(Inaugural) Mets Blogging: Omar Minaya's a Jerk

For those who haven't been certain, I must be clear about one thing: I am a Clevleand Indians fan above all other teams and sports.

That said, when I moved to New York, it wasn't too hard to pick a team to support in the city, given that my hatred of the Yankees is as lifelong as my love of the Indians. As the "second team" of the city, cheering for the Mets over the Yankees is easy.

What's not so easy is hoping a team does well when it is so unprofessionally run. Willie Randolph's firing has been imminent for weeks; yet the way Minaya pulled it off was the worst way possible. Randolph's been ever graceful and professional as the Mets' manager, even dealing with the mounting pressure like a pro. For Minaya to have waited until the first game of an Interleague West-Coast trip, in which the Mets beat the AL-leading Angels, to let Randolph hold his usual post-game conference with the press, and to then fire Randolph at 3 AM EST at his hotel, is one of the more disgraceful and disrespectful acts a GM could do. I don't know much about Minaya as a person, but the timing of his act is just one of the most unprofessional ever. There was lots of talk that, by the end of yesterday, Randolph would be out. Why Minaya let Randolph travel, win, and hold his conference, and then fire him, is inexplicable and indefensible.

The only reason I ever had to like Minaya was because he traded (in what must be one of the more lopsided trades in recent history) Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, and Brandon Phillips to the Indians for Bartolo Colon when he was with the Expos (and sure, Phillips decided only to play well when he was shipped to Cincinnati, but I'll still take Lee and Sizemore for Colon any day). The Mets have an old team that can't hit, lack pitching depth, have a shaky bullpen, and an outfield that changes flavors by the day, and they're getting that all for $140 million (highest in the NL) this year; something tells me that's not just Randolph's fault. If there's any justice in this world, Minaya will soon follow Willie, and be treated with the same "courtesy" he gave Randolph. Then maybe rooting for the Mets will be easier (getting a farm system of young players who can really play wouldn't hurt, either).

Brazil Beginning to Crack Down on Police Violence in the Favelas?

I recently wrote about the police in one of Rio's favelas torturing some undercover journalists, causing outrage throughout Brazil. As I mentioned, the fact that it happened against white-collar professionals, and not that it happened at all, was the real source of outrage; such atrocities are committed against the poor frequently. And I argued that, among other things, until the government ends the culture of police impunity and begins punishing those police who use torture in any capacity, things will not improve. Yesterday, the leader of the militia turned himself in after a two-day police hunt for him. Charges haven't been filed yet, and given how the trial system in Brazil works, he may not ever be punished, but the fact that the police and the state tracked him down to force him to face charges eventually is an important step, though very small.

However, this small step was tempered by more tragic news this weekend. In an even more brutal and unforgiveable act, this weekend the military police turned three favela residents over to a drug gang; the gang then executed these residents and dumped their bodies in the garbage dump. Rio has ignited with protests against the miliarty police (who are nothing like MPs in the U.S., but rather a part of the military in the same way the army or navy are), especially in the favelas (suffice to say, the streets of Ipanema and Copacabana are probably full of tacit and overt support for the police's actions). Fortunately, in perhaps another small-but-significant step, the government is not just sitting idly by this time, as the 11 soldiers involved have all been arrested. Sergio Cabral, Rio's governor, has come out against the men, categorizing their activities as "criminal," and Lula's defense Minister, Nelson Jobim, wants the 11 officers involved punished to the fullest in the courts in order to offer an example to other militia members. Even the Brazilian Lawyers' Association (OAB) has come out (though the OAB has been a vocal opponent of these tactics for a long time). Of course, the federal police themselves are (as usual) defending themselves. The headline at O Globo at this moment (10:41 Rio time) is "Military has no regrets on deaths of the youths in Providencia [the favela]", and the story there offers an uncritical (from both O Globo's and the military's perspective) defense of the actions of the soldiers involved. Still, the level of outrage, while superficially similar to the case of torture from a few weeks ago, is important, in that politicians are becoming genuinely outraged at the continued police brutality in the favelas. It's a long journey from discursive outrage to real changes in policy, but even the outrage wasn't always there, so simply having politicians speak out against these events is an important change.

Certainly, there is a long way to go still. It remains to be seen whether these police officers will be found guilty of their crimes (I'm still rather skeptical on this front, though I'm more than willing to be proven wrong), and as I alluded to in my earlier post, government responses to police impunity are only one small step in ending the violence against Brazil's poor. The government's response is unlikely to change the more deeply ingrained classist and racist attitudes of Brazil's media or the middle- and upper-classes, and no doubt, for the few politicians we hear speakign out about it, there are many more who probably agree with the police's actions. Still, it is really good to see the government taking any kind of action in cases like these, and it does mark an important step forward, even if it is a small step. I'm far from optimistic on this issue, but these two cases and the reactions of the government at the state and national level do offer a chance for what could (but also perhaps could not) become a major shift in policy towards police brutality and militia activity.

Historical Image of the Day

Joe McCarthy

Why I Won't Miss Texas

One of the great advantages of my New York/Bolivia trip is getting out of the heat.

Georgetown, Texas, where I live, is currently on a 28 day streak of 90 degrees or hotter. Of course there is no relief in sight. It is supposed to be 100 the next 2 days. The coolest day in the next 10, according to the Weather Channel, 93.

Ugh.

I see little chance of this 90+ day streak ending before it reaches 100 days. Maybe some kind of tropical moisture will give a single day of relief. 100 days would put it sometime toward the end of August I guess. Which means that it could really be more like 125 days.

Reading List for Bolivia Trip

On Tuesday, I am flying to New York for a week and then to Bolivia for 5 weeks. I have referenced it here before.

In the spirit of continuing the interesting literature conservations of late, I thought I'd post my choices for books to take. Note that it's a lot. I read really fast, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's good for work. In fact, it was in dealing with graduate school that I learned to read fast out of necessity. On the other hand, that means I have to take a lot of books when I travel, which is a pain when you are backpacking. Theoretically, I could find some English language bookstores or sometimes at hostels there are book exchanges. Even with this list, I may have to take advantage of these options. But I hope not.

Anyway, your opinions and suggestions for substitutions are most welcome.

1. The Classic Slave Narratives--This is the Signet version that you may have been assigned for a class at some point. I've read the Douglass but not the other three. Slave narratives are such compelling literature. Note that this will be the closest thing to work I am bringing.

2. Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
3. Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt
4. Tadeusz Konwicki, A Dreambook for Our Time
5. Abdelrahman Munif, Cities of Salt
6. Javier Marias, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me
7 . Tomas Eloy Martinez, Santa Evita
8. Raymond Chandler, Stories and Early Novels. The Library of America edition. It includes The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, and The High Window, as well as some shorter pieces.

The goal for travel reading for me is that it be a lot of pages that doesn't take up a lot of room or weigh a lot. Thus the amount of "classic" lit I'm taking--the slave narratives, Chandler, Lewis. I am combining this with newer stuff that tends to be international. I've read some Marias before and recommend him pretty highly. I've never read Konwicki, Munif, or Martinez. Or shamefully, Lewis for that matter. Also, these are all books I've had on my shelf for years and have never read or haven't read in 10 years in the case of Morrison.

Historical Image of the Day

Slave women working in Georgia cotton field.

McCain Girls

Via Brian at Incertus (though I don't know if he would want credit for this) is another McCain Girls video!

Don't say I didn't warn you. Now, would someone please gouge out my eyes.

Potato Conference

Presented without comment. Mostly because I'm not sure what to say. If I did work on potatoes, I would surely apply.

Within the framework of the project to list culinary and gastronomic heritage with UNESCO's intangible heritage, CeHVi and IEHCA are organising a major international conference on the Potato in Tours in 2009, which also corresponds to France's hosting of the World Potato Congress.

A seemingly commonplace vegetable, in that it is so embedded into our customs, the potato is however a product whose appearance on the plate of Westerners is only relatively recent, in the 18th century, and is still unknown in whole regions of the globe.

This international conference is aiming to cover all of the themes that have anything to do with the potato and there are no limits, not only from a historical standpoint, but also from standpoints of an economic and geographical, artistic and sociologic, scientific and medical nature. It is not limited to the contemporary period, and it is not restricted to France; this conference wants to attempt to provide an overall view of the place held by the potato across civilisations. For this, communications materials could cover subjects as diverse as the technical aspects, whether concerning production or transformation, the economics of the sector, consumption, imaginary forms, and treatment of this tuber in the arts.

