Using the phrase "intellectual diversity" is itself an act of courage in the academic arena.
I once uttered "intellectual diversity" in a debate with a leftie (I use that term endearingly, of course).
The "discussion" ended with a link to an explanation that the phrase is code for a neoconservative plot.
Later, in that comments thread, there's this:
Scott M said... If "intellectual diversity" and "personal responsibility" have been deemed as code words of right-wing oppression, just what the hell words or phrases do they use when they are trying to talk about intellectual diversity or personal responsibility?...
Chairman Hu Jintao recognized it as soon as he heard it. Patriotic Chinese Internet users were delighted as soon as they saw the videos online. Early morning TV viewers in China knew it would be played an hour or two beforehand. At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain."...
The movie and the tune are widely known among Chinese, and the song has been a leading piece of anti-American propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for decades....
The song Lang Lang played describes how beautiful China is and then near the end has this verse, “When friends are here, there is fine wine /But if the jackal comes /What greets it is the hunting rifle.” The “jackal” in the song is the United States....
“In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the U.S.,” says Yang Jingduan, a Chinese psychiatrist now living in Philadelphia who had in China been a doctor in the Chinese military. “It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating...
[One] Chinese commenting on a forum responded to the Lang Lang performance by writing, “Defeat America, defeat Obama” (writing Obama’s name with the wrong first character, one meaning “sunken” or “dented.”)
IN THE COMMENTS: Irene says:
The media in general will make less of this than they did of Michaele and Tareq Salahi.
This is "fuck you, ignorant barbarians" crashing.
William says:
Didn't the Red Chinese lose tens of thousands of men in the Korean War in order to insure the prolonged rule of one of the most fucked up regimes in that region's long history of fucked up regimes? I would think that playing that tune is more likely to remind the world of the stupidity of Communist rulers than humiliate the United States. I think Obama should get Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen to write a commemorative song about Carter's failed rescue mission to Iran. He should play that song at all state functions. Same deal as this.
Dupnik made multiple statements drawing connections between conservative "rhetoric" and Saturday's crime.... At a time when most politicians were behaving responsibly, why was Sheriff Dupnik speaking with a reckless disregard for the truth...?...
The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday that Dupnik's department was "refusing to release a wide range of public documents about the man charged in Saturday's shooting rampage that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded." Later that day, the Republic reported, the department relented and released "12 sets of incident reports" about police calls to the Loughner home or Jared Loughner's high school....
It's quite possible that Dupnik simply enjoys shooting off his mouth.
More likely he enjoys covering his ass. Shame on all the journalists who scurried forward with their big old newsrags to help him cover said ass.'
IN THE COMMENTS: Irene (who knows such things) says:
A juvenile point: the surname "Dupnik" derives from "Dupa," a word used in Slavic- and Baltic-speaking languages. The word "dupa" means "ass."
"Dupnik" can translate as "assman." There is a bawdy dance — usually done at vodka-infused weddings — called the "dupnik," during which the partiers "fist bump" their cheeks.
ADDED: Let me front-page something Clyde said in the comments to yesterday's post noting the death of Elizabeth Edwards:
This is probably an inappropriate question, but if as some have speculated, she knew the end was near and stopped taking the drugs: Did she decide to check out in December before the Death Tax kicks back in in 2011? Dying before January would be very lucrative for heirs, as opposed to hanging on until January 1st and having her estate get slammed with a 55% tax (or I think 35% if the deal Obama made with the Republicans goes through)...
AND: Irene said:
Rich people like Elizabeth Edwards plan for death, and their lawyers draft dispositions that minimize the impact of the estate tax. She knew she was dying, and she probably had a plan that gave a good chunk to charity. She also had plenty of warning since her initial diagnosis, and she could take advantage of making lifetime gifts to her children.
If she didn't plan, then everything passes to John Edwards without any tax implications. They're still married, and there is an unlimited marital deduction for spouses.
I didn't realize they were still married. Did they stay married as a tax-planning scheme?
At first, I was all Why are they showing him chewing?... but then, the camera pulls back... and Russ is the loneliest Senator of them all.
This ad reaches the part of me that would find it very hard to vote against Russ. I hate to lend support to what the Democrats have been doing over the last 2 years. But Russ... Our Russ...
