Month: October 2014

Democratic partisans are probably concerned at
what might happen if the Republicans get over and get past its
anti-gay history (though they’ll never actually admit it). Just
think of the votes they might lose! Fortunately for them, a
political organization has been spending thousands to help out the
Democrats in San Diego and Massachusetts to try to stop a couple of
gay Republicans from getting voted into office. That group is the
well-known anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

Desperate for some sort of win—any sort of win—as the entire
reason for their existence (stopping same-sex marriage recognition)
slips further and further out of their grasp, they are
spending thousands on robocalls in opposition to the
congressional candidacies of Carl DeMaio in San Diego and Richard
Tisei in Massachusetts. Mind you, both of the these men’s
Democratic opponents, Rep. Scott
Peters and
Seth Moulton, also support same-sex marriage recognition
(Moulton even has a gay brother), but at least they’re not a couple
of filthy homos, I guess is the message.

Actually, the message from NOM is that—given the
Republican control of the House of Representative (and there’s no
chance of that changing in this election)—voting DeMaio and Tisei
into office rather than pro-gay heterosexual Democrats is worse
because the Republicans actually will have power. Here’s
what NOM is saying when
it encourages voters to select traditional progressive Moulton over
business-friendly moderate Republican Tisei:

The Republican party states clearly in its platform that
marriage is the union of one man and one woman; Tisei, according to
the hopes of his supporters, would work to undermine and change
this platform conviction from within the party itself.

On the other hand, Tisei’s opponent, Seth Moulton, is no better
than Tisei on the issues. But as a Democrat in a House controlled
by Republicans, Moulton wouldn’t be able to impact anything.
Furthermore, we could defeat him in two years. Tisei, however,
as a Republican within a Republican-controlled House of
Representatives, would be in a position to do great damage to the
integrity of the party’s platform and the pro-life and pro-family
policies for which the party stands!

Italics in the original. Moulton is obviously
rejecting NOM’s support:

“Seth Moulton fundamentally disagrees with everything NOM stands
for and has long said that equality is the civil rights fight of
our generation,” said Carrie Rankin, Moulton’s communications
director. “Fighting against groups, like NOM, that deny equality as
a basic human right will be a priority of Seth’s in Congress.”
Rankin noted that Moulton has a gay brother and Moulton has said,
“It’s fundamentally wrong that he and I don’t share the same rights
just because of who he is.”

If Tisei and DeMaio help kick any anti-gay planks out of the
Republican Party’s national platform, NOM is going to end up
completely marginalized. Both races, though, are extremely close in
the polls.
DeMaio and
Tisei both barely have the edge in recent polls and both races
are classified as toss-ups. I’ll be keeping an eye out on these two
battles come Tuesday.

The headlines today are that
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel wrote a “memo
to the White House criticizing Syria strategy.” The nature of
that criticism is a bit on the vague side, though, given that it’s
a confidential document and all that seems to have leaked is an
unattributed comment to the effect that he thinks “we need to have
a sharper view of what to do about the Assad regime.”

Whoah. Scathing.

But if the memo reflects what Hagel said the other day at the
Washington Ideas Forum, his real criticism may be that U.S. foreign
policy hasn’t, of late, had enough war in it.

At The Atlantic,
David Graham notes the Defense Secretary’s remarks that “What
we’re seeing in the Middle East with ISIL is going to require a
steady, long-term effort. It’s going to require coalitions of
common interest.”

Beyond the world’s sandbox, he sees lots of fun stuff to keep
U.S. diplomats and Marines engaged. “Tyranny, terrorism, the
challenges and threats to our country … is going to be with us.
It’s a reality. I see these things continuing to stay out of
there.”

Strictly speaking, Hagel’s comments don’t seem like Teddy
Roosevelt-style saber rattling—there’s no specific country he wants
to overwhelm with American firepower in some perceived opportunity
for glory and medal ceremonies. Instead, it sounds like the foreign
policy equivalent of death by a thousand cuts. Without a specific
opponent or goal, there’s no endgame—there’s just a series of
brushfires alternating with crises intermingled with
confrontations.

Fairly, I think, Graham sums up Hagel’s comments as “Get used to
endless war.”

So, if Hagel is criticizing the Obama administration’s Syria
strategy, it’s probably a matter of emphasis rather than substance.
Because he sees an unending future of more of the same.

As predictably as falling leaves and longer
nights, the end of October brings children disguised as pretend
ghosts and goblins, and politicians whipping up fears of supposedly
real ones. Democrats air spooky commercials alleging a war on
women, on the poor, on teachers, on unions. Republicans speak of
Islamic extremists poised to achieve world domination, or
of terrorists wielding an Ebola weapon in the United States.
Both sides share the same message: the world is uniquely dangerous,
and we’re here to keep you safe, but, writes Christopher Preble, we
could all use a little perspective.

