This Man is Not a Decent Human Being: Perfect Judge Material In Dallas

The "liberal" Dallas Morning News
endorses Judge Keith Dean for re-election Tuesday despite . . . well, just check this up-Dean's-ass excerpt out:

Judge Keith Dean quietly dispensed thousands of sentences, yet he hit Page One this year because of the shocking disparity in two handed down several years apart. A white, politically connected killer received unsupervised probation; a poor, black robber of $2, sent to prison for life after violating probation.
Democrat Mark Stoltz, 55, of Dallas says that should be enough for him to unseat Judge Dean, 50, a Dallas Republican. While the story left Judge Dean vulnerable after nearly two decades on this felony bench – and we expect him to redouble efforts to be fair on each and every case – Mr. Stoltz did not make a case that he's the man to replace him.
Judge Dean continues to rank near the top in the Dallas Bar's judicial evaluation poll, including an 88 percent overall approval rating. In fiscal 2005, his court was the most efficient in total costs, jail costs and cost per disposition among Dallas County felony judges. He is the superior candidate.

Harrogate just doesn't understand. Here's this judge going to events, posing for photo-ops, living well, shaking hands, smiling, playing with grandchildren, being respected as a decent human being even though the smug bastard has consigned someone to life for violating probation after stealing two dollars (BTW, the young black man's crime? He smoked a joint--visited Pete's couch--while on probation).

Those who reserve some pride in this country's institutions, Harrogate envies you but still thinks you've spent a little too much time on Pete's couch yourself. He just thinks that in general, any decent human being you find in the halls of power in Uhmerrikah, why that person would be like a dewdrop in a cesspool.

And that's the Memo. Now to Harrogate's top story....

Bush, Rumsfeld on Flipping Birds

Good stuff, this.

Van Halen news

It was announced today, and confirmed by TMZ, that Van Halen have named Eddie's fifteen-year-old son Wolfgang the new bassist for the band. "Wolfie" replaces founding member Michael Anthony, who left the band ealier this year to tour with former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar.

My favorite Austin radio station reports that "Wolfie" is rehearsing with the group in preparation for a 2007 tour. While no lead singer has been named, Eddie and the group's original frontman, Diamond David Lee Roth, have both expressed a willingness to put their differences aside and work together again.

Keep your fingers crossed and start saving your money. If this thing works out, tickets won't be cheap. But I'm willing to take out a second mortgage if necessary. Whatever it takes to see Eddie, Alex, and Dave together again. Of course, this will likely prompt Mrs. Oxymoron to take a new lover. I will miss her.

Still on Pete's Couch

A tightly written and exuberant analysis of the Rhetorically Unstable Pete's Couch commercial can be found here. Note Harrogate's concurring comment to what Baseball and Brioche sets forth: The point being that, however unintentionally, there is a solid reading of this commercial whereby Pete (and not the preppy narrator who, by the way, has enjoyed the fruits of Pete's Logos only to sell him out in support of the Federal Government's Mythos) emerges as the true hero of the piece.

Harrogate invites--no, implores--readers to follow his link for some context on this culturally crucial topic.

More Double Entendres (Contributions Welcome)

From the world of Journalism:

1)This just in
2)Behind-the-scenes look
3)Coming to you live....
4)Wall to wall coverage (okay, you have to use your imagination a little for that one)

From the restaurant business:

1)Behind you
2)Backup meat sauce
3)My name is ______ and I'll be your server this evening
4)Can I get that on the fly?
5)Waiter, there's a hair on my sausage!

Baby, you're driving me wild.

Take note of these lines, as Harrogate may try to use one or several of them during his advertised sponge baths.

What Harrogate isn't telling us....

Pete's Couch

Since it's been a YouTube kinda day, Harrogate sends this last clip out in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Solon. They know why. That's all that matters.

The Scarlet H

First, I hope his family is well. There is tragedy in this story. A lot of it.

Second, via Andrew Sullivan, Do you know what "H" stands for? Want to guess?

There are multiple words begining with H that apply. We could play madlibs with this story.

In a comment about the times in which we live, the story is already on Wikipedia.

What wikiality? Wikiality, What?

Third, who possesses the burden of proof and burden of rejoinder in this debate? Right now, there is very little evidence to suggest that this is true. Further, the evidence is from a close source to the cituation though it may be "tainted" [pun, pun, pun] Does the accuser possess the burden of proof or Pastor Ted?

Fourth, this is a story about ethos, especially good moral character and the presentation of that character. By posting on this topic, do I lower our ethos since I am focusing on the troubles of others?

Harrogate Implores Readers to "Feel the Love" in Mandarin-Chinese

An Argument Against Uniliateralism

Harrogate couldn't resist. In ways, this video, too, is dedicated to Oxymoron, whose musical taste--unlike Clinton's taste in women--remains unimpeachable.

The Politicos

Badda Bing!!!



What will anyone post about after Tuesday?

Zone, the Twilight....

I saw this ad some time ago. I still am perplexed by it.

Republicans possess the executive, legislative, and judiciary. Yet, liberals create all of the problems in the United States.



I don't know who republicans can be the majority but have no power; hold the offices but get nothing accomplished. Why don't the republican constituencies hold their representatives accountable to issues like same-sex marriage in flag burning in odd years? Why is it only in even years republicans push for these initiatives?

I wish I could figure out the answers to those questions.

Refutation

I was trying to find a video clip that explains refutation for one of my mass lecture classes. My office mate suggested a clip from West Wing. We found this online, but I did not show it. This is an excellent clip but it would not work for a mass lecture class. It would only work for a small class in which you could discuss all of the implications. If you didn't, a charge of "indoctrination" would soon follow.

The Kerry Incident and Intellectual Honesty- from a Conservative

Over at The Corner at NRO:

Yes, But [John Derbyshire]

John Kerry is awful, and anything we can do further to degrade his political prospects is worth doing. But really, I saw a clip of him making the much-deplored remark, and it was obvious that the dimwit in Iraq that he referred to was George W. Bush, not the American soldier. It was a dumb joke badly delivered, but his meaning was plain. My pleasure in watching JK squirm is just as great as any other conservative's, but something is owed to honesty. There's a lot of fake outrage going round here.
Posted at 9:46 AM

And...

Outrage [John Derbyshire]

...from several readers — and, obviously some of my Corner colleagues — that I would dare to suggest that John Kerry was not slandering our troops.
But he wasn't. He may regard them with contempt (my personal impression is that JK regards most of the human race with contempt); he may despise them; he may think they're dumb crackers; but T-H-A-T-'-S N-O-T W-H-A-T H-E S-A-I-D.

What he said was: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Who is stuck in Iraq? Not the common soldier, who just does a tour of duty, as Kerry himself knows from (sorry to bring it up) experience. Who's stuck in Iraq? George W. Bush is stuck in Iraq. That was the point of Kerry's joke. Which he botched. No fair-minded person, watching Kerry deliver those lines, could think otherwise.

I'm not carrying any water for John Kerry. I wrote this about John Kerry, and a good deal more uncomplimentary stuff besides. I don't like John Kerry. I didn't vote for John Kerry. Truth is truth, though, even when applied to John Kerry. If you can't handle the truth, that's your problem.

Posted at 10:21 AM

Good Night and Good Luck

This is from Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Follow the link; this is a must read.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/01/olbermanns-special-comment-there-is-no-line-this-president-has-not-crossed-nor-will-not-cross-to-keep-one-political-party-in-power/

or here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15519404/

Here is the video, in two parts:

Part I:



Part II:

Less is More. So They Say.

Wired magazine recently asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers to compose a short story (or many in the case of some authors) in just six words -- an explicit homage to Ernest Hemingway's story: "For Sale: Baby Shoes, never worn." A truly impressive list of authors answered the call with varying results. They also asked graphics designers to take them to the drawing board (one example seen here).

Some of my personal favorites:

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so. - Joss Whedon

Longed for him. Got him. Shit. - Margaret Atwood

Democracy postponed. Whence franchise? Ask Diebold... - David Brin

Osama’s time machine: President Gore concerned. - Charles Stross

You should definitely check out the full list here.

