Tis the 4th of July. Many Happy Returns, America!

America turns 233 today. Sometimes, it's fun to embarrass the birthday country with a home video unearthed from their parents' attic. Remarkably, our Founding Fathers had both musical talent and excellent videographers, so we have just that opportunity. Here they are, solemnly choosing the author of the Declaration of Independence:



All humorous history aside, declaring independence was a momentous event. Here's something with the proper gravitas:



Happy birthday, America.

For the Three People Who Haven't Seen Homeopathic A&E

Here ye go:



If you click the link, you'll even find out what A&E means.

You're welcome.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Well, this is a hell of a way to begin a holiday weekend:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) decided to shake up an otherwise slow news day with an astounding announcement: not only has she decided to skip a re-election campaign next year, she's also resigning from office altogether later this month.

"Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office in a few weeks, she said during a news conference at her Wasilla home Friday morning.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the Governor's Picnic at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks on Saturday, July 25, Palin said.

There was no immediate word as to why she will resign, though speculation has been rampant that the former vice presidential candidate is gearing up for a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Did your eyes pop when you first got the news? Mine did. And I'm salivating, too, because this might end up being juicy:

Update: This just in my inbox, from a source connected sometimes to CNN:

"Here's a quote I got from law enforcement here in Alaska yesterday afternoon regarding Palin "a criminal indictment is pending authorization."

Oooo, and what might that be about?

Max Blumental reports on The Daily Beast that Sarah Palin may have quit her job today because she was trying to avert a major, yet-to-be-disclosed corruption scandal. The gist of the rumor is that an Alaska building company called Spenard Building Supplies (SBS) was awarded a contract by Palin to build a hockey arena in Wasilla, AK, and in return, SBS helped construct Palin’s home:

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.

Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an addition $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.

I didn't go with my gut when Mark Sanford went missing. I chuckled quietly to myself and said, "Betcha he's with a mistress," but I decided it would be irresponsible to speculate. Fuck responsible. As Hilzoy said, "what's the point of blogging if not to amass a record of your unfounded speculations so that you can go back and see how wrong you were?" I'm going with my gut: if a narcissistic, power-hungry, scandal-plagued, clueless git like Palin steps down suddenly, it's not because of mental instability or a contractor getting a sports complex in return for building her house. My feeling is that when the real reason breaks, it's going to be a lot bigger than that. I mean, make Mark Sanford's wildly irresponsible jaunt to Argentina look positively pedestrian big.

We'll see if I've called this one. No matter what happens, it shall be endlessly entertaining. Fuck, it already is - just watching her rabid followers try to spin this is going to be the greatest summer blockbuster of all time. Look, the trailer's already out!

Fox is coming around, too. A little while ago, Stuart Varney said, "Let's get back to this resignation," before pausing to correct himself. "Not the resignation but stepping aside from the governorship."

Nice. They have a euphemism for every occasion.

While Sarah Palin's "Brave Sir Robin" act is utterly captivating, we must not forget that there's a whole forest worth of stupid out there merrily burning. Why, the Family Research Council's practically a forest unto itself:

The Family Research Council, arguably D.C.'s most influential religious right organization on social and cultural issues, picks its battles carefully -- and applies its principles selectively.

For example, the FRC had closely allied itself with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), right up until his sex scandal, at which point the group no longer had anything to say about the governor. The FRC has apparently been saving up its outrage for Kevin Jennings, an Obama appointee to the Department of Education who (cue scary music) happens to be gay.

The Family Research Council has embarked on a new public relations effort against a particular Obama Administration appointee, Kevin Jennings, saying he should not be in his new position at the Department of Education because of his previous position in private activism -- as executive director of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

Jennings is set to begin his new job on Monday, as Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for the Department's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, after his appointment was announced about a month ago. And this week, FRC launched a last-minute Web petition to oppose him. It asks a pointed question: Would you choose this teacher to guide your children?

The far-right group has gone through a book Jennings wrote a few years ago about his life experiences, including his belief that the religious right movement should "drop dead," to try to create a controversy where none exists.

Think Progress's Amanda Terkel did the debunking of the FRC's little "fact" sheet. I'm sure you'll all be shocked to know there weren't any facts on it.

Just as shocked as I'm sure you'll be to see Glenn Beck stubbing his fingers on the bottom of the barrel trying to find something to smear liberals with:

Glenn Beck was frothing at the mouth this week -- just before he went on an obviously much-needed vacation -- about an obscure French book that is hard to obtain and which no one appears to be reading, aside from a handful of anarchist aesthetes:

While the government warns that right-wing extremists could be domestic terrorists, and The New York Times, says I could incite those crazy conservatives to violence, the extreme left is actively calling for violence!

