Arthel Lane Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012)

Rest in peace, Doc.

Memorial Day

Focusing on the important things

Gotta Love This Guy

Jeff Barth is a candidate for Congress in South Dakota.

You really do learn something every day

Today, for example, I learned that Jesse Jackson is still alive.  Who knew?

We're really, really sorry about this

The Boston Herald reports: "Bay State Democrats are standing by their woman, saying they’re confident in embattled Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren . . . ."

So we guess that means they're not Indian-givers, right?

Just when you thought it was safe . . .

You took my love and now you're gone . . .

Protest Fail

The National Organization for Women announced that it would

hold a picket outside WMAL 630 AM, the Washington, D.C., radio station that carries Rush Limbaugh's show. The picket is a part of NOW's "Enough Rush" campaign, aimed at targeting local radio stations that broadcast The Rush Limbaugh Show and local businesses that continue to advertise on it.

"We don't believe advertisers want to be associated with Rush Limbaugh's demeaning verbal assaults and hate speech against women, people of color, the poor, immigrants and the LGBT community," said NOW President Terry O'Neill. "We don't need or want Limbaugh's bullying on the public airwaves in our nation's capital or anywhere in this country."

Fair enough.  Free speech, First Amendment, all that good stuff.  In another life, your humble and obedient servant lived not far from Wisconsin Avenue and Jennifer Street in Washington, D.C., ground zero for this show of massive grassroots support.

The weather was perfect, as was the location: smack dab in the middle of the most liberal, Democratic demographic in America, aside from certain enclaves in Manhattan.

Except that basically no one showed up:

Really?

Can this possibly be real?  Consider the number of people involved who appear to be treating this whole thing seriously.

Those Wacky Episcopalians

Predictable: Episcopal Bishop of Washington praises Obama's "evolution" on question of gay marriage.

Unfortunate: uses the word "fruits" in press release.

No! Really!

Today the President . . .

. . . said something or other, and Mr. Romney fired back, accusing the President of something. In Greece, something bad happened, so something bad will probably happen soon in Italy or Spain. Many other things that are really, really important transpired, and it's important that we pay attention. We live in perilous times.

 

We all know this girl . . .

Just Kill Me Now

NOT Elizabeth Warren

At a recent meeting of the Editorial Board of G&S, your humble and obedient servant expressed the view that he was already tired of the 2012 political campaign. We've not changed our view, but sometimes we just can't help ourselves, and something shiny catches our attention.

You've no doubt heard that JP Morgan Chase, home to thousands of people way smarter than you, managed to rack up $2 billion in trading losses over the course of six weeks. Yes, that's "billion" with a "B", and "six weeks" as in 30 business days. And, "yes" yet again, the "d" word is involved.

Massachusetts Democratic candidate for Senate Elizabeth Warren is on the case, and on the warpath, calling for Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon's scalp:

BOSTON, MA - In the wake of $2 billion in losses at JP Morgan Chase due to risky trading, Elizabeth Warren, the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, today called on Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan's CEO, to resign from his position on the Board of Directors of the New York Federal Reserve Bank as a first step to signal to the American people that Wall Street understands the need for greater responsibility and accountability.

"Wall Street banks continue to have fundamental problems, and tough oversight and accountability are urgently needed. Jamie Dimon deserves credit for taking public responsibility for $2 billion in losses based on a trading strategy he called 'poorly reviewed,' 'poorly monitored,' and even 'sloppy.' But Dimon is not only the CEO of JP Morgan, he is also a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, where he advises the Federal Reserve on the oversight of the financial industry," Warren said.

"After the biggest financial crisis in generations, the American people are frustrated that Wall Street has still not been held accountable and does not appear to consider itself responsible. Dimon should resign from his post at the New York Fed to send a signal to the American people that Wall Street bankers get it and to show that they understand the need for responsibility and accountability," Warren said.

Nothing much new here, of course, "Wall Street" and "Big Banks" and so on and so forth need to be "held responsible" and so on. But, you see, here's the thing: while Ms. Warren is prattling on about Wall Street, her Big Chief, the President of the United States, relies on those very same bankers to finance his political campaign. According to OpenSecrets.org, during the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, Mr. Obama received contributions to the tune of $808,000 from JPMorgan folks, over $1,000,000 from Goldman Sachs people, and over $700,000 from Citigroup. Of course, this represents only contributions to Mr. Obama's campaign itself, and doesn't include cash provided to political action committees and the like.

We did some Googling, but couldn't find any statements from Ms. Warren calling on the president to return those contributions, or to refuse to accept Wall Street money this time around.

But that's just us.

Apocalypse 1970

Back in the day, we read ALL this stuff. Now do you understand?

