Hi, kids.

Well, I'm finally finished with this semester's hellish load of coursework and I suppose it's time for me to finally write a post here.

I'm the new token female. No, seriously, I blog a lot about feminism and women's issues, and I will be bringing some of that with me, as well as a sick, twisted addiction to our political process and a certain amount of media criticism.

About me: I'm working on a master's in journalism in Philadelphia, I'm unhealthily obsessed with Nick Cave, I've been an Obama campaign volunteer since the winter, and I'm writing a thesis on missing white girl syndrome in the news.

My other blog is here, if you care to check it out. I'll try to come up with something coherent soon.

Ronaldo's Mistake and the Brazilian Media's Response

I hadn't planned on writing about soccer-star Ronaldo having (mistakenly) picked up some transvestite prostitutes. It just didn't seem relevant. I really don't care what Ronaldo (or anybody else) does or does not do in his spare time, and hadn't thought the story was really worth writing about. So he apparently picked up a couple of prostitutes, only to discover they were transvestites. Embarrassing for him, yes, but who cares? Prostitution is legal in Brazil, so he wasn't doing anything illegal. And not to put too fine a point on it, but picking up transvestite prostitutes with ease in Brazil is well within the realm of possibility - they often gather in places like Copacabana, and are not too hard to find in Lapa on any given night, and the fact that many have facial hair removed via lasers or even have surgical procedures to remove their Adam's apple can lead to some confusion, I suppose. Certainly there must be more important things going on in Brazil, right? Why would I blog about this?

Well, I wasn't going to. But the New York Times writeup hits upon something important in this - the media's obsession with this story (and stories like it).

But not all of Brazil’s soccer fans seem ready to forgive and forget. Reports of Ronaldo’s wild night, which ended around 8 a.m., have become Page 1 news here.

To be clear, the criticism he is facing is nothing compared with the media frenzy that would probably have erupted in other countries where prostitution is illegal — and sexual mores more rigid. Still, the fact that Ronaldo’s misadventure has been front-page news here for several days — and that some cartoonists and blogs have made him the butt of jokes, even as other commentators have said his behavior is unbecoming of a role model — is evidence that soccer stars are held to a different standard.

That last sentence is almost irrelevant - since when did many role models meet such high standards? By and large, those people who are the focus of the public eye are sports stars, celebrities, etc. - not the people who should be role models (good parents, teachers, etc). Nor am I fully convinced by the article's discussion of sports and masculinity (anytime anybody cites Roberto DaMatta as their sole authority on the matter, I'm extremely skeptical for reasons too complext to go into here).

But that's neither here nor there. The real issue here is the media itself. There are a lot of important things going on in Brazil, yet what is making front-page news there (and even drawing the gaze of the international media)? Ronaldo's embarrassing mistake.

And unfortunately, that is just the way of mainstream media in Brazil. It is, quite simply, the most sensationalist media source I've ever seen. Not to fully excuse my lack of recent blogging, but there hasn't been much from me on Brazil lately because the media is just miserable. Prior to the Ronaldo story, the headlines had been (and continue to be) overrun with the murder of a (middle-class, white) 5-year-old girl in Sao Paulo. Even the Madeleine McCann story still is present, as O Globo ran a special on "Madeleine McCann -One year later" [Remember her? "Sure, she went missing when her parents left her alone with her younger twin siblings in what was obviously a vulgar abuse of parental authority, but that's not important - THERE'S A WHITE BRITISH GIRL MISSING IN PORTUGAL!!! STOP THE PRESSES!!!" For whatever reason, that story was huge in Brazil for months.].

I'm certainly not versed enough in communications and media studies to answer the "chicken-and-egg" question of whether the media gives this to the people because it's what they want, or if things like this are what the people want because the media gives it to them (I see no reason to believe it's a bit of both). But to find anything about how Brazil's economy is doing, real issues, or even how the government is doing, is really difficult in Brazil's major media sources.

(More) McCain by the Numbers

The venerable bastion of free* market capitalism, the Investor’s Business Daily, has come to the defense of John McCain against those that would paint him as a big spending quasi-liberal (apparently, some people actually think of him this way). The following article makes the case that he isn’t (he really isn’t).

* “free” until risky speculation causes you to lose your ass… then the government can bail your corporation out, as long as you aren’t a single mother or disabled veteran.

The nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union has compared spending proposals of the various candidates and found that while McCain's proposals for new federal outlays come in at under $7 billion a year, Clinton's total exceeds $226 billion and Obama's tops $307 billion.
McCain's ideas include spending $5.4 billion over three years for elementary and high school scholarships for disadvantaged children, $280 million over five years to let families buy health insurance across state lines, and $5 million over five years for development of electric auto batteries.

Item 1: $5.4 billion for scholarships sounds great, given the way federal student loan programs have been fundamentally changed over the past few years—the decrease in interest subsidies for these programs has made interest rates skyrocket for federal loans. If I may inject some anecdotal evidence—my wife’s student loans from her undergrad in the late 90’s are locked in a 2%. The ones I took out for my doctoral degree over the past few years are at 6.8%.

Given the drastic change in affordability of credit for education, the $5.4 billion is welcome. But read the sentence again—“for elementary and high school scholarships for disadvantaged children”. I think this might denote scholarships for elementary and high school students to attend other elementary and high schools, which amounts to a federal voucher system couched in more palatable terms. Vouchers are wildly unpopular, and remain a part of the GOP platform that even many conservatives don’t support.

Item 2: McCain’s healthcare plan is… well, see my post from last week. Buying insurance across state lines is part and parcel of the idea that increased competition will somehow force the insurance cabal to lower prices. If you believe this one, we should talk about that $10 million in my Nigerian bank account again.

Item 3: McCain, savior of the environment, climate change warrior, and leader of energy policy reform: $5 million over five years for electric auto batteries. A whole $1 million a year. That’ll go far. To invoke my good friend Sator Arepo, “Wow. Just, wow.”

So the IBD goes on to rail against the massive spending proposals by Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, which apparently are considered egregious. These include:

$113 billion for Healthcare (Clinton)
$20 billion for education, including pre-K programs (Clinton)
$2.3 billion for welfare and foster-care proposals (Clinton)
$32 billion over 20 years to rebuild the Gulf Coast (Obama)
$15 billion in energy, environmental and agriculture programs (Obama)
$60 billion over 10 years for infrastructure reinvestment (Obama)

Addressing energy policy, food supply, health care, infrastructure, education, rebuilding the Gulf Coast... those sound like things the government should do. John McCain is basically espousing a carbon copy of the Bush-era domestic policy: destroy what you can and sit around with your thumb up your ass on the rest. No thanks, John.

Overrated Films

MSN has an interesting exercise up about 10 "classic" movies that it dubs "unclassics." I have never even seen a few of the movies on the list (I never even realized people considered Love Story a classic), and with others (Easy Rider) , it's been so long that I'd have to re-view them to consider whether I think he has a point, and I'd rather spend time seeing movies I haven't seen than seeing movies I have seen over again. Still, some of David Fear's choices make a lot of sense (like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, which I believe Pauline Kael called "the best movie of 1957." Ouch).

I fully agree, though, with Gone With the Wind. Is there a more overrated movie out there? I saw this maybe 10 years ago, in the midst of my "classic movie" phase, and I just didn't get it. First, I simply can't stand the pure melodrama of stuff like that (it's the same reason I stay away from novelas). Women ranting and raving ("I don't know nuthin' about birthin' no babies!" or "I shall never go hungry again!", anybody?) is not good acting to me, nor is Clark Gable's...um...style. I've heard defenders say, "well, that's how it used to be back then! Those were great performances!", and maybe that was what was considered great back then, but that wasn't the standard for acting. Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and a lot of the early film noirs were nothing like that, and they were (and are) still great acting performances. The way Vivien Leigh in particular goes through that film may have been common, but that doesn't mean it's great - are we going to look back 30 years from now to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and say, "well, that's how a lot of women performed then, so it's a great performance!" I doubt it. And we all know Leigh definitely had the chops in her to put on a far more fierce and realistic (if still highly emotional) performance, a la A Streetcar Named Desire. Sure, the sets are impressive, even for their time, but it's not like Holywood hadn't done big-scale before.

