Your Mileage May Vary

Meme Tag

2008-04-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

So the good folks at the Detritus Review have tagged my lazy ass. So be it!

These are the rules, apparently:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

OK. So, nearest book: Jazzology: The Encyclopedia of Jazz Theory for All Musicians, by Robert Rawlins and Nor Eddine Bahha. (It's way over my head. Like, stratospheric, dig?)

Page 123:

Try playing the changes to a tune you are working on a few times with a variety of left-hand voicings before you start trying to practice solos on it. When comping for yourself, make it a rule that your left hand plays only when your right hand doesn't. This will help to get away from just thumping chords in on the downbeat all the time, and can also help your right-hand phrasing.

I tag Alterdestiny; Bravo, Omar, Bravo; Marooned on Federal Street; Jon Swift; and Bats Left, Throws Right. If any of those guys read this thing, I'll be shocked beyond belief, but there it is.

I was tagged by the Detritus Review.

Yay for conformity, or some such nonsense.

So Long, Mittens!

2008-02-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

So Mitt Romney dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination yesterday. His farewell to the campaign was ... well, let's take a look:

Governor Romney’s Address to the Conservative Political Action Committee –
February 7, 2008

I want to begin by saying thank you. It’s great to be with you again. And I look forward to joining with you many more times in the future.

I can't tell if the double entendre there is intentional. Normally I'd say he just misspoke, but see what he does next:

Last year, CPAC gave me the sendoff I needed. I was in single digits in the polls and I was facing household Republican names. As of today, more than 4 million people have given me their vote for president, less than Senator McCain’s 4.7 million, but quite a statement nonetheless. 11 states have given me their nod, compared to his 13. Of course, because size does matter, he’s doing quite a bit better with his number of delegates.

Keep those mildly risque one liners coming hard and fast, Mitt!

To all of you, thank you for caring enough about the future of America to
show up, stand up and speak up for conservative principles.

As I said to you last year, conservative principles are needed now more than ever. We face a new generation of challenges, challenges which threaten our prosperity, our security and our future. I am convinced that unless America changes course, we will become the France of the 21st century—still a great nation, but no longer the leader of the world, no longer the superpower. And to me, that is unthinkable.

Clever use of the "France sucks!" meme, Governor. Although I do have two questions here:

1) You're saying we need to "change course" by adhering to the conservative principles that, for better or worse, are held by the very people currently running the country. Can I get a "WTF" here?

2) Whether or not you're right that "unless America changes course" we're destined to become just like France, since you've expressed that thought, it is "thinkable" that this could happen. Proofreading is your friend. Your speechwriter, alas, is not.

Simon Peres (sic), in a visit to Boston, was asked what he thought about the war in Iraq. “First,” he said, “I must put something in context. America is unique in the history of the world. In the history of the world, whenever there has
been conflict, the nation that wins takes land from the nation that loses. One nation in history, and this during the last century, laid down hundreds of thousands of lives and took no land. No land from Germany, no land from Japan, no land from Korea. America is unique in the sacrifice it has made for liberty, for itself and for freedom loving people around the world.” The best ally peace has ever known, and will ever know, is a strong America!

The Native Americans, Mexicans, and Spanish would like to have a word with you about what happened in the previous century, Governor. And, while it's technically true that we "took no land" from Germany or Japan, we do still have tens of thousands of troops on military bases in those countries. While I'm picking nits, I'll point out too that the Korean War (1) isn't really "over," (2) involved us fighting for our ally, South Korea - so taking their land would have been an unusual exercise in colonialism, and (3) we have tens of thousands of troops there, too.

And that is why we must rise to the occasion, as we have always done before, to confront the challenges ahead. Perhaps the most fundamental of these is the attack on the American culture.

Yes, we face threats from global warming, the possibility of having reached "peak oil," challenges to our economic hegemony from China, the prospect of a global recession, continuing military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and (as your party unceasingly reminds us) from terrorists like Osama bin Laden - but the "most fundamental" challenge facing the country is an "attack" on "the" American culture. Way to keep your eye on the ball, guy.

Over the years, my business has taken me to many countries. I have been
struck by the enormous differences in the wealth and well-being of people of
different nations. I have read a number of scholarly explanations for the
disparities. I found the most convincing was that written by David Landes, a
professor emeritus from Harvard University. I presume he’s a liberal–I guess
that’s redundant.

Heh, nice one. "Liberal Harvard professors" are almost as good a gag as "France sucks!" Although - wait, you're convinced of something by a liberal professor? Rush ain't gonna be happy about that, dude.

His work traces the coming and going of great civilizations throughout history. After hundreds of pages of analysis, he concludes with this:If we learn anything from the history of economic development, it is that culture makes all the difference. Culture makes all the difference.

Wait, what makes all the difference again?

What is it about American culture that has led us to become the most powerful nation in the history of the world? We believe in hard work and education. We love opportunity: almost all of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants who came here for opportunity—opportunity is in our DNA. Americans love God, and those who don’t have faith, typically believe in something greater than themselves—a “Purpose Driven Life.” And we sacrifice everything we have, even our lives, for our families, our freedoms and our country. The values and beliefs of the free American people are the source of our nation’s strength and they always will be!

So, to recap: American culture makes us awesome; American culture consists of hard work, education, opportunity, and God. Also our willingness to sacrifice for our families, freedoms, and country. I'm having a hard time seeing anything on that list that doesn't apply equally well to ... anywhere else on Earth, actually. I guess it's true that most other places don't have the same freedoms or opportunities that Americans have, but that doesn't mean the people living there aren't willing to sacrifice themselves for what freedoms and opportunities they do have.

And while I do appreciate the shout out to Americans who "don't have faith" I'm not sure that Rick Warren is the "something greater than themselves" that they belive in. Just an FYI!

The threat to our culture comes from within. The 1960’s welfare programs created
a culture of poverty.

Hold up, man. Is the "culture of poverty" related to "the American culture"? If not, are you saying poverty is un-American? Because if you are, I'm probably down with that. Poverty sucks.

Some think we won that battle when we reformed welfare, but the liberals haven’t given up. At every turn, they try to substitute government largesse for individual responsibility. They fight to strip work requirements from welfare, to put more people on Medicaid, and to remove more and more people from having to pay any income tax whatsoever.

Ah. So, no. You're saying that attempts to alleviate poverty are un-American. I'm not so much down with that, I'm afraid. Allow me to point out that it was Bill Clinton who signed welfare reform into law; I'm pretty sure you're not claiming him as a conservative, so technically "we" didn't reform welfare. Allow me further to snicker at your outrage over the alleged liberal conspiracy to keep "more and more people from having to pay any income tax whatsoever" after your man W. and your fellow Republicans in Congress enacted dramatic tax cuts whose permanence you're collectively fighting for. How is it OK - laudable, even, mark of a True Conservative - to reduce taxes on rich and middle-class people and then be offended at reducing taxes on poor people?

Mitt? Little help?

Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity. Dependency is a culture-killing drug—we have got to fight it like the poison it is!

I can see how dependency is "death" to initiative. But how does dependency reduce risk-taking and opportunity? Aren't the people who are dependent on government support precisely the people with nothing to lose for whom taking risks and gambling on the opportunities they have makes the most sense? For the sake of argument, let's say you're right that dependency on government handouts is bad - doesn't it follow that we should stop giving handouts to business, since we're killing their initiative, risk-taking, and opportunity?

The attack on faith and religion is no less relentless.

Didn't you just say that people without faith were OK, because they believed in something greater than themselves? And if that's true, is an attack on faith really that big a deal? If faith is under attack, how come a big majority of Americans are Christians, including an overwhelming majority of our Congressmen and Senators. Three of the sitting Justices on the Supreme Court are conservative Catholics. The President is an evangelical Baptist. What on Earth are you talking about?

And tolerance for pornography—even celebration of it—and sexual promiscuity, combined with the twisted incentives of government welfare programs have led to today’s grim realities: 68% of African American children are born out-of-wedlock, 45% of Hispanic children, and 25% of White children. How much harder it is for these children to succeed in school—and in life. A nation built on the principles of the founding fathers cannot long stand when its children are raised without fathers in the home.

So.... tolerating/celebrating porn = kids born "out of wedlock"? I ... don't think that's how it works, dude. While we're talking about the twisted incentives of government programs, let's take a moment to consider the "abstinence-only" sex ed programs the current Administration pushes, as well as their reluctance or outright refusal to subsidize birth control or abortion. Say what you will about abortion, it leads to fewer "out-of-wedlock" children being born. Let's also consider how single mothers tend to be younger, less well-educated, and poorer than the population at large, and wonder about how the very poverty-alleviation problems Romney derides could help their children (who after all didn't ask to be born into a poor single-parent household) acquire the education and opportunities that are crucial to "the" American culture he's so proud of.

The development of a child is enhanced by having a mother and father. Such a family is the ideal for the future of the child and for the strength of a nation. I wonder how it is that unelected judges, like some in my state of Massachusetts, are so unaware of this reality, so oblivious to the millennia of recorded history. It is time for the people of America to fortify marriage through constitutional amendment, so that liberal judges cannot continue to attack it!

Setting aside the unsupported assertion that having a mother and father is "the ideal" - it's not the "liberal judges" who attack it. Assuming that there's an attack on marriage at all, it's coming from either legislatures - elected by the people - that draft laws about marriage, or individual plaintiffs who think those laws are wrong/bad/dumb. The judges, liberal or otherwise, aren't leading the charge to make marriage illegal or whatever it is Romney thinks they're up to.

Europe is facing a demographic disaster. That is the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of
human life and eroded morality. Some reason that culture is merely an accessory
to America’s vitality; we know that it is the source of our strength. And we are
not dissuaded by the snickers and knowing glances when we stand up for family
values, and morality, and culture. We will always be honored to stand on
principle and to stand for principle.

To the extent that Europe is facing a "demographic disaster" because the good Christian people aren't having enough babies and the scary Muslims are breeding like rabbits - well, the Muslims have faith in the Creator, love their families, respect the sanctity of human life, and by their lights are extremely moral. What's the problem?

I don't think anyone really objects to the notion that our shared identity as Americans is a source of strength. What those of us providing the snickers and knowing glances object to is your definition of that identity, which seems cramped and exclusionary. I'd also like to point out that, while principles are fine things to have, they only get you so far. Abstract moral rules are a good guide to proper behavior, but in life as it's lived we have to accept the fact that it's not always clear how they apply.

The attack on our culture is not our sole challenge. We face economic competition unlike anything we have ever known before. China and Asia are emerging from centuries of poverty. Their people are plentiful, innovative, and ambitious.

Both China and Asia.

And there are so. damn. many. of them!

If we do not change course, Asia or China will pass us by as the economic superpower, just as we passed England and France during the last century. The prosperity and security of our children and grandchildren depend on us.

Asia or China. I'm anticipating an economic throwdown sometime in the 2040s between China and Asia for economic supremacy. I note, again, that according to Romney we need to "change course" to keep our economic edge on those inscrutable Chinese. Yet his party has been in charge of the government's economic toolbox for nearly eight years. If they think a change in course is needed, they can do it right now.

Our prosperity and security also depend on finally acting to become energy secure. Oil producing states like Russia and Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran are siphoning over $400 billion per year from our economy—that’s almost what we spend annually for defense. It is past time for us to invest in energy technology, nuclear power, clean coal, liquid coal, renewable sources and energy efficiency. America must never be held hostage by the likes of Putin, Chavez, and Ahmendinejad.

"Siphoning" is an interesting way to put it. You'd almost think we weren't paying them for goods and services they willingly provide. You'd also almost think that the dirty libs weren't encouraging the development of alternative energy sources for the last 20 or 30 years precisely because they could see this coming after the energy crisis of the '70s. So, when Romney has a good point, he's taking it from the good old liberal agenda. I won't tell Ann Coulter if you don't!

And our economy is also burdened by the inexorable ramping of government
spending. Don’t focus on the pork alone—even though it is indeed irritating and
shameful. Look at the entitlements. `They make up 60% of federal spending today.
By the end of the next President’s second term, they will total 70%. Any conservative plan for the future has to include entitlement reform that solves
the problem, not just acknowledges it.

I agree, Mitt. We should raise taxes a bit to pay for what we spend. Problem solved!

Most politicians don’t seem to understand the connection between our ability to compete and our national wealth, and the wealth of our families. They act as if money just happens–that it’s just there. But every dollar represents a good or
service produced in the private sector. Depress the private sector and you
depress the well-being of Americans.

I have to admit I don't really understand what he's talking about here. We're all better off when the economy is doing well? I think?

That’s exactly what happens with high taxes, over-regulation, tort windfalls, mandates, and overfed, over-spending government. Did you see that today,
government workers make more money than people who work in the private sector.
Can you imagine what happens to an economy where the best opportunities are for
bureaucrats?

It's totally true, too. I work for the government and I wipe my ass with hundred-dollar bills. I call up Bill Gates all the time just to brag about how much more money I make than he does.

Just because it's been all over the news for at least a year, I'll call your attention to the fact that the subprime mortgage mess and the sale of these high-risk mortgages to third parties was aided and abetted by a lack of adequate regulations. I'll also point out that, by the standards of other first-world countries, we have incredibly low taxes.

It’s high time to lower taxes, including corporate taxes, to take a weed-whacker to government regulations, to reform entitlements, and to stand up to the increasingly voracious appetite of the unions in our government!

As I said, our taxes are already wicked low. Government regulations exist in almost every case because, in the absence of regulations, someone did something that caused a lot of harm, and we can see in the subprime-mortgage market an excellent example of how regulations come to be needed. As a member of a government union, I can assert that at least my own union is not so much "voracious" as "content with what it has." It's hard to stand up to someone who isn't asking you to do anything you're not already doing.

And finally, let’s consider the greatest challenge facing America—and facing the entire civilized world: the threat of violent, radical Jihad.

Whoa. Wait, dude. You just said the "most fundamental challenge" was the attack on "the" American culture. I'd think "most fundamental" would also be "greatest" in this context.

In one wing of the world of Islam, there is a conviction that all governments should be destroyed and replaced by a religious caliphate. These Jihadists will battle any form of democracy—to them, democracy is blasphemous for it says that citizens, not God shape the law.

From Mike Huckabee, Republican:

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I
believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change
the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the
Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's
standards," Huckabee said.

Just sayin'.

They find the idea of human equality to be offensive. They hate everything we believe about freedom just as we hate everything they believe about radical Jihad.

