J. Arthur Bloom is the blog's editor, opinion editor of the Daily Caller, and an occasional contributor to the Umlaut. He was formerly associate editor of the American Conservative and a music reviewer at Tiny Mix Tapes, and graduated from William and Mary in 2011. He lives in Washington, DC, and can be found, far too often, on Twitter.
Ben Smith appears to have been convinced by one of the neoconservatives’ top operators that neoconservative is no longer a useful label, and has now endorsed that person’s replacement term. Quite a trick, isn’t it? Imagine Lila Rose convincing the Associated Press to start using “pro-life” again and you’ll get a sense of the journalistic malfeasance at work.
Jamie Weinstein, Funniest Celebrity in Washington, sticks his fingers in his ears and doesn’t seem to like that I mentioned his friends.
… the Tea Party’s philosophy of government (again, as understood by Salam) has embedded within it an aversion to basic democratic principles that goes far beyond a typical contempt for Washington, politicians and pundits. … He’s describing a childish and essentially anti-political belief that a return to an Articles of Confederation-style U.S. order — in which each state is more of a sovereign unto itself than a member of a larger American whole — will produce 50 mini-nations where everyone basically agrees.
It’s strange to me that someone would object to a pluralistic world in which he could wait months for medical procedures in Bennington while I stock up on assault weapons in Sedona. Call it a patchwork, or an archipelago, whatever you call it we’re dealing with an ambi-ideological concept. Anyway, it must be crushed:
If the basic, irresolvable questions of identity that each generation must answer for itself — What do we value? Whom do we respect? What do we want from each other? What do we demand of ourselves? — are no longer contested, then, really, what’s the point? Just appoint a CEO of State for life, a charismatic technocrat to make sure the trains are running on time, and be done with it.
That isn’t a bad suggestion, but perhaps he doth protest too much. See, it’s not dictatorship he finds so distasteful, it’s that people could peaceably agree to disagree about those questions he says are “irresolvable.” Almost, you know, the opposite of a dictatorship. I asked him on Facebook what he thought about the Hawaiian independence movement, which despite containing the only significant royalist sentiment in America today, is generally supported by the academic left because of its anti-colonial sympathies. I haven’t gotten an answer yet.
I know, I know, this is a place for very serious discussion. But Rob and I have been busy taking the piss out of Salon the last few days:
If you’ve been on Twitter at all the last several days, you’ve likely seen some bizarre headlines coming from handle named @Salondotcom. While that seems like progressive site Salon’s real user name, it’s actually a parody account, and it’s been retweeted and praised by media folk across the spectrum.
In just four days of existence, the account has accumulated an impressive roster of fake Salon headlines, parodying the site’s infamous contrarian-at-all-costs progressive commentary on each and every issue.
If the Department of Justice was unclear as to which constitutional power Congress exercised in 1898 when it purported to have annexed Hawaiian territory by joint resolution, it should still be unclear as to how Congress “has enacted more than 150 statutes that specifically recognize and implement this trust relationship with the Native Hawaiian community, including the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, the Native Hawaiian Education Act, and the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act” stated in its press release.
It is clear that the Department of Justice had this information since 1988, but for obvious reasons did not cite that opinion in its joint report with the DOI that covered the portion on annexation (p. 26-30). To do so, would have completely undermined all the statutes the Congress has enacted for Hawai‘i, which would also include the lawful authority of the State of Hawai‘i government itself since it was created by an Act of Congress in 1959.
This was precisely the significance of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Dr. Kamana‘opono Crabbe’s questions to Secretary of State John Kerry. Without any evidence that the United States extinguished the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent and sovereign State under international law, the Hawaiian Kingdom is presumed to still be in existence and therefore under an illegal and prolonged occupation.
The DOI is holding meetings starting Monday and running through August to solicit public feedback about initiating government-to-government relations with the OHA, which seeks what amounts to tribal recognition and ethnic spoils for its list of registered native Hawaiians (the sign above refers to their list). Crabbe bucked that plan with his letter to Secretary Kerry, and the cat’s out of the bag now. More here. Free Hawaii is sounding the alarm, telling people to protest the DOI, with some suggested slogans:
Kamaki Kanahele Is Not Our King Robin Danner Does Not Speak For Us
SCHAA Shafts Hawaiian Homesteaders
Abercrombie Against Hawaiians
Hawaiians Say NO To Rule Changes Go Home DOI
DOI Will leave Hawaiians High & Dry
Bye Bye DOI
No Aloha In OHA
It also appears that we may have found the economist laureate of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Dr. Umi Perkins, with a sort of aloha Georgism.
As I was standing in line, I heard the jaunty marimba of the Rolling Stones’ 1966 smash hit, “Under My Thumb.” We’ve all heard the song 1,000 times — it’s a very catchy tune, from a talented, superstar band. But it also features lyrics that are not exactly friendly toward women. As I listened, I thought about how the song plays in the wake of Elliot Rodger’s killing spree, fueled, as the killer explained in a lengthy manifesto, by his rage against women and desire to control them.
The author is a senior editor at Alternet — a site most famous for listicles about how the right-wing wants to starve your children — and holds a PhD from NYU in English and cultural studies.
One imagines a moment in this kind of doctoral program, somewhere near the end of your coursework, in which you’re brought into a room and given the OT III (you know, the level in Scientology where you find out about Xenu and the volcano) of cultural studies, the powerful hex-like phrase “in the wake of,” which is used twice in this piece to connect two totally unrelated events; an allegedly misogynistic song, and a spree killer with four male victims and two female ones.
She continues:
What kinds of messages do we think are OK today in 2014? Why should I have to hear about a guy comparing his girlfriend to a dog while I’m buying vegetables?
I decided to ask Trader Joe’s this question. Just so they would know I wasn’t making things up, I printed out the lyrics to “Under My Thumb” and brought them into the store with me. I was directed to a young man named Kyle Morrison at the manager’s station, to whom I explained in friendly terms that I was a frequent shopper and that I had heard a song playing over the sound system which, in the wake of the Elliot Rodger killing spree, made me feel uncomfortable. I told him the name of the song, and offered him the paper with the lyrics.
The story is amusing on so many levels, from the befuddled staff, to Dr. Parramore explaining the feminist conceit that her disliking a song makes it “offensive to women,” to the young employee referring her to the company that actually put together the playlist, because what chain grocer of sound management would trust its workers not to offend cultural studies doctorates?
