You saw Meade's video where 2 over-aggressive protesters interrogated a couple of nice ladies who drove into Madison just to stand quietly, in the sea of Walker-haters, and hold their pro-Walker signs. In the video, you can hear that the 2 protesters are not making that much sense, and when Meade tries to mediate — meadeate — for them, other protesters in the area close in on Meade.
There's very tense confrontation, and it flips into paranoia and incoherence. At 4:35, you hear a woman say, "Are you a plant?" At 4:57: "I think we know you're a Walker plant?" At 5:00: "You [are a Walker plant] on this gathering and we can tell." At 5:17, a large man barges into Meade and grabs the Flip camera, and actually gets it out of Meade's hand. No one in the crowd does anything to help Meade in this assault, and Meade grabs the man's arm and wrests the camera out of his hand. This man says "Get your hands off me," as if he's a victim. After he assaulted Meade, he acts like he's the peacemaker and says — referring to Meade and the 2 pro-Walker women — "They are fools and idiots and just ignore them." He continues to bump his large body into Meade as he's saying that. A woman says, "These are Walker plants."
I see some people descending into irrationality — beginning to form a cultish mentality that demonizes outsiders. Meade was at a demonstration, photographing it. A demonstration is — to a clear-thinking person — a collection of people asking to be seen, wanting to be photographed. Yet when they perceive that Meade isn't one of them they flip — it's a Flip camera — into fear. Meade had been trying to talk to them rationally about why the pro-Walker woman might not want to debate her ideas in that setting, and instead of seeing Meade as a citizen who's finding out what's going on and helping 2 women who are surrounded and outnumbered, they spread their "plant" theory. And it's not just a theory. They know he's a plant.
But he's not a plant. He's a human being. An individual human being. And so are all the protesters, but I fear they are losing their grip on that reality.
... when Meade asks her why he should "be ashamed" of himself. That's at the end of this uncut 7 1/2-minute video, shot outside the Capitol this afternoon.
In the beginning, a man demands that a woman explain her sign, which reads "Public workers don't need collective bargaining." She's double-teamed by the man's wife, who finds it "odd" and "socially irresponsible" that a person would have a sign yet choose not to lay out her argument for discussion and dialogue. When the man says that she has a choice but other people don't, Meade begins questioning him. After a short interchange, a bunch of anti-Walkerites converge on Meade. One man grabs his camera. Another blows a whistle close to his face.
He was feted with more than a full minute of thunderous ovation, with whistles and hooting and cheers, as he entered, and again at the end of his 30-minute address. He received long rounds of applause and a few standing Os while he spoke. The balconies seemed to be filled almost entirely with people who love him, and who applauded him at every turn.
Meade was there, and he confirms that. (And, by the way, we have some hot video that I'm working on processing right now.)
Here's the transcript of the speech. Meade describes the big standing ovation when the Governor said:
We must work together to bring our spending in line with reality. We were elected — not to make the easy decisions to benefit ourselves — but to make the difficult ones that will benefit our children and grandchildren.
We need a commitment to the future so our children don't face even more dire consequences than what we face today.
Meade says he joined the standing ovation at this point, and that Scott Walker looked at him and gave him: 1. a smile, 2. a nod, and 3. a wink. Meade was quite pleased about that!
"... posted a video in which he accused the police department of a conspiracy and lambasted the current media organization landscape. In the video (which, in bizarro world, is shown every hour on Fox News), Meade gets in the face of the police and demands entry, claiming he isn't media: 'I'm private media.'"
Writes The Awl. I think he said "new media." And no one calls him "Larry." You'd get a better response with "Lore." Which I don't call him either. Frankly, I'm not sure what to call him. Except "Meade" — "New Media Meade."
The irony of denying Althouse's husband access to the capitol without official media credentials is that the credentialed media has done a pathetic job of covering the events. Outside Wisconsin's own official news organs, the nationals' approach to covering the protests borders on malpractice. When Paul Krugman is bothered to get into the Times CMS to post "a blog" comparing the job you've done in Wisconsin to the one you did in the buildup to the Iraq War, well, you've done a pretty bad job.
