For a label to double as an epithet, it needs not to be one or two words, but one or two syllables. Think "liberal", "hippy", "fag", etc. Or from our perspective, "nazi", or "fascist".
"Fascist" is good enough, though there is not yet an emphasis on thuggish violence. Orcinus, both Neiwert and newly Robinson are terrific on authoritarianism.
The Crooked Timber post irritated me. Reagan was not a champion of civil liberties as Governor of California, and Goldwater had no qualms about his support in Dixie. I see much less that is unique in the current crowd than most, and really distrust those who seek to protect the word "conservative" for a definition arounf 50 years old. Even John Dean.
Authoritarian works for me. Statist is also good, but a harder political sell (too much extant political myth asserts that Republicans are anti-government and Democrats are pro-government, so how could Republicans be statist?)
Call them goddam conservatives, or right wingers. Calling us liberals works fine for them, because most of us are liberals -- it's true that we're liberals. They've just successfully defined liberal as 'baby raper'.
The response to anyone who says that Bush isn't really a conservative isn't to engage them respectfully in a discussion of what conservativism means to them, it's to say "Fuck you, man, you bought him, he's yours. He's a conservative."
"Money populists" will sound like a compliment to a lot of people. I basically agree with 6, though it's not as easy as it may seem.
"Crooks."
(Potential resonance from famous Nixon quote; short and simple; true, or at least true enough.)
Although I agree with the comments above that this is a pretty silly exercise. We need instead to start refering to these failed policies as "Texas Conservativism" (wild, irrational, idiotic conservativism -- akin to "MA liberal"), and then once that sticks in the public mind, just start dismissing every conservative idea as "crazy Texas Conservativism" and politicians as "Texas Conservatives" -- as a pejorative, and then slowly but surely hope to be able to just drop the "Texas" moniker" and use "Conservative" itself as an insult. It would take as much (or much) luck than skill to work.
I actually think that Brock's idea is a good one, with apologies to Molly Ivins and the other decent, non-crazy residents of Texas. We Massachusetts residents have had to put up with a similar slander of our state for a long time.
"Casino Conservatives". Probably sounds like a compliment too.
9: It's not Texas Conservatism. It's Southern Republicanism, and it's the mouse that swallowed the elephant. If you look at what not-happy old line Republicans write, you'll see a fair bit of regional complaining. Schmitt has written a couple of nice pieces on regional reconfiguration, as has Lind. IIRC, EJ Dionne wrote something about this recently. To varying degrees, this is what gives any life to the idea of "Crunchy Cons" or "Sam's Club Republicans."
This may not be what it meant to be a "conservative" or even a "Republican" in the past, but it is absolutely what it means to be a "conservative" or a "Republican" today and into the foreseeable future.
Cons, or con men? "Texas cons"? The thing is, people love to put the word "staunch," which is a compliment, before "conservative" even when they're talking about corrupt honorless radicals like Kenneth Tomlinson or William Rehnquist, and people like this guy whose conservatism seems to be a matter of hating gays, sex, and black people (at least, that's how I translate "close to Trent Lott"). Lord knows how Hagel made it onto the front page.
Do not fucking rename it.
I'm serious. What better strategy for the Republicans that for the left to decide that 'real' conservatives are okay, just not this bunch. Now we give them a name -- tax-and-spend warmongers -- and now the newer Republican candidate says that he's not a tax-and-spend warmonger, he's just a classic conservative who's tough on terror and crime, and you've just conceded that he would be okay and shouldn't be lumped in with the other guys.
And this indeed may be true, but it's stupid politics. Call them Republicans.
Yeah, 13 and 16 are right. It took a lot of effort to make "liberal" a swear word, and we should be willing to put that effort in for "conservative," especially because we're right.
The post reminded me of another thing. Kieran mentions the libertarian strand of conservatism, and a couple of times I've heard about the libertarian streak of voters in the west like Utah and West Texas. (See here and this goofy stuff.) It is bullshit. Voters in Utah and West Texas are all about interfering in other people's personal lives and imposing the values of their religion on their neighbors.
12 -- No, no, no: what they're going for here is, in all but name, a Stuart Restoration. If one must reach back for a name, I prefer Confederates (or how about Losers -- they'll say they win elections, and we say 'yeah, when you cheat. Won any wars lately?').
16, though, is exactly right. As is 17.
To me, it seems like this is an exercise in wishful thinking. Actual existing Democrats are no more likely to come up with a really incisive way of slamming the Republicans than they are to come up with compelling policy proposals that people could get excited about. Politeness and "realism" rule the day. Where are the corrupt, power-mad Democrats of yesteryear now that we need them?
