Rome Recommended

As a preliminary matter, we should note that Prof. Elaine Fantham, who has forgotten more about Rome than we will ever learn, very much liked the first several episodes of HBO's mini-series, Rome, which she reviewed for NPR. We ourselves were intrigued enough by the buzz to order HBO from our cable company. It turns out that to get HBO, you have to get digital. This led to dvr nightmares yet to be fully resolved and the discovery that one simply, cannot, as yet, get the Comedy Channel in our corner of Central Maine. Said fact leads us to curse the darkness on a regular basis, but we digress.

Having upgraded, and prepared the pop corn we settled down Sunday evening to watch Rome. First impression - lots of sex and violence. Generally speaking, we think that Rome was a sexy, violent place, so we're not complaining on historical grounds. And the actors who were doing the sex and violence were quite good looking (and quite good acting) so we hardly complaining on aesthetic grounds. Unfortunately, from a pedogogical perspective, we feel uncomfortable requiring students to watch sexy, violent t.v. clips in class when the scenes are not grounded in specific sources. Darn.

Still, there are scenes we'd very much like to use from the first show. There is an excellent example in a scene where one of the heros of the show, Titus Pullo, a Roman soldier, who is the thoughtful creation of the show's writers, concludes the slaughter of some Gauls by raising the hilt of the sword towards the skies and shouting, "Mars, Mars, look! Look upon this sacrifice I have made for you, only for you." People just don't realize how pius the Romans were - even, perhaps especially, the soldiers and students in a Christian era have no idea what piety in a non-Christian world could look like. It was a thoughtful, interesting touch.

It appears the show is going for an Upstairs, Downstairs meets Colleen McCullough approach. There are no sources that give us the biographies of ordinary Romans (unless you count the Christian Gospels - and this exception doesn't really help) - so the HBO folks have given us fictional biographies that conform to the history we know about soldiers and their lives. For example, the centurian Lucius Vorenus is married. Roman law, until very late in the game, did not allow soldiers serving on active duty to marry - although as a practical matter soldiers, particularly those stationed in stable provinces, often sustained long term relationships with women and had children with them. In, fact, it was not unlike the status of families formed by gay couples in our own day. Socially recognized - legally screwed. The show provides a brief scene where Vorenus explains that he received a dispensation to marry. We're not sure how frequently such dispensations were granted, but the writers at least recognized that he would have to have acquired one. One suspects that HBO couldn't imagine their audience accepting a family values kind of young centurian who lacked the benefits of marriage and thus came up with this solution.

The members of the Roman elite (Pompey, Caesar, Antony) are drawn with some attention to the details of the historical sources, where the sources provide details. Where the sources don't provide details - boy do they go to town (the Colleen McCullough approach). We particularly liked the portrayal of Julius Caesar offered thus far. Caesar belonged to a patrician family (although one whose financial fortunes had rather been on the decline). The actor who portrays him for HBO, Ciaran Hinds, very much portrays him a lordly fellow.

Modern pop history would give you a Caesar as man of the people, confusing his political association with populares (elite politicians who furthered their own political careers by suppporting increasing the legal/social authority of ordinary citizens (male) at the expense of the senatorial elite) with his personal style. Caesar was notoriously popular with the army and the urban mob, but that popularity was due to his brilliant success as a general, which provided his soldiers and the city (and ultimately the mob) with beaucoup de booty, not his "common touch." [To be fair, there are anecdotes about Caesar sleeping in the rough as a common soldier would and enjoying the bawdy teasing his soldiers subjected him to in celebration of their victories - our point, however, still stands.]

The escapades of young Octavian (much less those of his wild and crazy momma) offered in the first episode do not rely on historical sources for their content. But, with one obvious exception, they do not contradict any of the sources we do have and they make for good tv drama. So bravo, HBO, in our opinion. The exception has to do with the representation of a religious ritual Octavian's mother participates in - which appears to be a conflation of rituals associated with Mithras and the Magna Mater and is, well, really wrong. The suggestion that Caesar and Pompey were consuls togther in 52 bce, also suffers from a lack of historical accuracy.

Our attitude with contemporary pop culture's butchering of the details of Roman history, however, can be summed up in two words: "who cares". If the show gets students into the Roman history classes it is up to the professorate to clean up the little messes left behind (we have never complained about the Latin mistakes made in Gladiator, for example). It is easy, in any event, to get the factoids wrong. It is often hard to get that grand concepts (soldierly piety, for example) right. What we cannot forgive is a boring butchery of history (c.f., Alexander), for which there is utterly no excuse and which drives post-pubescent youths into economics classes with a dreary regularity. Ergo, if HBO continues the standard of entertainment it has achieved in the first episode of Rome, we are more than content, we are grateful.

We suspect those not burdened by the study of Roman history will find it quite good fun on Sunday evenings this autumn.

