a study in sophistry

i've developed a funny secret habit as of late. in pondering this behavior, which never fails to amuse me despite the fact that i do it everyday, i found myself attempting to ascertain the background of this habit. in doing so, i considered the following:

i eat my lunch at my desk in my cubicle. as i have been cooking a lot, i've been bringing quite delicious lunches to which i sincerely look forward and thoroughly enjoy ingesting. anyway, since i bring these said scrumptious lunches from home to the office, i use tupperware, which — as it was orginally designed for storing food and not necessarily eating from it — i too often find awkward. in general, i seem to acquire round containers that are too deep. or square ones that have ridges on the bottom that i find inconvenient. now to be honest, these aren't "official" tupperware pieces; they're more like delivery containers, deli-type plastic things, along those lines. perhaps i would not encounter the same issues if i purchased the real tupperware. but, as is, i employ the use of these not-so-sophisticated food carriers, which ultimately do the trick. bringing me to my point, which is that — on a practical level — while eating, food is sometimes difficult to get at. try eating something out of a deep, round tupperware with a fork. i mean, it's just physics. there are angles you cannot reach with the utensil. [so maybe just geometry?] and the ridged square ones from union market that my roommate brings home, why do that? food, of course, can easily become lodged in the ridges and solving that, too, is an unsucessful venture with a plastic fork. why not use plastic spoons, you might ask. well i suppose it is true that the nature of the spoon has the potential to improve the mechanics of my lunchtime. however a) the guy who sits a cubicle over from me has a giant cup full of plastic forks that i steal when he's not in the office and b) the last plastic spoon i used was so wide that i injured the inside corners of my mouth eating split pea soup.

so, i return to the matter at hand: i have prepared a quality lunch, i want to eat it, and i want to eat all of it. i think that's reasonable.

so, each day, i face the same pivotal moment: i have gotten as far as is possible with my fork. and i sometimes take fairly drastic measures, too: you can get some of the lodged food if you perform an extended "tip" in the square ones. and there is certainly ground to be gained by utilizing the combination "tip/scrape" with the assistance of the fork. there's also the more radical "shake," which involves restoring the cover of the tupperware, resealing it carefully (in order to avoid the possible splatter factor, which is a very real risk if the meal has included any liquidy components), and giving it a good vertical shake or two, in an effort to dislodge those elusive noontime morsels. and yet despite all this, inevitably, food remains.

having thus arrived at the behavior itself, which i assume is fairly easily identified at this point; yes, you guessed it: i go in for the lick.

i always look both ways before i do it. i have yet to be caught. i am careful, sly, mindful. however, without fail, every day at some point between noon and two, i can be found, tupperware raised to my face, licking up the remnants of my lunch. as i said, i find this funny. when i look both ways i often smile because i love the skewed association. "look both ways" always implies traversing a street. but touche, not here. i think that's funny. i also think it's funny that after all i've gone through to get this food into my mouth, when i'm finally succeeding, all i can think about is what i'm going to say if my coworkers see me. i mean, it's bound to happen. so everyday i spend the actual licking session not enjoying the food, but coming up with creative ways to justify my somewhat uncouth behavior.

i have determined that the only real and viable option if i should be caught in the act is one of accordance and shamelessness. if caught, i must first demonstrate complete comprehension that what i am doing could be considered vulgar and disgusting, and second make it quite clear that i simply do not care. if i were only do half of this, and acknowledge that what i'm doing might be considered by others (not, let me be clear, by this page) as gross yet fail to communicate that i don't care, then i shall look stupid. insecure. childish. i mean, i am licking my tupperware, right? so indeed, if necessary, i shall acknowledge the crudeness and rebuff its significance.

as in,
"i'm being totally disgusting, i know, but i'm not gonna waste this food."
or building on that theme AND reinforcing my self-confidence/security which is always a face-saver:
"i'm being totally disgusting, i know, but i'm not gonna waste this food — did i ever tell you what an amazing cook i am?"
or the more clever response which conveys both sentiments within a joke:
"don't mind me, i'm just looking for something" [proceed with licking]

regardless, my mind is occupied as such during the lick.

