To Say the Very Least
Posted on | November 8, 2014 | 59 Comments
Ross Douthat on the Wendy Davis debacle for Texas Democrats:
It should be said, and many people are saying it, that Davis and her team ran a poorer-than-expected campaign overall, and that the allegedly-brilliant team running the Democrats’ new Texas ground game were not in fact so brilliant. But the more important issue, surely, is that the Democrats decided that it made sense to run, well, Wendy Davis as their “change-the-map” candidate in Texas. Nunn and Carter in Georgia were nominations that fit reasonably well with the facts on the ground, and while they obviously disappointed Nunn did at least outperform the last two Democratic Senate nominees in her state. Davis, on the other hand, actually underperformed the Democratic nominee’s totals in the last two head-to-head races against Rick Perry … which is, again, pretty much exactly what you’d expect when you nominate a figure who owed her prominence to a filibuster on late-term abortion to contest a statewide rate in Texas. . . .
Read the whole thing, but you could summarize the basic error of Democrats in Texas and elsewhere this cycle in one word: Hubris.
Republicans did much the same thing in 2005-2006 after Bush’s re-election convinced the Stupid Party that America had reached some kind of GOP utopia, “The Permanent Republican Majority.”
There were people (Hugh Hewitt comes instantly to mind) who actually believed that nonsense, who failed to realize how the betrayal of trust epitomized by John McCain’s “shamnesty” proposals in 2006 and 2007 were alienating grassroots conservatives.
Clearly, Republican leaders believed they could compromise on economic issues and split the difference on social issues. The devastating losses in the 2006 mid-terms and the crushing victory of Barack Obama did nothing to knock any sense into Karl Rove’s GOP Strategery Brain Trust. However, in 2010, conservatives finally told the GOP leadership to go to hell and the grassroots had their own damned revolution. (Fuck you, Charlie Crist. Rot in hell, Arlen Specter.)
The GOP Strategery Brain Trust managed to reassert itself after 2011, as John Boehner and other backstabbing crapweasels managed to fritter away whatever influence had been gained by the historic 2010 Republican landslide. Naturally, then, Mitt Romney got the 2012 GOP nomination and, naturally, lost to Barack Obama. So here we are at last, in 2014, when Mitch McConnell and his cronies have finally recaptured the GOP majority they fumbled away in 2005-2006.
What happened to Democrats in 2014, then, was a sort of natural consequence of political momentum in America’s two-party system. When a party re-elects their president to his second term, the winners always believe they have a complete mandate for their agenda, no matter how narrow the margin of their victory. Republican victories in the elections of 1980, 1984 and 1988 were all by margins that could be called legitimate mandates, larger than the margins of either of Obama’s victories in 2008 or 2012. Nancy Pelosi’s tenure as Speaker of the House lasted only four years, and Harry “The Alleged Pederast” Reid kept the Senate Majority Leader’s gavel for eight years.
Next year, Harry Reid will no longer be Senate Majority leader, but he will still be an alleged pederast.
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 8, 2014
To clarify: I have never alleged that Harry Reid is a pederast, but many other people tell me that they have heard this alleged.
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 8, 2014
Also, according to Google, "Harry+Reid+pederast" = 51,000 hits. https://t.co/Y7iCY04Qgr So I'm just saying that it has been so alleged.
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 8, 2014
No one has ever produced proof that Harry Reid craves the touch of boyflesh, but he has never disproven the reported allegations, either.
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 8, 2014
Clearly, the Democrats who thought Wendy Davis could be elected governor of Texas were insane for believing it, but the incoming floodtide of Mexicans will sooner or later turn Texas into a Democrat state, and Democrats will turn Texas into an impoverished and corrupt ruin, as they are already doing in California. Unless the new Republican majority in Congress is absolutely dedicated to a no-more-bullshit border security policy — no amnesty now, no amnesty ever — their majority will prove short-lived, and Mitch McConnell will have the honor of being the Last Republican Senate Majority Leader, presiding over the end of the American republic.