Pretty broad statement. I'm pretty sure I don't know everything "they" believe about "radical Jihad," and I'm not even sure I know everything "we" believe about freedom. I'm almost certain that the things I personally believe about freedom are different from what, say, John Yoo or George W. Bush believe.

To battle this threat, we have sent the most courageous and brave soldiers in the world. But their numbers have been depleted by the Clinton years when troops were reduced by 500,000, when 80 ships were retired from the Navy, and when our human intelligence was slashed by 25%. We were told that we were getting a peace dividend. We got the dividend, but we didn’t get the peace.

I thought we were the best ally peace has ever known!

While we're on the subject, Republican Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld advocated making the military even smaller. And, during the Clinton years, we did get the peace. We would be at peace right now if we hadn't invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Choosing to go to war with (according to Romney here) an inadequate military doesn't seem like the kind of thing that can be properly laid at Clinton's feet. To the extent that the Surge has been successful at reducing violence in Iraq, it appears that the size or quality of our military isn't the problem so much as the use to which it's been put. And, if the size of the military is insufficient, the President (a Republican, by the way) has various tools at his disposal to increase its size. That he's chosen not to do this over the past seven years is something Romney might want to bring up with him.

That's if you even accept the premise that fighting "radical Jihad" is properly a military issue. Diplomacy with other threatened governments, law enforcement, and the targeted use of Special Forces troops all seem like they might be more effective at combating enemies who aren't states than invading states that aren't attacking us.

In the face of evil in radical Jihad and given the inevitable military ambitions of China, we must act to rebuild our military might. Raise military spending to 4% of our GDP, purchase the most modern armament, re-shape our fighting forces for the asymmetric demands we now face, and give the veterans the care they
deserve!

China's military spending is a very small fraction of ours. We almost spend more than the rest of the world combined. The problem is not the size or quality of our military, and having a bigger, badder military is not going to do anything to address the rise of "radical Jihad." Giving the veterans the care they deserve is a great idea, which I strongly encourage Governor Romney to raise with the man who can get it done - Republican President George W. Bush. We don't need to change Administrations to fix that problem.

Soon, the face of liberalism in America will have a new name. Whether it is Barack or Hillary, the result would be the same if they were to win the Presidency.

Arguably true. There's not a lot of difference, policywise.

The opponents of American culture would push the throttle, devising new
justifications for judges to depart from the constitution. Economic neophytes
would layer heavier and heavier burdens on employers and families, slowing our
economy and opening the way for foreign competition to further erode our lead.

Judges can't, by definition, depart from the Constitution. You may not like the way a particular judge reads or interprets the Constitution, but they're not "departing" from it. And I don't think you want to get into an argument about who's the bigger economic neophyte while you're conceding the Republican nomination to a man who publicly admits he has little knowledge of, or interest in, the economy.

Even though we face an uphill fight, I know that many in this room are fully behind my campaign.” You are with me all the way to the convention. Fight on,
just like Ronald Reagan did in 1976. But there is an important difference from 1976: today… we are a nation at war. And Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq and the war on terror. They would retreat and declare defeat.

I don't recall either of them saying that. Eventually remove (most of) the troops from Iraq, yes; but the goal was to have an independent, democratic Iraq. The withdrawal going to have to happen sooner or later. It's also the strategy most Americans prefer; I'll be charitable and assume you didn't mean to tell the majority of Americans that they favor "retreat and defeat."

And the consequence of that would be devastating. It would mean attacks on America, launched from safe havens that make Afghanistan under the Taliban look
like child’s play. About this, I have no doubt.

You should share your secret information sources with the Administration, so they can take out these safe havens. Unless you're just speculating wildly to freak people out.

I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating Al Qaeda and terror.

Really? "Whatever it takes"? What if it takes a draft, or rationing oil and gasoline? What if it costs so much money that taxes need to be raised? What if it takes negotiating with other interested parties, like the Iranian government? I can't imagine anyone seriously disagrees with the goals of capturing bin Laden and destroying Al Qaeda; the question is how you think any candidate from your party will be able to do it when seven years of Republican leadership haven't been able to.

If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

Don't hurt yourself patting youself on the back there, buddy. Setting aside the baseless slander of Clinton and Obama (and, practically speaking: is that even logically possible? To whom would they "surrender"?), how is your presence or absence from the race at this point even a consideration? McCain was already in the driver's seat; presumably he'd be making the same case for his policy vis-a-vis the Clinton or Obama policies regardless of whether you stay or go.

This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.

If only America loved you back, Governor.

I will continue to stand for conservative principles; I will fight alongside you for all the things we believe in. And one of those things is that we cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face evil extremism!!

I like how the transcript uses the double exclamation points. If only they'd included an appropriate lolcat.

It is the common task of each generation—and the burden of liberty—to preserve this country, expand its freedoms ...

Pardon me while I pause for laughter at the recent Republican "expansion" of our freedoms.

... and renew its spirit so that its noble past is prologue to its glorious future.
To this task… accepting this burden… we are all dedicated, and I firmly believe, by the providence of the Almighty, that we will succeed beyond our fondest hope. America must remain, as it has always been, the hope of the earth.

Thank you, and God bless America.

"It has always been, the hope of the earth"? Really? I love my country, but ... wow. Maybe if we didn't have such a grandiose notion of our nation's role in the world, we wouldn't find ourselves embroiled in the kinds of messes the next President is going to have to deal with.

Smell you later, Mittens. Don't call us; we'll call you.

Super Tuesday

2008-02-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

It’s Super Tuesday; if you can vote, I encourage you to do so.

If you’re voting in the Democratic primary, I’d also like to encourage you to vote for Barack Obama, but before I get into exactly why I think he deserves your vote, I’d like to say a word or two about the remarkably ineffective way supporters of Obama and Clinton alike have been going about persuading people to vote for their candidate.

I start with this piece, which I came to on Matt Yglesias’ blog at the Atlantic. He says it “does a great job … of highlighting both the arguments and the underlying dynamics in play.” I disagree; I think it does a great job of highlighting bad arguments for just about anything. In the piece, Son tries to convince Mother to vote for Obama because, essentially, she’s only voting for Clinton because she’s a middle-aged white woman who identifies with Clinton. Mother responds that Son is only voting for Obama because of illogical and emotionally grounded assumptions about Clinton (and, in the end, Mother). The piece does touch on some of the experience-related issues that the campaigns have been using to distinguish themselves from each other, but the main argument consists of Mother and Son telling the other that he or she is behaving irrationally.

This is something that, if you’re reading this now, you’ve probably seen a lot of over the past month or so. It’s not just on the Web, either; it shows up in op-ed pieces in prestigious papers and on the talking-head shows on the teevee. It’s not effective; the only people persuaded by the argument that supporting Kang is logical and supporting Kodos is irrational already support Kang. The people who support Kodos are only confirmed in their belief that supporting Kang is totally ridiculous. Kang supporters “just don’t get it” and can be dismissed as dumb or irrational partisans.

This mirrors the debate style used to deepen the conservative/liberal divide in the country, a phenomenon that’s been aided and abetted by Karl Rove-style politics over the last seven years. You can see, I hope, how counterproductive it really is. Telling someone that their opinion is dumb or irrational and if they really knew what they were doing they’d do things your way is most likely to get them to tell you to go piss up a rope. And that’s true even if it’s true that the Other Dude is actually being totally irrational and/or stupid by voting for Kodos. He’s got to figure that out himself. He’s not going to engage in a thorough self-examination about his real motives and his real interests because someone tells him he’s an idiot.

He might, though, be persuaded by someone making a convincing, reasonable case for the candidate that doesn’t insult people who take the opposite view. That’s obviously more difficult and time-consuming than coming up with clever putdowns, which is probably a lot of the reason why you don’t see it done much in comments on blogs. It’s much more effective at making a case for the candidate, though.

In this case, the candidate I’d like to make a case for is Barack Obama. This year’s Democratic contenders do not have extreme policy differences, for the most part. Their policy goals are similar or identical in most respects. Where they do have differences – whether a universal health care plan should include a mandate, whether it’s a Good Idea to talk with the leaders of countries we’ve shunned over the past seven years, whether we should issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, whether we should set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq – it’s very hard to say who has the better argument, and they are really questions of means, not ends.

That doesn’t mean the discussions about those issues aren’t worth having, just that there aren’t clear-cut policy differences from which it’s possible to make a call for Obama or Clinton. If you disagree – if you think that a mandate for insurance coverage is absolutely essential, for example – then probably you’ve already made your choice. Even if you think that Clinton’s position on these issues is better, though, I think it’s worth wondering whether she’ll be able to deliver on those policy promises. I think the decision about which candidate to vote for in this year’s Democratic primaries comes down to questions about which candidate is most likely to be elected, and which one, if elected, could deliver on the issues that Democratic voters care about. The answer to those questions is, in my opinion, clearly Obama.

Clinton’s strongest arguments for her candidacy come down to experience. She means a couple of different things by that, and it’s worthwhile unpacking her argument a bit.

First, she says she’ll be “ready on Day One” because she was First Lady when Bill Clinton was President and therefore she understands both how to run the government and how to deal with the kinds of issues that a President has to address more or less daily. To the extent that this is true, it’s definitely a point in her favor. Bill Clinton’s first year as President was rocky, in part precisely because he had to learn on the job, and it would be good to avoid that kind of thing in 2009.

The questions, though, are how much of that experience Hillary Clinton actually has, and whether anything really prepares you to be President. She has not been forthcoming about what her role was in her husband’s Administration. She took charge of the attempt to provide universal health care in 1993 and 1994, and it was a spectacular fiasco. Maybe she learned from that. We don’t really know, because for the remainder of her husband’s term she largely kept out of the spotlight. Did she have some input in policy decisions? Almost certainly. But what was that influence? How did it affect what Bill Clinton accomplished in office? We don’t really know, and they’ve been reluctant to tell us. So while it’s probably true that she understands the problems a President faces better than any of the other candidates, we don’t know how significant that understanding is.

It’s an open question, for me at least, whether any experience is relevant to being President. Either candidate would be surrounded by people with years of experience in government, so it’s unclear exactly how much the new President’s personal experience matters on a day-to-day basis. As a matter of big-picture policy background, the Democratic primary featured several candidates with far more experience in government than either Obama or Clinton, and none of them attracted significant support. In 2000, Al Gore had eight years of Vice-Presidential experience under his belt, and lost a tight race to a man whose only experience in government was as Governor of Texas – a state whose Governor is not unduly burdened with duties and whose legislature only meets every other year. Nonetheless, George W. Bush’s first nine months in office went by fairly smoothly. It’s worth noting, too, that the architects of many of W.’s least successful policies – Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz – all had decades of experience in government – including, in some cases, having argued convincingly against precisely the policies they later advocated. Experience is something, sure, but it’s awfully hard to say exactly what it is, or how much weight it should be given.

Clinton’s experience also includes eight years in the Senate. That’s something, too, arguably more important than her eight years as the wife of the President. Obama has four years in the Senate, though; is an extra four years in the Senate a significant edge? I’m not convinced. Clinton, after all, voted as a Senator in favor of giving Bush the authority to go to war, and she’s never said that vote was a mistake. She’s apparently done a good job for the people of New York, and it’s true that she’s been able to work with Republican Senators to get legislation passed. Obama has also been an effective legislator, working well on specific issues with Republican colleagues. It’s not clear that Clinton’s legislative experience gives her an edge over Obama, either as a demonstration of effective leadership or of good judgment.

Of course, the other thing Clinton means by her experience is that of being the target of 16 years of conservative vitriol. “I’m still here,” she says, and it’s true. She is. What she doesn’t say, perhaps because it’s obvious, is that so are they. She alludes frequently to her experience fighting conservative smears and claims that that experience makes her better able to fight for Democratic policies as President. She also claims that, although Obama hasn’t yet had the same level of venom directed at him, if elected, he will. The inference is that either candidate will have to deal with the same kind of attacks, and that she’s uniquely qualified to respond to them.

This may be true, but I think it’s fair to wonder about how effective she’s really been at responding to the attacks. After 16 years, conservatives still loathe her. She hasn’t defanged their attacks so much as endured them. It speaks well of her that she’s had the courage to continue her political career under what I think we can all concede have been pretty much relentless attacks. But the fact remains that even if we grant her unique experience dealing with Republican attacks, she also attracts them. She unifies conservatives in a way no other figure – not even her husband – is able to do. The attacks she endures aren’t simply because she’s a prominent Democrat (there are plenty of others, none of whom have inspired conservative anger on the same scale) or that she’s a liberal (which, depending on the issue, she’s not at all). It’s personal.

That means that, although Obama will surely have a tough road ahead of him as the nominee, it almost by definition cannot be as bad as what she has gone through and will go through as the nominee. He's got 16 years of catching up to do on that score. It’s certainly possible that dirt could be dug up against Obama, but so far the worst we know about is a somewhat shady deal to buy part of a vacant lot and Obama’s own admission that as a younger man he did some blow. It’s small potatoes compared to the Whitewater investigation that sprawled across both of Bill Clinton’s terms in office, or McCain’s involvement in the late-80s savings-and-loan scandals.

There is another side to Clinton’s experience that she doesn’t bring up, and of which she may be unaware. Judging by her own comments and her husband’s, they have survived increasingly vicious, hostile political environments. Those circumstances forced them to become defensive, suspicious, and secretive. The recent New Yorker profile of Hillary suggested that she has not simply shrugged off the years of political warfare that she was exposed to in Arkansas and Washington. She’s been changed by them. Probably that was inevitable, and unfortunate. I do think it’s reasonable to wonder whether we want or need another President after the current one whose political instincts are toward secrecy and paranoia. It’s true that just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean people aren’t really out to get you; while the “vast right-wing conspiracy” may not have been as vast as the Clintons think, it was and is real enough. I just don’t know that we’re best served by a President whose political instincts have been shaped by fighting it.

Nonetheless, even if Clinton isn’t the obviously better candidate on policy grounds, and doesn’t have a clear edge in experience, and has some unfortunate if understandable political habits, she might still be the better candidate on electability grounds. If Clinton was able to unite the Democratic party behind her agenda and attract widespread support, she would be the more convincing candidate, particularly if she could help get more Democratic Congressmen and Senators elected. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Partly as a result of her long exposure to the nation, there are relatively few people who don’t already like and admire her to whom she can appeal. Republicans, particularly conservatives, despise her. There will be very few “Clinton Republicans” if she is the nominee, and she does not significantly expand the reach of the party. At best, I think an election with Hillary as the candidate will have record turnout for both parties, but I don’t think such an election will attract many new or undecided voters. She might pull out a win – the last two Presidential elections have been very, very close and McCain is a flawed candidate himself. I don’t think she’s likely to increase the Democratic majority in Congress by much, and if elected I think she’ll have a hard time persuading Republicans to get her agenda passed.