As world economies go down the tank and unemployment continues to rise, disenfranchised people are set to explode.

The dangerous leftist book that could spark this is "The Coming Insurrection." This is a call to arms for violent revolution, authored anonymously by a French group called the Invisible Committee who want to bring down capitalism.

[snip]

Funny thing about that. The extreme right -- the people Glenn Beck wants you to forget all about -- have actually been calling people to arms for a number of years now.

They've done it with books like The Turner Diaries and Hunter, as well as lesser-known texts such as Richard Kelly Hoskins' Vigilantes of Christendom, Robert Pummer's The Road Back to America, and Ben Klassen's The White Man's Bible. All these texts explicitly advocate the use of lethal violence on a massive scale in instituting white-supremacist rule. And they have roughly the same kind of circulation that The Coming Insurrection does.

Which is to say, they're largely relegated to the fringes. But that doesn't mean people don't act on them -- these books have in fact inspired the very kinds of acts of domestic terrorism that Beck wants to pretend away as just "isolated incidents" that have nothing, nothing at all!, to do with right-wing fearmongers like himself.

Glenn. When violent left-wing militias are lauded on mainstream teevee as "patriots," when left-wing talkers can espouse the ideas found in that silly little anarchist book and be seen as serious pundits instead of raving fruitcakes, when the "extreme left" is synonymous with the Democratic party... then you can froth, and I won't laugh my ass off at you. Until then, please stop trying so hard. I almost did myself an injury guffawing at your pathetic little "But Mommy, the other kids do it too!" whine.

Because, you see, Glenn, the difference between our side and your side is that our side still considers people on the extreme left to be ridiculously fringe, whereas you spout gobs of the most outrageous bullshit coming out of your extreme right as "common sense," and only occasionally remember to condemn the violent parts for appearances' sake.

Not that you'll understand the difference, so we shall stop whacking you with the Smack-o-Matic, and instead turn our attention to Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum, who is still able to make headlines with teh stoopid:

On Tuesday, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum discussed the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano on Frank Beckman’s radio show. The ruling overturned a decision made by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and two other judges on the 2nd Circuit. Though Santorum made the common conservative claim that all nine justices actually disagreed with Sotomayor, he went further than most, claiming that the liberal justices who dissented, particularly Justices Souter and Stevens, only dissented in order to “protect” Sotomayor:

SANTORUM: I could be wrong on this, but believe it or not, politics does inject itself into the Supreme Court and I think there were probably a lot of justices who may or may not have been on that side of that issue, but came down on that issue that way in a sense to protect her because she knew she was coming on the court, had to make sure she could get on the court. And to me, this should have been a nine-nothing decision.

Ladies and gentlemen, you can now stop wondering why Rick never made it to the Supreme Court, and instead is a former senator.

Not to be outdone, the Con party has replaced an egregiously stupid former senator with an even more stupid current one:

Sen. Jim DeMint (R) of South Carolina yesterday became the first U.S. senator to endorse the military-backed coup in Honduras. He issued a statement denouncing the democratically-elected president and heralding those responsible for the coup as "guarantee[ing] freedom."

The statement comes about a week after DeMint unveiled his own health care plan, which amounted to little more than hundreds of billions of dollars for the insurance companies.

To get a better sense of what this guy all about, consider DeMint's interview with Human Events, a right-wing magazine, to talk about his worldview, which included his belief that "most members of Congress lean socialist."

[snip]

"Democracy cannot work when you have a majority of people dependent on the government. And this is not just the poor. The way we've set up Social Security and Medicare, everyone who retires are dependent, parents are dependent on the government for education of their children and now, if you look at the folks who come through my office -- business people, farmers, bankers -- everybody is coming to Washington to get their piece of the government because we're running all this money through here now."

Just so we're clear, an elected Republican senator believes Social Security, Medicare, and the existence of a public school system are necessarily threats to our functioning democracy.

And just think - he's only one example among many ridiculous fools currently infesting the Senate courtesy of the GOP.

It's a good thing this sort o' burning stupid doesn't release much greenhouse gas. Otherwise, we'd have reached the tipping point at least a year ago, and would now be innundated under several hundred feet of freshly-melted polar ice. Venus would be looking at us right now, saying, "Daaamn, Earth. I've seen some pretty incredible runaway greenhouse effects, but that's extreme."