Unless the idiots atop the GOP power ziggurat in Washington wake up, by 2030, the Republican Party will be a withered shadow of its former self, exiled to permanent minority status and political irrelevance. That is to say, if there still is a Republican Party in 2030. It’s not too hard to envision a scenario wherein Democrats win the White House in 2016, take back the Senate in 2018, re-elect Hillary Clinton and recapture the House in 2020, The consequences of such a scenario could lead to either (a) the final collapse of the Republican Party or (b) Texans voting to secede from the Union.
Honestly, I think Texas should have seceded last year, although next year or the year after that would be OK, too. But they need to do it soon, or eventually there won’t be anything left of Texas worth fighting to save, nor anything anywhere else in America, either. Democrats will preside over the Death of America, because the leaders of the Republican Party are all worthless, unprincipled, selfish cowards who care more for the prestige of their own offices than they do for the people who elected them. Any other questions?
@directorblue @rsmccain @AmPowerBlog @ali @verumserum .@jesseberney Missed it by thaaattt much….
— Dave Mason (@EvadMason) November 8, 2014
And the Worst Election Forecast of 2014 (or Possibly Ever) Award goes to … @jesseberney!! http://t.co/05vV90HixB – via @directorblue
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 8, 2014
@rsmccain Hey Wendy Davis for President!
http://t.co/GnB79NSRz3
— Passably Affable (@tbrusletten) November 8, 2014
Let the WENDY DAVIS for PRESIDENT campaign begin! http://t.co/tpyiBLT0id @WendyDavisTexas #p2 #UniteBlue #tcot
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 8, 2014
3 Things I Love: 1. Democrats losing. 2. Democrats trying to explain why they lost. 3. Laughing at Democrat explanations of their losses.
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 8, 2014
America is hopelessly doomed. Nothing but a miracle can save us. But there is no reason we can’t laugh while it’s still legal to laugh.
Signs Of Pending Apocalypse: DewItos
Posted on | November 8, 2014 | 24 Comments
by Smitty
“That sounds like part of a balanced meal,” said no nutritionist. Ever.
Good Sweet Lord, Pepsi Is Actually Testing A Doritos-Flavored Mountain Dew
http://t.co/V33rUsq5G3 pic.twitter.com/X2IKcaAKPy
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) November 8, 2014
A Little Salt For The Democrat Gash
Posted on | November 8, 2014 | 23 Comments
by Smitty
This blog was a huge Christine O’Donnell booster, back when. No regrets. But one can’t let this fact pass un-touted, emphasis mine:
The Christine O’Donnell thing really did happen more or less by accident, because she happened to be in the right place at the right time to catch an anti-establishment wave and win a primary in which she was supposed to be a protest candidate. Whereas the Davis experiment was intentionally designed: She was treated to fawning press coverage, lavished with funding, had the primary field mostly cleared for her, and was touted repeatedly as part of an actual party strategy for competing in a conservative-leaning state. Of course she had a much more impressive resume than O’Donnell, with less witchcraft and real political experience, and in that sense she made a more credible candidate overall. (Though, ahem, O’Donnell actually outperformed Davis at the polls in the end …)
Hat tip: Instapundit
The Anti-War Movement Isn’t Dead; It’s Just Restin’
Posted on | November 8, 2014 | 14 Comments
by Smitty
Almost twenty years ago, when I could not conceive of ever being anything but a leftist, I joined a left-wing online discussion forum.
Before that I’d had twenty years of face-to-face participation in leftist politics: marching, organizing, socializing.
In this online forum, suddenly my only contact with others was the words those others typed onto a screen. That limited and focused means of contact revealed something.
If you took all the words typed into the forum every day and arranged them according to what part of speech they were, you’d quickly notice that nouns expressing the emotions of anger, aggression, and disgust, and verbs speaking of destruction, punishing, and wreaking vengeance, outnumbered any other class of words.
One topic thread was entitled “What do you view as disgusting about modern America?” The thread was begun in 2002. Almost eight thousand posts later, the thread was still going strong in June, 2014.
Those posting messages in this left-wing forumpublicly announced that they did what they did every day, from voting to attending a rally to planning a life, because they wanted to destroy something, and because they hated someone, rather than because they wanted to build something, or because they loved someone. You went to an anti-war rally because you hated Bush, not because you loved peace. Thus, when Obama bombed, you didn’t hold any anti-war rally, because you didn’t hate Obama.
