FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
TEXAS POUNDS MISSOURI TIGERS,
LSU TIGERS EDGE SOUTH CAROLINA

From the AP via ESPN:

McCoy, No. 1 Texas ride 35-0 lead past No. 11 Mizzou

Using a stunning first half, Texas raced to a 35-point lead before cruising to a 56-31 victory Saturday night that left little doubt these Longhorns plan to be No. 1 for a while.

Colt McCoy passed for a 337 yards and two touchdowns, ran for two more and set a school record with 17 straight completions in the kind of nearly flawless performance that he's starting to make look routine.

And

For Texas, the Longhorns are just halfway through a brutal stretch of games against ranked opponents. In the next two weeks, they play No. 8 Oklahoma State and No. 7 Texas Tech, both of whom are undefeated.

"When you believe you're No. 1," linebacker Roddrick Muckelroy said, "that's when bad things happen."

More here.

And again from the AP via ESPN:

No. 13 LSU ekes past South Carolina with second-half rally

The No. 13 Tigers held South Carolina to minus-7 yards in the fourth quarter and sacked first-time Gamecocks starter Stephen Garcia six times in a 24-17 victory Saturday night.

With LSU (5-1, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) down by seven at halftime after allowing two touchdowns in the last 3 minutes of the second quarter, end Kirston Pittman said the defense resolved to stiffen and not collapse like it did in allowing Florida to score 31 second half points in a 51-21 loss last week.

"We just put it in our minds that they couldn't score any more," Pittman said.

And the defense did just that, holding South Carolina (5-3, 2-3) to just 42 yards in the second half, forcing Garcia into a fumble and forcing an interception with 3:57 left that sealed the game.

And

South Carolina had only one first down in the fourth quarter, and it pushed the ball into LSU territory. But Taylor broke through on third down, sacking Garcia for an 11-yard loss and prompting Spurrier to drop his headset on the ground and kick it.

More here.

Okay, Saturday night was great fun. I mean, I'm sure that football fans who aren't Texas or Missouri supporters turned it off after the first half because, you know, it was a blowout and all, but this is exactly how I like my Longhorn football: embarrassingly big. The five first half touchdowns Texas scored, while Mizzou scored nothing, were a great joy to me. Just beat the shit out of them. I fucking love it.

Of course, as everybody keeps saying, the season is far from over. Both Tech and Oklahoma State are quite capable of upending Texas on any given Saturday. I'm always especially nervous about Tech. Obviously, the 'Horns need to keep up their businesslike approach to bigtime football.

I had a fabulous acting teacher in grad school who, after we had all turned in a particularly fantastic run through of a show during rehearsal, made a wise statement. "Remember guys, if you had some great pizza last week and want to eat it again, you don't get it by remembering how great the pizza was: you get it by doing again what got you to that pizza in the first place--you follow the directions to the restaurant, bring your money, order the right thing, etc." That is, if you want to repeat greatness, you don't bask in that greatness. You do what made you great in the first place.

The Longhorns obviously understand that. They didn't beat the Tigers by remembering that they had beaten Oklahoma last week. They repeated what it was that allowed them to win. Now all they have to do is keep on doing that.

LSU, on the other hand, would do well to follow UT's example. I didn't get to see this one because it was on at the same time as the Texas game - I did tape it, however, and plan to watch later tonight or tomorrow - but given the way they didn't get their shit together until the fourth quarter, it's clear that Les Miles era inconsistency is still a problem. I mean, don't get me wrong. An SEC win is an SEC win, and that's something, especially when it inspires football asshole Steve Spurrier to descend into his classic loser headset kick. But the Tigers have a shot at returning to the top 5 if they can win the conference, which I belive they are capable of doing.

They just need to be more businesslike.

Really, I need to watch the game. Maybe they're playing better than I assume. Man that Florida loss still hurts.


Texas back Chris Ogbonnaya (3) runs past Missouri defenders Hardy Ricks (4)
and Tommy Chavis (48) during the third quarter of their NCAA football game
in Austin, Texas, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008. Texas won 56-31.
(AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)


LSU running back Charles Scott (32) scores the first of
his two touchdowns as Herman Johnson (79) celebrates
(photo courtesy of the Baton Rouge Advocate).

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REPUBLICANS ATTACK "VOTER FRAUD"

From the New York Times editorial board:

The Acorn Story

Acorn is a nonprofit group that advocates for low- and moderate-income people and has mounted a major voter-registration drive this year. Acorn says that it has paid more than 8,000 canvassers who have registered about 1.3 million new voters, many of them poor people and members of racial minorities.

In recent weeks, the McCain campaign has accused the group of perpetrating voter fraud by intentionally submitting invalid registration forms, including some with fictional names like Mickey Mouse and others for voters who are already registered.

Based on the information that has come to light so far, the charges appear to be wildly overblown — and intended to hobble Acorn’s efforts.

The group concedes that some of its hired canvassers have turned in tainted forms, although they say the ones with phony names constitute no more than 1 percent of the total turned in. The group also says it reviews all of the registration forms that come in. Before delivering the forms to elections offices, its supervisors flag any that appear to have problems.

According to Acorn, most of the forms that are now causing controversy are ones that it flagged and that unsympathetic election officials then publicized.

More here.

This is yet another bogus right-wing "argument" that's driving me nuts. Sure sure, Acorn was taken in by some of their registration canvassers - who work for shit wages, no doubt, and you always get what you pay for in such situations - but the organization itself reported the bogus registrations to state authorities when turning them in. In short, the only people defrauded here were members of the liberal group now being attacked viciously by Republicans.

Further, as observed by Atrios over at Eschaton, there is a big whopping difference between voter registration fraud, and voting fraud. That is, voting fraud, like stuffing ballot boxes with fake votes, is essentially election tampering, along the lines of what Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and the rest of the state GOP apparatus did in Florida back in 2000--it's bad shit that truly threatens democracy. Registration fraud, especially of the variety that's screwed Acorn, on the other hand, while lame and illegal, does not threaten democracy. At worst, it causes some bureaucrats to do more paperwork than they might ordinarily have to do. I mean, these bogus registrations were about lazy canvassers, who are paid by the number of registrations they submit, getting some extra ill-gotten bucks: nobody actually uses these Micky Mouse and Tony Romo registrations to vote.

But the right wing needs something to scream and wail hysterically about. It also helps them out a bit. First, when Democrats make genuine and serious allegations of GOP disenfranchisement efforts, or election day dirty tricks, Republicans can always scream "ACORN!!!" as though it meant something even though it doesn't. Second, the more conservatives push this bullshit voter fraud story, the closer they get to tightening up restrictions on voting, which makes elections much less democratic, which always works in their favor--it has long been understood that if the entire voter eligible population actually voted, Republicans would almost never be elected.

