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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
FO News Roundup: March 30, 2009
In like a lion, out like a lion. That's how we treat March at FO. Presently:
- Some Catholic priest in Michigan is all pissed off because the Tigers have a day game on Good Friday, and according to "[t]raditional Christian belief," Jesus was on the cross "from noon to 3 p.m." But that was Golgotha Standard Time, not Eastern. So I don't see what the big deal is. (P)
- We used to have Earth Day. Now we have Earth Hour. Are the environmentalists scaling back their ambitions? (P)
- "Why are we suddenly having an explosion in guys asking for vasectomies?" Uh, maybe because they're steeling their nerves with Pop Rocks and Coke? [cymbal crash] (P)
- Not just vasectomies, but sleeping pills are hip, too, these days. As in, "wake me up when the recession is over . . ." (P)
- "Whoa there, what's your hurry? Dying family member. Right. Like I haven't heard that one before." (P)
- From the "I Always Thought He Was Creepy Department": the ShamWow Guy beat up a prostitute. His defense: she bit his tongue. (P)
- Nice to see the Arab community can put aside its differences and stand as one against a genocidaire and orchestrator of mass rape. Oh, no, wait: they're defending Bashir? Pfft. (P)
- The North Korean government wants to prosecute two American journalists with entering the country illegally. This gives me occasion to wonder: what's the difference between being in and out of prison, in North Korea? (P)
Unusual Foreign Customs
WHITECOLLAR REDNECK
One of the great joys of traveling is discovering how people in foreign cultures do things differently. Sometimes it's things you've never thought about before since everyone does it that way at home, and the fact that things are different elsewhere really causes you to think about what assumptions are built in to your culture's traditions.
In Egypt, for example, it's customary for people who are having a conversation to stand very, very close to each other, almost touching. In some Asian countries, it's polite to leave your host's house right after dinner because if you stick around he might think you hadn't been fed enough. In Persia, when someone offers you a gift you're not supposed to accept it right away.
And I learned last night that in Staten Fucking Island, when some guy in a Hummer makes a right turn from the left lane right in front of you forcing you to jam on the brakes in order to avoid a collision, if you honk your horn at him, that makes you the asshole.
One of the great joys of traveling is discovering how people in foreign cultures do things differently. Sometimes it's things you've never thought about before since everyone does it that way at home, and the fact that things are different elsewhere really causes you to think about what assumptions are built in to your culture's traditions.
In Egypt, for example, it's customary for people who are having a conversation to stand very, very close to each other, almost touching. In some Asian countries, it's polite to leave your host's house right after dinner because if you stick around he might think you hadn't been fed enough. In Persia, when someone offers you a gift you're not supposed to accept it right away.
And I learned last night that in Staten Fucking Island, when some guy in a Hummer makes a right turn from the left lane right in front of you forcing you to jam on the brakes in order to avoid a collision, if you honk your horn at him, that makes you the asshole.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
"American Identity" Politics
PHUTATORIUS
Michelle Bachmann really got under my skin with her dollar-mongering constitutional amendment. I know I should just laugh it off as stupid and inane, then move on, but it's still bugging me, and I'd like to know why. So I've spent a day or so working through my thoughts, and this is what I've come up with:
More...
We've all heard the phrase "identity politics" thrown around a lot — generally as conservatives (see, e.g., here, here and here) fault liberals for what they regard as strategic exploitation of a voter's identification with an historically disempowered minority group. Yeah, fine — certainly cynical, probably divisive. I don't think I like it.
But I think it's time right now to spend some time talking tough about a preferred tactic of the right, which is — to coin a term, right here at FO — "American identity" politics. Note the placement of the quote marks, for purposes of clarity: I'm talking about the "politics" of "American identity," and not an "American" brand of "identity politics." When I speak of AIP, I am referring to the poisonous practice by which folks like Michelle Bachmann endeavor to construct and promote a particularized American identity for purely political purposes — usually to score political points against an opponent by casting his/her policies (or, very often, the opponent personally) as a threat to some enduring "American" value or symbol:
It's not enough that Barack Obama is trying to turn us into EUROPE with his socialist budget and his plan for a National Health Service — he's making plans to get rid of the U.S. DOLLAR!
I regard this kind of politics as lousy and poisonous for a number of reasons. First and foremost, our public officials should not subordinate practical, tangible concerns like economic policy to an abstract proposition like the preservation of an "American identity." Policies should be assessed and judged on their merits: will they make the nation stronger? Its people safer? Better off? If a global supercurrency for national reserves would, on the whole, have the practical effect of improving the lot of the American people (and I must confess that I have no clue whether or not it would), we should not let concerns like Bachmann's — that the dollar is an American institution, and to turn away from it would be profoundly un-American — color our judgment. When confronted with a policy question, we should look for the right answer, not the American answer. Indeed, I should have thought that it was experimentation and risk-taking, trial-and-error and utilitarian "cleverness" that made America great, such that it would be most "American" to chase the "right" answer after all.
And with that last bit of rhetorical prestidigitation I've illustrated my second point: anyone's construction of what is "American" is always going to be self-serving. The Christian right declares that "America is a Christian nation." Go figure. We're told by an opponent of the TARP plan that bailouts are "un-American," apparently because they're a form of "socialism." If small-town folk rally to your cause and big-city folk jeer and fear you, then surely it's the small-town folk who are the "real Americans." It's all too easy, isn't it, to gerrymander a space and plant an American flag in it?
Anyone with half a brain knows that America is far too complex and multifaceted a place to submit to these reductive descriptions. I'm living the American Dream without a white picket fence. Henry James and Thomas Pynchon have written The Great American Novel.
Third, "American identity" politics is at least as divisive as straight-up identity politics, if in a different way. It doesn't appeal — not directly, at least — to considerations of race, ethnicity, or gender. But the cynical invocation of "American-ness" to add argumentative weight to one's position or policy preference has the effect of treating anyone who disagrees as by definition un-American — and often, anti-American. Although you may have had the groundwork in place for a vigorous, possibly insightful policy debate — or maybe you didn't, and that's the problem — you've chosen instead to pick a snit-fight. Then the left blunders back with its "Special Comments" and DISSENT IS AMERICAN bumper stickers, and all hope of a constructive debate on the underlying policy issue is lost.