Texas Plates

Sigh.

I just put Texas plates on my car. Of course, my New Mexico plates expired at the end of May and I went and got the car registered. But I just put them on. It was in part because I didn't want fucking Texas plates on my car. Far more important factors though were my laziness, the fact that I hate doing anything remotely resembling manual labor, particularly in the heat; and that I was out of town for the last week.

Nonetheless, I am now an official Texas resident I guess. But I'm still holding on to my New Mexico phone number and driver's license for as long as possible.

Avoiding the AMT (and completely missing the point...)

"My sense of it is that the people who introduce these provisions know exactly who is going to benefit."

Thus spake Howard Gleckman, senior research editor for the Tax Policy Center, regarding an IRS report stating that 7,389 federal tax returns with over $200,000 in adjusted gross income paid no federal income tax in 2005. That amounts to a 75% increase over the previous year (these are the most recent data available from the IRS).

The reason seems to be some small, but nonetheless powerful, changes to the tax code in 2004 and 2005. One change was allowing people to eliminate up to 100% of the alternative minimum tax liability by receiving credits on taxes paid to foreign governments. Seemingly innocuous, right? After this change, the claims on foreign tax payment credits went from $16 million to $447 million in one year. In other words, legislators put a little loophole in the AMT that obviously had some benefit to some very wealthy people. Ah, the Bush Tax Cuts.

In any event, I agree with Howard.

Historical Image of the Day

Joe Larson, inventor of the polygraph machine, demonstrating it. 1930s.

And Now, From the Art World....

When some thieves stole two paintings, including a Picasso, valuing millions of dollars, in December 2007, from Sao Paulo's Art Museum (MASP), it became patently clear that the museum desperately needed to beef up security. How they would pay for that - be it through donations, increased prices, government help, or whatever - didn't matter so much as the need to find some way to do it. Stilll, in spite of the fact that it only took the thieves 3 minutes and a car jack to pull off the heist, you couldn't help but feel that, while horrible, and while security was minimal, these things happen elsewhere, too.

But twice in 7 months? It's becoming patently clear that, if Sao Paulo, the richest state in Brazil, can't offer enough funds to help preserve their cultural repositories, something has to be done. I'm against closing museums of this type, but if you're going to be so susceptible to theft not once, but twice, in 7 months, well....I don't see many alternatives between either paying up for security or shutting at least part of your operations. The government's (especially the state government's) failure to aid here is as shameful as the idea that private collectors would pay people to steal public collections for their own private gains.

Primary Concerns (a bit on the nose, I know)

Now that the primaries are over and we have all had a chance to purge thoughts of superdelegates, caucuses, Michigan and Florida, etc. from our heads, I wanted to think about the Democratic primary system in general.

Does it strike anyone else as insane?

The idea of superdelegates is astoundingly undemocratic. The idea that the party would give a rat's ass if Michigan or Florida cut in front of The Anointed States strikes me as stupid as well. What, if anything, should be done about all of this?

I understand that the capital-P "Party" can do whatever it wants-- it is a private cabal and has no responsibilities toward the people. If everyone really hated the system that much, there would exist a viable option besides the Party. But there isn't. Do we not care? Or are we paralyzed with fear that challenging the slightly left of center party will result in the election of the far right party (a fear that is, I might add, a real one in wake of 2000)? I would rather see the Democratic Party change its primary system than have the left splintered, of course. But perhaps I am being too hasty-- is there value in the system at hand?

There are good arguments for having spaced out primaries-- with a national primary (think Super Duper Tuesday, where everyone votes on the same day), we would lose the season-long vetting process for the candidates. We would also lose the attention that many smaller states get from the candidates, as with a national primary most of the campaigning would be done in large population centers. We also can't underestimate the significance that now, after a 50 state primary, Obama has infrastructure on the ground in all 50 states-- Mr. Magoo does not. However, letting Iowa and New Hampshire go first every cycle doesn't work for me. If the DNC is going to have spaced out primaries, why not rotate? One year it's Iowa and New Hampshire first, then next time, they go last and maybe Missouri and Alabama go first. Spread the love, if you will.

And what of the superdelegates? Screw them, I say. Straight up popular vote, like a real democracy. The only thing superdelegates could do is muck it all up by overturning the will of the people. Again, I get that it's the Party's party and they can do what they want, but if they want to keep people like me in the fold long term, it would be wise to re-democratize the Democratic Party.

Things I Don't Get (IV): Personalizing the Primaries

Prior to Obama's victory, much was made of Obama-supporters' willingness to support Clinton vs. a major unwillingness of Clinton supporters to support Obama in the event of his victory. Although there's plenty of time for this to still cool off, thus far it's been pretty rancorous still. When watching Clinton's speech last Saturday (in which she unequivocally urged her supporters to support Obama), there were noticeable boos and thumbs-down signs given when she mentioned his name. People who would easily identify with a majority of Obama's positions if it were a generic "candidate-A or candidate-B" issue are vehemently against him because he beat their candidate, even diving to such amazingly stupid lows in reasoning as to claim that they want to do "what's best for America," and if that means voting for McCain (an aside: it doesn't mean that), then so be it. Really - the vitriol is so fierce among some Clinton supporters, they seem absolutely blinded in fits of pure selfishness that their candidate was not the victor, and so they're (at least right now) more willing to fuck the U.S. over for at least another 4 years by voting for McCain instead of supporting the candidate whose views are far more in line with their own.

I personally cannot ever remember (or even remember hearing from others about) a time when politics became so personalized. That's really what seems to be at hand here: that Clinton supporters have so closely tied their support for her to their own being that her loss is like a personal assault upon her supporters themselves, that the repudiation of Clinton has turned into a personal repudiation of her supporters as basic human beings. And to me, that's just crazy, and I can't figure out why (seemingly suddenly) a particular group of Democrats have so fiercely personalized the failure of their candidate. (And I know that there are millions of Clinton supporters out there who already are behind Obama, but they aren't the ones dominating the news now, nor the ones that could be a major concern for the Democrats down the road, nor the ones who are being so obnoxious and selfish).

I've been trying to figure this out lately, but with no success. I really don’t think it’s due to racism. Sure, some people, particularly in the Appalachians, openly said they wouldn’t and didn’t vote for Obama due to race, but I’m just not convinced A) that that group is really that large, and B) that, come a general election, sexism wouldn’t also be a factor in their vote. It may be the case that they would vote for Clinton over McCain but not Obama over McCain, but I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence or hear any strong argument as to why that would be the case.

Nor do I think it’s because of charisma; while Clinton was a fine candidate, she didn’t have the charisma of some leaders. She wasn’t awful (she seemed more compelling than Kerry did in 2004 by light years), but neither was she great. While I’m no expert, I’ve studied the role of charisma in popularity of leaders to some extent (mostly in Latin America), and Clinton really didn’t fit any general notions and theories on the role and definition of charisma that I’m familiar with. I understand that a lot of people were drawn to her for her presentation, but to a large extent, I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t her own personal charisma that drew supporters, but rather the symbol they personally perceived her to be.

I suppose it could be the cult of the Clintons, built up by the myth of Bill being the party's "savior" in the 90s when he became the only two-term democratic president in the last 40 years, a myth the Clinton machine and it's supporters have openly built up. But even there, I'm not so sure; if this primary campaign proved anything, it's that Bill was far from infallible even among some of his most strident supporters, as he was heavily criticized even from the rank-and-file for some of his comments during the campaign. What's more, now that it's over, many insiders are blaming Bill at least in part for Hillary's failure, so I'm not even sure the "Clinton mystique" is nearly that strong (or that it ever was).

In short, I just don't understand this. Can anybody ever remember any election, general or primary, presidential, state, local, congressional, etc., where voters took the loss of a candidate so personally? Why is this happening with Clinton's supporters? Will this last, and potentially ruin the 2008 election? It's just really, really weird to me (the only close comparison I can come up with is Nader in 2000, but even then, his supporters didn't take his loss personally as much as critiques that he cost the Democrats the election in 2000), and I'm not sure how we can explain this. Anybody else have any thoughts on this?

Slasher Flicks vs. Monster Movies

So I'm not a huge horror fan, particularly not a fan of what horror has become lately, these aggressively masculine torture flicks like Hostel. I don't mind blood and gore--I count Kill Bill among my favorites--but I do dislike the premise of and what feels like the message behind these movies. They're the missing-white-girl story on steroids, and forgive me for writing about movies I haven't seen, but the villains/killers/people with power are mostly white men.

