The Dissentators

Dissecting the Immigration Debate

2007-11-14T09:13:00.001-05:00

To me the immigration issue is both fascinating and extremely important for this country, and really for everyone in the world. The widespread immigration of people coming from lower-income areas to higher-income areas affects the entire world whether this be country to country immigration or rural to urban immigration within countries. So what the US is dealing with is just one of the many expressions of this that are going on everywhere, which to me makes it even more interesting.

But I want to look specifically at the debate on this issue, and the arguments used both by Democrats and Republicans, and I want to think specifically about the voters rather than the politicians - incidentally I am not sure which is more difficult - understanding the opinion of millions of Democrats and Republican voters, or understanding the opinion of a single Democrat or Republican candidate.

What is so fascinating about this debate is that it has layers that transcend party lines. For Democratic voters, the party is sympathetic to the most recent addition to our diverse "nation of immigrants." This would favor less detention and deportation and less crack-downs given the sympathy for the predicament that illegals are in. On the other hand they are a party that represents workers, and thus may have constituents that are worried about job security in light of a large increase in the labor supply - and an increase of workers who are more eager to work for lower wages. Speaking of wages, Democratic voters might not be as upset about the employment of illegal workers per se, but would be very upset if that employment means that the employer is paying less than minimum wage. This would favor more crackdowns on employers and may or may not lead to more detention and deportation.

Republicans I think are the opposite of the above. They are less sympathetic to illegals since they are not playing by the rules. I see Republican voters as highly respectful of the law and the rules of the game, moreso than Democrats. So this would favor more crackdowns, detentions etc. However Republicans are also the party of business and of employers, which means a reluctance to crack down on employers to root out illegals. This might apply more to the politicians than the voters however.

I am not sure whether the debate and the arguments thrown around are dictated by the media or by the presidential candidates, theoretically the media and the candidates are supposed to represent the views of the voters and advocate them, although it's hard to know who is influencing who. Take people like Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo. Democrats see these guys and then assume that all Republicans are alarmist about terrorism, the deterioration of American culture, and American workers losing their jobs to illegal and legal immigrants alike. Actually I would like to hear from a conservative or a Republican on this one. Do you agree with or identify with the arguments made by Lou Dobbs? Or is it more the respect for the law and the rules of the game that is behind most Republicans' "tougher" stance on the immigration issue?

Hopefully this post served to bring out only some of the nuances, maybe the surface nuances on this debate, and also served to illustrate why it is so hard to make progress on this front.

Don't Get Your Neurons in a Bunch

2007-11-14T03:22:00.000-05:00

For some reason or accumulation of coincidences, I have been hearing a lot about scientific studies that attempt to explain individual behavior and predilections at the atomic level. The NYTimes reported a study on undecided voters and how their brains were stimulated by photos and videos of the candidates. And apparently there is a growing concern, now that we've mapped the Human Genome (a project which initially hoped to show how similar we all are), there are reports which prove that different races and ethnic groups are, in fact, not created equal. I tend to shrug these findings off. They are intriguing studies, to say the least, but they remain lacking, in my eyes -- for in science's desire to master the inner cosmos of our minds, it blinds itself to the actuality that in the end, we still reserve the power to lead ourselves to our fates, or at least be led by the world around us.

Hamlet once said, "There is a divinity that doth shape our ends/Rough hew them as we will." Now Hamlet, unfortunately was a character in a play and subject to the whims of his author/creator -- or in his words -- "a divinity". Luckily for us non-fictional heroes and heroins, we remain to a degree the authors of our own narratives. This is not to disregard the lot we are born into or the trials we face along the way through no fault of our own. What I'm trying to say is that our genetic makeup is not to us what Hamlet's "divinity" was to him. Each of us can overachieve or fall short of expectations (based on looks, intelligence, wealth, etc.); identical twins have free will to be a odds with one another. Or, in other words, a clone by any other name could turn out to be a completely different me. In fact, I might not like the guy altogether (personal note: my clone's a real jerk).

So, whether the controversial arguments in a book like The Bell Curve prove true -- and it turns out that East Asians are smarter than the rest of us, from a genetic standpoint -- it will end up being because they have a much better education system that they will bump us out of the number one slot. Whether I'm supposed to be attracted to a certain type of woman, I might end up with what could only objectively be called a dog, because the woman might be hilarious, or maybe I was just really vulnerable when we first met and my standards had gone way way down and I hadn't had steady work for a while and didn't feel good about that...

Basically, I don't like people telling me how it is, or worse, how I am supposed to be. And no matter what geographical and ethnic backgrounds we come from, or genetic schisms that divide us, we still retain the right to choose to be our own selves, each trying to shape our own ends together.

The Top Ten Campaign Slogans John Edwards Would Go To Hell For

2007-08-07T09:52:00.001-05:00

10. Vote Edwards- I'm not your daughter and I didn't rape her
9. John Edwards- For Democrats who hate whores
8. Vote Edwards- If anything, just to piss off your hippy liberal girlfriend
7. White men's brains are bigger- it's science. Vote Edwards.
6. Vote Edwards- Lets keep this thing respectable
5. Vote Edwards- That's what you're going to tell your friends at the club anyway
4. Vote Edwards- They're already voting, isn't that enough?
3. John Edwards- Against universal suffrage
2. John Edwards- No perm needed
1. John Edwards- Are you kidding me?

Beer Me

2007-07-29T12:27:00.000-05:00

This video sings for itself:

Also this one, hilarious:

And two clips of the show that started it all - these two are a little long and there is some overlap but I am a big fan:

Oh Yeah, You Blend

2007-07-18T13:26:00.000-05:00

I have just returned from a three weeks of Pan-African travel -- jarring, unpaved roads, hellaciously vivid dreams from my anti-malaria pills, more than a dozen planes, some new cuisine and some old favorites in surprising places.

It began with a jaunt up to Uganda, known to some as "The Pearl of Africa" -- a former British colony, landlocked in a collar-tugging position -- South of Sudan, East of the D.R.C. and North of Rwanda. Eeeeyikes! My travel buddy and I had not planned second one of our trip since purchasing our plane tickets a week prior. We figured English was the national language (gotta give the British Empire some credit on that one) and how hard could it be to find some mountain gorillas without a travel book, map, game plan, or a gorilla of our own, who by virtue of its ability to converse in both sign language and gorillaspeak could bridge the interspecies gap.

A few things became clear very quickly. We needed bug spray something awful; the Chinese food in Kampala is amazing; and the distance from Entebbe (where we landed) to The Bwindi Impenetrable Forrest (where the gorillas and their concomitant mist reside) gets a lot longer once you find out that the term "roads" required much exaggerated quote fingers.

No regrets, cause the endless expanse of lushly verdant hills and (hidden) valleys out our windows made up for the ass pains from the bumpy ride. I have no pictures, but the landscape made me wish that I could go back in time (Bill and Ted style) round up Cezanne, Van Gogh, Monet, et al., and set them up with an all expenses paid trip to sunny Uganda and all the Absinthe they can drink on me.

Driving through the many farming villages that line these "roads" was like being trapped inside a moving zoo. I guess I take for granted the fact that I'm white. I mean, my Mom and Dad are white, my sisters and brothers are white. Come to think of it, my whole family is white. See, I didn't even think of it til now. But staring out my window with increasing mortification I watched jaws drop, women and children stopping dead in their tracks, conversations halted in mid-sentence, the sounds of juke boxes scratching off, all because they don't see too many (dragons or) white people around.

On a side note to this, the often invoked notion that white people think all black people look alike, well I know what people mean now. We were the only two white people that we saw the whole time, blending in like My Cousin Vinny. We would go some place for a bite to eat, laugh and drink with the waiter for hours, and then come in the next day as total strangers to this man.

US: Hey, Johnny. How's it going?
John Bosco: Ahhhhhhhhh?

Because of our poor planning, we were unable to go gorilla tracking, but you can't win 'em all, as they (gorillas) say (in sign language).

A Modest Proposal

2007-07-14T08:49:00.000-05:00

I've never supported genocide. Like the bleary-eyed law student who on the first day discussing Brown V. Board raises his hand and prefaces his comment with "I'd just like everyone to know that I'm against slavery," I would like to put on record that I am, in a general sense, against the systematic murder of a group of people. Especially since they outlawed it in the Geneva Convention. Or some convention. I don't remember, but I'm sure someone made it illegal at sometime. Nevertheless, I've concocted a judicious proposal to address one of the most crippling plagues ever to afflict New York City.

Let's kill all the real estate brokers. Think about it. These people are completely useless. Why keep them alive? They're just dragging the rest of us hard-working Americans down. Rents would drop immediately-no one would ever have to pay that stupid 15% broker's fee anymore. Craigslist adds would be pruned of deceitful advertisements. There would be less foot-traffic in the cities most desirable locations, as there'd no longer be anyone to meet you at a random street corner and take you to the apartment that you could have just gone to yourself if the brokers did not deliberately keep the location of their apartments from you. Instead of meeting that goofy-looking twenty something who could have learned a valuable trade but for some reason went into being slimy for a living, you could just go straight to the apartment, talk to the owner, and strike an honest deal between respectable people. I see no reason not to run the streets red with the blood of real estate brokers.

And another thing: these people have apartments themselves. Did you think of that? If we killed all the brokers, there would be a massive jump in supply. Now, they probably don't live anyplace that you or I would want to rent. But any supply shift will effect the entire market. Brutally maiming all real estate brokers in New York and leaving their bloodied, mutilated corpses in the streets for ravens to scour would be the best thing to happen to rental prices since the stock market crash of 1929.

I know there will be some resistance to my proposal. You can't just kill tens of thousands of people because they are useless and annoying and it would be great for the rental market and the morale of the city and pretty much what everyone wants to do anyways. It would be expensive. To that I say "Come on- live a little. You've gotta spend money to make money. Lets forget about the budget just once and do what we know is in the best interest of the city. Lets just get out there and start killing brokers. Expenses, and obnoxious people, be hanged."

Plus, think about the job creation, people. Someone would have to actually butcher the brokers- hey, that's a catchy slogan: Butcher the Brokers, a 2007 initiative for the city. Anyway, genocide doesn't happen by itself. Someone would be collecting a pay check after this thing, and that's what we call economic stimulus.

But of course, its a slippery slope. Today we're killing real estate brokers, tomorrow we could be killing stock brokers. Before you know it, there's not a single over-paid middle-man left in New York and there's perfect information and transparency in every transaction. Wait, maybe I've been narrow-minded about this. I'd like to amend the proposal. Kill ALL brokers. Now we're talking.

Mostly Lounging on Denali

2007-07-10T13:35:00.000-05:00

Last month I took a long walk in the snow and reached the highest point in North America, but, lest I be accused of productivity, I’ll have you know that I abandoned neither my tranquil constitution nor my taste in leisure to do so. The story I would like to recount now is how I, in true Brooklyn fashion, passed an entire day lounging in a café at 14,000 feet.

On June 1st I traveled from New York to Alaska to take a guided trip up Mt McKinley, or Denali, as it is sometimes called. This story of “Café 14” took place three weeks into the trip. I had reached camp IV (elevation 14,600 ft) on the north side of Denali, late on June 21st, though you’d never know it from the Alaskan sun. I was tired and hungry and the weather was moving in. I rested the next day to acclimatize in preparation for the move to high camp. On June 23rd, I awoke early to check the weather and found the skies clear. After a quick consultation with the guides and my fellow climbers, we decided to ferry a load of food and fuel up to high camp and return to sleep at camp IV. As I readied myself for the move, a paralyzing bout of mountain sickness knocked me on my haunches. At extreme altitudes, lower atmospheric pressure inhibits air intake, depriving the brain of oxygen. The effect is similar to a hangover and can be quite debilitating. I had it bad that morning, and knowing the results of working through hangovers, I opted out of the move.

One other climber stayed down with mountain sickness that day and one guide. We all retired to our tents to “hunker,” the honored climbing pastime of killing time in tents, and none too pleased about it. We had been moving quite well up to 14,600 and were all excited to be moving higher. The idea of a second consecutive day hunkering in stale-smelling tents was as unappetizing as the left-over beans from dinner. Then a miracle happened: “I was getting signal on my radio last night,” the guide explained. “Why don’t you two come to my tent and we’ll see what we can get.”

Amazing. Deep in the Alaskan wilderness, on one of the most remote climbing routes in the world, we were able to get radio signal all the way from New York. At such high altitudes there were no intervening land masses to disrupt the signal. Our spirits were rescued from despair. We packed into the tent, lit some incense; brewed some coffee. The guide and I began a game of cribbage. I joked that life in the tent was not so different from my life at home in Brooklyn. To call it an oasis in a desert would not be far from the truth. We played cards and listened to music for several hours until we all fell into a luxurious sleep.

We joked and called it Café 14, after the elevation. It was a momentary reprieve from the ardors of climbing a treacherous and vindictive mountain. A small taste of home’s civility, carried three weeks over glacier and rock, to be unpacked there in the harsh environs at 14,600 feet, on the side of Mt. McKinley. I was very happy for it.

I awoke the next day and my mountain sickness was gone. So was the other climber’s. Three days later we both reached the summit at 20,320 feet and began the happy descent back towards thicker air and an easier way of life, having had our fun- lounging on Denali.

Nursery Rhymes

2007-07-07T06:40:00.000-05:00

Ricky Gervais from the original British office, doing stand-up. Hilarious.

Impressions

2007-07-01T19:27:00.000-05:00

The funny thing is that I know Virginia Dissentator is still reading this, silently. Yeah that's right. I'm lookin at you, fella.

Flight of the Conchords

2007-06-25T21:16:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have or haven't seen Flight of the Conchords, it is amazing. Kind of reminds me of Arrested Development where a lot of people probably won't think it's funny and will think it's too weird, and then other people will think it's the funniest thing since probably Arrested Development.

But FOTC is definitely its own show and what a show it is. Most of it is just like a regular comedy but then a few times per episode they do songs since the two main characters are in a band.

A band called Flight of the Conchords.

Summer Time, And the Blogging's Infrequent

2007-06-24T18:24:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it's rough to come home from work and see this guy sitting contentedly in the same spot he was in when you left for work that morning, but it's hard to stay mad at a lemor, so...

Yeah so I don't know if anyone has noticed cuase we don't seem to get that many comments in general so I don't really know if anyone was ever reading this in the first place, but now we don't even seem to have writers anymore.

Well I noticed.

I have to admit I am not Pope Innocent in all of this.
But who is really?
Any of you Pope Innocent?
That's what I thought.

So after keeping it afloat single keyboardedly CapeTown Dissentator has probably been busy interacting with some of the humans that they got down there in Capetown so I thought I'd try to give him a break and post for once. As for Brooklyn Dissentator I believe he is somewhere in Alaska enjoying the 20 hours of sunlight in a day that they have there over the summer, Virginia Dissentator is probably sitting on his laurels after putting up that picture of a litter box and figuring no one's gonna top that, and the new guy? "La Dissentator"? Apart from being Spanish for "The Dissentator" I don't know what she/he is doing as opposed to writing to us.

Me personally, I have been searching for a cure for the summer time blues, trying to prove wrong the old adage that there ain't no such thing as that. The closest I have come so far are dumplings. A few weeks ago I heard about soup dumplings for the first time. Yeah that's right, dumplings with soup in them. I know you might be thinking it's kinda hot out for soup but I am still feeling kinda cold from the Boston winter, it normally takes me right until the next winter begins to recover from the previous one. So I can drink soup year round. What.

If you guys and girls can think of something better let me know. And I don't mean year-round soup (I can think of lots of things better than that, like year-round French onion soup, or year-round Christmas vacation, or year round European Vacation, in France perhaps, with year-round onion soup, or maybe even year round Thanksgiving). But I am saying if you can come up with a better cure for the summer time blues let me know and I will tell you what I think of it.

You might be thinking you don't know where to begin, which is why I have offered some cure for the summer time blues clues:

1. Water
2. Broth
3. A microwave
4. A bowl
5. A soup spoon
6. Crap sorry I got distracted by the thought of soup again
7. Swans a-swimming
8. Footprints
9. Fingerprints (remember in Ace Ventura 2 where he dusts for fingerprints?)
10. Soup Dumplings

So take that as a start and just run with it, but you should probably wait at least an hour after eating year-round soup if you are going to start running. Of course what do I know I'm only a dissentator.

Fathers and Sons

2007-06-17T17:52:00.001-05:00

As it is Father's Day, I thought a relevant post couldn't hurt. The complex dynamic between a father and son has been written about before this present attempt -- with more sagacious insight, with more stunning prose, and evoking a greater degree of pathos and emotion. Ancient Greek mythology is inundated with this theme -- i.e. Zeus's father, Chronos, on a hunch from an oracle who warned him that one of his children will overthrow him, ate all of his sons and daughters; Zeus escaped and killed his father. The Bible offers a few stories of its own: the tale of Isaac trip up the mountain with dear old Dad, Abraham; Isaac's sons fighting over his birthright; Judah Macabee had a few sons of his own; and let's not forget God had a kid of his own in there as well (I think they wrote a Testament about [H]im).

More recently, Russian novelist, Turgenev, offers us Fathers and Sons (though this is more of a generational critique); and in the 20th Century, James Joyce complicates it all for us as only he can in Ulysses, while Freud provided us with his pervasive take on the myth of Oedipus. Clearly there have been milennia of examples that point to the darker side of the paternal/filial relationship, but I'm assuming that none of these were considered when Hallmark or whoever created Father's Day.

So, might I suggest some more uplifting reads, music, and movies that may lead us to some more positive ruminations about our Dads.

1. "Indian Camp" by Earnest Hemmingway. A short story about a son who follows his father and uncle who are sent to help deliver a baby at a nearby Native American village.

2. "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens. Most people hit up the cliched "Cats and the Cradle" when thinking of "Dad" songs, but this one far outshines it. The Johnny Cash/Fionna Apple cover isn't bad either. And if you're looking for more of a downer song, then Credance Clearwater's "Somedays Never Come" ain't too bad.

3. Field of Dreams - In my life, no work of art, be it film, novel, poem, or song, has better incapsulated the often traumatic and strained relationship between an American father and his son.

For each of us, the film opens a different wound or inspires a unique set of memories. For me, the images of James Earl Jones, Moonlight Graham, and Shoeless Joe Jackson are inextricably bound with countless hours in my yard, when I was a little guy playing catch with my Dad. Once we hung up the gloves, and my hero worship turned to adolescent, misguided angst, the movie would serve as a topic of debate -- my Dad futilely explaining to me that it was a film about fathers and sons, while I stubbornly contended that it was just a movie about baseball. Throughout these discussions, we shared the unspoken knowledge that we both understood the true meaning of the film, and, more precisely, we both knew that this ongoing debate was just our own way of keeping the lines of communication open as our relationship grew more strained.

I've heard several confessions from friends who say that while watching Field of Dreams with their Dad was also the first time they saw their fathers cry. The moment that a son witnesses this rare expression of vulnerability from their father is one not soon forgotten, for in it is revealed the possibility of a father's weaknesses and what could be a vast sea of inner turmoil usually concealed beneath a stoic facade. Even more, the moment reminds you -- maybe for the first time -- that your Dad is a son, himself, and knows all too well of the lovely and timeless struggle between a father and his boy.

Just to conclude and to point out the obvious, Field of Dreams is about fathers and sons. It's about the strained and broken relationship between a kid and his Dad and their chance at redemption. For many of us, our reconciliation is more easily attained than it was for Ray Kinsella. We don't have to build a baseball diamond or go on a road trip with James Earl Jones. We just need to give the old man a call today, Father's Day, and let him know that we love him and that many more things in our lives, besides that movie from 1989, turned out to be about fathers and sons.

Love ya, Pop.

Wanda Psych

2007-06-11T23:11:00.000-05:00

The "Tonight Show" that I watched tonight may have been an old one, but I go to bed early during the school year, so I'm not sure. The first guest was Wanda Sykes. Her introduction discussed numerous television shows and movies that she stars in. To be perfectly honest, I don't get it.

I love "Curb your Enthusiasm." I picture Larry David as the type of person who tells douchebags that they are, in fact, douchebags, and moves on without a second thought. So how did Wanda Sykes end up in this show? The only idea that makes sense is that they (in the Howard Stern method of hiring one female minority to make the racist jokes "okay") needed a specific character.

That said, how many movies and television shows think to themselves, "We need an indignant black woman?" I imagine if I were a casting agent thinking this, Wanda Sykes would be the first person I thought of. But to me that's like answering the question of "who can we use as an angry german?" There might be a first response answer, but really, it's not going to work. There's no humor there.

The previews for Evan Almighty, a movie that I actually think will be harmlessly entertaining, show this prominently. Noah makes some monkeys help build an ark, and Wanda yells out the following (put this in the "indignant black woman" voice,) "I can't even get my cat to use the litter box." Ha.

Is there a reason for her success that I'm missing?

Bill O'Reilly: Ecce Homo, an SOB Who Thinks He's a BFD

2007-06-09T19:38:00.001-05:00

Over here in South Africa, Oprah ranks up there with Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Her show, which I had never (not kidding) seen before, comes on during prime time hours each night, and when you have four channels it's pretty much all you have to watch. They're reruns, of course, from about nine months ago, but I'm sure most people don't notice, because let's face it -- Oprah is timeless.

The other night (or 9 months ago) she had Bill O'Reilly on. The man is breathtaking -- a vortex of animosity wherever he goes. The usually female dominated audience was uncharacteristically comprised of some men, and all of them -- male and female, old and middle-aged -- had a strong opinion one way or the other. Literally, one way or the other. That there appeared no middle ground on any issue, no grey area on any point of view, is a symptom of the O'Reilly phenomenon, and this strict dichotomy was enforced by the man himself.

He was, admittedly, peddling his book "Culture Warrior" in which he postulates that America is in the midst of a culture war between the Traditional Warriors and the Secular Progressives. When someone from the audience would ask a question or make a point he would immediately label them one or the other, buttering up the each "T Warrior" and dismissing condescendingly all those "SPs" (If the VP ordered B.O. to speak in only acronyms ASAP, he would have NP). I was reminded of a quote I first heard from Gloria Steinem, but may also appear in Freud's Wit and It's Relation to the Unconscious: "There are two types of people in this world -- those who divide the world into two types of people and those who don't."

I enjoy watching O'Reilly outside of his setting, especially when he is sitting with the most powerful woman in the world. I couldn't read Oprah very well, but if I could describe the expression on her face when listening to her guest, I would say it was polite disgust. There were some interesting points, like when Bill came right out and said that he was purposefully being argumentative "cause I'm up here selling books, lady". But most of the time, for me at least, he inspired not animosity but pity -- the kind you reserve for a drunk widower Uncle at a family reunion.

I did wish to contend him on his main thesis though -- that T Warriors, who he believes are a silent majority, will win the culture war because they outnumber those SPs. Every generation needs its Philistines, though we sometimes call them by other names: American Firsters, Segregationists, Pro-lifers, and in this case, T Warriors. What these groups share is their vocal presence during times of progress and change; they organize themselves when the world they live in starts to move a little too fast for their comfort. Their's is always a losing battle, or as Kennedy would say, a "long twilight struggle".

As a nation we always progress, we always move in some forward direction no matter how heavy the Philistines hang on the debate. Abolitionist's cause eventually helped free the slaves; Brown v. The Board of Education got rid of sanctioned segregation; the Suffragettes, the black civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's, the feminist struggle in the 1970's -- all progressive movements that made our culture the way it is and all were held up by older and more conservative segments of the population.

The funny thing about all this progress is that those who couldn't imagine a world with freed slaves or a woman's right to vote eventually learned to live with them and the generation that followed couldn't imagine a world without such basic principles. Just as I can't imagine living in an era during which black citizens could not drink from the same fountains or sit towards the front of the bus, my children will not understand how it ever happened that homosexual couples could not enjoy the protections and rights provided by state sanctioned marriages. That's right, all you conservatives, it may not happen in this election cycle or the following one, or even the one after that, but soon enough marriage rights will be enjoyed by all citizens, gay and straight (the majority of the population over 60 oppose "gay marriage", yet it is favored by those under 30. So it's just a matter of time.)

While I reject O'Reilly's basic dichotomy of SP and TWarrior, even within his deranged, paranoid framework he is wrong. The progressives have history and the human instinct to progress on their side. We appreciate you Philistines coming out, to strut and fret your hour upon Oprah's stage, but soon enough we will see your sound and fury for the nothing that it signifies.

You Best Start Believin in Spoilers, You're Readin One

2007-06-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

Saw the third Pirates of the Caribbean tonight and here is my review:

I don't get it. And I don't mean "I don't get it" like I'm too stupid to get it -- like the time in 9th grade before Geometry class, when we were talking about The Usual Suspects and a kid said, "I didn't get it" (to which I starred at him and replied, "I don't get it."). I think David Lynch and Michael Bay had gotten together at some point to throw some ideas out there and whatever they didn't use ended up in this movie. Let me try to sum up the plot a little. (Honestly, I won't give anything away, not that that would be possible to do.)