I just never got the hullaballoo for Gone with the Wind. I'm sure there are others I'd add to the "unclassic" category (though none spring to mind right now, but hey, I just woke up). Still, I think at the end of the day I'd still have Gone with the Wind as my #1 "Unclassic" movie.

Nicaragua

I am interested in this story of Daniel Ortega's Citizen Power Councils. The Nicaraguan opposition claims that he is creating a dictatorship through the CPCs, which are funded by Venezuela. There is really no accountability for the money and it's pretty clear that Ortega is building the Sandinista movement through this funding.

I'm less interested in the fear mongering over Ortega. On one level, I'm pretty uncomfortable with Ortega generally and the potential for corruption and for skirting the apparatus for government is obvious. It's clear that Nicaragua is still deeply affected by the Cold War civil wars. Both sides seem to operate through this framework.

What's more interesting to me though is the fact that Ortega is using this money to help the poor. And his opponents have never had any plan to help the poor and still apparently don't. Much of this money is going for microloans and food supplies. It is legitimate that the conservative opposition doesn't like Ortega's methods. Less acceptable is their clear indifference to helping the people. For all the criticisms leveled at Ortega and Hugo Chavez, I think the opposition must come up with a real plan to help the poor. If they don't like the CPCs, how are they going to pave roads? How are they going to provide food? How are they going to give and administer microloans? The conservatives had 15 years after the fall of the Sandinistas to fix some of their issues with poverty and they did virtually nothing. They didn't even really try to. So I have a hard time taking their opposition seriously, even if they aren't all wrong.

Book Review: Michael H. Hunt, The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained & Wielded Global Dominance

In the years after the Cold War, foreign policy took a backseat in the minds of many Americans. Of course, the United States was involved in the world--NAFTA, the first Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, etc. But with the exception of the Gulf War, the nation's people tended to be wary of foreign engagement outside of the realm of trade. It seemed that the United States had won the Cold War and, more broadly, won control over the world. Francis Fukuyama notoriously claimed that we had reached "the end of history." Now we could trade and travel around the world. Who could stop the obvious superiority of American free market capitalism? And when obstacles did stand in our way, we did our best to cover our eyes and ignore what was going around us. We were reticent to enter Bosnia and only did so after hundreds of thousands of people were dead. We never made a national commitment to Somalia and pulled out after the disastrous Battle of Mogadishu. We ignored the genocide in Rwanda entirely. We chalked the first attempt to blow the World Trade Center up to a few crazy extremists and went on our merry way.

Of course 9/11 changed all of that. Some change was inevitable after that date, but the incompetent ideologues running the country made the transformation all the more painful and unnecessary. The rise of China threatened American economic power, along with rising oil prices and the falling dollar. The pointless Iraq war brought America's international prestige to a point as low as in the doldrums of the late 1970s. Perhaps most importantly, Americans have had to engage the world in a way we thought we had left behind after 1991. Whereas 15 years ago, we thought the world was our oyster, now we feel besieged in a world of hostile religions, growing rivals, and saddled with a declining economy.

Not surprisingly, this new world is leading to interesting new books on U.S. foreign policy. One of the leading recent works is Michael H. Hunt's The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained & Wielded Global Dominance. Providing a long overview from early American history to the present, Hunt does a fantastic job of showing how the U.S. became the global hegemon and how it has always existed in a world not of its own making.

A major point here is that the United States is not exceptional. American exceptionalism has long been a major national myth. Hunt demonstrates how American expansionism largely mirrored that of Europe except that our 19th century conquests came on our own soil. In the 20th century, our attempts to dominate the world were really little different than those of Britain, France, or the Soviet Union. In my view certainly, the sooner these ideas about American exceptionalism can be destroyed, the better off the nation will be and I appreciate Hunt's efforts toward this goal.

Hunt also does a fantastic job of emphasizing the importance of U.S. culture in pushing foreign policy. From Coca-Cola to automobiles to movies, U.S. cultural products have arguably done more to both push American interests and to alienate our enemies than anything accomplished in the State Department or the White House. This sort of cultural foreign policy history is traditionally understudied, though that has changed significantly in recent years. Pairing the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa with Robert McNamara and Walt Rostow to understand America's foreign policy in the 1960s not only expands our definitions of U.S. foreign policy, but also makes a lot of historical sense.

Hunt discusses many interesting points that I don't have to go into in detail. He shows the complicity of the Republican Party in the rise of European fascism in the 1920s and 30s, detailing how happy U.S. companies were to invest in Mussolini's Italy and how J.P. Morgan became Mussolini's leading financial advisor on international issues. (100), how the United States help doom democracy in the developing world by practicing the slogan "Better for freedom to come slowly than risk disorder" (232), and showing compelling evidence that dismisses the Republican myth that Reagan won the Cold War (263).

Finally, Hunt places the U.S. war in Iraq in historical and global context. He minces no words. Among other attacks, when describing Bush's foreign policy, he writes, "A macho streak that was part of Bush's Texas ethos and compensated for a lifetime of underachievement may have at this point [after 9/11] come into play" (279). The Bush administration has created one of the great disasters of American history, one that threatens America's hegemonic position in the world. Hunt questions the durability of American hegemony, suggesting that it is difficult for nations to retain their position at the top. We may be seeing this now. The decline of the dollar, America's extreme susceptibility to oil prices, the rise of China and India, the failure of the United States to succeed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and global warming may all be threatening the United States' ability to navigate a tricky world successfully.

I definitely recommend this well-written overview of U.S. foreign policy for anyone interested in the issue. This challenging book forces the reader to question the role of the U.S. in the world and made this reader at least wonder about the future of this nation and of the world.

Historical Image of the Day

North Carolina Civil War reenactors, 1964

The Tax Boogey Man!

Those lousy liberals are coming after your… e-mail? This is from John McCain’s official campaign website:

John McCain Will Ban New Cell Phone Taxes. John McCain understands that the same people that would tax e-mail will tax every text message – and even 911 calls. John McCain will prohibit new cellular telephone taxes.

I heard that if you flash your bright lights in your car at night someone will shoot you, because it’s a gang code. Oh, and I also heard that Bill Gates is giving away $10,000 for every time you forward this e-mail… And, wait, wait, I heard that car thieves are using your VIN# to make duplicate keys and that Obama is a Mormon or he's from Muskegon or something….

If you believe this bullshit from McCain, please contact me. I have $100 million in a Nigerian bank account I would like to share with you.

Bread & Houses

The price of one is up and the other is down. What do they have in common?

Much has been written about the housing market (with particular emphasis on my soon-to-be home base in California)—the subprime market, interest-only loans, predatory lending, zero down programs, etc. One of the factors that hasn’t taken its proper share of the blame is the practice of selling mortgages in large bundles on securities markets. In the past, a bank would offer mortgages (including subprime loans) according to procedures that would minimize the risk to their investments. Lenders then had a vested interest in making mostly good loans and fewer risky ones because they intended to hold the note for the life of the loan (the premise behind hometown banking, in the age before multinational banks). With the practice of selling off large lots of loans to hungry speculators, many lenders became less than diligent about making loans to qualified buyers (after all, what happens after the loans are sold doesn't affect the originator). When more money is available for riskier and riskier loan seekers, the prices in a market get inflated, as there is more money flooded into the system. When these mortgages go into default, the lenders that made the original loans aren’t left holding the bag, but people lose their homes and the market becomes glutted with foreclosures, driving down prices as quickly as they inflated.

But what does this have to do with the cost of bread? Wheat has suffered from a run up in price, as much as 45% year to date. The devastating Australian drought, most assuredly one of the many climate change-based challenges facing contemporary agriculture, has a lot to do with it, as does the increased interest in corn for ethanol production. These factors are important, and seem to get a good deal of press. However, the commodities markets and commodities speculators have a huge, if underreported, role in this as well-- just like in the real estate market. On the heels of the challenges faced by a dwindling wheat crop, commodities speculators have made a run on wheat, driving up the prices.

Washington Post writer Anthony Faiola has a very good article on rising food prices and their effects on the global community, in which he provides a min-history of the run on wheat in the commodities market (which has part of its impetus in the credit crisis):

Investors fleeing Wall Street's mortgage-related strife plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into grain futures, driving prices up even more. With fewer places to turn, and tempted by the weaker dollar, nations staged a run on the American wheat harvest.

