Hometown newspaper sinks to new low

You know, I stopped reading the Inquirer after they hired Rick "Man-On_Dog" Santorum as a columnist. I kind of wish right now that I had a subscription that I could cancel in disgust, though, because the Inky just hired John Yoo, Philadelphia native and torture memo author, as an Op-Ed columnist.

Philadelphia is a pretty heavily Democratic city, so I can only wonder who the Inky is targeting with this new hire. Are they counting on Web hits going up when liberal bloggers link to Yoo's columns in outrage, or do they think there's a secret market for Republican pro-torture propaganda in a city so liberal that they only have Republicans in the city council because it's mandated in the city charter that the minority party have representation?

Thankfully, I'm moving at the end of the month (NYC, baby) so I won't even nominally be represented in Newspaperland by a paper willing to pay for the opinions of a man whose opinions may soon get him disbarred.

Will Bunch, Daily News columnist, said it:

But while promoting public discourse is a goal of newspaper commentary, it should not be the main objective. The higher calling for an American newspaper should be promoting and maintaining our sometimes fragile democracy, the very thing that Yoo and his band of torture advocates very nearly shredded in a few short years. Quite simply, by handing Yoo a regularly scheduled platform for his viewpoint, the Inquirer is telling its readers that Yoo's ideas -- especially that torture is not a crime against the very essence of America -- are acceptable.

This is exactly the kind of "on one hand, on the other hand" cowardly practice that has become a cancer destroying the moral DNA of America's newsrooms. "On one hand, torture is not only immoral but a violation of international and even U.S. law, but on the other hand, check out our 'provocative' new columnist, John Yoo, who can't travel to Europe because he might be arrested for war crimes!" This is wrong -- horribly so. For more than five years, American newsrooms have helped to normalize the inhumane practice of torture, giving into the government's Orwellian terms like "enhanced interrogation" and failing to call for accountability of those responsible for these crimes, including -- but not stopping at -- John Yoo. For a much-honored newspaper like the Inquirer to pay someone like Yoo to write a regular column is surely the exclamation point on a dark period in which most of my profession flunked its greatest moral test.

Yep. "He said, she said" at its absolute worst. I might suggest, if the Inquirer is looking for opposing viewpoints, hiring Mumia Abu-Jamal to write a column to run alongside Michael Smerconish, or perhaps hiring some of the "let newspapers die" crowd to write a column about how the Inquirer has outlived its usefulness.

Historical Image of the Day

Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois Democratic senator.

Like many northern Democrats by the 1850s, he had to serve the slave power to survive. Ultimately, his willingness to compromise destroyed him. Although he beat Lincoln in the Senate race in 1858, he lost in 1860, primarily because the southern Democrats walked out of the convention when Douglas was nominated. This despite the fact that Douglas did everything he could to destroy the Missouri Compromise through the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which introduced the concept of "popular sovereignty," which supposedly would let people decide as a state whether they wanted slavery. What this really meant was that pro and anti-slavery zealots flooded to Kansas to start killing each other over the issue in 1857. So-called "Bleeding Kansas" was a prelude to the Civil War and few deserved more blame for it than Douglas. Despite this, he wasn't considered ideologically pure enough for the Democratic Party of the time.

Any comparisons between the Democratic Party of 1860 and the Republican Party of 2009 are up to the reader to decide.

Moments in American Labor History: Pullman Strike

The Panic of 1893 hit the nation hard. The worst economic crisis in the nation's history to that time, people were thrown out of work across the country. Companies, unwilling to pay any semblance of a living wage, cut jobs and wages to keep profits as high as possible. Among the worst of these corporations was the Pullman Palace Car Company.

115 years ago today, on May 11, 1894, 3000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike to protest a 30% wage cut. This was no ordinary strike however. George Pullman, company founder and owner, made a fortune off of sleeper cars for the nation's travellers. He was one of the nation's wealthiest men. He also was vehemently anti-union. Pullman had his own company town within the boundaries of Chicago. Many saw it as a model town, but of course, Pullman controlled everything, from the prices at the stores to the schools to the rent. When Pullman put in that 30% wage cut, he didn't cut rent prices at all. Moreover, managers and administrators saw their wages rise at the same time. If the people couldn't pay their rent, they'd be kicked out of their homes. This infuriated them and put the lie to Pullman's self-created paternalistic image. Pullman wanted to show that the interests of labor and management were the same, but of course that only worked for Pullman when management made every decision and labor docilely followed.

The rail workers were pretty interested in unionism before this. In fact, some of America's most intense strikes to this date came from rail workers. The American Railway Union, led by a young Eugene Debs, supported the Pullman Strike by refusing to operate Pullman Cars. Thus the small strike of one company expanded into something that could shut down the nation's economy. By June 26, 120,000 workers from 27 states around the country were on strike. The nation's rail system was paralyzed.

As was typical of the time, the government was actively hostile to organized labor. On June 29, some railroad workers, angry about their terrible conditions, rioted. Although Illinois Governor John Altgeld opposed federal intervention, even after this incident, the Pullman Company was powerful. They had a friend in Attorney General Richard Olney. Olney convinced President Grover Cleveland to send in the U.S. military to crush the strike. He claimed the strikers were impeding the delivery of the mail, but the real issue was the whole idea of organized labor. Debs was arrested, the ARU destroyed, and leading workers blacklisted. Although government had acted against strikes before, this was the first time a federal injunction was used to crush a labor action. 13 strikers were killed and 57 wounded.

In the aftermath of the strike, the workers were desperate to eat. A committee wrote Governor Altgeld.

Kensington, Ill.,

August 17, 1894.

To His Excellency, the Governor of the State of Illinois:

We, the people of Pullman, who, by the greed and oppression of George M. Pullman, have been brought to a condition where starvation stares us in the face, do hereby appeal to you for aid in this our hour of need. We have been refused employment and have no means of leaving this vicinity, and our families are starving. Our places have been filled with workmen from all over the United States, brought here by the Pullman Company, and the surplus were turned away to walk the streets and starve also. There are over 1600 families here in destitution and want, and their condition is pitiful. We have exhausted all the means at our command to feed them, and we now make this appeal to you as a last resource. Trusting that God will influence you in our behalf and that you will give this your prompt attention, we remain,

Yours in distress,

THE STARVING CITIZENS OF PULLMAN

F. E. POLLANS,

L. J. NEWELL,

THEO. RODHE,

A sympathetic Altgeld wrote to Pullman, asking him to alleviate the problems:

August 19, 1894.

To George M. Pullman, President Pullman Palace Car Co., Chicago:

Sir:—I have received numerous reports to the effect that there is great distress at Pullman. To-day I received a formal appeal as Governor from a committee of the Pullman people for aid. They state that sixteen hundred families including women and children, are starving; that they cannot get work and have not the means to go elsewhere; that your company has brought men from all over the United States to fill their places. Now these people live in your town and were your employees. Some of them worked for your company for many years. They must be people of industry and character or you would not have kept them. Many of them have practically given their lives to you. It is claimed they struck because after years of toil their loaves were so reduced that their children went hungry. Assuming that they were wrong and foolish, they had yet served you long and well and you must feel some interest in them. They do not stand on the same footing with you, so that much must be overlooked. The State of Illinois has not the least desire to meddle in the affairs of your company, but it cannot allow a whole community within its borders to perish of hunger. The local overseer of the poor has been appealed to, but there is a limit to what he can do. I cannot help them very much at present. So unless relief comes from some other source I shall either have to call an extra session of the Legislature to make special appropriations, or else issue an appeal to the humane people of the State to give bread to your recent employees. It seems to me that you would prefer to relieve the situation yourself, especially as it has just cost the State upwards of fifty thousand dollars to protect your property, and both the State and the public have suffered enormous loss and expense on account of disturbances that grew out of trouble between your company and its workmen. I am going to Chicago to-night to make a personal investigation before taking any official action. I will be at my office in the Unity block at 10 a.m. to-morrow, and shall be glad to hear from you if you care to make any reply.

JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor.

Pullman blamed the workers for their own problems and did nothing.

In desperation, Altgeld tried one more appeal to Pullman, without success

Chicago, August 21st, 1894.

George M. Pullman, Esq., President Pullman Palace Car Company, City.

Sir:—I have your answer to my communication of this morning. I see by it that your company refuses to do anything toward relieving the situation at Pullman. It is true that Mr. Wickes offered to take me to Pullman and show me around. I told him that I had no objections to his going, but that I doubted the wisdom of my going under anybody’s wing. I was, however, met at the depot by two of your representatives, both able men, who accompanied me everywhere. I took pains to have them present in each case. I also called at your office and got what information they could give me there, so that your company was represented and heard, and no man there questioned either the condition of the extent of the suffering. If you will make the round I made, go into the houses of the people, meet them face to face and talk with them, you will be convinced that none of them had $1,300, or any other some of money only a few weeks ago.

I cannot enter into a discussion with you as to the merits of the controversy between you and your former workmen.

It is not my business to fix the moral responsibility in this case. There are nearly six thousand people suffering for the want of food—they were your employees—four-fifths of them women and children—some of these people have worked for you for more than twelve years. I assumed that even if they were wrong and had been foolish, you would not be willing to see them perish. I also assumed that as the State had just been to a large expense to protect your property you would not want to have the public shoulder the burden of relieving distress in your town.

As you refuse to do anything to relieve suffering in this case, I am compelled to appeal to the humanity of the people of Illinois to do so.

Respectfully yours,

JOHN P. ALTGELD

The strike had some interesting consequences. First, public opinion turned against Pullman's paternalism. In 1898, the Pullman Company was forced to give up control of its town and turn it over to Chicago, which annexed it to the city. Pullman had died the year before. Before Pullman died, he had his grave lined in concrete because he was convinced that grave robbers would try to break in and steal the objects in his tomb.

Who replaced him as company president? Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the president. Lincoln was if anything even more anti-labor than Pullman. Lincoln did all he could to crush unions, particularly by the black sleeping car porters, who would spend the next decades fighting to organize. One might think that Lincoln was undermining his father's legacy, but I don't think so. Any examination of what Republicans thought about these issues in the 1850s and 60s shows that it were pretty consistent. While we certainly can't know what Abraham Lincoln would have thought, mainstream Republican thought (and Abe was certainly a mainstream Republican) was quite pro-big business and anti-organized labor from the very beginning. Just because slaves needed freedom didn't mean that Republicans would ensure economic equality.

The second consequence of note is that ARU head Eugene Debs was not a socialist in 1894. But he was sent to prison for his role in leading the strike. During his time in the clink, he was introduced to the writings of Karl Marx. He was converted to socialism by the time he left prison in 1895 and spent the rest of his life fighting for a socialist vision of America. He was the Socialist Party candidate for president five times, including from prison in 1920 where he was serving a sentence for publicly opposing American involvement in World War I.

Public Understanding of Climate Change

Nate Silver gets at the heart of the problem with convincing people that climate change is happening.

When it is hot outside, people think global warming is happening. When it is cold outside, people think global warming is a hoax. Or at least the numbers change in pretty profound ways depending on the weather when people take the surveys.

There are many problems here. A lack of science education is a major one. Bigger I think is our nonexistent national memory. We don't seem to be able to think beyond our current experiential perceptions. This might have to do with climate, but it might also have to do with history, health, gas prices, political issues, foreign policy, or myriad other things. Hell, we've already forgotten about swine flu! The high gas prices of a year ago were immediately forgotten when the economy collapsed; for those who could buy cars, demand skyrocketed for SUVs. Once Americans stopped dying every day in Iraq, the conflict no longer received almost any coverage on news networks.

I have no useful suggestions on how to combat this national voluntary amnesia. But it's a huge problem that we face.

Historical Image of the Day

This week's images will focus on the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 and surrounding issues of the union falling apart over the issue of slavery.

"Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler," political cartoon of the late 1850s.

Dear Business School: Get Over Yourself

In order to keep my head above water financially, I work at the business library at Columbia University. It's an ok job - pays well, unionized, absurdly easy "hard" days - really, it's pretty much as dreamy a dream job as you could ask for for part-time work.

The biggest downfall, however, is the sheer amount of douchiness you have to put up with from already-privileged business students who (by the very nature of their "graduate degree") are not the smartest, and who are about as douchy a population as you will find outside of the fraternity world. Put simply, business students (at least at Columbia) are some of the whiniest, laziest, most condescending, most assumed-air-of-privilege people you will ever meet. And the school does everything to foster this. The dean and professors are simply the academic world version of their students - immature, selfish, self-centered, and believing that everything should go their way as they are the only arbiters of anything "important" in this world.

There are literally hundreds of examples I have of this, but one that has particularly irked me today. When you walk into the building, there are tv screens broadcasting BloombergTV (of course), and motivational mottos that convey a sense of the school's sense of superiority about itself. I noticed a new one while walking into work today, spurred no doubt by the recent economic troubles. Behind an image of professionals in some building in downtown Manhattan, it read: "If change doesn't affect the way you teach business, you're teaching history."

Now, I know what they're trying to say here; they're trying to convey that their teaching and courses are up to date even in these volatile times. However, you already get the sense of stupid and false superiority here. I don't expect deep historiographical knowledge of these people, but the patent absurdity of the idea that teaching history is something that is "dead" to change should be self-evident to anybody who has a functioning brain and not an MBA. Indeed, the most basic tenent of history is "change over time," and in that regard, teaching history in some ways isn't much different than the kind of course the business school is claiming to teach (only historians don't have nearly the same degree of hyper-inflated sense of self-importance that business faculty do, and historians generally don't foolishly try to accurately predict what will happen next or rely on ridiculous models that presume a "natural" force that is completely independent of human cultural influences).

Of course, this certainly isn't the first or last case of the business school putting on airs of superiority over any other field or graduate degree. Still, despite the overall conditions of the job, it definitely helps me look forward to teaching college freshmen, and I never thought there'd be anything that could make me actively look forward to that.

The fetish for the center

Normally I love NPR's Planet Money podcast. Not because I'm a huge fan of money, but because they've done a great job of making the economic crisis understandable. I wouldn't know what a credit default swap is, or even a derivative, without them.

That said, the episode I listened to today while walking my dog pissed me off enough to make me come home and write about it.

See, Adam Davidson interviewed Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the oversight committee of the TARP--otherwise known as the big-ass bailout. Warren is a law professor by trade, and by ideological bent she's on my side of the spectrum--she sees the current economic crisis as not just a crisis of capitalization for major banks, but of an entire playing field tilted so far in one direction that all the money slides out of the average person's pockets into the pockets of corporate overlords.

Anyway, Davidson picked a fight with Warren because she said that the conditions for the average American family need to be improved at the same time as the banks need to be recapitalized, and Davidson said, not that she was wrong, but that he can't find a single other economist who agrees with Warren.

That's funny, because Davidson does this for a living and I, well, I make some pocket change writing about this stuff every once in a while, and yet I could think of several people who agree. Including Nobel Prize-winning economist and Clinton Administration veteran Joseph Stiglitz.