...off putting beginning with a lot of unkempt people being hanged, then signing, then more hanging (I have never seen Les Miserable, but I was reminded of it)...Then some familiar faces return, but now in Singapore?...Everyone seems to be double crossing one another (couldn't keep track or understand anyone's motive at any one point), then swords, fireworks and guns...then I guess they reached "World's End"...Then a David Lynch sequence of Davy Jones's locker(side note: Turns out that this doesn't refer to Davy Jones from the Monkees. It would have made about as much sense as the rest of the movie and I was kinda hoping for a cameo, but got none. Call me a "day dream believer" I guess.)...Then I think they spliced in some scenes from The Adventures of Baron Muchausen...then something about the ancient Greek goddess, Calypso (which they made a lot of fuss over, but didn't pan out to anything...I think?)...Then I guess the good guys win after a bizarre and interminable battle...

Okay, first point is that unlike some other sequels, this movie couldn't give a shit about you if you've never seen the first two movies 1000 times. Luckily I had recently rented the 2nd Pirates movie, but I still didn't understand that, so I was shit outta luck as well. They just jump right in, introducing old character in one fell swoop and then about 2-300 more.

Point two: While I do like animals and sorta like to think of myself as a feminist, I had my fill of cute monkeys at precious moments and girl power. When did Kiera Knightley get so fierce? Her character would give the Spice Girls boners.

You know when you were little and you had to go play with the kid in your class with no friends, cause your Mom thought it would be a nice thing to do. So, you suck it up and when you get there you realize why this kid has no friends -- cause he's a son of a bitch to play games with. He keeps changing all the rules as the game goes on. You remember that? Well replace that kid with this movie and those rules to an endless litany of maritime lore and "Pirate Codes". It's the third movie in this series based on a ride at Disney World and it has more back story and exposition than The Iliad.

Basically, the whole thing lost me at "hello." I wanted there to be question and answer when the lights turned on, but nothing. If I were forced to give a one word review of the movie, any word I chose would have to be in question form -- exciting? funny? And why should I be able to tell you one definitive thing about the movie, I'm just a guy who saw it?

Also, is it Care-RI-be-in or Care-a-BE-an?

The New Guy Takes On Introductions

2007-06-06T18:18:00.000-05:00

Aside from terrorism and poorly built sandwiches there really is nothing I hate more than introducing myself to other people. I once thought this only held true in person or on the phone, but no, it's not very fun to do in the blogosphere either. To be honest, I was hoping one of the other dissentators would introduce me, ideally in a flattering light (not so flattering that I couldn't meet expectations, but just enough to feel like I belonged). But, I've been a dissentator for about an hour or so now and it's becoming quite clear that I'm on my own on this one. We better just plow on then. I'm ladissentator, "la" as in los angeles, which is where I've been living for about two years now. Besides living in los angeles, I'm pretty much like the rest of these guys. I went to Columbia University, I'm an American-born caucasian man, and I fucking (we can swear on this shit right?) hate the Eagles man.

The plus side of introducing yourself on the blogosphere is that you could make up just about anything about yourself and people would have no reason not to believe you. For example, I could've told you I was Charles Barkley back there and you might've believed me. But, since I already told you I was an "American-born caucasian man" now I'm branded for life. Unless, of course, I was lying earlier, then I could still be Sir Charles. Well, now you don't know what to believe. For all you know I'm not the white, Eagles-hating Columbia grad or Charles Barkley. Maybe I'm David Robinson. Or forget former NBA stars altogether, maybe I'm Wolf Blitzer or someone you've never even heard of like, I don't know, Doug Patterson from Duluth. The point is I could be anybody, so why not let me be Charles Barkley? It probably wouldn't hurt traffic to the site, and you can't honestly tell me you wouldn't read daily musings by the former Dream Team power forward. What the hey, Charles Barkley it is!

Wouldn't it be crazy if I was really Doug Patterson!?

Movies Today: Good, Bad, or Ugly?

2007-06-06T17:00:00.000-05:00

For those of you who know me personally, this will undoubtedly come off as a biased diatribe against the current state of cinema. For those of you who don't know me personally, here is the reason that they will think this: I am biased. I lived in Los Angeles for about 15 months recently, working a number of unrelated jobs with some vague and ambivalent goal to write screenplays. Throughout this period, those around me didn't have to be too keen to notice that I was miserable to be in L.A.(note the difference. I wasn't miserable, just miserable to be there). Having grown up in Boston, a boy who worshiped Larry Bird and the Celtics beyond reason and statistics and vilified their west coast rivals, I arrived in L.A. with what you could call a skewed, somewhat myopic expectation of a city built (not with bullets or rock and roll) for the sole purpose of frivolity all in the name of entertainment, money and the pursuit of vanity. To the city's credit, it did not disappoint in any degree.

Now, you're asking yourself, what does this have to do with movies? Nothing really, but we need to understand that, while there is a burgeoning independent film market that churns out some good films each years, the majority of movies today are produced in the location I mentioned above, the city of Angles.

Just for the simplification of this post, I'll use the Academy Awards as a measurement for accomplishment in film. I don't actually believe that the Oscar goes to.......the best in each category every year -- or even the best in cinema -- but generally the nominees paint a decent cross-section of that year's better films. At the very least one could argue that the type of film that wins and the subsequent advertising and attention given to Oscar winners feed future projects (trends like Biopics, Epics, etc. arguably arise from previous Oscar attention paid to earlier films in these categories). So in 1994, the year Forrest Gump took home the golden boy, it was a pretty stellar year for American film. It went up against Shawshank Redemption, Quiz Show, and Pulp Fiction. If even one of those movies came out today, I would think we had a pretty good year, but from my subjective view, the actors today are great, some of the writing is very good, but you don't get that feeling when you walk out of a theater like you used to. That voice inside your head after you saw Pulp Fiction or Goodfellas that recognized that you had just watched something of timeless quality.

Last year The Departed won. As we've noted earlier on here, The Departed kinda sucked ass. I don't think I'll ever rent it and in 20 years it won't be on any of your shelves. Honestly, check your shelves that you'll have 20 years from now....On there?....Didn't think so.

The average films are still pretty much on par with those of 10 and 20 years ago, and I would argue -- even though the worst movie I've ever scene, Tomcats, came out in the last 5 years -- that the worst movies each year have gotten better. So, pretty much, what I'm saying is that we got a whole lot more decent films, but rarely does anyone in the city that should have been left a desert produce something great or transcendent, and here is why.

It's not the worry that a film will lose money (though this factors in), and it's certainly not that the actors or writers or directors are worse. It's that a broad majority of movies go through so many hands between the arbitrary decision to "greelight" a script and when it appears on screen -- screenwriter, agents, managers, consultants, rewriters, directors, executives, producers, more executives, last minute rewrites, actors who want to try something, and then some more executives, director and editors, producers (aka executives), PR peeps, testing audiences (40% executives), and then hopefully you'll have a final cut, which will then become the director's cut once it becomes a dvd. If Shakespeare passed Hamlet through this many hands, the best someone would say after walking out of The Globe theater would be, "I don't know. It was pretty good. I liked the acting. Cool scene at the end." (side note: nothing I wrote got past the "showing it to buddies" stage)

It's the too many chefs spoil the soup problem in Hollywood. Everyone there and the movie industry (don't call it the industry) itself exists entirely for the purpose of proving its existence. By this I mean that if they shut down all the major studios tonight, we would all wake up and nothing would change -- there wouldn't be panic in the streets and we'd learn to live with the movies we already have. Deep down, Hollywood understands this and has to shell out a lot of money on its support mechanisms -- advertising, PR, magazines, etc.

The result of this is that everyone there, whether working at a talent agency or studio or on the "creative" side, is instilled with the need to put in their two cents. They need to claim credit and latch onto things, so they can justify to themselves -- and to the world -- the fact that they have made a lot of money without serving a necessary role in society. So they set up meetings to discuss the script, and then the writer or whomever has to change this or that, the actors get changed cause an agent fights hard. All moves in this game appear and most likely are arbitrary, but the end results are the same: mediocrity.

To be fair to my friends who are still in L.A., my time there and the time I spent trying to write scripts was more fun than miserable. Even though what I wrote will not be made into a film, I had a blast writing each page. I met a ton of gifted and talented people. I met young, ambitious, brilliant people, but at times this reality only intensified my distaste for a city overflowing with the talent it summons, but ultimately inept at utilizing it.

What's the Matter with Massachusetts?

2007-06-05T11:39:00.000-05:00

Why is it when I watch political news, the conservative guy usually finds a way to make some passing and sarcastic reference to my home state of Massachusetts? Why is it that my former governor, now presidential candidate, Mitt Romney doesn't like to actually say the name of the state that elected him to office? We're always "where I served as Governor" or "back where I was in office", as if it was such a shitty post to be the governor of Massachusetts. Poor Mitt, had to slum it with those horrible liberals. Eat me. Conservative politicians and the parasitic, political pundits like their straw men and scapegoats. They like to have an neat, little, packaged focal point to scorn for them to malign -- Lou Dobbs has immigrants; Falwell had gays; and conservatives of any stripe have their beloved Massachusetts. In fact they may appreciate my home state even more than I do, but just in case some of you are undecided, here's a few choice facts for any of you out there who somehow are under the impression that Massachusetts is something distinct from the America you love:

Hmmmm, where to start? Maybe with the fact that the damn Pilgrims landed the Mayflower on Plymouth rock (note: it did not land on them). And since the establishment of Massachusetts Bay Colony, I think there have been a few other mentionables. Let's see...do you like seafood? How 'bout lobster? Or Clam Chowder? You like those too? You're welcome.

Not patriotic enough yet? Well we also have a stellar line up of patriots: Benjamin Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Norman Rockwell (did you hear that. Norman friggen Rockwell. How much more American does it get?), Eli Whitney (try ginning cotton without Massachusetts.), W.E.B. DuBois, the J. Geils Band, Horatio Alger (this is getting unfair), and the "Block" where the "New Kids" were from is sitting nice and pretty in Massachusetts. Oh, I could keep going, but we "Massholes" were raised better than to brag. Oh wait, I forgot about some other patriots, The New England Patriots.

But what are these conservatives really scoffing at, it's our politics right? One would be led to believe that Massachusetts, overrun with liberals and progressives as we are, must be some lawless wasteland of vice and Un-American activity. I mean, we're the first state to provide marriage rights to homosexual couples, as we did in 2004; we just elected the 2nd black Governor in U.S. history; our U.S. Senators are John "hates the troops" Kerry and Ted Kennedy; and the man who has been my congressman all my life is none other than my favorite Barney Frank -- he's homosexual, Jewish, and went to one of those elite schools called Harvard! How do people living in Massachusetts make it through the day alive?

Well it helps that we're 2nd in the country for per capita income, home to some of the top ranked public schools in the nation, and remain a bastion for people around the world seeking the best in education from the esteemed private schools and the over 40 universities in the Boston area. But, just in case you don't make it through the day in one piece, we are also the first and only state to mandate health care coverage for it's citizens. Doesn't really seem like such a bad place to live, considering the state legislative branch is made up of less than 13% Republicans.

So, the next time you put your John Hancock on something or hang a lantern in a church tower or dump a whole mess of tea in a harbor, show a little respect to my home state. And if someone asks you, "What's the matter with Massachusetts?", you tell them, "Absolutely nothing!". Say it again.

Things That've Been Bugging Me: Some Reader Thoughts Would Be Nice

2007-06-04T08:30:00.000-05:00

Not sure how you guys like to work. Maybe you're an early riser, like to get up early and enjoy some quiet time before work -- read the paper, do a little yoga, what-have-you. My inclination is to use the post-midnight hours for my me time, and this tendency is only increased when I'm living in a country 5-7 hours ahead of good old East Coast Time, when my friends and family are awake and online. So, typically once Sunday rolls around, I'm pretty out of it, and tonight is very much a typical Sunday -- a weeks worth of news starts to curdle a bit in my mind as I'm planning out the week ahead, and certain things pop out at me. Here are some of this weeks:

1. Apparently, according to an Editorial from NYTimes, there remain...how do I say this?...anti-dancing laws in New York City and in other cities across the country:

"New York’s cabaret laws limit dancing to licensed venues. They date back to the Harlem Renaissance, which had created the unsettling prospect of interracial dancing.
For decades, no one paid much attention to the laws until Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, bent on turning Manhattan into a giant mall/food court, decided to get tough. Today, the city far more famous for its night life than its Sunday services has only about 170 venues where it is legal to get up and dance — hence last month’s danced protest, as well as an earlier one in February."

I don't get it. I don't get the fact that these cabaret laws still exist. I don't get why and how exactly they are enforced. And I'm having a hell of a time trying to picture "last month's danced protest". Then I found this video:

2. There has been an article or two recently that seem to be laying the ground work for our administration to tell us outright that we're pretty much sticking around in Iraq -- or using the "Korea Model" as they have said. It has seemed increasingly clear to me that the administration never really had intentions otherwise, considering we're constructing the world's largest embassy in the heart of Baghdad, and have discussed and/or begun building "three or four major bases in the country". So doesn't this make all the debate about troop withdrawals and timelines sort of moot. It doesn't appear as though we'll ever really pull out entirely, and even if we did allow all of our troops to return safely to their homes, we would still have a presence of tens of thousands of "defense contractors" there, who have been and will continue to act effectively as a mercenary army. And, as far as an Iraqi is concerned, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference if the patch on the arm reads "US ARMY" or "HALLIBURTON".

3. I have a great respect for Al Gore, and I think jokes about his weight are tasteless and facile humor (though Bill Maher managed to make me laugh when he commented on the nonsense about the large electricity bill at Gore's Tennessee estate, saying "It's not his carbon footprint that I'm worried about; it's his carbon ASS print." Well played, Bill), but whenever I see Al Gore appear on tv, I can't shake this overwhelming urge to stare at his very very shiny face. It's just very very shiny and sort of mesmeric. Doesn't make me like the guy any less or think that he isn't doing a lot of good work. In fact, it's kinda cool. Go ahead, Mr. Gore, shine on you crazy diamond.

Empathy Part I: Summer of George

2007-06-03T04:36:00.000-05:00

After our leaders had decided to continue funding the our occupation in Iraq with no time line for withdrawal, President Bush held a press conference in the rose garden to discuss our future in Iraq. Much attention was given to a reporter asking if the president had any credibility left on the subject. Whether this was an appropriate question or not, I can't imagine what the reporter expected to get for an answer, since this president and his administration have demonstrated time and again their lack of objectivity or self-criticism with regards to our occupation of Iraq. What stood out for me was the president's comments concerning the increase in violence predicted for this Summer:

"Mr Bush said he expected 'heavy fighting in the weeks and months' ahead. 'What they're going to try to do is kill as many innocent people as they can to try to influence the debate here at home,' he said. 'They recognise that the death of innocent people could shake our will . . . So, yes, it could be a bloody - it could be a very difficult August'."

To take a cynical approach, it would appear that President Bush is attempting
to frame the debate that will inevitably resume in September, when General
Patraeus will make his progress report and our legislators will decide how
to proceed with the occupation. By offering this perspective, Bush may
somehow attempt to argue that the surge is not failing because of us but
because of the insurgent violence. But, even if he were to form the argument
in this way, it would be like a coach at halftime telling the losing team
that "we're not scoring as many points as we should because the other team
wants to rattle us and make us rethink our strategy."

Whether this is indeed an attempt by Bush to frame the debate or not, it exposes a lack of objectivity from an increasingly unpopular and defensive president that must realize at some level his administration's many failures in Iraq. This myopic, obdurate mindset is what former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, refers to with the title of his documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. As McNamara argues, the insulating mechanisms of power make the uncanny realities of war incomprehensible even for those in command -- and this is coming from one of the "best and the brightest" -- but after 40 years he offers some sagacious lessons; the first of which is to "Empathize with your enemy": "We must try to put ourselves inside their skin and look at us through their eyes, just to understand the thoughts that lie behind their decisions and their actions."

This point is expounded in both the film and in McNamara's 1995 book, In Retrospect: The Tragedies and Lessons of Vietnam, in which McNamara lists the failures of our leadership in during the Vietnam War:

We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.

Anything sound familiar? I have only listed a few of McNamara's forthright points, but it is plain to see how today's leaders approach to our present military conflict are strikingly similar to what was happening in Washington in the 1960's and early 70's. Our current administration has time and again displayed this lack of empathy and understanding for both Islamic terrorists and the insurgencies in Iraq. There remains a fundamental misunderstanding of how to engage in "The War on Terror" against an amorphous and stateless enemy whose numbers and resolve are only bolstered by our military actions, as political scientists, James Bill and Rebecca Bill Chavez wrote in 2002: "By dropping bombs and firing missiles, the United States only spreads these festering problems. Violence can be likened to a virus; the more you bombard it, the more it spreads." And specifically in regards to Iraq insurgencies, our empathy is equally lacking, as conservative columnist David Brooks recently wrote after discussing Iraq with John Robb, author of Brave New War:

"It's pointless to decapitate the head of the insurgency or disrupt its command structure, because the insurgency doesn't have these things. Instead, it is a swarm of disparate companies that share information, learn from each other's experiments and respond quickly to environmental signals."

For we Americans to view the struggle in Iraq as insurgents vs. the U.S., or even as Sunni vs. Shiite, is a blatant misreading of the reality on the ground where "there are between 70 and 100 groups that make up the Iraq insurgency". Furthermore, for our president to claim that insurgents are ratcheting up the violence in Iraq this Summer to influence the debate at home -- as if they're all gathered around watching C-SPAN together -- is not only solipsistic, but deleterious to our national debate surrounding our complex and difficult decision on how to proceed. Empathy is not sympathy -- it's not feeling their anger but understanding the motivations behind it -- and when faced with a violent and open-ended conflict, with no definition of victory, it may be a good idea to deploy some.

A Little Nonsense Now and Then is Relished by the Wisest Men

2007-05-31T18:35:00.000-05:00

Much of what we have written thus far on The Dissentators concerns our troubling public discourse -- one mangled and rotted from the inside, bereft of reason and, perhaps most troubling, our inability to summon synthesis from the warring factions. Many factors, of course, feed these pernicious roots -- the partisian politics of Washington, the Manaechian world view of our administration, the talking heads of 24 hour news networks -- and we who write for free on the internet are not without blame. There is a theme to much of the hot air hanging over our debates, and that was pointed out in a recent article on the Huffington Post that examines what its author calls, SPIRD or Smartest Person in the Room Disorder:

"SPIRD symptoms include, but are not limited to: thinking you should know all the answers, thinking you have all the answers, bulging forehead blood vessels, shouting down the opposition and an impulsive need to demonize or ruin your adversary."

I will be the first to admit that I have suffered lapses of this not so rare condition. Sometimes, I get riled up (Johnny Mac knows all about this) and don't have all the fact on hand, so, flailing desperately to prove my point (which I truly do believe in and want to convince someone else of) I may make a broad generalization or snobily delve into the swirling eddy that is my memory of our college core curriculum. This does not mean that if you allude to Hume's position on utilitarianism or some other big name, that you are just posturing. Many people really do remember that stuff. I just want to get this out of the way so as to avoid any overarching hypocrisy to this post.

As I have been out of America for a few months now, I am able to dodge much of the SPIRD bombardment that I would get back home. I don't have television, or more precisely I do, but it's three fuzzy channels, one of which plays Cricket nonstop (speaking of bullshit). So, the easiest things to watch over the internet are old Charlie Rose shows and Real Time with Bill Maher, once someone has kindly uploaded it onto YouTube over the weekend. What I've noticed is that not only have we really begun to rely on celebrities for their opinions on serious issues (i.e. Tom Cruise's expertise with the History of Psychology, which HE'S READ!) but that most of the talking heads are more personality than substance. What I'm getting at is the lack of rhetorical whimsy from learned men of letters who once populated American televisions.

What happened to them? They're either gone or close too it, and those Baby Boomers didn't supply us with much in the way of replacements.

George Plimpton: Founder of the Paris Review, who wrote with equally loving prose about Dick Butkiss and Muhamid Ali as well as world figures. Now, he's gone. So it goes.

Gone too are the days when pre-election coverage had relatively high minded debate, between such figures as Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, as they had in 1968. Hell, even such scornful figures like Joseph McCarthy quoted poetry throughout his witch hunt; take that for what you will, but at least it reveals an interest and respect for finely crafted language. I don't mean to say that all of it was great back then(certainly 1968 is a year more famous for its tragedies and turmoil than for its rhetoric), as Kurt Vonnegut said, "There weren't good old days. There were just days." But at least these eruidite public figures, as full of snobbery and pomp as anyone, had a shot at being the smartest person in the room.

This is not to say that there aren't a few public intellectuals out there, but their presense is so mired in controversy or silenced by the dismissing and loud mouthed men and women who share the screen that their status is dimished and their rhetoric dimsissed as snobbery -- intellectuals such as the much maligned Christopher Hitchens or Tony Kushner. And from our political figures we find no source of linguistic redemption. Even someone like John Kerry, who in 1971 gave a unabashedly eloquent speech in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had over the course of 33 years lost even a hint of his prior flair for oratory. And I don't need to get into examples when it comes to presidential oration.

I cannot say for sure whether anything would be different today if the airwaves were once again populated with public intellectuals, but at the very least we wouldn't have to suffer the societal symptoms that spread from contemporary SPIRD. I do believe that there was an era when eriudition and intellectualism were sought after ideals -- when Charles Van Doren graced the cover of Time Magazine and we rooted for a team of scientists and brave pilots to race to the moon. We could have it again, and I hope that our politics have not breeched the event horizon of cynicism, so that our hopes for a truly collective effort (possibly our global environmentalist cause), founded on reason and pushed forward by rhetoric, may be made manifest.

Maybe I should just let them speak for themselves. Here is a clip from Buckley's old show, Firing Line, when he debates a young Noam Chomsky.

Something That Made Me Laugh

2007-05-30T21:30:00.000-05:00

Also, I had to put something up so I didn't have that off-putting photo of Meatloaf cum moster makeup staring at me. Gave me the creeps. Without further ado, here's something from the Daily Show. Love Modvi. Love 'im.

It Depends on What the Definition of "That" Is

2007-05-26T13:12:00.000-05:00

Just to keep it light on a Saturday...

Now, some of you may be thinking, "This guy is really gonna dedicate a post to a cheesy song from 15 years ago? Is it 1993?". And I say to you that blogs weren't around back then, I was like 11 years old, so I don't see this as being an outdated topic, but one way overdue.

For those of you who weren't "with it" back when Meatloaf recessitated his career, reunited with his song writer and prophet of goth nerds everywhere, Jim Steinman, and started winning grammies for what was the #1 song in America, "I'd Do Anything for Love." I was there, man, and my 11 year old self ate up every note of the operatic melodrama that is Meatloaf. Now let's get to the "meat" of this post, which are the lyrics to this epic song that beg the question: What won't this guy do for love?

The basic narrative of this song, like many Meatloaf classics (including BostonD's favorite, "Paradise by the Dashboard Light") is as follows -- lovelorn loser tries to convince a girl to "go all the way" tonight and in order to accomplish his aims must engage in a melodramatic dialogue with said girl, and a litany of mixed metaphores and other assortments of cheese ensues. Just as Bruce Springsteen was able to summon transcendent themes from cars and manual labor, Meat and Steinman return again and again to those days of hormones and unrequited love, channeling adolescent desires through soaring sentimentality and ultimately through Meat's powerful vocals.

Rather than disect the logic of the lyrics, I invite you to check them out on your own, download the song or dust off the cassette tape and have a listen. Here are a few gems and there's a pound of cheese in each bite:

Some days it don't come easy, and some days it don't come hard

Some days it don't come at all, and these are the days that never end

Some nights you're breathing fire, and some nights you're carved in iceSome nights you're like nothing I've ever seen before or will again

...

[Girl:] Will you make me some magic, with your own two hands?Can you build an emerald city with these grains of sand?Can you give me something I can take home?

[Boy:] I can do that! Oh oh now, I can do that!

Why Only Half of Our Country Votes

2007-05-25T09:48:00.000-05:00

In the Bush-Kerry election of 2004, which was supposed to be one of the most heated and divisive elections in recent history, only 55% of eligible voters cared enough to go to the polls, and this was up from 51% in 2000, where W's election arguable made some kind of a big difference on the country and the world.

I would argue that this points to an extremely urgent problem with our country, despite its receiving very little attention from any of us. In a country where our leaders stress teh importance of democracy and a government that is accountable to its people, it should be unacceptable to us that only half of eligible voters chose to participate in this process.

What does it mean that only half of our country cares enough to participate in chosing our government's leader? Well, first off, it is debatable how much of this is a "choice," since some eligible voters may be deterred from voting for socioeconomic reasons, but that is a more complicated issue that I will steer clear of in order to focus on those eligible voters who could easily vote and choose not to.

Those that chose not to vote presumably don't care who wins. Now, we can't say for sure that they don't care who is in charge of our government, but rather that they don't care who is in charge if their only options are the Democratic and Republican nominees (ie the choice between W versus Kerry or Gore).