We will win

(cross-posted at skippy's)

Political violence surges in iraq - two-day toll reaches 100;third charter deadline missed - baghdad, aug. 26 -- political violence surged thursday along many of iraq's ethnic and sectarian fault lines, while shiite and sunni arab political leaders haggled past a third deadline without reaching accord on a draft constitution.

Last summer's statement by awol that we can't win the war on terror has been demonstrated to be true, and therefore, has become inoperative. By win, we now mean, exploit U.S. casualties to justify the unconstitutional expansion of executive power. And if most of the U.S. casualties come from blue states - hey what's awol's supposed to do? It's not like he can refuse to count them, like they were iraqi casualties - or Democratic ballots, or anything.

Bush has lost the war in Iraq. Our continued presence in Iraq only increases the possibility of civil war and extensive casualties among u.s. forces and the civilian population.

We Will Win

Mr. Gilliard made a particularly astute observation this morning:

Besides, every roadmarker we have used has failed us. The elections, the consitution, all of it has seen an increase of effective guerrilla activity, not a decrease.

Have you ever seen a paranoid schizophrenic in the throes of his/her disease? Ever time il Ducetto's handlers send him out to talk to angry old white men (the only demographic that seems content to follow him off a cliff) with their warmed over Churchill rhetoric (which is remarkably unpersuasive, perhaps because the parallel to WWII is utterly unconvincing - we are in an unconventional war of choice in which we are the aggressor), don't you think of God's children on city streets telling you how the C.I.A.'s put computer chips in their brains.

But they're Republicans, so the only people paying for their failure are the war dead and injured - and God knows no one in the RNC is related to any of those poor benighted casualties or their families.

Feeling The Noise Machine’s Pain

We come to pity Ann Coulter, not to damn her. We owe our magnanimity to Keith Olberman’s observations about our favorite junkie, Rush Limbaugh:

Understand this about Limbaugh. He doesn’t believe half the junk he spouts. I’ve met him, and had pleasant enough conversations with him, twice - at the 1980 World Series when he was still a mid-level baseball flunky with a funny name, and once in the mid ‘90s at ESPN when he was just beginning his campaign to get a toehold there. He is a quiet, almost colorless man who, if he could be guaranteed similar success in sportscasting, would sell out the sheep who follow his every word - and would do it before close of business today.

Much the same, we think, could be said about Ms. Coulter, whom Olberman skewered rather elegantly (and you can see how at Crooks and Liars), for suggesting that New Yorkers would surrender immediately to terrorists should they arrive in New York. We’re sure all the bereft family members of NYPD/FD officers who died running into the twin towers as they burned to save civilian lives will disagree with Coulter’s assessment of the courage or cowardice of New Yorkers.

How, you wonder, could she have said something so monumentally stupid? She appears to have been running the “fly-paper” line – which, given the stratospheric growth rate of al-Quaeda/jihadi bombings (London being the most recent) since il Ducetto started his excellent Iraqi venture, reveals the typical Red [Talking] Head capacity to be as wrong and as offensive as possible at the same time. There was a day when this ability was highly prized. Fake outrage and outrageousness drove radio and cable news ratings; the networks made money, the Red Heads made money. Everyone was happy.

But it’s a bit like Groundhog Day on acid for the Red Heads now. Every morning, every show, every column (even the plagiarized ones) they have to keep saying the same old stuff to entertain the base (which means “al-quaeda” in Arabic). It was easier in the old days, when Clinton was President, the economy was strong and Americans were fat, dumb and happy. There was no jarring backdrop of, what’s the word – reality? – against which the Red Head’s nonsense would immediately reveal itself to be, well nonsense.

But times have changed, Gentle Reader. Even if the media won’t show us the body bags, folks know that a lot of people are dying in this excellent Iraqi adventure and – as Chris Rock so sagely observed last night on Real Time, gas is getting more expensive every day.

But Ann and Rush and the rest of their Red Head ilk still have to spew the same old excrement every day. It’s not like they can change their tune. It’s not like they have any knowledge or credibility to fall back on. Their only moral authority they possess is that of the role popular culture allowed them back in the days when the cattle were fat. They’re the folks who spew bilious nonsense about politics for our entertainment. They don’t believe what they say and we know they don’t believe what they say – they’re paid to be outrageous – which in the days of fat cattle is funny. If Rush or Ann started saying that Rummy was the most incompetent Secretary of Defense in American history, which would happen to be true – no one would care. They’re not paid because people care about what they think. People just enjoyed the way they ranted when we could afford ranting as a substitute for reasoned political discourse.

We are in the years of want, now. The old reliable jokes about cowardly liberals in New York are, besides being tasteless, just dumb. They are not funny. But every morning the Red Heads have to get up and dish out the same old crap after the body and bomb count headlines are read and become increasingly irrelevant to our lives and our politics. They’re the tattered dime novels, the bare ruined choirs, the old painted whores, the relics of our days of plenty, which we squandered utterly. It is increasingly more difficult for everyone to look at them, and soon enough, no one will bother to listen to them.