Anyway, the more irritating part of all this is that Davidson, who of course gets to explain himself because he's the guy in charge of the podcast, says that he's mad not because Warren is wrong, but because the panel isn't objective enough. Davidson claims to be an objective journalist (which is a term I'd never have applied to this podcast even if I thought that any human being had the right to claim objectivity), and he wants the Congressional Oversight Panel to be staffed with what he terms "senior statesmen."

Leaving aside the sexism that goes completely unquestioned in his statement and the names that he follows up with, he essentially goes on to argue that the panel should be made up of "centrists." The names he names are pretty much all old white men, the same ones who've been opining on the economy for so damn long that they all should've seen the crisis coming, yet they're the ones qualified to oversee the bailout--because they fall into some mystical category of not being too partisan?

I hate to always go back to the same thing (no, I don't) but once again we're seeing the fetishizing of the middle ground that happens in the media over and over again. Elizabeth Warren, whom one would think is certainly qualified to have her opinion if nothing else because the press usually gives those with official positions entirely too much credit, is placed in the sphere of deviance by Davidson because she's spent most of her career arguing FOR American working people and AGAINST corporate control.

The fact that she wants to look out for the average people being hurt by the crisis at the same time as she tries to salvage sinking banks is seen as a negative because it's partisan. There's absolutely nothing in this entire 18-minute podcast that takes on Warren's argument on a substantive level. The only argument Davidson has is that he hasn't talked to anyone else who agrees with Warren.

I have to go back to the sexism I called out above, because it's a major problem for me in this statement. The argument reminds me entirely too much of too many arguments where women are told they are too emotional to be objective. Davidson would probably be horrified at my implication there, but the fact is that women are used to hearing that we can't be objective, that only men (white, usually) are objective. Davidson unthinkingly reproduces that statement and it sets my teeth on edge. I wonder, for the sake of wondering, if he'd grill the male Republican on the panel the same way and tell him his opinions are wrong simply because they don't fit the mainstream economic thought. Didn't mainstream economic thought CAUSE this crisis, or did I miss something?

Anyway, on the one hand we have a journalist who claims to be objective nevertheless perfectly willing to argue with the subject of his interview that she is wrong (Yay!). On the other hand, he's doing it not because she's lying or because she's demonstrably wrong (:cough: Greenspan) but in defense of some mythical ideal of centrism/bipartisanship that he feels compelled to defend, much like our favorite Wanker Caucus.

Krugman at the time of the stimulus bill:

So Mr. Obama was reduced to bargaining for the votes of those centrists. And the centrists, predictably, extracted a pound of flesh — not, as far as anyone can tell, based on any coherent economic argument, but simply to demonstrate their centrist mojo.

In essence, Davidson is arguing that the oversight panel should be substantially less tough on the businesses it oversees in the name of centrist mojo and the ideals he thinks he lives up to of objective journalism, which has itself lost more than a pound of flesh by its very unwillingness to argue issues, not semantics. Elizabeth Warren's opinion has to be validated by some "senior statesman" before Davidson will admit that she has a point.

Where have we heard that before?

Historical Image of the Day

"Marriages--Fit and Unfit," 1929.

Greatest. Use. of. Youtube. EVER.

There's so much to love about this video, in all 71 seconds of its glory. Highlights include: the insane intro; the fact that there are only three photos in the "montage," only one of them actually shows Jeter throwing, and the third photo is actually A-Rod and David Ortiz; and the comment on Jeter's ass (clearly, a quantifier of one's quality). However, I suggest watching all the way to the end for what is hands-down one of the most insane and bizarre (and harmless) cases of anti-Semitism ever.

Historical Image of the Day

Circus Cards of dwarves and midgets, 1922.

Eugenicists were really into circuses, categorizing the physical problems that made these people "freaks" and trying to make connections between them and eugenic ideas.

How Not to Victimize Rape Victims a Second Time

Charging a rape victim thousands of dollars for the rape kit that the police need is one of the most vile things you can do (and even claiming the rape victims should pay is offensive beyond words). I know that many of those who enforce these policies and make these claims hate women, and some probably even believe a rape victim probably did something to "deserve it," so I will try to explain this as simply as I can, so your tiny little brains can understand it.

When somebody is raped, it is the state's failure to protect its citizens; it is not the victim's failure to protect themselves. If you can't protect your own citizens, you certainly should not make them foot the bill for your failures.

You wouldn't think this is so hard to understand, and that maybe a little empathy might be present here, but I guess that's asking too much.

University of New Mexico's Tangential Relation to Recent National News

Apparently, leaving UNM's presidency in heated context wasn't enough for Louis Caldera - he has now resigned over the flyover scandal in NYC that caused panic a few weeks ago.

Now, when I show my kids my Masters Degree one day, I'll be able to say to them, "and that signature there? That's the signature of a man who had to resign from Obama's White House after he made a bone-headed decision that struck fear into the hearts of people in Newark and the Financial District one day back in 2009...."

Historical Image of the Day

Chart of sterilization operations performed for eugenic reasons between 1907 and 1935.

Cher & Bowie

Just to prove my assertion in comments to Trend's post below that we needed a Cher tag, here is a cringe-inducing Cher & David Bowie medley from the 1970s. It's so bad that it really is worth watching.

In Which the Line between CNN and the Onion Is Blurred, Case #57

The best part about this "report"? The "we will keep you updated" at the end.

A Real Good Question

In perusing IMDB while working on the syllabus for my summer film class, I came across a documentary entitled "If There Were No Lutherans, Would There Still Be Green Jell-O?"

That's a damn good question. As a recovering Lutheran, I'm inclined to wonder. I ate enough green jell-o growing up that I think there are still chunks of it in my veins. Also, would there still be mysterious casseroles? And weak coffee? Baked hamburgers? Really, I can't stress enough how traumatic an experience good food is for a Lutheran. The whiter the food, the better. Or at least gray, which I think is the point of baking hamburgers--you have to get the color out and turn it an acceptable gray.

More Exurbs

Building on my piece about the future of exurbs from yesterday, I strongly recommend Rob Inglis' and Jonathan Thompson's profile of Surprise, Arizona in High Country News.

While Ben Adler's piece I discussed yesterday typically focused on the DC area (what a surprise coming from a national political publication!), exurbs are far more prevalent in the Sunbelt. There are hundreds of communities like Surprise in the Southwest, in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and around the Sunbelt. Inglis and Thompson hint at why I think the glory days of exurbia might be behind us. There are literally millions of housing units in exurbs. Most of them were built because of the housing bubble kool-aid. Many of the people who bought these homes did so with adjustable-rate mortgages and then got thrown out of their homes when the payments ballooned.

As the authors point out, people don't move to the Phoenix suburbs for the weather or even for jobs. They move there because California is too expensive. Cheap land means development. But the overbuild of housing has led to plummeting prices. So it will continue to remain cheap. However, they still don't get at the core issue of what I believe will be exurban decline--oil. If you actually have a job now, you can buy those homes tremendously cheap if you can get then mortgage. But what good are those homes going to be when gas is $5, as I believe it will be in 2-3 years? The affordability of extreme suburbia will be undermined by structural problems beyond the real estate industry's control. Again, I think many of those houses will be occupied, but as working-class housing by people who will have to use their meagre resources to commute long distances to work, commutes that will eat up their low salaries in astronomical gas prices. There won't be public transit as an option. The West and Southeast will come to look like the Santa Fe area, with an expensive city surrounded by poor areas filled with working-class people forced to drive 30 miles from home to get to their jobs.

Obama's Interior Policies Suck

Ralph Maughan's Wildlife News carefully follows federal government decisions regarding animals, public lands, and nature in general. After 3 1/2 months of the Obama Administration, he states:

In my view Obama’s public land policies are turning out to be no better than George W. Bush’s. What a disappointment!