This indifference between Dem & Repub nominees suggests that people don't see the candidates that our two parties produce each year as all that different. This seems accurate. In hindsight, it looks like a President Gore would have done things much differently than W, but during the 2000 campaign both campaigned as moderates, the Saturday Night Live skit where both candidates answered "agree" to everything the other said during the debates comes to mind. Bush-Kerry was essentailly the same - after giving some attention to Dean, the Democratic party scrapped him for Kerry-Edwards, who both campaigned (during the primaries) as in favor of the Iraq war.

Why did the Democrats choose John Kerry? Well experience was important, but grey-haired politicians are a dime a dozen, so what else was decisive? I would say that Kerry got the nomination because he was dubbed, by his campaign and by the American media as the most "electable" of the Democratic candidates.

Say it with me: e-lect-a-ble. I heard the word "electable" being tossed around at the start of the primary "season" in 2003, while I was an undergrad. Dean was the frontrunner at the time, and I remember asking one of my political science professors what he thought about the buzz about Kerry being more electable than Dean. He said: "electable is as electable does," which, apart from making us think of Forrest Gump, means that you can't judge someone's electability until after the election, and any branding of someone as "electable" before the election is a speculative statement, but nonetheless a good campaign strategy if the branding is convincing to the voters.

Now the big question is this: since Kerry didn't turn out to be so "electable" in the general election, how did the Kerry campaign and the national media convince everyone what he was?

My answer is that there are two kinds of "electable" when we are speaking of candidates. In our national discourse (candidates and the media), "electable" means someone who appeals to the other party. A moderate in the sense of a Democrat that appeals to Republicans, or a Republican who appeals to Democrats. Dean was too Democratic and not Republican enough to get elected, the Democrats decided, but Kerry was just republican enough that enough voters would vote to get him elected. The result, of course, is that two candidates emerge who are not so different from one another (again I am talking about what we know about them pre-election), as we have seen in 2000 and 2004, IE two candidates who embrace a mix of Dem & Repub policies, to appeal to the 50% of the country who votes for either a Dem or a Repub in each election.

This seems like a sensible strategy but I would argue that it is extremely unproductive for our country, because it completely ignores the other 50% of the country who doesn't see any difference in the candidates and thus doesn't care enough to vote. We have defined "electable" as "electable by the 50% of the country that votes," and we have completely disregarded the other 50% who may not be so interested in a candidate who embraces a mix of Dem & Repub policies.

Now, should we care about the fact that 50% of Americans are indifferent? Well, maybe. If we believe that half the country is indifferent because the like everything about the Dem & Repub nominees, so either way they are happy (ie: Bush and Gore or Bush and Kerry are both so great, how can you choose), then we shouldn't have a big problem with this. However, if half of the country has decided that they don't like either candidate, then we have a big problem. I would argue that the state of our politics reflects the latter: half of the country is so disappointed with the Dem & Repub nominees that they choose not to vote for either: because they don't believe that either candidate adequately represents their interests and cares about the issues that they care about.

So if this is accurate, and I do not see why it shouldn't be, 50% of Americans feel that the nominees put fourth each election cycle don't represent or care about the things that they care about, so they don't vote. This in itself should be disturbing. However, I would argue that the problem is actually much worse than it looks, because I would bet that many people in the 50% of eligible voters that DO vote think of it as choosing "the lesser of two evils," so many voters are actually voting for candidates that they don't even like so much themselves.

The result? The two parties put fourth candidates that most of the country is not crazy about, and one of these candidates gets to be in charge of our government. This seems like a big problem to me.

So how do we solve the problem? My opinion is as follows.

The first step is redefining how we think of "electable," in fact we urgently need to do this. Again, we can see the 2008 race starting to look like 2004: right now, Obama is just like Dean and Edwards in 2004 - young, fresh, inspirational, and doesn't stick to the same-old, unambitious, "play it safe" political rhetoric. Now the paradox is that so many people like this guy and so few are excited about the other candidates, yet everyone is questioning whether the guy is "electable," and OF COURSE, what they mean by "electable," is: WILL REPUBLICANS VOTE FOR HIM? The same exact thing is going on with Hillary. Now this is totally bogus, because only about 25% of eligible voters are Republicans - why should the Democrats decide their nominee for President based so heavily on what 25% of the country thinks? Nevermind why this is even an issue because I don't want to digress, my point is that we should not just be asking whether Republicans will vote for Obama or Hillary, but we should be asking whether the 50% of the country who continually chooses not to vote for anyone, we should be asking whether they would come to the polls for someone like Obama or Hillary.

Now I am not advocating Obama or Hillary (although I would vote for either if they were the nominee), all I am saying is that we need to redifine our concept of "electable," since our present concept is inaccurate, and it is this inaccurate idea that is being used to discredit not just Obama and Hillary, but perhaps a great majority of politicians in general (a great majority if you see them as potentially appealing to 75% of the vote).

So if we want to get more eligible voters to the polls, and in turn, if we want to send candidates to the general election and in turn elect presidents that truly represent the issues that majority of our democracy cares about, let's rethink our currently narrow concept of who is "electable" and broaden it to someone that is in touch with the interests of as much of our country as possible.

Commence and Commence Again

2007-05-24T21:56:00.000-05:00

Just to piggy back BostonD's post, I will use this one to promote what was, for me (and I know VAD may not agree), one of the more inspiring speeches I have come across. What BostonD said is true, I'm a sucker for a good commencement ceremony, and what's makes the following speech even better is that it was given at our graduation.

Just to lay the scene a little bit. After a week of beatiful New York in Spring weather, during which we spent in a constant state of celebration with family and friends, we staggered down in a lackluster procession to sit for two hours in the sun, drenched in our own sweat. We hadn't discussed the day or the chosen speaker much -- perhaps a minor grumble about how we had lost out on Jon Stewart to Princeton and we would be subjected to some friggen playwrite instead.

So we sat, and I sweated profusly, looking forward more to a nap than this Tony Kushner guy. But, after some Dean introduced his impressive achievments (Pulitzer Prize, Tony awards, etc.) I figured I'd lend him an ear or two. His delivery was fast and I couldn't shake the similarities between his voice and that of John Tuturro's in Quiz Show -- a sort of nasaly, at times grating manner of speech. Nothing -- not the heat, the tanline of my mortarboard, or my hangover -- could detract from what was to follow, a speech that has lifted my spirits with countless rereadings and endeared me to its author, who I believe is one of the greatest American authors of the past 50 years:

..."I’m not entirely sure what goes on at Class Day. I missed mine, I was on a picket line, so I’m sort of guessing as to what it is you want me to do this morning, apart from saying mazel tov, mazel tov, to all of you, and I do say it, mazel tov, mazel tov, it’s very exciting, a whole new bunch of Columbia College grads ready for the world, for the public conversation, for the work of repairing the world and repairing the public conversation, ready and able and, dare I say, eager to elevate the terms of the vast public debate in which you, American citizens, have a place prepared if you will claim it, you with your heads and hearts as full of fierce and fiery ideas fresh as they are ever likely to be, you who are not, by virtue of the superlative education you have received and its concomitant openness, engaged skepticism and reckless curiosity, you who are not the sort of grim careerists and ideologues and boodle-minded misadventurers who have seized the public debate and garbled it and reduced it to babble and run with it straight to the ninth circle of hell, dragging behind them the glory of our republic — you will rescue us from these dreadful, dreadful people, and we who are old are deeply grateful, and deeply proud, and, well, scared shitless, so mazel tov and get busy, your work awaits you, the world awaits you, the world is impatient for you, it made you for this purpose — and I don’t want to usurp the role your parents had in you, in getting you to this day, they too made you, the world made them so they could make you, and make the sacrifices they’ve made to get you to this point — my cherished B.A. in English literature from Columbia College, the entirety of the four most valuable and profitable years of my intellectual life, cost my parents less than one year of your time here, and I’m still paying student loans! — mazel tov to your parents, too, and by the way, if you haven’t gotten a graduation present yet, I have a musical running on Broadway and the number is 1-800-telecharge.

I really was more excited than honored to speak to you today, thrilled to get to meet you, you redeemers and rescuers, because this spring, unlike, let’s say, the past spring, or the spring before that, or the spring before that, this May I sense hope in the air, and urgency, and as has so often been the recent case, terrible danger, and so the urgent need of the world is about to snatch you, ready or not, from this most beautiful brick and stony womb and begin its demanding: HELP! HELP! HELP! The world is melting, the world is darkening, there is injustice everywhere, there is artificial scarcity everywhere, there is desperate human need, poverty and untreated illness and exploitation everywhere, there is ignorance everywhere, not native to the species but cruelly enforced, there is joylessness and hatred of the body and slavery masked as freedom and community disintegrating, everywhere, racism, everywhere, sexism, everywhere, homophobia, everywhere (though a little better for the moment in Massachusetts!), everywhere the world is in need of repair. Fix it, solve these things, you need only the tools you have learned here, even if you didn’t pay as much attention as you should, even if you’re a mess and broke and facing a future of economic terror — who isn’t, who doesn’t? HELP! HELP! HELP! The world is calling, heal the world and in the process heal yourself, find the human in yourself by finding the citizen, the activist, the hero. Down with the boodle-minded misadventurers, after them, you know where they are, I figured this speech should be nonpartisan in case there are any, you know, Republicans in the audience but even if you are Republican, after them, down with the boodle-minded misadventurers, up with the Republic. Duty calls, the world calls, get active! No summer vacation, no rest for you, we have been waiting too long for you, we need your contribution too desperately, and if they tell you your contribution is meaningless, if they tell you the fix is in and there’s no contribution to be made, if they tell you to contribute by shopping your credit card into exhaustion, if they tell you to surrender the brilliant, dazzling confusion your education should have engendered in you, to exchange that quicksilver polyphony for dull monotone certainties, productive only of aggression borne of boredom and violence borne of fear borne of stupidity, they’re lying, don’t trust them, get rid of them, you know who they are and where they are to be found and they’ll all be happier back on the ranch in Crawfordsville.

Eight minutes doesn’t intimidate me, I just ignore it. I’m almost done.

This is the Columbia dialectic, the New York City dialectic, all this spectacular symmetry, all this Euclidean geometry, all this rational griddage is a lattice entwined with floribund, uncontrolled and uncontrollable vines, shoots, roots, fruits, leaves, bees, busily cross-pollinating. This box, this machine, this is a crystal incubatory whence comes the fluid, the protean, the revolutionary, the non-mechanical, the non-commodified, the non-fetishized, the human. The air this morning is electric. You have fed, you have sated, you’re ready; and every step you take from this point on counts. This is your Code Orange: Life and its terrors, terrible and splendid, awaits. I know I speak for Jon, Warren and Justice Ruth — seek the truth; when you find it, speak the truth; interrogate mercilessly the truth you’ve found; and act, act, act. The world is hungry for you, the world has waited for you, the world has a place for you. Take it. Mazel tov. Change the world."

Pomp? Or Circumstance?

2007-05-23T18:50:00.002-05:00

As it's that time of year, I've been thinking and having some conversations about university commencement speeches. Now I know this is normally CapeTown's department (the man loves commencement speeches), but I watched these two videos the other day and I thought I should throw them up here, if for nothing else than for the entertainment value of listening to two fascinating people and excellent speakers talk about life to a bunch of graduating students, but also to present two, at least partly, distinct approaches on advice to young people about how to live, and see if anyone had any reactions about what people especially liked about either of these speeches. I personally found both of them deeply moving and inspirational, and also interesting for the different things they focus on.

Oh and also if you are graduating soon and if one of these guys is speaking at your school (wishful thinking about readership on my part but you can't be too careful (that would be careless)), then you might want to hold off on watching these as they could give it away (give it away now).

Steve Jobs:

Bill Clinton (part 1/1):

Bill Clinton (part 2/2):

Mission Accomplished: Now Let's Write Us Some History

2007-05-22T17:35:00.000-05:00

Throughout a standard education in U.S. History, one is undoubtably to hear the phrase -- or cliche -- "History is written by the winners." I don't know who coined it, but I remember, when I first heard it in those halcyon days of High School, it was easy enough to absorb its obvious truths and then, like most people, quickly dismiss it. When you're a student and just trying to get through those traumatic years of adolescence, there is no real reason to question further -- If History is written by "the winners" then what part of the picture is missing? Also, we won, right?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have only recently discovered the scholarship of Noam Chomsky. I was 15 when Good Will Hunting came out and it was the first time I ever heard a reference to Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, and in the same scene, Will makes reference to Howard Zinn's People's History of The United States. Both books and, indeed, both authors are usually stigmatized as "radicals" and shoved neatly to the side of more conventional approaches to U.S. History. Both these professors hold mirrors up to American life and history and by marginalizing their voices, we have lost something invaluable: a sense of who we are and the country in which we live.

I admit, that if only for literary purposes, I much prefer reading the standard version of American history. I marvel at our relatively young nation's ability to have so quickly embraced an almost mythical creation narrative -- great men, in defiance of the tyrannical ruler from a distant land, established what is in my opinion one of the great works of art in history. For many, including myself, this myth is enough to embolden endless patriotism, but our understanding of our "Founding Fathers" and this period of our history must delve further if we are to truly grasp the nature of their intentions and the limitations of our country.

We hold the Bill of Rights today as an almost sacred document, yet there remain glaring anachronisms within its text (the whole thing about quartering a British soldier). We often overlook the plight of the Native Americans involved in America's "Manifest Destiny" expansion. The truth is that the founding fathers were not perfect men -- they understood all too well their own limitations -- and it took decades of atrocities and the Civil War for us to finally get rid of one of America's most relied upon institutions, slavery. There are endless examples of haineous and absure acts committed by past leaders, not the least of which is the duel pictured above between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

I don't need to go through all the nonsense etched on the underbelly of U.S. History, for that you can read Zinn. The process that those of us interested in America -- and who claim devout patriotism -- must undertake is akin to those moments of our youth which sparked our adolescent angst -- when you first see your father cry or the epiphanies that lead you to the fact that your parents are not the embodiment of perfection. Just as it became clear that your parents were human, so it must be revealed that your homeland is deeply flawed. While at first this may be tough to accept (hence those years of adolescence), it is a necessary step towards self-realization and maturity. As we come to discover, those prelapsarian versions of your parents weren't true and that the love you have for them after the fall is that much deeper because of it. Realizing your parents are imperfect brings them down to you, painfully exposing what is also flawed in you, but the end result is an understanding that leads to empowerment.

It is the same with our relationship to American history and to our current government. When we place our officials on untouchable pedastols, we strip them of their human qualities and, by doing so, we blind ourselves to the plain reality of their faults. (Side note: It is almost paradoxical Americans liked Bush cause he was just a regular guy, and many of those who elected him for this reason refuse to accept the limitations and faults that their "regular guy" president has.) Accepting the defects of our govenment and the human frailties of our leaders is not unpatriotic; in fact, it can deepen ones patriotism, for if our leaders are flawed like we are then what is stopping us from becoming leaders ourselves. We each hold a stake in this country and it's future narrative, but before we work together towards a "more perfect union", we must first embrace its past and present imperfections. Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government..." at face value a cynical take, but then he added, "...except for all those others that have been tried." So we must first admit that we were dealt a less than great hand, but it's the best out there and it remains encumbant upon us to improve upon it.

Voices of dissent or criticism are not "radical"; they are necessary. If Chomsky and Zinn are "radical" it is only because they wish to provide us with an alternative (and extremely necessary) lens through which to view ourselves -- as lens usually omitted from standard education. The real truism is that when our History is syphoned through the winners' pens, we all lose something.

Some comments on religion

2007-05-21T14:28:00.000-05:00

And Virginia's giant burning cross gives me a segue into a point about religion. My point has nothing to do with burning crosses, but everything to do with supersonic segues.

People sometimes claim that the appeal of religion is that it neatly divides the world into good and evil, and that one derives some psychological comfort from living in such a tidy arrangement. Such claims are sometimes augmented with the observation that religion invests the world with meaning. I think these claims are fine as they go, but obscure the deeper philosophic point about religion regarding normative commitment- the idea that there is something that one should do.

In a recent work Self-Knowledge and Resentment, philosopher Akeel Bilgrami has argued for the fundamental importance of normative commitments for agency. In the book, Bilgrami argues that it is only because we see the world as placing normative commitments on us that we can have anything like agency in the first place. In a thought exercise, Bilgrami asks us to imagine a character so thoroughly passive that he lacks the will to get out of bed in the morning. This character, who Bilgrami calls a radically exaggerated Oblomov, fails to see the world as placing any normative commitments on him. That is, as Oblomov sees it, it does not matter whether he gets out of bed or not. It does not matter to him whether he does anything at all. He finds nothing in the world that compels him to action in anyway. Bilgrami then asks us to imagine how it is that such a thoroughly passive character could have thought. Bilgrami argues convincingly that he could not. The idea is that the passivity, stemming from lack of normative commitment, is so paralyzing that no individual could actually live in such a state. It is not that they would be so depressed they would commit suicide. Rather, it is that no such individual could possibly exist. Our imagination fails us when we try to picture such an Oblomov. The conclusion of the thought experiment is that since we cannot imagine an agent lacking normative commitments, normative commitment must be necessary for agency.

I will leave it to my reader to determine if Bilgrami succeeds or not. I find the argument compelling. But what I want to say- my point about religion- is that if Bilgrami is correct, then there is a much deeper point about the role of good and evil in religion than either of the fine, though somewhat obvious and superficial points listed above.

The point is this: if viewing the world as normatively structured is necessary for agency, and religion succeeds in so structuring the world, then religion serves a necessary role in enabling the existence of minded agents.

Now I want to be very clear about something. Notice the way I worded the point: "religion serves a necessary role." I did not say "religion is necessary for." I am not saying that religion is necessary in anyway. Quite the contrary. I am saying that religion plays the role of something that is necessary- a role that might well be played by any number of other world-structuring phenomena.

But what exactly is this point that religion serves a necessary role? My idea here is that by structuring the world along normative lines, religious doctrine makes it possible for people (religious people) to see the world as mattering in someway. For the religious person, it matters whether they go to church or not. It matters whether they break laws or not. It matters all the way down and around. To the religious mind, every single detail of life matters a great deal, because life is a battle between good and evil. That's just the way they see it. And because they feel the world matters, they feel compelled to act accordingly. That is the important point, I think. Not the questions about God's existence, or tidy psychological pictures, or meaning. The important point, if Bilgrami is correct, is that the normative structure of the world calls people into action, thus appealing to their agency. This I find interesting.

Now for a few clarifying remarks. There is probably a temptation to read my remarks about "calling to action" as calling to religious action- going to church, obeying to torah, things like that. That is not what I mean at all. The call to action occurs at a much more fundamental level. It is the call to any action whatsoever. The action need not have any relation to organized religion at all. That was the very point of the Oblomov thought experiment. That if we do not see the world as normatively structured- placing normative demands on our action- then we will do nothing at all. We will not get out of bed. We will not even think. In fact, we would not even be. So you see, it need not have anything to do with religion.

And lastly, there might be a temptation to take my point as a puzzle for how it is that a non-religious person could a exist. This too, would be an incorrect way to read my point. I do not think a non-religious person could not exist. I know plenty of them. Remember, the point was that religion serves a necessary role, a role that might well be played by any number of phenomena. The crucial thing is that an agent must see the world as normatively structured. It doesn't matter how that world is normatively structured or how it got normatively structured, but just that they see it as normatively structured. And the point about religion is that religion is one way that this gets accomplished.

Go Twins! Yeah Democrats!

Lacrosse - that's French for...the cross

2007-05-21T13:35:00.000-05:00

The discussion of the Democrat and Republican teams started by Boston has allowed me to segue into athletics. There has been some discussion recently (most notably in Slate’s exchanges between Neal Pollack, a Slate writer, and Paul Shirley, an American basketball player struggling through the European leagues) regarding the role of race in sports fandom.

Shirley says that "when the average white American male tunes into TNT sometime between October and June, he would very much like to see another average white American male on the basketball court. Most of the time, he doesn't. But in the few situations that he does, he is going to root for that player. That's the way it is. We like to see people who look like us succeed."

Pollack doesn't understand, saying "I guess you could use, as comparison, how Jews felt about Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax in their primes. But you could also argue that when Greenberg and Koufax played baseball, especially Greenberg, Jews weren't considered mainstream "white." Feeling pride for their accomplishments was akin to feeling boricua pride, or Dominican pride."

It is that section that bothers me the most. He seems to suggest that you can be happy for someone of your race (if that race is a minority race) succeeding unless you are “mainstream ‘white.’”

I will admit that I was thrilled to watch Duke Lacrosse advance to the Final Four because Duke is a program that was brought down last year by the prejudicial minds of those who believe that the wealthy, white, prep school elite are all racists and misogynists. While my teacher’s salary has certainly cast a shadow on my qualifications, I remain a member white, prep-school elite type. I coach lacrosse at a prep school, so maybe that makes up for the poverty thing.

When Duke advanced yesterday, I felt a proud, “you can’t hold them down” attitude rising. I realize the inherent awkwardness of suggesting that white, wealthy, well-educated men were being “held down,” but I’m not sure how else to suggest it. Had a black basketball player from Duke been accused of rape by a white stripper, that guy would be railroaded in a similar manner for sure. The only difference is that I think there would have been less media coverage. Oh, and he probably wouldn’t have been acquitted even though he was innocent. That’s a racism tale for another day. The comparison that I want to make is that American culture has evolved, or devolved, depending on your perspective, to the point that being a perceived member of the ruling class makes you a target for prejudicial media treatment and, worse, mistreatment by the legal system. Cough…Nifong…Cough.

When that happens, I feel fine rooting for Duke. Nothing will be able to remove the stain that was irresponsibly put on the three players falsely accused by the police and convicted by the media. But the stain on the program can be lightened by avoiding any disciplinary issues while winning a national title. Duke’s players this year served 570 hours of community service, had no disciplinary infractions on campus, and are (hopefully) on their way to proving themselves to be the best team in the country. That makes me happy - to see my brothers succeed.

But white guys specifically calling other white guys “their brother” smacks of late night meetings and white robes. It’s not just me who hears it that way, right?

Uniting Our "Divided" Nation

2007-05-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

Dark sarcasm in the classroom? No spank you!

I would like to continue the theme discussed in two of the last posts (by CapeTown and Virginia) and their comments about America as a "divided nation."

The topic has been familiar discussion on this blog and also among politicians, the media, and undoubtedly many of our everyday conversations. Some interesting questions are the following: How divided are we, really, as a nation, among conservatives and liberals? To the extent that we are divided, how did this come about? Are these divisions the inevitable result of human nature? Or are divisions in opinion artificially created? Is the division healthy or harmful? If it is harmful is there anything we can do about it?

The issue begins with human nature (of course who am I to say what human nature is but here is my take on it). Many philosophers, perhaps most notably Hegel, have written about our innate desires to be "recognized" by our fellow humans. This "recognition" can take the form of something like mutual respect, agreement, understanding, friendship, or love. To achieve happiness we need this recognition and we actively seek its fulfillment in various ways. When we fulfill this desire by making connections and achieve mutual recognition, this makes us happier and more secure, whereas if this desire goes unfulfilled we will be more insecure. One way we fulfill this desire is through one-on-one relationships with people, and of course, another is through belonging to some group.

One example of this is sports teams. If you think about it, it's pretty arbitrary how people develop passionate allegiances to their teams, but I think that taking on a sports allegiance is one way where humans satisfy some innate desire to be recognized by other humans, in this case by belonging to a group. Listen to people talk about their team and often they call the team "we" like they are actually on the roster! Allegiances can also be pretty irrational, for example we think the players are on our favorite teams are great people in their personal lives, and we think the players on other teams are jerks (I bet more Lakers fans thought Kobe was innocent than fans of rival teams). Although I don't think it's necessary, one thing that makes the "belonging to a group" feeling stronger, is when the group defines part of its identity as simply being not some rival, other group. So for example part of what makes a Yankees fan a Yankees fan is the fact that they're not a Red Sox fan. So a way to assert your identity as part of a group, and your group solidarity is through being different from some other, rival group. So if you are a Sox fan and you see a random person on the street in a Sox jersey, you automatically fell a connection, and someone in a Yankees jersey you automatically feel some kind of animosity, whether stong of very slight. There is the issue that this might be more of a male thing (being a sports fan) but I don't want to get too off track. The point is I think that this is an innate human desire since so many people all over the world do this, and since I don't see it explained through any "rational" explanation.

Now just like you can be Red Sox fan or a Yankees fan you can be a a Democrat or a Republican. Sports are not exactly like politics, some would say politics are much more important, although in our day to day lives many of us are much more affected (at least emotionally) by sports. But there are competitions (elections) and people rally behind either side much like with sports.