I tried all afternoon to come up with my own and did not come up with anything inspiring. My best effort so far: "Quals. Prelims. Defense. Still no job?" Given my paltry efforts, I encourage you to post your own or your favorites.

Ok, so apparently, the image does not want to load, so you can check out the designs over at Wired.

For Oxymoron (Still Can't Find the Rhetorically Revolutionary St. Louis Scene!)

National Lampoons Vacation I: For Oxymoron

Thoughts?


National Lampoons Vacation II: For Oxymoron Again


Thoughts?

Bob Barker's Retirement

One of Harrogate's absolute favorite sites for getting the latest on vital information in the world of popular culture is indeed The Slug. You can always count on Derrik J. Lang to provide the scoop, and he has been among the first blogs to jump on Bob Barker's retirement from The Price is Right, the show Harrogate watched religiously whilst a small boy staying with babysitters in the summertime. Since The Slug provides such a great AP picture of Barker at his virtuosic best (Come on Down!), Harrogate (left) depicts Barker contributing to one of the great achievments of modern cinema, Happy Gilmore (send the ball home).

Go to The Slug, readers, for all the relevant links and information regarding Barker's retirement, and indeed for many of your pop culture needs that we just can't get to here on The Rhetorical Situation.

A question for our readers does emerge from all this: wonderously, amazingly, almost orgasmically (hat tip Andre Lepecki)! What precisely are the parameters, what is The Rhetorical Situation of the Game Show, as a genre? How do we intellectuals tackle Game Show culture, which has been such an integral part of America (Harrogate in his infinite wisdom of course realizes that other nations have a history with game shows but then, now that Bush has shown us the glories of unilaterality, Harrogate can simply reply: Who Cares about Old Europe?)? Does the genre represent, exploitatively tap into nascent national desires to score the quick buck? Is it simply the voyeurism of the scantily-clad women and the brand new STUFF (can't you just hear Barker, readers, intoning "A NEW CAR!"?) parading in front of the daytime television day after day after day, doing the bidding of one highly charismatic white guy named, simply, Bob?

Review of Raw 10/30

Last night's edition of Raw totally vindicated Harrogate's high hopes for the program. Week by week, new life bubbles beneath the surface of what was only a month ago bad programming. Reasons? Among the many: The "K-Fed" stuff has played a big role, and Bischoff's entry into the fray has played an even bigger role in its own way. Bischoff has done a wonderful job cashing in on our memories of the WCW excitement he created in the late 90s, giving us the NWO--probably the most effective heels of all time.

But really, John Cena has to get the most credit for the current upsurge. It's getting to the point that his entrance is the most scintillating moment on television, even better than Brit Hume's "Grapevine"--Indeed, Harrogate is deeply impressed with Cena's ethos-crafting ingenuity. It's impossible for those who don't watch the program to understand what Harrogate's talking about here--but YOU, the legions of readers who tune in to Harrogate's piercing analyses week in and week out--you know exactly what he's talking about, don't you? Last night Cena delivered once again, exploiting the Coachman joke to the fullest (and in Harrogate's view, setting up Coachman's eventual conversion to good guy--vote Coachman for Cyber Sunday!), and then intimidating Booker and Big Show to such lengths that Harrogate half expected them to both bow out of the pay-per-view altogether. While it could be anybody's game at Cyber Sunday, Cena is going to be the top draw of this program for months to come, belt or no belt. But Harrogate implores Vince--leave the belt on Cena for a while, let him ascend to the epic proportions to which is is capable of going. Let this title run mean something!

Tears welled up in Harrogate's eyes when Dusty Rhodes took the microphone last night. Not only did hearing The American Dream talk trigger legions of childhood memories, but Rhodes was absolutely right when he said that this is our historic chance to see him and Ric Flair team up for the first time in their epic careers. Harrogate would love to see these two take the World Tag Team Championships from the anemic Spirit Squad. Really, Vince, it's time you let the Tag Titles Mean something again. For God's sake, man, what with the problems in Iraq and with North Korea and the broken health care system and the impending theocratic revolution in this country, the least you could do is give us a Tag Team Champion that we can be proud of. :-)

Finally, Triple H's Pedigree is by far the smoothest and most violent finishing move on record in WWE at the moment. Only Diamond Dallas Page's Diamond Cutter rivalled this move in terms of Harrogate ancitipating is arrival on the scene. Depicted above, Hunter Hearst Helmsley delivers the crushing Pedigree onto a hapless Edge, who would return later only to be beaten up again. The show appropriately belonged to DX, even though Michaels was nowhere to be found. Harrogate believes DX will continue to doiminate until the vaunted return of Hall and Nash (NWO), and with them the conversion, yet again, of Hulk Hogan to bad guy. NWO Renaissance is coming! But as one rhetorically powerful front row sign put it last night, Where Oh Where is Sting?

In the words of Ron Simmons, "Damn!"

Previewing Raw 10/30

"K-Fed" in retrospect learned a lot from his Raw experiences of the last two weeks. Check out the link. Harrogate's favorite quote:

Britney was definitely watching, my whole family was watching,” said a serious K-Fed. “She can’t have someone beating up her husband all over the place. I’ve got to stand up for my family and hold it down.

Now, don't that say it all? And some people thought this couple wasn't a real family values kind of family. Pshaw!

Harrogate isn't sure whether or not the great "K-Fed" will grace the squared circle tonight, but he feels certain that things are going to happen tonight the likes of which none of us have ever witnessed. Edge's award-winning talk show, "The Cutting Edge," will feature Bischoff, Coachman, and Mr. McMahon himself as they discuss the democratic process and their individual election hopes. Remember, vote Coachman. For now anyway. Harrogate may change his endorsement after tonight's events.

Stay tuned for in-depth analysis on Friday at the latest.

Rethugs and Art

Webb, as many of you know, is the doomed Democratic candidate for Senate in Confederate Virginia. George Allen has a Confederate Flag in his office, has made prodigious use of the word "nigger," and recently referred to a minority staff member for Webb as "mukaka"--then too we have Allen's consistent support for the GOP misadventure in Iraq, his contempt for Uhmerrikah's pooor, his enthusiasm for torture, his virtuosic performance as a gay-basher, and his impeccable record as a Mexican-hater.

Harrogate is confident that with all these striking creds in tow, Allen will win quite handily in Virginia (it's going to be a long humiliating Tuesday for those who dared to dream, and Harrogate plans to delightfully rub it those do-gooders' faces with his post-election analysis).

Anyway, as if Allen's own ersatz ethos weren't enough to get him the win in VA, that bastion of truth and justice, The Drudge Report, helped out a little by beginning what has turned into an all-out media frenzy over Jim Webb's novels, which approach such provocative subjects as rape and incest. And as everyone knows, if you represent something in Art, then you must be literally endorsing it.

So Webb's novels will be the nail in the coffin for his chances of pulling off the upset. What price art, eh?

Go, Troglodytes, go!

George Will, the liberal?

He can no longer be a conservative, can he? He just criticized the the Administration's treatment of the war here.

A few quote:

"A surreal and ultimately disgusting facet of the Iraq fiasco is the lag between when a fact becomes obvious and when the fiasco's architects acknowledge that fact. Iraq's civil war has been raging for more than a year; so has the Washington debate about whether it is what it is."

And the midterms will change?

Rhetoric and Music

A professor, Leon W. Couch III, examines the conncetion between rhetoric and music. It is heavy reading but the paper explores the ancient Roman style of organization in music.

File under easy listenting.

No, this has nothing to do with Sugar.

Listen for at least three minutes.

A Random Note from College Football

Beavers beat Trojans.

Think about it.

Bush likes 'The Google'

As CNN reported this morning, "Bush is a 21st-century President with a 20th-century vocabulary."

The Republican Divide over Religion

A split in the Republican party will occur over the intrusion of religion into politics.

It seems that the US is not actually a Christian Nation after all. Well, half the country knew that; the other half decided there was no need to believe that, displaced the facts, swept them under the rug, or places them next to the WMD is Iraq. Read George Will and Garry Wills on the role of religion in the Early Republic.

I have been teaching a Church/ State class this semester and find it interesting that (1) students do not possess a historical awareness of religious liberty and (2) certain religions,who were oppossed to the combinaiton of Church and State changed their position.

