Just a change of pace open thread.

Posted by: Ace at 12:43 PM | Comments (159)
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Via Twitchy, a new idiocy is aborning:

Those darned Republicans. Such delusional fools, always conspiracy-theorizing.

Monica Lewinsky has broken her long silence. She says she's doing so to "take back [her] narrative" (reclaim her own past) and to fight internet bullying.

When Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old Rutgers freshman who was secretly streamed via Webcam kissing another man, committed suicide in September 2010, Lewinsky writes, she was brought to tears, but her mother was especially distraught: “She was reliving 1998, when she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal. The shame, the scorn, and the fear that had been thrown at her daughter left her afraid that I would take my own life—a fear that I would be literally humiliated to death.” Lewinsky clarifies that she has never actually attempted suicide, but had strong suicidal temptations several times during the investigations and during one or two periods after.

Lewinsky writes that following Clementi’s tragedy “my own suffering took on a different meaning. Perhaps by sharing my story, I reasoned, I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation. The question became: How do I find and give a purpose to my past?” She also says that, when news of her affair with Clinton broke in 1998, not only was she arguably the most humiliated person in the world, but, “thanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet.” Her current goal, she says, “is to get involved with efforts on behalf of victims of online humiliation and harassment and to start speaking on this topic in public forums.”

I suppose she's well-qualified for that, and it's not a bad thing.

I understand her upset at her "global humiliation," and certainly there's a very vicious human impulse to humiliate.

In her particular case, though, I'm not sure how exactly she would suggest we should have handled the revelations about the affair. It is not possible that she believes everyone should have studiously ignored the affair, as the media decided it would do before Drudge revealed the Michael Issikoff spiked story. Or does she?

She says of her "abuse:"

Maintaining that her affair with Clinton was one between two consenting adults, Lewinsky writes that it was the public humiliation she suffered in the wake of the scandal that permanently altered the direction of her life: “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position. . . . The Clinton administration, the special prosecutor’s minions, the political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power.”

Certainly there was a great deal of mocking directed towards her, and almost certainly too much of it (inasmuch as people will readily mock others for embarrassing actions they themselves have committed).

But does she really think her affair with Clinton was strictly private, and the world should have silently agreed upon its private nature?

I don't know what else she'll say about it (Vanity Fair is only publishing excerpts at the moment; the full interview will be published May but it does seem to me, as it seemed to me then, that a great deal of the explicitness of the Starr Report was dictated by Clinton's bizarre defense to his serial perjury and finger-wagging lying to the public: By claiming that actions involving sexual organs had occurred which were not actually "sexual relations" or "sexual contact," Clinton himself forced the argument to take place on the distasteful, privacy-invading grounds of whether highly specific sexual acts constituted "sexual relations."

Clinton's bizarre defense not only contributed to Lewinsky's humiliation (and hypothetically his own humiliation, were he capable of shame), but also Ken Starr's humiliation (I'm sure he didn't want to detail the exact nature of the sexual contacts) and the American public's humiliation as well -- who the hell really wanted to get into all this crap?

But instead he lied, and he lied when he was obviously lying, and he lied when it was tactically stupid to lie, and truth would have served him better.

As Obama is currently doing in regards to the Benghazi massacre and IRS targeting scandal.

And then that forces people to demand the truth, and the Democrats then follow the Clinton playbook, by claiming that anyone who seeks the truth is doing so "obsessively."

Monica Lewinsky was a good soldier on Clinton's behalf throughout the scandal, protecting him until she was credibly threatened with a perjury/obstruction of justice charge for telling lies to protect him. Since then she has remained largely silent.

And throughout this, the right has generally been kinder to Lewinsky than the progressive/Democratic press. Not because we're angels, mind you, but because of politics: Our target was Bill Clinton, not Monica Lewinsky.

