Charging with fists raised at Althouse: from the right, it's Robert Stacy McCain, from the left, it's Thers.

I'm thinking of ducking down the alleyway and letting the 2 men collide with each other. I'll find a high vantage point and watch the fracas. First one to unball his fists and put his palms up defensively loses... unless the other one, sensing a touch to the chokepoint on his neck, backs off and shrieks "You choked me."

Robert Stacy McCain should be pleased that Thers decided to attack me on the same day, because I wouldn't have rewarded his attack with a link if it wasn't funny to find myself in the "Clowns to the left of me/Jokers to the right" position.

McCain's post is titled "Ann Althouse: Rube." The word "rube" denotes a dumb rural character, but McCain uses it not for it's actual meaning, but because he's noticed there's a way that Glenn Reynolds uses it, and he seems to imagine that using Glenn's word will bring Glenn in on his team. Which is fine with me, because I've ducked down the alleyway, and Stacy is going to be fighting Thers, who might have "Eli" with him. I doubt if Glenn answers to the dogwhistle "rube," but I do think the fracas will be more amusing with Glenn there. (By the way, the expression "hey, rube" is traditionally "a rallying call, or a cry for help, used by carnies in a fight with outsiders." It's not a way of saying "I think you are a dummy from country.")

Anyway, Stacy's in a dither because, last Friday — predicting Obama's 2012 campaign strategy and referring to the emotionalism of the 2008 Obama campaign — I dropped a footnote to say that even though I voted for Obama, I wasn't caught up in the emotionalism. I observed it and critiqued it. I was in my high vantage point. I was sober and rational, but — confronted with the 2 major party candidates — I picked Obama. I have never apologized for that choice, because I still think McCain — John McCain — would have been worse, and the Republican Party would be in a far weaker spot right now if McCain were President. You can disagree with me, but don't portray me as another "Yes We Can" dreamer. My 2008 posts are all there in the archive. You can see how distanced I was from the Obama love cult.

But Robert Stacy McCain doesn't seem too familiar with the Althouse blog... or even the one post he purports to write about. He's bouncing off of some other blogger's post about me (in the style of Emily Mills who attacked me using material she got not from my blog but from some other blogger who purported to know what I'd written). (Stacy also nicks a photograph from my Flickr stream and uses it without complying with the Creative Commons license I was nice enough to provide.) Anyway, Stacy's point seems to be that I was wrong to vote for Obama. But my post wasn't even saying I made the correct choice, only that I chose based on sober reasoning, not emotionalism.

In any case, R.S. McCain doesn't say I should have voted for John McCain or that every rational person choosing between McCain and Obama would have picked McCain. In fact, sounding damned emotional, he says: "If you put a gun to my head and told me to vote for John McCain, I’d tell you to go ahead and pull the trigger." He calls McCain "a treacherous bastard." Okay, then, why wasn't it rational to vote for Obama? At the point of voting, either McCain or Obama was going to be President. Pick one. No, R.S. McCain voted for Bob Barr. Like that was rational!

At least McCain's commenters are critical. Donald Douglas is the first commenter, linking to his own post: "Ann Althouse a Rube? Nah, Robert Stacy McCain's Just Trolling for Traffic." He accuses McCain of liking to post my picture, and Douglas posts another picture of me. (Douglas does make that picture link back to the Flickr site, but he too fails to follow the Creative Commons license, because he doesn't include the photographer's name. Douglas chose a picture taken 30 years ago by my first husband. McCain chose a picture taken last year by my present-day husband.)

Now, let's swivel leftward and see what's going on with Thers. Thers has been attacking my blog for many years, and usually I ignore him. I don't know why he's so fixated on me. He didn't post a picture of me, so take that for what it's worth. He illustrates his post with a video clip called "Detachable Penis" from a band called King Missile, so apparently he's trying to waggle his wiener in my direction. Thers is writing to defend his confrere Eli, whom I took a shot at yesterday, because he said something stupid that everyone was attacking yesterday because it was on Memeorandum. I don't know who, exactly, detached Eli's penis, but I got my cut in, and I understand that it caused Thers sympathetic pain.