Read the whole thing. Very revealing. And know that the anti-war movement will arise, zombie like, in 2017, unless the GOP fumbles and Her Majesty waltzes in.
UPDATE: @AmandaBynes Is Crazy
Posted on | November 7, 2014 | 74 Comments
This isn’t necessarily news to anyone who has followed the (literally) insane misadventures of Miss Ultimate Starlet Meltdown:
Amanda Bynes is flat-out admitting it.
She was tired and fell asleep on a couch at her local mall, the Beverly Center.
It’s the latest step in the Amanda Bynes journey. She tweeted that she slept there because she “did not have money” for a hotel. . . .
It’s all part of Bynes’ latest battle over money. She wants control of her finances. Her parents now have conservatorship. She has been tweeting that her lawyer is working to get control of her money back to her.
Access Hollywood reports that conservatorship is soon be divided between Amanda’s mom, Lynn Bynes, and a professional private fiduciary.
Amanda’s conservatorship attorney David Esquibias told Access he will work with the unnamed private trust firm to ensure that the actress’ needs are taken care of more efficiently.
“My goal is to get her permanent adequate housing,” Esquibias said, adding he hopes to have the change made official by the judge in the case as early as Friday.
I was not given money for a hotel so i have been staying with friends and i didn't get enough sleep last night so I fell asleep on a couch
— amanda bynes (@amandabynes) November 6, 2014
TMZ has gossip from “sources”:
Sources connected to Amanda tell TMZ … she wants “a normal life,” and she believes working in a bar would achieve that goal.
Amanda says she’s well aware of the obvious impediment — she attracts so much attention it would be hard to function as a bartender.
As for why Amanda is even thinking of getting a job … she desperately needs money. She doesn’t have access to her $5.7 million fortune because of her conservatorship, and only gets between $50 and $100 a day. As for what she wants to do with the money, aside from getting an apartment, she wants plastic surgery because she thinks she’s ugly.
Let your brain process these thoughts: She’s got more than $5 million in the bank, but she only gets $100 a day. She’s sleeping on a sofa in the mall, she’s telling friends she wants to get a job as a bartender and she thinks she’s so ugly she needs plastic surgery. Yet all the liberals who run the cultural industry that warped this poor girl’s mind want to keep telling us there’s a Republican “War on Women”?
Andrew Breitbart always said Hollywood was worse than D.C.
As usual, Andrew was right. Damn, I miss him more each day.
Feminists: They’re Not About the ‘D’
Posted on | November 7, 2014 | 19 Comments
How many times do I have to say feminism is a journey to lesbianism before people start waking up to the truth? Liberal guys need to realize their “male feminist” thing is never going to work:
A male-led campaign to promote affirmative consent for sex at DePaul University — which is nominally Catholic but runs a “Queer Peers” mentorship program — has thrown in the towel.
Or rather, the T-shirt.
Selling shirts emblazoned with “Consent the D” — a play on the school’s basketball slogan “Fear the D” (the Demons mascot) that was widely interpreted as “dick” — came off as “flippant” to campus feminists, who didn’t take kindly to an alternative approach to their signature issue, Jezebel says:
“Unfortunately, the ‘Consent the D’ movement was cut short by forces outside of my control,” founder Randy Vollrath said in a video message posted Tuesday. “T-shirt production has been halted while we work to address the issue.”
Vollrath said he appreciates that people didn’t like the T-shirts but objects to their disagreement being ”misinformed” about the group’s intentions.
Via College Insurrection. Guys, let me give you a little clue, OK? Take a look at the Women and Gender Studies faculty page at DePaul:
The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies faculty members have wide-ranging research interests. Some of these interests include intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality; cross-cultural perspectives; violence against women; women in the Middle East; lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender identities and politics; autobiography; queer theories; immigrant women; globalization; transnational feminist perspectives; antiracism; gender and education; feminist theories and politics; gender and family violence; and performance studies among others.
Do you guys see anything — anything at all — in that description that would lead you to think the kind of feminism taught at DePaul University could ever involve, y’know, “consent the D”?
Unless, of course, it’s followed by “Y-K-E” or “I-L-D-O.”