Talking about "True Conservatives" is a desperation tactic. "True Conservatives" are people I normally would violently disagree with about almost everything.
However, desperation is rational these days. It's really impossible to exaggerate the threat of the Bush-Rove-Norquist-Dobson machine -- they're not as vulnerable as we wish, and they still have lots of dirty work yet undone.
So it's OK if someone other than me crawls on his belly over to the tiny non-insane-conservative faction and begs them to dump the Republicans.
You know what I'd love to see? An interview with a series of Bush voters explaining that they voted for Bush primarily because he's a fiscal conservative, and because they were worried that Kerry and Gore would bust the budget. That's what. And a dozen voters like that could easily be recruited in any town in the US with a population of more than 5000 or so.
I sometimes talk about "people who call themselves conservatives".
Chris Bertram's Recommendations ...Harry Brighouse.
"But these are the people who rejected Weather when it was a live option, who regarded them as adventurers and terrorists, and who, instead, played a long game. They’re now in their 50’s and 60’s, most of them - but lots of them are still active running or just working for the local labor councils, or union locals, or in local campaigns for better healthcare, better schools, against the war, etc. I don’t want to embarrass anyone by mentioning names, or get too sentimental, but anyone of these people is worth everyone who joined Weather and more." ...HB
Everyone is on my case, or scared I am breaking down. I am just getting really pissed off with smug self-satisfied useless liberals. Destruction of the middle class and WWIV and abortion disappearing as a right and Harry is getting all misty about the folk who went moderate 40 years ago. I spect I need a blog break.
I'm partial to the Graft Oil Party.
Weiner gets it right in 16.
Although you can append words like 'bastard' or 'fuckwit' to the end.
There's no easily available term for the equivalent Blair-movement in the UK, unfortunately. I'd use 'Orwellian meritocrats' if they, the bastards, hadn't already appropriated 'meritocrat' from Young's usage and adopted it as something to be proud of. 'Totalitarian bourgeoisie' also works as an accurate description of them.
Weiner gets it right in 16.
My secret identity revealed!
re: 27
wtf, I swear I read that and that was the name underneath! But now I see that his name was on the comment below... gah.
Sorry! Caffeine-deprivation is a terrible thing.
It's a pity that "Democrat" and "liberal" have first-syllable stress, making them more effective as curse words than either "Republican" or "conservative".
Shifting the stress could work. Who wants to be a REpubLICKin? A CONserVATE-ive? I especially like the soupçon of "masturbate" in the latter.
The situationist text linked by Mcmanus in 15 is pretty good, too. Seems so terribly old-fashioned and quaint, though, these days.
29: That's what I like about 'con', besides the association with 'con man' and 'convict'. It'll be just like "Democrat party."
Royalists might be appropriate, and in America I think it has a pejorative enough sound to it to work.
I don't think Bushists works.
It implies that Bush is the source of the ideology rather than merely a figurehead. It also implies that once Bush is gone, the problem is gone.
I like 9 and 16. We need to keep the word "conservative" but get all sorts of negative modifiers associated with it, like "borrow and spend conservative" or "crony conservatives." Once we get the negative associations going, we can start saying things like "Texas conservative" and "Confederate conservative" to get all those negative associations to pile onto an image of a certain kind of person.
Here's a description of a Vichy coin that seems appropriate to this conversation:
On one side, the fasces and Etat Francais. No more Republic. On the other, Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite replaced by Travail (as in Arbeit Macht Frei), Famille, and Patrie (as in Vaterland).References to Nazi Germany aside, there's the basics of our present left-right split in three sentences.
So which side has the fasces and which the Vaterland?
I agree that the point is to turn the word conservative itself into a smear. This is what was done to "liberal," and it's sent actual liberals running away from liberalism for over a decade. They didn't manage that by just calling us other names - they managed that by pronouncing the word itself like an insult, by speaking it with a sneer, by rhetorically pairing it with negative associations ("liberal agenda," "typical liberal follies," etc.). Do this to conservatism, but in a way that works coming from a liberal perspective (less sneering, more righteous indignation), and put in a good, solid decade or so of effort into it.
Along these lines, the "true conservative" meme is wrongheaded and foolish and needs to be squelched. The goal should be to paint the current corruption and decay as a natural outgrowth of the conservative movement, not a momentary deviation from it.
re: 36
There's a Gang of Four album cover -- their 'Brief History of the 20th century' compilation -- that pointedly features both of those coins and for the same reason..
