Oh, I love quizzes that tell me about myself

Gawker has a great takedown of David Brooks and his love of crypto-racist Charles Murray.

Brooks, like Jeff Jacoby, seems to exist solely as a token conservative who reassures liberal newspaper-buyers that conservatives are idiots. But I think that’s not really the case. Well, not for Brooks. Jacoby’s opinions really are such a caricature of conservatism I can’t actually believe he’s serious, or that anyone would publish him as an honest and sincere advocate for anything.

But Brooks does a slightly better job of seeming reasonable. I mean, he’s identifying actual problems, like a widening cultural divide accompanying the widening economic divide. But his understanding of the causes and solutions are so stupid it just burns.

Anyway, Murray has a quiz he wants isolated upper-crusters to take to determine about engagement with the 99%. Gawker fills it out for all the candidates, and of course, Obama wins. Durh.

What’s The Matter With the Republican Field?

The Economist investigates. Key conclusion:

Republicans’ disenchantment with their current presidential candidates is not an incidental characteristic of this crop of candidates. It’s a structural feature of a contemporary Republican Party whose pieces don’t hang together. Pro-Iraq-war neoconservative Republicans cannot actually live with Ron Paul Republicans. Wall Street-hating anti-bail-out Republicans cannot actually live with Wall Street-working bail-out-receiving Republicans. Evangelical-conservative Republicans cannot actually live with libertarian, socially liberal Republicans. Deficit-slashing Republicans cannot live with tax-slashing Republicans. Medicare-cutting Republicans cannot live with Medicare-defending Republicans. These factions have been glued together over the past three years by the intensity of their partisan hatred for Barack Obama, and all of the underlying resentments that antipathy masks.

For “all of the underlying resentments” read “racism.”

Just got back from NOLA, already planning my next trip

I saw this band play at this exact bar just this Monday. Since it was Martin Luther King day, they opened by getting everyone to sing “We Shall Overcome.” And it was absolutely amazing. The whole show. Better, I think, than this video really conveys. Definitely more crowded.

He’s coming to Johnny D’s in Somerville in just a couple weeks. I plan to be there.

Oh Nelly

It’s common for dog-owners to note that they know other people’s dogs, but don’t remember the people themselves, just as parents often find themselves known as “Benjamin’s parents” rather than as … was it Melanie? It starts with an M, I think. With that cute low-maintenance bobbed haircut. And her husband, the one with the hat. Benjamin’s parents. You know.

Anyway, no, I don’t know the names of the people who walk the white-haired fluffball named Ziggy that I see almost every morning. He’s got a soul patch and a scally cap, and she’s got blonde curls, and they’re in their 40s. Ziggy’s about a year old, and a great dog, and the people are nice too. They recognize me with or without Lucy, but I doubt they remember my name. I don’t remember theirs. It’s nice to see them anyway. The same with Lottie, the French bulldog that stays within five feet of her owner, on-leash or not. I have no idea what her name is, although I’ve been introduced often enough that it would be embarrassing to ask again.

My favorite dog, though, the one that sticks with me, is Nelly. She’s 15 years old, and you can tell that she used to be mostly brown but is now mostly grey. I couldn’t tell you her breed, but she’s a little smaller than a Labrador, with oversized feet that look transplanted from a mastiff. With her is a guy I think of as Dave, who told me once that he still sometimes thinks she’ll grow into those feet. He looks like he could be anywhere from 50 to 70. He walks slowly, because Nelly walks slowly. She’s quite literally on her last legs: When she stops walking, they start to buckle and she sags toward the ground. If she sits, the man who might be named Dave has to lift her back up to her feet before they can turn around and walk back home. I’m always glad to see the two of them.

Housepainting

There must already be a poem about painting houses; how it’s all preparation, and goes faster if you’re patient and careful at the start; about cutting in with an angled brush pushed against the grain to just reach an edge or corner; about cleanup and dropcloths and stray speckles found weeks later. Every human endeavor, in good light, is like this.