the last thing to be said on the lick itself is that it can present problems of its own. the most serious, of course, being the fact that you tend to get food on your face. ultimately, with a deep tupperware dish, for example, you will face some of the same hurdles causing you to succumb to licking the thing in the first place. but this time you will actually face them. with your face. i made an indian bean dish the other day that was yellowish in hue. it took me over three hours to realize that a substantial portion of my chin was screaming jaundice. or, more accurately in this case, turmeric. but yes, it's an issue.

if you recall — and no judgement if you do not; i sometimes forget what i'm talking about — i began this decidedly convoluted analysis in an effort to explain why i have become a tupperware-licker. as you see i've set it up very nicely, what with the logistical and valid difficulties presented by travelling food paraphernalia, eating away from the home, etc. and i did give it some thought. and i do often think these things while engaging in the licking. however, as i sort through this thought process, i realize something much more important than everything that preceeds. something that essentially voids some, or most, ok all, of what i've said to this point. indeed, it dawns on me that this is a prime example of over-analysis. because you know what?

i lick my plates at home, too. (yes — the nice, smooth flat ones)

in light of this new evidence, allow me a few brief edits.

1) please make the following alteration in the first sentence: "i've developed a funny secret habit" should now read "i have a funny, no longer secret habit"

2) omit everything between the first sentence and what follows immediately below:

i like to lick food off dishes.

supreme court shakedown

last week brought the close of harriet ellan miers' brief appearance in the great drama of the high court's history. most people would agree that it did so none too soon. she was not qualified for the job of justice on the supreme court; we could all agree on that. let us, then, laud the fact that what was so very clearly an exploitation of political prowess, so undeniably contrived for the good of a very, very tiny percentage of the people of this country (i won't be petty and name names), such an absurd act of cronyism has been struck down by such a brilliant, swift bolt of justice! sound about right? well, perhaps not. she wasn't qualified, no, but that had nothing to do with why they pulled the proverbial plug on her confirmation process. indeed, many saw the withdrawal of miers' nomination — and bush's acceptance of it — as a victory for the people. and it most certainly was. if by "the people," you mean to reference hard right idealogues. what actually transpired here is that the "righties" threw a temper tantrum. a big one. the result? they didn't just get the cookie and get rid of miers — oh no — they got samuel alito, and that was the whole jar.

part one: she strutted, he fretted

yes (brace yourselves here), hats off to the neocons! well done. most effective. not exactly mature, but who cares about the means when you've obtained the desired end?

indeed, no comfort was offered by the miers' withdrawal. quite to the contrary, in fact. let us objectively — or objectively as we can — consider each possibility behind it in light of this week's breaking (and i mean literally breaking as it's destroying any last shred of hope i had for the future of america) news:

a) she realized that she wasn't qualified for the position.
though a seemingly obvious explanation based on her unimpressive performances in individual meetings with the senate judiciary committee members (senator arlen specter, a republican, mind you, remarked that miers needed a "crash course on constitutional law" after his), this option is not much of a possibility. she's not qualified to be a supreme court justice, but she's no fool. if she accepted the nomination and was, as the times reported, "optimistic about her nomination," it's very unlikely she suddenly decided she couldn't hold up her end of the deal and consequently entreated bush to relieve her of her candidacy.

b) bush [read rove/cheney] realized she wasn't qualified for the position.
this, though more likely than option a, is not a particularly good explanation either. what kind of president would nominate someone that he wasn't sure could handle a position (wait for the end of the question, heck-of-a-job-brownie enthusiasts), then set himself up to face the absolute humiliation of "realizing" it while the nation watched. thanks to his advisers and aides, not even bush would have done that.

c) she realized her nomination was injurious to the bush administration.
ok, she saw that her nomination was doing damage and decided the noble thing to do was to step aside and let bush try to regain some of the support and good will that surrounded roberts' nomination, then confirmation. this is easy to eliminate; miers has no autonomy, never did. a pawn from the beginning, there is no way her political strategy — whether in favor of bush or herself or both — was going to foil her nomination.