Pansophic Kitteh Sez: Read This Book

My cat may be homicidal, but she's also a discerning reader. Here she is, drawing your attention to a particularly interesting passage in Guns, Germs and Steel:


I'm not sure which passage it was, alas. Too busy photographing the cat. It looks to be the Epilogue, but I can tell you that the entire book is an excellent read. You'll never see the world in quite the same way again. And it answers that pesky question: why were Europeans the ones who pretty much took over the world?

Bad news for those who wish to believe in the inherent superiority of a subset of humanity, I'm afraid.

For those who haven't read it, but like me spent years intending to, let this be your meaningful nudge: it's a really fucking excellent book. And my cat says you should read it. When a homicidal feline places a meaningful paw on a book and recommends you peruse it, it's probably safest just to do what she says.

In Defense of Demerol; or, Why Woomeisters Shouldn't Jump the Gun

Michael Jackson dies, and the next thing you know, everybody's speculating that Demerol did the deed. Which leads whackjobs to froth at the mouth over Big Pharma's complicity in his death, and Orac to deliver a spanking:

Actually, it's nowhere near certain that this is what happened. In fact, it's highly unlikely, and, as we all know, Jackson's doctor ultimately did turn up and cooperate with authorities. Still, I myself did wonder about reports that Michael Jackson was being injected with intramuscular Demerol. It's something we used to do for pain commonly when I was a resident, but Demerol went out of favor, at least in surgical patients, a long time ago, mainly because it has a lot of side effects, including hallucinations, seizures, and arrhythmias, among others. It's possible that a mixture of prescription drugs could have triggered Jackson's cardiac arrest. However, even if Demerol were the cause of Jackson's death, it would be nothing more than an indication how easily some physicians can enable celebrity drug addicts, not that the pharmaceutical industry caused Jackson's death.

Now, Demerol's no daisy. It's a dangerous drug that must be used wisely. But I'll tell you something: it's my favorite painkiller on the entire planet, and so I feel I have to say a word in its defense. Administered sparingly by competent doctors for the treatment of agonizing pain, it's great stuff. Demerol is a delight when you're suffering a kidney stone. I know this from experience. One minute, wanting to reach for the nearest scalpel to forcibly remove the offending kidney, but too sick and twisted up with intolerable pain to reach one: the next, sitting up in bed happily reading a book while said kidney stone finishes passing. And for me, it didn't have the side effects that morphine does.

So look, it's like any drug: it won't be a cakewalk for everybody, and abuse is a really bad idea. But used in the right setting for the right reasons with the right patient, it's damned helpful.

Besides, before demonizing Demerol, it might be a good idea to wait for the autopsy results. For all we know, MJ might've been taking some super-spiffy herbal remedy that causes cardiac arrest, and my, won't the woomeisters' faces be red then?

Actually, probably not:

Remember one of "Orac's laws"? Specifically, I'm referring to the observation that, whenever a believer in alternative medicine uses both scientific medicine and alt-med and gets better, inevitably she will attibute her good fortune to the alt-med, not the science-based medicine? There's a corollary to that law, namely the reverse: If a patient using both alt-med and scientific medicine dies, it's always the fault of the scientific medicine, particularly if chemotherapy was involved.

Because, you know, herbal remedies can never ever be harmful. Just ask these 100,508 people.

Of course, you'll have to consult a medium to get in touch with most of them...

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Karl Rove flapped his yap again, and the results are highly entertaining:

Karl Rove cracks me up. Consider what he told Fox News this morning:

"This White House has carried pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted events to a new height, and they're getting away with things that in any previous White House, the media would have eviscerated the press secretary and the White House for it."

As a substantive matter, Rove was criticizing the president's forum in Virginia yesterday on health care policy. Amanda Terkel contacted the White House about the logistics of the event, and it turns out, Rove's criticism is just factually wrong.

But it takes an extraordinary amount of chutzpah for Karl Rove to complain about anyone hosting "pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted events."

Perhaps Rove doesn't remember the "Bubble Boy" policies used by Bush White House, but these folks quite literally wrote the book on "pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted events." We're talking about a White House that screened public audiences at public events based on bumper stickers and lapel pins. We're talking about a White House that would limit ticket distribution to presidential events to local Republican Parties, and then still require "loyalty oaths" to get a ticket. We're talking about a White House that would literally rehearse events in advance to make sure attendees said the right things to the president.