You'd almost feel sorry for them.

il Ducetto: Tiberius :: Delatores: FBI informants?

delator: (from about.com )

“Delator - Informant” : Definition: Being a delator could be a lucrative, but much despised profession under the Roman emperors.The delator was an informer or informant. Delatores (the Latin plural of delator) were despised for bringing forth trumped up charges. Often a delator was paid by the emperor to make accusations. Delatores were sometimes paid a fee and sometimes a set portion (one half or one quarter) of the victim's fine.

F.B.I. informant:

U.S. Is Ordered to Investigate Use of Disputed Informant - SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 22 - A federal judge here ordered the Justice Department on Monday to investigate the continued use by the federal authorities of a Yemeni informant even though the man had revealed his undercover status and the names of two F.B.I. agents during a terror investigation in California.

The informant, identified in court as Essam Magid, was discharged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in October 2002, after the improper conduct became known. Even so, Mr. Magid immediately resumed working for the Drug Enforcement Administration, which first recruited him as an informant in 1999 after he was arrested on drug conspiracy charges in a pseudoephedrine case.

Since then, the drug agency has paid Mr. Magid more than $77,000, helped to have the federal drug charges against him dismissed, and vouched for his reliability to other government agencies. Though he described himself as a Christian, Mr. Magid has been regarded as most useful to the authorities when posing in "the Muslim community," it was disclosed in court testimony. [--snip--]

In court testimony, an agent for the F.B.I., Rachel F. Pifer, acknowledged that the bureau continued to have contact with Mr. Magid after he was terminated "because he has provided very good information." Even though he apparently lied to agents about some things, Agent Pifer said, "I trust in the information that he did provide us, yes." [--snip--]

"The D.E.A. is not aware of any information negatively impacting Mr. Magid's ability to testify accurately and truthfully," it said, "and he is regarded as credible and reliable."

In a hearing on Monday, Judge Breyer questioned the accuracy of those characterizations and suggested that Mr. Magid might have committed criminal acts as an informant, including intimidating a witness in a recent drug conspiracy trial in federal court and lying to a judge in small claims court, perhaps at the direction of the drug agency.

They pay him, with your tax dollars, because he's willing to say what they need to get warrants. His credibility is not the characteristic - that is to say his committment to the truth - for which they value him.

They're Just Not That Into You, Girls

We admit, when we first followed Atrios' link to the transcript of Reuel Marc Gerecht's comments on MTP yesterday, our initial reaction was to question the size of Mr. Gerecht's male member. But after a moment or two, we realized that the organ whose size we should question is his soul. Mr. Gerecht, commenting on the possibility (increasingly near certain) that Iraq's constitution will enshrine sharia (islamic religious law) in a way that will effectively deny women equality before the law, basically didn't give the anal orifice of a single rodent if half the population of Iraq is politically oppressed under the new constitution

MR. GERECHT: Actually, I'm not terribly worried about this. I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women's social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there's no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it's important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it's not 1900 and the new constitution will take away legal, political and social rights Iraqi women enjoyed under Saddam. How? The Suburban Guerilla led us to Echidne of the Snakes, who explains: under Saddam, adult women didn't need to get the permission of their husband or father to take a job, for example.

Our very own American ambassador to Iraq helped broker this abortion of a constitution. There was a day when any American, much less an ambassador representing the United States of America would not condemn (much less foster) a political constitution that explicitly oppressed half the citizenry of a country. Well, if you ever doubted, now you know: Zalmay Khalilzad is no Joe Wilson. The air waves have not resounded with the horrified cries of Republicans like Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe or Kay Baily Hutchinson decrying the moral decay and political ineptitude of il Ducetto's minions who allowed this travesty to develop. La Ducetta, that great proponent on increasing the political rights of Muslim women is silent.

Why? Because they're just not that into you, girls. Democracy, as Mr. Gerecht understands it, is really a boys' game. PC conventions (and a constitutional amendment) quaintly require them to pretend that they believe womens' lives and dignity are fully equal to those of men - but they really don't. They'll let us in their democracy tree house - but we better not ask to re-arrange the furniture.

And are you really surprised, ladies? They tell you they don't think you have the right to make decisions about your own body. David Brooks doesn't want you to have your own checking account. It is utterly to be expected that Mr. Gerecht is unconcerned with the fact that over 1800 Americans (and countless - literally - Iraqis) have died so that the Republicans could sell half the population of Iraq down the river for the possibility of a photo-op at which Ambassador Khalilzad would brazenly and falsely claim that another deadline had been met and that il Ducetto had successfully promoted "democracy" abroad.

There was a time when only white men could vote in the American "democracy" and when slavery was legal. We wonder how hard il Ducetto would have fought to prevent Iraqis from creating a comparable "democracy." Ladies, girls just aren't worth the effort. Face it girls, those Republicans are just not that into you.

