Whiskey Fire

A few short thoughts

by flory

This is a bit old, but I've been drowning at work and just caught up, courtesy of The Great Orange Satan.

It's the dog days of summer and the Village has a longstanding tradition of letting Washington's summer weather bake their brains stupid.  By August you know the WaPo's offerings will have all the nuance and nutritional value of Wonder Bread. Robin Givhan doesn't disappoint and last weekend decided that Michelle Obama wearing shorts was a good excuse for a dissertation on the dos and don'ts of first lady fashion:

The noteworthy aspect of Obama's ensemble is that in recent history, first ladies have rarely dressed so informally in public, particularly as they are emerging from Air Force One while a phalanx of photographers stands ready to record the moment. This exclusive group of women might have dressed in a relaxed manner -- khakis or jeans, for instance -- but it was always in a way that suggested that they were keenly aware of the ever-present cameras. None of them revealed as much leg as the current first lady, either

There are a few other "noteworthy" considerations that Givhans has chosen to overlook in her haste to join the tut-tut chorus:

One has to travel all the way back to Jackie Kennedy to find a member of "this exclusive group of women" who was younger than Michelle Obama at her husband's inauguration. Clothing styles that are perfectly appropriate on the 45 year old Michelle Obama would have been patently absurd on the 60 YO Nancy Reagan. Granted, Hilary Clinton was only a year older at Bill's first inaugural, but nobody ever thought of Hilary as a young, hip style icon.

Which brings us to consideration #2:

There have only been three first ladies in the last 50 years that were considered to be fashion icons - Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan (I know -- but both the fashion press and the Village were in full-on swoon mode over her designer wardrobe back in the day) and Michelle Obama. Fashion icons always have more leeway in their choices than do frumpy hausfraus like Laura Bush or Pat Nixon.

Finally, I'm not sure where Givhan has been living the last fifty years but she's apparently not noticed that FASHIONS HAVE CHANGED!! Comparing the fashion choices of someone like Betty Ford and Michelle Obama is like comparing the computing power of UNIVAC and a MacBook. Jackie kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson and Pat Nixon didn't leave the house without wearing a hat and gloves. When Nancy Reagan's husband was President, I couldn't show up at my office in a pantsuit. Today pantyhose are -- thank you baby jeebus! -- going the way of the dodobird and the girdle. Bare legs in the executive suite are no longer a fashion taboo...much less on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Then Robin gets phisophical:

clothes are part of our broader aesthetic obligation to each other. That commitment pushes homeowners to mow their lawns and not be a blight to the neighborhood. It makes them think twice before painting their houses in psychedelic stripes. The desire to be aesthetically respectful means guests give consideration to what they wear to a friend's wedding or mourners take care in how they dress for a loved one's funeral...

...or bored fashion writers give consideration to what would be appropriate dress for "a family outing when her itinerary includes hiking around the rim of the Grand Canyon on a hot summer day?"

Just a thought.

Flickers with Missing Words

The American Thinker shows once more that it is a publication without American Editors. Here is metaphor that is not so much "mixed" as it is hit over the head with a pool cue, tossed in a dumpster, and peed on by hoboes.

The only question remains: Is Obama masterminding the current events for economic collapse, or is he just the hapless puppet holding the hot potato?

For all intensive purposes, is it not the same and there is no difference? Anyhow, to quote Squiggy, that's the way the cookie bounces.

According to the article, Obama is deliberately weakening the nation so as to make it more vulnerable to Soviet invasion. This is not merely possible, but probable. Wolverines!

Just Cut It Out!

-By Jake T. Snake

I was a smoker for 12 years. I enjoyed it, no let me be truthful, I loved smoking. 2 packs a day at one point. Newport Regulars were my cancer stick of choice, I mean if you are going to do it there really isn't any sense in pussyfooting around, now is there? I only quit because my lovely wife told me it was time to quit. We were newly married at the time and so a system of rewards for cutting down was easily at hand in a manner of speaking. Still, this process took me 18 months. Did I mention how much I liked smoking? Seriously, if I knew it wouldn't kill me in no time flat I would go back to the habit in a heartbeat. Anyhow...I elected to take a year and a half to quit by slowly titrating down my daily cigarette consumption, because I knew that if I tried to go cold turkey not only would I fail at quitting smoking, but might end up in prison for murder. The point of all this is to say that behavior change is tough. How many of us have started exercise programs and stopped them over and over again? lost and gained 10-20 pounds in a yo-yoing fashion? Promised that we would try to stop drinking before the blackouts...you get the gist. Inertia overtakes us all at points.

We all know that changing our negative behaviors is tough and is a long term project which is why I am constantly suprised that the predominant method of addiction treatment in this country remains that we tell people to cold turkey, complete abstinence, white knuckle it and no we don't have any other options. Matter of fact in New York State, we even force you to quit smoking if you are going into rehab. The only thing better than experiencing withdrawal from one or several of your favorite drugs is going through Nicotine withdrawal on top of everything else. Is it a good idea for people to quit smoking? Unequivocally, but wouldn't it be nice to allow them when to decide to take that on? We have a name for when we decide what is best for people and on what schedule with or without their permission, it is called paternalism.

