Mediaddiction & Meglomania

On Happiness...

2009-06-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

I've taken a break from my obsession with David Brooks. More pressing matters call.

Nonetheless, he's written some lovely bits on his joint-blog with Gail Collins.

The most important decision any of us make is who we marry. Yet there are no courses on how to choose a spouse. There’s no graduate department in spouse selection studies. Institutions of higher learning devote more resources to semiotics than love.
The most important talent any person can possess is the ability to make and keep friends. And yet here too there is no curriculum for this
The most important skill a person can possess is the ability to control one’s impulses. Here too, we’re pretty much on our own
These are all things with a provable relationship to human happiness. Instead, society is busy preparing us for all the decisions that have a marginal effect on human happiness.

What if David Brooks...and Carolyn Hax...pooled their genes???

Positive review of WaPo?

2009-06-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

Stop the presses!

A fantastic example of how newspapers--shockingly!--still matter transpired yesterday in the (great? Dare I say, greatest?) state of Virginia.

It's well known (amongst politicos and news junkies, at least) that the nation's eyes will be watching the Governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey. Simply because...there's nothing else to watch.

Over Memorial Day weekend, the Washington Post ran a well-timed editorial endorsing a long-shot candidate (for the Democrats) from rural Virginia--Creigh Deeds. I'll admit it: I was sold. The piece is persuasive, remarkably effect, and--as far as journalistic prose goes--truly a gem.

Democratic voters may wonder: How can Mr. Deeds beat presumptive Republican nominee Robert F. McDonnell, who beat Mr. Deeds in the attorney general's race four years ago? The answer: Mr. Deeds lost by a scant 323 votes out of roughly 2 million cast despite being outspent 2 to 1. This is one of only two governor's races slated for the fall, and whoever wins the primary will have plenty of cash. Virginia is still more purple than blue, and Mr. Deeds's moderate platform would have the broadest appeal.

Our judgment, though, is based on who would make the best governor in the Warner-Kaine tradition, not who would be the strongest candidate. Like those Northern Virginia senators who have endorsed Mr. Deeds -- including Janet D. Howell, Mary Margaret Whipple, J. Chapman "Chap" Petersen, Charles J. Colgan and Richard L. Saslaw -- we believe that he understands Northern Virginia. We also believe that he has the character, experience and savvy to be a successful leader of the entire commonwealth.

(I think I'm in good company amongst Virginians when I say that if you bandy anything about and say its "like Mark Warner," its popularity will jump ten points. This would probably even work for toothpaste.)

The impact of the editorial did not go unnoticed: National Journal argues that without it, Northern Virginian voters would have remained skeptical of Deeds' pro-gun stance. And sure enough, Deeds came from behind to snatch the victory.

Happy ending? We'll see.

No Nail?

2009-06-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

The most hilarious article since George Will's op-ed on jeans: Sen. Chuck Grassley disparages Obama's trip to Paris via Twitter.

More amusing than Grassley's actions are the actual content of the texts themselves:

Sen. Grassley's first tweet: "Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."
More

A short time later: "Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."

Ah, yes. The laconic poetry of QWRTY and 140 characters.

Mooning over Noonan

2009-06-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

I love Peggy Noonan. Really, as far as journalists go, she's pretty close to my hero.

Never short on poetry, Noonan shares my disgust with GOP attacks on Sotomeyer's nomination:

Excite the base? How about excite a moderate, or interest an independent? How about gain the attention of people who aren't already on your side?

The base is plenty excited already, as you know if you've ever read a comment thread on a conservative blog. Comment-thread conservatives, like their mirror-image warriors on the left ("Worst person in the woooorrrlllddd!") are perpetually agitated, permanently enraged. They don't need to be revved, they're already revved. Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think.

The criticism of Newt, by the way, is merited. If spouting this sort of schlock makes him the "standard-bearer" of the Republican party in 2012, I can't imagine there will be many there to celebrate with him.

A regional slant on universal health care

2009-06-01T06:06:00.001-07:00

An interesting piece in the Washington Post about health care emphasizes regional disparities that (essentially) will result in what the author characterizes as "regional subsidization." Ouch.

Ignoring partisan overtones, this point is still a good one. Perhaps it is by neccessity that the debate over health care is framed in terms of national policies--particularly given the crisis in funding "entitlements," namely Medicare and Medicaid (as well as Social Security).

No one is disagreeing with the argument that the institutional infrastructure of health care in the U.S. is complex--and when nationalized, somewhat inefficient. Yet we're wearing rose colored glasses if we neglect another reality: that health care coverage is equally affected by more local legislation through state governments. Some states are "stingier" than others--thus, fewer people are covered by Medicare and Medicaid in states in the South and Southwest.

Look at it this way:

"There's a big regional backdrop to this," said Harvard health policy professor Robert Blendon. "Those who are the beneficiaries of all this money that's going to be floating around is one group of states, and who's going to have to pay for the taxes if they lift this exemption is another group."

For example, he said, if you're a New York policeman married to a nurse and your combined salaries are $80,000, your health insurance will be taxed to pay for a family in Mississippi. "I'm trying to figure out how Chuck Schumer can raise his hands and say this is a good thing if New York workers are going to be such losers based on taxes," he said.

McGillis concedes that some of these disparities might be worked into the nationalized plans--but at the cost of complicating the tax code, and undercutting the overall effort to reform health care.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this argument, however, is its novelty (at least in the Post, which by habit I read the most regularly). Why isn't this part of the national debate covered by the media?

Love, Actually?

2009-05-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post announced this weekend that it's launching a wedding section. I'm having a moment of guilty, 27 Dresses-esque, pleasure. Everyone likes fairy tales.

Or do they? Another story today follows up Janice Radway's famous study, "Reading the Romance," which investigates women's escapist reading of romance novels. Sales figures are way up--but on this count of cultural preference, I'll diverge.

While there's an attractive escapism (for me) in peeking into the glamorous lives of others, romance novels make me cringe. Sort of like horror movies. (It's hard to put a finger on it, but I suppose it has something to do with the suspension of disbelief.)

The Real Housewives...

2009-05-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

...of Washington D.C.? You'd better believe it.

Although the show's take on DC will undoubtedly be some sort of Frankenstein's monster, it's worth questioning who will participate.

Will it be savvy socialites who manage to out-maneuver producers and camera crews for free PR? Or will it be clueless social climbers, unaware that their public humiliation via self-aggrandizement is exactly that--an anathema to the secretive elegance of the D.C. elite?

My guess is that anyone who's who in Washington will gracefully defer from the show. Maybe the girls from Blonde Charity Mafia (gag) can round up some relatives to fill in.

Tough Love?

2009-05-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

I think that many young women my age adulate Carolyn Hax. Her advice column--generally focused on the fallout of romantic relationships--provides thoughtful input towards the ennui of 20- and 30-somethings.

Today's column was a good one. To summarize: life is what happens when one is making other plans.

Equally delightful are the cartoons that accompany the column, drawn by her ex-husband Nick Galifianakis:

There's both a sadness and an eloquence to this week's column--and it's implications, that one can only depend on oneself. In this instance, it's advice that is particularly hard, and hardly enjoyable, to live up to.

Dueling Pens

2009-05-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

It's fitting that David Broder provides an account of Friday's "dueling speeches" between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama with characteristic equanimity.

Broder argues that Cheney rightly pointed out that Obama didn't have a "plan" in place when he announced that Guantanamo would be closed, but that Obama rightly advocates a return to more humane standards of treating enemy combatants.

I found this, however, a rather strange assertion:

Proof is missing that would let laymen judge Cheney's assertion that the
methods Obama now has banned were necessary to prevent a second Sept. 11.
Avoiding interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which historically
have been classified as torture, not only clears our conscience and improves
our reputation; it protects our own troops when they are
captured.

No matter how adamently one disagrees with the interrogation policies adopted by the Bush administration (and, many argue, spurred by Cheney), it seems naive to expect that humane treatment of enemy combatants will be met with reciprocity--particularly in our conflicts with extremist guerilla groups.

For an infinitely more ham-handed account of American ambivalence, check out Kathleen Parker's similar piece on the two speeches. Forgive me, but I'm insulted by comparisons of U.S. defense policies to "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." The article clearly, and damningly, illustrates Parker's journalistic "style": frequently simplistic, appallingly cutesy, bastardizations of current affairs.

How about those fighting words, Dick?

VP's should be seen, not heard.

2009-05-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

Or, change that to NOT seen, as well.

This makes my blood boil.

As Democractic strategist succinctly--if bluntly--put it:

"He's perfectly entitled to make his case, and given that Dick Cheney is as popular as Britney Spears at a Sunday school teacher convention, we hope he continues to be the face of the Republican Party," said Hari Sevugan, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee. "His continued presence reminds people that the GOP is unwilling to put forward new ideas or leadership, and so long as he continues to be the voice of the Republican cause, he ensures that the Republican Party will remain the party of the past."

Ridiculous.

McFly! World to McFly!

2009-05-11T13:48:00.001-07:00

One of the most popular articles on the New York Times' website right now is a piece about women bullying women at work.

On the one hand, I think it's fascinating: I think it's no surprise to many of us that Type-A women in the workplace are often more aggressive, and (I would speculate) more misogynistic, in their treatment of female co-workers in comparison to male counterparts.

It also occurs to me that perhaps women have more overt internecine conflict because they view each other as direct competition--whereas men more often perceive female competitors to be less serious "threats," passively dismissing them rather than stirring conflict. Women are also probably more adept at effectively targeting competitors with criticism--as they've probably encountered or observed it themselves in the past.

Yet I'm also concerned by this increasing popularization of workplace "bullying," insofar as it infantilizes adult competition and paints a portrait of endemic victimization (rather than endemic whining). Maybe I've read too much Hobbes--he of "nasty, brutish, and short" fame--but it seems apparent that money, jobs, lives are tight right now. Things aren't pretty, and people aren't "nice" in the first place.