From the Source

I first read this in a Kos diary. Digby sent me to the original post at Stories in America. The author is a liberal journalist who is driving around America interviewing, il Ducetto’s “base” (the word translates to “al-quaeda” in Arabic).

What do you like about Bush?

He's a praying man of god. He's a family man and he does care. He gets blamed for everything. If this country would turn back to god, things would get better. You can't go on killing babies and allowing homosexual stuff to stay. We do love the people, but we don't love their actions. [--snip--]

What does it mean to be a Republican?

Republicans pick the people who believe like we do.

You mean believe in the Bible?

Yes and godly principles. If we kick god out, we'll be like other countries that have AIDS, sickness and poverty. God created the earth, he created the rules and he knows what's best for everybody.

Unfortunately, we have AIDS, sickness and poverty in this country.

Yes, because we allow homosexuality.

You blame homosexuality for AIDS, sickness and poverty?

Well, sometimes people are innocent. This nation is in trouble. The ACLU are run by communists and funded by communists. What does that tell you? They want to take god away from us.

As a Christian, let us assure Mrs. Fowler that we feel much the same way about you: we hate the horrible and perverse sin you commit by your allegiance to il Ducetto and the Republican party, but as a sister in Christ we love you and pray that you soon will turn away from the evil path on which you walk in willing ignorance. Everyday we pray for sinners like you.

As a queer, let us observe that the Republican Red Christians have cornered the market on political organization through bigotry and hate – even if the blues wished to organize that way, they could never be as effective as Pat Robertson and Karl Rove. So it would it hurt Democrats to call Red politicians on their hatred. Could we run a few candidates in red enclaves who explicitly say things like –

My opponent is going to use a lot of code words in this campaign – he’s going to say that he’s a praying man of god who will keep you safe from queers and end abortion tomorrow. And he’s going to imply that I’m not the Christian he is. Well I’ll just spare him the expense of the attack ads and get it out of the way right now. I am not the Christian he is. I don’t believe in a Jesus who died so we could hate and fear. The Redeemer I pray to is about love and hope and his preachers don’t pretend to have a market on all that is right and wrong with the world – much less their congressional district. So if you let the 700 Club do your thinking about politics for you – and you don’t mind that they seem to think politics is all about hating folks you haven’t met – then you vote for my opponent.

I happen to think you’re better than that. I happen to think you care about why prices for gas are so high and wages aren’t going anywhere even though corporations keep saying their profits are up. I happen to think you care about your kids getting a decent education – by which I do not mean taking a test set by some bureacrat in Washington, D.C. every six weeks. I think you care about getting decent healthcare and wonder why we can afford to pay Halliburton for work it doesn’t do in Iraq when we can’t afford to pay for the medicines our doctors say we need right here at home. I think you care about social security and you’re terrified that all the so-called experts in Washington are willing to ruin your retirment security for the sake of some political game that you’re not even playing. If you want to talk about these issues, great.

If you’d rather pray to a Jesus of fear and hate, you go talk to my opponent – he’s got a lullaby about queers and abortion to sing you to sleep – when you wake up you’ll have lost your social security, Iraq will still be a mess, the schools will be falling apart and all you’ll have left, if your lucky enough to spend your retirement working at Wal-Mart, is the politics of hate he’s stuffed you with. He’s like a child sticking fingers in his ears and shouting, “I can’t hear you,” because he actually can hear you and he’s terrified because he knows he has nothing to say, he’s wrong and he’s been caught. So he’s standing in the corner with he fingers in his ears shouting, “JESUS, QUEERS & ABORTION.” I’ll pray for him, but I’m not going to play his game.

Now if you want to talk about social security, I’ve got something to say to you and I’d appreciate hearing what you think about it…..

Just our opinion. But we note that Paul Hackett appears to have suffered very little by speaking his mind in the reddest corners of Ohio.

If Ratzo Were American, He'd Be A Republican

How do we know? Compelling evidence of aversion to accountability and responsibility:

Pope seeks immunity in Texas abuse case - VATICAN CITY -- Lawyers for Pope Benedict XVI have asked President Bush to declare the pontiff immune from liability in a lawsuit that accuses him of conspiring to cover up the molestation of three boys by a seminarian in Texas, court records show. [--snip--]

Lawyers for abuse victims say the case is significant because previous attempts to implicate the Vatican, the pope or other church officials in U.S. sex abuse proceedings have failed -- primarily because of immunity claims and the difficulty serving Vatican officials with U.S. lawsuits.