I do like monster movies, though. Zombies, vampires, comic book supervillains, anything strange and uncanny.

Slasher flicks seem to me to be the reassertion of patriarchal-white-male power while monster movies are about the return of all things repressed by that power. Monsters disrupt the boundaries of the social order, while slashers reassert them--don't travel, don't have sex, don't you dare be a loudmouthed girl. Remember the Scream rules? The virgin survives, the sexy girl gets killed.

Zombies lately have been the most popular genre (though did anyone see Cloverfield?) and they inspire heated debate among zombie fans--Natalia has some good stuff here. There's the whole not-quite-zombies theme, too, like the infected from 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, who can be seen as the literal return of the repressed in humans: voracious appetites. And even when the monsters are defeated they return.

Zombies themselves are not human but not corpses. That's why they horrify. But if you squint you can see in them the people Western mainstream society has painted as subhuman. It's not our fear of invasion that they evoke, it's our fear that the other, the objectified, will not remain an object (a corpse) and will come back and fight for what they've lost.

Of course each movie needs to be analyzed separately, and I'm not gonna do it because then I'd have to sit through Hostel and Saw and all the rest of them. I'm just kind of thinking on the computer here.

Album of the Week: Dry Branch Fire Squad "Hand Hewn"

Even though there have been a lot of good bluegrass artists around over the past few decades, the newgrass movement of the '70s and its continued influence has made it hard to determine what acts are worthwhile. The meandering jam bands with mandolins are the worst, but even the really traditional bluegrass groups are often frustrating to listen to on album when all they play are old Bill Monroe songs. Like another Wynton Marsalis album of Duke songs, why wouldn't I just listen to the real thing? Still, there's some great stuff out there and Dry Branch Fire Squad has been one of the best bands for both bluegrass and traditional music for thirty years. The lineup has changed slowly but steadily over the years, with founder and frontman Ron Thomason on mandolin being the one mainstay. Through all the changes and all the thirty years they've played, they've maintained the soul of traditional and bluegrass music while still managing, through song selection and harmonies, to stay fresh.

2001's Hand Hewn is the first Dry Branch album I heard and is still my favorite. The songs are all great, spanning Civil War ballads to religious songs to fantastical horse stories. But, what really sets this album apart from most is a devastating rendition of Hazel Dickens' own "Black Lung," sung a capella with Thomason and Dickens herself. The power of her voice is unparalleled, the words are bone chilling, and the song is absolutely amazing. There are a few songs with mixed gender harmonies, a great but relatively rare aspect, and they really set the album off, but "Black Lung" is truly one of the great tracks I've heard. Above is a version of the song by Thomason alone. It doesn't do justice to the power of the recording on Hand Hewn but it's still a great song.

Good books and other musings.

Hello dears.

I've been insanely busy lately being a comic book geek. I can't claim that it hasn't been lots of fun being that busy, but it has left me with little to say here.

That and being completely burned out on politics for the moment, as well.

The most interesting stuff floating through my bloggy brain lately has been all sex-related, including the declaration of Female Desire Week by several of my favorite feminist bloggers, so in a shameless self-promotion move, I'll note that there's plenty of stuff over at my blog about that, if you care to read it. You'll know more than you ever needed to in short order.

Anyway! We had the most fun over here a while back discussing literature, so I'm going to throw a few fun topics out there and see if we can get a discussion going.

I'm currently reading The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano. And it is excellent, brilliant, beautiful, and many many more good things that I don't have words for because I've been working in 97-degree heat without air conditioning all day.

Latin American literature is something that I haven't read much of, but I've really been trying lately, when I have the spare time for novels, to branch out of the usual suspects. So: who has suggestions for me? Give me the most beautiful, ecstatic, transcendent things you can think of that come from that part of the world. And if you've read what I'm reading, what did you think? Have you read anything else by Bolano?


Topic number two, in reference to my current geek-heaven state, is of course comics as literature.

I started reading comics with The Crow and The Sandman, back when I was a teenage goth girl. (If you're lucky someday I'll post pictures. Probably back at my blog, though) The Sandman is wonderful, and it led me into such gems as Transmetropolitan and Preacher, recommended to me by classmates when I was an undergrad.

Right now my favorites are DMZ, Fables, The Boys
and Doktor Sleepless, but I've got some catching up to do--the past semester wasn't terribly conducive to reading for pleasure, let alone getting to the comic shop to buy things. Now I work around the corner from an excellent shop, and people seem to like giving me free things. Anyone out there share my love for sequential art?

Tawk amongst yourselves.

Brazil's Middle Class Growing

According to this report, issued yesterday in O Globo, Brazil's middle class is on the rise. According to the study cited in the article Brazil's "Classe B" (Brazil census and data measurements divide socio-economic standards into five classes; "Classe B" is the second 20% of income levels in Brazil), which is marked by a monthly income of 3,040 reais/month (US$1900/month) has swollen to almost 20 million people, or roughly 11% of society; home ownership among this group has grown nearly 80% in the last 5 years. The study cites the growth of personal as well as national incomes in Brazil under Lula's administration as the main reason for this growth. If the report is accurate, there are some truly encouraging things to be drawn from this, including people improving their class status, and consumer goods becoming more available to the populace (something I saw myself while in Brazil).

I actually was planning on writing about this beforehand, but Randy's comments in this thread merit some remarks, too. While I don't fully disagree, I don't fully agree, either, for a number of reasons. First, I never saw Lula as being the savior that many intellectuals and people from the left felt he would be when he was first elected in 2002 (and to be clear, I'm not accusing anybody I know in the US of having been like this). Too many people in Brazil turned on Lula when he didn't immediately launch a major revolution that solved Brazil's poverty issues immediately, which I found not only totally unfair, but completely unrealistic. While I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that poverty in Brazil is "intractible" (I feel that A) poverty probably can never be fully eliminated anywhere, just due to simple human nature to create inequalities; and B) (and rather paradoxically) I feel "intractible" suggests the current conditions can never be overcome, and I'm not willing to say that, either), it certainly faces such severe obstacles within society, that no president, Lula or anybody more radical (or counter-radical) could ever solve the problem of poverty in Brazil so quickly. It's ok to hope for important changes, and to even expect them, from Lula or other leftist leaders, but to expect that the extreme poverty in Brazil and, more importantly, social stigmas against the poor among the middle- and upper-classes could be eliminated under one president, strikes me as impractical. This is why I found the leftists and intellectuals' disillusion with Lula so frustrating when I was in Brazil; while he was and is certainly not perfect, the demands they were placing on him were so unrealistic as to be unachievable by anybody short of Jesus Christ himself, and even then, he'd have his hands full.

Secondly, I think this poll points again to how much the standard of living for people has improved during Lula's administration. Yes, it's just data on the 2nd-highest 20% of incomes in Brazil. Still, the fact that Classe B has grown so dramatically, and that access to consumption based not just on home ownership but on household goods has also increased, is promising, and does point to how much has been done in Brazil. Since Lula became Brazil's first "leftist" president since 1964, Brazil has seen unprecedented growth.

That said, I don't fully disagree with Randy, either. The report doesn't mention anything about Brazil's poorest, both in urban and rural settings, but it doesn't have to. Those people are still mired in poverty in a country with one of the greatest levels of economic inequality in the world. There are still plenty of landless, and plenty in the favelas, and any gains they may have made in the past few years are minor in the face of their situations.

However, I'm not quite willing to lump this on Lula, either, and not out of any particular partisanship. As I've said before, the problem runs far deeper within the social fabric, where poverty is treated as a criminal activity, and the poor little help or sympathy from the middle classes. In this atmosphere, the police can and do act not just with impunity, but with the tacit (and sometimes explicit) approval of wealthier elements of society and the media, garnering outrage and protest only when they torture and repress members of the middle class. Simply put, there is neither tolerance for nor acceptance of the poor and economically marginalized in Brazil. The fact that so many people have tried (and succeeded) to improve their class status alone hints at the social stigmas tied to being part of the lower classes. Like I said, while I wouldn't go so far as to say "intractible," the poverty issue in Brazil is indeed grim.

But again, I think this is where it is important to separate presidential politics and power from broader political and sociological processes. As Brazilian intellectuals failed to recognize, Lula, working within a presidential parliamentary system where white-collar politicians and much of the middle class (including many of my in-laws) irrationally hates him for having simply been a metal-worker, could only get so much done. Poverty is undeniably severe in Brazil, and police treatment of the poor, urban or rural, is abominable and unforgiveable, yet illicitly and explicitly approved of in Brazil.

