuasion, who was as insulting, pompous, didactic, conceited, long-winded, condescending, and tedious as any guy could ever hope to be. She replied to every three-sentence contribution with a ponderous thousand-word essay, crammed as full of inconsequential factology as a high-school debater's index cards, and adorned with a parade of hoary anti-Communist cliches, like ancestral masks at a Roman funeral, directed at yours truly.

But no doubt she's exceptional.

First off, a note of gratitude to Comrade SK for always nourishing our intellect with the superb links he sprinkles on his comments. Keep on keep it on brother!

Now moving on to the gender issue raised by diane. Call me a male oriented female but I never cared for gender distinctions raised here and there by my fellow double X’ers. I hardly frequent blogs anyway but if the directness and lack of censorship/moderator are the virtues of a male blog, by all means, keep the gender divide on!

As for the “vicious sniping”, well, I don’t know which is worse: vicious sniping or hijacking the topic of the blog post! In the past weeks, I see more than a few times that either diane or the other fellow double X’er, ann shew hijacked the topic to something totally un-related to the post itself - including this one. At least vicious sniping gets ignored and doesn’t derail the thread but hijacking the topic takes the focus out of a perfectly good subject raised by Comrade Smith.

I'd like to chime in simply to say that I am a big fan of Merkin's comments, and read every word. I found her dispatches from Quebec fascinating, illuminating, and exhilarating. For whatever it's worth, if she isn't already a site author, I'd vote (if you pardon the expression) for her to become one. Not for "gender reasons" but because she tells us things we don't already know, especially items ignored by the MSM (Quebec, a significant example).

I'm not going to get too into this, but I find that Diane seems to be looking for things to be bothered about. Buttplugs??? One of the only instances I know of anyone being interested in the topic was when a WOMAN I know insisted that her then boyfriend get a plug. Geez. How could the topic be anything other than mildly amusing, it not arousing to some.

Thank you Companera Merkin. One hopes hermanas' words will elicit fewer uncomprehending looks and even lead to a rise in some consciousnesses.

whoopsie, wrong cut and paste in last comment. Try this instead.

"Perhaps diane or merkin should be offered posting privileges"
father has extended that offer to anyone
multiple times b4

i know Al and I would welcome a few new voices above the fold here

---------------------------------

i wish someone had noticed just how far apart father and i are
at least by implication
on the mitt /brit dis connect

though as a celtic by brand
i admire father S taking any opportunity
to squeeze albions nutz*

would that he would cease the battering of the mini me however
this site seems to self select for rabid zion baiters

as well as authority phobic nihilists
sock puppet vigilantes
and 'three strikes yer out '
gal sense and sensibility offenders

--- * double x gender fender bender alert !---

"I recently got embroiled in an email exchange on my college alumni mailing list with a zealous Democrat, of the female persuasion, who was as insulting, pompous, didactic, conceited, long-winded, condescending, and tedious as any guy could ever hope to be. She replied to every three-sentence contribution with a ponderous thousand-word essay, crammed as full of inconsequential factology as a high-school debater's index cards, and adorned with a parade of hoary anti-Communist cliches, like ancestral masks at a Roman funeral, directed at yours truly."

i must confess now mjs

that was me !

merkinova:

some topics cry out for hijacking ...no ?

i find diane and the anne show
hugely "balancing additions"

alas we may have triggered
diane's
inner goddess of wrath
into terminator mode
i sure hope not

i myself prefer the chides of a gal
for my wall to wall cross gender communication obtusity

not the usual santimonious
pointy hat
male-feminista

u know the profile
one of those
ever present
jerk-lurking
ankle nipper's with a side ways penis

merkin, now of montreal , of your suggest of not knowing why comments are made where they are , best not to assume too much .. as you are here in your comment above of ann' with an e

I'd be delighted to have more posts from Merkin, in case I haven't already made that clear. Be happy to create a login for ya and give ya the run of the place.

Just wanted to clarify that I was just making a statement of why I felt this blog was male oriented and not requesting changing anything (especially since I was not invited to comment here, am not contributing to the cost of running the site, and just recently started commenting here), I was just responding as to Michael’s query :

, I really don't understand at all what you mean in calling this 'umble blog a 'male oriented space'. What on earth is male about it? Much less oriented?

