"Booker's stake is a bribe."

"He gets money, the bribers er 'donors' or 'partners' get control and access over public policy, at the expense of the voters. This is blatant graft and of a type that used to be common in the late 19th century, which in so many ways our politics and economy seem to be moving back to."

That's the comment ranked highest by readers of the NYT's embarrassingly puffy piece on Cory Booker, "Tech Magnates Bet on Booker and His Future."

Here's the second-highest-ranked:

“Cory is the inspiration architect,” Ms. Ross said. “He really is the thought-leader soul part of the business.”

Translation: he does nothing but we're throwing money at him to buy influence.

And really? Yet another video sharing platform? The tech sector - which I suppose now includes 99% of everyone under 25-years-old - just keeps going deeper and deeper into the well in an endless feedback loop of self-aggrandizement but what they produce becomes less and less relevant or important to society. But they sure can market junk, can't they?

Here's Waywire, by the way(wire), so check for yourself if it's haywire. You can't tell from one look how long these items have been at the top, but the timelessness of the subject matter makes me think: a long time. I mean: "7 Great Beatles Performances," "Top 15 Most Patriotic Songs," "30 Best Summer Songs"...? These seem to pre-date the Internet! But let's be fair and watch "Top News, August 8," which appears in the upper left-hand corner of the grid. It starts off (for me, now, anyway) with a grainy 38 seconds of a guy in a suit drawing all the pingpong balls for a set of Powerball numbers. (That fits with "betting on Booker.") It then proceeds to another video, a minute of Obama on Leno, then another (showing "Suffering in Syria"), then something about Egypt, something about Dustin Hoffman, something else about Egypt, and ending the run through the top news that you need to know today, August 8th, with "Toddler Beaten to Death by Foster Mother." We see her sad face in a thumbnail.

I'm drawn back to the NYT article, which blithely drops the news: "Waywire has put Andrew Zucker, 15, the son of Jeff Zucker, president of CNN, on its advisory board and given him stock options." Kid luck. It's a crapshoot.

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"One of the few advantages of dying from Grade 3, Stage IIIC endometrial cancer, recurrent and metastasized to the liver and abdomen..."

"... is that you have time to write your own obituary. (The other advantages are no longer bothering with sunscreen and no longer worrying about your cholesterol.)"

It was a paid obituary, but The New York Times noticed and ran a story about Jane Lotter. That was enough — along with the adorable photo booth pictures of her and the man she married — to make me begin this blog post. As I go along — you have to get to the last third — I see what I think is the real goal of the article: presenting a postcard picture of suicide.

Ms. Lotter took advantage of [Washington state's] Death With Dignity Act.... On July 18, the couple and their two children gathered in the parents’ bedroom. Ms. Lotter asked to keep in her contact lenses, in case a hummingbird came to the feeder [her husband] had hung outside their window.

The last song she heard before pouring powdered barbiturates, provided by hospice officials, into a glass of grape juice was George Gershwin’s “Lullaby.” Then she hugged and kissed them all goodbye, swallowed the drink and, within minutes, lapsed into a coma and died.

Does this picture make you more likely to take the barbiturate way out if you knew you were dying? Would you dissolve the powder in grape juice or some other liquid? Would you play Gershwin's "Lullaby" or something else? Would you be in your own bedroom, hoping to see a hummingbird one last time? Would you include only your closest family — hugging them in a planned sequence — only your most loved one, or would you go alone? As you imagine the theater of a controlled departure — with details corresponding to Lotter's details — are you more favorably disposed to the "Death With Dignity" approach or not? Are you still thinking about yourself, or did you, at some point in reading this paragraph, shift to picturing other people getting enthusiastic about early check-out time and thinking of yourself as one of the taxpayers and insurance buyers — us the living —  who stand to benefit?

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Feminist blogger suspects that the AP meant to say "this smoking slut totally had it coming."

You may remember this story from yesterday, which I blogged here, about the NYC ad executive who leaned against her balcony railing in a way that made her date say "You know, you shouldn't do that." She said "I do it all the time," and then the railing collapsed, and she fell 17 stories and died. When should a death make the news and why? I know why I chose to blog that one: It was such a striking reminder of the way death might come at any time, and one's confidence that death won't come because it hasn't come yet — I do it all the time — is a delusion we live by and might die by.

