tom moody

Referring to the U.S. President as "our commander in chief," which both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin have done recently is, as Greenwald has noted in his Salon blog:*

...much more than a semantic irritant. It's a perversion of the Constitution, under which American civilians simply do not have a "commander in chief"; only those in the military -- when it's called into service -- have one (Art. II, Sec. 2).

Worse, "commander in chief" is a military term, which reflects the core military dynamic: superiors issue orders which subordinates obey. That isn't supposed to be the relationship between the U.S. President and civilian American citizens, but because the mindless phrase "our commander in chief" has become interchangeable with "the President," that is exactly the attribute -- supreme, unquestionable authority in all arenas -- which has increasingly come to define the power of the President.

*prob. subscription-only

Recommended: Brian O'Doherty review of Victoria Newhouse's book on reading artworks through their surroundings, particularly how singular works look when placed in different museums. (Hat tip JWS.) Newhouse's test cases are the famous Laocoon-and-snakes statue, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and forty years of Pollock exhibitions.

The article seems especially germane to this post of Paddy Johnson's. An obviously fake Pollock (would he ever make dominant whitish lines that hesitant or obvious? no, he wouldn't) seems even faker with a self-professed hater of abstract art standing next to it, gesturing towards it like a carnival barker.

Naruto avatars organized according to a strange classification system on the Pony blog.
Having just seen War Against the Weak, was reminded of the elaborate genealogies of the "defective" Juke and Kallikak families lovingly and meticulously put down by insane racist American scientists in the early 20th Century. Or maybe that's too much of a stretch.
Found serial art, at the very least.
Bonus: ponies.

Thanks to Petra for recommending this.
The doggerel and cavemen weirdly recall the post-apocalyptic middle passage of David Mitchell's book Cloud Atlas. People in the story actually talk kind of like that.