Ah, see, my plan to skip over young love altogether and then find old love at 70 is brilliant!
Wait, maybe it doesn't work that way. Does the love itself have to be old, or can the people themselves just be really old? What about just dating old dudes in one's 20's?
Answer these questions for me, Mineshaft! I'm going to work.
What about just dating old dudes in one's 20's?
Welcome back, Anna Nicole Smith.
I'm not feeling all that charitable towards Sandra Day O'Connor's love for her husband at the moment. A love so strong she was willing to go against eighty different kinds of precedent and help install a Republican administration so she could retire to spend more time with her husband as she declined, while not giving up her seat on the bench to a Democrat? Lovely.
Other than the people involved, of course, the story is very sweet, and the article quite thoughtful.
It's just more of the 'celebration of old people' stuff we're going to see as the Boomers age.
The Greatest Generation strikes again!
From my cold-hearted lawyer's perch, I must also point out how tragic this is from a Supreme Court perspective. See, Justice O'Connor left the Court because she refused to "outsource" her husband's care (per Toobin's The Nine). Her departure led to Justice Alito, an outcome she abhorred. Now, her husband is in a full-time care facility and she's speaking at conferences around the county instead of serving on the Court.
Tragic.
I suppose I'm being horrible as per usual, but the new love takes her impaired husband off her hands so that she doesn't have to try to make him happy.
Beautiful, but heartbreaking. Her husband has fallen in love with someone else because he doesn't remember her any more.
I agree with 4 & 5. I'm having a hard time feeling very charitable about her.
But, if we changed the names, it would be a sweet story.
The more love in the world, the better, even if some of it happens to involve Republicans.
Wasn't there a movie that just came out with just this premise? (I think that the parts played by the husband and wife were switched.) Very sad for O'Connor, though.
This brings to mind a rather funny story born from similar circumstances. A widower and a widow met in a retirement home, fell in love, and decided to get married. Asked to comment, one of the widow's friends in the home said something along the lines of, "Well, she didn't let anybody else have a shot at him."
11: Yes. Away From Her, directed by Sarah Polley based on an Alice Munro short story.
4, 5, 9: God, you people are fucking grudge-maintaining machines. You're hating on O'Connor for all eternity because of Bush v. Gore and because she retired? Christ almighty.
It's because you are a practitioner of young hate, m. leblanc. Young hate is fleeting, while old hate is forever. When I'm in my own dotage, I won't be able to remember my spouse's name, but I will be able to remember how much I hate O'Conner.
You're hating on O'Connor for all eternity because of Bush v. Gore and because she retired?
God damn right.
14: Well, in a but-for-causation kind of way, she killed somewhere around 600K people in Iraq with Bush v. Gore. That's worth some grudge-holding. (I can't really make myself feel all that personally aggrieved toward her, but still: she did something unambiguously dishonest, and it had grotesquely horrific results, even if they weren't forseeable. Bad Justice. No biscuit.)
14 et seq.: Hate is what liberals have instead of power.
You forget our longing to destroy the sun.
Young hate is fleeting, while old hate is forever.
Awesome. Though I'm too busy hating on current justices to give any time to SDO'C.
Young hate is fleeting, while old hate is forever
As you are, perhaps. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.
Surely love is wanting someone else to be happy? If you don't, it ain't.
16 seconded.
Also, 21, nice use of Dumas-psychology.
in a but-for-causation kind of way
Well, yeah, but she's not the only but-for cause. There are, you know, four other justices that were in the majority, not to mention all the people who voted for Bush, the people who helped propagate the lies about WMD, all of Bush's cabinet, Congress, the Senate..I could go on and on.
Yes, it seems more clear to put it on O'Connor because she's the swing vote, so the one we hoped would vote the other way, but putting all of the deaths of Iraq on her is really way too much. And seriously, people did not know in 2000 about the Iraq War or Sept 11.
Blaming O'Connor for the Iraq War is like blaming Barbara Bush for the 600K Iraqi deaths, because she gave birth to GWB. Come on.
14:
Ahem.
Please read my comment at 5 again before labeling me a grudge-maintaining machine. I don't hate O'Connor -- I pity her, because her replacement on the Court was Alito (see his dissent in the 3rd Circuit in Planned Parenthood of Southeast PA v. Casey).
Like I said before, it's tragic.
That sentiment is expressed quite pithily by the 'Aunt' in the Stephen Frears version of Dangerous Liasons. Only she divides it by gender rather than age.
What I mean to say is, you can blame her for making an extremely poor decision, both legally and politically, and the reasonably foreseen consequences of that decision, to wit: having a president who didn't win the popular vote or even the other measure of the vote, who people were very afraid would be a rather poor candidate indeed.
It's a nice article, but there should be some kind of term for invented marginalizations like this one:
Historically, love in older age has not been given much of a place in culture, Dr. Cole said.
This said of a culture in which the entire ideal of married life, even in an age of high divorce rates, is supposed to involve "growing old together."
Blaming O'Connor for the Iraq War is like blaming Barbara Bush for the 600K Iraqi deaths, because she gave birth to GWB.
