Wherein chuckling contemplates the nature of art and considers the possibility that it's some body part

More analysis here.

Update: Village Voice coverage of the same event here.

The week in photos

Slideshow here.

I didn't get out much.

Give an inch

Today at Costco the guy who marks the receipt on the way out informed me that new store policy required him to see inside my backpack. Everything has a security tag. I don't know what they think we're stealing. Loose grapes?

Anyway, I said no. He said I had no choice. I said I'm outta here. Call the coppers if you don't like it, bub. He yelled over at the manager to call the police. She just nodded sadly and waved me on.

But you know, next time I'll just open the backpack. We all will.

Every minute of every day and for the rest of our lives.

These architect's eyes

In a comment below, Roy rightly points out that poor chuckling is an asshole for publicly dissing TBogg when his ship came in. Be that as it may, Roy's comment forced me to revisit my thinking on site design. Chuckling does not have a right wing intellect. I am always happy to revisit my assumptions, attack my premises, question my "logic," wail on my prejudices, etc. Maybe you are right and I am wrong? It's not that unusual.

TBogg is one of my favorite writers. Not just on the internets. He should be in magazines. So why have I stopped reading TBogg? Is the new site design really that onerous? Does the fact that I can't get past it make me even more shallow than I readily admit? Those are legitimate questions.

These are the answers.

You know that I make my living on the periphery of graphic design. I have taken classes, done a little design work myself and spent a lot of time -- way too much time if you ask me -- around designers. I am able to critique a site's design from a position of knowledge, if not expertise. That doesn't make anything I say right. I know that. You can take it for what it's worth.

And honestly, all that's just work. When I read people on the internets, I am not thinking about design. It's very, very rare that a design keeps me from reading a writer I like. This has nothing to do with education. It is visceral. I don't think it. I feel it.

All that also got me thinking about Jane Hamsher's site, FireDogLake, of which TBogg is now, unforunately, a part.

The fact that I'm not a regular reader of FireDogLake is surprising since, intellectually, I have every reason to like it. In addition to agreeing with the political gist and respecting the quality of the writing, Jane Hamsher is something of a hero of mine. Natural Born Killers is one of my favorite movies and I think one of the greatest films of all time. I use it to teach the kids about the nature of narrative and audio/visual creativity. Jane was the producer and responsible for the great majority of the soundtrack. And her book about the making of NBK, Killer Instinct, is very good in its own right. See the movie. Many times. Read the book. I beg you.

So you see? I have every possible fucking incentive to like FireDogLake, but I don't. I can't stand to look at it, much less read it. Why, oh why, is that?

It's the design, that's why.

I sincerely hope that fans of TBogg and/or FireDogLake don't take this as an attack. I'm painfully aware that the left too often eats itself and I don't want to be a part of that ugliness. So please, find it in your hearts to consider this as well-intentioned professional advice, albeit unsolicited; or constructive criticism from a dear, dear friend.

And ask yourselves, if your design is alienating natural allies such as poor chuckling, you can be assured that it is alienating quite a few others. How many lurkers are there for every commenter? A hell of a lot. That's how many.

So what's wrong with it?

The problem is that it's difficult to read. The reader has to think to figure out where to put his or her eyes and which way to go once he or she has settled on something. Why is that? Too busy, way too busy. The eye has trouble finding something to focus on.

Details. Hell, I'll skip all of the details. We all know that advertising is a sucky necessity. Hopefully, we try to work with the advertisers to avoid sucky ads. And if the kids aren't starving and the rent's paid up, sometimes we just say no to the worst kind of blinking monstrosity. Whatever. Poor chuckling, like everyone else in this cruel, cruel world has become accustomed to advertising. Ugly, irritating ads will not stand between me and good writing.

No, the serious problems are these: It's difficult to figure out what's being offered on the site and once you figure it out, you have to click to get to it, usually way, way too soon.

The reason it's difficult to figure out is because too many page elements are roughly the same size and the colors are limited to different shades of blue.

The Headline, the Read More buttons, the links are all very similar shades of blue. The mind does not naturally distinguish among them. One has to think. Readers don't want to think about the design. They want to think about the content.

To draw attention to the content, the headline needs contrast from the body. If a designer must use the same color, he or she needs to use relative size to achieve that contrast.

