Hattie's Web

Oh no!

Anti-Clinton nutbag loses it, holds campaign workers hostage.

What does this kind of intimidation mean? I'm worried. There is that bunch who just hate women and Clinton most of all. She becomes the symbol of everything evil they fancy women have done to them. Does this mean that Clinton's campaign offices will have to be guarded? I guess so.

Update: from Salon.com War Room : So he was a convicted sex criminal, among other things. I wonder if there is not something more going on here. I'm very suspicious about taking this incident at face value, especially  when I consider how much hate speech has been directed at Clinton. Why was this guy allowed to run around causing trouble for so many years? How many people would do their damndest to stop Clinton? How well organized is the campaign against her?

Update II:Here is more concerning this well known nut about town:

"Eisenberg walked into the office about a half-hour before he was scheduled to appear in Strafford County court with his wife for a domestic violence hearing, according to Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover.

Divorce papers filed Tuesday indicated Eisenberg was arrested and charged with criminal mischief, domestic related, and violation of a protective order. In the papers, Eisenberg's wife said the divorce was a result irreconcilable differences and complained that he suffered from "severe alcohol and drug abuse, several verbal abuse and threats."

Eisenberg also was arrested at least twice earlier this year, once for allegedly driving under the influence and once on two counts of stalking. The status of those cases was not immediately clear.

Eisenberg made local headlines in March when he held a news conference on the steps of Rochester City Hall to complain about a police policy of placing fliers in unlocked cars warning motorists to lock their doors.

"This is nothing more than a gimmick to get around the Constitution and go around in the middle of the night upon unsuspecting citizens in their own yard and search their vehicles," Eisenberg said.

Police, who said they were just trying to reduce theft from motor vehicles, changed the policy in response.

Why do these horses asses get away with this stuff for years and years? I'm sick of it.

Update III  For this posting,Ann Althouse wins today's coveted Worst Blog in World award. You know, I should get someone to design a plaque or a statuette or something.

You know, Clinton is not responsible for the behavior of this nutbucket. I note that the guy did awful things to women for years and yet still thought of himself as a victim. And he just terrorized some more women, in case you think that having the shit scared out of you is "nothing." He did not belong out in public.
The fact is, the world is full of loser guys, and what's his face is one of them.
The thought of a woman winning drives them crazy, thus the attacks on Hillary Clinton. A lot of women don't like other women in power either, Ann Althouse being a prime example. If she cuts other women down, then she can be the Queen Bee. And if the guy candidates trot out their families at every photo op, that shows what fine family men they are, but if Clinton mentions she's a mother, poor childless Annie gets all jealous. What a twerp.

Update IV from Edroso:

Apparently Althouse thinks she's watching a TV show called "America's Next Top Democratic Candidate." If Clinton gets shot, she'll tell us it's a ploy to bring some of the old Kennedy magic to her campaign.

Republican debate

This was quite something. What I picked up was that the candidates, while seeming to address the issues, were striving above all to project manly forcefulness. To be made to look less than a man would mean they had lost the debate. By contrast, in their debate, the Democrats Edwards and Obama looked like the kind of weaklings who cravenly attack the only woman around. Hillary looked like a woman, which is always a handicap in the great matters of life. I'm reminded by all this that it isn't enough to be a man. Everything a man does has to reinforce his masculinity or he risks feminization, being seen as a weakling,  or the suspicion that he is homosexual. I would even go so far as to say that the mere presence of a woman on the podium has an emasculating effect on men. That's why the power players strive to keep women to a set of stereotypes that they can easily handle in the patriarchal format. Obama and Edwards looked very weak in their attacks on Clinton, and Clinton looked, well, like a woman. The gender aspects of this campaign are remarkable and should provide feminist scholars with loads of material.

If you lived here, you might riot too.

They're rioting in Paris again. And here is an article about one of the boys killed in the accident that precipitated the violence. I'm sure this is not the first incident like this, just the final straw to an oppressed populace.

When last there about two years ago ago, I took this photo of the less than glamorous outskirts of Paris between the De Gualle Airport and the City Center,  which rival the worst America has to offer.

I certainly would not like to be housed in an apartment in this building. And then told that I was just like any other French person and that no one really discriminated against me.

Here is a picture I took on a lovely Sunday morning in Central Paris. Why, with a little hard work and good luck, any French citizen could end up living here in a luxury apartment on this wonderful Paris street near the Eiffel Tower. Right? With a nice car and other amenities! That double-digit unemployment? The way a citizen can't even get an interview if he or she has a Muslim sounding name?

They are so much like us Americans. I'm serious about this. Of all the Europeans they seem most like Americans to me. They have a strong rhetoric of freedom and equality married to a very unequal society.

"Black Friday"

Those who did not celebrate Buy Nothing Day got caught up in this:

Why bother to make an occasion out of being in such dreary stores? These pictures are the definition of drab.