Thers quotes me saying something that exemplifies the way I speak when I'm observing the fray from a high vantage point: "People who are immersed in politics ought to take a good look at their own minds." His idea for a comeback is pretty prosaic. Do you even have to go over there and read it? You can guess: I don't follow my own advice. It's the "I know you are but what am I?" Pee-Wee Herman-type riposte that's supposed to answer a personal attack, which that quote of mine isn't. And Thers, of course, doesn't follow my advice either. He's not self-reflective. He attacks me:

All the evidence shows that Althouse has been long separated from her mind; if she originally removed it in order to give it a proper gawking, that is a perfectly laudable motive. 

A grisly image. A man who's musing about his detachable penis pictures a woman with her brain removed from her skull.

And let us be charitable! 

A reflexive line, by a man whose conscience perhaps nagged him. He knows that after the Tucson massacre, we weren't supposed to be using graphic metaphors like that. He could have edited that out, but writhing over Eli's detached penis, he had to lash out.

Perhaps there is a perfectly sound reason that as soon as her mind departed her skull it promptly escaped, never to be heard from again; and very likely all she had on hand to fill the resultant cranial void was Franzia and guano.

He's straining so hard for comedy, and he can't decide whether to call me a drunk or a shithead. And what's with the Franzia? Didn't he get the memo about Paul Ryan? Yesterday was the day to attack right-wingers for drinking expensive wine.

Then he gets to my little joke on Eli: "I have no interest in these hysterical little men who obsess about whether their 'base' is getting served or stiffed." He rolls his eyes and says:

Althouse is watching consonants whirling through onion rings, yet once more. 

See? Go to those links. He's been reading my blog for a long time, and he remembers my old comic riffs about genitalia. Unlike Stacy McCain, he's familiar with the archive here, and he's been trying to to get the better of me in the genitalia humor department for years. But he can't. He says:

She’s got a dirty mind, don’t she, Yossarian? The dirtiest. 

So... a reference to "Catch-22"... disembodied. The book is funny. The detached reference? The sad waggling of a man who would be erudite, who's trying to show that he's smart and the woman is dumb. A literary reference. I typo'd "litterary" a Freudian slip, indicating that I think his writing is trash. He ought to pick that thing up.

I've got a "dirty mind"? Oh, okay. Thanks. I suppose Freud had a "dirty mind" too. Isn't it funny the way lefties are, at bottom, puritanical about sex? Sex is dirty? As Woody Allen famously said: "Only if it's done right." And if it's done left, it's done with a detachable penis. Put some ice on it.  Maybe you can get somebody to sew it back on.

Quick, because here comes Robert "Stacy" McCain, fists a-flying!

At the Cheese Curd and Onion Ring Café...

... let's get fried.

Meanwhile, outside....



... there were throngs of people at the Capitol... and they weren't protesting. (They were downtown for the Concerts on the Square.)

"A 62-year-old woman visiting a local Culver's sees several restaurant patrons with guns on holsters in plain view."

She thought it was an appropriate time to call the police. She didn't understand Wisconsin. It was time to calmly scarf your butter burger.

More Cincinnati food: Mongomery Inn and Arnold's Bar and Grill.

1. Lunch, yesterday, at Montgomery Inn. The side dish chosen with the ribs was "onion straws." These were thin sliced onion rings, which were not anywhere near as good as the ribs but which I enjoyed well enough:



2. Dinner was the blogger-commenter meet-up downtown at Arnold's Bar and Grill. I've already shown you the hot brown. And I won't post the group photo because not everyone wants his photo on the blog. But here's a photograph of the room:

"Democrats always know how to implode, how to be ambiguous, how to waver, how not to be authentic."

Says Ralph Nader, who's toying with the idea of running for President. And he's got this to say about Hillary Clinton:

She is a political coward. She goes around pandering to powerful interest groups on the one hand and flattering general audiences on the other. She doesn't even have the minimal political fortitude of her husband.