How on earth do these bullshit GOP "arguments" gain any traction at all? How can the news media, even the detestable FOX, take this shit seriously? I mean, this is a bad argument. If it were a high school debate it could be dismissed this easily: voter registration fraud is not voting fraud, no harm. Yeah, nine words to take out what Republicans have been going on and on about for fucking weeks!

Are we really that stupid?

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Sammy



Frankie



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Hulu

From Wikipedia:

Hulu is a website that offers free, ad-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC, FOX, and many other networks and studios. Hulu videos are currently offered only to users in the United States.

Hulu provides video in Flash Video format in a higher resolution and bit-rate than YouTube, but lower than standard-definition television, though many films and shows are available in 480p. Hulu also provides web syndication services for other websites including AOL, MSN, MySpace, Yahoo!, and Comcast's Fancast.com. Hulu provides one of the largest free video selections from a collection of over 50 broadcasting networks. It allows the users to watch shows with limited commercial interruption.

More here.

Okay, so I accidentally discovered this time-consuming website only a couple of days ago: it continues to be very clear that Big Media is becoming serious about digital media in cyberspace, and I mean that in a congratulatory and positive way. But, no man, this is fucking cool. WKRP in Cincinnati episodes, the film Starship Troopers, old Mary Tyler Moore episodes, stuff I've never seen but wanted to, like episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia, man, they've even got Alien versus Predator. Yeah, sure, there are commercials, but so what? It's free, and you get to choose the programming.

Who needs TV anymore?

Here, have a dose of Austin with Slacker:



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Pundits are wrong to fault lending to the
poor for the subprime mortgage meltdown

From the Houston Chronicle editorial board:

Forcing banks to extend mortgage credit in poor neighborhoods has not fixed every problem of the inner city. But returning to the days when banks blatantly discriminated against minorities will not inoculate us against economic crisis either. Incredibly, that is what some observers of the current downturn imply is a solution when they rail against the CRA and blame low-income borrowers for the failure of the subprime marketplace.

It is true that many people — including those of moderate means and the well-to-do — signed on to mortgage and refinancing terms that they should have known were beyond their ability to repay. They must share some culpability for the subprime disaster.

But as many more thoughtful commentators already have pointed out, most subprime mortgages were financed by lenders that are not depository banks and therefore not regulated by the act. What's more, there is no federal edict or statute that mandates that unregulated lenders create loan products requiring no documentation of income or assets and for amounts well above the realistic value of the purchase property. And no law pushed lenders to aggressively market their wares to clearly unqualified borrowers.

Nor did the CRA call on investment banking firms to package and repackage those risky loans into complicated investment vehicles and sell them to investors as highly rated securities.

Meanwhile, it's important to note that not all subprime borrowers were low-income minorities. The majority were white, and many were well-off.

More here.

Only a couple of weeks ago did I hear about this latest piece-of-shit "argument," which clearly comes out of some dumbfuck conservative think tank, on a cable news shoutfest show--an idiot right-wing pundit was asserting that a federal program I had never heard of was responsible for the credit meltdown we're now trying to deal with. I'm used to hearing stupid conservative arguments, but this was weird and new: for months the overall narrative had been about greedy lenders and foolish borrowers, but never about the Community Reinvestment Act, which according to the above linked essay "require[s] banks taking minority residents' deposits to also make good-faith efforts to extend loans to them."

Clearly, this one was hatched as a desperate rhetorical maneuver aimed at taking some of the heat off of much embattled right-wing free market ideology. I thought it was so stupid nothing would come of it. After all, conservatives come up with bullshit like this all the time. They offer tax vouchers as a solution for failing school systems, trying to bring market-like competition to something that is so utterly unlike consumer products such as soap or cars that one wonders if these people actually believe what they're saying. They offer tax incentives for individuals to create savings accounts as a solution for mass lack of access to health care without acknowledging that most of the uninsured don't have any savings in the first place. And now they're saying that a program that played virtually no role in the credit market meltdown is, in fact, entirely responsible.

I mean, it kind of sounds like a reasonable point of view until you look at the facts, listed in the excerpt above, but these conservative blowhards usually don't concern themselves with facts.

Anyway, like I said, I thought it was no big deal, that nobody would take the bait. Until a buddy of mine at work, one of the more well read and thoughtful fellows there, spouted out the same argument during a quick discussion some of us were having last week about the crisis. He changed his mind when I pointed out that these subprime loans were aggressively marketed, but if this conservative attempt at misdirection sucked him in, it's a fair assumption that lots of other intelligent people are buying the bullshit, too.

Really, as far as I can tell, the main culprits here are the people who bundled these bad loans into securities packages for resale on the market. If that hadn't happened, my guess is that the crisis would have hit only the assholes who issued the loans in the first place. Well, okay, I blame the morons who bought these "securities," too, but none of these people live in the ghetto--they all wear suits and have nice houses, just like the Republican assholes on TV who are trying to shift the blame for their reckless misguided harsh free market fundamentalism.

Will we ever see a day when most Americans are trained enough in argumentation, and informed enough about the facts, to shoot this shit down the moment they hear it? Probably not. At least, not as long as public education is about quashing critical thinking rather than nurturing it.

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GRIEVING NOTES: Epilogue

So, my mom died a year ago today.

I still haven't figured out what it means exactly to not have her anymore. I know that when I think about it I'm sad, but that doesn't tell me too much. My guess is that I'll never figure it out. I mean, of course, we all go on and everything, but all I know about what it means is that it sucks, and that's not really saying anything.

I don't dream about her anymore: I didn't put this in my "Grieving Notes" series, which I'm linking below, because it didn't start happening until after I had written it, but for a few weeks I had a some dreams that she was in. The situations were always different, but I would be talking to her, hanging out with her, when I would suddenly remember that she had died, and I would have to say to her finally, "But Mom, you're dead. How can you be here with me now?" Then she would fall silent, I would turn my head away, and she was gone.

That I kept having these dreams about Mom is significant. I usually don't dream, or at least, I don't usually remember my dreams. I imagine this was my subconscious trying to come to grips with my loss, trying to convince me that she really was gone. On the one hand, this was painful; on the other hand, it was nice to have such vivid dreams of spending time with her--my first thought when my father told me she was gone was that I didn't get to say goodbye to her; these dreams helped resolve that feeling for sure.

I've also discovered, philosophically at least, that, as an atheist-leaning agnostic, I'm okay with the fact that she may actually be gone for good, that when we die, we actually die, that there is no afterlife. She had a great time here among us, and I had a great time with her: that's enough for any of us. I mean, an afterlife, an eternity in paradise, is probably a cool thing if that's what happens, but she made the absolute best of her allotted time here. Why should we want more?

Anyway, I figured that this would be a good time to bundle together the series of posts I made about my experiences during the week after her death, so I can put it up over in the Real Art Greatest Hits column. So here you go:

GRIEVING NOTES: Prelude

GRIEVING NOTES: Intro

GRIEVING NOTES: Day One

GRIEVING NOTES: Day Two part one

GRIEVING NOTES: Interlude

GRIEVING NOTES: Day Two part two

GRIEVING NOTES: Day Three

GRIEVING NOTES: Day Four

GRIEVING NOTES: Day Five



I'll always love you, Mom!