Foreign buyers, who typically seek to purchase one or two months' supply of wheat at a time, suddenly began to stockpile. They put in orders on U.S. grain exchanges two to three times larger than normal as food riots began to erupt worldwide. This led major domestic U.S. mills to jump into the fray with their own massive orders, fearing that there would soon be no wheat left at any price.

It is time to take a long, hard, and heinously overdue look at how easy it is for a handful of wealthy and powerful investors to manipulate the prices of basic necessities—in these cases, food and housing. Needless to say, increased regulation would go a long way to insure sanity and long term stability in these essential markets (we are already seeing the worldwide chain-reaction of economic consequences from the credit/housing market bubble). As the clock winds down on the 2008 Farm Bill, I seriously doubt any kind of real reform will happen-- the message from the government on food prices has heretofore been something along the line of "let's wait and see what happens"-- waiting for a market correction that may or may not happen. What is certain, however, is that global agriculture is changing, and increased demand on farmland, population growth, and climate change are poised to fundamentally change how we get our food. Government has to be able to address these issues with some progressive forethought. Until that happens, we all are at the mercy of a powerful few-- and the hardest hit victims are those in developing countries. To quote Faiola quoting French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier, “We must not leave the vital issue of feeding people to the mercy of market laws and international speculation.”

Well said, sir.

(Wheat is a truly beautiful plant)

Bush's Incompetence on Film

By chance this week, I watched When the Levees Broke in my Hurricane Katrina in Historical Perspective class and then No End in Sight at home. These two films are great documents to show the historical incompetence of the Bush administration. Plenty of people have talked about both films so I won't go into much detail here. But I think watching them back to back is extremely powerful.

When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee's documentary on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, is possibly the best documentary I have ever seen. That's a strong statement I know. But that film has unbelievable power. It's actually not that great for discussion I think, or at least it wasn't with me leading it, because it is just too overwhelming. After each of the 4 episodes, one just feels completely devastated. Michael Eric Dyson, in his book about Katrina, Come Hell or High Water, explores Kanye West's assertion that George Bush doesn't care about black people. Essentially, Dyson says, that regardless of Bush's actual feelings toward African-Americans, he doesn't care about them as a political group. That disinterest dominated hurricane relief efforts. As we all know, relief was slow and inadequate and hundreds if not thousands of people died as a direct result. In the aftermath, Bush was conducting fundraisers and talking about Iraq, Cheney was hanging out on his ranch in Wyoming, and Condi was shopping. None of them cared. Today, Hurricane Katrina relief funds are running out with most of the city not yet rebuilt and much not even cleaned up. Nothing more is coming either. Disgusting.

Watching No End in Sight only reinforced When the Levees Broke. Again viewing the aftermath of the Iraq invasion and the multiple ways the Bush administration sabotaged their own war through ideology, contempt for the Iraqis, inexperience, incompetence, disinterest, malfeasance, and idiocy. While I still believe that it is a very hard case to make that this administration is the worst in American history, it sure is awfully close and I pray the worst in my lifetime. Because I don't want to live through something worse.

I was thinking about Fahrenheit 9/11 after watching these films. The problem with that movie is the conspiracy theory aspect to it. Why focus on conspiracy theories when this administration has done so many horrible things that are easily documented and clear to the public? Accusing it of conspiracies almost serves its interest because it draws attention from their actual evil.

Florida Fucktard Loves Treason

Kudos to the store BJs (unfortunate name there) in Jacksonville for not allowing one of their employees to park his truck in their employee parking lot so long as he insists on flying the Confederate flag on it. They claim to be protecting the rights of other workers and I think that is absolutely right. Flying the Confederate flag is akin to flying the Nazi flag, or at least to the flag of apartheid South Africa. You can't ban those symbols but you can enact a high social cost for flying them.

The guy flying it is now walking a half-mile into work and says that he will give up his job before taking down his flag. North Florida--home to America's best and brightest.

White Men, Asian Women, and Feminism

For some reason, William Sparrow, the editor of the Asian Sex Gazette, has an occasional column at Asia Times Online. I suppose I should expect this from the editor of such a fine publication, but Sparrow's piece today was particularly loathsome.

Sparrow argues that women are gaining power in Asian countries while still recognizing the proper differences between men and women. The first part of the equation may well be true. Women do seem to be playing a bigger role in the public sphere at least in many Asian countries. But for Sparrow and other white men who go to Asia for the women, women's sexual prowess is their ultimate value. Those differences for Sparrow are about sex.

For Sparrow and his ilk, feminism has always been a repudiation of sex, despite the vast amount of feminists who no one could legitimately ever accuse of being opposed to sex. He writes: "I've heard countless men expressed how nice it is to be somewhere that they can tell a woman that she is "beautiful" or "sexy" and have it taken as a compliment rather than a lawsuit." Yes, in my experience, men who say these things are often total fucking assholes who claim that they are just telling women how beautiful they are. In reality, they may be going way over the line, sexually harassing women in really bad ways.

When I lived in Asia in the mid 90s, I knew men who had come to Asia for the women. They said things like this all the time. And you know what? They had almost no respect for women at all. Many seemed to outright hate women. They liked Asia because there one could supposedly find a submissive woman that would have sex whenever you wanted and not talk back to you. They wanted the myth of the patriarchal past, when men dominated the household and the bedroom.

Sparrow also talks about "angry feminist protests in the West - the type typified by anti-male rhetoric ("Use condoms or beat it") and signs about male oppression ("Keep your laws off my body") and empowerment ("Riots not diets")." Funny, I've hardly seen any anti-male rhetoric in years, at least among anyone under the age of 50. I guess demanding safe sex means that you hate men. Huh. Also, fighting for abortion rights is hardly the same as being "angry" about "male oppression." And I guess women's empowerment sucks or something. What a jerk.

Sparrow's views about feminism become crystal clear when he reports on what one female working at a Bangkok bar thought about his description of western-style feminism. Her response:

"Do women in your country - these 'feminists' - actually do what you're saying? (bold face added)" she asked. "[They] get angry for men looking at sexy women? They cut off their hair, don't wear make-up and dress like men?"

"No wonder [foreigners] like Asia so much."

Hmmm...so for Sparrow, all feminists hate men and sex. Really? Because most of the feminists I know talk way more about sex than I ever do. They quite often wear makeup. They rarely "dress like men," whatever the hell that even means today. I guess Sparrow hasn't been in the United States since 1975.

It's also worth wondering, as is often the case in some Asian countries and certainly in Thailand, if these female bar workers he talked to were also sex workers. Naturally, we don't know that from the article.

Sparrow's attack on those man-hating feminazis totally ignores the real oppression that many Asian women face. We'll leave the sex industry out of this. Domestic violence is an epidemic in many Asian countries. When I lived in South Korea, you saw women with black eyes way too often. They had a saying that was something like (and to get this you have to know that it references some sort of fish dish where you pound the fish) "Women and fish need to be beaten twice a week." I was teaching elementary school teachers English at that time, preparing them to teach their kids. So I brought this up to them. They were mortified that I knew this. I got called into the state education board the next day and was asked why I was teaching communism. The reaction against me telling them that beating women was wrong was sharp and swift.

But I guess issues like domestic violence, not to mention unequal wages, rape, high rates of childbirth, and the rising tide of fundamentalism don't play a role in Sparrow's ideal Asian feminism. Rather, Sparrow is much more comfortable with women who are just happily pro-sex. What else matters? He closes with an appeal to support feminist NGOs, but it really feels like a non-sequiter thrown on by an editor to make the piece more palatable.

Historical Image of the Day

Omaha Indian boys at Carlisle Indian School, 1880

Happy Birthday, "Take Me Out..."

The venerable baseball anthem Take Me Out to the Ball Game was registered in the U.S. copyright office one hundred years ago today (the same year in which the Chicago Cubs won their most recent World Series).

The song as we know it is actually the chorus from a vaudeville song by Albert Von Tilzer (music) and Jack Norworth (lyrics). The two verses center on the story of Katie Casey, a young woman with baseball fever who gave umpires hell, knew all of the players, and would rather see a baseball game than a show.