Is it just me who's having flashbacks to Biff, the bully in Back to the Future?

Fame--where's the fortune?

2009-05-08T13:37:00.001-07:00

I guess it's been a big week for me!

(1) As of about 1 hour ago, I've completed my first year of grad school.
(2) AEI.org debut.
(3) Mainstream media coverage of a report I worked on this semester for my adviser.

ASC issued a press release last week with our findings: newspapers cover the news of their demise, but overwhelmingly, television stations don't.

Apparently, this is interesting info to the Philadelphia Daily News and The LA Times Blog. Coverage in NYT forthcoming.

A modest proposal

2009-05-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Washington Post:

How is this "objective" journalism?

President Obama's modest proposal to slice $17 billion from 121 government programs quickly ran into a buzz saw of opposition on Capitol Hill yesterday, as an array of Democratic lawmakers vowed to fight White House efforts to deprive their favorite initiatives of federal funds.

Although, snaps for the oblique reference to Swift. Not sure they meant it.

A labor of...

2009-05-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

Love? Hate? Both?

Tonight, the fruits of my labor for more than two years of my life debuted on the web. (Big snaps to those who spent even longer in web purgatory than me...)

Yes, audience. I designed this! Every. Single. Page.

Some fun facts:

Click on the video teasers on the homepage. The thumbnails play!
Yes, there's a portal. It connects you to a database. Or, three. And, my friends, you can try to register with multiple email addresses. But AEI will find you. And merge you into one person. This, I promise. (Well, maybe.)
You can buy stuff!
You can create an address book when you're spamming (uh, emailing) friends articles!
You can create a reading list to save articles, and organize it into mini-lists!
You can sign up for RSS feeds!
These are all my ideas!...(Except RSS. Honestly, I think RSS is sort of useless. And if you disagree? Organize a convention with the other 4 people who use RSS....p.s. I still love you, N.!)

Finally, if you doth protest, and say that this website isn't to your taste? Honestly, it's not to mine either.

P.S. I don't have a job yet this summer. Please give me money. Please.

2009-04-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

When I was reading over a post for typos yesterday afternoon, a link from Real Clear Politics caught my eye. Blogging about the effects of the Daily Show? How salient. I've been defending a control variable for "politicized entertainment" for an analysis I've been working on for weeks.

So, I clicked on the article to see their analysis. Apparently, a political scientist at East Carolina University published a piece about the Daily Show, and how its harsh coverage of Republicans damages the party's brand.

RCP's contextualization of the article was great: they do a nice job of explaining the journal article in regular English, and why this might be important, and why it might not. And then, they link to a far worse piece in the Daily Standard. (Caveat: while, sometimes, the Weekly Standard does publish quality material, I'm not happy about linking to it. To me, it represents everything nepotistic and out of touch in Washington. I think a little piece of me just died inside.)

And then, a few more things bother me about the coverage. First, Morris is not the first person to write about this phenomena--not by a long shot. It's a bit frustrating to see him getting credit for an idea that's not particularly original.

Second, he uses the National Annenberg Election Survey. (Shout out!). But, Weekly Standard, I doubt his methods are "innovative." I'll have to take a look at the article to check, but longitudinal data is longitudinal data. The methods are not new. If anything, it's the survey that's great (*cough*), not the analysis.

Lastly, these are the lamest closing lines I've ever heard:

But conservatives should not abandon comedy in their political shtick. And given the current trajectory of unified Democratic party control in Washington, budding conservative humorists are going to have lots of material.

Here's a hint for "conservative humorists." The same old hackneyed lines about the "liberal media" and pork aren't particularly funny. Neither are tea parties.

2009-04-25T09:11:00.001-07:00

More on Twitter, since it's all that anyone seems to be following, other than Susan Boyle, the Craigslist murders, and pirates.

A few posts ago, I argued that Twitter wouldn't take off until smart phones had greater penetration. A friend very rightfully pointed out that anyone with a cell phone can Twitter--yes, in the best example possible, Shaq.

To elaborate on my logic then: messages must not only be sent, but received. The current interface for regular cell phones makes texting relatively easy--but, browsing the Internet is expensive and a total pain. Thus, "tweets" (uh..."updates," Les?) largely rely upon an audience equipped with PC's.

Which, to me, seems counterintuitive to the whole idea of Twitter anyways. The glancing updates deserve little more than glancing attention--so, while they provide entertainment to the working world, I imagine that they'd be more useful (and more frequently employed) if they could be accessed on the go. Which means smart phones (or at least better software for cell phones).

What do you think? I, a luddite, don't yet Twitter. Per my argument above, it lacks utility for useful information gathering. (I.e., tell me where to meet you; which restaurants and movies are good. Basically, I'm looking for my own interpersonal Yelp.)

Life's short.

2009-04-23T17:00:00.001-07:00

Oh no. Only 140 characters to go.

You go first, Maureen.

Sorry, forgot my empathy. But not my snark.

>>>

2009-04-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

A friend texted me this morning, telling me to read this article in The Atlantic: Is Google Making Us Stupid? I don't know, Nicholas Carr. You tell me.

I'm about 8 paragraphs in, and starting this blog post. So far, I'm not that impressed. Carr is mourning the loss of deep thought. I'd hate to be the one to tell him that it's never been there for many of us. Really, statistically speaking. Maybe just not for readers of The Atlantic.

Nietzche's writing changed because he bought a typewriter? Mine has too. I think for the better. Spare me the nostalgia:

"Under the sway of the machine, writes the German media scholar Friedrich A. Kittler , Nietzsche’s prose “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.”

The whole idea of writing is to communicate. You can tell me what I need to know, but I need to want to know it. Do what you need to do to make me want it.

Oh great, we're back at it. "The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration." Please.

Abstracts in the New York Times now? Awesome. Welcome to my world. It's a great--if soul-crushing--exercise to condense the slavish efforts of months, or even years, into half a page. It's called an abstract. These, my friends, are the building blocks of human thought.

Here's another big leap:

The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the “one best method”—the perfect algorithm—to carry out every mental movement of what we’ve come to describe as “knowledge work.”

Seems naive to me. Sure--all programmers are striving for the perfect, most elegant code. But anyone who knows anything about programming also knows that programmers love making a mess of someone else's beautiful snippet. It's not exactly synergy on the net. It's more like war.

Oh boy, here we go again. "Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking." Give me a break.

You're bored already. So am I. I'm so bored with this argument I want to start another blog post. In fact, I'm so bored with this argument that I got bored with my own counterargument.

Bang! Deep, parsimonious thoughts: I think that the next journalist who finds the need to wax prosaic about this hyperactive Wasteland of new media we live in, the monsters we have become, needs to consider more carefully the miracle of memory.

Human beings, at best, can remember a few things per day. Make them good ones. Don't waste my time.

I dreamed a dream

2009-04-20T04:46:00.000-07:00

There's been substantial coverage of the British singer, Susan Boyle, and her appearance on England's version of American Idol. More than 30 million people have seen her singing on YouTube.

On the one hand, I'm happy for her. Indeed, she's a talented songstress.

On the other, I'm slightly perplexed. Why is everyone so surprised? Honestly, what does her appearance have to do with her being able to sing? Why is this such a shock?

George Will v. Jeans

2009-04-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

The most awesome op-ed ever written.

Containing such gems as:

Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote.

And then,

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

Speaking of, some of you will remember the days my freshman year of college when I, too, refused to wear jeans. Snaps to my favorite contrarian curmudgeon for the reminder.

Pride and Prejudice...And Zombies.

2009-04-17T06:56:00.001-07:00

This book looks simply fantastic.

Opening line: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

Yes.

Tweet, tweet

2009-04-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

The degree of antipathy people hold towards Twitter is surprising.

People adopting the new service offer grudging, embarrassed apologies. The people who "refuse to Twitter" vocally criticize their tweeting peers, and proclaim that they "don't understand it." (My bet: they will likely be the first to capitulate.)

Firstly: what is there to understand? Twitter is just a web resource that collects mass text messages from contacts (friends or otherwise) using an aggregator like Google Reader or Facebook News Feed. Don't over think it. Really, that's it.

Secondly: I think that everyone needs to give a long, hard look at mobile media, and stop to think about how our internet usage habits will likely change when almost everyone has a smart phone. Were you a skeptic of texting a few years ago, like I was? Suddenly, Twitter doesn't look so silly.

As the NYT points out, that's not what it's being used for right now. It's being used for market research and the net narcissism of early adopters. It has no business model.

But will it take off? I think it depends on the penetration of smart phones--i.e. replacing regular cell phones or even QRTY's.

Onwards?

2009-04-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

I'm fully aware of the degree to which my blog has "dropped off," presumably both in volume as well as in quality. It raises some questions about the medium itself, but also about habit.

For in the most fundamental sense, blogging is about habit. For me, it's less about finding interesting articles and having interesting thoughts--and, more about waking up each morning, and feeling compelled to share them. My spring semester has precipitated scheduling changes that shift my days to an afternoon focus. It's remarkable how much of a difference it makes.

On another level, however, I can't but question whether the blogger's block I've started to encounter is endemic of my increasing socialization into academia. I still skim the washingtnopost.com and NYT every morning (with a typical focus on op-eds), but gone are the days when I'd also read the entire WSJ op-ed page. Has my interest in punditry diminished? I suppose--for the time being--so.

But there's a larger change at hand, I think: one that I stumbled into this weekend when trying to casually "talk politics" with a mutual friend. I tried to explain my increasing apathy about partisanship, as my own affiliations (and, to some extent, even ideological tenets) transformed into an internal rolodex of public opinion studies and social psychology.

My friend talked about the bellicose posturing of cable news networks like Fox News and MSNBC, lamenting individuals' ability to expose themelves to contrasting opinions. I thought about interpersonal communication, and how contact with individuals with contrasting points of view increases political participation, but not neccessarily tolerance (Mutz). Or, of the fact that while individuals who like news are watching more of it, and self-selecting to ideologically similar stations, the shift away from broadcast news has allowed an even more substantial portion of the population to eschew news and politics altogether (Prior).