In contrast, consider Obama. His policy positions are very close to hers. He can’t claim to have spend eight years living with the President, it’s true, but his legislative accomplishments, both in Illinois and in Washington, demonstrate that he can be effective in getting legislation passed with votes from Republicans. Many Democrats I know feel queasy about “bipartisanship” – particularly with the example the Congress has set over the past year. If I thought Obama’s rhetoric about inclusion and working with Republicans meant that kind of “bipartisanship” – that is, passing the Republican agenda with the briefest resistance – I would share those doubts. What his record demonstrates is an ability to find common ground with particular Republicans on specific issues, and that’s a skill any Democratic President will need to get any legislation passed. Because of the reaction she inspires in the conservative base of the Republican party, I think it’s doubtful that Hillary Clinton will be able to do that.

Obama has demonstrated in every state in which he’s campaigned so far an unusual (as far as I know, unprecedented) ability to get younger voters and independents to the polls. He expands the pool of votes available to the Democrats if he’s the nominee. That’s nice for him, but it will probably be even better for other Democrats on the ticket with him. In close races for open seats – of which there are an unusual number this year – the extra votes could determine whether the seat goes to a Democrat or a Republican. Even a few extra seats in the House or the Senate would make it much easier for President Obama to get his agenda passed. Since the two candidates are largely in accord on their policies, I think Obama is more likely to get Clinton’s agenda passed than Clinton is.

I don’t think Obama will be able to transcend partisan politics the way some of his more enthusiastic admirers do, and I’m not convinced that, if elected, he will be transformative in the way FDR and Reagan were. I just think he presents the best possible chance for the nation to have a better, more effective government with a sober foreign policy. If you’re voting in the Democratic primaries today, I hope you’ll give him your vote.

Track of the Day: 1-31-08

2008-01-30T08:08:00.000-08:00

Today's Track of the Day:

Thelonious Monk - "Bemsha Swing"

The version that concludes Brilliant Corners, to be precise. I can't think of many pianists - heck, many musicians, period - as instantly recognizable as Monk. This track has it all; it swings with Monk's trademark off-kilter rhythms and idiosyncratic phrasing, and the melody is unforgettably catchy. His sidemen on this cut include Sonny Rollins and Max Roach; it's tasty stuff.

The Trouble With Rudy: The Final Chapter

2008-01-30T07:52:00.000-08:00

Apparently the biggest problem with Rudy is not being able to get enough people to vote for him.

So long, Mr. 9-11. Here's to a long, happy, and most importantly complete retirement for you. If you can take some of your foreign policy advisors along, that'd be swell.

New Adventures in Music Criticism

2008-01-30T07:15:00.000-08:00

It's hard to write good music criticism, but it's unintentionally hilarious when paid professionals don't even make a good-faith effort at it.

The Detritus Review. It's both funny and edumacational. Check it out!

Track of the Day: 1-23-08

2008-01-23T11:44:00.000-08:00

Track of the Day: 1-23-08

Cat Power - New York

I made a New Year's Resolution to blog more.

You can see for yourself how that's been working out.

Nonetheless, here's a new track I enjoy. I like covers of songs by artists other than the ones who wrote the song or made it famous, because they often do something interesting or at least new with the song. That's not always a good thing, of course; Tori Amos' cover of Heart of Gold is almost criminal. Still, I mostly enjoy hearing familiar stuff in a new way. In a way, actually, it allows me to hear both the artist and the song as distinct things. It's harder for me to separate the singer from the song on the original recording.

Today's track comes from Cat Power's new album, Jukebox. It's a cover of the song we've all heard a thousand times, made famous by Frank Sinatra and played after Yankee home victories. "Overplayed" is a huge understatement, but Cat Power finds new stuff in the old tune. It helps that neither she nor the band sound anything remotely like the Sinatra version. Imagine a kind of country/soul version of it played by a rock band with totally different phrasing and you'll be fairly close. This version conveys a sense of almost desperate longing, which I can't say I've ever associated with the upbeat, optimistic Sinatra tune. It's all right there in the lyrics, but I'd never heard it that way before. It's like listening to it with new ears.

The Trouble With Rudy: Part the Third

2007-10-05T12:47:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I missed this when it came out, but in case you were thinking "Yeah, Rudy, kind of a nut on the foreign-policy side of things, but I bet his fiscal policies are pretty good" - well, not so much:

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Friday that the
alternative minimum tax — which is expected to generate as much as $1 trillion
over the next 10 years — could be eliminated over the long term by balancing it
out with even more tax cuts.

...

The alternative minimum tax, or AMT, was enacted in 1969 to ensure that
a handful of wealthy taxpayers could not exploit a series of loopholes to avoid
paying any income taxes. But the tax was never indexed for inflation. It
now applies to more than 4 million taxpayers and has been the target of tax
reformers who say it will soon unfairly target middle-class taxpayers, if it
hasn't already.

But eliminating the AMT would be extremely expensive, costing $100 billion
in 2010 alone. Giuliani told the 700-member audience of the Northern Virginia
Technology Council that he wants to cap the tax, and perhaps eventually
eliminate it altogether.

"Over time we can figure out how to eliminate it. ... If we were going to
eliminate it, though, we'd have to balance it with additional tax
cuts," Giuliani said, leaving confused expressions on his audience.
"That might be by making the Bush tax cuts permanent."

Emphasis added.

This is an extreme version of what's become a seemingly universal belief among conservatives that cutting taxes usually, or always, results in greater tax revenues. Exactly how this became the pet economic theory of Republican Presidential candidates is the subject of a recently-published book, but the basic theory is something like this:

Tax revenues don't automatically increase as tax rates increase, because at some point the tax rates become so high that people either leave the country or find more ways to hide their income from the tax man. At some point, it becomes counterproductive to raise taxes, and in theory, at very high rates, a tax cut could actually increase tax revenues. That's not crazy. The principle behind the Laffer curve isn't completely nuts.

What is crazy is the way a surprising number of people use it. The biggest problem with the Laffer curve is that nobody really knows where that point is, and the second biggest problem is that they frequently assume that, no matter how much taxes are cut, we're still on the wrong side of it. Income tax rates for the highest income brackets have declined steadily from a high of (IIRC) 91% under that pinko Eisenhower. Today they're roughly 35%, less for lower tax brackets. For the U.S. to be on the wrong side of the Laffer curve (so much so that tax cuts would increase tax revenues significantly), we would have to think that the optimal tax rate is well south of that.

Giuliani's big idea - which he later confirmed was not a misstatement - is that (1) we should cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans and (2) if that reduces government revenue, we can pay for that by cutting other taxes even more. It does not seem to occur to him that if the government loses revenue by (1), it is past the point on the Laffer curve where (2) even kind-of makes sense. Not to mention that, if we're on the side of the curve where raising taxes raises tax revenue, doing either one is objectively nuts without also significantly cutting government spending. Since his foreign-policy positions envision a robust use of the U.S. military, explicitly contemplating a war with Iran, we are left to conclude that he will be cutting domestic spending sharply even as most of the country favors some form of universal health care.

Michael Medved Should Stick To Movie Reviews, Too.

2007-09-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

I have vague memories, as a kid, of reading The Golden Turkey Awards and the Hollywood Hall of Shame. Making fun of bad movies is entertaining stuff, and reading people make fun of bad movies is almost as good, especially if you are, as I was, a smartass 14-year-old. Those two worthy tomes were the work of Harry and Michael Medved, the latter of whom was at the time a pretty well-known film critic. Sometimes I'd catch him on "At The Movies," which if I remember right had as co-host Rex Reed. Which must have been pretty weird on the set, given the kind of homophobic projection Medved displays here:

The ignominious fall of Senator Larry Craig casts new light on the importance of the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning open homosexuals from military service.

It ... does?

If preventing public sex in airport men’s rooms is important enough to
justify the deployment of undercover cops, isn’t it similarly significant to
avoid, at all costs, sexual encounters in military latrines?

Not sure about this "at all costs" business. Using undercover cops seems like a pretty low-cost solution to the airport-men's-room problem, really, although you could certainly argue that there are more important things for the airport police to be doing. Likewise, I hear the military has "Military Police" - perhaps they could look into this problem at little additional cost.

Imagine the impact on morale and unit cohesion if two guys from the same barracks engaged in toe-tapping hanky-panky (and perhaps much more) while occupying adjacent bathroom stalls in the military facilities?

Yeah, good thing that's never happened. Also, what if two guys from entirely different barracks did it? It'd be like the Sharks and the Jets, only with M16s and hand grenades.

Of course, advocates for gays in the military will insist that any such indulgence would involve a violation of the rules, with offenders facing stiff, severe consequences. But the impact of gay GI’s on bathroom atmospherics doesn’t just stem from the real chance of actual sex acts in the latrine, it involves whole sexualization of one of the most frequented and important conveniences on any base.

"Stiff" consequences? "Whole sexualization"? What are you trying to say, Mike?

Also, "bathroom atomspherics"? Your objection is aesthetic? I would have gone with "Sex in public is bad, mmmkay?" but ... let's see where you're taking this.

If openly gay males do nothing to compromise restroom integrity and security, why not invite female soldiers into men’s bathrooms, or open the door of women’s facilities to males? Surely, the same rules that would, theoretically, prevent gay men from hassling other men in the head would prevent hetero males from harassing women (or vice verse). Just as a gay male in the military would receive punishment for bathroom misbehavior, so to a straight guy could be busted for making improper overtures to women in the ladies room – but that wouldn’t make him any more welcome in a female facility.

There are a lot of responses to this, but the first one that springs to mind is that there are already gay soldiers using the same latrine as their straight brothers-in-arms. Thus far, I've not heard of any cases where gay soldiers hanging out in the barracks toilet raped someone. There are, however, lots of reports of female soldiers being raped when they use the latrine at night. Which suggests that being gay isn't the same thing as being a woman, which Medved apparently needs to have pointed out. He also needs to have it pointed out that Craig and men like him don't identify as gay; letting openly gay guys serve in the military has no bearing on whether repressed closet cases serve, now or tomorrow.

I've said this before, and I'll probably have to say it again, but fear of punishment is not the only or most important factor in keeping people in line. It's socialization. The social structure of the military isn't going to be conducive to gay cruising anytime soon, and if it were - well, again. They're called "Military Police."

The problem isn’t just the chance of molestation, it’s the radical change of mood and sensibility if you know you may be checked out as a sex object at a very private moment (of urination or defecation) when most normal people prefer to avoid any and all thoughts of physical intimacy. A bathroom becomes a vastly more uncomfortable and even menacing place if it’s used for sexual encounters, whether those connections involve gay or straight sexuality.

I'll defer to his apparently greater experience in this area, but I think it's appropriate to note that women get "checked out as a sex object" all the time. He doesn't seem to understand how, if the bathroom is uncomfortable and menacing if it's used for either gay or straight sex, his point about how "teh gayz r destroye amerika!" is invalidated. It's the "sex in public," not the "gay," that's the problem.

In a column in Sunday’s New York Times, Laura MacDonald insists that toilet sex never involves one-sided, unwanted attentions. According to the research she cites (based on “a groundbreaking dissertation” of a doctoral candidate at Washington University nearly 30 years ago) “a straight man would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered. The initiator does not want to be beaten up or arrested or chased by teenagers, so he engages in safeguards to ensure that any physical advance will be reciprocated.”

Certainly in the case of Larry Craig, the arresting officer did nothing to discourage the Senator’s attentions until the very moment of the arrest and almost certainly invited his advances. The near unanimous revulsion regarding the incident (from Republican and Democrat, gay and straight alike) therefore has nothing to do with sexual assault or attempted rape, or any notion of the mild-mannered, bespectacled 62-year-old legislator somehow forcing himself on the burly, buff and much younger cop.

Since the cop was there undercover as part of a sting, discouraging Craig would have been pretty counterproductive. Also, the cop just sat on the toilet until Craig slipped his hand under the stall; at what earlier point does Medved think he should have said "Whoa, there. I'm not like that!" I submit (again) that at least the liberal disgust with the behavior has nothing to do with the sex per se, but with the "in public" part of the program.

Also, that last sentence is kind of hot. Maybe Medved can rework it into a film treatment.

The disgust for the three term Senate toe-tapper arises instead from the very association of men’s rooms and amorous meet-ups, of toilet stalls and sex acts. We have a common and compelling interest in keeping such places free of erotic tension and that’s why we dispatch police officers to patrol public rest stations—even though they’re hardly needed to prevent outright assaults.

I'm not sure we have a "compelling interest" in keeping anywhere "free of erotic tension." Free of public sex, maybe.

And if regular users of airport or public park facilities have a right to escape suggestive glances or inviting gestures that can poison an already fetid atmosphere, how much more so do young recruits (many of them eighteen or nineteen years old) the same right to avoid similar attentions (or even suspicions) from their fellow soldiers in the intimate quarters necessitated by military service? It’s no wonder that despite some fifteen years of relentless propaganda, most high ranking members of the armed services remain unconvinced that we should alter regulations to allow participation of open homosexuals.

I submit that no "right to escape suggestive glances" exists, and if it did you could probably arrest half the country every Friday night. It's not clear why the age of the soldiers is relevant - presumably all the hot gay sex Medved is worried about would be just as rampant among the older soldiers. Maybe the younger guys are also "burly and buff," like the cop. And although it's true that "most high ranking members of the armed services" are opposed to openly gay servicemen, it's mostly a generational thing. Those guys are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. They grew up in a much more homophobic society, and they were socialized to that standard. Younger soldiers, surveys show, don't much care. Most younger Americans don't much care; they've been socialized in a culture that's been partially shaped by that "fifteen years of relentless propaganda" Medved refers to.

The national shudder of discomfort and queasiness associated with any introduction of homosexual eroticism into public men’s rooms should make us more determined than ever to resist the injection of those lurid attitudes into the even more explosive situation of the U.S. military.

Again, Mike, it's not the homosexuality. It's the "public" part of "public men's room."

Medved was a sometimes funny and insightful movie reviewer. It's a shame he doesn't demonstrate the same gifts as a political and cultural commentator. Perhaps he should go back to the gig he's good at.

Gregg Easterbrook Should Stick to Football

2007-08-31T07:48:00.000-07:00

I like Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column quite a bit. He's a smart guy, he watches a lot of football, he usually makes a pretty good case for his point of view. It's also true that he advocates a style of football play that, if every team adopted it, would make the game really boring; but since that's not likely to happen, and the teams that do run well and often and make fewer mistakes win more often, I can't really hold it against him.