Right. So, what's your point?
27: Isn't that basically what people hold against her? It's enough.
28: Yeah, but growing old together is depicted the same way that riding off into the sunset is. It's unseen postscript.
Reminder for the haters: If O'Connor had switched her vote on Bush v. Gore, the outcome would not have been "Gore wins," but "Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush continue to supervise counting ballots for a while." What do you think they would have concluded? Then the Republican-controlled Florida legislature would be responsible for resolving any remaining dispute. If a dispute remained after than, e.g. two different groups claimed to be the Florida Electoral College, , the United States House of Representatives voting as states would have decided which votes counted. At the time, that was about a 30-20 Republican advantage.* Net result: the same casualties in Iraq.
On the other hand, absent O'Connor's middle-of-the-road but strongly held position, Roe v. Wade would almost certainly have been overturned in 1990.
*Bizarrely, in this scenario the Senate would choose the vice president. The Senate was split 50-50, and Al Gore, as sitting vice president, held the tie breaking vote. It would not have been completely impossible for either Gore or Leiberman (or someone else deemed less partisan, e.g. Colin Powell) to be selected for vice president instead of Cheney.
31 cont'd: "Narratalogically" might be more accurate than "historically".
Light relief: grading a late essay right now, I read, on the subject of rationalized technology under capitalism, "Before the emergence of industrialized labor and modern machinery, people were required to work twice as hard."
34 Wow. This is someone who is supposed to have studied the transition?
"Without gradual progression through things such as invention within society, there is no road paved to rationalized capitalism. Thus modern capitalism is unable to commence. ... Examples of this alternate state would be different countries and people of different culture."
OK I've stopped laughing and now I am crying.
I think I actually lost IQ points as a result of reading 36.
I, too, found it lovely and sad, and O'Connor's response very generous, whatever else I think about her. I wouldn't have thought forming strong new attachments would happen with Alzheimer's (as opposed to other types of dementia) because I guess I assumed too much impairment of short term memory.
When my grandfather was in his late 90's (he died a month before his 99th birthday), he would have bouts of thinking he was in the past (fairly mild senility/dementia, not Alzheimer's) and that there was some pressing matter he needed to discuss with the paymaster.
On a minor note, I thought the article protested a little too much about the "popular preference for young love." We actually do venerate long marriages/relationships in lots of ways. On preview, somewhat pwned by 28.
You see how easy it is in this job to become a raving, bitter loon.
34 & 36: Aaagh. What course at what level, Goneril?
Also, if you want your brain to explode, imagine SDO'C writing this up as a Modern Love.
Back to the other topic. My in-laws moved into an assisted living home as a couple a little bit past 80. They were in relatively reasonable health by the standards of the place, and my father-in-law still had a car and a drivers license, which was very rare.
The home was church-sponsored, and since they had gone to a college connected to the same church, a few buddies from college were there, and a fair number of acquaintances for the intervening years. In college he had been poor, with no car and no girlfirend. Now the tables were turned. He totally loved being one of the cool kids, finally.
You're hating on O'Connor for all eternity because of Bush v. Gore
Definitely one of the top 10 reasons to hate on someone for all eternity. (Though 7 years into the nightmare is hardly "all eternity.")
38: I think as a culture we venerate long relationships the same way we venerate old people. There is the the spirit of 31, but also the practical fact that the culture values the elderly in the abstract, but shoves them out of the way in the particular.
I thought the article protested a little too much about the "popular preference for young love."
Really? I think popular culture may prize lovin' longevity, but it doesn't consider it by and large nuanced or worth examining or what have you, the same way that it does young love.
I'm not intending to play one-up here, but 36 is ok insofar as there's a recognizable idea there. Back in my glory days of writing tutoring, I saw stuff that was worse than that--sentences with no meaning at all.
34 & 36: Aaagh. What course at what level, Goneril?
College seniors, baby! Required social theory course for majors. About 70 percent of the class enters being unable to in any way effectively write about an idea or argument. Of those, about a third are effectively unable to write about anything at all. The example quoted is a long way from being the worst thing handed in.
I find it difficult to venerate old people, having met some.
Yeah, as 49 makes clear, 48 is basically right.
God, you people are fucking grudge-maintaining machines. You're hating on O'Connor for all eternity because of Bush v. Gore and because she retired? Christ almighty.
"not feeling charitable" has suddenly become "hate for all time"??? M. Leblanc should be on Fox.
She leaves the bench bc she wants to take care of her husband, but she doesn't actually take care of her husband. She didn't have to leave the bench. A judge or legislator can leave for any reason that they choose. But, when the timing of their leaving causes a huge shift in the law, I can decide to not feel so charitable to them.
re: 49
Arrgh. I've only occasionally seen as bad (or worse). Luckily only from people clearly bullshitting on essays they've not done the work for.
48/49: I'm sure that isn't close to limit of poorly written. It does have a kind of concentrated stupid that is worse in a way than complete nonsense.
I wish I could say it was better in the sciences, but a lot of it really isn't.
I've only occasionally seen as bad (or worse).