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Krugman Wins Economics Nobel

From the New York Times:

He has developed models that explain observed patterns of trade between countries, as well as what goods are produced where and why. Traditional trade theory assumes that countries are different and will exchange only the different kinds of goods that they are comparatively better at producing; this model, however, was not reflected in flow of goods and services Mr. Krugman saw in the world around him. He set out to explain why worldwide trade was dominated by a few countries that were similar to each other, and why a country might import the same kinds of goods that it exported.

In his model, companies sell similar goods, with slight variations. The companies get more efficient at producing their goods as they sell more. Consumers like variety, so they pick and choose goods from among these producers in different countries. He developed this work further to explain what effect transport costs, which obstruct trade, should have on migration patterns. He helped explain under what conditions trade would lead to concentration or decentralization of populations.

Mr. Krugman’s models have been praised for their simplicity and practicality — features economists are often criticized for ignoring.

“Krugman’s trade models became the standard in the economics profession both because they fit the world a bit better and because they were masterpieces of mathematical modeling,” said Edward L. Glaeser, a professor at Harvard University who also studies economic geography. “His models’ combination of realism, elegance and tractability meant that they could provide the underpinnings for thousands of subsequent papers on trade, economic growth, political economy and especially economic geography.”

Click here for the rest.

Okay, raise your hand if you followed the above excerpt...

...I'm raising mine, but I fully admit that it's simply a tiny overview of the work that snagged Paul Krugman his Nobel Prize. That is, I'm sure that if I actually started reading his scholarly work in depth, I would have to stop a few pages in, befuddled as anybody--I'm much more comfortable with his twice weekly column in the New York Times. But that's one of the things that makes Krugman so extraordinarily important: he's as great as anybody who's ever worked in the field, as today's award fully illustrates, but has the ability to make extremely dense material understandable to laymen such as myself. I bet a good undergraduate macroeconomics course with him teaching would be kickass.

Of course, as observed by the above excerpted article, Krugman won for his work in trade theory, rather than for his journalistic work. But, like I said, that only makes his columns more compelling because they come from one badass economist. On the other hand, Milton Friedman, Grand Wazoo of the free market theory that's got the credit markets all fucked up right now, got a Nobel in economics, too, so it seems like they give these things out to pretty much anybody.

Whatever. Krugman's great, and I'm glad I post his stuff all the time.

Interesting trivia I learned today during an interview he did on PBS's The News Hour: Krugman was inspired to become an economist by reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, which I read when I was in college; it seems that Asimov's fictional academic field Psychohistory, which, as expressed by Wikipedia, "combines history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make (nearly) exact predictions of the collective actions of very large groups of people," fascinated him, as it did me. I didn't become an economist, myself, but the books did make me much more interested in economics, which is the closest thing we've got to Psychohistory in the real world.

As an economist, we already know Krugman's a geek, a cool geek, but a geek nonetheless. Now we know he's a science fiction fan, which makes him a double geek. Yeah yeah, I know, I'm a geek, too.

Congrats, Krugman!

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
FUCK YEAH!!!
Texas builds on second-half momentum to drop Oklahoma

From the AP via ESPN:

The Texas Longhorns came into their annual showdown against the Oklahoma Sooners with a quarterback they could trust and a defense playing great under an aggressive new coordinator. Yet even after five solid wins, coach Mack Brown still wondered how good they were.

Now, everyone knows.

Trailing the No. 1 Sooners nearly all game, Colt McCoy and the No. 5 Longhorns grabbed control in the fourth quarter and refused to let go, pulling away for a 45-35 victory Saturday in one of the greatest games in the storied series between these Red River rivals.

More here.

Like the sports writers are saying, this game is now a classic, one of the best I've ever seen, right up there with Texas' stunning defeat of USC to win the national championship in the 2005 Rose Bowl. It was the kind of game that I can really enjoy only when I don't give a shit who wins. I was nervous and on edge until we were finally up by ten late in the fourth quarter--again, this kind of tension reminds me of that Rose Bowl win.

But don't get me wrong. I did enjoy this. I'm still enjoying it. I mean, we won. And Texas is now the number one college football team in the nation. I may only be able to dig such a hard fought game when I don't care who wins, but I don't jump up and down in front of the TV yelling repeatedly "GO TEXAS!!! YEAH!!! FUCK YEAH!!!" either.

It's also nice to note that we won it in the only way I thought we could: efficient, businesslike, serious play. Indeed, this is the only way we were capable of winning. Oklahoma is that good, maybe even better than Texas in terms of sheer talent. Many of Doctor McCoy's passes went through microscopic windows in OU coverage that were open only milliseconds--that takes intense focus and concentration from pretty much everybody on the offense to pull off. And the defense was brilliant, too. They were incapable of stopping the Sooners' fierce passing attack, but they slowed it down just enough, to give the offense a fighting chance: you've just got to love the pressure the Longhorns' front four were able to put on Bradford. I mean, fuck man, we were collapsing the pocket every other fucking play with only four linemen! Hardly any blitzing at all! It was also beautiful to see the offensive line outlast the Sooner defensive line in the second half, when Texas finally got the running game going--it took a while, but our five guys were ultimately able to manhandle the guys in red on the other side of the scrimmage line. Beautiful.

We've really got some fucking great linemen. I usually don't go on about linemen - nobody does, really - but our guys are just incredible. Some of those surges were amazing.

Anyway, we're number one now. And we can keep it by doing what we've been doing all season. No bullshit play. All business. All focus. You know, I recorded the game on the trusty old school VCR. I think I'm going to watch it again, this time with the outcome already known, so I can actually experience this now legendary game in the more academic and abstract way that most of the country saw it. Is that weird? Watching a game for a second time? Fuck it; I don't care.

Hook 'em 'Horns!


Texas wide receiver Quan Cosby (6) pulls in a 36-yard pass in the third quarter
in front of Oklahoma defensive back Brian Jackson (2) during an NCAA college
football game, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Donna McWilliam)

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
FUCK NO...
No. 11 Gators' offense revs up in rout of No. 4 LSU

From the AP via ESPN:

Tebow vowed to play harder following his last home game, a humbling home loss to Mississippi two weeks ago. The Heisman Trophy winner backed up that promise with his best game of the season Saturday night.

Tebow threw two touchdown passes to Percy Harvin and ran for a score, and No. 11 Florida thumped defending national champion LSU 51-21 at Florida Field.

"I think we had a little chip on our shoulder going into the game," Tebow said.

The fourth-ranked Tigers (4-1, 2-1 Southeastern Conference) had won six consecutive games, 19 in a row at night and 23 straight in regulation. Florida (5-1, 3-1) ended all those streaks with a fast start and some huge plays from Tebow, Harvin, Jeff Demps and Brandon Spikes.

