Belle Waring

With the intention of writing some high-minded “whither chicks in the blogosphere” post, I once conducted a tally like Henry’s (referenced here.) Result: ain’t a whole lot of women academics blogging. (Or women blogging on politics). This subject gets raised and rather fruitlessly discussed periodically, and it generally founders on the rocky shoals of some more basic, also unanswered questions, such as: why do women not speak up in seminars? Why aren’t women interested in reading Talking Points Memo? How come the man is keeping everybody down? And so forth. I really don’t have much to add from a general perspective here, but I wanted to offer a personal reflection.

There are many contexts in which I find myself acting in a way stereotypically associated with guys. I like getting into arguments. I like pointless logico-philosophical hair-splitting. I like one-upsmanship involving rare 7-inch LPs. I like comic books. Along certain axes, this translates into the irreducible fact that I am a nerd. Yes, chicks can be nerds.

Evidence? I am a blogger. Strictly speaking, this is merely a tautological statement to the effect that I am a nerd. Still, if you need convincing, let me just go all out and reveal that as a teenager I wrote Elfquest fanfic involving me and my three best friends. And drew pictures. D&D? Awww, yeah. Rock me with a natural 20, people. I got mad charisma.

My sister is the same way. You can learn about her badness here. She started playing MMPG’s as a gender-neutral pseudonym, but changed to a girl name when it became apparent that male players would just give her various magical weapons and such. Even guys in NOr

OMG! It’s recently been brought to my attention that I’ve only written one post for CT this whole month! That’s, like, totally weak! Under our new posting rules, I’m going to be bringing my A game, every single day. “No Scrubs” is going to be playing in my cubicle 24-7. And if I slack off, dsquared is going to subject me to ferocious Welsh discipline, of the sort handed out at the gloomy Welsh “public” school he attended starting at age 3. (I can’t go into it here, but it involves leeks. And that white jack thingy from bowls.) Let’s see…um…there must be something out there on the interweb. Here we go, something funny a straight white guy said!:

I’m glad the press is having a dance party with this, because God knows the Democrats are frozen at the steering wheel. I just saw a segment on MSNBC (which has been all over the Kerik story today, bless Rick Kaplan’s cyborg heart) pitting a Republican strategist against a Democratic one, and the Democratic spokesman–who goes by the name of Michael Brown–seemed to have washed down his weeny pills with warm Ovaltine. Instead of kicking Kerik and Giuliana between the uprights for three points, Brown fretted that vetting process for cabinet candidates was “going to far,” and that we were in danger of discouraging people from public service. Oh no, we wouldn’t want to discourage philandering, pocket-lining, deadbeat no-show bully-boys like Bernard Kerik from having the opportunity to muck around with our civil liberties in the name of “national security” and hold bigshot press conferences. I mean, if that sort of thing were to continue happening, people might start mistaking the Democrats for an opposition party and thinking that the press has an adversarial role to play, and we don’t want that to happen, it might actually lead to signs of life in that mausoleum we call the nation’s capital.

This Michael Brown wouldn’t even criticize Alberto Gonzalez for botching the background check and vetting of Kerik. I don’t understand the self-emasculation of so many Democratic strategists, what they’re afraid of, why they concede so much in advance. Give them an opening, and they close it like a silk kimono, ever so demure. What are they in politics for, the professional grooming tips?

You know, James Wolcott could be totally gay. I’m agnostic on this front. I know, I’ll ask one of my male co-bloggers! They know so much stuff, it’s awesome. Guys? Oh, and, does anyone want a coffee?

Speaking of spirituality designed to get one out of going to church, I offer you the following passage from Stephen Potter’s superlative Lifesmanship. This could very well come in handy if you are ever invited to the sort of English country house where everyone is expected to go to church on Sunday. (I know little about such things, but my reading of Wodehouse leads me to additionally suggest that you not get involved in a church fête of any kind, in any capacity.) Potter:

The man who lets it be known that he is religious is in a strong life position. There is one basic rule. It is: go one better. Fenn went too far. This is his method–in his own words:

To take the most ordinary instance, the simple Sunday churchgoer. “Are you coming to church with us?” my host says. It is a little country church, and my host, Moulton, who has some claims to be a local squire, wants me to come, I know, because he is going to read the lesson. He reads it very well. He enjoys reading it. I heard him practising it to himself immediately after breakfast.