Which was asked after my first comment above - re: ... but, I can't help but say, on this male oriented 'space' (not that this space shouldn't be male, cuz life is ruff ..... also) wazamatter cat got yoortung? - which I was actually directing at Owen in a playful way (and which I would have posted on his post thread had he made a new post), knowing he would be paying attention to the most current post, about his lack of responding to repeated requests for further discussion on the Joker Thread (Theatres of war) and how the issue of fresh Water might be shaping the current scenario in Africa.

And I certainly wasn’t suggesting that females are inherently better than males, just pointing out some differences and the fact that they are generally, in society, treated as far lower on the totem pole, if even on the totem pole.

While I wasn’t requesting any changes, and certainly not requesting to have log in rights (which I wouldn’t be fit for for a number of reasons anyway: newness to the site; time; and lack of ability to financially contribute to the site), I will say, if there’s an interest in new commenters, that (versus banning or constant moderation) when someone new arrives, it might help to keep a watch for a concentration of attacks against them. The coincidence of Anne Shew and I arriving within a day of each other brought a pretty vicious round of suggesting we were a creation of males on the site, which was really insulting, and very much gender based, in my opinion, and I almost didn’t return because of it. It was one of Al’s supporting statements (despite the recent ado, I sincerely get the feel that Al, is a male quite noticeably sensitive and kind to others, and I’ve implied as much on other threads.) and Owen’s compliments .(and his, less direct than Al’s, acute sensitivity toward others). which made me change my mind, ...the admiration is mutual.

Diane -- I don't always keep close track on all the comments, but my impression was that only one person was gnawing on your fetlock, and it's a person who gnaws on every fetlock here. His (or her) idee fixe is that all the contributors and commenters here are fictional characters, invented by me, for what purpose God alone knows. S/he also uses a lot of pseudonyms, so the impression may have been given that you were getting attacked from more than one direction.

what i've noted more than the maleness here in my bit of reading , is that i don't see this stop me .. as left, the where i am of what is called a far left by others (i don't give it a name ),of how i live in my own country , why so different from what i see here , i don't see the left in the writing here , / i'm still assuming that the cruder of the made up names ,of the putting all together of names ( and yes he goes too far with the suggest that all non males by names that are just commenting here , and not part of this are one )is something of pen karl's dislike of those here that write at stop .. ,just a carry on of , not knowing if it got any worse in some way when i came along here

Y'know, when I first saw the title of this post in my blogroll, I thought it was about Obama. Silly-assed me, I forgot there was another empty suit running this year.

Unlike everybody else, I thoroughly enjoyed the latest episode of Mittens Steps On His Own Crank. I've been following this hit series since its premiere at an Iowa campaign event about a year or so ago, where he shamelessly defended the super-rich in a way that dug him in deeper with every word. Then, of course, the immortal classic "I Like Firing People", followed up by the chart-smashing "The Elevator In My Garage". For me, it wasn't a question of if Mittens was going to step on his own crank again, but when. Oh, if only Obummer could step on his own crank so masterfully as well.

But, aaaaaa-nyway... Britain, groundlessly conceited? Oh, I don't know...

> When the Beatles' first singles hit US radio, Elvis was still busy making those stupid-assed movies, and the Beach Boys were churning out warmed-over doo-wop about surfing and hot rods.

> While US television was armpit-deep in bland, humorless, two-camera laugh-tracked sitcoms, the BBC was serving up Monty Python's Flying Circus. I dare say there would've been no Saturday Night Live if it hadn't been for Monty Python. Norman Lear stole all his best ideas from the Brits. I never could get why all these goddamn' Liberals were swooning all over Norman Lear, 'cause the muthafucka stole all his ideas from the goddamn' Brits.

> Nobody does sarcasm like the Brits. Nobody. Let's face it, folks, we suck at sarcasm over here. Americans' idea of biting sarcasm is "Well-llll, duuuhhhh!" George Carlin and Groucho Marx are the exceptions that prove the rule.

> From all accounts, generally, the beer is awesome. This is more important than you think.

> Two words: National Health.