Of course, when you think about it, it just doesn't seem to make sense, or feel "right" that we should treat politics like sports. As opposed to sports, where adopting an allegiance to a team is a pretty arbitrary act that makes something entertaining much much more entertaining, adopting a political party is supposed to be something different. We aren't supposed to just like whatever a candidate says or does the way we convince ourselves that our sports heroes are cool and good people, but it seems like that shouldn't work for politics - we are supposed to listen to what these people say, agree with some of it, and maybe disagree or not be sure about some of it, not just agree with a candidate or a whole party of hundreds of politicians on all of their views.

So then why, if it doesn't seem to make sense, do so many people line up behind a party on everything, agreeing with nearly everything their party says and disagreeing with nearly everything the other party says? Wel as I said I think it is part human nature, and part our conditioning from society. Part of it is that Americans (maybe humans in general because of the above reasons) in general live in a competitive and contentious culture. Our court system and our economy could both be looked at as more cutthroat than in other countries.

Looking specifically in the realm of politics, though, it is pretty easy to see how politicians and the media alike feed the "sports-like" culture of democrats versus republicans, thus exagerating perceived and actual divisions at the same time. Not only are most pundits on television and on the radio partisan ideologues who agree with everything in the party platform like robots, but they have actually created shows that pit one side against the other, like Crossfire and Hannity & Colmes that explicitly pit one side against the other, in addition to the shows that are just one partisan doing the show solo (ex: O'Reilly). Politicians? Some are more guilty than others of playing up party divisions, but I'm sure we can all think of numerous examples.

So why all of this divisive, partisan rhetoric from the media and politicians? Well it's simply a tactic used to maximize their audience and their attention. The media is just a bunch of corporations competing for viewers, while politicians just want attention and votes. Of course, one way to get attention is through civilized discourse where you respectfully consider all sides of a debate and maybe don't arrive at a conclusion since there is no clear answer to some of these complex issues. But not everyone wants to waste their time listening to a newscaster or a politician admitting that these are complex issues and there is no right answer, or at least we are not used to that, so many of us are not so drawn to that type of thing.

Instead, the way it works is that media and politicians have become very good at exploiting this inner human desire to derive happiness and security from being part of a group, a feeling that is strengthened when the identity of the group consists largely of simple the fact that they are not the "other" group. It is just like with sports - surely there are many Yankees and Red Sox fans who have billions of things in common and one of their comparatively much fewer differences in personality is the fact that they happened to one day decide that they like different baseball teams. But rivalries and the feeling of "belonging" to the team we like is one of the reasons people love sports so much, why they are so entertained and impassiond by it all, and the media and politicians have harnessed the same psychological effect and attached it to politics, which is good for them, because it means many more viewers of their programs and listeners to their speeches and contributors to their campaigns. So the media and the politicians really benefit from this, and thus they have a lot of incentive to fan the fire and perpetuate the divisive culture. Whether the image is real or meaningful, an explanation of how Americans are divided along party lines will sell you a lot of books.

But do Americans benefit from it? Does our country as a whole? I would say definitely not, for many, many obvious reasons. One big reason is that these divisive debates don't ever get anywhere. The conversations on the big news shows are pointless, they don't accomplish anything except getting people who disagreed before the discussion to disagree more passionately afterwards because the discussion was done in an aggressive, contentious, and often very disrespectful way. Everyone has witnessed the phenomena where if you try to convince someone of something disrespectfully, you will just cement their original position - the person will not even want to listen to you or consider your opinion if you address them aggressively and disrespectfully. But this is how a great many media pundits and politicians talk, and I think that when they do this they waste all of our time and accomplish nothing useful, and do much harm.

I think it was Socrates that said that there are two kinds of debate. Truth-seeking debate, and victory-seeking debate. Truth-seeking is where people admit that they don't know the answers, and they might not even know what they think about certain issues, and the point of the discussion is to learn more about what you and the other people think, to consider different views on something, and arrive at the best possible conclusion. Victory-seeking on the other hand is an attempt to convince someone of your pre-decided opinion, to "win" the argument. Often there is no way to prove the argument, so "winning" is often thought of as shooting down someone or making a point they can't respond to or shoot down themselves. This of course makes for much better entertainment, which means more people paying attention, and this has become the object of the media and politicians, as opposed to figuring out what is best for this country.

Well maybe that is a bleak picture, it is definitely a generalization and is not true for all journalists and politicians, but I think we can agree that there is too much of this sort of thing going on. The good news is that with blogs, anyone can be a pundit and join in the debate, but with blogs we face the same danger of falling victim to the great temptation of making our blogs entertaining and boost viewers (say something anti-one party and watch the members of your party pour in to comment and check back to read future posts). Thus the phenomena of people self-selecting and only reading blogs of their party.

Despite this danger, blogs have the potential to be a really positive and productive force for our country. If we can overcome the temptation and the emotional satisfaction of responding to a republican statement with a disrespectful jab at how wrong they are and visa versa, if we can instead respectfully consider each other's opinions, admit that there are perhaps no issues more complicated than the ones we undertake to discuss and thus there is probably no clear and obvious right or wrong answer (Iraq?), if we can overcome our impulses and our adrenaline and our emotions and resist arrogantly assuming that we know all of the answers, blogs can really be something amazingly helpful for the country. By having respectful, truth-seeking debate, we can not only get closer to understanding each other and understanding these complex issues and all of the people in the US and the world that they affect, but we can also change the divisive, victory-seeking debate culture that dominates our news and our politics. I believe we can change it becuase I believe that people are tired of it, and we want a change. Our impulses and our emotions may sometimes cause us to take the bait when media and politicians dangle the partisan hook (sorry I got carried away hook line and sinker with that metaphor), but deep down inside I think we all know that the divisive culture is not helping at all and in fact doing real damage, and we also know deep down inside that no one agrees with everything every politician from one party believes. So we are ready for this change, and I think that this change can only come from the blogs, since the media and the politicians all benefit from the increase in attention they get from keeping the divisive atmosphere alive. Of course maybe single journalists and candidates can do something to reverse the trend, but it will be tough because their competitors, of which there will be more, will continue the same old divisive tactics, so I think that this is up to us. I think, potentially, we can change things and we can help this country enormously, and I don't think it will even be that hard, although it could take a long time. All we have to do is control our impulses and emotions, be calm and patient and respectful, and seek the truth as opposed to victory (or the appearance of victory). I don't see why anyone would want to do it otherwise given how much these issues affect our country and our world, and how important it is for us to reach those answers that we can most strongly agree on.

So let's see what we can do. Now I am off to the Red Sox game.

Deep Thoughts: While Reading the News Today

2007-05-18T19:39:00.000-05:00

People seem to keep calling other people "Hitler". Seems counterproductive. Don't they see that we're playing right into the Hitlers' hands? If this keeps up, pretty soon we'll be outnumbered. Or worse. We'll be Hitlers.

What's the most commonly practiced form of masturbation: Physical, Mental, or Mineral?

Man, part of me hopes that Al Gore will just decide to run for president. Then maybe we can stop talking about him.

Why won't Christopher Hitchens and God just realize that they're in love with each other? I mean, everyone around them knows it. Jesus, it's so awkward to watch them. They're just beating around the burning bush.

I'm sad to find out that Anna Nicole Smith wrote in her journals more often than I do!!! :(

(scribbled in the margin of the newspaper)

I write a Haiku.

But will anyone notice

When I have finished?

Some Disturbing Data and a Short Exhortation

2007-05-17T17:29:00.000-05:00

In my last post I cited recent polling results concerning Americans and our faith. As I have lived in a few other countries in recents years, it constantly amazes/irks/bewilders/embarasses me that religion has so thoroughly infiltrated our political discourse. In no other Western nations can I quickly find anything comparable, and everywhere I go, one of the first comments I get from foreigners is how religious my country is. I almost don't believe them, but if you look at some more recent polls (and you can always take polls with a grain of salt and a communion wafer) it is difficult to dismiss the sometimes insidious affect that religion plays in our culture.

Newsweek Poll (April, 2007):
- "91 percent of American adults say they believe in God"
- "nearly half rejects the scientific theory of evolution."
- 26 percent said it was not possible to be both moral and an atheist
- "66 percent of American have no doubts God exists"

International Polling Firm LPSOS (Dec., 2006):
- 11 percent of those surveyed said it is "very likely" that Jesus will return to Earth this year
- 14 percent said it was "somewhat likely."

(personal note: I know things aren't great, but I don't think JC's gotta come down and wreck house just yet.)

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Oct., 2006):
- 61% said that religious groups should express views on social and political questions
- 35% believe that scriptures are actual word of God to be taken literally (my italics and bold)

Barna Research Poll (1995): Study sampled both born-again Christians and non-Christians concerning their prejudice towards other religions. Breaks down like this:

% of non-Christians who view the impact as negative
Islam - 24%
Buddhism - 22%
Scientology - 30%
Atheism - 50%

...Now notice how drastically the percentages increase with the born-again Christians

% of born-again Christians who view the impact as negative
Islam - 71%
Buddhism - 76%
Scientology - 81%
Atheism - 92%

...And Now a Short Exhortation:

Why is it that we Americans exploit those qualities which divide us rather than embrace those which unite?

As was pointed out, with aestetically pleasing graphics, by BostonD a few weeks back, we are not acutally such a divided nation. Obama was correct in '04 when he said, "There are no red states; there are no blue states. There is only the United States of America." My faith resides in our populous's capacity to be, well, populist. I believe that we have many more things in common than the pundits would have us believe, yet we Americans do like our dichotomies -- Hamilton or Burr, Union or Confederacy, Celtics or Lakers; Tastes great! or Less Filling!, Jolie or Aniston, Alien or Predator, Freddy or Jason, O'Reilly or any guest he has on. Only in America can two beers of the same brand find a forum to compete, and for some reason I find myself always rooting for Bud Dry -- cause I'm an American and I like the underdog. After World War II we embraced Western Europe as allies, enacted the Marshall Plan, and provided for our burgeoning Middle Class -- the dichotomies seemed to be held at bay. Yet, soon came McCarthyism, the civil unrest of the 1960's, and 40 years of the Cold War. Due to the latter (and this is just a inchoate theory of mine) we formed ourselves not from the inside out, but in opposition to the ideology of Communism. Any form of it was and has since been met with knee-jerk disdain and dismissal. Today, while Western Europe enjoys many programs built upon socialist principals and ideas, our national identity has been so warped and manipulated that the French -- our allies for over 200 years, who indelibly influenced our founding documents -- are now our straw men.

According to Mark Buchannan in his NYTimes blog, this may just be a natural part of the human psyche:
"People experience real psychological discomfort – psychologists call it 'cognitive dissonance' – when confronted with views that contradict their own. They can avoid the discomfort by ignoring contradictory views, and this alone brings like-minded bloggers together."

...But I digress and this "short" section of the post is now overwrought with rambling ideas...

What happened to "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"? What happened to the distinct realms of Church and State? As I've said before, faith by it's very nature is personal, not communal. As exemplified in The Book of Job (as far as William Blake and Harold Bloom read it), Job's faith in the beginning of his book is one of easy piety and therefore incomplete in the eyes of God. Only after his "test" does he attain the more transcendent fulfillment of faith. For belief in the divine is, in itself, a hardship or (if you'll forgive me) a cross to bear. Faith can be both a crutch during times of emotional pain and the catalyst for similar internal conflict. In that leap of faith you're asking a lot of your god and even more of yourself. What you don't get to ask a lot of, however, is everyone else, especially those that do not take the same leap along side you.

Just to bring this all back to our present political climate, I find the case of President Bush and his often mentioned religous devotion (relies on it for strength, reads a little of the Bible each day). His supporters (now dwindling down to 28%) are largely made up of conservative Christians. I have always been shocked by how he can rally this demographic as many of his policies appear a smack in the face of what I always believed to be Christian ideals. (I don't think I need to go through the litany of these policies: war, pooping on the poor, craven missue of power, abuses (both physical and of civil liberties).) I had initially planned for this post to be simply a list of the Beatitudes and then examples of how the Bush Administration has gone the other way, but then I read Nicholas Kristof's Op-Ed this morning, in which he points out some of Bush's oft overlooked accomplishments. Kristof (who is no Bush supporter) reveals the vast humanitarian legacy of this administration, one that actually exemplifies Christian values, thus begging the question: Why doesn't either Bush or his Christian followers talk these facts up more? Why does it take a notoriously liberal columnist to shed light on Bush's more laudable successes?

It would seem to me that we can all agree on and be proud of Bush's commitment to AIDS and Malaria in Africa, but we choose otherwise. It's easy to blame the media for our polarized society; it's even easier to blame Bush himself ("you're either with us or you're for the terrorists"), but ultimately we still have a choice in how we think. In summation to whatever this post has become, as we approach a seminal election and debate the timeline in Iraq, let's try to set aside the all-too-easy partisan rhetoric and accept our pluralism. One of the pillars of America's greatness is our diversity, and we must remain mindful to embrace these differences, for, in a great paradox of this great experiment, we are more united by our shared differences than divided by them.

My prayers are with you?

2007-05-15T20:45:00.000-05:00

I’ve gotta be honest…I’m a little torn. I live about an hour from both Liberty University, and Liberty Christian Academy. You may have heard of LU, but chances are that you haven’t heard of LCA. It’s a high school that has provided “serious” Christians the opportunity to be schooled from the age of 14 to 25 in Lynchburg, Virginia. All of these lessons have been taught by Jerry Falwell. The idea of someone being 25 years old without being exposed to ideas that fly in the face of that sect makes me more than a little nauseous. I believe the best way to determine your own beliefs is to test them in the face of others. Falwell, apparently, disagrees.

My initial reaction to his death was one of amazement. I really kind of thought that guy was never going to die. The fact that he lived to the age of 73 is, to me, anyway, some sort of terrifying support to the idea that there is a God, and that He (or She, you liberal bastards) agrees with this crazy son of a bitch. My next thought was a recollection of the VISAA volleyball tournament last year in which Mr. Falwell packed the gym of the high school that I work with his students. Buses were chartered and the entire student population came to root on the…well…whateverthefucktheyare. We lost, and I felt like I was on the other end of a crusade.

What shocks me, though, are the hit pieces put out, in the hours that the man’s body is still warm, by Salon and Slate.

Was he a hatemonger? Absolutely. Are those who advocate hate for him any better? I don’t think so. What’s always bothered me as a liberal is those liberals who will support those who want to have sex with animals (as long as it’s consensual, whateverthefuckthatmeans) but will openly criticize and, or, attack those who believe that premarital sex is a sin. If you are open to all opinions, be open to those that are closed to others. Don’t claim to be open, and then be closed to others. At least Falwell was straight up about it. He hated homosexuals. If you claim to hate him, simply because he hated homosexuals, I’m not sure where that self righteousness comes from.

I don’t know if the world is a better place without him. I personally think abortion and gay rights are good things, so, personally, there’s one fewer person alive that agrees with me. But in my barest opinion, whether or not the guy’s a real bastard, I’m not going to rejoice in his death. I really do think that death as a whole is a negative thing.

P.S. Go ahead…throw Hitler at me.

Why I Don't Underline

2007-05-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

In one of actor Ed Norton's finest roles, a duplicitous Aaron Stempler betrays the devil beneath his orchestrated angelic facade when it outs in open court that a string of numbers carved in the chest of a murdered priest corresponds to a passage in the priest's private copy of The Scarlet Letter; something about wearing two faces that apparently reveals the killer's motive. It was proven that Stempler had underlined the passage, thus demonstrating his connection to the murder.

It is not precisely for this reason, though maybe baring some relation, that I do not underline books. From time to time the impulse to mar a perfectly nice copy of Mailer, or EB White, or Hemingway gestates in my ribaldrous heart, but even on the worst of days, I triumph over this murderous impulse and that is how I sleep at night. It is not that I regard the practice of underlining passages as categorically monstrous (no more so than, say, branding cattle, or small children). Rather, I know myself when it comes to historical consciousness, especially personal historical consciousness, and I fear what implacable self-sleuth might uncover such chicken-scratchings and testify upon my character.

I wish it weren't true. I wish I could say I don't underline books because of my deep respect for the aesthetic experience of reading; but truth be told, I am perfectly liable to break mid-sentence to regard a passing cloud, or thought, or political era, and never you mind what fragile beauty my victimized author had been fighting to achieve. It's not that I don't appreciate continuity in aesthetic experience (I really don't like to take pictures but in the absolutely most covert manner), but I've never had a problem treating literature as platform for thought, and so never mind leaving off the one for the other. So that's not it.

No, the problem is two-fold. First, I know that however important the word or phrase seems at the time, no amount of retrospective projection will elevate the underlined passage to the heroic stature that it occupies at the moment of anointment. This is not because the passage is not objectively great, you understand. Nor even that I fear in subsequent reading that the passage will necessarily shy from the task of rising to its title, wilt under my accusatory eye. I know in the end the word is going to be fine. I just don't want to heap any extra burden on something that already assumes so much responsibility in this world. I know it looks like an accolade, and it is, but we needn't press every pretty leaf we see. Sometimes it's much better to just be happy that it exists and move on.

And the second reason I do not underline books is that any phrase so good to merit immortality shall have it naturally. That is, I believe that if you really like something, you'll remember it anyway; so there's no need to mark-up a bunch of phrases that seem neat at the time but which you'll never remember where they were, or what they were about, or why you liked them.

But that said, I've really no interest in dissuading you from any of your reading habits. Slash Beowulf with an inked scimitar, if it please you. Perhaps you'd infuse it with new life. Me, I like to pass all sorts of things right by.

An Anatomy Of New York City Housing

2007-05-14T13:19:00.000-05:00

In January I sublet an apartment in Greenpoint from a girl named Michiko who, having accepted a marriage proposal from a firefighter/documentarist named Bradach, was moving into a newly renovated condo with him in Bushwick. The apartment, owned by a Polish father/daughter combo named Mitch and Monika, was a find because it meant I could move my belongings out of the basement of a house in Greenpoint owned by my friends Chris and Jonah, who come from Maine and are brothers. The bed I purchased from Michiko was a little short, so I traded it to my friend Mikey for a futon that I sold to him six months earlier when he moved into a new apartment in Washington Heights with his brother Brian. Brian, like Bradach, does film editing for documentaries. Brian went to Fordham, which is where Chris went before he got a Masters degree in Theology, but Chris never met Brian and does not believe he exists. Brian's brother, Mikey, dates a girl named Sarah that rents an apartment in Massachusetts from one of Brian's friends from High School and lives in the same town as one of my friends, Andy, that used to rent an apartment in Williamsburg with an NYU Philosopher that knew a guy I went to school with named Sebastian. Now, Jonah also dates a girl named Sara who lives with Kori, the girl I date, who also works in media, but has never done a documentary, but has made one mockumentary. Sara and Kori rent an apartment in Williamsburg with another girl named Kelly from a Hasidic Jew named Abe who collects rent in person and doesn't mind that Sara keeps a Siamese cat named Abbey, which is also the name of a girl Chris knows from Maine who married my cousin Barry from St. Paul. Chris dates a girl named Mary that's friends with Sara and rents an apartment in East Williamsburg with Tabor and Ann Eyvette, who both acted in Kori's mockumentary along with Sara's boyfriend before Jonah, Dillon. When I went to Italy with Kori in April I sublet my apartment in Greenpoint to a couple named Tim and Liz who had a friend that lives down the street named Peter, which is what Kori calls my friend Andy's younger brother Travis. Peter met me on the corner of Calyer and Lorimer to pickup the copy of the key I had made for Tim and Liz, who play in a rock band together called the Mendoza line, which Bradach may have once seen in Milwaukee. Peter (Travis) also plays music and once sublet an apartment in Greenpoint, around the corner from Chris and Jonah, with his girlfriend Heidi, but now lives in Paris with Heidi's older brother Lev who knows Mikey from High School and studies Philosophy at the school where Sebastian studied before he came to New York. Sara, Mary, and Tabor went to school in New Orleans, which is where Mikey went to School and rented a house with a guy named Jim that Jonah and Chris ran into last year at Mardi Gras. Jonah, Travis, Lev, and I went to school together with a guy named Mischa that now lives in New Orleans in a tent not far from where Jim and Mikey once had a house.

Of everyone in this story, Mischa is the only one who does not own or rent.

Say it Sexy like Ricardo Monteva

2007-05-12T10:56:00.000-05:00

Two commercials for your viewing enjoyment

First off, these lions are a hilarious:

Also, I can't believe they got this goofy blonde girl to say this:

Bolivians Invent Teleoprtation Machine Powered by Dance

2007-05-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

Some Comments on Education

2007-05-10T13:46:00.000-05:00

A while back BostonDissentator asked for opinions on education. It was his contention that education is the single most important domestic political issue, and I would not immediately disagree. But for a moment, I'd like to consider an odd, and probably terribly unpopular position on education. I do so not to be overtly contentious, as some accuse me, nor to "spleen" my thoughtful and eloquent colleague, the Boston Dissentator, nor to rouse the indignant spirit of our Southern dispatch, the Virginia Dissentator, nor even really to push any specific policy. Rather, I'll meander tentatively down an intellectual side-alley, not often marked, let alone traveled, in the hopes of shedding some new light on our current thinking about education and maybe say a thing or two about it's role in modern political issues.

It's long been conventional wisdom that education is both the fuel of the economy and the antidote to bigotry, aggression, and fear. I believe a lot of the modern sentiment on education comes from Rousseau's famous quote "man must be forced to be free." Forced through education. This enlightenment belief is readily appropriated by republicans and democrats alike, though usually in divergent ways: The republicans will call for more education to increase national productivity (fuel of the economy) while democrats will tout the intangible benefits of liberal educations (antidote to bigotry). And probably, they are both right. Education increases productivity and acceptance. But is there no end? How productive and accepting can we get? And is there no cost? Why do we crave more and better education, and is there any reason why we shouldn't?

I'd like to offer two diagnosis for why we crave education and then two reasons why education may not be the universal good we often take it for.

Firstly, I think people mistakenly separate political problems into disparate arenas, when really the political world, like the economy, is a complicated interwoven web where everything is related to everything. People siphon-off education as a stand-alone problem and then assume that if they throw enough money at it, they can crack the whole system. Education is an attractive issue to focus on because it's charge is so rewarding: what could be more heart-warming than educating our children? But are we sure that education is really the root of everything. Does improving education improve race relations, or does improving race relations improve education? Does equality of education close the gender gap, or does closing the gender gap produce equality in education? As far as I know, these questions have not been solved conclusively.

Secondly, and this may be the most cynical part of my position, I think the drive for education has been mixed up with the modern American obsession with competition, productivity, and soulless drive for an empty notion of success. A college education is now held up as the necessary achievement of a successful person. And not just any college education. It has to be the best college education. Why? Is college so great that one could not succeed without one. Plenty of very successful people have got along just fine in this world without a college education. Whatsmore, college is not for everyone. The rigid structure of papers and tests can be too much for people. Or the lack of structured time can cause straight-forward minds to flounder. Or maybe someone just doesn't take instruction well and is better left to their own devises. There are any number of reasons college may not be the best place for someone, but it is thoroughly ingrained that children must go to college. I think this a dangerous belief that belies a national obsession with control. Is that too cynical?

Well, maybe it is. Maybe college and education in general is the greatest thing ever and everyone should go. But here are two widely discussed theories for why education might not be the greatest thing ever.

Firstly, from the Economist Michael Spence, we have learned that productive education is theoretically indistinguishable from a useless sorting mechanism. That is, if education did really enhance peoples' human capital (made them smarter) people would end up earning the same income as if they were born with innate ability and degrees and diplomas served merely to divide the productive people from the nonproductive people for employers. The concept is called signaling, and Spence won a Nobel prize for it.

Secondly, there are some sociological theories floating around that suggest the productive value of formal education is not primarily to develop human capital, but rather to teach a common set of practices and values so that the rich can identify their own. Now, I don't want anybody calling me a Marxist for that last sentence. I've never even fired a gun. But I do think that we could definitely be more self-aware in this country about the subtle ways that we perpetuate class divisions, despite our adamant denial of class systems and fervent belief in equal opportunity. I think education may be a particularly insidious form of this classism. I think I will have to make this discussion a separate post.

So there is my most-likely terribly unpopular comments on education. To divest myself of responsibility for them, I'd like to repeat that I am not advocating any policy. And I am most certainly, not, in anyway, against education, or teachers, or anything like that. College was great. Best seven years of my life. I just want to propose that there may be some other ways of thinking about it.

This is the bluetick coonhound puppy dog I babysat yesterday

2007-05-09T11:27:00.000-05:00

When people know you're unemployed, or nonemployed, as in my case (unemployed means you are unsuccessfully looking for work, while nonemployed means you don't even look), you can expect some interesting requests. Your friends have things to do, and they know that you don't. What are you going to say? I'm sorry, I'd like to help you out, but I need to spend six hours at the coffee shop today resteeping tea bags until my Earl Gray is so watered-down the Church of England blushes?

Actually, I might say that. I've had it in for Henry VIII since Anne 0f Cleaves. But it wouldn't help. People with urgent requests are in no mood for Theocratic humor. So it came that Monday night my childhood friend, on the eve of his final Law School examination, beseeched my listless person attend his bluetick coonhound puppy dog, Gale, and I assented.

