Category Archives: Popular Culture

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Busted

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It will be interesting to see how how NBC (and Dan Abrams) respond to this:

As a matter of fact, I had other things to occupy my time in the White House in 2002 rather than “structuring” a campaign for an Alabama gubernatorial candidate, calling people to raise money for his race, and going through the arduous task of “putting together a strategy.” And I certainly didn’t meet with anyone at the Justice Department or either of the two U.S. Attorneys in Alabama about investigating or indicting Siegelman. My involvement in the campaign was to approve a request that the President appear at a Riley campaign fundraising event, one of several score fundraising events the President did that election cycle.

It boils down to this: as a journalist, do you feel you have a responsibility to dig into the claims made by your guests, seek out evidence and come to a professional judgment as to the real facts? Or do you feel if a charge is breathtaking enough, thoroughly checking it out isn’t a necessity?

I know you might be concerned that asking these questions could restrict your ability to make sensational charges on the air, but don’t you think you have a responsibility to provide even a shred of supporting evidence before sullying the journalistic reputations of MSNBC and NBC?

People used to believe journalists were searching for the truth. But your cable show increasingly seems to be focused on wishful thinking, hoping something is one way and diminishing the search for facts and evidence in favor of repeating your fondest desires.

So what else is new?

Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Space, Space and Campaign 2008

PR Stunt Delayed

11 Comments

If this report is true, it looks like NASA is not going to hit its milestone of the first test flight of the Potemkin RocketAres 1-X vehicle planned for a year from now:

Ares I-X now has little chance of making its April, 2009 launch date target, initially due to the delay of STS-125’s flight to October.

The first Ares related test flight requires the freeing of High Bay 3 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and Pad 39B – which will first host STS-125’s Launch On Need (LON) rescue shuttle (Endeavour/LON-400) – being vacated for modifications ahead of Ares I-X.

However, a new problem has now come to light with the MLP (Mobile Launch Platform) that will be handed over from Shuttle to Constellation for the test flight. This problem relates to the stability of Ares I-X during rollout to the Pad.

The modifications to the MLP initially called for Ares I-X to be placed on one set of the existing Shuttle’s Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) hold down posts, with a tower to be erected on the other set of hold down posts – with support for the vehicle between the tower and the interstage level.

When NASA changed contractors for the MLP work associated with Ares I-X, the design changed, omitting the adjacent tower, instead relying on three steel cables – 120 degrees apart – to help hold the vehicle steady during rollout.

Given the projected weight of the vehicle at rollout – with a heavy dummy upper stage – additional stability is now being called for, leading to a redesign of the MLP support structure.

In combination with the projected delay to handing over Shuttle resources post STS-125, internal scheduling is showing 60 to 90 days worth of delay to Ares I-X’s projected launch date.

Gee, it’s always something. Guess that’s what happens when you come up with a new vehicle concept with a ridiculously high aspect ratio, that makes a whip antenna look positively zaftig. Has anyone ever had to use guy wires on a rocket before, or is this another proud first for our nation’s space agency?

Anyway, as it goes on to point out, this probably will waterfall down through the whole schedule, further increasing the dreaded “gap.” Not that it will matter that much, once the budget gets whacked in the next administration, regardless of who is president. But then, maybe if they’d come up with an implementation that actually appeared to have some relevance to peoples’ lives, instead of redoing people’s grandfather’s space program, they’d get more public support, instead of ever less.

It’s hard to see how this ends well, at least for fans of Apollo on Steroids. But it’s mostly irrelevant to those of us who want to see large-scale human expansion into space. That will have to await the private sector.

General, History, Popular Culture

Remembering Slim Chipley

4 Comments

Most of my readers will find this of no interest at all, but I just ran across a new blog dedicated to remembering the good old days in Flint, Michigan. Nostalgic memories abound.

The population trend in the sidebar is depressing. When I was a kid it had a population of almost two hundred thousand, and there was an ongoing feud with Grand Rapids over whether it or Flint was the second largest city in the state (after Detroit, of course, which had its own hemorrhage of people). Now it’s down to just a little over half that.

[Update in the evening]

OK, again, unless you’re from southeast Michigan, this will be meaningless, but via the blog above, I found a coney blog. That actually understands the difference between Flint and Detroit style.

And there are those who say that it’s a lost art. For many, Angelo’s defined the Flint coney island, and once he died (my father was in the hospital with him at the same time, as they both had heart attacks in the late sixties), it became franchised, and lost the magic. But my mother used to tell me (and we even went there when I was young) that the original Flint Coney Island, on Saginaw, north of downtown, was the best. But it went under decades ago.

Anyway, I’m glad to hear that it’s a hit in Phoenix. Maybe we can keep the brand alive.