But you are not worried about the price of ink. You are on the internet. You pay nothing for additional colors. Use a different fucking color.

Burnt orange, perhaps!

That, and the geometric shapes on the page need contrast from one another. Note that newspapers don't have a front page full of single paragraphs with jumps to the inside sections. There's a reason for that. It just doesn't work. Few would read a newspaper or magazine that looked like that. Why would they read a web page?

Look at this:



See, the elements are all blue. They're all roughly the same size. What the fuck are you 'sposed to look at? Where the fuck is your eye 'sposed to go? Who the fuck knows?

And then if you figure it out, you've got to click! Who the fuck wants to click? Don't we all have carpal tunnel by this late stage in our history? The click has got to be worth it. We need to see more text, a lot more text, before we click to Read More. Just like a goddammed newspaper or magazine.

And finally, the page elements should be arranged in such a way as to draw attention to the content. The site logo, the headline, the advertising, the footnotes, the colors -- everything -- should draw the reader's attention to the story. That is the one, the only, the singular, the sacred purpose of the design. To get people to read the fucking story. That's it. That's all. It's really quite simple.

Print newspapers and magazines figured all that out hundreds of years ago. Human cognition as not changed all that much.

Pandora's ghosts

Regular visitors are aware that chuckling on-line magazine is more than just another appendage of the Hillary campaign. In addition to our internally generated content, we sometimes sponsor other artists and give them a world premiere here on the site.

Today, we are proud to present Pandora's Ghosts, a short video by a good friend of the magazine. We hope you enjoy.

Crazy like a victim

Maybe it's just one of those days, but I've spent the early morning reading report after report from fellow Clinton supporters that we are noble victims of a cruel, misogynist world that wants nothing more than to punish us because we are women (and men, or at least man) who support Hillary Clinton. We are poor things. Poor, poor, pitiful things. It is all very sad.

This, from the Washington Post:

"The more I'm involved, the angrier I get. Every call for her to get out of the race just incenses me. It makes me crazy. Who are you? Who in the world are you to tell this woman who's done so much that it's time for her to be quiet and sit down?"

Say it sister. She has done so much. So much. It's not fair.

Others wallow in their victimization differently. We see quite a bit of that in the comments at Opinionator column on the NY Times website:

...wake up…I forgot how angry I am about this culture’s treatment of women until I re witnessed it in this election…talk about reopening a chasm…clinton is just the tip of the iceberg…obama’s minions and the media treated my candidate and the millions who support her with contempt and derision…and that’s where the divide originated, not from her.

Hillary would have been lambasted by the media if she fed the hungry, healed the sick and brought peace to the middle east because she’s a woman.

Hillary Clinton deserves to be President of the United States. She is a woman and has many accomplishments. The White Men have had their turn, and the African Americans will have to wait for their turn. Since half of the African Americans are women and women have been oppressed longer than the African Americans, a woman elected as President would be the most fair thing to do for everyone. Men should get over this fact. (ed. note: hopefully this one's a joke, but you never know,)

History will judge the political fall of Hillary Clinton as indisputable evidence that the politics of gender is powerful and divisive and that misogyny in this nation, which gave women the right to vote 88 short years ago, pervades our culture. We have many miles to go before the nation accepts the reality that all people are created equal.

All of the nasty and vile words that have come from the Obama camp, supporters and pro Obama media, about Hillary and her supporters, is exactly the reason Obama will lose in the fall to McCain. The Hillary supporters have been wounded beyond healing. The Clintons good name has been dragged through the mud over and over again by the rude, nasty, and hateful Obama people.

Aaaaaahhhhh, Obama is a cursed brat! Look what he's done! She's melting, melting. Oh, what a world, what a world. Who would have thought a dark skinny guy like him could destroy her beautiful wickedness?

That last one was me. It's what I say to myself.

As you may recall, I support Hillary's presidential aspirations because she is a tragi-comic figure, a bitter and defeated sociopath, crazy like a loon. Not because she is a woman.

And I have the same kind of respect for my fellow victims. Don't you just love the aroma of tragi-comedy in the morning.

And thanks Roy, for the cow tip.

And it's one, two, three, what are we fightin for?