But she was a threat to Bill Clinton, so Monica Lewinsky did in fact become a target for the progressive/Democratic press. As did all of Bill Clinton's previous sexual conquests -- the press routinely referred to women who spoke about their affairs with Clinton as "bimbo eruptions," as if they were the ones solely at fault, and they were the ones solely worthy of mockery and scorn.

These damned Jezebel Bimbos taking advantage of this poor, defenseless governor and then president.

The feminist left likes to discuss power imbalances in relationships. And there's some truth to their basic idea: We don't let teachers have sex with their students (even their 18 year old former students) because we understand that while such a liaison might be "consensual," consent is not being offered from a position of rough equality. An affair might be "consensual" as in non-coerced, at yet still be a situation of someone with more power taking sexual advantage of someone with far less.

I can't think of a more obvious case of this (outside of a teacher-student affair) than Bill Clinton's taking advantage of Monica Lewinsky. He was her boss, he was a much older and much more experienced man, and he was the President of the United States.

It was pretty obvious at the time that Monica Lewinsky was in love with him (or at least was "in love" as young people think they're in love).

And it was also pretty obvious that Bill Clinton thought about as much for her as he did his other side-pieces. He thought she was disposable, and, when the evidence began to grow that an affair had taken place, used his nastiest smear-peddler (Syd Blumenthal) to put out word that Lewinsky was a stalker.

As Christopher Hitchens declared in an affidavit, contradicting Blumenthal's testimony that he had never put out such a smear:

"During lunch on March 19, 1998, in the presence of myself and Carol Blue, Mr. Blumenthal stated that, Monica Lewinsky had been a 'stalker' and that the President was 'the victim' of a predatory and unstable sexually demanding young woman. Referring to Ms. Lewinsky, Mr. Blumenthal used the word 'stalker' several times. Mr. Blumenthal advised us that this version of the facts was not generally understood."

Despite all these things, the feminist left has never taken Clinton to task for abusing this woman. Every single complaint they make about power-imbalances in sexual relationships is present -- including an extremely powerful man using his power to smear an inconvenient young 22 year old woman -- and yet Clinton not only gets nothing but Free Passes from the feminist left, but in fact open-ended promises of sexual favors. (Nina Burleigh infamously declared: "I would be happy to give him [Clinton] a blow job just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.")

Nor, of course, have they ever questioned Feminist Icon Hillary Clinton and her own role in this.

The excerpts from the Monica Lewinsky interview suggest she'll be "balanced" in assigning blame for her own "global humiliation."

She might find it useful to contemplate whether she should be so "balanced."

Posted by: Ace at 11:48 AM | Comments (446)
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No points awarded for novelty or perspicacity, as this observation has been made from distances of up to 2500 miles (I'm sure the Kremlin has detected this). David Remnick, who wrote that fawning interview/profile in the New Yorker, got to talk to Obama for hours, so it's no great feat of psychological diagnosis to realize the President is deeply, deeply disappointed in all of you.

But I guess at least now that a progressive says it, it is no longer strictly Konservative Krazytalk Konspiraciatin'.

"The profile [of President Obama] that I published in the New Yorker was somebody that eerily, eerily seemed to be claiming himself--it was a sense of not giving up, but of deep frustration--that was the profile that I published in the New Yorker. Somebody frustrated and disappointed," said Remnick, who has proven to be deeply sympathetic to this president.

"And that's what's frustrating to me sometimes about Obama is that the world seems to disappoint him," he continued to laughter from others on the TV set. "Republicans disappoint him, Bashar al-Assad disappoints him, Putin as well. And the fighting spirit sometimes is lacking in the performative aspects of the presidency."

By the way, I found this Washington Post piece encapsulating the 17 highlights from Remnick's January piece.

I found this telling.

