Architects may come and
Architects may go and
Never change your point of view.
When I run dry
I stop awhile and think of you
12:12 PM kentucky: I don't understand why Jessica is so defensive about what you said in your profile of Ann Althouse. I personally don't think her chest was the focal point of the photo, but you, as a young man, are welcome to that opinion. So why does holding that opinion mean that you think she was flaunting her secuality [sic], or however she described it?I think there's something really incoherent about the Third Wave/pro-sex feminists. They continually use sexuality for self-promotion, but if you want to examine issues of sexuality from any dimension other than the one they control, they slam you as a misogynist or some such thing. You know, my biggest problem with them is that they are boring. There's no possibility of an interesting discussion about anything.
Ryan Grim: I bought Valenti’s book the other day and am about halfway through it. The title, Full Frontal Feminism, is an obvious play on Full Frontal Nudity, a porn term that let’s folks know how much they’re about to see. And then there’s the cover, splashed with a nude woman’s midsection. And then there’s the content: a steady theme of the book is sexuality, getting into specifics like oral sex and masturbation.
On the Colbert Report the other night, she said, "Nothing says feminism like a naked woman's body." Okay, fine.
I don’t care one way or the other what Valenti writes about. But to pick that subject matter and then object to me saying that she’s “not shy with her body” strikes me as a double standard. A woman can talk about sexuality but a man can’t then say that she’s comfortable doing what she’s doing? And why would anybody object to that characterization? What’s wrong with not being shy?
Thanks to several women who have discussed that very question to me, I now (think I) know why she objects to that. When she says “everyone knows” what I meant, she’s saying that I was using coded language to call her a ‘slut.’
Now, if you take the line I wrote completely out of context, I can agree that such an interpretation is possible, though it’s a stretch. But I can also say that that interpretation couldn’t be farther from the truth. What purpose on Earth would it serve either me or the story to call someone I never met a slut?
Not only wasn't intended to be offensive, the line wasn’t even remotely intended as a criticism. What could possibly be wrong with not being shy about one’s body? A lot of people aren’t and, I would think, that’s a trait shared by mature individuals.
FSBOMadison.com, the subject of a January 2006 article in The New York Times, charges $150 for an ad on the site and a yard sign. Taking advantage of antiestablishment sentiment in Madison, which has a highly educated and liberal population, it quickly grabbed a market share of roughly 20 percent. That made it among the most successful challengers in the country to real estate agent domination of home sales.So Madison is special -- don't we know? -- because of FSBOMadison.com and because of our "highly educates and liberal" "antiestablishment" culture. Does that make us resist professional help and think we can do better? Personally, I just can't picture myself interacting with all manner of strangers and ushering them around my house.
That scale, along with the cooperation of the site’s owners and of the local Realtor group, made the economists’ study possible. “We don’t have national data,” Mr. Nevo, one of the authors, said. “FSBOMadison is unique.”
[I]nvite four candidates from each party to bi-weekly debates....XWL has another post today, and he notes that Patrick Ruffini just wrote:
Have each candidate be the "host" for ten minutes at a time, asking questions to the four opposing party candidates. Have a moderator ensure that they don't use their time to ask 9 minute questions full of their own campaign talking points, but instead reward candidates for engaging the other side directly....
By forcing the two sides together as early as possible, that would change the tone of these debates from monologue to dialogue. It would be up to each candidate to decide whether that dialogue should be shrill, informative, cooperative, or combative. This would give the primary voters real information on how these folks would perform come general election time, and it would generate far more interest amongst that big group of independents who sit these things out till the last minute usually.
With candidates trying to shore up their general election creds, who will be the first to challenge a debate across party lines this year? ... It would be a risky move, and a gutsy one. Think of the huge earned media moment it would be, giving us the excitement of a general election slapdown a year early. It would be a make or break moment for a candidate a few points back looking to roll the dice. If you were looking to mess with the other party's frontrunner by elevating a top-tier challenger, this would do it. And it would teach the voters vastly more about those candidates than the current debates joint appearances can.That seems to make it pretty obvious that frontrunners won't do it.
When we pick a President we aren't just picking a single person, we are picking a team, and I want to know as soon as possible what the make up of that team will look like. A Bloggingheads type format would be perfect, with dingalinks, and a relatively unstructured time frame. Would Clinton have beaten Bush in 1992 if we had known it would have been a bunch of dweeby munchkins, a few crusty Carter leftovers, and heavily favoring academic over real world folks? Likewise, in 2000 if folks had known Bush was skipping past his father, and even Reagan to pick folks with experience in the Nixon and Ford years, would Gore have won more than the popular vote (although in this scenario I think he would have had a stable of far lefty policy wonks that would make Hillary look like Ayn Rand, so he probably would have lost resoundingly, even against the Bush/Ford/Nixon team).Any more creative ideas out there... and good arguments for getting the candidates to submit to them?
Could any of the Republicans get Colin Powell to speak on their behalf? Would Clinton be crazy enough to dust off Albright? Does anyone know who Obama's people are or what his cabinet would look like? Does McCain have any friends (aside from a few in the media)? Would Rudy look past the five boroughs for advisers?