For a bunch of primitive morons like Abdel-Qader Ali, so they can kill their daughters, that's what.

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

And you ask me why I don't give a damn, about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Cause it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates, ain't no time to wonder why, fucking hell they're all gonna die.

Wasn't there some other reason for these stupid wars? I forget. WMD's, freedom, democracy, national security? Ha ha.

Cheap oil? No, although a lot of people believed it, we're not fighting for that. When you follow the money, expensive oil is a more rational explanation. Mass murder? Just an unfortunate side effect of our government's quest for expensive oil.

But hey, pay no attention to that pile of corpses in the corner. Mr. Ali is just exercising his democratic right to kill his children. It's a good thing. And anyway, your government check should arrive any day now. If you truly love freedom, go out and buy some gas.

We've established what you are...

At least it looks like Obama thinks he has:

Senator Barack Obama said today that he would not rule out the possibility of helping Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton retire her campaign debt to bring her into the fold and unify Democrats.

Personally, I think he's wrong. She's a loon, not a whore. But I have to admit that Obama has a much better batting average than poor chuckling when it comes to predicting how things will work in this political world. When it comes to prognosticating, poor chuckling spends too much of his daze gazing enviously up at the Mendoza line.

Nevertheless, the proposition is amusing. Either way.

Klantucky goldmine

As you know, chuckling on-line magazine has important sources deep within the bowels of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign; the inner sanctum, such as it is, where she and her advisers develop strategy and write speeches.

Hillary has been taking a lot of flack lately from the know-nothings on cable tv and in the "mainstream" press because they think she has no strategy for winning the presidency against such overwhelming odds.

We have learned that Hillary will soon unveil a new strategy designed to quell those criticisms and win what is rightfully hers.

She's going to kick it off with a speech in which she lays out her basic principles. She has been working on this speech since South Carolina. It means a lot to her and her political ambition (sorry to be redundant). In addition to laying out a set of strong American principles that will appeal to the hard working people of this great land who support her, and only her, she has a strategy for implementing this new ethical framework. Here is a close-to-final draft:

WE BELIEVE: in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of Jesus Christ, and the eternal tenets of the Christian religion as practiced by enlightened churches.

WE BELIEVE: that church and state should continue separate in administration and organization, although united in their mission and purpose to serve mankind unselfishly.

WE BELIEVE: in the American home as the foundation upon which rest secure the American's Republic, the future of its institutions, and the liberties of its citizens.

WE BELIEVE: in the mission of emancipated womanhood, freed from the shackles of old-world traditions, and standing unafraid in the full effulgence of equality and enlightenment.

WE BELIEVE: in the equality of men and women in political, religious, fraternal, civic and social affairs wherein there should be no distinction of sex.

WE BELIEVE: in the free public schools where our children are trained in the principals and ideals that make America the greatest of all nations.

WE BELIEVE: the Stars and Stripes the most beautiful flag on earth, symbolizing the purity of race, the blood of martyrs and the fidelity of patriots.

WE BELIEVE: in the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States and the several states. and consecrate ourselves to its preservation against all enemies at home and abroad.

WE BELIEVE: that the freedom of speech, of press and of worship is an inalienable right of all citizens whose allegiance and loyalty to our country are unquestioned.

WE BELIEVE: that principal comes before party, that justice should be firm but impartial, and that partisanship must yield to intelligent cooperation.

WE BELIEVE: that the current of pure American blood must be kept uncontaminated by mongrel strains and protected from racial pollution.

WE BELIEVE: that the government of the United States must be kept inviolate from the control or domination of alien races and the baleful influence of inferior peoples.

WE BELIEVE: that the people are greater than any foreign power or potentate, prince or prelate, and that no other allegiance in America should be tolerated.

WE BELIEVE: that the perpetuity of our nation rests upon the solidarity and purity of our native-born, white, Gentile men and women.

We believe, she's got a winner!

Clinton insiders refer to this new campaign as the "Klan State Strategy." They have done the math and believe that if they can carry all of the states with the largest racist populations, then she will have the election in the bag. No more of this red/blue nonsense that's been harming our country for so many years. From now on it will be about black and white.