Pardon my heternormative sarcasm, DePaul guys, but it’s not like I don’t have actual research to support what I’m telling you. The truth isn’t hard to find, but you young idiots are probably too busy playing beer pong and XBox to bother looking for the truth.
Here, let me help you: Professor Ann Russo is director of the graduate program in Women’s and Gender Studies. Your first clue is that there is a graduate program, OK? They’re giving out master’s degrees and Ph.D.s in this stuff at DePaul, so it’s not just a few undergrads picking up a few easy A’s for regurgitating “queer theory.” Having a graduate program in Women’s Studies signifies that a university is a serious Dyke Factory. And let’s see what Professor Russo says about herself, eh?
Areas of Interest
Women, Violence, and Justice
Feminist, Anti-Racist, and Critical Race Theories and Practices
Activism and Social Justice Movements
Constructions of Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in Media
Sexual Identities and Sexuality Debates
Just in case you DePaul fellows don’t get the significance of terms like “gender,” “identities” and “sexuality,” here’s a hint: Normal women don’t need a Ph.D. program to study how to be normal.
Still, you clever college boys may be thinking, “That old man is just crazy. There’s no way the university would be employing women to promote a totalitarian ideology of hatred toward males.” OK, look at Professor Russo’s list of “major publications” and you’ll see:
- Without Apology: Andrea Dworkin’s Art and Politics, Co-authored with Cindy Jenefsky. (Westview Press, 1998)
Bro: ANDREA EFFING DWORKIN.
Feminists have praised Dworkin — and yes, they consider this praise — “as the Malcolm X of the women’s movement.” Professor Russo and her co-author clearly admire Dworkin as a feminist leader:
Without Apology illuminates the politics and artistic practices of Andrea Dworkin, arguably one of the most daring, innovative, and controversial feminists in the United States. Coauthor of civil rights antipornography laws, life-long political activist, and international lecturer and consultant on issues of sexual violence and exploitation, Dworkin has a prolific and distinguished writing career. She has published thirteen books of fiction and nonfiction, and her work has been translated into twelve languages.This is the first-ever book-length analysis of Dworkin’s feminist politics and the first critical analysis to examine her controversial political ideas in light of the literary dimensions of her prose. Cindy Jenefsky, with Ann Russo, looks at Dworkin’s major nonfiction works — including Woman Hating, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, and Intercourse — in terms of the rhetorical dynamics animating her political ideas. Also included within this analysis are Jenefsky’s lengthy interviews with Dworkin, which focus on her identity as an artist and on the artistic principles guiding her work.The result is a novel reinterpretation of Dworkin’s politics and a brilliantly clear analysis of the political nature of artistic practice for readers interested in literary and rhetorical criticism, feminist theory and activism, the volatile debates over pornography and civil rights, and the relationship between contemporary sexual practices and male power systems.
When a professor of Women’s Studies writes a book celebrating the career of Andrea Dworkin . . . do I have to draw you a picture? Your mental laziness is frightening, DePaul dudes. Because, see, it doesn’t take too much Googling to figure out what Professor Russo is all about. Her co-author on that Dworkin book, Cindy Jenefsky? Also the co-author of a treatise called “Phallic Intrusion: Girl-Girl Sex in Penthouse.”
Hmmm. So, Russo and Jenefsky are disciples of the man-hater Dworkin, and Jenefsky co-wrote an entire paper analyzing fake lesbian scenes in a popular skin mag. Would it help — because I know you DePaul guys are too dumb and/or lazy to Google it yourself — if I pointed out that Jenefsky’s co-author on that paper, Diane Helene Miller, is author of a book called Freedom to Differ: The Shaping of the Gay and Lesbian Struggle for Civil Rights?
Wake up, DePaul dudes: Feminism ain’t about “consent the D.”
Thousands of years of patriarchal domination, and you idiots are going to fumble it away because you’re too stupid to use Google?
You dudes are going get aced out of the action if you don’t wake up.
This is the latest in the “Sex Trouble” series of articles about radical feminism’s war on human nature. Readers have urged me to produce a book on this topic; since July I have been publishing articles, based on my research and recent news events, as “draft chapters” of this book that I hope to finish compiling next month. Readers have generously supported this project with PayPal contributions, and it is with profound gratitude for this support that I once again remind you of the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:
‘Broken People,’ Cats and Prozac
Posted on | November 7, 2014 | 100 Comments
Rebecca Jane Stokes (@Beeswrite) is a columnist for the feminist site @xojanedotcom and by “feminist site,” I mean digital estrogen.