My darling Patricia doesn’t understand the appeal. But then, she’s not a fan of raw onions. Nor is she a fan of me after I ingest them. But once in a while, I have to indulge, consequences be damned…

Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Technology and Society

Bring On The Meat Factories

7 Comments

Hey, I’m all in favor of factory-manufactured meat, if it can be made to taste as good as the naturally grown variety, but I’m not going to stop eating meat until it happens. My criteria are basically intelligence based, and the first animal I’d give up eating, if I were going to give up any,s would be pigs, but I still occasionally have pork. I don’t feel that badly about eating cattle–they just don’t seem that bright to me. And the question of whether or not they’re better off living a short life, and then being slaughtered, than never having existed at all is one that, as noted, is purely subjective and unresolvable in any ultimate sense. I know that I’ve seen some pretty happy looking cows on the hillsides overlooking the Pacific in northern California. I can think of worse lives.

By the way, Phil should be aware that marsupials are mammals. The distinction is placental versus non-placental mammals. And there are people (probably some of those “bitter,” out-of-work folks) in this country who eat possum, and armadillo.

General Science, Popular Culture, Science And Society

He’s Beyond The Event Horizon

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John Wheeler has died:

Unlike some colleagues who regretted their roles after bombs were dropped on Japan, Wheeler regretted that the bomb had not been made ready in time to hasten the end of the war in Europe. His brother, Joe, had been killed in combat in Italy in 1944.

Wheeler later helped Edward Teller develop the even more powerful hydrogen bomb.

The name “black hole” — for a collapsed star so dense that even light could not escape — came out of a conference in 1967. Wheeler made the name stick after someone else had suggested it as a replacement for the cumbersome “gravitationally completely collapsed star,” he recalled.

“After you get around to saying that about 10 times, you look desperately for something better,” he told the Times.

He was a giant in physics, and inspired a lot of great science fiction. RIP.

General Science, Popular Culture, Science And Society

He’s Beyond The Event Horizon

John Wheeler has died:

Unlike some colleagues who regretted their roles after bombs were dropped on Japan, Wheeler regretted that the bomb had not been made ready in time to hasten the end of the war in Europe. His brother, Joe, had been killed in combat in Italy in 1944.

Wheeler later helped Edward Teller develop the even more powerful hydrogen bomb.

The name “black hole” — for a collapsed star so dense that even light could not escape — came out of a conference in 1967. Wheeler made the name stick after someone else had suggested it as a replacement for the cumbersome “gravitationally completely collapsed star,” he recalled.

“After you get around to saying that about 10 times, you look desperately for something better,” he told the Times.

He was a giant in physics, and inspired a lot of great science fiction. RIP.

General Science, Popular Culture, Science And Society

He’s Beyond The Event Horizon

John Wheeler has died:

Unlike some colleagues who regretted their roles after bombs were dropped on Japan, Wheeler regretted that the bomb had not been made ready in time to hasten the end of the war in Europe. His brother, Joe, had been killed in combat in Italy in 1944.

Wheeler later helped Edward Teller develop the even more powerful hydrogen bomb.

The name “black hole” — for a collapsed star so dense that even light could not escape — came out of a conference in 1967. Wheeler made the name stick after someone else had suggested it as a replacement for the cumbersome “gravitationally completely collapsed star,” he recalled.

“After you get around to saying that about 10 times, you look desperately for something better,” he told the Times.

He was a giant in physics, and inspired a lot of great science fiction. RIP.

General, Popular Culture, Technology and Society

I Know What He Means

5 Comments

Lileks:

The Piccadilly was knocked down for the Marriott Marquis, which is really one hell of a hotel. I stayed there for a week; loved the rooms and the hotel and the location, but I absolutely hated the glass elevators. Practically had to huff a bag of laughing gas to get on the things.

It’s a problem with Marriotts in general. The large atrium with the glass ‘vators seems to be a trademark. I hate them. They don’t seem to take into account the acrophobes among us.

Humor, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Satire

The Slow Descent Into Hell

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Barack Obama showed his deft political touch today, and demonstrated his keen insight into the lives of the little people in this country, with a speech that is sure to be worth at least thirty points in Pennsylvania in the upcoming primary:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them… And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

I asked around the area, to see how his obvious compassion for Pennsylvanians was viewed. This is just one story, from one man in West Deer Township, but I’m sure that it’s typical.

“By cracky, it’s like the man sees into my very soul!

“Thirty years ago, I had a good job in the mill in Pittsburgh. I was bringing in a good income, going to jazz clubs, discussing Proust over white wine and brie, with my gay friends of all colors. I was all for free trade, so that we could sell the steel overseas, and I never bothered to go to church, let alone actually believe in God.