The campaign is aware that certain segments of the population (which will be dealt with after she's president, heh heh) may shrilly denounce her new strategy. One of her top advisers would only speak off the record, but he said they have a plan for that as well:

"We will hire three or four hundred colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. So far, we've only purchased Al Sharpton, but soon many more will follow. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members. Jeremiah Wright gets a klantucky goldmine if he keeps speaking up for Obama. We trust he will oblige. They all will. Nine out of 10 ayway, which would give us about 80 percent of the Negro vote in the general election. With 80 percent of the Negros and all of the good, decent, pure and hardworking people, we will beat the heretic McCain.

Our sources tell us that she will probably introduce the new "Klan State strategy at a speech in Kentucky, sometime in the next few weeks. Her speech will be simulcast on Rush Limbaugh's radio show and Fox News Network. The newspapers of Richard Mellon Scaife will provide in-depth, exclusive coverage.

But these sources caution that if Hillary thinks things are progressing to her satisfaction, she may hold back the speech for the Demoratic convention. Or if things don't go well there, until after hard working Americans storm the gates of the capital with her on their shoulders and install her in the office that is rightfully hers in what she feels is the true Demcocratic way.

More news from the megaplex

In important movie news, chuckling on-line magazine has learned that the awesome new Adam Sandler movie, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, was written by an awesome new screenwriter robot, the Awesomo 4000. We have also obtained a certified original copy of the Awesomo's script:

You see, Adam Sandler, he's like this super Jewish secret agent with, like, super powers, but he doesn't want to be, like, a super secret agent, he wants to be, like, a hair stylist in, like, New York so he, like, quits and moves to New York, but, like, the terrorists, like, they follow him and then he, like, does their hair and then, like, really kicks ass!!!!

It's a can't miss blockbuster, obviously. And the most perceptive critics agree:

When I initially read Andrew's tip, I expected it to be yet another film by a leftist Jewish Hollywood type, who is not exactly pro-Israel (plus I find Judd Apatow and his movies to be completely tasteless and stupid). But Andrew points out that Adam Sandler is not only very pro-Israel, but, last year (during the Israel-Hezbollah war), he donated 400 Sony Playstations to children in Israel, whose homes had been damaged by Hezbollah rockets.

So, yes, Muslims. You can now add Adam Sandler to your "Evil Zionist" boycott list.

That's good news for the Muslims... ummm, like, Not!

And one of her commenters brings up an interesting question and point:

Is Sandler Jewish? Even if he's not--I think he will be terrific as a Mossad man.

Hmmm, I don't know if Adam Sandler's background and can't even imagine how one could possibly find out if Sandler or any other celebrity is Jewish. But I saw the trailer at the multiplex and can assure you he does make an awesome (o) Mossad man/Hair stylist.

An uzi on her side

I think you know that chuckling on-line magazine has no political affiliations. I am neither Republican or Democrat, Green nor Red. If I must scrunched up and jammed forcibly into a label, I prefer "sensible independent," or maybe "ultra-sensible independent," or now that I think about it, "ultra-sensible independent" with a vaguely German accent so it comes out "ultra-zensisble independent, or "Uzi," for short. Yes, that's the ticket. Poor chuckling is poor no more. I am an Uzi, baby.

Anyway, the big news is that chuckling on-line magazine endorses Hillary Clinton for president. You may remember that I had previously endorsed Rudolf Guiliani because he was the sickest sociopath in the race. It's not that I actually like sick sociopaths, but what I like isn't going to be running country so I might as well hope for the greatest entertainment value.
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Well, it's been a long time since rotten Rudy dropped out, but even after watching Hillary's sickeningly tactless victory speech last night and hearing her representatives this morning talk about how she will do whatever it takes to destroy Barak Obama, I was still unconvinced that she was sick and twisted enough to be truly entertaining.

But this morning I received an advanced draft of the speech she is planning to give at the Democratic convention (after she loses, before she goes to the Supreme court and get's appointed Democratic nominee). Here is the how it ends:

And as for you Barak Hussein Osama, I say these words: To the last I grapple with thee. From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee. You have not heard. the last of me.

Good stuff, eh? How can you not root for such a total psycho?

