On Nobel Literature Laureates, In Order
What I want to know is how much to tip a Nobel laureate.
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On Man Tells You What Your Retweets Mean
This guy’s more out of it than I thought.
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On New York City to Ban Awls
@whizz_dumb Yeah I mostly do that too. The "aaaaawwwwwwwwl" part, not reciting the full About page.
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On New York City to Ban Awls
Do you pronounce it differently from "all"? Because I don't, and I feel silly when I tell people that I read something on "The All."
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On White Conservatives On Supreme Court Wondering Whether We Need Laws That Allow Black People To Vote For Democrats
@barnhouse Imagine if when Obama was a senator, Rush Limbaugh or whoever had said "well we know Obama will vote for [liberal thing], because his white bosses will tell him what to do." Wouldn't you be troubled? Wouldn't you ask, "well, why is he singling out Obama as the one who will follow orders rather than having his own agency?" Wouldn't you ask "why does he think that the other senators, who have the same rank as him, are Obama's *bosses*?" Wouldn't you wonder why he's putting so much emphasis on those "bosses" being *white*?
Wouldn't the only possible conclusion be "because he is being racist"? Wouldn't you be unimpressed by defenses like "literary pov" and "enraged howl" and "it's excessive, and it's angry"?
Why isn't that the conclusion here?
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On White Conservatives On Supreme Court Wondering Whether We Need Laws That Allow Black People To Vote For Democrats
So! In addition to being a big Ken Layne fan, I'm a liberal lawyer and I want the Voting Rights Act upheld and I disagree with Clarence Thomas on almost everything and I don't want to defend his politics or his legal reasoning or his personality or anything else.
But! He is really not a puppet of Scalia et al. He actually has a different constitutional philosophy from the rest of the conservatives; he votes differently from them sometimes and often writes separately because he comes from different principles. Your tastes may vary but I find him far more intellectually consistent and just plain smart than, for instance, Scalia, whose reputation for brilliance rests mainly on his being a blowhard. You can judge for yourself by reading his many opinions; I suspect you have not.
As for his not talking: Everyone knows that oral argument is always a waste of time, and Thomas is just *right* that the justices who do ask questions are grandstanding, and not actually trying to get information, persuade, or be persuaded.
I'll also hazard a guess that you have not read many opinions by, for instance, Sam Alito, nor do you have a great sense of how often he talks during oral arguments or how often he votes independently from, e.g., Scalia. (Because: Sam Alito is white, so no one is invested in thinking he's dumb!)
This brings me to my point, which is that describing Thomas as "sitting up there with your four white bosses who do the talking and tell you how to vote" is not subversively anti-racist or cleverly reverse-racist or whatever you think it is. It's just dumb, and racist, and also dumb. You're better than that.
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On Someone On This Airplane Is Wrong. But Who???
The problem here is, as it is so often in life, that
(1) authorities really do go overboard in restricting people's freedom, but
(2) people who insist on exercising their freedom have a tendency to be douchebags.
If I were sitting next to this guy, I would ... I would just hate everyone involved the same amount, I think.
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On 'New York Post' Full of Lies
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On Ask Polly: I Can't Stop Procrastinating!
@jfruh Yes! Also, is it weird that, as a slightly-successful internet writer / fucking blogger, my dream in life is to be "an editor at a little-read academic publication." That sounds amazing.
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On Commenter Really Into Alcohol
This is all well said except for the part about not liking getting drunk.