Suck it up, don't muck it up!

What is it with what the outbreak of what the “liberal” blogs I used to read call “whiny-a$$ t!tty babies” this week?  Honestly, friends, like a cowgirl doesn’t have enough stalls to muck out–and now all of this foolishness busts out everywhere.  Well, you know the drill:  pull your socks up, smoke ’em if you got ’em, and click away, if you’re so inclined:

• Crybaby of the week:  Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Upper Peninsula, which is a state unto itself) has the vapors because Tea Partiers called his phone and said mean things about him, so he’s not running for re-election!  Now, I’m not crying over the prospect of a Stupak-free U.S. Congress, but d’ya think he ever thought twice about how the late Dr. George Tiller and his family felt about all of the harassing phone calls, the threats, and the stalking they all endured over the decades before his murder?  Do you?  Yeah–me neither.  Well, boo-friggin’-hoo, Congressman:  you got zero credit from the crazzies for all the precious little baby fetuses you pretented to care about.  And in spite of your bad hair and your Polish name, you apparently know nothing about Chicago-style politics.  If you can’t stand the heat, go take a jump in a sault (that’s pronounced soo.  Isn’t it even more shameful in retrospect that so-called “liberals” got rolled by this guy?)
• First runner-up:  Gregory Giusti, the man who was jailed for threatening Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, cried at his hearing on Thursday.  Now, it looks like there’s a whole load of Crazzy going on in this case.  Calling and threatening your opponents (real or imagined) anonymously is not the path I’d recommend to any political movement looking to legitimize itself, but if you’re going to threaten the life of a public official, be man enough to accept the consequences.  Otherwise, everyone in your movement gets tarred with the crazzy brush, dig?  And we wouldn’t want that to happen now, would we?  Threatening members of congress is so easy–look at this guy!  (And memo to Bart Stupak:  none of the girls have called it quits.)
• Tears and Fears on the Fellowship Front:  I know of only two people among my vast, international array of friends, colleagues, and contacts who won major grants or fellowships for the next academic year.  What I’ve heard from other friends in the know is that applications for research funding went up enormously.  A little bird told me that the Newberry Library got triple the number of applications they usually get for their fellowships.  Another little bird told me that a seminar that offers just transportation and lodging to its participants got over 100 applications!  (That’s right, friends:  apparently, a lot of us “will work for food” and 2 nights in a hotel, plus airfare.)  But, I do have a bit of good news on the fellowship front:  The School for Advanced Research has secured grants to fund two new fellowships:  The Luce Foundation Fellowship for Scholars of East and Southeast Asia (from the social sciences or humanities), and the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, for scholars in any humanities discipline.  The SAR is in Santa Fe, has a beautiful campus, and is a center for art and anthropological and historical research with an emphasis on the native peoples of the Southwest.  Please understand that I’m posting this against my best interests, since I’d love to spend a year in Santa Fe!  The website says that details for applying will be posted in August, 2010–so bookmark this site, and check it out later this summer.
• Another reason your eyes might be red?  Wicked bad pollen this year.  No wonder Classy Claude was a-wheezing after a run in Washington on Wednesday!  I remember living in Cambridge, Massachusetts in an average pollen year in the late 1990s, and how everything in our apartment was covered in yellowish green oak and pine pollen for whole months of the year.  Eeew.  (And I’m not even allergic!) 
• Cry Baby Ranch is not just a state of mind among certain weak and foolish men–it’s actually a little shop in Denver that sells super-cute western-themed urban gear.  (This is not an advertisement–I’m just giving due credit for the title of this post to the shop where I saw the name first.  I have received nothing in return for this notice.)