This is not
only a problem for Rick Perry. We live in a democracy. It's on all of
us. If Texas really did kill an innocent man, that's a terrible
tragedy. But if Texas and its governor lack the courage to face the
truth and deal squarely with it, the tragic act will be magnified by
deep and lasting disgrace, and we will all stand condemned by our
collective moral cowardice
The whole piece is pretty great, and I urge everyone to read it. I picked out this part because I think that the responsibilities of citizenship need to emphasized. It is a weak to lambaste crooked politicians, while doing nothing to rid ourselves of them. It is demagoguery to blame Washington (or Austin) and pretend as though you have zero say in who gets to live there. Take back your name.
The Slow Jam As A Battle Rap
From the Open thread, we have this collabo from H-Town and Jodeci. Yeah, it's definitely old man in the club...Or is it a 12 year old in the club? The fascinating thing about this song is that while it's ostensibly a love ballad, it almost comes off like a battle rap. Like, the dude isn't so much talking about how the woman makes him feel, as he's celebrating his own prowess.
Nothing wrong with that--Wilson Pickett called himself "A Man And A Half." But it's, to me, one of the more off-putting aspect of male R&B singers from the 90s. A lot of these dudes spent too much time around rappers--it's almost as if they were singing for each other. The music feels like it's derived from how a 13 year old might imagine sex. ("Do you want on a table? Do you want in the shower? Do you want it in the jacuzzi?") Ahem. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that...Moving along...
One of things I loved about Mary is her approach was always a little more mature. And revisiting Prince now, there something about him having female back-up singers which completes his music, something about him having Sheila E. sing, "We can fuck until the dawn," and not way Lil' Kim would say it.
All of that said...It was cool to hear my man give us that old "And you know, and you knooooowwww!" Hehe. That's classic.
Flashback
Like G.D., I'm always partial to Thought. But Em slaughters this joint...
Open Thread At Noon
Go ahead folks.
A Beige Future
There's an interesting discussion going on down in the Light-Skin Brothers thread over whether we'd all be better off if everyone looked like Vanity and Shemar Moore:
I agree that the "beige future" is rather far off, especially if the growth rate of interracial mating doesn't skyrocket.
I also agree that it sure would be nice if we got rid of prejudices in the meantime.
And I agree that even in a beige future, people might focus on
minute differences in the shade of beige, just as they do with
different shades of white and black (and others) right now.
But I disagree that the beige future would involve any one race
disappearing or "removing the dark-skinned people." The whole point is,
if the races actually crossed each others' cultural borders and mated
in a more random fashion, and populations were not isolated as they
have been for centuries, then the common phenotype would eventually be
intermediate and the extremes would become very uncommon.
The really
dark-skinned phenotype might vanish, but so would the really white
phenotype, along with some other traits. If we're willing to let go of
our racial pride and vanity, then nobody should give a rat's ass if the
more extreme phenotypes are no longer prevalent in the distant future.
I think you may be envisioning a whole swath of humanity being
deliberately bred out of existence, when in reality it would just be
the inevitable product of evolution----changes in allele frequencies over
time----with the more extreme phenotypes fading from view. But of course
events in the future could change all that, anyhow, and in 5000 years
we could be back to our current color scheme.
I married someone of a different "race," and we had a kid this year.
Years ago there may have been a part of me that desired to see myself
and some of my recessive traits in my kids. If that desire hadn't been
dismissed, I probably would've sought a mate who looked like me, and my
kid might have blue eyes instead of brown, or whatever. But that shit
really doesn't matter. I understand that having pride in one's
phenotype and one's race may be a necessary reaction to racism and
prejudice, but it's still vanity and it's still pride. Now, I don'
think people should go out of their way to marry someone of another
race, but if we cut out the prejudice AND cut out the vanity and pride,
we'd see a hell of a lot more of it.
By all means, let's just do away with prejudice. I'm just saying
that if racial traits aren't discernible then it's a lot harder to
discriminate.
I used to think something like this, albeit from a very different political perspective. My basic notion was that white supremacy was system of beliefs stretching back into antiquity and popping up wherever blacks and whites interacted, primarily based on physical difference--or something like that. Essentially, I believed that as long as we looked demonstrably different we would hate each other.
There is some truth to that--people tend to discriminate against people who are different from them, and the most obvious marker of difference is phenotype. From this perspective, a black/white marriage is a blow against racism, and our history of white supremacy, because it produces kids who presumably don't represent the phenotypical extreme of blackness or whiteness. The hope is that one day, we'll all be beige hence rendering racism inoperative, hence the "Beige Theory" of fighting racism.
I think to believe that requires a misunderstanding of humanity, history, and white supremacy. I'll start where I'm weakest. I don't know how the great St. Clair Drake's book, Black Folk Here And There has held up, and perhaps its conclusions are outdated. But as I recall, one of the books most profound arguments was that while prejudice and stereotyping based on--but not limited to--color is pretty natural, white supremacy is not. There is a difference between thinking black people--or any people who are different than you-- aren't that bright, and thinking that any black man should be lynched for having sex with a white woman.
I meant to link to this convo between Ezra and Robert Lazsewski on the public option and opting out. Good stuff.
It's Too Early In The Morning...
...to think about Alison Samuels rather obsessive meditations on other people's kids. But I was just surfing through PostBougie, so why not. This from Samuels second (!!) meditation on hair-care for other people's kids:
I thought long and hard before sitting down two weeks ago to write an article
about the state of Zahara Jolie-Pitt's hair. I knew any discussion
about hair and culture would spark an angry debate in the world of
bloggers and beyond. Just ask Chris Rock. His new film, Good Hair,
has brought him all kinds of criticism and drama, so at least I'm in
good company. Days after my story hit the Web, the comments sections of
our site was overrun with furious remarks, and blogs had a serious field day roasting me all that week.
Still,
I'm undeterred by the venom shown to me on the Web. I continue to
believe Angelina Jolie should take better care of Zahara's hair. Hey,
if Maddox can get blond highlights and a Mohawk, Zahara can at least
get a quick top knot and rubber band. Is that asking too much?
First of all, all of the Jolie-Pitt kids have some unique circumstances. In addition to the transracial adoption angle, the Jolie-Pitts are a nomadic family, settling in places for a while and then moving on. This means that they are all Third Culture Kids.
They do not have a dominant society that they grew up in, which means
that they may or may not absorb the cultural norms of any of the places
they have lived. The children may grow up to feel allegiance to one
particular place, or none at all. All this is to say that Zahara may
not grow up identifying with the black American experience.
No doubt, Zahara Jolie-Pitt is black. But in the global sense of the word, not in the American way Samuels applies in her piece. As many commenters pointed out in our original post about this,
Z is not African-American. She was adopted from Ethiopia, and if Ms.
Samuels is ever in DC, I would be more than happy to take her down to
the U Street Corridor so she can see how many women from Ethiopia wear
their hair.
In addition to co-signing all of the above, I'd like to add: eff outta here.
In addition to "eff outta here," (which I wholeheartedly co-sign) I'd say the following: There are many reasons why it's wrong to presume that your particular, specific, individual narrative of blackness is The Only Narrative Of BlacknessEver In All History.
October 29, 2009
The Weight Of Being Demonstrably Wrong
Andrew reminds us of this laugher served up by TNR during 2004 Democratic primary:
"It may take years, or even decades, for Democrats to relearn the
lessons we thought, naively, they had learned for good under Clinton.
But one day, Joe Lieberman's warnings in this campaign will look
prophetic. And the principles he has espoused will once again guide the
Democratic Party. It will be the work of this magazine, to whatever
small degree possible, to hasten that day,"
That's a pretty ridiculous statement, and I thought it was ridiculous at the time. But it's the sort of thing you're bound to eventually say if you're in the business of doling out opinions. I'm sure, at some point, someone will go back through the archives and find me saying something equally stupid. Comes with job, I guess.
On the real, though, I wish TNR had been right. Lieberman is a nightmare.
Apropos Of Nothing
Man, who didn't love this...
UPDATE: Responding to Breaker's point below about iconic moments, I don't think this sort of thing could happen today. Media is just so fragmented.
I spent a lot of time railing against Obama/Cosby comparisons. But I think Obama's victory comes close in that sort of iconic way--I just won't forget all the pictures of crying black people. Of course that's politics, not entertainment. Man, am I glad that I was alive to see that...
Open Thread At Noon
Go for it.
Light-Skin Brothers Making A Comeback
I was watching The Last Dragon last night, and joking with Kenyatta about Vanity. Man, the whole neighborhood had it bad for her. We were in the middle of that scene where DeBarge does "Rhythm Of The Night" and Vanity sings "Seventh Heaven." (Kenyatta kept yelling "She's horrible!" And yeah, she basically was. Fine as hell, but no Aretha.) Anyway we were talking about how yellow was thing back then. It's standard business these days for black actors to note their "exotic" lineage ("Such and such has French, Cherokee, Aleutian and Martian ancestry...") but back then everyone, it seemed, wanted to look, and claim to be, biracial.
I'm talking about people who I worship today, and half-worshiped then--Mike, Prince, DeBarge etc. I'd watch their videos, and it wasn't just the personal optics that offended, it was the multi-racial cast--the whites, the Asians, the Latinos etc. (Yeah, mostly the whites.) I think so many of us grew up in neighborhoods where there wasn't that sort of diversity and we believed that the pulsing heart of American music was there on the block, and anything that didn't pledge fealty to the block, wasn't "real" music.
There's a passage in my book where I try to explain the appeal of hip-hop (circa '88), from the perspective of people who feel like their heroes are compromising themselves in order to get heard:
Niggers were on MTV in lipstick and curls, extolling their exotic quadoons, big-upping Fred Astaire and speaking like the rest of us didn't exist. I'm talking S-curls and sequins, Lionel Richie dancing on the ceiling. I'm talking the corporate pop of Whitney, and Richard Pryor turning into the toy.
We felt--I felt--that these guys were taking our music, but not taking us. And so when hip-hop started cresting into it's golden age, it felt like, "Yeah, this is us. This is the whole of us." To me personally, these are some of the most meaningful words ever recorded:
Elvis was a hero to most But he never meant ---- to me you see Straight up racist that sucker was Simple and plain Mother---- him and John Wayne Cause I'm Black and I'm proud I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
Now they are also erroneous words (the evidence of Elvis straight up racism is thin) but that only makes the point. These were the things--rumors, warts and all--that were said when it was only us around, and we were tired of whispering them. When Chuck said that it was like an exorcism. It was a statement about an almost parallel reality ("Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps") that had gone unacknowledged. I can't speak for black youth everywhere, but in my set, by 92, you were embarrassed to say "sexy young ladies of the light-skin breed" or "redbone booties I'm out to wax." You couldn't really rock the S-Curl anymore--at least not out east. And you'd be publicly mocked for throwing in green contacts.
In his quest for a third term, Mr. Bloomberg has deprived Mr.
Thompson of what many once regarded as his political birthright: the
blessings of the city's most powerful black ministers, who together
preach to tens of thousands of congregants each week. And to win them
over, he has deployed an unusual combination of city money, private
philanthropy, political appointments and personal attention, creating a
web of ties to black clergy members that is virtually unheard of for a
white elected official in New York City.
Some prominent ministers
have been appointed by Mr. Bloomberg to influential city boards and
committees. Others have enjoyed the administration's help in buying
city property or winning zoning concessions for pet projects. A few of
the largest institutions, including Abyssinian and the Greater Allen
A.M.E. Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, have taken in millions of dollars
in contracts to provide city services during Mr. Bloomberg's eight
years in office.
Looming over it all is Mr. Bloomberg's dazzling
wealth, whether already bestowed -- as in the case of Mr. Butts -- or
hoped for down the line.
"We have to come to his foundation
sooner or later," said the Rev. Timothy Birkett, pastor of the Church
Alive Community Church in the Bronx, who is backing the mayor this
year. "We hope that he will be receptive."
Those who support Mr.
Bloomberg say that the mayor has earned their endorsements strictly on
the merits of his record in office, especially on education and crime.
But some critics say the outpouring of support owes more to the
dependence of many black churches on a friendly ear at City Hall.
This strikes me as politics as usual, no? I mean to the extent that having a billionaire mayor is "usual." I've been doing a lot of reading about Detroit lately, and this reminds me of Henry Ford's relationship with the black church in the 40s. Ford was a rabid anti-semite, but he saw how he could use black labor as a power base to dilute white unions.
Obviously, this is different, but the role is the same--the black church as a pathway to black popular power. I deeply suspect that you could do a similar story (with some changes for the conditions) if not about Bloomberg and synagogues in Brooklyn, then other instances when mayors used community institutions to curry votes. Politics is transactional.
I guess what makes this different is that there's a black guy in the race. I don't know how to say this though--it doesn't feel like it. Not that Thompson isn't black, but it just doesn't feel like it has the same significance. We're entering into a kind of Raheem Morris/Jim Caldwell phase of black politics. That's probably a good thing.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell did not acknowledge a connection between
head injuries on the football field and later brain diseases while
defending the league's policies on concussions before Congress on
Wednesday.
It's about what you'd expect. One thing that would help is putting as much distance between the coaches and the team doctors as possible. These guys need to hang out with the refs, not the team.