When you're at a state school with 40,000 or so students, you see a pretty wide range of talent and training, especially when its recruitment pool is from a relatively poorer and not very education-friendly state.
52:
She leaves the bench bc she wants to take care of her husband, but she doesn't actually take care of her husband. She didn't have to leave the bench.
Get real. By the end, O'Connor had to take her husband to work with her at the Court. He started wandering away from her chambers and the Court's security officers would bring him back. She believed (mistakenly, as it turns out) that she could adequately care for him if she retired. She was wrong about that. You make it sound like she stuck him in a home somewhere because she'd rather speak at conferences. That is bullshit.
That's why I called the situation tragic -- she could have stayed on the Court, but she was unwilling to outsource her husband's care. In the end, she had no choice.
And now I am off to teach this very class.
I'm with NCP. Furthermore I think its absurd to blame SDOC for opening a door through which horrific crimes came to pass. Blame the people who committed the horrific crimes.
55 is very true. I've taught in both prestigous and catch-all programs, and the thing you really notice is the high variability of the latter, not so much the average difference.
re: 55
Yeah, I can imagine.
54 is also right, I think.
There's plenty of blame to go around! Anyone who voted for the majority in Bush v. Gore deserves to be notorious, but the question of what/how to think of people when their political views are objectionable (which is not to say abhorrent) is an interesting one.
57/58: It is tragic. I suspect she could have handled leaving better, but there is a lot of what-ifs around that. I understand people holding that against her, but that's about it.
Blame the people who committed the horrific crimes.
I think the claim is that a nakedly partisan decision that chose the President is one of the horrific crimes. If people are allowed to be angry at Nader, then it seems reasonable that they could be angry at O'Connor.
In the interest of averting another argument about consequentialism I'll note that there's a serious lack of old-person-on-old-person porn.
but the question of what/how to think of people when their political views are objectionable (which is not to say abhorrent) is an interesting one.
Bounce test the lot of 'em, with exoneration for those that survive. Like all Dems, I'm about compassion.
64: What you're looking for is "lemon party," Michael.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude...
I think its absurd to blame SDOC for opening a door through which horrific crimes came to pass. Blame the people who committed the horrific crimes.
Not mutually exclusive. For a Supreme Court justice to participate in a blatantly partisan and jurisprudentially fucked decision is itself a horrific crime. See you in hell, Sandy.
I think the claim is that a nakedly partisan decision that chose the President is one of the horrific crimes.
I think this is clouded by our emotions and the fallout of electing Bush. Ultimately Bush would have won even if the recount had proceeded, because eventually when the reporters went and did all those recounts at the beginning of 2001, they found Bush winning Florida by some miniscule margin.
(I do think the election was tampered with, though.)
they found Bush winning Florida by some miniscule margin
I don't think that's right. As I recall, it depended on how one counted, but Gore won according to some (most?) rules and Bush according to others.
when the reporters went and did all those recounts at the beginning of 2001, they found Bush winning Florida by some miniscule margin
Not really. Under certain very specific (and dodgy) recount rules, Bush won. Under the wide majority of recount methodologies, Gore won.
You're hating on O'Connor for all eternity because of Bush v. Gore?
Yes.
I don't like that kind of fluffy little much story in general, but especially when it is being used to make someone look good who played a consistently bad role in life.
I have always been happy when my ex-wife was involved in a relationship, because it meant that she wouldn't be inflicting grief on our son and me. O'Connor was happy to get the guy out of her hair.
Under the wide majority of recount methodologies, Gore won.
No way. The media would've been all over that.
O'Connor was happy to get the guy out of her hair.
How do you know this?
75: Huh. 4-3 is not a wide majority.
"both prestigous and catch-all programs, and the thing you really notice is the high variability of the latter, not so much the average difference."
...until you get up to the places so prestigious that they admit a lot of legacies, who are dumb as rocks. i found less variability at top-25 ranked solid regional than i did at top-five ranked brand-name famous; all the kids at solid regional were solid, whereas some of the kids at brand-name famous were really, really thick, even though brand-name famous had better kids on the top end than solid regional did.
but on the whole, 59 is very true. having freshmen who can write was one of the blessings of teaching in a good school.
(and one of the ways that bad teachers get off light, since even bad teachers can teach good students).
She was wrong about that.
Quoting you. I said that she was wrong.
(and one of the ways that bad teachers get off light, since even bad teachers can teach good students).
Then why don't I know any math?
4-3 is not a wide majority.
Your memory is a partisan hack!
How do you know this?
The way to insight lies through seething anger and total distrust of all human relationships. Are you new here?
82--
look, i taught you as much as i could teach you, flip.
now: what else did you want to learn?
the specific reason I said what I did is an anecdote related in "The Nine" about O'Connor storming out of the room when Florida got called for Gore, because it meant she wouldn't be able to retire, and also what that book says about her role in getting Bush v. Gore heard.
I still think that dodgy recount rules, barricades all over Sarasota and Tallahassee, non-alphabetical listings of the candidates that put Gore's name off the page, etc, are the cause of Bush winning the election.
I think Sandra's decision was a bad thing, but I think there's a lot of over-attribution of bad to the nearest decent person.