Is this the way to argue that you should be governor?
We were talking about this ad in the comments to last night's live blog of "Dancing With the Stars," a show I was watching (for the first time) to see how Bristol Palin would be presented. Here in Wisconsin, in between the spangled, befringed, high-heeled prancers, we got an eyeful of Tom Barrett's gaping wound. Irene wrote:
In the Madison market, we were treated to an ad for Tom Barrett's campaign.
He's using the horrific beating he suffered as the theme of the ad.
He has an attractive wife with short hair.
He has a labradoodle.
I said:
I've seen that ad before and think it's quite awful. So he did what a decent person would do and got hit in the face. For that, he should be governor? Aren't there 100 war heroes in Wisconsin with more serious injuries? Why is Barrett ahead of them? And what's with foisting a picture of a bloody wound in our faces over and over? And his wife saying over and over that he is a good guy? Aren't there 100,000 good guys in Wisconsin whose wives will vouch for them on camera? What nonsense!
In the comments on that last post, Irene says: "Wicca seat savers: I had almost forgotten." Oh, yes! How apt, in these witch-hunting days. The text, from my old post about going to see Camille Paglia at a bookstore in Madison:
I show up early for the Camille Paglia reading at Borders this evening. The place is packed. I find a seat and then, here’s Chris, sitting with Nina, and they’ve saved me a seat in the second row. There are a lot of saved seats. Next to me is a seat saved with a copy of a book called “Wicca – a Guide for the Solitary Practitioner… over 400,000 copies sold.” At first, I think, 400,000? So we’re screwed... And then, I think, well, apparently not. Two women show up and claim the Wicca seats. One says, looking at the book, “Oh, cool. I’m kind of interested,” and the other says, “Me, too.”
"Do you think that's a hummingbird or an insect?" asked one of the women, who seemed quite involved in the identification process. It wasn't easy, because it was small and darted around. The wings were nearly invisible.
I said: "To me, it looks like a miniature flying lobster, so I'm going to guess insect."
She said, "Yes, I think you're probably right, because it keeps hanging around, and hummingbirds are shy."
Instinctively recoiling at sentimentality and remembering this, I said, "Oh? I've seen some very aggressive hummingbirds. I've seen some hummingbirds who were real jerks."
Hey! Look at the tongue. Maybe it is some kind of crazy butterfly.
AND: Peter Hoh thinks it's a snowberry clearwing, and that looks right to me.
AND: Rick Lee said:
I just posted one of those also... I asked my friend the entomologist if it was a hummingbird moth and she said it was a close relative, the bumblebee moth.
Hey, he got his to hold still... plus he's a professional photographer. No fair!
IN THE COMMENTS: bagoh20 begins with some decent-enough generic snark:
No matter who the subject, I find it hard to consider "outstanding politician" to be anything but an insult. I'm a bigot about politicians.
But it is not right for this occasion. Irene brings the gravitas:
Brazauskas was no ordinary, career politician. He became a politician as a result of extraordinary times. He was a courageous man who inspired the citizens to stand up to an awesome power.
Lithuania was under the Soviet yoke between 1944 and 1991. A documentary, Red Terror on the Amber Coast exposes these times. There now is a museum in the capital, Vilnius, dedicated to preserving the history of the Soviet genocide.
Many members of my family fled Lithuania in June 1944. Those who did not get out were deported to reeducation camps in the Gulag.
"I'm going to plead guilty a hundred times over because until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes ... we will be attacking the U.S.," he said. "And I plead guilty to that."...
"Did you look around to see who they were?" Cedarbaum asked him of his potential victims.
"Well, the people select the government," Shahzad said. "We consider them all the same. ..."
"Including the children?" the judge demanded.
"Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children, they don't see anybody," Shahzad fired back.
"They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It's a war, and in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims."
"One has to understand where I'm coming from," Shahzad told the judge. "I consider myself ... a Muslim soldier."
"And it's a war to kill people..."
IN THE COMMENTS: Irene says:
" 'And it's a war to kill people...' "
The bomber broadcasts a reality that many Americans refuse to acknowledge.
[S]tyle encompasses far more than good looks. In fact, it trumps beauty because it's rooted in deep cultural knowledge and self-confidence. Style is an expression of choices -- a declaration of individuality. And thus, the lack of it is not a matter of poor genetic luck. It is, a particularly judgmental soul could argue, your fault....