On the other hand, he frequently interrupts his column to comment on non-football related matters, and here he gets himself into trouble. A few years back the column was booted from ESPN after Easterbrook wrote an ill-advised rant in The New Republic about the high incidence of violence in movies that an uncharitable reader could have understood to be a complaint about all the Jews in Hollywood:

"Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself."

I don't think he meant anything more than "It's really strange that people who were threatened with genocidal violence 60 years ago should now be making money selling depictions of violence to other people today." It's still, I think, a weird argument (to really work, the Weinsteins et al. would have to be committing actual genocidal-type violence on other people, which ... they're not. Or he'd have to support the argument that filmed depictions of violence lead to the real thing, but ... they don't), but I don't think it was anti-Semitic, particularly given the fact that Easterbrook regularly gets a bee in his bonnet about mass-media depictions of violence (because he really does think that the depictions lead to the real thing). Still, it's the kind of thing that it's easy to misread. In that case, the misreading led to the (temporary) loss of one of his jobs.

He's also posted some daffy articles on science-related issues, such as evolution, global warming, and string theory. This week's TMQ contains (among other things) his NFC preview, which is interesting; a somewhat odd take on the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal (which I'll be getting around to in a bit); and a very strange mini-rant about how the various acts that performed at the Live Earth concerts are a bunch of lousy hypocrites:

Madonna, Sting join hands to demand that others do what they will not

In July, numerous pop musicians and celebrities flew in private jets, then rode limos to the Live Earth concerts, where they demanded that others conserve. Some 150 acts performed at the event's various venues. Suppose half the acts flew commercial, half aboard private jets. Flying a private jet a transcontinental distance generates greenhouse gases equivalent to driving a Hummer for a year. So that's 75 Hummer Years of greenhouse gases caused by the Live Earth acts that arrived by private jet. (TMQ proposes that henceforth, environmental hypocrisy be measured in Hummer Years.)
If the other acts flew commercial, assuming the average act has five performers and crew and flies a medium distance, that would translate to about 550 tons of greenhouse gases, which is another 60 Hummer Years of global-warming emissions. Now factor in all the spectators and staff attending the various Live Earth concerts. John Buckley of Carbonfootprint.com estimated that around 35,000 tons of greenhouse gases were caused by spectators and logistical support for Live Earth -- converted into HYs, that's about the same as driving a Hummer for 4,000 years. Four thousand years' worth of Hummer emissions for an event demanding conservation! And we're just talking about one day of screeching guitars and slurred lyrics, not about the many pop stars who live the private jet lifestyle the year long. As Marina Hyde of London's Guardian newspaper pointed out, Sting's wife recently charted a helicopter to fly her to an environmental meeting.

It's absolutely true that jets and trucks and tour buses all generate a whole lot of carbon. It's also true that the idea of using a helicopter to fly to an environmental meeting is pretty dumb, since helicopters are among the least energy-efficient ways to get anywhere. And Easterbrook might have a point if (1) absent the Live Earth concerts, nobody involved would be using them, or (2) there was some significantly more energy-efficient way for the people involved to get there. But neither of those things are true.

First, all the people performing are famous professional musicians. Their business is pretty much playing concerts. The odds that many or most of them would not be performing absent the Live Earth concert hover somewhere between "slim" and "none." All that Live Earth did was arrange for them to be performing at more or less the same time. The concert itself is extremely unlikely to have generated any extra emissions that wouldn't have been generated anyway. The same goes for the audience; whether or not you chose to drive or fly to the concert, you'd probably still be driving around running errands or having fun somewhere else. The planes people flew to get there - to the extent that the audience was flying commercial - would have been flying whether or not those particular people were on those particular flights.

Second, the fact is that rock concerts and famous musicians require some logistical arrangements that are going to use up a lot of energy. Stacks of amps don't move themselves. It's amusing to imagine the Rolling Stones taking the bus to a show, but it's not really practical. So apparently Easterbrook thinks that either we shouldn't have rock concerts at all, because all of the emissions they produce are wicked bad for the environment; or that rock stars shouldn't use their fame to encourage people to take more care of the environment, which doesn't really seem to help much. If the acts that performed at Live Earth could haul all the stuff they need around in a chariot powered by unicorns and pixie dust that actually removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on the way, that'd be swell, but as far as I know, not even Sting has one. It's fun to point out the hypocrisies of the rich and famous (David Crosby's liver transplants are an evergreen source of amusement), but this doesn't seem like a very good example of it.

His Michael Vick bit is interesting because he points out what relatively few people have, which is that we do worse than what Vick was accused of all the damn time. To wit:

"Thousands of animals are mistreated or killed in the United States every day without the killers so much as being criticized, let alone imprisoned. Ranchers and farmers kill stock animals or horses that are sick or injured. Some ranchers kill stock animals as gently as possible, others callously; in either case, prosecution is nearly unheard of. As Derek Jackson pointed out last week in the Boston Globe, greyhound tracks routinely race dogs to exhaustion and injury, then kill the losers, or simply eliminate less-strong pups: "184,604 greyhound puppies judged to be inferior for racing" were killed, legally, in the past 20 years."

And:

"Much more troubling is that the overwhelming majority of Americans who eat meat and poultry -- I'm enthusiastically among them -- are complicit in the systematic cruel treatment of huge numbers of animals. Snickering about this, or saying you're tired of hearing about it, doesn't make it go away. Most animals used for meat experience miserable lives under cruel conditions, including confinement for extended periods in pits of excrement. (Michael Pollan, who enthusiastically consumes meat and fowl, describes the mistreatment in his important new book The Omnivore's Dilemma.) Meat animals don't magically stop living when it's time to become a product; they suffer as they die. One of Vick's dogs was shot, another electrocuted. Gunshots and electrocution are federally approved methods of livestock slaughter, sanctioned by the Department of Agriculture for the killing of cows and pigs. Regulations under the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958 give federal sanction to shooting cows or pigs, or running electrical current through their bodies. Shooting and electrocution are viewed by federal law as humane ways to kill animals that will be consumed. Federal rules also allow slaughterhouses to hit cows in the head with a fast-moving piston that stuns them into semiconsciousness before they are sliced up. Being hit in the head with a powerful piston -- does that sound a bit painful, a bit cruel? It's done to tens of thousands of steers per year, lawfully."

As a vegetarian myself, I feel uncomfortable telling people this kind of thing, because I think it sounds a bit like an ex-smoker telling his still-smoking friends how bad cigarettes are for you. They already know that! They don't care! Still, there is a double standard in play here. Cockfighting was legal in New Mexico and Louisiana until quite recently, and it's hard to see how Vick's dogfighting was so much worse than that. My point is not "Eh, it wasn't so bad." Rather, we should think more seriously than we do about why we think it's OK to let cattlemen electrocute steers, but we're morally appalled when Vick does the same to a dog.

Then he makes a strange argument regarding Vick's punishment:

"Legal note: Vick might be compelled to repay the Falcons a huge amount of bonus
money, and will lose $25 million or more in endorsement income. I have no sympathy for his loss of endorsement income: Vick was hired to bring Nike and other companies he endorsed good publicity, and instead brought them bad."

Yep. He probably should have thought about that while he was setting up the rape stand in the basement. Or, better, before that.

"But think about the income loss in the calculation of overpunishment of Vick. One or two years in federal prison, and perhaps state prison time if state charges are filed as well; plus $25 million in lost endorsement income and, oh, $50 million in lost or returned NFL income."

But, dude. It's not "overpunishment" if the court isn't imposing the penalty. Strictly speaking, it's not punishment at all. Losing all that was a risk he chose to run. If I do something stupid and wind up doing a stretch in prison, the court isn't going to care about the loss of my job and income; I should have thought of that before I did something stupid.

"That's overkill! Often the indirect financial consequences of legal proceedings are worse than the official ones, in the same way that a speeding ticket might cost you $75 but add $1,000 to your annual insurance bill."

It's only "overkill" because Vick was already making a whole lot of money. Money that in fact enabled him to engage in this criminal activity in the first place. It's true that the indirect consequences are sometimes a bigger problem than the official penalties; that's something potential criminals might well keep in mind before they start illegal dogfighting operations out of their basement. As an example.

"In effect, the federal indictment of Vick is resulting in him being fined around $75 million, which is far too much retribution. The legal hang-up is that since 1984, federal courts have been forbidden to consider monetary loss in private life as counting toward punishment. But a year of banishment from the NFL, a guilty plea with suspended sentence and probation (meaning the sentence is imposed if probation is violated), seems plenty of punishment for a first offense by someone who has not harmed another human being. Prison time and a $75 million fine? What Vick did was indecent, but now excessive punishment is being imposed, and two wrongs do not equal one right. Justice, after all, must be tempered with mercy. That's what you would think if you stood in the dock accused."

This is ridiculous from start to finish. What Easterbrook describes as a "legal hang-up" is a rule designed to ensure that the rich and the poor get about the same treatment for the same crimes. If we took into account "monetary loss in private life" as part of punishment, wealthy people - who have more to lose - would be sentenced to milder punishments than poor people for the same crimes. They would "in effect" be buying their way out of jail time.

And let's consider that $75 million. Easterbrook says he has "no sympathy" for the loss of endorsement income, so he's either contradicting himself just one paragraph later, or he thinks that Nike et al. should pony up the cash despite the fact that a new "Bad Newz" footwear line would go over like Larry Craig at the Boise Rotary Club. The $50 million he got from the Falcons - note that some of that was salary he'd earn for playing in games, which he's not going to be doing thanks to his extended stay in prison - was subject to a "personal behavior" clause, as pretty much all pro sports contracts are these days. If he didn't know that he'd be forfeiting that money if he got caught, he should read his contracts more carefully in the future. Easterbrook apparently thinks Vick should be getting paid while in prison for work he can't do, some of which Easterbook agrees he shouldn't be entitled to.

Let's also pause to wonder why the loss of $75 million is "too much." Easterbrook never really says, but I suspect that it's just because that's a whole lot of money. The fact that Vick was in a privileged position to begin with is the only reason why he has that much to lose, though. If I "were in the dock accused" (and let's remember, because Easterbrook does not, that Vick pled guilty to the dogfighting charges, so there's no presumption of innocence at work here), I would not lose $75 million, because I never had the opportunity to earn that kind of money. I would have thought that having that kind of money to lose would make a pro athlete more circumspect than Vick was in choosing his hobbies, but apparently not.

Long answer: Gregg Easterbrook should stick to writing about football games.

Track of the Day: 8-24-07

2007-08-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today's Track of the Day:

King Crimson - "21st Century Schizoid Man"

King Crimson is, without question, my all-time favorite band. Better, even, than Wilco. This - the very first track from the very first album - remains one of their best songs. KC has had a lot of lineup changes, and the first was pretty good. Greg Lake handled the vocals, and (with apologies to Adrian Belew) remains the best singer the band has had. On this track, though, he isn't asked to do much besides shout the lyrics - lyrics which, it has to be said, are more interested in sounding badass than making sense, but still pack a punch nearly 40 years on: "Death seed blind mans greed/Poets starving, children bleed/Nothing he's got he really needs/Twenty first century schizoid man."

The real meat of the song, though, is the jawdropping instrumental section, where the band does some wild, intricate playing - really fast tempo, really weird time, and TIGHT. It's sick, is what I'm saying. Also, despite the freaked-out jazzy stuff they're doing, the song rocks. Fast, loud, and heavy - and also really, really complex.

I once say KC in concert in San Francisco, and the opening act was a truly awful metal band that decided to "pay tribute" to KC by ending their set with a cover of this tune. I gained a new and deeper appreciation for exactly how hard it is to pull off listening to these guys absolutely butcher it - with (1) fewer musicians and (2) 35 years or so to have learned it.

The recorded version on In the Court of the Crimson King, though, is superb.

Torture's Bad, Mmmmkay?

2007-08-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

I had thought that most people were pretty much in agreement with the idea that torture was bad. Evil, even. That's why the revelations about what happened at Abu Ghraib got so much attention; why the three-year detention and abuse of Jose Padilla generated so much controversy; why the American Bar Association and American Psychological Association recently condemned the practice and the participation of any of their members in it. It appears, however, that I was mistaken. Professional blogger Megan McArdle yesterday posed what she seems to think is a very difficult question: why shouldn't we torture people?

One of the most facile dismissals of torture is that it doesn't work, so
why bother? That's tempting, but it's too easy.

To be fair, she's not actually advocating torture. So she's got that going for her. However, we should note that, from the beginning, she gets things backwards. The argument that torture is ineffective only arises if you happen to be discussing torture with someone who already thinks it's morally acceptable. The theoretical argument is logically prior to the practical argument.

Torture seems to me very likely to work provided that you can verify the
information, which I assume interrogators can in at least some circumstances.

If the information can be verified, what's the point of the torture? The usual justification for the use of torture is that the information that the torture is intended to reveal can't be obtained any other way. This, at least, has been Alan Dershowitz's argument, and he remains the most prominent advocate of legalizing torture in the United States.

Nor is it obvious to me that the quality of information is likely to be
lower than that obtained by other means: yes, people will say anything to avoid
torture, but they'll also say anything to avoid imprisonment. Maybe the lies
will be vivider or more voluble under torture, but it doesn't seem necessarily
so that the ratio of lies to truth will increase.

I admit that I'm not entirely sure that I follow McArdle's thought here. It seems to be that torture is no less reliable than other ways of getting information from someone (interrogation, for example, seems to work reasonably well for the police). But that's not really to the point; what she ought to be arguing is that information that is obtained through the use of torture is more reliable, and the enhanced reliability justifies the extreme measures. I don't know what evidence she could use to support the argument, but what she's actually saying here doesn't help her out at all.

I'd rather see people take the hard stance and say "Yeah, torture may still
work, but we still shouldn't use it because it's wrong."

Well, OK. Torture may work, but we still shouldn't use it because it's wrong.

I note here that she herself is unwilling to "take the hard stance" - she just wants "people" to do it. Why she's unwilling to make the incredibly bold statement that torture is wrong remains unclear.

Otherwise, you're kind of stuck if someone comes up with a way to make it
effective. I've been thinking about this in relation to the much vaunted lie detecting brain scans.

Huh. I've been thinking about this in relation to our own government's documented abuse of "enemy combatants" (and, indeed, its own citizens) but I guess freaky mind-reading devices are also a threat. Judging by the Wired article she cites, the "lie detecting brain scans" would be an alternative to torture rather than an accessory for it, which makes her concern here speculative at best.