It's the Vatican's version of iokiyar. You'd hope then Cardinal Ratzo wouldn't really have helped a child molester escape American justice. And had he committed such a grievious sin, you'd pray he'd welcome the opportunity to confess and atone. And more than anything you hope his defenders don't say something as stupid as, "the Pope has the same rights as anyone else to a vigorous defense," to justify Pope Ratzo's effort to escape scrutiny on a technical defense of immunity and jurisdiction. Because then you'd have to say, "fine, then both people of faith and people who do not define themselves by their religious faith have every right to consider him the Vatican's answer to Ken Lay."

Sheehan & Schiavo

Last night Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper sagely agreed that the scene surrounding the death of Terry Schiavo and the scene surrounding Mrs. Sheehan in Crawford are quite similar. Other than the presence of media and a controversial topic, they could provide no evidence in support of their observation. The practically perfect partner and we were in some disagreement about Aaron's easy analogy. The PPP felt that the true analogy was between Mrs. Schiavo and Casey Sheehan and the structural question was, "who may speak for the dead (or brain dead)." The media interest in the Schiavo case arose because of the conflict between two parties (parents and husband) we normally defer to socially and the effort of the church (and politicians willing to exploit religion) to resolve the conflict by an appeal to its own institutional authority (which appeal, presumably, would increase its own, admittedly fading, institutional authority).

The Sheehan case, accordingly, is not analogous to the Schiavo case, because there is no other party contending for the right to speak for Casey Sheehan whose claim we, as a society, would instinctively defer to. (Note, for the example, the revulsion Ms. Malkin's efforts to speak for Mr. Sheehan have aroused.) Thus the groups that oppose Mrs. Sheehan can only hope to silence her by demonizing her, but can't find a grieving family member to exploit for their own purposes as they did in the Schiavo case.

We disagree to a degree with the PPP. We think that the analogy is properly made between Mrs. Schiavo and Mrs. Sheehan. The issue is not who may speak for those who can't speak for themselves, but two competing visions of the cultural role of woman. Red Christians loved Mrs. Schiavo so much precisely because she didn't speak - which is what their idealized women do - which is to say, not participate as full members of the political order of their society. The venom the Red Christians directed at Mr. Schiavo arose not simply because he disagreed with their religious answers to end of life questions, but because as a husband, he attempted to honor his wife's wishes - that is to grant her the authority to make decisions for herself. Mr. Schiavo did not simply allow his wife's life to end in violation of divine law, for these folks, he gave support to the dangerous notion that women are capable of thinking, speaking and acting for themselves. And that their decisions deserve to be respected, even when they become incapable of effectuating them, themselves.

Mrs. Sheehan represents a nightmare vision of the feminine for the Reds. She is a woman who speaks for herself, claiming a right to participate in the political order on her own terms. And there is no man around who can silence her. About to be divorced and bereft or her son, she is utterly unconstrained by the social roles through which red men can control their women. And the problem is, no one denies what she says is true. Polls say that most Americans believe that the war in Iraq isn't worth it. Mrs. Sheehan says that the war in Iraq wasn't worth her son's life. Does anyone doubt that she is sincere in this belief? A minority of American's may disagree with her, but other than the keyboard commandos, who will be so tasteless as to say - "Hey, Mrs. Sheehan, it was worth it to me that your son died as I sit safely behind my computer urging on this bloody failure."

Which is why the Republicans are so freaked. Because Mrs. Sheehan is only speaking the truth as most Americans understand it. No wonder il Ducetto runs from her in his big black, smoked glass SUV, to the comfortable embrace of millionaire donors whose own sons and daughters will never hear a shot fired because of il Ducetto's anger. Like a spoiled child runs to his mother, il Ducetto runs to his donors - because he doesn't want the truth. He can't handle it. The delicious irony is that the more he runs from Mrs. Sheehan, the more Americans get to observe the political spectacle of a grieving mother attempting to speak the truth to a leader, whom the spectacle reveals, every night on tv, to be a frightened, childish man, terrified by the truth.

Republican Ethics

Judge Heard Terrorism Case As He Interviewed for Seat - Judge John G. Roberts Jr. was interviewing for a possible Supreme Court nomination with top Bush administration officials at the same time he was presiding over a terrorism case of significant importance to President Bush. [--snip--]

Roberts met with Gonzales on April 1, six days before hearing oral arguments in the case, which resulted in a unanimous decision in favor of the administration. Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, a top Gonzales deputy, argued the case on behalf of the administration.

One month later, with the case in progress, Roberts was summoned to the White House for a meeting with Vice President Cheney, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, among others. Bush conducted the final face-to-face interview on July 15 -- the same day Roberts and two other judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the ruling in the case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

Funny, the Code of Conduct for United States Judges suggests that Judge Roberts was unethical.

CANON 2. - A JUDGE SHALL AVOID IMPROPRIETY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY IN ALL OF THE JUDGE'S ACTIVITIES.

A. A judge should respect and comply with the law and should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.

B. A judge should not allow family, social, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment. A judge should not lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of others; nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge. A judge should not testify voluntarily as a character witness.