And maybe she'll pick Rudy for vice-president if Lieberman, for some unforeseeable reason, turns her down. Of course I know in my heart of hearts that will never happen, but one can dream.

Good times will be had by all

I just saw Fareed Zakaria on teevee talking about how surprisingly good the American economy is doing. He used Citibank as an example, citing the fact that after having lost so many billions, money from Singapore and the Gulf states flooded in and rescued (i.e. bought) the company.

I hadn't thought about it like that before, but then I was reminded of my sister and brother-in-law back in the midwest. They recently lost their jobs and the very same miracle occurred for them. Instead of going immediately broke, as the naysayers might predict, significant sums of money flowed in from selling the boat, the motorcycle, the power tools, the furniture, and dipping into the kids' college savings.

So you see, both them and Citibank are actually winning by losing. They are reaping the benefits of a windfall. It is a victory for our businesses, our families, and for America.

Cinco de mayo (pues)

More images here.

Please understand, I'm not putting these photographs out here as examples of great photography or anything so grand. It should be clear that I'm fucking around with some experimental shit. Glowing white shit is all I care about.

But no matter how hard I try to be nouveau, old habits stalk me like a serial killer in a bad horror movie, or if you prefer, a bad metaphor in a pointless essay . Still, I can't help but turn a series of photos into some kind of coherent photo essay. I try, I really do, but I just can't. I am. unfortunately, a hack.

Of course it would be triply wrong if I were to tell you what any particular essay were about, especially if I knew.

Even if I wanted to use words to explicate a narrative, no words would be adequate. A photo essay is quite plainly, and this is obvious when you think about it, a photo essay. Words are pretty much limited to the title, though a few may appear as content.

But since what I'm about to tell you is just an observation on a finished product, not an explication of purpose, I think it's okay.

One interesting way to look at this photographic essay is as evidence of pre-Columbian culture in New York.

My experience has been that most people in the U.S. have little idea of what Mexico is actually like. One of the many things they do not consider is the extent of the Indian population. Unlike we Americans, the Mexican government never officially discriminated against Indians. In all official correspondence, everyone in Mexico is a Mexican. Here, if you are small and dark and from Mexico, you are a Mexican. And if you are fat kinda dark in Tucson, Arizona, you are Tohono O'ohdam, or a Navajo, or an maybe an Apache. We simply have a different approach to apartheid. The castes, we do not name.

But once you're clued in, it's as plain as a nose on a face. It's as plain as the print in an history book. It's as plain as fucking day.

Yet somehow the south of the border American Indians are as invisible as the guy bringing the fruit up from a New York City cellar. They are as invisible as the guy who picks your toe-mate-oes and your toe-maa-toes.

Ya Pues. I know.

So anyway, the photos show a bit of that, I think and I find that aspect interesting.

That and the facts associated with the fact that no alcohol was allowed at the festivities.

I spent eight years traveling extensively around southern Arizona and northern Sonora and I can tell you this: It is simply unnatural for Mexicans to get together for a party in the park without there being a lot of beer. Bizarrely unnatural. Banning Mexicans from drinking beer at a family get together in the park is like shoving a fist up the ass of a culture and ripping out a vital organ. It's just not right.

And there's no question that the beer ban on Mexican festivals is purely culturist (if not racist). To get into the park we passed through a phalanx of police who searched our bags and baby carriages and patted us down if we looked suspicious. Then to get into the stage area required an even more rigorous inspection. They were doing body cavity searches and pulling out fillings. The line to get in snaked about a quarter mile.

Now you know that chuckling is not a cultural elitist. But sometimes I mingle with the cultural elite. I live in New York. What can I do? I have to get out. And I am not prejudiced. It would be just as wrong of me to snub the rich elitist crowd as it would be for me to stay away from Cinco de Mayo festivities.

So I go to the BMA and the BAM. I go to the Met and the Guggenheim. I know how to get to Carnegie Hall. F train to 57th street motherfucker.

And I note that I'm free to get smashed out of my mind at those places. They'll sell me all the beer wine and liquor I can drink as long as I don't puke on anybody's tuxedo. Children are welcome, as long as they are well-bred.

Ya motherfucker. Chinga tu madere,pues. Cerveza es para mi, ese. Ya no es para ti. How do you say that in Nahuatal?