In 1960, JFK delivered "Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association" about the relationship between Church and State. He delivered this speech because Baptists were worried that "Big John" would control "Little John." It is one of the most important modern speeches about the meaning of the First Amendment and Religious Liberty.

This is a speech that many should read. But, let's be honest: those who do read it most likely do not need to read it.

A Paradox, Maybe....

From The Volokh Conspiracy. Here is a scenario, a paradox is you will. Read the excerpt and then answer the questions:

In the Hanged-Man Paradox, a man, K, is sentenced on Sunday to be hanged, but the judge, who is evidently French or enamored of the French wit for surprising those sentenced to the guillotine in their last moments, orders that the hanging take place on one of the next five days at noon. Smiling wistfully, he says to K, "You will not know which day until they come to take you to the gallows."

K, who has evidently been condemned for logical perversions, cannot prevent his mind from nevertheless trying to figure out in advance which day will be his last. He quickly realizes it cannot be Friday, because if he has not been hanged by Thursday noon, he will know nearly a full day before they come to get him that he will be hanged on Friday. He is simultaneously pleased at his cleverness and depressed that he has pushed his date with the gallows closer to Sunday.

Soon enough, he realizes that if Friday is logically excluded, then so is Thursday, because if he has not been hanged by noon Wednesday, he will know that, Friday being excluded, his date must be Thursday. In like manner, he can exclude Wednesday, Tuesday, and Monday. As a logician, he smugly concludes that the judge's decree is false.

The questions: Will this man be executed? When?

Double Entendres of Hockey

From The Hockey News . A lyrical gem that suggests the top twelve hockey terms that sound dirty but aren't:

12. Two-on-one
11. Split the defense
10. Five hole
9. Give-and-go
8. Waived off
7. Body checking
6. Poke check
5. Coincidental minors
4. Third man in
3. Butt ending
2. In the slot
1. Pulling the goalie

And why do people watch baseball?

Warm Up For Midterms--Let Your Vote Impact WWE's Cyber Sunday

Harrogate implores readers to do the right thing and be engaged citizens who participate, through voting, in the shaping of important cultural phenomena.

Do not be complacent: maybe you're personally rolling in good fortune, but these elections have consequences that extend beyond your little bubble and into the lives of millions of less fortunate. And ideaologues: This election season, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good! A vote for Jonathan Coachman as guest referee for DX vs. Randy Orton/Edge still effects better policy than voting for Mr. McMahon, for example.

Go here to exercise your voting rights as November rolls in. Not to unduly abuse his influence a la his counterparts on Clearchannel and ABC, Harrogate nevertheless humbly offers the following suggestions as excellent choices:

1)Vote for "K-Fed's" Champion of Choice--King Booker (the one with the crown; duh)--as the one whose title must go on the line in the threeway with Big Show and Cena. It is Harrogate's belief that this move may ultimately domino effect into the Queen of Class, Britney Spears, arriving on the WWE scene in the near future. And besides, if you don't vote and Cena winds up getting screwed outta his title at the Pay-Per-View, the blood is on your hands.

2)Vote for Dusty Rhodes as Ric Flair's partner to challenge The Spirit Squad for the Tag team Championship. Remember, a vote for Dusty Rhodes is a vote for The American Dream.

3)Harrogate has already held forth his views regarding Coachman. Bischoff and Mr. McMahon are greater evils, they deserve to get Nadered here.

4)Vote for Carlito to get the Intercontinental Title Shot against Jeff Hardy. A vote against Carlito would be decidedly "uncool."

And remember fans, in the spirit of Diebold, you can vote as many times as you want for any given candidate!!!!

"K-Fed's" Slap Heard Round the World and Miscellany

Finally, Vince McMahon is beginning to reinvigorate the Rhetorical Situation known as Monday Night Raw! First of all combining Raw with Smackdown and ECW by instigating a threeway rivalry of champions has been a brilliant move; it unseats wrestling fans' comfort zone, leaving them anxiously wondering what's going to happen with the belts come Cyber Sunday. It has a conspiratorial narrative flavor that can really get people sucked in. King Booker has done a wonderful job spreading his creds as a heel, and Big Show is rendering an even better performance, toeing the middle ground between heel and face--compared to Cena he's a no-account cheater, but compared to Booker he's a bastion of integrity.

Speaking of this troicha, Harrogate audibly gasped when Cena interrupted "K-Fed's" lovefest with King Booker, telling the Heavyweight Champion that by endorsing Playing With Fire , he had "Lost his credentials as a Black Man"!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shaky ground here, O vaunted followers of The Rhetorical Situation! The WWE for several weeks has been doing all kinds of strange things with race. The stereotyped tagteam Cryme Tyme "ganking" Booker's wallet a couple of weeks ago added kerosene to the rhetorical fire, and all along wrestlers have been openly referring to Jonathan Coachman as an Uncle Tom. Academes interested in representations of race really ought to be watching their Raw, as all kinds of weird rhetoric is going down in that department.

But, to the money part: Vince has found a veritable goldmine with "K-Fed," whose ersatz ethos, as Harrogate has said before, has finally found a rhetorically proper fit. The guy is really razzing it up, and Cena is doing wonderfully as populist good guy who sees through "K-Fed's" chicanery. Federline's tee shirt proclaimed "America's Most Hated": Harrogate means really, what more can fans ask for, unless they want to see Britney herself interjected into this story? Actually, Harrogate predicts that the pinnacle of class known as Britney Spears will be making an appearance on Raw within the next four episodes--but that her appearance will be totally unannounced, to rhetorically augment the surprise.

Anyway, that slap across the face (depicted above) must have sounded to Vince just like Daisy in The Great Gatsby: her voice is "full of money," and so was that sound of rhetorically corrupt skin striking the face of a Marine.

Finally, Harrogate's eyes welled up when Dusty Rhodes (inset) entered on behalf of Ric Flair in his match with Kenny. Yes, it was nice to see Sgt. Slaughter and Roddy ("I'm all out of bubble gum") Piper as well, but Harrogate has seen these cultural icons several times over the years: Dusty The American Dream Rhodes on the other hand was like an incarnation of Harrogate's childhood, live and in full color. Now, Vince must find a way to get Dusty into the narrative proper, keep him around a lot, perhaps even set things up to where he and Flair win the Tag Team Championship from the rhetorically hapless Spirit Squad, thus cashing in on a Rhetoric of Nostalgia for all us thirty-somethings in the audience.

Political Poster 'Bama Style

Loretta Nall is the Libertarian Candidate for Governor in Alabama. Now typically, Harrogate has about as much use for Libertarians as he does for skunk corpses; but instead of the common Libertarian schtick of defending the sovereignty of gun compounds run by nutcases (read: Waco), or calling for the abolishment of the Department of Education, or crying about taxes in a corporatist materialist nation whose tax rate is incredibly low by any reasonable standard whatever--yea, verily Harrogate sayeth unto his readers, instead of all such Neal Boortz Libertarian inanity, Nall has refreshingly built her campaign around things like beating down the Patriot Act, legalizing marijuana, getting out of Iraq, and not hating Mexicans. How nice. A Libertarian who's not a hypocrite, who actually values civil liberties. She'll go down in flames among them there Alabamans of course, but then here's to trying.

And that poster on her webstie is (These Boobs, not Those Boobs) pretty good from a Rhetorical Standpoint. Compare it to the Corker ads in Harrogate's previous post to see the difference between good-natured campaigning versus ad-hominem smearing.

A Credit to the Nation

Tennessee Rethugs Doing What They Do Best




Too Hot For Corker


One of the more interesting Senate races coming down the homestretch is in the middle of the Confederacy, Tennessee, where Rethugs can eat live kittens on television and still get elected so long as they say something nasty about gays, Mexicans, and them there uppity womenfolk.

Check out these two controversial ads, the first run by Rethug Corker himself, the second, overtly racist, "Playboy Party" ad (recently pulled, damage done) by the good ole RNC. Note especially the skanky blonde at the end telling Ford to "call her."

Anyway, that ads like this represent how to influence voters in this country tells you all you need to know. Harrogate knows it's fashionable among liberals to always spin stuff like this to where it's the Rethug Machine that is bad, and the voters innocent. But all b.s. aside, if this stuff didn't work it wouldn't run. We Uhmerrikahns are getting what we deserve.