When the time comes to evaluate Lula's administration, I suspect (though I may be wrong) there will be many areas where he will be legitimately deemed as a disappointment, if not a failure, particularly on environmental issues. However, I think that, at the end of the day, his administration has been nothing short of a major success on economic matters. That the poor are treated so brutally is not so much a symptom of Lula's failures as a symptom of the severe classism and racism that still pervade much of Brazilian society, issues which any president will be hard-pressed to solve by himself.

Images from Brazil

Frequent Commenter Murderface tipped me off to this powerful image. 200 landless poor from Brazil's grassroots Landless Movement (MST) had apparently seized some private-but-unused land near the Amazonian city of Manaus, and the police were called in to kick the 200 or so people off of it, including this woman and her baby. And while it's a picture of police dealing with the rural poor in the Amazon, the only thing that really differentiates it from the use of force in the favelas is the fact that, in this image at least, the police aren't recklessly firing automatic rifles into crowds of civilians like they do in the favelas. Still, the fact that they are using such force, and will not only get away with it but probably be praised if the evictions are successful, just shows how severe and problematic the impunity for policemen are. For all the words I've conveyed on Brazilian police using unnecessary force, this image alone says as much, if not more.

A Post-Racial Society?

I am going to try to keep this short. I am blogging Hitchens-style, meaning that I am doing it from a brewery after a few drinks. I am no Hitchens (thank God) and this isn't necessarily my best.

With Obama's victory in the Democratic primary, there is much talk among pundits that the United States is a post-racial society. I don't think this is true in any way. But if there is any truth to it, it is only if you look at race completely separate from class. In 2008, a black man can win the presidential nomination in the Democratic Party. Enough whites are comfortable with this to make it happen. A large percentage of those whites are young. This is a great thing. This nation has come a long way in dealing with its original sin.

On the other hand, if you do take class into account, you see that the intersections of race and class are still extremely powerful in American society and that most whites, including those who are the biggest Obama supporters, don't want to deal with it. I am currently in Louisville, grading AP U.S. history exams. They have hired a support staff to help us out. They seem to be relatively competent, although they managed to lose my I-9 form which resulted in a very annoying and unnecessary threat to send me back to Texas. Of course, 80% of the graders, a group made up of college professors and high school teachers, are white. There are a random smattering of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians. I suppose there are probably a few Native Americans too though none that were obvious to me. And equally as obviously, 80% of the support staff are black, making low wages.

We simply cannot refer to a post-racial society so long as the majority of African-Americans are in low-wage jobs or are unemployed. So long as such demographics are seen when the educated and uneducated meet, we do not live in a society that does not include race as a central point of difference. Because the difference in intelligence in that room between the white historians and the black support workers is pretty damn small, if it exists at all. Yet for so many reasons related to historical and current inequality in American society, we whiteys are grading for good money and the African-Americans are helping for significantly less money.

Don't get me wrong--whites under the age of 40 are doing a lot of good concerning race in this country. More than any generation since the Civil War. In combination with the continued activism of African-Americans, as well as other minority groups. real progress has taken place. And this progress is best personified in the amazing success of Obama. But the same whites who are good on race just don't want to talk about class because it threatens their status as young professionals who have made a lot of money. This is a major problem. Young African-Americans still face disadvantages that whites don't, including in education, housing, police treatment, and job opportunities. I hope an Obama presidency will work to address these issues in ways no president has since Lyndon Johnson. But I also fear it will alienate some of his white followers.

Historical Image of the Day

Abraham Lincoln.

This is my favorite picture of Lincoln. You can really see what the war had done to him.

Perhaps more interestingly, I happened to link to this famous photo on a Christian site where the guy was connecting beards with preaching the Word. Hilarious. I am actually wondering if large beards might be making a serious comeback in American society. I know they have become big among hipsters, but it seems to be spreading some.

Trivia question: Who was the major party last presidential candidate with facial hair? And who was the last major party presidential candidate with a beard? No cheating either!

Horse Racing

I just watched the Belmont Stakes at a bar in Louisville. I thought that if I watched this important horse race in a bar in Kentucky with a lot of other people that it would be interesting.

I was totally wrong. Horse racing sucks. I was just waiting for a horse's leg to break.

Lyrad's Occasional Image

In my experience, the world's finest gin. Hints of orange and lavender make Damrak an everyday drinking kind of gin. Try it poured over ice with a slice of orange. That's summertime heaven.

Suitcase Exhibition

I want to point you all to one of the most beautiful exhibits I have seen (though I have not seen it in person). It consists of the suitcases left behind in a New York psychiatric hospital. I don't have a lot to add, but I very strongly recommend spending five minutes on the website. I found it incredibly profound.

Lakers

On the eve of the NBA finals, I want to emphasize to you how much I hate the motherfucking Lakers. As a long-suffering Blazers fan, I can't fully express in words my loathing for these bastards. Game 6 of the Western Conference finals in 1991, when the Blazers were the best team in basketball, is one example. Somehow the Blazers found themselves down 3-2. They had a fast break to wing Game 6 and take it back to Portland when Cliff Robinson bounced the ball off his goddamn face. Lakers win.

Then there is 2000. Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. Blazers up 15 at the end of the 3rd. I knew, just knew that the Lakers were going to win. And of course they did.

There are so many other examples too. I swear the whole league is fixed. And mostly in favor of the Lakers. The trade for Kobe after Charlotte drafted him. Why did Charlotte make that trade again? And then the Gasol trade this year. It's like David Stern is personally intervening on their behalf.

I want nothing more than to see Boston win. But there's no way that is happening.

Historical Image of the Day

Nurses and officers of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a group that worked to bring sanitary conditions to Civil War army camps. Fredericksburg, Virginia, May 1864

And by "Lipstick on a Pretty Lady," I Mean "Blatantly Announcing Support for Slavery and Treason in Defense of Slavery"

One more reason to hate Florida.

A Ratings System for Children's Books - Dumbing Down Literacy

Apparently, national and international publishers in England are preparing an age-based ratings system for books, similar to ratings systems for movies, to let children and parents know if the books is "appropriate" for them.

This is, quite simply, one of the stupidest things I've heard of all year (and that's saying plenty). And while all of the arguments against this system mentioned in the article (death of local bookstores, or establishing a precedent for some kind of moral code that can and will be easily hijacked by overzealous parents) are strong, the dumbest part of this to me is the presumption that there are easily-classifiable "age ranges" for books. Some kids can't even read at 5 years old, while others are pounding through novels intended for children 10 or older. I remember reading Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game in 3rd grade (probably an appropriate age-level for Card's stuff, given how terrible it's gotten), while other kids were struggling with picture books (and I'm certain I'm not, nor ever was, some kind of prodigy). It's hard enough to get kids to read anyways these days; to try to predict if a kid is at the "appropriate" age level is just tilting against windmills.

And if parents and adults don't know how to pick an "age-appropriate" book for a child (one of the major reasons companies are trying to justify this system), let me offer a few suggestions, such as: look at what the kid is reading and go from there; open the book to see if it looks right for the kid who's X-years old (I'm pretty sure the entire Harry Potter collection isn't for a 4 year old, nor is a picture book for a 10 year old; go from there); and, if you're still really not sure, then get a gift-card for a bookstore, and let the kid pick out their own damn book.

I really hope authors' efforts to quash this ridiculous idea are successful, and that parents (and even non-parent adults) and teachers hop on board to end this silliness.

In Brazil, Torture Didn't Go Away with the Dictatorship

Several scholars (most notably, Thomas Skidmore) have pointed out that the Brazilian military dictatorship's use of torture was far from being a sudden shift in the politico-criminal landscape, pointing out that torture had been used against criminal suspects and the (Afro-descendant) poor since at least the late-19th century. (Skidmore suggests that the use of torture against darker-skinned "criminals" is a direct legacy of slavery, abolished in Brazil only in 1888; while it's difficult to quantitatively prove this, it makes a lot of sense).

And just as the dictatorship didn't initiate torture in Brazil (though it certainly did escalate it), torture didn't end with the military governments in 1985, either, and continues to be a problem today, as evidenced by this story:

The O Dia newspaper said a reporter and photographer for the paper were abducted with their driver May 14 and held for nearly eight hours in a western Rio de Janeiro shantytown where they had been working undercover.