For a fun musical challenge, try singing the song starting on the second word "Me out to the ball game take, Me out to the crowd buy. (etc.)" It's really difficult, but a cool party trick.

House Hunting in the Inland Empire

As Erik mentioned when he introduced me, I’m headed to Redlands, California from Austin this summer to take a position at the University of Redlands. I am in the fortunate position of being able to actually afford a house in Southern California on an Assistant Professor’s salary—something not even thinkable in the area two years ago. The silver lining of the credit collapse and subsequent fall in housing prices in markets like California is that homes are approaching affordability to working class people (there is still a very, very long way to go; the average price for a home in California is around $400,000 [down from $528,000 a few years ago], while the median family income is around $49,000 per year). The home prices in Redlands and the surrounding area are MUCH lower than the state average. In the long view, this is a good thing (not just for me, but for working class people who otherwise would remain priced out of the market); for those who have lost their homes, though, this is a very uncertain and undoubtedly miserable time.

I was in the Inland Empire a few weeks ago to look at houses. The human toll of the foreclosure boom is not immediate when reading about it in the media, but becomes painfully apparent the minute you step inside one of these houses. All but one of the houses I looked at with the realtor were bank owned foreclosures. Most of these houses are in terrible condition; many have been stripped of anything with the slightest value—light fixtures, window treatments, banisters, etc. In one house, even the switch plates and outlet plates were unscrewed from the wall and taken. A few houses, displaying evidence of a very understandable and very human reaction, even had intentional damage—sliced carpet, large holes in walls, even broken windows. The feeling when you step into one of these homes is an overwhelming sense of loss and desperation. For a moment, you can imagine the final hours before eviction and sense the horrible strain that these families had to endure. One home still had a few bags of clothes and a box of toys left behind in the foyer, just feet from the front door. It was heartbreaking and left me with a strange sense of voyeuristic guilt.

These people weren’t necessarily just greedy—these were mostly normal, working class people who saw their neighbors make thousands of dollars on their houses, move up to bigger and better houses, and wanted to do the same. I’m not totally dismissing the greed impulse here, but I can hardly fault most of these people for wanting to get their slice of the pie as well. Couple that with the abuses and flat-out lies of an eminently culpable and predatory mortgage industry, and I have reason to feel a great deal of sympathy for the people who were shuffled out of their own doors. Especially the ones who left the toys behind (that was rough).

(The picture is of a pool for a bank-owned foreclosure that has been vacant for over a year, and part of my finger [I can't take pictures for shit])

Happy Birthday Stupid Sign

Today, this stupid sign is five years old. Good for it...kindergarten is an awesome time, enjoy it little buddy.

Since I was never sure which mission had actually been accomplished, I'm just going to assume that it still is. Good Job!

Worst Album Covers

Via Brian at Incertus, we have the worst album covers ever. Some of these are freaking awesome. I was sure one of those extra-cheesy Al DiMeola covers from the 70s would make it, but they get so, so much worse.

What Is Wrong With Italy?

Why can't Italy get over its fascination with fascism? First, they reelect Silvio Berlusconi, who responds by saying, "We are the new Falange."

Now, there is this:

Italy's new parliament met for the first time yesterday with applause for Rome's mayor-elect, Gianni Alemanno, a day after followers celebrated his triumph with straight-arm salutes and fascist-era chants.

I don't know a whole lot about Italy, but why are they the one country in Europe that still has a large percentage of the population who like fascism. I know that France and Austria have had threatening right-wing politicians in recent years too, but the popularity and success of Italian fascists is really disturbing.

Torvald

5 years ago today, a bunch of kittens were born under my house in Albuquerque. My ex-wife decided to gather up all 8 of them (there were 2 litters, born at the same time) and adopt them out. We ended up keeping this one. I got him in the divorce. His name is Torvald. Today, he gets birthday pets.

Historical Image of the Day

"Another American Aviation Achievement." Cartoon from the Louisville Courier-Journal, July 21, 1927.

The cartoon depicts the Battle of Ocotal, where US invading forces killed more than 300 Nicaraguans in what was the first example of an air attack directed from the ground.

Indian Death Metal

Akshay Ahuja wrote recently in Guernica on death metal in India as an example the influx of Western culture there, for better or for worse. He begins:

"It was near midnight on the eve of India’s independence, and I was at a concert called Freedom Jam, held at a club on the outskirts of Bangalore called only The Club. Watching the band perform from beside the stage, I noticed a girl with a nose ring. My grandmother’s nose was pierced when she married at thirteen; her nose ring was a sign that she adhered to a certain traditional image of Indian womanhood. For this girl, however, the ring indicated that she was not just westernized (such girls simply chose not to get their noses pierced) but a member of an alternative community that existed outside the mainstream of westernized Indian youth."

The writer goes to see his friend, the lead singer for Cremated Souls, and they head to practice and head to a show. It's simple story, but an interesting read.

Happy Birthday Willie!

Today, Willie Nelson turns 75.

He has an odd reputation at this point in his career. He is famous, but more for his marijuana advocacy than his music. He's obviously one of the great country singers and songwriters (and in the history of country music these are often very different things) of all time. But from what I can tell, young people don't listen to his music in the same way that they do for Cash. They both have that hip outlaw image. Maybe it's because Willie's music doesn't have the same sense of rebellion and anger as Cash. There's no "Folsom Prison Blues" in Willie's catalog, that's for sure.

It's too bad because Willie has put out some fantastic music. Now, not very much of it has been recently. His album of Cindy Walker songs (one of the great country songwriters) was really good. But before that, we are looking at Teatro, which came out in 1998. But periods of horrible music never stopped people from loving Cash (the entire 1970s and 1980s).

There are a series of must-own Willie albums. Many people I respect consider Red Headed Stranger to be the best album ever. I can't go quite that far, but it's close. Teatro is truly fantastic. Me and Paul is deeply underrated. Across the Borderline and Spirit are solid albums from the 1990s. Many stand by his covers collection Stardust or his early outlaw album Shotgun Willie, though neither are real favorites of mine. A collection of his early tunes that became hits for others is important to have. "Night Life" became a huge hit for Ray Price, not to mention "Crazy" for Patsy Cline and "Hello Walls" for Faron Young, among others.

I'd like to discuss a very underrated album, Phases and Stages. Released in 1974, at the beginning of the outlaw period, it never became iconic like Red Headed Stranger, but I think it is the more successful album. It may not be better than Red Headed Stranger but it works better. They were both concept albums. But in Red Headed Stranger, the concept seems lost about halfway through. The songs are fantastic, the sparse arrangements are haunting, and Willie sounds fantastic, even if he did expunge my favorite verse from "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."

In some ways I like Phases and Stages better because it has a more personal feel. Unlike in Red Headed Stranger, Willie wrote all the songs for Phases and Stages. Building on his recent divorce, he composed a song cycle that is split into two halves. The first half is from the woman's point of view, the second from the man's. A woman leaves a man because he has cheated on her. Perhaps because of Willie's history, we are made to feel sympathetic with both sides. This is somewhat uncomfortable, I mean, the bastard did cheat on her, even if "It's not supposed to be that way/Don't you know that I love you." Who cares if you love me, right?

Like in Red Headed Stranger, you don't get a full story. Rather, it's just snippets. The woman leaves, she tells her husband to "Pretend I Never Happened." Then, the woman's little sister is excited because "Sister's Coming Home." She quickly recovers during "Down at the Corner Beer Joint." Her half of the cycle ends with "(How Will I Know) I'm Falling In Love Again." She will be fine and hopefully with a better man. The man's part begins with "Bloody Mary Morning," the album's hit single. An up tempo number, we get a pretty good idea that all those hangovers led to some unfortuante behavior. He also recovers of course and moves on, though I don't necessarily get the sense that he has learned a whole lot from his divorce. And neither did Willie it seems, as he is on marriage #4.

The other great thing about Willie is his musical experimentation. I read a story on him once about a concert in New York. He brought up this high school piano teacher and had her play a bunch of songs. Not his songs. Just classical piano music. The audience was impatient to say the least. But you can't boo Willie! He was into her for some reason. He figured it was his damn show and he was going to do what he wanted. His reggae album of a few years was god awful bad, but at least I had to respect the fact that he was trying new things at his age. On the other hand, he single-handedly transformed country music in the 1970s, especially with Red Headed Stranger. He went against his studio, who freaked out about releasing an album that consisted almost entirely of acoustic guitar and piano. The genre was never the same.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Willie. May you live, be healthy, and produce interesting music for another 75 years!