Most people have talked about the implications for the criminal justice
system--does the fifth amendment still apply? But what I wonder is, what does
this mean for torturers?

Weird that she's concerned not with the potential invasion of the civil liberties of innocent people posed by lie-detecting machines, but with how said apparatus will affect people who are engaged in criminal activity.

If you can actually tell accurately when someone is lying, torture suddenly
becomes very, very effective, doesn't it?

Or, you know, unnecessary, because presumably you'd know if they were lying even without torture. I think she wants to say that this lie-detection stuff will justify using more extreme measures to induce people to tell the truth, but she's not saying it and I'm not sure how she'd get there.

And yet, it would still be wrong. So make the case on those grounds.
Efficiency is a dangerous red herring.

As a consequence of starting from the wrong end of the argument against torture, she ends where she should have begun. She throws out a challenge to her reader to make the case that she's either unwilling or unable to make: that torture is wrong. Her entire post comes down to: "Torture's wrong because it doesn't work, but what if it did? Would it still be wrong?"

And this woman is paid well by the Atlantic Monthly for this.

But it's not just her filling the tubes with this lazy, poorly thought out stuff. Her Atlantic colleague Matt Yglesias responds thusly:

For some sense of "necessarily" this may be true, but this flies in the face of
historical practice. It seems unlikely to me that torture's most famous
systematic applications almost all come in the context of regimes specifically
looking to generate spurious confessions. Stalin's Russia, North Vietnamese POW
camps, the Spanish Inquisition, it's always the same story. It's not the case,
however, that torture "doesn't work" -- Nikolai Bukharin and others confesses to all
sorts of preposterous crimes exactly as Stalin wanted them to. The question
is whether routinized torture of al-Qaeda suspects is a useful method of
advancing any public purpose.

Yglesias gets a point for noticing that most torturers are less interested in the truth of the confessions they get than the fact of the confession (I'm guessing the "unlikely" in the second sentence shouldn't be there). But then he loses it for missing the moral question McArdle attempted to bring up. The question isn't the utilitarian one of "whether routinized torture of al-Qaeda suspects is a useful method of advancing any public purpose." That's just the effectiveness argument in a different dress. The question is whether torture is morally acceptable at all.

Megan counterproses that "people take the hard stance and say 'Yeah, torture may
still work, but we still shouldn't use it because it's wrong.'" I think Megan
thinks that people from the "torture doesn't work" camp are arguing in bad
faith, but I'm really not.

Well, maybe he just doesn't read very carefully. For one thing, there's no reason I can't think both that torture is morally unacceptable and also ineffective as a practical matter, so there's no reason to suppose someone has to be in one "camp" or the other. Nor does McArdle imply that the argument that torture doesn't work is being made in bad faith; she's saying she finds it unconvincing because she can imagine a situation where it could work, and wonders what the objection to torture could be in that situation. (Hint: it's moral!)

I don't think it makes any sense at all to say that there's a categorical moral
against smashing people's fingers with a hammer or whatever other depraved acts
of torture you may care to imagine.

Oh. Well. I suppose I'm being nonsensical when I say that, morally speaking, Yglesias' opinion here is troglodytic.

After all, I believe (as most people believe) that it's sometimes morally
praiseworthy for the state to have its agents kill people with bullets, bombs,
mortar shells, etc. so there's surely some end such that torturing someone
would, if effective, be a just method of achieving that end.

I'm going to have to disagree with your police work here, Matt. War, and violence generally, is not the same thing as torture. Let's see if you can spot the difference:

The difference is that despite the horrors of war, there's a very strong
argument to be made that if good people systematically disavowed war-making as a
practice that bad guys would run roughshod over us. When Hitler's tanks start
rolling across Europe, someone's got to shoot back. By contrast, I don't see any
examples of societies using routinized legal torture to gain a decisive
advantage over their foes or any evidence that the current era of torture has
been a net positive in fighting al-Qaeda.

Ah. No, he can't. For Matt Yglesias, the only real argument against torturing people is that it hasn't been a "net positive." If it were, he'd presumably be first in line to work the rack and smash some fingers with sledgehammers. Or maybe he'd just leave the dirty business to other people and enjoy the "net positives."

To say that a method of investigation works "provided that you can verify the
information" is, after all, merely to beg the question. Consulting a psychic
works provided that you can verify the information, but spending person-hours
chasing down the psychic's "leads" isn't going to make the country safer.

Oooh, "person-hours." How very enlightened. Matt Yglesias, in favor of "net positive" torture, but not of hurting the tender sensibilities of people who might be offended by the term "man-hours." On the other hand, he did notice that "verifying the information" is a problem for McArdle's original post. So, kudos, I guess.

McArdle's not the type to take that kind of thing quietly, so she responded as follows:

I don't think that Matt &c are arguing from bad faith. Indeed, I agree with
them that torture in most cases isn't very effective. I don't agree with what we
might call the "strong case" against the efficacy of torture, which is that it
never works. If I have, say, a kidnapper from whom I want to get the location of
his victim, and I can credibly promise to shoot out his kneecap if the victim
isn't where he says she is, then I think I have a reasonable chance of finding
out where the victim is by torturing him. If he knows, it is clearly in his best
interest to tell me rather than a) playing dumb or b) giving me false
information.

Unless he really doesn't know or has some even more powerful motivation for not telling you. But, sure, it might work. So might other methods that don't involve shooting his kneecap off. Police use them all the time.

Now, those cases might be rare. Which is why many people, I assume Matt
included, make what we could call the "weak case" against torture, which is that
it generally isn't that effective. But I don't think that this is a very good
argument to deploy if your goal is, as mine is, a legal ban on torture by the US
government. The weak case doesn't prove we shouldn't use torture; it just proves
that we should limit it to cases, such as the above hypothetical, where there is
a reasonable likelihood that it will be effective. I doubt the rules for doing
so would be as complicated as, say, the New York City building code.

Which is basically Alan Dershowitz's argument for "torture warrants." Except the part about her goal being a legal ban on torture. I'm pretty sure Alan's not in favor of that. I'm not too sure about Matt, either.

The other problem with the weak case is that torture can theoretically be made
more effective. Those brain scans are real; a workable machine might be less
than a decade away. (It also might well not; the history of science journalism
is littered with the corpses of "next big things" that turned out not to,
y'know, actually work.)

I really wish she'd left the scary mind-reading devices out of this. I think even she realizes it doesn't do anything for her argument.

If you cannot make the case against legal torture without resorting to efficacy
arguments, what the hell do you do if it becomes pretty damn effective?

Well, exactly. What's your argument, Megan?

My position is that even if it is 100% effective--in the sense of producing only
true information--we should ban it. I don't trust anyone, not myself and
certainly not the state, with the power implied by sanctioned torture. I don't
want to live in a state that tortures people. And I don't think you need an
efficacy argument to make that case.

So, still kind of kicking it to someone else to do the work, then? I mean, I agree: we shouldn't torture people. I don't understand why McArdle is uncomfortable making a moral argument against it, though. And I really don't understand why the Atlantic is paying her good money to ask other people to make her arguments for her; surely they could find someone who's willing to take a position and support it. For example, here's one way:

First, to address Yglesias' idea that since he supports war in some circumstances, he must also support torture in some circumstances. Fighting is different from torture. If you're in a fight, you can fight back, or you can run away. You have options. Torture is a fundamentally different thing; the essence of torture is that the victim can't get away. The relation between the torturer and the victim of the torture is one of total dominance and total powerlessness. The point of torture is to break down the victim as thoroughly as possible until the torturer gets whatever it is he wants. Combat is different. A soldier may want to kill the enemy, but he runs the risk of being killed himself - neither side is utterly at the mercy of the other. It's possible to fight and die with dignity, but it's impossible - for either the torturer or the victim - to emerge from torture with human dignity intact. So, no, Matt - you can say that in some circumstances, it's right to fight and die without being forced to agree that sometimes, pulling out fingernails is OK.

Torture is immoral because the practice of torture is the most profound violation of a person that we can practice. Torture deprives its victims of any control over their persons. Indeed, whether it's inflicting physical or psychological damage to the victim, it's actively using the person's body and mind against him. Furthermore, assuming the victim survives, he bears the scars - mental and physical - for the rest of his life; in that sense, torture doesn't "end." If you think that there is a basic human right to control of your own mind and body, torture is immoral.

That is an argument against torture that has nothing to do with how useful it might be to the depraved people who would engage in its practice.

Track of the Day - 8-22-07

2007-08-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today's Track of the Day:

Led Zeppelin - "Fool in the Rain"

I like Led Zeppelin a lot, but I really prefer their later stuff. I suspect I'm in a small minority holding that opinion, but it seems to me that by Houses of the Holy they'd gotten a little bored with the heavy blues-based rock. "D'yer Mak'er" showed the band trying out a little reggae, and on Physical Graffiti they got a bit more experimental. The experiments didn't always work, but the later stuff is more musically interesting.

On what turned out to be their last studio album, they started to vary the instrumentation a bit, adding keyboards on top of the guitar, bass, and drums. This track is a fun, poppy little number with an irresistible groove and a catchy riff that would be just fine all on its own. The lyrics are pretty amusing, too. But what really sets this one apart and makes it one of my all-time favorite Zeppelin tunes is the wild Latin break that the band goes into as a bridge. It kind of comes out of nowhere, but the band switches gears and does a really credible salsa thing for a few bars, complete with whistle and a some really cool piano work. Sort of like the Baroque piano solo in "Love Me or Leave Me," it opens up the song in a way that lets you see the whole thing from a different perspective. Good stuff.

The Trouble With Rudy (Part 2)

2007-08-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

I promise this is not going to turn into a rabid "Rudy Sucks!" blog.

At least, not exclusively.

But with Mr. Giuliani the Republican frontrunner, it seems prudent to me to take a closer look at what he says he'd do in office. This New Yorker profile doesn't exactly inpire confidence in his coolheaded decisionmaking skills, judgment, or plans for the future, I'm afraid. There's a lot of the same stuff that was in the Village Voice piece, but (as is the New Yorker's wont) it goes a bit further afield. For me, the most chilling parts are the quotes from Norman Podhoretz, who's been hired as Rudy's foreign policy advisor:

In any case, Podhoretz said to me, he believes that George W. Bush will
settle the matter himself, by bombing Iran before he leaves office. “I’m
probably the only person on the face of the earth who thinks that Bush will
order air strikes,” Podhoretz says. “But we’ll find out. If Bush doesn’t kick
the can down the road, then the issue becomes moot, obviously. But if he fails
to do what I think he will do, Rudy seems to me to be the best bet for doing
what is necessary.”

It seems to me that with the country currently fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with neither of them looking like they're going to be wrapped up soon, the absolute last thing we need to do is to start poking another hornet's nest. Setting aside, of course, the plain fact that Iran (a) doesn't currently have nuclear weapons and (b) if it did, it has no way of doing much of anything to us with them and (c) probably has no real desire to actually use them. Nor is it likely that Iran would use nukes against Israel, since Israel already has nukes and would surely retaliate in kind. So the fact that America's Mayor's senior foreign policy advisor both advocates bombing Iran and thinks Rudy's the guy who'll get that job done ought to give us all some pause.

Also, Rudy had this to say regarding the meaning of freedom just a few days ago:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or
50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the
oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our
background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people
can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority.
Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful
authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
[ Interruption by someone in the audience. ]
You have free speech so I can be heard.

Yes, he really said "Freedom is about authority." Rhetoric more evocative of 1984 is difficult to imagine.

Track of the Day: 8-17-07

2007-08-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today's Track of the Day:

Nina Simone - "Love Me Or Leave Me"

I'm a big Nina Simone fan, and this track is really outstanding. Her voice is always rich, warm, and expressive, even in a lighthearted tune like this. What's really great about the song, though, is her piano solo, which takes up half of the track and includes a wild baroque section that's unlike anything else I've heard except maybe Keith Jarrett. It's as though Bach decided to sit in with a jazz trio for a chorus or two. Highly recommended.

Track of the Day - 8-16-07

2007-08-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Today's Track of the Day:

Tom Waits - Ol' 55

Early Tom Waits mainly comes in two flavors. There's the Melancholy Ballad - Waits has a real gift for matching sweetly minor-key melodies with evocative lyrics about love gone wrong. And then there's the Weirdly Perverse Cabaret, with uptempo jazzy music and lyrics that range from stream-of-consciousness rambling to bizarre and sometimes kind of disturbing stories, frequently delivered in a kind of spoken-word monotone while he and the band vamp in the background. He still does this stuff; "Alice" is a great ballad from the eponymous album, and "Misery Is The River Of The World" off of Blood Money is, beneath the eerie music, a good late example of the Perverse Cabaret. He's gotten more interesting, writing songs about all kinds of odd things and showing a real fascination with unusual musical textures, but you can see the seeds of his later work in the early stuff.

"Ol' 55" is the first track on Closing Time, which I think was his first album. So it's the earliest example of the Melancholy Ballad - lyrics about leaving his lover early in the morning, wishing he hadn't. It's actually pretty upbeat for an MB, but the superficial cheerfulness seems (to me, anyway; maybe I'm hearing stuff that isn't there - wouldn't be the first time) to be concealing a deeper regret. It's brilliant at capturing the a conflicted emotional state that I've experienced myself from time to time - mingled joy and regret. The lyrics have the song taking place right at dawn, and the transition between night and day parallels the emotional transition of the narrator: it's twilight both literally and figuratively. Which may seem a little on the nose, laid out like that, but the effect is pretty clever for a three-minute pop song. It's good stuff.

The Trouble With Rudy (Part 1)

2007-08-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

I lived in New York for two and a half years while Rudy Giuliani was mayor. I left the city well before The Evil Terrorist Attacks That Occurred On September Eleventh, and at the time I left I had the distinct impression that I'd probably seen the last of Rudy. Patrick Dorismond. "Giuliani Time." Amadou Diallo. The affairs (and, ultimately, the messy divorce, played out in public). The silly fight he picked with the Brooklyn Museum. By the summer of 2001, New York was mainly tired of the man.

But before New York was quite done with him, TETATOOSE gave him new political life. I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to say that, had those attacks not ocurred, neither Giuliani nor G. W. Bush would still have political careers. In Giuliani's case, he became "America's Mayor" and he's got a realistic chance of being elected President next year, based almost entirely on his legend. The Onion piece describing Giuliani as running for "President of 9/11" was all too accurate; it's his alleged experience at dealing with terrorists that forms the core of his appeal.

