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Q and A

Q.  All right, Michael, how come you haven’t posted anything all day?  Are you sulking because Bush’s SCOTUS nomination diverted everyone’s attention from Theory Tuesday?

A.  Not at all.  Bush’s SCOTUS nomination diverted no one’s attention from Theory Tuesday.  What diverted everyone’s attention from Theory Tuesday was that weird head-fake about how the nominee was going to be Edith Brown Clement.

Q.  So that’s what the Clement thing was all about?

A.  That’s what the Clement thing was all about.

Q.  Why would the Rove Administration pull such a stunt?  Are you saying that the White House reads Theory Tuesdays?

A.  The White House doesn’t just read Theory Tuesdays—the White House fears Theory Tuesdays.  Bush, Cheney and Rove know that critical theory is the only thing that can break their stranglehold on power: in its capacity to question every form of representation and uncover the hidden workings of every last cultural formation and historical bloc, critical theory presents a challenge to the Bush Administration unlike any other it has ever faced.  So I’m telling you to watch out for a fresh diversion next Tuesday.  The lines have been drawn.

Q.  You sound angry about this.  Are you?

A.  Not at all.  It is to be expected that the centers of power would respond at once viciously and deviously to Theory Tuesdays.  Now, something like this, by contrast—that really makes me mad.

Posted by on 07/20 at 05:43 PM

  1. Another friend of mine had posted something about that t-ball story yesterday, and I was planning to send you the link, but I see, Michael, that you have already swept it up.  Just astounding.

    Posted by Scrivener  on  07/20  at  06:36 PM

  2. Scared of theory, eh? So that’s why partisan appointees in the US Department of Literary Criticism keep eliminating references to post-structuralism in their Congressional reports.

    Posted by Alex  on  07/20  at  07:13 PM

  3. Sorry I couldn’t make Theory Tuesday but I had to work late.

    Posted by  on  07/20  at  07:22 PM

  4. Geez yeah that’s pretty sick now that you mention it.

    Posted by Jeremy Osner  on  07/20  at  08:06 PM

  5. I was gonna make a joke about Theory having a half-life and that if you don’t keep practicing it, you’ll eventually forget everything you ever knew about it.

    And then I read the story about the kid getting assaulted by a paid hit-man.

    And really, when stuff like that happens in the world (and you know? It does every day, that and so much worse) I really stop caring about anything else and realize why I haven’t left my apartment in a year. I hate the world out there.

    Love,

    Hanna

    Posted by Hanna  on  07/20  at  08:28 PM

  6. It’s OK, Hanna—just so long as we make sure that this Mark R. Downs, Jr. never gets to coach any children in any sport for the rest of his natural life.

    Though a good tar-and-feathering might be in order, too.  I’ll bring the tar.  And if anyone volunteers to throw a baseball at his groin area, this blog promises to look the other way.

    Posted by Michael  on  07/20  at  08:38 PM

  7. About the boy and the coach? I think that coach should be sentenced to community service for life, possibly longer.  As a coach, you see the joy in kids, joy before the parents squeeze the fun out of everything. I had a left handed kid who whenever he got a hit ran to third base the whole season.  Always presented a problem for the umpire.  I talked to the young youth about it. He told me if the right handed kids could run forward to first base, then why should he have to turn to run towards his backside?

    Couldn’t argue with him on that. We make our own logic. Some of us grow out of it.  Some don’t.

    So I’m telling you to watch out for a fresh diversion next Tuesday. The Rove Administration is nothing but diversion.

    Posted by The Heretik  on  07/20  at  09:07 PM

  8. I read that story.

    I can’t encompass it. I really can’t wrap my mind around the world that man lives in.

    When did it become OK to be an adolescent bully? I don’t watch TV. I may have missed it.

    Posted by julia  on  07/20  at  10:22 PM

  9. That story is the worse thing I’ve read all day. And these days, that’s saying alot.

    I’d be happy to throw out the first ball.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  07/20  at  10:58 PM

  10. "I think that coach should be sentenced to community service for life, possibly longer.”

    Yeah, since he knows how to coach, he should just be forced to continue coaching forever, even if decides he wants to quit. That will show him.

    Posted by Stalin  on  07/21  at  12:16 AM

  11. The community service for that coach should involve training to work with persons with autism, and then an afternoon with my son, who also has autism, and me anytime.  That way he can get a double dose, baseball with my special needs child and Plato-tinged critical theory musings from me.

    Here’s more on the story:
    http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05200/540114.stm

    Posted by Kristina Chew  on  07/21  at  12:35 AM

  12. Kakoe ostranenie, Mikhail!

    T-ball has certainly been defamiliarized by the actions of Coach Downs....would Shklovsky consider him a literary figure?

    Or perhaps the knout would be a more appropriate Russian response to his actions than formalist analysis.

