One of the main chants in the Capitol is: "This is what democracy looks like." And I've been asking protesters: Don't you think what happened last October was democracy? [ADDED: I mean November!]
I asked the woman if by "Dread Scott" — evoking the Dred Scott case — she meant to suggest a connection between Scott Walker and the era of slavery. She said "Of course."
The message is "Dumb Puppet" and "F— F—" which means — I don't know — fuck face? I liked the graphic though. I told the woman it was my favorite of all the Walker caricatures I'd seen, and she said it was made by her son (who's in back with the x's on green glasses). [ADDED: Commenters are saying it's "F minus," written twice.]
And these kids...
I asked him if the point was that they liked that "Hide Your Kids" YouTube guy, and they said yes. (It seems charming, but if you understand the reference, it is portraying Walker as a rapist.)
Keep going. It's Bob Wright and Mickey Kaus in the big 5th anniversary edition of Bloggingheads, which began with just Bob and Mickey. Great election week topics:
How Bob was won over by the Stewart/Colbert rally Why Mickey is rooting for a Republican rout Are Tea Partiers right about creeping socialism? Is Obama’s biggest problem Obama?
ADDED: I love the Tom Toles caricatures. Funny that Bob and Mickey — men who don't look at all alike — both end up with pinched-together temples and eyes and exaggerated mouths. Their heads are both super-wide at the mouth level to accommodate their giant mouths. Both have tiny eyes. The main distinctions are: eyebrows (tiny and giant), eyes (bagged and tiny), and lips (frowny and smirky).
Of course, the article inside isn't critical of Michelle Obama and her eat-your-vegetables shtick. It's critical of Obama, but not because he eats cheeseburgers, because he "loves up industrial agriculture." We're supposed to identify with the angry woman swinging her lo-cal phallic symbols at her man. (At least they aren't cut up phallic symbols like the ones Hillary famously foisted on Bill.) The cheeseburger Obama prefers — like the onion rings Bill Clinton preferred — is a symbol, a symbol of what he loves. In Obama's case, according to the article, it's agribusiness. He "loves up" agribusiness, that big sloppy, gooey cheeseburger.
It's Utne Reader, that magazine for aging lefties, and the article assumes you're into the anti-business agenda. The magazine assumes you'll identify with Michelle and her vegetables and is oblivious to the possible revulsion you might feel to the angry face they've given her. You're supposed to think: Yes, Obama, come back to your lefty roots. (Note: Carrots are roots.) Your policies need to kick big business in the ass and embrace the local and sustainable and holistic.
But I didn't get that far into the magazine. The library was closing and the rainstorm was ending, and we needed to get back to the Glacial Drumlin Trail. I only had time to read: 1. a letter from the editor by a subscriber who was sending back an issue of the magazine because it had Sarah Palin on the cover and she didn't want to look at that ever ever ever (though presumably the articles inside assailed the Alaskan), 2. "On Being Fat and Running: Abandoning insecurity for a full life," by Brenton Dickieson, from Geez, and "Sentenced to Life: A man ages in prison and outlives society’s fears," by Kenneth E. Hartman, from Notre Dame. But none of those things are accessible on line, so I can't send Utne Reader some traffic and set up some discussion about that here.
The Hartman article is a reprint, and — unlike the Geez reprint about running while fat — the original is on line, so you can read it.
Prison is a young man’s world, a world of physical violence and posturing, a world of brute strength and primal, unfocused rage. It is not a place to grow old, although more and more of us are doing just that: growing old in prison.
But Utne Reader is not a young man's world — or a young woman's world. It feels like an old person's place. I felt too young for it... and I'm old. Or it's for those other aging Americans... the lefties. I see these people in Madison all the time. Do they feel left behind? Do you think the day will come when "lefty" will seem to mean left behind?
IN THE COMMENTS: lemondog has a way to get to an enlargement of the cover. Here's a closeup screen grab that shows Michelle's face:
The artist is Jason Seiler. Nice work. I notice the cigarette over the ear now. Ha.
Using lemondog's method, I can get to that letter about Sarah Palin. If you page forward in the magazine, you'll find it. You can see the cover that upset the poor woman so. She complains:
When the media gives air space, page space, and cover space (albeit in jest or irony) to crazies such as Palin, they are complicit in her plan to lend credence to the climate of ignorance, sensationalism, and just downright muddled thinking that is passed off as a national discourse these days — and which she is one of the most visible muddlers.
Jeez, the mere image of Sarah Palin unleashes hysteria.
AND: The image of Michelle Obama drives other people nuts. Women's faces. They're so provocative.
What was the National Review thinking? Possibilities:
1. The Buddha in meditation is a quick visual representation of wisdom... and specifically the kind of wisdom that is inappropriate for a Supreme Court Justice, since the Buddha is not consulting texts but looking inward (or at nothing or whatever) and generating new wisdom. Even if she is wise, we don't wantthat wisdom. We want competence operating in the orthodox judicial mode of reading, analyzing, and interpreting the law as it is written.
2. Americans usually think of the Buddha as fat, and it's a way of calling her fat. Just a free-floating insult — to both Sotomayor and the Buddha.
3. The Buddha is a male, and it's a way of suggesting that Sotomayor is insufficiently feminine and perhaps even lesbian.
4. She's other and all those other groups may be blended together and viewed as threatening to the American way of life.