I'm not afraid to lie down at night and sleep — I actively seek the loss of consciousness on those occasions — because I always wake up in the morning. That's happened every time so far anyway. And yet, every day, there are — lying in beds all over the world — dead bodies of human beings who surrendered consciousness to sleep the night before, assuming it would work out the same way it did all those other times.

How many will get AP stories written? None, unless they happen to be famous. The railing giving way is dramatic, especially because it happened to someone we can see did not expect it, who had that youthful sense of invulnerability, and the fall came from a great height, the death was instant, and there was an onlooker to make the experience come alive for us vicariously.

Like any blog, a feminist blog must feed on the available news stories or die of starvation, but a feminist blog is committed to chewing things into a bolus of feminism. So here's the Slate's XXfactor blog, and the determination has been made that the falling woman story is bloggable, which has to mean that it's fodder for feminism. Extracting 4 facts from the opening 2 paragraphs of the AP story, L.V. Anderson writes that the "implication" is that "this smoking slut totally had it coming."

A reader is left with the distinct impression that if [Jennifer] Rosoff hadn’t invited her date inside, hadn’t gone outside to smoke a cigarette, and hadn’t defied the advice of the wise and logical man she was with, she would still be alive. According to the AP story’s subtext, the problem wasn’t that Rosoff’s balcony railing was shoddy and unsafe—it was that Rosoff defied gender norms by being unmarried at 35, by being sexually liberal, and by insisting on making her own decisions instead of deferring to men’s logic.

Defied gender norms! Oh, come on.

You may accuse me of overreacting...

Anderson knew readers would call bullshit, but what's she supposed to do? Her assignment is to find feminist fodder and chew it up into a bolus of feminism, something we're supposed to swallow. She switches to I know this sounds like bullshit mode because she knows it sounds like bullshit.

... but the minor details that journalists choose to include or exclude from their reporting are one of many subtle ways that oppressive gender norms are perpetuated. 

Is that straight out of her notes from a Women's Studies class? This platitude is the platform for many a feminist blog. Scan stories for minor details relating to gender, then highlight them, and make grandiose statements about the perpetuation of oppression. When the evidence is flimsy, lubricate the bolus with the notion of the subtlety of the oppression. It might be swallowable.

Do I think the AP reporter assigned to this piece (incidentally, a woman) intended to undermine the reader’s sympathy for Rosoff and suggest she was asking for it? Of course not. But the fact that totally irrelevant details about Rosoff’s love life and cigarette habit made it into the lede and nut graf of an ostensibly unbiased news article—and that no editor stopped to ask, “Hmm, why is this information here?”—just goes to show how deeply ingrained sexist attitudes can be, even among professionals who pride themselves on their objectivity.

Bloggers don't have editors. A blogger has to self-edit. And Anderson is sort of self-editing here by imagining the readers' skepticism. But she counts on us accepting that the details are "totally irrelevant" and therefore only evince sexism. And that just goes to show how deeply ingrained the belief in deeply ingrained sexist attitudes can be. The railing against which Anderson has leaned so heavily — which feminist blogging calls upon her to do all the time — gives way. It's so shoddily constructed that any alternative explanation for the inclusion of the details pulls out the railing and sends Anderson tumbling.

And here the details create a vivid picture of a young woman in the midst of life who isn't thinking at all about death, and death suddenly takes her. She's on a first date, she's having a smoke, she's enjoying her luxurious abode looking out on the big city, she's openly dismissive of the man's fear of death, and she's inviting that man into her style of being truly alive, and that's when she dies. It's a stunning story of life and death. Yes, there's some "victim-blaming" here, but that's not necessarily a feminist problem. That cuts straight to everyone's fear of death: Would I have leaned on the railing? Have I ever leaned on railings at great heights? I don't want to die, so not leaning on railings must go on my How not to die checklist as I go forward in my life which, thus far, has not included my dying, and yet, somewhere, up ahead, there's that railing that's going to give way for me, and I too will plunge, headlong into the eternal unknown. 

I laugh out loud when I see that Anderson chides reporters for not "scanning one’s writing for traces of chauvinism," which, she says, "requires a little time and humility," but is "not exactly hard." Instead of seeing how she might take the time and have the humility to scan her own writing for traces of bullshit about chauvinism, she offers her idea of how AP should have put its opening paragraphs. Even though she admits that her version is much duller — "less salacious" — she's pleased that "it conveys the fact that Rosoff’s death was a tragic accident, not an instance of cosmic justice."