Bizarro World hypothetical: SDOC votes to put Bush in power, 9/11 doesn't happen, Iraq doesn't happen, and he's voted out in 2004 having done mostly nothing. She doesn't seem so evil then. 70 gets it right. The fallout's been very bad, but it goes under 'unforeseen consequence.'
Which means she burns only for being a hack in Bush v. Gore. But still.
86: Eh. Give her a pass. She has regrets, as I recall, and on the right score.
86--
yup. i remember reading that anecdote, too. she muttered something under her breath, e.g. 'damn', on hearing the news of gore's victory over a public tv.
80: Yeah, that's actually true, and it's more of a bimodal thing than a high variance. It really depends where your prestige is coming from, reputation of the program or reputation of the school.
The latter part of your comment is interesting particularly when applied to graduate programs at really solid schools. Leaving such a place and taking up a position at big-state-U can have the double whammy effect that you probably a) had no formal training in teaching and b) all your previous experience is with students who will managed much better on their own.
85: Everything after high school Algebra I, really.
Is "Gore" in 86 a typo? Or you mean when they called it on election night?
nearest decent person.
Prove "decent." As I implied, I give her a pass, but I don't know that I'd assume she's a decent human being. What are the chances, really?
87--
don't forget the invalidating of double-votes.
i recall reading that ballots which were punched for gore and also had his name written in were rejected as double-votes, and that there was a sufficient number of these to turn the vote by itself.
then there was the butterfly ballot...
nearest decent person.
Prove "decent."
Well, then nearest-decent person.
95 - those would be filed under "dodgy recount rules", right?
91.2--
oh yeah. after your five years ta'ing at ivory tower while you get your phd, you have no idea what to make of undergrads who actually need help with the basics.
this is why hundreds of hiring committees wil look at your school and say, "that place? way too toney and elite. she'll never be able to deal with our students."
98--
s'okay with me to file them so. i mention details only to raise the blood pressure. makes me think i need lunch. bye now.
For those not seething with hate, this NPR essay from yesterday is nice.
In Bush v. Gore O'Connor was solid Bush. Kennedy was the swing, and Breyer or Souter almost turned him.
Reminder for the haters: If O'Connor had switched her vote on Bush v. Gore, the outcome would not have been "Gore wins," but "Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush continue to supervise counting ballots for a while."
We don't know this. If the court had ruled differently, the game would have continued. They ended the game, arbitrarily and without legal grounds (as Scalia recognized) because a.) they didn't want a protracted dispute (Kennedy at least) and b.) they wanyed Bush elected (Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, and O'Connor. O'Connor's strong preference was reported in the media).
Not wanting a protracted dispute was in itself wrong, because dispute is normal in politics, and there was a procedure to follow. Not only that, the main reasons they had to believe that "the country wouldn't survive a protracted dispute" (paraphrase of Kennedy) were the enraged, take-no-prisoners behavior of the Republicans and the furious declarations of the (unofficial) Movement Republican thugs (people like George Will). But four members of the Court were of one mind with the hacks, and Kenn3dy endorsed the thugs by joining them. It was like he gave up on due process and validated mob rule right there.
But anyway, regarding O'Connor, the only thing good about here was her position on abortion. Otherwise she was mostly toxic.
Some bad political actors are nice people, but I don't really want to hear about it.
"Enough blame to go around" is a valid principal. O'Connor played an unmistakable role in 2000, and we're talking about her at the moment. It's not like we're hugging and kissing Rehnquist, Scalia, Jeb Bish, and the others.
And hers would have been the swing vote, but it wan't, because she was solid for Bush.
principle. Bush. wasn't.
Every member of the majority was the swing vote, but the real swing vote was Kennedy.
Little known fact: Heebie is a Republican precinct committeeperson. With all the kink that that implies.
We put the "sphinct" back in precinct.
i found less variability at top-25 ranked solid regional than i did at top-five ranked brand-name famous; all the kids at solid regional were solid, whereas some of the kids at brand-name famous were really, really thick, even though brand-name famous had better kids on the top end than solid regional did.
What does "regional" mean? Regional private school? Like Carleton or Grinnell or Swarthmore? Or lower than that, like a not-nationally-known private school?
I thought that any private school would contain a lot of legacies, and that at a less famous school they would be local legacies, you know, local rich people's kids, who would be even thicker than the kids of people who are rich by Dartmouth standards.
those would be filed under "dodgy recount rules", right?
Just to be clear, FL law is explicit that such "overvotes" should be counted - the standard is "able to determine the intent of the voter." [or words closely to that effect] Obviously, someone who wants Gore so much that she punches the card AND writes in his name has expressed a clear intent. But Bush was fighting against counting those votes, and would likely have lost that fight (one of the relevant FL judges said so afterwards).
IOW, if the Supreme doesn't step in, thousands (easily) of Gore votes end up getting counted, and suddenly all the headlines are "Gore ahead by 5,000 votes in FL." That's a bit harder case for Jeb and all the rest of the bad actors to hijack.