If the events in Wisconsin prove one thing, it is that the mainstream media has become journalistically irrelevant when it comes to national issues and coverage. Broadcast media is incapable of explaining anything outside a macropatriotic framework and has proven allergic to anything that puts off even the slightest whiff of the class warfare that scares away big-market advertorial. Meanwhile, the other side is cable news' partisan echo chamber of regurgitated self-assurance, where no blow is too low and no fact needs sourcing before being leveraged to make a prearranged point.
But, hey, guess what? Governor Scott Walker is about to give his budget address, and Meade is there, seated in the chamber as I write this. I could have been there too, but I've got a class at 4:30, and we need to talk about the Commerce Clause.
ADDED: Here's the video referred to above. And in the comments, JAL says, "Woo hoo! Reminds me of a book some guy from Knoxville wrote ... uummm ... It had a militaristic tone to it ... (you know those "conservative" right wing blogger gun nuts ...) ... uhmmm ... An Army of Meades!" Oh, yes. They'd look like this. You know they came from a place called Media.
0:01 — an incomprehensible sign — "Ethics trumps 'values' — taped to the "Forward" statue. 0:40 — police food 0:49 — a 91-year-old woman in a wheelchair wants to kick Scott Walker's butt 1:13 — a woman asks to get in to talk to her representative 2:21 — a cop who was sent down from "north of Eau Claire" on his day off 3:25 — a "legal observer" who flew in from D.C. explains his function 5:02 — the protest has an "honor guard" — firefighters — and the crowd chants "let them in 6:17 — listen closely for "I lost a nut" 6:35 — Meade and I got a kick out of the reactions of that one firefighter 6:55 — one speaker edges toward incitement and back again 7:35 — "It's the chanting that shows how powerful we are in our voices." 8:23 — "Does anybody have a great idea?" 8:50 — I think he's told to tone it down 9:50 — a new chant
He wants to take the Flip camera and go where he can interview the Wisconsinite on the street about what they think of the doings in Madison.
If you're familiar with the area within an hour's drive of Madison, help NMM pick some good places to go. Name towns or spots within towns, and he may get there today.
The police want to make ordinary people wait in line, while media gets right in. Meade says he's "new media." He's with "the Althouse blog." And watch for the indications that the police are on the protesters' side.
"All these people have decided that they are working with us to help with their protest. We're not keeping..."
"You're helping the protesters?
"We're not keeping you from protesting. We're helping to keep the peace."
At yesterday's demonstration against Scott Walker's budget plan, Meade took this video of a woman with a sign portraying the Governor with a Hitler mustache. Meade conducts a short interview, then catches a young man with a bullhorn explaining that we need to tax the rich.
AllenS: Jenn Sterger (the woman) was hired because of some sexy pictures of her in Sports Illustrated mag, that Brent Musberger thought would be a good matchup for the male dominated football sports sceen. Jenn and Brent are just as much at fault here. I'm thinking of sending the woman a picture of my penis also. Could I borrow the fish bowl lens?...
Meade: It's a fish eye lens. Fish eye. It's for taking shots of massive objects or scenes which a normal lens can't take all in. A fish bowl lens would be for taking shots of tiny things. Like Brett Favre's... ability to make good judgments.
AllenS: Ok, ok. Can I borrow the lens that makes stuff look bigger?
But, in fact, the fisheye works really well to make something look large if you get the camera lens right up at it. Lots of other stuff is including in the picture, arrayed all around and looking comparatively small. Frankly — and this is not an offer to AllenS — it would be really interesting to take pictures of naked men and get the extreme closeup on the genitalia with a well-composed and interesting background. I went looking through my old posts with the "fisheye" tag to find some that prove my point.
The second picture here of the fisheye dog makes this point very well. Get right up to the nose. The scenery in the background isn't as interesting as I'd want for my proposed compositions, but you can see how tiny Meade looks in the background (when in fact he was quite close by). Here's another photograph that illustrates the point, albeit with the female body:
That's from the Khmer Dynasty room at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. Here's the effect of the lens looking at the room from the other side:
Here's some male and female nudity, to be fair:
That's the Museum of Natural History — not Brett and Jenn. You may recognize that couple from the movie "Election" — which is a great cautionary tale about the inadvisability of cheating on... many things (including your spouse).
