Remember how yesterday I said something like this about Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign?

If Clinton were running a campaign that did not consistently appeal to lowest common denominator Republican talking points and to the worst aspects of American racism, I'd happily encourage her to carry on. As it is, it's become a ginormous headache.

How nice of Clinton to provide us with a fresh example.

“There was just an AP article posted that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

Em-phas-sis mine. I heard it on the radio this morning, driving along with a kind of drop-jaw stupor, so I'm surprised that I'm not wrapped around a tree right now. But Barry's excellent round-up of outrage, annoyance and analysis reminded me of it, so I thought it best to pass it on. It's actually really good reading, quite informative, and amusing - all necessary antidotes to the poison.

From The Superficial. Which I am merely citing, not endorsing. The same goes for this other link, which has another repulsive doll to wretch at. Seriously, look at those anorexic legs! Those narrow-set heavily-painted cat eyes! But don't gaze too close lest thou lotheth thy thoul.

All said, as nasty as the doll is, nothing tops Paris.

Narrowly squeaking by in Indiana last night, Senator Hillary Clinton has donated another $6.4 million of her own moolah to a campaign that her own spokespeople admit will not reach the necessary number of delegates to secure the nomination, even if they succeed in seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida.

Earlier in the call, Clinton officials were asked to lay out the math by which seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida would get Mrs. Clinton significantly closer to the nomination. The reporter asking the question, from the Detroit News, said that it appeared, based on estimates of pledged delegates, that even if those delegations were fully counted, “it’s likely you’ll come up behind.”

Mr. Singer said that even if the delegates were counted, the campaign would still be about 100 delegates shy of the number needed. The implication was that the gap could not be made up, even if she wins more delegates in the remaining contests, as she is expected to do. He also said he expected the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida to ensure that all voters are represented.
Asked again if it was correct that the Clinton campaign would still not reach the full number of delegates, Mr. Singer said, “That is correct.”

Howard Wolfson and Singer argue that "the process must play itself out" to ensure all votes are counted, no one is disenfranchised and democratic values are upheld. Or something like that. Hot air. This has become a vanity campaign, a multi-million dollar venture in self-aggrandizement. As my friend Amanda commented to me this morning, "She's turning into Mitt Romney." Given Clinton's tendency to echo whatever Republican talking point she can use against her Democratic rival, that characterization ain't much of a stretch.

The only compelling argument I have heard for Clinton to remain in the race is the history-making aspect of her status as a woman coming within an hair's-breadth of winning a major party nomination. I have a great deal of sympathy for this argument, because a) who knows when a chance like this will emerge again, b) were the tables reversed, Senator Barack Obama would be in a similar situation and faced with similar calls to drop out prematurely, and c) Clinton and Obama both have been handed the tricky task of blazing trails for their respective identities as a woman and as an African-American, so that (to extend this much extended metaphor) they are both operating without a map of defined trails. Women of all ages deserve a pioneering candidate who will provide an example to emulate, someone whose history will demonstrate the political power of competent and hard-working women. Women deserve someone who will speak directly to issues that affect them, something Clinton has done significantly better than Obama.

Yet at some point Clinton's value as a history maker has been undermined by Clinton the typical pandering Democrat, Clinton the Neo-Liberal who runs to the Right when its convenient, Clinton the Neo-Con Dupe, Clinton the bourgeois white feminist willing to exploit racial divisions to her advantage. If Clinton were running a campaign that did not consistently appeal to lowest common denominator Republican talking points and to the worst aspects of American racism, I'd happily encourage her to carry on. As it is, it's become a ginormous headache.

From Tom Spurgeon's photo gallery of cartoonists at Stumptown 2008.

Which sounds like the lamest promotional gimmick ever. "C'mon down to the Hut of Contempt for No Strip Tuesday! We got nothin'! Nothing is half off! Nothing must go-go-go!"

Anyhoo, my dear wife took ill today, so I had no spare time to cartoonize the political situation. Admittedly, the Neverending Primary thing is not inspiring, and some of the other ideas I have kicking around require more time than I had tonight to put them together. Thursday looks good. So long as I don't catch Jenn's virus.

I really need to stop working 6 days a week.

Click the image to see the whole cartoon.