Wayne gale on a downward spiral

I read the reviews of Iron Man because I had no intention whatsoever of seeing it. When I learned that Robert Downey Jr. played the main character and got rave reviews, I though, hmmmm, maybe I should take poor little John Bob to see it. Robert Downey Jr. is one of my favorite actors of all time. He should have won an Oscar for Natural Born Killers, Richard III, and just about everything else he's been in.

But then I remembered a quip I read about Ian McKellen and X-Men. Ian McKellen, you may recall, gave what was perhaps the greatest cinematic performance of all time in Richard III, and has had a quite distinguished career on stage and screen in addition to that masterpiece. Anyway, the quip was "Featuring Ian McKellen as Magneto." The sadmess of that statement nearly brings me to tears. And don't even ask me about "Featuring Sir Ian McKellen as Gandolf." Makes me want to puke. It does.

At least we can be thankful that so many great actors are dead and buried. Would you really want to see Sir Laurence Olivier as the Sub Mariner? Or Orson Welles as Thor? Or even John Wayne as Quicksilver? No, god no.

So putting the matter in the proper perspective, I realized that I did not want to see "Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man" and swore to myself that I would not sully his memory by seeing it.

Unfortunately, I was making myself this promise as I was on my way to pick up John Bob after school And what do you think was the first thing out of his mouth? "Dad, can we go see Iron Man?"

So all right, I'm not one of those parents that says yes to everything. I would never take him to see Transformers or 99 out of 100 other summer blockbusters, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for the work of Robert Downey Jr.

Plot spoiler ahead. Stop reading right now if you don't want to know how much the movie sucked, just like you'd think a super hero move would. And the really scary thing was at the end, after sitting through the credits. Samuel Jackson appeared and threatened a sequel. When the guy from Snakes on a Plane and Big Black Scary Mambo, or whatever, threatens to appear in a movie, it's time to be afraid. Very, very afraid.

Cuatro de mayo

This photo is from an historic re-enactment of how the French got distracted the day before the big battle on cinco de mayo.

After my experiences in Mexico I had come to believe that the holiday was entirely fabricated by Budweiser to sell beer, but apparently some Mexicans actually take it seriously. Not anyone in the north though. Not at least as far as I could tell and I did a lot of research on the subject.

My first Cinco de Mayo in Mexico was just one of those twists of fate. A friend and I happened to be driving by Mexicali and somehow through our stupor realized that it was Cinco de Mayo. Why not, we said and crossed the border to join the festivities. Unfortunately, there were no festivities. Everyone we asked claimed not to know anything about any "holiday" on Cinco de Mayo. Nonplussed, we celebrated nevertheless. We got a room, went out to a bar, drank a case of those little Dos Equis bottles on ice with some friendly ladies, then drank a liter of tequila, some shots of Dom Pedro, smoked some pretty good weed, chased some black tar, ate some Xanax, bought a couple prostitutes (apiece), and I think I remember something about a donkey, but can't be sure. Anyway, the short of it is that we celebrated like French soldiers in Amsterdam, for research purposes you know. And our extensive research demonstrated how the French lost that particular battle. The following morning, a bunch of Mexican school kids picked on us and there was nothing we could do to stop it. The authorities just laughed.

For many years thereafter my friend and I traveled to northern Mexico on the fifth of May, or thereabouts. Eventually the Mexican beer companies picked up on the idea and tried to lure tourists to the border towns, but beyond the 20 kilometer limit, no one had ever heard of it. Still, I feel that more research is needed.

Chuckling makes another bold prediction

Just about everybody in the news media has noted that the math does not support Hillary Clinton's chance of winning the Democratic nomination. Broder does the honors this morning:

How then does Hillary Clinton hope to win? Her fate rests entirely on the last uncommitted superdelegates, the roughly 75 members of Congress and 150 party officials who have not picked sides.

I'm not saying those people have problems with their computational skills. It's just that counting primary votes or delegates will not necessarily be the math that matters.

I'm predicting that "5" will be the number that wins it for Hillary. That's what you get when you add up Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy. She should have it wrapped up sometime around mid-October at the latest.

Wapo editors asleep at the gate

The Washington Post actually ran an article in today's Outlook section that reports somewhat effectively on political reality.