Which is why this article in the Village Voice is so important. Wayne Barrett and Alexandra Kahan examine the claims Rudy has made about his TETATOOSE experience and qualifications, and finds them to be almost wholly without any substance. Unfortunately, because it's the Voice, a lot of people - even many liberals - are likely to either not read the piece at all or dismiss it out of hand. Which is a shame, because so far Rudy's campaign hasn't been able to show any real flaw in the research they've done. Rudy doesn't have much in the way of qualifications, and if his main appeal is basically bogus, I think it's doing us all a service to inform the voting public about it.

Track of the Day - 8-15-07

2007-08-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

Today's Track of the Day:

The Meters - "Stormy"

I like lots of different kinds of music - jazz, pop, blues, classical, folk, rock, funk, you name it, really. This particular track, like most of the Meters' earlier stuff, is basically (for want of a better term) "instrumental pop." It (and they) take a lot from the funkier parts of jazz and soul, but it's smoothly melodic and a lot of fun to listen to. This particular track is one of my favorites. A moderately slow beat from the rhythm section kicks things off - it's kind of a slow burn, really, all the way through - and is joined by the guitar and keyboard. The song is really a showcase for Art Neville's organ work. It's a nice, mellow jam that repays repeated listening.

Back By Popular Demand

2007-08-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

So after all this time, I still have people (well, OK, one person - but I like to think he speaks for multitudes) asking me to do this thing. And so I shall. Bob, this one's for you.

Faith and Science

2005-10-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

I posted this elsewhere today, but it got pretty long and this may be a better place for it. Plus, the response to the animatronic chimp bust was distinctly underwhelming.

For the most part, scientists don't think they have all the answers. They do have faith in the scientific method, but the point of that method is to keep asking questions. Religious people do think that their faith provides all the answers they need - and they're right, in the proper sphere. If you want to know how to live well with others and participate in a community of faith, religion does have all the answers - but the purpose of religion is to help us understand existence in an anthropocentric way: what is our place in the world, and how should we live? It's not a good choice for explaining how, physically, things come to be and go away; it is a good choice for understanding what that means for the people of that faith. Another way of expressing this is to say that religion is concerned with ontology, the fundamental question of being, in a quasi-philosophical way; while science is concerned with process, how things happen. Science will never be able to answer why we're here at all; religion addresses precisely this question.

And but so we have to ask ourselves: why do so many people not believe in scientific explanations for the process of life? A lot of people, for example, reject the notion that the Big Bang explains the way the universe came into being. This is taken by some as proof that Americans are rejecting science in favor of religion. They may be right, but I have some thoughts about this that I think we should sort of keep in mind.

First, I think the Big Bang example is kind of dumb, because my impression has been for some time that there's a lack of consensus about it among scientists. And it doesn't explain where all the stuff comes from. I don't think that the Big Bang is incompatible with belief in a deity because the Big Bang isn't really addressing the problem of Creation; it's more looking at process.

Second, I think that a lot of people aren't really geared up for, or interested in, scientific process. They just want to know How Things Are so they can stop thinking about it and get on with their lives. From their perspective, it just doesn't matter much whether Darwin or William Jennings Bryan was right - they're still going to be engineers or cops or shop foremen or whatever. But if you ask them what they think, they're going to tell you something strange, because really they don't think about it. They accept a story and move on to what's important to them.

Third, I think that most people have a kind of blinkered view of "science" - partly because, as I said, they just don't have the time, energy, or interest to engage with the scientific method, and partly because we do a poor job of teaching kids what science is. We present it as though science has all the answers to things. That's not really true. I understand how, for the purposes of a high-school chemistry class, we just want kids to understand the periodic table, how it works, how basic atomic theory explains the structure of things, and so on. And that's all verifiable by experiment. But it teaches people to think of science as, in some ways, another kind of "religion" in that it Explains How Stuff Happens and it's not really important how or why it does so in the way it does. But really, the how and why are the point, not the periodic table and learning not to mix acids and bases indiscriminately.

Fourth, I think the whole Fundamentalist/Literalist reading of the Bible it totally bats. Almost nothing in the Bible, IMO, should be read literally - it's virtually all symbology, and metaphor, and allegory. Because we're no longer able to access the thinking of the people who wrote the Bible, it's very hard for us to understand it. It appears that religious education is as bad as scientific education in the article of teaching people how to think about the subject matter of their field. I don't mean to say that you need to read the Bible in some freaky-deaky postmodernist deconstructionist way; but if you don't understand that it's not about literal fact I don't think you get it at all.

So, fifth, I think that the combination of (1) people misunderstanding what science is really about, and how that is fundamentally different from religion or practical knowledge proper, and (2) people just not wanting to think about stuff that doesn't actually matter to them in their daily lives; and (3) poor instruction about how science works and what it does; and (4) poor instruction about what religion is and specifically how to read sacred texts results in (5) a false dichotomy between faith and science that causes people to reject a scientific explanation of how the world works despite ample evidence that the scientific explanation (though subject to revision) is correct AND ALSO causes other people to underestimate or reject religion entirely because they misunderstand the point of it.

In my view, science and religion aren't even addressing the same issues, and we'd all be a lot better off if more people understood that faith and science aren't "competing narratives" of how the world Really Is. They're explaining different things.

Animatronic Chimp Bust

2005-10-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

Best.Gift.Ever.

Well, short of my own personal monkey rodeo, anyhow.

Harriet Miers Is A Bad Choice For The Supreme Court

2005-10-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

Hey there, kids! Long time, no post, and all that!

Anyhow. I posted the substance of this somewhere else earlier today, where it got absolutely no play whatsoever. On the off chance that someone else might be interested in what an undermployed California lawyer thinks of the goings-on at the Supreme Court these days, I offer the following critique:

I think we all ought to have some serious reservations about this particular nominee. Obviously she's a competent attorney with decent political instincts, or she wouldn't have been elected president of those bar associations or held a seat on the Dallas city council. And it's not necessary, as her defenders remind us, to have been a judge before becoming a justice, nor is it necessary to have clerked at the Supreme Court or to have graduated from Harvard or Stanford or Yale to get a seat. Objections based on those "requirements" are specious. But those aren't the compelling objections to her appointment, which her defenders really do need to address.

First, and most serious, is the fact that she owes her national political career and her appointment to the Supreme Court from near-total obscurity solely to her personal friendship with George W. Bush. The last justice with that kind of relationship to a President was Abe Fortas, who was not confirmed as Chief Justice and eventually resigned in disgrace despite a distinguished legal career. Miers, assuming she were to be confirmed, would necessarily have to address cases where the executive branch is a litigant, or offers an amicus brief. How can we be sure of her impartiality when she has a close friendship with one of the parties to the case? It violates a fundamental principle of jurispridence for a friend of one of the parties to be the judge in his friend's case. If she recuses herself from those cases, as would be proper, she leaves the court with only eight justices on a significant number of cases each term. Whether she would, in fact, be impartial is irrelevant - the court cannot seem to have a stake in the outcome of a case. This objection has nothing to do with her legal qualifications and everything to do with her ability to be an effective justice.

Second, although she probably is a competent attorney, she does not have any significant experience in the practice of Constitutional law. Since virtually all the cases that come to the Supreme Court are Con Law cases, that's a serious failing. It's not that she's not smart, or went to a bad school; it's that she's largely been a corporate lawyer and has never addressed kind of law the Court deals in. The Supreme Court is a bad place for on-the-job training because its decisions have wide-ranging effects.

Third, she doesn't bring any other govermental experience to the job that it would be valuable for the Court to have. It's true that you don't need to be a judge to become a justice, but if a candidate doesn't have that background, it's perfectly legitimate to question what other relevant experience she does have that might be valuable. And the answer here is "very little." Aside from a brief stint on the Dallas city council, she's never served in an executive or legislative capacity. Nor has she run for election - I think that she was appointed to the city council position and declined to run for reelection (if I'm wrong, please let me know). Contrast that with someone like, well, Sandra Day O'Connor, who had to run for office, was elected, and served in the Arizona legislature with distinction - aside from her experience as a judge. So Miers lacks some special background that would excuse or compensate for her inexperience as a judge.

Fourth, but related to the second objection, we know nothing about her judicial philosophy. People who focus on her political or religious temperament are, IMO, focusing on the wrong thing. It's irrelevant to the question of her competence as a member of the Supreme Court what her political or religious opinions are. What is important is how she thinks she's going to do her job. What theories of Constitutional interpretation does she follow? Why? What authorities does she see as legitimate sources for understanding the text of the Constitution? What's her opinion of the use of legislative history in interpreting law? Does she prefer to work with other people to form a consensus before delivering an opinion, or does she decide to do what she thinks is right regardless of who agrees with her? Does she regard previous decisions of the Court as binding on today's Court? We don't know; she doesn't have any record of deciding cases, or arguing Con Law cases, that would tell us; and it's highly unlikely that we'll find anything of the kind out at the confirmation hearings.

Fifth, it's not merely a question of "Is she competent to handle the job?" Probably, she is. But there are only nine seats on the Supreme Court. We ought to be putting people on the Court who, like John Roberts, are more than merely competent; we should be trying to put our finest legal minds - whatever their politics - on the court. Harriet Miers may be a wonderful person and a skilled attorney, but she hasn't demonstrated in any way that she's one of the very finest legal minds our country has. Bush can do better.

Cognitive Dissonance Alert: Mercedes Edition

2005-09-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

Hola, amigos! It's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but there's been some crazy stuff going down with my ride.
[/Jim Anchower]

Seriously, I've been lax about this. It will happen again, but recognizing the problem is the first step toward avoiding dealing with it. Or something.

Anyhow, I write tonight not about Hurricane Katrina, or John Roberts, or the possibility of gay marriage in California, or even about some obscure piece of medieval music that most of you probably wouldn't touch with a ten meter cattle prod. No. Tonight, it's all about a wicked bizarre commercial I heard while running errands today.

Now, I don't listen to the radio much except when I'm in my car. When I do listen, it tends to be either NPR, or the local college jazz station, KCSM, or a classical station, KDFC. Since NPR and KCSM are commercial-free, they tend to have pledge drives a few times a year. Pledge drives make me feel guilty and angry. Guilty, because I don't give them any money (because, actually, I kind of need that money to drive to work and pay my utility bills) but I listen to them pretty frequently. Angry, because I don't like feeling guilty but I do like listening to "Morning Edition" or "Morning Cup of Jazz" and so forth, and I can't do the latter without getting the former. All of which is a long-winded explanation for why I was listening to KDFC most of last week.

Now, I have issues with KDFC, too, because they have commercials (which, hey, I don't like listening to. Yeah, I know they're a necessary evil. I still don't like 'em.) but more so because they take a really frustrating approach to classical music. They play short pieces, generally only one movement from a larger piece, and they favor "soothing" classical music drawn mainly from the 18th and early 19th centuries. If you like Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, you'll find something you like pretty much every day. If you like Mozart, you've found a station that plays an hour of Wolfgang's greatest hits every morning. If you'd like to hear, say, a new recording of La Messe de Notre Dame, you're SOL. Talk to John Schaefer or something.

Still, it beats Limp Bizkit and Kelly Clarkson to hell and gone. So, I'm tooling around town, listening to classical muzak and then we go to commercial break.

This particular commercial begins with a sort of peppy, pop-rocky descending riff. It sounds like it's being played by the world's whitest second-tier bar band - deliberately un-funky. (Digression No. 1 - what's the deal with the music in car commercials? I mean, yeah, at this point I didn't know this was a car commercial, and for something like, maybe a Mini Cooper, this kind of thing would be OK. Or maybe not; it was pretty awful, in retrospect. This is, after all, a Mercedes they're selling. A Mercedes is supposed to be classy, elegant, expensive, high-quality - a luxury car. The kind of car that shifts itself. I'm associating that with - well, with classical music, actually. Maybe some cool jazz. Definitely not some crappy whitebread pop-rock. To whom are they marketing this thing? It's like the Chrysler (or was it Cadillac? I don't remember - nice marketing, guys!) commercials with Led Zeppelin. The only kind of car Led Zepplin calls to my mind is a tricked-out '76 Camaro with a glass-pack tailpipe. A high-quality luxury sedan, not so much. Also, I realize that baby boomers and their older children who might have grown up listening to the original Zep classics are getting older and ins some cases wealthier. But isn't buying a Buick (or whatever the heck it was - seriously, I got nothing here) pretty much admitting that, in fact, you aren't still cool, no matter what's in your 6-disc CD changer? That in fact, life has changed you (as it should, really) and that while you might still listen to the same stuff you were listening to thirty years ago - you just aren't the same guy who did the cruise and tried to get lucky in the back of a VW Beetle back in '75 with that waitress who could score the really good weed and the 'ludes? Jesus, man, grow up already. End digression no. 1) I will give them some credit for choosing music (using the term loosely) that id different from anything you might happen to hear on KDFC, so it has that going for it. Which is nice.

So but a couple seconds of unfunky descending arpeggios later, we come to the voiceover, which is of course a mellow, rich-sounding white dude. He's complaining about how we're surrounded by fake stuff. I don't remember his exact examples, but stuff like red food dye no. 4 and 5, and artificial sweeteners, and olestra, and maybe Velveeta. There were non-food examples, I swear, I just don't remember them. (Digression No. 2: What the heck is going on here? This guy's complaining because his life experience (or rather, he's giving voice to what is impliedly the listener's complaint about the listener's life experience) isn't real enough. It's inauthentic to be eating food that's been dyed or to wear synthetic fabrics. This is, to put it mildly, utterly bats. I'm sure you can trace back complaints about the "unreality" of things at least as far back as Marx - this is, after all, one of his big complaints with capitalism, that it alienates the worker. But in modern American popular culture, the complaint of inauthenticity calls to mind one epoch more than any other, and it ain't the plight of the worker in Industrial Age Britain. It's Punk Rock. Where else has there been such a passionate commitment to "authenticity" and such loathing of the "sell outs" who exchange their real experience for cold hard cash. Also, I suppose, rap - "street cred" is just another way of saying "authenticity," as far as I can tell. I can't imagine anything more bizarre to come out of the mouth of a rich white dude than to complain, a la Johnny Rotten or Public Enemy, about how the bourgeois world is fake. Particularly in the context of trying to sell me a $50,000 car. End digression No. 2) His point? In a world filled with fake stuff, isn't it nice that there's something real... the Mercedes ES300!