Well, now, give the woman some credit. She did really push the envelope with that short film she released the other day -- you know that psychodrama in which she reduced the former President to the role of First Gentleman by taking away his onion rings (≈ sex life) and forcing him to accept carrot sticks (≈ pared down phallus).

"Get away, Onions."

Am I the only one that thinks of that as a famous catchphrase? Remember "The Adventures of Philo Kvetch," with the character Onions Oregano?

Anyway, there's been some talk about onions around here lately. A quirky post about a Clinton campaign video touched off a giant blog swarm and what I think was my highest traffic day ever. Based on an earlier blog swarm last September, I now know that what sets the left blogosphere into intense, concerted action is calling attention to Bill Clinton's old sexual problems. I wonder why.

The most pathetic member of the swarm was Christopher Orr, who blogs at The Plank, which is part of the New Republic's website. He seems to have gotten his ideas not from trying to read my post but from consuming the tripe of lefty bloggers who went into a tizzy trying to protect Mrs. Clinton:

Althouse's reading of the scene inspired a fair number of incredulous posts from other bloggers ...

"Other bloggers"? Don't you have the responsibility to say that the "incredulity" was entirely from left-o-sphere bloggers? This wasn't neutral. And it was phony incredulity. Really, are you that gullible or are you part of the effort to protect Mrs. Clinton?

He goes on to make some embarrassing blunders, but I don't want to bog down this post explaining them. I've written three comments over there -- demanding two apologies. And then Andrew Sullivan dips his toe in the controversy by linking to Orr's post. Brilliant.

Do you think I'm dissuaded from writing any more about the Clenis?

ADDED: "Ann Althouse is getting heat for her sexual interpretation of Bill & Hillary's Sopranos scene." That's the style of link I like, from WaPo's Howard Kurtz.

AND: I just want to emphasize that I stand by my original sexual interpretation. You've got a married couple talking about two foods, one of which is obviously a hole, and the other of which is so clearly phallic that this Google search gets over 70,000 hits.

The man wants the hole-shaped item, and the woman forbids it. She insists that he confine himself to the phallic item, which has been sliced down to puny, thin stick form. The man looks at it sadly, and the woman tells him it's for his own good. If you don't see sexual imagery there, you exist on a very narrow band of human imagination. I don't see how you are competent to watch film. Christopher Orr appears to be a film critic, too!

When Clinton sadly bites into the carrot stick of his own castration, it makes a crunch noise -- ouch! -- and it's that noise that causes the ominous looking man at the bar ("Johnny Sack") to turn and look at him. He then walks by and gives him a glare. What does that glare mean in the Clinton video? I think it means: "What kind of man are you?"

UPDATE: Christopher Orr tries to respond to my criticism of his attack on me. I respond in his comments this way:

1. You miss the whole point of the part about suing, which was an allusion to another controversy we'd been discussing on my blog, and not anything about me thinking I could sue. You write "after complaining that the blogger wrote 'sexual things' about her, she theorized that he had a small penis and would therefore prefer phallic calamari to vagina-like onion rings." You omit that the blogger calls himself "Instaputz." I wrote: "By the way a 'putz' is a little penis, so he might want to order the fried calamari instead of the onion rings." So you deceptively laundered out the whole quality of the joke and made me look as if I were just sour and vindictive. Incredible!

2. I write what I think, including what I think about the sexual connotations of a wife denying her husband circular food items and confining him to a bowl of pared-down cylindars. I am aware that my writing is popular, and I realize that things like that bring readers, which I enjoy, but I admitted that that one line was a taunt intended to poke other bloggers to respond. So what? Blogging is something of a game sometimes. I have fun with it, you know? And in that aspect of blogging, the Site Meter keeps score, and it's part of the fun to watch the score. I never say that I think the traffic was only a result of that line, so, again, you miss the point.

3. I defend myself from attacks. Not always, but to the extent that I choose. There were some high-traffic bloggers saying vicious things about me. I hit back, totally justified, and in a mostly humorous way -- as with the calamari wisecrack.