The outcome, which followed an outpouring of criticism of the measure from core Republican voters and from liberal Democrats as well, was a significant setback for the president. It came mainly at the hands of members of his own party after he championed the proposal in the hope of claiming it as a major domestic policy achievement in the last months of his administration.We're down to the "last months" already?
"When you analyse the face or body, which is beautiful for two days, after 10 years it's more difficult.
"It can eventually create a lot of unhappiness - that's nature."
The Dalai Lama said as a celibate monk he sublimated physical desire through "training of the mind" and intense analytical meditation.
True happiness, he said, came through peace of mind, altruism and compassion.
[T]here are many ... women who feel that unless one is Bill Clinton or the object of their own lecherous desires (of course, for these women, their own desire is called empowerment--not lechery!), a regular joe has no right to look at a woman--not even in pictures--with desire in his heart. In their eagar quest to control men's sexual rights, some "feminist" women (and other prudish ones too!) go to extremes to shame, expose or intimidate men who let their lust for women dare come to the surface. ...Well, now this goes beyond the problem of men leering at their own wives, and it also leans heavily on the idea of rights. If we're talking rights, surely, we've also got a right to express contempt for men who boorishly exhibit their sexual feelings in public. People need to learn manners -- even if bad manners aren't a crime. The word "leer" is useful: It lets you know there's a line you will be judged by. Learn where it is or suffer the consequences -- which don't include prison, just contempt and rejection... unless you've got a special way about you, which you probably don't if you're reading this and not off somewhere enjoying the benefits of flouting society's norms.
[M]en have a right to sexual expression just as women do and leering or even an interest in porn is not a crime--but if some women have their way, it soon may be. So, I say to you men out there who believe in your right to sexual freedom, stand up for your right to leer--or it may soon be a thing of the past.
He argued that real life, the life out of newspaper headlines, was outdoing the imagination of novelists, and that fiction writers were in fact abandoning the effort to grapple with ''the grander social and political phenomena of our times'' and were turning instead ''to the construction of wholly imaginary worlds, and to a celebration of the self.''
These remarks -- made even before John F. Kennedy's assassination and the social upheavals of the 60's magnified the surreal quotient of American life -- help illuminate what Tom Wolfe identified (with considerable self-serving hyperbole) in the late 80's as a retreat from realism. They also help explain the direction that Mr. Roth's own fiction has taken over the last three and a half decades, his long obsession with alter egos and mirror games and the transactions between life and art.
Affirmative action in the University of Wisconsin System and state contracting would be abolished or significantly scaled back under legislative proposals to be taken up today by a committee of state lawmakers and citizens.(Do some people figuratively grow up in another country? Apparently, yes.)
One measure would draft a constitutional amendment that would prohibit state agencies and public universities from granting preferential treatment to any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin....
Other proposals, crafted by Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), chairman of the Special Committee on Affirmative Action, would:
• Require racial or ethnic minorities applying to the UW System or state contracting agencies to prove they are at least 25% that race or ethnicity to receive preferential consideration.
• Require racial or ethnic minorities applying to the UW System to demonstrate "knowledge or experience" of their racial or ethnic group to receive preferential consideration. If applicable, the applicant would have to demonstrate proficiency in a language other than English.
• Prohibit the UW System from considering the race or ethnicity of an applicant unless the applicant proves that his or her family makes less than 400% of the federal poverty level ($80,000 for a family of four)....
David Giroux, a spokesman for the UW System, said there was a "compelling need for diversity" in public universities and that it would be a shame for the Legislature to move against affirmative action, which he described as a "divisive issue."
"Diversity benefits all students, improving the quality of their education and their prospects for career success," he said.
Grothman disagreed.
"I think it's racist to imply that I'm going to learn something from you because your great-great-grandparents came from someplace else," he said. "Unless you literally grow up in another country, you're an American just like everyone else. You follow the Packers, eat McDonald's, and share the same tastes as everyone else."
With an arsenal of bad posture and loud sighs, soft paunch and hushed, almost groveling tones, Mr. Zalevsky, 57, has turned his trial into something of a humility contest....
In court, his main adversary is Jonathan S. Kaye, an assistant district attorney with a jarhead haircut and the blocky features of a man who plainly knows how it feels to be punched in the face. Mr. Kaye has matched the defendant’s demeanor with a choice of soothing, schoolmasterly tones over harsh rhetoric.
“Does everybody think they’re able to focus on the issues of this case and not get distracted by extraneous things, such as the defendant representing himself?” he asked potential jurors. Later, he put his concern more bluntly: “I may come across as — not a bully, but — if he doesn’t follow the rules of evidence, it’s my obligation to object.”
For jury selection, Mr. Zalevsky arrived from jail in striped slacks, tan socks, stitched shoes, tortoiseshell glasses and an aging sweater, all variants of blue or brown but none quite matching. He rubbed his lip idly, scanned the panel, scribbled notes and seemed to try to ignore Mr. Sweeney out of existence.
