Good Sammy

Sammy was as quiet as can be tonight,
or else I was absolutely dead to the world
and slept through the feline symphony.

I did sleep like a prince.
Only one bathroom run,

and when I saw the temp at 3:30,
I regretted not keeping to the plan
of letting the cats stay outside:
46 degrees.

.......

0815

It does look like it wants to rain, but
it may be just another bit of morning congestion.

......

1550

Father comes home from his rounds:

"It's getting misty."

Rain!

Damn, I just let Ash and Sammy out.

I guess it wasn't just morning congestion.

But Sammy was crying loud again, and I thought

why not?

.......

2150

There is some real bite in the evening breeze.

A little drizzly, too.

All the cats are in, and I wish
they could appreciate the blessing
and not cry up a storm in the wee hours.

Good Sammy

Sammy was as quiet as can be tonight,
or else I was absolutely dead to the world
and slept through the feline symphony.

I did sleep like a prince.
Only one bathroom run,

and when I saw the temp at 3:30,
I regretted not keeping to the plan
of letting the cats stay outside:
46 degrees.

.......

0815

It does look like it wants to rain, but
it may be just another bit of morning congestion.

......

1550

Father comes home from his rounds:

"It's getting misty."

Rain!

Damn, I just let Ash and Sammy out.

I guess it wasn't just morning congestion.

But Sammy was crying loud again, and I thought

why not?

.......

2150

There is some real bite in the evening breeze.

A little drizzly, too.

All the cats are in, and I wish
they could appreciate the blessing
and not cry up a storm in the wee hours.

Elvis Porn Parody

This Saturday, Elvis Presley would have been seventy-six years old. And Vivid Entertainment has a present for the late sweet-toothed crooner. It's Elvis XXX: A Porn Parody, the latest from future AVF Hall of Famer Axel Braun. And let's just get it out of the way: Ron Jeremy's in it. Because if "The Hedgehog" isn't in it, it doesn't really count, does it?

Two adult actors will portray Elvis at different ages, with Dale DaBone getting stuck with the part of the "less slender" 1970s Elvis. The film is a fictionalized version of Elvis' life, so Elvis diehards sniffing sacrilege can rest easy. Vivid continues to be a juggernaut in the adult industry, and capitalizing on the beloved singer will only add to their bottom line. All pre-release copies of the DVD have apparently already been sold. Crass commercialism aside, I think Elvis probably would have gotten a kick out of this.

-- ONTD

I'm surprised this hasn't been done sooner. In spite of his wild rock-star lifestyle, maybe he was too sacrosanct for pornographers.

Given Elvis's religiosity, I doubt he would've gotten a kick out of this. As is the case with the book "Elvis, What Happened?" he probably would've felt ashamed and tried to stop it, or knowing that he couldn't do that, he might have tried to laugh it off and ignore it.

As for myself, I won't be looking for the movie, unless they portray Elvis as a rapist of his underage fans. The Alanna Nash book was good enough for me.

Elvis Porn Parody

This Saturday, Elvis Presley would have been seventy-six years old. And Vivid Entertainment has a present for the late sweet-toothed crooner. It's Elvis XXX: A Porn Parody, the latest from future AVF Hall of Famer Axel Braun. And let's just get it out of the way: Ron Jeremy's in it. Because if "The Hedgehog" isn't in it, it doesn't really count, does it?

Two adult actors will portray Elvis at different ages, with Dale DaBone getting stuck with the part of the "less slender" 1970s Elvis. The film is a fictionalized version of Elvis' life, so Elvis diehards sniffing sacrilege can rest easy. Vivid continues to be a juggernaut in the adult industry, and capitalizing on the beloved singer will only add to their bottom line. All pre-release copies of the DVD have apparently already been sold. Crass commercialism aside, I think Elvis probably would have gotten a kick out of this.

-- ONTD

I'm surprised this hasn't been done sooner. In spite of his wild rock-star lifestyle, maybe he was too sacrosanct for pornographers.

Given Elvis's religiosity, I doubt he would've gotten a kick out of this. As is the case with the book "Elvis, What Happened?" he probably would've felt ashamed and tried to stop it, or knowing that he couldn't do that, he might have tried to laugh it off and ignore it.

As for myself, I won't be looking for the movie, unless they portray Elvis as a rapist of his underage fans. The Alanna Nash book was good enough for me.

Krugman on the Arizona Shooting

Krugman still has my number these days.

( column )

Krugman on the Arizona Shooting

Krugman still has my number these days.

( column )

playground back-and-forth

On the day after I make my public announcement
about blurting more, I am now stalling.

That discussion in Jeff's post has grown new wings,

and I have been in a little playground back-and-forth
with Gunslinger.

Nothing nasty,
as we are both older, more mature men,

but you know how excitable I am.

playground back-and-forth

On the day after I make my public announcement
about blurting more, I am now stalling.

That discussion in Jeff's post has grown new wings,

and I have been in a little playground back-and-forth
with Gunslinger.

Nothing nasty,
as we are both older, more mature men,

but you know how excitable I am.