Exploiting the Truth

To my mind, it's immaterial whether Fox took his meds before recording this political advertisement. Some people who have Parkinson's cannot afford the medications. How can exposing the truth about a disease be unbecoming or exploitative. At least Fox and McCaskill are telling the truth, which is more than we can say about most Republicans lately.

A Gift for the Masses

Since there is no longer any need to pimp my latest romance novel thanks to Harrogate. I come instead with a gift for the masses -- Pandora. Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project. This project is basically breaking down music into "genes." Lifting directly from their website: Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Pandora is the free (at least so far) internet radio arm of the project. You select a song or artist that you like and it creates a "station" based on the "genes" of that song. It also allows you to give thumbs up or down to songs, ban songs from the station for a month, play a song more, add more types of music to the station, or create multiple stations. It does eventually require registration with an email but it is free (again so far). You can also check why it picked a certain song and it will give you a short explanation based on the genes. Its worth trying out just to peruse their descriptions.

I've only recently tried it out and have had varying results. I created a station for Alabama 3 (known to the masses as "those guys who did the Sopranos theme song) and thought the "genes" worked really well. In the space of a half hour, I had found a number of bands who didn't necessarily sound like Alabama 3 but were bands I a) enjoyed and b) more importantly, never heard of.

I was impressed both by the range of music available (not once did I find myself listening to some Billboard hack) and the technology that puts the songs together.

I encourage everyone to try it out but be warned, mileage may vary.

Straying the Course

Bush goes on to tell Stephanopoulos that his strategy in Iraq has always been one of adaptation.

It seems the Bush administration has recently made a decision to abandon their "stay the course" rhetoric, in favor of something like "adjusting our tactics to meet the challenges on the ground." The reason: "stay the course" is only a quarter right, according to Bush.

The more likely reason for changing the strategic motto, however, is not that "stay the course" doesn't fully encapsulate Bush's master plan for the war but that the new rhetoric will more effectively persuade Americans that change is underway in Iraq.

While I hate to be pessimistic, I'm confident that nothing about the war, save its rhetoric, will actually change. For if Bush truly intended to abandon the "stay the course" strategy, then he would not have said in the same Stephanopoulos interview that, so long as he remains in office, nothing could trigger the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Oh, the power of rhetoric to change perception. But will it work?

Odd Email Subjects

Here is a list of the subject lines from a few junk emails. My favorite is the last. It sounds like a New Wave Band

Dumb Balm

Oppress

Foci

Trunks Opportunity

Regimental Inaugurate

Cutting Edge Positively

Due

Pensive Sherbert

The email to "Regimental Inaugurate" Reads (It is poetic in a random, M. Doughty Sense):

On the face of it, of course, this is patently absurd, but if you have the right picture in mind, this is the sort of thing you might have guessed.
But not to worry, if you walk across the infinity line again, you get flipped back to normal. To which it was replied that of course time has an existence, as a social convention, a mental framework. Even a definite negative answer is preferable to none at all. Again, both German and English versions of each are reproduced, though the task was made considerably easier than in other cases by the fact that the edition I used was a dual-language edition.
I think that that is neither true nor a good value.
Without the steady march of time, this unity of behavior disappears, and there are simply a million disparate entities.
On the one hand, he makes interesting and insightful observations on all sorts of phenomena; on the other, he never really synthesizes those observations into a single, coherent argument. Baby monitors today can give you the ability to watch baby.
Nor is the notion that rape is bad an example of state coercion.
So it is an element of science, but incomplete.
And, of course, make good pictures. As for quantum, I avow my profound ignorance of it, so let my opinion be taken in that light. Of course Einstein is justly famed for, among many other things, pioneering the idea of space-time. Nor is the notion that rape is bad an example of state coercion.
But the only way to determine whether it is simply a theory to fit the facts or whether it is truly generalizable is to test it against unknown facts via prediction.
On the face of it, it might be surprising that the set of rotations of three space should itself look anything like three space.
The goal is not a description which is true or corresponds to the truth, or at least that is not the immediate goal. As for quantum, I avow my profound ignorance of it, so let my opinion be taken in that light. The dilemma is that when individuals pursue personal gain, the net result for society as a whole may be impoverishment. On the face of it, of course, this is patently absurd, but if you have the right picture in mind, this is the sort of thing you might have guessed.
I've browsed some of the most popular online stores and chosen the top ten Halloween costumes for babies.
But not to worry, if you walk across the infinity line again, you get flipped back to normal. On the face of it, it might be surprising that the set of rotations of three space should itself look anything like three space.
That formulation is, as I believe I have said before, perfectly monstruous. On the face of it, it might be surprising that the set of rotations of three space should itself look anything like three space.
Again, both German and English versions of each are reproduced, though the task was made considerably easier than in other cases by the fact that the edition I used was a dual-language edition.
Bebello's bohemian-inspired Betty reversible dress is a must-have for baby and toddler girl.
This at least is the goal.
When the facts or events are given, anyone can interpret them, and the fact that these events are known can mask the relative merits of the theory which interprets them. She wasn't sure what the reasons were, but she heard it had something to. Baby monitors today can give you the ability to watch baby.

Southpaw's Posts Create Nationwide Firestorm of Controversies

Since joining the editorial board of The Rhetorical Situation, Southpaw (depicted left posing for the back cover of his latest best selling romance novel) has had an incalculable impact on the popularity of this site. The socioplitical controversies swirling around his last spate of discussions prove once and for all that the only bad press is no press.

Keep rilin' em up, Southpaw! Harrogate tips his cap to ye!

Thank God! "K-Fed" to Return to Raw Tonight, 10/23

Word around the Beltway is that "K-Fed" (depicted above stylin' and profilin' with his classy feminist champion wife, the effervescent Britney Spears) will join Melina ringside to support Johnny Nitro as he takes on John Cena tonight on Raw. Harrogate is tickled to death, too, that Vince had decided to cash in on WWE's considerable aesthetic credibility in promoting "K-Fed's" new album, Playing With Fire. From the link provided above, Jonathan Coachman effuses:

I am pleased to announce on behalf of Mr. McMahon that WWE will have the distinct privilege of promoting Kevin Federline’s new album “Playing with Fire.” I have listened to the album, and I can assure you that it is nothing short of a musical masterpiece.

Harrogate believes wholeheartedly that every human being needs to be aware that this Coachman quote is real, it is out there, Federline's album has indeed been referred to in the public square as a "musical masterpiece."

Anyway, though Harrogate will not be live blogging Raw this evening, the thousands of fans who turn to his WWE posts every week can count on his typically probing analysis of everything that goes down in that proverbial squared circle.

A Powerful Letter

Here is an excerpt from an open letter by Kevin Tillman, the brother of former NFL player and Army Ranger, Pat Tillman. Pat was killed in Afghanistan and a cover up of his death ensued.

I encourage you to read the entire letter.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman

Words only a Redneck Uhmerrikahn Mother Could Love

One of Harrogate's favorite spewers of noxious bile is John Gibson of Fox News Channel. Gibson epitomizes what the network means by Fair and Balanced, and he epitomizes the contemporary Uhmerrikahn soul in more ways than most dreamy liberals (excepting of course the incomparable Harrogate himself) could ever admit without hurling across the room.

Check this out, for example

Gotta love how "pretty boy" Gibson clarifies his position at the end:

"You don't have to conform," he soothes. "You just have to give up the urge to be separate and apart and unwilling to assimilate like the rest of us."

Oh, is that all? Harrogate feels much better now, and he'll try to pass along similar rhetoric to all of those in Uhmerrikah who experience the misfortune of being "different." After all the sageness of his advice surely doesn't stop with them there funny-lookin' observant fundie Muslims. Homosexuals, atheists, people who don't worship the dollar as the be all and end all of existence, women seeking to control their own bodies/destinies without first obtaining permission from the local Baptist patriarch, people who don't think the only way to untie a knot is to cut it through the middle, &c. All of these and many many more will be pleased to know they can avoid persecution so long as they supresses their urge to "be seperate."

Blech.