I pretty much concur. Certainly it's been disappointing, beginning with the appointment of Ken Salazar to Interior. Is it as bad as Bush? No, I don't suppose so. The government isn't vocally in favor of mountaintop removal coal mining for instance.

But poor decisions still abound. The last straw for Maugham was the BLM authorizing uranium exploration near the Grand Canyon. This is a Bushian decision to be sure; undermining our national sacred spaces for energy development. Obama has also named a minor bureaucrat named Homer Lee Wilkes to be the undersecretary in the Agriculture Department for the United States Forest Service. While I can't speak to Wilkes' qualifications (though there is much more information here), as Maughan rightfully points out, it suggests that Obama is not prioritzing land issues.

In fact, there seems to be quite the disconnect in the Obama administration concering the environment. On climate, Obama and his team are putting in quite a bit of energy. How can you not love the Steven Chu appointment as Secretary of Energy! Although conservative Democrats in Congress don't want a climate package, I think we'll see something this year. But on land policy, Obama either doesn't care very much or is outright hostile to environmentalists' concerns. I suspect the former; one doesn't get the sense that this is a man who has spent much time in the forests or deserts. And obviously, Obama is overburdened with major problems. But even if land management is not at the top of his list, he could appoint satisfactory people to these positions.

In the end, I suspect that above all this might be a political calculation. The Democrats are building their party in the West and don't want to adopt environmentalist policies that might alienate potential voters. But I wonder if this isn't a misreading of local politics. In places like Colorado, Oregon, and Montana, you have Democrats who are often well to the left of center and conservatives who are often quite far to the right. There are really polarized states without the same kind of moderate middle ground you might see in Ohio or Florida. Much of the change in voting patterns in the West hasn't come from locals changing their minds, it's come from new residents--Latinos, young outdoorsy people, etc. For the most part, these are not consitutencies interested in continuing Bush era land policies. I hope Obama reads this political map better and realizes what he can do to protect the land while not undermining his electoral prospects in the West.

The Problem with ACORN

Serwer notes that a Pennsylvania county is charging ACORN workers with submitting falsified voter registration forms.

The conservative talking points about ACORN subverting our democracy are totally absurd. Falsified voter registration forms mean nothing because no one can actually vote based upon them. But ACORN does have serious problems. Serwer gets toward the major problem when he says "ACORN workers stealing time by filling out fraudulent forms is not evidence of a vast criminal conspiracy to tip election results, it's mostly evidence that ACORN doesn't do a very good job of vetting or controlling its employees."

But that's not all of it. The problem with ACORN is their organizing model. They employ people to work really long hours with low wages to fulfill quotas in whatever task they are assigned, often voter registration. Most of the time, ACORN workers don't have a chance to move up in the organization, play a role in decision making processes, or feel like they are part of a larger movement. They have extremely high turnover because the job basically sucks.

Other major progressive organizations such as PIRG use a similar model to the same shaky results. In PIRG's case, there isn't anything like falsified records, but it does burn out young idealistic people on organizing, giving them no chance to advance, or any sense that they are contributing to a larger project. In fact, PIRG reminds me of a cult in the sense that they are collecting money and sending it on to a larger organization who may or may not be spending it wisely. Even labor unions do this to some extent--there is no weaker labor union in the AFL-CIO than the union the organizers have (which I can't remember the name of now). Labor organizers are, again, often young people who are forced to work very long hours for minimal compensation. Turnover is rapid here too. But when people burn out working for ACORN, PIRG, or labor, there are always more 19 year olds on college campuses to take their places.

What's disturbing is that what all these volunteers show is a clear desire to make a difference. The question then is how to harvest all of those volunteers and all of that energy and channel it to something positive that keeps them engaged for a long period of time. The Obama campaign showed us that it can be done. Now, if only we could develop organizational models that could build upon this.

Historical Image of the Day

"Relative Social Inadequacy of the Several Nativity Groups and Immigrant Groups of the U.S.: All Types of Social Inadequacy," 1922

Click on the image to make it large enough to see which ethnic groups are the most problematic....

Republicans: They Still Know How to Hate

I guess with the purging of moderates, the Republicans can be more open with their hate.

South Dakota senator John Thune opposes Obama naming a gay person as a Supreme Court judge.

But conservative leaders have warned the nomination of a gay or lesbian justice could complicate Obama’s effort to confirm a replacement for Souter, and another Republican senator on Wednesday warned a gay nominee would be too polarizing.

“I know the administration is being pushed, but I think it would be a bridge too far right now,” said GOP Chief Deputy Whip John Thune. “It seems to me this first pick is going to be a kind of important one, and my hope is that he'll play it a little more down the middle. A lot of people would react very negatively.”

I don't think this would be particularly polarizing. In fact, I don't think anything resembling a majority would care at all. With Maine today, 5 states have now have legalized gay marriage and we're probably looking at least 2 more (NH and NY), as well as Washington DC, by the end of the year. It would anger conservatives, but they are angry anyway. So who cares.

Meanwhile, Kos points us to this lovely ice cream flavor created by the Republican Women of Clifton (VA):

In Honor of the 44th President of the United States, Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream has issued a new flavor, ” Barocky Road.” Barocky Road is a blend of half Vanilla, half Chocolate, and surrounded by Nuts and Flakes. The Vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and usually denied as an ingredient. The Nuts and Flakes are all very bitter and hard to swallow. The Cost is $100.00 per scoop.

When purchased, it will be presented to you in a large beautiful cone, but then the Ice Cream is taken away and given to the person in line behind you. Thus you are left with an empty Wallet, no change, holding an empty cone, with no hope of getting any Ice Cream.

Oh, that's just freaking hilarious...

And finally, it looks like Jeff Sessions (Segregationist-AL) will be the #2 ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, replacing Arlen Specter. What are Sessions' qualifications? Well, he once claimed the NAACP was a communist-inspired organization and a former subordinate said that Sessions liked the Ku Klux Klan, at least before he understood that some of their members liked to smoke pot. Which is the single worst reason to change your mind about the KKK that could possibly exist.

So yeah, the Republicans are really rocking the hate right now. This should really help them become relevant again!

Well, This Should Be of Great Use to Self-Loathing Sadomasochistic Insomniacs (and Yankee Fans Who Also Hate Good Music)

In the summer of 2004, when I was working in retail-hell, I was subjected to Bernie Williams' CD for about a week. It was agony - I mean, absolute death-by-boredom. It magically made one hour feel like 17, and made the work day interminable. Mercifully, even the GM of the store, who had the absolute worst taste, thought it was too boring and awful to listen to beyond 7 days, and so I was able to close the door on a brief-but-dark period of my life.

But now, there's a new Bernie Williams CD? With guest appearances from Jon Secada and smooth jazz "great" Dave Koz? And a cliched cover of one of the more overrated Bruce Springsteen songs?

How can I resist?

Small town agriculture

Lately I've been consumed with getting our garden going. We bought a house with an enormous, flat, treeless lot in November; the previous owners had rigged up a rather Byzantine sprinkler system to keep the huge plot of land green with grass. Of course, where we live is a desert climate with very little rainfall (and dwindling water resources); having an enormous plot of green grass seemed wasteful and prohibitively expensive.

