Forget all the trends you thought defined the last year—hope, resentment of the federal government, economic insecurity, reactionary populism, the baffling and continued popularity of Uggs. Put them out of your mind. All of those are as raindrops against the windowpane, noisome in announcing their impact but evaporating with any light. No, there’s only one trend that defines the current American moment, and that’s nostalgia. In a single 5-4 stroke yesterday, the Supreme Court returned us to the age of the Robber Baron, declaring that the government cannot legally restrict spending by private corporations on political elections. It was a victory for any American who feels that large corporations don’t exercise enough influence over US politics, by which I mean direct descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt. The rest of us had best wax up our mustaches and roll up our sleeves, because the next hundred congressional and presidential candidates who imply that there should be some sort of law limiting how long we must work or how little we can be paid are going to have the sum GNP of our great nation directed against them. But a longing for the good old days of outright corporatocracy isn’t the only nostalgia sweeping the country. All week, people have been judging, arguing, organizing and reasoning using the tools available to us in the nineteenth century, by which I mean primarily racism, religion and old-fashioned stupidity. Won’t you join me in criticizing them, before the Supreme Court rules that publicly doing so constitutes an unlawful restraint of trade?
Being cool: People should want to kill you
The second coolest dog ever (Number one: Phife Dawg)
In keeping with its tradition of covering the news not just as it happens, like most papers, but also possibly before it happens, the Style section of the New York Times announced today that bulletproof vests are totally hip. The author of the article, Ruth La Ferla, says the phenomenon was likely spurred by the return of the Fox show 24, in which Jack Bauer often wears a bulletproof vest. I guess that’s possibly true—24 is a show on television now, and people are apparently wearing bulletproof vests for fashion now—in the same sense that eating breakfast makes it get lighter outside. As is usually the case with a style piece, you can’t prove it’s not happening. La Ferla points out that bulletproof vests are worn by counterterrorism operatives and wealthy plutocrats, as well as Hollywood moguls and 50 Cent. “So it may have been only a matter of time,” she writes, “before aspiring hipsters embraced the style — the sartorial equivalent of a safe room — as a badge of cool.” Because as any hipster will tell you, no one is cooler than 50 Cent, unless it’s the guy who runs Wuhan Steel Group.
Dems lose Massachusetts Senate seat; health care ruined; sun rises in west; dogs talk backwards and demand driving privileges; mass hysteria
The Kennedy Curse has struck again: a mere forty years into his Senate term, Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy was felled by cancer in August, leaving his seat open to a special election that took place yesterday. In a turn of events that shocked any political strategist who stopped looking at opinion polls two weeks ago, Republican Scott Brown won a decisive victory over Democrat Martha Coakley. Now Washington is scrambling. The vote in Massachusetts has widely been interpreted as a referendum on the Democratic Party, health care reform, President Obama, and the existence of American liberalism in general. It’s a little early to say, but most analysts agree that the whole thing is basically over. “It is a mighty blow for a president,” says CNN political editor Mark Preston, “who just one year ago seemed unbreakable, unstoppable, unbeatable.” By one year ago, Mark Preston, do you mean the day he took office? Yeah, I guess he did look pretty good then. Those days are done, though. That day, I guess.
Et in Arcadia ego: Bible verses on military gunsights
ABC News reported yesterday that Michigan gunsight manufacturer Trijicon is inscribing references to Bible verses on sights it’s supplying to US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company, which has a $660 million contract to provide illuminated targeting reticule systems to the Marine Corps, has been printing chapter and verse numbers at the end of their serial numbers—for example, “2COR4:6,” which refers to the verse in Second Corinthians, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Contemporary theologians have historically interpreted that verse as being about using hydrogen isotope phosphorescence to shoot an Afghan goatherder in the face.
Preparedness meets opportunity meets I am lazy
Bad news if you read Combat! blog primarily to comment on that Levi’s commercial post: today is Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which means we once again get to decide whether we respect national holidays around here, or what. Fortunately, this one is easy. King Day is a particular favorite of mine, in part because, unlike most other federal holidays, it does not involves a bunch of people getting killed. Columbus Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, President’s Day, Easter—if everything you knew about history came from our roster of holidays, you would think that the only way to get anything done was to explode or smallpox or crucify everyone. Martin Luther King proved that you can get a lot done with just words and ideas, plus snappy presentation. Granted, he used that principle to free a people, whereas around here we use it to snipe at Sarah Palin and make dick jokes, but it’s basically the same thing. In honor of King Day, we plan to spend the morning redesigning Combat! blog, so that if we ever do actually exert a positive influence on anything we will at least look like we weren’t laid out in two hours by a half-drunk man with no graphic design expertise. I mean, that will still be true, but we’ll hide it better. In the meantime, happy Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., CPA day.