Of course, the master practitioners of AIP aren't fighting issue battles: they're manufacturing issues and trumping up threats to our jointly-revered "American-ness" to bring the fight to their opponents. Michelle Bachmann wasn't even playing the "American" card to support more serious and principled concerns about the supercurrency proposition: she only saw an occasion to develop her thesis that Barack Obama is anti-American, that he'll destroy America As We Know And Treasure It. So much the worse.
Michelle Bachmann really got under my skin with her dollar-mongering constitutional amendment. I know I should just laugh it off as stupid and inane, then move on, but it's still bugging me, and I'd like to know why. So I've spent a day or so working through my thoughts, and this is what I've come up with:
More...
We've all heard the phrase "identity politics" thrown around a lot — generally as conservatives (see, e.g., here, here and here) fault liberals for what they regard as strategic exploitation of a voter's identification with an historically disempowered minority group. Yeah, fine — certainly cynical, probably divisive. I don't think I like it.
But I think it's time right now to spend some time talking tough about a preferred tactic of the right, which is — to coin a term, right here at FO — "American identity" politics. Note the placement of the quote marks, for purposes of clarity: I'm talking about the "politics" of "American identity," and not an "American" brand of "identity politics." When I speak of AIP, I am referring to the poisonous practice by which folks like Michelle Bachmann endeavor to construct and promote a particularized American identity for purely political purposes — usually to score political points against an opponent by casting his/her policies (or, very often, the opponent personally) as a threat to some enduring "American" value or symbol:
It's not enough that Barack Obama is trying to turn us into EUROPE with his socialist budget and his plan for a National Health Service — he's making plans to get rid of the U.S. DOLLAR!
I regard this kind of politics as lousy and poisonous for a number of reasons. First and foremost, our public officials should not subordinate practical, tangible concerns like economic policy to an abstract proposition like the preservation of an "American identity." Policies should be assessed and judged on their merits: will they make the nation stronger? Its people safer? Better off? If a global supercurrency for national reserves would, on the whole, have the practical effect of improving the lot of the American people (and I must confess that I have no clue whether or not it would), we should not let concerns like Bachmann's — that the dollar is an American institution, and to turn away from it would be profoundly un-American — color our judgment. When confronted with a policy question, we should look for the right answer, not the American answer. Indeed, I should have thought that it was experimentation and risk-taking, trial-and-error and utilitarian "cleverness" that made America great, such that it would be most "American" to chase the "right" answer after all.
And with that last bit of rhetorical prestidigitation I've illustrated my second point: anyone's construction of what is "American" is always going to be self-serving. The Christian right declares that "America is a Christian nation." Go figure. We're told by an opponent of the TARP plan that bailouts are "un-American," apparently because they're a form of "socialism." If small-town folk rally to your cause and big-city folk jeer and fear you, then surely it's the small-town folk who are the "real Americans." It's all too easy, isn't it, to gerrymander a space and plant an American flag in it?
Anyone with half a brain knows that America is far too complex and multifaceted a place to submit to these reductive descriptions. I'm living the American Dream without a white picket fence. Henry James and Thomas Pynchon have written The Great American Novel.
Third, "American identity" politics is at least as divisive as straight-up identity politics, if in a different way. It doesn't appeal — not directly, at least — to considerations of race, ethnicity, or gender. But the cynical invocation of "American-ness" to add argumentative weight to one's position or policy preference has the effect of treating anyone who disagrees as by definition un-American — and often, anti-American. Although you may have had the groundwork in place for a vigorous, possibly insightful policy debate — or maybe you didn't, and that's the problem — you've chosen instead to pick a snit-fight. Then the left blunders back with its "Special Comments" and DISSENT IS AMERICAN bumper stickers, and all hope of a constructive debate on the underlying policy issue is lost.
Of course, the master practitioners of AIP aren't fighting issue battles: they're manufacturing issues and trumping up threats to our jointly-revered "American-ness" to bring the fight to their opponents. Michelle Bachmann wasn't even playing the "American" card to support more serious and principled concerns about the supercurrency proposition: she only saw an occasion to develop her thesis that Barack Obama is anti-American, that he'll destroy America As We Know And Treasure It. So much the worse.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Toker-in-Chief Should Know Better
MITHRIDATES
I expected more. But maybe that's my problem.
Reasoned arguments are coming from everywhere — from Kathleen Parker to The Economist to Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and Freakonomics fame — to end, or at least consider ending, the counterproductive War on Drugs. After eight years of a President glibly dismissing reasoned arguments out of hand, we now have — wait for it — a President glibly dismissing reasoned arguments out of hand.
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Yes, I know there are political considerations. Yes, I know any sort of legalization or decriminalization faces an uphill battle on Capitol Hill. It's way too reasonable a solution for the sound-bite monkeys in Congress to support.
But don't just kill the conversation. Even better, use your power and prominence to give credibility to the anti-war crowd. It would make a difference.
Bill Clinton smoked pot and half-admitted it. George W. Bush did all sorts of crazy stuff (who really knows what?) and admitted to nothing. Barack Obama did cocaine and wrote about it. Aren't we at the point where we can talk about this?
I expected more. But maybe that's my problem.
Reasoned arguments are coming from everywhere — from Kathleen Parker to The Economist to Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and Freakonomics fame — to end, or at least consider ending, the counterproductive War on Drugs. After eight years of a President glibly dismissing reasoned arguments out of hand, we now have — wait for it — a President glibly dismissing reasoned arguments out of hand.
More...
Yes, I know there are political considerations. Yes, I know any sort of legalization or decriminalization faces an uphill battle on Capitol Hill. It's way too reasonable a solution for the sound-bite monkeys in Congress to support.
But don't just kill the conversation. Even better, use your power and prominence to give credibility to the anti-war crowd. It would make a difference.
Bill Clinton smoked pot and half-admitted it. George W. Bush did all sorts of crazy stuff (who really knows what?) and admitted to nothing. Barack Obama did cocaine and wrote about it. Aren't we at the point where we can talk about this?