I've always been interested in gardening (likely owing to my rural Midwestern roots; my grandparents still put up a half-acre vegetable garden, fill the root cellar and can for the winter), and particularly, organic gardening (very much out of line with my upbringing). I did a lot of reading and constructed some large raised beds and layered them with soil and lots of compost. Now that we are in the heat of the summer, I get it. I use very little water for the garden, owing to the water retaining properties of the compost. In Texas I had a normal garden plot and spent the summer watering everything all the time-- sometimes twice a day. Here, it is drier and hotter, and things are good with a nice soaking every ten days or so. This is why citrus does so well in these parts-- the 13 citrus trees I planted like to be deeply watered very infrequently.

The point of this post isn't to talk about my garden; rather, to talk about some of the interesting reading I've been doing. I've also been thinking about the point of gardening-- heretofore, I have planted vegetables because they just taste better than anything you can buy in the store. Using the right seeds, the difference is amazing. Most commercially available cultivars are bred for things like slow ripening (to make long truck trips), thick skins (to withstand mechanical picking), and resistance to certain diseases (which may or may not be a factor in different parts of the country). Heirloom varieties, especially those that have been long-cultivated in particular geographic regions, have been selected for things that home gardeners like-- yield, resilience to local climate and local diseases, flavor, texture, quick maturity, etc. Of course, knowing how and with what amendments your vegetables are grown is a huge benefit.

On a whim, I read Steve Solomon's book Gardening when it Counts. This is a really fascinating read; the book explains how to very, very cheaply produce a bulk of your food yourself. It is aimed at reclaiming something of the subsistence farming of the past. I can only imagine that this book has seen a spike in popularity throughout the unfolding of the financial crisis this year, not to mention the run-up in commodities prices last year.

Edward Smith's The Vegetable Gardener's Bible is one book that I have relied on a great deal. It outlines a method for organically producing healthy, high-yield vegetable gardens year-round (the guy lives in Vermont and has something fresh for harvest every month). The guy is a real garden dork-- something of the Alton Brown of the organic gardening world.

I'm a big fan of Rosalind Creasy-- she's something of a rock star in the gardening world. I highly reccomend her book The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping. Since the 70's, she's been on an apostolic mission to convince Americans to plant more edible plants in their yards. She argues that our infatuation with non-edible ornamental plants stems from a European aristocratic notion that one grows ornamental plants to prove that one has a certain amount of money; that is, enough that edible plants needn't be grown out of necessity. This is socially coded, even though it makes little sense, especially given how easy and beautiful edible landscaping can be. You can also hear an interview with her on American Public Media's The Splendid Table from a few weeks ago. She also has a great website with some beautiful photographs.

Perhaps the greatest tract I have read is Joseph Jenkins' Humanure Handbook, the undisputed canonical text of composting human waste for agricultural purposes. Even better, this book is available for free via PDF download here. It is a fascinating read, chock full of science, history, and some really funny shit (pun, of course, intended). Composting any kind of manure (be it human or animal waste from factory farms) creates something beneficial to agricultural-- compost. Uncomposted, large quantities of waste serve as a significant pollutant and breeding pool for disease. In one section, Jenkins writes about the difference in cultural practices regarding human waste. In Europe at the time of the Plague, waste and poor sanitation contributed to pestilence, while in many Asian countries, the people used humanure for agriculture and avoided the same kinds of large-scale disease outbreaks. As he writes:

Perhaps the reason the Asian countries have such large populations in comparison to Western countries is because they escaped some of the pestilences common to Europe, especially pestilences spread by the failure to responsibly recycle human excrement. They presumably plowed their manure back into the land because their spiritual perspectives supported such behaviors. Westerners were too busy burning witches and Jews with the church's whole-hearted assistance to bother to think about recycling humanure.

Of course, I can't really vouch for the accuracy of the history here, but it does give pause for thought. Plus, the book has some cool designs for toilets that reclaim humanure.

This has been some interesting reading, and extremely helpful and influential with my own garden. Missing from my list are books about urban container gardening-- I know there are some good ones out there, and many people produce amazing things on balconies and apartment rooftops. Green roofs, especially edible green roofs, ought to be standard on large construction projects. Though my goal isn't to survive the complete collapse of the economy by growing my own food, I would like to produce a critical mass of it in a few years' time. I have a lot of space and a lot of garden-- almost 40 tomato plants, a dozen varieties of peppers, and a host of other things in somewhat large quantities. In any event, the feeling of producing and controlling the content of one's food is a good feeling-- not to mention that eating stuff is better than looking at (and mowing) grass.

The Exurbs

Via Yglesias, Ben Adler has an excellent piece up on exurbs and walkable suburbs. He compares Leesburg, VA to Kentlands, MD. Leesburg is the ultimate exurban disaster. Far from the metro, the community has not invested in public transportation, sidewalks, or any amenities of urban life. It exists to facilitate whatever developers want. Its primary concern about growth is traffic. On the other hand, Kentlands was a dense suburban community from the beginning with good public transportation and sidewalks. People use this public infrastructure, creating a strong community.

These are the two models of suburban development in the United States. Probably 90% of America has followed the Leesburg model. In Texas, probably 100%. Here in Georgetown, at the northern edge of the Austin suburbs, about 1/2 of the streets do not have sidewalks. It's an old city, but most of the commercial infrastructure has moved to newish strip malls on the edges of town. It's virtually impossible to survive here without a car. When I walk to work, I have to walk on the road most of the time. And people frequently pull over to ask me if I need a ride. That's nice of them and all, but they do it because they think why on earth would a white guy be walking down the road if his car didn't break down? That walking is such a foreign concept here suggests real problems in American urban and suburban living.

While I highly recommend Adler's article, I do think he misses on his predictions for the future.

The edge of today's civilization could be tomorrow's exurb. Despite the current state of the economy, plenty more Leesburgs are likely to be in America's future. According to a study by the Brookings Institution, half of our built environment in 2030 will have been developed from 2000 onward. We know the next generation of exurbs is coming, and we'd better plan for it.

But I'm not sure this is true. There's a lot of structural issues getting in the way of this analysis. First is oil prices. While oil prices are down significantly from where they were a year ago, that's strictly because of the economic downturn. Even time there's even a hint of good economic news, oil prices inch up. When the recession ends and people start consuming and producing again, petroleum costs will again skyrocket. While I know that predicting oil futures is notoriously difficult, this fact seems clear enough to me.

Second, already existing signs suggest that a lot of people are opting out of suburban life. Adler himself cites this information. He points out that one zip code in suburban Virginia has seen home prices drop by 44.7% between September 2007 and September 2008 versus a 3.9% drop in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The exurbs are overbuilt at a time when a lot of people no longer want to live there. Moreover, we have millions of homes, mostly in suburban developments, that have foreclosed. Now owned by the banks, there is little demand for these buildings. We're probably seeing a long-term cultural shift toward urban living by a big chunk of young Americans. There's no doubt that cities now need to provide infrastructure for families, including good schools. Until that happens, a lot of people will want to live in the suburbs. But what kind of suburbs? My guess is that they will flock to places like Kentlands, where they can still live a semi-urban kind of life and get to the city on public transportation.

So I don't think that in 2030 half of our infrastructure will have been built since 2000. Or if that's true, a lot of it will be rebuilt urban infrastructure. I wonder if the future of a place like Leesburg is not one of poverty. Will the United States become like Europe, with the wealthy in the city and the poor in the suburbs? Probably not precisely because of our love affair with the car and with the idealized suburban American Dream that still affects many people. But I can see a day in the near future with the wealthy in the cities, in semi-urban suburban developments like Kentlands, and in pricey exclusive subdivisions with lots of land on the far edges. In the vision, the working-class are basically priced out of the cities and are forced to live in these Leesburg-like subdivisions, living in places with poor schools, rotting infrastructure, and forced to spend much of their meagre income on gas to get to work in the cities. I don't think of this as ideal by any means, but I do believe that we have seen the end of exurban development as far as space from the central city goes.