Historical Image of the Day

Page from General Motors Cadillac catalog, 1969. I really have no idea what the image is above the Cadillac.

I got this picture off of this interesting website. Evidently, a model of this car played a key role in the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969. It's a touch unclear to me from the site, but there are a lot of interesting pictures.

By the Numbers: McCain on Health Care

John McCain, in what one Cainanite called “a major policy speech”, unveiled his health care proposal yesterday. His plan entails giving tax credits to families that purchase their own health insurance, which, by his logic, would allow those that have employer provided insurance to keep their coverage and the rest of us to benefit from the glorious, invisible hand of the market to keep our health insurance costs down. For those with no income tax liability, the credit would come as a rebate.

This post isn’t to make an argument for why this is bad—I don’t want to insult the intelligence of the Alterdestiny readership—but rather to show just how bad an idea this is.

First off, as the Clinton campaign pointed out, this plan would all but eliminate employer provided health insurance. What incentive would an employer have to offer insurance if employees could get a tax credit or rebate to purchase their own? It would seem easy (if unconscionable) for a business to axe health care costs from the bottom line citing the tax credit as a viable option for employees.

The numbers tell the real truth—the amount of the tax credit/rebate is $2,500 per individual and up to $5,000 for families. I received some quotes from various on-line health insurance providers, and the results are telling. I only selected plans that had deductibles less than $2,500, copays less than $50, and coinsurance (the percentage of total medical costs the policy holder is responsible for after the deductible is paid) of less than 15%. This nominal coverage costs around $434 per month ($5,208 per year). The tax credit covers the premium only; remember that every office visit will cost you $35-$45, the insurer won’t cover a dime until you spend the deductible amount, and you will be paying 10 – 15% of total expenses after you shell out $2,500 for the deductible.

But this isn’t even the worst part, really. In order to get the tax rebate, you have to purchase a plan—for low and middle income people, just having that extra $434 per month is insurmountable. Take a family of four making $30,000; after state and federal income tax withholding, the net pay per month is $2,062. The $434 per month to even buy into the tax credit system is 21% of monthly take home pay. How many low and middle income people can afford to spend the 21% to buy in to the system?

If we do the math for a single parent making $7.50 an hour, the problems with McCain’s plan become even more clear. There are nearly no options for a single parent with one child to get less than 20% coinsurance (I’m not sure why this is…), so I selected for plans at 20% coinsurance, less than $50 office visits, and $2,500 deductibles. These plans average (generously) around $225 per month. Take home pay for the parent would be $988, making the $225 a month 23% of net monthly income.

How many single parents do you know that can wait a full year to get their $5,000 rebate? How many middle class families can afford to put away $434 a month to pay for health insurance until that rebate check arrives? My guess is those premiums would sit on credit cards all year until the rebate arrived, amounting in $592 of finance charges (assuming a 21% APR credit card).

Certainly, in most states, the child in the single parent situation would be covered by Medicaid's CHIP program. But how long until the tax rebate becomes an argument for dismantling the program? We've already seen the hard line the Bush Administration has taken with respect to CHIP; much like employer provided insurance, this tax rebate plan would likely usher in major cutbacks in state and federal health care spending.

At the risk of repeating myself, the amounts shown above are for basic coverage only-- the insured party in these scenarios will have huge amounts of medical expenses. If the family has a toddler with a high fever in the middle of the night and has to take her to the emergency room, the insurance doesn't even kick in until they rack up $2,500 in charges. After that, the family will still be paying 15% of the accrued costs. My guess is that most families and individuals will elect to not pay for coverage, gambling that their out of pocket medical expenses will be less than $2,708 per year (annual premium plus deductible. minus the tax credit), or realizing up front that no matter the forseen cost of healthcare, the 20+% of their income required to buy insurance is untenable. Which, of course, leaves us in the same position we are now, and possibly worse.

We can quibble about mandates and numerical games in the Clinton and Obama plans while still pining for a single-payer system, but either plan is a significant improvement over the current system or McCain’s laissez-faire fantasy.

RIP: Charles Tilly

Charles Tilly, one of the leading scholars on the nature of the nation-state, has died of lymphoma at 79. I'd never met Tilly - I was really hoping to actually have a chance to at least see him at Columbia come the fall, even if it was a brief meeting. Unlike Rob, by the time I got around to reading Tilly, I had already really had my general notion on the roles and functions of states challenged, and had come to some pretty thorough beliefs on the role of the state in society myself. That said, his work was still really impressive, and has indirectly influenced my own thinking on the state in my dissertation. From those who knew him, it seems he couldn't have been a nicer guy, and a down-to-earth academic who didn't let the petty politics of academia affect him (Crooked Timber has a post up including one of his own self-descriptions: "Among Tilly’s negative distinctions he prizes 1) never having held office in a professional association, 2) never having chaired a university department or served as a dean, 3) never having been an associate professor, 4) rejection every single time he has been screened as a prospective juror. He had also hoped never to publish a book with a subtitle, but subtitles somehow slipped into two of his co-authored books.") He will certainly be missed by those who never knew him but who loved his work, and moreso by those who counted him among their family and friends.

Forgotten American Bastard Blogging: Elihu Root

Elihu Root was Secretary of State under William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. He was a leading architect of American imperialism. He may not quite be on the bastard level of, say, Philander Knox, but in my view, he was a pretty bad guy. If you think American imperialism was great, maybe you'll feel differently.

Elihu Root was born a member of the New York elite in 1845. The men of this elite class from New York would come to dominate American foreign policy (and much of American domestic policy) during the McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft administrations. Among them was Theodore Roosevelt, born in 1858. Root became one of America's leading corporate lawyers during the Gilded Age, representing such fine Americans as Boss Tweed and Jay Gould among others.

In 1899, Root was named Secretary of War by the new president, William McKinley. In this role, he did do a good thing. He dedicated himself to professionalizing the U.S. military. While I'm certainly no fan of the military today, the amateur nature of the institution in the 19th century was pretty unacceptable, including the reliance on the militia, i.e., the National Guard, for major conflicts. Root expanded West Point, established the U.S. Army War College, as well as the General Staff.

Root was an ardent imperialist. He was the primary author of the Platt Amendment. Imperialists were upset over the Teller Amendment of 1898, which forbade the United States from taking Cuba as a colony. So Root and others did all they could to make Cuba a quasi-colony after the Spanish-American War. The Platt Amendment forced Cuba to allow the United States to station troops in Cuba, limited Cuba in the conduct of its foreign relations, and allowed the U.S. to establish a permanent naval base on the island at Guantanamo Bay. And nothing bad ever happened there again. The U.S. army ended its official occupation of Cuba in 1902 but the survival of Cuban governments depended almost entirely on U.S. approval until the Cuban Revolution succeeded in 1959.

In 1905, Root became Secretary of State for Theodore Roosevelt's second term. Root was primarily responsible for the Open Door policy. I like calling the philosophy of the Open Door "Equal Imperialism for All." By 1900, Chinese ports had been divided up among the European powers, as well as Japan. The U.S. wanted access to Chinese markets. European powers were less interested in providing that access. Feeling left out of the general looting of China, Root and U.S. policy makers pleaded with Europe to accept the Open Door policy, which would allow everyone to trade everywhere in China. To say the least, this was ignored by Europe. John Hay, McKinley's Secretary of State, first promulgated this policy in 1900 and Root pushed it during the latter half of that decade.

Root also pressed for increased intervention with Latin America, hoping to turn the area into a corporate colony for U.S. interests. In 1906, he returned to the U.S. after a trip to the region. He told a convention of businessmen that the time had come for the U.S. to dominate Latin America. He discussed the differences between the two regions: "Where we accumulate, they spend. While we have less of the cheerful philosophy" which finds "happiness in the existing conditions of life," they have less of the inventive faculty which strives continually to increase the productive power of men." Very nice.

