YEAH -- ANYONE CAN DO IT, AND MOST OF IT IS CRAP. "And it inspired me to the realization that blogging is a lot like producing techno..." -- InstaPundit.
Thursday, January 08, 2004
PUSSY. An article by Jed Babbin is introduced on National Review Online's front page with the tag "Air marshals are making us safer." The graphic says "Safer with AFMs." The article is entitled "Thank Your FAMs." There is, of course, nothing in the article demonstrating that air mashals have done anything at all except draw salary, but we are told why we should believe that they have: "But fortunately for us, and our economy, the skies are safe -- despite what terrorists may think." You don't think like one of those terrorists, now, do you?
More interesting than the alogical approach (which is rather common at NRO) are the purposefully butch insertions Babbin uses to bolster his non-argument. The thing is parfaited with Cheneyspeak, which attempts to convey masculinity by emulating the simple babbles of childhood. Thus Babbin refers to terrorists as "bad guys," and to American forces as "our guys"; grouped by speciality, American intelligence agents are "our intel guys," while troops trained in special operations are "spec-op guys."
The FAMs "get it," meaning "our guys know you can shoot a whole bunch of holes though the skin of an airliner without anything really bad happening," and at one point Babbin asks his subject "what message he'd pass along to the bad guys, baiting him for a growly, macho message." To be fair, Babbin does not use the phrase "big time," or go "HOO-ahh" at any point.
If want more of this kind of thing, you can go here and read Babbin on how his terrorist-attack survival methods are better than those of his effete liberal neighbors, because his "pal," a "a retired SEAL senior officer," forwarded him some advice from Red Thomas, who has "seen it all, and trained the young ’uns to fight..." The article is from last February; I wonder if Babbin still has his "go bag" of water-purification and other post-apocalyptic necessities stashed in his car.
Babbin's article, by the way, includes a picture of himself. He looks like a total pussy.
More interesting than the alogical approach (which is rather common at NRO) are the purposefully butch insertions Babbin uses to bolster his non-argument. The thing is parfaited with Cheneyspeak, which attempts to convey masculinity by emulating the simple babbles of childhood. Thus Babbin refers to terrorists as "bad guys," and to American forces as "our guys"; grouped by speciality, American intelligence agents are "our intel guys," while troops trained in special operations are "spec-op guys."
The FAMs "get it," meaning "our guys know you can shoot a whole bunch of holes though the skin of an airliner without anything really bad happening," and at one point Babbin asks his subject "what message he'd pass along to the bad guys, baiting him for a growly, macho message." To be fair, Babbin does not use the phrase "big time," or go "HOO-ahh" at any point.
If want more of this kind of thing, you can go here and read Babbin on how his terrorist-attack survival methods are better than those of his effete liberal neighbors, because his "pal," a "a retired SEAL senior officer," forwarded him some advice from Red Thomas, who has "seen it all, and trained the young ’uns to fight..." The article is from last February; I wonder if Babbin still has his "go bag" of water-purification and other post-apocalyptic necessities stashed in his car.
Babbin's article, by the way, includes a picture of himself. He looks like a total pussy.
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
SHORTER MAGGIE GALLAGHER. This college kid I met hasn't given much thought to fatherhood, demonstrating that homosexuals are selfish destroyers of everything we hold dear.
STATES' (LAST) RITES. As is well known, our formerly solvent nation is running a record $374.2 billion deficit -- in contrast to the $230 billion surplus Clinton left us with in 2000.
But the states aren't doing much better. Not that they're getting less money from the Feds: While in 1998 the Census Bureau reported $25.3 billion in "federal government grants and other payments" to U.S. state governments ($29.8 billion went to California), in 2002 that rose to $36.2 billion for the states (and $41.6 billion to California.)
Yet state budgets are still a mess. Conservatives like to leave California as the only visible object-lesson of state spending run amok, as it had been piloted by a hapless Democrat before the telegenic Wolfcastle putsch. But Republican governors like Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and John Rowland of Connecticut are asking for tax increases to bail their asses out, reports the Christian Science Monitor, which also says we're currently seeing the "Deepest State Deficits in 50 Years."
The problem, says CSM, "is that tax revenues are way down and costs are exploding, particularly in healthcare, which represents 30 percent of state budgets." This has led to some heartwarming scenes, such as this one reported by AP:
Clearly this country is, at every level, financially fucked. Yet no one from the President down to the lowliest Town Supervisor wants to face up to our impending bankruptcy. For one thing, they have jerks like this saying that the states are only suffering now because they "went on a spending binge in the 1990s," presumably on such frills as ventilators for crippled teenagers. For another, they have voters howling for reform on the cheap.