21st Century vs. 19th Century

Ed Kilgore has an excellent piece on the rise of states rights rhetoric in the South. Kilgore notes how progressives laughed at Texas Governor Rick Perry when he suggested that Texas could secede from the union, but like myself, Kilgore takes this seriously. He also notes that a resurgence in nullification is rising across the South. Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry recently vetoed a states rights statement that passed his state's legislature. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is said to be moving toward this position. Naturally, Sarah Palin is as well. At least one serious candidate for the governor of Georgia has already endorsed nullification.

Rick Perry:

"I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state. That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm states' rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union."

Nullification based upon a perverse reading of the 10th amendment reached its apogee under John C. Calhoun and South Carolina in the 1820s. But it began with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. While Thomas Jefferson and James Madison claimed that nullifying the Alien and Sedition Acts was constitutional, they were wrong. As horrid as those laws were, the federal government clearly had the constitutional right to preempt the states. And if that wasn't clear in 1798, the many decisions of the Marshall court should have made it that way.

Modern-day nullifiers and secessionists are able to gain significant traction from their connections to Jefferson and Madison. To me, this shows that we need to reexamine how appropriate it is to base modern-day decisions on what people were thinking over 200 years ago. Moreover, if Jefferson and Madison thought one thing on this issue, Washington, Hamilton, and Adams thought quite differently. Nonetheless, when political movements can make connections to the Founding Fathers, it gains them real political capital.

Andrew Jackson put the smackdown on Calhoun during nullification. First, he threatened to hang him. But from a legalistic perspective, Jackson said that nullification was "incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed."

In Kilgore's comments, a reader also offered John Harlan Stone's opinion on the 10th amendment, given in United States v. Darby, 1941. This puts the lie to the idea to nullifiers ideas about the amendment and provides clear precedent for the federal government's right to see its laws enforced.

"Our conclusion is unaffected by the Tenth Amendment which provides: 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people'. The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers.

From the beginning and for many years the amendment has been construed as not depriving the national government of authority to resort to all means for the exercise of a granted power which are appropriate and plainly adapted to the permitted end."

Historical Image of the Day

Burmese dwarf at Ellis Island, circa 1910.

This might belong in "Crisis of Masculinity Blogging"

I read this article this morning in the Mail & Guardian about Vladimir Putin and it made me giggle. At first, I thought that it was just worth a drive-by snarking on Twitter, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I should go back and write about it.

At first, of course, you get the usual masculinity-fetish. The title of the article is "That Shrinking Feeling," which is just too obvious. Further down, a sentence reads, "Not that Putin is a spent force."

Sexual metaphors and obsession with Putin's bare chest are hardly rare--comic artist Becky Cloonan has a whole range of Putin-fantasy webcomics that are totally hilarious. I admit to a bit of a Putin obsession myself--he's such a caricature.

As was Bush, of course. A caricature of a certain type of American masculinity (just like Reagan before him) the same way Putin is a caricature of a certain type of Russian masculinity. He has judo videos! He shoots tigers! He's so BUFF!

Only a few months ago, we were scared of Putin "rearing his head," (oh, Palin, will you ever get old?) but now we hear little to nothing about him. And this article, masculinity fetish aside, makes a decent point about why, even if it buries it beneath layers of alternately fawning and poking at him.

Analysts add that United States President Barack Obama's emollient approach on Nato enlargement and missile defence is not helping.

As Russian president, Putin was a natural when it came to attacking former president George Bush, for example over Iraq.

But fast-forward one year and he looked far less comfortable, barely speaking above a whisper, as he made a conciliatory speech praising the new Iraqi order in front of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at a recent Moscow meeting.

As the public questions whether everything is really the United States' fault, a change of tone is needed that Putin may struggle with, says political commentator Arkady Dubnov of the newspaper Vremya Novostei.

(OK, they did say "enlargement.")

Does Obama's conciliatory approach to foreign policy make the former bluff and bluster between Bush and Putin look...well...juvenile? Does Obama's refusal to give leaders like Putin (and Chavez, and and and) a target effectively work where threats and yes, swagger didn't?

Of course it's far too early to tell. But during the campaign, especially the primaries, I wrote about Obama's demeanor and tone about foreign policy contrasted with his rivals, and how Hillary Clinton and Obama seemed to have switched gender stereotypes.

I'm disappointed with many of Obama's moves so far, but I wonder if just the tonal shift in public diplomacy is having an effect worldwide. It's definitely not calming the Right inside the U.S., but they sure do look silly. So there's that.

Historical Image of the Day

This week's images come from the great online archive of the American eugenics movement. Check out the whole thing. They have some crazy stuff.

Brochure advertising Mongrel Virginians, a book about the horrors of miscegenation, 1926

On Obama's possible Supreme picks.

Greenwald has an excellent piece on Sonia Sotomayor (and as usual, rips Establishment media a new one for using anonymous sources in the process).

I know far, far less than he does about Sonia Sotomayor or about the relative fitness of judicial nominees for the job. I was far more qualified to talk about Sarah Palin and the attacks leveled at her for being an affirmative action hire, a pretty dumb chick whose appeal was solely prurient.

Rebecca Traister pointed out the obvious gender bias to the TNR piece in question, a bias that is only multiplied by her being of Puerto Rican descent, as Adam Serwer notes. She's bossy! She doesn't shut up! She's not that smart--Obama is prioritizing diversity! (The Clarence Thomas arguments, of course, are too obvious.)

When Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Court, we heard similar arguments about her intellectual ability--and we didn't argue. When Sarah Palin got the Republican VP nomination, we giggled and made our own jokes. Now Obama's nominees will face the same kind of criticisms, ones that would never be leveled at a white guy up for the same job, and what do we say?

It's a double bind. We don't want to be unable to criticize female nominees or people of color (*cough cough* Gonzalez--or closer to home, Roland Burris) but we need to be consistent in noting the difference between substantive attacks and gender or racially motivated ones. It's entirely possible that Sonia Sotomayor is not the best choice for the Supreme Court, but I very much doubt that she's any less "smart" than Thomas, Alito, or any number of federal judges that the Right (or the nominal left as represented by TNR) would have no problem with--because they're white and male.

The fact is, when it comes to the Supreme Court, there are probably many lawyers and judges and law professors who would do as good or better jobs than the people already on there. There's no one best person for the job, and it's also fairly difficult to predict how justices will rule once confirmed (note that the retiring Souter was nominated by George H.W. Bush and became one of the reliable liberal members of the Court). So there's absolutely nothing wrong with picking a qualified justice who comes from a different ethnic and class background than the rest of the Court for the sake of diversity.

The Mid-Range Consequences of Bush's Foreign Policy Taking Shape in South Asia

Even before his departure, there was plenty of talk from both Bush's supporters and his opponents about what his "legacy" would be. Since Obama's inaugural, we've already seen some of the immediate short-term consequences of Bush's administration - most notably, the economic collapse and the emergence of the issue of torture, but also other matters like Obama having to try to repair the U.S.'s reputation in Latin America after 8 years of arrogance and ignorance.

It seems we can add to that Bush's foreign policy's effects on the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the possibility of the Taliban gaining access to nuclear materials in the case of the latter. By rushing the U.S. to war in Iraq in late 2002 and 2003 under the banner of 9/11 without actually focusing on the country that actually was home to bin Laden is undoubtedly one of Bush's most egregious foreign policy blunders. The issue of whether the war in Afghanistan was "just" or not is not necessarily relative here; the fact is, by prosecuting a half-hearted effort from the White House while putting all the efforts on Iraq and then having to spend the past 6 years trying to clean up the mess, the Bush administration undoubtedly left the door open for the events that we're seeing now in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What is more, the bullying and indefnsible aggression of Bush not just in Iraq, but in talks about Iran, Hamas, and other groups has most likely made us even more enemies in Southern Asia, perhaps aiding the Taliban's efforts and giving it even more support than it would have gained had we actually had an intelligent leader employing actual diplomatic intelligence and reason.

