Fighting Words

Rep. Preston Brooks, painted by Adam B. Walter (1820-1875), had the same look of self-righteous stupidity as Tucker Carlson, it's very remarkable. Via Wikipedia.

I wonder how your civility hounds feel when they see stuff like this, from Question Time in Westminster, when Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (MP for Hough) asks the prime minister about a 2018 Telegraph article in which Johnson, 1950s English TV comedian that he is at heart, complained about the existence of women in burkas on the grounds that it was "absolutely ridiculous that women should go around resembling letterboxes and bank robbers":

WATCH: Astonishing scenes as MPs applaud Labour MP @TanDhesi as he tears into PM, accusing Boris Johnson of “derogatory and racist” remarks about Muslim women, declaring “open season” on minorities pic.twitter.com/3VDoTiFWiK

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 4, 2019

I mean, it's clear these guys are not going out for a drink afterwards to plan the generous compromises in which everybody will get a bit of what they want in an atmosphere of mutual respect and affection. Does a David Brooks look at this room where Edmund Burke, the stern prophet of good manners and the aesthetics of the sublime, spent his career and wonder what happened to the Mother of Parliaments?

Vowels of compassion

Some Americans, New York, December 2015. Photo by Esther Merono, Huffington Post.

This is about something that came up over at Alicublog over the course of the week involving linguistics, where I thought it might sort of be my duty to say something more boring than would be appropriate for the comment section there, as always the Best Party Ever, where you really want to look your nattiest at all times.

Also, while I may not actually have all that much to say, at least I'm going to spell it right, which is more than can be said for M.G. Oprea at the Federalist, whose post

How You Pronounce ‘Muslim’ Says A Lot About Your Politics

Ever notice how those on the Left pronounce ‘Muslim’ like ‘Mooss-lim’? Here’s what it means.

was the topic of discussion:

This pronunciation is code for “I’m not Islamaphobic.”

(That's how rightists spell "islamophobic", to show their contempt for traditional rules of word-formation, where a compound with an Ancient Greek stem like φόβια always uses the thematic vowel -o-,  still true in modern Greek incidentally.)

Say it to my face! No, wait a minute...

Image by Michael Ferry, from Album3.

Is this what they call butthurt?

In the April 2011 speech at George Washington University, Obama sharply criticized Ryan’s proposal to privatize Medicare, saying, “It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors. It says that ten years from now, if you’re a 65 year old who’s eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn’t worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck - you’re on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.”...

Bill Daley, the White House chief of staff at the time, tried to warn Obama of Ryan’s presence, but didn’t get to him in time. And with the bright lights shining on stage, blocking his view of the crowd, the President went ahead with his critique.

“I mean, Jesus, it was heavy,” former Sen. Alan Simpson told FRONTLINE. “He didn’t use Ryan’s name, he just made fun of anyone who could propose anything like what he had read recently as a proposal presented to the House Republican leadership that did this to old people, and it went on and on. It was tough. And it was nasty.”

White House economic adviser Gene Sperling chased Ryan down after the speech. “All I was trying to do was to let him know that — that we didn’t know they were coming,” Sperling told FRONTLINE. “His response was that he felt the President had ‘poisoned the well.’” (via TPM)

I mean, Jesus, you don't make fun of a guy's plan. When he's sitting right there. I mean, who do you think you are, Alan Simpson?