JRoth gets it right. From everything that's ever made sense to me, the issue is that up to and including Bush v. Gore, the overvotes were ignored because the computers didn't like them -- but in an actual recount, they would have put Gore easily ahead.
I thought that any private school would contain a lot of legacies, and that at a less famous school they would be local legacies
Talking out my ass here, but I don't think that's true (anymore) - I don't think that such schools put a huge emphasis on legacies, because their path to success relies more on actual quality than a near-Ivy. No number of GWBs will harm Yale's rep, but a Swarthmore will fade into obscurity if it becomes known as a 13th grade for discount debutantes.
Furthermore, in practice I just don't think there's that many local legacies - a local fortune peters away pretty quickly (in Pgh there's a school named after a blueblood whose great-grandson is living on the third floor of his MIL's house), plus some of them will end up moving away/going to other schools.
JRoth gets it right
New rollover text?
113: Hmm, I suppose my theory that was based on the local prep school I attended does not extend to college.
110--
"What does "regional" mean? Regional private school? Like Carleton or Grinnell or Swarthmore? Or lower than that, like a not-nationally-known private school?"
more like the first lot, in my case. i'm vague both from paranoia and because i hope there's a general point to be made from my personal anecdote. maybe there isn't, in which case the story would have been a detailed anecdote at best, and worthless without the detail.
anyhow, i doubt your suggestion in 110.2 that the kids of ten-millionaires are thicker than the kids of billionaires.
114: Maybe if you update your blog more often it will join the blogroll here and then your wish will be granted.
but the really important point is:
lunch was good. ummm. finished with an m&m cookie. that was good too.
Carleton, Reed, Swarthmore, etc. are not regional. They're national liberal arts colleges distinguished by stress on teaching as opposed to research, and with no or tiny grad programs. Reed gets only 30-40% of its students from Washungton, Oregon, and Idaho.
Furthermore I think its absurd to blame SDOCJohn Yoo for opening a door through which horrific crimes came to pass.
Maybe if you update your blog more often
Oh sure, easy for someone without a blog to say.
At least once a week I think to myself, "I really should post something." And then come over here to post a snarky, content-free comment.
The thing I'd most like to post is a scathing indictment of the head of the UR/A, who is a genuinely corrupt, personally bad man who will make this city worse in every way. But he's rapidly accumulating power in my field, and I'm not particularly pseudonymous when it comes right down to it. And so he continues his evil plans of Pittsburgh-wide domination unhindered....
There's a niche of Pittsburgh architectural politics blogging that is waiting to be filled, JRoth. All you need is a more pseudonymical pseudonym.
Carleton, Reed, Swarthmore, etc. are not regional.
Is this a recent change, though? I think that, to some extent, such institutions are defined by their pasts as prestigious regional colleges.
How ossified are the categories, anyway? What schools have made category leaps in, say, the last 20 years? I feel like the US News lists are only approximate groupings, in that they combine schools that aren't directly competing for mindshare (ie, that Grinnel and Smith don't have much applicant overlap, even if they share structural similarities [comparison may suck - I haven't looked at the US News listing in 15 years]). So there are these nationally-prestigious schools, that everyone with a degree has heard of, and regionally-prestigious schools, that everyone from the region knows, and that people in the relevant fields of excellence have heard of. State schools that are well-known because of some excellence + sports, then state schools that are just as good, but have no wider reputation, etc.
I dunno. Just thinking.
Carleton, Reed, Swarthmore, etc. are not regional. They're national liberal arts colleges distinguished by stress on teaching as opposed to research, and with no or tiny grad programs.
This is true. Regional liberal arts colleges are places like LaSalle and Canisius.
All you need is a more pseudonymical pseudonym.
I used to post as "anarchitect," but then, shortly before I started my blog, I was posting at DeLong's a lot as JRoth, and it seemed like I had some equity built up in that nym.
LB would probably prefer anarchitect, too.
Carleton, Reed, Swarthmore, etc. are not regional.
I know...what I forgot to make a point of saying is that the concept of "top-25 ranked solid regional" is an oxymoron. If it's top 25, it's not regional. Here in Pennsylvania there are a few liberal arts colleges that are not regional - Swarthmore, Bucknell, Penn...Haverford? Lehigh? Lafayette? Villanova? Franklin and Marshall?
And then there are a huge number of liberal arts/private colleges that are the "local private college", like Mercyhurst, Seton Hill, Waynesburg, Wilkes, Albright, Alvernia, Muhlenburg, Ursinus, Susquehanna, Elizabethtown, Duquesne, St. Vincent, York College, Gettysburg College, Marywood, Lebanon Valley College, Delaware VAlley College, Gwynedd Mercy, Gannon, Thiel, Westminster...why would you go to one of these? The classes are smaller than at a local public school, and the facilities are better, and it costs about 8 times as much. So the local gentry all go there, and some scholarship people, and some people who like the religious affiliation even though the school is hardly religious at all anymore, and some other people who are deeply in debt.
Under the wide majority of recount methodologies, Gore won.
No way. The media would've been all over that.
You'd have thought so, and in late summer 2001 I remember wondering when the media consortium was going to get its shit together and release the ballot reviews showing Gore won. They were still working on it when September 11 rolled along. As a result, when they did release it it was with something in between a whimper and a sputter.