Click here for the rest.

Okay, Saturday ended in bittersweet fashion for me. I mean, yeah sure, just another day in the SEC and all, losses are always tough when it's your team, but LSU just got the living shit kicked out them. It was enough of a bummer to tarnish my shiny burnt orange glow a bit; I had been hoping to accent that glow with some purple and gold highlights, but got purple and gold vomit all over me instead.

I watched until the very end, but I sure was tempted to turn the damned thing off numerous times, which I probably should have. Earlier in the day it was Longhorn glory; that night was just painful. I have no idea what went wrong. Florida just shut down the Tigers' running game, and our two quarterbacks looked young and inexperienced, which I guess they are.

And Tebow looked great. All the Gators looked great. Touchdown after touchdown after touchdown. The only analysis I can offer is this is the same inconsistency that has plagued LSU since I started paying attention in the 2004 season: the SEC is tough, but talented, well focused teams who are serious about winning can run the board. This goes back to Coach Miles. The Tigers shouldn't have lost to Florida by thirty points. He doesn't have their minds in the right place.

I guess. What the fuck do I know about football?

Hook 'em 'Horns!


LSU offensive tackle Ciron Black looks up at the scoreboard
during the final moments of an NCAA college football game
against Florida in Gainesville, Fla., Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008.
Florida won 51-21. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

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RIGHT-WING CRAZIES: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OBAMA IS ELECTED?

Courtesy of Eschaton, from Paul Krugman's blog Conscience of a Liberal:

One thing that has been sort of written out of the mainstream history of politics is the sheer insanity of the attacks on the Clintons — they were drug smugglers, they murdered Vince Foster (and lots of other people), they were in league with foreign powers. And this stuff didn’t just show up in fringe publications — it was discussed in Congress, given props by the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and so on.

What it came down to was that a significant fraction of the American population, backed by a lot of money and political influence, simply does not consider government by liberals (even very moderate liberals) legitimate. Ronald Reagan was supposed to have settled that once and for all.

What happens when Obama is elected?

More here.

Krugman is riffing on the recent hate speech shouted by supporters attending McCain and Palin rallies, stuff like "traitor" and "kill him," and I agree there's a lot more going on than simply some angry assholes at political events. The Conservative Movement is, as far as I can tell, primarily composed of people who continue to be extraordinarily pissed off by the 1960s even though the 60s ended decades ago. Shit, man, there are people in the Movement who are too young to even remember the 60s--mostly it just seems to be tribal hate aimed at a straw man liberal constructed by right-wing myth makers. This tribal hate has been successfully channeled in various directions which are useful to conservative power weilders.

One of those hate-directions is the non-conservative notion that government ought to play a strong role in the economy: clearly, this non-conservative notion must now be regarded as absolutely true, given current events. Unfortunately, the tribe has been strongly indoctrinated, and god knows what the faithful must now think. I'm betting that many of them must be going through some strong cognitive dissonance at the moment. But add to it the sense of dysphoria and disappointment after nearly eight years of Republican rule: no WMD in Iraq, no capture of bin Laden, no reversal of Roe v Wade, no prayer in school, no crackdown on immigrants, and need I even go on? You get the idea. This country must be a very frightening place to the true believers.

And now a black guy stands ready to take the Oval Office!

It must feel like the Apocalypse to most of these fuckers. (Aside: why haven't they been Raptured up to God yet?) Krugman says he wouldn't be surprised by some anti-Obama violence. Neither would I. Some of these right-wingers are being driven spanking bonkers insane right now. Get-a-gun-and-start-shooting insane. I mean, they love their guns anyway, so this is bound to happen. It's already happened with that nutjob at that Unitarian church in Tennessee. But who's going to be the first to take a shot at President Obama? Who's going to be the first to take out Rachel Madow?

Remember the militia movement of the 90s? That was just a bunch of stupid rednecks worried about globalization and their new draft-dodging, dope smoking, wife trading, fucking hippie President Clinton, not even really a liberal by historical standards. I mean, Obama's not really much further to the left than the man Michael Moore has called America's "best Republican president," but to conservative diehards I'm sure he's the devil.

What's going to happen while conservatism continues to be torn to shreds by reality? What's going to happen when a black Democrat takes the White House? Hopefully nothing. But I think there's potential enough to be worried.

As if there wasn't enough to worry about already.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Reine



Phil



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Racism: the elephant in the US polling booth

From Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News:

"Race is a factor for those who would vote for and against him," said Gary Weaver, an American University professor who leads its Intercultural Management Institute.

"I think that there are some white Americans who will not vote for a black person. It is unlikely they would admit this publicly, but they might admit this in anonymous surveys," Weaver said.

"On the phone, racists will often deny that they are influenced by race because it is socially unacceptable. When they enter the poll booths, these people may very well vote against Obama."

According to a recent Stanford University poll, Obama could lose six points on election day due to his color -- a troubling price to pay for prejudice.

Click here for more.

Right. So if you've been reading Real Art regularly you know that I plan to vote for Ralph Nader next month. Long story short: the Democrats are simply incapable of nominating an actual liberal for president, and I'm sick and tired of having to hold my nose and vote for a candidate who in no way represents my vision for a better America; I voted for Kerry in 2004 because all my liberal friends and all those "progressive" writers insisted on it, "anybody but Bush," and I was sickened by doing it, so no more of this shit. I know Nader won't win, but he's the guy I want, so he gets my vote--I'm not a Democrat, and I owe them nothing.

But of the two candidates who actually have a shot, I'd greatly prefer to see Obama win.

So I'm quietly rooting for him, even though what he would do is stabilize the bullshit system rather than doing away with it--I have to admit that is indeed a bit better than the far right-wing chaos we're experiencing now. I think it's also very symbolically cool that Obama's a black man--sixty years ago, black men couldn't even vote in the city where I'm now writing these words; today we stand a very good chance of being led by a black man. That's why I'm troubled by this business about polling data being skewed by in-the-booth racists. If you assume a five percent margin of error, and then throw in this potential six percent who've possibly lied about voting for Obama, the Senator from Illinois is going to need to lead by at least a ten percent polling margin going into election day.

So I'm modifying my voting plans.

If Obama is beating McCain in the polls here in Louisiana by five to ten percent during the week before the election, I'll vote for him instead of Nader in order to cancel out one of those lying, in-the-booth racist people's votes. Either way, my guy won't win, but it would drive me nuts if post election analysis indicates that Obama lost by a slim margin attributed to voters who decided at the last minute that a black president is a bad idea.

You hear that Democrats? I've found our common ground. Really, though, this state's pretty safe for McCain, and I fully expect to be voting for Ralph. But just in case...

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THE STAR TREK CALENDAR PICTURE OF THE MONTH IS...



...Mr. Sulu!!!