Every Saturday morning on my way to work at the reference desk of PCC's Rock Creek Library, I tune into the best rock music radio show I have heard since Doctor Demento in the early '80s. Greasy Kid Stuff, hosted by DJs Belinda and Nova, is so great that They Might Be Giants wrote a song in their honor - which the DJs play religiously at 8:30am on the nose.

The music mix is pretty eclectic and strays beyond the "Alternative" genre constraints imposed on the parent radio station's daily playlist. Hipster parents (who are obviously a target audience as much as the kids) will certainly groove to a playing of Ben Lee or pogo to The Ramones' "Spider-Man". Yet Belinda and Nova love to throw in anything that is kid-friendly and fun. James Kochalka's "Monkey Vs. Robot" and Logan Whitehurst and the Junior Science Club's "Happy Noodle Vs. Sad Noodle" frequently pop up; Captain Bogg and Salty are huge favorites.

And they love themes. Check out part of the playlist from this morning:

# Ghoti Hook - My Bike
Banana Man (Tooth & Nail, 1997)
# The Jellydots - Bicycle
Hey You Kids! (self-released, 2006)
# Frances England - Tricycle
Fascinating Creatures (self-released, 2006)
# Lunch Money - Tricycle
Silly Reflection (Squirrel Mechanic, 2004)

Yes, bikes and trikes! I would have included Sid Barrett's "Bike Song" (it's kid-friendly!), but that's just me.

The DJs take requests and of course have birthday shout-outs to young listeners. Youth librarians can learn a lot from this show, especially the music tastes for young listeners.

[Cross-posted with Kids Music Source for Librarians]

With only a few minor adjustments to account for dates and sports utility vehicles, this NY Times article on recent car buying trends could have been written thirty years ago. Start with the headline:

As Gas Costs Soar, Buyers Flock to Small Cars

I have childhood memories of such headlines. Change the price-a-gallon and replace "sport utility vehicles" with "gas-guzzling boat-sized sedans" and the following paragraph would have been relevant back then, too:

The switch to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles has been building in recent years, but has accelerated recently with the advent of $3.50-a-gallon gas. At the same time, sales of pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles have dropped sharply.

Finally, here is where history repeats itself in perhaps the most moronic way:

The trend toward smaller and lighter vehicles with better mileage is a blow to Detroit automakers, which offer fewer such models than Asian carmakers like Toyota and Honda.

Yet as a testament to how the entire auto industry, regardless of country of origin (which means little in a globalized production line), is completely behind the times, consider the gas mileage of the fuel-efficient vehicles the Times lists in a sidebar:



The city mileage does not even reach 30 M.P.G.! We should be getting 100 M.P.G. now. We should have taken care of this thirty years ago. But no-o-o-o-o. We got frightened by the Iranian Revolution and elected an ex-B movie actor who stroked our precious imperialist egos ("It's okay, my fellow Americans, we're still a great big superpower"), and, once in office, undid the energy policies of the Carter Admin that would have saved us time, money, war, lives, and at least a part of the global warming crisis we face. Thanks, Reagan Democrats! I hope you guys learn your lesson this time!

But, like Detroit, you probably won't.

Click to see the whole cartoon.

I had already decided that I would not go see Iron Man, because it looked like just another multi-million dollar piece of shit. But David Denby has given my smug leftist heart a moral reason to avoid it altogether:

The director, Jon Favreau, and two writing teams, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, and Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, have enlisted Iron Man in the war on terror. Stark is now showing off his advanced missiles to American forces in Afghanistan. He gets ambushed by a mysterious group of burning-eyed men who hang out in caves and scream in foreign tongues. They are never identified, though their leader, Raza (Faran Tahir), says that they want to conquer the world. In any case, the freelance fanatics, or whatever they are, waterboard Tony Stark, which, considering what some American interrogators and their surrogates have done to suspects recently, is enraging to watch. Such are the ways of pop: we cast our sins onto others. The complaint sounds a little wan, but it’s worth noting that, possibly, more Americans will see this dunderheaded fantasia on its opening weekend than have seen all the features and documentaries that have labored to show what’s happening in Iraq and on the home front.

That said, I still haven't forgiven Denby for recommending A.I. Then again, it was Kubrick. I'da seen it anyway.