And don't forget these greatest hits:

In March 2005, people seeking tickets to a Social Security event were quizzed about their support of President Bush and his Social Security plan ahead of time. In April 2005, Bush’s security detail threw out three people from an event in Colorado because they had a bumper sticker reading “No More Blood For Oil.” White House spokesman Trent Duffy said that if there’s any evidence people might “disrupt the president,” they “have the right to exclude those people from those events.”

Bush even screened the assembled group of soldiers he would meet in Iraq during a 2003 Thanksgiving visit: Soldiers had to fill out a questionnaire asking whether they supported Bush.

Is there a graduate school these fuckwits attend where they learn to perfect their hypocrisy? Or are they just naturally talented?

And let's not forget that the party that likes to preen over their supposed patriotism is the party that practically worships this assclown:

One of the problems with trying to track the flood of wingnuttery emitted daily by Rush Limbaugh is that there's so much of it, and it's so ceaseless, that one becomes overwhelmed trying to keep up with it. But there's been a thread in his commentary this past week that's particularly dangerous, and it needs calling out.

It began on Monday, after the military coup in Honduras. Limbaugh went on the air and said this:

Limbaugh: So we've got hell breaking loose in Honduras. You know what we learned about Honduras? We learned the Obama administration tried to stop the coup. Now what was -- the coup was what many of you wish would happen here, without the military.

The next day, describing Obama talking to troops about the withdrawal from Iraq, he described the president thus:

"This is a guy who sought their defeat."

And then yesterday, he expanded on these thoughts even further:

This is Barack Obama, who led from the United States Senate his party into doing everything he could to ensure the defeat of the U.S. military. ... This party was doing everything it could to impugn and dishonor the military.

This thread of commentary clearly is pushing toward a single thought -- to push people in the armed forces into seeing Obama as a usurper and traitor, just like the Honduran president, and toward the idea that a similar military-based removal of him from office might be justified.

[snip]

Today Limbaugh added to the litany in a much more explicit fashion:

Limbaugh: And if we had any good luck, Honduras would send some people here and help us get our government back.

Let me get this straight. The people who whine and moan and complain about how Obama's Europeanizing America, who foam at the mouth over immigrants, and who all hyperventilated when Obama shook Hugo Chavez's hand don't bat an eyelash when their hero Limbaugh advocates foreign soldiers coming in to overthrow our duly-elected government? Interesting. Could it be because their patriotism is completely fucking fake (h/t)?

What you have, in both cases, is a hustle, a bait and switch, in which one claims to be hawking patriotism, but in fact, is selling jingoism. If patriotism is love of country, then much of the unquestioning GOP rhetoric fails on the rudiments. Is love of kin, love of siblings, love of spouse, telling your beloved, that they are the best person that's ever existed in history? Or is that sycophancy, fast talk proffered by loose friends, who in your darkest hours, appeal to your worst self.

There's a difference between being an actual patriot and an unhinged fucking fanatic. I'll leave you to decide on which side of the line Rush Limbaugh falls while I turn the Smack-o-Matic on another unhinged fucking fanatic (oops, gave away the answer there, didn't I?):

Time's Joe Klein notices that a certain former U.N. ambassador has a preoccupation with bombing a certain Middle Eastern country, and manages to keep finding major newspapers to publish his thoughts on the subject.

In the Washington Post today, screw-loose wingnut extraordinaire John Bolton has a column in which he advocates an Israeli strike against Iran. This would be shocking, except that...

On June 26, Bolton had an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times in which he advocated bombing Iran. And, well, er...

On June 12, he had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he advocated bombing Iran.

And that's just three op-eds in three weeks. We could go back a little further and find Bolton -- in op-eds, on Fox News -- advocating military attacks on Iran for years.

Would you believe this fanatic is unhinged enough to think we'd be welcomed with open arms? He does:

Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people.

Because, as we all know, that's exactly what went so well the last time. I mean, the Iraqis loved us so much for bombing the shit out of their country that they declared a national holiday just to wave goodbye. I'm sure the Iranians would be just as happy if we encouraged Israel to bomb the shit out of their country, too:

Spencer Ackerman suggests there's a problem with Bolton's approach.

Yes, the Israeli bombs will only kill the bad Iranians. When patriotic Iranians of the opposition see Israeli F-16s raining death from above on Iranian targets, Bolton actually expects them to think, "Boom shack-a-lacka! Here come our Israeli liberators! Let them bomb whatever they like, since even though Mir Hussein Moussavi supports a nuclear program as part of a consensus opinion, I believe Israeli propaganda that says it has our best interests at heart! That'll show Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! Did you hear that, Aunt Marjam? Aunt Marjam...?"