6. Obama meets with presidential historians: Obama has had a number of presidential historians over as guests, including Doris Kearns Goodwin and Robert Caro, whose work on Lyndon Johnson often is cited as an example of how a president can more effectively get in his agenda through Congress. Remnick writes: “At the most recent dinner he attended at the White House, Caro had the distinct impression that Obama was cool to him, annoyed, perhaps, at the notion appearing in the press that his latest Johnson volume was an implicit rebuke to him. As we were leaving, I said to Obama, ‘You know, my book wasn’t an unspoken attack on you, it’s a book about Lyndon Johnson,’ Caro recalled." Obama and his team continue to rebuff the idea that more social outings and pressure would lead Republicans to embrace his ideas. Obama pointed out that when Johnson “lost that historic majority [in Congress], and the glow of that landslide victory faded, he had the same problems with Congress that most Presidents at one point or another have.”

It's all about him. If you write a book about LBJ, it's really about Obama.

You'll remember how Obama chose to publicly honor JFK on the anniversary of his assassination, I trust.

And just to add a minor thing: While Obama insists that he doesn't have to emulate LBJ's notorious jawboning tactics -- "Obama and his team continue to rebuff the idea that more social outings and pressure would lead Republicans to embrace his ideas" -- in that very same interview he announces he's doing more jawboning.

5. Obama has started socializing more: Obama said he hadn't socialized more in the past because he has two young daughters at home. “I had two young daughters who I wanted to spend time with—and that I wasn’t in a position to work the social scene in Washington,” he said. But now that they’re older, Obama and his wife have been hosting more dinners, with the president drinking a Martini or two, and Obama sometimes pushing guests to stay past 1 a.m. "I’m a night owl! Have another drink,” the president encouraged one set of guests.

He can't even admit the most trivial alleged flaw. He's apparently attempting to remedy this alleged flaw, but can he just say, "You know, perhaps I didn't use enough tools from the social toolbox in the past, so I'm working on that now," he still has to claim "Nah, bro, I did plenty of that. (But now I'm doing more.)"

This f***in' guy. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (462)
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Via Hot Air, more about the homework assignment from hell. Video at that link (but the video will keep playing and playing if you don't shut it down).

This .pdf contains the actual assignment. Note page 6, which begins "Even the diary of Anne Frank is a hoax."

The assignment claimed to be an exercise in analyzing propaganda:

The lesson plan, designed for eighth-graders, was supposed to help students analyze propaganda.

"When tragic events occur in history, there is often debate about their actual existence," the assignment read. "For example, some people claim the Holocaust is not an actual historical event but instead is a propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain."

The assignment then asked students to explain whether they "believe the Holocaust was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain."

The basic idea of "analyzing propaganda" isn't a bad one... for much older, more sophisticated kids. The kids to whom this assignment given were eighth graders.

Eighth graders barely even know what The Holocaust is in the first place.

Someone who knows very little about the subject will naturally find the "Other Point of View" pretty powerful because he doesn't know anything. He has no already-established historical database in his head.

Again, this is part of my basic complaint with the "Core" pedagogy: Having failed at teaching kids the most basic elementary information possible, such as when WWII was fought, and why, and so on, educational professionals have decided that the key to doing their jobs better is to become more ambitious in what they teach. Now, instead of teaching kids that WWII began in 1939 and ended in 1945 and that America entered the war in 1942 after the December 7 1941 attack at Pearl Harbor, we have kids that know practically nothing at all being asked to "analyze" the claims of people who, while ignorant, actually do know more than the kids themselves, and hence seem to be "authorities."

The teachers who came up with this new standard of excellence in civil service (and it took a gaggle of them, apparently) will undergo "sensitivity training."

I think the problem is deeper than a lack of sensitivity. The problem just seems to be one of incurably low competency, and any alleged reform will have to be informed by the simple fact that you can't ask people who barely got out of college themselves to rise to the level of star college professors.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (319)
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Ben obviously got a little drunk last night celebrating the game 3 victory by his flightless waterfowl over my NY Rangers and can't be bothered to feed you news. Well, we'll have the last laugh when he stumbles out of bed and realizes that chick he hooked up with at the bar was really a Thai Tranny Hooker*.