 I smack into this lunacy on a fairly regular basis, because the agency I work for serves a lot of folks who have a...conflictual relationship with substances...yaaaa..... We serve them anyway. Nobody gets booted out the door unless they are obnoxious. It is not unusual for us to have clients come in in an altered state on various substances. We face up to the fact that this is normal for many folks and don't refuse to serve them. You sort of have to operate from this perspective when you are running syringe exchanges. Harm Reduction Baby, that's what we do. Keep them alive long enough to quit.

The norm in many human service agencies is to give people the heave ho if they come in drunk or stoned or worse, cut them off completely from services. I have never understood the logic of someone presenting to a professional  with overwhelming evidence that they need help i.e. showing up to an appointment inebriated and the response of the professional is to withdraw assistance. Seems to me it might be the perfect time to talk about how substance us might be compromising day to day functioning. It happens every day my friends. We don't want to help you with your substance use until you prove you can stop without our help seems to be the underlying logic.

Then I ask myself why certain addictions are socially acceptable while others make one a pariah. Obviously, whether or not something is illegal plays a part, but at this point in history many people I know are more likely to judge you harshly for smoking tobacco than marijuana. From a purely biological perspective uncut heroin is less toxic to the body than that martini, it is the lifestyle that takes its toll. 10% of the American public is taking antidepressants. If you teach at a college you know how many of your students are using stimulants to study. 

This rigidity in dealing with addictions and those who struggle with them is a piece of our abstinence focus in sexuality and our increasingly polarized black and white view of reality. This violates the credo that professionals are supposed to bring to their work of deciding the best course of treatment based on that individual's needs. Professional autonomy is increasingly restricted and hemmed in by preformulated decision trees that restricy creativity and offer a one size fits all approach for people in need. Essentially, we tell people to do it our way or we won't help you and when you are deperate enough you will buckle under and do it our way.

I will be honest with you, I don't care one way or the other if people quit using their substance of choice or not. I was healthier smoking 3 cigarettes a day than when I was smoking 2 packs a day, but i was still a smoker. My yardstick is our clients' daily functioning and if they feel that is adequate, because at the end of the day the motivation to change their use has to come from them. My wife asked me to quit with her, but I was never going to quit for anyone but myself. So that is what we will continue to do, accept people where they are and offer lots of ways to cut down and maybe eventually stop, but not on my schedule on theirs.

Gracious How Shocking

Remember when the reason Gadaffi made nice to the Western Powers was because Bush Brought Democracy? I do. But maybe there was  more to it.

DURING the past year a small ship bristling with computers and seismic equipment has been crisscrossing the Gulf of Sidra, in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast. Its mission: to help to find BP’s next offshore oilfields.

The company’s search for oil off Libya and in a 20,000-mile area in the west of the country potentially offers as much as £15 billion in new revenue. But less than two years ago it was feared that the deal could founder — and the reason was wrangling over Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the jailed Lockerbie bomber.

BP was finally given the go-ahead six weeks after a volte-face by the British government to include Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya under which prisoners could serve out sentences in their home countries. Jack Straw, the justice secretary, revealed this decision in a letter to his Scottish counterpart. He cited “wider negotiations” and the “overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom”.

Sources in the UK and Tripoli said last week that those wider interests included BP’s hoped-for share of Libya’s untapped oil and gas reserves. The decision to include Megrahi in the prisoner transfer arrangement was seen by Libyan officials as paving the way for his release — and BP’s much-coveted deal was finally ratified.

And Libya funded the IRA. Funny old world.

Am I happy about this? No! How many corpses are there because of this? None! Is this progress? Yes!

And there you go.

What are words for?

by Ripley

 If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child.  If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.  If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. 

It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work.

It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family:  "E pluribus unum," out of many, one.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.  There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.

The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.  We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Of course, you're welcome to Fuck Off And Die, but...

Rip -

The Sacred Heart of Waterboarding

I'm pretty easygoing when it comes to religious discussion; my general philosophy is, live, let live, and leave me the fuck out of it. It's a topic about which I don't have a lot to say, so I don't say a lot about it.

So I 'm perhaps breaking one of my unwritten policies here, but on the other hand, the following really should not be a controversial position:

If your religion is like Gary Bauer's, and compels you to come up with torture apologias that get published at Townhall, your religion is for shit.

If Zombie Peter Lorre were exhumed from the grave tomorrow and offered the part of Gary Bauer in a  biopic, he'd turn down the role on the grounds that it looked "just too damn creepy."

That Soon, Eh?

Benen.

It looks like word went out yesterday about what leading conservative voices should say about Ted Kennedy's death: complain about the memorial service that hasn't happened yet.