At this point, I strongly considered pulling off the road to get my head straight. The radio operator in my head was feverishly signaling "Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot." over and over again. W.T.F.? How is a car - particularly a luxury car like this Mercedes - any more "real" than the tits on a porn star? How is a Mercedes - which after all comes into being kata techne, rather than kata phusin - any different from Cool Whip? And yet this soft-spoken tool expects me to part with my all-too-real money for the "reality" of a car that is valuable primarily as a symbol, rather than for its functionality. Nobody buys a Mercedes to get from Point A to Point B; they buy a Mercedes to get from A to B in style. They buy a Mecedes to show off their taste, status, and most importantly wealth. There's nothing particularly real about that in the sense of authentic experience that the commercial relates the car to.

So not only is the commercial lying to me (which, hey, I expect) but it's doing it in spectacularly incompetent fashion. It wants me to think the Mercedes (valuable largely for its prestige value, rather than any intrinsic difference from the '69 VW Beetle) is a more authentic item than another, equally man-made (thus "artificial") item, and that I should therefore buy it so that my own experience will be more "real." Because authenticity is a commodity!

Anyhow, JTIS!

Sunday Night Music Review: Officium by Jan Garbarek

2005-08-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

Actually, by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble.

First, some background. Jan Garbarek, for those of you unfamiliar with his work, is a Norwegian sax player who plays jazz in sort of the same sense that Keith Jarrett does. Which is to say, his particular kind of improvisational musical expression isn't derived exclusively or primarily from the blues, but also from his own idiosyncratic musical experience (as Jarrett's appears to be derived from his deep appreciation of classical music as much as the "traditonal" jazz masters). He's famously a cold, austere player - he likes to play long notes and his compositions tend to have a lot of aural "space" to them. He's not afraid of silence, or slow, repetitive motifs that sort of surreptitiously build into more complex and interesting things over time. He's a favorite of mine, and he doesn't sound like anyone else I can think of.

This, incidentally, points up something to think about regarding American music. American music - at least, modern American popular music - is just about unthinkable to me without some reference to the blues. The kinds of chord changes and phrases we're conditioned to hear in pop music today are largely derived from the blues. Jazz can be as cerebral and difficult as any music out there, but it's usually still rooted in the blues. We don't, I think, pay this much mind in a typical day, but it struck me forcibly listening to this disk, which features the Hilliard Ensemble singing a collection of medieval chants (exotic and odd sounding to me today I think precisely because they have nothing to do with the blues) while accompanied by Jan Garbarek (who, as I mentioned, has his own unique style of playing that is "jazz" only in some technical or formal sense - it has relatively little to do with (say) Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis).

So, what does Officium sound like? It sounds kind of odd, actually. The whole thing sounds like an unlikely concept-art project, melding chant and saxophone improvisations. Not unlike some kind of weird cousin of a mash-up album in some respects. And in fact, the liner notes make a case for the existence of chant as being a sort of fossilization of an earlier, freer, more improvisational vocal style that died when it was written down. The author of the liner notes explicitly compares chant to The Odyssey, that work being another example of an oral tradition that was frozen when it became written down. It's certainly true, in a slightly different context, that musicians of the Baroque period were in the habit of playing small improvisational passages during composed works, and that that practice died out later on as people came to expect that the musicians would play works exactly as written. Perhaps the same thing happened with chant, too. It's hard to know, and it's pretty much pure speculation on the part of the author of the liner notes. But it is the thread that ties together the apparently random juxtaposition of Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble.

As to what it sounds like... again, it's hard to describe. I have yet to get past the weirdness of hearing the saxophone accompanying the chant. In some ways, Garbarek is the perfect guy to play with an early-music group, since he's not the kind of player who steps on the toes of the rest of the band. He leaves a lot of space, and in general his playing emphasizes or accentuates the movement of the voices in the chant. It's an interesting effect, and it was well worth the super-cut-rate used-bargain-bin price I paid for it. Sometimes, though, the sax seems like an intrusion on music that, after all, was never intended to be accompanied in the first place. The album as a whole has the feel to me of a partially-successful experiment. Which, it turns out, was repeated: the same performers teamed up for a disc called Mnemosyne that I'm fairly curious about.

In short, I like the album, but I can't say I'd recommend it to anyone unless they already had an interest in chant, or Jan Garbarek's sax playing, or better yet both. It might also be worth a listen if you like really unusual music. On the other hand, if you're just looking for some nice background music for work, or some rockin' tunes for a road trip - and sometimes, that's just what the doctor ordered - probably best to look elsewhere.

Dare to be Stupid

2005-08-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law has mentioned occasionally that he thinks the next big smoking-type battle in American health will be over obesity and the sale of basically unhealthy food to people. His point being that obesity is a huge health issue in the United States, and that as people become aware of the dangers, there will be increasing pressure put on politicians to Do Something about it.

New York appears to be among the first in the nation to move forward with this. Today, the New York Times reported that the city health department has urged city restaurants to stop selling food with trans fats. It's a strictly voluntary program for now, but the NYC's health commissioner likened trans fats to asbestos and lead. In a year the city will conduct another survey and decide what further steps, if any, need to be taken to curb the consumption of trans fats.

In other, apparently unrelated news, the NHTSA released a study about the effects of the repeal of the mandatory helmet law in Florida. To the surprise of probably nobody, the major result has been an increase in the fatalities and serious injuries suffered by motorcyclists in accidents. The relative frequency of accidents involving motorcycles has remained fairly constant with the population of motorcylcists; but the number of accidents where the rider was killed increased dramatically.

These two items both address a fundamental tension in a democratic society. By just about any standard, riding a motorcycle without a helmet is a foolish thing to do - even the best motorcyclist can get cut off or hit by a car weighing over a ton and moving at speed, to say nothing of trucks and SUVs. The helmet is, as the Florida data shows, a life-saving device. In the same way, we know that trans fats are bad for people who eat them in almost every way; they have almost no nutritive value and can lead to some seriously bad health problems.

Each case seems to present a straightforward case of bad or foolish behavior with little to recommend it. So it's understandable that, with the best of intentions, some people would try to ban them - mandatory helmet laws were once common, and the town of Tiburon in California has apparently banned the sale of trans fats in its restaurants. Except...

Well, people like to do it. People like riding bareheaded down the highway on their choppers. People like eating rich, trans-fat laden desserts. And although we know the behavior is wrong, do we have the right to prevent them from doing it? Put another way, does the community interest in keeping people alive and healthy outweigh the individual's right to enjoy himself even if the way he enjoys himself is unhealthy, dangerous, or borderline suicidal?

Here, in general, I think we have to say "No." At either extreme, of course, things are unpleasant: a society in which "Do as thou wilt" really is the whole of the law wouldn't be much of a society in any meaningful way; and a society so protective of its members' well-being as to regulate virtually all their behavior would be insufferable. But in between those extremes, a balance has to be struck. And generally speaking, we shouldn't be in the habit of regulating behavior that affects only the individual doing it.

It's true that obesity and its related illnesses cost us all fantastic sums as health care costs, and the same is true of the dead or incapacitated motorcyclists who would have survived had they been wearing helmets. But these I think are costs we need to bear as part of the price of living in a more-or-less free society. The whole point of liberty is the opportunity for self-government. The exercise of one's own judgment about what risks and moral choices are appropriate for oneself is a benefit that's not really calculable in monetary terms; it is literally priceless.

The question becomes murkier when we consider behavior like smoking that actually does affect other people; the effects of second-hand smoke are well-documented. And in that case, where the behavior is not merely harming the smoker, but people around him, I can see the point of regulating the behavior. Not to protect the smoker from himself, but as a matter of public health to protect non-smokers from joining in the habit against their will. A motorcyclist or a McDonald's customer, though, isn't making other people ride without a helmet or forcing a royale with cheese down his neighbor's protesting throat. It's all well and good for New York to warn its citizens about the dangers of trans fats, but hopefully they'll have the good sense to leave the decision about what people want to eat to the people who are actually doing the eating.

Regardless of how super-sized they get as a result.

Larry Krueger Steps In It

2005-08-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

Those of you outside the Bay Area may be aware of the fact that the Giants just aren't very good this year. However, you're probably not aware of the fracas that's been stirred up since the end of last week, when a commentator on the Giants' flagship station, KNBR, took the team to task by commenting, among other things, about the team's "brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly." He also had some choice words for Felipe Alou, regarding whom he opined that "You have a manager in Felipe whose mind has turned to Cream of Wheat."

This would be obnoxious enough just about anywhere, but in a town like San Francisco and with a manager like Felipe who, whatever his managerial shortcomings, takes absolutely zero guff from anyone and also experienced racism American-style back in the '50s as a minor-leaguer in Louisiana - well, you've got the makings of an old-fashioned mud-wrestling match. Add into that the fact that KNBR actually owns (a very small) part of the Giants and is the only sports-radio station in the area with major-league wattage and the story only gets weirder. Thus far, KNBR has suspended Krueger for a week but not fired him; the Giants haven't demanded any firings but have cancelled some of their pre-game hype shows and just generally look pretty cheesed off. Particularly Felipe and the seven or so Latin American players on the active roster.

Without getting into how big an ass Krueger made of himself from a racist-comment-making perspective, was he even right? That is, have the Giants' "Caribbean players" been "brain-dead" and "hacking at slop every night"?

Weeelll... no. Let's look at the guys Krueger might plausibly have been referring to:

Moises Alou: hitting .328/.418/.507 with 46 walks and just 32 strikeouts.
Pedro Feliz: hitting .267/.309/.446 with 26 walks and 66 strikeouts
Alex Sanchez: hitting .324/.353/.432 with 8 walks and 34 strikeouts in limited action
Omar Vizquel: hitting .290/.350/.382 with 36 walks and 35 strikeouts. Also providing Gold Glove-caliber defense at short.
Deivi Cruz: hitting .265/.299/.384 with 9 walks and 26 strikeouts in a backup role.
Edgardo Alfonzo: hitting .295/.349/.372 with 21 walks and 24 strikeouts.

Giants hitters altogether are hitting .267/.326/.398 with 310 walks and 575 strikeouts. It's not just the "Caribbean" players who are "swinging at slop" and of the regulars, only Feliz has been striking out a lot - Alou, Vizquel, and Alfonzo haven't been hacking away like there's no tomorrow at the plate.

Keep in mind that currently, the Giants rank 4th in the National League in batting, but just 12th in OBP and 14th in slugging. That's bad hitting, folks, but it's not just Alou, Alfonzo, Vizquel, Feliz, Cruz, and Sanchez doing the damage; it's been a team effort. And the real problem hasn't been making contact with the ball; it's been a lack of power hitting. So Krueger's not only making a fool of himself, but he's got his facts wrong.

KNBR correctly suspended him for making some racist comments about the Giants' players; they should fire him for not knowing what the heck he's talking about.

Sunday Night Music Review: Machaut's Motets

2005-08-07T22:17:00.000-07:00

Continuing on my "early-music" exploration, I stumbled across a copy of the Hilliard Ensemble singing 18 of Guillaume de Machaut's motets. Almost literally, I mean; I was at a record store and tripped over a loose tile in the floor while looking for the "Used Blues" section and looked up and saw this disc. It is Kismet, I thought.

And boy am I glad I did! I've only had a little bit of time with it so far, but I like it a lot. Machaut was/is an early polyphonist; unlike chant (including the work of Hildegard von Bingen, who I'm reliably informed wrote music to be sung in unison), polyphony lets individual singers cut loose with their own lines, which makes the whole thing much more complex and in some ways more modern-sounding. To the extent that passionately religious a cappella motets sung in medieval French and Latin can sound "modern," I suppose.

Motets are kind of an interesting song form. From the liner notes, it appears that the motet is a little bit like reading a poem or a passage in a book - and at the same time reading commentary and exegesis of the poem or passage - sometimes two or three at once. The effect would be presumably greater if I spoke medieval French or Latin, but reading along with the liner notes (which helpfully translate the stuff that's being sung) is a big help. One, entitled "Fine amour, qui me vint naverer" ("True love, who came to pierce me") kicks off with the triplum (the highest of the three voices, I think) singing "Death, how I hate you..." and mines a rich vein of pain, sorrow, anger, and despair that proves to be tremendously moving and intricately beautiful. You haven't heard grief transmuted into song until you've heard it in 14th-century French, I'm telling you.

Anyhow, I'm seriously digging this disc, and if I can track down a copy of his Messe de Notre Dame, I'm going to be all over that action.

Terrorism and Terrorists

2005-08-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

Today, in a thread over at one of my regular haunts, a fellow going by the handle redmarkYankee had some interesting things to say about how we define terrorists (see the whole post here, at post #97):

"Apart from what constitutes incitement (funding, support of 'aims',
justification of violence in the cause...), what constitutes terrorism exactly? I'm old enough to remember (and studied some of the semantics in a
Politics degree) the argument that the IRA, for instance, was not terrorist, in
the early days, when it attacked only military or political targets.

Is a Palestinian suicide bomber who attacks an Israeli military position in illegally occupied territories a terrorist, or an insurgent (using
'insurgent as the 'neutral' term - 'terrorist' or 'freedom fighter' having
opposite judgemental connotations)? What if a civilian is killed inadvertently
in such an attack ('collateral damage')? Is an Iraqi suicide bomber who attacks
US/UK occupying forces a terrorist, or an insurgent? Is it possible to be an
'illegal enemy combatant' in your own country against occupying forces? What
were the French Resistance in WW2?

A British MP (Jenny Tonge) said a
couple of years ago that she could understand how young Palestinians
could turn to violence, after a visit to Palestinian refugee camps. Is that
indirect incitement? Clearly Eck and others would be willing to use any means
necessary to defend the 1st Amendment, from their own government - are
others not allowed to use any means necessary to fight for
self-determination or against occupation? If Iraqis had risen against Saddam 5
years ago and used violence, would that have been terrorism? Are supporters not
allowed to fund, or publicly defend them? Or does that depend on "our" judgement
on the validity of the cause? It's ok for the west to fund Bin Laden and friends
when fighting against Commies, but not for his co-religionists when he's
fighting against us?.

None of this is to support AQ, or funders of
AQ, or those who advocate the bombing of civilians. It is to point out that
there are enough laws to deal with 'terrorism' already - and that we don't have
any clear agreement on what terrorism actually is, except that 'our'
definition seems to vary depending on the colour/nationality/religion of the
terrorists/insurgents/freedom fighters (delete as suits your personal opinion in
any given situation)."

I really liked this post, not least because of some of the historical context he provided in his well-taken observation about how "terrorism" and "terrorists" are defined. And, given the "Global War on Terror" that we're engaged in (or, if you prefer, the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism"), it seems like a perfectly legitimate question: who are we fighting?