A Visit to the Museum of Modern Art
WHITECOLLAR REDNECK
A one-sentence review of the Museum of Modern Art's special exhibition, Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West:
I was expecting more cowboys and fewer transvestites.
A one-sentence review of the Museum of Modern Art's special exhibition, Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West:
I was expecting more cowboys and fewer transvestites.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Justice for all, not just some
VERCINGETORIX
Uh oh. It looks like someone has a problem with the union. That's right, the Union of Union Representatives is picketing the SEIU and filing unfair labor practice charges because 75 organizers were laid off.
But the SEIU was just restructuring their labor force to be more efficient and productive and the protesters' complaints are without merit!
I kid you not.... This is almost as good as when ACORN was sued for paying its workers less than minimum wage. I've had my dose of irony for today.
Hat tip: Tigerhawk.
Badasses of Songdom: Triangle Man v. Bungalow Bill
PHUTATORIUS
Some time ago here at FO, Triangle Man picked a fight with Universe Man. If you recall (and judging from the analytics, you won't), Triangle Man won that bout on points, in a nailbiter. That made Triangle Man undisputed champion of his own song, and he's been riding high and itching for another fight ever since. Message bricks through my window, toilet paper in the shrubbery, the whole nine yards.
So in this post I have the pleasure of announcing — only slightly under duress — Feigned Outrage's Badasses of Songdom Series. Triangle Man's opponent today? That All-American, bullet-headed Saxon mother's son of Beatles lore: Bungalow Bill.
More...
As you know, Bill's a Nimrod-the-Hunter type. Probably more nimrod than hunter, but don't underestimate him. Bill brings an elephant and blunderbuss with him to this fight . . . and a bit of chip on his shoulder after that incident with Captain Marvel. And Triangle Man has agreed to stage today's combat deep in the jungle: that is, right in Bill's comfort zone.
On the other hand, Triangle Man is a cold-blooded, hateful, feisty son of a bitch with three equally sharp corners (he's gone equilateral today), and he's been working out.
So let's get things started, shall we?
Taking a cue from Captain Marvel, Triangle Man has receded into the shadows. He has the advantage of stealth, whereas Bill is plodding around in the trees with a frickin' elephant. A surprise attack is surely in order . . . "AHA!" Triangle Man cries, swinging through the air on a vine (he hasn't perfected the Tarzan yell). But wait! There's the elephant, but where's Bill?
"Right behind you, Tiger."
A trap! Well played, Bungalow Bill! Triangle Man has to think fast. He has done his research. He knows Bill has proved susceptible to moral confusion in the past. Pinned down between the roots of a giant kapok tree, staring down the barrel of Bill's gun, Triangle Man plays his ace: "Is it not a sin, Bill, to shoot down a geometric figure in cold blood?"
Fierce-faced Bill lowers his gun. He is angry: Triangle Man challenged him to this fight, then skipped away like a rabbit. Now that he's been caught, he's trying the emotional appeal. Unfair, he decides. And hardly sporting! "MUMMY!" he shouts.
"I'm here," Bill's mother says, stepping blithely out from where she had been crouched, behind a termite's nest. "And for cryin' out loud, Billy: you call me 'mama.' I didn't raise no mummy's boy Inglishman. Now I seen the way this-here Triangle Fella been treatin' you and it ain't right." Bungalow Bill's mother glares at Triangle Man. I mean, she really glares at him. Let me put it this way: if looks could kill, it would have been Triangle Man lying at the base of the fateful kapok tree, vanquished.
But looks don't kill, do they? And so instead it's Bill, his mother, and his elephant down on the ground nursing puncture wounds, and it's Triangle Man standing over them all, wiping off his three corners with a Purell-soaked handkerchief and taunting his fallen foe in song:
Triangle Man, Triangle Man. Triangle Man hates Bungalow Bill. They have a fight. Hey, Bungalow Bill: what did you kill? Nobody. Triangle wins. TRIANGLE MAN.
See you next week.
Some time ago here at FO, Triangle Man picked a fight with Universe Man. If you recall (and judging from the analytics, you won't), Triangle Man won that bout on points, in a nailbiter. That made Triangle Man undisputed champion of his own song, and he's been riding high and itching for another fight ever since. Message bricks through my window, toilet paper in the shrubbery, the whole nine yards.
So in this post I have the pleasure of announcing — only slightly under duress — Feigned Outrage's Badasses of Songdom Series. Triangle Man's opponent today? That All-American, bullet-headed Saxon mother's son of Beatles lore: Bungalow Bill.
More...
As you know, Bill's a Nimrod-the-Hunter type. Probably more nimrod than hunter, but don't underestimate him. Bill brings an elephant and blunderbuss with him to this fight . . . and a bit of chip on his shoulder after that incident with Captain Marvel. And Triangle Man has agreed to stage today's combat deep in the jungle: that is, right in Bill's comfort zone.
On the other hand, Triangle Man is a cold-blooded, hateful, feisty son of a bitch with three equally sharp corners (he's gone equilateral today), and he's been working out.
So let's get things started, shall we?
Taking a cue from Captain Marvel, Triangle Man has receded into the shadows. He has the advantage of stealth, whereas Bill is plodding around in the trees with a frickin' elephant. A surprise attack is surely in order . . . "AHA!" Triangle Man cries, swinging through the air on a vine (he hasn't perfected the Tarzan yell). But wait! There's the elephant, but where's Bill?
"Right behind you, Tiger."
A trap! Well played, Bungalow Bill! Triangle Man has to think fast. He has done his research. He knows Bill has proved susceptible to moral confusion in the past. Pinned down between the roots of a giant kapok tree, staring down the barrel of Bill's gun, Triangle Man plays his ace: "Is it not a sin, Bill, to shoot down a geometric figure in cold blood?"
Fierce-faced Bill lowers his gun. He is angry: Triangle Man challenged him to this fight, then skipped away like a rabbit. Now that he's been caught, he's trying the emotional appeal. Unfair, he decides. And hardly sporting! "MUMMY!" he shouts.