“But then, the plant closed down, and I couldn’t get another job. I went on unemployment, and found odd jobs here and there, but they barely paid the rent on the loft, and the payment on the Bimmer. I couldn’t afford the wine and brie any more, and had to shift over to beer and brats.

“Of course, as a result, I started hanging out with the wrong crowd–the beer drinkers.

“And it wasn’t just the beer. Some of them actually went out in the woods in the fall, and shot animals. And kilt ’em. With real guns!

“I was shocked, of course. For all their diversity, none of my gay friends would have ever thought of doing anything like that. But with my job loss, and lack of money for pedicures and pommade, they didn’t want to hang with me any more. So I borried a twelve gauge over’n’under, and went out with my new beer-drinking animal-killing friends in the woods. And I’ll tell you what, when I shot down that eight-pointer, I felt a sense of power over the helpless in a way that I hadn’t since I’d been looking down on the rednecks when I had that good job in Pittsburgh, driving around town in my 528i.

“But somehow the killing, and hating those two-timing nancy boys wasn’t enough. I was still in despair. I started to search for answers, and I thought that I found them in Jesus. It started small, just church on Sunday, with prayers and a lecture from the preacher.

“But it didn’t stop there. Soon I was attending Wednesday night revivals, and huzzahing and hossanahing, and babbling with the best of them. After a few months I’d graduated to juggling garter snakes, then rattlers.

“But it wasn’t enough. Despite all the gun caressing, and animal killing, and hatred of people who weren’t like me, and anger at the Colombians who were…doing something to me–I’m not entirely sure what, and the tongue speaking and snake handling, I still couldn’t find a job.

“My social life continued to deteriorate. Not only was I no longer interested in those sensitive swishes, or literature, but I was starting to look with lust at my sister. And not just look, I’ll tell you what. She’d been out of work, too, and was getting mighty interested, if you know what I mean.

“I have hit rock bottom.

“Please, help me, O Bama. Forgive me, O Bama. O Bama, my Bama, rescue me from this living hell in which Reagan, and Bush, and Clinton, and Bush, have consigned me. Restore unto me my loft and my teutonic status symbol. Give me back my poofter friends, and my pinot grigio and my baked gruyere, and lattes. Save me from the killing and the beer, and most of all, from Jesus. Save me, O my Bama, and I will commit my vote unto you.

This is just one story of the many lives that Barack Obama has touched, and blessed, this day in the benighted Keystone State. But with his obvious compassion, and ability to feel the pain of others so unlike him, he is sure to carry the state in a couple weeks.

[Late evening update]

Ace has more:

Obama To Rural Pennsylvanians: Vote For Me, You Corncob-Smokin’, Banjo-Strokin’ Chicken-Chokin’ Cousin-Pokin’ Inbred Hillbilly Racist Morons

Yeah, that’s about it.

[Saturday morning update]

More from Mickey Kaus:

Excuse me? Hunting is part of working-class American culture. Does Obama really think that working-class whites in Pennsylvania were gun control liberals until their industries were downsized, whereas they all rushed to join the NRA …

I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances–welfare and immigrants were “scapegoats,” part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. …

…Rather than trying to spin his way out, wouldn’t it be better for Obama to forthrightly admit his identity? Let’s have a national dialogue about egghead condescension!

[Mid-Saturday morning update]

This is turning out to be the Blazing Saddles election:

It’s amazing how many lines from that movie work for this campaign.

The first question Obama got in Iowa

What’s a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?

Explaining the Iowa caucus to newcomers

Now, I suppose you’re all wondering just what in the heck you’re doing out here in the middle of a prairie in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.
Crowd: You bet your ass.

Despite setbacks, Mike Gravel stays in the race

no sidewindin bushwackin, hornswaglin, cracker croaker is gonna rouin me bishen cutter.

Obama’s campaign theme

He conquered fear and he conquered hate He turned dark night into day.

Hillary rounds up her operatives

I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.

Ezra Klein hears a speech

God darnit…you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.

Obama after every press appearance

Ooh, baby, you are so talented! And they are so DUMB!

Obama explaining his post-racial appeal

Well, to tell the family secret, my grandmother was Dutch.

But Hispanics are skeptical of Obama and his supporters

Hast du gesehen in deine Leben? They’re darker than us!

The party’s new reaction to Hillary

Shut up, you Teutonic tw@t!

The anguish of the superdelegates

We’ve gotta protect our phoney baloney jobs, gentlemen!

and of course for the current situation

You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Oooh, oooohhh, there’s more! I found Obama’s Facebook page. Note that one of his favorite books is one about an obsessive hatred of a white whale.

So, is a cigar just a cigar? I report, you decide.