October 28, 2009
Antoine Walker Living The High Life
And now laid low. The Globe does a good job of giving some perspective on how someone can basically blow a fortune:
Financial advisers often caution professional athletes to look at the
big numbers on their contracts and subtract half for taxes. That rough
math would have left Walker with approximately $55 million in career
earnings to spend. NBA agents and players contacted for this article
say an annual "burn rate'' of $2 million to $4 million isn't unusual
for the living expenses of an elite player. With Walker's taste for the
finer things, former teammates suspect he fell on the higher end of the
scale. In the 10 years since his first max-contract, that could account
for about $40 million of Walker's total wealth.
Follow the link for the sad details.
Clarification On The Press
I just wanted to follow-up on that swipe I took yesterday in this post praising Ezra. I think I probably could have thrown in some context that might clarify where I'm coming from.
The first thing that needs to be said is that I consider myself a print guy. I started in print, and should I be lucky, I'll die doing print. I wrote, almost exclusively in print, for over ten years before I started blogging. In that time I covered everything from community development to police brutality to local politics to Bill Cosby to M.F. Doom. At almost every stage I was aided in that pursuit by editors who were willing to make space for stories that pushed the limits of the average attention span. I don't dismiss criticism of bloggers by "traditional" journalists out of any questioning of the value of newspapers, books and magazines.
That said, I do find this sense that, say, people writing on the internet
don't report to be snobbish, ignorant, and ultimately unreflective. Journalism is riddled with problems. It's practitioners are fond of claiming "objectivity" while practicing weak-ass "on the other hand"-ism. It's often poorly written, and betrays a loyalty to getting a quote, but not necessarily to getting a quote that tells us something. (Less spokespeople, please.) It uses anonymous sources as a crutch, hence reducing whatever reserves of trust still remain in the reader. At the highest level, it's dominated by the Ivies to such an extent that you'd think no one at a state school ever had an original thought.
These are not the reasons why the business model is suffering--though they aren't helping. But I bring them out to counter this sense that great journalism requires a bank of seasoned editors, a hallowed masthead extending back through decades, and a bevy of bright young things who've mastered the art of contrarianism. ("Does Taco Bell help you lose weight?")
Incredible journalism is like incredible baby-making--it starts with passion. The guy combing through the city budgets because it's his job, isn't the same as the guy combing through them because it keeps him up at night, because he thinks about it when he shouldn't be. Institutions support that passion--but they don't create it. When my old Howard buddy was killed by the cops, it was all I could think about, and it was all I wanted to write about. And I did it almost for free, because it helped me sleep at night. I was burning to get it down. I deeply suspect that the bloggers you love, and the reporters you love, are similarly on fire inside.
I don't have a strict allegiance to "journalism," as much as I have one to the written word. Perhaps there's no difference. But my point is that to the extent blogging makes it possible for more people who are "on fire" to employ the written word, than it's good for the written word. It's true that it creates a situation in which anyone, for $15 a month, can say their piece. But I have more faith in the market of ideas, than in a brain-trust of editors, to separate the wheat from the chafe.
Moreover, while there are an incredible number of bloggers out there, with no institutional support, who suck. There are a truly shocking number of writers, who have all the institutional support in the world, and not only suck, but bring nothing save cynicism, incuriousity, and cold poisoned hearts. And the institutions enable them. To the extent that blogging exposes these frauds, I am all in.
Pimpology
I got into a debate with my Pops yesterday about Gladwell's piece and whether his argument that football and dog-fighting are of the same piece, was valid. I argued for free will. Pops, who's loved to poke at my opinions since I was two or three, argued that, in both cases, conditioning and programming is essential, and thus Gladwell was correct.
His big point was where does free will actually begin? One thing Gladwell does really well is show how pro athletes are basically conditioned to play with injuries, which they shouldn't, not simply out of bravery, but out of fear of losing their job. So, does that conditioning, along with all the conditioning they've recieved since Pop Warner, nullify free will? We talked about Earl Campbell and how busted up he was at the end of his career, but how he insisted that he'd do it all over again. Is he conditioned to believe that? How much social programming has led him to believe it was all worth it? Like I said, I argued for free will, and basically believe in it.
Sorry folks, I had to hustle up from B-more this morning, and all the trains are backed up. (Ended up having to fly.) We'll be up and running soon. We'll skip the open thread. Talk amongst yourselves for now.
October 27, 2009
'The Joy Of Watching Peyton Manning'
From Michael Lombardi:
Winning football games is being able to cover the many details that
present themselves each week, and Manning leaves no stone unturned,
regardless of the quality of the opponent. He takes every team
seriously, and his drive for perfection is a remarkable trait.
Since Manning entered the league in 1998, he's achieved a
quarterback rating over 100 in 40 percent of the games he's played.
Meanwhile, over half of the teams have had more than 10 different
starting quarterbacks. As the quarterback carousel goes round and
round, Manning has been able to live in the continuity of the system.
As he told me, "I have only played in three systems my entire life --
high school, college and the pros."
As the famous French writer Francois de La Rochefoucauld once said,
"I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as
indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don't know where I
would be without it." I greatly admire Mr. Manning, and without having
to root against him, watching him perform is just plain incredible.
He isn't the best ever--yet. Watching Manning this season, though, I really think he has a shot. He threw a TD to Dallas Clark this week that was just perfect.
It's weird watching him though, because Kenyatta's family in Tennessee kinda hates him (They got a street named after him. Peyton Manning ain't never won nothin. This was pre-Super Bowl.) I can't even give you the details, because I've never much cared. I think they were huge Tee Martin fans. Anyway, whenever I'm going on about Manning, Kenyatta gets this mock-Tennessee accent going and sort of mutters Peyton Manning don't walk on wartah.
Uhh, yes he does...
Atheists As Religious Kooks
You listen to this, and could so easily see this ending in a pogrom. This idea that only a belief in Allah\Christ could convince someone to fly a plane into a building just strikes me as incredibly naive.
Open Thread At Noon
Look at them run!
To Step Back And Kiss Myself
The Kennedy Center is giving Bill Cosby an award. This seems like a fine time to go on about how awesome I am. But I'm too lazy. I guess this link will have to do.
For the real liberals, the public option was already a compromise
from single-payer. For the slightly less radical folks, the public
option that's barred from partnering with Medicare to maximize the
government's buying power was a compromise down from a Medicare-like
insurance plan. For the folks even less radical than that, the public
option that states can "opt out" of is a compromise from the straight
public option. Access to the public option will be a political question
settled at the state level. It is not a settled matter of national
policy.
In many ways, this is a fundamentally conservative approach to a
liberal policy experiment. It's only offered to individuals eligible
for the insurance exchanges, which is a small minority of the
population. The majority of Americans who rely on employer-based
insurance would not be allowed to choose the exchanges. From there, it
is only one of many options on the exchange, and only in states that
choose to have it. In other words, it has been designed to preserve the
status quo and be decided on the state level. Philosophically, these
are major compromises liberals have made on this plan. They should get
credit for that.
I was going to wait until all of this was settled to say this, but the Lowery-esque starbursts are over-fucking-whelming: I've found Ezra indispensable over the past few months. Gasbags who run off at the lip about how bloggers don't report, and how bloggers are ruining journalism, need to sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, read this dude and take notes on how to not suck at your job.
I don't ever want to brag about not reading--but I've basically stopped reading newspaper stories in this case, for Ezra's blog. (Along with Jonathan Cohn, by the way.) I'm sure part of that is because we're on the same side. But the other part is that I just find him his writing clearer, his reporting just as good, and his insights much sharper than anything else I've seen.
"Oh teh intenetz are eating my jobzzz!!!" Please. Put the bottle down, and step slowly away from the weak-sauce.
It's something to see these old trailers. When I was young, brooding, and melodramatic, I use to tell people I wanted this played at my funeral. Now I feel guilty to have ever besmirched this classic with my self-absorption.
My Commenters Are Better Than Your Bloggers
Here's commenter tressa with an interesting point on Willingham's laughable defense attorney, David Martin. I'm not a lawyer. I'd be very interested in how many lawyers agree with this perspective, especially after watching the interview:
As a lawyer, I am ashamed that this
man is a member of my profession. As a defense attorney, I am horrified
that he's on my side of the bar. His approach to defense work is not
only unethical, it also appears to be sanction-worthy.
As an attorney, your job is to be a zealous advocate for your
client. Period. You job is NOT to determine for yourself whether your
client is guilty or innocent and then provide a defense accordingly.
Your job is not to make a determination that a witness for the other
side is a "straight shooter" and then cross-examine him with all due
deference. Your job is not discredit potentially exculpatory evidence
because it doesn't jive with your personal theory of the case or your
personal impressions of the defendant. Your job is not to conduct
"scientific" investigations on your own and then use those
investigations to confirm your belief that your client is guilty and
probably deserves to be executed. Your job is not to honor the
prosecution and defer to law enforcement or make their jobs easier for
them. And your job certainly isn't to go on national television after
YOUR CLIENT has been EXECUTED and say, "Yeah, but he was a bad dude,
anyway."
At the risk of repeating Andrew, I'm going to quote Ezra:
I'm also hearing a lot of irritation from congressional Democrats at
the mixed signals being sent by the White House. If the White House
wants to advocate for the trigger, fine. If the White House wants to
advocate for the public option, fine. But for the White House to host
one meeting where they signal that they're uncomfortable with Reid's
decision to push the envelope on the public option and then make a big
effort to walk that meeting back after the left gets angry is confusing
everybody.
I don't really get the strategy here. It's like they want a public option but don't want to devote any nonrefundable political capitol to it. Or they don't much a care about a public option, and are scared to say so.
In Amsterdam, the red-light district is the oldest and most notorious
neighborhood. Two picturesque canals frame countless small pedestrian
alleyways lined with legal prostitutes, bars, porn stores and coffee
shops. In 2008, I visited the local police station and asked about the
neighborhood's problems. I laughed when I heard that dealers of fake
drugs were the biggest police issue -- but it's true. If fake-drug
dealers are the worst problem in the red-light district, clearly
somebody is doing something right.
In another neighborhood in Amsterdam, a man caught breaking into
cars was released pending trial. The arresting officer returned to him,
along with his shoelaces and personal property, his heroin and drug
tools. I was amazed. The officer admitted he wasn't supposed to do
that; heroin is illegal. But the officer had thought it through: "As
soon as he runs out of his heroin, he'll break into another car to get
money for his next hit."
For the addict, the problem was drugs. But for the police officer, the
problem was crime. It made no sense, the officer told me, to take the
drugs and hasten the addict's next crime. The addict was not a criminal
when he had drugs (beyond possessing them); he was a criminal when he
didn't have drugs.
I asked the officer if giving drugs to addicts sends the wrong
message. He said his message was simple: "Stop breaking into cars!"
With a subtle smirk in my direction, he added, "It is very strange that
a country as violent as America is so obsessed with jailing drug
addicts." Indeed, Dutch policymakers plan, regulate, fix and
pragmatically debate harms and benefits. Police in the Netherlands are
not involved in a drug war; they're too busy doing real police work.
This goes beyond marijuana. I really need to read more, but my own, admittedly not completely formed opinion, goes for drug legalization with regulation. (Not to jack Moskos argument.)
October 25, 2009
NFL Shop Talk
OK, folks let's have at it. I swear I'm gonna watch JaMarcus this week.
October 24, 2009
If He Can Be A Lawyer, Then He Can Be A Lawyer!
As you watch this, remember that this is Cameron Todd Willingham's defense attorney. The interview is incredible. It's like watching a root-docter, who's just performed a heart transplant, try to explain why the patient is dead. I deeply suspect that this is all unexceptional. There is no fool-proof anything in this world--least of all a death penalty. The New Yorker piece on Willingham is here.
You see this sort of thing, and you start to believe that in some parts of this country, there really isn't a such thing as conservatism anymore--there's just a white populism, a deep-seated belief that someone like Sarah Palin should have the launch codes, that people like this should have hand in matters of life and death. It's incredible.
October 23, 2009
Tracy Morgan On Fresh Air...
I don't really know what to say about this yet. But I wanted other people to hear it. It strikes me that he may not be clear on some things, yet.
Off Trying To Write Pretty
Light blogging today guys, as I have my Atlantic overlords hot on my rear end. This house is your house. At least for a few hours.
Also, about Pick-Em ratings. No word from D-Sel yet. As soon as I get em, I'll post.
October 22, 2009
How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?
There's a thorough discussion of this piece claiming to expose the lack of "diversity" (read: Negroes) in progressive cities in the Open Thread. I find the piece to be pretty ill-considered, and insulting to Latinos and Asians, in particular. But more than that it repeats an unfortunate trope among writers tackling race--it treats African-Americans as agency-less automatons, awaiting the right programming from white policy-makers.
We begin with:
Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there's a
generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best,
the most progressive and best role models for small and mid-sized
cities. The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin,
Minneapolis, and Denver. In particular, Portland is held up as a
paradigm, with its urban growth boundary, extensive transit system,
excellent cycling culture, and a pro-density policy. These cities are
frequently contrasted with those of the Rust Belt and South, which are
found wanting, often even by locals, as "cool" urban places.
But look closely at these exemplars and a curious fact emerges. If
you take away the dominant Tier One cities like New York, Chicago and
Los Angeles you will find that the "progressive" cities aren't red or
blue, but another color entirely: white.
