September 2004 Archives

Washington Drank Here (washingtonpost.com)

The Distilled Spirits Council is restoring Washington's still at Mount Vernon. It is a reminder of the prodigious quantities of alcohol that the revolutionary generation consumed.

MoorishGirl: A Sense of Vocation

Guest-blogger Terri Brown-Davidson on why she writes.

The Elegant Variation: AS THOUGH WE NEEDED MORE REASONS TO HATE WAL-MART

The Elegant Variation points out that Wal Mart has stopped marketing one of the most notorious works of Anti-Semitism in the face of massive protests.

Caterina.net: Greenblatt Bio of Shakespeare

Caterina Fake on Greenblatt, Renaissance Studies, and arc welding.

The New York Times > Magazine > Shakespeare's Leap

Stephen Greenblatt gives us a glimpse into his new critical biography of Shakespeare. Greenblatt discusses how Shakespeare at once incited laughter at Shylock and made his audience self conscious about that laughter. In an England where all Jews had been expelled 300 years earlier and Jews were stock figures of malevolence, this was both an innovation and an accomplishment. As an antecedant to the play, Greenblatt cites the notorious execution of the Queen's physician, Ruy Lopez, born Jewish and condemned for treason. Greenblatt argues that in the fascination and repulsion that Shakespeare felt at the mob's reaction to Lopez's dying words, the Merchant of Venice was born.

CSPI scam | Critics

The Food Industry's risible criticism of the Center For Science in the Public Interest reminds me to check and see if I need to renew my subscription to CSPI's Nutrition Health Action Newsletter.

Burningbird — This is Wrong on Oh So Many Levels

Shelley Powers (a.k.a burningbird) has a thoughtful commentary on sincere — and less than sincere — interactions between bloggers:

I value every comment left, and every link given — they are gifts. And I value those who take the time to read me, as time is precious and there are so many good writers who have weblogs.

She adds, however, that she would never change what she had to say simply to keep a reader.

Today is the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Whatever its moral impact, the Proclamation did not as a practical matter free any slaves, since its provisions applied only the States then in rebellion against the United States. Slave states on the side of the Union (e.g. Maryland) were exempted.

Rejecting Turkey, And the Future (washingtonpost.com)

Here's a quiz: Over the past two years, which developing country has undertaken the most dramatic economic, political and social reforms in the world? Some hints: This country has deregulated its economy, simplified its tax code and put its fiscal house in order, resulting in 8.2 percent growth this year and a 10 percent rise in productivity. It has passed nine packages of major reforms that have reduced the military's influence in government, enshrined political dissent and religious pluralism, passed strict laws against torture, abolished the death penalty, and given substantial rights to a long-oppressed minority.

Fareed Zakaria makes an incisive argument for integrating Turkey into the European Union. Of course, it is not up to us.

A memory I would like to carry into my old age is Rachel cradled asleep in my arms in the rocker, upturned face peeking over the "piggums" clutched in her arms.

The New Yorker: Fact

Addressing the real but uncertain dimensions of voter fraud means risking potentially greater harm to legitimate voters. "There is no doubt that there has been fraud over the years — people voting twice, immigrants voting, unregistered people voting — but no one knows how bad the problem is," Lowenstein says. "It is a very hard subject for an academic or anyone else to study, because by definition it takes place under the table." And, despite its neutral-sounding name, "voting integrity"� has had an incendiary history. "It's one of those great euphemisms," Pamela S. Karlan, a professor at Stanford Law School, says. "By and large, it's been targeted at minority voters."

The New Yorker argues that a new shift in the Justice Department toward cracking down on voter fraud rather than ensuring voter participation will discourage minorities from exercising their right to vote, to the benefit of the Republican Party.

J-A opines on the iconic significance of upside down Chinese characters. By inverting the "good luck" sign when it is on display, one evokes the Chinese character for "arrival." The visual pun on "luck" and "arrival" signifies an expectation that good luck will arrive. J-A sounds overdue.

The New York Times > Washington > Survey Confirms It: Women Outjuggle Men

It may fall into the category of Things You Knew but Could Never Prove, but a new survey by the Department of Labor shows that the average working woman spends about twice as much time as the average working man on household chores and the care of children.

The average working woman also gets about an hour's less sleep each night than the average stay-at-home mom. And men spend more time than women both at their jobs and on leisure and sports.

Clearly, men need to be more helpful around the house. (Progress is relative, however: a male friend of mine in Morocco once expressed astonishment that American men did any housework at all.)

The story goes on to mention that we spend more than half our leisure time watching TV. My aspiration is zero TV, but even it weren't, half my leisure time watching the tube would be way too much.