By Popular Demand: A Follow-Up to the "K-Fed Situation"

Due to the flurry of links across the blogosphere that has resulted from last night's "K-Fed"-heavy post, Harrogate feels compelled to clarify what may be a misunderstanding on the parts of all these readers. Harrogate in no way meant his most recent post as a lambasting of the great "K-Fed." Indeed, Harrogate would argue that Johnny Nitro (depicted in repugnant hair coat, above) spoke to this issue on Monday Night when he told "K-Fed" not to pay attention to the boos. As a Raw regular who also gets booed on sight each Monday, Nitro had to remind "K-Fed" of the nature of The Rhetorical Situation into which he had walked. In short, Nitro explained, "these people are ignorant." Now there's some Reader-Response Theory for ya!

But anyway, Harrogate digresses. It is almost as if he is unintentionally implying, once again, that "K-Fed" like Johnny Nitro very much deserves to be booed when in reality Harrogate's point is that:

"K-Fed" ought to be congratulated for his capacity to elicit that kind of call and response from audiences. Again, people, Reader Response, Reader Response. Like Johnny Nitro and his skank ho Melina, "K-Fed" knows how to work those "peeps."

Now, Harrogate remembers during Raw turning to an amused Mrs. Harrogate and asking if she thought that Britney was rolling her eyes in disbelief. Mrs. Harrogate rejoined that Britney is probably just happy that "K-Fed" has finally found a proper venue in which to feature his talents, and perhaps as a result actually generate some of his own income. Or something like that.

But as Blues Traveler would say, "But anyway....." the point is that "K-Fed" very much needs to remain a WWE fixture, he really knows how to get it done in the squared circle. Right now Vince is on a roll, he is showing a renewed interest in The Rhetorical Situation that his program represents, and is building his stories accordingly.

In other words, Oops, Vince has happened to have experienced the great fortune of having done it yet again.

Some Thoughts on Raw 10/16 (Kevin Federline Gets FU'd by Champion Cena)

Well, it was indeed the "Summer of Edge," but as Jim Morrison once famously crooned, "Summer's Almost Gone," and now the Raw Heavyweight Championship is once again, quite properly in a Jane Austen sense of the word, around the waist of THE MARINE.

Harrogate took especial delight in seeing Kevin Federline (now known as "K-Fed," it would seem)come out and flaunt his "A List" creds with Johnny Nitro and his skank ho sidekick Melina: the delight comes mainly from the fact that to a fan, "K-Fed" was getting robustly booed the moment he hit the aisle and started making his way to the ring. Now, many of the thousands who visit The Rhetorical Situation like to posture as intellectuals, and would perhaps fain have everyone believe they don't know who "K-Fed" is, let alone why he was getting booed. But that's a lie. All of you know exactly who he is and exactly why he got booed, "K-Fed" got booed because of who he is.

Anyway, Cena rolls out and after dealing with some Inter-Cable Rivalry stuff involving the Smackdown Champion King Booker and ECW Champion The Big Show, Cena was left alone to share the stage with the hapless "K-Fed," and after "K-Fed" offered to jaw THE MARINE, THE MARINE FU'd him. Thus the depiction above. One of Uhmerrikah's great cultural moments, to be sure, right up there with the elimination of the Geneva Convention (did Harrogate blog that out loud?)





Depicted above are the two New Testament-style visionaries behind the inimitable Jackass franchise, Steve-O and Chris Pontius, both of whom got their asses kicked by the figure Harrogate has already established as what would have been Walter Ong's
idea of a provocative wrestler, Umaga. That's right, Harrogate said it. Umaga. Perhaps some of you want a little of Umaga? Just keep laughing, you'll see. Harrogate saw. He no longer laughs.

But anyway, to wit: Word on the hard core wrestling blogosphere has it that Steve-O's continual laughter while getting pummeled by Umaga showed a lack of respect for the WWE. But Harrogate sides with lets wrestle, who with all the braggadocio of a Judith Fetterley, succinctly observes

The segment with the two guys from "Jackass" was also pretty funny. Having Steve-O get beat down by Umaga was great. I know that the on-line freaks are all mad that Steve-O was laughing during the whole thing, but come on, if you've ever watched or seen the JA movies, you know that these guys take beatdowns for a living and keep coming back, so this was pretty well done. Give Umaga credit as well for handing out some pretty stiff shots as well.

(lets wrestle 3:16)

Anyway, that's wrap for this edition. Join Harrogate next week as he resumes live blogging Raws, which is intended as a reward to Vince McMahon for finally starting to get this show together a little bit.

Works Cited

lets wrestle 3:16

How to Teach Argumentation and Debate

Lesson One: How Not to be Seen. Wait, I mean, how to have an argument:

A Creative Political Ad?

"Say it ain't so Joe."

From the Lamont-Lieberman Race (via Salon):

The (diminishing) Ethos of College Football

31 Thugs, I mean players, were suspended by Miami, Florida International, and their respectives conferences for their participation in the brawl on Saturday. The President of "The Penitentiary," I mean, "The University" stated that the fight was "outrageous." So outrageous, that the Miami players were suspended for one game-- against the legendary powerhouse of Duke. (I wonder if a regular student would be suspended or expelled from school for swining a helmet, swinging a crutch, or stomping on another student's leg? What if it happened in a chemistry lab and the students threw beakers at one another? Would they be suspended for the next lab session? Or what if in a business ethics class, one aspiring capitalist were to repeatedly beat another aspiring capitalist with Marx's Das Kapital?)

While the President of "The U" issued harsh words, the most severe (and most unbelievable) were delivered (and the passive voice is appropriate) from the Conference Comissioners. According to the ACC Commissioner John Swofford: "These suspensions send a clear and definitive message that this type of behavior will not be tolerated." According to Wright Waters, comissioner of the Sun Belt: "There is no place in higher education for the type of conduct exhibitd." According to the NCAA, "It is hoped that the actions taken by Miami, FIU and the conferences will send a message that such behavior is not tolerated."

If anyone finds these statements believable, please tell me why. This seems to me to be a "Nod-Nod, Wink-Wink" type of action: After all, "A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh?"



Edit: I stand corrected, kind of. Miami extended one ban; FI booted two and extended the sentences of 16 other players. Somehow the sentence for the foot-stomping UM player remains unchanged.

Congratulations Tigers!

While it is true that, when the chips were down, the A's unhappily wound up showing about as much backbone as your typical Congressional Democrat, the Tigers deserve much props for their recent demolition of the American League. What a feelgood story this has been for, really, any lover of the game, regardless of team loyalty. The local fans have been so, well, pastoral in their reception of this team. The payroll is low, the hitting timely, the defense magnifique, and most importantly the PITCHING is nasty and only getting nastier.

Harrogate is happy to see the game of baseball prove, once again, that it is bigger than the economic comedy of errors that continually threatens to strangle it. As a metonym for the Uhmerrikahn soul, baseball has always stood in handily: the leaguewide corruption of the late teens and early twenties nicely mirrored, for example, the nation's sophomoric, Puritanical/hypocritical, hilarious attempt to banish alcohol sales from the national discourse; when the civil rights struggle was gaining momentum, there was Jackie Robinson making a huge impact in the right direction; at the apogee of that struggle we were treated to Henry Aaron getting a standing ovation in Atlanta, the Heart of Dixie, as he broke the record of that ultimate white sports icon, the Babe.

Now, with Uhmerrikah in the thick of its orgiastic celebration of corporate power at all levels of society, it makes sense that the game of baseball would be aping that orgy as well. The Yankees can clock in with a 200 million dollar payroll because they own a heavyhitting television station and operate in the biggest media market on the face of the Earth. Yet for the past six years they have been blanked, and except for in 2004 (Red Sox) they have been blanked by teams with a payroll stratospheres below them.

Having learned from the Marlins who came before them, the Tigers understand that baseball's grandeur inheres in the multiplicity of approaches it rewards; every champion will look different, there is no model for excellence, no matter how much the price tag says. They took a core of young kids and developed them over the course of several losing seasons, now it is at fruition with pitchers throwing harder than Tim Robbins in Bull Durham. They add a couple of key veterans like Kenny "The Gambler" Rogers and Ivan Rodriguez. And the list goes on.