And end with:
This trail has been blazed not by the "progressive" paragons but by
places like Atlanta, Dallas and Houston. Atlanta, long known as one of
America's premier African American cities, has boomed to become the
capital of the New South. It should come as no surprise that good for
African Americans has meant good for whites too. Similarly, Houston
took in tens of thousands of mostly poor and overwhelmingly African
American refugees from Hurricane Katrina. Houston, a booming metro and emerging world city,
rolled out the welcome mat for them - and for Latinos, Asians and other
newcomers. They see these people as possessing talent worth having.
This history and resulting political dynamic could not be more
different from what happened in Portland and its "progressive"
brethren. These cities have never been black, and may never be
predominately Latino. Perhaps they cannot be blamed for this but they
certainly should not be self-congratulatory about it or feel superior
about the urban policies a lack of diversity has enabled.
There is so much wrong here. But leaving aside the fact that the author starts out by disqualifying New York, L.A., and Chicago, leaving aside the blinding whiteness of dubbing Atlanta "un-progressive," leaving aside that most of these "progressive" cities have more black people than their surrounding states, I think the implicit argument that these cities should be "doing more" to assure that their black population meets the national average is odious.
Man listen--Negroes like Atlanta. Negroes like Chicago. Negroes like Houston. Negroes like Raleigh-Durham (another area that doesn't make the cut, for some reason.) Negroes like Oakland. Negroes have the right to like where they live, independent of Massa, for their own particular, native, independent reasons (family? great barbecue? housing stock?) Just like Jewish-Americans have the right to like New York--or not. Just like Japanese-Americans have the right to like Cali--or not.
This particular Negro loves Denver--and Chicago too. But the notion that black people are pawns on a chess-board, which conservatives and liberals move around in order to one-up each each other, has got to go. Sometimes--just sometimes--a black dude isn't a problem. He's just a dude trying to marry a beautiful woman, raise a decent kid, retire to an tropical island, smoke some good herb, and drink some good rum.
Let Portland be Portland. And let black folks be themselves. We're getting along fine.
Making The Public Option Case
Call me a homer, but I think I like Anthony Weiner. Makes me feel good to be a pinko, commie bastage.
I've been trying to think of how to respond to Andrew's thorough take-down of this notion of "losing my country." After some meditation, I decided I wasn't qualified. These guys are.
Open Thread At Noon
It's yours.
Things To Do While You're Gaming
Couldn't sleep last night (hence the late start) so I fired up my tauren druid and got started on Hellfire. I got to thinking about how I wish the instances were a little harder in WoW and little less predictable. And then I got to thinking about conservatism, not because of my druid, but because I had a lecture by Sam Tanenhaus playing in the background.
Books that proclaim the death of anything instantly repel me. But as is the case with a lot of books, Tanenhaus's argument was much more nuanced and much more interesting than its title. It's worth checking out. I would have liked to see him talk a little more about the Right's embrace of the racial politics of the South.
But, hey, it was 3 A.M. And I was hunting Fel Orcs. You can't have it all....
Speaking of bizarrely counterintuitive articles,
and with the ostentatious contrarianism of Super Freakonomics still on
everybody's mind, it's worth saying that there's nothing contrarian
about being contrarian in elite intellectual circles. Indeed, the
really contrarian move would be to try to make your way as a thinker
without taking aim at somebody's sacred cows, or at least making it
seem like you're taking aim at somebody's sacred cows. There's a reason
the book "Everything You Know Is Wrong" is not titled "Most of The
Things You Know Are Right."
Word up. I'm always suspicious when people use contrarianism as a selling point. I avoid writers who salute themselves as "bold truth tellers." That's the point of writing. Moreover, the counterintuitive is just as subject to hackery as conventional wisdom. Atheism can be religion too.
October 21, 2009
Me Write Pretty Someday!
This is a cool tweet from Rachel Maddow. The only problem is that now people are gonna come here expecting thing like "original opinion," and "intelligent conversation" and "fried chicken"
Damn.
It's not that I'm ungrateful, it's that I'm insecure. I like it better when I get hate mail that hurts my little feelings. After a bubble bath, a good cry and an episode of the Real Housewives Of Atlanta, I'm prepared to take on the world again! If Ne-Ne can be a writer, then she can be a writer! I mean, I can be a writer!
Wait, is that the "ding" of my inbox?
Mr. Coates -
I don't know you, and I rarely read
your blog. I avoid because your inability to put together a cohesive
sentence is excruciating, and often times I have no idea what you are
trying to say. I will say this, however. Your post about the Jews is
particularly offensive, as it relies on a stereotyped perception of the
Jewish community and the manner in which it affects culture and public
perception. I am not even sure what your point is. Your blog will
continue to be a place where vapid opinion is poorly written and is
some how, through some strange and perverted process, monetarily
rewarded.
Sincerely,
XXXXX
Ah yeah, that's the stuff. I feel those tears coming.
"White Americans Don't Realize How Black They Are..."
From its very beginning, after all, America was a profoundly black country as well.
This
took a while for an Englishman to grasp upon arriving here, because
it's so easy to carry with you all the subconscious cultural baggage
you grew up with. England, after all, is deeply Anglo-Saxon. It makes
some sense to refer to England's roots and ethnic identity as white,
its language as English, its inheritance as a deep mixture of Northern
European peoples - the Angles and the Saxons and the Normans and the
Celts. And superficially, English-speaking white Americans might seem
in the same cultural boat as white English people, dealing with a
relatively new multiculturalism in an increasingly diverse and
multi-racial society. And at first blush, you almost sink into that
lazy and stupid assumption, especially if you arrive in Boston, as I
did, and carried all the usual European prejudices, as I did.
The
English, lulled by their marination in American pop culture from
infancy, and beguiled by the same language, can live out their days in
this country never actually noting that it is an alien land - stranger
than you might have ever imagined, crueler than you realized, but
somehow also more inspiring than you ever thought possible. This is the
America I am trying to make my home, after 25 years. It is not the
America of Pat Buchanan's or John Derbyshire's fantasies.
The comment about Jews is not as
off as this post makes it suggest. The idea that Jews don't criticize
each other in public is hardly contradicted by the fact that we do
little but criticize each other in private.
And the J street phenomenon is more notable for how long it has
taken to arrive and how much trouble it has maintaining support. The
great majority of jews in this country do not agree politically with
much that AIPAC is doing. Despite this there has been a Jewish
reluctance to criticize AIPAC because they represent Jews. You now have
Jewish Senators who agree with J-Street on the issues bowing to AIPAC
pressure to not attend a J-Street event precisely because J-street
attacks other Jews.
This is all rather silly because when Jews were a weak minority
there was some sense to this kind of banding together. But while even
more a minority, we are not at all weak at this point. And yet AIPAC
has largely been able to play on the reluctance of Jews to publicly
attack Jews to speak in the name of Jewish Americans while pushing a
view that a minority of Jewish Americans actually hold.
It is true that when we do criticize each other publicly we can be caustic. But that is jut our style.
Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't that mention that Goldbloghas beenon it ("it" being J Street v. AIPAC). Though not from the same angle as Lon. That's TNC--sowing discord in the Jewish community since, uhm, 2008.
As one of the most powerful slurs in American life, "racist" is an
accusation that ought to be made rarely, after careful deliberation,
with incontrovertible evidence, and never merely to score points at the
expense of a political adversary.
There are many great responses to this in the comments, but this one from Klyopod, I think gets to the heart of things:
Conor makes a good argument, but I
think he's copping out by suggesting that Rush's incessant race-baiting
and obsession about race doesn't amount to a form of racism. It is a
standard gambit of bigots to accuse the targets of their bigotry of
being the "true" bigots. Go to the front page of Stormfront (if you
dare), and you'll see that they do not describe themselves as an
organization for hating Jews and blacks. They describe themselves as an
organization for fighting racism against white Aryans.
If you think that example is too extreme, consider the following:
earlier this year, David Duke remarked that the RNC had selected as
their chair a "black radical." Most of us realize that when he says
"black radical," he simply means "black." That's because all of us,
Republican or Democrat, realize how laughable it is to call Michael
Steele a black radical. The trouble is, it is equally laughable to call
Barack Obama a black radical, but a significant chunk of mainstream
right-wing commentators have suggested just that.
The issue is not whether Limbaugh knows he's being racist. The issue
is that that's what his rhetoric amounts to. The Donovan McNabb
comment, as well as his insistence that Colin Powell's endorsement of
Obama was "all about race," basically come down to the mindset that he
sets the bar very high for people of color, and is predisposed to think
they're pulling something on whites (aided by guilty white liberals).
Of course, he likes Bobby Jindal. And we know that if Jindal
were a Democrat, Rush would be ridiculing him as "Piyush," bringing up
his Hindu background, and calling his success a result of affirmative
action.
The irony is that Friedersdorf essentially read off a rap sheet of some
of Limbaugh's most outrageous remarks, and then he said he took
Limbaugh at his word that he wasn't a racist, merely because he said
so. By this standard, should we be taking Keith Bardwell and Patrick Lanzo
at theirs. To extend the legal analogy, it's as though Friedersdorf
were a prosecutor working a first-degree murder case with a
near-certainty of conviction and he decided in his closing argument
that he couldn't speculate as to the defendant's motive.
Prosecutors infer motive from people's behavior. In the case of
Limbaugh, I think it's fairly obvious that his intent is to "hurt
minorities" with his remarks. For example, the point of his
"government's been taking care of [young blacks] their whole lives" remark
was to paint black people as ungrateful, lazy, and stupid so as to
delegitimize whatever grievance the poll he referenced was measuring.
Focusing on a standard of "proof" that requires telepathy pretty much
ensures that only the most outrageous behavior can credibly be
described as racist--but in this day and age, precisely because certain
behavior is so easily identifiable as racist, it's the least
threatening form of racism...
I will concede this: There may be a rhetorical advantage in
referring to racism through euphemism in that it may prevent people
from becoming defensive and shutting out whatever argument is being
made. But that's not the same as genuinely arguing that Limbaugh's
actions are "racial provocation" rather than racism. That is splitting
hairs.
I've basically settled on that last point. I'm quite convinced of what racism is, and isn't. And I'm unpersuaded by Conor's argument. That said, I'm starting to find the term distracting. It allows people to tee off on a tangent, without getting to the core arguments.
Open Thread At Noon
Go for it.
We Need To Be More Like The Jews!
That was the rallying cry for the nationalists back in the day--"That's the problem with black folks--we can't stick together. We need to be like the Jews! Though don't ever bad-mouth each other in public. And they stick together!"
I've said all this before, but it's worth restating. I told my buddy Eyal about that on a train ride back from Brooklyn, once. He burst out laughing and mentioned that I'd do well to sit in on one of his family dinners.
Anyway, I thought of that reading about this J-Street/AIPAC beef. Black folks swear that they are uniquely afflicted, particularly cursed, and irredeemably divided--unlike white people who live in perpetual Nirvana. This is real talk--I remember when I found out white women went to the hair-dresser. My reaction was basically--For what? Your hair's already straight. Oh man, so ignorant. One of the lingering effects of racism is the belief that white people don't actually have any problems. White Supremacy depended on the dichotomy--there's a reason why black occurs almost synonymously with poor, but whites who are poor must also be trash.
But I digress. The solution to our woes was obvious--Be more like the Jews! They never fight in public! They always stick together!
It cracks me up, just thinking about it. I hope it's not like that anymore. We really should know by now.
Tough HOF Picks
Peter King ponders an interesting bunch--Phil Simms, Ken Anderson, Albert Lewis, Cliff Branch, and most interesting of all (to me at least) Albert Lewis, and Lester Hayes. I actually thought Hayes was already in, but I was confusing him with his mate, the great Mike Haynes. I like to see Hayes, and Lewis, get in. How can you keep out a Star Wars fan who played cornerback, and dubbed himself The One True Jedi?
Related--Cold Hard Football Facts makes the case for an underrated Ken Anderson:
The fact that Dan Fouts and Warren Moon are in the Hall of Fame
and Ken Anderson is not stands as the greatest injustice to hit Canton
since England sedated half of China during the Opium Wars.
Anderson is a first-ballot Hall of Famer who history has forgotten
in favor of lesser performers like Fouts, Moon, even Jim Kelly, among
others.
This guy was awesome - certainly Hall of Fame-caliber awesome - and certainly more awesome than Fouts or Moon.
For example, let's have a little pop quiz: Who led the league in passer rating four times, Anderson, Fouts or Moon?
If you guessed Anderson, you're right! In fact, Fouts or Moon never led the league in passer rating. Anderson accomplished this feat in 1974, 1975, 1981 and 1982.
To put those numbers into perspective, consider that only Sammy
Baugh and Steve Young led the league more often in passer rating (six
times each).
But those historic numbers tell only part of the story.
Anderson's 81.68 career passer rating is second among multi-era players,
behind only the great Roger Staubach. He even holds the single-season
record for completion percent (70.6) - though the fact he set it in the
strike-shortened, nine-game 1982 season makes it jump out as a clear
statistical outlier. Still, he did it.
Clearly a conspiracy to slight white quarterbacks. The media was very desirous that Warren Moon be in the Hall. All jokes aside, CHFF is right about Anderson's numbers. He was at the tail-end of his career when I started watching football, so I only barely remember him.
That can be good and bad. Warren Moon was awesome--but I remember him being more awesome than his numbers actually are. I always wonder what he would have been had the NFL not tried to make receiver out of him. He spent his best years in Canada. Reminds me of Satchel Paige.