Finally, you say "I fear the best I can do is to say that I'm rather sorry to have engaged her at all." Ha! You'd prefer to slam people and have them silently take it, right? Bloggers don't do that. The comfy old days of MSM are gone. Thanks for admitting that you can't handle the new situation where the people you attack have a way of fighting back.

For some, onion rings. Others do better with the calamari.

At first, I think it's amusing:



But the photograph shows, I'm suspicious... even, contemptuous:



I seem game enough:



Later, I'll say it was just wonderful, but the photograph shows, I was forcing myself, and I really couldn't stand it:

Ah, a nice, refreshing, troll-diluting...

... Instapundit link for the onion-rings-are-vaginas controversy here. (Note the effect on Site Meter... and I'll suppress the urge to do another Freudian interpretation.)

IF ONION RINGS STAND IN FOR VAGINAS, then to what symbolic use can we put an Awesome Blossom?

The "Awesome Blossom" link goes to a cool blog called Televisionary, which I never noticed before, although the name calls out to me. (I'm blogrolling it right now.) The post there is all about product placement on TV shows. Key passage:

[S]etting nearly an entire episode of The Office in a Chili's restaurant and talking about the various dishes they offer ("I wanted one of those skillets of cheese," says Michael; and in a later episode: "May we have an Awesome Blossom, please, extra awesome.") was more than a little excessive to say the least (as was a shot of a Chili's employee explaining their corporate policy not to overserve drinks to customers). Another glaring example was the iPod in the Christmas episode, which was featured as the gift that everyone at Dunder-Mifflin wanted to steal (The Office is available for download through iTunes). At other times, the series has referenced Sbarros, Red Lobster, Bubba Gump Shrimp, Mac computers, Hooters, Mailboxes Etc., Country Crock Spread, and Starbucks. Which, when you add them all up, is a rather halting trend for the show.

So, not about vaginas, per se, but Glenn asks a good question about those giant fried onion things. (Leave it to a law professor to ask good questions.) What are the Awesome Blossoms in the crazy world of sexual symbolism? (And doesn't Country Crock Spread sound dirty? Well, so does everything, now. Dunder-Mifflin, indeed.)

UPDATE: And the Instapundit link is overwhelmed by a Crooks and Liars link, by the darling John Amato, who also linked to his pal, the socially awkward TRex. Remember, I had my encounter with TRex and John Amato at the CNN party on election night, and John Amato was a sweet, warm guy. I enjoyed meeting him. I don't begrudge him defending the Democrats' last President. But he's soooooo far above the grouchy little prick TRex. Thanks, John, for sending me all this traffic, and I still love you.

The new Hillary Clinton video is a take on the last scene of "The Sopranos."

It's clever, the way the video uses the jukebox business from the last "Sopranos" episode to remind us of Hillary's theme song contest. In case you care, I'll just tell you that the winner is "You and I," sung by Celine Dion, and if for some reason, you actually want to listen to that song, click here.

So what do we think of this video? The NYT political blogger Kate Phillips proclaims it "the best campaign spot we’ve seen this season." I don't think so. It was amusing seeing a cameo from Johnny Sack, but I've got some problems.

1. Not everyone gets HBO, so you've got a cultural reference that's a bit elitist. And some people wait for the DVDs, and they rankle at spoilers. But maybe everyone's supposed to have heard about the ending by now. Still, it might rub you the wrong way, to assume familiarity with "The Sopranos." And lots of Americans don't even approve of watching a show that is permeated with violence, obscene language, graphic sex, and the subjugation of women.

2. Do we really want to think of Bill and Hillary sitting in for Tony and Carmela? Tony is a monstrous criminal and Carmela willfully blinds herself to his horrible flaws so that she can keep living in a highly desirable house. Are these good associations for Hillary?

3. Bill is a much better actor than Hillary, and this heightens the sense that she's a pale substitute for the old President we can no longer have.