d) god told her to.
let me tell you, those born-again evangelicals do NOT ask questions under circumstances like that. (hey, objectivity is all subjective anyway, right?) this explanation, though a lovely deus-ex-machina universal answer, just won't do either.

e) her nomination threatened the integrity of the separation of powers.
ah yes, the official reason for the withdrawal. what one should believe, according to the white house, is that "releasing documents requested by the senate about ms. miers' work in the white house would weaken the independence of the executive branch and a president's freedom to confer in private with advisors." so, the senate could learn nothing about miers' constitutional philosophies because executive privilege prevents the public release of any documents in which one might find such an inkling about mysterious miers. it's a nice thought. a nice exit strategy. hmm, that sounds oddly familiar. where might one have heard that before? i don't suppose it could have been washington post conservative (and anti-miers) columnist charles krauthammer's october 21st editorial entitled, "miers: the only exit strategy," could it?

"we need an exit strategy from this debacle," krauthhammer wrote. "i have it." he explains: "sen. lindsey graham has been a staunch and public supporter of this nominee. yet on wednesday he joined brownback in demanding privileged documents from miers's white uouse tenure. finally, a way out: irreconcilable differences over documents. for a nominee who, unlike john roberts, has practically no record on constitutional issues, such documentation is essential for the senate to judge her thinking and legal acumen. But there is no way that any president would release this kind of information — "policy documents" and "legal analysis" — from such a close confidante. it would forever undermine the ability of any president to get unguarded advice. that creates a classic conflict, not of personality, not of competence, not of ideology, but of simple constitutional prerogatives: the senate cannot confirm her unless it has this information. and the white house cannot allow release of this information lest it jeopardize executive privilege. hence the perfectly honorable way to solve the conundrum: miers withdraws out of respect for both the senate and the executive's prerogatives, the senate expresses appreciation for this gracious acknowledgment of its needs and responsibilities, and the white house accepts her decision with the deepest regret and with gratitude for miers's putting preservation of executive prerogative above personal ambition."

at least we know our president reads the paper.

but this explanation, though lovely on paper (/in the paper), has little to do with what actually happened. after all, it's too convenient. too clean. too, well, documented a week prior to the withdrawal in a national publication by a political analyst trying to create a plausible reason to pull the plug on the nomination. uh, yeah.

and then, there was one:

f) the nomination of harriet miers to the supreme court was alienating bush's hard right constituencies.
the truth raises its ugly little head: the conservatives were mad. sure, chances are miers was a psycho-conservative idealogue, but the plain fact of the matter (and it's got nothing to do with executive privilege and documents) is that no one — conservatives or otherwise — really knew. there was no evidence, merely bush's word (straight face, straight face, straight face). again, this may shock, but one must sympathize just a bit with the hard right here. bush promised them "justices in the mold of antonin scalia or clarence thomas." miers did not deliver. she may have once she got to the bench, but there was no guarantee. [moment of empathy now over, never to be revisited.] one might wonder, however, that as the right is just bursting with faith when it comes to morals, values, actions, viewpoints, and behaviors... why they couldn't put a little faith in the big guy (no, not that big guy, his inclusion is reserved for special issues like same-sex marriage and fetus-murdering). oh, that's right, they didn't trust him because even the hard right knows that w is incompetent. [shivers]

so there you have it. bush made a decision with which he was personally comfortable and assumed his base would trust him. they did not and became angry. (and let's face it, it would really behoove anyone, but especially bushie and especially now, not to get on these people's bad side). then — hope! light! absolution! — a polite way out of the mess. and just like that, he has a do-over. after all, everyone deserves a second chance. why deny insolent, smarmy, beaty-eyed, little imbeciles their basic rights as, well, insolent, smarmy, beaty-eyed, little imbeciles? his get-out-of-jail-free card will only take him so far, however. because what he learned from all this — and this is the sad part and where some americans may be misled — was not to nominate a better qualified individual (think the right would give the resume a second glance if the nominee had a clear paper trail indicating he/she would work to overturn roe v. wade?). no, bush learned his lesson the hard (right) way: he made an oops, got a slap, and was not about to misbehave again. indeed, the miers nomination fiasco left no doubt about the kind of nominee we'd be looking at now. no no, focus on the family's dr. dobson's self-declared "agonized heart" got a breather. maybe he used the break to talk about something else on his radio program? "if i have made a mistake here," he wretched last week, "i will never forget it. the blood of those babies who will die will be on my hands to a degree. lord, if i am right, confirm it, and if i am wrong, chastise me and i will repent of it and come before these microphones." yes! strike me down o most merciful lord, strike me down here in this very recording studio...

