Predicting Obama victory?

The New Neo Posted on by

Robert Samuelson of Newsweek looks at the current perception that Obama’s got it all wrapped up. Not so fast, he says.

My personal opinion? Too early to tell a thing. Not only are the points Samuelson made decent ones, but the election results also could (and almost certainly will) be powerfully affected by the state of the economy close to November, the actual identity of the Republican nominee and how he performs in one-on-one debates with Obama, and myriad other as-yet-unknown events that will be occurring between now and the election.

Which is still eight months away, if you can believe that.

Yoga and sex

The New Neo Posted on by

Do I have your attention? Good.

Most people have a squeaky-clean idea of yoga, but apparently it has more risque origins:

The wholesome image of yoga took a hit in the past few weeks as a rising star of the discipline came tumbling back to earth. After accusations of sexual impropriety with female students, John Friend, the founder of Anusara, one of the world’s fastest-growing styles, told followers that he was stepping down for an indefinite period of “self-reflection, therapy and personal retreat.” …

But this is hardly the first time that yoga’s enlightened facade has been cracked by sexual scandal. Why does yoga produce so many philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people shocked and distraught?

One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult ”” an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise.

Hatha yoga ”” the parent of the styles now practiced around the globe ”” began as a branch of Tantra. In medieval India, Tantra devotees sought to fuse the male and female aspects of the cosmos into a blissful state of consciousness.

The rites of Tantric cults, while often steeped in symbolism, could also include group and individual sex.

It goes on, but I’ll stop with the quotes at this point. Suffice to say that, if you read the entire article, you may just want to take a yoga class.

But the author fails to mention a very odd fact about yoga and sex that I read at least forty years ago, when I first perused Arthur Koestler’s book The Lotus and the Robot. In it, he describes an arcane traditional yoga practice performed by those who’ve reached the highest levels of the discipline (children, please leave the room now). I don’t know whether yoga still includes this rather unusual stunt (or whether it ever really did; perhaps it’s an apocryphal story). But it certainly made on impression on me when I first learned of it.

Let’s see; how can I put this delicately? Traditional Indian culture apparently featured a notion that the loss of seminal fluid would lead to a loss of strength in the man. So yoga practitioners supposedly developed a way to skillfully reverse this process at will, a kind of reclamation/recycling program that was way ahead of its time. Or any other time.

No, I’m not making this up, although perhaps Koestler was. Neither is it April Fools Day. But will you ever think of yoga in quite the same way again?

Here’s the very best…

The New Neo Posted on by

…reminiscence about that unique, funny, effervescent wild man Andrew Breitbart. It’s written by Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard, who does a good job of showing why so very many people couldn’t help but like Breitbart—including Bill Ayers.

Yep, that Bill Ayers. Just read the piece.

[ADDENDUM: And for those of you who wondered what will happen to Breitbart’s plan to reveal some supposedly incriminating tapes from Obama’s past, it seems to still be on.

Here’s another tribute on Red Eye (hat tip: rdbrewer at Ace’s):

Devastating news: Andrew Breitbart dead at 43

The New Neo Posted on by

No one can be replaced, but some people seem more irreplaceable than others, and Andrew Breitbart was one of them.

He was also one of the last people whose death announcement I expected to read today.

He was young. He was irrepressible. He was fearless, unique, playful, bold, funny, determined, and smart. He was a family man and a public figure. And his death serves to remind us that none of us knows when we our time is up.

The cause? Fate, I suppose. But he is reported to have collapsed while walking near his home and collapsed “of natural causes” and could not be revived:

Breitbart was walking near his house in the Brentwood neighborhood shortly after midnight Thursday when he collapsed, his father-in-law Orson Bean said.

Someone saw him fall and called paramedics, who tried to revive him. They rushed him to the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center, Bean said. Breitbart had suffered heart problems a year earlier, but Bean said he could not pinpoint what happened.

Breitbart was an author, TV personality, once of the Drudge Report but then of his own websites Big Government, Big Hollywood, and Breitbart.tv. I could call him “conservative”—but only politically, because he was innovative and on the cutting edge in terms of the use of media. I will also add that I briefly met Breitbart at one of those blogger conferences PJ ran in the early, heady days of the blogosphere, before Andrew became quite as famous as he later was. He had a way about him that seemed fun and yet down-to-earth, effervescent and yet not too full of himself.

It goes without saying—but I will say it anyway—that he will be tremendously missed: by his family, by his political allies (I count myself among them), and by all who value the dissemination of truth.

RIP, Andrew Breitbart.