So the various government agents, excepting those who have yet to run out of bullshit, juggle and fumble like bankrupt housekeepers, hiding the credit card bills and turn-off notices from the spouse and kids, hoping to get through one more day.
Meanwhile, half a world away, we teach democracy.
But the states aren't doing much better. Not that they're getting less money from the Feds: While in 1998 the Census Bureau reported $25.3 billion in "federal government grants and other payments" to U.S. state governments ($29.8 billion went to California), in 2002 that rose to $36.2 billion for the states (and $41.6 billion to California.)
Yet state budgets are still a mess. Conservatives like to leave California as the only visible object-lesson of state spending run amok, as it had been piloted by a hapless Democrat before the telegenic Wolfcastle putsch. But Republican governors like Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and John Rowland of Connecticut are asking for tax increases to bail their asses out, reports the Christian Science Monitor, which also says we're currently seeing the "Deepest State Deficits in 50 Years."
The problem, says CSM, "is that tax revenues are way down and costs are exploding, particularly in healthcare, which represents 30 percent of state budgets." This has led to some heartwarming scenes, such as this one reported by AP:
Linda Garner of Columbus wrote [Georgia Governor Sonny] Perdue recently after the state terminated her quadriplegic daughter's benefits when she turned 21. The daughter, Melissa, was struck by a drunk driver when she was 6, and relies on a ventilator.Costs are going up and revenues are going down, but no one wants to look like a tax-and-spend liberal so people get screwed. And until things gets to the Huckabee-Rowland stage, games are played to try and hide the damage for one more season. From a hilarious story in the Applebee (WI) Post-Crescent, optimistically titled "State Tax Burden Down in 2003":
Perdue's reply to her was sympathetic but, after carefully explaining the state's budget difficulties, it offered her no help.
The study found Wisconsin’s total tax burden was 33 percent of personal income in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2003. That’s down from 33.7 percent in 2002, 34.4 percent in 2001 and 37.4 percent in 2000.Total taxes down 0.7 percent! Happy days are here again! And you have to love the property tax-sales tax shuffle.
The total tax burden is a combination of all federal, state and local taxes Wisconsin residents and businesses pay.
“That’s encouraging,” Wood County Supv. Donna Rozar said. Her county decreased its property tax levy 12.3 percent this past year, but offset about 50 percent of that loss with a half-percent county sales tax, she said. [italics mine]
“I think we’re an overtaxed people,” she said.
Clearly this country is, at every level, financially fucked. Yet no one from the President down to the lowliest Town Supervisor wants to face up to our impending bankruptcy. For one thing, they have jerks like this saying that the states are only suffering now because they "went on a spending binge in the 1990s," presumably on such frills as ventilators for crippled teenagers. For another, they have voters howling for reform on the cheap.
So the various government agents, excepting those who have yet to run out of bullshit, juggle and fumble like bankrupt housekeepers, hiding the credit card bills and turn-off notices from the spouse and kids, hoping to get through one more day.
Meanwhile, half a world away, we teach democracy.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
PLAYING TO THE CHEAP SEATS. "My hankering for Dean is therefore a little like Bill Kristol's." -- Andrew Sullivan.
(Sound effect.)
(Rimshot!)
Yes, I'm goin' for the easy laffs, friends, because alicublog has just been nominated for the "Best Humorous Blog" Koufax Award. Nominees were restricted to leftish sites, which is as it should be, as we are all about speech codes and political correctness.
A blue ribbon panel will soon winnow the 3,429 nominees in this category down to a select few, so I will celebrate now and hopefully sober up before it comes time to drown my sorrows.
Thanks to all who supported me, and remember, if I am not among the finalists, take it out on your loved ones, not the voters.
(Sound effect.)
(Rimshot!)
Yes, I'm goin' for the easy laffs, friends, because alicublog has just been nominated for the "Best Humorous Blog" Koufax Award. Nominees were restricted to leftish sites, which is as it should be, as we are all about speech codes and political correctness.
A blue ribbon panel will soon winnow the 3,429 nominees in this category down to a select few, so I will celebrate now and hopefully sober up before it comes time to drown my sorrows.
Thanks to all who supported me, and remember, if I am not among the finalists, take it out on your loved ones, not the voters.
DEAD HORSE. A guy at Tacitus talks up Seabiscuit, a movie he liked so well that he's sorry he saw it on his "decent home theater set-up" instead of in a theatre.