Shit, I'm surprised they had the decency to wait until he actually died before throwing out the Wellstone smear. And I'm sure some of them didn't, frankly.

They Will Send for You Someday

I am hardly one to complain about incivility, since I don't believe in civility, at least in the fatuous sense in which the term is commonly understood by pea-brained, pea-souled pundits. Or to be more precise, if you like civility, practice it -- don't use it as war by other means. But we've been here before.

I'm not disgusted by this asshole because of an insult to the newly deceased -- the rule of civility, the polite rule, the "don't speak ill of the dead" rule. If the newly deceased Ted Kennedy really were a "traitor," someone who had tangibly & willfully harmed Americans, I would not especially mourn his passing. When Strom Thurmond died, we here at Whiskey Fire shed no tears (to say the least). No; the reason I'm disgusted by this post by noted imbecile Bob Owens is that he's full of shit, as Dave MC (Mysterious Consonant) Noon points out. See, Thurmond really was a racist homophobe, and Ted Kennedy really wasn't in league with Soviet Russia.

If the dead spoke ill, speak ill of the dead. Truth is a higher value than civility, and when civility gets in the way of truth, well, sometimes that's OK -- don't be rude at your horrible uncle's funeral it it makes grandma cry, now -- but when it comes to stuff like, oh, denying rights to certain classes of American citizens, or, like, not getting better healthcare for all Americans... fuck civility, go with truth.

And the truth is, in the next few weeks, we're going to see a lot of assholes try to whistle some sort of "civility" penalty in regards to anyone who says we should honor Ted Kennedy's memory by making sure we obtain some sort of sane healthcare system for all Americans. Well, fuck that. Because the truth is, these people have the political, self-interested goal of denying a sane healthcare system to all Americans.

When "civility" means censorship, it's a perversion. When "healthcare reform" means "making insurance companies richer," it's a perversion. When "being polite" means "pissing on a newly dead man's life's work," it is beyond revolting.

It is, however, the "conservative" ideal of reasoned public discourse.

And, as ever, to that, we at Whiskey Fire say, "fuck that noise."

(And it isn't even like I was ever the biggest Kennedy fan; I've lots of problems with that clan. But Teddy was worth at least 50 Joe Liebermans, even if you trimmed the jowls and added a conscience, you know?)

(HT to our old friend EGN for the proper video tip.)

(Yecccch.)

Submarine Teams

Coaching the 9-Year-Old's soccer team again this year. On the team: TWO sets of identical twins. Kill me. Also, anyone who's coached a youth team in any sport has encountered the Junior Sports Lawyer, the 10-Year-Old who Knows the Rules and Insists on His Rights. Well, every child on this team is that kid, including my own. We're having fun, but omigod.

As far as the Big Leagues, I'm impressed at the way the Mets season is increasingly resembling some sort of bizarre Gothic horror story -- demonstrate anything like baseball competence, and Be Struck Down by some Awful Calamity. If I were K-Rod, I'd be afraid. Very afraid. Tomorrow he'll probably trip coming out of the bullpen and die.

UPDATE. RIP. A complicated life, but if it was ultimately devoted to healthcare for all Americans? Let's make it happen.

And I'm just Irish-American enough. For you, Ted, forevermore: An tÉarlamh na gCúiseanna Caillte.

For me, well, whatever. But the impact of the Kennedys on a certain generation, here, as well as back in the Old Sod? Incalculable. Really.

Those Silly Young People; Or, Are Old People Assholes?

The Official Blog of the American Enterprise Institute offers us a truly ingenious explanation for why young people tend to support healthcare reform and old people don't. First, the kids are confused. Second, they have a charming youthful infatuation with the concept of "fairness." And, third time's the shit, emphasis mine:

A third possible explanation is that choice just doesn’t matter as much in healthcare. People just want the assurance of insurance. They don’t want to shop the same way they shop for mobile phones or TVs. But they only value that assurance up until it means radical government oversight and expense, and older people simply have more experience understanding what increased government means for their own taxes and quality of life.

Yeah. Namely, older people are aware that it means they have access to a popular, generous, comprehensive, government-run and funded healthcare system known as "Medicare."

Or at least they should be so aware, though some seniors don't quite seem to get get the "government-run and funded" part, which is cute.

The real question, you see, is why old people tend not to want to expand a program that they tend to really like so that other people can benefit from it. Maybe this is because, pace our AEI friend, they do not tend to value "fairness" -- or, to put this another way, that they're "assholes"?

Anyway, for sheer ideological up-is-down-ism, glibertarian class, you have to love the AEI-bot's conclusion:

But if the public—and especially the younger generation—understood the benefits of choice-oriented reform compared to the plan Washington is currently peddling, they might support it more readily.

Or maybe "the younger generation" sees a popular, generous, government-run and funded healthcare system known as "Medicare" working just fine in their own country, and they want that, too.

Too bad that's not actually on offer, of course, which is another thing that's irritating me this fine August afternoon in America.