“Yes, why don’t you come to church for once, you old sinner?” Mrs. Moulton will say.

Do not mumble in reply to this: “No, I’m afraid…I’m not awfully good at that sort of thing…my letters…catch post.”

On the contrary, deepen and intensify your voice, lay your hand on her shoulder and say, “Elsa” (calling her by her Christian name for perhaps the first time):

“Elsa, when the painted glass is scattered from the windows, and the roof is opened to the sky, and ordinary simple flowers grow in the crevices of pew and transept–then, and not till then will your church, as I believe, be fit for worship.”

Not only does this reply completely silence opponent; but it will be possible to go out and win ten shillings on the golf course, come back very slightly buzzed from Sunday pre-lunch drinks, and suggest, by your direct and untroubled look, before which their glance may actually shift, that your host and hostess, however innocently, have only been playing at religion.

Potter is a genius, and it seems his books are coming back in print! Now millions more can learn those methods of winning without actually cheating so dear to my heart and to those of fellow Yeovil alums.

My dear, dear, deluded fellow Timberteers. Pumpkin pie is not replusive. Pumpkin pie is a silken cloud of holiday deliciousness. Last night I served the full Thanksgiving dinner to 16 people, many of whom, being British or Australian or Spanish or some such nonsense, had never eaten pumpkin pie before, though they had heard of this fabled treat. To a man and woman, they all thought it was delicious. Delicious, I say! Of course, it was a totally unorthodox pie actually made of kabocha squash. I adapted this recipe from the NYT and let me tell you, it will knock your socks off.

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On the occasion of Arafat’s death, I am going to share a very personal reminiscence. When my older daughter Zoë was about 14 months old, she could not talk reliably, but she could make her preferences known with gestures. Naturally enough, given the interests of very young children, she liked to pretend that various people (dolls, stuffed animals, photographs) were nursing. This was all well and good, until she presented me with a folded page from the Economist displaying side-by-side photographs of Sharon and Arafat, and then held them up to my breasts to suggest that I nurse them. It was a little difficult to explain why I was fine with the random dude in the Gulf Air ad, but resolutely opposed to nursing either gentleman in the Middle East Politics Article. Zoë’s political acumen has increased in the intervening years, however. (She is now 3). I tried to explain to her why I was so dismayed about the recent U.S. elections, telling her of the great powers of the presidency, the relative merits of the two contenders, and so on. She thought for a moment, and then said, “you think George Bush is too stupid to have so much wesponsibility?” Yes, child. Exactly that. Plus malice.

The provisional Iraqi government has declared a 60-day state of emergency in the run-up to an all-out assault on Falluja (pop. 300,000) by US Marines.

Heavy explosions were heard in Baghdad as government spokesman Thair Hassan al-Naqeeb announced the state of emergency over the entire country except Kurdish areas in the north.

“It is going to be a curfew. It is going to be so many things, but tomorrow the prime minister will mention it,” he said. Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi will give more details Monday, he said.

Al-Naqeeb declined to say whether the announcement signaled an imminent attack on the insurgent stronghold Fallujah, saying, “We have seen the situation is worsening in this area. Any obstacle will be removed.”

“So many things.” I can hardly wait to hear more. For some reason this reminds me of the quote from Arafat when asked why he had to have eight different security services: he looked surprised and answered, “Why, Hosni Mubarak has 12.” Middle Eastern politics are so reassuring. Here’s to hoping the state of emergency lasts only 60 days.

Mark Steyn promises to resign if Kerry is elected.

Having failed to read correctly the mood of my own backyard, I could hardly continue to pass myself off as a plausible interpreter of the great geopolitical forces at play. Obviously that doesn’t bother a lot of chaps in this line of work — Sir Simon Jenkins, Robert ‘Mister Robert’ Fisk, etc., — and no doubt I could breeze through the next four years doing ketchup riffs on Teresa Heinz Kerry, but I feel a period of sober reflection far from the scene would be appropriate. My faith in the persuasive powers of journalism would be shattered; maybe it would be time to try something else — organising coups in Africa, like the alleged Sir Mark Thatcher is alleged to have allegedly done; maybe abseiling down the walls of the Presidential palace and garroting the guards personally.