Paul E. Singer

From the N.Y.Times:

Rarely has it been so clearly explained  what an underhanded rich person has been up to, in spite of his efforts at covertness. 

Talking  Points memo has more comments:

This is the whole "libertarian" thing gone sour. It's all well and good to say that we should not impede the desire of people to live as they please, but  Singer's activities impinge negatively on millions of people who don't even know his name, and these people might also like to live as they please. He is now attempting to manipulate the electoral system in the state of California so that his candidate, Giuliani, can become President. I hope exposing his activities to the public at large can put a stop to his machinations.

His other activities do not strike me as exactly praiseworthy, either. Buying up debt from poor countries and forcing repayment may make him rich, but it does not help out the masses in those places, people who are hardly to blame for the fecklessness of their leaders.

Men like Singer,  operating under the radar,  have distorted our national life and international reputation to such a degree that we are really having trouble figuring out what's causing our current malaise. They simply do what they please and make the rest of us stick it. It seems like the NYT has finally done its job here of informing the public.

The rude awakening seems to be happening this holiday season. What I am struck by as I look at the shoppers in photos of mainland cities is how poor and drab they look, like the Russian masses: saggy blue jeans, cheap shirts and jackets, a generally dispirited air. It's getting scary.

Buy Nothing Day

The Reverend Billy and his choir in the groove and makin' 'em move. As usual, I am celebrating Buy Nothing Day with an orgy of non-spending.

This, however, is more in the American vein: the marriage of God and Mammon.

I'm so erudite!

Get a Cash Advance  (pay no attention to this ad, which I do not endorse.)

From Alicublog. Edroso makes high school level. Guns and Lawyers manages "undergraduate," and Crooked Timber, genius. Now how did they figure this rank out in the nanoseconds it took me to get the results? My nose is so out of joint!

The caregiver dilemma

This is a typical article from the New York Times on caregivers and the price they pay for what they do, both in money and in self sacrifice. These are obligations that can go on for years and years, as we have found out in our personal situation. It is too bad that it comes down to the question of money, as individuals scramble to provide the best care possible for their relatives. We have done our best, but it is only in the last weeks of my mother in law's life that we have been  getting the kind of backup we've needed all along, from the Hospice people. We are not medical speciaiists, after all, just concerned family.

We just are not doing well with these matters in the U.S. I would like to fancy that there are solutions.

Walter Kempowski, RIP

Klare sache & damit, hopp!

From the 1975 television (melo)drama Tadelloeser & Wolff. Kempowski showed us portions of this adaptation of his work in the late 80's. I don't remember what he said about how he felt about it. The shock, of course, was seeing a "normal" family living in the period, especially the father in uniform. Some of my writing about Kempowski is available on the sidebar. I don't agree with everything I said in my earlier critique of T & W, but it has some value because I read it carefully and was then immersed in the period.

Clearly, he is a major writer and I but a humble blogger!

As I say here:

I was sorry to hear that Walter Kempowski died last month. It was my privilege to become acquainted with him at the Deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik in the 1980's when  I was a grad student there. I did my MA thesis on his work. I have  posted  part of my thesis and other remarks about him on the sidebar.
He has become more serious to me as a writer since I first encountered him and his work, and I believe he will gather importance as time goes by.  I used to disagree with him, but not so much any more, I think.

Clinton deals with the cats

The "diamonds or pearls" question was set up by CNN. The other was pure cattery. I'm female enough to love this kind of thing. What fun. A great American woman: wise,witty, and winning!

Update: I loved this comment on Salon:

The problem isn't just that it's sexist, it's that it's stupid

"Diamonds or pearls?" is sexist, yes, because you would never ask that of one of the male candidates. (You might ask, "Viagra or Porn?" or maybe "Heather Locklear is naked and waiting in the bedroom, but Sybil Danning is oiled and ready in the den. Which do you choose? You have 5 seconds - GO!")

Reducing a woman to questions about fashion is just insultingly lame.

Think of these debates as group job interviews. Can you imagine interviewing a woman for a corporate presidency job and asking her "diamonds or pearls"?

True, the student herself is partly to blame. I suppose that's worth keeping in mind. At least she didn't ask, "What detergent do you prefer for getting out difficult stains?"

-- Xrandadu Hutman

[Read Xrandadu Hutman's other letters]

Friday, November 16, 2007 05:10 PM

Update: After looking at more extended excerpts  of the candidates' debate on Talking Points Memo I think that Obama and Edwards both came off very badly. Obama was inaccurate when he said that a person with an income over $90.000 a year was "upper class." Affluent, maybe, but not upper class. It also was not wise for Obama to keep referring to Clinton as "Hillary." It sounded disrespectful in the context of the debate.

There is a lot more that could be said about the sexism, both overt and covert, on display here: "the boys" ganging up on an uppity woman and the shocking complicity shown by some women in going along with the campaign to defame another woman on the basis of her gender. This crass and childish behavior can only benefit Clinton.