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtUH2YSFlVU

I could go on, but you get the idea. I'm not going to kid anyone that Britain doesn't have its issues, but they're certainly entitled to be a little bit conceited -- unlike Israel, who's like that pushy, annoying little piss-ant kid that we all remember from school; that irksome, weasley little puke that all the other boys -- including yours truly, the class outcast -- used to line up for a chance to smack the shit out of at recess.

Honestly... I could think of a fistful of cool things that the Brits gave us right off the top of my head, but the only thing I can think of that Israel gave us is an intense desire to knee Israel in the groin.

but the beatles suck, lol

anne, your problem isn't that u r a woman. your problem is tha u r incomprehensible. you make no fucking sense, lady.

anon

u pompous knot head

anne makes perfect sense

Making sense is overrated.

Mike, you seem to have forgotten Uri Geller. Someone said that the Jewish diaspora gave the world Marx, Freud, Einstein and dozens of Nobel laureates, Israel in its 65-odd years of existence has produced Uri Geller. Israeli scientific or cultural productivity is middle of the pack even in the category of small industrialized countries (I'll bet Scotland or Finland are far ahead in scientific and cultural production). It can be hard to be a cutting edge society if your ideal societies are Jim Crow South or Hendrik Verwoerd's Apartheid.

diane sez:
You don't feel it because you're male Michael, and it would take up way too much space, and time I really don't have at the moment to address it fairly and correctly. It's not an insult, it's just a reality.

Maybe I'm misreading your remarks, but I'm seeing more than a few hints of a currently popular attitude among pwog/feminist types that really galls the hell out of me: the pathologization of maleness -- treating the simple fact that my being male is, in itself, a problem, an affliction in need of treatment.

I saw this a lot in the organization meetings on the big antiglob mobes I worked on about ten years ago. Many of the women in the group seemed to have problems with men not because of any issues with institutionalized sexism or the way young boys are socialized, but simply because we were men. They often complained of a "flood of testosterone", to which they responded with a flood of estrogen, resulting in meetings and events full of fussy touchy-feely navel-gazing rituals and gestures at meetings, and "sensitivity workshops" for men (reprogramming, I called 'em). I mean, c'mon, man... of course there's testosterone involved; I'm a guy, f'crissake. What the hell do you want?

If you question it as a reality, for just a few things: make a list of your ten favorite authors and their gender; count your regular female (and clearly portray themselves as female) posters, as to male; and also .... take a look around at the "blog rolls" of the most commonly visited sites and see how many obviously female names/female run sites, versus male, pop up on the favorites lists.

I never really considered gender much when putting together my own blogroll for the first time. If I really dug a blog, it went in. Some deal with Afro-American issues, some with feminist issues, some are obviously written by AAs and/or women. The mix just kind of worked itself out on its own.

But, anyway, right off the top of my head, just for shits'n'giggles:

Ernest Hemingway
Kurt Vonnegut
Arthur C. Clarke
Isaac Asimov
Jack Kerouac
Margaret Atwood
Barbara Kingsolver
Isabel Allende
P.G. Wodehouse
F. Scott Fitzgerald

A clue though, females tend to respond far more, to the slightest scent of discomfort, than males bother too (perhaps because they are not sure how to respond with sensitivity, being generally raised to be warriors and such?)...

Jeezus, tell me all about it. Sometimes I think that men don't need sensitivity training, but women need toughen-the-hell-up-and-get-over-yourself training.

Just one another difference, in passing: female sites, usually don't allow the kind of vicious sniping (like the kind that goes on here)...

Or if they do, the flame wars are followed by the participants hugging, weeping, piercing each others' ears and going out for fruity cocktails.

In case you haven't noticed, I've always been the kind of guy who was attracted to smart-mouthed tomboys, to women who live in t-shirt, jeans and no make-up, and have always detested girly girls who follow the traditional line on what "femaleness" is -- both old-school and modern "femaleness".

sk sez:
Mike, you seem to have forgotten Uri Geller. Someone said that the Jewish diaspora gave the world Marx, Freud, Einstein and dozens of Nobel laureates, Israel in its 65-odd years of existence has produced Uri Geller...