I doubt he’s quite up to it, but at least his heart’s in the right place.

I highly recommend this thoughtful post from hilzoy at Obsidian Wings about this wretched little column from Richard Cohen. In it, he heaps scorn on O’Reilly accuser Andrea Mackris for not bitch-slapping O’Reilly the minute he got out of line (and losing her job, no doubt). From Cohen:

Whether Mackris was aware of her power is impossible for me to say. But I can say that she never went to Fox’s human resources department to complain about O’Reilly. She never seemed to realize that by not complaining and, more specifically, by going to dinner with him, to his hotel room and then, upon returning to Fox News, accepting assignments and a salary increase not given to others, she was hardly telling O’Reilly that she found his behavior thoroughly repugnant, as she says in her lawsuit. I almost pity O’Reilly. Off camera, he must be a bit slow.

As hilzoy says:

…there is something quite odd about pretending not to understand in this case. People who have to deal with sexual harassment are already victimized, whether or not they are “mere victims”. I, for one, thought it was completely unfair that I had to walk through this minefield just in order to be able to talk to a professor about something I needed to know about. Most students did not have to do that, nor (for that matter) were they ever groped by professors at parties, or asked out by them. Lucky them. Unlucky me. I imagine that Andrea Mackris (if the allegations are true) found it unfair that she had to tolerate Bill O’Reilly’s repulsive fantasies in order to advance professionally. Most people don’t have to put up with that sort of thing at all; if the allegations are true, she did, and that’s unfair. It is unfair that what other people are able to achieve by normal means, victims of sexual harassment can only achieve by listening to their bosses’ bizarre sexual comments, or worse. But it would be doubly unfair to insist that victims of sexual harassment be prepared not just to sit through that stuff, but actually to do things that might cost them their jobs, before we will let them bring suit against those who harass them without writing snarky little columns about their complicity.

Word. I usually think that men who write this kind of thing are unaware of the unpleasant things a seemingly normal man might say in such a situation, but Cohen obviously doesn’t have that excuse. It’s clear that he’s never been in this situation, and had to make the careful calculations of whether to go see someone in his office, how to consistently turn down invitations to coffee, and what to say when things take a turn for the nasty. It’s also clear that he lacks imagination and empathy.

An interesting, if disturbing, post from Phil Carter of Intel Dump; the Army is deploying the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq. This regiment usually serves as the opposition force in training exercises intended to toughen new soldiers. He links to this LA Times article, but comments:

The article misses the most important point: deploying the OPFOR is like eating your seed corn. This unit is responsible for training other units and raising their level of expertise and combat readiness. The 11th ACR is being replaced by a National Guard unit. That’s like replacing the Dodgers with a high school baseball team. Sure, they can both play baseball and wear the uniform — but one is a whole lot more proficient and experienced at its job. The OPFOR has a reputation as a tough enemy, and that’s a good thing because it forces units training at the NTC to become better themselves. By replacing this unit with National Guard troops, the Army has hurt its ability to produce good units for Iraq in the future. Suffice to say, National Guard and active units that go through Fort Irwin aren’t going to get the same tough experience they would have with the Blackhorse regiment as OPFOR — and that means they’ll be less ready for combat when they get to Iraq. This is a desperation measure, and I think the Army will come to regret it.

Remind me again about how the best way to ensure we don’t have a draft is to vote for Bush?

An unusual and welcome article in today’s Washington Post about a split between homegrown Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters in Fallujah.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities together have insisted that if Fallujah is to avoid an all-out assault aimed at regaining control of the city, foreign fighters must be ejected. Several local leaders of the insurgency say they, too, want to expel the foreigners, whom they scorn as terrorists. They heap particular contempt on Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose Monotheism and Jihad group has asserted responsibility for many of the deadliest attacks across Iraq, including videotaped beheadings.