So, easy. Whenever someone says something disgusting and heinous, you say, "what are you, a conservative?"
And the end goal will be a political discourse free from all "conservatives" and "liberals" (except as insults tossed by the opposition), where every politician in America is a love-absolutely-everyone "MODERATE".
41: Still an improvement on an environment which presently only allows for "moderate" and "conservative" - especially where "conservative" here means "proto-fascist."
One term that is already being used for this, at least among certain segments of the left, is "neocon." It's applied to lots of people who are not technically neocons (like in the Rolling Stones song about Rice), but it works because the neocons are massively unpopular right now and tarring all rightwingers with their actions is a good way to discredit them.
I like "con" as well, and it's only a short step from "neocon" so it probably wouldn't be too hard to put into circulation.
"Neocon" also complies nicely with bridgeplate's first-syllable-stress criterion.
It just sounds nasty.
Um, guys, the word "conservative" really did use to be an insult like Bitch describes in 40.
Do we really understand the history of how "liberal" came to be a smear? How long did it take? Was it established by the time Reagan took office, or was it an outgrowth and consolidation of Republican power? How would this attempt to pin a name on Republicans even work, outside blogging circles, as long as liberals have virtually no control over the terms of public debate?
as long as liberals have virtually no control over the terms of public debate?
Well, liberals control all the major media, so that's probably a good place to start.
It was a massive, well-funded, multi decade propaganda campaign that made "liberal" a dirty word: think tanks, the Republican campaign machine, the ideological media, and Republican plants in the legit media. The Democrats have nothing to compete with that, and according to my well-placed sources (I'm almost an insider on this particular question), little effort is being made to improve the situation.
Air America was a small step in the right direction, but it's not enough, and it got very weak support (and a lot of scorn) from the Dem/lib community. We have no Fox, no WSJ editorial page, no Scaife, no Murdoch, no Moon, no Washington Monthly, no Heritage Foundation, no Olin Foundation, no nothing.
I presume 47 is a sophisticated joke?
My roommate proposed the other day that we should try to find a progressive who is also a gun nut. If we managed to get to the right of the Republicans on this, it might change the political landscape.
Think of the slogans! "You can have all the guns you want -- and free medical care for when your kid accidentally shoots himself."
I'm a progressive gun nut. Ogged might be too, if his profile is to be believed.
Labs' profile claims that he, too, enjoys shootin'.
Yes, a progressive gun nut. I bet we could find one pretty swiftly.
The first time I ever heard 'liberal' used as an insult (at one remove) was in "The Logical Song." Data point. I was young at the time, it may well have been in circulation before then.
There are lots of progressives who are anti-gun control, like Howard Dean kind of. More is necessary.
The first time I became aware of "liberal" as an insult was during the Bush-Dukakis debates, when Bush used the fact that Dukakis was a "card-carrying member of the ACLU" against him.
(Though I like Phil Ochs' criticism from the left: "Ten degrees to the left of center in good times...ten degrees to the right when it affects them personally...")
As good as any thread to say hook 'em 'Horns woo!
Isn't it a little early to be drunk, smasher?
Would I just have to buy a gun, or would I have to actually blow someone away in order to establish my credentials?
I have a couple people in mind, so please answer right away.
Don't they have waiting periods in Minnesota?
No, and in the store they have the guns sitting out unguarded. With a little suave you could walk in, grab a gun, do your business, and put the gun back on the shelf without being noticed by people in the store.
On the other hand, 10 people would recognize you, coming and going. The gun in your hand wouldn't bother them, though.
I'm abstaining until 5p, when I throw on the Rose Bowl nat'l championship DVD. By tonight's kickoff, I should be feeling toasty.
Who among the Mineshaft attended Ohio State? To him I would like to talk shit.
The problem with waiting periods, is what if there's this woman who's being abused by her husband, and she finally has had enough and wants to defend herself, but she has to do the waiting period thing, and in the meantime he kills her. What then?
(Am I doing it right?)
I know that the "progressive gun nut" is a winning strategy, and I would vote for a progressive gun nut if given no other choice but...
I hate the fact that to prove your political credibility you have to in some way indicate your willingness to commit serious acts of violence. Own a gun, fight in a war. I don't even like the obligatory hunting photo op that is required of all political candidates.
I don't like it, because I don't believe that courage or the ability to make difficult decisions should be equated in any way with violence, which is typically a cowardly easy way out.