If you want ball-busting radical man-hating, you’ll have to look elsewhere. XOJane is more about pathetic narcissism.
Glenn Reynolds’ remark about “broken people” — made in reference to the radical man-hater Kate Millett — came to mind as I was reading the XOJane biography of 29-year-old Ms. Stokes:
What I Do, Fun-wise: Cook, engage my cats in heady conversation, and perform subpar sexy dances to Hall and Oates
Cats. Of course, she’s got cats. Did I mention she’s 29? And an alumna of New School University (2014-15 tuition $41,836)? Also, you may not be surprised to learn, Ms. Stokes lives in Brooklyn.
See, this is the thing with young feminist writer types nowadays. They can’t go to Podunk State University. No, they must attend one of those private schools where annual tuition is at or near the median U.S. household income. This is the only way to become that glorious being, The Writer. And, probably because as girls dreaming of becoming The Writer, they watched a sitcom or movie about the lives of quirky bachelorettes in Brooklyn, they simply must live there after graduation.
Well, you may ask, what does The Writer write about?
Herself, of course! Do these elite colleges offer a major in Solipsism Studies nowadays? Because Ms. Stokes’s oeuvre is typical of the genre — menstruation, her sex dreams, things that make her cry.
Digital estrogen, like I said. Ms. Stokes has a series of columns called “Crushed,” from which a few samples:
The First Time Someone Liked Me
Seventh grade was when I ruined any chance I may have had of getting laid during my teens. Seventh grade was when I should have been learning to read the silent cues essential to non-platonic relationship dynamics. Instead, the diligent and concentrated effort I aimed at loathing myself distracted me, putting me officially on the late-bloomer end of the welcome-to-sexy-times-adolescents spectrum. It was the first time in my life somebody liked me — and I had no idea. . . .
We rode the bus together, lived in the same neighborhood, liked the same dorky things. I would chatter his ear off on the bus each morning and the poor guy, he listened, even as he was desperate to finish whatever homework he hadn’t managed to get done the night before. He was gawky and sweet and infuriating and he totally liked me and I didn’t get it. Which is classic, because, clearly I was likewise into him, but I didn’t know how to express that. So I didn’t. Instead I publicly declared us mortal enemies. . . .
When I Hit The 8th Grade And
Became Totally Terrified of Men
In science I sat with the smartest kid in class. The boy in front of us was loud, attractive and had teeth like a game show host. He wore Tommy cologne. He sneered a lot and stared at you until you blushed. He whispered a secret to the smart boy next to me. “Apparently,” my irascible deskmate said with a smirk, “he wants to go out with you.”
This is where I was supposed to do something, say something that would open me up to ridicule. I refused to play. Instead I stared down at my desk and said something sarcastic.
Inside I was cringing and mortified and embarrassed. Was it true? It wasn’t true. It couldn’t possibly be true. It was there looking me in the face in an unblinking way stinking of cheap cologne, it was grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me, insisting. My heart went a little faster and I licked my lips raw. I hunched under the weight of big boobs and contemplated the two ample rolls of my fish-belly white stomach with grim certainty: Sex and love are one big joke played on ugly people. I guess it’s easier to doubt something than it is to believe it and be made a fool. . . .
The Year I Fell In Love With
Two Of My Teachers, And A Girl
11th grade. Junior year. Where was I? Well, I lost some weight by reading fiction while using all the machines at the local YMCA and practicing fierce self-hatred. I ran for class president and lost. I discovered the comics of Lynda Barry and Robert Crumb. I discovered the plays of Sam Friel and Harold Pinter.
I did not discover masturbation. I missed that boat. While everyone else was probably frantically flicking the kidney bean to pleasure town, I was wondering if maybe SOMEHOW I was the lost Princess Anastasia. Time travel, maybe?
This is also the year I fell in love with two different teachers and a girl. . . .