Root also helped press for the Gentleman's Agreement between the United States and Japan in 1907. Japanese immigrants came to the U.S. in large numbers during the late 19th century. White Californians, who saw their state as a place for whites only, were furious, especially once the Japanese began having economic success in farming. At the same time, the Japanese government was growing and becoming more powerful. They were less interested in having their citizens leave since their work at home could lead to a more powerful Japan. So Root and Roosevelt agreed with the Japanese to stop most permanent immigration from Japan. The Japanese government and racist Californians were happy. As for the Japanese people, no one asked them.

In 1909, Root became a senator from New York, where he continued his influential role in American foreign policy. He only served one term, leaving office in 1915. He spent the rest of his life working for influential agencies and corporations that dealt with international issues. In particular, he the president of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace from 1910 until 1925. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912 for his work. That said, it's not as if the Nobel Peace Prize always goes to people who really believe in peace. After all, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger are also past winners. Root belongs closer to this group than to real peace advocates.

Root opposed Woodrow Wilson during his first term. Part of this is that he wanted the Republican nomination for president in 1916, which went to Charles Evans Hughes instead. But Root also wanted the U.S. to join World War I. Root was part of a generation of men who believed that war defined masculinity. Like Roosevelt, Madison Grant, and other New York elites, Root hoped that war would regenerate the United States, allowing for a glorious Anglo-Saxon race that would properly rule the world. The carnage of World War I pretty much killed this extreme romanticization of war, though the connections between masculinity and war remain strong in American culture to this day.

Once the U.S. joined World War I in 1917, Root supported Wilson more or less. He began advising the president. After the overthrow of the Russian Czar in 1917, Wilson sent Root to Russia to help shore up the new government, an abject failure given the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

Root's final accomplishment was growing really old. For awhile he was the nation's oldest living senator. He finally died in 1937 at the age of 91.

Does Elihu Root qualify for Bastard Blogging? For the Platt Amendment alone I have to say yes. On the other hand, his professionalization of the military actually was a good thing. But not good enough to make up for his excitement over fighting World War I, his role in the Open Door, and the Gentleman's Agreement, as well as the Platt Amendment.

Much of this information comes from Michael H. Hunt's The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained & Wielded Global Dominance, a newish book I hope to write a full review on by the end of the week, and Walter LaFeber's classic work, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America.

Pandering over the Gas Tax

Just before I asked her to join Alterdestiny, Sarah wrote a fantastic post about this ridiculous proposal to suspend the gas tax. She wrote:

Suspending the gas tax, sure, will make gas a few cents cheaper a gallon for the rest of the summer. And hell, I could use that few cents a gallon–it’ll add up.

But it will do NOTHING to alleviate the real problem, which is our dependence on a finite oil supply that largely comes from the Middle East, and it’ll also do nothing to stop the record profits of the oil companies. It’ll just take more money out of the government’s hands to do things that we desperately need it to do.

I could not agree more. This is pandering to the worst degree. Not only is it pointless and will make almost no difference to Americans' pocketbooks, but it is absurdly bad policy. I'm really disappointed in Clinton for supporting the idea. I expect bad ideas from McCain, but it is unacceptable for leading Democrats to support them.

First, how I can trust a candidate to deal with climate change who wants to give people incentives to drive more? I basically can't. On a similar issue, if we are at the point of suspending the gas tax, when we will decide to drill in ANWR, despite the fact that production there is years away and it only has a very small amount of oil? It can't be far off.

Second, as Sarah points out, our nation's infrastructure is falling apart. If anything, we need a higher gas tax to deal with this! Or do we want more bridge collapses like in Minneapolis? While it may seem that our tax money just disappears (and certainly this administration has come with many new and inventive ways to flush our money down the toilet), these taxes are necessary for making sure that our roads and bridges are safe when we drive. Eliminating the gas tax begs the question, where is the money for infrastructure going to come from?

Third, I want to fight for a society that stops talking about "tax burdens" and starts talking about all the good things taxes do for you. Like paying for your children's education, providing you with sewage lines, and making sure your bridges don't collapse when you are driving on them! This kind of rhetoric that Clinton is buying into does not help our nation in the least. It just reinforces the idea that taxes are a burden on Americans.

Besides, if you really want gas prices to go down, strengthen the dollar. But no one is talking about that. Why? Because it makes rich industrialists richer and props up the stock market at the cost of hurting poor Americans through higher gas prices.

Fourth, if this gas tax is suspended, will it ever come back? The answer is probably no. And again, where does the replacement revenue come from? Voters might be marginally happy that their gas goes down by 20 cents. But if the dollar remains weak and gas prices continue to rise, that will be erased quickly. Then, in a few months, the gas tax comes back? And we see a 20 cent jump in a day. You think any politicians are going to allow that to happen? No way.

Finally, this is just pandering. It's McCain and Clinton appealing to the most short-sighted desires of the American people. We don't need pandering, we need leadership. Obama's refusal to support the suspension of the gas tax is a good thing in my book, helping to make me believe that he is the best choice to lead the nation.

Historical Image of the Day

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse (1754-1846). Waterhouse played a key role in bringing the smallpox vaccination to the United States. He was also a doctor, naturalist, and writer in that Enlightenment way that is really difficult today.

A (Slightly) Tongue-in-Cheek Inaugural Post

It is a real honor to be asked to contribute to Alterdestiny-- thanks to Erik and company for inviting me aboard. I hope I can add some interesting things to this fantastic blog. In his invitation e-mail, Erik offered that I could post about music, politics, etc., and joked that I could even include some folksy, Prairie Home Companion-style stories about my native rural Indiana.

Even though he was joking, I think I will start with such a post, and combine it with another subject I am very passionate about: food. I hope to write about food every now and again, ranging from important issues in agriculture and food production (issues of great importance both in my native state and my future home in California) to more mundane things like weird recipes from our own kitchen.

I would like to share a strange family staple with you all-- the Tomato Sandwich. This doesn't even qualify as a regional food, as I'm unaware of other Indiana folks eating this particular incarnation of a bastardized BLT. First, the recipe:

The Tomato Sandwich

2 slices of homemade country style white or wheat bread, toasted
1 small sliced tomato, preferably homegrown
2 TB of peanut butter
Pepper to taste

Slather the peanut butter on the toast, add tomato slices and pepper to taste

I'm completely in the dark about how this sandwich came into being, but my family lives on them in the summer, once the tomatoes get really good. I still eat these everyday for lunch when I have good tomatoes, and even sometimes in the winter when the tomatoes are waxy, watery, hydroponic crapballs. My grandmother ate them as a child, but her mother came to the U.S. when she was a teenager (from France) and her father from Southern Germany. It seems unlikely that either of them would have had peanut butter as children, so I can't fathom that it would be a hold over from either of my great-grandparents' childhoods. My best guess is that this sandwich was a cheap lunch to feed a family of 15 on a busy farm-- the bread was always baked at home (25 loaves a week [!]), and the tomatoes would have come from the substantial garden on the farmstead. Peanut butter was likely a cheap alternative to meat, and probably the best explanation for the sandwich's genesis.

Now, I know this sounds outrageously disgusting, but try it sometime (with good country-style bread and real tomatoes). It really is fantastic; though I understand I have a strong family connection to the sandwich, and that may be what it takes to love this food like I do.

NB: It is also amazing with bacon and lettuce, in the style of a BLT.

Welcome Our New Writers!

Alterdestiny has decided to expand.

We are adding two awesome authors.

Sarah Jaffe, who has been commenting here as Sarah J, will be joining us from Oh You Pretty Things. She'll be writing a lot on gender, race, journalism, political activism, and other awesome topics of her choosing. She'll still be writing at Pretty Things as well, so be sure to check it out.

This reminds me that I need to update the blog roll, something that I have not done in months, to add all the awesome new blogs that people should read. I'll try to do that this week.

Anthony Suter, who comments as AnthonyS, will also be coming on board. He has his own site here. A composer starting his academic career in the fall at the University of the Redlands in California, Tony will be writing about music, politics, and whatever else crosses his fertile mind. Plus how can we have a legitimate blog without someone talking about California, clearly America's most important state...

Seriously, we are so big state now. Lyrad and I in Texas, Trend in New York, Tony in California, Sarah in Pennsylvania. If you don't have at least 15 electoral votes, we really don't care about you.