Conservultures, Bushits, Theocons, Radical Right, Conservacunts
My enthusiasm for/experience with guns is insufficient to qualify me as a genuine gun nut, but to enhance my progressive credentials, I should point out that the last gun I fired was a Kalashnikov.
55, 58: Man, I love this place.
the problem with waiting period is that, in order to get the full emotional effect, you need to blow someone away **right now**. It's not one of those cases when deferment of gratification works.
Of course, planning ahead is always a good idea. Why don't battered women plan better? No wonder they're battered.
I believe the Conservacunt tradition stretches back to Theodore Roosevelt, who put into place our modern system of federally protected cunts.
70: Maybe it's just me, but I'm guessing that Conservacunts is unlikely to get much traction. But it could maybe push this thread to 1000.
re: 75
Yes, but it'll attract the crucial dsquared vote.
I think conservacunts ties in well with the right's puritanism.
68: "But I'm angry now!" [/Homer Simpson]
Yes, but it'll attract the crucial dsquared vote.
The English aren't allowed to vote in America.
The English aren't allowed to vote in America.
Damn straight. We had a war about it and everything.
There's an outmoded law you need to change right away. Right of return, for the British. Banish the Republicans forever.
The South was settled largely by Scots, you know.
We could at least swap, say, Scotland for Florida.
Is Teo getting loaded with 'smasher?
The Conservacunts and Dick Cheney make a good pairing.
Is Teo getting loaded with 'smasher?
Are you accusing me of Texanity?
86: Not really. I think it was 80 that made me wonder.
The English aren't allowed to vote in America.
British or Welsh. He'll kill you, except for the insane Brit gun laws.
"Taffy" is the most usable ethnic slur for the Welsh. If you look at Davies' picture in the Guardian, he doesn't look properly Welsh ("short, dark, and dirty".) He also looks far less fat and dumpy than he presents himself as.
For a long time I joked freely about the Welsh, thinking that one of my great-grandparents was Welsh. I now know that he's not, so I've found other reasons.
And yes, in Britain there are people who are very touchy about this question, as I found out.
Have you heard the new album by Dickhead Cheney & the Conservacunts?
The most British parts of the US are the most conservative. The smart ones stayed behind. Wisconsin and Minnesota, and even Missouri, are lkess conservative than you'd expect because of the large German populations (and Scandinavian, in the former two cases.)
LB, Cala et al are correct: Creating new names is pointless; creating new connotations is the only effective way to sway opinion - as the Right has so unfortunately proven with "liberal".
The mechanism is simple: If someone appropriates an opposing group's own nomenclature and twists its meaning cleverly into something else, that group is forced to waste time defending the denotation or, worse, its members are forced to distance themselves from the nomenclature, allowing opponents the opportunity to emphasise the negative artificial connotations even more. ['X is Y' - 'No, I'm X and I'm not Y" - Then you, an X, agree Y is evil, and X is Y'.]
Working to change the connotation of "conservative" from "less government/lower taxes/family values" to "profligate theocrats incapable of dealing with disaster" would be a far more effective strategy.
Which British, and under what circumstances they emigrated might matter too, considering that Canada is a country with a higher British content than the US is.
David Hackett Fisher wrote a book in the eighties about the different — I think he identified four — British cultures in the US. Scotch-Irish is the most cantankerous, and his tracing of its cultural influence is amazing. James Webb has recently picked this up and written a book claiming that winning the allegiance of that culture, with representative figures like Chuck Yeager and Dolly Parton, was the key to American political success. Since he (Webb) is now on our side, after having been an assistant cabinet secretary in the Reagan Administration, he's worth a listen. He's got a website.
Ogged and Labs say they're interested in teh guns, but do we get any gun posts around here?
88: I am fully aware that Davies is Welsh.
I've done a few gun posts, gswift. Here's one. I don't actually own a gun, you see.
94: Well, with a provocation like that, if I were on the jury, I wouldn't vote to convict. w-lfs-n is fair game.
The "Seed of Albion" book looks interesting, but as I remember I saw Minnesota explained by the particular British group which settled around 1860-1880, whereas the state has been dominated since about 1910 by Scandinavians and Germans who mostly came over after 1880. Even at statehood in ~1860 there was a big non-British population.
Now I see, gswift, that you even commented on that post. So fuck you!
I don't believe in these naming issues; We've only got to peel off some small part of what is a very loose, unwieldy and contradictory coalition on the other side.