And then — searching through the fisheye pictures — I found something that was extremely important to me: the purple tree, which had this.
"He said, 'So many people who serve time never get a fair second chance,' " said Lurie, who did not indicate when the call occurred. "He said, 'It's never a level playing field for prisoners when they get out of jail.' And he was happy that we did something on such a national stage that showed our faith in giving someone a second chance after such a major downfall.''
How inspiring is the return of Michael Vick? Will it hearten those who are attempting to return to society after serving time and make the rest of us more likely to welcome them back? Or will it make us more likely to think cynically that the rich and famous get special exceptions from the rules? Does Vick make the field look more level or less level?
IN THE COMMENTS: Meade (adopting the commenting style of Trooper York) wrote:
"Pot had helped, spreading genital herpes; maybe a little felony conspiracy in interstate commerce/aid of unlawful animal fighting venture when you could afford it."
- Dreams from My Blotter: A Short Memoir by Barrrk "OokieRonMexico" Obama (2010), pp. 93–94.
Rialby said...
"They talk about me like a dog" - BHO
I guess talking about him like a dog is better than what Michael Vick might do... pick him up by his tail, swing him around and smash his head against a cinder block wall.
Hmmm. You know, I've never gotten the impression Obama had much affection for Bo.
... but they are mice. "Inadvertently raked up" — Meade IM's from the garden.
ME: Ouch
MEADE: I didn't hurt them
I even ushered the mother to where I moved them
And then I boiled and ate
All three of them
At first, Meade thought he'd raked up baby moles, but when he found the panic'd mother searching for her lost children, he knew they were mice. But let the topic now be moles. Because, yesterday, we were talking about squirrels, and NotYourTypicalNewYorker said:
Squirrels aren't bothering me.
It's the moles, I can't abide the cursed moles.
I put the trap here, they go over there...
It's the moles I tell ya.
And Meade offered some gardenly wisdom:
The moles are your friends. They aerate the soil and eat pest larvae. It's a misconception that they eat bulbs and other desirable garden plants - they're completely carnivorous.
Set your mower blades higher and/or walk down their feeding runs before firing up the mower. Also, where the female mole pushes up a mound of soil, spread it with a rake or with your boot heel so the mower doesn't hit it. It's the mower that does the damage, not the mole.
Adding tags to this post, I knew I already had the tags "mice" and "rodents." I thought it would be excessive to make a tag "moles." Too narrow! But are moles rodents? No, they are Insectivora. And that underlines Meade's point. Moles don't eat plants. Don't worry about moles. Worry about Meade... eating boiled mice. And me, out there in Meade's grass with the squirrels...
Yeah, the show's back, with the tribes split into old (40 and over) and young (30 and under), and it's on Wednesdays now. And Meade's wearing his "Survivor" T-shirt.
It all makes sense. Except... Meade should have been there on the oldie team. He's way over 40. But he did earn that T-shirt. (Enlarge to read.)
"That's not in my prepared remarks." Uh, okay. You just threw that in, then. But why?
IN THE COMMENTS: rhhardin said:
The Mickey Mouse microphone is mocking Obama's ears too.
Ha. And Meade is saying to me — out loud, in the flesh:
I'd like Obama to say exactly who said what and when. Be more specific!
Also I said: Poor Obama, he got so used to people treating him like he was so wonderful, and Meade said: "They treated him like a god, then they treated him like a dog." The old god/dog flip!
Says Bruce Kesler. The reason: The school chose one book to give to all incoming freshman to read to give a sense of a "common experience," and the book is "How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America," written by "a radical pro-Palestinian professor" who happens to teach at Brooklyn College.
[The book contains] interviews with seven Arab-Americans in their 20s about their experiences and difficulties in the US. There’s appreciation of freedoms in the US, and deep resentment at feeling or being discriminated against post-9/11....