"I'm here," Bill's mother says, stepping blithely out from where she had been crouched, behind a termite's nest. "And for cryin' out loud, Billy: you call me 'mama.' I didn't raise no mummy's boy Inglishman. Now I seen the way this-here Triangle Fella been treatin' you and it ain't right." Bungalow Bill's mother glares at Triangle Man. I mean, she really glares at him. Let me put it this way: if looks could kill, it would have been Triangle Man lying at the base of the fateful kapok tree, vanquished.
But looks don't kill, do they? And so instead it's Bill, his mother, and his elephant down on the ground nursing puncture wounds, and it's Triangle Man standing over them all, wiping off his three corners with a Purell-soaked handkerchief and taunting his fallen foe in song:
Triangle Man, Triangle Man. Triangle Man hates Bungalow Bill. They have a fight. Hey, Bungalow Bill: what did you kill? Nobody. Triangle wins. TRIANGLE MAN.
See you next week.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Bachmann-Geithner Overdrive
PHUTATORIUS
If you aren't closely following Michelle Bachmann's political career, you're missing great comedy. (Think Sarah Palin, crossed with Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction.) Ms. Bachmann (R-MN), seen here in "Hiya Sailor" mode with President Bush, and here calling for an inquiry into anti-American sentiment in the United States Congress, proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution yesterday. That amendment provides:
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This in response to testimony over the past few days from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who apparently did not react emphatically enough to the suggestion of a Chinese treasury official that the international community adopt a global "supercurrency" for reserves. Bachmann doesn't think Geithner gives a damn about a Greenback Dollar, so she proposes that we amend the Constitution to calm her nerves.
(You see, as we've noted before, the Framers of the Constitution, in their considerable wisdom, withheld from the House of Representatives any role in negotiating (the Executive's job) or ratifying (the Senate's) treaties. So this was Bachmann's only angle: the "nuclear option," to be sure, but the circumstances clearly call for it. By tomorrow we all could be speaking Chinese.)
Putting aside the question whether we should treat our currency as a point of cultural pride alongside, say, fried chicken, a man on the moon, or the cure for polio — all right, all right: I didn't really put that question aside — is the dollar really in such great immediate danger? The answer is no. And that makes Bachmann either completely off her rocker in her assessment of the situation or cynically determined to misassess the situation to Americans with her treatment of it. I.e., either she's really stupid, or she's evil and manipulative and thinks we're all really stupid.
Do I have to choose?
Oh, and see also George Packer's recent commentary in The New Yorker about paranoia and populism in politics. On point, and good stuff.
If you aren't closely following Michelle Bachmann's political career, you're missing great comedy. (Think Sarah Palin, crossed with Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction.) Ms. Bachmann (R-MN), seen here in "Hiya Sailor" mode with President Bush, and here calling for an inquiry into anti-American sentiment in the United States Congress, proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution yesterday. That amendment provides:
More...
The President may not enter into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States.
This in response to testimony over the past few days from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who apparently did not react emphatically enough to the suggestion of a Chinese treasury official that the international community adopt a global "supercurrency" for reserves. Bachmann doesn't think Geithner gives a damn about a Greenback Dollar, so she proposes that we amend the Constitution to calm her nerves.
(You see, as we've noted before, the Framers of the Constitution, in their considerable wisdom, withheld from the House of Representatives any role in negotiating (the Executive's job) or ratifying (the Senate's) treaties. So this was Bachmann's only angle: the "nuclear option," to be sure, but the circumstances clearly call for it. By tomorrow we all could be speaking Chinese.)
Putting aside the question whether we should treat our currency as a point of cultural pride alongside, say, fried chicken, a man on the moon, or the cure for polio — all right, all right: I didn't really put that question aside — is the dollar really in such great immediate danger? The answer is no. And that makes Bachmann either completely off her rocker in her assessment of the situation or cynically determined to misassess the situation to Americans with her treatment of it. I.e., either she's really stupid, or she's evil and manipulative and thinks we're all really stupid.
Do I have to choose?
Oh, and see also George Packer's recent commentary in The New Yorker about paranoia and populism in politics. On point, and good stuff.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Recruiting Hijinks
WHITECOLLAR REDNECK
I'm in the middle of the recruiting process right now, trying to fill an open position at the firm. I've gotten a handful of resumes that have completely inappropriate email addresses on them, and I'm pretty surprised by that. I completely understand people who don't want to use their current work email address for job hunting, but if your personal email address is thecatwoman@hotmail.com or superboner@yahoo.com, you really ought to take five minutes to set up a more bland jim.v.smith@gmail.com, or something. Assuming you really want to work in a professional setting, and aren't tanking your apps deliberately because your unemployment caseworker is making you look for work against your wishes.
I'm in the middle of the recruiting process right now, trying to fill an open position at the firm. I've gotten a handful of resumes that have completely inappropriate email addresses on them, and I'm pretty surprised by that. I completely understand people who don't want to use their current work email address for job hunting, but if your personal email address is thecatwoman@hotmail.com or superboner@yahoo.com, you really ought to take five minutes to set up a more bland jim.v.smith@gmail.com, or something. Assuming you really want to work in a professional setting, and aren't tanking your apps deliberately because your unemployment caseworker is making you look for work against your wishes.
FO News Roundup: March 25, 2009
- Next time you catch every red light on the way to work, think about the guy who managed to get hit by two atomic bombs. Let it never be said we aren't enriching your life. (P)
- Reason #507 not to join the U.S. military: between me and the colonoscopy, I want to be the one that does the contaminating. (P)
- I'm no economist, so can someone please explain to me why people hoard gold bullion in hard times? You can't eat it, and you can't make anything particularly useful out of it. (P)
- Secularism on the march in Europe: man jailed for praying . . . when he should have been flying the airplane. (P)
- The world comes full circle as former communist countries reject state intervention in the economy and the capitalist West stimulates its way to "Hell". (M)
- Hold that thought. Thirty percent of Hungarians receive pensions and do not work thanks to a mentality of state dependence left over from Communism. The resulting economic crisis there poses a threat to Eastern (and the rest of) Europe. So where were we? (M)
Monday, March 23, 2009
Today's Fun Google Search
PHUTATORIUS
jindal mt. redoubt
I was gonna write a post about this, but the Internet is so damned fast . . .
