Barbara Bush Leaves Hospital After Heart Surgery

Hospital officials declined to comment on the current whereabouts of the heart.

The Safest Hookee

Marvel as Kathryn Jean Lopez makes the argument for universal lesbianism.

Annals of Post-Election Politicking

You know, I remember when this

happened and liberals were all like, America is Russia and Airstrip One and Korea and the Third Reich all at the same time.

But this

graphical tragedy and its attendant proliferation in windows and walls throughout the land indicates nothing but healthy excitement and respect.

Positive Discrimination

With the departure of notable space reptile William Kristol, the Times latest affirmative action hire is one Ross Douthat, a sub-Freudian case study in sublimated sexuality and a young man who has inexplicably chosen notable medicine ball Jonah Goldberg as a model for his facial hair. Says Mark Ambinder, a colleague:

Ross is a late-twenties-year-old public intellectual with the sensibility of a 60-year eminence grise, the range of a Hitchens, the pitch of a conservative AJP Taylor, the conscience of a Neibuhr and the intellectual honesty of his frequent sparring partner, Andrew Sullivan.

In translation: Ross' conservativism is the affectation of sentimental nostalgia for a time in one's distant youth that did not exist; his incoherency is to be taken as evidence that he's a polymath; he occasionally adopts the cadences of better writers without being able to ape the content of their writing; he lurves Diamond J; he is willing to admit that he cannot remember what transpired mere seconds ago--his moral universe exists in a present without context, past, or meaning.

Lean-to

James Tarnato at the WSJ argues that the homeless aren't really homeless, they just . . . don't have homes. I take a certain semantic interest in the question. Home is an English word of considerably subtle and particular meaning. The French, for example, have no precise equivalent. There is la maison, which is more literally "house," or adjectival expressions like du foyer, which descriptively conveys many of the qualities we associate with home without quite capturing its fullness of meaning, or prepositions like chez, as in chez moi, which suggests home but is more properly translated as "at my house" (or, for that matter, "at my (proprietary) place of business"). This is not to say that lacking a one-for-one translation of a term means that other people lack a concept of home; it's just to say that they come at the concept from a different intellectual, emotional, and linguistic angle.

Interestingly, the French term for their homeless is les sans-abri, literally "without shelter"--and that seems much closer to what Taranto wants as a definition for the truly homeless. That's all fine and well, but I think any reasonable person can admit to himself that a motel room is not a home, even if it is temporary shelter; staying with a friend or relative is not a home; a shelter is not a home. That these people aren't living out of cars or tents suggests only that they have managed to temporize some kind of protection from the elements, not that they have acquired some reasonably stable, moderate-to-long-term residence wherein they're protected by terms of mortgage and ownership or by laws protecting tenats' rights. Taranto seems to be searching for an argument about the soft-minded liberal press acceding to the propaganda of advocates, but doesn't manage to do much other than make himself look persnickety, foolish, and mean.

Hushabye Mountain

Although I find the President's policies mostly occupying the range from horrific to merely ridiculous, I mostly find myself amused by people who can't read opinion polls and have this notion that Barack Obama is somehow foundering right now. Dude is popular! I mean, I'm all about shouting "Fuck you, preppies!" at his passing entourage, but I'm still sitting on the steps with the stoners.

As Roy notes and notes and notes, it's almost impossible to actually decode Camille Paglia's nightingale warbling. What we gather is that once-considered-extinct North-American megafauna Rush Limbaugh is to be left alone, likewise his poor, benighted following of morons, losers, and the fascistically nostalgic legions of the pre-deceased. And yes, I suppose it's possible to make the argument that since Rush looks like a fat-swaddled blind baby mammal, a thing whose natural posture is on its back, useless little paws flapping at the sky, hairless, wrinkled body still sickly-gray, he should be accorded the same noo-noo-naa-naa cooing protection.

But while the asinine media yapsters wring their hands with extravagantly insincere regret that Obama is squandering . . . something . . . on darts thrown at the Jello Mold of the airwaves, Obama surely notes that he can use Rush effectively as a proxy to keep his putative opponents from making any kind of counterargument on the airwaves, and all he risks (which is nothing at all) is earning the greater opprobrium of people who already despise him. You wouldn't know it to watch the news, but Barack Obama keeps getting what he wants; his bills keep passing.

Interestingly, Obama's liberal-progressive supporters, who were so horrified when they learned of Bush partisans making statements to the effect that 9-11 provided a golden opportunity for the enacting of long-sought policies, are now aping the same line regarding the crisis in the economy.

Bref

The film version of Watchmen was worse than bad. It was boring.

Notes toward a Blog Post

Ha ha ha deranged syphilitic land-manatee Rush Limbaugh will not go away. He is bigger than Elvis and Jesus and John Lennon combined. He is the Walrus. Coo coo cachoo. But Superjesus Black Reagan is coextensive with the universe; he is the demiurge; he is the pluroma; his professorial cadences flash in my mind like pink lasers.

Then there is The Candidate Formerly Known As Howdoesthiswork What'syourname Whyareyouinmyhouse McCain, whose Coalition for the Getting of You Kids off of My Lawn has recently begun calling for the failure of banks. I am all for the failure of banks, but McCain's reanimate corpse was quoted yesterday on NPR saying not that banks must be allowed to fail, but that they must be "killed."

Last night 2nd-tier talk radio dude Jim Cunningham proclaimed that if Obama is permitted to succeed, he will, "for the first time in a hundred years" hand The Children Who Are The Future a country that is different from that of their parents. One hundred years ago, Teddy R. was handing America over to Fatty Taft. Bully! Rightly so.