The particular nature of my friend's predicament dictated a special course of action. The puppy was eight weeks old, having lodged a mere forty eight hours in her new West Village home. I understand hound dogs are a little rambunctious in general, but I think youth and lack of Lower-Manhattan experience combined in my small charge to aggravate an already precarious equilibrium. The dog was fucking nuts. You had to watch it continuously; not only because it might apply its searching teeth to any garment in reach, or micturate, with youthful glee, upon any surface, but also because the little bastard would go for your jugular if you didn't entertain it sufficiently- a disease it likely contracted from the New York cinema patronage upon touchdown at JFK.

The dog could not be trusted outside its recently constructed comfort zone. What's more, little Gale did not even have papers yet, so even if she could be trusted at the boarders, they could not legally take her. And yet, the law exam approached, and my friend could not study for a small, floppy-eared, energetic bluetick coonhound at his leg. I got the call.

The arrangement was this: I would sit on my friend's couch, gently succoring the little dog with DVR and chew toys, while third-year law studied in his bedroom. He told me it would be the greatest favor anyone could ever do for him.

Things passed well enough. I walked the dog once an hour. I fed her twice. I even got her to sleep for a few minutes by showing her an entire season of Entourage. She did chew my jacket a little, but it was law school's jacket, so I figured she owned it anyway. Overall, I'd say we got on pretty well.

So beware, work force refugees. Your friends need favors, and they know how to find you (they call your girlfriend- speaking of which, does anyone know what you call a guitarist with no girlfriend? Homeless). But if you ever pick up the message, you might just find yourself reclining on your friend's leather sofa, watching movies and playing with doggie toys, while an adorable bluetick coonhound nestles in your flank and sings you sweet songs of spring hunts and water holes, thick grass and cool barnyard floors; the happy traditions of another shiftless, wandering breed somehow caught up with everyone else, here in New York city.

No More Monkey Business

2007-05-08T18:13:00.000-05:00

Clearly, and for reasons passing my understanding, evolution remains, 82 years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, a debatable issue in America. A recent Newsweek poll found that nearly half of American don't believe in evolution. This is troubling and, as someone who travels and lives in other countries, it is embarrassing. Having grown up in Massachusetts, however, this issue never really presented itself. The people I grew up around never proselytized their faith or even mentioned it much. So, when I listen to politicians having to qualify or apologize for their belief in evolution, I die a little inside.

In the recent Republican debate, when asked by my man Chris Matthews who did not believe in evolution, three candidates raised their hands. By itself, this was a sad moment, but then John McCain, who thankfully was among those that did not raise their hands, felt the need to explain further -- assuaging those voting Americans that when he goes hiking in the Grand Canyon he can see the face of God. (The Daily Show recently aired this clip. You have to scroll down) Wow, Senator, that's really great, but why did you feel obligated to tell us this useless piece of information? Because, like all political candidates, Senator McCain felt compelled to let us know that he has religious faith in his life. And this bizarre requisite that we have for our leaders is not just a Republican phenomenon. On the most recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Harold Ford also wanted to add a little amendment to his belief in evolution (watch the very end of this clip. Also, Gary Shandling is terrific throughout the episode).

All Americans complain that our politicians' rhetoric rings false, and in my eyes, this is never more apparent than when they speak of their own faith. In my opinion, religious faith and the practice of it should be an entirely private choice. Like blowjobs or love. When Tom Cruise got up on Oprah's couch and professed his love for Katie Holmes, those that watched felt not only a deep, vicarious embarrassment but also a knee-jerk skepticism -- to feel the need to so publicly and shamelessly announce one's love at best diminishes this love and at worst undermines it by overcompensation. The same is true for me when I watch these politicians openly discuss their faith. Both faith and love are by nature precarious sentiments -- for one who truly possesses them, faith and love are internal struggles not external absolutes. Perhaps, it is with this in mind that Tom Cruise's love and a politicians conspicuous faith ring false, and also why I was most troubled by a recent Time Magazine poll which "reported 66 percent of Americans have no doubts God exists". But I digress from my more immediate critique, that these same leaders feel compelled to apologize for their belief in science.

Let's rephrase the belief in evolution question a bit, just to demonstrate how odd these equivocating answers sound:

Moderator - Senator, do you believe in a theory steeped in empirical data, which has been subjected over centuries to rigorous and skeptical testing?

Senator - Yes...but also the other thing.

...Remember, those of your who are running for political office, that it's only nearly half of the electorate who doesn't believe in evolution. You still got the majority who trust in science. So, rather than bow and curtsy to religious fanatics, maybe try to appeal to them with a decent health care package or prove to them that their country won't forget them after they retire. To run for office and speak about personal religious faith, when there are pressing issues afoot, is a waste of breath, a waste of airtime and, in the end -- like with Tom Cruise's couch stomping -- it only serves to undermine and diminish your actual faith. So, Politicians, all I ask is that after you have proudly stated your belief in science, do like our evolutionary ancestor in the photo above, and shut your mouth.

Case of the Mondays: This is What it Sounds Like, When Economists Cry

2007-05-07T14:36:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but few things cheer me up more than being a neutral observer of a catfight. As long as the incident had nothing to do with me I can sit back and relax and bask in two people going at each other's throats for some reason and take comfort in the fact that there was at least one problem that I enountered during my day that wasn't totally and completely my fault. Feels pretty good to have not screwed up.

Now when the fight is between two quasi-celebrity intellectuals the fight is even more amusing and reassuring that I am not the only one who screws everything up that I come into contact with. To make matters dismal, there are a lot of things that we screw up on a daily basis, like relationships, pasta, Ikea furniture, you name it, we daily run the risk of ruining it, so it's always great to see that, if something had to be ruined, it wasn't ruined by you, and this can be especially comforting if the thing ruined is something relatively important like economics, for example, "sure I left the pizza pie in the oven too long, but at least I didnt' ruin economics!"

So even if you ruined like one econometric equation you will feel like you're doing great in comparison to Steven Levitt, author of (get your) Freakonomics, who according to Noah Sheiber, is ruining economics.

Apparently Scheiber wrote an article in TNR which I can't fully read so I don't really know what it said, but boy was Steven Levitt upset. His response is great because you can totally read it and imagine the guy coming home after a hard day at the office and delivering this angry monologue to his buddies or whoever.

Don't know whether he is really ruining economics or not but his angry rant should be sufficient to get me over my case of the Mondays.

New Week's Resolution: Pizza Pie

2007-05-06T08:11:00.001-05:00

I have decided I am finally going to fulfill my New Year's Resolution from 2006-07 which was to start passing New Week's Resolutions. The idea was that every Sunday, whether spending the day working or studying or hungover or all of the above, I would reflect on the previous week and resolve to do something differently or better during the following week.

Now you might be thinking, "isn't that just like wishing for more wishes?" and to that I would reply "what do you think I do when I blow out birthday candles?"

This week's New Week's Resolution is to start saying "Pizza Pie" instead of "Pizza," and see what kind of reactions I get. For instnce, instead of saying "hey, you wanna order a pizza?" I am going to start saying "hey, you wanna order a pizza pie?" or for example "what am I in the mood for for dinner? Eh, I'm kind of in the mood for a pizza pie," and I am going to basically just do that for a couple of days and see what happens.

Go-Cart Mozart

2007-05-05T09:59:00.000-05:00

That Manfred Mann sure was a psycho.

I can never decide though if I think that song Blinded by the Light is really annoying or really cool. Definitely some goofy lyrics. Also the Bruce cover makes me like it more.

Another mystery is what the lyrics even are. Here is one take on it, lifted from Wikipedia (which lifted it form somewhere or other, possibly Tarantino, who lifted it from Scorsese)

(Also from the article, you may find it interesting to check out the article on Mondegreen, the mishearing of a phrase which gives the phrase a new meaning)

"Deuce" versus "douche"

The chorus of the song features the commonly misunderstood lyric, "Blinded by the light, cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night." ("Deuce" refers to a '32 Ford Deuce Coupe.) Many listeners hear the word "douche" in place of "deuce." Manfred Mann's Earth Band changed this line slightly to "revved up like a deuce" (often misquoted as "wrapped up like a douche") and repeated it much more frequently in their version than Springsteen did in the original; they also omitted parts of the verses and rearranged the order of the remaining lyrics.

Springsteen, in his 2005 VH1 Storytellers appearance, lightheartedly made the assertion that the sole reason that Manfred Mann's version of the song went to number one is that the altered lyric is actually "revved up like a douche". Bruce said, "The original lyric is 'cut loose like a deuce' referring to a two seat hot-rod, a little deuce coupe. Manfred Mann changed the lyric to 'revved up like a douche', which is a feminine hygienic procedure." It should be noted, however, that Manfred Mann's website lists the lyric as "deuce" rather than "douche". It was once rumored that Chris Thompson's New Zealand accent may be responsible for swapping deuce for douche.

A reference to the song was made in an episode of Saturday Night Live, where David Spade plays a character who cannot make sense of the lyrics to the refrain of the song. The short-lived sketch comedy show The Vacant Lot featured a group of friends, all with their own different interpretations.

The mondegreen was further referenced in an episode of VH1's animated show ILL-ustrated, where P. Diddy opts to sample Manfred Mann's version for his new song, and dresses up as a douche in the video as the sky rains boxes of feminine hygiene products. Upon being informed of the correct line, he no longer wishes to use the song.

Sean Hannity Molests Collies

2007-05-04T16:27:00.000-05:00

I'm not the first one to say this, but I think it's good for people to say it as much as possible: Right wing radio is really really evil.

Generally, I treat Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and their various derivatives like I do Newark Airport- if I never go there, then they doesn't even exist. However, a recent trip to God's Country, the state of Oregon, brought both of these previously strategically avoided phenomenon squarely to my attention. Let me say I will never bother with Newark airport again. I fear I will not be afforded that luxury when it comes to right wing radio.

It's not that I'm about to start listening to this drivel. But having had some prolonged contact with this stuff, I can now see that no matter how much I ignore these guys, they are not going away; and they do- in their own haughty, arrogant, aggrandized and tragically deluded way- exist.

But, first, what the hell was I doing listening to these schmucks? Well, that's a funny story. Last week I flew to Oregon to spend a week fly fishing with a friend. We had originally planned to go backpacking, but an emergency appendectomy had my friend on restricted orders from his doctor, so we opted for car camping instead of the backpacking trip. It had it's perks- like cold beer and pillows for the tent- but it meant we would spend a lot of time in the car, driving around Southeast Oregon.

What would we listen to? We played a little music, but we both like news radio. However, we were in some very remote country, and the only radio we could get was local color. Now, if you've never been, God's Country is a bit conservative. Slightly right of Attila The Hun. My friend and I found ourselves listening to the local right wing radio, first with novel amusement, then with growing rage, and finally with mixed bewilderment and awe: like watching a cock fight, or a midget toss- you know it is wrong, and it boils your blood, but you are too stunned to look away.

We listened as the recycled feeds of Limbaugh and the rest murdered news stories, inflicted their tortured worldviews on their poor hapless listeners, spewed mindless rhetorical garbage, and basically grabbed humanity by the throat and dragged it down for a death roll, like Paul Hogan wrestling an alligator. To quote Capetown's favorite movie, what I wouldn't give for a giant sock full of manure.

The guys are so obviously the worst type of political hacks that it would be quite easy to dismiss them as lower life forms if people didn't actually listen to them. That's why I know that I can't escape these guys. People actually called in to agree with these idiots! I couldn't believe it. That anyone would agree with the utter nonsense of these characters is a scary comment on this country.

So let me say it loud and clear, and invite you do to the same: Right wing radio is pure evil. Please remember that.

I don't like Newark airport either.

They're Always After Me Lucky Charms

2007-05-03T06:38:00.000-05:00

It's a television commercial! And there are these cartoon leprechauns...

I'll be honest, I think that almost all commercials on TV are boring and annoying. However, every once in a while, a good one comes along, and when it does it's such a pleasant surprise that you should find beauty in this part of the world that you normally expect such dismal things from, and it kind of momentarily renews your hope for the world and your faith in humanity. That's why I'd like to share two commercials I have enjoyed recently.

The first is for some car:

And the second is for some "internet" thing:

If you like this commercial with the turtles, there is a better one, but I couldn't figure out how to post the video here. If you go to this link though, you will be able to choose from three different videos. The one in the middle, about "powerboost," is an instant classic.

Kickin Impossible

2007-05-02T06:46:00.000-05:00

My entire week/month/year was made yesterday by the result of this penalty shoot-out in the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League. The video is pretty cool, it is two teams from England - Liverpool in red versus Chelsea in Blue. I thought it would be interesting to some besides me. Oh, and, for some reason, the beginning of the clip repeats itself after it's finished, so don't let that confuse you. As a special bonus for the Will Arnett fans, I think that the first player to kick for Chelsea (Robben) resembles the hilarious comedian.

For an extended version that gives the back story of all of the tension right before the penalty shoot-out and features the Champions League theme song in all its glory, check out this version of the video.

Further Thoughts on the Immigration and Language Debates

2007-05-01T16:36:00.000-05:00

To add to my post earlier today about immigration, here is as good an example as any I am aware of that demonstrates why Spanish-speakers should learn English (or at least a minimal level as exemplified in this clip), and also why English-speakers should learn Spanish.

Well, this and the fact that knowing both languages doubles your Shakira selection.

What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us

2007-05-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

In 1933, H.G. Wells published his prophetic novel and coined the title phrase, The Shape of Things to Come. In it, with uncanny accuracy, Wells predicted that Germany would begin the next great war by invading Poland in 1940. So, fine, the guy was a year off, but this remains only one of a multitude of his nearly exact predictions. Wells understood the mechanisms that drove mankind, that motivated leaders and that spawned technological innovations. And yet at the close of a lifetime of sagacious predictions and commentary, Wells was overwhelmed by the futility of his predictions, for WWII and nuclear weaponry and devastating air assaults (all of which he predicted) came to be; the future was and is inevitable and prosaic and damn demoralizing.

Today, with a bill passed by Congress headed towards a certain Bush veto, the debate on our current war continues, and it's beginning to feel as though despite the veil that has been lifted since the early years of our occupation nothing much has changed -- the administration still mired in the dialectic of prowar/American/support troops vs. stopwar/un-America/get the troops out. It feels as though we the people are ready for change, yet those other institutions, our government and press, remain in a slo-mo stupor.

For those of you who haven't watched Bill Moyers' "Buying the War", then please just take the time. It is a fascinating retrospective on the role the media played in beating the drums to war. If the invasion of Iraq were prosecuted as a war crime then the media would be willing accomplices. My viewing of this documentary happen to coincide with my too-late discovery of Noam Chomsky, who, in this context, could easily be equated with H. G. Wells as a prophetic sage. Like Wells, Chomsky understands with staggering clarity the mechanisms that influence the unfurling of world events and those that are used to cover some of them up. One of his main theses is that in a democratic society, one that cannot openly be controled with force (such as with a dictotorship), the powers that be must, instead, control the minds and opinions of the public. And their greatest tool is the media. The word itself, "media", denotes their role as intermediaries between power and the people. The press provides a lens, however warped or opaque, and only through it can we see turn the gears of power. The effect of this mediated information, for us, appears in the form of general inattention or complancency. As Chomsky said in 1969:

"A terrifying aspect of our society and other societies is the equanimity oand the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe such events, as in Veitnam. I think that's more terrifying than the occasional Hitler, LeMay, or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity."

In this regard, we, too, are compliant in this war, but we are relieved of some guilt for it remains the media's duty to provide us with the fruits of their investigative labor. When they cease to offer such insight, we are, in effect, the unwitting dupes of governmental propoganda. The Moyers' study, like Farenheit 9/11 did more subjectively, candidly investigates the perverse relationship that our government and our media share. (side note: What, for me, was the most revelatory aspect of our media's compliance with the government was how wide-spread this phenomenon was -- not just Fox News, but CBS, NBC, and in arguably the most chilling moment, Oprah helped to convince us into war.) The Moyers' documentary is a seminal piece of our current journalistic lamentation for their own shortcomings. Along with this comes the passing of an icon of honest and admirable journalism, David Halberstam, whose legacy has been invoked in many recent Op-Ed piece in further confession by the media for a job not well done.

If there's anything more than the press love than "making news out of nothing at all", it's turning their cobwebbed critical gaze back on themselves. If you look around you'll notice that newspapers are inundated with either self-flaggelation or self-defense for the press's handling of the past 6 years. Personally, I'm thankful for journalists like Bill Moyers, David Halberstam, and if you'll forgive the loose definition of "journalist" Jon Stewart (watch his recent interview with Bill Moyers). Their honesty and watchful eye, however, should not be the pinnacle of skeptical inquiry and reporting, but the standard. The fourth estate is for many our only means to discover who is pulling what levers.

This is not the time, however, for such self-assessment. We need you, media -- reporters, journalists, talking heads -- to cease with the lamentation and intra-office nonsense and get out there and let us know what's going on. Stop licking your wounds and start to poke holes in the talking points from both sides. Do it for Halberstam; do it for the memory of H.G. Wells whose predictions were never heeded; and do it for the legacy of Noam Chomsky whose deserves more than a little attention during his lifetime.

Qué What Now?

2007-05-01T06:49:00.000-05:00

Today is scheduled to be a day of protest for those calling for Congressional action on the issue of immigration. As this article explains, protesters are upset with the slow pace of immigration reform and with what many see as the current, and future proposed, harsh treatment of illegal immigrants.

I agree with what much/all of the article presents as the protesters' views, especially that there needs to be a realistic and viable path to citizenship for the many illegal immigrants working in the US, and any guest-worker program can't include fines so large that few will participate. Above all we need to increase the amount of people that we allow to become legal immigrants.

My only criticism of the protests is that I have seen that many fliers annoucing the protests, and many of the signs and things said in the protests are in Spanish. Now I love speaking and hearing Spanish just as much as the next guy, but something tells me that if you are trying to protest and convince a bunch of people about something, you should probably do it in the language of those people that you are trying to convince. Anyone who can understand a sign or a slogan that's in Spanish probably already has their mind up on the issue. Immigrant supporters should present an image of immigrants that want to live in this country and take part in the American experience and part of that should mean learning English, even though you don't have to speak it all the time. But they should use English other than Spanish in the protests, because that sends a more friendly and less hostile message. The Spanish on the other hand is probably counterproductive and probably frightens a lot of Americans who are either uncomfortable about or not sure how they feel about immigration. Maybe through more use of English during their protests they will have a better chance of convincing more Americans and thus have a better chance of convincing more politicians

That said, one interesting piece that I read on the immigration issue in general was by Richard Posner, who comes at the issue from an economist's perspective. According to Posner, the only solution to the immigration problem "is for Mexico and the other poor countries from which illegal immigrants come to become rich... The more one worries about illegal immigrants, the more one should favor policies designed to bring about greater global income equality."

Now if that doesn't convince you that raids, incarceration, fines and deportation are not going to fix things, maybe Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts can convince you with their delightful romantic comedy set in the great country of Mexico.

Making News Out of Nothing At All

2007-04-29T15:11:00.000-05:00

The media never ceases to amaze me, and it also never ceases to manufacture news items out of thin air.

Now I am glad that the focus is off Rosie O'Donnell and on the Democratic Presidential Primary debates, but honestly, the media has totally missed the big story, and since it had no story, it invented the one that, to my flabbergastery, everyone is now talking about.

Anyone who watched the Presidential debates knows that the only noteworthy thing that happened was that former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel became the only politician in recent memory to say what he actually thought, and to tell it like it is, bringing to light political realities that have been swept under the rug by all of our politicians for fear of saying anything too negative about the country and losing voters. The media either didn't want to lose viewers/readers, or is either too brainwashed or too complicit in the conspiracy of peddling the same-old same-old, that they didn't talk about Gravel (except for some, that ignorantly dismissed him as "comic relief"), and thus they had no story.

In the absence of a story they somehow manufactured policy differences among the Democratic frontrunners from their 60 second cookie cutter responses to questions. If they didn't manufacture policy differences, they read in character differences, which is equally arbitrary and disingenuous.

If you don't know what I'm referring to then I am sorry to be telling you about it for the first time because it is sad that our media, capable of so much, is wasting their time with this silliness.

So during the debates last friday, Brian Williams asked what each candidate would do if there was a terrorist attack. According to the media, the correct answer, which pretty much everyone but Obama gave, was to immediately say retaliate, and the incorrect answer, was to say anything aside from immediately saying retaliate.

Not to mention the fact that all of these candidates would probably do the exact same thing in the situation (IE figure out what happened and then consider their options based on that), why are we judging the candidates based on their impulse to have missiles in the air as soon as possible?

What's worse is that in a way Obama gave the best answer of all, since he lead off with mentioning emergency response. According to the media, though, any thought given to minimizing casualties from the theoretical attacks would be time wasted in firing up some rockets aimed at...well, it's not important where they're aimed it, just get 'em in the sky.

I mean, let's think about things for just a second. Operation Enduring Freedom, where the US and NATO went into Afghanistan, began on October 7, 2001. So if the Bush Administration, you know, the same people who will pull the trigger and shoot at a bird before checking to realize that their gun is aimed squarely at their friend's face, get to wait a month, I think Obama can spend some of his presidency getting an emergency response plan ready, and he can spend the first five seconds into any attacks saying "send in the emergency response," instead of continuing with the book about the goat.

But because Obama didn't immediately say retaliate, now he is being critisized. Well, I guess, politically, maybe the fact that all of the other, more experienced, candidates knew to lead off with retaliate suggests that that was the best political move -- IE, what the public wants to hear. In other words, the American public is more concerned with firing back a return missle then it's concerned with minimizing the casualties from the attacks that already took place. Maybe all of the candidates believed that emergency response was obviously the first option but you can't say that on TV because the people want vengance. This makes me think of a kind of a chicken-egg problem because maybe "the voters" think that because that is the attitude of the Bush Administration and many in the media, or maybe it is their attitude because it is "the voters'" attitude. Now I have no problem with art imitating life or life imitating art but regardless of why killing foreigners became a higher priority than saving imperiled Americans from death and injury became the prevailing political viewpoint, I award no points for other politicians' echoing it in an attempt to gain votes, and may God have mercy on their souls.

Whether or not the other candidates secretly agree with Obama, Obama should not be critisized by the media for his politically risky answer. In fact, maybe the only reason why his answer was politically risky is because the media are critisizing it.

For a newspaper article by some reporter whose web page is pretty much an anti-Obama blog, see Lynn Sweet's coverage for the Chicago Sun-Times. Her piece is a perfect example of the judging and media exaggeration over nothing - and, by the way, can be found expediently on imaginary controversey stirrer Matt Drudge's website as well. Leave it to the Drudge Report to play into the mainstream media's fun and games at the expense of an American public that deserves better. For a more thoughtful and balanced coverage, although still unnecessarily slanted toward critisizing Obama, see the Washington Post's coverage. For a blog post that, I guess more or less, agrees with what I have just written, see the Daily Kos' response.

All in all, this whole episode sums up (1) what I hate about the media and (2) what I like about Obama. Rather than providing original insight and thoughtful, intelligent opinions about the substantive issues, the media once again looks to blow up some insignificant happening into a sensational controversey, all the while judging things from the same-old, mainstream viewpoint of what it thinks the people want to hear. Thanks for nothing, media.

Obama on the other hand was not afraid -- at least initially -- to give a somewhat unconventional, or unexpected, or un-scripted (from the vote pandering script) response. He gave the most thoughtful answer, and it has already hurt him politically, because it might not be what everyone immediately wants to hear. But politics must be more than regurgitating what everyone immediately wants to hear. It must be more than sticking to a script of the safest, most widely-accepted responses to all questions. It must be about people who lead rather than follow. It must be about leaders who inspire us to think of the best ideas, not just the most widely-shouted ones. And it must be about leaders who have the courage to bring those ideas to the public forum for debate even if such ideas happen to be less common or newer than other ideas, and are therefore politically risky, because, as the (old common) saying goes: no risk, no reward. Thus far Obama seems like he has the courage to take the national dialogue to its full potential, I don't know yet if I can say the same about the other frontrunners.

So let's not be too quick to congratulate the more seasoned candidates for taking the easier, safer path of what people want to hear, and let's not be too critical of a candidate who offers something (very very very slightly) different to the debate. And let's also not allow ourselves to get taken in, manipulated, and fooled by the media into believeing thta there is a big story where there isn't one, for, as the we all know, the greatest trick a media news story ever pulled was convincing the world that it existed.

Kinda Hot in These Rhinos

2007-04-29T05:39:00.000-05:00

Man this picture makes me laugh, as does that scene in Ace Ventura II: When Nature Calls.

Too bad Jim Carey made "The Number 23" instead of Ace Ventura 3.

But this got me to thinking, since this rhino scene is probably the culmination (culmination) of the great comedy moments of my formative years, it really got me thinking that we've gone down-rhino ever since then.

