Whole Blog and Nothing But

Why They Hate Us
The Wee Wife and I went to Whole Foods for the first time the other. It’s a grocery store. It offers valet parking. It’s a grocery store that offers valet parking. Okay, that creeped me out. I admit it. And the customers creeped me out as well. They were all wearing tailored burlap, or so it seemed, and emitted this air of self-satisfaction as they fingered the organic figs. Whole Foods has a manifesto as well. It’s a fucking grocery store. With a manifesto. It’s right there on the wall – part of it states: “We take responsibility for our own success and failures. We celebrate success and see failures as opportunities for growth. We recognize that we are responsible for our own happiness and success.” To which I screamed (silently), “You’re a fucking grocery store! Shut up!”

As we walked by the meat department, I overheard a middle-aged guy ask, “What can you tell me about this chicken?”

We caught snippets of the butcher’s response: “Free range yadda yadda organic yadda yadda locally grown.”

My wife muttered out of the side of her mouth: “The chicken’s name is Leon.”

I muttered back, “It was strangled lovingly by Guatemalan virgins.”

Then we bought some weird fruit and high-tailed it out of there.

The Wee Wife said, to nobody in particular, “You’re not saving the planet! You’re buying coffee and recycled toilet paper!”

I muttered, “What can you tell me about this chicken?” It is my new muttering mantra.

Blogosphere Antics
Kathy Sierra, creator of the blog, CREATING PASSIONATE USERS, about computers, has shut down her blog, and cancelled all speaking engagements, after a series of death threats were posted there and elsewhere on that vast virtual edifice we call the Internet. On her final entry she wrote, “I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified.”

Blogosphere Antics part 2
Last fall Jessica Valenti was one of a group of “liberal” bloggers invited to have lunch with former President Clinton. As part of that event, the group posed for photographs with Mr. Clinton. In one of those photographs, Ms. Valenti can be seen in front of Mr. Clinton, standing a little bit sideways. That she possesses breasts was evident.

Conservative blogger Ann Althouse posted this photograph on her blog with the comment, “Let’s just array these bloggers… randomly.”

A poster commented: ‘Since we don't know who she is, this is quite the cheap shot: Who is the Intern directly in front of him with the black hair? As such, it would be beneath me to respond, I don't know, but she can deliver my pizza any day.”

Various other intern jokes ensued, before Ms. Valenti herself weighed in: “The, um, ‘intern’ is me. It's so nice to see women being judged by more than their looks. Oh, wait.…”

To which Ms. Althouse replied: “Well, Jessica, you do appear to be ‘posing.’ Maybe it's just an accident.”

To which Ms. Valenti responded: “It's a picture; people pose.”

To which Ms. Althouse scolded: “…I really don't know why people who care about feminism don't have any edge against Clinton for the harm he did to the cause of taking sexual harrassment seriously, and posing in front of him like that irks me, as a feminist. So don't assume you're the one representing feminist values here….”

If you’re going to pose with Clinton, in other words, bring your burkha, girls.

Anyway that went on for a while last September, with various people making the usual Clinton horn dog jokes, and sneering at Ms. Valenti for (a) acting slutty and (b) not owning up to her own sluttiness.

Then it went away pretty much until this March when Ms. Althouse appeared on Bloggingheads.tv with Garance Franke-Ruta, where they discussed why liberal bloggers don’t like Ms. Althouse, and Mr. Frane-Ruta mentioned the "Jessica Valenti breast controversy." Mr. Althouse got very upset and angry by this, for some reason, calling it “offensive” and an “insult.” She said terming the flap a “breast controversy” was just a label.

She later said, “[Then] the precise thing that ma[d]e me mad [was that] I say I will stand my ground, then I say I don't appreciate the ‘breast controversy’ locution, and she interrupts me. It's that sequence that pushes me over the line.”

So that video made the web rounds. A week or so ago, Ms. Althouse posted a video, which garnered some more blog reactions, apparently, She wrote “Based on my ‘American Idol’ vlog, where I hold up a glass of wine … and eventually take two sips of it, they are all: Althouse is a drunk, Althouse's drunken videoblogging, etc. This is the way these people see having a glass of wine? How very prissy and puritanical!”

I have seen this video. She is sitting on a couch, watching AMERICAN IDOL, and making boring comments about it. You can hear Ryan Seacrest in the background. Actually, he’s louder than she is. She may have taken a sip of wine somewhere in there. I didn’t notice.

The Poetry of Michelle Malkin
“Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,
You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.
I am John Doe.
I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.
I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.
I am John Doe….”

Dear John Doe: Where did you get the address of Muslim Terrorist Plotter to mail this letter? And if you know the address, why don’t you save the postage, drive on over there, and make a citizen’s arrest? Yours, Enabler.

PS What can you tell me about this chicken?