At the moment, Americans are fixated on the political campaign. In the meantime, many are missing a reality of the global era that may matter much more than their presidential choice: On an ever-growing list of issues, the big decisions are being made or profoundly influenced by a little-understood international network of business, financial, government, cultural and military leaders who are beyond the reach of American voters.

I suspect someone at the Washington Post is either about to quit or get fired.

Well, maybe not. David Rothkopf has written for them before, most prominently in a surprisingly intelligent article in which he predicted that the U.S. would be invading Arab countries for at least the next one hundred years. The Wapo bigwigs must have spurted all the way up to the ceiling when they read that happy news. I guess while they were in the throes of wargasm, they neglected to contemplate all the actual useful information in the article.

At the of today's piece, Rothkopf softens the news that there's no such thing as functional democracy in this country or anywhere else in the world. He reassures us that our vote still counts. I'm sure that his willingness to tack on that pleasing fairy tale is a point in his, and whoever was asleep at the gate's favor, but in the context of the entire piece, it was not the least bit believable.

Wouldn't hurt a fly

Juan Cole alerts us to an upcoming debate on the BBC that contends:

'...the Sunni-Shia conflict is damaging Islam's reputation as a religion of peace.'

Islam has a reputation as a religion of peace? That's news to me. Muslims conquered roughly the same empire as Alexander the Great and have been fighting amongst themselves ever since.

Of course that's not to say that they are any worse than other prominent Bible-based religion. They have nowhere near the Christian's earned reputation for pathological violence and military conquest. And although they've been much more successful than the Jews at military conquest, the Jews are hardly less violent as a people when given a fighting chance.

You pretty much have to study the Mesoamerican religions (Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs, et.al) or the Andeans to make the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions look peaceful. Even then, "peaceful" is hardly the word that describes them. "Somewhat less insane" would be more accurate.

Only a few of the Asian religions have any serious claim to being peaceful, but no matter what the texts may say, history is still littered with Buddhist tyrants.

But I don't mean to speak ill of all religions. I've never heard of an evil Jainist government, although their primary religious symbol (see above) has been subject to misappropriation.

Different rules for different tools

Atrios reports a scam in which Bank of America has bought Countrywide and rigged it in such a manner that it can keep the good assets and form a fake company to declare bankruptcy on the bad.

That is the kind of textbook example of why most companies don't want to do business in third world countries. There simply is no meaningful rule of law.

You know that I am sometimes mildly critical of Atrios, like when he tells other writers to shut up or like the other day when he told me and everybody else that we had to move to Manhattan, but I really give him credit for his relentless reporting on the housing mess.

As far as I know, he doesn't get anywhere near the credit he deserves for persistently reporting that story, which in a sane, first world country would be leading the news just about every minute of just about every day. And truthfully, as far as I really know, he has never gotten any credit whatsoever. I've never actually seen anybody give him any. If I'm the first and only, that's sad. It's very good work.

Note: Someone asked me what the photo is and why I used it to illustrate this little essay. So FYI, it is a a prominent New York bank that is in danger of imminent collapse. I thought it might kinda symbolize the entire mess.

White supremacy

More images here.

You know, when I write about photography I babble a lot about rules of composition -- the golden ration, rule of thirds, etc. -- and although I am generally aware of them when working, I have a few rules of my own.

After all, the actual subject of the photograph is important and when we speak of rules of composition, the inference is that they apply to the subject.

In my work, the subject has historically been the shadows. I simply look at the shadows in any particular scene and compose it in such a way that they for an interesting pattern. There might be a naked woman, a kid on a bycicle, the Brooklyn Bridge, pretty much anything, in the picture but the real subject is most often the shadows they cast and how those shadows relate to other dark areas in the composition.

Until recently that is. Now I am more likely to compose based on the white areas of the composition. Previously, I had never given them much thought, but then I started to perceive how they glow. I still have a lot of respect for the shadows, and you can say many good things about them, but they do not glow.

And all those colors? The reds, greens, blues -- cyans, magentas and yellows? The colors of spring, summer and fall? They are only useful for separated the light and shadow. By themselves, they are simply annoyances. Or in a technical sense, a perversion of light caused by the imperfections of objects.