Male Sexuality and Internet Porn

The Atlantic has given us another long-form essay, this one on Internet porn and the fiercer evolution of sexual attitudes, titled “Hard Core” by Natasha Vargas-Cooper, a subject near and dear to my heart. I particularly like the way she tracks my own beliefs on the brutish sexual nature of men. She goes on from there to argue that the prevalence of the wilder kind of pornography on the Internet has gone some way to make the more aggressive tendencies of men more acceptable, legitimating them in a sense, and that this hasn’t been a good development for women:

Armed with a “Take Back the Night” pamphlet, we were led to believe that, as long as we avoided the hordes of date rapists, sex was an egalitarian endeavor. The key to sexual harmony, so the thinking went, was social conditioning. Men who sexually took advantage of women were considered the storm troopers of patriarchy, but women could teach men to adopt a different ideology, through explicit communication of boundaries —“you can touch there” or “please don’t do that.” Thus was the dark drama of sex replaced with a verbal contract. Once the drunken frat boys and brutes were weeded out, if we gravitated toward a kind of enlightened guy, an emotionally rewarding sex life was ours for the taking. Sex wasn’t a bestial pursuit, but something elevating.

This is an intellectual swindle that leads women to misjudge male sexuality, which they do at their own emotional and physical peril. Male desire is not a malleable entity that can be constructed through politics, language, or media. Sexuality is not neutral. A warring dynamic based on power and subjugation has always existed between men and women, and the egalitarian view of sex, with its utopian pretensions, offers little insight into the typical male psyche. Internet porn, on the other hand, shows us an unvarnished (albeit partial) view of male sexuality as an often dark force streaked with aggression.

She does not necessarily call for censorship, but I am concerned that the logic of this sort of argument leads in that direction. Still, I am going to have to copy & paste the whole thing. After all, it even gives us a good exegetic take on the Marlon Brando movie “Last Tango in Paris.”

Male Sexuality and Internet Porn

The Atlantic has given us another long-form essay, this one on Internet porn and the fiercer evolution of sexual attitudes, titled “Hard Core” by Natasha Vargas-Cooper, a subject near and dear to my heart. I particularly like the way she tracks my own beliefs on the brutish sexual nature of men. She goes on from there to argue that the prevalence of the wilder kind of pornography on the Internet has gone some way to make the more aggressive tendencies of men more acceptable, legitimating them in a sense, and that this hasn’t been a good development for women:

Armed with a “Take Back the Night” pamphlet, we were led to believe that, as long as we avoided the hordes of date rapists, sex was an egalitarian endeavor. The key to sexual harmony, so the thinking went, was social conditioning. Men who sexually took advantage of women were considered the storm troopers of patriarchy, but women could teach men to adopt a different ideology, through explicit communication of boundaries —“you can touch there” or “please don’t do that.” Thus was the dark drama of sex replaced with a verbal contract. Once the drunken frat boys and brutes were weeded out, if we gravitated toward a kind of enlightened guy, an emotionally rewarding sex life was ours for the taking. Sex wasn’t a bestial pursuit, but something elevating.

This is an intellectual swindle that leads women to misjudge male sexuality, which they do at their own emotional and physical peril. Male desire is not a malleable entity that can be constructed through politics, language, or media. Sexuality is not neutral. A warring dynamic based on power and subjugation has always existed between men and women, and the egalitarian view of sex, with its utopian pretensions, offers little insight into the typical male psyche. Internet porn, on the other hand, shows us an unvarnished (albeit partial) view of male sexuality as an often dark force streaked with aggression.

She does not necessarily call for censorship, but I am concerned that the logic of this sort of argument leads in that direction. Still, I am going to have to copy & paste the whole thing. After all, it even gives us a good exegetic take on the Marlon Brando movie “Last Tango in Paris.”

Lady Gaga

I do like some of her fashion choices, but then these girlie rock stars all have a keen sense of their assets and the most flattering fashions.



ontd

And, no, he's not the lucky guy banging her. She's just posing with some losers fans.

Lady Gaga

I do like some of her fashion choices, but then these girlie rock stars all have a keen sense of their assets and the most flattering fashions.



ontd

And, no, he's not the lucky guy banging her. She's just posing with some losers fans.

The Arizona Shooting ctd.

3. You have to go back to the 1960s to find any even remotely comparable legitimization of anti-government violence on the left as we have today from Republican elected officials and party candidates, not to mention the chorus of right-wing talk-radio demagogues. It is simply nonsense to assert, as many right-wing commentators and Republican politicians have in the last 48 hours, that "there are extremists on both sides," and to speak as if political violence is a random natural phenomenon, a meteorite falling from the blue sky. I defy you to point to a single Democratic member of Congress or comparable official or candidate who has used the kind of rhetoric we have been bombarded with for the last two years from the right — Sharron Angle explicitly suggesting that if conservatives did not prevail at the polls they would be justified in "Second Amendment solutions" to "protect themselves against a tyrannical government"; Michele Bachman telling her supporters she wants them to be "armed and dangerous" on the issue of a federal energy tax and describing Washington as a city "behind enemy lines"; the barrage of conspiracy theories about the President's supposed foreign birth and his being the agent of a socialist plot to destroy America; the waves of talk-radio-driven death threats against judges and Democratic congressmen over immigration, health care, taxes, abortion, and other reliably demagogic issues of the right.