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Pope Slams Modern Societies For Godlessness

From the AP via the Huffington Post Newswire:

Pope Benedict XVI warned Sunday that modern culture is pushing God out of people's lives, causing nations once rich in religious faith to lose their identities.

Benedict celebrated a Mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to open a worldwide meeting of bishops on the relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics.

"Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture," said Benedict, who has been pushing for religion to be given more room in society.

More here.

What does it mean, exactly, "for religion to be given more room in society"?

You hear this bullshit all the time here in the US, that religion is under fire, that there needs to be more display of religion in public, that more God equals a better society. But how does that work exactly? From my perspective as an agnostic leaning atheist, we've got plenty of room for religion in society. People are always talking about God's will. The schools teach Christian inspired abstinence-based sex education while tolerating "student sponsored" religious events and prayer meetings. Politicians crawl over each other to out-God the opposition, always saying "God bless America."

Maybe the Pope was talking about secular Europe, but I'm pretty sure he was including America. But put all that aside for a moment to modify my original question: why must religion be given more room in society?

There is no public discussion on this question. It seems that the prevailing attitude is that religion is generally a good thing, so more of it seems to be a reasonable goal. But what would it do, having religion play a stronger role in society? How is it going to make life any better? Nobody really ever asks that, which is why nobody appears to have an answer. What's particularly troubling to me is that not many Americans seem to be troubled by this. I mean, if you supported the proposition that more religion in society is good, wouldn't you want your view to be grounded in a strong and reasonable argument? But no such argument, short of vague assertions that God is great, or Jesus loves us, exists.

It's one thing to lose an argument, but I'm really disturbed by the fact that there is no argument about this. C'mon. Shouldn't the god-believers at least have to make a legitimate case?

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Ogbonnaya scores 2 TDs, saves another as No. 5 Texas cruises

From the AP via ESPN:

Ogbonnaya scored two touchdowns and saved another in the fifth-ranked Longhorns' 38-14 rout of the Buffaloes on Saturday night that sets up a matchup of unbeatens with top-ranked Oklahoma in Dallas next week.

The senior running back scored on a 65-yard dump-off and a 13-yard gallop through the befuddled Buffs' defense, then saved a score when he chased down cornerback Jalil Brown at the Texas 16 after an interception of Colt McCoy.

Ogbonnaya's trio of tremendous plays helped the Longhorns (5-0, 1-0 Big 12) take a 21-0 halftime lead and assured there would be no peeking toward next weekend's Red River Rivalry against the Sooners.

At least not until the game's end, when the Longhorns' contingent of fans chanted "Beat OU! Beat OU!" as the players gathered in the end zone for the school song.

"It's what these two teams should have at midseason. It's two top-five teams that are both playing really well," Texas coach Mack Brown said. "We'll have everybody in America talking about the game next week, and that's what we want."

More here.

Okay, by this point in the season last year, I was very much of the opinion that Texas just wasn't serious about winning football games. I mean, they won games and all, but by margins beneath their talent, and they clearly had problems with big games. They couldn't beat Oklahoma. Indeed, the last time the 'Horns beat OU was during their legendary 2005 season on the way to winning the national championship, led by Marvel Superhero and X-Men candidate Vince Young--I'll never forget the look of disgust on OU coach Bob Stoop's face; it was beautiful.

So why the hell am I talking about last season and OU for a post about Texas beating the Colorado Buffaloes? Even though Texas is still untested in that they really haven't played anybody on their level yet, it is now clear to me that the Longhorns are dead serious about winning football games this year. Last year there were a lot of sloppy mistakes, a lot of off-the-field bullshit, and it showed during games, lots of depressing comedy. Not this year. I mean, okay, there are still mistakes here and there, and there is weakness in the running game, and in the defensive secondary, but they're improving with every game. The 'Horns are focused and efficient in a businesslike way. No bullshit.

And taking care of business is what Texas did in their opening Big 12 game, on the road, which is always tough in this conference, unless it's against, say, Baylor. So Colt McCoy, "the Doctor" I like to call him, as in "Doctor McCoy," is no Vince Young, but he's looking damned good, buffed up, giving hits instead of taking them as he runs for yardage worthy of his predecessor. And he's fucking accurate. And man, our linemen, on both sides of the ball, are fucking scarey, in the good way--that's the most important part of the game, down in the trenches; linemen don't win games, but their performance provides the foundation upon which teams win.

Of course, none of this means that Texas will beat OU, but for the first time since '05, I'm feeling very good about our prospects. I'm feeling like it's going to be a good game; if they lose, Texas will look good doing it. But, as I'm sure you know, I really, really, really want the Longhorns to beat the Sooners. I really, really, really want to see Bob Stoops throw his stupid fucking OU sun visor down on the ground in disgust. I've really come to hate OU in ways that dwarf my disdain for Texas A&M. As my buddy Matt used to say, the reason the Aggies hate us so much is that they know that they're really only a secondary rivalry; OU is the primary rival, and I've come to fully understand that only in my adult life. Because OU sucks.

Beat the fuck out of 'em, Texas!!!


Texas wide receiver Jordan Shipley, left, pulls in a pass for a touchdown over
Colorado cornerback Cha'pelle Brown in the first quarter of an NCAA college
football game in Boulder, Colo., on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008.
(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

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MADONNA STILL SUCKS

From the New York Times courtesy of the Huffington Post Newswire:

Aerobic, Not Erotic: The Concert as Workout

At 50, Madonna can no longer be seen as a clubland ingénue, a Hollywood glamour queen, an iconoclast rejecting a Roman Catholic upbringing or a kinky provocateur, and she won’t be any kind of dowager yet. Time has brought out her core: careerist ambition and a combative tenacity.

Has there ever been a colder pop sex symbol? For all the invitations in her lyrics, Madonna has always projected more calculation and industriousness than affection. She works; her audience looks and pays, becoming another conquest.

And

Madonna turned to messages: a save-the-world video that torpedoed its good intentions with overkill, juxtaposing John McCain with Hitler and Barack Obama with Gandhi. Although her outfit and a mop-with-bangs wig made her look like a bad 1970s comic-book character, Madonna was close to inspirational in an electrocharged version of “Like a Prayer,” with golden-rule religious teachings projected overhead. She followed it awkwardly, with guitar-slinging rock versions of “Ray of Light” and, returning to earthly things, “Hung Up,” with a feedback finish. She wants punk’s old rebel credibility.

More here.

Okay, when I say she sucks, I mean only by the standard she set for herself back in the day. That is, she still manages to release a pretty good song or two every few years. As a pop singer, I'd say that Madonna is okay. But she's just another pop singer, divorced these days from the sense of cultural significance she exuded for about a decade or so, from, say, 1982-1992.