Things are certainly too unclear to attempt to accurately predict what will happen in Afghanistan, and especially Pakistan. But while people's freak out because over 1000 people out of over six billion are sick worldwide, the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is becoming more precarious. With over 6 years passed now since the war in Iraq began, it's undeniable that the Iraq War deterred the employment of resources to Afghanistan, while our constant support of Pervez Musharraf even in the face of eroding support endeared us to very few in Pakistan. Thus, while things are still in movement right now, we're already beginning to see the potential long-term damage of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Sarah on the Radio

So I got a call the other day asking if I'd like to appear on a labor-oriented radio program to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act and women. Of course I said yes, and if you're interested, you can listen to the whole program here.

Things I Don't Get (V): The Idea of the Super Bowl in London

Yes, that's right - there are early reports that the Super Bowl may end up in London some way down the road. While I think the American population really overrates the value of the Super Bowl within the sports world, there's no denying it's popularity. To be (temporarily) fair, Goodell insists that the NFL hasn't and will not consider the idea of hosting the Super Bowl in London sometime soon. Still, even if this ever enters the phase of "serious talks," this has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard - the most popular sporting event in the country held overseas in a country that is already obsessed with a different "football."

My only question is, if England were to get the Super Bowl, would New York host the Champions' League finals in exchange? I'm sure that would go over well in both countries.

The Tofu of the Bar

I'm glad to see a reaction against the overuse of vodka developing. It's about time.

Of course vodka has its uses. But the drinking habits of my generation have made vodka the primary liquor of choice precisely because it has very little flavor and makes drinking an experience you don't have to think about.

Historical Image of the Day

Anna Louise Strong, Seattle communist and major player in the 1919 Seattle General Strike.

The RNC wants to be allowed to suppress voters (a.ka. stating the obvious)

From Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog:

On the eve of the Presidential election, facing an historic defeat, the Republican National Committee quietly filed a motion to dissolve an existing consent decree in which they'd agreed not to engage in voter caging or other types of voter intimidation. Since 1982, the RNC has been restricted from conducting so-called "ballot-security" measures that have historically been used to deter thousands of Americans - largely low-income and minority citizens - from voting. Now, the RNC wants to be free of these restrictions. A hearing on the RNC motion is scheduled for next Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey....

Check out the link, its a pretty fascinating read.

Thanks to Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog for pointing me to this story.

Dave Noon: Half Man, Half Liberal

Dave Noon of Lawyers, Guns, and Money just received tenure.

Now that he has accomplished this task, he writes in what is without question the best blog post of 2009, how he can reveal his true conservative colors.

And of course, congratulations to Dave on getting tenure, something that is an almost unthinkable accomplishment to me right now.

Historical Image of the Day

Black Power newspaper, University of Washington, 1971

Crisis of Masculinity Blogging: "Greatest Generation" Edition

When fretting about modern manhood, American masculinity worriers have usually looked to the past--sometimes to the revolutionary generation, sometimes to romanticized Indians, often to Theodore Roosevelt and his ilk of the Progressive Era. In recent decades, we've added a new idealized period of masculinity: World War II.

With Tom Brokaw's group fellatio of, er, book about the World War II generation, an entire other generation, which perhaps we can name "The Worst Generation," looked to their fathers as heroes in innumerable ways, including as specimens of ideal masculinity.

Not surprisingly, our friends at The Art of Manliness buy whole hog into this:

Tom Brokaw gave them that name, and while it’s a bold claim, I wholly support it. They weren’t perfect by any means, of course, but as a whole they were a cut above the rest. One of the inspirations for Kate and I starting the Art of Manliness was our grandfathers. When I looked at them, and then at the men of today, the chasm of manliness seemed jarring. These are men cut from a different cloth of manliness; they simply don’t build them like that anymore. Their extraordinary manliness is not something you can scientifically measure. But you can sure feel it. And you can see it in old pictures. It seems every man back then was dashingly handsome; their manliness practically leaps off the page.

Jesus Christ. I think I need to smoke a cigarette after reading that.

While I have no particular beef with the World War II generation, except perhaps for its parenting skills, the idea that it consisted of men (and women) far and away greater than us is totally absurd. First, in the same situation (the Great Depression and World War II) is there any question that we would act in somewhat the same way? Not in my mind. Second, the World War II generation did some horrible things: placing the Japanese in concentration camps, resisting desegregating the military, mutilating Japanese corpses in the Pacific, moving to the suburbs so they wouldn't have to live near black people, etc. Not that we haven't done bad things too, but that's precisely the point; they were no better or worse than we are.

Moreover, some of the assertions about the manhood of this generation are totally without empirical evidence. My favorite from this Art of Manliness post is #4, Love Loyally.

The men of the Greatest Generation took their marriage vows seriously. Brokaw wrote, “It was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option. I can’t remember one of my parents’ friends who was divorced. In the communities where we lived it was treated as a minor scandal.” The numbers bear Brokaw’s anecdotal evidence out: of all the new marriages in 1940, 1 in 6 ended in divorce. By the late 1990’s, that number was 1 in 2.

This was a time where there was no hanging out or “hooking up.” Men asked women on real dates, and had serious intentions in doing so. When a particular gal caught a man’s heart, he proposed, and they got hitched. And they were married for the next 60 years.

Even if they did stay married for 60 years, was this a good thing? How many couples stayed together through sexual abuse of children, domestic violence, alcoholism, affairs, women forced to stay in the home against their will, etc? A lot. An awful damn lot. Divorce is a good thing--it ends some horrible horrible situations and allows people to move on with their lives.

And when did this rise in divorce rates begin? By 1960--and some of this was the supposed committed men and women themselves getting divorced. Moreover, today divorce rates are actually going down. I don't know why this is, but I think it's pretty strong evidence that supposed lack of commitment in the modern generation is a bunch of hooey.

Finally, there's this to end the piece:

If there’s a common thread in these lessons, it’s having a common sense and a level-headed approach to life. In our day, when men are obsessing about finding themselves, their holy grail of a woman, and their “passion,” the Greatest Generation’s uncomplicated approach to life is refreshing. They didn’t go on a diet, they simply ate whole food; they didn’t exercise, they worked around the house; they didn’t obsess about their relationships, they just found a gal they loved and married her. They always looked sharp, but never fussed with fashion trends. They didn’t mull over which appliance better suited their personality and image, they just bought the machine that worked the best. They didn’t think about how to get things done, they just got em’ done. When Joe Foss, a celebrated and daring WWII pilot and then governor of South Dakota was asked if he missed his younger days, he said, “Oh no. I’m not a guy who missed anything from anywhere. I’ve always been a guy who just gets up and goes.” Instead of spending you time navel gazing your life away, just get up and go!

They didn't worry about going to prison, they just whacked their wife in the face. They weren't concerned with free speech, they just drove the commie out of his job. They didn't worry about gay rights, they just beat the queers up. They didn't worry about the dignity of their daughters, they just forced her to have her child in an institution. They didn't fret about political correctness, they just lynched the darkey.