[--snip--]

CANON 3. - A JUDGE SHALL PERFORM THE DUTIES OF JUDICIAL OFFICE IMPARTIALLY AND DILIGENTLY.

A. Judicial Duties in General. The judicial duties of a judge take precedence over all the judge's other activities. The judge's judicial duties include all the duties of the judge's office prescribed by law. In the performance of these duties, the following standards apply. [--snip--]

C. Disqualification.

(1) A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, .....

Now the ethically challenged reds are going to tell you that Roberts was going to uphold military detention whether or not his promotion depended on it - he's just that kind of guy. Besides it's trivial and they've got the votes anyway. And they're going to tell you he's such an obviously honorable, handsome, Christian, kind of family guy that it's down right rude to complain that he didn't give the anal orifice of a single rodent for the "appearance of impropriety" when he interviewed for a job with a guy who had a case pending before him and declined to disclose the conflict or recuse himself. But the real reason the Republicans are going to win this ethical argument is because of the great unwritten addendum to all canons of ethical conduct: iokiyar.

The future ain’t gonna happen here

In the 90’s the FCC announced that broadcast television had to go digital by 2006. You can buy a 27” flat screen hdtv on Amazon today for $300. The prices will only go lower when China starts producing them. We know cars are more complex products than high definition televisions, but we do wonder why, given that the technology exists for hybrids to get 200 plus mpg, someone in Congress doesn’t propose a law requiring all new cars use hybrid technology by 2015. Of course, sometime in the 22nd century, Congress will need to pass a law requiring fuel cell technology for cars. But in the meannwhile, Pudentilla would happily pay to fill up her tank every two months rather than every week. In fact, at current prices, we'd be happy to simply double or triple our milage. We suppose it would help to have a Congress and a White House that hadn’t been bought and paid for by Big Oil.

Roosevelt Sent His Wife

Like many, we have been following the confrontation between Mrs. Sheehan and il Ducetto with some interest. The political theater here resonates quite a bit - Henry II and Thomas Beckett, for example. (Anyone interested in what academics will do with this little moment in American history a few generations from now will enjoy reading Victor Turner's Forest of Symbols and Dramas, Fields and Metaphors. Turner writes beautifully and accessibly and his analyses of Hildago and Becket are captivating.)

Mrs. Sheehan's drama recalled earlier and later political dramas for us. Sir Francis Bacon, for example, famously recalled the story of Demetrius of Macedon, who had to be reminded of his royal duties by a humble citizen:

162. Demetrius, King of Macedon, had a petition offered him divers times by an old woman, and still answered, “he had no leisure.” Whereupon the woman said aloud, “Why then give over to be king.”

It seems to us that if il Ducetto doesn't have the leisure to meet with Mrs. Sheehan, while on vacation, he'll never have it. In which case, we all may conclude that the boy king's notion of his duty is so limited that he, perhaps, should give over his office. What amazes us most, is that Karen and Karl haven't played the Laura card. It is probably too late now to play that card, but had la Ducetta walked down the road to Mrs. Sheehan's camp, telling reporters something to the effect of, "any mother fears her grief, of course I'll go and sit with her and offer what comfort I can," Mrs. Sheehan would have been effectively trumped in this confrontation. She could not have continued to call out Georgie without seeming ungracious to Laura. And the capacity that is being tested here is graciousness - the ability to give freely of one's emotional resources to comfort another's emotional needs. One hopes one's leaders have some measure of graciousness. One doubts their worthiness to lead if they lack it.

Had il Ducetto and his minions sent la Ducetta to meet with Mrs. Sheehan, he would have followed in the footsteps of Franklin Roosevelt - a slightly later example of a leader confronted by the challenge of a humble citizen. When some veterans of WWI camped outside Washington, D.C. during the Great Depression to protest for bonuses they had been promised, the Republican President, Herbert Hoover, sent the army to drive out the vets and burn down their camps. After Roosevelt's election, WWI vets again assembled in D.C. to demand their bonuses. The Democratic President sent Mrs. Roosevelt. The vets dispersed peacefully, one ruefully remarking, Hoover sent the army, Roosevelt sent his wife. Roosevelt opposed the payments the vets sought, but offered the vets slots in a variety of New Deal programs that met the economic needs that had prompted the protests in the first place.

Rather than follow in the footsteps of a truely great leader, however, il Ducetto sent Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin (and here) - to trash the grieving mother.

Economics For The DIY Set

We decided to drive to Kittery today in search of a rug for the room we recently reno'd. While we found some intriguing possibilities, the prices - even at outlet prices - were higher than what we'd pay at Marden's for comparable rugs, if they had ones we liked, which they do not happen to have at the moment. So we decided not to buy. Marden's is a Maine institution wherein one can be excellent products purchased from the stock of failed retailers. There motto is actually accurate - "I shoulda bought it when I saw it at Marden's" [pronounced, "Mahden's"]. We'll swing by on Sunday's for the next couple of weeks until we find one we like.