In the end, the Yankees looked like a parody of Uhmerrikah's $ Worshipping underbelly: no soul, no art, no soup for them. Harrogate thanks Detroit for keeping the dream alive.

My second post on College Football this weekend

File this under: I bet the players are philosophy students.

See what happens when good schools play cupcake schools.



or:

Welcome Back

To honor the presence of Harrorgate as he posts again:

Placebo - A song to say goodbye

Yon this past half year, Harrogate has enjoyed the incredible fortune of living across the street from Amy and Mr. Reads, known by way of
Arrogant Self-Reliance

This delectable couple has introduced Harrogate to a wonderful new universe of music, including such heavyweights (to name but a darling few) as Red House Painters, The Cranes, Muse, Spoon, and Sufjan Stevens.

But right now Harrogate has been solidly grooving to another gift from the Reads household, the bizarre candy-rock operettic tour de force known by millions across the globe simply as Placebo. To express his appreciation for their contribution to his aesthetic and moral development, Harrogate would like to dedicate this MTV video to Amy and Mr. Reads

Florida and Auburn

Game off.

How many times? How many times?
How many times will instant replay fail in college football.

It was an incomplete pass and not a fumble. [I say this with no interest in the SEC. My team is in the Big Ten and benefits from bad officiating.]

At least hockey is back in season. At least refs in hockey never get the call wrong. Well....

Let me get personal for a minute...

I want to take some time to thank Solon for introducing me to a new brand of beer this past weekend. After putting down several Modelos on Saturday night, I tried one of his Dogfish Head IPAs. Boy, was it good!

It was so good, in fact, that I ran to the liquor store earlier this week and picked up a few for myself. I had to purchase them in singles, as my local store had stopped carrying the brand and was selling off its remaining stock by the bottle (to make room in their larger coolers for more popular varieties of beer). I bought last two they had. I think they were 120-minute IPAs.

I brought my two beers home (along with a few other sample singles) and decided to pop them open after dinner. Keep in mind that I was not planning to get loopy that night; I just wanted a Doghead or two. And they sure hit the spot.

But I had no idea that they were 20% alcohol. Before finishing my second beer, I was buzzing pretty good. I didn't quite understand it. I thought that all beers were of the same alcohol content. Something like 4.5-5%, required by law. At least that what it used to be in my home state. I never knew that the %ABV went this high in beers.

So thank you, Solon, for turning me on to Dogfish Head. And thank you for encouraging me to always check the alcohol content of my beer.

-----------------------------

On another note, I'd like to welcome Southpaw to The Rhetorical Situation. As you may have gathered from his last few posts, he is an entertaining and intellegent bloke who is sure to offer a unique perspective to our humble blog. Welcome, Southpaw!

More bad quotes from the NFL

In an article from Don Banks about the possibility Rand Moss will be traded by the Raiders before Tuesday's trade deadline:

"We're hearing there are a couple suitors for Moss,'' one veteran general manager. "And when you look at his contract, a trade is not as unlikely as people think. There is some smoke there right now, and you can't be sure it won't turn into fire.''

How does smoke cause fire? I always thought, correct me if I am wrong, that smoke is a sign of a fire.

In all my years of teaching argumentation and debate and discussing the fire/smoke relationship as an argument by sign, it took the wisdom of an NFL GM to prove me wrong.

Perspectives by Incongruity

This is random: A site combined the annoying Family Circus cartoons with the lovable philosophy of Freidrich Nitezche. Wait, I mean. Oh well. Here is an Example:


Caption: All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

What wonderful technology: If you hit refresh, you'll receive another cartoon!!!

I once saw Marx's ideology outlined by using Family Circus Cartoons. I wonder is it is online?

"Call the attorney. Habeas Corpus. Call the Attorney!"

It is not as if we actually need this Habeas Corpus idea. People did fine without it. Why should we consider ourselves to be so special?

This is a sound party platform...

"At least no one died."

This is the defense by Republican Representative Christopher Shays (Connecticut) over the Foley Scandle. According to CNN, "Republican Rep. Christopher Shays defended the House speaker's handling of a congressional page scandal, saying no one died like during the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy."

Does he defend the current disaster of Iraq by arguing Sadam killed more? Oh. Wait. That defense is no longer valid.

While I am not sure if I actually want the Democrats to win the midterms, I do think the country will implode or spontaneously combust if the Republicans were to win.

If only our political system would allow a viable third party to compete. But, coporations, er, I mean people, would not allow for...that...um...oh...um....democracy to work.

At times like these I can only think of Monty Python. Unfortunately, I think of them, in general, and this skit, in particular, as a metaphor for our democracy, or republic, or aristocracy, or...whatever.

Bell RInger: "Bring out your Dead."
Body: "I'm not dead yet."
Bell Ringer: "What?"
Body Carrier: "Nothing. Here's your nine pouds."
Bell Ringer: "He says he's not dead."
Body Carrier: "Yes he is."
Body: "I'm not."
Bell Ringer: "He isn't?"
Body Carrier: "We'll he will be soon. He's very ill."
Body: "I'm getting better."
Carrier of Body: "No you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment."
Bell Ringer: "I can't take him like that. It's against regulaitons."
Body: "I Don't want to go in the cart."
Carrier of Body: "Oh, don't be such a baby."
Carrier: "Oh do us a favor...."
Body: "I feel fine."
Carrier: (to Bell Ringer) "Isn't there anything you can do?"
Body: "I think I'll go for a walk."
Carrier: "Your not fooling anyone you know."
Body: "I feel happy. I feel happy."

Thump.

(It's at the end of the clip, after "Ralph the Wonder LLama.")

We all make mistakes, Solon

For your amusement, Solon, I thought I'd share a mistake from my dissertation:

"Chatper 1."

Yes, that's right, I misspelled my first word. And this is all I've written.

Humorous moments while writing and editing

Right now I am reediting the first chapter for my dissertation. Even after proofreading this chapter, there are still a few mistakes. It seems that I get too claose to the work and my brain fills in the gaps so I can no longer notice the errors in my writing.

Here is my favorite mistake so far:

"The justices themselves are aware of their power and their ability to constitute the social world through words. Before Samuel Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer discussed his fear of language while on the Court with a reporter."

How big is the Court? And what they were doing there? Is this the post-game interview?

The intersection of Sports and Politics, again

An article on "Daily Kos" (via Raw Story) suggests that when Mike Tirico announced former President Bush during the New Orleans v. Atlanta game (on Monday night), ESPN manufactured fake "cheers" and broadcast those cheers. Further, the article claims that ESPN favors Republicans and disfavors Demcoracts.

The story revolves around an argument by authority, which the author does not provide backing to support it. Anayway, it is interesting as a concpiracy theory or to reflect the paranoid style (see Richard Hofstader's "Paranoid Style in American Politics"

ESPN is owned by the Mickey Mouse Corporation, which seems to favor elephants to jack asses. But, personally, I think ESPN is biased towards masturbation: "ESPN's Rick Majerus, on a Kentucky-Tennessee college game announced: "At this point in time, the game's over ... but I'm starting to look for Ashley Judd so I don't have to go home to the adult videos tonight."

This argument also revolves around an argument by authority. However, I do not care whether or nor Majerus provides backing for his warrant.

Interpreting the Words of Bush:

File this under: “Why Hermeneutics Matter.” From Political Wire

"In a recent CNN interview, President Bush suggested history would judge the Iraq war as "just a comma." He repeated the statement today in Alabama. While it seems an odd thing to say, a Political Wire reader suggests it's designed to speak to the religious right while not unnecessarily alarming others. In other words, it's a classic example of "dog whistle politics" used to energize his base.

The Christian proverb Bush was evidently referring to is "Never put a period where God has put a comma." In essence, trust in God to make a bad situation better."

In the Presidential Debates of 2004, President Bush always discussed abortion in terms of Dread Scot, meaning he does not like how the Supreme Court refuses to acknowledge humans as citizens, or, he does not like how the Supreme Court refuses to acknowledge the fetus as a living being and, hence, not a citizen. Of course, others have pointed out how Bush believes in the protection of Life.

Anyway, this provides another reason why people need to pay closer attention to the connection between language and motives. This is another attempt by Bush to focus on one audience while speaking to multiple audiences.