[I]t can make others feel terribly old-fashioned and parochial by comparison.... Women -- and men -- use style as a tool of intimidation, self-promotion and belittlement all the time. U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina's off-topic remark about Sen. Barbara Boxer's hair caused quite the explosion when it was captured by a live microphone. Fiorina quipped that Boxer's hair was "so yesterday." Fiorina has said she was quoting a friend, but her tone oozed delight in the observation as she happily repeated it...
Fiorina's words weren't, by any means, vulgar or angry. Indeed, she had the cutting tone of a gossipy girlfriend who knows a thing or two about hair travails. But as she gently fingered her own chic pixie, while relaying an insulting description of Boxer's hair, the polite smile never faded from her face -- until she realized her microphone was on. She bore all the earmarks of a style bully.
Givhan concludes that Fiorina was making an indirect but effective political argument that Boxer is out of step with the times. But let's take a closer look at what was really going on. Rewatch the short clip and think about whether what we are really seeing is a woman "ooz[ing] delight" because she thought her hair was "chic" — a "chic pixie" — and the other woman's hair really was so much worse. Does Fiorina even agree with the friend she quotes? Watch carefully, and keep in mind that Carly Fiorina was only quite recently bald (as a consequence of cancer treatment):
It's a bit hard to tell unless you look for it, but I'm looking after hearing a friend, a cancer survivor who lost her own hair, insist that what we are seeing is a cancer survivor's humorous attitude about hair. I now think that Fiorina stopped in the middle of an anecdote when someone off camera signaled for her to shut up, but that if she had gone on, she would have made a self-effacing/sarcastic wisecrack about her own hair along the lines of: Oh, yes, because my hair is so today, if by "today," you mean not utterly bald.
The gesture she makes at her own hair, just before she clams up, is not, I think, a mean girl's I'm-so-gorgeous primp. It's comic business that would have fit amusingly with the wisecrack that was never cracked. My friend, a woman who, like Fiorina, has recently regrown hair, feels sure she has the ability to recognize a shared dark humor about hair that women who have not gone through the experience don't pick up on. Hair is a big deal to women, and our ears perk up when we hear talk about other women's hair. Givhan explores that with good sensibility, but I think she, like many others, is judging Fiorina without a full understanding of the context.
On the other hand, Fiorina's private psychodrama is a bit beside the point when she's running for the Senate. She's got to get these things right and not give her opponents material to use against her. In that light, it doesn't matter what the explanation is, because she's running for office, and she needs to do that competently.
WE HAVE A WINNER: Irene says: "Which affiliation do most Americans agree would disqualify a person from nomination to the US Supreme Court?"
Yes, there is a new poll about replacing Justice Stevens, and in one part of it, Americans are asked if they would be "comfortable" with various sorts of nominees. Here's the PDF of the results. A socialist, an atheist, and a Muslim are the 3 types of nominees that a majority of Americans would not be "comfortable" with. 64% were uncomfortable with the socialist (though Democrats were split 47/47%). 58% were uncomfortable with an atheist, including a majority of both Democrats and Republicans. And 53% were uncomfortable with a Muslim (though only 45% of Democrats had a problem). Interestingly, in contrast to the socialist, libertarians did pretty well. 57% were comfortable, including 53% of Democrats. The poll also asked about Mormons and Christians who take the Bible literally. Both of those types did quite will, with 65% and 62%, respectively, feeling comfortable.
Here's a closeup of the apple with some iPhoto'd sharpening (no lines redrawn or retouching, just contrast, sharpening, and increasing the "highlights" and "shadows):
For comparison, here's the standard image of Karl Marx:
Now, the Anchoress — first link, above — has become "convinced that it’s simply a matter of the apples’ shading and the lighting." Absurd! It can't be just the lighting and the pattern of the apple peel. A magazine cover is carefully constructed and attention would have to be paid to any accidental imagery. The apple was chosen to be exactly the intended apple and subject to Photoshop tweaking and strategic placement of the lights to attain just the right level of perception and deniability. A good subliminal image must be seen and not seen. It must slide past the average person's conscious defenses and make anyone who insists it is there seem delusional. The Anchoress has retreated.
