Regarding Ann Romney, Olympic horse owner

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 5 Comments

John Carlos and Tommie Smith give the black power salute at the 1968 Olympics, humiliating their owners.

Michelle Obama has those arms, but Ann Romney is kind of an Olympian. She owns a dressage horse, Rafalca, who will compete in the 2012 Summer Games in London alongside trainer Jan Ebeling. Over at the New Yorker, Amy Davidson asks whether that means we have to cheer for Ann Romney at the Olympics. We definitely have to cheer Rafalca, because what—am I to root for some Russian horse instead? But the question of whether that equals cheering for Ann Romney is less clear. Eberling is the one who actually rides Rafalca, putting Romney at another degree of remove from even being the person who sits on top of the actual competitor. It’s a tricky way to be an Olympian, as Mitt Romney has acknowledged. “She’s the athlete,” he told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation. “But in this case, it’s not her personally.” Oh.

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Adelson gives $10 million to Romney Super PAC

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 2 Comments

But Mr. Hartounian said, "Don't be a putz—see the world. Me you've seen already."

This week, casino magnate Sheldon Anderson gave $10 million to the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future. We could talk for a long time about how weird and creepy the name “Restore Our Future” is, but that’s time we could better spend returning our anticipation of the years to come to conformity with our previous expectations. That’s what Adelson is doing. So far, he’s given $35 million to Republican Super PACs this election, and he says he’s prepared to spend as much as $100 million. Twenty million already went to Newt Gingrich, who failed in his bid to become the nation’s first homunculus president. Now Adelson must settle for Romney, who is like the body without the homunculus inside.

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Friday links! Correlation vs. causation edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 4 Comments

When you get right down to it, everything that happens happens because of everything else. Sure, I took the kettle off this morning because it was whistling, but I also did it because Dowager Empress Cixi’s resistance to reform slowed the pace of industrial development in China, leading to a 21st-century state where it’s still profitable for kids to make housewares. Of course, I wouldn’t have bought that kettle at Montana Target had I not gotten into grad school many years ago, caused in part by a story I wrote about a person born with his heart on the outside of his body. So thank you, Kids In the Hall, for this morning’s coffee. It’s not so much that correlation is not causation as everything is causation, and correlation is therefore not that special. Today is Friday, for some reason, and our link roundup is full of startling forces that may or may not determine the course of our future. It’s all in how you look at it. Plus some of it is in immutable truths that could easily kills us no matter what we believe, but those will only be discernible in retrospect. Won’t you look back with me?

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Trump reminds us that money is, is not speech

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 0 Comment

Donald Trump and the classiest fuckin' golf club in the world

Those of you looking to divide the Republican Party into old and new need look no further than the public feud between George Will and Donald Trump, whom Will called a “bloviating ignoramus” on television Sunday. Trump responded that Will “may be the dumbest political commentator of all time,” and Will admitted that he was wrong and retired. No, wait—that second part didn’t happen. Instead, Trump flew to Las Vegas and participated in a fundraiser for Mitt Romney, where Romney stood next to him and tried to imply that Trump was dumb with his eyes. The Republican nominee also announced that he “accepts” that President Obama was born in the United States.

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Boom.

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 5 Comments

Last chance to get married before queermos make it impossible to love

Maybe you’ve heard about it, but yesterday the President said that he believes gay people should be allowed to get married. It’s kind of a big deal. Obama is the first sitting President to come out in favor of gay marriage. The last one made a re-election strategy out of opposition to same, and whether it worked or not, yesterday’s announcement is likely to be a branding issue until November. The screencap above—from Fox News’s mad cousin, Fox Nation, which subsequently changed its headline—suggests the kind of discourse we can look forward to. So yeah—probably half the country will say infuriating things while the rest of us address the most pressing civil rights issue of our time.

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