The Invisible Counterpoint

Right now he's on the trail of others, but he's got his sights on you. Re: Rush Limbaugh is facing the consequences of the buffoonish, offensive cartoon persona that’s made him a gazillionaire: The controversy-averse brotherhood of NFL owners harrumphed disapproval of Limbaugh’s role in a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams, and within a few days the group Limbaugh was part of dropped the radio bully from its bid. I’m sure the snub is causing Rusty to relive childhood traumas, and I feel a little sorry for him. It must be awful to be kicked to the curb by guys who used to admire you, and the deep pockets you brought to their bid. And Limbaugh sure got angry that his bid ran into choppy water. “This is not about the NFL, it's not about the St. Louis Rams, it's not about me. This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone wh...

Want Cheap Tuition? Try Yukon College Classes are small, and now it's a key outpost of climate change study. It seems an unlikely place for a college, serving a territory the size of Sweden and with a population of only 35,000. But Yukon College has made an advantage out of its smallness and remoteness. And on Wednesday of this week, it became the home of the Yukon Research Centre of Excellence, dedicated largely to studying the impact of climate change on the north. [. . .] Yukonners are famous for multi-tasking: running gold mines and tourism operations, or B&B's and security companies. Yukon College, too small to survive with a single specialty, is doing the same thing. In the process, it may teach survival skills to colleges in southern Canada as well. (Crawford Kilian, “Want Cheap Tuition? Try Yukon College,” The Tyee, Oct. 23 2009) Guys, remember to compliment you antler-head U training, with at least some courses from Princeton and MIT at itunes U. ...

The number one rule of American politics: the greatest, most insatiable need of the standard conservative is to turn themselves into oppressed little victims. In The Daily Beast today , Tucker Carlson devotes his entire column to complaining that Obama is "bullying" Fox News, absurdly claiming that the White House and liberals are trying "to use government power to muzzle opinions they don't agree with." Needless to say, Carlson doesn't say a word about the endless -- and far worse -- attacks by the Bush White House on a whole array of media outlets, ones that went far beyond mere criticisms. (Glenn Greenwald, “Tucker Carlson and the right’s perpetual self-victimhood,” Salon, October 23 2009) Towel smothering, to the delight of the perpetrating left. What I hear mostly is talk of the far worse efforts by Bush et al. Obama is the entranced parent calmly smothering a towel over the tantruming child. Salon helps serve particulars on the right up as cry...

News flash! Climate change is not only a fraud and a hoax, but it is a sinister conspiracy of the "left" to create an unelected eco-dictatorship that spans the globe. Millions of the world’s poorest will die, and civilization as we know it will perish unless we stop this plot before it is too late. That remarkable message was delivered this week by the flamboyantly pompous Lord Christopher Walter, the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley , at a lunch time talk hosted by the Fraser Institute, and sponsored by the so-called "Friends" of Science. [. . .] Let's start by pointing out that Lord Monckton is not a "lord" at all if by his title you assumed he is a member of the British Parliament's House of Lords . In fact, he received no votes in 2007 House of Lords Conservative Hereditary Peers' byelection . (Mitchell Anderson, “Why are oddballs like this guy winning?,” The Tyee 21 Oct. 2009) So long as our opponents look the part of clowns ...

On Saturday, Tyler Perry, who executive produced the Oscar-buzzed forthcoming movie "Precious," spoke on his Web site of being something else -- a survivor of physical and sexual abuse. [. . .] On his Web site this weekend he wrote about the mother of a childhood playmate. “I was at the front door trying to get out, when she came in and laid on the sofa and asked me if I wanted the key … She put the key inside of herself and told me to come get it, pulling me on top of her.” [. . .] It’s a brutal, heartbreaking, unflinching litany of more pain than any child should ever endure. [. . .] Though accurate data is hard to come by, the Lucy Faithfull Foundation estimates approximately 15 percent of sex abusers are women. (Mary Elizabeth Williams, “Tyler Perry’s House of Pain” October 6 2009) Just a measure? re: It’s a brutal, heartbreaking, unflinching litany of more pain than any child should ever endure. How much pain should a child be expected to endure? re: Thou...

Half a year after brutalizing his then-girlfriend -- by hitting, choking, biting and threatening to kill her -- Chris Brown is still following the script of domestic abusers everywhere. He loves her, he really does, it was totally unlike him and he promises to never ever do it again. That's the tune the R&B crooner sings in a clip from his pre-taped interview for "Larry King Live," which airs in full this Wednesday at 9 p.m. [. . .] CNN also reports that in as-yet-unseen footage, he announces that he still loves Rihanna. The declaration of love, the shock at being overtaken by such uncharacteristic rage and the promise to never do it again -- it's straight out of a domestic violence PSA. The only difference here is that he's telling this to us, the American public, the fans he's trying to win back, instead of his lover. I can only hope -- for his sake and that of his worshipful young fans -- that the full interview reveals Brown as being ready and willin...

— The Search for a Way of Being — Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner By Patrick McEvoy-Halston November 2001 Ridley Scott has recently told us that Decker, from Blade Runner, is in fact a replicant. There are several reasons why I think this a disservice to fans of the film. My primary concern is that it substantiates “takings” of it that focus primarily on the characters at the expense of, as a cover for, explorations of our own responses to Scott’s ominous city-world and its subjected denizens. The choice to create a city-world so reminiscent of our own today, was certainly not an arbitrary one. We have been offered a cold simulacrum, replication , of our own cities—designed, surely, to bring to conscious awareness likely feelings of ambivalence many of us have towards them. I believe the reason we are interested in Decker (a response so natural, logical, in us that the camera’s interest in him mimics our own; it becomes our own viewing eye) is that his movement, his expl...