I love Warren for that game when he was like 50 yards away from breaking Joe Namath's Norm Van Brocklin's all-time record for yardage. He did it against a Chiefs secondary that was one of the greatest of its era (Lewis, Deron Cherry etc.) But by the fourth quarter, the game was over and Moon sat out. The next day, a lot of black folks were pissed because here was this brother who'd declined to break The White Man's record. But Moon said he didn't want to be out there just piling up yardage, he wanted it to happen in the flow of the game. I was mad at him at the time. But a few years later I got it.
List Me! List Me!
Slate lists the 80 most influential people over 80 years old. Including a "Just missed" list and 79ers to watch. I didn't know Maya Angelou was 81.
I particularly relish this because it mocks the incessant list-making in our culture. I mean, some lists are OK. But by and large, they're silly. They're especially silly given it's becoming increasingly clear I'll never be on one. I've already missed 30 wealthiest under 30, (I'm rich with friends!) I don't think I'll be making 40 most interesting under 40 (What? The cult of death in mid-19th century America isn't fascinating?) I do have hope for hottest dudes under 60 (Black don't crack!)
October 20, 2009
The Takeover
White populist Pat Buchanan, who is employed by the flagrant lefties over at MSNBC, on white America:
America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.
I'd love to just leave this post with snark, but I have to say one last
thing. Black Americans have shed blood in every American war since the
Revolution. This country, even the very Capitol building in which
today's legislators now demand to see the birth certificate of the
first black president, was built on the sweat and sinew of slaves.
Before we were people in the eyes of the law, before we had the right
to vote, before we had a black president, we were here, helping make
this country as it is today. We are as American as it gets. And
frankly, the time of people who think otherwise is passing. If that's
the country Buchanan wants to hold onto, well, he's right, he is losing
it.
Political Cowardice
Somehow I missed this, but here's Rick Perry covering his ass in the Willingham case:
"Willingham was a monster," he said. "Here's a guy who murdered his
three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so he
wouldn't have those kids. Person after person has stood up and
testified to the facts in this case."
Perry is disgusting. And we're disgusting for electing people like him to consider such weighty matters. Read about Willingham, and the likely execution of an innocent man, here.
The Iceman Slayeth
My Moms loved Jerry Butler. Hearing him softly murder this classic reminds me of sitting in the passenger seat of her silver Volkswagen Rabbit. Consequently, I'm partial when it comes to his voice. He is, bar none, my favorite singer ever. His voice has changed over the years, but not for the worse. I admit, I prefer the richness of the young Jerry (check out "I'm A Telling You" below.)
But this version of "Your Precious Love" could only be improved by importing the actual Impressions. I dislike a lot of live versions, because the band tends to play too fast. They got this one just right. It's absolutely insane to think that this dude was in a group with Curtis Mayfield. Chicago got it, man.
Young boys need to get with Jerry Butler. Back in the day at Howard, all these fools would be rocking 112 and Jodeci. That's cool. But I'd break off some "Aware Of Love" to seal the deal. They don't call him the Iceman for nothing.
Open Thread At Noon
Take it away...
Not Helping
Via The Black Snob, I think Juan Williams' defense of Rush Limbaugh is wrong. But I think Warren Ballentine telling Williams to "go back to the porch" is both wrong and self-damaging. When you find yourself name-calling, you've probably lost--if not in substance, then at least in your own mind. Moreover, you end up not convincing people who don't agree with you, and repelling others who actually do. It probably doesn't help to then brag about it on Twitter.
Shame
One of the reasons I've been blogging so much about obesity, class, and race, is that these are the questions I live with. To set down the road of food consciousness, to endeavor to understand what you're putting in the only body you'll ever have, is to phase-shift into a parallel world. You become acquainted with ritual of unwrapping aluminum foil on long plane rides. You cut elaborate deals with your partner over child-care and cleaning. You go hurtling through the internet in search of a decent pizza stone. It angers your son, because his simple request for Pop-Tarts turns into a pop-quiz referencing the ingredients on the box.
But more than that, it's the world I live in. The buses in Harlem heave under the weight of wrecked bodies. New York will not super-size itself, so you'll see whole rows in which one person is taking up two seats and aisles in which people strain to squeeze past each other. And then there are the middle-age amputees in wheelchairs who've lost a leg or two way before their time. When I lived in Brooklyn, the most depressing aspect of my day was the commute back home. The deeper the five train wended into Brooklyn, the blacker it became, and the blacker it became, the fatter it got.
I was there among them--the blacker and fatter--and filled with a sort of shameful self-loathing at myself and my greater selves around me. One of the hardest thing about being black is coming up dead last in almost anything that matters. As a child, and a young adult, I was lucky. Segregation was a cocoon brimming with all the lovely variety of black life. But out in the world you come to see, in the words of Peggy Olson, that they have it all--and so much of it. Working on the richest island in the world, then training through Brooklyn, or watching the buses slog down 125th has become a kind of corporeal metaphor--the achievement gap of our failing bodies, a slow sickness as the racial chasm.
Under TNC's Rule Of Ignorance ("Don't speak of what you don't know"), I've avoided the spat over Superfreakonomics. Still I thought this post by Nate Silver on geoengineering was really interesting. The basic idea, behind geoengineering, as much as I can tell, is to fight climate change by changing the atmosphere, instead of (or in addition to) our behavior.
Silver's doing some reporting on geoengineering for a book, and spent
some time talking to British scientist John Latham about
geoengineering. This quote, from Latham, says a lot to me:
"The thing that has scared everyone I know working
in geoengineering, and the thing that has caused a lot of very good
scientists to say we shouldn't have it is the worry that if it was
announced that geoengineering was to be thoroughly examined, there
would be a temptation on behalf of the oil companies to say, "Oh well,
they're going to solve the problem, we can keep burning fossil fuels".
Which is the last thing anyone wants. But then to not examine it would
be irresponsible. If we reach that tipping point, we want to be in the
position to be able to help out."
I'm not sure if this is humanity as an animal, or just a product of our times, but this fear that we would take a fast food approach to climate change strikes me as entirely credible. Given the choice between shooting sulfur into the sky and avoiding hamburger, I'm fairly sure we'd choose the hamburger
October 19, 2009
Dan Snyder Should Call The Plays
He knows he wants to. Trust me, I know. I didn't realize Zorn had never been a coordinator.
James Bennet Is Editor Of The Year
Meh, I already knew that. But now, officially, James has gone from bad-ass writer to bad-ass editor. On a personal note, it's the simple, undeniable truth that without James, it's possible that I would be pushing a cab through Midtown right now. Two and a half years ago, I was laid-off reporter with a steadily mounting pile of bills. All I had was a few months worth of secondary reporting on Bill Cosby, and a looming deadline for a memoir. . I seriously wanted to get a taxi license, but Kenyatta would not let me. Anyway, I can't tell you how hard it is to get editors to hear you out, when you have no real rep. James heard me out, and everything else flows from there.
I don't say this enough--This is a great house. I love magazines, and they're falling down everywhere. It's an honor to be a soldier in the fight to save long-form journalism. It's an honor to have James Bennet as a general. Grab your shield. But before you do, grab a subscription. We need you.
Oscar Buzzed
Lee Daniels' Precious is catching it. It's unlikely I'll see it. I haven't been much for movie theaters, lately.
Open Thread At Noon
Go for it.
Mad Men Thread
Don't you dare click over, if you haven't watched.
I've been killing this Felix joint. Kenyatta didn't like it at first. She thought it was too Prince-like. She's got a point. But it eventually got her too. There are a couple other joints on the album, but this track is the star. Click here to check out the rest.
Football Night In America
Conor argues that Rush Limbaugh is not a racist, but the greatest race-baiter of our time. His evidence is pretty undeniable. But this last quote really got me thinking:
Oh, and don't forget the NFL. As of this week, it is "an outpost of
racism and liberalism." (Strange that a league that is supposedly
racist against white owner candidates has so many white owners.)
There's more. But that last quote says a lot to me. It's fairly clear that the NFL is neither an outpost for racism, nor liberalism. In fact, I'm willing to be that no organization does a better job of bringing black people and conservatives together, and indeed converting some black people to conservatives, than the NFL.
There's a measure of truth in Rush's critique, because conservative, in Rush's mind, is nothing without white populism. There's a difference between being, say, pro-life, and thinking, say, that Barack Obama is "the biggest reverse racist in history." I'd bet there are a lot more NFL owners who are the former, than there are the latter--and then some who qualify as both.
But since the 60s, white populism has been an indispensable plank in political conservatism's foundation. White populism is Ronald Reagan fighting for a tax exemption on behalf Bob Jones University, despite a school-wide ban on interracial
dating. White populism is John McCain standing for the Confederate flag in South Carolina while he still could win in 2000. (Props to McCain for reversing field.) White populism is Mike Huckabee, eight years later, insisting, in the same state, that ""if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag,
we'd tell them what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do."
White populism isn't simply yelling"You Lie!" at a black biracial president, it's yelling "You Lie!" at Strom Thurmond's 78-year old black biracial daughter. White populism is Trent Lott insisting that his state was proud of supporting segregationists and that had they prevailed electorally, "we wouldn't have all these problems over the years." White populism is The Ron Paul Political Reportasserting that New York City should be named "Welfaria" or "Lazyopolis," predicting an oncoming race war, and asserting that, in the wake of the Rodney King riots, order was restored "when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began."
And white populism greatest modern exegete is Rush Limbaugh::
Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You
put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama's America
the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay,
right on, right on, right on, right on,' and, of course, everybody says
the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white.
It's quite wrong to dismiss the Tea Parties as racist cabals. But when protesters are toting signs like this, and the movement's interlocutors are on national TV claiming that the president of the United States, who's mother was white, is "a racist" with a "deep-seated hatred of the white culture," the specter of white populism hovers.
I hear the other HU has crowned a non-black homecoming queen. And apparently, old girl is upset that she isn't getting the royal treatment. So she wrote Obama
"I am hoping that perhaps you would be able to make an appearance to my
campus, Hampton University, so that my fellow Hamptonians can stop
focusing so much on the color of my skin and doubting my abilities to
represent," she wrote in a letter posted Sunday on Congress.org, "but
rather be proud of the changes our nation is making toward accepting
diversity."
Wait....Hold on...Hampton has a homecoming?
In all seriousness, I'm betting that most folks at Hampton aren't paying much attention. With one exception, I can't name a single homecoming queen from all my years at Howard. And I couldn't have done it then.
Open Thread At Noon
I have to take off this afternoon guys. Got some writing I need to knock out. I'll see you guys Sunday. The floor is yours.
Apropos Of Nothing
I first heard this joint back in D.C. and it wasn't the Bar-Kays--it was the legendary go-go group Rare Essence. They just killed this joint. That led me to the Bar-Kays, which is of course is the classic.
None of the Howard cats liked Go-Go--it was that New York hip-hop elitist bullshit. But you see these cats live and it's religious. I once saw Junkyard at Howard do a rendition of "I Get Around." (With some dude doing the "Step up, Step, Step Up" part) I never wanted to hear Tupac again. I think it is hard to make it translate recorded, for whatever reason. But of the best shows I've seen, at least three have been go-gos.
Attention Black People With Jobs
Every one of you can relate. Every one of you. Not that I've had any problems here at the Atlantic. No one's ever made a Kobe Bryant joke. Or asked me if black people use shampoo. Or asked me where to buy weed. Which really sucks for them. My connect is off the hook this year!
Max Cleland
I keep meaning to link this Max Cleland interview from Fresh Air. It's rather incredible. I think you just sort of assume, when you see people in privileged positions, you assume that their life is gravy. Obviously, being a triple-amputee is different, but I never realized how much Cleland lost when he was defeated by Saxby Chambliss. I also didn't realize how he'd basically willed himself into politics.
I think about this a lot with my Dad, who's also a Vietnam vet, but not a triple amputee. I can account for whatever success I've had by pointing to family, community, good friends, good people etc. But sometimes you see people who may not have always had those things, and their drive just shines through.
Perhaps conservatives are right and it does not take a village to raise a child, but it certainly took a village to raise me. In that context, I always marvel at someone like Cleland. He had good parents, and people like President Carter and Obama looked out for him. But so much of his success and push seems internal. Some people, I think, are just born running.
October 15, 2009
Quote Of The Year
Keith Bardwell, Louisiana justice of the peace explaining why he refused to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple...
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way,"
Of course Bardwell isn't a racist. There aren't any racists in America.
On Apologizing To Rush
No, it didn't make me throw up in my mouth. I'm a little sick that I got it wrong, as I should be. But not sick that I have to apologize to Rush. The thing is this: I don't think that you guys expect me to get it write right 100 percent of the time. I think you expect me to try very hard to be accurate, and immediately acknowledge when I've failed to do so. I don't fear losing readers because I was wrong. I very much fear losing readers because they think I'm not being honest.
Another argument against the death penalty focuses on cases in which it
has been shown that innocent people have been put to death. The
finality of execution obviously precludes the possibility of redress
if, at some later point, DNA or other evidence finds that the
individual in question was wrongly convicted of his or her crime. The
American public would appear to be somewhat sympathetic to this
argument: this year's poll finds 59% of Americans agreeing that within
the last five years, "a person has been executed under the death
penalty who was, in fact, innocent of the crime he or she was charged
with." A little less than a third disagree.
