Words of wisdom

From Sherman Alexie:

I don’t believe in magic. But I do believe in interpreting coincidence exactly the way you want to.

Trolling for kitty

Okay, so … shake off the cobwebs, confess to a couple of slow weeks, and get on with it. I mean, you know how it goes, right? It’s an election year, politics are tiring, and I can only make so many jokes about Budweiser.

Really, you should have seen my attempt to make a joke about red and blue states. Maybe you will. If, that is, I ever finish the post.

Yeah. Talk about things getting out of hand.

And speaking of things out of hand, there comes this gem via News.com:

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have banned selling cats and dogs or exercising them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women.

Othman al-Othman, head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Riyadh, known as the Muttawa, told the Saudi edition of al-Hayat the commission had started enforcing an old religious edict ….

…. The reason behind reinforcing the edict now was a rising fashion among some men using pets in public “to make passes on women and disturb families”, he said.

Mr Othman said the commission had instructed its offices in the capital to tell pet shops “to stop selling cats and dogs”.

One of the great challenges of diversity is the question of whether it should be self-nullifying. In other words, what respect do we owe an asshole who won’t be happy until everyone else is an asshole, too?

The problems of being a maverick

Speaking of McCain and lobbyists … oh, wait.

Anyway:

As chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, John McCain began hearings that helped bring down Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist who was the central figure in a political scandal that landed Mr. Abramoff in jail.

Now, as Mr. McCain releases the names of hundreds of “bundlers” — his top money collectors — one person who popped up is Juan Carlos Benitez, a lawyer and lobbyist whom Mr. Abramoff had championed for a Bush administration post.

Leslie Wayne, writing for The Caucus, reports that the House Committee on Government Reform issued a 2006 report that includes Mr. Benitez’s name. Jack Abramoff apparently wanted him appointed special counsel for immigration-related employment issues, which position—given to Benitez in 2001—allowed him to conduct investigations into allegations of unfair labor practices, including issues important to the scandalized lobbyist’s clients.

WALL•E redux (Mudede philosophizes)

Just a note related to my recent post considering the accusations of fatism in Pixar’s WALL•E. Over at Slog, Charles Mudede offers a philosophical analysis of the film:

Point One:
In WALL•E, human evolution from normal weight to overweight is concomitant with their evolution from animal …

… to animation.

The transformation, which is pictured on the commander’s wall, has this as its meaning: the infantilization of humanity is the final result of the capitalist mode of economic production and parliamentary politics. It is not without meaning that the last organic things are infantile humans (Neitzche’s last man, the absolute couch potato) and cockroaches. The superman—that rare and wonderful thing—has been reduced to a weed in a boot.

And so on, and so forth ….

Headline of the Day

“Journalist Tracks Rumors Of Penis Thievery” (NPR)

“I had come all the way from America for this and did not know how many chances I would get to speak to someone whose penis had actually been stolen,” writes journalist Frank Bures in his recent Harper’s article, “A Mind Dismembered: In Search Of The Magical Penis Thieves.”

Bures traveled to Lagos to research the phenomenon — a phenomenon not of actual genitally mutilated men, but instead men who believe that their penises have been stolen or shrunken.

And as bizarre — or even comical — as the notion might sound, the belief has deep roots, going back as far as 300 B.C, and has had recurrent outbreaks in China, India and elsewhere, often with deadly results.

In April, lynch mobs in Congo pursued supposed sorcerers who were accused of stealing and/or shrinking mens’ penises. Police detained the would-be spell casters for their own protection. In 2001, at least 12 suspected penis thieves were not so lucky — they were lynched by an angry mob.

In defense of WALL•E

Okay, this is a bit much. Let us start with a simple proposition:

Is there only one way to view art?

If we want to complicate that question, we might ask whether that one perspective properly considers all potential factors, and whether it should.

Pixar's WALL•E has received criticism for its treatment of obesity.

The current controversy surrounds Pixar’s latest release, Wall•E, a dazzling and charming shoe-in for the Academy’s “Best Animated Feature” award. Apparently, the film has caused something of a stir among the sensitively obese. However, as quickly becomes apparent, that complaint depends on the proposition that there is only one way to view Wall•E.

Money talks for Anheuser-Busch investors?

Money talks. And on the far coast of these United States, I can almost be sympathetic.

Andrew Ross Sorkin and Michael J. de La Merced bring us the latest on InBev’s bid for Anheuser-Busch:

In a reversal of its previous hostility to the idea, Anheuser-Busch is in active talks to sell itself to the Belgian brewer InBev in a friendly deal, people briefed on the matter said.

InBev has raised its offer to $70 a share, more than the $65 it had originally offered, a person close to the talks said on Friday.

An announcement of the deal could come as early as Monday, though people briefed on the talks cautioned that they might still break down ….

…. Helping to drive the deal talks was the indication that some of Anheuser’s largest shareholders, including Warren E. Buffett, were leaning toward backing a deal with InBev.

The turnabout comes only days after Anheuser-Busch, said to be weakly positioned to fight the takeover bid, filed a desperate lawsuit, hoping to stave off the transnational corporation’s attempt by accusing it of “a litany of sins, from rumor-mongering to lying to trying to violate the United States’s trade embargo with Cuba”.

Quote of the Week — Obama on the economy

Barack Obama on remarks by former Texas Senator Phil Gramm that the nation’s economic woes are a “mental recession” and that Americans are “a nation of whiners”:

“This comes after Senator McCain recently admitted his energy proposal for the gas-tax holiday will have mainly ‘psychological benefits’ …. Now I want all of you to know that America already has one Dr. Phil, we don’t need another. When it comes to the economy, we need somebody who can actually solve the economy.”

Via Michael D. Shear and Jonathan Weisman at the Washington Post.

Some ado about … well, nothing

Something about this Danziger cartoon pinged my liberal radar, and when I asked some associates about it, one of them immediately picked up on the point. But I decided to leave it alone in that sense. After all, Danziger is a bright mind and a gifted cartoonist.

Jeff Danziger, June 30, 2008

Nonetheless, a question still nags at me. Five points to anyone who can spot the issue, and another five (and much gratitude) to anyone who can explain the point to me. I suppose I could write Mr. Danziger and ask, but it’s more fun this way. What am I missing?

Cow farts!

Argentine scientists are strapping plastic tanks to the backs of cows. (Reuters)

Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. Scientists in Argentina—one of the world’s leading producers of beef—are studying bovine flatulence as part of that nation’s effort to combat global warming. According to Rupert Neate, for the Telegraph:

The Argentine researchers discovered methane from cows accounts for more than 30 per cent of the country’s total greenhouse emissions ....

.... Guillermo Berra, a researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology, said every cow produces between 800 to 1,000 litres of emissions every day.