Doonesbury Goes to War : News : RollingStone.com

Garry Trudeau gives a rare interview to Rolling Stone magazine. Worth reading for the descriptions of life for soldiers in the amputee ward alone, but also gives an interesting description of life at Yale with George W. Bush.

The Price Of Labor's Decline (washingtonpost.com)

David Broder opines that the shift to the right in American politics is a result of the decline in the unionization of the American labor force (from 1/4 of the labor force in the 1970's to barely 1/8 today). Today, Labor is no longer the political factor that it was even a decade or two ago, with severe consequences for wages and benefits, workplace safety, education, housing, and civil rights.

I look at it as a timely reminder that Thomas Geoghegan's is on my list of books to read.

Christopher Hitchens, whom I like and respect more and more as I read his stories, quotes Bernard Spencer on the meaning of 1,000 dead. While it is unclear exactly to what context Spencer referred, Hitchens obviously has Iraq in mind:

I read of a thousand killed.
And am glad because the scrounging imperial paw
Was there so bitten:
As a man at elections is thrilled
When the results pour in, and the North goes with him
And the West breaks in the thaw.

(That fighting was a long way off.)

Forgetting therefore an election
Being fought with votes and lies and catch-cries
And orator's frowns and flowers and posters' noise
Is paid for with cheques and toys:
Wars the most glorious
Victory-winged and steeple-uproarious
... With the lives, burned-off,
Of young men and boys.

Hitchens points out that there is no magic in the number 1,000: in reality, 999 or 1,001 is just as appalling. Something about round numbers makes one stop and think, however.

Fitness Over Thinness for Hearts (washingtonpost.com)

Being fit appears to be far more important than being thin for decreasing the risk of heart disease, while the opposite seems to be the case for diabetes, according to two new studies in women.

So far I am making some progress on getting thinner: the concierge at our building actually mentioned today that I appeared to be losing weight. My next goal is to get enough sleep, so that I can get up in the morning and do a little bit of exercise before leaving for work. If I can build a little muscle mass, it will have the added bonus of elevating my metabolism and helping me lose weight.

Top News Article | Reuters.com

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. (Reuters) - President Bush offered an unexpected reason on Monday for cracking down on frivolous medical lawsuits: "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."

Boston.com / News / Nation / Bush fell short on duty at Guard

In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows.

Particularly interesting is that Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett admits that he was not correct about Bush's fulfilling his National Guard commitments in Boston. Once again, the White House does not let the truth get in the way of a good (war) story.

The Associated Press

LONDON (AP) -- Archaeologists in northwestern England have found a burial site of six Viking men and women, complete with swords, spears, jewelry, fire-making materials and riding equipment, officials said Monday.

The sagas I read recently told quite a bit about Vikings serving in the Court's of various English kings (as well as raiding in England). It is therefore gratifying, but in a sense not surprising, to learn of the discovery of a Viking burial ground in England.

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Which vodka is the best? By Alex Abramovich

Slate concludes that despite being made primarily of water and alcohol, not all vodkas are created equal:

But if all vodkas tasted alike, there'd be no reason to favor a $30 bottle of Armadale over a $12 magnum of Fleischmann's. In fact, all vodkas are not alike. Vodka can be distilled in a good many ways, from a great many substances, including wheat, rye, beets, corn, potatoes, and sugar cane. (In Russia, the Yukos oil conglomerate recently made headlines for marketing a vodka distilled from hemp seeds.) As a result, each brand has a distinct smell, flavor, aftertaste, and burn (i.e., the burning sensation vodka creates as it goes down your gullet). The grain-based vodkas, which are the most popular, tend to be smooth and can even taste fruity. Vegetable-based vodkas are often (and often unfairly) dismissed as being harsh and medicinal.

My Russian neighbor prefers Absolut, which was rated surprisingly low. Second place, however, went to a Scottish vodka, Armadale, distilled on the Isle of Skye.

I have upgraded the site to Movable Type 3.11. I already like the new user interface, I am looking forward to the performance improvements, and I hope that the new anti-spam features work!

I just got home after a late night filing, fueled by four Krispy Kreme donuts — almost a thousand calories in one fell swoop.

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish

Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats. Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes. His speech tonight was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric.

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > About New York: Serving Canap�s, Then Recalling the 107th Floor

A wicked piece by the Times about World Trade Center waiters who, having survived the attack on 9/11, are forced to silently serve self-satisified Republicans from the hinterlands who think 9/11 is all about them.

MoorishGirl: Enjoying the Hospitality

And so I've been gorging myself on couscous, pastilla, rghaif, mechouis, escargot, all sorts of fish, and drinking glass after glass of mint tea.

My mouth waters just thinking of it. When am I going back to Morocco?