Bobby Jindal
jindal mt. redoubt
I was gonna write a post about this, but the Internet is so damned fast . . .
Bobby Jindal
AIG: Enough Already!
PHUTATORIUS
A week has passed since the AIG bonus story broke, and we're all miraculously still alive. There have been no piano-wire executions or Japanese-style honor suicides. Oh, sure: Everyman's Hero Senator Grassley actually spoke the words "sucking the tit of the taxpayer" into an open microphone (Teat, Chuck. Teat is the word you wanted. You come from Iowa and I need to tell you this?), and the extreme circumstances apparently turned "tightening of sphincters" into a metaphor suitable for the House floor. Stunningly, a sitting United States President fell on his sword over the "scandal". Somewhere, just over the horizon, four dark men have mounted black horses.
More...
Oh, but there was more: AIG's CEO Edward Liddy made a "don't ask/ don't tell" argument to Barney Frank, who didn't to my knowledge used the word un-American, but in almost every other respect cut quite the Joe McCarthy figure in Banking Committee hearings. The President clearly had to fight hard not to opine on the constitutionality of the "we hate these people: let's tax them" legislation that cleared the House with bipartisan support. Bipartisan support? Really? The black horses are in full gallop and on the move . . .
And then there's the $165 million question (asked in two parts, at $82.5 MM each): What did Treasury Secretary Geithner know about the bonuses, and when did he know it? That's a fair question, after all, since (1) the bonus payments were agreed under the previous Administration, (2) under even older compensation contracts to which the government was not a party, and (3) the skeleton crew currently in place at Treasury is more than sufficient to review the flowdown of the hundreds of billions of dollars in TARP money that Geithner is charged with distributing. Q. What's the fastest way to get the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to leave town? A. Offer them deputy positions at the Department of the Treasury.
In short, the brouhaha and hullaballoo over these bonus payments is getting to be at bit much. And by "bit" I mean "a hell of a lot." I hate to quote Charles Krauthammer, but $165 million is CC Sabathia's Yankees contract: it isn't all that much in the big picture. And it's a bit rich for folks in Congress, of all people, to get all sanctimonious over this piddling amount — that last omnibus spending bill alone had 45 times that in earmarks, and 15 different Senators did more pet-project damage on that bill than AIG did with its bonus distributions.
But Phutatorius, those earmarks add value to local communities, and in many cases they advance important federal priorities, including jobmaking.
Fair enough, Brother/Sister: it is important to consider what we're getting for our money. But just as an earmark isn't necessarily a waste of money, a bonus payment to an AIG executive isn't necessarily a reward for lousy work. Take, for example, Gerry Pasciucco, whom Liddy brought in to clean up the mess. Pasciucco had nothing to do with the trainwreck in AIG's Financial Products division, and from what I read, he's doing yeoman's work, and doing it well. I wouldn't begrudge a fat bonus paid to Pasciucco: he's serving his company's interest, and the taxpayer's. But in the present climate, folks would rather discuss the apparent irony of him showing up at a garden party in a Che Guevara T-shirt. Pasciucco credits Douglas Poling, who received the largest of the bonuses at $6.4 million, with presiding over AIG's selloff of 80% of the Financial Products unit's bad assets. The proceeds of those sales will be returned to the government. An "outstanding job," Pasciucco says, but just try to tell that to the folks gathered outside of Poling's house with torches and pitchforks.
In a comment to WC Redneck's post on this last week, I wrote that I did not understand the compensation culture on Wall Street — or, for that matter, the tin ear for PR matters — that caused these bonuses to be paid, given the circumstances. But I was willing to listen. By the time this story reached its fullest flower later in the week, I was so turned off by the Congressional scoldings and media effusions of outrage that I find myself casting about for any reason to defend AIG. I may be an exception to the rule, but I'm sorry: this sort of populism doesn't work for me, especially when it's practiced by a bunch of dissipated, self-centered hacks who think acronym-riffing like "Arrogance, Incompetence, and Greed" passes for wit.
Populism in any form is unbecoming and unconstructive. I don't like it when it targets Communists, gays, and immigrants, and I don't like this kind, either. Can't we just drop all the posturing and anger and get on with fixing the economy?
A week has passed since the AIG bonus story broke, and we're all miraculously still alive. There have been no piano-wire executions or Japanese-style honor suicides. Oh, sure: Everyman's Hero Senator Grassley actually spoke the words "sucking the tit of the taxpayer" into an open microphone (Teat, Chuck. Teat is the word you wanted. You come from Iowa and I need to tell you this?), and the extreme circumstances apparently turned "tightening of sphincters" into a metaphor suitable for the House floor. Stunningly, a sitting United States President fell on his sword over the "scandal". Somewhere, just over the horizon, four dark men have mounted black horses.
More...
Oh, but there was more: AIG's CEO Edward Liddy made a "don't ask/ don't tell" argument to Barney Frank, who didn't to my knowledge used the word un-American, but in almost every other respect cut quite the Joe McCarthy figure in Banking Committee hearings. The President clearly had to fight hard not to opine on the constitutionality of the "we hate these people: let's tax them" legislation that cleared the House with bipartisan support. Bipartisan support? Really? The black horses are in full gallop and on the move . . .
And then there's the $165 million question (asked in two parts, at $82.5 MM each): What did Treasury Secretary Geithner know about the bonuses, and when did he know it? That's a fair question, after all, since (1) the bonus payments were agreed under the previous Administration, (2) under even older compensation contracts to which the government was not a party, and (3) the skeleton crew currently in place at Treasury is more than sufficient to review the flowdown of the hundreds of billions of dollars in TARP money that Geithner is charged with distributing. Q. What's the fastest way to get the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to leave town? A. Offer them deputy positions at the Department of the Treasury.
In short, the brouhaha and hullaballoo over these bonus payments is getting to be at bit much. And by "bit" I mean "a hell of a lot." I hate to quote Charles Krauthammer, but $165 million is CC Sabathia's Yankees contract: it isn't all that much in the big picture. And it's a bit rich for folks in Congress, of all people, to get all sanctimonious over this piddling amount — that last omnibus spending bill alone had 45 times that in earmarks, and 15 different Senators did more pet-project damage on that bill than AIG did with its bonus distributions.