If there's one thing that a Bush official should understand, it's that people under attack from a foreign enemy don't rush to embrace their more moderate leaders.

You don't say.

Suppose we shouldn't be too suprised the WaPo gave Bolton a platform for such dangerous dumbfuckery. I guess they took one look at Glenn Beck, decided crazy sells, and are just desperate enough for money that they hoped Bolton would deliver. Y'see, they had another little cash cow in the works:

The Politico reports that the Washington Post, for a price of $25,000 to $250,000, is “offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, non-confrontational access to ‘those powerful few’ — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.” While the Politico notes that on-the-record events and conferences are becoming a trend in the newspaper industry, this type of closed, pay-for-access event raises serious ethical concerns.

Which didn't matter much until news of the scheme broke, and a few folks at the paper realized that the old saw about any publicity being good publicity may be just a little bit untrue:

In light of this morning's revelations, the Washington Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, said he is "appalled" by the proposed "salon," and said the newsroom will not participate in the event. "We do not offer access to the newsroom for money," Brauchli said. "We just are not in that business."

The Post went on to tell staffers that the scheduled event was put together by the corporate office's business operation, without the knowledge of the editors. But just to remove any questions of impropriety, the scheduled "salon" was cancelled altogether this afternoon.

Oh, yeah. Blame it on the business unit. As if heads of other departments were snow fucking white, right? Go on, pull the other one - it's got bells on.

I find it amusing that they were selling access they didn't yet have.

But it's not quite as amusing as Sean Hannity's latest desperate reaching:

Sean Hannity usually just smears President Obama for the things that he says and the policies he puts forth, but on this segment he actually attacks him because someone in the audience had a quacking duck ring tone.

You know that the right is completely fucking deranged when their favoritest faux news outlet is attacking the President of the United States because of a private citizen's ringtone. I mean, we already knew they were deranged. But that, my darlings, is pretty much the epitome of pathetic lunacy. Some kind people need to take Sean off to a nice padded room where he can sleep it off.

Yesterday, we ended Happy Hour with some of the most unhinged, outrageous, and completely disgusting rhetoric ever to come from the right (and that's saying something, considering how unhinged, outrageous and completely disgusting their rhetoric is on a daily basis). We say the spectacle of Michael Scheuer, a former CIA official, pining for Osama bin Laden to come and blow Americans to smithereens, just to teach Americans a lesson, while Glenn Beck nodded happily in agreement. That Steve Benen made a prediction:

I'd just add that there will almost certainly be no consequences for this. Two nutty conservatives can talk about the advantages of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil -- indeed, they can long for it -- without facing any real pushback at all. There won't be any suspensions or boycotts. No sponsors will withdraw. None of Beck's or Scheuer's allies will distance themselves, and neither one will be excluded from polite company.

How right he was:

Yesterday, on Alan Colmes’ radio show, Scheuer made similar comments about the national security stance of the U.S., saying that he doesn’t believe that President Obama wants to protect the country “if it costs him votes”:

COLMES: You don’t think the President of the United States, Barack Obama, cares about protecting this country.

SCHEUER: No, I don’t. Because I don’t think he realizes what the world is like outside the United States. [...]

COLMES: You don’t think he wants to protect the country?

SCHEUER: I don’t think he can, sir. [...]

COLMES: He doesn’t want to protect the country?

SCHEUER: Not if it costs votes.

I just did a Google search for Michael Scheuer. The only condemnation I see is coming from the left. The right, on the other hand, seems perfectly fine with a man calling for Osama bin Laden to blow up Americans. In fact, they're more exercised about quacking duck ringtones than a man calling for a terrorist attack upon the United States of America.

That says all that needs to be said about the priorities of the right.

No, Really, Rep. Chassaniol: You're a Racist

How do we know this? Well, there's the small matter of belonging to a racist organization:

This past weekend, the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) held its annual conference at the Cabot Lodge on the campus of Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss. The “surprise guest,” Mississippi State Sen. Lydia Chassaniol (R-14th District), was introduced by emcee Bill Lord — the CCC’s field director who is known for his racist “Martin Luther Coon” jokes — as “the right hand to the Governor [Haley Barbour].” Lord also identified Chassaniol as a “member” of the CCC chapter in Carroll County, one of a handful of Central Mississippi counties she represents.