Want to talk about the Obama campaign? Did you know that studies at Princeton and the University of Michigan indicate that text messages can boost voter turnout by up to 4%?

I supposed I've just written this entry to "reframe" my own goals for this blog. It seems inevitable (and for the best) that my interests will become stripped of any partisan overtones. Likewise, the majority of my thoughts will be preoccupied with the articles and analysis that occupy my days.

I suppose that one useful goal, and a practice in good writing, would be to translate academic jargon into realistic ideas, using news stories as examples or points of reference to illustrate studies I've read for school. A secondary goal would be to use academic articles as motivations to diligently stay abreast of the current affairs in the news--something that is easier to neglect than I'd like to admit.

Does anyone care? Probably not. It's an uphill battle. We'll see how I fare.

Arr?

2009-04-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

At first--and it's terrible to admit--the idea of Somali pirates amused me. "Pirates? In real life? Awesome." Facebook even launched a feature where one's page can be transformed into "Pirate," and similarly, there's even a "talk like a pirate" day.

Sadly, this week's events have put an ugly spin on the phenomena that pop culture packaged into benign amusement. It's both sad and strange to think that new dogs have taken up old tricks.

Voglio Obama?

2009-04-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

Awesome.

April is the cruellest month...

2009-04-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

A T.S. Eliot kind of day:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

2009-04-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

I'll be taking a class on rhetoric in the 2008 campaign next semester, but it seems that the Washington Post has beaten me to the punch.

The greatest hits of Obama rhetoric--and moments of too much candor.

2009-04-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

Normally, I'm apathetic about the rise and fall of mass mediums. Surely, traditional media--from newspapers, to broadcast networks, to radio--have fallen upon hard times. But that's the way things are--and, frankly, nostalgia for these lost mediums rarely takes into account the ways that new media (such as mobile and the Internet) have dramatically reshaped even the most minute aspect of our lives.

What would you choose? A radio station or your iPod? A newspaper or your iPhone?
See. I told you so.

Nonetheless, the closure of classic rock station 94.7 in Washington D.C. struck a chord this morning. The times, they are a changin'. Maybe my generation will be the last to remember the heyday (or heck, just "day") of radio.

Make it work

2009-04-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

I can't imagine that moving over to Lifetime won't hurt Project Runway's brand. Although, I guess when push comes to shove, I'd still watch it.

So much for originality?

2009-04-01T05:27:00.000-07:00

A friend and I are keeping a running tally of every article we see in the Washington Post that, well, illustrates their "changing standards."

Here's another example: WaPo rips off the "Most-Read" New York Times article about private schools accepting more students to raise money.

Well, actually, their spin is sort of different. Washington Post depicts the increased number acceptances as compensation for the fact that fewer students will attend. New York Times depicts the phenomena (privileging wealthy students) as a calculated dash for cash.

Delightful. Glad to know I'll be deluged by more charming undergraduates next year.

If you don't like it...

2009-03-30T05:40:00.001-07:00

...you should still put a ring on it?

Based on a Facebook referral, I found myself reading this article in The Atlantic last night.

Thesis: Single women should settle. The material advantages and stability afforded by marriage to someone you don't entirely respect (thus they are "beneath" you), or even love, are worth it.

Granted, I'm not a 40-year-old who's elected into single motherhood via in vitro fertilization. But the article was, nonetheless, one of the most appalling things I've ever read. You should too, and tell me what you think.

2009-03-24T08:10:00.001-07:00

This ad came up on my Internet radio today. Further proof that ETS is a total racket:
This just in: most people don't apply what they learn in college in the real world. How, then, does grad school offer any sort of "guarantee"? People would be better off in programs that teach them applicable skills--like MBA's, JD's, MD's or MA programs with real world applications (public policy, higher ed administration, etc.)

I'm generalizing, here, to a large degree. Nonetheless, as the recipient of one relatively worthless MA? It's no more "insurance" than successful job performance.

Catchin' Zsss's? Please.

2009-03-20T03:53:00.001-07:00

I can't remember what time I used to get up in high school. Nor can I remember when I went to bed.

I do, remember, however the utter misery of being a high school student awake and in class at 8 AM. (And yes, much worse than my 8 AM, 5-day-a-week Italian class in college--because in college, you get to snark up coffee and shamelessly take naps. Those were the days.)

It's sad that this won't work out, then (although, undoubtedly, members of the opposition have legitimate concerns and criticisms).

I'm 25 and still waiting for my body clock to change. Soon? Please?

2009-03-16T05:07:00.000-07:00

I always enjoy Bob Samuelson, and today is no exception.

Sure. It's come to my attention that "entitlement" is a loaded term--and that by using it, Samuelson is pretty clearly locating himself on one side of a rip-roaring debate.

What's more interesting is that Samuelson is the first moderate columnist I've read to really come out swinging against Obama. Usually his pieces are measured, reasoned--but this criticism stings:

Obama is a great pretender. He repeatedly says he is doing things that he isn't, trusting his powerful rhetoric to obscure the difference. He has made "responsibility" a personal theme; the budget's cover line is "A New Era of Responsibility." He says the budget begins "making the tough choices necessary to restore fiscal discipline." It doesn't.

Sadly, I'm one of the dreamers who wishes responsibility would become reality. But, as Samuelson notes, what is the likelihood that the American public will reconcile its demands of the government with the services it is willing to pay for?

For another piece, comparing the economic crisis to the Depression--not Amity Shlaes style, mind you (thanks to commentary from TNR)--click here.

2009-03-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

This is absolute craziness.

Technology enthusiasts have known about this one for some time, and, like Android, it's quite possible that this new Google project will fail.

But really, how could it? Routing all phones to one line? Sign me up.

Max Martin, MY life "would suck without" YOU

2009-03-10T06:32:00.001-07:00

Who knew? (I, for one, should have.)

Max Martin--you know, the guy who brought us 90% of Britney, Backstreet, and N'Sync back in the day--was the songwriter for Kelly Clarksons's "Since U Been Gone."

Happy spring break?

2009-03-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

Maybe this is why I'm confused all the time:

2009-03-09T05:25:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting follow-up to my previous post about the vilification of Limbaugh.

To be honest, I feel a bit naive. I do my best to keep up with the news (but, admittedly, have much less time to do so than I did at work in the past). But who knew it was such a sophisticated, coordinated assault?

Here are some excerpt's from Jonathan Martin's insightful characterization:

Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.

Americans United for Change launched a new ad featuring Limbaugh’s CPAC appearance. A left-leaning media watchdog group began a new Limbaugh tracking homepage. Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine tweaked Steele for his apology. Terry McAuliffe tried to inject Limbaugh into the Virginia governor’s race. The DCCC launched a new website, www.imsorryrush.com, mocking the Republicans who have had to apologize to Limbaugh.

It’s something of a back to the future tactic for Democrats: painting the GOP as the party of the angry white male. But unlike Newt Gingrich or other prominent Republicans, Limbaugh doesn’t have to mind his tongue.

“The television cameras just can’t stay away from him,” Carville said Tuesday, a day when cable news played images of Limbaugh seemingly on a loop. “Our strategy depends on him keeping talking, and I think we’re going to succeed.”

Dirty politics? Isn't it always? I wouldn't underestimate Limbaugh, though.

Like Anne Coulter, I think Rush understands the profitability of splenetic displays. Unlike Coulter, however, I'm not sure his opinionating is entirely self-serving. To some degree, he's an ideologue. William F. Buckley he's not--but he does have a stake in the ideological tenets of conservatism.

We'll see how big that stake is.

Rush to the exits

2009-03-04T04:35:00.000-08:00

The dynamics within the Republican party right now are quite interesting.

Rush Limbaugh, ever incendiary--except in that rare moment captured in a WSJ op-ed I've already linked to--told audiences at CPAC (i.e. conservative heaven) that he wanted Obama to fail.

Michael Steele, the new chairman of the DNC, censured and then backpedaled. (In between awesome (ok, maybe just weird) references to hip hop?) But you don't have to read David Frum's "Vanishing Republican Voter" to recognize the obvious:

"But to get back to the majority, we need to also connect to independents who may not be listeners of his show."

For a more eloquent account, see Obama advisor David Plouffe's even-handed contribution to the op-ed page. Sure, there are brief moments of homage to Obama. And sure, it's not quite fair to depict the refusals of (some) Republicans to cooperate as obstinate, rather than principled. (Um, hi? Iraq war?)

Nonetheless, he's got a point. A very good one:

Thus far, Republican leaders have let their strategy be guided by their most conservative base, capturing perhaps a third of the nation's voters. For Republican candidates seeking the support of right-wing activists in Iowa, who will exercise outsize influence in the presidential selection process in four years, that strategy -- while not entirely defensible in the midst of an economic crisis -- is understandable.

But any party that hopes to actually govern must appeal to moderates. Today, "moderate" is not an adjective that many would associate with the GOP minority in Congress. And a strategy designed chiefly to satisfy the 33 percent of voters who approved of George Bush's performance last fall -- while turning off first-time and swing voters -- hardly seems like the best way out of the political wilderness.

Amen.

Anti-Pyramid Journalism

2009-03-04T04:31:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to wonder why I read the Washington Post. Where's the story? Really? 4 paragraphs in?

"I'm no economist, but..."

2009-03-03T05:15:00.001-08:00

I feel like I say this every time I start a blog post that links to the economy. But rather than ignorance, however, I'd hope that this is prudence.

Unless there is some recent agreement amongst, oh, the kajillion expert opinions about our current fiasco that I've missed--it seems to me that no one really knows what's going on. There are just indicators. (Lots of 'em).

Back to my point, though: this seems smart! Three simple ideas:

Encourage small business with loans.
Welcome foreign innovators. (Honestly, what's dumber than paranoid xenophobia?)
Match funds for venture capital and angel investments.