Anyway...here's a news dump for you.

Obama wants to talk about the weather, er, climate change so naturally the MSM complies.

The American people continue to let Obama down by steadfastly not giving a shit about any of this nonsense. Racists the lot of you.

Instead of listening to all this propaganda you should listen to the podcast I did with Marc Marano of Climate Depot a few weeks back.

*It's very possible that none of that is true. But who is to say either way?

Posted by: DrewM at 06:06 AM | Comments (508)
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Happy Tuesday.

According to a Forbes contributor, Putin's Human Rights Council accidentally posted the real turnout numbers from the referrendum-at-gunpoint in Crimea. Only 15 percent of Crimean citizens voted for annexation.

Also, a new Russian law requires bloggers to register by name with Russia's media oversight agency.

And Putin signed a law banning swearing in film, television, theatre, and the media. This fuckin' guy.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:28 AM | Comments (386)
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Well due to internet issues tonight all you get is ONT helper. And ONT helper does just fine by itself.

What Does It Feel Like to be Stupid?

I  had an arterial problem for a couple of years, which reduced blood supply to my heart and brain and depleted B vitamins from my nerves (to keep the heart in good repair). Although there is some vagueness as to the mechanisms, this made me forgetful, slow, and easily overwhelmed. In short, I felt like I was stupid compared to what I was used to, and I was.

However, once I got used to it and resigned myself, it was great. Even though I knew I had a worrying illness, I was happy as a pig in mud. I no longer had the arrogance of being frustrated with slow people, I abandoned many projects which reduced a lot of stress, I could enjoy films without knowing what would happen (my nickname before this used to be 'comic book guy' if you get the reference), and I became amazingly laid back and happy go lucky. I got on with people much better. I developed much more respect for one of my friends in particular who I always considered slow - it turned out he is much deeper than I thought, I just never had the patience to notice before. You could say I had more time to look around. The world just made more sense. The only negative, apart from struggling to perform at work, and having to write everything down, was that I no longer found sci-fi interesting - it just didn't seem important. (I'm not joking, although it sounds like a cliché.)

After a year or so I am almost as 'clever' as I used to be, although I tend to ignore distractions more than I used to and focus on a smaller number of projects. I'm still more laid back than I used to be though, and have more patience with people. Most people still find me more socially competent. I also enjoy sci-fi again.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:44 PM | Comments (534)
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I heard that somewhere.

Posted by: JohnE. at 05:28 PM | Comments (182)
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No really.

The Rialto school district planned to revise an eighth-grade assignment that raised red flags by asking students to consider arguments about whether the Holocaust — the systematic killing by the Nazis of some 6 million Jews and millions of others — was not an “actual event” but instead a “propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain.”

In a statement released Monday, a spokeswoman for the Rialto Unified School District said an academic team was meeting to revise the assignment.

Interim Superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam was set to talk with administrators to “assure that any references to the holocaust ‘not occurring’ will be stricken on any current or future Argumentative Research assignments,” a statement from district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri read.

...

The 18-page assignment instructions included three sources that students were instructed to use, including one that stated gassings in concentration camps were a “hoax” and that no evidence has shown Jews died in gas chambers.

...

“ADL does not have any evidence that the assignment was given as part of a larger, insidious, agenda,” the blog post read. “Rather, the district seems to have given the assignment with an intent, although misguided, to meet Common Core standards relating to critical learning skills.”

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In her statement provided to KTLA, Jafri said the district’s “CORE team” would meet to revise the prompt.

I've hinted at this before, but let be explicit:

I do not support the lofty and ambitious goal of having teachers teach children "how to think" because I do not believe that low-ranking civil servants, as a group, are particularly good at it themselves.

Let this be my Exhibits A through Z.

They are failing at teaching the most basic stuff, so our response is to let them Explore the Studio Space?

And now to calm you down:

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:04 PM | Comments (415)
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Posted by: Ace at 02:33 PM | Comments (364)
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