Anyhow, please welcome our awesome new writers!!!! I'm sure they'll introduce themselves to you in the next day or two.

Edwards

I don't really think that John Edwards should have to endorse Clinton or Obama before the North Carolina primary, but I'm a little disturbed that he is likely not endorsing because he is holding out for a spot in the administration.

That's a typical political move, I understand. But at some point, you have to lay your cards on the table. Bill Richardson held out for a long time but then he did what he thought was right. Whether that was right for the country or right for him may be up for debate, but he took a stand and stuck with it in the face of withering criticism from Skeletor, ur, James Carville, and other Clinton partisans.

Certainly Edwards must feel one of the candidates is better than the other. The other option here is for him to openly endorse no one and tell the people of North Carolina that they are both fine candidates.

I was an Edwards supporter. But I was always a bit perplexed as to why he was so unpopular in North Carolina was he was a senator. Was it because he was a liberal from a southern state or was there something more profound there? This kind of fence sitting for personal purposes makes me wonder.

Historical Image of the Day

Maria Garcia, Mexican-American folksinger from California, 1939

Rio Police Still Killing Innocents in Their So-Called War on "Traficantes"

This weekend, police in Rio once again went into a favela (City of God, this time) to root out druglords, killing 11 "traficantes." And once again, their claims are highly suspicious:

Police combed the alleyways of a Rio de Janeiro slum on Saturday in search of an
alleged gang leader who escaped a raid that killed 11 people, including a
70-year-old woman.[...] Police said 10 of those killed on Friday were alleged drug gang members. Seventy-year-old bystander Jocelia Afonso was killed by a stray bullet, and two other elderly residents were wounded in the crossfire, Freitas said.

While they claim 10 traficantes and an elderly woman, I just find it hard to believe that, in all the shooting, only one of the 11 was involved in the drug-trade, especially given 2 other wounded. I've commented on this more times than I can remember, but until society and the media start legitimately asking hard questions of those killed, viewing the police less as heroes, and ditching their stupid class-based and racial prejudices some, there will unfortunately continue to be innocent civilians, from children to the elderly, killed in Rio's favelas, and urban human rights violations in Brazil will continue unabated.

...[Update] And Randy's right - it isn't just Rio that has this problem - it hits Sao Paulo, Bahia, and other major cities, like Recife:

This seaside city, a favourite of European tourists, gets much more attention
for the shark attacks that have killed 18 people since 1992 than for its human
killings - at least 2,617 in the metropolitan area last year. While tourists are
warned not to take valuables to the beaches, as in most Brazilian cities, little
is said about the murder rate mostly because the violence largely stays in the
poor areas.
While Rio de Janeiro's bloody drug war makes international
headlines, this balmy city of 1.5 million has a homicide rate of 90.9 per
100,000 - more than twice as deadly as Rio, according to the Latin American
Technological Network's Map of Violence.

I agree with Randy's assessment, too. This is a nationwide problem, and until governors and presidents (past, present, and future) start taking aggressive, active measures to punish police who indiscriminately kill the poor in the name of the "war on drugs," things won't get any better. And unfortunately, I just don't see that happening anytime in the next several years.

Concert Review: Peter Brotzmann and Han Bennink, Victory Grill, Austin, TX

Last night, I saw two legends of free jazz, saxophonist Peter Brotzman and drummer Han Bennink. To say these two geezers put on a great show would be something on an understatement, in fact in some ways it is almost beside the point. I've been a big fan of free jazz for a very long time now and having the chance to see Brotzmann was pretty cool. I first heard Brotzmann on Last Exit albums about 15 years ago and was totally blown away.

I am generally a non-spiritual person. But I've always thought there was something incredibly and indescribably spiritual about free jazz. But I've had some hesitation over jazz's European practitioners, whether free jazz or more traditional musicians. Something always seemed to be missing. The playing is often cold and technical and seems heavily influenced by the classical tradition, something that didn't cross over well.

I'm not saying that I feel totally different now but there is at least a little evidence in the other camp. Brotzmann and Bennink played the hell out of their instruments. Brotzmann can blow like almost no other saxophonist I've seen. The energy and passion he brings to the music is pretty mind-blowing. Bennink kind of stole the show for me though. He is an amazing drummer. I am pretty unfamiliar with his work except for a pretty cool album he did with Eugene Chadbourne several years ago. Bennink is great at beating out a good rhythm and doing crazy stuff at the same time. He also likes to put a foot on the drums while he plays. I'm not sure what this is supposed to do. It looks cool. He acted kind of goofy up there too, a nice touch to the often over-serious, too-cool jazz musician personality, which Brotzmann clearly subscribes to.

What I found really interesting was the audience. First of all, it was packed. This is fantastic. It is so hard for experimental musicians to make a living. So few people come out to these shows. Even fewer buy albums. The place probably held 150 people or so and I know that there were at least a couple of dozen people turned away. Pretty shocking. The audience was also a true uber-hipster crowd. I guess only the coolest of the cool know about Peter Brotzmann and other old jazz musicians who influenced Sonic Youth and other ultimate indie bands. The fashions were classic Austin hipster. Think regular decent town hipsters, but then they have to compete with each other to see who is even more hip. So lots of waxed handlebar moustaches, asymmetrical hair, enormous glasses, and very expensive shoes. Also, really annoying conversations. These people behind me in line before the show were going on about some terrible sounding Robert Mitchum and Karen Black movie from the 70s. They were speaking properly loud about it of course so that everyone could be sure to know that they were in the presence of true urban trendsetters. It was like a mating call.

In any case, the audience was fantastic. Everyone was into the music, the energy was palpable, and each number received pretty wild applause. I love Austin's music scene but it is a horrible jazz town. Hopefully, shows like this get people to realize that an audience is here and ready for awesome creative music.

Appalachian Racism and Obama

DHinMI at Kos has a nice post today about Appalachian racism and Obama. He's right--there is a huge contingent of old white people from Appalachia who are simply not going to vote for a black man under any circumstances. This is a serious issue for the 2008 election that deserves more attention.

I used to spend a lot of time in Tennessee, West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. I knew some fantastic people who were really progressive on a lot of issues, especially when it came to economics and social programs. But they were racist. That was always a tough contradiction to deal with. Great on some issues and potentially loyal Democrats. Except for their commitment to white supremacy. These are the people Obama can't win over. Sadly, and this does not reflect badly on her, this is also a core segment of Hillary voters. There's not much she can do about it and maybe it's not her place to do so, but she is being pushed toward the nomination by a lot of racists. Not exclusively so of course. But that's a big chunk of her base.

This issue has come up when discussing Appalachia because it is there that Hillary has won by such large majorities. But it's that way in much of the rest of the country as well. The difference is that Appalachia is very white and very old. Pennsylvania and West Virginia are two of the three states in the country with the oldest populations (Florida is not surprisingly #1). This is also an unusually white part of America.

People often forget about racism in Appalachia for a couple of reasons. First, they mostly don't think of Appalachia at all. Ignorance about the region allows for mountaintop removal operations to take place with almost no opposition from the environmental community at all. Second, when they think of racism, they think of the Deep South. Because Appalachia resisted the Confederacy, many smart people don't see the area as having the historical racism of Mississippi and South Carolina. But that's just not true. The prototypical historical figure of Appalachia, and the one that can best help us understand the region today, is Andrew Johnson. Johnson opposed the Confederacy not because he thought racism was bad. He opposed it because like many Appalachian residents, he resented the dominance big planters had over small white farmers. Thus, when Johnson sought to kill Reconstruction as President, he did so in part because with the big planters destroyed, he could make common cause with them to oppose black rights. Appalachian residents have largely seen their region as a white man's area and always wanted to keep it that way.

The racism that older Appalachian whites feel is reflected across the nation in the hearts and minds of old white people. This is repulsive to many people. It has the very negative consequence of potentially costing Obama the 2008 election. First, he is getting beat down by the never ending primary cycle. It so happens that many of these states are late in the cycle and are helping to keep Clinton alive. West Virginia is going to go huge for Clinton. Kentucky may do so as well, but Louisville could allow Obama to pull it out. Democrats in western North Carolina are really bad on race too, but they will be outnumbered by the African-American populations in the eastern part of the state and in the cities. Moreover, it could throw the election to McCain. Despite what many Democratic writers are saying, many of these voters are not going to vote for Obama if he wins the nomination. They will vote for McCain.