However, for many Americans, agreement with the assertion that innocent
people have been put to death does not preclude simultaneous
endorsement of the death penalty. A third of all Americans, 34%,
believe an innocent person has been executed and at the same time
support the death penalty. This is higher than the 23% who believe an
innocent person has been executed and simultaneously oppose the death
penalty.
Pressure Builds On Perry
Texas GOP gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina blasts Perry. It is political? Yup. Will I take it? Yup. Perry deserves to be embarrassed. The Economist also jumps in.
Urkel Cleans Up
Glad he's getting roles. Not half-bad, either...
Open Thread At Noon
There you go...
One Last Word On Rush
Via Adam Serwer, I see that there are a gaggle of conservatives who are actually outraged that Rush has been pushed out. The white populists over at the Corner just can't be taken seriously--as Adam notes, this is an outfit that, all at once, cynically compares Rush Limbaugh to Martin Luther King, and defends William Buckley's racism.
But like Adam, I think more of Jon Henke. And like Adam, I think he's way off on this one.
What would happen if NFL told Olbermann or @Maddow their political views made them ineligible for NFL team? End NFL anti-trust exemption.
Let's be very clear about what we're debating--Rush didn't lose because he's pro-Life, because he doesn't support the public mandate, or because of his stance on Afghanistan. Rush lost because he once claimed that Donovan McNabb, a quarterback who in ten seasons has never thrown more interceptions than touchdowns, and is one of the greatest quarterbacks of his generation was being overpraised because he was black. Rush Limbaugh lost because think slavery had some merit. Rush Limbaugh lost because he claimed that NFL players, en masse, to gang-bangers. Rush Limbaugh didn't lose because he's a conservative. He lost because he's a white populist.
If Rachel Maddow, at various moments, claimed that Wes Welker was overrated because he was white, that NFL owners were little more than slave-masters, and that the Holocaust was overstated, then yeah, I'd expect she'd have some problems becoming an NFL owner.
Henke doesn't have to agree with the NFL, and maybe they should end the exemption. But he should have the courage of his convictions, and make the case. He should be honest enough to state the argument as it is, instead of as he wishes it were. He should be decent enough to accurately represent the facts, instead of arming himself with victimology and "woe-is-me"-ism. This movement deserves a better class of critique.
UPDATE: A commenter below rightfully notes that that Limbaugh quote deserves it's full context:
"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for
over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery
built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just
saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after
dark." [3/14/03]
The implication in my post is that Rush was defending slavery. That isn't what he said, and I was wrong for implying it....But not wrong for banning the dude who pointed it out :) UPDATE #2: It's completely fabricated. Context isn't the issue. He never said it. I should have checked it before attributing it to him. I apologize to Rush Limbaugh.
Apropos Of Absolutely Nothing...
I'm too young, child, and you're too old But that don't get that you got no soul...
"Rush was to be a limited partner -- as such, he would have had no say
in the direction of the club or in any decisions regarding personnel or
operations," Dave Checketts,
the former Madison Square Garden executive who is leading the group
that included Limbaugh. "This was a role he enthusiastically embraced.
However, it has become clear that his involvement in our group has
become a complication and a distraction to our intentions; endangering
our bid to keep the team in St. Louis. As such, we have decided to move
forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful
conclusion."
Checketts is a widely respected sports executive and the owner of the St. Louis Blues.
He was interviewed as a candidate for the N.F.L. commissioner's job
before it went to Goodell, who was the heavy favorite, in 2006. But
several N.F.L. owners, who ended three days of meetings in Boston on
Wednesday, quietly wondered why a savvy businessman like Checketts
would hitch his hopes for the Rams to Limbaugh, a conservative radio
talk-show host, and fail to anticipate the negative reaction.
LESTER HOLT: John what we saw in that
protest today, was it simply frustration or does it represent a serious
problem the President is having with an important part of his base?
JOHN HARWOOD: As a practical matter Lester I don't think it's a
serious problem. we've seen and certainly Bill Clinton learned that
they Democratic President can get punished by the mainstream of the
electorate for being too aggressive on social issues so for now I think
the administration feels that if they take care of the big issues --
health care, energy, the economy -- he's going to be just fine with this
group.
HOLT: But in general when yo look at the left as a whole, have there
been conversations about some things they thought would have been done
but haven't?
HARWOOD: Sure but If you look at the polling, Barack Obama is doing
well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this
opposition as really part of the "internet left fringe" Lester.
And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take
this opposition, one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take
off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely
divided country is complicated and difficult.
I guess I should be pissed of at Obama since I'm "blogger" who works in his pajamas. Whatever. When I was seven I collected stamps. By the time I was eight I was playing D&D.I've been fielding geek insults since I shot my way out my Ma Dukes. This ain't nothing but water to me.
That aside, there is some expectation that journalists won't grant their sources anonymity, so that they can simply run down people they don't like. Anonymity is usually granted when the source has something of value to say. I could be wrong, but I don't think "take off your pajamas and get dressed" really qualifies. It just feels like gossip, or reporters giving cover to some White House "advisor" so that he can tell "Ya mamma" jokes.
Man I don't know who had better handles--wrestlers or rappers. I think you gotta give it to the wrestlers. S.T. "Special Delivery" Jones. The Fabulous Freebirds. Jerry "The King" Lawler. Kamala The Ugandan Giant. Abdul The Butcher. Dr. Death Steve Williams. The Iron Sheik.
RIP Captain Lou Albano. The news sent me trolling through the archives. Came across this gem from the old days. Dudes around the way used to say the WWF was fake, and NWA was real. Heh.
Teh Suck
Man, I'm just sucking it up at Pick 'Em. Here are the numbers. I'm sitting pretty at 96. I actually have a losing record. Amazing.
The Washington Redskins, according to Forbes magazine's tracking of the
value of NFL franchises, is the second-richest club among the 32 in the
league. The Redskins were first last year, and if it wasn't for the
Cowboys moving into that brand new stadium, the Redskins would be first
again. You know which team leads the league in operating income by an
impossibly wide margin? The Washington Redskins. That, boys and girls,
starts with ownership, with Daniel Snyder specifically. Snyder, when it
comes to generating income, is the best in the game.
Snyder, when it comes to getting his team to win football games, is
closer to the bottom of the league. That, too, starts with ownership.
I think Jerry knows a little bit more about football than Snyder, but not enough. He's not really seeing Ozzie Newsome or Bill Polian. The sooner both these guys realize it, the better. It's great that the team is profitable. I guess. It'd be better if we didn't live down to expectations.
I think I'm still smarting from that Giants loss. All that pomp and circumstance and such a sloppy product on the field. I felt like I was watching someone go on a shopping spree with the rent money. Ugh.
Open Thread At Noon
Go for it...
The Perils Of Running Against Mike Bloomberg
This a great piece. Pity Bill Thompson. What's amazing to me is that there's no sense, at least no dominant sense, among black voters that we "have to get our guy in." What happened? Is it like we got Obama and that's enough? I know ethnic politics aren't dead yet, but I'm shocked how much things have changed since Giuliani. There really is almost no black base for David Paterson, and Thompson is winning black voters by a mere 18 percent. For a black Democrat running for mayor in the biggest city in the country, against a white Democrat turned Republican turned Independent, that is incredible.
No TV Cont.
Alyssa asks what I meant when I said "television didn't work for my family." Well the first thing was that I wanted to achieve some sort of separation from the "television ruins society" argument which I don't respect anymore than a "books ruin society" argument. People ruin society. Heh, I believe that. But the point was that I think people should not assume that what works for them, works for the world.
Anyway, in terms of why it didn't work for us, I noted my own propensity for watching things that made me want to kill myself. In terms of actual show, I'll stick to my choices, since I don't want to air Kenyatta out. I came to this conclusion during the last election season, when I basically was addicted to cable news. The very clucking heads who I routinely denounce on this blog, were basically occupying a third of my brain. But that third wasn't filled with new information, so much as rage and self-righteousness.
That was when I started thinking about what I was consuming, and how much I was paying for it (the cable bill was over a buck fifty.) We basically had a family conversation and decided that the things we loved (excepting sports) could be gotten in other ways. We could download Mad Men via Itunes or Amazon. We could see The Office on Hulu. And if I really needed to see that segment from Hardball, I could still see it without committing myself to zoning out on the couch. I could just watch it, and then move on.
It's true that we tossed our television, but what we really tossed was a style of consuming television. It became a much proactive activity. We now only see what we really want to see, as opposed to passive consumption.
But in
addition to making me mad, I'm hopeful that this story will change some
"hearts and minds." Specifically, I hope that social conservatives
(particularly in Texas) take some time to reflect on the implications
of the fact that Texas executed an innocent person -- and that Rick
Perry is trying to cover it up. It's hard to think of something that
more directly contradicts the "culture of life."
For
this reason, though, it's an area where a political coalition of social
conservatives and secular progressives could do a lot of good, if the
political will existed.
Perhaps, but I'm not sure. I've been thinking some about what we tolerate from the people charged with public safety and why. I think, in my blogging and writing about criminal justice, I've undervalued the basic human need for order, and overvalued a basic human commitment to individual rights. I don't mean to sound high-minded. Order is important. If you know the rules, even if the rules are draconian, you can plan your day, you can imagine how the next day may shape up, you have some sense of what awaits your children. But under chaos, say in a country besieged by competing warlords or a place where there's insufficient sanction to deter criminals, you have no sense of what the future holds.
The death penalty promotes our sense of order--it offers assurance that those who savagely violate our most cherished morals will be harshly penalized. The question, for me, is what will we tolerate to preserve that assurance? What I hope will come out of this case is a more honest debate about the death penalty. I strongly suspect that Rick Perry--at this point--knows that something went badly wrong in Willingham's execution, and yet still believes in the death penalty. What I hope will emerge is death penalty advocates honest enough to admit that no system of state-sponsored execution can be infallible, because people are fallible. I want them to come out and say what's clear--innocent people will be executed. I want them to stop treating us like children, and make the argument.
October 13, 2009
Rush And The NFL
I don't quite understand Stephen A. Smith's argument, here. He wants Rush into the league because it will prove that players are more concerned about money than politics? Am I getting that right? If so, does anyone doubt that, in the main, that's true? Moreover, saying that doesn't mean that specific players won't go. Feh, I feel silly for trying to figure this out...
Sorry kids. It's a travel day. I'm going down to visit with the overlords in Chocolate City. I'll try to take in a Georgetown cocktail party while I'm there. The thread is now yours. UPDATE: I forgot I had one of those new fangled wireless cards. I'm blogging and from the train. And guys, I was joking about the cocktail party. To paraphrase the great Meth, I'm all straight shots from dirty glasses.
I
love TNC and his blog, and I particularly love it when he says he
junked his tv but blogs endlessly about Mad Men and NFL and even a
little about Houswives. You junked your tv but you still watch tv so
how does it really matter that the old tv is gone? funny is as funny
does.
I am aware that there are a lot of pretentious pricks out there who brag about throwing out their television. With that I mind, I think I should clarify a few things as this idea of "getting rid of the television" seems to make people think I'm more noble than I actually am.
1.) I don't own a television because I'm prone to watching things that,
ultimately, make me feel bad about myself and the country I live.
Again, this is particular to me. Watching television over the net
allows me to watch only what I'm really willing to pay for. It puts me
in a much better mood. That's how it works. The point was never to
"stop watching TV," or even "watch less TV." It was too watch TV that really wanted to see, that I couldn't live without. The point was to stop consuming things that made me want
to kill myself.
2.) I don't know who knows this and who doesn't, but you can actually get a fair amount of TV--including Mad Men--over the internet. If you're latte-sipping, wine-track, arugla-chomping, fornicating, Manhattan-living elitist like me, you can actually get the NFL too.
3.) I think people see "I don't have a television" and they expect the next few sentences to be a speech about the idiot box, and the requisite evils of broadcasting.
Here's the thing--and this goes for most of what I write. I can only blog about myself, it's the only thing I really know in any detail. Owning a television didn't work for my family. I would never suggest that it's not working for your family. I make no brief against television, nor am I particularly interested in one.
4.) Again, one reason I'm unlikely to lead a brigade against television is because some of my happiest hours are spent prancing around as a red-headed
elf. When you're a WoW-geek, it becomes difficult to argue for stigmatization, say, Dollhouse-geeks. I'm not here to balance anyone else's check-book. I can barely balance my own
Got To Get It Into You
Tom Browne brings the awesome-sauce.
I actually heard the Jungle Brothers use the hook on "Jimbrowski," and didn't hear the original to the 90s.
The Last Food Post, I Promise
You can call me a food elitist, but I swear by CooksIllustrated. The muffins below were made from a recipe of their site. I generally find cook-books frustrating because a lot of them don't explain what's happening, and why, you prepare food. Cooks is great for understanding the whole process, and thus, being able to be creative. The good stuff is behind a pay-wall, as it should be.
Also a commenter asked about cooking for single people. Man listen, learn to cook, and you won't be eating alone. Now you may not be eating with the same person (or people, if that's how you roll) every night, but you will never be alone. If I had CooksIllustrated when I was out there I would been Eddie Murphy in Boomerang. Instead, I had to settle for Larenz Tate in Love Jones.
Heh. OK so not quite. But I do love Chicago. What ever happened to Lisa Nicole-Carson? She was the black goddess, for a second...