[NOTE: It should come as no surprise that Breitbart was a political changer. I wrote the following about him in July of 2010:

Breitbart’s hard-hitting theatricality would not be nearly as unique if he resided on the left, but as a man of the right he is very unusual. It is therefore not at all surprising to learn that Breitbart is a political changer. He grew up in Los Angeles, and dates his political transformation from the time of the Clarence Thomas hearings:

“He was, he said, a typical West Coast liberal ”” until the Clarence Thomas hearings lit him up with the fires of conservative resentment against the liberal establishment”¦’It was the moment that I saw a glimpse of the matrix,’ Breitbart said. ‘And I started to ask some very tough questions of myself, and my peer group, and my parents and their friends.'”

I sometimes think of Breitbart as the modern-day, conservative (or libertarian?) version of fellow-provocateurs Hoffman and Rubin of Sixties Yippie fame. He shares with them a streak of wildness and a knack for publicity, and the ability to use the media to get a message across in creative and somewhat novel ways, as a well as an irreverence and a sense of humor””although just about everything else about Breitbart and the Yippies (political aims, specific methods, and substance) is very different.]

[ADDENDUM: Michelle Malkin has a tribute, and a roundup of nasty tweets on Breitbart’s death from the left.

Roger L. Simon remembers Breitbart. He calls him “a whirlwind,” which seems apt.

Stephen Green’s first thought on hearing the news was that it was a hoax. I can see why. Breitbart was a prankish sort. But unfortunately, this is not one of his jokes.

Greg Gutfield remembers his friend.]

RIP Davy Jones

The New Neo Posted on by

Davy Jones of the Monkees has died at the age of 66.

Of course I remember Jones and the Monkees and their Bieber-foreshadowing cuteness, and although I wasn’t much of a fan I did like “I’m a Believer.”

Did I say I wasn’t much of a fan? Not of the Monkees. But I was a huge Davy Jones fan before there even were any Monkees, because I was a Broadway baby who’d been taken to see the show “Oliver,” and was blown away by how great Jones was as the Artful Dodger, a role he originated in London and took to Broadway. He stole the show with just the right combination of gruffness, roughness, softness, and charm.

YouTube’s got only one blurry clip of him doing the Dodger, on the Ed Sullivan Show. It captures at least a tiny bit of his flair in the role:

It’s that time again

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: Bumped up from yesterday.]

passhat.jpg

Yes, it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Time passes so quickly when we’re enjoying ourselves.

But yes, it’s been a while since I asked you to donate to a semi-worthy cause: this blog. And so I’m going to ask you again.

Every single donation— large or small—adds up, and helps me a great deal in continuing the blog. If each reader gave even a few dollars, it would be a glorious thing. But whether you decide to donate or not, please keep visiting and keep commenting. Comments are a very big part of what makes this blog work.

I thank you all in advance. I’ll probably repeat this notice every now and then, the equivalent of jiggling that cup/hat. But I’ll be discreet about it. And it’s a lot better than those fund-raising drives they have on NPR, isn’t it? No interruption of the scheduled programming.

I guess it won’t be Snowe-ing in Maine this year

The New Neo Posted on by

Olympia Snowe gave Maine’s GOP a nasty start when she announced she is withdrawing from the 2012 Senate race.

“Race” is a misnomer, really. Right up to the moment she withdrew she was set to win in an easy walk, despite being primaried by two very weak challengers, one of whom had already left the party a week ago to run as an Independent. So why did she pull out? And why now?

First, let’s see what Snowe herself said in explanation:

In a statement issued by her campaign, Snowe said that both she and her husband, former Gov. John R. McKernan, are in good health and she is certain she would have won re-election.

One of a dwindling group of GOP Senate moderates, Snowe said she no longer wanted to serve in an increasingly partisan and polarized Senate.

“As I have long said, what motivates me is producing results for those who have entrusted me to be their voice and their champion,” Snowe said in a statement. “I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ”˜my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.”

My first thought was that she might be ill. But Snowe has finessed that already by saying she and her husband are in good health. So although I have little doubt that Snowe isn’t at all happy with the current climate in Congress—both the low regard the public seems to hold for its members in general, and the increasing disfavor with which her brand of moderate (read: RINO) Republicanism has come to be seen within her own party—I think there must be more to it than she’s admitting.

A lot more, because successful politicians just don’t do that sort of thing. Not for reasons like that, anyway; not in the middle of a successful campaign, and not 15 days before the new candidate would have to file a petition with 3000 certified signatures on it.

One can’t help but suspect that Ms. Snowe’s motive has something to do with anger and something to do with revenge and goes a bit like this: “You think I’m a RINO and don’t appreciate me much? Well, get a load of my replacement. Miss me yet?”