Neat!

On Liberty?

2009-03-01T08:31:00.001-08:00

I almost blogged about this book review yesterday, puzzled.

It's a book about the future of liberalism by a Boston College professor. Maybe I'm missing something, but frankly, I don't get it. The reviewer notes:

Wolfe seems to grope at first for a workable definition of liberalism. He begins with a core principle that conservatives, too, might embrace: "As many people as possible should have as much say as is feasible over the direction their lives will take."

While that's a terrific tenet--and yes, many conservatives or libertarians would agree--I'm perplexed by the fundamental paradox of this new breed of FDR "liberalism". How can individual liberty be expanded simultaneously with government social programs? These programs demand the support of citizens, unwilling or willing.

Which, of course, brings up the ironic moment where Wolfe claims John Stuart Mill as an icon of liberalism. On Liberty, of course, is a touchstone of libertarians--but, more importantly, it seems that Wolfe is muddling "classical liberalism" (much closer to minarchic libertarianism) with the "progressive" liberalism of today. It's sort of like saying Abraham Lincoln was a famous Republican: it may be true, but it disingenuously misconstrues fundamental details.

Maybe I'm missing something though. When I get a moment, I guess I'll try to read the book

Everything's amazing...

2009-02-27T04:22:00.000-08:00

...And no one's happy. Why we're lucky for the space-age world we live in--a lovely diversion from our troubling times:

Aww, shucks. Did the link go down? There's another link here :)

I ain't saying she's a gold-digger

2009-02-25T04:39:00.000-08:00

But she ain't messin' with no broke (broke)...

The Post has hit a new low. But is it worse that this article in NYT?
(Conclusion: The Post is worse, for it's appalling lack of snark.)

Memo to men: Don't bring up money on the first date. Or, like, ever. It's happened to me, repeatedly, and it's pathetic. If you want to prove to me that you're educated and classy? Sign up for Merriam Webster's "Word of the Day" email and go get some monogrammed shirts and stationary. (I'm only half-kidding).

Sure, some women can be bought. Just keep in mind that any potential progeny borne with said woman might share with her the IQ of a rock. That's if you're lucky. Before her looks depreciate, she might meet a higher bidder.

Jin(dal) all the way

2009-02-25T04:32:00.000-08:00

It's begun.

Well, scratch that. Since November 5th--or heck, let's be honest, before the election even--Republicans have been casting about for their "next Ronald Reagan." Because, you know, it wouldn't be enough for a talented politician to simply be him/herself.

Two of the most popular names being thrown around are Eric Cantor (of VA) and Bobby Jindal. In a supreme act of hagiography, Michael Gerson has written up the latter in an op-ed today in the Post.

I feel bad for Jindal. He's been vested with the hopes of politicos who refuse to acknowledge the growing fissure between the two coaltions of their ranks (social and fiscal conservatives.) The weight must be crushing.

I hope Jindal proves to be as brave as Mark Warner: deferring candidacy until a later date. 2012? Rushing it. 2016? Maybe. That is, if we're ok with Kenneth from 30 Rock running the country.

Two thousand words.

2009-02-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

(One thousand per picture).

<3 <3 <3 www.explodingdog.com.

Mad world...

2009-02-23T06:20:00.000-08:00

There's unquestionably a correlation between the volume/requisite quality of my school work and my ability to blog. With that said, a picture is worth a thousand words:

2009-02-20T06:29:00.000-08:00

In a strange turn of events, Rush Limbaugh has published an even-handed--even reasonable--argument against the imposition of the Fairness Doctrine on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

While many people are unaware of the law, as Reagan ousted it in the early 1980's, it's recent return is pretty simply explained. Liberal policymakers and advocates aren't happy about the fact that talk radio is universally dominated by conservatives, and they want to regulate content so it presents "fair and balanced" viewpoints on issues. This, in effect, would shutter talk radio, as it's business model is fueled by splenetic, highly partisan opinion-mongering.

I'm no fan of Limbaugh. In fact, I find him extremely offensive. (Exhibit A: "feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.") I think he caters to the worst instincts of many, and degrades conservatism in the public mind.

Nonetheless, if there's a market and a willing distributor, all ideas should be heard. (Ahem. MSNBC?) As Reagan put it:

"This doctrine . . . requires Federal officials to supervise the editorial practices of broadcasters in an effort to ensure that they provide coverage of controversial issues and a reasonable opportunity for the airing of contrasting viewpoints of those issues. This type of content-based regulation by the Federal Government is . . . antagonistic to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. . . . History has shown that the dangers of an overly timid or biased press cannot be averted through bureaucratic regulation, but only through the freedom and competition that the First Amendment sought to guarantee."

Face time

2009-02-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

The NYT is dead on: many of us face(book) the conundrum of cultivating profitable "weak" social ties, but want to maintain some sense of privacy online. The solution: friend lists.

For those of you who don't know how to create "limited profiles," here's a tutorial.

Audacious dissonance?

2009-02-18T04:46:00.000-08:00

It's strange: I've been insulated in the university environment during, arguably, the two most important political events of my lifetime.

I was a freshman, having been at college for less than a month, when the planes struck the twin towers on 9/11. I was barely aware of the subsequent chaos in the D.C. area--the conspiracy theories about the Pentagon and, much more jarringly, the snipers. It all seemed so distant. I remember coming home for Christmas break, and being puzzled by commodified patriotism, the sudden appearance of flag lapel pins and bumper stickers.

And now, I was a first-year in graduate school--in Philadelphia for barely two months--when Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on October 15, catalyzing the series of events that spelled an ever-deepening financial crisis.

I'm not nearly as insulated now as I was 7 years ago--for example, at least I read the news--but nonetheless, recent reports seem hyperbolic and unreal. For better or for worse, I'm more sympathetic to sanguine assessments.

The audacity of hope? Or cognitive dissonance. You tell me.

(In an ongoing effort to force myself to remain open-minded to varying political ideals, I still read Harold Meyerson. It seems I'm not the only one who might be delusional.)

The grass is greener on the other side

2009-02-17T05:56:00.001-08:00

Wow. Thanks to David Brooks for pointing out that my long-term life dreams are pretty cliched. I do dream of Denver, or San Diego, or AZ.

(For the full Pew Report on preferred cities, click here.)

Under the spyglass

2009-02-16T06:23:00.001-08:00

Snaps to Michael Leahy for a beautifully written, nuanced piece in the Post today. He's talking about political, and politicized, documentary filmmaking--a la everyone's favorite incendiary meglomaniac, Michael Moore.

Now it's Nancy Pelosi's daughter who's made a film that displays a pantheon of conservative stereotypes.

It's drive-by journalism, to put it charitably, a string of stupefyingly brief hit-and-run interviews with a bunch of unidentified people who we know are going to say nothing that will surprise us. By then, we've already figured out they're going to be fried by Pelosi's camera. We know they're going to sound like yahoos, often goaded, always reduced to sound bites and caricatures.

All the conventions of the smirking, winking, belittling political documentary are abided by in this film.

Ouch. And I'm not talking about Pelosi's attempts to be clever. This is so much worse than Obama's comment that the working class clings to "guns and religion" because they're bitter. (And, if you still don't understand why that was unintentionally offensive? We should talk.)

Speaking of partisanship, there's also an interesting lead piece in the Post today about how Republicans plan to leverage (potential) failures of the stimulus package to their advantage in the 2010 midterm election. Ah yes, they're already thinking about it.

Spending != Stimulus.

2009-02-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

This is a terrific op-ed on the application of the stimulus, and the hubris of bellicose Democratic generalizations that "all spending is stimulus."

(Rachel Maddow, I want to think you're great, but this one also goes out to you.)

I'm cutting and pasting below, which I rarely do but think is merited in this case:

If the problem with a rebate is that folks will just keep their money in the bank, I wondered whether the government could somehow entice consumers to spend the rebated cash on goods, thus getting it into circulation. Suppose the Treasury were to issue taxpayers some sort of coupons that would only possess value if the holder used them within 60 days to make purchases from local retailers. The retailers would then redeem the coupons from the Treasury. This seemed sensible to me.

So I introduced myself and my thesis to him by e-mail on Dec. 5. That evening, Professor Feldstein replied:
"Thanks for this e-mail. Why wouldn't the recipient of these coupons spend these on whatever he would otherwise have purchased and use the cash that he would otherwise have spent to pay down debts or increase saving?"

I stared at these words. In a lifetime of occasionally failing to think a problem through, I had never failed quite so spectacularly. Feldstein's gently crushing reply gave a whole new meaning to the term "no-brainer."

The following day, I wrote again, apologized for having bothered him and, in mitigation, suggested that the lesson here might have been "not to fall too blindly in love with an idea that you think could save the world." I had also failed to apply the test of Nobel laureate James Franck, who said, "The only way I can tell whether my thoughts . . . really have some weight to them is the sense of terror when I think of something new." Unfortunately, I had experienced no terror.

This also quite accurately characterizes the gentle soul-crushing rebuttals of professors to graduate students. (Read: me).

Power corrupts; absolute power...

2009-02-14T06:23:00.000-08:00

...corrupts absolutely.

It's an understatement to say that I find recent developments in regulating the pay of finance executives to be deeply troubling.

I could parrot the usual argument against pay caps: that doing so removes the incentive (money) to succeed for people obsessed with a single outcome (money). But I'm actually much more concerned on a philosophical level.

Sure, that article in the New York Times about living on a mere $500 grand was ridiculous. Indeed, two of my favorite quotations are from Thoreau's Walden:

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."
"Sell your clothes, keep your thoughts."

And I do think it's tragic, and often offensive, that so many people (often in L.A. and Manhattan) lose sight of the finances that the rest of the country lives by. Shockingly, I'm quite happy with and feel fortunate for the meager wages grad school pays me. (This literally is a shock to some.)