They said they were taken to a "private prison" and beaten, given electric shocks and had plastic bags placed over their heads. The journalists suffered no lasting injuries and were released with orders not to identify their captors, O Dia reported.

Rio state security chief Jose Mariano Beltrame said active-duty police had been linked to paramilitaries who control the Batan slum where the journalists said they were tortured.

On Monday he said it was possible police were part of the group that tortured the journalists.

Sadly, the only thing that makes this news is the fact that the tortured were journalists operating undercover in a favela, rather than favelados themselves. The continued torture of favelados is common enough that children in the favelas who play "cops and robbers" often put plastic bags over the heads of the "robbers," mimicking what they see regularly. Yet these cases of police torture rarely make news either in Brazil or in the international community. Human Rights Watch has monitored the situation, but little has been done in spite of over 1300 complaints between October 2001 and July 2003:

There have been credible reports of police and prison guards torturing people in their custody as a form of punishment, intimidation, and extortion. Police have also allegedly used torture as a means of obtaining information or coercing confessions from criminal suspects. Abusive police officers are rarely sanctioned, and abuses are sometimes justified by authorities as an inevitable by-product of efforts to combat Brazil’s very high crime rates.

I've said this before too many times to even cross-post, and I'll say it again. Until the Brazilian state does something to aid the poor, give them legal recourse, guarantee their basic human rights, and crack down on police who act like greater criminals than the "criminals" themselves; until society gets rid of the attitude that being poor is itself a criminal act, stripping you of any basic guarantees of human rights or the state's protection; and until the media stops treating all murders in the favelas as the deaths of "traficantes", Brazil has a long way to go. And such changes are so deep and counterintuitive to the way things work now, there really isn't much hope for change right now.

Historical Image of the Day

Navajo Long Walk, Fort Sumner, New Mexico, 1864.

For those not familiar with this story, the Navajos were rounded up in 1864 and sent to Bosque Redondo, near Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Here they stayed and died until 1868 when an outcry over their treatment allowed them to return home with a reservation that today is the largest in the nation.

Bye Bye Heather

While everyone is rightfully talking about Obama, I want to note the end of the loathsome Heather Wilson's political career. Her "maverickism" went so far as to criticize Bush on occasional military issues. Her personal ethics stopped the moment she took office. Among other things, she was central to the U.S. attorney scandal. Once Pete Domenici's protege, a late endorsement from the old man could not stop her from losing the Republican primary for his seat to Steve Pearce, a hard right loco from southern New Mexico who ought to make a good sacrificial lamb to Tom Udall in November. I guess she'll have to content herself with a lucrative lobbying career. Bye bye!

Lyrad's Occasional Image

The Lone Star Troubadour, Dale Watson, at the Continental Club in Austin, his natural habitat.

Vacation/Sickness Blogging Part 2

Sunday morning, before leaving that horrible place, Houston served me one final indignity with a twenty-minute futile hunt for a cup of coffee in the middle of downtown. It wasn’t that places were closed, it’s that one cannot buy food or drink from empty parking lots. Finally able to secure a free cup from the now-serving hotel cafe, I could save my family from a lot of bitterness as we checked out and moved on to Galveston. I was expecting more of a tourist hell than it was, but I also elected to stay out of the shops. Instead, while the folks shopped, we walked around. For the first time, I saw the monstrous size of a Carnival cruise ship. While I’m not sure it’s quite the size of Kathy Lee’s ego, the ship is similar to its spokeswoman at least insofar as I don’t want to be around either one. I marveled at the size of the pelicans and watched a kid pull a snake out of the ocean while walking the pier, which was a lot of fun. We were surprised not to find a hurricane museum there, however. There is one dedicated to the trains, which I can see in plenty of places. There’s even a museum on an old oil platform, where you can pay $8 to find out what made the water so murky. Nothing, though, on the reason why the place is a tourist trap and not the metropolis it was meant to be. It is also strange that, aside from a street named after him, Galveston doesn’t make a bigger deal out of Jack Johnson having come from there. In his time, he was the biggest thing to even come to boxing, and that there’s nearly no mention of it in town is weird, if not intentional.

We briefly said goodbye to Texas as we went through Port Arthur and into southern Louisiana. It had been years since I’d been to the Sportsman’s Paradise, long before the hurricanes ravaged the area. It was sad to see the stagnant devastation there, especially since it’s so far out of the public’s consciousness now that little will be done in the future for them. After some gator sightings we walked on a beach with a sign that specifically indicated “No swimming. Bacterial hazard,” though this clearly did not stop a multitude of locals from frolicking away, and went to find some dinner, which proved more difficult to find than expected. Finally we made it, starving, to Lake Charles and this little crawfish place that reminded me exactly why I love Louisiana so much. I wish I could remember the name of the place, but I can’t find anything about it online, so I’m out of luck. Anyway, the place was separated into by-the-pound boiled crawfish side and the fried stuff/stuff with roux side, which was where we went. Erik and I both had the crawfish etouffee, which was the absolute best I’ve ever had, light in color and perfectly spiced. It was a fantastic eating experience, one that I could return to if only I had written the name of the damn place down. From here was the long road back to Austin. It was late, but I was glad to learn that Don Williams is the single greatest performer in country music history. I had no idea, but this is what I was told.

A long night turned to a weary morning as we pressed on to San Antonio to see the missions around the city. This was the first real historical stuff we’d seen but impatience had developed in the ranks and we were hurried along more than I’d have liked. Still, it’s very cool that the sites are in town and the churches are still active, but it is kind of weird to have a Whataburger across the street from a seventeenth century mission. I don’t regret not stopping for the Alamo, but I do wish I could see the plaque commemorating where Ozzy peed. Speaking of this Whataburger, it was a really hot day when we were out there. We were thirsty and, without the dehydration and family time, I’d never have made this decision, I got a milkshake from a burger place I tend to like, for what it’s worth. I don’t drink a lot of milk, but my stomach started hurting…badly…about thirty minutes later as we left San Antonio and ventured into the hill country. It just started to become searing as we rolled into Fredricksburg for a nice big heavy German meal. I had a couple of beers and a rouladen, which was pretty good and covered in brown gravy. Not surprisingly, all this food and drink didn’t help my stomach much. I didn’t think I was going to die until we got outside the LBJ ranch. Stabbing pains came in waves as we got back to Georgetown, just in time to drive back to Austin for the Dale Watson show. He was in his natural habitat, the Continental Club, and no amount of pain would make me miss that. Milk was trying to kill me, but I’m stronger than milk and would not let it spoil the icing on my cake. He was great, as always, and the club is significantly more crowded than when I see him, so it was a great time. In the end, it was a good two thousand mile trip over four days and there were no huge blowup, so it was a total success.

Unfortunately, when I awoke from my six hour nap upon returning to Denton, I had been stricken with a fever that came in waves along with the slowly diminishing pains in my sides over the next five days. Finally, yesterday, there was no fever, no delirium, no pain. I have no idea what happened to me. Either it was milk or it was the Germans, and both have good reason to want me down.

Commodities Markets: Now with Artificial Filler!

I posted a while back on the recent rise in food prices. The trend continues, and today the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the commodities version of the Securities and Exchange Commission) announced an investigation into the manipulation of commodities prices.
Recently, the CFTC has been expending most of its energy on oil futures, but this announcement heralds an expansion of focus into the rising cost of food, cotton, and other important commodities. Some minor reforms to the futures markets have been proposed, and the CFTC (under pressure from Congress, including several prominent Democratic leaders) seems poised to implement them. As much as I applaud the rethinking of certain rules and procedures, I don’t think these efforts will do much to stabilize the markets, nor do I have much confidence in the CFTC’s leadership (see below).

The biggest contributing factor to the price volatility is not fraud or manipulation—it is simple economics. As reported by the AP’s Rachel Beck, over the past five years, investment dollars have been heavily poured in to commodity index funds, rising from $13 billion per year to $260 billion per year. In that same time span, the price of basic commodities (25 of which comprise the index) has risen 183%. Oil has a lot to do with this, as many “capital I” investors (institutional investors that handle unfathomable amounts of money) are pouring money into oil (as well as food), betting on a continued rise in price.

Before a Senate hearing, George Soros suggested that this rise in investment in commodities “mostly on one side” (up!) has the effect of distorting “the otherwise prevailing balance between supply and demand”. The above mentioned AP article contains a very telling quote from the chief market strategist at LPL Financial:

“The rise in the price of oil has weakened the demand for the physical commodity, but it has boosted the demand for the financial commodity since more investors are chasing returns”.