The title of the book is drawn from communist WEB DuBois’ same question in 1903 in his treatise The Souls of Black Folk. The current book consciously draws a parallel, ridiculous on its face, between the horrible and pervasive discrimination and injustices that Blacks were subjected to a century ago and Arab-Americans today.
The author asserts “The core issue [of Middle East turbulence] remains the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” that the post-1967 history of the entire area is essentially that of “imperialism American-style,” and that the US government “limits the speech of Arab Americans in order to cement United States policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Again, preposterous....
Online I found two professors who protested to the college president. One, retired from Brooklyn College, said: "This is wholly inappropriate. It smacks of indoctrination. It will intimidate incoming students who have a different point of view (or have formed no point of view), sending the message that only one side will be approved on this College campus. It can certainly intimidate untenured faculty as well."
I can't imagine wanting freshman to get the message that they are about to be indoctrinated. On the up side, for freshman: If the school makes it clear right in the first week, you may still be in a position to quit and get your tuition back. If they're subtle about it — and it's so easy to be subtle about it — you're drawn into it. Clear efforts at indoctrination are repugnant. One recoils. It's like evil-tasting poison. The evil taste is a great benefit. You reflexively spit it out.
So now I'm picturing the Brooklyn College freshman, hurling "How Does It Feel" against the wall. In the movie I'm inventing in my head, the soundtrack is Bob Dylan — how does it feel — as The Freshman stomps out of Brooklyn and into a life without higher education indoctrination...
For them that must obey authority That they do not respect in any degree Who despise their jobs, their destinies Speak jealously of them that are free Cultivate their flowers to beDo what they do just to be* Nothing more than something they invest in
Maybe you don't need death staring you in the face to ask whether you have the courage to be true to yourself and not just to do what others expect you to do. And how much courage does it take when those who expect you to do what they want are so crude about it? But if you don't do what they want, what will you do? Where else is there to go?
What would I do if I were there where you are, dear Freshman? Because I'm old, and I've already made a lot of choices, I don't want to tell you what to do. This post began with the old man's point of view: Bruce Kesler saying he's got lots of money and he's cutting Brooklyn College out of his will to express himself. But what should a young person do? I'm still an old person answering that question, but I was driving through the bohemian section of an American city the other day and thinking... oh, just about what I was thinking in the early 1970s: I want to live the artist's life. That doesn't mean you need to be an artist, but there is an art to living, and you are more a work of art than a thing you invest in. Yet even if the main thing you want — in this awful economy — is to be something you invest in, a radical left-wing indoctrination is a godawful investment decision.
***
And I still haven't said that I got to Kesler via D.G. Meyers via Instapundit. Meyers says:
In my experience, few if any of the Brooklyn Collge freshmen will even bother to open the book. I can remember the title of the book that was assigned to all incoming freshmen at U.C. Santa Cruz the year I went up there (it was Arthur Koestler’s Act of Creation), but that’s the sum of what I remember about the book. I bought a copy, but never heard it discussed anywhere on campus. Same for the various books that were assigned to incoming freshmen at Texas A&M University over the years. After the English department made a fuss over choosing them, they were never mentioned again.
Yes, but it's not that easy: Brooklyn College also assigns its book in a required English course. I remember the book that was assigned for orientation week to freshmen at the Residential College (at the University of Michigan) in 1969: Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle." 40 years later, I can't think of a book I'd rather read. In fact, it happens I was rereading it yesterday.
It's nice to be told that right at the outset so you know what you're getting into. Very nice.
***
* I've corrected that line in "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" after cutting and pasting the lyrics from the official Bob Dylan site. I was surprised to see the line "cultivate their flowers to be." It didn't have the right number of syllables, and it didn't lead properly into the next line, and I didn't remember ever hearing it. Meade questioned it too and played the original recording to get to the very familiar line (which also makes a lot more sense). It was weird seeing "cultivate their flowers" — which I took as an allusion to Voltaire's "we must cultivate our garden" — because Meade, with whom I share a love of Dylan, has made a life out of cultivating flowers, and cultivating flowers is something you're more likely to do if you've chosen to defy disrespected authority and see yourself as much more than something you invest in. Not that you can't build up great wealth by starting a gardening business.