Whatever Snowe’s true motives, Maine Republicans will have to hustle if they want to get a candidate on the ballot who’s more viable than Scott D’Amboise, the current Tea Party guy who has little chance of winning a Senate seat:

There are several possible Republican contenders for the seat including Senate President Kevin L. Raye, former gubernatorial candidate Steve Abbott, Secretary of State Charles E. Summers Jr., Peter Cianchette, the former ambassador to Costa Rica and State Treasurer Bruce Poliquin…

With two weeks to go, there is still time for these established names to call on their own organizations to get the signatures they need to be on the ballot…

Meanwhile, Maine Democrats already in the primary may be replaced by stronger candidates, too, now that they have a real chance of winning.

Those who don’t like RINOs will probably say to Snowe buh-bye, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. But if the GOP wants to gain a Senate majority, this makes it that much harder. On the other hand, if by some chance a new Republican contender can be found who manages to win the seat, my guess is that whoever it is, he/she will be considerably less of a RINO than Snowe.

But boy, Snowe must be really angry at the Republican Party.

[ADDENDUM: Could this have had something to do with Snowe’s abrupt announcement?]

Thoughts on Romney’s wins in Arizona and Michigan

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) A lot of the spin depends on perception and expectation.

Arizona was expected to go to Romney with the outcome never really in doubt, and though he won strongly there, it will be dismissed for the most part as a Mormon thing. But it’s really not; Mormons account for only about 10% of the Republican electorate, and his margin of victory was quite a bit more that that yesterday.

Before Santorum’s surge, Romney was also expected to win in Michigan. But then Santorum came around in the stretch and took the lead, and it seemed as though he would pull it out, which would have been a major upset. Romney won by about 3 percentage points, which would have looked bad just a couple of weeks ago. But after the scare Romney got recently, it looks pretty good, and puts him back in the front runner position again.

(2) Romney’s Michigan victory margin may have actually been bigger among Republicans than it looks because according to exit polls there were a fair number of Democrats coming out to vote for Santorum.

(3) Things have shifted back and forth awfully fast in this particular primary season.

(4) Since Newt did so badly, should Santorum ask him to drop out, the same request Gingrich made to Santorum after Florida?

(5) Will there be a next non-Romney, and if so, whom will it be?

(6) And what’s up with this “winning ugly” business? I’ve seen the term in two articles featured on memeorandum, this and this. I always thought that term (from sports) meant an unusually close race, marked either by weird officiating, or a lot of unforced errors or fouls on the part of the winner, or some or all of the above. Is there something especially close about a 41-38 victory in a primary with four candidates? Did Romney do anything particularly unusual at all in Michigan? Would it not be more accurate to say that Santorum “lost ugly” there (the robocalls, etc.), if you’re going to use the term at all?

Primaries today

The New Neo Posted on by

Today Arizona and Michigan hold their primaries. The Arizona one has gotten so little press that it’s hard to remember it’s happening, but the lack of attention is probably because the consensus is that Romney will win there, and if so his win will be written off as reflective of the Mormon presence, which amounts to about 10% of Republican Arizona voters.

But Michigan—ah, Michigan’s a different story. This close event has been super-hyped already, and the results are bound to be spun so much it will be dizzying. I’ve already written what I think about the “Romney is the favorite son and must win” echo chamber. I also am astounded at the fact that Michigan is a completely open primary in which Democrats are free to cross over and join in the fun.

In fact, there’s a Democratic effort to encourage people to do just that:

Michigan Democratic strategist Joe DiSano has taken it upon himself to become a leading mischief maker.

DiSano says he targeted nearly 50,000 Democratic voters in Michigan through email and a robo call to their homes, asking them to go to the polls Tuesday to vote for Rick Santorum in attempt to hurt Romney.

“Democrats can get in there and cause havoc for Romney all the way to the Republican convention,” DiSano told CNN…

DiSano says over the last 7 days or so that he has been working on this, he has gotten some 12,000 commitments from Democratic voters to go to the polls and vote for Santorum.

And it’s not just Democrats who are encouraging Democrats to vote for Santorum, it’s the Santorum campaign, too.

And meanwhile, polls everywhere show Obama’s stock rising. His natural advantage as an incumbent has combined with some improvement in the economic news and the unpleasant spectacle of Republicans trashing each other to give him an advantage—for now, anyway—in the polls.

[ADDENDUM: I can’t understand open primaries. I think they’re a bad idea for either party, and I’d like to see them eliminated. They’re just an opportunity for mischief; why should opponents be given the chance to choose their antagonists? It makes no sense to me.

In fact, I take it a step further: I think even Independents shouldn’t be able to vote in primaries. If people removed that possibility, it would certainly reduce the number of Independents and increase party enrollment, wouldn’t it? Not that that’s my goal.

And of course, people could still switch their affiliations if done somewhat ahead of time, so it would still be possible to play a few games with the primaries. But it wouldn’t be as easy. The potential problem with crossover only tends to become really bad, though, when one side has a hotly contested race and the other doesn’t.

Like, for instance, this year.]