stay tuned.

part two: happily ever after

monday morning brought the announcement that judge samuel alito will replace harriet miers as bush's pick for sandra day o'connor's seat. i can think of one good thing to say about this: right now i'm really tired. how does it relate, one might ask? well, i'm not in the proper humor to duke out my thoughts, so to speak, to try to form some sort of quality opinion, argument, strategy, context... in which to discuss this. so the good thing here is that i'm off the hook; i don't have to think. unlike his two predecessors, nominee alito has left a nice juicy, fecund paper trail for any us to nose through. yes, there cannot be any confusion. if there is one thing of which the harriet miers fiasco can assure us, this one's a given. attention hansel and gretel, the breadcrumbs are all there — neatly and methodically placed — and if you haven't guessed it by now, they lead straight to disaster:

he's left us plenty: crumb casey, for example: planned parenthood v. casey, 1991, alito is the sole dissenter on his court in a case that struck down a pa law requiring women to notify their husbands before they can legally receive an abortion. (now i could be wrong, there doesn't appear to be any room in there for men who beat, rape, or otherwise abuse their wives nor for estranged couples who are not divorced). considering that this case had everything to do with a woman's right to privacy, it is not a particularly positive indication for the future of roe v. wade, a ruling based almost exclusively on the precedent of that very right to privacy. in fact, casey is really not much a crumb; more like a dense loaf of multigrain?

there are others, too: a ruling that struck down laws that would authorize suits under the family and medical leave act, one in support of an individual's right to own machine guns legally (always amuses me that these are the very type of people who have actually gotten sex toys and "props" legally banned in what i believe is currently 7 states, again on those "moral" grounds; but hey, machine gun = a-ok), also some rulings that clearly favor state rights over congress' on issues such as medicinal marijuana and assissted suicide. this, i believe, is crucial to the future of roe. there are many who theorize that actually overturning roe would just be too controversial and difficult to pull off while maintaining any kind of support from the american public. maybe so, but consider: roe protects the right to abortion on a national level; it is a ruling of the supreme court of the united states. and while this is clearly how it should be, it poses one profound and deeply frightening problem. what we need to remember, and what i believe we really are going to see with this court, is that it is surprisingly easy to chip away at national laws on the state level. ok, perhaps roe will stand. on paper. but if alito takes the bench — and especially if he takes o'connor's (the crucial swing vote) seat on the bench — what, or who, is going to ensure that it stands in practice? it will be gutted and stripped until it's merely a name. conservative state lawmakers will add clause x and addendum y, and one day a woman will go to a clinic or a hospital to exercise what is her right to end an unwanted pregnancy, for her health, for her life, for whatever her reasons are, and she will be refused. a woman in the greatest nation in this world will be refused a safe and "legal" — according to her constitutional right to privacy — medical procedure. the right will have succeeded.

so there's really not much to theorize about with this one. alito doesn't make himself out to be anything other than he is. even mommy alito said something to the effect of "ummm, duh" when asked about her son's views of abortion rights. and she's pretty old, too.

thus, the next chapter of the story: a new nominee with a trail of decisions that, just like grimm's breadcrumbs, are leading straight to an oven that the witch has all fired-up and ready to destroy anything that displeases her (you know, constitutional rights, precedented laws, nuisances like that). "creep in, creep it" the evil witch hisses to her prisoners...

well, it really is just too bad life doesn't work out like fairy tales do, isn't it?

"gretel gave [the witch] a push that drove her far into [the oven], and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. oh, then she began to howl quite horribly, but gretel ran away, and the godless witch was miserably burnt to death."

(not that i fantasize about godless hard right conservatives miserably burning to death or anything. really.)

the end.