    Posted by  on  07/21  at  01:20 AM

  13. the thing that’s horrifying to me about the article is the person at the league office saying they haven’t yet determined if the coach did anything wrong.  What’s to determine?

    I was into team sports as a kid and had a few coaches like that.  They definitely helped kill my love for participation in sport (though I’ve recently discovered the joys of departmental softball) But more to the point, what the fuck are they thinking?  We’re talking about teeball here.  In my case, it was junior high baseball and park & rec soccer where I had the crazy coaches.  Do these people really think it matters who wins in those contexts?  Is their self-rsteem so thin and pathetic that they can’t stand the thought of losing a meaningless contest?

    Posted by Jonathan  on  07/21  at  07:35 AM

  14. Jonathan said:
    Do these people really think it matters who wins in those contexts?  Is their self-esteem so thin and pathetic that they can’t stand the thought of losing a meaningless contest?

    The answer, unfortunately, is yes. My son played competitive hockey and lacrosse until we ran into a coach like this. We took him off the teams—coach was coach of both—but not before some serious damage was done (mentally, that is). We couldn’t get anyone to listen to us because the coach was well respected and had a good winning record. Since switching to house league sports we haven’t run into this kind of coaching again.

    Now, the deliberate injuring of a child with a disability in order to win? I’ll take a bucket of that tar and maybe it should be hot.

    Posted by  on  07/21  at  08:23 AM

  15. That’s the deliberate injury of two kids: the poor kid who was hit - and I hope I read the story right in concluding that he wasn’t too badly injured - and the kid who took the money. That injury could be a lot longer in healing.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  07/21  at  09:40 AM

  16. I must say that Coach Downs is lucky that the parents of the disabled child decided to let the law handle it. However, I am from Alabama, and I can assure you that my family would never have troubled law enforcement with this matter. Tarring and feathering is an interesting option for punishment; certainly not at all inappropiate. However, I must admit that my fantasies about what I would do had it been my son have been been slightly more...hands on. 

    I am the mom of a two year old son with Down syndrome...so this story really hit home.

    Posted by  on  07/21  at  12:12 PM

  17. I say we sic Tonya Harding on the sumbitch.

    Posted by  on  07/21  at  01:07 PM

  18. Absolutely, Michael.

    Nor ever be allowed to supervise children in any capacity. Or be in any position where he is allowed to supervise *anyone* doing *anything*. Unless he gets some serious therapy and I’m not even sure at this point in my life if therapy helps people except for temporarily and some people not even that. (Apologies to those who have achieved peace and/or growth through therapy.)

    I’m also sickened by the desire for vengeance in people (whom I sometimes include myself among, when I’m not feeling even worse). Which isn’t to say I think that there’s anything we can do about it, we feel it, we speak about it, far too many people act on it.

    And I’m noticing this circle of vengeance, where people forget who started it and so many people are using The Godfather as a model for how to live and I spent a great deal of my life as business partners with people who thought this way.

    I was always Kay. “This ... Italian thing ... must end!” (Or whatever the quote is, which isn’t to say what the quote says literally, but that style of thinking and acting. Because it was hurtful. Sure it works. Just because it works doesn’t mean it’s right.)

    I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m attacking you. (Or anyone here.) I have the same feelings. Sometimes they overcome me, take me over.

    I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just sick and tired of it all. I want it all to stop. The violence, the verbal assault, everything.

    I don’t think I can put what I’m thinking into words that make sense because I don’t think what I’m thinking makes sense.

    I care *far* too much. Only problem is, no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop caring.

    I can’t be ruthless and chill my heart long enough to punish anyone. As angry as I feel, I can’t bring myself to escalate the situation, because for me personally, it just never ends and spirals ever onward into my never-ending well of hatred and distrust and current and ancient memory of pain and humiliation.

    That’s just me, though.

    I’m sorry, I should get a blog or something if I’m going to vent.

    Love,

    Hanna

    Posted by Hanna  on  07/21  at  02:13 PM

  19. You may be interested to know that Scarborough led off with the T-ball story earlier this week (I think Monday), saying (paraphrase): “Now here’s a story I guarantee a lot more people in the country were interested in over the weekend than Rove / Plame.”

    Posted by  on  07/21  at  04:06 PM

  20. Correction: he led into it this way, but the story was 3rd or 4th on the program as you can see here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8627625/

    Posted by  on  07/21  at  04:18 PM

  21. I’m thinking, Mr. Stalin, that “community service” in this context would mean licking out the sewers or something.

    Or playing third base.

    Posted by Ron Sullivan  on  07/22  at  11:32 AM

  22. How odd that his friggin name was “Downs”....what does theory make of that?  The author was a bit of a hack, i suspect....

    Posted by Zenji  on  07/24  at  09:00 AM

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