On the other hand, this is also the chance for a national conversation on race that we continue to try and avoid. Obama can't bring the subject up at all without everyone being reminded of his pastor (the horror!). Yet, an Obama nomination is going to force the issue. We already see the forces of racism rising each day. But young people are largely sickened by this. This conversation will have a strong generational aspect to it as well. Thirty years of Black History Month and the Cult of King has made a real difference in fighting racism. Although it is not hard to find racist young white people, it becomes less acceptable each day. (Homophobia is undergoing a similar transformation but it remains a good 15-20 years behind the fight against racism. Sexism on the other hand seems as strong as ever).

The next six months then are likely to include a whole lot of talk on race. Older whites don't like this because they are going to look very bad. They are also going to vote for John McCain. How will this play on in the election? It's hard to say. But I do feel that this election could be a sort of last gasp of white supremacy in this nation. Perhaps it will even win. But a last gasp I think it will be and by 2012 or 2016, an African-American candidate will face a lot less of the overt racism Obama faces.

Historical Image of the Day

White slavery image from Gilded Age.

Freaking Out

It's Sunday. A few minutes before noon. I feel like I should be doing work. But for the first time in months I don't have any work that has to be done right now.

This is kind of freaking me out. What do people do on Sundays if they don't have a massive amount of work staring them in the face? I have heard rumors of this concept called the weekend Does anyone have any information on this? Is it true? And if so, what the heck do you do?

Mr. Trend's Random 10

Everybody talks about Beck's Sea Change as his "breakup album" (David Fricke even called it "Beck's Blood on the Tracks"). That's fine and all - it is an album written about breakups, in the wake of Beck's splitting from his then-fiancee. But all the typecasting what kind of album ignores what a great album it is. The emotion behind the songs is so simple yet heartfelt, be it the resigned suffering on "Guess I'm Doing Fine," or the statement on "Lost Cause" that he's "Tired of fighting, fighting for a lost cause," and just about every other song on Sea Change. Beck often gets more credit for his sound and mixing of elements than his lyrical skills, and sometimes that's fair (explaining what "Got a devil's haircut in my mind" isn't nearly as stupid as, say, an "intelligent" look at the Insane Clown Posse, but it's not exactly lyrical genius, either). But more often than not, his lyrics are saying more than he gets credit for, and Sea Change is definitely an excellent example of that (as well as arguably his best album).

1. Siegfried - Act II: Willkommen, Sigfried! - Richard Wagner
2. Symphony No. 2 (The Peak of the Sacred) - Fourth Movement (Sacred Field) Glenn Branca
3. "Untitled" - Panda Bear
4. "Horses In My Dreams" - PJ Harvey
5. "Making the Nature Scene" - Sonic Youth
6. "Im Gluck" - Neu!
7. "Guess I'm Doing Fine" - Beck
8. Octandre - Ili Grave - Anime et Jubilatoire - Edgard Varese
9. "Why Did You Give Me Your Love?" - Jimmie Rodgers
10. "Falling Rain" - Big Bill Broonzy

Lyrad's Random 10

Ali Farka Toure is one of of the great guitar players of all time. His combination of blues guitar with traditional Malian form is amazingly trance inducing. I don't have a lot to say about him that hasn't been said about his skills or influence, but I have always loved how beautifully the mayor of Niafunke's voice worked with the guitar. It was a shame to lose him in 2006. Here is a clip of his son, Vieux Farka Toure, from M. Duss' original post on Alterdestiny.

1. Ali Farka Toure--Jangali Famata
2. Howard McGee--Up in Dodo's Room
3. The Louvin Brothers--You're Learning
4. Blind Boy Fuller--Lost Lover Blues
5. Ray Colcord--Along Came a Spider (from the soundtrack to The Amnityville Dollhouse)
6. John Coltrane--Body and Soul
7. Old 97s--Oppenheimer
8. The Bomboras--Keep in Touch
9. The Pretenders--Middle of the Road
10. Roberto Nicolosi--Vampiro! (from the soundtrack to Black Sabbath)

Follow-Up: the Argentina Adoption Case

In February, an Argentine couple and a military officer were being tried in court for falsifying papers and adopting the baby of a couple who were disappeared (see here). The case was unique in a number of ways, including the fact that the adopted child had taken the parents to court, and that it was the first time that a case involving illegal adoption of the babies of the "disappeared" in Argentina had arrived to the courts.

Well, verdicts came down yesterday. Osvaldo Rivas and Maria Cristina Gomez, the parents, were found guilty and sentenced to 8 and 7 years prison, respectively, while the military officer who arranged the adoption, Capt. Enrique Berthier, received a 10-year sentence. As I commented in February, this case was and is unprecedented, and has set a new legal precedent for the adopted children of the disappeared (estimated to be 400 or so, with 90 having already discovered who their birth-parents were). I doubt every one of those 400 (and maybe none) will take their parents to court (as the article points out, civil cases can lead to criminal charges in Argentina). As for this particular case, I'm glad the army captain was sentenced for what he did, and if Sampallo wanted her adopted parents in court for their deeds, that's her prerogative. I don't know what the parents' intentions were when they adopted, but this is definitely a complicated scenario, and I wonder if it will really repeat itself that much more in Argentina.

Human Rights in Suriname

I'm going to be forward - like nearly every other Latin Americanist, I know virtually nothing about Guyana, French Guyana, or Suriname. Despite being part of the continent, we simply don't include them as part of "Latin America" for whatever reasons (gaining independence relatively late; having colonial reigns that resembled European colonization in Africa more than Latin America, for speaking English and Dutch; etc.). I always wished this weren't true, but I wasn't going to waste my career becoming the first "Surinamist" and then trying to get a job (and learning Dutch on top of Spanish and Portuguese just doesn't seem that thrilling to me).

That said, I was rather surprised to learn that Suriname had a military coup in the 1980s, followed by repression, culminating in the state's murder of 15 opposition members in 1982. My surprise is matched only by my satisfaction of seeing that Dési Bouterse, the former de facto president during the dictatorship, is facing trial in military court for these murders (along with 22 co-defendants). Due to my forestated ignorance on all matters Surinamian (Surinamese?), I couldn't begin to predict how this will turn out. The fact that Bouterse is currently in Parliament makes me inclined to think he may not be punished severely, but that's 100% guessing with no evidence to support that conclusion whatsoever. I don't even know if Bouterse's claim that he was not involved with any step of the killings is false (though given that everybody, from Pinochet to Idi Amin to Saddam Hussein have said the same thing when they knew and often ordered this style of killings makes me think Bouterse is guilty too). But the fact that there is a trial at all definitely seems to be good news for Suriname. It will definitely be worth trying to find out more about it.

Erik's Random 10

I am going to break the rules this week. Rather than talk about song 1, I am selecting song 8. Why? Because the great Peter Brotzmann, saxophonist in the free jazz quartet Last Exit, as well as innumerable other projects is playing this week in Austin and I am freaking pumped. Anyone in Austin needs to see this. You won't see anything else like it in your life.

Last Exit was a particularly interesting free jazz band. Featuring Brotzmann on sax, Sonny Sharrock on guitar, Bill Laswell on bass, and Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums, this supergroup (if such music can really be called a supergroup) combined the noise of free jazz with an amazing blues rhythm. Jackson is the one who really held that band together. He could put down some nasty beats behind all the craziness going on. Sharrock was a jawdropping guitarist who died far too young in the early 90s. Check out his amazing album Ask the Ages. Laswell has become known as a producer and has drifted into some new agey crap but has done some pretty fantastic work in his time. What a band!

1. Vince Bell, The Fair
2. Christy McWilson, Serpentine River
3. Vampire Weekend, Bryn
4. Mande Music, Bala
5. Count Basie Orchestra, Doggin' Around
6. Jimmy Martin, Widow Maker
7. Marvin Gaye, Come Get to This
8. Last Exit, Pig Cheese
9. Tom Waits, Black Wings
10. Sufjan Stevens, The Dress Looks Nice On You