Oh, jeezus, yeah, that spoon-bending guy.

While it's true that the Jewish diaspora gave us the likes of Marx and Einstein, I recall that we were discussing the nation of Israel in particular. Seriously, right offhand, the only positive thing I can think of that Israel gave us is Itzhak Perlman. That's about it. There's probably more, but I'd really have to rack my brain to think of any, while examples from Britain flow out effortlessly -- and that's just the point.

ps: "The Beatles suck"? Them's fightin' words, muthafucka.

An addendum to my first comment up there:

On one of my periodic trips down to the kitchen, I made my usual stop off at the bedroom where the DW is, as usual, sucking down the babble from MSNBC. Some cookie-cutter Liberal commentator is commentating on how Mittens was just "a suit" -- though he didn't use those words -- someone with no "self", ready to say anything anybody wanted to hear in order to win the election. My first thought in reply was "...y'mean, like Obama in '08?"

This kinda goes back to why, when I first saw the headline for this article, I mistakenly thought that Fadduh Smiff was talking about Obama.

mike f , the most feminine girls don't like or wear make up , you clearly don't know what a girly girl is , we are not men in drag .. .

Mike, there are a bound to be a few exceptions that prove the rule. Even Apartheid South Africa had the likes of J.M. Coetzee and Breyten Breytenbach, although the general intellectual and cultural level in blatantly racist societies is almost always a less than edifying sight. I'm sure it doesn't take much to get the creative juices flowing in a celebrated Israeli "artists colony".

sk, owen, michael j. , in looking at sk's links and of a few other comments here , in your all being more out in the world in ways that i am not , in your living , ( my physical disability born with has always had me in some isolation , and of my left mentioned above here , it is of a hands on , in how living out in my community here ,( i do have political drawings , issue focused that go out through france and north of , i have a very large audience with these drawings because they are somehow very moving to many ,with how i am able with my drawing , and with a few words , of wording .. to some ), but still because of all of the other ways of my life , how living , cut off from some knowing of something of the main stream that i need to question here ), - i have grown up in a family that's only knowing of well known religious .. through what makes its way in different ways in to the streams of presses and writing , and other , as i mentioned a little of in a quick response to someone's comment to me here in june . the only church connect being of one of my father's brothers being part of what always seemed like more of a book reading group, gather , to me.. as a child , of a unitarian group , i went with him a little to hear authors read . over the last twenty or less years it has become a group now calling itself something of unitarian /jewish humanists , i have been wanting to ask him why not just humanist , but with all that goes on in my family, and of his being away , and of his not going on line at all, , very interested in film, and a reader , but doesn't like tec', he was at the globe and mail here in the 60s,70s, editing and layout , is in his late 70s now , a little older than the bunch here i'm assuming , what are your thoughts on why not .. just humanist ?

'unitarian/jewish' identifies non-trinitarians, i.e. accepting abrahamic god but not 'son', and not 'holy ghost' as distinct. 'humanist' without predicate suggests atheist. therefore 'unitarian/jewish humanist'.

then why both? because the unitarians regard 'son' character in high aroma while the jews regard same as a false prophet.

group members appear to be hedging pascal's wager, but not confident that god intervenes in earthly affairs.

don't be a tarbaby, s'il vous plais

my last.

Must be something in the water.

michael j, do you have any ideas on why this fleeting person is seeing me as behaving like a tar bebe, i'm not , but ideas on what they might mean in saying that ? / , and there is always something in the water .. .

QED

I can't even explain my own comments, much less anybody else's.

Has anyone seen my car bust of Churchill? The house bust of Churchill is in the house where it belongs, but the car bust is not in the glove compartment where it should be.

Krauthammer gets an apology:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/31/bust-gate-mea-culpa-white-house-sorry-for-confusion-over-winston-churchill/

Ha Ha

Scenario 1:
"The Trade Towers have collapsed! Quick, get onto the British Embassy and see if they have an extra bust of Churchill that we can borrow!"

Scenario 2:
"The Trade Towers have collapsed! What they need over at the White House is the comfort of an additional bust of Churchill, if only for a couple of years. Get onto it, Nigel!"

A special relationship, indeed! A special needs relationship.