Are you happy with the current comedy options being offered to us? On TV it is okay, The Office and 30 Rock make me laugh on a consistent basis (beer me that disk). But even TV might be slipping. Saturday Night Live is defunct (although it's spawn child 30 Rock is hilarious, even though it did take me like 6 months to figure out it wasn't a spin-off of 3rd Rock). SNL's replacement in training new comedians, The Daily Show has had mixed results. It launched the careers of Carrell, Colbert, Corddry, Helms and Hodgman, although I am getting kind of tired of seeing those John Hodgeman Mac commercials (is anything more synonymous with pompous than a mac computer?). The Daily Show was on a roll for a while until I saw the first episode of Rob Corddry's "The Winner," which also taints the Family Guy writers's already American Dadded reputation. Family Guy has also been slipping in recent years. Maybe it's because people are trying to do too much with too few jokes/humor/ideas.

Movies have been even more lackluster lately (don't know what lackluster means but sounds like something from SpaceBalls). In the past year or so the two big comedies were Borat and Blades of Glory if I remember right. I don't know, I definitely laughed at both of them, but Borat seemed like the same jokes over and over again (basically Borat was a glorified Jackass/Tom Green Show but this time with funny accents, more awkward interactions, and adorable English language misconstructions, over and over again) and Blades of Glory was kind of a recycling of all of the last Will Ferrell movies, complete with doing for Will Arnett what Anchorman did for Paul Rudd (put an incredibly funny person in a position where, because of the role or the movie or whatever, they just weren't funny).

So correct me if I'm wrong on the comedy thing, but I just feel like they're not making them like they used to.

If Elected I Will: Part Deux

2007-04-27T20:27:00.000-05:00

I feel that I need to amend the sentiments that I expressed in my previous post, in which I may have misrepresented my actual view of the limits and scope of presidential power. My comments were, admittedly, a bit on the cynical side. I did not intend to diminish the power of the office of president but to contextualize it, for I think that we have a natural inclination to see the president as one imbued with powers greater than those actually at his disposal. I have often heard President Clinton, in interviews since his term in office, remark on the contrasts between the influence of a president compared with that of a former president. To paraphrase: As president you have great influence on a wide range of areas but you are subject to events, while as a former president you have a more narrow scope of influence but you are no longer at the whim of events out of your control. The "events" to which Clinton refers are those like the recent shooting at Virginia Tech or, more precisely, 9/11 -- events which one cannot plan for during the campaign and that redirect national attention and even legislative action.

This is beside the point that I am trying to make, but I just thought I'd throw it in there to give my previous post a little more substance.

Of course the president holds tremendous power and influence -- both those afforded to the office by Article II of the Constitution and those that have accrued over the centuries through judicial decree and legislative loopholes (i.e. The Patriot Act). These powers remain undisputed, but I believe that the most palpable aspect of presidential power, as it affects our everyday lives, is a president's influence on the terms of political and social debate. That is, the greater role of president is that of standard bearer -- our most recognizable ambassador to the world and the one American who most effectively can set the tone for their country. In this symbolic role I find the greatest source of hope every four years -- for each presidential election offers us the choice to select an individual who can shape the sentiments of a nation. A president can lift the masses from their apathetic stupor, engage every American and ignite in them a desire to join in our shared struggle to form that ever-ellusive goal of a more perfect union.

I would argue that the legislative achievments of a presidential term have a less tangible effect on Americans, as we go about our daily toil, than the overarching ethos of an administration. As I said earlier, President Kennedy was relatively ineffectual legislatively, but his too-short stint in office helped renew a sense of political engagement in the populous, a "New Frontier". It is the same with many of our beloved presidents, with Roosevelt's New Deal, Clinton's Bridge to the 21st Century, Johnson's Great Society. Buzzwords though they may be, these slogans and the men who voiced them gave the country more than just legislative action -- they instilled in Americans the belief that we are all part of Washington's "great experiment", all accountable for the future of our nation and instrumental in the shaping of its vision.

When I said that whomever we elect will most likely spend much of their time repairing what has been broken by their predecessor, I did not mean that their role in office will be that of a janitor, but that the processes by which they move our country forward will be more restorative than progressive, though it may feel more akin to the latter. My affinity for Senator Obama and my hopes for his securing the Democratic nomination rest on my belief that he can restore the tone of our national discourse, which as it is now in much need of repair. For many voting Americans (and I find this an unfortunate and sad reality) the decision they make in the voting booth is based not on the issues but on a sort of primal, instinctual inclination towards a particular candidate. If this be the case, then all I'm saying is that these voters select a candidate who can instill hope where there is now fear, unity and brotherhood in place of enmity and polarization. For at the very least, regardless of our next president's acumen for enacting laws and signing proclamations, we can as a country get back on the path from which we've strayed, and unite in our efforts to form that more perfect union.

Time to ask Americans to be patriotic about something besides war

2007-04-27T12:34:00.000-05:00

Sure he might have supported the war in 2002, and he might have paid $400 for a haircut, and he might have already lost a primary and a general election, but John Edwards delivered my favorite quote of the night last night at the Democratic debates.

He said that the President has to ask Americans to be patriotic about something besides war.

I think this was in reference to cutting our pollution or emmissions or something, but it doesn't really matter. The point is that Bush has turned patriotism into an issue about Iraq and the troops, when we as a nation are capable of doing so many different things (not to detract from the troops or the war, but just to say there are other ways in which America can do things), and we need to embrace and be patriotic about those other things too. Part of the problem is that our President has been pretty lacking in inspiration or rallying us around any causes except for supporting his policies, of which there are very, very few.

Edwards is right, the next President has to raise patriotism in terms of many different things that we want to accomplish, and we need to be patriotic about our capabilities to pursue different coals and our resolve and commitment to pursue them. Kennedy did it with the space race, we need to do it, I think most urgently, with education. There needs to be a national call to action that considers teachers and principals and guidance counselors, etc, the noblest of all professions. Of course paying them more wouldn't hurt either. The point is that there is no reason why we shouldn't have the best schools, and if we admit that we are capable and that we want them, this goal is within our reach (it's not rocket science or moonwalking after all). Another obvious one is the environment and alternative energy, and another one is America's role as a leader by example, and a country that influences other countries to imitate its policies not because they have been bullied or forced upon them by the US, but by people observing the US doing things that that result in success.

This is very inspirational and I have always found Edwards to be so. I also wouldn't count the guy out just because he had the guts to run in 2004 back when W wasn't doing so badly in the polls and Iraq wasn't such an obvious disaster and other candidates like Biden and Hillary waited on the sidelines for 2008.

If you can't win the primary you get to speak honeslty and say what you really think

2007-04-27T07:43:00.000-05:00

The Democrats began what I assume will be a long series of debates last night, and got off to a gradual but good start. Not too much disagreement so far but as a first look I think there are several good Presidential and VP candidates among them.

The most interesting thing, though, was the presence of former Senator Mike Gravel. No one has heard of this guy and he has absolutely no chance of winning, which allowed him to be honest and say what he actually felt. A lot of journalists are dismissing him as the "comic relief," but that seems pretty unfair, they are just saying that because the honesty coming from Gravel is so foreign and unheard of among politicians that people didn't know how to react other than nervous laughter. There is something wrong with people laughing at Presidential candidates when they are not joking. He is definitely not in touch with the majority of American voters, but that by no means makes him wrong. I don't know if I agree totally with everything he said (if not I am close), but I think a lot of the things he said are dismissed because he is the only person saying them, he questions things that nobody questions so we assume are correct without ever thinking about it, but he has a point in everything he says and we should be grateful that someone like him is up there forcing us to confront certain outlooks on certain positions, precisely because his outlook has not been fashionable and all of the other candidates are espousing a more fashionable outlook, and rhetoric, and conceptualization of national and world events.

For those who missed it here is the video. You will hear some things you haven't heard before, most importantly you will hear a politician saying exactly what he thinks without any fear of political repercussions. Gravel might not be right on everything (although he kind of is if you think about it) but he makes good points on many things. We can only learn by considering his views and views like his, and only rejecting them once we have profoundly considered them, conversely we can only become dumber by immediately dismissing his views just becasue they are not mainstream and make us nervous.

If Elected I Will...

2007-04-26T19:02:00.000-05:00

During a phone conversation last night with VADissentator, he asked what I really thought Senator Obama (who has my early support for 2008) could do in four years as president. My response I think came off as a bit of a downer when contrasted to the usual campaign rhetoric -- for all the attention surrounding the office of president it is one of limited power (though Bush is certainly grasping for more). The presidential term in office is relatively short, when compared to a career in public service, begging VADissentator's question whether a man like Senator Obama would be able to better serve the public interest in another leadership role (be it in the public or private sector). In this context, VAD had a good point. Would a person of high intelligence, who earns the respect, admiration and loyalty of those around them, be able to carry out their goals with greater facility if they did not seek the office of the president? Certainly, and Al Gore is a good example.

The issue, however, is not whether a president can get more done. As much as President Bush wants to be "the decider", the mechanisms of our government disallow for such unilatteral actions. The president is not a monarch but a steward. To quote Richard Goodwin, "A president does not run America. He leads it, and cannot compel it in directions it is unwilling to take -- not withou forfeiting his ability to lead at all." Presidential duties and legacy cannot be defined solely by legistlation passed or actions taken, but only after a summation of what they offered to the public discourse and national mood.

As an example, let's compare the legacies of President Kennedy and Johnson. As far as legislation was concerned, Johnson would arguably be our greatest president, but his legacy is mired in the Vietnam War, serving in office during an era of vast public unrest and violence. In contrast, President Kennedy couldn't get a damn thing done in his 1000 days in office and yet his legacy remains one of hope, idealism, and energy. The irony of their legacies is only ironic because we naturally believe that our presidents are the ones that get things done, when in reality the are a symbol, a face and voice for the office they hold.

I want to make clear that what I have written above is not borne of cynicism but of a realistic assessment of presidential power. If Senator Obama or whomever is elected, I honestly think that most of their time will be spent repairing the ills of their predecessor's administration rather than moving our country ahead in whatever directoin ahead is. This sentiment may be why most American don't vote at all -- perhaps, they sense a futility in the office which translates into their own apathy for politics and government. Though it may seem like I agree with this widespread sentiment, I do not.

While the president may not be able to pass a slew of legislation on a whim, they are able to dictate the terms of the debate on each issue, and I believe that Senator Obama possesses the qualities that are needed to fill this office and carry out its duties. To paraphrase an email I recently wrote to Rudy Guiliani's campaign, politely requesting that he not resort to bullshit campaign tactics that prey on our fear of terrorism: Our country has had its fill of the pernicious negativism which exists in the political language of divisiveness. We desire our leaders to instill hope and not fear, to create an atmosphere of productivity and not one of paranoia...

So, as I tried in vain to watch the South Carolina Democratic Debate tonight over the live streaming feed, I listened for candidates who evoked such sentiment. While, with the actual election over a year away, I do not want to be rash, but I believe that a few of those on stage tonight would make fine stewards of the office of president. I will allow another dissentator to name names, as I could barely hear anything over the jumping and skipping from my crap South African internet connection. But this is all to say that after the next 18 months of what I imagine will be overwhelming campaign coverage and debate, when we all stand in those booths trying not to wonder whether the voting machine we are using is rigged, that we will understand exactly what we are voting for -- not a folder of legislation, but a symbol of our country and the shaper of our public debate.

Democrats Debate Tonight 7pm ET

2007-04-26T15:00:00.000-05:00

Amidst the 24 hour mainstream media coverage of Rosie O'Donnel and other completely insignificant topics, I seem to have, until today, missed the fact that the Democratic candidates for president are debating tonight.

It appears that the Democrats will be debating starting at 7pm ET and it can be seen on MSNBC.

This should be our first chance to get a good look at the candidates side by side, to hide their numbers.

Since I have given up on liking any of the Republicans, hopefully I will get a chance to catch the debates and figure out who I like from the Democrats, and hopefully the rest of you will do the same so we can discuss.

Here are my grossly underinformed gut feeling rankings going into the debate, just to compare to what they are afterwards:

1. Dodd
2. Richardson
3. Edwards
4. Biden
5. Obama
6. Hillary
7. Kucinich

Time for Rudy to Pick up a Hobbit Sack and Start Walking

2007-04-26T06:41:00.000-05:00

Recently, Republican presidential candidates that I would consider voting for are disappearing like Capetown would have us believe that bees are disappearing. I remember saying a few weeks ago that I hadn't ruled some of them out, but let's be honest, I can't vote for any of these guys! Now I'm sure they have good policies and share a lot of ideas with a lot of the Democrats but I just don't like these guys' attitudes. I need a president who stands behind the Presidential seal, addresses the nation, and doesn't offend me with his rhetoric. This is why I pretty much crossed McCain off the list for myself with two posts I wrote last week, and this is why it's time to do the same for Rudy Giuliani.

I have to admit, when I first heard he was running I was pretty psyched. No longer would would the President of the United States come on stage to the tired old "Hail to the Chief," but rather, Rudy could take to the stage to the tune of "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time," of course with the words changed to "It's Rudy Giuliani Time." For those of you unfamiliar with the song, it was originally brought to my attention by Brian Griffin from Family Guy:

By the way someone also found where the Manatees who write for Family Guy originally got this reference:

So there I was looking forward to this and Rudy basically had to go and ruin it the other night by bringing back the politics of fear that have been part of oratory and mobilization of the angry mob for their support ever since ancient times. Basically Giuliani said to America: hey, America, are you scared of terrorists? I know what'll cheer you up...It's Rudy Giuliani time! If you haven't seen the story about what Giuliani actually said, he basically said there would be more casualties from terrorist attacks if a Democrat was elected than if it was a Republican. Well, it's a good thing I recently learned how to spell ridiculous.

Giuliani's reasoning for this outlandish claim was that the Republicans would go on offense and the Democrats would go on defense. Clearly Rudy still things he is sitting on the bench for Notre Dame. Of course he doesn't say what he means by offense and defense because these words really have no meaning. When you leave the realm of sports, pretty much any strategy is part defense and part offense, and can be described as either or both. Having a military, nuclear weapons, surveillance, etc, all of these play both defensive and offensive roles. He mentioned the Patriot Act, but much of that seems more like defense - the USA PATRIOT ACT literally means "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act," so all this talk about Protecting seems defensive, which I have nothing wrong with, defense wins championships, it's just interesting that instead of saying something like preemptive war which is clearly offensive, he brings up the Patriot Act, which just doens't seem so offensive (except to civil rights and to the Constitution, maybe that was what he meant!).

As as far as I'm concerned these comments make no sense at all except to use the oldest most base tactic of political mobilization which is to say something like "these people, the terrorists, they are going to get us if we don't get them, and by the way if you vote for the Democrats, we're not going to get them, and they're going to get us." This is basically the same speech that got Slobodan Milosevic elected to office, and has also brought political power to countless others.

Fortunately, seeing through, exposing, and condemning Giuliani's scare tactics proved all too easy as we saw yesterday. Barack Obama responded with comments that I think America had been waiting to hear for a long time.

Lastly Kieth Olbermann responded with a long and detailed critique of his own. If you have time to watch this video it is extremely thoughtful and passionate, although most of his remarks should be obvious to everyone at this point, but still it is great that, although I'm not sure how many people watch MSNBC, it is still great that the mainstream media have taken a time out from their 24-hour covereage of Rosie O'Donnell to talk about this more important issue. Here's the video:

The Bees' Needs

2007-04-25T14:34:00.000-05:00

Dear Bees,

Okay, what's the story? What's going on here? Why is it that I've been reading all these articles about how you guys are just up and vanishing without a trace? They've been calling it "Colony Collapse Disorder", but in all honesty none of us know what we've done to make you go away. Was it something we said? Something Don Imus said? Cause we took care of him. You don't have to worry.

Did you guys just want some attention? I could see that. We humans certainly owe you some better press, especially after all those "Killer Bee" scares of the 1990's, but that's no reason to just pack up shop and disappear. I thought we had a deal. We teach our kids not to whack your hives with sticks and you pollinate some of our crops. It's been quid pro quo up til now -- mutual respect all the way -- a bipartisan agreement between our two species. But now, our farmers need you. They can't grow some of our delicious foods without ya. Can you even imagine a world without apples, cucumbers, cranberries, and almonds? What are aging women gonna put on their eyes? And you try explaining to a girl with a urinary tract infection that there is no more cranberry juice, cause I'm not gonna. So, bees, this is where we stand today -- America needs you, the cucumbers need you, and, hell, I need you, and I want to take this opportunity to inquire as to what we've done to deserve this.

Bill Maher recently pointed out that Einstein once said:

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

I can't sleep on that. But even though our human scientists don't know why you left, but I think I have an idea. It's our movies, isn't it? Well, let me be (pun most definitely intended, fellas, and your majesties) the first to apologize for all those Killer Bee tv movies from the 70's. I promise you we didn't enjoy them either. We painted you with an unfair brush and for that we are sorry. Or maybe it was something else. Was it the guy who wore a beard of you? It was inappropriate and offensive and I believe that the Anti-Defamation League dealt with him accordingly, so you don't have to worry about being a replacement for facial hair any more.

Come to think of it, was it the time that the guy in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids rode one of you? Bees, psst, listen closely,(whispered) no one even remembers that movie. Seriously. It was a flash in the pan, and unsavory burp in American cinema and nothing more. Wait! That's it! We just haven't put you in good movies, right? I mean I don't blame ya, but oh man, bees, have I got news for you -- Jerry Seinfeld will be lending his iconic voice to an animated character in his upcoming film, Bee Movie. Did you hear that? One of our most beloved comedians will be playing a bee! What more can we do to show you our appreciation?

So, let's make up, bees. Hey, why don't you guys drop by the premiere and enjoy the show. You can hobnob with Spielberg, Seinfeld, and I hear Chris Rock is in the movie as well. So, be there or bee square. Eh? Whatcha say? If you liked that pun think of what Seinfeld can do!

"You can catch more flies with honey," we humans like to say. Well ain't nothing sweeter than an animated comedy, but if you bees don't start coming back that expression won't even make sense to future generations. And neither will the stories that I try to tell my grandkids about cucumbers and almonds. So let's start again on the right foot and make the 21st Century an era of harmony and honey.

Many happy returns,

The Dissentators

Woody Allen and the Meaning of Life

2007-04-24T18:37:00.000-05:00

Woody Allen has made some good movies. I guess my favorite is Crimes and Misdemeanors, but for this post I want to talk about another one of the greats, Annie Hall.

The movie opens with the main character, played by Woody Allen, delivering a monologue to the camera where he tells two jokes, which kind of serve as the two main themes of the movie.

The character connects the first joke to life and the second to love, but I think that both quotes apply to both. Here are the quotes as transcribed by IMDB:

"There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.

The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious," and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women."

This monologue is so genius!

So the first quote, to me, is a great summary of life as well as love. One's life and lovelife features no shortage of suffering and unsatisfied desires, yet there is still something in our nature that says we are going to keep trying, keep striving to find true love, or to find happiness, or to improve the world. Even though we face suffering and disappointment and often do not fully achieve our goals, there is something that pleases us about the process of believing and trying. I love the inspiration and the optimism in the thought that even though it seems like those are impossible goals, we, in general, for some reason, choose to affirm life.

The second quote is a bit more complicated, hence the mention of Freud (I don't know if it's true or a joke, by the way). To me, not wanting to be a member of any club that would have someone like yourself as a member is an expression of the equal and universal originality of every human and the rejection of various "labels" such as nationality, socioeconomic class, age, religion and ethnicity. Various philosophers -- perhaps most notably Hegel and more contemporarily Roberto Unger -- have written about the human's natural desire to be "recognized" by other humans. This recognition can take the form of, for example, respect, agreement or understanding, friendship, or love, in all situations being a mutual relationship. Because we desire to be recognized for our originality, we strive for recognition outside of the confines of these "labels," thus being unsatisfied with being accepted by groups that would accept someone like us, and seeking recognition and acceptance among those who, according to society's labels, are different from us, thus invalidating these labels and affirming our originality.

To connect the two ideas, then, perhaps the meaning of life lies in us realizing that it might be impossible but nonetheless is worthwhile and fulfilling to strive for a society in which any person can be a member of any club, not just the ones that they are born into because of social status or nationality or ethnicity, etc (the clubs that would have someone like them as a member), but ones that accept people not for their social labels but rather as an original human being.

America's tragedy response

2007-04-24T09:40:00.000-05:00

I was traveling in Italy when I heard about the shooting at Virginia Tech, and owing somehow, I think, to the physical, or mental, or cultural separation between it and me at the time, the whole thing failed to register in any real way in my conscious mind. I remember watching the reports on CNN from my hotel room in Venice, and finding myself in the embarrassing position of failing to muster the appropriate sense of loss and regret. I think I was just in emotional exile, and any news item, short of every pigeon in St. Marks square spontaneously and simultaneously sublimating- that is, be that news item momentous or inane- anything failing to immediately impact the six inches in front of my nose was going to languish in mental purgatory (the subconscious) until I, or God, figured out what to do with it.

Thirty-six hours of travel in the last three days has afforded me some mental house-keeping, or at least a quick Spring once-over, and so I thought I’d give my first-blush impressions of this whole business. Like most things, I’m afraid, it (the impression) has more to do with me than anything else.

I took a little time in the last three days to review the media’s coverage of the Tech shooting. The rest of the time, as I said, was spent traveling, which was in turn split equally between sleeping, reflecting, and sipping bloody marys. To get right to the point, my impression of the Tech shooting and the subsequent national reaction to it is that we are getting way too good at crisis.

The lead, the live aerial footage, the news graphics. Oh, jeez, here we go again. What was it this time? Unconfirmed reports of a single shooter. A loner. Oh Christ, he’s not a foreigner, is he? A brief, likely psychological sketch from a terrorist expert. An announcement from local police officials. On going investigation. Can’t be certain at this time. Not ready to release that information. Twenty-four hour coverage. Then a message from the killer. We have our guy. Yep, definitely a loner. Weren’t there any signs? Ah, then the finger-pointing. His teachers missed it. His family missed it. Oh no, there was a prior incident! More psychological sketches. Alienated from his peers. Trouble adjusting. Oh come on, video games? Then the response. Gun control. Tighter security. This never would have happened if…Time to grieve. Message from the president. Our hearts go out. Help with the process. Classes to resume.

Another crisis on the books.

It happens again and again and again, and the most frightening thing about it (if there can be a most frightening thing about it) is how utterly routine the response is. Everyone knows exactly what tone to strike, what faces to make, and what language to use (there is a special crisis language that we have developed to distinguish these special events from, say, an athlete admitting to having bet money on his own performance, or a political election- phenomena that have their own special niche voocabulary as well). It’s terrifying that we have convention for crises, but that’s not the end of it. What I really want to say is that the conventionalization of crises blunts our natural human response to the carnage; scrubs our messy and disorderly emotions surgically-clean so that they can be excised by the ready scalpel of the forty-hour work week, the morning commute, and the Sopranos. It's all way too superficial, if I can use that word without sounding ridiculous. When what we really need, the only thing worth a damn in life, is to offer ourselves over to the brute facts of the world and give all of our honest response as living, feeling people. I truly believe it is more important than simple and orderly closure.

America: A Nation Divided?

2007-04-24T06:53:00.000-05:00

Over the years we've been told that ours is a nation divided. People ask whether Barack can unite the nation, which implies that it is now divided. John Edwards told us in 2004 that there's two America's (which I think he's right about, but nobody wants to hear that, so I don't think he'll use that again, and anyway that has nothing to do with this post).

Ever since 2000 and 2004 they've told us about red states and blue states. I think in 2000 it was something like half the nation was republican and the other half was democrat, and Florida was half and half. Here's the map they used to explain it to us:

So as we saw in 2000, American states were either burning hot or freezing cold. 2004 looked even more divided:

Now this one really freaked me out, man. At least in 2000 we were kind of integrated, with New Mexico a blue among reds, and New Hampshire a red among blues. At least back then red states and blue states could get along with one another and live among one another. In 2004 it was pretty clearly geographically divided, as if we're divided into two countries. I considered secession for a moment but then I remembered that George Clooney was from Kentucky, and him being my fellow countryman was always one of the things that kept me going in this world. I was still freaked out though. I don't want America to be two countries, what the crap? In the last year I have been to Florida, North and South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona, and all of those places are freaking awesome. But it's these freaky maps that make me fear that I'm venturing into a foreign country when I go down south, and not just any foreign country but one of those hostile, anti-American foreign countries where they'll hear my Yankee accent and see my Yankee black t-shirts and think I'm some kind of Yankee douchebag. By the way it's a good thing I'm not a Red Sox fan because then I would really be offended by this. Now if the red and blue electoral maps weren't enough to spread this "divided America" theme around, along came this:

So there you have it. Red states and blue states, democrats and republicans. Or at least this is what the politicians would have us believe as they try to energize their base, and this is what the media and the pundits would have us believe as they try to get people interested in their drivel. The problem is that we see these electoral maps and most of us are like "geez, we're pretty divided," without thinking about it much more. The media and the politicians do the same. I guess it's more interesting that way, but to me it is dangerous, counterproductive, and just plain stupid to act like every single person in the red states vote republican and every single person in the blue states vote democrat.

