Whiskey Fire

Live It Up Before You Pass Away

The Kenosha Kid has tagged me with a grisly meme about what famous people will die in 2007. Here are my guesses:

1. Walter Cronkite.
2. Al Goldstein.
3. Adam Nagourney.
4. Queen Latifah.
5. Robin Williams.
6. Jean Claude van Damme.
7. Carly Simon.
8. Thomas Friedman.
9. Loretta Lynn.
10. Barry Bonds.

Sniper Fire!

While Atrios and Bradrocket engage in open warfare, PowerPop & Whiskey Fire lay down some sniper fire.

Said the Nolan

Regarding the thread below, what can one say, but National Review trolls are really, really funny: read it to learn why stuffing is pretentious, why Jonah Goldberg is "more influential" than James Joyce, and why the word "noob" is elitest but "fuck" is not (actually, that one is not explained, but asserted. No matter). But they don't know the half of it. After all:

No man, said the Nolan, can be a lover of the true or the good unless he abhors the multitude; and the artist, though he may employ the crowd, is very careful to isolate himself. This radical principle of artistic economy applies specially to a time of crisis, and today when the highest form of art has been just preserved by desperate sacrifices, it is strange to see the artist making terms with the rabblement.

Or, even more aptly:

If an artist courts the favour of the multitude he cannot escape the contagion of its fetichism and deliberate self-deception, and if he joins in a popular movement he does so at his own risk. Therefore, the Irish Literary Theatre by its surrender to the TROLLS has cut itself adrift from the line of advancement. (emphasis mine --ha!)

Hee hee. When we get back from our holiday trip to the folks I'll talk more about wingnuttia's obsession with "intellectuals," a ripe field for exploration. For now, feel free to take a trip down into the menagerie and gaze in wonder at these exhibits.

They're awful touchy & insecure, though, so have a care for your fingers.

Hoisted the Flag

I'll have more particulars. But I am honored by the quality of my friends. Humbled, really.

You that would judge me, do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland's history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.

I'm overcome. Thanks, guys.

Chemical Minx Disguises

***UPDATE for the benefit of National Review The Corner readers -- the point of the post below is that Ann Althouse regularly picks blogfights in a passive-aggressive and often dishonest fashion in order to drive traffic; this is why she was so upset recently when she got Andrew Sullivan's attention and then he didn't link to her directly, the cad. Hence, when J. Goldberg wonders why Althouse came after him aggressively in their Blogginheads thing -- that's why. She's all about the attention (read her posts about this -- they're all meta, about how she deliberately chose to engage him in order to provoke him). Anyway, that's probably the only point in here that NRO people will care about; the rest of the post is our usual Liberal Blogger mix of invective, Savage Calumny, and Dripping Contempt for All You Hold Dear. Read on if you choose, but it's mostly snark. Well-written, though.***

For my Christmas present, I got a blogfight between Ann Althouse and Jonah Goldberg, which is sort of like watching a pair of especially dense hamsters attack each other with Q-tips. COOL!

The occasion of their savage sniffing was their mutual attendance at a Liberty Fund conference honoring Frank Meyer.  Apparently some people enjoy this sort of thing. Apparently some people bought Creed records.   

Longtime observers of Althouse will recognize the pattern, and so will relatives of substance abusers. They have their inane conference, and then Althouse goes home and writes a vapid yet passive-aggressive post about how great she is and how everyone else is teh suck because they believe in things and she doesn't. Althouse feels things, and these things are terribly important:

I am struck -- you may think it is absurd for me to be suddenly struck by this -- but I am struck by how deeply and seriously libertarians and conservatives believe in their ideas. I'm used to the way lefties and liberals take themselves seriously and how deeply they believe. Me, I find true believers strange and -- if they have power -- frightening. And my first reaction is to doubt that they really do truly believe.

One of the reasons 9/11 had such a big impact on me is that it was such a profound demonstration of the fact that these people are serious. They really believe.

The problem with this is that it is self-aggrandizing pap, complete with a silly observation about 9/11. It's a strategy. It's a move in a game, the claim to be above playing it. Also, it's annoying. And beyond that, it's a confession that she's labored under conditions of appalling ignorance for years, particularly insofar as after, say, the USS Cole incident, she thought Al Qaeda was just kidding around. Though that does explain her affinity for the Bushites -- ignorance and hubris, wheeeeeee. Dumbass.