Exactly. And since commodities indexes have fantastically outperformed stock-based indexes, it may be some time before a correction comes. Many investors are slogging money into commodities to offset stock losses and hedge inflation, but the very act of inflating commodities prices is driving inflation. With all of this information, much of it fueled by Michael Master’s excellent research and congressional testimony, you’d think the CFTC would listen.

But, no. The CFTC’s chief economist has stated in a rebuke to Masters that “fundamental economic forces and the laws of supply and demand” are solely to blame. Not that he isn’t somewhat correct—fundamental economic forces are the issue, but because they are affecting the laws of supply and demand.

It is my hope that in a new administration, with new presidential appointees to oversee the CFTC, that we take a long and hard look at the volatility of the commodities market. It is vastly and inherently different from the stock market. Changes in the former affect nearly everyone in the world (and most acutely the poor and working class). It needs to be regulated much tighter, and at this point, it just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

Vacation/Sickness Blogging, Pt.1

Sorry for my long absence from the blog, the result of nearly a week of post-vacation horror of sickness from which I’ve finally emerged. I’d wanted to write about the family trip right after I got back. Circumstances dictated that I could not think, so now it’s a week later and I’m going to do it anyway. The sickness comes later in the trip, and I’ll talk about that tomorrow. Friday and Saturday are about Anna Mae Wong and the city of Houston, truly diametric opposites in all forms of being.

I’d set myself up for a lot of stress for the weekend but was a little surprised to find everything still amiable after my first full day with the folks. On our way south, we stopped in West, the little Czech town halfway between Dallas and Austin that sells kolache and klobasnek 24/7 to basically a line around the counter year round. Mom fell in love with Texas-themed cowboy hats and “Don’t mess with Texas” t-shirts while Dad fell in love with sausage and cheese baked into bread. While we got the food, we skipped the trinkets, but I was told in no uncertain terms that we’d be back on the way up for sure. I couldn’t wait.

Austin’s always a fun town to hang around in, so we had a good time driving around while Mom ooh-ed the capital area and the skyline and Dad complained about the general size and population of the place. We stopped at some cafe and had bison burgers with blue cheese. While we were unable to convince Mom of the quality taste, lean content, and environmental responsibility of eating bison, we all enjoyed our meals. The entertainment for the evening sounded good to me, but could have been dicey. We had two DVDs of old experimental films, though just how they were experimental varied greatly. It does take some patience in mixed company to watch a bunch of silent films, but it worked out well. Some early Edison films are always fun and there was a great, if drastically overlong, film about turning dogs into sausage and back again. It’s always kind of funny watching old films with animals. Since there was no regulation and seemingly less-than-adequate training, you’d see a lot of guys getting bit and knocked around, though the animals sometimes get beat up pretty good, too, so I guess it’s not all that funny. Still, this film was like a SNL sketch circa 1990, where they’d have a good idea and tell the joke over again for fifteen minutes instead of once. The main attraction was The Toll of the Sea, a 1922 film starring the beautiful Anna May Wong in what is acknowledged to be the first true Technicolor film. While the story is basically Madam Butterfly, and not a great version at that, it is always welcome to see Wong and it was very interesting to see realistic color instead of hand tinting in a silent film.

The next morning was spent driving to Houston, the worst kind of prison of a town I’ve ever been in. With no zoning laws, everything is a mass of industrial swill. The only major city I’d less like to live is Phoenix, but we’re splitting hairs here. Getting to the hotel was an easy challenge, but one that cause a lot of friction, given that we thought that Dad’s new GPS toy was silly and unnecessary. After getting there the old fashioned way, looking at street names, we checked in. It was a decent place (read: no hypos lodged into the walls like my last hotel stay), where Mom stayed in the humidity near the pool while the remaining three went to Enron Park to see the Astros play the Phillies in my first ever National League game and only my fourth ever ballpark. Minute Maid is an appropriate name for the field at this point. It looks like it was designed by Denny’s Corp, with it’s pastel hues, over-gimmicked between inning “games,“ corporate logos at every turn, and that stupid train. While the look of the place made me sick, I really enjoyed the game. I don’t get out to see the Rangers as often as I’d like, I’ve been only twice this year, but I love going out there. The fans, at least the ones who stay until the end of the game, really care about their team, but the crowd overall is as listless as you can get. In Houston, the place was full, which I’ve never seen in Arlington, and the crowd cheered even when the announcers hadn’t told them to. This part of Texas will always be Cowboys Land, and no other team will ever matter, so what can I expect. Still, it was a revelation at a ballpark to see fans rooting for their team and getting into what turned out to be a phenomenal finish in the game.

After the game, we walked back to the hotel through an absolutely barren downtown, proving again how lame Houston is. I’m sure there are parts where people go, but they weren’t downtown. To cap the night, I watched Knocked Up, which was on HBO. “You know that old saying, ‘Don’t drink and drive’? Well, don’t drink and bone!”

Tomorrow, alligators and poison….

Hey Bo Diddley - RIP

Bo Diddley, one of the greats of early rock (and former deputy sheriff of Los Lunas, New Mexico), is dead at 79. As great as Chuck Berry is, of all the early rock'n'rollers, Diddley is my personal favorite.

Bo's work and legacy, like too many other early African-American rockers, was lost in the Elvis-mythmaking of the 1950s period, and it's a shame that he's really forgotten by younger generations. Unfortunately, my generation at best remembers him by and large for being the old guy on those Nike commercials with Bo Jackson, in which different people said “Bo knows X”, and Diddley said, “Bo don’t know Diddley,” which is a true shame, given his legacy. However, it didn't seem to bother him so much, and he always seemed to be in good spirits. I saw him live in the mid-90s at a free show in Cuyahoga Falls - there were maybe 100 people there, but Diddley put on an amazing show, full of energy and joy. He ended up rocking for two and a half hours, playing classic tunes of his, playing blues medleys, and even doing a freestyle rap about the importance of staying in school to some kids in the audience. It was probably one of the three best shows that I've ever seen. That percussive style of playing that he came up with is so influential on the music landscape that it is impossible to cite just a few examples; likewise, it is impossible to overstate Diddley's importance to music today. He will be missed, and hopefully now, he'll get some of the tributes that eluded him for so long.

Bunting

I hate bunting. If you could actually get a hit off of it, like Brett Butler used to do, OK. But sacrifice bunts are the stupidest play in baseball.

Last summer, I was at a Tacoma-Albuquerque AAA game. Tacoma was killing Albuquerque's pitchers. It was obvious in the 1st inning that the guy had nothing. 2 men get on right away. Then, Tacoma's manager has Wladimir Balentien, the #3 hitter and now Seattle's right fielder, lay down a sacrifice bunt. He got it down. The runners were moved. Then the next hitter, Adam Jones, smashed a home run and the rout was on. Tacoma scored 7 in the first and 20 for the game. So why lay down the sacrifice bunt? Why give up an out to get runners over? Maybe if it is an NL game and the pitcher is up. Outside of that, never. And certainly not with a power hitter in that situation.

This brings us to a post from Fire Joe Morgan, where Houston manager Cecil Cooper says the following about his best hitter (and the man who should be the frontrunner for NL MVP) Lance Berkman:

Even slugger Lance Berkman, one of the hottest hitters in baseball this season, resorted to dropping a bunt single in the eighth inning, with the Astros down by four. It was only the second bunt single of his career and first since 2002.

"That's a good play," Cooper said of Berkman's decision to bunt with the third baseman playing him deep. "That's a baseball player's play. It's a nice job. We need baserunners. If you hit a ball out of a ballpark, I call them rally-killers when you get down like that. We need to keep a rally going, and that was a nice play to me."

Wow is that stupid. A home run is a rally killer. Huh.

Historical Image of the Day

Claudine Penn, the first female African-American police officer in Memphis. Hired as a meter maid in 1963, commissioned as an officer in 1968.

What the Hell Happened to Balloons and Hot Dogs?

This is weird. A car dealership in my soon-to-be home of Redlands, California is hosting a Child Safety Event. No Smokey the Bear, no McGruff the Crime Watch Dog, not even Bob the Crosswalk Safety Goat. What do they have instead? FBI-sponsored biometric fingerprinting for kids-- test drive a Nissan and get your offspring an “FBI certified 10 digit fingerprint profile”! But wait, wait, there’s more—you also get a home DNA identification kit!