But you can't legislate worldview. You can't tell people what to love, and what to hate; what to disregard and what to prioritize. So I oppose this legislation on the same grounds as I'd oppose a constitutional amendment against gay marriage: quite simply, it's not appropriate for one group of insufferable hypocrites to dictate the behavior of (yes, perhaps also insufferably hypocritical) other group.

It's somewhat authoritarian, if not Fascist. More importantly, it shifts yet more power into Congress's hands, when they already have to much.

Can I have yo' number?

2009-02-13T17:09:00.000-08:00

I'd always wondered where this came from. And now, I know.

Can I have yo' number? Can I have it? Can I have it?

Lost Generation

2009-02-12T10:45:00.000-08:00

I'm a little bit suspicious of anything endorsed by the AARP, but this is quite clever...

...You got to bag it up (Bag it up, yeah)

2009-02-12T06:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what I think (or even what a good libertarian should think) about this:

D.C. is threatening to charge consumers $.05 per bag in an effort to make people more environmentally conscious.

This is strong-arming a political agenda through law, of course, so in some ways it obviously does restrict individual liberty. But, on the other hand, encouraging environmental conservation seems like less of an ideological minefield than, say, entitlement spending or the stimulus. I can't foresee a way in which this would accidentally harm the underprivileged, either. Cloth bags are relatively easy access, and they'd cut down exponentially on waste.

It would be nice if all grocery stores, like Trader Joes, rewarded people who bring their own bags. But they don't, so the question remains, how do you incentivize it?

So while we're at regulating grocery shopping, let's put an injunction on elevators.

(In all seriousness, people--stop taking them. Take the stairs. That is, if you ever, in any seriousness, want to argue that you're an environmentalist without slipping into a vat of hypocrisy.)

Funny.

2009-02-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

How strange. Comments are disabled on this New York Times article. I wonder why?

'Tis the season...

2009-02-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

...for mind-blowing numbers.

As if the waves of nearly-1 trillion $ stimuli weren't enough. Today, I was genuinely surprised to learn this:

The IRS enforces a worldwide web of tax requirements, but it is a web full of holes. The Daschle, Rangel, Geithner and Killefer errors are part of the roughly $350 billion "tax gap" of unpaid taxes each year. The root of the problem is the intense complexity of the income tax. The labyrinthine code trips up many people who make honest errors, but it also makes it more difficult for the IRS to find cheats.

Dear "liberal" or "very liberal" friends: since you are the ones who are more supportive of the idea of increasing taxes to improve the public good--Aren't you proud? Look how diplomatically I put that--please think about a way that's not prohibitively expensive to decrease this gap.

(If your answer is "we can't"...well...I think that should probably lead to some introspection about the efficiency of expanding social policies through taxes. I'm kidding. Sort of.)

Who's Biggie and who's Tupac?

2009-02-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

"Gang" is hardly a neutral term, but I'm happy to see David Brook's commentary on their potential reemergence. Compromise would be a happy substitute from increasingly polarized, partisan blowhards.

Baby Mama Drama

2009-02-04T04:54:00.000-08:00

This is unreal. Using artificial insemination techniques, a single, unemployed 33 year old woman had 8 embryos implanted, and successfully carried all 8 children through the pregnancy.

Her daughter "is not evil, but she is obsessed with children. She loves children, she is very good with children, but obviously, she overdid herself," her mother, Angela Suleman, told the Los Angeles Times. She decided to have more embryos implanted in hopes of having "just one more girl."

Does this count as a psychiatric disorder?

In the meantime, Suleman has hired publicists to handle the hundreds of media inquiries from around the world. According to her spokesman, Mike Furtney, the "very bright, very engaging" Suleman has a degree in psychology and hopes to continue work toward a master's degree.

Wow. Speaking of.

"Wanna make love in a club with a..."

2009-02-03T17:45:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure that this is what Usher had in mind.

Above, a screen capture of an ad served to my browser tonight as I studied and listened to non-vocal jazz on an online radio station. (I know it's weird, Mom. Sorry...)

Look who's back

2009-02-02T04:54:00.000-08:00

...(back, back). Back again.

Everyone's favorite political trio: Larry, Curly, and Mo (better known as Caroline Kennedy, Rod Blagojevich, and Sarah Palin). Howard Kurtz writes:

As a case study in media mismanagement, it would be hard to find three public figures who more badly botched their time in the searing spotlight.

In the cold heart of this libertarian conservative, there remains some sympathy for Caroline Kennedy. While her candidacy seemed ill-considered and displayed an appalling sense of entitlement, I do think her intentions were genuinely good. Nor did she deserve the virulent stream of antipathy from Rush Limbaugh--but then again, who does.

With Kennedy eliminated from the running for my least favorite, it's a tough contest between Blagojevich and Palin. But while the insufferable Blagojevich will soon be shuffled into irrelevance, it seems that the arrogant gall of Sarah Palin is here to stay:

Palin, who went on a television blitz after the election, offers harsh assessments of the news business in a 40-minute interview with conservative commentator John Ziegler for a DVD titled "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected." An unedited copy, made available to The Washington Post, goes beyond recent excerpts.

The URL? www.howobamagotelected.com.

Her argument is idiotic. Palin's base--by the way, not the swing voters who inexplicably exposed themselves CNN and it's overwhelming "bias"--are themselves buffered from the "liberal media." And it's simply baffling that the GOP's Vice Presidential candidate flatters negative depictions of herself as the sole reason for Obama's victory.

Wake up. Obama also had a flawlessly implemented campaign, carried by a groundswell of volunteers and supporters who were targeted by the voter database (finally) implemented by the DNC.

Oh yeah, and there was this thing called "the economic crisis."

I checked for some other URL's. Apparently, "sarahpalinisanidiot.com" is taken, but "ihatesarahpalin.com" is not.

I'm not thrilled with the GOP right now. (Have I ever been?). But I can guarantee one thing: if Sarah Palin, in any seriousness, considers a presidential candidacy for 2012, I will be one of the people who fights it, tooth and nail. A pox on your house. Go back to Alaska, and stay there.

Ennui.

2009-01-29T05:06:00.000-08:00

Theirs, and mine.

An appalling snarky piece in the Post today about the GOP "finding itself." (Gosh, that's a new discovery.) Seriously, just read the opening. A few more examples of unbridled snark:

"We're in this rebuilding time," Monica Notzon, a Washington-based Republican fundraiser, helpfully explained this month. "Trying to figure out who we are."

Why is that a necessary adjective? Does this factoid even relate relevant information? To me, it seems like a redundant observation presented for the sole purpose of subtle mockery.

On the airwaves and in print, the Republicans keep blasting away, gnawing on each other's tender wounds.

Blasting. Gnawing. I'm glad to see that pejorative language--and mixed metaphors--are acceptable "analysis" for one of the nation's best newspapers. This isn't the op-ed page, or the Outlook section, where such language is appropriate.

And the ultimate insult from Limbaugh['s criticism of the GOP's current behavior]: that's the way Democrats do things.

But what do Republicans do?

A few days ago, a friend responded to my earlier post about "hackneyed hubris," expressing similar concerns about the recent degradation of quality in the Post.

I'm not jumping into the fray about "liberal media bias," because it's simply not productive. Biased or not, I think that people should expose themselves to a variety of opinions--opinions that sometimes conflict with their own.

(Read The Echo Chamber by Kathleen Jamieson and Joe Cappella, both Annenberg professors, for more on the universal use of "liberal media bias" as a rebuttal strategy. It's simply fantastic.)

Am I being too touchy? Or does anyone else agree?

Must-Read.

2009-01-28T07:59:00.001-08:00

A simply fantastic article about the sciences, and their great contribution to us all, in the New York Times.

Something I don't miss about DC: Hackneyed hubris.

2009-01-27T04:56:00.000-08:00

Expect me to be on my high horse for some time about holding Obama accountable for his promises, just as he plans to hold the government accountable while re-jiggering the institutional mechanisms of government. Honestly, my assessment is that the line between success and failure will demonstrate what's clever, and what's smart.

(Yes, I love using "clever" pejoratively).

Nonetheless, I must confess that the soaring ecstasy of elites describing Obama grows a bit thin. It's not very nice, but I do understand why some Republicans compare(d) rhetoric about Obama to the Messiah.

But this article was truly puzzling. First, I'm surprised that the Post published such hackney hagiography:

To be clear, previous administrations have launched serious efforts to improve government operations, leading to limited, but not insignificant, improvements. But Obama's approach appears to be significantly different. He is not just saying we need to improve government operations. He's saying we need to put this issue front and center. We need to commit as much energy to policy execution as we do to policy development. This interpretation is based not on wishful thinking, but on the president's actions.

Second, I'm surprised it was classified as "Analysis."

Third, I'm not sure what kind of great hubris, and ties to the Post, justified this author's byline: "Max Stier is president and CEO of Partnership for Public Service, a group that seeks to revitalize the federal government."

How could that possibly be taken as a serious mission statement? Someone could form a non-profit called the Center for the Protection of Rainbows and Ponies and more realistically define their goals.

Inflated sense of self-importance? Go hang out with Blagojevich. At least he's well read.

(Expect me to staff the CPRP in the future. Right now, Ruth Marcus is a founding member.)

"Do they have water in Nigeria?"

2009-01-26T05:22:00.001-08:00

No, I'm not being a xenophobic ignoramus. This was an actual, if poorly phrased, question posited of a Nigerian friend by her boss.

So, anonymous friend--since you've already so accustomed to getting grief over your national identity--this one also goes out to you :)

What do women want?

2009-01-24T09:34:00.001-08:00

I couldn't tell you.

Nonetheless, this is an interesting article from the Times Magazine.

Of course, the most obvious and immediate criticism is "external validity"--I find it hard to imagine that the people who would be willing to participate in this experiment represent a random sample of the population at large. It makes me wonder how much compensation is involved.

Pure poetry.

2009-01-21T16:50:00.001-08:00

Elizabeth Bishop's got nothing on her.