If you don't want the theme of cosmic justice, don't use the word "tragic." As we human beings tell each other stories — in theater or in the news — we experience depth of feeling when the details seem to tie together and have meaning. Why do we read about things like this at all? Anderson meant to say that her version of the story is better because it conveys the fact that Rosoff’s death was a random accident, which makes it a worse story. It's more of a police report, or notes for the tort litigation against the owner of the apartment building.

But Slate's feminist blog isn't about random accidents and building design defects. It is committed to getting us excited about the subtle perpetuation of the oppression of women. Ironically, Anderson herself fully intends to do what it is the feminist blog's mission to do: Take the stories of the day and retell them in terms of cosmic justice.

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"'You know, you shouldn't do that,' said her companion, who met Rosoff for the first time that night after talking online..."

"'I do it all the time,' she replied moments before the railing collapsed... sources said."

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The Queen's WWIII speech.

Revealed, because in Britain, they reveal these things after 30 years. I'm struck by the reliance — imagining utter doom — on family:

"It is this close bond of family life that must be our greatest defence against the unknown.

"If families remain united and resolute, giving shelter to those living alone and unprotected, our country's will to survive cannot be broken."

Nuclear devastation — "the unknown" — is about to descend, and what can the country's parental voice say to the millions who are suddenly hearing that they're almost all about to die? Maybe some can survive, and for all that can hear the message, at least a few moments remain. There is, at this dire point: family. For the poor souls without a family: Anyone with a family should see how terribly unfortunate you are — amid all the misfortune — and take you in.

There was no WWIII, not back then, at least. Is the Queen's speech a weird relic? No. It's a vivid, striking message of something we know that we know even if we mostly live as if we have forgotten: The core of human life is family.

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"Barnaby Jack, a hacker and security researcher previously known for his hacks involving ATMs and insulin pumps, has died in San Francisco. He was 35."

"His death came just days before he was to give a presentation about techniques for hacking implanted heart devices, which could kill a person from 30 feet away."

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Death in "a gallery of gruesomely twisted sandstone, resembling deformed pillars, cones, mushrooms and other odd creations..."

"… with the unique blending of color twisted in the rock, creating a dramatic rainbow of pastel yellows, pinks and reds."

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A song for lawn boy.

Yesterday's post showing Lawnmaster Meade deploying the reel mower prompts a reader to send a link to this song by Otis Lee Crenshaw.

Well, ladies and gentlemen you know we all miss Elvis, you know we do deep inside, and all the other musicians like Hank and Janis and Jimmy and . . . for every musician who passed on up to heaven, generally due to poor physical maintenance there's another musician whose died and gone to heaven due to lawn and garden accidents. That's right. Quite a handful of them actually, like the drummer for Toto, God how we miss him. Jeff Porcaro was his name, who died just spraying weeds in his own backyard. Or Merle Watson, the great bluegrass guitarist who passed away in a similar agriculture related accident. Nobody's ever gonna write a song about these gentlemen so we thought we would. This is for all the men who fought the lawn . . . and the lawn won....

(Full text of lyrics here.)

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William Faulkner is never dead. He just needs to get the hell out of court.

So the estate of William Faulkner sued Sony Pictures Classics over the line "The past is not dead. Actually, it's not even past," spoken by the Owen Wilson character in the Woody Allen movie "Midnight in Paris." The line is a paraphrase of a famous Faulkner quote "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

The judge said: "The copyrighted work is a serious piece of literature lifted for use in a speaking part in a movie comedy, as opposed to a printed portion of a novel printed in a newspaper, or a song's melody sampled in another song. This transmogrification in medium tips this factor in favour of transformative, and thus, fair use."

Oh, good lord. I'm sure we're allowed to quote that quote whenever we want, in newspapers and songs, even pretending we just thought it up, without getting permission from the Faulkner people and without crediting Faulkner.
Anyone can Google who said the past is never dead it's not even past (or the Woody Allen paraphrase) will get to the details about Faulkner. And now, they'll also get to the news of the heirs' disgusting effort to cash in on a cliché that had long ago run free into the common speech.

Hey, I said that first, moaned the undead William Faulkner in his grave.