College, And How I Learned There Are
Different Ways Of Being Loved
As an 18-year-old in college I fell in love roughly eight hundred times. When I joined a sorority (this is a long and hilarious story that I will save for another day) my nerdy sexless crushes were so well-known that my nickname was “Crush.” . . .
I will forever doubt that I am loved, that I deserve to be. I try to believe it but it doesn’t always fit me well. It’s like your skin when you get out of the shower and wait too long to put on lotion: It gets tight and strange. It itches. . . .
When I Was Nineteen And Deluded Myself
Into A Relationship That Didn’t Exist
. . . Every girl is crazy at least once. I was crazy when I was a junior. The guy was Adam. . . .
How do you explain to a 20 year-old boy that your delusions have almost nothing to do with him? There’s no explanation other than the ones the men in curled baseball hats sipping drinks utter like a sacred universally understood bro oath: “That girl is fucking crazy.”
And maybe she is a little. . . .
To say the very least. Where do they come from, these painfully sensitive writer girls with interior dialogues full of shame and fear?
“Feminine instinct without its proper object or purpose,” my gut tells me, speaking like an old-fashioned psychologist, or perhaps an anthropologist of the evolutionary “brain science” type. In an earlier age — say, 1800 or 1700 — the young Ms. Stokes would have lived on a farm, and at 15 or 16 would have married the 18- or 19-year-old son of a neighboring farmer and, by the time the actual 21st-century Ms. Stokes was getting weird high school crushes, she would have been heavily pregnant with her first child. And then they all would have died of smallpox or a potato famine or some such misery.
Once Upon a Time, you see, people had things to worry about that were more serious than their feelings. If my ancestors had any interior dialogues, these have been lost to posterity because (a) there were no blogs back then, and (b) most of my ancestors prior to the 20th century were illiterate, or nearly so. In the National Archives is a document pertaining to my great-grandfather, Winston Wood Bolt, a young farm boy who fought as a private in the 13th Alabama Infantry Regiment. The document is a receipt for an amount paid to Private Bolt, signed by his regiment’s colonel, Birkett Davenport Fry.
Private Bolt’s signature? “X.”
My illiterate great-grandfather had more serious things to worry about than his feelings. Not long after he signed his X to that receipt, Private Bolt was captured at Gettysburg, when the Iron Brigade outflanked Archer’s Brigade east of Willoughby’s Run, and Private Bolt spent the next two years imprisoned at Fort Delaware, where the prisoners caught, cooked and ate rats to augment their rations.
Hard times make hard people, and sensitivity is a luxury not afforded to those whose lives are a matter of toil and hardship.
Psychological toughness — a determination not easily daunted by difficult circumstances — is what young people really need, but how shall they acquire this if we are afraid to wound their self-esteem?
Our ancestors were all survivors. We forget this, or rather we never learn it and, with no knowledge of the struggles of our forebears, we suffer from not having their example to inspire us. But enough of that digression. Let us return to Ms. Stokes’s oeuvre at XOJane, and another of her series, “Dispatches from the Prozac Rabbit Hole”:
In Which I Stare At My
Naked Body For A Long Time
. . . I think of something my therapist said to me last week. We were talking about how feelings aren’t law. About how they cannot be flipped from an ‘on’ to an ‘off’ position. I jokingly said, “I’m going one day at a time — one hour a time.”
She didn’t think it was funny. She thought it was a good plan. “Less than an hour. Get up and leave here and go to get coffee and see if you can do that. Then, if you can, see if you can turn on your computer. Then the next thing, and then the next thing. Piece by piece.” . . .
I have spent so much time hating my body for being a thing no one could desire — be it to look at, or to touch. How could anyone desire me when I refuse to even run a glancing hand down my own body myself? . . .
My Failed Relationship Is Proof
I’m More Broken Than I Realized
. . . For the first time in my life, I couldn’t sit down and write. I managed a few assignments early in the day, but then the guy I’ve been dating let me know that he wanted to take a break . . . and my usually facile flow on the keyboard became just as jammed up as everything else in my life. . . .
How do people, normal people, meet someone, make a connection with them, and not melt away into their own self-loathing when that connection is tested or severed? I feel like I don’t know how. I feel like an idiot.
It’s harder to cry now that I am on antidepressants. . . .