I'm speechless.

Inaugu-Rate-tion

2009-01-21T04:47:00.001-08:00

Most surprising part of Obama's speech?

Not the lack of overt references to race, which I thought he handled quite elegantly by recalling ancestors who "endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth."

Rather, I thought it was his open reference to atheism: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers."

And I'm not sure what to think of the following:

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works ... Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."

Of course, this directly contradicts Rand's cynicism about government official's capacity to govern fairly and objectively that I wrote about earlier this month. And there are remaining ideological differences about how and if government should or can proactively intervene in personal matters.

Nonetheless, I hope our new President's optimism about "making hard decisions" proves me wrong. We shall find out soon whether hopes, dreams, can be realized by mere mortals.

Happy Inauguration!

2009-01-20T04:41:00.000-08:00

Burning thoughts:

There's a Filenes at 14 and F?

And then Anne Applebaum, wry and unintentionally hilarious:

Challenged like that pilot was, Obama's task is to prevent the unexpected financial crisis from leading to a catastrophe. To do so, he must demonstrate competence and professionalism, qualities so rare in public life that those who possess them are ... widely described as "heroic."

Oh, snap. Less hilarious, but equally true:

I could illustrate this perhaps excessively poetic point in many ways, but one aspect in particular of the new administration's various "bailout" plans worries me: the assumption, which seems to lie behind such plans, that people make better decisions when they are handling public money than they do when they are handling their own money.

This gets back to the whole Rand argument, and David Brooks' recent forecast of the rise of behavioral economics. Both the public and legislators are not rational actors; they are motivated by self-interest (varying in objectivity and lucidity). Yet they need to cooperate to keep the ship...uh, plane?...from sinking.

Hope, and hyperbole

2009-01-19T07:59:00.001-08:00

Is it me, or is everyone waiting with bated breath for Inauguration?

There's surely something to celebrate: technically, today is W's last (full) day in office. No better reason to exhale.

Nonetheless, the rhetoric about hope in the mainstream media seems, well, a little bit hyperbolic. Wasn't "Yes, We Can" enough? Apparently not. Take, for example, the introduction of yesterday's headline article in the Post:

"On the final leg of a two-year road trip, Barack Obama rode into Washington on Saturday in an antique caboose with the contented look of a man convinced he was arriving at his rightful destination.

Hmm. Leading the witness? I'll let it slide. What about recent poll numbers?

There's obviously a great deal of pessimism about the country's state of affairs. But while these numbers are an interesting commentary on the nation's current worldview, they're hardly diagnostic of its actual health. Nonetheless, people are pretty pumped about Obama:

More than half of all Americans have high hopes for his presidency, almost three-quarters of the public say Obama's proposals will improve the struggling economy, and about eight in 10 have a favorable view of him -- more than twice the percentage now holding positive views of Bush. About seven in 10 say Obama understands their problems, and a similar proportion say his victory gives him "a mandate to work for major new social and economic programs."

(A big eye roll goes out to those "hoping" that Obama pushes through a new New Deal. If it weren't so cliched, I'd grumble about moving to Canada.)

And is it hackneyed that the Post continues with the trend with a more impressionistic piece today about everyman's hopes in humble Delta? I think Bob Samuelson makes a better point, arguing that Obama must alleviate national feelings of helplessness in order to reap political credit--otherwise his "burden will be back-breaking/"

Why so serious? It's snowing. I wish that was as much of a panacea as it used to be.

If life hands you a lemon...

2009-01-15T14:24:00.001-08:00

You could make lemonade.

Or, you could complain, and complain, and complain, souring an otherwise sweet and refreshing beverage.

Really, America? We're facing a 1.2 trillion deficit--and no one seems to want to pause, and give thought to the implications of coughing up another few $ hundred billion in bailout cash.

But you're peeved that the Obama's are vacillating about choosing a puppy? It's a dog that will--no matter its shape or size--be loved unconditionally by two little girls. Get over it.

Is love a bug?

2009-01-14T10:40:00.001-08:00

A rather odd article in the New York Times posits that, if oxytocin can be used to spur monogamous relationship between individuals in near proximity, it might also be used to inhibit infidelity--or, even inoculate people against love.

The results are somewhat depressing:

“If we give an oxytocin blocker to female voles, they become like 95 percent of other mammal species,” Dr. Young said. “They will not bond no matter how many times they mate with a male or hard how he tries to bond. They mate, it feels really good and they move on if another male comes along. If love is similarly biochemically based, you should in theory be able to suppress it in a similar way.”

Sure, detachment would reduce soul-crushing infatuation (and any/all idiocy that accompanies it) great--but, in counterpoint, when I think monogamy, I think STD's. Or, namely, the decreased risk to acquiring them.

So, I'm not sure that this extrapolation makes sense:

I doubt many people would want to permanently suppress love, but a temporary vaccine could come in handy. Spouses going through midlife crises would not be so quick to elope with their personal trainers; elderly widowers might consult their lawyers before marrying someone resembling Anna Nicole Smith. Love is indeed a many-splendored thing, but sometimes we all need to tie ourselves to the mast.

In fact, this conclusion seems to be in direct opposition to the quotation from Young above. (Am I missing something?) The story of Odysseus and Penelope was about love; the story of Odysseus and the Sirens was about blind lust.

Or, as Derek Walcott put it in Sea Grapes: "The classics can console. But not enough."

On Annenberg

2009-01-14T10:39:00.001-08:00

Excerpted from an anonymous student review:

"They are a quirky lot of A-Type personalities and maniac geniuses. Always neurotic, often brilliant and occasionally unhinged, it has been an honor to count myself as one of them."

True that.

Band-Aid$

2009-01-12T05:56:00.000-08:00

Why do Americans have more expensive health care?

Because we order more expensive procedures in a system with few mechanisms to encourage frugality. Our health care system is indicative of our national values, says Bob Samuelson: "highly individualistic, entrepreneurial and suspicious of centralized supervision." Yet, in a system of open-ended insurance reimbursements, doctors and patients alike blow through the most advanced surgeries, diagnostics, and tests.

Samuelson argues that, quite simply, there's "no major constituency for controlling spending." He points out:

Unless we rectify this political imbalance, efforts to control health spending may fail. We need mass constituencies that favor cost control. But our consistent policy has been to conceal the burden of health spending by burying it in untaxed corporate fringe benefits or government budgets.

Abomination that Bush's Medicare Prescription Act was, the singular achievement of the reform was to instate HSA's (Health Savings Accounts).

What better way to enforce frugality that to frame one's medical spending with finite numbers? I know for a fact--and as someone who regularly visited 7 doctors last spring--"drawing down" an account encourages attentiveness to one's medical care, and enforces proactive skepticism. Or, as Samuelson puts it, "[We should] compel Americans to face a discomforting issue -- how important is health care compared with other priorities?"

Given that President-elect Obama is looking to expand government health care, one should ask: Do I really need to pay more taxes for a CAT scan for my swollen toe? Therein lies the problem of universal health care, my friends. Depersonalizing health care provides few incentives to moderate one's spending: why worry, when the cost will be shared by the entire country? (Extrapolate that behavior out, by 300 million. Egad.)

As a result, the burden of frugality is thrust upon bureaucracy. Let's hope Nancy Killefer is darn good at her job.

Tick Tock

2009-01-12T05:52:00.002-08:00

One week, one day, and one new president to complain about.

Politics, not poker

2009-01-11T09:15:00.001-08:00

Three articles in the Post today about Obama's tenuous relationship with a power-hungry Democratic Congress.

One report signals that Obama is enduring a "baptism by fire": his tax plan was met "with disdain" by Democratic legislators, and his choice of Leon Pannetta as the head of the CIA was publicly questioned by Diane Feinstein, the incoming Senate intelligence committee chairman.

David Broder also infers that Obama was caught off-guard twice this week: by Bill Richardson (stepping down from his nomination for the post of Commerce secretary), and the--yes, audacious--egotism of Roland Burris (who refuses to step down). Can a person be a pariah if they refuse to acknowledge that they are shunned?

David Ignatius argues that Obama is serious about centrism: the tenacious Rahn Emanuel will ensure that "the White House sets the policy agenda, rather than the party's base," and Obama's Cabinet "is so centrist it almost resembles a government of national unity."

Of the three articles, I think that Broder makes the best point. Obama has had less time than many to assess the personalities of his fellow politicians and, like it or not, national politics are brokered by and between personalities.

Nonetheless, I was turned off by this turn of phrase:

When black Chicago congressman Bobby Rush played the race card, questioning why anyone would stand in the way of Burris succeeding Obama as the lone African American senator, you could feel a wave of anxiety go through Democratic ranks.

I'm going to be honest: I love David Broder, but I hate this term. I'll accept the analogy that much of interpersonal--and, particularly, political--interaction is similar to a poker game. But why is "race" the only card we hear about?

My intuition is that it's a relic of earlier days--a peculiar turn of phrase for a generation that remembers segregation as the greatest civic issue of their time; that remembers "race" not as an attribute, but as a position that must be negotiated within society. Perhaps this explains why the term is largely eschewed by my generation.

Was there a "gender" card during womens' suffrage? Will there be a "queer" card for my generation?

The rub: much as we'd like to deny it, perhaps personal identity and political ideology are not always distinct--there may always be some issue, simmering on the back burner, then bubbling unexpectedly to the surface.

Obama makes it look easy -- but perhaps we, as individuals and mere mortals, can never be post-partisan.

Life imitates art?

2009-01-10T09:04:00.001-08:00

This op-ed in the Wall Street Journal has been making the rounds in libertarian circles. Its argument is made clear in its title: "'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years." Oh my!

The author, Stephen Moore, is a former employee of the Cato Institute--and, like many hardcore libertarians, seems to be taking Rand a bit too seriously. In a 1957 review of the book, Whittaker Chambers writes in National Review:

"The news about this book seems to me to be that any ordinarily sensible head could not possibly take it seriously, and that, apparently, a good many do."