If zombie Faulkner is that petty, I don't want to read him. And if the descendants of Faulkner want us to think that he is, they should sue themselves for defaming him.

ADDED: The Woody Allen line did give Faulker credit, in the script itself (if not in the closing credits):

"The past is not dead. Actually, it’s not even past. You know who said that? Faulkner. And he was right. And I met him, too. I ran into him at a dinner party."

And here's (PDF) the opinion itself, which does not spell "favor" "favour," despite the way it's quoted at the first link, which goes to The Guardian.

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"As spectators looked on, Mr. Warner roared off on his blue Suzuki Hayabusa..."

"... a customized, fiberglass-swathed model muscled up with a 1,200-horsepower engine."

About 4,000 feet down the track, after he had hit 285 m.p.h., the motorcycle veered to the right — the direction drivers usually turn if something is awry — headed into the grass and fell on its side, tossing Mr. Warner. Their speed had been so great that both man and machine slid, separately, for hundreds of feet. Mr. Warner, though conscious after the crash, died a short time later....

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"[On 'Glee,' Cory] Monteith played Finn Hudson, an Ohio high-school student and football star who, initially..."

"... has no interest in joining that school’s struggling glee club for fear it will cost him his popularity and social standing. But once drawn into the singing squad, Finn became a crucial member, sharing vocal duties on its signature cover of Journey’s 'Don’t Stop Believin'...."

All the hope and wholesomeness that TV show means to embody and now Cory Monteith is found dead in a hotel room in Canada. He had what the obit calls "substance abuse problems." He was 31.

ADDED: "Cory Montieth: The Song He Was Listening to 'Basically on Repeat' Before He Died." You can listen to the song at the link, and I bet you'll think of the same joke that 80% of the people who listen to it will almost surely make.

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"The last time I had dinner with David, about six weeks before he died, he was so weak..."

"... that it was impossible to imagine him mustering the strength to work. But he was so close, he said. 'I need to finish it, and then I’ll be ready.'"

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"Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, 'What's the news?' as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels."

"Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. 'Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe' -- and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself."

An old quote that crosses my mind as I realize I have yet to check the news this morning.

Do you recognize that quote? It's from the oft-quoted "Walden," and I'm amused to see the next paragraph:

For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. 

Read in isolation, that sounds like Henry David Thoreau foresaw email and the internet, but, in fact, he's at the opposite end of the technology spectrum:

To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life... that were worth the postage. 

I have written 34,859 posts on Blogger — this is #34,860 — and they were surely worth the "postage," since I have paid $0.00 to write to you like this.

The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. 

Boldface added.

If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter -- we never need read of another. 

But a man on a vintage tractor was killed by a vintage firetruck in a 4th of July parade, and a cop shot the Rottweiler of a man he was arresting for photography the other day, and what's happening with those 17-year cicadas? Surely, these details from elsewhere need to be uploaded into our furiously grinding cogs of cognition.

One is enough. 

If you've read one dead dog story, you've read them all.

If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. 

In my defense, I am an old woman. I've had coffee, and have moved on to water. Are you a philosopher? The test is: Do you think all news is gossip?

Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure -- news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelve-month, or twelve years, beforehand with sufficient accuracy. 

What news stories are you reading this morning that might just as well have been written a year ago?

As for Spain, for instance, if you know how to throw in Don Carlos and the Infanta, and Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to time in the right proportions...

All these people that you mention/Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame/I had to rearrange their faces/And give them all another name...

.... they may have changed the names a little since I saw the papers -- and serve up a bull-fight when other entertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give us as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports under this head in the newspapers: and as for England, almost the last significant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649; and if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year, you never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are of a merely pecuniary character. If one may judge who rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French revolution not excepted.

What's the news from Egypt?

What news! how much more important to know what that is which was never old! "Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to Khoung-tseu to know his news."

All these Chinese names you mention... presumably, what's the news of how to spell them today?

"Khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned him in these terms: What is your master doing? The messenger answered with respect: My master desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of them. The messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked: What a worthy messenger! What a worthy messenger!" The preacher, instead of vexing the ears of drowsy farmers on their day of rest at the end of the week -- for Sunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave beginning of a new one -- with this one other draggle-tail of a sermon, should shout with thundering voice, "Pause! Avast! Why so seeming fast, but deadly slow?"

What is the fit conclusion to your ill-spent week?

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