Does this strike anyone else as a little creepy? Or maybe I just don’t get it because I’ve yet to procreate. In any event, man, the times have changed.

Historical Image of the Day

John Ledyard, early American traveler. First white American to set foot on the west coast of the continent. He attempted to walk around the world, but Catherine of Russia had him arrested and deported. Got venereal disease in Tonga. Died in Cairo of dysentery in Cairo in 1789.

Greatest Security Inspection Ever

I'm just reprinting the whole story.

As a test of airport security, a customs officer planted marijuana in the side pocket of a random suitcase at Narita International Airport in Tokyo, the BBC reports (news.bbc.co.uk).

The test failed when the sniffer dogs were unable to detect the pot. But the officer could not remember which bag he had used.

Using an actual passenger’s suitcase is against regulations, and the airport’s customs service has apologized.

Meanwhile, the marijuana is still out there. “Anyone finding the package has been asked to contact customs officials,” according to the BBC. So far, nobody has spoken up.

I clearly should be traveling to Japan more often.

McCain by the Numbers: Imaginary Tax Rates

McCain’s campaign website has a lot to offer—a veritable treasure trove of bad ideas, overly determined-looking photos, and a creepy link to his MySpace page (under ‘Body Type’, it says 0’0”—I’m not kidding!). Now we can add sly misinformation to the list.

Mr. McCain has his knickers in a loop about corporate taxes.

John McCain Will Reduce The Federal Corporate Tax Rate To 25 Percent From 35 Percent. John McCain believes the taxes we impose on American companies should be no higher than the average rate our major trading partners impose on theirs. We currently have the second-highest combined corporate-tax rate in the industrialized world, and it is driving many businesses and the jobs they create overseas.

(Did I mention his website has a little of the Bob Dole Bob Dole thing going on?)

So we have he second highest corporate tax rate (outfoxed by only Japan on this one!). The operative word here is rate. The rate may be high, but actual revenue collected is an entirely different matter.

First of all, our complex tax code enables corporations to use a variety of tools to reduce their tax liability. Accelerated depreciation, exorbitant executive pay (which is deductible), off-shore sheltering (which the GAO estimates accounts for about $85 billion in uncollected tax revenue), stock options (deductions taken from the price difference in exercised stock options given to employees as part of compensation), leasebacks, transfer pricing, etc., all reduce the effective tax rate much lower than the statutory rate. In the first years of the Bush tax cuts, the effective corporate tax rate sank to an average of around 23%, with many corporations (some that reported pretax profits to their shareholders) having negative effective tax rates.

According to a new Congressional Research Service report, since 1993 (when the top statutory rate was set at 35 percent), the effective corporate tax rate — that is, the share of total corporate profits that is paid to the federal government in corporate income taxes — has averaged 26.3 percent for non-financial corporations, or about one-quarter lower than the 35 percent statutory rate (Congressional Research Service, 2003, as quoted by the Center on Budget and Policy)

Another way of looking at it is taxes as a part of GDP. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which is a research organization funded by the governments of major developed nations (i.e., not a fringe lefty think tank), released a report about real taxes in various nations. Their methodology looks at corporate taxes as a percentage of GDP. Corporate taxes in 2004 (after the Bush tax cuts), dipped to 2.4% of GDP (28th lowest out of 30 countries), versus a 4.0% average for other OECD member nations. The U.S., circa 1965, had a percentage closer to 4.0%. When you include all taxes paid, the U.S. remains one of the least taxed nations as a percentage of GDP. The idea that we’re taxing business off of U.S. soil is just ridiculous.

For yet another view, we can look at corporate taxes as a percentage of all federal tax revenues; the Bush tax cuts ushered in a new low in this figure. In the 1950’s, corporate taxes comprised 28% of federal tax revenue; in the 1960’s, 21%, and now less than 10%.

With all the damage the Bush tax cuts have done with respect to corporate taxes, it seems fairly irresponsible to slash them lower. Much of the criticism about McCain deals with how close he is to Bush on most issues. On this one, he’s even more radical than Bush, and that’s just plain scary.

Maggot Brain (It's Worth Repeating)

By my estimations, Rolling Stone jumped the shark roughly 37 years ago, so this is no surprise, and I'll give them credit for at least not putting "Freebird" or "Stairway to Heaven" as #1. That said (and I've said this in no uncertain terms before), there is no way in the world that Maggot Brain is #60, and the notion that it's not as good as nearly 30 minutes of the Grateful Dead noodling, is just risible. I should be glad that at least there isn't a Doors song ahead of Maggot Brain, and that at least RS had the decency to put Chuck Berry at #1 over Zeppelin, but one more time, for all the kids out there....

...Maggot Brain is the greatest guitar song ever. Period.

Historical Image of the Day

Sugar refinery. Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. Garland, Utah, 1960

Harvey Korman, RIP

I was sad to read about the death of Harvey Korman. While I was pretty young when Korman was active, the first comedy show I really remember watching was the Carol Burnett Show. That show contained some fantastic comedians--Korman, Burnett, Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence. I think it was the first time I realized what comedy was. I have always remembered the show fondly. Of all these people, Conway is really the only way even remotely active these days, but they are all pretty old. I hadn't heard anything about Korman for a long time so I wasn't that surprised. Still, it's sad.

Also, his role in Blazing Saddles was awesome.

Meet Your Entertainment for the 2008 Republican National Convention

An ongoing joke is the "entertainment" that Republicans attract for their conventions. Given that virtually every artist is a lefty, Republicans are forced to rely on the likes of Ted Nugent, The Gaither Family, and Rich Little.

Well, maybe we can add Kiss to this year's spectacle. I really want to see McCain and Gene Simmons together.

Moved In (for the Most Part)

After a week, I am in New York safely, and finally connected to the Internets. Still trying to get some stuff together though - I hope to be back in full form by the end of next week.

And it is definitely worth more time than I have, but I would just like to mention that, while eating breakfast this morning, I saw that my new governor (and most favorite governor I've ever had already, just for the obstacles he has overcome), Paterson, announced that New York will recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states or countries. While that's not the same as making civil unions for same-sex marriages legal in New York, the fact that he's willing to give same-sex couples the same privileges and recognition as opposite-sex couples is really, really good news.

In Defense of the Religious (and regarding tolerance)

Man, there was a lot of hate thrown around on that post and comment thread below about Obama's faith.

Including comparisons to Iran, Saudi Arabia, et al.

Let's make one thing really clear before I even start here. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the world's repressive theocratic regimes are not bad because their leaders believe in God.

They are bad because their leaders believe they have the right to force everyone to live and die by their specific interpretation of their religious texts.

We discussed tolerance a little bit, which dissolved mostly into joking about how none of us tolerate martinis made with vodka. I wrote some notes back then about the word "tolerance" and how I don't really like it and I prefer "acceptance." Because that's what I want--I don't want you people to tolerate me because I'm a tattooed freaky ex-goth Jewish feminist, I want you to accept that my life and my positions are valid, that I'm a human being just like you.

I find it funny that pretty much everyone was very accepting when I wrote about the transgender kids, and when it comes to religion, we're all angry that a candidate is religious.

Obama appears to be the only one of the three candidates who attends services regularly. If you read his first book, he candidly discusses his lack of belief early on, and his conversion. He appears to be sincere about his religion--and I would argue that his unwillingness at first to sever ties with Rev. Wright speaks to that.

Hillary Clinton is also religious, in a rather more creepy way, because her religion is actually tied to the Christian Right that DOES freak most of us out.

My sister goes to church every week and goes to Bible study on Tuesday nights, and she's as committed (though less mouthy) a progressive as I am. Her church accepts gay and lesbian members, discusses sex openly, and donates money to the community and abroad. Her Christian beliefs were found in high school, but they drive her to use her extra cash to make microloans to women in developing countries, to support marriage equality, and to vote Democrat.

I do not go to temple. I consider myself Jewish only in a roundabout way. I almost married a Muslim convert, but his religious beliefs and my lack thereof proved not to be compatible, so I understand the feeling that someone's religion and your lack of it may not mesh--and in your personal life, you have every right to feel that way. I certainly did.

But when my father was in the hospital this summer and I had to pull myself together and run the family business basically on my own, you're damn right I prayed. And I don't give a crap if you think I'm crazy for believing in "invisible sky fairies."

Lawyers, Guns and Money did some excellent writing on religion, intolerant atheism, and plurality here, here, and here. (In chronological order.) I highly recommend them.