“He is mentally deranged, has distorted the image of the resistance and defamed it. I believe his end is near,” Abu Abdalla Dulaimy, military commander of the First Army of Mohammad, said….

Among the tensions dividing the locals and the foreigners is religion. People in Fallujah, known as the city of mosques, have chafed at the stern brand of Islam that the newcomers brought with them. The non-Iraqi Arabs berated women who did not cover themselves head-to-toe in black — very rare in Iraq — and violently opposed local customs rooted in the town’s more mystical religious tradition. One Fallujah man killed a Kuwaiti who said he could not pray at the grave of an ancestor.

If the city could be pacified before the elections without a large-scale assault, that would be a very good thing.

From the Washington Post: “Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels“. Maybe we should just start making lists of people who are well-informed about economics, the situation in Iraq, civil liberties, etc. and aren’t shrill. It would save the Shrillblog time.

The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.

“We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness,” he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. “We never had enough troops on the ground.”

Now, though, Karl Rove has his balls in a vise everything is fine: “I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq,” he said in an e-mailed statement. He said all references in recent speeches to troop levels related to the situation when he arrived in Baghdad in May 2003. He added “please don’t hurt my family, Karl” that he “strongly supports” President Bush’s reelection.

Erstwhile (and deeply missed) blogger Katherine has returned to Obsidian Wings with a very important post. Under cover of the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004”, House Republicans are attempting to pass a law which would legalize “extraordinary rendition” — the practice of deporting foriegn-born suspects to a country which practices torture, in order to get information our government feels it cannot extract legally. From a press release sent to Katherine by the staff of Rep. Edward Markey (a Massachusets democrat who has sought to ban such extraordinary rendition):

The provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue new regulations to exclude from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any suspected terrorist – thereby allowing them to be deported or transferred to a country that may engage in torture. The provision would put the burden of proof on the person being deported or rendered to establish “by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured,” would bar the courts from having jurisdiction to review the Secretary’s regulations, and would free the Secretary to deport or remove terrorist suspects to any country in the world at will – even countries other than the person’s home country or the country in which they were born. The provision would also apply retroactively.

This provision was not part of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, and the Commission actually called upon the U.S. to “offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors.”

It’s difficult for me to express what a terrible, immoral piece of legislation this is. This is a shameful and cowardly attempt to sneak language legalizing the outsourcing of torture into a bill claiming to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. Katherine urges bloggers to link to this post, and US readers to contact their representatives and object to this harmful measure (Markey is sponsoring an amendment to remove this provision). If the blogosphere really has any ability to break stories, we should be spending our firepower here. I’m willing to bet this law won’t get passed if it is publicized before passage, but it might get through in some hasty, last-minute bill passing if it is overlooked. Don’t let it happen.

Feel like getting really scared, but don’t have time to rent 28 Days Later? I invite you to read this open “Letter to Our Enemies”, posted on the blog “Horsefeathers.” (via an excellent post at Obsidian Wings.) The enemies in question appear to be Muslimofascistislamonazis (i.e., all adherents of Islam).

Ordinary Americans are arming themselves for war with you. I and many of my friends have closets full of handguns, rifles, shotguns and thousands of cartridges.

If we had enough ammunition and time, we would kill every last one of you.

We completely support our President and our armed forces. We only wish they would destroy you faster, but we are certain that they will.

This is the type of thing that really makes me reconsider my support for the second amendment.

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You should read the crucial interview with Roy Edroso of alicublog which was somehow cut from the final version of the NYT bloggerama. Here’s how it begins:

I knocked several times on the green steel door of Edroso’s Williamsburg apartment before a loud, phlegmy voice bade me enter. I found the author of “alicublog” — a little-read website devoted to politics, the arts, and bitter denunciations of the buy-back policies of local bars and clubs — in his tiny bedroom, nestled between a closet and a bookshelf stuffed with volumes of 19th-century literature and old issues of Black Tail, and pounding furiously on an ash-smeared keyboard.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. He jerked a thumb toward his bed. I pushed aside empty bottles of vodka and Astrolube, and a copy of Commentary, and took a seat.

Go read the rest.