On Learning To Live With My Sadness
. . . My throat swells and throbs. I remember the train ride home last night and how I squeezed my face so tightly to stop the tears but they came anyway.
“I am falling to pieces,” I said inside as I cried. “I am breaking into a million pieces and no one on this train will even look me in the eye.” . . .
It’s Not About Me, Even a Little
When I visited New York somewhere around the age of ten or twelve, I could not fathom the sheer volume of stories I saw spilling out around me everywhere. It’s funny how it’s only now, exhausted by my own self-examination and with the bolstering of serotonin that my pills provide, that I can see this again. . . .
Right now I’m sitting on the F train. It’s around noon. It’s Thursday. I work from home and once a week I journey into Manhattan to see my analyst. . . .
Well, of course, she’s got an analyst in Manhattan. Every writer in Brooklyn must have an analyst in Manhattan. And also, cats.
There are times I feel rather moody myself, although offering to sell the Hope Diamond for $25 kind of cheered me up a bit. The DSCC pulling out of Louisiana also gave me a nice little emotional boost. Being happy is really just an ability to accept survival as success.
The “broken people” are out there everywhere, inviting us to their pity parties. But I think about my ancestors, and I also think about Muhammad Ali, the best boxer in history. Of all his many great moments, his greatest was a fight he lost. In 1973, Ali fought Ken Norton, a Marine Corps veteran who broke Ali’s jaw — yet Ali did not quit. He went the full 12 rounds and lost a split decision to Norton, but the fact that he finished the fight with a broken jaw is a testament to Ali’s toughness. Howard Cosell once observed that, for all the praise Ali got for his speed and strength, few recognized what was perhaps Ali’s greatest trait as a boxer: His ability to take a punch.
Being able to take a punch, shake off the pain and keep punching back — that’s mental toughness. That’s what makes a champion.
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Art the comments:
Her tour at the New School was for post-baccalaureate schooling. Her first tour at higher education was at Sewanee. There, as at the New School, the degree she received was impractical (in theatre). It would appear from the dates on her degrees that she’s 31, not 29.
Thanks for the additional research, Art.
LIVE AT FIVE: 11.07.14
Posted on | November 7, 2014 | 10 Comments
— compiled by Wombat-socho
TOP NEWS
Sixth Circuit Breaks Ranks: Upholds Gay Marriage Bans In Four States

States affected by the decision
Decision says gay marriage best decided through the political process, not the courts
Back to the Supreme Court
Narendra Modi Visits Varanasi
Opens trade facilitation center for weavers
Asks weavers to utilize e-commerce market
Goa Chief Minister resigns, is appointed India’s new Defense Minister
Euro Struggles In Asia After Falling On Draghi’s Comments
Markets apparently not thrilled by further ECB stimulus plans
POLITICS
Election Results Looked Nothing Like The Polls – How’d That Happen

Pollsters, Larry Sabato wants you to check yourselves now that you’ve wrecked yourselves
A night expected to be full of nail-biters turns into a bloodbath for Democrats
Bin Laden’s Alleged Shooter Goes Public, Fellow Seals Call BS
Boehner Warns Obama On Immigration Executive Action
Idaho Guard Chopper Crashes, Two Killed
Issa: Document Dump Shows Holder At The Middle Of “Fast & Furious”
Detroit Ready For Judge’s Decision On Bankruptcy
Ex-US Diplomat Under Criminal Investigation
Source: Obama’s Letter To Khamenei “F*cks Everything Up”
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Sinks To New Lows On Strong Dollar: WTI $77.66, Brent $82.28
53 Million E-Mails Breached In Massive Home Depot Hack
Stronger Earnings By Corporate Giants Push Dow To New Highs
Bank Of America Takes $400 Million Litigation Charge
Fannie Mae Announces Dramatic Easing Of Mortgage Standards
Mexico Cancels High-Speed Rail Deal With Chinese
Microsoft Offers Free Office To Mobile Users
Amazon: Put This Always-On Wifi Mic In Your House – What Could Go Wrong?