But Phutatorius, those earmarks add value to local communities, and in many cases they advance important federal priorities, including jobmaking.
Fair enough, Brother/Sister: it is important to consider what we're getting for our money. But just as an earmark isn't necessarily a waste of money, a bonus payment to an AIG executive isn't necessarily a reward for lousy work. Take, for example, Gerry Pasciucco, whom Liddy brought in to clean up the mess. Pasciucco had nothing to do with the trainwreck in AIG's Financial Products division, and from what I read, he's doing yeoman's work, and doing it well. I wouldn't begrudge a fat bonus paid to Pasciucco: he's serving his company's interest, and the taxpayer's. But in the present climate, folks would rather discuss the apparent irony of him showing up at a garden party in a Che Guevara T-shirt. Pasciucco credits Douglas Poling, who received the largest of the bonuses at $6.4 million, with presiding over AIG's selloff of 80% of the Financial Products unit's bad assets. The proceeds of those sales will be returned to the government. An "outstanding job," Pasciucco says, but just try to tell that to the folks gathered outside of Poling's house with torches and pitchforks.
In a comment to WC Redneck's post on this last week, I wrote that I did not understand the compensation culture on Wall Street — or, for that matter, the tin ear for PR matters — that caused these bonuses to be paid, given the circumstances. But I was willing to listen. By the time this story reached its fullest flower later in the week, I was so turned off by the Congressional scoldings and media effusions of outrage that I find myself casting about for any reason to defend AIG. I may be an exception to the rule, but I'm sorry: this sort of populism doesn't work for me, especially when it's practiced by a bunch of dissipated, self-centered hacks who think acronym-riffing like "Arrogance, Incompetence, and Greed" passes for wit.
Populism in any form is unbecoming and unconstructive. I don't like it when it targets Communists, gays, and immigrants, and I don't like this kind, either. Can't we just drop all the posturing and anger and get on with fixing the economy?
Exodus
MITHRIDATES
Tell me if any of this sounds familiar:
In Leon Uris' Exodus, however, "Palestinian" refers to the Jews in Palestine struggling to create a homeland. Yes, it's 50 years old, and yes, I was inspired to read it by a TV show on a network I should be boycotting. Yes, the characters are inevitably overly courageous, overly good, overly evil, overly something. No, Leon Uris is never going to top any list of great literature. But who says we have to spend every minute reading great literature when we can just read great stories, instead?
The fact that the book is 50 years old can shed some light. With all the revisionist history out there, it's almost impossible to get a present-day account of the creation of Israel that's worth the protest page it's spouted on.
Exodus is good stuff and still pretty damn relevant. It's certainly written from one side's perspective, but find me an Israel-hater who can still say with certainty, after reading this book, that these people have no right to their homeland; find me an Israel-supporter who, after reading this book, doesn't sympathize a bit with Palestinians growing up in refugee camps and acknowledge this people's right to a homeland.
It's hard to believe some of it, considering all the acrimony out there, but the story from the early part of the twentieth century is of Jews and Arabs living in the same or neighboring villages in relative peace. (Well, except for the occasional riot and rampage.)
And then there's this probably true, but morally horrifying justification for the actions of the Palestinian terrorists:
Tell me if any of this sounds familiar:
- Palestinians desperate to get back the homeland that was taken from them despite being overwhelmingly out-armed by their enemies;
- Arms smuggled in to Palestine with humanitarian aid and the help and support of the bulk of the people, making it impossible for the occupier to stop the flow without choking off the population — and the Palestinians openly exploiting the humanity of the occupier;
- Palestinians bitterly split between one group that wants restraint and negotiation and another that favors terror and no compromise;
- Palestinians willing to sacrifice children for their cause;
- Europeans taking to the streets to protest the treatment of Palestinians;
- Palestinians unfairly comparing their adversaries to Hitler;
- Children growing up in refugee camps, hardened to the outside world;
- The Western power with the most influence in Palestine accused of favoring the wealthy and powerful over the oppressed;
- Palestinian terrorists bombing hotels and killing innocents;
- The occupier believing they are held to the strictest rules of engagement while the Palestinians obey no rules at all;
- Attacks by the occupier backfiring and uniting the various Palestinian groups;
- A proposed homeland comprised of just a couple of strips connected by narrow corridors.
In Leon Uris' Exodus, however, "Palestinian" refers to the Jews in Palestine struggling to create a homeland. Yes, it's 50 years old, and yes, I was inspired to read it by a TV show on a network I should be boycotting. Yes, the characters are inevitably overly courageous, overly good, overly evil, overly something. No, Leon Uris is never going to top any list of great literature. But who says we have to spend every minute reading great literature when we can just read great stories, instead?
The fact that the book is 50 years old can shed some light. With all the revisionist history out there, it's almost impossible to get a present-day account of the creation of Israel that's worth the protest page it's spouted on.
Exodus is good stuff and still pretty damn relevant. It's certainly written from one side's perspective, but find me an Israel-hater who can still say with certainty, after reading this book, that these people have no right to their homeland; find me an Israel-supporter who, after reading this book, doesn't sympathize a bit with Palestinians growing up in refugee camps and acknowledge this people's right to a homeland.
It's hard to believe some of it, considering all the acrimony out there, but the story from the early part of the twentieth century is of Jews and Arabs living in the same or neighboring villages in relative peace. (Well, except for the occasional riot and rampage.)
And then there's this probably true, but morally horrifying justification for the actions of the Palestinian terrorists:
Nothing we do, right or wrong, can ever compare to what has been done to the Jewish people. Nothing the Maccabes do can even be considered an injustice in comparison to two thousand years of murder.It gets right to the heart of the matter, doesn't it? Hardened refugees with a history of victimization believing that any action is therefore justified. There's no way to do justice to the Arab-Israeli conflict in a novel (let alone a single blog post), but the exercise of going back in time half a century is good for some perspective. It's great drama, anyway. And the "Palestinians" get their homeland!