Chambers criticizes the book for its "operatic caricatures," and then articulates the age-old argument between traditional conservatives and libertarians over the definition of moral "good" in public life. Nonetheless, Chambers has something of a point, as he compares the materialism of the Randian man to the Marxist man: he is "the center of a godless world."

Henceforth man's fate, without God, is up to him, and to him alone. His happiness, in strict materialist terms, lies with his own workaday hands and ingenious brain. His happiness becomes, in Miss Rand's words, "the moral purpose of his fife."

The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure, with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit.

Ultimately, Chambers fears that the lionization of materialism--sans spirituality to lend life a more realistic context of what's important--leads to faulty "winner take all" definitions of good and evil, crime and punishment.

He who is the most productive defines the rules of the game with an arbitrary moral referent, wielding his power tyrannically over those who are less talented (or in a Marxist context, less productive). From this logic comes the famous coup de grace:

From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber — go!"

Ouch. Of course, keep in mind, at about this time the National Review was also virulently anti-segregationist, and overtly racist. Does that damage the moral claims of Chambers? I certainly think so.

And should we legislate morality--of any sort? See the Federalist Papers for a healthy debate about this one.

This argument that governing institutions are symptomatic of a regimes's moral claims is interesting--but one that will likely be excluded from public discourse as policymakers stab at solutions to the economic crisis. Nonetheless, the point remains: Will the creation of new chairs, department actually work to the benefit of the people--or, as Stephens alleges, will it prove that:

Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

Well, at least they're making the book into a movie--with Angelina Jolie rumored as the lead. I'm glad to know that, in these hard times, we have the ever-realistic lens of Hollywood to show us the way ;)

Shaken, not Stirred

2009-01-08T20:52:00.000-08:00

Right now, it's musical chairs for the Obama administration. There's a lot of noise as things--or in this case, Cabinet members, appointees to new positions, formal advisors, informal advisors, Michelle, Malia, Sasha, even the infamous Obama puppy--get shuffled about.

The WSJ gave snaps to Obama for creating an "efficiency" chair--while at the same time, others wryly note that the position is a page taken from an authoritarian socialist regime (true) as well as a tacit concession that bureaucracy is neither accountable nor efficient (also true).

Today, the Post points out that, in toto, Obama has assembled a cadre of advisors "whose power to direct domestic policy will rival, if not exceed, the authority of his Cabinet."

"We're going to have so many czars," said Thomas J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "It's going to be a lot of fun, seeing the czars and the regulators and the czars and the Cabinet secretaries debate."

Things start to look more like a three-ring circus than a game of musical chairs.

Lots of clowns (This one goes out to you, Barney Frank).

Lots of tunes (Although.. speaking of music -- where's it coming from? No one knows.)

Some juggling. (Not Yoo, John. You've already dropped the ball... and then kicked it around, torn out its stuffing, and thrown out the rule book.)

The odd, solumn elephant (our hats tipped to the honorable Ray LaHood).

A tragicomedy of puppet and puppeteer (what more can be said of Burris and Blagojevich?)

It's all great fun to watch.
The catch?

No one knows exactly what's going to happen when the music stops.

Online Survivor

2009-01-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

I'm often turned on by reports or op-eds about online social networking in the mainstream media. They're either hackneyed, naive, unduly paranoid -- or, sometimes, hilariously perplexed.

Nonetheless, this is a great article in the WSJ about cultivating weak social ties.

In a seminal 1973 paper, Stanford professor Mark Granovetter laid out the importance of weak ties between acquaintances, which he said created a "crucial bridge between the [acquaintances'] two densely knit clumps of close friends."

Weak ties are particularly good for job searching, Mr. Granovetter argued, because acquaintances can expose a job candidate to a much wider range of possibilities than his or her close friends can.

"Your weak ties are your windows on the world," says Mr. Granovetter. He says he accepts friend requests "if I know the person, whether I like them or not."

I found this to be true in my LinkedIn disaster. I never would have connected to many of the people in my Gmail address book--but now, faculty members at Wisconsin (another top poli comm program) not only will vaguely remember me as an applicant, but as a contact. Good deal, right?

Hello, Goodbye

2009-01-06T16:30:00.000-08:00

It's both a happy and a sad day for Virginians.

It marks the end of the prestigious career of Senator John Warner, who spoke at my college graduation.

It marks the beginning of the Senate career of a new shining star, Mark Warner, hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "typical the new breed of centrist, business-oriented Democrats which the party hopes can succeed in other parts of the South."

(As a side note, I'm somewhat amused by this grudging assessment. Business-oriented? Centrist? Appealling to the South? I'm not sure that this fits the bill of the South described by Pew Center for the People and the Press. Virginia's change--fueled by a rapid influx of Hispanic immigrants, as well as the well-documented liberal leanings of high income Northern Virginia-- is demographic, rather than ideological. But how about the Southwest? Re: Arizona, Nevada, Colorado. Think about it.)

Nonetheless, it is with a lump in my throat I read that Mark Warner has asked the (unrelated) elder Warner to escort him onto the Senate floor. Says Mark of John:

"He just oozes Virginia in the best way possible. I may be succeeding him, but I'm not replacing him. He's not replaceable."

Yeah, that's right. My great state. Take that, Texas!

(Sure, sure. Snaps also go to current VA Governor Tim Kaine for his recent appointment as the chair of the DNC. You know, since ideological differences nonetheless demand the graciousness "oozed" by we Virginians :).

(And fine. While we're at it? I'm delighted by the 2016 Warner propaganda. Hillary had better not thwart my boy Mark's presidential ambitions. Seriously, girl. Don't mess with VA.)

Now you see him, now you don't. Magic!

2009-01-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

An article today in the Post highlighted the high stakes for controlling the future of the GOP by running a piece about 6 contenders for the party's chair.

Personally--and with the admission that I'd need to do considerably more research before making a truly educated call on this one--I'd lean towards someone like Michael Steele or Sam Azunis. You know, practical, reasonable leaders who recognize that it is perhaps not a good idea to "further refine their party into a pure aggregation of fervently religious heterosexual white people who hate taxes."

I can tell you who shouldn't be picked: Chip Saltzman.
Who?
You know, the guy who thought it was not only appropriate, but humorous, to send out a song "Barack the Magic Negro" on his holiday CD.
Oh.

Even Newt Gingrich--yes, he of the zealous and divisive post-"Contract with America" "revolutionary" rhetoric--came out swinging against Saltzman: the CD was "so inappropriate that it should disqualify any Republican National Committee candidate who would use it."

The GOP is facing some pretty big problems lately. This schmuck shouldn't be one of them.

In a word?

2009-01-02T15:20:00.000-08:00

Absurd.

Better than 'Apocalypto'...

2009-01-02T08:51:00.001-08:00

Wall-E has been cleaning up in the 2008 Top 10 movie lists.

It's a beautiful film, and it gives heart to the same empty, post-apocalyptic urban landscape that is ludicrous in "I Am Legend." (Yes, I saw "I am Legend." In theatres. It wasn't my idea.) In fact, Wall-E is so beautiful that it makes me cry uncontrollably. Really. I was sobbing so hard I only made it half-way through the movie.

Nonetheless, TNR picks it for the top spot in my favorite rendition of year-end movie reviews. Read down to the bottom for clever quips such as...

The Damn, I Had a Hell of a Year Award:
Robert Downey, Kate Winslet

The Invisible Man Award:
Clive Owen

If You Like It...

2009-01-01T09:43:00.001-08:00

Yeah, you know where this is going.

I'm not normally a fan of Beyonce. Usually, her music reminds me of some sort of yowling, trapped animal.

But it's undeniable: her new song, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)", is iconic. (The Washington Post agrees with me). It's already a huge hit on YouTube--spawning tons of copycats, a la Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat"--but I'm predicting that it will be longer lived. (Sort of like the 1950's pin-ups mimicked in the video.) My forecast: it will be an anthem on the scale of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone."

If you'd ever doubted Beyonce's athleticism, take a look at the video. (I'd embed, but it's so popular I can't.) The dancing is, well, incredible. I'm equally impressed by this little girl.

Of course, I'm still slightly perplexed by gay guys's affinity for "Single Ladies," but perhaps I'm taking things too seriously.

Let's Get Physics-cal

2008-12-30T15:05:00.000-08:00

I've become increasingly conflicted about the work of contrarian social scientist Charles Murray. His work in The Bell Curve has been the most obvious subject of dispute, but his recent book about secondary education is equally--if not as overtly--inflammatory and audacious.

Now Murray's written an op-ed for the New York Times about Obama's imperative to make greater use of community colleges and reform the education system by encouraging certifications in lieu of 4-year college. Most people don't really need a BA or a BS to achieve happiness, says Murray, much less their vocational goals.

To make his argument, Murray relies once again on his favorite (if questionable) metric for talent: IQ--which for many, discredits the argument entirely. Nonetheless, I'll grudgingly concede that he's sort of got a point.

You think I’m too pessimistic? Too elitist? Readers who graduated with honors in English literature or Renaissance history should ask themselves if they could have gotten a B.S. in physics, no matter how hard they tried. (I wouldn’t have survived freshman year.) Except for the freakishly gifted, all of us are too dumb to get through college in many majors.

Ouch. Ditto.

Just last night, when speaking with my father (a double major in Math and Physics), I admitted that physics was one of those subjects where my brain just, well, breaks. Calculus? Loved it. But physics? [Grasshoppers].

Presumably--and as much as I myself like to doubt it--I am one of the people who Murray deems worthy to attend a four-year college. And frankly, (based on my experience thus far), getting a PhD in the social sciences is more about persistence and hard work than aptitude or talent. As Jefferson said:

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

I wonder what he would think of Charles Murray.

Doing the Math

2008-12-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

I was stunned this morning when I opened the Washington Post Style section.