Zuckerberg: Facebook Will Be Mostly Video In Five Years
Scribd Launches Audio Book Library
Internet Archive Delivers 900 Classic Games To Your Browser
SPORTS
Hamilton, Bruins Surge Past Oilers In Third Period

Loui Erickson (#21) congratulated by teammates after scoring during the third period flurry
Boston rallies to beat Edmonton, which hasn’t won against the Bruins since October 2000
Ray Rice’s Future In Arbitrator’s Hands As Appeal Ends
Rockets Dominate Depleted Spurs
Corbett: Joe Paterno Wrongly Fired
Beane Protege Named New Dodgers GM
Nationals Pick Up Span’s Option For 2015, Decline Soriano And LaRoche
FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Jessica Chastain Trapped In Publicity Tug Of War

One star, two movies
Nolan’s “Interstellar” blocking her from promoting “A Most Violent Year”
“Toy Story 4” To Hit Theaters In 2017
Britney Spears Confirms New Boyfriend
Taylor Swift Defends Pulling Her Music From Spotify
Mark Wahlberg & Peter Berg Are Bionic Duo On “Six Billion Dollar Man”
Homeless Amanda Bynes Crashes At LA Shopping Mall
Netflix Adapting “A Series Of Unfortunate Events” Into TV Series
Kenya Moore: This Is My “Redemption Season” On “Real Housewives Of Atlanta”
Anne Hathaway On Dealing With Internet Bullies: “I Hadn’t Learned To Love Myself Yet”
PETA Slams “Eaten Alive” Star For Anaconda Stunt
Miley Cyrus Dating Patrick Schwartzenegger
Channing Tatum Eyes “Hateful Eight” Role
Mark Zuckerberg Whines “The Social Network” Hurt His Feelings
Prosecutors Drop Murder-For-Hire Charges Against AC/DC Drummer
FOREIGNERS
Obama Turns To Iran For Help With ISIS
French President Hollande’s Popularity Sinks To New Low In Midterm Poll
German Divisions Persist 25 Years After The Fall Of The Berlin Wall
Chicoms, Japan Agree To Resume Dialogue
Series Of Explosions Strike Fatah Targets In Gaza
Over 600 American Troops Complained Of Chemical Weapons Exposure In Iraq
Libya Faces (More) Chaos As Court Invalidates Parliament
ICC Won’t Prosecute Israel Over 2012 Gaza Flotilla Deaths
Malaysian Court Overturns Ban On Cross-Dressing
Burkina Faso’s Interim Leader Dismisses AU Deadline
BLOGS & STUFF
Proof Positive: Auditioning For The Dustbin Of History
Doug Powers: The Nation And Salon Say Scott Walker Could Never Be Elected President, So Just Put It Out Of Your Minds!
Twitchy: “It’s Over. Let It Go.” Conservatives Keeping Mary Landrieu’s Dying Twitter Feed On Life Support
Sultan Knish: The Unbearable Lightness Of Feminism
American Power: California Scrambles To Deal With Effects Of Proposition 47
American Thinker: Were Women A Factor In The Great Democratic Shellacking Of 2014?
BLACKFIVE: Bergdahl And Tahmooressi – A Tale Of Two Sergeants
Conservatives4Palin: Where Is The Media On The Attkisson Story?
Don Surber: Reset Button Politics
Jammie Wearing Fools: Thanks Obama! There Are Now 357 People Being Monitored For Ebola In NYC
Joe For America: Obama On The Midterm Results – Not ME!
JustOneMinute: In Which I Effortlessly Square A Circle
Pamela Geller: Exhale
Protein Wisdom: The Axis Of Right-Wing Extremism
Shot In The Dark: It’s Getting To The Point…
STUMP: Illinois Election Wrapup – Congrats, Rauner, I Guess
The Gateway Pundit: Terrific! Minnesota Monitoring 48 For Ebola, 12 Already Missing
The Jawa Report: Bask, Jawas, Bask
The Lonely Conservative: Cosmo Is Super Thrilled About All Those Women Elected After Working Against Them
This Ain’t Hell: John McCain Promises To Save The Warthog From Extinction
Weasel Zippers: State Senate Seat Wendy Davis Gave Up Now Belongs To Pro-Life Tea Party Republican
Megan McArdle: Fifteen Things We Learned On Election Night
Shop Amazon – Countdown to Black Friday