I've ranted about this at length here on more than one occasion. Madonna obviously jumped the shark long ago, yet like a zombie she's still there, still touring and releasing records, still important fodder for the gossip trade, still ripping off zombie fans of their hard earned cash. But who's really into her lately? I mean, it's been a long time since one could honestly assert that she has any real cultural significance. It's really hard for me to get past the feeling that what she's got going now is simply a more media-savvy version of the slow fade into obscurity suffered by the baby boomer performers who've preceded her, you know, the Beach Boys and their ilk.

One thing that's become utterly clear to me since my last rant about Madonna is that she never really understood exactly why she was important back in the 80s. Here's my take. Her personality - hard working, greedy and ambitious, controlling, sexually aggressive, New York hip, spiritually confused, angry - was absolutely perfect for the post liberal, post hippie Reagan era. I mean, Madonna is cocaine. All euphoria, but totally self-involved. How could she not have become a superstar in the 1980s? But the 80s ended, and Madonna stayed the same. I mean, sure, she toyed with different musical styles, changed her outfits, but what she was about always stayed the same. There has never been any sense of self-understanding, which is why she has never been able to take the ideas that launched her to cultural prominence and expand upon them, or examine them, or move them toward new or different ideas.

Greed was all the rage back in '82 when "Borderline" first hit the charts, but what does greed mean now? How does the Material Girl fit into an America where such right-wing cultural values are being shredded by reality as we watch on television? Madonna has never understood herself, and that's completely evident today.

It's also why she is totally irrelevant.


What the fuck does she think she's doing? She can't even play guitar.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

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Biden vs. Palin -- Who Won? 6 Short Takes on the VP Debate

From AlterNet:

Sarah Palin's task was to avoid getting caught in specifics, and she did that with aplomb. Early on, she made her strategy explicit, saying that her answers may not be "what the moderator wants," or what Joe Biden might want to hear, but that she'd "talk straight" to the American people.

She did that by avoiding just about every question for the rest of the debate. In answer to Biden's charge that McCain had voted repeatedly to deregulate the financial sector, she launched into a discussion of taxes; when the subject turned to the bankruptcy "reform" bill, she launched into a slogan-riddled discourse about "Main Street" versus "Wall Street" -- the trite words of the day. Several times she went back to a tested talking point about Barack Obama's support of (Bush's) energy bill, barreling head-on through whatever topic moderator Gwen Ifill was trying to probe at the time.

Throughout, she tried to play up her folksiness, at one point saying "doggone it," and twice winking mischievously at the camera. If you'd been drinking each time she said the word "maverick," you would have ended up with severe alcohol poisoning.

More here.

I've been blowing off presidential debates for over a decade now. They're generally boring in terms of the argumentation, and as I've moved to the left, they always leave me a bit depressed given how mainstream politics have shifted so far to the right since the Reagan era. But because I think Sarah Palin is hot, and because the Katie Couric interview made me hopeful that Palin's rhetorical efforts would end up as something of a train wreck, I watched this one.

And I was disappointed. Really, I couldn't even focus on the whole thing. I ended up doing chores around the house while the debate played on TV. It was that lame.

I mean, okay, Biden was pretty good. That is, he actually came to debate--don't get me wrong; I don't like him or anything, what with his credit industry loving ways and all. But it was clear that he was there for some good arguments, which is how he started out. After only a little while, however, it became completely clear that Palin was there just to look pretty and sound smart, winking and shit, and using words like "Iran" and "General McClellan," who was one of Lincoln's generals during the Civil War, rather than the current US commander in Afghanistan, but no matter. No real debate. No real clash.

I was reminded of my high school debate and competitive public speaking days. Back then, and probably even now, it was pretty easy to win a round if you had a judge who didn't know much about academic debate, usually a soccer mom or the like, by simply sounding good while using big words. It didn't really matter that you didn't know what you were talking about, as long as you came off like David Brinkley or Linda Ellerbee. The suburban mommies and daddies loved that shit.

On the other hand, if you got a debate coach from another school as judge, or a college kid who used to debate in high school, you were totally fucked if you had no idea what you're talking about. Looking good didn't count for shit. You always had to size up your judge and strategize accordingly. Of course, if all you were capable of doing was immitating famous broadcast journalists, you'd have to always play the looking good angle--these people usually lost at state and nationals, where tournament organizers weren't so hard up for judges.

Anyway, I've been sensing a fear on the left that Palin's use of the looking good gambit will play well with swing voters. I'm not buying it. Swing voters are indeed wishy washy vessels of political ignorance and apathy, but eight years of disastrous GOP rule, coupled with this current credit and finance crisis, have rubbed almost everybody's nose in Republican bullshit. It's going to take a whole lot more than grace under fire to convince average Americans that continuing Republican rule is a good idea. Sarah Palin is not Ronald Reagan, and this isn't 1980: for once, even the retarded middle understands that there are important differences between the far right-wing Republicans and the right-wing Democrats.

She's just not a threat to the Obama/Biden ticket. Period. Things are so fucking bad that uplifting rhetoric and a perky smile won't do shit.

But wouldn't a real debate have been nice for once?

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Sammy



Frankie



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Offended neighbors get Utah park statue moved

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

A Utah state park moved an American Indian-inspired statue of a humpbacked flute player Thursday after objections that it was offensive because the male figure is anatomically correct.

Officials at Edge of the Cedars State Park moved the sticklike figure from in front of its museum to a spot behind it so it can't been seen from the street, park manager Teri Paul said.

The park, in Blanding, is the site of an ancient Pueblo Indian ruin, as well as the modern-day museum.

The sculpture is a modern interpretation of a Hopi symbol of a flute player. Made by artist Joe Pachak, it has welcomed visitors to the park for 19 years.

It raised objections only recently from a group of Blanding's more conservative residents, who were concerned that the figure has male anatomy, Paul said.

At first park officials were going to ban the figure from the park altogether. But another group of citizens complained of censorship.

More here.

It's tempting to blast the crazy Mormons here, but you get this kind of bizarre parochialism all over the place, even in New York City from time to time. And this is bizarre. We're talking about a stick figure. With a stick pee pee. I mean, I'm all for obscene and pornographic art freaking people out on Main Street and all, but this doesn't even come close. It's a stick figure. With a stick pee pee. And this stick pee pee took nineteen years to finally offend someone.

It's very cool that the local anti-censorship group kept the statue from being banned outright - in addition to widespread American parochialism, it's wonderful to note that we also have widespread defense of free speech, even in Cow Town, USA - but the compromise, which simply moved the offensive stick pee pee out of sight, is nearly as much of an insult as banning it would have been. That is, moving it concedes that the anti stick pee pee people have a point worth considering, which they don't.

Why on earth must we continually rearrange society to accommodate primitive and superstitious morons?


See? It's a stick pee pee.
(AP Photo/Edge of Cedar State Park Museum, Teri Paul)

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Small Businesses Frozen by Crisis

From the New York Times:

Small businesses in America — the 27 million companies employing fewer than 500 people and in most cases fewer than 20 people — account for half of the nation’s output. A downward swing, whether caused by expensive borrowing or pessimism, could weaken the economy and shrink employment. Small businesses employ 40 percent of the work force, the Census Bureau reports, and they outpace large companies in generating new jobs.