About Those Muffins
I freeze them so they keep for the week. Here's a really poor picture of the blueberry ones before freezing.
Taco Bell Is Cheap, Until It Isn't
Some great comments in the food thread. I just wanted to respond to one of them, or part of one of them:
I would disagree that there aren't more society-wide implications for
this. Yes, many individuals in many households are simply working too
hard to spend more hours at home cooking a meal. Privelige plays a
part. And yes, you can't argue that you missed your kid's soccer game
because you were brining a turkey. But isn't this a false choice? What
about all those long hours that we Americans are spending watching tv?
We can't really sacrifice - I'm going there - an hour of Mad Men or
Housewives of New Jersey or whatever to spend an hour a night preparing
a meal? And I would also say that we shouldn't equivocate too much home
cooked meals with fast food. The trick is to get the family involved,
so that no one is really eating a meal that meal that someone else
prepared for them. It adds to the family time and cuts down on the prep
time.
This gets to the core of things, and really strikes a cord with me, given that I tossed my television. But we need to think of human beings as human beings, and not as machines. I'm glad I got rid of my TV, but the fact of the matter is I still enjoy quite a bit of leisure time. When others are in front of the boob-tube, I'm running around Azeroth masquerading as a red-headed elf. Which is better? Probably neither. But I'd argue that they're both essential.
It's become clear to me that while it's always smart to interrogate your leisure time, you shouldn't see it as expendable. Thus, I actually don't pit cooking against World Of Warcraft, I pit it against things like finishing an article, working on my blog, getting my son to football practice etc. That may sound crazy, but it works well, actually. Most of my responsibilities are of my choosing and they're very important to me. I want to get that article done. I want to have more blog posts up. I want to get the kid to practice. I like playing WoW. But rarely am I going to spend a day doing it. But I'd spend a day cooking, if I had the energy.
Now again, perhaps this is my privilege showing. (I'm working hard to avoid snobbery.) But I deeply suspect just like fast food, there are real reasons why people would rather watch Real Housewives than cook from scratch, and I don't think they have much to do with being lazy. ("Lazy" is just another question, anyway. "Why are they lazy?") I'm not a neurologist but I bet that that leisure has a lot to do with how the whole society works at the moment.
That's the main reason I argued that I'm not sure that my solutions are societies. All of these factors work together. You can't simply stop eating fast food. You have to change a host of behaviors related to why you eat fast food, or why you watch Real Housewives. It's all connected, no?
Open Thread At Noon
Take it away.
Random Note For Cowboys Fans
A moment out of your day to announce that Norm Hitzges is on a roll, right now. Dude is the voice of the fan. He is our Bard. And right now he's murdering fools. "Play like this and you'll be run out of here at the end of the season," he said. "Or will you..."
The good news is that there's no real reason to think that food you
prepare yourself is for some reason intrinsically healthier than food
someone else prepares for you. Indeed, a normal "home cooked" meal is
mostly eaten by people who didn't cook it. One or two people cook, and
the kids or the guests eat. And at the same time, it's not as if the
good people at Taco Bell are serving unhealthy food out of some
perverse desire to clog America's arteries. They're just trying to make
money the best way they know how. If someone--Jamie Oliver, for
example--devised an appealing mass-market food product that was better
than Taco Bell on the taste/price/convenience dimension but also
healthier, well that would be an excellent thing for the world.
And maybe someone could do it. The world's purveyors of processed
foods have noted a real market demand for healthier products.
Consequently, they're poured a lot of time and energy into creating
things that at least seem healthier. And so we really have a
lot of healthy-seeming options. But they've never, as best I can tell,
poured all that much effort into trying to create things that are actually
healthier. But someone could. Jamie Oliver could do it. Mark Bittman
could do it. Michael Pollan could do it. And it would be more likely to
succeed than an endless procession of NYT Magazine articles hectoring
people about how they should cook more.
There are very good reasons why fast-food exists. It's not just that cooking--as a general process--takes time. Regular cooking is a lifestyle that actually requires a shift in how you think about the world. This is especially hard when you're starting out. You have to stock your kitchen, and then you have to get in the habit of making sure those stocks are kept up. You have to figure out a regular rotation of meals that meet your families needs, and then you have to carve out a schedule that allows you to meet those needs. It seems rather perverse to say, "I won't be able to watch my kid's soccer practice because I have to finish brining the turkey."
I also agree with Matt's general annoyance with writers who can't seem to understand why a sane person would eat McDonald's. I don't eat fast-food, but I'm not much for inveighing against it. That said, without any stats to back me up, I think Matt is actually wrong about the relative health of food you cook yourself vs. Taco Bell. It's not because a meal from Taco Bell will necessarily have more calories "home-cooking." In fact, it's not about the calories at all.
If there was a scintilla of goods news for the Raiders, it was that quarterback JaMarcus Russell,
the first player selected overall in the 2007 draft, finally nudged his
completion percentage for the season north of 40 percent. Russell
completed eight of 13 passes for 100 yards to bump his 2009 completion
rate to 42.1 percent. The bad news was that Russell was sacked six
times and fumbled on three of them.
Oh man. Now he's got some big shoes to fill--Tim Couch, Ki-Jana Carter, Rick Mirer, Steve Emtman, Ryan Leaf etc. Moreover, I question whether other organizations would have seen JaMarcus for what he was. I wasn't watching college. I can't call it.
Chris Canty,
a big-money free agent from the Cowboys, never really made it out of
the gates with a hamstring tear and he's only played in one game this
season. Jay Alford, a valuable member of the team's defensive tackle rotation, is out for the season.
The Giants haven't had both regular first-string cornerbacks on the field this season and nickel corner Kevin Dockery just returned from his own hamstring issue. Safety Kenny Phillips
was poised to have a Pro Bowl-worthy season, in my opinion, but his
campaign ended after two games. He'll have to undergo microfracture
surgery on his knee.
Heading into a Week 5 game against the Raiders, the Giants will be without starting linebacker Michael Boley and quarterback Eli Manning
is questionable with plantar fasciitis. But the funny thing about this
is that no one, including the team's fan base, seems to be panicking.
The Giants are 4-0 and they actually appear to be gaining steam as
they continue this crash course toward an intriguing Week 6 matchup
with the Saints in New Orleans. In order to try to understand why this
team seems almost to embrace adversity, I tracked down Pro Bowl
defensive end and soon-to-be proud father Justin Tuck on Thursday afternoon.
I suspect, at some point, the injuries will start to take their toll. But that said, they've been remarkable so far this year. I really believe that football, at some level, is about hunger. I hate cliche intangibles, but I do believe that some teams just "want it more" than others.
I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota
for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There
is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period.
House Democrats had better start taking the ethics allegations
against Rep. Charlie Rangel seriously. I know it's difficult for those
steeped in Capitol Hill's hermetic culture to understand, but a verdict
of "mistakes were made" -- which a lot of Democrats would like to reach
-- doesn't cut it in the real world. Strange as it seems. Seriously...
The violations that Rangel is alleged to have committed are,
inconveniently for him, easy for anyone to understand. The most
serious, perhaps, is the allegation that he failed to pay taxes on
about $75,000 in income from renting out a beach house that he owns in
the Dominican Republic. For the chairman of the House committee that
writes tax legislation not to pay his fair share in taxes would be as
bad as, say, for the secretary of the Treasury not to pay his fair
share in taxes. (Hold it, maybe that's a bad example.)
The most stunning alleged violation is more of a technicality: That on
required financial disclosure forms, Rangel failed to list more than
$500,000 in assets. The average citizen isn't likely to have half a million bucks somehow slip his mind, since the average citizen doesn't have anything near half a million bucks.
This is toxic. And no, "They did it too!" isn't a defense, it's tone-deaf.
Not to sweat myself, but it's worth re-reading the thread below on the Harry Connick Jr. and then looking at a few of the reaction. In fairness, to Australians the opinions run the gamut. But there's a very familiar strain of straw-manning, overreacting, changing the subject, and protesting too much. I don't think this is an Australian thing, or even a white thing, I think it's a human thing.
People want to be right. Moreover, taking offense is a kind of tribal ritual, even if you're only taking offense at other people taking offense. Thus a century ago, blacks weren't fighting for the rights of citizenship, they were actually fighting for the right to "ravage Southern white womanhood," and today gays aren't trying to secure marriage rights, they're forcing preachers to preside over gay marriages.
When you aren't the hero of the narrative, you simply change the narrative. No one says--"It's my intent to hurt you." It's usually more like--"Why are you making me hurt you." This is why "I found that offensive," quickly becomes "How dare you call me a racist!"
In a stunning surprise, the Nobel Committee announced Friday that it had awarded its annual peace prize to President Obama
"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy
and cooperation between peoples" less than nine months after he took
office.
My Lord. I wish I had cable, so I could watch Fox News flip the fuck out over this one. Rush is gonna be all-world today, Glenn Beck is gonna be all-universe.
Online posters have called Harry Connick, Jr. "just another uptight
American with no sense of humor." And Connick himself appeared on "Mad
TV" in 1996 as a bouffanted, suspiciously tan southern preacher,
prompting accusations of hypocrisy.
In a poll on PerthNow.com.au, 81 percent of respondents said the sketch was not racist, with other newspapers clocking in with similar percentages. Punch
deputy editor Tory Maguire glumly asserted that "The 2.5 million
Australians who were watching were looking for nostalgia, so a
returning act like the Jackson Jive was always going to appeal to
them." It's a sentiment echoed by the show's host, Daryl Somers, who told reporters that Australian audiences "see the lightness of it."
Dr. Anand Deva, who appeared as Michael in the sketch, told an Australian radio station
this week, "This was really not intended ... [to be] anything to do
with racism at all. I am an Indian, and five of the six of us are from
multicultural backgrounds and to be called a racist ... I don't think I
have ever been called that ever in my life before.'' While the crux of
Deva's argument - that someone who isn't white can't be racist -- may
strike many as astonishingly naïve, the dustup does raise interesting
questions about what's offensive -- and to whom.
There's a lot going on here.
1.) The confusing charge of hypocrisy--Harry Connick evidently can't criticize blackface, because he once imitated of a Southern preacher. This is like saying I can't criticize Snoop's misogyny, because I once dressed in drag.
2.) Apparently, some people think the preacher is black (see here) I don't, but even if I did, the logic still doesn't follow. Connick's critique was of blackface, not of imitating black people. No one is demanding that Darrell Hammond stop imitating Jesse Jackson. (Except, maybe, Jesse.)
3.) It's amazing, but not surprising, to see how quickly this went to "Are you a racist?" Connick Jr. gave a really level-headed, calm, but critical, perspective on the skit. To which the response is, "How dare you call me a racist!"
I don't think this is merely cultural, thought that plays a part. I think this about finding a way to make yourself right. The easiest way to do that is to change the subject. Again, it's really, really hard to say, "You know what, My bad." Or even, "Yo know what? I thought it was funny. I didn't realize Americans found this offensive. I'm sorry. I really didn't mean it that way."
Again, I go back to Berlusconi. Warned about calling Obama "tanned," he doesn't say, "My fault," he doubles down and calls the dude's wife tanned too. It's embarrassing. For them. Not us. And I think, in their private hours, they know it.
Look Everybody I'm A Silly Microphone Crumb
Harry Connick gets his Ghetto Pass--or rather just renews it. A hundred dark-eyed, Nubian princesses await him in heaven--or rather just state-side
On another note, I thought of Silvio Berlusconi watching this. Something should be said for the differences in American sensibilities. But that aside, I see this sort of thing and I actually feel bad for the offender. I find it hard to mad at Berlusconi, in the way I find it hard to be mad at a petulant child. In truth, I'm taken by pity--it's like watching a dude, who thinks he's funny, repeatedly make an ass of himself.
That's how I felt watching this--I felt bad for the dudes in blackface. It's like on some level these people are just walking around with a sign that says, "Look at me, I'm ignorant!" It's really sad.
Every Time I Comb My Hair...
Some commenters suggested I cop Around The World In A Day. Damn good call. Turns out it used to be one of Kenyatta's favorites. I know this is the wrong album, but I was trolling through videos and saw this. It's probably one of my favorite pop songs ever. Love the dancing too.
Guys, I want to expound on that earlier post about Michelle Obama and white ancestry. One very consistent theme in comments is that this is news mainly because white people--in large measure--don't know that black people--in large measure--are a mulatto people. That's short-hand, but I hope you guys get my drift. I understand why one might not know the specifics of housing segregation, slavery, Jim Crow, or the grandfather clause, but the case for black/white admixing seems, uhm, very, very evident. Harold Ford has two "black" parents. But I'm not sure he looks any "blacker" than Barack Obama. There's a reason for that, no?
There's also the fact that, historically, so many prominent black
people, (Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Shemar Moore, W.E.B Du Bois,
Halle Berry, Muhammad Ali) actually do have white ancestry. This isn't
because of some kind of color caste elitism, it's because it's so
common. I don't raise it to highlight anyone's ignorance, or to browbeat people, or argue for Black History Month starting in January. I raise it because this is as much about my ignorance as yours. Put bluntly--I thought you knew.
Open Thread At Noon
And they're off...
So I Tried To Watch Cougartown...
It made me remember how much I actually like Courtney Cox. Unfortunately, they had to tie her to a narrative gimmick in order to get the show on the air. Call me sexist, but I'm not interested in sit-com tackling the worn out, "Why is that men get older they get hotter, while women just get older?" dilemma.