Maybe my characterization of the World War II generation's dark side is overheated, but no more than so than the religious cult that has sprung up around them. And we really need a corrective. I agree that Cary Grant was a pretty suave guy, but can we please look at these people's lives in some kind of reasonable perspective. And for the love of God, not look at these men as some font of mythical masculinity to which can only futilely aspire.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

I wonder why Obama is backpedaling on the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Now seems like the perfect time to do it. Obama is extremely popular. Gays are making incredibly rapid progress toward equal rights. By most accounts, the military does not have the fight in it to mobilize against this. It's the right thing to do.

I don't even think it would cost him that much political capital--the people really opposed to this hate him anyway and while this might annoy some older voters, everyone recognizes that gay rights are not just a thing of the future, but of the present too.

Racism and Swine Flu

Brian Alexander has a good piece on how swine flu has emboldened racists. It begins:

“No contact anywhere with an illegal alien!” conservative talk show host Michael Savage advised his U.S. listeners this week on how to avoid the swine flu. “And that starts in the restaurants" where he said, you “don’t know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!”

And Thursday, Boston talk radio host Jay Severin was suspended after calling Mexican immigrants "criminalians" during a discussion of swine flu and saying that emergency rooms had become "essentially condos for Mexicans."

That’s tepid compared to some of the xenophobic reactions spreading like an emerging virus across the Internet. “This disgusting blight is because MEXICANS ARE PIGS!” an anonymous poster ranted on the “prison planet” forum, part of radio host and columnist Alex Jones’ Web site.

And it only gets worse from there. In fact, Americans have shown a shocking amount of racism toward Mexicans in the last few years. First, they stole our jobs when our factories closed. Then they stole our jobs by working in the United States. Then they are feeding us drugs. Then they spreading drug violence over the border. And now they are infecting us with swine flu.

For a poor country, they sure do have an amazing ability to cause all of our problems!

What really disturbs me about this recent surge of racism is the historical connections between race and animal characteristics. From portraying African-Americans as apes to the Japanese in World War II as bugs and snakes to the Irish as dogs, Americans have been more than happy to dehumanize other people by resorting to animal imagery. Connecting Mexicans and pigs may become another example of this.

If this disease wasn't supposedly spreading from Mexico and perceived as a dangerous threat from the South, would people be panicing in the same way?

Today in Wingnuttery

1. 1/3 of Georgia Republicans are for secession. If Texas goes, why not Georgia too. I'd love to be the person who sets Atlanta on fire again. Actually that's not true. Atlanta is full of good working-class people. I'd love to burn Cobb County to the ground though. The Atlanta suburbs are some of the worst places in America.

2. It sure is hard to be a white man these days. Only making around 124% of what a woman makes, not getting pulled over by the cops for nothing, at the top of nearly every corporation in the country, holding the vast majority of U.S. senate seats. And now, soon we will only have 6 of the 9 Supreme Court seats! I sure do understand racism now! What the marchers went through in Selma is nothing compared to the oppression I face every day! Damn, it's tough now that the women and the blacks hold all the power in this country. Where is a white man to go? We can't even go to South Africa anymore? Now I really want Texas to secede!

3. Jonah Goldberg is scared that Obama will appoint Anita Hill to the Supreme Court. This would be, by far, the greatest Supreme Court nomination in history.

4. Meanwhile, Veronique de Rugy provides the best advice I've ever heard:

And so did Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, in the same way as they vote for every spending bill in sight. In addition, Congressional Quarterly notes this morning:

Maine’s two senators, Snowe and Susan Collins, are among the Republicans most likely to vote with Democrats on policies such as energy, entitlements and social issues such as support for abortion rights.

Then, how can they complain with a straight face that their party is not accepting enough of their "centrism"? I am not a party person, but if the concept means anything, it seems to me that the GOP might, in fact, be too accepting.

Yes, that's absolutely true. The GOP is WAY too accepting of diversity in their ranks.

Oh please, please, please, please follow this advice!

Historical Image of the Day

Advertisement for Seattle's Coon Chicken Inn, a west coast restaurant chain, 1930.

The media pandemic

In the last couple of days my daily news diet has consisted of letting the morning broadcast blare in the half hour it takes me to get ready and out the door. It’s safe to say that about 20 minutes of the half hour has been about the swine flu.

The media are always looking for that next big issue to rally around; they need to cover airtime, we get it, and they’re not always blessed with a Specter defection or a Biden gaffe or the 100-day itch. Unfortunately or fortunately, it’s easier to see through this thick fog of media hype when it’s a political incident blown out of proportion, but a lot harder when the story deals with a less familiar topic – the two subjects that always come to my mind as big media nemeses are the economy (granted, the media wasn’t alone in this), and the haze that surrounds scientific or medical news stories.

In their urge to get the story out there, fast and loud, journalists don’t ensure if the hype is indeed proportional to the facts. Going by the swine flu coverage it would be hard to believe that the death rate from this flu is the same as that is to be expected from most flus, and that people who have been treated are responding to medication.

Social networking sites, for all their advantages, help feed the frenzy. Swine flu has been among the top three trending tweet topics this week. Of course, blaming Twitter for what people choose to tweet about is sort of like blaming Google for the content it spits out from all across the Web. But even so, a tweet a second about the flu doesn’t help calm down the already disproportionate furor. Including glaringly false Twitter posts like this one: “Swine Flu Confirmed Cases in Mexico is about nearly 3,000.”

Simon Jenkins makes a good point in the Guardian that the death tolls from ongoing wars or a real epidemic like AIDS – which take way more lives than the swine flu ever will – are hardly given the emphasis that a “sudden” outbreak like this one is. This goes back to the age-old media problem: information only attains the status of news when there is an “event” – usually something that is abrupt and unexpected - and when that does happen, the press focuses on the event without covering the context or big picture. Instead of going on and on about the numbers and possible escalation and inevitable doomsday, journalists could have taken this opportunity to talk about larger issues – as Erik’s post did on problems with the meat industry, livestock farming and disease.

What makes this press frenzy nearly pointless is that despite the widespread coverage of swine flu, as Jenkins notes, there are very few steps one can take to consciously reduce the chances of getting it (unless you follow Biden’s advice and lock yourself up in your house, avoiding subways and planes, and well, air).

On the other hand, there is a lot one can do to keep from getting more serious illnesses like AIDS with more difficult modes of transmission where large scale paranoia could actually drill sense into people and save lives.

I don’t intend to belittle this outbreak – of course, the swine flu is significant – it has taken over a hundred lives in Mexico, is spreading rapidly in several countries around the world, and the WHO has raised its pandemic alert level to 5. People should be made aware.

However, the simple truth is that there can’t be much of a preparedness plan against bugs that spread through aerosols and constantly change their surface structure to avoid immune responses.

Richard Besser of the CDC put it best: “microbes don’t read the plan, and you need to move away from the plan pretty soon after day one.”

Putting this in the context of incalculable risk, Ben Goldacre explains – amazingly – why it is almost impossible to assess how much of a risk this could – or could not – be. Hence, according to him people should neither be casting the swine flu as an unstoppable epidemic nor dismissing it as too much hype.

But that’s what the media does – it predicts, and innovates and foretells, be it the result of a presidential election, the length of an ongoing war, or the number of people who are going to die from swine flu.

Where predictions should have been happening is in the scientific community. As this New Scientist article explains, North American pigs have been incubators for these flu viruses for years, and scientists should have seen it coming. Since the late ’90s, the viruses have been evolving by mixing with different strains of human and bird flu viruses, which have made them more virulent. Since its genetic makeup is so novel, it is harder for the human system to target an immune response to.

There is a very real fear that this flu could become a pandemic considering its ease of transmission. But there is also a possibility that this virus - like many viruses before it - may peter out because it may not be able to survive and spread in humans.

No one knows. The media should not be pretending that it does.