First of all, in 2004, only 55% of eligible voters even voted! So much for this coloring scheme that's only based on half of the country. Furthermore, the winner-take all voting style completely distorts the picture, which colors in an entire state either red or blue. Of those that actually voted, 37 of our 50 states were split between 50-60% for one candidate, and 50-40% for the other. Only 13 states plus DC were real landslide contests in which such a large majority (of half of the eligible voters) voted for one of the parties.

The low voter turnout and the relatively even 60-50% - 50-40 split% suggest that there are 37 swing states, and that our country is not as divided as everyone says. In fact, some are even saying that America is not red and blue, but purple.

Here is a map that portrays things more accurately, showing % of vote by county:

And here is one of the 2006 elections:

Now of course we have our differences, and we should recognize them and celebrate them. But we shouldn't necessarily exaggerate them and think that people from the north can't get along with people from the south, or republicans can't get along with democrats, because the north and south is full of both, and we do live together and we do get along.

Case of the Mondays

2007-04-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

First off, as a follow-up to the previous post about Mike Huckabee, apparently he has lost a lot of weight recently. No mayo.

Anyway, now that it's 3:00pm on a Monday where I live, I thought some people could use a pick-me up.

Not really sure if anyone who works in an office checks this blog, but I have always thought that the hour from 3pm to 4pm is the longest, slowest, most painful hour of work. All of the renewed vigor that lunch brought has worn off, and 5pm is an epic 2 hours away.

So for those of you in the office here is a good clip, bear with it (or just fast forward) through the first 20 or so seconds of boring title credits, it gets good afterwards.

My Candidate Hates Chicken Salad

2007-04-23T06:38:00.000-05:00

I have just learned there is a former Arkansas Governor named Mike Huckabee who is considering a presidential bid. I know nothing of this man's policies or character, but he has my full support because he clearly has the most obvious campaign slogan. You like Ike? Well I heart Huckabee.

Happy Earth Day!!!

2007-04-22T09:39:00.000-05:00

Apparently today is earth day. So before the day is over and human year resumes, we should maybe take a moment to remember that there is more to life than ourselves and our personal lives and our toys and our internets.

If you want an inspiring example of the wonders of nature, I would refer you to this clip of Lionel Messi playing soccer in the video in my previous post.

But of course there is so much more to nature than humans, so here are two examples of cool things on earth that I hope to one day see in person. Watching these videos on the internet is probably not exactly what was in mind for celebrating the earth on earth day, but hopefully these videos can inspire us to perhaps one day get up from our computers and go outside and maybe even visit these places. These two in particular are in South America.

Iguazu falls:

Galapagos Islands:

And since I probably won't be going to either of those places anytime soon, I can always watch nature shows like Blue Planet. If you are unfamiliar, here is a commercial (CAUTION: This commercial is not suitable for children and those who don't like profanity) for Blue Planet:

American Exceptionalism

2007-04-21T07:53:00.000-05:00

From Google to 9/11 to the iPod to the UN to YouTube to school shootings, big things happen in this country that just don't happen elsewhere. Despite much anti-Americanism talked about in other countries' cultures, countless aspects of our culture are imitated around the globe. Despite this, there remains many things that separate us from other countries, differences that seem to be incapable of explanation, and thus attributable to American Exceptionalism.

I'd like to talk about one of those differences, but on a lighter note, since it's Saturday, so I will talk about soccer. This is the national past time of almost the entire world except for America. To the rest of the world it's referred to as football. From the start America wanted nothing to do with this game, so much so that we invented our own sport and called it football, even though there's only like one player per team that gets to ever touch the ball with his feet in that sport.

Soccer has been on the rise in the US due to the recent achievements of the US national team at the last two world cups. It should get another boost this summer when one of soccer's most famous players, David Beckham, makes the move from Real Madrid to the US, where he will play for the LA Galaxy (this is a team in the US professional soccer league, which is called Major League Soccer (The MLS) if I have lost you).

Now since Beckham is the best-marketed player in the world a lot of Americans probably think he is the world's best player. Of course, everyone knows he is a good player (some would disagree but let's be fair), but not the best (no would would disagree with this except maybe Posh Spice). So if we're not getting the best player in our league, we might as well know about who some of the best players are, if for no other reason than that watching them is extremely entertaining.

So this post is to provide you with a look at one of the truly best players in the world today (if you already know about this then it's a chance to look again). Last Wednesday in northeastern Spain a goal was scored that people will be talking about for a long time. This goal was scored by Lionel Messi, of FC Barcelona. Hear his name. Take a good look. This could be the day. Anyway, I'm not a sports commentator so I think I've done introduced it enough. See for yourself.

Is McCain like Imus? If not, what's the difference?

2007-04-20T11:50:00.000-05:00

We all know from my post two posts ago that I respect John McCain.

However I can't help but being reminded of the whole Imus thing when I read about McCain's recent comments that have been in the news lately.

Speaking to veterans in South Carolina, McCain was asked "whether he believes the U.S. should send Iran "'an airmail message to Tehran.'"

McCain responded:

"That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, 'Bomb Iran,'" McCain joked and then added: "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb ... anyway, ah ..." The audience responded with laughter.

Okay, I realize this is a joke, or if not, it was at least intended as a joke. But Imus and Kramer both intended to make jokes before they made the comments that offended the nation. Plus, those guys are comedians. This guy wants to be President. The leader of all Americans. The leader of the free world, so the saying goes. Seems like at the time he was only interested in being the leader of some South Carolina veterans. Here was McCain's response to people who questioned whether his comments were inappropriate:

"Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends," he told reporters. "My response is, Lighten up and get a life."

Talking to some of your old veterans friends? Please yourself. You don't have to be the presidential candidate to know that everything they say to an audience (and some things you say in private) can and will be repeated to the whole country. What does it matter who he was talking to? Would he say the same thing to a bunch of Americans in the northeastern US? To a bunch of Americans of middle-eastern descent? They can vote too, of course, but maybe he's not interested in their votes.

Then comes the icing on the offensive cake:

When reporters asked if the joke was insensitive, McCain said: "Insensitive to what? The Iranians?"

Now this is probably taken out of context, but I am quoting from the Washington Post, so blame them if you want, or blame the Drudge Report and then have Matt Drudge blame the Post. Regardless of the context, the words imply that there is no reason to care about Iranians. They're not people like Americans are people. So we know from Imus that it's wrong to insult African Americans in a joke broadcast throughout the nation, but it's okay to insult/joke about killing Iranians? This "America and Americans are the only thing that matters" -- and not just in terms of our policies, but in terms of who deserves our respect when we talk about them -- attitude is nothing new, as it has characterized Bush's entire presidency. But now we are seeing it from someone else, who I originally thought was much better than Bush, and now I am taking a lot less comfort in the fact that Bush's term is coming to a close.

Regardless of our policy views, when are we going to learn to respect each other?

A Psychological Test for Your Mind, Your Head, and Your Brain

2007-04-20T06:13:00.000-05:00

This test about how we process information is kind of interesting.
See if you can accurately count the number of passes!!

Repeal the Second Amendment from the Debate on Guns

2007-04-19T07:40:00.000-05:00

First off, I know we already had a gun debate on this blog, and I am not necessarily looking for another one. Instead, I want to comment on the way we go about the gun debate, particularly the way it is discussed by, you guessed it, our politicians and our media. I will also say that I hope that if another debate arises, that it can be as clean and respectful as our previous one, as we acknowledge that in the end we all want what's best for our country.

Once again I will emphasize that I am not really interested in talking about guns, but rather I am interested in the way that politicians and the media talk about them, and whether it can be done in a more productive way. And now to dissentate.

I think the gun debate is too focused on the Second Amendment - literally, on the fact that it exists - as opposed to being focused on guns. While there are valid arguments for gun rights, most people who believe in them would rather just remind us that we have the Second Amendment. I would even say that people who continuously mention the Second Amendment are hiding behind it, and for no reason, since there are, I think, valid substantive arguments about gun rights.

Take John McCain for example. Now I think McCain is a smart guy and I can only hope to eventually provide a fraction of the service to my country that he has provided. But what about this quote about the VA Tech shooting:

"We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn’t change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don’t fall into the hands of bad people."

These are the words of a guy who is so focused on mentioning the Second Amendment that he doesn't even care what the rest of the sentence is as long as it includes the words "Second Amendment." I mean, look at the sentence, it makes no sense! Taken literally, it means that the shooting changed his views on the Second Amendment, unless I misunderstand the word except. What changed? Now he thinks that weapons shouldn't fall into the hands of bad people. This is a new belief for him. Now he couldn't have possibly meant that, but I think the quote does seem to illustrate my argument that all of this talk about the Second Amendment is taking the focus off of the substance and actually looking at the facts about guns in our society.

McCain continues:

"I do believe in the constitutional right that everyone has, in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to carry a weapon."

This is just a kind of fancy way of saying "I believe that the Constitution exists, and a part of that Constitution is something called the Second Amendment, which I also believe, exists." I believe that too, but I don't think it says anything helpful to the debate.

We need to get the focus off of the Second Amendment and start talking about the facts about our country's current state of affairs. This is the only way to determine a sensible middle ground between outlawing all guns and making guns as easy to buy as cigarettes. The Second Amendment prohibits the former solution (at least for the Federal Government), and common sense prohibits the latter. But the Second Amendment doesn't really provide us with any further answers or guidance. Thus it is up to us to look at our experiences, and to respectfully debate based on what we have seen happen in our country over the last decade or so, and what are the best policies to keep us as free and safe (two goals that are often at odds with each other) as possible.

Although I am not optimistic for reasons to do with the current style of political and journalistic discourse, I hope we can leave the Second Amendment in its rightful place, and start talking about the substantive issues.

I-Bituary: Thoughts on Imus, the Media, and American Society & Culture

2007-04-18T11:17:00.000-05:00

The Imus Story, 04/04/07 - 04/16-07

Like everyone else I am deeply saddened by last Monday's tragic events, and my heart goes out to those affected. That said, I would like to continue with my somewhat but not completely relevant theme of thinking about the American media and its interplay with our discourse, our politics, and our culture. I mean no disrespect towards Monday's events and I hope not to portray any in what I am about to write.

Maybe, the proper media response to a national (or, maybe even international, becuase this was top news in lots of international newspapers) tragedy, is to drop everything that was being focused on immediately before, and to focus on the crisis. Undoubtedly, things like this make us reflect on the relative insignificance of other things in our lives, as well as various national issues. Allowing ourselves to get upset or stressed out by something, whether a routine part of our daily lives or even a national political issue, we are, the next day, humbled by events such as these. Whether personally or socially, events such as these shake us from our prior state of routine and complacency and force us to reconsider certain things. Personally, or socially, they can make us think of the important things that we have that we take for granted, they can make us consider the important things we don't have that we lose sight of, or they can make us think about the unimportant things that we were stressing about and realize that we were blowing them out of proportion.

Because the dust has perhaps not yet settled regarding Monday's events, and because it perhaps has regarding Imus, I would now like to consider the Imus story, perhaps from a fresh perspective.

The story began on April 4, 2007, when Imus made his comments. Incidentally, many people probably began that day reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated on that day in 1968. The media began that day like it begins most days: trying to figure out what sort of coverage would attract the most viewers. Granted, there are amazing breakthroughs of intellect, egregious acts of violence, oppression and injustice, corageous and altruistic acts of people helping one another, and other awe-inspiring signs of hope and despair at all times and at all corners of our world. But, of course, it helps if they involve a celebrity.

It was a day with no completely new injustices or breakthroughs, just the same stuff that's been happening and has been happening. Now this may be the stuff that our life and culture is all about, but it doesn't spell ratings. Viewers want to see something they've never seen before, and they want it to be exicting and unthinkable, like in movies. These things don't happen too much, so when they don't happen, we go to movies. In the meantime the media informs us that Mel Gibson is racist, Brangelina adopted a child from a developing country, Dick Cheney accidentally shot his friend in the face while hunting, and Bill Gates and Bono are trying to eradicate diseases and poverty.

As I said in a previous post, it is interesting how the media discusses social issues through celebrities who, by behaving just like zillions of other people, serve as an example for aspects and developments in our society as a whole. I am not sure exactly what I think about it, because I think it is good to raise awareness of certain issues, and this seems to be one possible way to do it. But I often wonder whether it is a good way or a very bad way to do it.

We are a product of our culture, or experiences within our culture, and our reflections on those experiences. I don't know if it's part of human nature to want to know what's up with Paris Hilton and Brangelina and Imus, and cling to "sexy" news stories, or whether it's part of our capitalistic, consumer drivern culture, and is thus a self-perpetuating cycle. The cycle would go: the media know we want sexy, they give us sexy, we watch sexy, we are seduced by sexy, we want sexy, the media know we want sexy. I don't know at what point the cycle starts, but it's clear to me by observing our culture that once it starts, it spins right round baby right round.

A story about the personal life of a celebrity? Splendid!! This calls for a sexy party!

Many of us have heard Governor Schwarzenegger's comments on how to get more people behind the cause of protecting our environment and how to raise awareness and concern about climate change:

"We have to make it mainstream, we have to make it sexy, we have to make it attractive so that everyone wants to participate."

So even in politics, the fabric of our society, the strategy being touted is "sex sells." Personally I completely agree that we need to get serious about addressing the issue of climate change or global warming or whatever, but I hope that I can honestly say to myself, about that issue, and about every single other issues that I have an opinion about, I hope I can honeslty say to myself that I am not espousing certain opinions because they are sexy.

Maybe it's elitist to say that I want to feel passionate about certain things but for the right reasons, and not because they're sexy. Maybe it's elitist to say I don't want other people to agree with me on certain issues because the issues, or the positions on the issues are sexy.

Or, maybe it's elitist to say "I want everyone to agree with me on this issue, so I am going to "make" the issue sexy, because this is how I will get everyone to agree with me."

To me, this is either elitist or it is expressing a pretty low opinion about people's intelligence, and of course a high opinion of your intelligence that you can control their thoughts or actions by sexifying things. Are people not smart enough to become concerned with issues like the envirnment based on the facts and substance alone? Will they fall for your sexification?

If advertising is any indication, people apparrently respond a lot to sex, and not so much to substance. Advertisers believe this, otherwise we wouldn't see so many commercials for cars, beer, etc that just show attractive women and don't really give us any substantial information about the product.

Once again we can ask: have advertisers tapped into the foundation of human nature and found the most salient and most effective way to get us interested in what they have to sell us? Or do we respond because we grow up and operate within the context of a culture, wherein we are basically from birth inundated with people selling "sex" to us and everyone we know? Have we allowed aspects of our capitalistic and consumer-driven culture to go too far, by adopting the strategy of "whatever it takes" to sell?

In any case, we might say that "sex sells" should be a perfectly acceptable strategy for advertisers, since they should really be free to run their business and advertise their products however they want. Companies have no responsibility to us, unless we are shareholders, in which case their obligation to us is to make as much money as possible. Whether that is, or ought to be true, is of course debatable, but what really needs to be debated is whether we want more powerful and responsible aspects of our culture, our politicians and our journalists, also embracing the strategy that "sex sells," and further engraining it into our national psyche by integrating it into our news and our politics. In my opinion, it makes a profound statement about our culture when our politicians are following the example of Coors Light in doing their job.

Politics aside, there is no question that this strategy has been embraced wholeheartedly by the media. Everyone has heard the cynical saying "if it bleeds it leads" to describe how the media choses what they tell us about and when and how much.

So given these reflections, we have at least one explination of why Imus was all that the news talked about for the last two weeks, which has almost nothing to do with what Imus actually did. To make matters worse, the discussion that the media gave to the issue, and the commentary that pundits offered while weighing in on the issue, was similarly devoid of the substance of discussing the issue of what Imus actually did. By that, I mean, we basically just got people's knee-jerk political reactions to an issue that the media had decided it was going to focus on. Conservatives spoke about the good things Imus has done in his life, and the fact that he had apologized, and said that his treatment in the media was too harsh, and that his firing was excessive. Liberals emphasized his hurtful words and those words' affects on those they referred to and others who had heard them, and said that his firing was appropriate. While Democrats and Republicans alike talked past each other, refusing to even acknowledge that this was a complicated issue where both sides had valid points, everyone seemed to forget that whether he gets fired or not is none of anyone's business except his boss/bosses, who, like all other bosses, are free to fire any employee for whatever reason whatsoever, and under the law they don't even have to give a reason (this is subject to some exceptions that are irrelevant to the Imus situation). Hearing pundits and politicians talking about whether Imus should have been fired makes about as much sense as hearing Hollywood actors talking about presidential candidates - they are no more qualified or knowledgeable than the next guy, yet there they are, on the TV, giving us their opinions, day in and day out.

Now people with ordinary opinions just like ours, getting widespread media coverage of their opinions is merely another example of "sex sells." I can do all of the research and polling I want, CNN ain't gonna have me on the TV to discuss the presidential nominees or Iraq or the Second Amendment or whatever (the same goes for Matt Drudge, etc). Of course if I had starred in Good Will Hunting, Forces of Nature, Reindeer Games, Bounce, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears, Daredevil, Paycheck, and Gigli, it would be a different story.

So the point is, while Imus didn't do anything that out of the ordinary (not condoning it, just saying, racism unfortunately exists all over this country), the media -- because he is a celebrity -- seized it and didn't let it go. Now that there is a more pressing issue facing the country, we can likely expect the Imus story to get swept under the rug, and go the way of Mel Gibson, Nick Nolte, Kramer, Gary Conditt, Trent Lott, Tom DeLay and plenty of other people that were scrutinized for doing relatively ordinary things, and then the media acted like it was the end of the world for them, and now they are doing great. I mean look at Clinton, after what happened to him, the guy has been a god over the last few years.

I personally find the "sex sells" strategy in the media very concerning, especially when we look at how these stories are so efficiently utilized by the media, and then discarded as soon as either, it is still going sexy but something sexier has come along (is it better to burn out?), or, it has simply outlived its sexiness (or to fade away?). The willingness, eagerness, and ability of the media to do this again and again should at least give us pause. During that pause, we should think about where, if anywhere the conversation should go from here, and we should reflect on what we think about all this, whether we think it is good or bad for our culture, and what, if anything we can or should do about it.

Can You Imagine Fifty People a Day...Friends, They May Think It's a Movement

2007-04-16T17:40:00.000-05:00

To build upon some of my previous posts concerning what I feel is our society's lacklustre public dialogue (the ease with which we can dismiss a candidate for the smallest of bad PR, a general gleeful indignation with which we confront those that offend (clearly, this has a special significance with the recent Imus affair)). As I have been living in South Africa for the past two months, with only 3-4 channels to scan through on my tv (one of which plays cricket at all hours, an wholly unwatchable sport), my televised intake has grown increasingly focused and honed -- to the point that I basically watch clips from Comedy Central, MSNBC, and Real Time with Bill Maher, and dip the occasional finger into the Fox News gruel (Please, Sir, can I NOT have some more). This very limited and admittedly biased exposure to television, however, has afforded me the perspective that I needed to find some of these more deleterious trends in our national discourse.

On a fairly recent episode of the Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton -- an extremely controversial figure and one of Bush's more antagonistic appointees. Bolton proposes his philosophy regarding presidential appointees, submitting that it is the duty of the president and his job to represent those (presumably solely those) who voted for him and appoint people who share his overall ideologies. Stewart returned with the example of Lincoln in reference to Lincoln's cabinet that was made up of a broad spectrum of political loyalists, many of whom disagreed with their President. So, with Stewart's more than reasonable historic example not even fully out of his mouth, Bolton quickly dismisses him, saying something to the effect of "I don't think you're right on the history there." The trend that this example...ahh, exemplifies is the envocation of historical citations, used either to dismiss the person you are debating or to silence the conversation. (Luckily, Jon has his own show and answered back the next night.)

In our current age, for those arguing on the rationally wanting side of a debate, a victory can achieved if you have managed to undermine your opponent's ability to prove their point, however honest and rational it may be (in fact, the more rational thier point the bigger your victory for not letting them make it). Do you, reader, remember the game "500"? One kid is the Thrower and shouts out a number (100, 200, 300, you get the idea) as he throws a ball into a small crowd of would-be catchers. If you were amongst this group and the ball is clearly out of your reach, your best bet is to somehow sabotage anyone elses chance of catching it. That's basically what this argumentative tactic is -- to use esoteric knowledge of history to silence you opponent or to dismiss someone else's knowledge out of hand is like pantsing the guy next to you so he won't catch the ball. A stretch? I think not.

So, here is my proposal. When someone tries to throw some irrelevant, yet oddly impressive factoid from American History your way, just smirk back and say, "Well, Tippecanoe and Fuck You, too!" And be sure to emphasis the last bit with all the gravitas of Lt. Col. Frank Slade. My theory, and I have not yet put it in practice, is that this will nullify any ground they have gained in the debate with their useless historical reference. I mean, what could they say back to that?You'll have beaten them at their own game. It's actually quite breathtaking. The rebuttle both alludes to an esoteric piece of American history (William Henry Harrison's 1840 campaign slogan) and also piques with a sort of ironic cruedity.

So, If you find yourself (in a dark alley and would like to press ahead, please turn to pg. 138) in a heated debate with Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher, or have inadvertently landed on a bar stool next to John Bolton and over a few too many rounds of shots enter into a political argument, don't let them garble the debate by trying to stun you with unecessary trivia. Just remember what we said, and they won't know what hit 'em.

Note: There is a definite distinction between admissible and warranted historic references for use in political discourse, this post only refers to those that are unecessary and used to spite or dismiss rather than enliven and edify.

You've Selected...Why don't you just tell me what you want me to blog about?

2007-04-16T11:20:00.000-05:00

My relationship with this blog is much akin to my relationships with women:

I meet someone
She moves in
She goes
I meet someone
She moves in
SHE GOES!!!

With this blog its more like:

I think of a blog idea (I meet someone)
I put up a blog posting about it (she moves in)
Nothing happens (she goes unnoticed)

Honestly I don't know what is worse: endlessly calling up my past blogs like I was checking my e-mail, and seeing the big goose egg of zero comments, or seeing that I did get a comment only to click on it and see that it was just capetown dissentator.

I've tried to discuss hot-button issues, really I have. I blogged about racism and imus. No comments. I even blogged about Barack Obama and the presidential elections. No obamments.

Recently I have considered a posting about whether America is really as "divided" a nation as some say, and about what I think about Arnold saying that we have to make the issue of climate change "sexy," dumbing it down for some mass audience as opposed to having it explained to us by Al Gore.

But I just can't take the disappointment of bearing my soul for all of cyberspace only for cyberspace to stare back at me and give me nothing in return.

Quick: staring contest, me and cyberspace.

It wins, it always does.

So I appeal to you, whoever is reading this. Whether it be my fellow dissentators, or our readers (I have reason to believe that we have readers). Help us help ourselves.

By that I mean that I think there are good and stupid uses of blogs. Basically stupid uses are when people write things that no one cares about. But good uses are possible when people get into a real discussion about something and can learn things and hear opinions and get productive conversation that is missing in the media today. These kinds of blogs are our hope. I want to be one of these kinds of blogs.

So I invite suggestions from anyone reading this as to what in the hell you want from me. I really don't think this is too much to ask, and I think this would make things better for both of us.

On a similar note, if any of my past or future girlfriends are reading this, I make to you the same request.

Really?

2007-04-16T04:26:00.000-05:00

I was just in Vatican City and I discovered something amazing. Apparently, the last words of Jesus from Nazareth were "come on guys, this isn't funny anymore, take me down."

(Thanks JM)

Anger

2007-04-14T07:21:00.000-05:00

he smiles, towering in shiny metallic purple armour
Queen jealousy, envy waits behind him
Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground

Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted,
They quietly understand
Once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready,
But wonder why the fight is on

But theyre all bold as love, yes, theyre all bold as love
Yeah, theyre all bold as love
Just ask the axis

My red is so confident that he flashes trophies of war and
Ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring,
But very unsteady for the first go round
My yellow in this case is not so mellow
In fact Im trying to say its frigthened like me

And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from
Giving my life to a rainbow like you

But, Im eh , yeah, Im bold as love
Yeah, yeah
Well Im bold, bold as love
I'm bold as love
Just ask the axis (he knows everything)

Talk About a Dying Breed

2007-04-13T16:08:00.000-05:00

Speaking at our alma mater in 1991

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC

- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

"I'd Like to Have a Racist, but Newsworthy, Word with You"

2007-04-12T11:21:00.000-05:00

the title is these guys talking, not me of course

First off, wow. I think we should change our name from the Dissentators to the (Mothman) Prohpets, because this blog never ceases to write different things that synch up in a significant way. First, no sooner do I include Imus in one of my posts (which builds upon previous Dissentary about the use of language and offensive language / political correctness, than he becomes the talk of the town for offending the entire nation with his choice of words! Upon realizing this, I decide to write this post, about Imus and his language and the topic in general, continuing the language discussion, and no sooner do I think of that then I see Brooklyn's post about the top five uses of the word "jive" in movies. Brilliant. Now Brooklyn is en route so just incase he missed it, and for others of you who also have lives and haven't seen the footage of Imus apologizing to Al Sharpton, I will recount basically what I remember of part of the conversation. I don't remember the exact transcript but it went something like this:

Imus (trying to explain himself and apparently not getting anywhere): "I can't get anywhere with you people." (I know!!! Classic!!!!)
Al Sharpton: "What do you mean 'you people'?"
Imus: "You, and the other woman we're talking to."
Woman: "No, that's not what you meant."
Imus: "Oh no, don't try to say that, that's jive."