Words Never Used on Twitter
WHITECOLLAR REDNECK
Rich Galen, noting the archaic usage of the word "benighted" in a New York Times editorial, suggests that it's probably a word that's never appeared on Twitter. I'd guess he's right - I wonder what other perfectly good English words have never made the leap to Twitter?
Rich Galen, noting the archaic usage of the word "benighted" in a New York Times editorial, suggests that it's probably a word that's never appeared on Twitter. I'd guess he's right - I wonder what other perfectly good English words have never made the leap to Twitter?
Sunday, March 22, 2009
FO News Roundup: March 23, 2009
- News Flash: one trillion-dollar war of convenience and a pet prescription drug benefit later, Republicans suddenly have grave concerns about the national debt. (P)
- After a 7.5-year courtship, Harrison Ford finally proposed to Callista Flockhart. No word yet whether the wedding vows will incorporate Han Solo's garbage-compactor "we're all gonna be a lot thinner" guarantee. (P)
- A 9-foot, plant-eating "dryosaurus" skeleton, offered for auction at this point in the downturn? It would be news if it HAD sold. (P)
- Yeah, yeah, wah wah, this company is evil. But are we really at the point where we need to picket the homes of AIG's executives? (P)
- CNET News sez, "Google Street View, bring back the vomiting Brit." (P)
- No longer in charge of the federal government, faithful Texans are still trying to set science back by forcing creationist nonsense into one of the largest textbook markets in the country. (M)
- Obama Tears Dick New Asshole. If there's a more polite way to describe the President's shredding of the former Vice President on 60 minutes I'm not aware of it. (M)
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The iPod Archaeologist — Pulp: His 'n' Hers
PHUTATORIUS
The upside of meeting up with the Schaffhausers, other than great company, was that they gave me a tour of Paris before I caught my flight back Stateside — and a month later I received from them a stack of cassettes loaded with music they thought I might like. His 'n' Hers was on one of them. The brothers had talked up Pulp all the way through the Channel Tunnel. I dropped the Pulp cassette into the tape deck of the Sony component sound system and gave it a shot. At the time I was living in the tiny partioned-off third bedroom of a "flex 3" apartment with V'torix and M'dates in Uptown Manhattan — I was fresh out of school with no clue about a career (some things are constant), I was working miserable hours for shit pay, and my girlfriend and I were on the outs.
Needless to say, Pulp hit the spot. Thirteen+ years later, with a lot of my immediate post-grad issues finally resolved — housing situation upgraded, Girlfriend come around: she's now my Wife — this album still holds up. The band's sound is distinctive, notwithstanding the efforts of the Killers, the Bravery et al.; the song stylings are varied and interesting, ranging from techno to straight-ahead rock to show tunes and ballads; and, of course, there's Jarvis Cocker, with his crack-up lyrics and camp histrionics in lead vocals. Jarvis Cocker, in his day, was an extraordinary personality, and nowhere is this quite so apparent as on His 'n' Hers, an album that comes off like a the original cast recording of a one-man Broadway show. On this album Cocker howls, growls, prowls, grunts, humps, pouts, snarks, seduces, languishes, and dies a thousand deaths. It's over the top, and it's brilliant. Let's review:
"Joyriders" is the opening track, the mission statement. "We don't look for trouble," Cocker explains, "but if it comes we don't run." This from the same man who, during the 1996 Brit Awards, turned up on stage while Michael Jackson was performing and engaged in repeated lewd gestures until Jacko's bodyguards, dressed as shepherds for no discernible reason, could run him down and rough him up. Let's be clear: Jarvis Cocker does look for trouble. "Joyriders" ends with Cocker repeating the lines "Mister, we just want your car/'Cause we're taking a girl to the reservoir/Oh, oh, the people say it's a tragedy." There's a Clockwork Orange reference lurking in here.
The heart of this album is comprised of five songs: "Babies," "She's a Lady," "Happy Endings," "Do You Remember the First Time?" and "Pink Glove." "Babies" is Pulp's Ur-nostalgia/ sexual awakening track. They'd exploit this theme, to greater commercial success, with "Disco 2000" on 1995's Different Class. But "Babies" is the far better track: after confessing to a girlfriend that years ago he slept with her older sister, Cocker shows, rather unapologetically, that he can "yeah yeah yeah" with the best of them (thank you, Lennon and McCartney, for this tradition). Next is the near-disco "She's a Lady," which although it comes in at just under six minutes still manages to sound epic. If you've ever lamented, as I have, that there's no male-equivalent song for Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," this is the song for you:
As I said, I'd recently been dumped — OK, to be fair, destroyed — by a girl when I first heard this song. So it really worked for me. Likewise the next three tracks: the quasi-show tune, "Happy Endings," wherein Cocker wishes his girl the best; "Do You Remember the First Time?", wherein he makes one last pitch as the insurgent ("I know you're gonna let him bore your pants off again . . . Still you bought a toy to reach the places he never goes") before exploring pathetic attempts at compromise ("I don't care if you screw him — just as long as you save a piece for me); and finally "Pink Glove" (here, live at Glastonbury), wherein he lays it all on the line:
All that might look great on paper, but Blogger's rendering of the text doesn't even approach what Cocker does with this material. Somehow, some way he delivers the goods both powerfully and playfully. It's tragedy and comedy at the same time: his tongue is planted firmly in cheek, but it's not clear that at any minute he won't swallow it. His 'n' Hers is fun, and silly, and anthemic — classic singalong-in-the-car material. And very emotionally satisfying to a young, broken man who, by the fall of 1995, had not quite left his John Hughes years completely behind him and truly felt that with his girlfriend up in Cambridge dating another man he had lost, well, Everything.
Great stuff, Pulp. I wonder what ever became of the Schaffhausers. I owe them some music.
With the arrival of my new iPod ten days ago, I'm once again able to carry around my full iTunes Library. I'm closing in on 41 GB now — and I've recommitted to digging around on the drive to find old favorite LPs.
Today's feature is Pulp's 1994 issue, His 'n' Hers.