The real question should be: does Barack Obama's religion lead him to make the right choices or the wrong choices? If thinking about and yes, praying about the decision to speak out against the Iraq war led him to make that choice, then good for him. His religion has also led him to find common ground with even wingnuts like Sam Brownback on issues like AIDS that we all should care about.

Religion has always been something that's fascinated me in part because I was the child of a mixed-faith marriage, and because I could never really put my finger on where I belonged or what I believed. As I mentioned, I confused my acceptance of others' beliefs for my ability to live under those rules, and I absolutely understand why no one else wants religious rules enacted on them.

And if you actually care to learn more about Obama's particular brand of Christianity, NPR did some excellent programs in the wake of the Wright controversies. It's more than just "invisible sky fairies."

We expect heterosexual religious people in middle America to be tolerant of gay marriage, but don't offer them the same? I think we need to move beyond 'tolerance' and work on acceptance. If someone believes in Jesus Christ and that makes them a better person, good on them. And if that someone can actually get Middle America to vote for a black, pro-choice, anti-war progressive, who talks about negotiations with Iran, named Barack Hussein Obama, by reminding them that he too believes in the same God as they do, GOOD.

Higher Education In Texas

Nothing like dealing with higher education in Texas to warm the heart. Luckily, I am not working in the public institutions. But down here, it doesn't matter that much.

First, we have SMU continuing to whore themselves out to the Bush Foundation. Not only will the Bush Library be located at SMU, but there will be a special institute totally unregulated by the university dedicated to pushing the Bush "vision." Thus, for the next several decades, SMU will be known as a school whose most public mission is pursuing the vision of the worst president in over a century, embarrassing itself as a outlet for right-wing propaganda rather than as an institution of higher learning.

Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry continues his attack on tenure because everyone knows we college professors think that our primary mission to turn our students into homosexual communists.

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry exhorted state university and college leaders Wednesday to fundamentally alter higher education by shifting how public money is spent, how professors are rewarded and how success is graded.

Mr. Perry spoke to about 60 regents, all of whom he appointed, and touted an accountability system that would basically shift power from tenured faculties and university institutions and put more emphasis on performance, such as demonstrated teaching skills, how much research money is brought in and how many students are taught and graduated.

[ . . . ]

The summit of regents and chancellors was hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think-tank, which invited other speakers and handed out reading materials that suggested great American universities have been blunted by intellectuals and left-leaning doctrine.

Barba de Chiva admits that this is all true, writing:

That's right. In my spare time, I create my own set of leftist reading materials. You wouldn't believe the damage I can do in a single summer session of English 4309, Advanced Grammar. My lefty colleagues and I have a good laugh at our secret name for the class, Advanced Gramsci! Ha ha! Suckers! They think they're learning about the non-finite verb phrases functioning nominally, but they're actually being indoctrinated!

This reminds me of my own attempts to indoctrinate my students. It's time for Classic Alterdestiny! This post from February 1, 2005 demonstrates how my U.S. history survey class is actually a plot to get students reading theory that will make them left-wing America-hating monsters. 3 years down the road, I should update this. Not to mention sharpen the descriptions. But I'm not going to edit that now, so here it is:

HISTORY 161, HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
In this course we will learn how to hate America, your parents, apple pie, the flag, the modern world, and God. The goal of this course is to turn you all from God-loving Americans into drug-taking, homosexual atheists. Any dissent in this course will automatically ensure you of an F in the course. We will learn how to hate America by reading other God-hating commies.

Week 1. Readings--Thomas Paine, Common Sense
The goal of this week is to prepare you for bloody revolution
Your assignment is to write an essay discussing your plans to prepare for the revolution against America.

Week 2. Readings--Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
The goal of this week is to teach you to reject God.
Your assignment is to desecrate a local church. Urinate in the holy water, have sex on the altar, use a statue of the Virgin Mary to pleasure yourself. Inventiveness is highly encouraged.

Week 3. Readings--Karl Marx, Kapital
The goal of this week is to teach you to understand the heart of the capitalist beast and to show why capitalism is doomed.
Your assignment is to write a 200 word essay summarizing the key argument of the book.

Week 4. Readings--Prince Kropotkin, His Thoughts and Works
The goal of this week is to show why all government is evil and should be destroyed.
Your assignment is to blow up a symbol of capitalism. Or just blow up whatever you can find.

Week 5. Readings--V.I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?
The goal of this week is to teach you how to instigate a revolution
Your assignment is to preach the oncoming revolution on the streets, to your parents, or in your church.

Week 6. Readings, Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis, An Introduction
The goal of this week is to show how the US controls the world and oppresses all people of color.
Your assignment is to pick one country and show how a revolution will end American dominance over it.

Week 7. Readings, Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
The goal of this week is to show why white people hate everyone in the Third World.
Your assignment is to write a paper on why America should celebrate the birthdays of leaders like Patrice Lumumba, Robert Mugabe, and Julius Nyrere instead of racists George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Week 8. Readings, Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The goal of this week is to discuss why the "Man", meaning all of us whiteys, continue to screw the black population of the world.
Your assignment is to kill a white person. If it's yourself, you will get a posthumous "A" for the course since I won't have to grade any more of your work.

Week 9. Readings, Mao Tse-Tung, The Little Red Book
The goal of this week is to find out how to create a radical revolutionary culture.
Your assignments are to form small groups and self-criticize as well as to denounce elders in public. If you can force your parents, teacher, or a minister to their knees and to cry, you get extra credit. But no extra credit for only one. They must be on their knees and crying. If you denounce me, you get double the extra credit.

Week 10. Readings--Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism
The goal of this week is to teach you that Israel is the antichrist and should be destroyed with as much violence as possible.
Your assignment is to pick a group of people and find out how the Jews have screwed them over. It's very important that you don't engage in any anti-Semitic violence this week. If you've learned anything so far, it's that you must work within the movement and that individual action will result in the fall of the revolutionary movement. Not to mention that it will lead to a 1/3 grade deduction at the end of the semester. If you need a reinforcement of this, watch I Am Cuba

Week 11. Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
The goal of this week is to show you how white capitalist culture has destroyed the environment.
Your assignment is to chop down a billboard.

Week 12. Readings--James Scott, Seeing Like A State
The goal of this week is to show how capitalism has screwed up the world and how Scott is a counter-revolutionary rightist for claiming that communist nations caused the same problems to people and the environment as capitalist movements. See, critical reading is encouraged in college.
Your assignment is to find the plans for a high-modernist structure, preferably a dam. We will discuss how to destroy it in class.

Week 13. Readings--Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference
The goal for this week is for you to be able to tell your parents and other authority how stupid they are because they don't understand deconstructionism.
Your assignment is to deconstruct your relationship with your parents.

Week 14. Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History
The goal for this week is for you to understand why women are better than men.
Your assignment depends on your gender. If you are female, you must dominate and humiliate a male. If you are a male you must be dominated or humiliated by a female.

Week 15. Readings--Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinities
The goal of this week is show that acting within established gender norms is evil and oppresses the world.
Your assignment is to cross-dress for a week. Experimental sex is encouraged.

Week 16. Readings--Judith Butler, The Judith Butler Reader
The goal of this week is to learn a language that people in red states can't understand as well as to reinforce your new status as homosexuals.
Your assignment is to film yourself having sex with at least one other person of your gender. More than 1 is encouraged. If you're particularly shy, a goat will suffice.

Final Project
The final will be to start a violent, yet racially, gender, and sexually tolerant revolution. We will begin the revolution at the designated time for your final exam as listed in the schedule of classes. Blue books are not required for this final.

Microhouses

While not as appealing to me as large apartment complexes, I love the idea of microhomes that Julia Steinberger writes about.

A huge problem with fighting environmental problems is our reliance on home building for economic growth. That home building is simply not environmentally sustainable. Moreover, Americans' consumer demands have led to these gigantic starter castles popping up all over the landscape. Even trailer homes now can clock in at over 2000 square feet. This is simply unacceptable. It leads to the overuse of resources, the spatial dispersion of homes, and massive uses of energy.

One good first step would be change how we calculate property taxes. Instead of being taxed solely by the value of your own, basing a significant amount of the tax on your square footage would be a great idea. Your house should be as nice as you can make it, but if you are living in an 800 square foot space, you should pay less than someone with 2000 square feet.

Plus microhouses can have a wonderful charm that starter castles or even the average home built in this decade almost never have. The picture above from Reno is quite lovely. I would certainly live in such a place if I could.