[Update a few minutes later]

One more (more serious) thought. When Obama talks about “clinging to religion,” is he saying that his religious belief is founded in something other than economic hardship? Or is he implying that, despite his words and church attendance for the past twenty years, that he’s at heart an agnostic, if not an atheist? Was the church thing all for political show (as it was with at least Bill, if not both Clintons)? And of course, if these are his true feelings (and I suspect that one is more likely to hear what he really thinks when he perceives himself to be among a friendly audience), then it’s not surprising that he could sit through twenty years of Pastor Wright bigotry and hatred and find nothing exceptional or objectionable about it. He’s smart enough to know that others will find it so, so he pretends to be outraged when called on it, but he wasn’t smart enough to see how his remarks in this case would be viewed by those to whom he unconsciously condescends.

I think that this could be a campaign killer in the fall. That sound bite will be shown over and over again. I just regret that it came out this soon. Unfortunately, the Democrats still have a chance to eject him before he gets the nomination. But even if they do, it will still be an electoral disaster for them. The problem is that it isn’t just Obama. Most of them are just smart enough not to voice their bigotry publicly, but this is how much of the party itself views rural and middle America, and it’s going to hurt them all through the fall. And justly so.

[Late morning update]

Mark Steyn has further thoughts:

I had a ton of fun covering Kerry’s awkwardness with Americans but, in fairness, it was essentially a consumerist snobbery: he preferred the Newburgh Yacht Club for lunch over the local Wendy’s, he’d rather be windsurfing off Nantucket than rednecking at Nascar, etc. Obama’s snobbery seems more culturally profound, and unlike Kerry he can’t plead the crippling disadvantage of a privileged childhood. Rather, Barack’s condescension reveals a man out of touch with the rhythms of American life to a degree that’s hard to fathom. As Michelle says, they “chose” to “leave corporate America”, and Barack became a “community organizer” and she wound up a 350-grand-a-year “diversity outreach coordinator”. I’ve no idea what either of those careers involve, and most of us seem able to get along without them. But their remoteness from the American mainstream perhaps explains why the Obamas seem to have no clue how Americans live their lives.

And yes, I’m a foreigner. But it takes one to know one, and this guy seems weirdly disconnected from everything except neo-segregationist Afrocentric grievance politics and upscale white liberal condescension. Not much of a coalition.

But that’s the modern Democrat Party. Without the media (which is as elitist as they are) in their pocket, they’d never stand a chance.

[Early afternoon update]

Was Obama’s faux pas the sound of the horse beginning to clear its throat for its aria? This kind of thing is what keeps Hillary from dropping out.

[Another update a few minutes later]

And of course, Iowahawk has to pile on, with a golden oldie about rebellious youth:

Like most of their classmates, these North Shore Neckies were once bound for some of the top universities in America — Yale, Duke, Stanford, Northwestern — until they succumbed to the allure of the Downhome slacker lifestyle. Now some openly talk of dropping out, learning TIG welding, waiting tables at Waffle House or draining oil at Jiffy Lube; some even hint of enrolling at Iowa State. What drives privileged teens to such seemingly self-destructive behavior?

“I guess you might could say we’re rebels,” says Rachel ‘Tyffanie’ Stern, 17, lighting a Merit Menthol 100. Once destined for Vassar, Stern is now living with friends after her parents kicked her out of the house for spending her bat mitzvah money on a bass boat. Last month she became the youngest Jewish female to win an event on the Bassmasters Pro Tour.

Pausing for furtive glances, several of the teens share sniffs from a bottle of Harmon Triple Heat deer scent.

“Wooo-eee, shit howdy, that’s gonna bring a mess of them whitetail bucks,” says 19-year old Wei-Li ‘Lamar’ Cheung. A former Westinghouse Science Award winner, Cheung has devoted his chemistry and biology skill to building a fledgling hunting supply business.

A first generation Asian-American, Cheung says he was drawn to the group by their acceptance of minorities. “Hell, I kept tellin’ all my family and teachers I wanna play fiddle, not violin,” he explains. “The ‘Necks accept me the way I am.”

African-American Kwame ‘Joe Don’ Harris agrees. “Just because I’m black, teachers were always pushing me to go to Spellman to study Langston Hughes and Thelonius Monk,” says the 17 year old. “These ol’ boys here never laugh at my dream to be a crew chief for the Craftsman Truck Series.”

If there is one aspiration that unites them all, it is the dream of moving to Branson, Missouri. Long famed for its laid-back attitude toward religion, country music and the military, Branson has become a Mecca for radical young Neckies seeking an escape from the stultifying conformity of their coastal hometowns.

Only Barack can save us from this ongoing tragedy.

[Late afternoon update]

Obama is doing damage control with some of the yokelocals. I’m sure that Miss Hathaway will be able to smooth things over, except maybe with Grannie.

[Update on Sunday evening]

I’ve quit updating have some follow-up thoughts on Obama, and what this means about his attitudes toward individualism, here.