I don't doubt that there's some truth to it, but it's also reductive. I always liked older women, and I was never alone in that. Of course now that branding has taken over ("Dude, you're into milfs! Dude, she's a cougar!") I'm not so sure how I feel.
The Shock Of The Hour
I think very, very, few people would be shocked to learn that one of Michelle Obama's ancestors were white. But I could be wrong:
Viewed by many as a powerful symbol of black advancement, Mrs. Obama
grew up with only a vague sense of her ancestry, aides and relatives
said. During the presidential campaign, the family learned about one
paternal great-great-grandfather, a former slave from South Carolina,
but the rest of Mrs. Obama's roots were a mystery.
Now
the more complete map of Mrs. Obama's ancestors -- including the slave
mother, white father and their biracial son, Dolphus T. Shields -- for
the first time fully connects the first African-American first lady to
the history of slavery, tracing their five-generation journey from
bondage to a front-row seat to the presidency.
I'm not sure why this is news. Still, there is one advantage here. People who think Barack Obama "isn't really black," are now free to extend that logic to Michelle. One day they'll realize that, by their lights, no one is. Or not.
October 7, 2009
Some Vaguely Coherent Thoughts
Open Thread At Noon
Take it away...
The Men Tinkering With The Machinery Of Death
This Nightline piece is amazing. It's worth watching the two people largely responsible for Willingham's death. It's worth thinking on the fact that John Jackson, the original prosecutor (who, based on Willingham's music choice, believes he killed his kids as some form of devil worship) is now a Texas judge. It's worth thinking on the fact that we have arson investigators who think science doesn't matter.
Texas justice is essentially sorcery, and there will be people who say that we can perfect it, that we can close the loop-holes. They're wrong. The problem isn't with loopholes--it's with us. We are fallible. Conservatives, more than anyone, should know that--it undergirds their entire philosophy. They don't think government can perfect much of anything. What makes them think we can perfect murder? I'd have a lot more respect if they just came out and said, "Yeah, it isn't perfect, but it's a price we should be willing to pay.
One would hope that Wayans' ambition isn't exceeding his grasp. I pray
that it's not ego driving this move. Despite how it may look from the
work they produce, I always got the sense that the Wayans Bros. as a
collective understood their comedic roots. In Living Color had some
cutting satire in its time. (Though as I understand it, Marlon wasn't
necessarily part of that creative engine.) You could even trace a
sketchy line from more earnest fare like the Jeffersons and 227 forward
to that stupid WB sitcom Shawn and Marlon starred in in the '90s. The
throughline that connects their project is a stubborn insistence on
visibility. They make movies that make money and, while that may seem
strictly mercenary, the cold truth in Hollywood is that profitability
is the only way you get a spot onscreen or get a producing credit.
Hell, I'd even call it brilliantly subversive if wince-inducing crap
like White Chicks and Little Man turn out to be the reason the
Tinseltown movers and shakers greenlight the project and Wayans as
Pryor. And as I sit here and type this, I can't think of any actor who
could play Pryor. That's ironic when you consider scads of comedians
who've appropriated--consciously or not--Pryor's tics and techniques.
Could any of them breathe life into a portrayal of the man himself...
Anyway, this gives us an opportunity to revel in the glory of Live On The Sunset Trip. Thank God they got prisons. Heh.
The Cowardice Of Rick Perry
CNN on the case. And some suspicion over whether he broke the law. I'd love to hear some lawyers, who may be reading this post, comment. Read the original New Yorker article about Willingham here. This is the part that just broke me:
Another inmate, Ernest Ray Willis, had a case that was freakishly
similar to Willingham's. In 1987, Willis had been convicted of setting
a fire, in West Texas, that killed two women. Willis told investigators
that he had been sleeping on a friend's living-room couch and woke up
to a house full of smoke. He said that he tried to rouse one of the
women, who was sleeping in another room, but the flames and smoke drove
him back, and he ran out the front door before the house exploded with
flames.
Witnesses maintained that Willis had acted suspiciously; he
moved his car out of the yard, and didn't show "any emotion," as one
volunteer firefighter put it. Authorities also wondered how Willis
could have escaped the house without burning his bare feet. Fire
investigators found pour patterns, puddle configurations, and other
signs of arson. The authorities could discern no motive for the crime,
but concluded that Willis, who had no previous record of violence, was
a sociopath--a "demon," as the prosecutor put it. Willis was charged
with capital murder and sentenced to death.
Willis had
eventually obtained what Willingham called, enviously, a "bad-ass
lawyer." James Blank, a noted patent attorney in New York, was assigned
Willis's case as part of his firm's pro-bono work. Convinced that
Willis was innocent, Blank devoted more than a dozen years to the case,
and his firm spent millions, on fire consultants, private
investigators, forensic experts, and the like.
Willis was ultimately exonerated, which is good news. But the randomness of it all just killed me. Read about him here.
October 6, 2009
The Incredible, Unassailable Intellectual Courage Of TNC
There is a part of me that said, "Dude, don't publish the Pick Em ratings, this week." Alas, I must face the music. At Pick Em, I am teh suck. Read em and weep. For me, mostly--down at 106. Man, am I awful.
When I think about Derrion Albert, the
16-year-old who was beaten to death outside his Chicago high school on
Sept. 24, I think about the very things my dad was working to protect
us from when my siblings and I were growing up in the early '90s. Our
home was in Beechview, at the time a quiet, mostly white, working-class
neighborhood in Pittsburgh. It made us the butt of jokes from a lot of
our black friends, who lived on the east side of town. "No one can find
your house!" they'd say. "Y'all live waaaaaaaay over there! Y'all live
with the white folks!"
But living with the black folks--in Homewood,
Wilkinsburg, East Liberty or on the Hill--was not an option in my
parents' eyes. Yeah, our people lived there--but so did the local news.
It is a fact that most black neighborhoods are more violent, on balance, than most white neighborhoods. Moreover, as someone who's lived in black neighborhoods, I think it's incredibly presumptuous to attack people for moving into non-black neighborhoods, whatever their logic or reasoning. Lastly, it's important to not be callous toward black people who've felt rejected by other black people.
All of that said, I think, should you be privileged enough to grow up and become a professional writer, it's generally a bad idea to use that privilege to settle scores from your playground days. I think some sensitivity is in order for those who can't leave the neighborhood. I think some understanding is due to those who believe that living in a black neighborhood means something more than simply living in a violent neighborhood, that leaving means surrendering the streets they love to criminals. That's not a view-point that all black people must, or even should, share.
But a black boy was just murdered in the most awful way. Some empathy is due to his mother, his family as community. Leaving aside the specious notion that all black neighborhoods are violent neighborhoods, this strikes me as the wrong time to yell, "I told you so."
Open Thread At Noon
Take it away...
Must You Corrupt Everything I Love?
Rush Limbaugh is trying to buy the Rams. I know Stacy will love this. For the hell of it let's remember what Rush said about Donovan McNabb:
"I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The
media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well,''
Limbaugh said. "There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a
lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve.
The defense carried this team."
Heh. Credit he didn't deserve. I'm not sure thatt McNabb is Hall-Of-Famer yet. But he is unquestionably one of the best quarterbacks of his era. One stat sticks out for me--McNabb is the least intercepted quarterback in NFL history.
Ebony At The Gates
It's rather sad to see Ebony going down just as it's getting getting name-checked on Mad Men. I'm conflicted about this--It's a hard road for all magazines right now, and it's important to say this. That Ebony has held on this long is commendable. Moreover, I've been nurtured by black institutions all my life. I worked in one from my the time I could talk, and on into my 20s. I went to Baltimore public schools, and then on to an HBCU, where I started my writing career at the college paper.
I don't think we can overstate the importance of being self-starters, and not asking people to do for us, what we will not do for ourselves. Moreover, the magazine world is still horrifyingly white--and that actually understates the problem. The magazine world isn't just horrifyingly white, it's horrifyingly Northeastern, horrifyingly
Ivy League, and horrifyingly privileged. This is more about inertia,
than it is about malice or bigotry. (Though we should not confuse a reason with an excuse.)
But my point is that Ebony isn't having problems because the magazine world is stepping on their territory. Far from it. They're having problems because, all things being equal, technology has almost (almost!) rendered the question moot. There arejust toomany awesomeplaces where Isee myself. This world--the one where you have a black president--is the world that Ebony's agents dreamed of. This is what we wanted. It is myopic to call integration a paradox, it implies that one should get something for nothing. There's a reason we don't sing spirituals anymore.
New Flaming Lips
I'm only about halfway through. I don't like it as much as liked Yoshimi or The Soft Bulletin, but I'll buy it. I love these guys, and love that they take chances. Plus, I often have to let their stuff grow on me. I didn't like Yoshimi right away.
October 5, 2009
An Ocean Of Violets In Bloom
As most of you know, I've been on a rather insane Prince kick lately. I don't have any obscure citations today, but I've combing the archives--I missed a shocking amount of his best stuff. At any rate, I was watching this video last night and thinking Prince, and really his band-mates, must have felt so incredible when this joint hit. At this moment, they must have known that they really were doing something completely different in pop music, and people were feeling it. I think a lot of artists will tell you that they'd settle for a being ahead of their time. But to be ahead of your time, and for people to get that and love that, must be incredible.
I know Ezra is paraphrasing someone else's argument, but this is really good:
This reminds me of Charles Karelis's "The Persistence of Poverty."
The basic argument is that the wealthy misunderstand the mental state
of the poor, which leads them to make conceptual errors when creating
policies to address poverty, or, in this case, obesity. Think of a bee
sting, he advises. If you have a single bee sting, you'll go buy some
salve to take away the pain. Now imagine three bee stings, a sprained
ankle, a burn, a cut, a crick in your neck, a sore throat, and
arthritis. Does the bee sting matter anymore?
Karelis argues that this is more the situation of someone in
poverty. Obesity is bad, but it may be just one of many bad things.
Overdue bills. A horrible part-time job. Endless commuting time on the
bus. A mother with diabetes. A child running with the wrong crowd. A
leaking roof. In that scenario, slowly reversing your weight gain might
be a good idea, but it hardly makes a dent in the overall crumminess of
the conditions. It won't replace pain with pleasure. So you do things
that are surer to replace pain with pleasure, like have a delicious,
filling, satisfying, salty, fatty meal. That may make your overall
situation more unpleasant, but then, making that situation pleasant
didn't seem like an option in the first place.
This, he would say, is fundamentally different than the situation of
someone who is fundamentally happy with his life but thinks he should
lose 30 pounds. For that person, those 30 pounds are the main thing
standing between him and perceived happiness. It's one bee sting
instead of a dozen ailments. The condition seems manageable, and so it
gets managed. Conversely, if the aggregate condition does not seem
manageable, people are less likely to manage any individual part,
because it will not bring obvious reward -- life will still be
pressuring and difficult. The things that will bring obvious reward,
however, often make the underlying situation worse -- think spending,
overeating and drinking. But then, that's why they call poverty a
cycle, and obesity fits there, too.
I think that basically sums it up, and jives with my own experience. It's a lot easier to drop that 30 when everything else is going well, as opposed to when you're worred about the kid's school, your ability to make rent, and the fools on the corner.
Open Thread At Noon
Go for it...
The Mad Men Thread
If you haven't seen the latest episode, avoid the jump.
This is just great--We're not gonna rape him. That would be barbaric. We sure about that?
Still, this is great. Scully, don't let that happen again. lol.
Imus Returns
I never understood the point of driving him off the air. I certainly understood why "Nappy-Headed Hoes" was offensive. I also thought his "I wasn't the first one to say it!" defense was lame. And I did like Gwen Ifill calling out the wierdness of elite Washington embracing him. But all in all, I don't really know what was accomplished. Oh yeah. It gave us Morning Joe.
October 4, 2009
NFL Open Thread
In comments, earlier this week, I asserted that this was exactly the sort of game (Dallas vs.Denver) in which Romo could go for four TDs. I'm very open to being wrong--and indeed, it's possible I'm underestimating Romo's struggles. But I don't think so.
Anyway, with that in mind, I came upon a situation that must be the bane of any real football fan. Romo is on my team. So is Carson Palmer. So is the Broncos defense. I actually benched Romo for Palmer, for a second, and then started the Broncos D. But I looked at my line-up and thought, "There is no way, I'm rooting against my Cowboys. Not even a little bit." So I promptly benched Palmer, and the Broncos D for the Vikings.
The bad aspect of fantasy is that it can turn you into a mercenary fan. I'm not doing that. Indeed, I'm doubling down. When the Cowboys go down, it ruins my week. It used to be so bad, when they lost, that I didn't even read the paper--not the sports page, the entire paper. When they're up, it makes my week. It used to be so bad that when the Cowboys won a big game, I'd go online and read the opposing teams paper--all week. Nothing like hearing the cries and lamentations of your hated opponents women and children. Or their sports-writers.
Anyway, I'm all in. I'm not going to be a "fantasy fan." I've got a lot of players hurt up this week (Mike Bell has been a stud for me.) If Romo sucks this week, I probably do too.
Now that that's said, let's get on with our beautiful Sunday ritual.
October 2, 2009
Open Thread At Noon
Traveling today guys. There may not be much after this. Take it away...