On the way home we realized that we had spent about $13 not to purchase a rug. As it happened we needed to fill up our 97' Subaru, which gets 24/25 mpg. We spent about $26 for 10 plus gallons. The trip there and back used about half a tank - bear in mind that you can find anything you want if you live in Central Maine - as long as you're willing to drive more than an hour to get it. Now god has been good to Pudentilla and had she realized the cost of gas was adding $13 to the shopping trip, the knowledge would not have stopped her from buying a rug - if she found what she wanted at a reasonable price. But as we sped back home along the turnpike, we wondered, "just what do folks with kids do when gas prices are this high and back to school shopping is around the corner."

The people wonder why il Ducetto isn't getting a poll bounce from the "good" economic news of late, we suspect, are pretty darned well-to-do.

Free Advice

If you spend an entire week on a home reno project - strip the wall paper, patch, skim coat and sand the walls, install and prime the molding, three coats of paint - and decide when cleaning up to really go to town - dusting, polishing, etc., we'd suggest, based on our own experience, that you flip the mattress and dress the bed and windows before you polish the floors (which in your enthusiasm and delight as the end of the project nears you will do perhaps excessively). Otherwise, you will risk life and limb as you slide around the room, trying to get the fitted sheets on, when you are really, really tired.

Connecting the Dots

We read yesterday on Crooks and Liars that Old Man-0n-Dog yesterday re-asserted that gay sex is never consensual. We're gay as a goose, and thus feel quite comfortable in assuring our straight readers that Senator Rickey is, well, wrong. But why would he say this?

Well, we're pretty tired from the latest home reno project (a warning Gentle Reader, if you wall-paper, you're going to do time in purgatory, as far as Pudentilla is concerned), so it took a link from the Suburban Guerrilla to connect the dots. Basically, the story cited says that boys gay-bash when their masculinity is challenged. Which is not why we think Senator Rickey fag-bashes. But thinking about the study and its conclusions (and, as we're sure all the girls said when they read the story, "they needed a study to figure that out?") led us to the following speculation.

Maybe he gay-bashes because he either screws guys or really wishes he could. Now if Rickey's real about his Catholic identity, then if he screws guys, he's sinning big-time. We don't think that Rickey wanting to screw guys is, theologically speaking, a sin - but we wouldn't be surprised if, culturally speaking, Old Man-On-Dog feels like he's sinning when he finds himself surprised by joy, so to speak.

Remember Bill Clinton's insistence that oral sex wasn't "real sex" didn't count (an assessment shared by about 30% of college students and god knows how many 50-something men) - self serving, to be sure - but no doubt a sop to whatever guilt he felt (if any) about doing the nasty with Monika. If Slick Willy had to take such moral dodges, you can be darned sure that Old Man-on-Dog will go to the mattresses, if you will, to deal with his guilt about going on the down low with cute young Navy guys in D.C. hotels while his wife is busy home-schooling his spawn about abortion back in Virginia with Pennsylvania tax-payer dollars.

Hence the insistence that gay sex can't be consensual. Because, it obviously doesn't count if you don't do it willingly. Naughty, boy, Rickey. But, give him some credit, folks, he amply over-compensates with all the gay-bashing.

Which leads us to another question, do Republicans gay bash so much because they're the party of men who are insecure in their own masculinity (and their wives?).

Republican Contempt Junkies

We know we should not be surprised, but we confess, we are still wrapping our mind around the fact that Rush Limbaugh, who avoided service in the Vietnam war through an anal cyst, would call a marine who served in Iraq a "civilian affairs puke" - any kind of puke, really. It's old news that the Reds are terrified that the populace at large will start to notice that duty, honor, bravery and loyalty are sufficiently rare virtues that they tend not to be partisan in nature. Once that observation is made, the citizenry may notice that while the Reds talk alot about these virtues, and indeed claim a partisan monopoly on them, the Reds, in fact, are more show than go.

Even more than they fear the collapse of their claims to have cornered the virtues market, and the consequences of that collapse,however, the Reds are addicted to the emotion of contempt. Expression of contempt for what they don't understand (and we realize that the number of things the Reds don't understand is legion) and therefore fear is the defining psychological and rhetortical characteristic of Reds.

We used to believe that there were Republicans who were not Reds. But, awash in the waves of silence from Republican leaders in response to Rush's comment, and il Ducetto's assertion that intelligent design should be taught with the theory of evolution (no dynamite involved, but is that claim really very different in kind from the Taliban's decision to blow up the Bamiyan Buddahs?), we no longer believe the distinction is worth maintaining. They're all Reds, they're all contempt junkies, and they're all pukes.

Spreading Our Wings

Hey, we hit 20,000 hits yesterday. Nothing on Skippy or Scorpio, but not bad for a Latin teacher in Centeral Maine. agimus vobis gratias, friends.