“Small businesses are sitting on their hands,” said Chad Moutray, chief economist of the Small Business Administration. “Either they can’t get the capital or they don’t want the capital. They read what is happening, and frankly they are scared.”

And

That sense of bracing for harder times is evident in little ways, at companies large and small. George Wendt, the owner of Chicago Metal Rolled Products, which forms steel into supports for stadium roofs, school gymnasiums, large canopies and the like, has reduced the steel he keeps in inventory over the last month, buying only what is immediately used.

That decision, multiplied across many companies, means suppliers will make less and stockpiles will shrink. There will be less production to drive the economy.

More here.

The complexities of economics can make understanding what's at stake in this credit crisis, or mortgage and lending crisis, or financial crisis, whatever you want to call it, seem daunting. That's true enough. But when you get down to it, the basics are pretty simple.

Here's a little history.

Deregulation mania, pushed for a couple of decades by the rising, and then dominant, Conservative Movement, resulted in the repeal of Depression era banking regulations which made it possible for banks to issue home loans to people who couldn't possibly afford to repay them. Those banks then sold the loans to brokerage houses which then packaged them together into larger units, and sliced them up into shares which were then bought by legitimate investment companies.

Quick aside: if you're wondering why bad loans were considered to be a good investment by legitimate investors, you're in good company. The only explanation I've heard is that these investors expected the real estate bubble to expand for a much longer time than it actually did. Yeah, I still don't get it. Maybe they thought that increasing collateral value meant that they weren't actually bad loans. Suffice it to say that being a capitalist doesn't necessarily correlate with possessing intelligence or foresight.

Anyway, it turns out that, even though not every brokerage house and bank was in on the game, just enough were that when the foreclosures began, it sent serious shock waves throughout the entire financial sector: all these companies loan money to each other, sell each other various securities; if you get a certain percentage of them going belly up, it fucks over everyone. That is, one company's inability to pay its debts affects lots and lots of other companies, which in turn are unable to pay their debts because they were depending on that first wave of insolvent banks to pay their fucking debts. Big house of cards caught up in a chain reaction from hell.

We had this all figured out back during the 1930s, and had a lot of laws and regulations designed to keep such cross contamination from bringing the house down, but such thinking was incompatible with right-wing free market ideology, the same sort which dominated business and politics before the 30s, and so it had to go.

Bottom line here: banks are now afraid to loan money to other banks, which means that available money for loans to consumers and non-financial businesses is hard to come by. That's bad because businesses, especially small businesses, depend critically on access to credit or loan money.

Like banks, at any given moment, virtually all businesses don't actually possess in liquid cash what they're worth. They're waiting for payment for services rendered or goods sold in order to pay off obligations like payroll or previous loans. I mean, they've got the money on paper; they just don't have access to it until they get paid what they're owed. In the meantime, however, life goes on, and they have to pay what they owe. That's where credit comes in. You get some loan money to make it through normal expenses until your accounts have been settled. The whole fucking economy works in this way. Credit literally greases the wheels of capitalism.

But what happens when you can't get that credit to make payroll or service your own debt or do any number of things that businesses need to do in order to remain viable? You cut expenses. You lay off workers. You produce less. You find as many corners to cut as possible. Now picture all businesses having to do that. You don't simply have an economic slowdown; you have reverse growth, a.k.a. recession, with high unemployment, soup lines, etc.

This financial crisis is very real. It's not simply about a bunch of fat cat Wall Street assholes. The popular resentment against bailout is one that I understand and sympathize with. Why reward rich pricks in suits who would just as soon sodomize your grandmother as have a hamburger? Thing is, without a massive capital infusion, taking care of the insolvency mess left behind by all those shitty mortgage securities, to make all these nervous bankers feel like it's safe to loan money again, things will just keep getting worse; small business, and then later big business, will just keep slowing down, which will in turn result in mass layoffs, which will in turn result in street riots and social instability the likes of which no living American has seen in his own country.

The problem as I see it is crafting a bailout that fixes the system without rewarding the assholes who broke it in the first place. We also need to make sure this doesn't happen again. We also need to provide relief to all the consumers, who I prefer to call citizens, who've been caught up in this storm's wake. Congress is moving in that direction - praise them all for rejecting Paulson's first "free money for assholes in suits" proposal - but they're not there yet.

If we're lucky, they will be soon.

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SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN

So the economy is falling apart while we all watch on TV, and the major presidential candidates, Congress, and the White House all seem powerless to do anything. What to do? What to do?

Think about comic books!

From retroCRUSH:

Okay, but my favorite thing about Jimmy Olsen was that he existed as one of those characters that the publishers, writers, and editors felt comfortable doing anything with. Jimmy could take a secret serum and turn into “Elastic Lad” and actually become a real superhero. He also turned into a giant turtle and all sorts of crazy monsters along the way, but the coolest thing existed in the form of a secret signal watch to call on Superman whenever he got into a jam. Talk about fulfilling the sidekick dream, Jimmy had direct access to the ultimate big brother who could kick anybody’s ass.

And

Enter Jack Kirby. When he moved from Marvel to DC to usher in a whole new adventurous world for the 1970s Kirby insisted on taking over the book with the lowest sales so someone with a steady job wouldn’t lose work.

That book, Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, is where and when the Jimmy Olsen series truly became a vitally interesting comic book, containing a continuity of stories that every serious reader of comic literature should own.

Jack Kirby made Jimmy Olsen modern, relevant, and totally far out. Jimmy throws away his bowtie and basically becomes an action-packed superstar that isn’t afraid to tell the authoritative Superman where to fly.

Jimmy’s far out “Fourth World” trip lasted about four years until his book hit cancellation, no doubt because it has gone too far into the “wild.”

Click here for more.

Being born in 1968, the Jimmy Olson I first got to know was the revamped guy from the early 70s. I mean, I understood that Jimmy had long played a totally secondary role for Superman, being someone else besides Lois to fall out of windows for the Man of Tomorrow to rescue, but Jimmy's "Mr. Action" phase in the 70s, the twentysomething suave and competent crusading photojournalist who hung out with superheroes and aliens, and only used his signal watch to contact his Kryptonian mentor under the most dire of circumstances, captured my imagination, often as much as DC's actual costumed characters.

And the Jack Kirby stuff is as good as anything he did at Marvel, maybe even better. Kirby took the weirdness of what was at that point thirty years of accumulated Superman storyline into the realm of sublime art. If you ever get the chance, you should try to check out some of the Jimmy Olson clone stories Kirby did: I have never experienced a comic book moment as compelling as when Jimmy has to fight hundreds of evil clones of himself, with his fists, at the same time.