4. For as long as I can remember, I have heard conservatives blaming everything that is wrong in the universe, from violent crime to declining test scores to teen pregnancy to rude children to declining patriotism to probably athlete's foot . . . upon Dr. Spock, Hollywood liberals, the abolition of prayer in school, Bill Clinton, the "liberal 1960s," the teaching of evolution — in other words, upon symbols, rhetoric, cultural norms, and the values expressed by political and media leaders. Yet from the moment when someone gets a gun in their hands, apparently, society ceases to have any influence whatsoever on the outcome and individual responsibility takes hold 100%. Something is driving the tripling of death threats against congressmen (and the concomitant rise in threats against Federal judges and other villains of the right, from Forest Service rangers to climate scientists) and it isn't the sunspot cycle.

-- Stephen Budiansky

He sounds like one of my political masters. But one cannot be surprised that Americans love guns, and this is just one of the conditions of life in this country. It's a tough country.

The Arizona Shooting ctd.

3. You have to go back to the 1960s to find any even remotely comparable legitimization of anti-government violence on the left as we have today from Republican elected officials and party candidates, not to mention the chorus of right-wing talk-radio demagogues. It is simply nonsense to assert, as many right-wing commentators and Republican politicians have in the last 48 hours, that "there are extremists on both sides," and to speak as if political violence is a random natural phenomenon, a meteorite falling from the blue sky. I defy you to point to a single Democratic member of Congress or comparable official or candidate who has used the kind of rhetoric we have been bombarded with for the last two years from the right — Sharron Angle explicitly suggesting that if conservatives did not prevail at the polls they would be justified in "Second Amendment solutions" to "protect themselves against a tyrannical government"; Michele Bachman telling her supporters she wants them to be "armed and dangerous" on the issue of a federal energy tax and describing Washington as a city "behind enemy lines"; the barrage of conspiracy theories about the President's supposed foreign birth and his being the agent of a socialist plot to destroy America; the waves of talk-radio-driven death threats against judges and Democratic congressmen over immigration, health care, taxes, abortion, and other reliably demagogic issues of the right.

4. For as long as I can remember, I have heard conservatives blaming everything that is wrong in the universe, from violent crime to declining test scores to teen pregnancy to rude children to declining patriotism to probably athlete's foot . . . upon Dr. Spock, Hollywood liberals, the abolition of prayer in school, Bill Clinton, the "liberal 1960s," the teaching of evolution — in other words, upon symbols, rhetoric, cultural norms, and the values expressed by political and media leaders. Yet from the moment when someone gets a gun in their hands, apparently, society ceases to have any influence whatsoever on the outcome and individual responsibility takes hold 100%. Something is driving the tripling of death threats against congressmen (and the concomitant rise in threats against Federal judges and other villains of the right, from Forest Service rangers to climate scientists) and it isn't the sunspot cycle.

-- Stephen Budiansky

He sounds like one of my political masters. But one cannot be surprised that Americans love guns, and this is just one of the conditions of life in this country. It's a tough country.

Arizona Shooting ctd.

Fox News President Roger Ailes had some new marching orders for his conservative host troops in the wake of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' shooting: tone it down.

In a discussion with Russell Simmons posted on the Def Jam founder's website on Monday, Ailes said he wanted to change the tone of fiery rhetoric in the country, which many critics attribute to anchors on his network.

"I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually," Ailes said. "You don't have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that."

-- NY Daily News

Ailes also brings up the line I've just come across in my own little LJ debate, about how Democrats use maps with bullseyes or targets on opponents' districts, too, just like Republicans, that both sides do it. The thing is, though, Democrrats don't wave guns around and talk about the need to exercise Second Amendment remedies to take out the opposition. Democrats would even like to be more restrictive about gun control. As is often the case, it's just smoke and mirrors to say that 'both sides do it.'

Moreover, in addition to this assassination attempt on the Congresswoman, we also had not too long ago the murder of an abortion doctor. The threat of right-wing violence is palpable.

Arizona Shooting ctd.

Fox News President Roger Ailes had some new marching orders for his conservative host troops in the wake of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' shooting: tone it down.

In a discussion with Russell Simmons posted on the Def Jam founder's website on Monday, Ailes said he wanted to change the tone of fiery rhetoric in the country, which many critics attribute to anchors on his network.

"I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually," Ailes said. "You don't have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that."

-- NY Daily News

Ailes also brings up the line I've just come across in my own little LJ debate, about how Democrats use maps with bullseyes or targets on opponents' districts, too, just like Republicans, that both sides do it. The thing is, though, Democrrats don't wave guns around and talk about the need to exercise Second Amendment remedies to take out the opposition. Democrats would even like to be more restrictive about gun control. As is often the case, it's just smoke and mirrors to say that 'both sides do it.'

Moreover, in addition to this assassination attempt on the Congresswoman, we also had not too long ago the murder of an abortion doctor. The threat of right-wing violence is palpable.