Two Alsatian brothers (not Seven Chinese Brothers, or one Alsatian Cousin, mind you) turned me on to Pulp in the summer of '95. I met les freres Schaffhauser in a youth hostel in London a month or two after graduation. These two were quite excited to be in England; like me, they were big fans of British music. We compared notes, and in due course we went out in search of rock clubs to visit. This didn't go well: we weren't tuned in well to the London scene, and we lost the better part of an evening watching an appallingly misdirected band, the aesthetic of which, as best I can reconstruct years later, somehow managed to incorporate the least appealing elements of Def Leppard, Stryper, and Cornershop into a single, stunningly bad stage act. Try as we might, we couldn't look away.
More...
Two Alsatian brothers (not Seven Chinese Brothers, or one Alsatian Cousin, mind you) turned me on to Pulp in the summer of '95. I met les freres Schaffhauser in a youth hostel in London a month or two after graduation. These two were quite excited to be in England; like me, they were big fans of British music. We compared notes, and in due course we went out in search of rock clubs to visit. This didn't go well: we weren't tuned in well to the London scene, and we lost the better part of an evening watching an appallingly misdirected band, the aesthetic of which, as best I can reconstruct years later, somehow managed to incorporate the least appealing elements of Def Leppard, Stryper, and Cornershop into a single, stunningly bad stage act. Try as we might, we couldn't look away.
The upside of meeting up with the Schaffhausers, other than great company, was that they gave me a tour of Paris before I caught my flight back Stateside — and a month later I received from them a stack of cassettes loaded with music they thought I might like. His 'n' Hers was on one of them. The brothers had talked up Pulp all the way through the Channel Tunnel. I dropped the Pulp cassette into the tape deck of the Sony component sound system and gave it a shot. At the time I was living in the tiny partioned-off third bedroom of a "flex 3" apartment with V'torix and M'dates in Uptown Manhattan — I was fresh out of school with no clue about a career (some things are constant), I was working miserable hours for shit pay, and my girlfriend and I were on the outs.
Needless to say, Pulp hit the spot. Thirteen+ years later, with a lot of my immediate post-grad issues finally resolved — housing situation upgraded, Girlfriend come around: she's now my Wife — this album still holds up. The band's sound is distinctive, notwithstanding the efforts of the Killers, the Bravery et al.; the song stylings are varied and interesting, ranging from techno to straight-ahead rock to show tunes and ballads; and, of course, there's Jarvis Cocker, with his crack-up lyrics and camp histrionics in lead vocals. Jarvis Cocker, in his day, was an extraordinary personality, and nowhere is this quite so apparent as on His 'n' Hers, an album that comes off like a the original cast recording of a one-man Broadway show. On this album Cocker howls, growls, prowls, grunts, humps, pouts, snarks, seduces, languishes, and dies a thousand deaths. It's over the top, and it's brilliant. Let's review:
"Joyriders" is the opening track, the mission statement. "We don't look for trouble," Cocker explains, "but if it comes we don't run." This from the same man who, during the 1996 Brit Awards, turned up on stage while Michael Jackson was performing and engaged in repeated lewd gestures until Jacko's bodyguards, dressed as shepherds for no discernible reason, could run him down and rough him up. Let's be clear: Jarvis Cocker does look for trouble. "Joyriders" ends with Cocker repeating the lines "Mister, we just want your car/'Cause we're taking a girl to the reservoir/Oh, oh, the people say it's a tragedy." There's a Clockwork Orange reference lurking in here.
The heart of this album is comprised of five songs: "Babies," "She's a Lady," "Happy Endings," "Do You Remember the First Time?" and "Pink Glove." "Babies" is Pulp's Ur-nostalgia/ sexual awakening track. They'd exploit this theme, to greater commercial success, with "Disco 2000" on 1995's Different Class. But "Babies" is the far better track: after confessing to a girlfriend that years ago he slept with her older sister, Cocker shows, rather unapologetically, that he can "yeah yeah yeah" with the best of them (thank you, Lennon and McCartney, for this tradition). Next is the near-disco "She's a Lady," which although it comes in at just under six minutes still manages to sound epic. If you've ever lamented, as I have, that there's no male-equivalent song for Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," this is the song for you:
When you left I didn't know how I was going to forget you.
I was hanging by a thread and then I met her.
Selling pictures of herself to German business men.
Well, that's all she wants to do.
Come on, come on . . .
* * *
Whilst you were gone I got along.
I didn't die — I carried on.
I went drinking every night, just so I could feel alright.
Stayed in bed all day to feel OK. (I felt OK.)
* * *
I tried hard to make it work,
kissed her where she said it hurt, but I was always underneath.
'Cause she's a woman, oh yeah, baby, she's a lady.
As I said, I'd recently been dumped — OK, to be fair, destroyed — by a girl when I first heard this song. So it really worked for me. Likewise the next three tracks: the quasi-show tune, "Happy Endings," wherein Cocker wishes his girl the best; "Do You Remember the First Time?", wherein he makes one last pitch as the insurgent ("I know you're gonna let him bore your pants off again . . . Still you bought a toy to reach the places he never goes") before exploring pathetic attempts at compromise ("I don't care if you screw him — just as long as you save a piece for me); and finally "Pink Glove" (here, live at Glastonbury), wherein he lays it all on the line:
I know you're never going to be with me
But if you try sometimes then maybe
You could get it right first time.
I realise that you'll never leave him
But every now and then in the evening.
You could get it right first time.
* * *
Yeah, it's hard to believe that you'd go for that stuff
All those baby-doll nighties, synthetic fluff.
Yeah, it looks pretty good; yeah, it fits you OK —
You wear your pink glove, babe: he put it on THE WRONG WAY.
All that might look great on paper, but Blogger's rendering of the text doesn't even approach what Cocker does with this material. Somehow, some way he delivers the goods both powerfully and playfully. It's tragedy and comedy at the same time: his tongue is planted firmly in cheek, but it's not clear that at any minute he won't swallow it. His 'n' Hers is fun, and silly, and anthemic — classic singalong-in-the-car material. And very emotionally satisfying to a young, broken man who, by the fall of 1995, had not quite left his John Hughes years completely behind him and truly felt that with his girlfriend up in Cambridge dating another man he had lost, well, Everything.
Great stuff, Pulp. I wonder what ever became of the Schaffhausers. I owe them some music.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
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