But the really fun part of the post is that there is no way to disagree with it, if you commit the error of doing anything besides laugh at it. I particularly enjoy the insinuation that if you approve of Frank Meyers you're as bad as OSAMA BIN LADEN. Which I'd agree with for snark purposes, but probably isn't exactly true. After all, for Al Charlie, his idea of R&R is cold rice and a little rat meat. For the National Review libertarian/ fusion/ whatever crowd, it's, well, this. (Sorry.)

Hehindeed. Anyway, Althouse does make me feel a bit sorry for Jonah Loadenberry, though not that much. Look at this plaintive little bleat from his response:

my conversation with Ann Althouse is up at BhTV. It got a little heated in the begining and I've been trying to figure out why Ann and I had such a problem talking to each other about Frank Meyer, state's rights etc. Ann's a nice and reasonable person, after all.

You noob. She set you up. Which is not too hard, as Jonah is none too bright, and also hopelessly tied to a very familiar type of infantile conservative identity politics, as in the assumption that Movement Conservatives embody a certain type of Homo Americanus, when really they're just geeky internet geeky geeks supported by wingnut welfare grants supplied by a bunch of true-believing suckers.

But the real  comedy? You want to hear the real comedy?  Althouse in full loony sail:

I see something wrong with the style of thinking that entails latching onto ideas as ideas. I have a problem with the fundamentalists and ideologues who don't keep track of how their ideas affect the real world and who don't maintain the empathy and the flexibility to adjust and correct their thinking in response to what they see.

What a hoot!

UPDATE: Or you could just watch this. 

I suggest that you not. You have been warned.

A Very Different and Very Spoiled World

So it seems we are all in agreement (FLORY?) that, as Phila approvingly cites, "the struggle within any specific social field is to establish the dominant definition of legitimate discourse."

Phila connects this Frenchified assertion with this remarkable document emanating from the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, a body currently (for about two more weeks, anyhow) chaired by Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe (pictured). The purpose of the release is to provoke gasps of horror that a magazine beloved of Bill Moyers and Al Gore was so gauche as to call for "Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming." 

See, on Grist magazine's blog, David Roberts wrote:

When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.

Which is, you know, pretty reasonable, all things considered. The well-heeled global warming denialist industry-funded industry really should have to face some severe consequences if even a third of the most reasonable predictions of mainstream climate scientists come true. But of course what happened was the predictable shitstorm of whining about "the anti-free-speech incivility of the Left." (Though I note in passing that the sniveling about Roberts' remark has now been overtaken in Technorati by blogs referring to this story about how the Alps ain't getting any colder.)

Now, if you think Sen. Inhofe and the cretinous scumbag wingnut lackey who wrote the Senate committee release were just shocked, shocked! at Roberts' single blog post referencing Nuremberg (a post written, ha ha, in the context of this amusing little article), and that their response stems from their offended sense of decorum -- well, if you really think that, you're pretty damn stupid, a sap, or willfully self-deluded. No. What the wingnut in question was playing for was the potential for granting a false legitimacy to a fraudulent and very dangerous political grouping, the climate change denialists, essentially by invoking Godwin's Law. And the fun thing about Godwin's Law that nobody ever cares to remember is that it really has nothing to do with right or wrong, or even Naziism, but rather with inventing a cheap way of determining who has won an argument.

This is really the essential point. In the case Phila cites, what is most emphatically NOT at stake is science. Or morality. Or the Nazis. Or war crimes trials. Or the first amendment. Or my left nut.

What is at stake is winning in the cultural field, or in other words establishing a monopoly over the terms in which global warming can be discussed. Or else, since the denialists' near monopoly over the debate now seems to have evaporated, the aim is to permit those whose actual arguments lack scientific credibility to at least attain rhetorical credibility, by pretending to be the aggrieved party in a case of civility. When you're losing on the facts, pound the table; when that doesn't work, start to cry like a total weenie about that great big mean bully, uh, Al Gore. And if you can't really pass him off as a bully (he's not in fact all that vicious-looking, I gotta concede), find some stray blog post that mentions NAZI GERMANY and hope you fling enough shit that some splats on his tie.

The cynicism of the ploy should I hope be apparent. Beyind that though, marvel at its desperation: here we have basically the Chair of a Senate Committee hoping to score points by cherrypicking a quote from a fucking blog. What that shows to me is that far from having a monopoly over the discourse, something I think they were ironically closer to having when Al Gore held a powerful political office, the denialists are desperately scrambling for loose change like a drunk hoping to find enough pennies and nickels to buy just one more quart of Olde Horsepiss.