Bringing it down home, I'd be happy if I could convince my brother and my sister that Bush was worse than the alternative. I think Rick Perlstein's insight, that what ties the coalition together is fear and disdain for us liberals, is important even in my family. I've got two advanced degrees, neither my brother nor my sister, although both make more money, finished college. Resentment and mutual incomprehension are big parts of the difference even within families.
I don't think that "Democrats are Iranians with guns" is the message we're trying to send here.
I don't actually own a gun, you see.
That's your problem right there. Granted, you've done gun posts. Labs needs to step it up.
Most Iranians are Republicans (that's my impression).
IDP -- I see that around here. I know two brothers -- the college one is a Nation liberal, and the one who inherited the farm is a militia winger. They're about equally successful, I think, and equally bright, but earling money on a job is easier than farming.
I have always believed that the war against the American internal enemy is more important to the right than any foreign war. Look how quickly Americans quit caring about Osama and the Taliban. The warbloggers real venom is intended for us. The Islamofascists are just a vehicle.
The most British parts of the US are the most conservative.
Texas is heavily German.
Most Iranians are Republicans (that's my impression).
That's been the postwar pattern for emigres from countries where the US has a confrontation relationship with the government which they escaped. Same has been true for the Assyrians, Iraqi Christians who live in my neighborhood. Our handling of the war may change this.
When the political refugees are replaced by economic ones, the pattern shifts. This has happened to Poles and Cubans, and probably to others.
If the Democrats retake both houses, first order of business should be mandatory head coverings for women so we can lock up the Persian vote.
I suspect the Persians who are voting Republicans are not the same ones who want the head coverings.
The most liberal parts of Texas are German too (Luckenbach). Read "Made in Texas": Lind says that Texas is dominated by the heirs of the plantation economy in East Texas, combined with a sort of Central American low-wage resource economy.
The Women in hijabs should be supplemented by women in thongs, so that the entire male Iranian-American vote can be captured.
I suggest you take a look at the more conservative parts of Pennsylvania.
The Women in hijabs should be supplemented by women in thongs
Why not veils and thongs at the same time, like some cheezy harem routine? Or Benjamin Franklin's hypothetical mistress with a bag over her head?
Granted, but that was a different (Palatine, XVIIIc) immigration. Many XIXc immigrants were losers in the 1848 and later political movements.
Even so, I'd bet that German Pennsylvania is a lot different than Appalachian Pennsylvania, though not on a liberal-conservative divide. (In all these cases we should be comparing rural areas with other rural areas, not with urban areas.)
Rural Pennsylvania and Ohio, and probably Indiana, have a big Southern / Appalachian influence.
"Big guy, guess what I'm wearing under my chador?" Yeah, that would be very effective.
Your theory is interesting, and I'm not really disagreeing; more trying to think of counterexamples to test it.
There's a lot of interaction between German and Southern (Scots-Irish) cultural influence in northern Appalachia; not just Pennsylvania but Ohio and Indiana (which is practically a southern state) as well.
I do dispute that Appalachian Pennsylvania and German Pennsylvania are useful categories to contrast with each other; at the very least there's a lot of overlap.
I love my sister, but I swear lately she's confused as to whether her religion is Catholicism or the Republican party. It's very strange, but in case you were wondering, sisters don't take it well if you point out that technically, that's idolatry.
Also, Texas, please pound OSU.
I'm sure that the Appalachian / German divide is pretty fuzzy by now, after 250 years or so. If Pennsylvanian Appalachia was settled by Germans rather than by the standard-issue Scotch-Irish, I suppose there never was one.
114: If that's the way you're feeling, spare a curse for the Amish, who have a significant presence in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana.
With Cala seconding Smasher, I offer the thrid vote and thereby authoritatively declare this the official unfogged Texas/OSU thread, unless we get our own dedicated thread later this evening. Yes, that's a blogthreat.
Appalachia and Southern are not the same, and have distinct makeups and histories. I was a teenager in Columbus, Ohio, and learned about both German and Appalachian inheritances. I agree with teo that in practice they're not distinct, and few members have a sense of differentness between them compared to what they think about people like me.
Although we're definitely need to find an OSU fan, or things might get boring.
(Although actually I'm neutral. I just want to see a good football game. I guess I could blogroot for OSU, if that will help keep things interesting.)
The Amish seem harmless if not benevolent to me. They're an increasing presence around here, successfully farming land others have gone bankrupt on.
For us Canadians, Appalachian and Southern are the same. For some of us, The South starts on the Iowa line. (For the purposes of my argument, anyway, to the extent that they're British they're the same.)