A few months ago, I ran into a classmate from high school on the bus from Philly to DC. He's become a prominent DJ on the East Coast, snagging the recent cover of City Paper. We joked about starting a club for quasi-famous TJ alums as he informed me that my former math partner had been signed to the same record label as Bikini Kill. A few weeks later, I sent him a link to her MySpace, and we both marveled that she was "really blowing up."

Fast forward to this morning. Her single, "Bag of Hammers," is listed as the Posts' #3 song pick for the year, and her album is included in their the top 10 for the year.

Writes J. Freedom Du Lac on her album (Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down, "We Brave Bee Stings and All"):

"And Thao Nguyen came across like Edie Brickell fronting Modest Mouse, only better."

Back in the day when I knew her, "Thao" went by "Theresa," but she was always down-to-earth and just plain fun (which is a stretch, for math class). I couldn't be happier that she's doing so well.

<-- With Stupid?

2008-12-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

Takes one to know one.

Taking Swings

2008-12-25T09:20:00.000-08:00

President-elect Barack Obama and I might not see eye-to-eye on many things--videlicit, the role of government in protecting liberty and pursuing the common good--but his character nonetheless impresses me. The (studied) dispassion and drive that the Clinton campaign (rightly) criticized during the primaries reflects tremendous mastery over personal comportment. In this regard, Obama often mirrors David Brooks' elegant description of Tiger Woods.

As an adult, he is famously self-controlled. His press conferences are a string of carefully modulated banalities. His lifestyle is meticulously tidy. His style of play is actuarial. He calculates odds and avoids unnecessary risks like the accounting major he once planned on being. “I am, by nature, a control freak,” he once told John Garrity ... as Garrity resisted the temptation to reply, “You think?”

The ancients were familiar with physical courage and the priests with moral courage, but in this over-communicated age when mortals feel perpetually addled, ____ is the symbol of mental willpower. He is, in addition, competitive, ruthless, unsatisfied by success and honest about his own failings. (Twice, he risked his career to retool his swing.)Notice any similarities in the manner of depiction?

Another article in the Post today illustrates Obama's remarkable discipline. (An amusing contrast to Brooks' wry self-description as a rotund schlep amongst the unwashed masses). Will Obama's ascension from the disheveled vice and manifest peccadilloes of the masses translate into seamless governance? Or at the very least, a few hole-in-ones? One can only hope.

Kennedy Mystique

2008-12-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

An article in the NYT touches on the generation gap concerning Caroline Kennedy: it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who doesn't particularly care, or even know, who she is.

Is it ridiculous that she's seeking a Senate seat, with her only prior political contribution being her endorsement of Obama a few months ago? Yes. She deserves every ounce of (gentle!) censure and mockery she's received from the press.

Let's end entitlement politics. Look where it got us last.

Abstraction

2008-12-20T16:58:00.000-08:00

This week I finished the research project that monopolized my time and attention for 80% of the semester. It's no exaggeration to say that I'm more proud of this project than I am of my Masters thesis. (Also true: I probably worked harder on it, which says much for my current endeavors but very little of my previous ones...)

Nonetheless, a moment of shameless self-promotion, my abstract:

"The Internet has become a critical medium for American politics: in 2008, almost half of American adults looked for political information online, and 30% of internet users contributed to online political discussions. Using the candidacy of Sarah Palin as a case study of a provocative political event, this paper examines the tone, partisan leanings, and referentiality of six elite blogs. First by sampling overall trends of Palin coverage and then by performing a content analysis of a sub-sample of posts, this paper finds that the valence and stridency of blog posts vary by partisan identification, and that stridency dramatically affects the referential structure of posts. Although the referentiality of blog posts varies significantly by stridency and by blog, it does not vary along partisan lines. Nonetheless, the relationship between stridency and partisan conformity exposed by this paper illustrates a trend amongst conservative blogs to repeat the allegations of “liberal media bias” often voiced by traditional conservative media outlets, contributing to an “echo chamber” effect in the blogosphere."

Interested? Let me know. I'll talk your ear off.

"The rare accomplishment of sublimity on the interwebs."

2008-12-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

P. cued me in to this delightful phenomenon a few days ago: like Tuscan Whole Milk? Never heard of it? You're missing out. As P. puts it, an illustration of "the rare accomplishment of sublimity on the interwebs."

The ways in which the Internet has impacted our existence are manifold, of course, and mind-boggling. I'm not just talking about International Pillow Fight Day -- well, actually, I am. But its nonetheless difficult to imagine our lives devoid of digital, say, only 10 years ago.

(Really--click on the link. It won't fail to amuse.)

And another diversion:

Really, Tim Berners-Lee. I'm sure this is not what you imagined, but thank you.

Holiday Cheer

2008-12-16T10:28:00.001-08:00

It's no secret that the holiday season is somewhat less idyllic for adults than the blissful winter wonderland one imagines as a child. Stress? Check.

As if dealing with families (troublesome interpersonal dynamics; conflicting expectations, etc.) or the lack of one (depression accompanying feelings of solitude, isolation, alienation) weren't enough, two recent posts in the NYT highlight another often-hellish dimension of the holiday season: the obligatory holiday party.

By one's early twenties, we've all been to one, witnessing for ourselves strained obligation as it meets binge behavior. Jim Atkinson, a recovering alcoholic, argues that his inability to drink provides an opportune excuse for absence from such gatherings. Susan Cheever questions whether social control--the relatively recent stigma attached to public drunkenness--helps people to avoid getting sloshed amongst so-called "friends".

The feelings both writers describe--the emptiness, the utter desperation as obligation, convention close in, and the subsequent urge to obliterate the discomfort of sentience--are far too recent a memory to dispel.

Cheers.
Drink up. Or don't.

These boots were made for walkin;'

2008-12-15T03:46:00.000-08:00

Does anyone besides me find it ironic (yes, wrong use of the word) that Obama's first effort will be to improve infrastructure--but that his inauguration will likely break the infrastructure of DC?

Can the Center Hold?

2008-12-12T04:57:00.000-08:00

Like John Yoo and Francis Fukuyama, I find Charles Krauthammer mildly terrifying. His is a brilliant intellect leveraged to unconscionable ends by the Bush administration. His justifications for the Iraq war--like the pure ideology of neoconservatism or "democratic realism"--are limpid and stunning. (Including pejorative overtones).

While it's easy to dismiss him as an ideologue crackpot, he is nonetheless quite shrewd. Take, for example, his assertion that by choosing Palin, McCain effectively undermined his campaign's message of "experience" to its detriment. Score: 1, Krauthammer.

Today's op-ed in the Washington Post is equally astute. Perhaps Obama has chosen centrist picks because he is uninterested in resolving the messy business of foreign policy and the floundering economy--and instead, interested in dramatic reform--Paul Krugman's New New Deal--at home.

If Krauthammer's right, I can only hope that Obama will employ the same merciless efficiency of his campaign in domestic policy. Or will it be the Second Coming?

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Stick with Stick Figures.

2008-12-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've (re)discovered that my life could be more concisely expressed through stick figures.

Right now, I sort of feel like this:

But mostly, more like this:

Viva semester.

The grass is always greener...

2008-12-08T20:18:00.001-08:00

Even the most cantankerous conservative could not deny the obvious: Democrats have been graced with a political phenom. An outlier. As some pundits have put it (and conservative ones, I tell you!), Obama is a political talent that comes "once in a generation."

And, you know--his campaign? The one that raised $750 million--which was more than donations to the 2004 presidential campaign equaled with both parties combined? Well, snaps to them too.

Democrats are enjoying their greatest political victory since LBJ in 1964. And it's not yet Inauguration Day. But "progressives" have already found something to whine about.

Those laurels? Who wants 'em.
I'm not going to lie. I'm amused.

We Didn't Start the Fire(bomb)

2008-12-08T06:02:00.000-08:00

As I grow older, I become increasingly unimpressed with radicalism. To fancy oneself an iconoclast seems like foolhardy navel-gazing: it's both immature and irrational. Given the world population--6.7 billion--is it statistically likely that any "new" idea is not shared by someone else? I'd argue that ideas truly "outside the box" take time to percolate--and that the feats of iconoclasts are more about implementation than ideas. Newton wondered about the apple--but it was conceptualizing calculus that made him radical.

Nonetheless, there is a different kind of "radicalism" that equates political ideology with action--one that is dangerous, selfish, and equally pompous and myopic. Contributor Emil Henry pleads in the Washington Post for respite from the firebombs and vicious attacks by animal rights activists on scientists who use animal subjects in their research. It's appalling.

True radicalism is the willingness to spend a lifetime in the intellectual wilderness, patiently waiting for one's ideas to blossom, benefiting supporters and critics alike. Radicalism is creation, not destruction. Words do not exist to sufficiently to vituperate those who willfully, maliciously misunderstand.

Atlas Poised

2008-12-07T13:59:00.001-08:00

I don't normally agree with Thomas Friedman, but today I found myself nodding along with him as I read his op-ed about the impact of the (unfortunate, yet inevitable) bailout on my generation.

Agree or disagree with the idea of the bailout -- it's happening. Today Obama announced a variety of initiatives that he will try to use to help stave off unemployment and spur industry. I'm no economist, nor am I an expert in infrastructure, so I can only appreciate the endeavors he's outlined (homage to green technology, etc. etc.) for their politically savvy, rather than their potential as prophylactics that might halt the downward spiral of our floundering economy.

So while Friedman and I might have different ideas about, well, what is a good idea, I agree with him that the very least we can do is audit the success of these initiatives. Says Friedman:

Our kids should be so much more radical than they are today. I understand why they aren’t. They’re so worried about just getting a job or paying next semester’s tuition. But we must not take their quietism as license to do whatever we want with this bailout cash. They are going to have to pay this money back. And therefore, we have an incredibly weighty obligation to make sure that we not only spend every stimulus dollar wisely but also with an eye to creating new technologies.

That this is our burden. Ayn Rand must be rolling in her grave.