Indeed, this is a pretty neat example of the thesis that a Bad Word ("Nuremberg") can be made to matter chiefly for its immediate political utility. In this example, morality or ethics have fuck all to do with it.

Punch for the Franchise

A musical tribute to the magnificent Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia's 5th Congressional District. Rep. Goode is truly the embodiment of all that is most noble in our National Character and as such deserves to be commemorated in a quintessentially American fashion: through rock and roll. Let none call us here at Whiskey Fire unpatriotic, you ignorant traitorous gobshites, you.

"Virgil B. Goode"

Deep down in Franklin County up in 'ol Virginny
Lives a Congresscritter cracker, kinda wingnutty.
Lovin' all Americans, 'cept those of mixed blood,
He's an anti-Muslim meathead known as Virgil B. Goode.
He never ever learned to read or write so well
But he was pretty damn sure that fags are going to hell.

Go, go, go. Virgil B. Goode.

His mother told him "someday you will be a man,
And you'll get to grandstand about the Koran.
Claimin' too many Muslims comin' from miles around
Gonna run the damn country right into the ground.
Cause you know it's just like fallin' off a log--
Acting like a total cheap-ass bigot demagogue."

Go. Go. Go. Virgil B. Goode.

And so on.

PLAGIARIZED?!

Listening to NPR this morning, I heard this report about the American Enterprise Institute's brilliant new plan for Iraq, and how much the White House loves it. In a nutshell, the AEI

proposes shifting the focus of the American military from training Iraqi forces to securing the Iraqi population and containing the escalating violence and increasing American combat forces in Iraq by roughly 30,000 troops.

Sounds great! Only one problem...

THIS SCHEME TOTALLY PLAGIARIZES MY BRILLIANT PLAN FOR PREVENTING THE TRANSMISSION OF SYPHILIS.

My "Anti-Syphilis Plan" recognizes that syphilis is a problem, and that the dangers of syphilitic infection spreading from the Middle Regions of the body are intolerable. Defeat is not an option. Previous measures to prevent the transmission of syphilis have failed. Bold and decisive action must be taken immediately.

ACTION PLAN:

1. Gather up all ejaculated semen from the sexual organs of the infected party.

2. Carefully reinsert the contaminated semen into the penis of the originally diseased individual.

3. Place a condom on the syphilitic penis.

4. Recommence fucking, only this time with the condom on.

What could go wrong? I'm just pissed the Brookings Institution isn't inviting me to speak on this subject, but it is having those AEI thieves over. No respect, I tell you.

(Note: I understand that point 2, above, seems logistically difficult, but a simple household turkey baster should do the trick. Either that or a cluster bomb.)

Coming into Town with the --

Been thinking about dirty words lately, in the context of the late unpleasantness. (Or one of the late unpleasantnesses, anyway.) Not in the sense of whether I like 'curse words or not. I do like 'em. Shit, I LOVE the little fuckers. And for good or ill, they're a part of the voice that works for me online, for whatever reason. No, I'm thinking instead about what curse words, or otherwise loaded words, actually do.

When the issue of "bad words" comes up the immediate question is typically the morality of the use of the words or word. Is it right to say "cocksucker" or not? How about "cunt"? Or "nigger"?

And that's fine. But what usually isn't considered is the nature of curses and slurs and "bad words" in and of themselves. What makes a curse a curse? What makes one word OK for referring to a certain ethnic group OK, and what makes another a slur? Why is "vagina" good and "cunt" bad?

Let us explore the subject of bad words coldly and analytically, for a moment. What are they? What are these bad words that make us so unhappy?

I have a theory, you see, you benighted gobshites. And yes, this will be on the final.

1. We need to concede upfront that  bad words usually lack concrete referents. When I say "fuck you, Jonah Goldberg," I am not expressing on any level a desire to have sex with Jonah Goldberg. Neither am I considering in any way Mr. Goldberg's sexuality, a perfectly disgusting topic best left to people in white coats with stainless steel implements and excellent mental health coverage. Rather, I am expressing utter contempt for his silly "ideas" and "essays," and indeed literally wishing that he would "go and get his head stuck in a birdhouse."