You know, Lois Lane had her own title, too, and by the time I was reading her stuff in the late 70s, there were lots of cool underwear shots. I guess DC's editors knew what nine year old boys wanted to see. Don't believe me? Check this out:



Hubba hubba! But this is about Superman's Pal not Superman's Girlfriend, so I'll end this post with this fabulous cover courtesy of retroCRUSH:



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ROLLING STONE COLUMNIST STARTS TO REALLY KICK ASS

From Rolling Stone via AlterNet, Matt Taibbi goes for Sarah Palin's jugular:

Mad Dog Palin

But watching Palin's speech, I had no doubt that I was witnessing a historic, iconic performance. The candidate sauntered to the lectern with the assurance of a sleepwalker - and immediately launched into a symphony of snorting and sneering remarks, taking time out in between the superior invective to present herself as just a humble gal with a beefcake husband and a brood of healthy, combat-ready spawn who just happened to be the innocent targets of a communist and probably also homosexual media conspiracy. It was a virtuoso performance. She appeared to be completely without shame and utterly full of shit, awing a room full of hardened reporters with her sickly sweet line about the high-school-flame-turned-hubby who, "five children later" is "still my guy." It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.

Within minutes, Palin had given TV audiences a character infinitely recognizable to virtually every American: the small-town girl with just enough looks and a defiantly incurious mind who thinks the PTA minutes are Holy Writ, and injustice means the woman next door owning a slightly nicer set of drapes or flatware. Or the governorship, as it were.

And

The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. Hicks root for hicks, moms for moms, born-agains for born-agains. Sure, there was politics in the Palin speech, but it was all either silly lies or merely incidental fluffery buttressing the theatrical performance.

Much more here.

It took me awhile to warm to this guy, but I'm really starting to like him. He has advanced the sociopolitical insult to levels never even imagined by the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, but the Generation X writer takes his work into areas his gonzo predecessor would not. That is, Matt Taibbi moves fluently back and forth between dry evisceration and poignant observation. I mean, it's fairly easy to lampoon GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, as Tina Fey and numerous others have deftly shown, but going from "It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag" to the assertion that American politics have been reduced by television to nothing more than the grandest of reality shows is nothing short of sublime.

Go check out his essay. It's the definitive Sarah Palin piece. And look for more Matt Taibbi--I'm starting to think that he may be one of the key essayists of our time.

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
TEXAS, LSU GO TO 4-0, MOVE UP TWO SLOTS IN RANKINGS

From the AP via ESPN:

QB McCoy nearly perfect as Texas embarrasses Arkansas

It came at the hands of another near-perfect performance by McCoy, who put up five touchdowns and has Texas (4-0) coasting into its Big 12 schedule after a 52-10 romp over Arkansas that ranked among the biggest blowouts ever in the historic rivalry.

The loss was the worst in the series since a 52-0 Texas shutout in 1916 and the fourth-most lopsided meeting between the schools.

It was an embarrassing rivalry debut for Petrino in a series famous for close games. In the previous 10 meetings between Texas and Arkansas, the average margin of victory was fewer than nine points.

But the Razorbacks (2-2) left Austin as another overmatched opponent for Texas, which have now outscored opponents 198-36 this season.

"This is the best we've played since the national title year," said Texas senior offensive lineman Cedric Dockery, recalling the 2005 season. "It shows up on the scoreboard and in the win column."

More here.

Okay, this game was frustrating. Well, not the game itself, but the way I watched it. As usual, I woke up Saturday afternoon only to find that Texas/Arkansas was already well underway on the local ABC affiliate. The good thing was that Texas was up by twenty eight points. "Cool," I thought, "I'll watch a rip roaring rout in the second half." And a rout it was. Texas had extended its lead to forty two points midway through the third quarter. I was loving it! And that's when ABC decided that the game had ended and switched over to ESPN coverage of a game I didn't really care about.

All told, I only got to see a little more than half a quarter of play. That's the thing about living outside my home state: you've really got to relish those televised Longhorn moments when you get them. I mean, yeah, I do get to see a lot of Texas ball out here in Louisiana, but that's only because they're so nationally prominent. Lord help me if I was a Baylor fan. Well, Lord help me if I was a Baylor fan in any case, but the point is that I'm not living in Longhorn country, and television executives know it.

Texas/Colorado may or may not be shown here next Saturday, which is a drag because I'm sure UT/OU will be shown here, and I'm still quite afraid that my next Longhorn TV fix will be watching Mack Brown once again be outcoached by Bob Stoops. Yeah yeah, I'm finally ready to admit that the 'Horns really are playing well this season, but they still haven't played anyone as good as or better than they are yet. What's going to happen?

I'm trying not to think about that. For now, I'm just going to enjoy this number five ranking Texas has fallen into, just as I'm enjoying LSU's number three ranking.


Texas quarterback Colt McCoy attempts to elude Arkansas defensive
end Jake Bequette during a second-quarter option play in an NCAA
college football game, Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008, in Austin, Texas.
(AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

Speaking of LSU, again from the AP via ESPN:

No. 5 LSU stays unbeaten with scrappy win over Mississippi State

Scott surpassed 100 yards rushing for a fourth straight game, leading No. 5 LSU to a 34-24 victory over Mississippi State on Saturday night.

"We played a very physical defense and ... matched that physicality or exceeded it," Miles said. "I think we can run the football against any opponent."

The Bulldogs turned in a feisty performance in a bid to add another surprising result to a week highlighted by upsets of No. 1 Southern California, No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 Florida.

Mississippi State trailed by only 10 during much of the fourth quarter, but Scott's 27 carries for 141 yards kept LSU (4-0, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) moving and the clock rolling.

And

However, LSU starting interior defensive linemen Ricky Jean-Francois and Charles Alexander both were shaken up in the first half. Alexander briefly returned in the fourth quarter, Jean-Francois did not, but remained on the sideline in uniform.

More here.

Okay, I got to see this one, just as I get to see every LSU game here in Louisiana, sometimes twice because of rebroadcast on local stations, and it was exciting. Kind of exciting in the way that the Auburn game was exciting, and that's a problem. While a member in good standing of the SEC, which is accompanied by a certain level of respect if only just because, Mississippi State is no Auburn. LSU should have beaten the shit out of MSU and they didn't. My thinking is that the loss of Jean-Francois and Alexander is what opened the game up for the Bulldogs; fortunately, the two dominating defensive linemen were only out for that game. On the other hand, inconsistency and sloppy play is a problem that has plagued the Tigers during the Les Miles era, and I wonder how we're going to do the rest of the season--maybe we'll convincingly beat number two Alabama, rubbing Sabin's nose in it, but lose to, say, 0-2 South Carolina.

It would be just awful to lose to a bunch of game cocks.


LSU wide receiver Demetrius Byrd (2) breaks away from Mississippi State
defender Tay Bowser (28) in the second half of an NCAA college football game
on his way to scoring a touchdown in Baton Rouge, La., Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008.
Byrd scored on the play and LSU defeated Mississippi State 34-24.
(AP Photo/Bill Haber)

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