117: Not really sure what you mean by Pennsylvanian Appalachia; the mountains cover most of the state. I believe the central and western parts are less German, but I don't know the full history of settlement there. It wasn't necessarily Scots-Irish; New York's Appalachia was settled mostly by New Englanders of English descent.
For us Canadians, Appalachian and Southern are the same.
This explains a lot.
The Amish don't vote, in any case. Although I've heard that they "pray Republican."
The Amish are great farmers and de facto environmentalists, but I'd caution against romanticizing them. They have their own particular problems with, for example, incest and child abuse.
Hey Emerson, I thought you lived in Portland.
All OSU fans smell bad. And eat babies. I'm not so much a Texas fan as harboring a deep hatred for OSU.
I now live in rural Minnesota, and we've seceded and joined Canada.
Working to change the connotation of "conservative" from "less government/lower taxes/family values" to "profligate theocrats incapable of dealing with disaster" would be a far more effective strategy.
Luckily, they're doing a great job of this all on their own.
I just call them "Republicans".
For the appropriate understanding of our traditions, the proper word is "traitors."
I haven't read Albion's Seed but there was a forum on it in the William & Mary Quarterly. As part of his response, Fischer outlined the book in something like 15 paragraphs. The forum also includes the line: "Part of his unhappiness rises from ignorance; the rest, from error"
128: the baby bbq smell usually covers our BO, i'm surprised you noticed.
I've been meaning to read Albion's Seed for a long time, but I never seem to get around to it.
i'm going to go to the gym quick, so i'll dangle an OH.
131: In the view of those of us who are damlibrals, perhaps. But the trick is to convince the rest of the world. Preaching to the choir may be fun, but it ameliorates nothing.
I think you mean the rest of the country. The rest of the world's way ahead of us on this score.
24-7. Poor 'smasher.
Why is there evil in the world?
My BA is from OSU, 1975. I used to usher games at the horseshoe back in the early sixties, as a Boy Scout. Would watch Woody Hayes run across the field in shirtsleeves, with the team.
1. Webb's point about Scots-Irish culture absorbing anyone who marries in would go some way towards explaining why there seems today to be little difference between Scots-Irish Penna. and German Penna. Back in the day, the Paxton Boys knew which was which. On the other hand, my own SI relatives David Cushman Coyle and Grace Longwell Coyle would seem to disprove much of Webb's whole argument.
2. Albions Seed is great fun, for what it is. The standards of dress of culinary cultures are most interesting. One can't take it as a Unified Theory of All Things American -- and Fischer isn't proposing that it is. I think as the 20th century wore on, a lot of the regional differences washed out, or people assimilated to cultures not their own, and maybe Fischer lets himself get a little carried away. Still, there are plenty of hints and traces today. One does have to keep in mind, of course, that cultural boundaries and state boundaries are not at all the same -- plenty of Ohio was 'originally' settled by Virginians (and what we would not call West Virginians) in the southern half mostly. Obviously Chicago, 'the German Athens' (Milwaukee) and such aren't going to fall into the British settlement of America scheme very well. Fischer explicitly rules NYC out of his study, iirc. There were plenty of Germans in Texas, but, sfaik, fairly concentrated geographically, at least into the mid 20th century.
3. In the only football game that mattered, only tragedy: The Bobcats, fresh from beating Colorado, couldn't hold off Chadron State. Maybe they'll do better next week against UC Davis, which ought to be one of the nerdiest squads going.
: [
With that I submit to the Calabat.
I liked Albion's Seed. I realized that my AP US history teacher must have read it, because I think it affected his approach to the doc-based essay questions.
Fischer was supposed to do an update covering other cultural backgrounds which I would have liekd to read.
One of my favorite bits was his description of the Puritan practice of bundling. The Puritans were obviously against pre-marital sex, but they wanted to make sure that husbands and wives were compatible, so they encouraged them to sleep together before marriage. To make sure that they didn't have sex the couple were bundled up with a divider between them.
Vis a vis sex the Puritans seem to have been a lot less Puritanical than the Quakers who treated it as necessary for procreation, but something to be avoided otherwise.
I think Big Ten solidarity makes me a default OSU fan in nonconference games. Maybe. I'm not sure if this outlook is normal or if it's just something I've made up to deal with the fact that my teams tend to suck. I've never gotten very good at gloating, either. Um. Put that in your pipe and hook it woo?
Greeting. I have no particular love for the Aggies.