TThe media group has postponed release because of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
When they did get around to releasing their results in November, they had a predictable slant, predictable considering it was a New Kind Of War(tm) and we were Lucky To Have President Bush(r) and certainly not in the mood for an article proving deep flaws in the American electoral system. The short version being, "Bush really did win," the slightly longer version being, "...unless you counted the votes according to the legal standard but how likely was that really? Not very likely. Onward to Iraq!"
I think that we're dealing with the Manhattan map of the US. "Regional" only means "not in New York, New England, or California". Reed was already national when I went there before you people were born -- many NYC leftists sent their kids there, for example.
121, I can't figure out who the actual "head" of the U/RA is. Is it a guy whose name consists of two bizarre two-syllable vaguely Jewish-sounding words? If so, he does seem like the archetypal douche/Rahm Emanuel wannabe/person with no actual beliefs.
No way. The media would've been all over that.
You need to spend much more time on the internet. The big story for God knows how long has been how worthless media political coverage is.
Wow, two straight people who read 76 but not 77.
But it's worth it to emphasize that point.
130--
well, there was also some coverage about the startling fact that people use irony and sarcasm in blog comments. (77).
I save time by not reading anything in parentheses. It's one of the habits of highly effective people.
I can't figure out who the actual "head" of the U/RA is. Is it a guy whose name consists of two bizarre two-syllable vaguely Jewish-sounding words? If so, he does seem like the archetypal douche/Rahm Emanuel wannabe/person with no actual beliefs.
No, that guy is just the mayor's aide - he's weird, in that he used to be the righthand man for our very left-leaning ex-councilman, now state senator, but has seamlessly transitioned into working for our blandly corporate center-right Dem mayor. Which I guess goes with your impression.
Anyway, the head of the U/RA is the corrupt good ol' boy profiled here. How bad is this guy? So bad that he though that this article, which makes clear that he will bend the building code to help people who ply him with scotch and cigars, was flattering.
128: Muhlenburg, Ursinus, and Reed were reasonably well-known to denizens of the the Great Neck, NY system circa 1959. They were talked about and I had several classmates who applied.
135--
dude, you sure you want this on-line? if you're worried about being identifiable, then this plus your earlier reference to an old pseud looks to me like practically begging someone to put together a composite image.
and if in addition you are ragging on a local pol who you think is up to shenanigans, are you confident his shenanigans will not extend to you?
i know i'm overly paranoid, but my advice would be to ask for some redactions here. google-proofing's not going to work forever (if it still works at all).
Well, in terms of category leaps, when I was in hs (mid to late 80s), NYU was largely a commuter school -- as in, if you lived within 60 miles of the campus you were not eligible for housing. It was also no one's first choice. Brainy kids from my neck of suburban NJ wanted to go to Columbia and arty kids to Parsons or FIT. Now that folks perceive the city as safe and NYU has spent one zillion dollars creating fancy dorms, it's most likely to be rated their "first choice" by hs seniors. It also got more applicants last year than any school in the country.
dude, you sure you want this on-line?
Yeah, I know I'm approaching the edge, but I think it's OK. I never wrote anything relevant under the earlier pseud, and I don't see a lot of energy being invested by him in tracking down any potential enemies.
I'm more likely to get in trouble because my 3-yo walks around saying things like, "Why is P-- F--- a bad man?"
"Why is P-- F--- a bad man?"
Lay off Peter Frampton already. At his worst, he's merely innocuous.
I think Frampton's fine, but my daughter says he's the devil.
Ooo, baby, your soul I'll flay, everyday
Come to Hell and your soul I'll flay, everyday
Lay off Peter Frampton already. At his worstbest, he's merely innocuous.
Apo is banned.
FL agrees with me this one time.
I really wonder how much of the resentment of O'Connor's retirement is supported by a (unconscious, of course!) sense that we're entitled to monitor and assess women's private lives and work/life decisions in a way we simply don't bother with where men are concerned.
That said, I'd amend the closing sentence of the post to "mature love is wanting the other person to be happy." And it seems to me that O'Connor's acceptance of her husband's new lover is much like the way people are about their children, which is probably a more or less accurate analogy for what people with Alzheimer's (or other forms of dementia) are like.
146.1 None. SC Justices don't have genders, only appointer's party affiliations.
I don't resent her retirement. I only wish some other justices would follow suit. Which they won't. You give a group of people life tenure, and most of them will cling tenaciously, and hang on for dear life, if need be, until death do them part from their post. (Now that life expectancy has increased so dramatically, I really think it's time to revisit the notion of life tenure for Supreme Court justices).
I haven't forgiven O'Connor for Bush v. Gore.
I really wonder how much of the resentment of O'Connor's retirement is supported by a (unconscious, of course!) sense that we're entitled to monitor and assess women's private lives and work/life decisions in a way we simply don't bother with where men are concerned.
The home-for-her-husband thing is a bit suspicious to me, but the initial talk along these lines came from her "damn" at Gore winning - it stripped any pretense of non-partisanship from the decision and, coupled with her vote in Bush v. Gore, made the whole thing stink to high heaven.