When they write the history of the fall of the American Republic


They’ll spend at least a chapter on the corruption of the media. But the sheer incompetence of the press should be worth five or ten pages as well. Last night we listened to Fresh Air and heard Adam Liptak of the NYT and Ann Marie Squeo of the WSJ dish dirt about the Rove case. We applaud Terry for covering the topic, and perhaps we were a tad cranky, having spent the day skim coating walls in the bedroom, but we about screamed when we heard the exchange on the 12 hour delay between notification to Gonzalez of an investigation and notice to WH employees not to shred anything. Bottom line? “Oh, there’s nothing sinister there. No one’s alleged anything was shredded. No story, forget about it.”

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Never Has One President Done So Much

for scholars of ancient civlizations. "What," classicists ask themselves on more than four occasions, "was it like to be an intelligent, thoughtful person in the court of Nero or Commodus?" And thanks to il Ducetto, we have a clue.

Bush: Schools should teach 'intelligent design' - Views the theory as part of creation of life studiesWASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Monday he believes schools should discuss "intelligent design" alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life. [--snip--]

On other topics during the group interview, the president [R]efused to discuss the investigation into whether political aide Karl Rove or any other White House official leaked a CIA officer's identity, but he stood behind Rove. "Karl's got my complete confidence. He's a valuable member of my team," Bush said.

Does anyone know if the president is a fan of professional wrestling? We ourselves explicitly reject violence as the solution to any social or political problem. But, given our profession, we worry about the portents.

In the absence of a chorus of dismay from Republican politicians and educators, we conclude that the Comintern's place in history will not withstand the challenge mounted by the Bushies.

A man of many parts

Rick Santorum in addition to being a hypocritcal, mendacious bag of excrement, also appears to be a former parishioner of a pedophilic priest. Funny he didn't blame his fellow parishoners for the culture of evil they promoted and which, according to man-on-dog Ricky, must have led to the priest-on-boy sinning.

Morally and Politically Corrupt

via Atrios, we learn that the Toledo Blade has published an extensive analysis of the efforts by police in Ohio to help bishops protect priests who sexually molested children. But, remember, Gentle Reader, it's the corrupt liberal culture in Boston that made the cops cover up the priestly sodomizing of children. Senator Rickey, has told us so himself: (transcript via Think Progress)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s move on to another controversy you stirred up, the question of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church. You made a statement in July 2002 which has drawn a lot of fire.
You said, in a publication called Catholic On-Line, When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While there’s no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

You’ve reaffirmed that just a couple of weeks ago. Ted Kennedy, John Kerry say you have to apologize. Mitt

Romney, Republican governor, says basically you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Do you still stand by that statement?

SANTORUM: Look, the statement I made was that the culture influences people’s behavior. I don’t think anyone…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Isn’t that what conservatives used to say about liberals, when they used to say they were trying to excuse criminals?

SANTORUM: I think what I’m saying is that the culture of liberal sexual freedom and the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s had a profound impact on everybody and their sexual mores. It had a profound impact on the church.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you singled out Boston in…

SANTORUM: I singled out Boston in 2002. In July of 2002, that was the epicenter. We did not know…

STEPHANOPOULOS: That is simply not true. I went back and looked at all of these clips. We had stories in 1994, going back all the way to 1984 in Louisiana, in just about every archdiocese in the country.
I just don’t understand why you stick by this, because we now know it was widespread. It was in every city in the country.

SANTORUM: Well, at the time, we did not know it was in every city of the country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We knew a lot of that.

SANTORUM: It was — look at the press reports. It was the epicenter.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I have them right here.

SANTORUM: I think it’s taking it out of context…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1994, it cites instances of abuse in Santa Fe and Chicago, as well as Lafayette, Louisiana, and Camden, New Jersey. 1994.

SANTORUM: I understand that it was in other places. All I’m talking about, at the time, what everyone was focused on at the time was Boston.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you stand by it?

SANTORUM: Look, I will admit that Boston is — that using Boston at the time was appropriate. Now, I would not say it would be appropriate. I would say that Boston right now would — we’d say a whole lot of other cities in the country and a whole lot of problems.
But if you read the article, that was one of about four or five things that I said…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I did read it.

SANTORUM: … and I talked about the problems within the church.
I wrote the article in 2002. Ted Kennedy and John Kennedy wrote no articles in 2002 criticizing this church. I went out and talked to bishops. I went out and talked to cardinals. I was very concerned. I was offended and hurt by a church that betrayed me by not doing what they should have done, and I was angered by that, and I spoke out about it, and I spoke loudly about it.

The senators from Massachusetts did nothing. They spoke nothing. They sat by and let this happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re standing your ground.

Let’s talk…

SANTORUM: And I’m standing my ground because I tried to fight to change the church.

We don't think little Rickey fought hard enough or for the right things. Of course, he was not alone.