Students petition against Turnitin

A colleague of mine recently directed my attention to this article in the Washington Post. Over 1100 students at a Virginia high school have petitioned school officials to stop using Turnitin, for they claim that the online anti-plagiarism service violates their intellectual property rights. In addition to violating their rights, students say that use of the service implies guilt and that the subscription fees paid to Turnitin could be better spent.

Much of the debate over Turnitin has centered on the intellectual property rights of students and the implication of assumed guilt that allegedly accompanies the use of the service, but little has been said, to my knowledge, about the allocation of school funds to subscribe to Turnitin. I wish to address that topic here.

The Washington Post reports the following: "members of the Committee for Students' Rights want the school to allow students to opt out. In an interview at a Starbucks near the campus, they said that they can learn about plagiarism directly from teachers and that there are other ways to catch cheaters. They also said fees paid to Turnitin would be better spent on other educational matters." Despite contrary statements by teachers and school officials, students continue to focus on the "gotcha" aspects of Turnitin. They ignore the pedagogical potential of the online service. If they would take a moment to consider the ways that Turnitin might help them learn proper citation and avoid plagiairism, then they would likely not see Turnitin as a threat but as a safety precaution or even a friend.

The argument that subscription fees could be "better spend on other educational matters" loses much of its force when the pedagogical potential of Turnitin takes center stage. When used as a pedagogical tool, Turnitin lets students find and fix instances of accidental (or intentional) plagiarism. It identifies those passages where students did not properly paraphrase or cite the work of others and gives them an opportunity to revise those portions before "officially" turning in their work to teachers. To be sure, this process is much different than traditional lecture-based methods of teaching and learning about source attribution; it's more student-centered. And most of the scholarship about the teaching of writing in the last forty years have favored the self-directed and learn-through-practice methods of teaching composition. So why should learning to paraphrase and cite sources be excluded from these proven methods of teaching writing when they are, themselves, an essential part of writing and learning to write? The answer is simple: they shouldn't.

When viewed through a pedagogical lens, it seems that 80 cents per student is not a lot of money to spend on something that effectively teaches students to cite sources. Through my own experiences as a teacher of writing, Turnitin helps students avoid plagiarism much better than any lecture on the topic. And it frees up a lot of classroom time to talk about other writerly issues and strategies.

No Child, College, or God Left Behind

No this is not about the Left Behind series.

An article from Inside Higher Education discusses the revelation that certain interests want to make college education standardized. Who needs a liberal arts educaiton when the business model works so well for CEOs.

Maybe we should quantify everything. It would save time.

William Jefferson Clinton versus Chris Wallace

Here is the interview between former President Clinton and Chris Wallace. The interview was scheduled to be about Clinton's Global Initiative. However, it seems as if there was a change of plans. President Clinton did not back down and questioned the "objectivity" of Fox as he attacked Wallace. I am not sure if Wallace thought he could outsmart Clinton. I wish someone would question our current president like this.

Part One:


Part Two:


A full, uninterupted broadcast can be found at Think Progress.

A Scholarly Game...

Building on the previous post…

A colleague of mine teaches a rhetorical criticism. In her early class, she asked the class to define the following terms and then discuss their similarities and differences: Rhetoric and Education. To this list I would add Propaganda and Indoctrination.

What do these terms means and how do we understand them and use them in the classroom?

Advocates for the “Student Bill of Rights” argue for a balanced classroom (though they never petition business schools to teach Marx.) What does this ultimately mean? What are the limits to having a balance of ideas in a class? (I imagine that business schools would not teach Marx because they would say Marx is wrong. But is this a correct view of history?)

This is not about indoctrination...

One of my students told me about this film. I have not seen it yet. Here is a clip from ABC News.



The preview of the movie states that the movie is well balanced. It does not state whether or not the people at the camp are sane or insane.

Where do Iraqis stand on Roe v. Wade?

Yesterday, an article in The Washington Post discussed the number one characteristic potential Defense Department employees would need in order to work in Iraq: no, it is not knowledge about the Middle East nor knowledge on post-war reconstruction; these would be beneficial. No, the number one characteristic was loyalty to President Bush.

Some great excerpts from the article:

"O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade."

"A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting."

"To recruit the people he wanted, O'Beirne sought résumés from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activists. He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience."

"Smith said O'Beirne once pointed to a young man's résumé and pronounced him "an ideal candidate." His chief qualification was that he had worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000."

"One former CPA employee who had an office near O'Beirne's wrote an e-mail to a friend describing the recruitment process: "I watched résumés of immensely talented individuals who had sought out CPA to help the country thrown in the trash because their adherence to 'the President's vision for Iraq' (a frequently heard phrase at CPA) was 'uncertain.' I saw senior civil servants from agencies like Treasury, Energy . . . and Commerce denied advisory positions in Baghdad that were instead handed to prominent RNC (Republican National Committee) contributors."

I have very little faith in either party, and if the Republicans win the mid-term elections, I will have even less faith. How can one party diminish almost their entire ethos and still hold office and still receive support from citizens in this republic?

Plato may be correct.

A Fanatical Devotion to the Pope

Over the weekend I found out that certain people-- certain people who write for this blog-- have never watched "The Spanish Inquisition." Ha. Ha. Ha. (Diabolical Laughter.) Nobody expecs the Spanish Inquisition.

Addressing democratic education again...

In CULTURE WARS: SCHOOL AND SOCIETY IN THE CONSERVATIVE RESTORATION, Ira Shor writes the following:

"Students will resist any process that disempowers them. Unequal, disabling education is symbolic violence against them, which they answer with their own skills of resistance--silence, disruption, non-performance, cheating, lateness, absence, vandalisim, etc. Very familiar school routines produce this alienation: teacher-talk, passive instruction in pre-set materials, punitive testing, moronic back-to-basics and mechanical drills, impersonal and shabby classrooms, tracking, the denial of sexual themes and other subjects important to them, the exclusion of student co-participation in curriculum design and governance, and the outlawing of popular idioms in favor of correct usage" (183).

A lot of composition theorist (particularly critical pedagogues) make these sorts of claims. They tell us that student resistance is rooted in the oppressive nature of teacher-oriented education. And I suppose that this argument makes sense, but it doesn't answer for why teachers who enact student-centered classrooms are also met with resistance. I wonder if it's not just an issue of youthful rebellion. No matter what your pedagogy--whether you downplay your authority or not--students will always view teachers as authorities and many of them will rebel accordingly.

For Harrogate, who likes raisins and D&D:

Education in 15 Years

In both of my classes (one on Social Movements, one on Religious Communication- Church/State Conflict), we discussed Facebook. The majority of students in both classes use Facebook (I have never used it and I never liked the lack of Privacy with it) but they were upset with the new Privacy changes that allowed users to track the movements of other users.

While discussing Facebook in my Social Movements, we discussed Communication phenomenon that would cover the use of facebook. I, being rhetorically minded, thought of two: (1) symbolic convergence theory and (2) technological determinism. While I am not a big fan of the first, I, sometimes, concede the power of the second.

After discussing technological determinism, I have spent most of the afternoon thinking about education. Oxymoron provided a post last week about "Democracy" and "Education," through an online Tech Writing class. I still remain unconcvinced that Democracy and Education are two values that should be combined together, but I digress.

This leads me to the point of my post: What will be the state of education in 15 years?

There seems to be a few trends that I have noticed over the last few years since I have been pursuing my Ph.D.
(1) Students read very little to not at all. This decreases the amount of traditional literacy.
(2) Students spend more time on facebook or watching t.v. or working or hanging out.
(3) Students do not spend as much time developing critical thinking skills. With the rise of a business education, there is less focus on writing or critical thinking than there is on consuming.
(4) Students need to be entertained..

How will these developments alter education?
Will professors need to spend more time entertaining students than teaching them and getting them to think?
Will professors need to develop different "literacy" skills to speak to their audience?
Is egalitarianism or democracy good or necessary for education?
How do we persuade our students to be "students"? Now? In 5 years? 10? 15?
How does political affiliation alter education? Do students look to see the politics of the prof and is this necessary for education? Will this alter education? Will it doom education?