I really wonder how much of the resentment of O'Connor's retirement is supported by a (unconscious, of course!) sense that we're entitled to monitor and assess women's private lives and work/life decisions in a way we simply don't bother with where men are concerned.
What's your opinion, B?
I wonder whether some ladies here aren't applying the panty test to Supreme Court Justices. There's nothing much good about O'Connor, except very weakly on abortion.
In a previous thread on this topic I directed by bile against Kennedy, the actual swing vote in 2000, who totally has a penis, and I reiterated it above. Sometimes I think that his decision to give in to the mob was the end of American democracy. The court is worse now than it was then, and they may have another Bush v Gore in their future, or many of them.
I haven't forgiven Peter Frampton for covering "Signed, Sealed, Delivered."
There's nothing much good about O'Connor,
Oh, I agree with you. She only looks like a "moderate" because the Court is now packed with wingnuts. She was quite consistently pro-business and anti-labour.
Yeah, my 'but-for-cause' of the Iraq war applies equally to the other four BvG justices -- it's not an argument that she's more responsible than the rest of them.
146 is written by someone deeply in need of a reason to procrastinate on the Internet.
I haven't forgiven Neil Young for Trans.
I really wonder how much of the resentment of O'Connor's retirement is supported by a (unconscious, of course!) sense that we're entitled to monitor and assess women's private lives and work/life decisions in a way we simply don't bother with where men are concerned.
I have to admit that I was wondering kind of the reverse about leblanc's and hg's defense of O'Connor. There aren't that many women at the highest reaches of power, she was a trailblazer for women, she has been good on abortion, etc. I mean, does anyone doubt that you're allowed to call that fat whore Scalia any set of names you'd like for any reason you'd like and no one will look askance at you? But I can understand some rhythm for O'Connor, given her relative importance.
I'm not sure how 157 can be said with a straight face given the bruising O'Connor's taken in this thread.
For my part, I view her as a moderate conservative. Referring to her as otherwise "mostly toxic" seems somewhat hyperbolic, but whatev.
I'm not sure how 157 can be said with a straight face given the bruising O'Connor's taken in this thread.
Which part? (I said above that I give O'Connor a pass.)
There are those who don't like moderate conservatives.
159: Upon closer reading, you're right. Mea culpa.
160: Of course. But as I said, my own personal calibration can't get from "moderate conservative" to "mostly toxic." But hey, that's just me. Maybe what I'm trying to say is that O'Connor was no Clarence Thomas. Then again, maybe that sets the bar too low.
I have to admit that I have a certain amount of vestigial affection for O'Connor because she is so clearly and recognizably of my people, right down to being socially moderate but economically very conservative. It's like if my grandmother was on the Supreme Court.
What's your opinion, B?
Oh, it was a genuine "food for thought" question, not a rhetorical jab. But I think there's something to the way that she's been associated with saving Roe v. Wade (as opposed to any of the other swing votes she might have supplied) and that her retirement has been so relentlessly discussed in terms of her personal caretaking of her husband. I don't think these issues have been owned by either the right or the left (or by feminists or non-feminists), either: just that it's very difficult to avoid (the fact that) gender plays a role in how we think about these things.
Ginsburg, too, has been discussed quite a bit in gendered terms--the impressiveness of her early career in the context of her (approved of) traditional role as supportive wife and mother. And of course Thomas's personal history gets discussed in terms of affirmative action.
In contrast, it seems to me there's very little public knowledge of or focus on the personal histories or gender/race of any of the male justices, except for some focus on how many of them are Catholics (and Roberts's wife's relationship to Feminists for Life).
Unfogged has destroyed my imagination.
Well, Thomas's race and sexuality got a pretty full airing one time. And in general I think you see much less biography of the other justices because they're not the first of anything. How interesting is the story of how a white Catholic man gets to be a judge really going to be, at this point?
Souter got a certain amount of attention for living with his mom in a scary old house in NH like Norman Bates, didn't he?
People who have been written off as neo-fascists get less attention than supposedly moderate people who are disappointingly willing to play the neo-fascist game (e.g. Kennedy and O'Connor). It would really tedious if I had to denounce every single bigot, crook, thug, and slime artist in the Republican mob, in order of importance, before I could say anything nasty about whoever was being talked about.
very little public knowledge of or focus on the personal histories or gender/race of any of the male justices
Uh, Clarence Thomas?
Now that life expectancy has increased so dramatically, I really think it's time to revisit the notion of life tenure for Supreme Court justices
This was addressed in FDR's infamous court plan. I wonder what would have happened had he only talked about tenure and not added all that stuff about packing the court with additional justices.
163:
But I think there's something to the way that she's been associated with saving Roe v. Wade (as opposed to any of the other swing votes she might have supplied) and that her retirement has been so relentlessly discussed in terms of her personal caretaking of her husband.
This seems pretty myopic, IMHO. I don't think its sexist or possessed of an overly-gendered perspective to acknowledge that O'Connor's privately stated reason for resigning when she did was to care for her ailing husband. As for Roe v. Wade, c'mon B -- Roe is radioactive and O'Connor is a centrist on the issue. Nuff said.