In an E-mail, Chassaniol confirmed to Hatewatch that she is a member of the CCC, which she described as a “conservative organization.” She also wrote, “I do not consider myself racist,” adding that she believes “a person’s membership in any organization is a private matter.”

Um, no. When you're a private citizen, that excuse may fly (unless, of course, you work for a corporation, or belong to another organization that's diametrically opposed to having members who belong to racist organizations, or etc.). When you're an elected official, the organizations you belong to become a matter of public interest. Your constituents and the people who vote for you deserve to know if you belong to an organization that says shit like this:

The CCC’s columnists have written that non-white immigration is turning the U.S. population into a “slimy brown mass of glop.” Its website has run photographic comparisons of pop singer Michael Jackson and a chimpanzee. It opposes “forced integration” and decries racial intermarriage for any reason. The CCC has lambasted black people as “genetically inferior,” complained about “Jewish power brokers,” called gay people “perverted sodomites,” and even named the late Lester Maddox, the baseball bat-wielding, arch-segregationist former governor of Georgia, “Patriot of the Century.”

They also deserve to know what sort of talk you gave at the CCC's get-together:

Chassaniol ended her talk by encouraging her listeners to embrace their southern heritage. Describing the CCC as “lone voices crying in the wilderness,” Chassaniol ended on a positive note, “Seeing all of you here today gives me hope.”

Because, you know, in the context of who you were speaking to, that raises some disturbing questions about your fitness to represent a diverse district.

You may not consider yourself a racist, but let me clue you in on something: people who aren't racists don't praise white supremacist groups. They sure as shit don't get hope from seeing them all gathered together.

Verily, Blogger, Thou Art Evil

Why do you insist on putting "Read More!" on every damned post, even the ones that aren't folded?

If anybody has HTML-fu that will allow me to fold a post in Blogger without the plague of fruitless "Read More!"s, please do enlighten me. I want to blather about Star Trek, but put the spoilers below the fold for virgin eyes.

NP Puts Her Thumb On the Scales in the Great "Write What You Know" Debate

Because I'm tired of pollyticks at the moment, we're going to talk about writing. Look, I warned you this would happen. It's right up there in the header for this blog. I can't spend all my time taking the Smack-o-Matic to stupidty.

Well, not merely political stupidty, anyway. There's some writing advice out there that sounds good but is actually, when you get right down to it, kinda stupid. NP puts it succinctly:

Anyone who writes has probably, at one point or another, heard the advice to "write what you know." While on the surface it may be good advice since it means you'll be able to write with knowledge, have you ever thought about how much it limits your writing?

[snip]

There is a balance between "write what you know" and "learn what you write." After all, even people writing fiction based on their own lives need to do some research to make sure their facts are right, and that the details are perfect.

So if research is necessary anyway, why would you limit yourself by only writing what you "know"? Instead, why not write what you want, and do the research you need to in order to become an expert in that field?

Motion seconded even before you start - not that the LiveJournal this was originally posted on even exists anymore:

Now let me turn it on it's head: you don't have to experience it precisely to write it with authority.

Eh? What's that? You can write what you don't know? Isn't that dead against all that write-what-you-know advice?

Yepper.

Let's be utterly realistic here: if we were confined to writing what we know, there would be no fantasy, science fiction, historicals, westerns, spy thrillers (the actual life of a spy is mostly dead boring), or about a billion other types of books currently populating bookstore shelves. In one fell swoop, we destroy countless publishing categories with this rule.

NP and I write completely different books, in completely different styles, but on this matter we sound like carbon copies: take "write what you know" out back, shoot it, and then bury it. Let its rotting corpse feed the thriving tree of extrapolation and damned good research. Sure, write what you know - or can at least convincingly fake after 63 tons of research.

And never, ever not for a second forget what our dear fellow scribbler Glynis had to say about it:

"I think that is the biggest part of being a storyteller, being true to your characters and allowing them to present themselves to readers in ways that speak beyond the limitations of personal experience."

This "write what you know" crap comes up all too often. I'm glad NP gave it a good sharp kick in the nads, and that I have no compunctions about putting the boot in when it's already down. It deserves to be put in its place every now and again.

Look, if what you know makes for great storytelling, then by all means write it. But do not under any circumstances let that "rule" limit you. Write what interests you. Write what the story demands. Do the hard research. Extrapolate extrapolate extrapolate.

Oh, and feel free to give "write what you know" a right sharp kick in the delicates again. I think it's starting to get up.