"What is truth?" Pilate asked.

Giants lose to hated Dodgers, fall below .500

Well, duh!

Ann Althouse opines on the whole "treason" kerfuffle that has the President's noise machine in an faux uproar: "Romney needs to be more like McCain . . . Obama supporters insist."

Well, sure they think that. We're confident they think he ought also to be more like Bob Dole.

So herewith our advice to the President: you really, really need to try to be more like John Kerry, Al Gore, and Jimmy Carter. Just sayin'.

When a Chevy Volt explodes, how much "greenhouse gas" is emitted?

An excellent question, posed by Doug Ross.

Unhinged Left Easily . . . Unhinged

One arm of the President's Ministry of Propaganda is a web site call "Think Progress." Their role is to express breathless outrage whenever anyone voices a non-approved thought, like "could I please keep my paycheck?" You'll see little reasoning over there, because that's not the style of the American leftist echo-chamber. They work instead from an approved list of what "everybody knows." We're reminded of the (almost certainly apocryphal) story that has New York Times theatre critic Pauline Kael observing, in 1972, that she was flabbergasted at the election results, inasmuch as she didn't know anyone who'd voted for Richard Nixon.

Today they favor us with a typically agog installment titled, "Romney Refuses to Stand Up to Woman Who Says 'Obama should be tried for treason." Here's the video of the exchange:

And here's their commentary:

Romney responded to her question, but didn’t condemn or acknowledge her comments on treason. [snip] While Romney can’t be held responsible for everything his supporters say, it seems reasonable to expect him to stand up to the fringe in his party, especially when he’s providing a platform for their views (it was his microphone, after all).

Here's what we want you to do: Google "Bush treason" and see what happens.

We miss Christopher Hitchens

"Hitchens would never have put up with such behavior by someone so obviously unprepared and also so churlish, but the American way is to smile and look quizzically at the boorish host."

Juxtaposition

Herewith we share three articles published here and there over the last week. They have certain elements in common: all deal with a medical matter, none is of the urgent "fiery wreck" genre, none involves gamboling kittens headlined "Awwww!"

We're not certain exactly what else they have in common. But we think that, taken together, they're something like an artist's first pencil outlines of what will be an oil portrait depicting the future.

From The Guardian: "Doctors back denial of treatment for smokers and the obese."

 From The Daily News: "Doctors advised parents to abort girl born with deformed face, breathing troubles."

 Also from The Daily News: "Transgender woman denied mammogram wins battle with health insurance company."

Do it to Julia

It's only May, and we seem already to have reached the pinnacle of silly, scary campaign advertisements.  If this is what we're seeing in May, we tremble to contemplate October.

The Obama campaign (or maybe it's the Department of Health and Human Services -- but I repeat myself) has put online a site called "The Life of Julia."  It chronicles, literally from cradle to grave, how Julia (presumably a composite character) can, with the help of The President, make her life better at every stage by relying on the Government.

Julia's life as a drone begins at age 3, when she enrolls in Head Start, and appears to end at age 67:

Julia retires. After years of contributing to Social Security, she receives monthly benefits that help her retire comfortably, without worrying that she'll run out of savings. This allows her to volunteer at a community garden.

There's no mention at any stage why Julia should be the beneficiary of this largesse, let alone how it's to be paid for. The important thing, apparently, is that Julia gets free stuff, and therefore ought really to be appropriately grateful to the President.

It's good to be Julia.

[UPDATE] And we can't claim we weren't warned.

Have a drink and just chill out

This is . . . creepy

From Politico:

One of the more mysterious characters from President Obama's 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father is the so-called 'New York girlfriend.' Obama never referred to her by name, or even by psuedonym, but he describes her appearance, her voice, and her mannerisms in specific detail. But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the 'New York girlfriend' was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago.

No intelligent person takes a memoir or autobiography at face value. Even when the author/subject is critical of themselves, what's interesting and often revealing is exactly how they criticize themselves, and what about themselves they find less-than-admirable. Equally interesting, and often revelatory, is what gets left out: there is no hint in "The Education of Henry Adams" that its author/subject had ever been married. Which tells us rather a lot. But a reader of autobiography, presented with declarative sentences setting out matters of fact (rather than judgment, perception, or reaction), may be excused for expecting such information to be . . . true. The "composite character" is the stuff of historical fiction, screen adaptation, and the roman a clef. On the other hand, this notion may be useful, come November, when we must decide whether the President is a composite of Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt, or instead consists of equal parts Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.

Softball on the Mall. Bryce Harper.

More here from The Washington Post. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are smart enough to NOT stand 40 feet in front of a major leaguer holding an aluminum bat, and those who are dumb enough to do so. We count ourselves in the latter category.