The Useful Idiocy Of White Racism
Natalie Hopkinson zeroes in on something that's always been in the wind, with regard to Cory Booker, Barack Obama, and this "new generation" of black pols--the since that this golden (literally) bunch will save the niggers from themselves:
Newark Mayor Cory Booker was furious about the 8,000-word Esquire magazine profile of him and his beloved city. "I exploded," he says in the new documentary, Brick City,
"with just, rage, when I read it." The 2008 article described Booker's
heroic quest to awaken the "city of zombies" and the "Goddamn Zulus"
residing in Jersey. Indeed, it was a stunningly racist portrait of
Newark and its leader, written by Scott Raab, an accomplished (white) writer
you'd expect to know better. When he wasn't summoning violins with
purple prose about "cannibal," "animal" violence, he was anointing
Cory Booker as a green-eyed Magical Super Negro, swooping into battle
with "old school ghetto despots" to save the "feckless negritude" of
Newark.
You know, typical, stereotypical, welcome-to-the-jungle reporting--Booker as the Great Yellow Hope...
It was an interesting time to complain, as seconds
earlier, Cruz had been grilling Booker for their monthly local call-in
radio show, and Brick City documentary film cameras
recorded the whole exchange. The much talked-about five-part series
(directed by Mark Benjamin and Marc Levin and executive produced by
Forest Whitaker) debuted last week on the Sundance Channel and will
have its encore starting Saturday. Even when he's complaining about the
media, to the media, while being filmed by another member of the media,
Cory Booker has a message he needs to get out...
Booker knows as well as any other black person in
Newark that the endless hagiography being spilled about him since his
2006 election is simplistic and plain inaccurate.
As he told Cruz: "The reality is there are heroes all over this city. I struggle to match their greatness every single day."
Later, he promised that "we are on pace to make Newark the model for urban transformation."
"We are going to rewrite the books on crime. Newark, New Jersey."
"Look at who is coming to Newark now. Businesses are moving here. Law firms are coming to our city."
Still, as inspiring as Brick City can be, it trades in some of the same Super Negro tropes that were in the Esquire article. In both, Booker willingly plays the role of urban safari tour guide. For the Brick City crew, Booker ignored Cruz's counsel and gave them access for months on end.
Like Nat (I think) I have some sympathy for Booker. His appeal (like Obama's) trades, in some respect, or some really odious racial thinking. The Esquire piece, (which, as Nat notes, refers to Newark's "feckless negritude," calls Sharpe James a "ghetto despot," and repeatedly refers to random residents as zombies and Booker as Will Smith in I Am Legend) is ugly. Booker, himself, has denounced it along with its white knight pretensions. But at the same time, he must know that a sector of his white support comes from people who really do consider Newark a pit of "feckless negritude," who really do think Booker dethroned a "ghetto despot."
It's a tough position. Obama noted a few months back how, whenever he talks about race, reporters ignore his structural critique and skip right to the "Put away the Playstation" part. As I've said, I've got no problem with "Put away the Playstation." Moreover, Sharpe James is a crook. But there is this sense of being used as a cudgel in someone else's fight, a fight that doesn't simply object to buffoonery and demagoguery, but objects to buffoonery and demagoguery from blacks.
Here is the catch--these are the modern black politician's useful idiots. The calculus holds that it's worth trading time as their cudgel, if it can improve the lives of actual black people. If significant numbers of whites need to believe that Booker and Obama aren't "like the others," that they are "a different kind of black," in order to support them, then I'm not sure what to say. You can hate me, now--as long as your hate comes with a side of health care.
You guys know what this is--Someone, somewhere, will be about the business of washing and disabusing racists. But it's a tiring role, which some of us just don't want to play.
UPDATE: Link fixt.
Touching The Void
I was gone last Friday--flew up to Provincetown to offer some reader's questions to Andrew. Long story short--The actual travel sucked (delays, pest-ridden b&b, Logan Airport is all-world fail etc.) Andrew's fam was delightful (his mother has a beautiful accent, his husband looks like Superman, loves Tennessee Williams and quotes Wrecks-N-Effect) and Andrew was what he is at the Dish--passionate, inspiring and really fucking honest.
Here he is discussing how he changed after being told that he was mortally ill. Check out the whole series.
October 1, 2009
What Happened To The Raiders?
A few weeks ago I took to comparing Jerry Jones to Al Davis. That was a mistake. And may it always be so:
The timing was perfect: Raiders head coach Tom Cable was reportedly
interviewed by police in Napa, Calif., on Monday about his role in the
alleged assault of assistant coach Randy Hanson. As a general rule, you
could do worse than to pay attention to the Raiders all the time, just
for the unpredictability and unintentional comedy, but the past week
has been amazing even by their lofty standards.
Late last
week they tried to ban former Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon from the
team's facility. Gannon was on the CBS announcing crew for Sunday's
game against the Broncos, and the Raiders tried to keep Gannon from
attending a pre-production meeting at team HQ, and then tried to ban
him from doing the color commentary for the game.
It
didn't work, but Gannon ended up being late and missed the meeting.
Before that, one of the team's employees -- their titles are all
nebulous and deliberately intended to throw you off the scent --
managed to launch into an inspired diatribe against Gannon.
Telling
the San Francisco Chronicle that Gannon has made several comments that
the Raiders should "blow up the building and start over," Raiders
front-office exec John Herrera said, "We think in a post-9/11 world
that's not a very proper thing to say. It's uncalled-for. He seems to
be a guy who can't get over the fact that he played the worst Super
Bowl in the history of the game and he wants to blame everybody but
himself. I guess it's our fault he threw five interceptions."
So
there you have it: Rich Gannon, terrorist. In the annals of Raider
weirdness, where the owner trotted out an overhead projector to outline
his reasons for firing Lane Kiffin, and where the head coach is a
suspect in an assault on an assistant, a team executive savaging a
former team captain -- creator of some of the few positive memories
over the past 10 years -- qualifies as significant. They don't know
where, or how, to stop.
I wonder how much of the Raiders decline has to do with professionalization of football. It was obviously always professional. But I wonder if you could get away with a lot more sloppiness, say, 30 years ago.
That Said...
I don't really buy that Polanski's prosecutor lied in Wanted And Desired:
"I lied," Wells told me yesterday, referring to his comments in the
movie that he told the judge how he could renege on a plea-bargain
agreement and send Polanski back to jail after he had been released
from a 42-day psychiatric evaluation--the heart of Polanski's claims of
prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. "I know I shouldn't have done
it, but I did. The director of the documentary told me it would never
air in the States. I thought it made a better story if I said I'd told
the judge what to do."
Recanting these statements is a bombshell.
No they aren't. They're largely beside the point. Leaving aside the preposterous nature of this excuse, Polanski seems to have a case for judicial misconduct. But there's a way to handle that, and it isn't by fleeing the country. From Jessica Grose:
Worst for Polanski, however, is probably the provocation that he
himself gave to prosecutors. In 1978, when he was brought to trial,
Polanski fled because he believed the judge sentencing him was not
going to accept the plea bargain he'd agreed to, a 90-day mental evaluation at Chico State Prison. In 2008, filmmaker Marina Zenovich--who had no prior relationship with Polanski--released a documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,
that corroborated Polanski's fear that his plea bargain wouldn't have
taken effect. Polanski tried to use the information presented in the
film to get his case dismissed. Even the prosecutor from the original
trial said in the documentary that he didn't think the judge, who is
now dead, had been fair to Polanski.
And for a while, it seemed as if Polanksi's strategy might work.
Earlier this year, a new judge was willing to consider dismissing the
case against him. But first, he wanted Polanski to show up in court. Polanski, however, would not appear.
This is Polanski's biggest problem: The judge's terms were
reasonable. He gave Polanski three months to surface in L.A. and even
hinted that the director would probably not serve jail time if he
appeared. And yet Polanski refused. From the point of view of prosecutors, Polanski practically dared them to act. Gailey, too, has said that she would like to see him come
back to deal with the case, though she has publicly forgiven him. "I
hope that would mean I'd never have to talk about this again," she said
in 2003 of his return. "Sometimes I feel like we both got a life
sentence."
Open Thread At Noon
Thanks for all the birthday wishes. They really touched Kenyatta.
Rick Perry Covers His Collusion In Faulty Execution
Gov. Rick
Perry has replaced the head of a state commission that is investigating
a questionable finding of arson in the case that led to the 2004
execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, just as the commission was due to
hold a public hearing examining the case.
The commission
had hired a nationally known expert whose review of the Willingham case
was released last month. The author, Craig Beyler, called the
investigation slipshod and determined that almost all of the evidence
presented was based on junk science....
This week, the
governor chose not to extend the terms of Austin lawyer Sam Bassett,
former chair of the commission, as well as two others on the
nine-member Texas Forensic Science Commission. The new commission chair
promptly canceled Friday's meeting on the Beyler report...
Perry's
challenger in the March Republican primary, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison,
said that the case has not been handled properly.
"Why
you wouldn't at least have the hearing that the former member
suggested, to find out what the facts are, when a man has been executed
and now the facts are in dispute - just like DNA has given more tools
to determine the facts," she said. "I am strongly for the death
penalty, but always with the absolute assurance that you have the
ability to be sure - with the technology that we have - that a person
is guilty
I'm not even surprised. Again, it's very hard for people to admit error. They will lie, cover evidence, kill the messenger before admitting that they're wrong. The higher the stakes, the harder the heart, and the deader the mind.
Food. We Need Food.
Back to Fallows' ongoing convo about obesity and class. I think this e-mail gets at something important:
"An overlooked connection between obesity and class, I believe, stems
from varying quantity of personal enjoyment and anticipation of
enjoyment.
"It is one thing for a successful, financially
comfortable, socially accepted and respected person who has multiple
things happening every day that are pleasurable (golf, driving a nice
car, nice home, stylish clothing, success at work, interesting social
events, kids doing well, planning vacations, etc) to take just one
pleasurable aspect of life (overeating) and sacrifice some of that
pleasure for the good result of losing weight.
"Now, for people
struggling financially and socially, trying to just get through the day
and keep their lives together to varying degrees...their meals are
often the only consistently happy and pleasurable events they can count
on each day.
"Obviously, a generalization. But, if one gets
up and faces a day with a tedious and unfulfilling job, not much money
to spend on anything but necessities, and no "fun" things ahead, how
much more difficult it is for that person to also think ahead to a day
of denying themselves the pleasure of their mealtimes...."
When other aspects of your life aren't going to well, that McFlurry is an awesome pick-me-up. Trust me, I know. I almost hit 300 pounds (298 at the height of my glory) while I was doing the entry work of becoming a writer--spend long hours alone in the library at Howard, writing pieces for 10 cents a word, coming to New York and writing editors who didn't know me from the next wannabee, losing three different writing jobs. I had years when I grossed five figures, years when I worked as a food delivery boy, and years when Samori's pre-school bill was higher than my earnings.
I gave away my 20s, in large measure, to writing and to my kid. I don't regret that. Everything--from a beautiful son to beautiful commenters--I have now stems from those choices. Still, it was not a fun time. How did I get over? Leaving aside the support of my family, I have two words for you--Breyer's and Entenmann's. It sounds disgusting when I write it. But that little a'la mode pick-me-up made things a little more bearable.
Now, here's the thing. I paid some dues, but I was not living in the PJs. I worried about eviction sometimes, but my parents always had my back. We were poor--but we were creative class poor.Kenyatta and I had chosen our paths. This was what we wanted, even if we didn't know what it would cost. And finally once I saw some return, I needed that pick-me-up a lot less, and sort of like paying old debt, I started shrinking back to the old me. Very slowly, I might add. But, by the ghost of Gabriel Prosser, I'm approaching the self I knew before this odyssey began.
What about people who are born into hardship? Who are born into stress and born into eating as a way of ameliorating that stress? Who grow up in an environment where mostly everyone else does the same? And then this gets conflated with old ideas about food and money--the notion that "All You Can Eat" is a good thing.
There is a culture to being fat, and putting fresh veggies in the hood isn't enough to counter it. The culture is complicated--and its more American than it is hood. I would encourage people to think about all the negative ways we cope. The upper-class may not be fat, but in my experience, they know their way around the tequila bottle.
Liberals Against Child-Rape
There's a developing meme that this defense of Polanski is more evidence of the excesses of liberals, and lack of morality among the bra-burners. I think it's worth acknowledging that the myopic Hollywood bunch backing Polanski are, for the most part, liberals. Rightly or wrongly, the tribe mentality says that these fools are giving liberalism a bad name.
That said, it's worth noting that the Hollywood left's prominence is based on the business of entertainment. Hank Williams shouldn't be confused with William Kristol, no matter what one thinks of Kristol. This is about establishmentarians sticking up for other
establishmentarians. Sometimes The Man believes in universal health
care, too. It's worth citing XXFactor, Salon, LGM, TAPPED, Media Matters, and Eugene Robinson. Moreover, it's worth noting that, among the pundit class, Polanski's loudest defenders, Richard Cohen and Anne Applebaum, are by no means "of the Left."
A special note on Applebaum. Check out the follow-up to her defense of Polanski, and the rebuttals. Applebaum mischaracterizes the grand jury testimony, and then implies that the girl's mother was to blame. It's very difficult for me to believe that she thinks this is right. It's easier for me to believe that she's struggling with that essential, if oft-disregarded, charge put to all writers, indeed of all person--the charge of admitting when you are wrong. It's a hard thing to do--but it's also essential.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