View this article.

On
Tuesday night’s episode of The
Independents, the beer-swilling, pot-smoking,
election-complicating Libertarian Party Senate candidate in North
Carolina Sean
Haugh came on for a second time to talk about his
candidacy:

Townhall.com Political Editor Guy Benson and progressive
strategist Richard Fowler also provided some color commentary on
some of the more striking campaign ads of the season:

And Kennedy took to the streets of midtown Manhattan to see if
anyone gives a rip about the midterms:

Other recent midterms-related Independents
content:

* Former Hillary Clinton aide Basil Smikle and GOP
strategist/Sun Sentinel columnist Noelle Nikpour on the

likelihood of a Republican-controlled Senate.

* FOX News contributor Deroy Murdock and Washington Free
Beacon writer Ellison Barber on voter fraud and the
potential impact of third parties and independents next
Tuesday.

* Guy Benson and Richard Fowler
make their cases for voting major-party on Tuesday.

For Halloween, here’s Au Secours!, a 90-year-old
horror-comedy from the French filmmaker Abel Gance. It takes a few
minutes for the story to get rolling, but once the chief character
enters the haunted house the film becomes a flurry of gags, camera
tricks, surrealist insertions, and generally goofy and/or creepy
strangeness.

Next up is another silent haunted-house comedy, Charley Bowers’
1928 movie There It Is—the picture that proved an American
can do surrealism as well as any Frenchman. Bowers is one of the
great forgotten filmmakers of the silent era, and this is probably
his funniest effort:

That version of the feature has a jazz soundtrack. Someone else
has posted it to YouTube with a more electronic score; to see that
version, go here.

Both Au Secours! and There It Is end with
“explanations” that do not, in fact, explain everything that has
happened. In the final flick of our triple feature, by contrast,
the audience always knows exactly what’s going on, even if the
characters don’t. It’s set on a haunted boat instead of a haunted
house, and it stars Laurel and Hardy, who in this outing are
basically a couple of thugs. From 1934, here’s The Live
Ghost:

(For past editions of the Friday A/V Club, go here.)

The kids from Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the
Dark? learn the true meaning of terror…election-year
rhetoric.

View this article.

If you were thinking of dressing your kid
like a pirate, handing him a foil sword, and sending him to school
with a bag full of Twix, you’d better pencil in some time for a
talk with the principal. Here are the Halloween guidelines from a
school somewhere in the U.S. (The mom who forwarded them asked me
not to name it, to protect the guilty, obsessive-compulsive
killjoys.) The note begins:

Halloween is an exciting time for children and is always a
special day at [redacted]. To ensure that we are not shortchanging
our academic time, we have found it helpful to modify our day.

God forbid the school shortchange academics one day a year!

COSTUMES

As you plan your child’s Halloween costume,  you must
consider the district’s Zero Tolerance Policy.  Imitation
weapons, no matter how benign, are not allowed — this includes
things like neon-colored guns, plastic swords/lightsabers, and
rubber knives…. This measure reflects the district’s commitment
to the “Zero Tolerance for Guns Act” from the Safe Schools
Initiative.

Actually, it seems to reflect the school’s Zero Tolerance for
Fantasy Act.

FOOD GUIDELINES

It is recommended that food and beverages provided by parents to
be shared with classmates comply with the dietary standards listed
below. Foods of minimal nutritional value cannot be
distributed.

*Snacks and beverages shall contain no more than 8 grams of
total fat, no more than 2 grams saturated fat, and no more than .5
grams of trans fat.

*Beverages limited to 100% juice, milk or water.

*Whole milk in 8 oz container.

SAFETY TIPS FOR HALLOWEEN

We will be having a Halloween safety assembly with a member of
our [] police department.

And there you have it: perhaps the scariest Halloween on record,
because it synthesizes every terrible trend in American kiddie
culture to date. 1). Believing that there is a link between make
believe and violence. (Really, how many Halloween pirates go on to
commit terror on the high seas?) 2). Believing the way to keep kids
healthy is to obsess about every gram of fat they ingest.  3).
Thinking that one day of crazy sugar fun is somehow going to set
kids on the road to ruin, physically, morally, and nutritionally.
 4). Pretending that one day of academic disruption will have
any impact whatsoever on the kids’ education. 5). Calling in the
authorities to teach kids how to enjoy a holiday that kids have
enjoyed for generations without a safety assembly beforehand.

As for the mom who
sent me this note, she says: “I’m all for healthy foods &
snacks, but we’re talking Halloween here! Isn’t the point of
Halloween eating candy with “minimal nutritional value”? And would
anyone keel over if they drank 10 oz of whole milk (God
forbid)?”

They might—if they weren’t already dead from a fatal foil sword
wound.