Likewise, when I say "that David Brooks column is full of shit," I do not mean that when you open up the NY Times to his effusions, a pound or so of feces will fall on your lap. While that would, admittedly, be an improvement, it is not really the case that his writings are manure, which after all serves a useful function.

2. "Bad words" always vary in time and place. In other words, the worst of curses decades or centuries ago are as nothing now. "Egad" and "zounds" are pretty good examples of this --  and so is  "bloody," a word with a fascinating history.

This suggests that the "badness" quotient of a certain word depends heavily on who says it and in what context, and what cultural values predominate in the world of its expression. Fall into the wrong time portal and say "zounds!" when you emerge, and the natives may skin you. Say "fuckboogers" and they might laugh. And THEN kill you. And who could blame them?

3. What 1 and 2 suggest is that curse words serve a social and political function of inclusion and exclusion, more than anything else. What a curse word, or a bad word (distinctions coming) really does is to define who is in and who is out.

My favorite illustration of this point is from professional baseball, where we consider the function of the "magic word," as Jim Bouton called it: "motherfucker," the word that would get you automatically chucked. Say "motherfucker" and you were "out of the game." Nobody's mother's vagina was being penetrated by anyone's penis -- but the word would get you "thrown out."

And this is how it goes, no? Use a bad word, and you're "out," in some worlds; use the same word in other worlds, and you're "in." It's a game. Here's a fun sketch: a law firm, 11AM. In one office, a job interview is being conducted. The candidate forgets herself and says "crap." The committee frowns. At exactly the same instant, not 35 feet away, a senior partner says "shitballs," and her colleague giggles. The one wall and the marginal physical gulf between the two utterances is nothing next to the vastness of the corresponding social gulf. And literal poop has nothing to do with it.

4. To grasp the full meaning of a particular "bad" expression in a particular utterance of same, what matters is the position of the speaker within the wider linguistic marketplace, a space of competing interests and valences. Which I know sounds like dirty water being squirted from an old rubber ball. But still.

It's not such a strange concept. Here's the easiest metaphor: money. In the example of the law firm above, what matters is the amount of linguistic capital possessed by the partner as opposed to the interviewee. To be blunt, the partner can afford to say "shit" while the interviewee cannot afford to say "crap." What's changed is not anyone's attitude towards feces, but the position and resources of the speaker.

5. So when we're talking about bad words, we're talking about political and social power. And you know, that's about it. 

Pierre Bourdieu argues that the struggle within any specific social field is to establish the dominant definition of legitimate discourse. And he's right, motherfuckers. Bad words shift in social valence when their social as opposed to literal valence shifts. Nobody's going to defend or champion feces, so the taboos on that remain relatively stable. Not so the value placed on slurs referring to God, or blacks, or gays.

I have more of a point, but now I'm sleepy. Come back tomorrow!

Nests of Crows

So the latest internetty wingnut jiahad against the MSM may be grinding to an ignominious halt, with Michelle Malkin's trip to peaceful sunny Iraq cancelled and the person she thought did not exist actually located. Seems it was all just a spelling error:

NEW YORK Has the mysterious and much-disputed Associated Press source in Iraq, a police captain named Jamil Hussein -- finally been found? His existence has been challenged in the past three weeks from the U.S. military, some Iraqi officials and conservative bloggers in the U.S.

A blogger named Marc Danziger who has followed the debate claimed late Saturday that he believes he has positively identified the captain at the Yarmouk police station, just as the AP had claimed, although (if this checks out) his first name may be spelled Jamail, not Jamil.

Though far from definitive proof, it was strong enough to cause at least one conservative blogger to wonder if those who had mocked the AP might have to eat “a huge shinola sandwich.” But as of early Monday, Danziger had not presented any more of his promised evidence.

Just Thursday, Eason Jordan, the former CNN news chief now launching a Web site called IraqSlogger, had earned headlines by offering to fly Michelle Malkin to Baghdad to search with him for Capt. Hussein. She had accepted, and the IraqSlogger site now runs an urgent plea for tips about Hussein’s whereabouts in a crawl at the top of its site.

Two things. First, when people like this ask "why aren't you liberal bloggers paying attention to our latest MSM outrage!" the answer is, "because you people are a bunch of total lunatics."

Second, has it occurred to said lunatics that by going all internetty MSM jihad on this "Jamail" Hussein fellow, they might just be endangering his life? And if it did, would they even care?

Un-frickin'-real.