Obviously, one answer is "Al Qaeda" - but this isn't as simple as it looks, because a lot of smart, experienced people seem to think that whatever Al Qaeda was four years ago, today it's more of a loose affiliation of violent radical Islamists who share goals and maybe training, but don't have any specific hierarchical structure. And, given the way that the ongoing occupation of Iraq has drawn violent would-be martyrs from across the globe like a flame draws moths, it's by no means a sufficient explanation of who, exactly, we're fighting.

It's thorny. As redmarkYankee pointed out, depending on the definition we use for "terrorism" there doesn't seem to be much distinction between, say, the French Resistance and the Red Brigade, except that the Resistance were "good guys" (from our perspective, because they fought Nazis), and the Red Brigade were "bad guys" (from our perspective, because they were violent commies). But it's both unsatisfying and circular to say that we're fighting terrorists, and terrorists are guerillas who are fighting us.

We could try to draw a distinction between between terrorists and "insurgents" based on what and who they target: a terrorist deliberately targets innocent civilians while a 'legitimate' insurgent only targets soldiers and military installations. But as a practical matter, there's frequently only a blurry line separating the two - even 'legitimate' warfare of the sort practiced by, well, us involves collateral damage to civilians. We try to minimize this, and we've developed sophisticated tactics and rules of engagement to limit civilian casualties, but the fact remains that even in the best-planned attacks (especially against an enemy that's willing to hide behind and among civilians) some innocent life is going to be lost. So it looks more like a matter of degree - "The legitimate insurgent tries to kill fewer civilians than the terrorist" - rather than a hard-and-fast rule. This is not a very satisfactory distinction, at least not to me; and it may be that no satisfactory definition exists that does not make us complicit in some kinds of "terrorism" - which significantly undermines the moral component of the justification for fighting a "war on terror." Not the practical case; self-defense is justification is reason enough for taking on Al Qaeda and its allies in some fashion. But the idea that "terrorists" and "freedom fighters" can be readily distinguished is pretty much exploded.

This too ignores the important fact that in the "Global War on Terror" we have in fact targeted very particular terrorists. We have not gone after the ETA, or the IRA; we haven't opened up a front against FARC or the Shining Path. We've gone after radical Islamist militants.

All of which suggests to me that our labels for what we're doing against terrorism and in Iraq have been (at best) misleading; and we are only fooling ourselves if we think that our enemies and everyone in the Middle East don't see clearly that our "Global War on Terror" is in practice a fairly localized "war" on radical violent Islamists. And maybe a "war" wasn't the best way to go after them.

Toward a Coherent Political Philosophy (Part 1)

2005-08-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

In response to my post regarding Grover Norquist and his theory that what holds the American conservative movement together is wanting "government to go away," Manny observed that "a person's poltical identity is determined by all sorts of complicated factors." I agree, wholeheartedly, and I think it's worth wondering about some of those factors.

I've been thinking about this, off and on, at least since I was in college. With Sandra Day O'Connor's recent retirement from the Supreme Court, I've been thinking about it more concretely. One of the most common criticisms of O'Connor's performance as a Justice was that she didn't really have any principles, in a legal-theory context. This in contrast to guys like Thomas and Scalia, who have a well-defined approach to deciding cases and political views that are unusually consistent. A not-infrequent explanation for O'Connor's 'unprincipled' behavior has been that her background was in politics. Unlike the Scalias and Thomases, she'd actually had to work in a legislative setting and this exposure made her more flexible and less idealistic in her approach to the law. Sometimes, it's argued that this made her more effective; it certainly made her the decisive Justice on a range of high-profile cases.

And yet, there is something attractive about having political views that are more than ad hoc reactions to current events. As Manny observed, the roots of our political opinions are complex, and it's not always clear why we think the things we do. We frequently fall back on post hoc rationalizations for views we haven't really thought through, just because "our side" holds a position on a particular issue. This can lead to some really weird places; how many people support the death penalty but oppose abortion, or vice versa? It seems to me that it would be worthwhile trying to come to some coherent political or policy principles that make practical sense and don't seem to contradict one another.

Some problems immediately present themselves, though. For one thing, is it possible, or desirable? The world is a complex place, and the fact of the matter is that principles only get you so far - if we follow principle blindly, we often wind up doing more harm than good. Perhaps the best political principle is O'Connor's mixed bag of compromise and moderation - it's not consistent, but it can be an effective way to make small steps forward. But toward what goal? That's not at all clear.

It's also possible that there is no set of political principles that are logically consistent and sound as a matter of practice. Libertarianism, for example, is impressive in its logical rigor but inhuman in any kind of strict application. I'm going to try, as far as I can, to examine my own political beliefs and see whether I can find some kind of sense to them, or if they're just a hodge-podge or mutually contradictory opinions that I've gleaned from who knows what sources and that need some reevaluation.

Rockies 4, Giants 3

2005-08-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

I went to a night baseball game last night for the first time in years. I had a good time, despite the final score. A few observations are in order, though:

The food prices are pretty crazy, but you can do all right if you stay away from the beer. The beer is just insanely overpriced. $5.75 for Bud Light - I'm pretty sure I could get a 12-pack for that price. If you want, y'know, good beer - that's gonna run you seven bucks, easy. The "grande nachos" I had were $5.25, and were competitive with, say, Taco Bell in both taste and size. I didn't feel too badly abused there.
Pac Bell/SBC/Whatever we're calling it this season Park doesn't have bad seats, exactly, but the game really is more absorbing when you're closer to the field. We were in "View Box" seats, which are sort of hung off the upper deck. It's closer than I've ever sat at Pac Bell, and it made a difference. I'm kind of cheap, so I rarely get anything other than the Uecker seats, which made this a nice change.
You might think that early August would be a safe time to see the Giants at a night game and not contract hypothermia, but if you did, you'd be wrong. It was cold. Not "Candlestick in April" cold, but very chilly. Gametime temperature was reported as 61 degrees, and by the end of the game I'd bet it was (maybe) in the upper 40's. Note to self: bring a jacket or a blanket or something to night games.

As to the game itself, well, you can read a pretty good recap lots of places. A few moments really stand out, though. Such as that sequence in the fifth inning when newly-promoted catcher Yamid Haad (who looked OK, all things considered) couldn't pull in the foul (which admittedly, went approximately 15 miles into the air and may have contributed to the damaged thermal blanket on the space shuttle) popup by J.D. Closser, followed by Closser slamming a triple; and then a grounder to J.T. Snow by Omar Qunitanilla that should have ended the inning without a run scoring but didn't (I was only 500 or so feet from the play, but I'm pretty confident that, despite what the umpire right over the bag seemed to think, that Quintanilla was out!!1111); and then of course the two run homer that Matt Holliday hit that sealed the game.

I pause to note that, in an uncharacteristic display, the Giants bullpen kept the (admittedly punchless, except see what happened in the fifth) Rockies at bay. That's heartening, although anyone who thinks the Giants have a prayer of a winning record this year is delusional.

Less heartening was the bottom of the ninth, wherein the Giants loaded the bases and brought Randy Winn to the plate with two out. A base hit probably wins the game, and certainly ties it, but Winn grounded to second and that was that. It's actually worse than that, because they had a man on second with nobody out; a man on third with one out; the bases loaded with one out; and then Winn at the plate with two out - and couldn't get the run home. That kind of thing is just frustrating to watch. Presumably, also, frustrating to do, but I can only speak from the fan's perspective here, and it seems like the Giants just aren't getting the job done this year.

On another Giants-related note, a tip of the cap to Marquis Grissom, who was designated for assignment before the game. As this column by Ray Ratto makes clear, Marquis was a classy guy and a heck of a player for a long time. Here's to you, Marquis, and here's hoping you catch on with some playoff-bound team and get another shot at some October glory. The move makes the acquisition of Winn a little less crazy, but I still don't see why an older, more expensive version of Jason Ellison was a pressing need while improving a shaky starting rotation (see the fifth inning for another episode in Brett Tomko's Snakebite Showcase) wasn't a priority. I mean, if I can see the problem, presumably the professionals know it even better, but I'd personally have been willing to see the Giants either get another solid starter at almost any price, or cut the cord on this season and sell off a mess of their vets for some prospects. I think I know why they didn't, and his name is Barry Bonds, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish to dig into.

Hildegard von Bingen: An Appreciation

2005-08-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I started listening to Gregorian chant again. Spurred in part by my college reunion (listening to and analyzing chant is one of the things you do as a sophomore there) and partly just by me wanting to listen to something a little more meditative than, say, the Mars Volta. Anyhow, my point is, I've been listening to chant (mainly) for a few weeks. Thanks to a friend's recommendation, I picked up a CD of stuff by Hildegard von Bingen. Who, it turns out, wrote some totally bitching chants.

The particular CD I have is 11,000 Virgins: Chants for the Feast of St. Ursula. I wasn't aware of the existence of a St. Ursula before this, but the story is basically this:

"Ursula, the daughter of a Christian king of Great Britain, was asked in marriage by the son of a great pagan king. Desiring to remain a virgin, she obtained a delay of three years. At her request she was given as companions ten young women of noble birth, and she and each of the ten were accompanied by a thousand virgins, and the whole company, embarking in eleven ships sailed for three years. When the appointed time was come, and Ursula's betrothed was about to claim her, a gale of wind carried the eleven thousand virgins far from the shores of England, and they went first by water to Cologne and thence to Basle, then by land from Basle to Rome. They finally returned to Cologne, where they were slain by the Huns in hatred of the Faith."

And but so Hildegard, herself a noblewoman who wound up in a nunnery rather than married, drew some inspiration from the legend and composed a really amazing series of chants for it.

If you're not familiar with Gregorian chant (or if your only exposure to it was from the bit sampled in that one Enigma album) you could do a lot worse than checking it out, especially if you find yourself looking for simple, evocative music that tends to calm you down rather than start you up. The chant recordings I have tend to be simple melodically, without a great deal of ornamentation - most syllables are sung with one note, the range is pretty restricted, and of course, they're sung in unison - no crazy late-medieval polyphony here!

By contrast, Hildegard really lets loose. She's not afraid at all to use half a dozen notes in a sung syllable, or to send the singers climbing ecstatically to some remarkably high notes and then come right back down. I can't be sure - my ear really isn't good enough - but I think I hear some early polyphony going on - everyone's singing the same words at the same time, but not necessarily the same notes. It's thrilling stuff, especially if you've been on a kind of aural diet for a while and can approximate what her original audience might have heard.

And, of course, there's the fact that this particular recording is sung by four women. My other chant recordings are sung by monks, and one of the reasons that Hildegard sounds so shocking, I'm sure, is because women's voices sound different. I think there are recordings of her work by male singers, and I'm kind of curious to listen to them and see how much of what I'm liking about her is more derived from the performance than the composer.

So, yeah. Hildegard is some good stuff. Check it!

Grover Norquist Explains Conservatives

2005-07-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

In this week's New Yorker, John Cassidy has written a profile of Grover Norquist. It's an interesting read - Norquist is an entertaining, smart, and very powerful conservative and Cassidy does a good job of explaining (or frequently, letting Norquist himself explain) what he's about and how he acquired and maintains his influence. One passage in particular caught my attention (unfortunately, the full article appears not to be available online, but you can get a sense of the thing here):

"Norquist's theory of American politics is disarmingly simple: liberals want something from the government; conservatives want the government to leave them alone. During the Roosevelt-Kennedy-Johnson era, he says, the Democratic Party prospered because it delivered things its constituents demanded: stronger labor laws for union members; retirement benefits for seniors; and affirmative-action programs for minorities. The reason the Republicans have replace the Democrats as the ruling party is that they cater to popular distate for the federal government.

"The guy who wants to be left alone to practice his faith, the guy who wants to make money, the guy who wants to spend money without paying taxes, the guy who wants to fondle his gun - they all have a lot in common," Norquist said one day this spring in a taxi going from George Bush International Airport in Houston, to the George R. Brown Convention Center, where the National Rifle Association was holding its annual convention. "They all want the government to go away. That is what holds together the conservative movement."

Now, this is interesting in itself because Norquist is a prominent and successful conservative activist. He's obviously had a lot of success turning his ideas (among them his idea of what holds the conservative movement together) into action. At some level, then, he's right, as a practical matter, or he wouldn't be successful. But is he really "right" about this, or has he simply been very successful at persuading a lot of people that he is?

Take, for example, his assertion that liberals want something from government, while conservatives want government to leave them alone. This is a nice bumper sticker, but does it really explain why many conservatives are in favor of an aggressive American foreign policy that demands the robust use of our military to achieve foreign policy goals? Does it explain why many conservatives are comfortable with increasing government funding to religious groups? Does it explain why many liberals are in favor of repealing or reducing criminal charges for petty drug crimes? Does it explain why many liberals are in favor of permitting gay people to have the same opportunity to marry that straight people enjoy? The answer is, of course not.

Conservatives and liberals alike think that government should do some things, and not others. The disagreement is over which things government should do. This is very different from "wanting the government to go away." Norquist has been successful at spreading the "conservatives want to be left alone by the government" meme, but it's not an accurate statement of conservative practice. Likewise, the idea that liberals "want something" from the government is a gross distortion (at best) of the more-accurate idea that liberals believe government should do more than conservatives do. The liberal motive for this is not simple selfishness (although eventually, liberals believe that government action of the kind they prefer will benefit everyone).

A clear example of this is the social conservative movement, which is opposed generally to the permissiveness of American culture. Nobody is telling Christians how and when and where they must worship. Nobody is telling them that they can't pray on their own whenever the spirit moves them. They can send their kids to Christian schools, or homeschool them; they can watch what they like, when they like it; they can move to communities filled with similarly-minded people if they so desire. What they actually want from government is more interference, not less: more money for religious groups, more oversight of television and radio broadcasts, more regulation of personal relationships, more interference with the personal exercise of moral agency. How this relates to Norquist's formulation can only be explained by the fact that many social conservatives actually do feel threatened by secular American culture. But this sense of threat is a far cry indeed from government-sponsored oppression of the kind that would make them natural allies of, say, the NRA (who indeed do want the government to stop regulating the possession and sale of firearms entirely). Indeed, with self-described evengelical Christians running the White House and Congress, it's hard to see where the government is anything but an ally of the social conservatives.

And yet, it's indisputably true that many social conservatives themselves believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that what they really want is less government interference with their lives. I can only attribute it to this: that Norquist has been incredibly successful at making conservatives believe they want the same things he does.

The First Day of the Rest of This Blog

2005-07-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

Just like starting over!