4. Bill says "No onion rings?" and Hillary responds "I'm looking out for ya." Now, the script says onion rings, because that's what the Sopranos were eating in that final scene, but I doubt if any blogger will disagree with my assertion that, coming from Bill Clinton, the "O" of an onion ring is a vagina symbol. Hillary says no to that, driving the symbolism home. She's "looking out" all right, vigilant over her husband, denying him the sustenance he craves. What does she have for him? Carrot sticks! The one closest to the camera has a rather disgusting greasy sheen to it. Here, Bill, in retaliation for all of your excessive "O" consumption, you may have a large bowl of phallic symbols! When we hear him say "No onion rings?," the camera is on her, and Bill is off-screen, but at the bottom of the screen we see the carrot/phallus he's holding toward her. Oh, yes, I know that Hillary supplying carrots is supposed to remind that Hillary will provide us with health care, that she's "looking out for" us, but come on, they're carrots! Everyone knows carrots are phallic symbols. But they're cut up into little carrot sticks, you say? Just listen to yourself! I'm not going to point out everything.

ADDED: 5. The scene, as derived from "The Sopranos," is designed to create anxiety that an assassination is about to take place. Having Johnny Sack walk by and glare at her preserves that feeling of threat. It's supposed to work because with "The Sopranos," we were waiting to find out how the series would end, but here we are waiting to learn the outcome of the song contest, but it's pushing the envelope for the campaign to suggest an act of violence toward the candidate.

UPDATE: This post has spawned a whole subgenre of anti-Althousiana. I discuss that here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I have another post on the subject here. Excerpt:

A quirky post about a Clinton campaign video touched off a giant blog swarm and what I think was my highest traffic day ever. Based on an earlier blog swarm last September, I now know that what sets the left blogosphere into intense, concerted action is calling attention to Bill Clinton's old sexual problems. I wonder why....

I just want to emphasize that I stand by my original sexual interpretation. You've got a married couple talking about two foods, one of which is obviously a hole, and the other of which is so clearly phallic that this Google search gets over 70,000 hits.

The man wants the hole-shaped item, and the woman forbids it. She insists that he confine himself to the phallic item, which has been sliced down to puny, thin stick form. The man looks at it sadly, and the woman tells him it's for his own good. If you don't see sexual imagery there, you exist on a very narrow band of human imagination....

When Clinton sadly bites into the carrot stick of his own castration, it makes a crunch noise -- ouch! -- and it's that noise that causes the ominous looking man at the bar ("Johnny Sack") to turn and look at him. He then walks by and gives him a glare. What does that glare mean in the Clinton video? I think it means: "What kind of man are you?"

No more meat slurry for you.

Foods to be banned in British schools:

• Burgers and sausages from 'meat slurry' and 'mechanically recovered meat'
• Sweets including chewing gum, liquorice, mints, fruit pastilles, toffees and marsh mallows
• Chocolates and chocolate biscuits
• Snacks such as crisps, tortilla chips, salted nuts, onion rings and rice crackers

I love the Britishisms like "crisps" and "pastilles." And I see they call the cafeteria the "canteen." Nice to make two words out of "marshmallows," so it seem like a hazard spot in the game of Candyland.

Out asexuals.

Here an interesting piece in the NYT about the newly found pride of persons who are not sexually attracted to anyone:

They describe themselves as asexual, and they call their condition normal, not the result of confused sexual orientation, a fear of intimacy or a temporary lapse of desire. They would like the world to understand that they can live their entire lives happily without ever having sex.

"People think they need to convert you," said Cijay Morgan, 42, a telephone saleswoman in Edmonton, Alberta, and a self-professed asexual. "They can understand if you don't like country music or onion rings or if you aren't interested in learning how to whistle, but they can't accept someone not wanting sex. What they don't understand is that a lot of asexuals don't wish to be quote-unquote fixed."

"People think they need to convert you" -- that reminds me of the scene on the yacht in "Some Like It Hot," where Marilyn Monroe is trying to help Tony Curtis (who's just pretending).

Go to the link to see a picture of a young man wearing a shirt proclaiming his asexuality. I wonder what sorts of things people say to him when he's parading around in that? I'm sure most people think he's kidding and trying to get attention. But he's quite serious.