Jive!!!! How rediculous is it that Imus said that!!! Just refer to Trading Places, Aeroplane, or Tenenbaums (the other two movies use jive a verb so it doesn't really apply) and it looks like this comment is right up there with his other racist comments.

This brings us back to the subject of language, a subject that I don't want this post to be about, but it is worth a mention. I mean Imus I guess probably is racist but he is a professionally trained voice man and smart enough to know that he's not supposed to appear racist on his radio show. Even Kramer at the Laugh Factory, at least according to him, was trying to make a joke (by the way isn't it ironic that the place that produced one of the most horrifying things captured on film and then shown to the entire nation was called the "Laugh Factory"?). Okay well Kramer trying to make a joke is a bit of a stretch, but we can agree that before Imus and Kramer took to the stage/airwaves they probably weren't planning on saying anything racist, but the fact may be that society is changing (I would say, on the whole, for the better, although of course there are pros and cons to political correctness) faster than these old guys can keep up with. I mean these are pretty old guys and the majority of our society (or maybe just the intellectuals?) has left them in the dust, whether in terms of actual racism or comments that (even if the person speaking doesn't initially realize it) can be interpreted as racism. I mean we've all heard and many of us have told stories about how our adorable european-descendent grandparents made racist comments, but we don't get that mad at them, because they came from differnet times. Imus might be as old as some of our grandparents but he gets out more than most of them, plus there's that whole "he's talking to hundreds of millions of people and not just to our family at Thanks giving (btw - Thanksgiving: racist or hijacked by the PC police?) dinner" part, so we're going to bear down on Imus, and softsoap our grandparents. Howard Stern said that Imus should have just said "fuck you, it's a joke."

Anyway though, putting the PC language discussion aside for a moment, I also want to get everyone's opinions on what the hell exactly is going on in our country and in our society, and what exactly is the deal with our morality. One could sum up the last couple of months with the following: White southern boys at a renowned institution of higher learning accused of raping a black stripper, the biggest thing to hit the entertainment world is a comedy about a racist and dim-witted Kazakhstani (played by a Jewish Englishman) going to America and filming his conversations with other (some of which are also, apparently, racist and dim-witted) Americans played by themsleves, then one of the stars of maybe the best comedy series ever (although he was the Ringo Starr of Seinfeld) goes on a racist explosion at an LA Comedy club, and then one of the most famous morning radio hosts (is famous morning radio host an oxy moron?) comes under scrutiny for making racist comments. Now three of these things were pretty unanimously disgusting while one of them, not as much, so right there is another interesting topic of discussion, especially since, aside from the Duke story, everyone involved was an entertainer (well I guess you could say that the stripper was too and maybe even the star athletes), so right there is an example of the fact that there is a line which Sasha Baron Cohen I guess stepped right up to but didn't go over, while those other guys, well, they crossed the fuck out of it.

But I said I wanted to talk about our society and our culture and our morals, which is why I have the philosophers up there. I can't really decide what I think about the fact that the news is teeming with these isolated incidents concerning Kramer and Imus and the Duke Lacrosse players. If you go to Drudge Report (btw another topic for bloggery is whether Drudge is part of the problem or the solution to the (in my opinion extremely depressing and infuriating) problem of the conflation of news with entertainment) right now it is a bit rediculous: Imus, the Duke case, Imus talking about the Duke case, and then the 2008 presidential candidates talking about Imus (this is too far, no? I really don't know if the Imus thing is useful information to keep the public informed and aid in the discourse that shapes our culture and our society, but surely the 2008 candidates talking about Imus - two degrees of Imus if you will - is just three darts (by three darts I mean: too much (see Ace Ventura 2)).

So what I want to discuss is whether this a good thing or a bad thing, that this is our news. I mean we have injustice and racism every day and everywhere, that goes unnoticed and unremarked upon by the media, but when it involves celbrities / rich people the media can't stop talking about it.

Starbucks has started writing me messages when I buy coffee from them, and one of said messages presently comes to mind (don't worry it's not racist):

The Way I See It: #192
Many people lack a spiritual believe system and fill that void with obcessions about celebrities. The celebrities are raised to the rank of gods, and these earthly gods will always fail the expectations the masses set for them. The cycle runs thusly: adoration turns to obcession, obcession turns to disappointment, and from disappointment is just a short emotional jump to contempt.

Now when I first read that I thought to myself: why are you talking about celebrities? All of this can be said about religion, and about God (also a topic for another day on the blog). But now I finally see that it can also be said about celebrities! Of course we don't expect anything fancy from celebrities, we just expect them to be as cool in real life as they are when they're on stage or screen. This is where the disappointment sets in. For example: Michael Richards - definitely not as cool as Kramer. For our celebrities and also for talk show people like Imus I guess we just expect them not to be evil. Maybe part of the reason we are so angry and hurt when it turns out that our celebrities are evil or screwed up, is because we learn that we are better than them, and how the fuck did they get to be celebrities and us not? This can break down into two parts, one of which is our failure, and the other part is the failure of our society: wherein horrible people are able to achieve immense fame and fortune. Well, this and the whole "they are saying these things to hundreds of millions of people as opposed to just your family at Thanksgiving dinner" thing.

So does this explain our reaction? Does this explain, and does it justify, these isolated incidents, exactly the same as so many that happen constantly except that they're celebrities, getting media coverage ad nauseum?

Maybe the explanation is that we are making an example of these people. Oh sorry, let me rephrase that. Maybe we are making an example of Imus and Kramer and of the Duke parties (the parties to the lawsuit, not the keg parties, although, sure, them too). We aren't going to solve all of the millions of isolated incidents, but there are some that we will make known to all (lots of people are going to find out anyway but we will make sure everyone finds out) and then we are going to tell and retell the events and hear what everyone (political leaders and other celebrities and entertainers alike) has to say about it, and then we are going to watch what happens to the perpetrators, in order to demonstrate how we as a society feel about this behavior, and what we as a society deem fit as a response, and if necessary, a punishment.

Is this desirable? One one hand we are bringing social problems to everyone's attention, maybe the only way we could get everyone to pay attention and consider these issues is using celebrities? On the other hand, it glamorizes legitimate concerns of our normal everyday lives, and maybe even takes the focus off of them. Are there better ways to deal with social problems like racism than constant coverage of Imus-gate? If you answered yes to that last question, then couldn't all of the time and energy spent talking about the Duke case and Kramer and Imus be better spent on other endeavors, both in terms of what stories the media is covering and Matt Drudge is posting on his site, and in terms of what we are discussing in conversation and on our blogs?

Is this what we want? Are we happy with how these scandals come up, command national focus, play out, and then die out when another weird incident comes up (anyone heard anything about Kramer lately?)?

If something seems wrong, or strange, who do we blame? Do we blame ourselves for engaging in these discussions about Imus and Kramer that we complain about, and not doing anything to change things? Do we blame the media for rolling around in toxic goo with entertainment and fusing together to form the radioactive seven headed beast that it has become? Is it just us, the blogging intellectuals, who are disgusted with this phenomena, and do most news-watchers think that the news is just fine? If not, why does the news keep doing this? Have they to live up to their responsibilities to society? Or am I being too pessimistic, and do stories like the Kramer and Imus cases serve society in some beneficial way?

Dissentators, mount up.

Mental Accounting: Jive in Five

2007-04-12T09:10:00.000-05:00

Im currently en route (no apostraphies), so I dont have time for for too much gibber-jabber. I did, however, manage to scrape together an answer to capetowns list of finishing lines. Here are my five favorite uses of the word jive in cienema:

1. It aint cool being no jive turkey so close to thanksgiving. (Trading Places)

2. When two cats dont jive, one of ems gotta go. (Waynes World 2)

3. You wanna talk some jive? Ill talk some jive. (Royal Tenenbaums)

4. Excuse me stewardess, I speak jive. (Airplane)

5. Were gonna jump and jive, bend and whirl. (Gap commercial circa 1997)

Top Ten Last Lines: Or An Invite For Comments

2007-04-10T15:44:00.000-05:00

Considering the dust-up caused when BrooklynDissentator threw up his top ten movie lists a couple of weeks ago, I figure I toss my top ten last lines in film.

1. "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (Casablanca 1952)
2. "Hey, Dad! Do you wanna have a catch?/ I'd like that." (Field of Dreams 1991)
3. "That'll do, Pig. That'll do." (Babe 1995)
5. "Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool./So do you, Fast Eddie." (The Hustler 1961)
6. "Mein Fuehrer, I can walk!" (Dr. Strangelove 1964)
7. "Good. For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble." (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969)
8. "Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted...He lived happily ever after." (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory 1971)
4. "I guess we keep going through it cause most of us need the eggs." (Annie Hall 1977)
9. "Roads. Where we're going, we don't need roads." (Back To the Future 1985)
10. "I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope." (Shawshank 1994)

So, just to arouse some responses, I will not merely claim that these are MY top ten, but the objective greatest top ten. If you got better ones, let me here them. I dare ya. And also, these are not meant to reflect my top ten movies of all time. Some great films have mediocre last lines and visa versa. The only thing that I will say is that Babe just might creep into the top ten movie list as well.

Please Read to the End

2007-04-09T16:06:00.000-05:00

The one truism that I have learned in my 24 years is that I will look back at my opinions in 5 years and think that I am a complete idiot. It's happened every 5 years, give or take, and it's one of the few things on which I will look back and think, "Hey, you were right about that." In the past, I've been known to throw out ideas -- some hairbrained, some off-color, short-sighted, nit-witted, etc. Some theories I posit with brazen passion and some just to fill the air during an awkward convo. Just so you get the idea, here are a few of my current gems: the existence of UFO's makes more sense to me than that of the people who witness them; I appreciate animals as much as any vegetarian, because I also love the way they taste; if Henry David Thoreau were alive today, Walden would be a blog; we'd be better off with fewer books out there and more readers; and, come to think of it, I may even appreciate animals more than vegetarians.

These thoughts, admittedly, are not deeply instilled and are most likely transient visitors -- trying to keep warm for a night or two in the soup kitchen of my head -- they do not make up, define or speak for all the rest. I have almost as many or as many good, honed, well-reasoned thoughts, as I do wild-eyed inanities. These 5 year retrospections of mine are moments of whimsy, not embarrassment. What I am trying to say is that I cannot dismiss all of my present-day ideas and beliefs because of a few wild turkeys clucking around my head. I don't think it unreasonable to assume that most of us are the same way, and yet in our current political climate, we engage, bolster, and promote this type of dismissal each day.

Senator Biden called Senator Obama "articulate" and that has been the defining moment in Biden's two-month-long presidential campaign; John Kerry voted for a spending bill before he voted against it and it cost him an election; so-and-so is pro-choice, soft on crime, French. In each of these examples an iota of a slice of minutia has defined the whole individual and a better part of their campaign.

Okay, if you haven't given up on the point that I'm trying to make because of my remarks about vegetarians, then let's do a little thought exercise. Try to picture former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic Nominee for President, Michael Dukakis. Got a picture of him yet? Do you even know who I'm talking about? If you don't know who I'm talking about, then you don't have to play and you know what, you can just do your blog reading somewhere else (see what I did there? An example of general dismissal in real time). If you were able to picture him in your head, I'll put some money down on the fact that you pictured him with his smiling head sticking out of a tank, donning an ill-fitted helmet. That's because that stupid picture defined him campaign and Dukakis himself. Who knows? He may have been able to put together a great Health Care package or bring peace to the Middle East, but he stuck his head out of a tank, someone snapped a picture, and we'll never know.

This type of societal brush off is carried out with such ease that we almost come to expect and anticipate the split second that will define a career. You can see this anticipation in the current coverage of the 2008 Presidential Election, how pundits and columnists try to find weaknesses in Obama's oratorical acumen, or when Katie Couric interviews Edwards and his wife, or the recent attention given to McCain's trip to Iraq (he went without a helmut but ended up looking as dumb as Dukakis).

What may be even more disturbing than the ease with which we the people dismiss someone but the even greater ease with which we are duped into it. This is why President Bush thinks he can get away with whatever he wants when he recently:

"attacked Congress for taking 57 days to “pass emergency funds for our troops” even though the previous, Republican-led Congress took 119 days on the same bill in 2006. He ridiculed the House bill for “pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war,” though last year’s war-spending bill was also larded with unrelated pork, from Congressional efforts to add agricultural subsidies to the president’s own request for money for bird-flu preparation."

We complain about our current leaders and the choices we have for the new ones; we complain about the Republicans when they're in charge and the Democrats when they hold power -- "It's the politicians' fault", "It's the media's fault", "It's the system's fault"-- we piss and gripe and moan and it's our own damn fault. If we approached each election with openness and engaged skepticism -- not the easily manipulated sort, but the kind that drives one to double-check accusations -- then candidates would not be so timid to speak from their heart to extrapolate on their proposals and voice their true voices. Each election, we hear how the candidates are all the same. No kidding, because they are all too frightened of the idiot brush that we paint them with if they were to step out of line.

So, next time you hear about a candidate's off-the-record remarks that magically got on record, or see a photo of a candidate with or without a helmut, don't dismiss them. Find out more about them. Just think of the lesson from 1960, back when a lot of people were ready to dismiss the blue-eyed man from Massachusetts for fear that a Catholic President would take his orders from the Pope. That same year we elected Kennedy and it turned out that he could mess up a bunch on his own thank you. He didn't the Pope at all. But why take my word for it? I told you at the beginning I may not even believe this stuff in 5 years.

Obama for President, but not until 2016

2007-04-07T10:46:00.000-05:00

He gets my vote on coolest logo, though

Every four years there comes a time in our country when 50 or 60% of Americans of voting age vote for a president based on their perceptions on the candidates. These perceptions come from lots of places and are formed a number of different ways. According to the last two elections people just vote on geographical party lines: if you live near an ocean or a freshwater ocean you are a red state to distinguish yourself from the water, and if you don't live near water you are a blue state to demonstrate that obviously this blue part is the land. It will be interesting to see if this changes in 2008 and who can win the most swing states in '08 (according to Wikipedia's article, there are 14 current swing states. In 2004, of those states, Bush won 8 - Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia and Florida - while Kerry won 6 - Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves because we have primaries to worry about, although always keeping in mind the primaries are very much influenced by who we think can win the general election, where the potential to win swing states should be a huge factor.

So, apart from electibility in the general election, which I think is determined by who wins the New Hampshire primary (which is determined by who wins the Iowa Caucus), what is influencing people's votes in the primaries? This is a complicated issue but I don't think too many people will argue with me when I claim that the primaries are heavily influenced by money, which is heavily influenced by name recognition and, of course, money. This is a big problem, and I blame the media. Unless you make the effort that I am not comfortable assuming that all voters are making, you get all of your info from the media and all you are going to have learned form themknow about the candidates right now is two things. First, that Hillary, Obama, McCain, and Giuliani are on TV a lot, either getting mentioned or actually being shown interviewed or speaking. So there you have your name recognition, which is a self fulfilling (mothman) prohpesy because people will assume that they are the best candidates and vote for them just because they are familiar with them. Unfortunately the these four are only getting so much more attention because they have been in the spotlight in the past and the other candidates haven't, and this of course says nothing about what kind of president they would be. The second thing most people know now thanks to the media is that Hillary and Romney raised the most money in the most recent money count. Are you freaking kidding me with this? Sure, it can be seen as a proxy for how many supporters they have right now, but this is really dangerous because fundraising is so dependent on name recognition and how much money you have to put together a good fundraising campaign, which, again says nothing about what kind of a president you would be. Despite this, fundraising is used as a proxy not only for how many supporters the candidates have, but also for how good they are as candidates, because everyone likes a winner, perhaps regardless of what kind of competition that they've won (this is also why winning the party nomination is so dependent on Iowa (Yeearrrrgh) and New Hampshire).

The other reason why the media is determining so much is that they pick up the slack for the candidates. Putting aside the fact that the media do a horrible and actually could do a much better job at this, let's not let the candidates off the hook so easily. For several reasons (for starters take the fact that America is such a large country with diverse opinions and the fact that it has more potential than any other country to carry out various potential projects and ideas, of which there are approximately eleventy billion), political campaigns have become an exercise in talking a lot and saying little or nothing of substance. This is partly because if you say anything that gives away an actual opinion the media will replay it over and over again (partly because you would be the first to do so (IE to give them news!) and also becuase yearrghhh), but also because this is just how the system has come to function: because of the diversity of opinions among the huge number of voters, politicians beleive they can maximize support by being vague and not committing themselves too much on particular policy ideas for difficult (is there any other kind) isses.

The result is that we are informed that all of the candidates want to win in Iraq and bring the troops back ASAP, and all of the candidates want a strong economy with more jobs, and all of the candidates want to improve education and health care, etc. They all agree on most of the ends (or, at least, the ones that they think that are most important to the voters), however this turns into all that they talk about, and they tend no to go into much detail on the means, to a point where they will often all agree on the means as well because they are not being very specific. So how are we supposed to choose? I'm not going to lie, I'm not really sure. One way is, even if the candidates are giving the same answers, to pay attention to how they give them. A wise man once said "it's not what you say, it's how you say it." For instance, compare "she had a crack baby" to "she had a crack, baby." In other words one would have to read or listen to the candidates discussing the various issues and then compare and contrast, and decide who you felt sounded the most sincere and knowledgeable and capable when discussing what they want to do and why/how they can do it. This, again is what I am not comfortable in assuming that most of the voters are going to do. This should not be too shocking since we all lead busy lives nowadays, but it should be troubling because these are big decisions to be made. Unfortunately, many people are probably just tuning into the news every now and then, and then watching the debates, where, again, the candidates don't give us much info (to combine the horrors of the media with those of the vague candidates, the media then gives us statistics on who won the debates -- PEOPLE SHOULD DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

So I think it's clear that we all need to admit that we have a responsibility to be better informed. Call it a responsibility as an American, a responsibility as a human in society, an ethical responsibility, a moral responsibility, William Jennings Bryan, William Tell, whoever. Of course, this isn't easy either, and requires a lot of effort. One place I'd like to start is the candidates web sites on the issues. As I said, they all come to similar conclusions on the issues (except for the traditional democratic-republican splits on certain things), but maybe you can make a judgment just based on what issues these guys (and girl!) put up on their web sites, and also how they phrase them. So here are the issues that each candidate chose to give you their opinion on via their web site.

Giuliani:
Fiscal Discipline
Cutting Taxes
Winning the War on Terror
Iraq
Public Safety
Judges
Education
Abortion
Second Amendment
Marriage

McCain:
Government Spending, Lower Taxes and Economic Prosperity
Human Dignity & the Sanctity of Life
Lobbying & Ethics Reform
The Consequences of Failure in Iraq
National Security
Stewards of our Nation's Rich National Heritage
Protecting Second Amendment Rights

Romney:
Defeating the Jihadists
Competing with Asia
Taxes
Spending
Immigration
Energy
America's Culture and Values
Technology
Health Care
Education

Biden:
Iraq: A Way Forward
Afghanistan and Darfur
Energy
Jobs
Health Care
Access to Higher Education
Preparing for College
Homeland Security
Crime
Climate Change

Dodd:
American Security
Education
Energy and the Environment
Health Care
Leadership on Iraq
Jobs and the Economy

Hillary:
Honestly I cannot find Clinton's "Issues" part of her web site and I'm not sure whether there is one!

Obama:
Strengthening America Overseas
Plan to End the Iraq War
Cleaning up Washington's Culture of Corruption
Meeting America's Energy Needs
Honoring our Veterans
Improving our Schools
Creating a Healthcare System that Works
Protecting our Homeland
Strengthening Families and Communities
Protecting the Right to Vote
Reconciling Faith and Politics

Richardson:
Iraq
National Security/Foreign Policy
Partisanship
Environment/Energy
Jobs/Economy
Healthcare
Immigration

So there is a starting point. And finally a word about my personal opinions and in reference to the title of this article. I think I will probably vote for one of the Democrats although I haven't ruled out some of the Republicans, so, since this is a blog, and blogs are for non-experts to air their personal opinions on issues they don't fully understand, I will do so. As I mentioned, the media is already shaping the primaries and thus the general election, and they are simplifying the Democratic primary down to Hillary-Obama, which is unfortunate. Personally I am thoroughly unimpressed with Hillary, and I am very impressed with Obama, although I am equally if not more impressed with Dodd, Edwards, Richardson and Biden. These three are incredibly smart guys and the pundits and the media as well as us when we discuss politics in our personal time ignore these three at our own and our nation's peril. For reasons including but not limited to experience, I think it makes much more sense to have one of those guys as the Presidential nominee, and they will then do well to choose Obama as their running mate. Maybe Barack can be VP for 8 years - he can still speak for our country and have an influence in shaping policy, and then he will be ready to be President in 2016.

Literary Corner

2007-04-06T09:39:00.000-05:00

Jim: Hi Tom. What's on your Roll?

Tom: It's a sandwich I made. I took the flesh from a dead baby and spread it on a Kaiser. I call it a "Roll Doll"

Jim: Oh My God! I love Roald Dahl.

The Second Materialism

2007-04-05T11:34:00.000-05:00

I’ll tell you who I like- Madonna. That woman can sing. So catchy. And poignant. God, is she poignant. “I’m living in a material world, and I am a material girl.” Madonna must have been reading all the trade journals, because never a truer thing was said of our modern age.

I think Madonna was singing about material wealth- that’s the materialism she meant. She noticed the creeping desire for material possessions infecting our greedy American souls and sang a little ditty about it. I don’t think anyone would deny that Madonna was right on the money on that account. Last year the U.S. bought so much stuff that we had to borrow $765 Billion dollars from the rest of the world to pay for it all.

But Madonna may have been right-on by other accounts as well. There is another form of creeping materialism these days, and it too is flagrantly American. It informs our science and motivates our politics. It supports our pragmatism. It has become so firmly entrenched in our thinking and cultural identity that it seems perfectly germane to our lives- so much so that we could not imagine another way. I am speaking of the materialism that makes drugs, and bombs, and windex. The materialism that craves physical gain and quantified benefit. The materialism that asks “What happens at the end of the day?” And “What’s the bottom line?” The American materialism that says, once and for all: “Enough with all the hub-bub and tell me what it is, really.” I am speaking of that other American materialism-philosophic materialism- the belief that at bottom, it’s all just matter, material. Material-ism.

What the hell is he talking about?

I’m getting there.

Has anyone noticed that neuroscience is taking over? It’s everywhere. I can’t not-read the Times without seeing some new study that proves, finally, that morality, or empathy, or language, or time, or prostitution, or backgammon is really just an issue of grey matter and synapse firings. And it’s proliferating as well. We now have neuropsychology, neurobiology, neuroeconomics, and most recently, neurotheology. Traditional disciplines are being usurped by the neuron- that most unwitting conquistador.

It’s not just the neuron, though. Legal proceedings now rely heavily on DNA records. Drug companies pay millions for chemical patents. Dr. Francis Collins just mapped the human genome and found God. What’s this all about?

Somewhere along the line, we became obsessed with the miniscule. We took two millennia to reach the stars, then suffered exploratory remorse, and in a reflective moment of depression, turned the instruments inward and wrote a new mantra: “it’s just…” It’s just molecules. It’s just atoms. It’s just quarks. It’s just genes. It’s just that, nothing more.

“What’s the big deal? It’s just neural activity, that’s all.”

“But I’m sad!”

“I know it feels like that. But really, it’s just a deficiency of sodium in your cerebral cortex.”

“Great. Thanks.”

We marveled at our escape from mysticism and aggrandized our new religion- science.

"Come one, come all. Come and see the newest thing in town. It’s not opinion. It’s not faith. It’s fact- it’s science."

No it’s not. It’s materialism. It’s belief that reduction to atomistic makeup constitutes explanation and knowledge. It’s a desperate attempt to forget humanity's special gift- consciousness- and all the responsibility that comes in tow. It’s a ravenous lust for results, productivity, control; and it couldn’t be more American if Madonna actually did sing a song about it.

The Real American Materialism:

“That’s it man. You see that quark there? That’s the Truth of it all.”

“Really, where? I can’t see it.”

“Here, use this.”

“Oh, there it is. That’s Truth?”

“Sure is.”

“Who said?”

“Everyone.”

“What did they say?”

“They said we’re living in a material world, and we’re all material girls. Come on, get with the times.”

“We’re living in a material world?”

“Sure are.”

“Is that right?”

“True.”