O'Connor was reported to be visibly and vocally upset at the prospect of a Gore victory and the effect that would have on her retirement. This was reported before there was any notion of the election ending up with the Supreme Court and the source for the story was several of her fellow attendees of an Election Night party. I think that, in this case at least, O'Connor received extra scrutiny because there was such a perfect hook for it.
Ginsburg, too, has been discussed quite a bit in gendered terms
A fair bit of this discussion comes from feminist circles. Or, at least, from a "you go, girl!" pop-feminist perspective, which places heavy emphasis on "positive role models" and "women worthies."
Also, this recent story about O'Connor and her husband reminds me of a quite wonderful Alice Munro story, which I'm too lazy to look up.
But I don't think O'Connor was all that wonderful. "Moderate conservative" is of course a relative term. When "conservatism" has moved so far to the right that it begins to look like something very ugly indeed, I'm not inclined to hand out blue ribbons to those whose active support of the ugliness is sometimes lukewarm, or occasionally tempered by moments of sanity.
Scroll up to comment 12, IA. Is this your first having-been-pwned?
174: Well, fucketty. It's my inaugural having-been-pwned. Break out the bubbly!
Glad that several people noticed the similarity to the Alice Munro story, and knew about the forthcoming movie of it, but both were mentioned in the linked story, albeit on page 2.
The story and the movie were cited in the original linked article, also.
Huh, this thread is just full of pwnage. (I just finished reading it.)
Anyway, I've always wondered why some rich people were able to endow universities that went on to have national reputations while others were not. Should Drexel have located his university somewhere where there weren't so many already?
Ogged should have a strict rotation of posts about evil justices/former justices, so that the catholicism of our hatred could be demonstrated for all.
I'm not saying it's sexist in the "oh, everyone who talks about it is evil and bad" sense, defensive people. I'm saying it's sexist in the "it's impossible to talk about women (or blacks--I did, in fact, say that Thomas has had some of this too) in powerful positions without looking at their private lives because we're not used to their being there and so they are, still, tokens--and in the case of women in particular, we still can't help focusing on the work/life balance shit." Sure, O'Connor said she was leaving to take care of her husband--lots of men say they're leaving work to spend more time with their families, too, but that fact doesn't inflect any future discussion of their activities in the same way.
That's because all the men who say that are really gay.
That's because all the men who say that are really gay fired.
Now that life expectancy has increased so dramatically, I really think it's time to revisit the notion of life tenure for Supreme Court justices
I can think of few court-related ideas I like less than getting rid of Justice Stevens.
Fuck, this is depressing. You know what this means? You can't get to old love untill you have gone past the young love stage.
Young love is like a newborn: It keeps you up all night with its crying; sucks the life juice out of you; and all the while you still can't resist looking into its eyes without gurggling and cooing, and feeding it whenever it is hungry.
Early love: frought with acne, and mood swings,while promising things it can never deliver. Akin to moralistic freshmen essays: "From the dawn of time, all of mankind has..[insert moral assertion here]" Needless to say, this love has not learned nuance.
Mid-love: this stage is characterized by crises. Search for meaning ensues. Questions like these arise: "What the fuck are we doing? Have we wasted all our of our young and early love? Is it possible to rekindle? Am I too fat and old for young love? Have I settled?" Basically, mid-love crises are simply manifestations of boredome and of having taken sudden notice of slight weight gain/hairloss, coupled with the realization that you might actually die with your partner, without ever having had experienced an orgasm(in worst case scenario)/ threesome/ homosexual/ omnisexual/ pansexual/ diaper sex fetish.
Old Love: Love finally attains nuance and satisfaction. During old love, your partner dresses up in diapers anyway, fulfilling the long-denied fetish suppressed during mid-love. You finally get to jump into bed with the neighbours and experience the pan-sexual orgies you had always dreamt of, but are not left racked with guilt because all parties involved suffer from alzheimers, and not one of you will remember it in the morning.
Ultimately, old love gets over all the young/early/mid love bullshit by simply embracing happiness for oneself and one's SO. "Old love is about wanting someone else to be happy." And memory loss really helps making bygones stay bygones.
Unfortunately, I've never gotten past the mid-love crises. I doubt I ever will. How long do you think it takes to get to old love? Anyone making any wagers?
I can think of few court-related ideas I like less than getting rid of Justice Stevens.
Yeah, okay, I don't like that idea either. And it worries me that Stevens is 86 (or 87?) years old.
But I also don't like the idea of John Roberts on the Court for...well, for who knows how many decades? He's only 52 years old, and appears to be in very good health. He could easily serve a term of 30-plus years.
Fuck, this is depressing. You know what this means? You can't get to old love untill you have gone past the young love stage.
Nah. B got it right above by noting that what's described could be better labeled "mature love." Or Alex in asking how you could possibly describe something as "love" if it wasn't about wanting the other person to be happy. It doesn't take decades for mature love to develop, but sometimes it takes that long to recognize that it hasn't.