The absurdity of picking NFL games, let alone a Season

I decided I would be absurd as the experts by picking the records of NFL teams game by game before the season begins.

Why? Each week during the season, my wife and I pick the winners. Last season I picked 62% of the games correctly for the season. My highest week (Week 9) I went 12 - 2, picking 85%. For my lowest week, I picked only 43% (6w - 8l-- the only week I was under .500).

This system does not account for many things: It only looks at head to head (no injuris, no in week momentum). But here it is:

AFC

AFC East:
MIami Dolphins: 12 - 4
Buffalo: 11 - 5
New England: 10 - 6
N.Y. Jets: 3 - 13

AFC North:
Cincinnati: 14 - 2
Pittsburg: 10 - 6
Cleveland: 6 - 10
Baltimore: 5 - 11

AFC South:
Indianapolis: 14 - 2
Jacksonville: 11 - 5
Tennessee: 3 - 13
Houston: 2 - 14

AFC West
Denver: 13 - 3
San Diego: 12 - 4
Kansas City: 7 - 9
Oakland: 2 - 14

NFC

NFC East:
Philadelphia: 12 - 4
NY Giants: 10 - 6
Dallas: 9 -7
Washington: 9 - 7

NFC Norris:
Chicago: 13 - 3
Detroit: 4 - 12
Minnesota: 4- 12
Green Bay: 3 - 13

NFC South:
Carolina 14 - 2
Tampa Bay: 10 - 6
Atlanta: 6 - 10
New Orleans: 4 - 12

NFC Who Cares?
Seattle 13 - 3
Arizona: 8 - 8
St. Louis: 7 - 9
San Fransico: 1 - 15

Playoffs:
AFC Seeds
(1) Indy
(2) Denver
(3) Cinci
(4) Miami
(5) San Diego
(6) Buffalo

NFC Seeds
(1) Carolina
(2) Seattle
(3) Chicago
(4) Philly
(5) NY Giants
(6) Tampa

AFC Playoffs
Cinci over Buffalo
San Diego over Miami
Indy over San Diego
Cinci over Denver
Indy over Cincinnati

NFC
Chicago over Tampa
Philly over NY Giants
Carolina over Philly
Seattle over Chicago
Carolina over Seattle

Indy over Carolina

Comments:
There should be a + or - 2 associated with this.

AFC: East
Miami- if #8 stays healthy and he regains his touch, they win the division. If not, place New England or Buffalo here.
Buffalo is my suprise team from the AFC because their back 8 is so favorable- aside from INDY, their two "hardest" games are against Miami and Jacksonville in Western New York after November 1st. Unfortunately, Bills fans have become conditioned to ignore the Bills from November on. Instead, the fans in Buffalo turn to the Sabres from the near beginning, hoping they will raise the Cup in the Spring of 2007.
New England will not make the playoffs this year. This is their year to fall. I blame injuries and their kicker. But mostly, I just want to watch them not make the playoffs and return to being the hapless Pats of the 1980's and 1990's.
NY Jets. Oh well. Some people watch college football because they enjoy it. You'll watch college football to find a quarterback for next year. And maybe a running back. And maybe 20 other people.

AFC: North
Cinci: if Carson's knee holds up, AFC championship. If not, Pittsburg will claim the division.
Pitt: Good luck. But distractions will rip through this team and my 10-6 record will end up looking optimistic.
Cleveland: Go Brownies. You will earn respect eventually but you will not overcome a first week loss to New Orleans.
Baltimore: I just don't think Mr. Fragile will be the answer.

AFC South:
Indy- Repeat again this year: "This is your year Peyton." At least you have a better kicker. I hope he is healthy.
Jacksonville- This record is way to high for you. But, you will at least win 4 - 5 in your division. Now that you have a tough schedule, let's see if having no offense will help you. A freak second half blizzard in Buffalo will doom you and keep you out of the playoffs.
Tenn- Vince Young today. Vince Young Tomorrow. Vince Young... will you ever hold on to the ball?. Your other options won't help.
Houston- Maybe next year you'll take the top player in the draft when you have the #1 pick. Oh. You won't get the number one pick because San Fransico will.

AFC: West
Denver: At least you'll lose to a new team in the playoffs this year.
San Diego: Playoff bound. But it won't help.
Kansas City: How Long till Coach Edwards will want to coach the Steelers?
Raiders: I will refuse to use any Aaron Brooks jokes- so, let's see how Brady Quinn will look in black instead of Gold and Green. Will the refs protect him in the pro's as they do in college?

NFC: East
Philly- Fresh air and a division title.
NY Giants- Just beause you play in the NFC. That is the only way in which you will reach the playoffs.
Dalllas- Tony. Toni. Tony. Toni. WIll Drew retire or want to be traded? If Toni Romo is not starting by Oct., the city will implode.
Washington: Another team where the focus will be on the backup quarterback for most of the season.

NFC: North:
Chicago: I do not believe that Chicago will win 13 games. However, I do not have the time to go back week to week and correct this. Nor do I care to do this for a team that will lose in the second round of the playoffs. Let's face it. Their division is terrible and they should go 6-0 in the division. They will lose 2 to the AFC east and one to Seattle. They beat Tampa because they play in Chicago after October.
Detroit, Green Bay, and Minnesota: You will only beat each other. If you beat someone else, no one will notice.

NFC: South:
Carolina: You'll lose another Superbowl. But it is not your year. Maybe next year.
Tampa: A sixth team needs to make the playoffs and you are that team. Good Luck.
Atlanta: I want to like this team but I cannot find anything about them on the field that makes me want to say they will be successful.
New Orleans: They'll make the playoffs in 07. But this year?

I wish your team(s) luck this year. Unless of course your team is Dallas, New England, Houston, Detroit, Green Bay, or San Francisco. For the first two, I do not care. For the last four, you have no hope and you should pick up another hobby. Or maybe read a book. Or maybe go for a walk. Or maybe adopt a cat. Or maybe...

Only one 3-bedroom left...

I was driving to the store the other day, when I saw an apartment complex advertising a three-bedroom vacancy. I was immediately reminded of a similar sign in Omaha, Nebraska.

After finishing by B.A. a few years back, Mrs. Oxymoron and I moved to Omaha, where I would work on my Master's degree. A few months before our move, we made a trip to that lovely Nebraska town to look for an apartment. We were looking for a place with two bedrooms. As we drove along Dodge Street, we saw a very nice complex with a big sign that read, "Only one 3-bedroom apartment left." A phone number was also present.

I said to my wife, "I know they've only got one 3-bedroom left, but I wonder if they have any two-bedrooms available." She wondered as well, as the sign could be read in one of two ways. Either the sign meant that they had only one apartment left, and it happened to be a 3-bedroom; or it meant that they had only one of their 3-bedroom floorplans left. The latter interpretation suggests that some 2-bedroom and studios might still be available.

Desperate for a nice place, I called the apartment manager. I said, "I just drove by [name of apartments], and your sign said that you only have one 3-bedroom apartment left. I was wondering if you have any 2-bedrooms available." His response took a derogatory tone: "Well, what's the sign say?" I tried to explain that it was a bit ambiguous, but he acted as though I were unable to read a simple sign. He cut me off, saying, "We only have a 3-bedroom left." Then he hung up.

I felt stupid, which is typically warranted, but not this time.

Humor from the NFL

The New England Patriots traded for Doug Gabriel. According to CNNSI: "The Raiders received an undisclosed draft choice" [for Gabriel]."

Now, this is powerful writing. According to the article, the Raiders traded #2 Wide Receiver and do not know what they will receive in return. I guess New England wanted to suprise them. I imagine when the two teams discussed the terms of the trade, New England said, "We'd like Gabriel. Sure, we'll give you something... Nudge. Nudge. Wink. Wink. Say no more, say no more. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat."

And Oakland must have said: "Wow! Suprise us! We love surprises. I mean, look at our quarterback situation. We also love to figure out just what is going through Randy Moss' head most days."

Maybe the report should read: "Terms of the deal were not disclosed," or, "Oakland did not state what it received in the day," or, "No one really cares about Oakland in the first place so we will only report on what New England does. Like college football, people only want to hear about Notre Dame so we will only tell you about the fighting Irish."