I can see why he liked it -- which is not to say that it's good. I saw the thing last year. A bad feeling came over me at the opening credits, when the voice of that guy who narrates PBS history specials came on over some sepia-toned stills. Did I just pay 10 bucks to watch Ken Burns' American Stories on a big screen? I wondered.
Thereafter came a story about misfits banding together and keeping their dreams alive -- kind of a cross between Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Flashdance, only not as subtle as either. Here are some quotes from Seabiscuit, and yes, these paltry examples are representative of its eloquence.
As for its visual storytelling, I will remember forever a scene in which Chris Cooper, charged with matching a jockey to his horse, regards Tobey McGuire fighting off a bunch of guys, then turns to regard Seabiscuit fighting off a bunch of guys, then faces forward and broods on the metaphor a-forming in his mind. To be fair, he did not then snap his fingers, widen his eyes, tear off his cap and light out to tell Mr. Howard, but he might as well have.
All the acting and craft elements were dandy, but the story was so hectoring on its points as to be insulting. The sad thing is, I am very susceptible to the idea of America as a land of hope and opportunity that offers even to the damaged a path to glory and redemption. But a witless repetition of cliches on the subject just makes me want to snort.
Which, come to think of it, kind of explains this weblog.
I can see why he liked it -- which is not to say that it's good. I saw the thing last year. A bad feeling came over me at the opening credits, when the voice of that guy who narrates PBS history specials came on over some sepia-toned stills. Did I just pay 10 bucks to watch Ken Burns' American Stories on a big screen? I wondered.
Thereafter came a story about misfits banding together and keeping their dreams alive -- kind of a cross between Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Flashdance, only not as subtle as either. Here are some quotes from Seabiscuit, and yes, these paltry examples are representative of its eloquence.
As for its visual storytelling, I will remember forever a scene in which Chris Cooper, charged with matching a jockey to his horse, regards Tobey McGuire fighting off a bunch of guys, then turns to regard Seabiscuit fighting off a bunch of guys, then faces forward and broods on the metaphor a-forming in his mind. To be fair, he did not then snap his fingers, widen his eyes, tear off his cap and light out to tell Mr. Howard, but he might as well have.
All the acting and craft elements were dandy, but the story was so hectoring on its points as to be insulting. The sad thing is, I am very susceptible to the idea of America as a land of hope and opportunity that offers even to the damaged a path to glory and redemption. But a witless repetition of cliches on the subject just makes me want to snort.
Which, come to think of it, kind of explains this weblog.
MORE OLD BUSINESS. It has been 54 days since I wondered aloud at Andrew Sullivan's description of Howard Dean as "from Vermont, one of the home bases of what's being called 'the Starbucks Metrosexual elite.'" So I went to Google to see if anyone on the Web has actually used that term in relation to anything except Sullivan's use of it.
Chirp. Chirp.
Odd, I thought the guy knew a lot of bloggers.
Chirp. Chirp.
Odd, I thought the guy knew a lot of bloggers.
Monday, January 05, 2004
A GIMME -- WITH AN EXPLANATION. Tan, wretched and ready Andrew Sullivan is celebrating his return to workaday life with a long post about the NYT's alleged distortion of Bush's gay marriage statement.
The post has absolutely no significant new information and mainly repeats a previous Sullivan charge, made to shore up the insane idea that Bush is somehow sympathetic to gay marriage.
Two can play at that game, Sullivan: why waste our readers' time and our own, when we can just waste our readers'? I herewith repost what I said about Sullivan's bullshit last month.
The post has absolutely no significant new information and mainly repeats a previous Sullivan charge, made to shore up the insane idea that Bush is somehow sympathetic to gay marriage.
Two can play at that game, Sullivan: why waste our readers' time and our own, when we can just waste our readers'? I herewith repost what I said about Sullivan's bullshit last month.
[Sullivan reports:] "One small problem: the president did not say that ['I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman...].' He said: 'If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment...' In the context of religious right demands for immediate support for the FMA, that's a big difference."Beats workin'.
In other words, though Bush has told the world that he's dead against gay marriage -- not even Sullivan denies this -- since he'll only use the FMA to stop it if he really needs to, the Times account is "what amounts to a lie about Bush's position"...
I wonder: were I to send Sullivan a letter, stating, "I want you dead, Sullivan. If necessary, I will kill you myself with my bare hands," he would fail to report it as a death threat, on semantic grounds.
Sullivan's so full of shit, I'm beginning to wonder is he's really gay.
OL' BLOOD 'N' GUTS' FINAL SOLUTION. I am a dedicated follower of General Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters (last sighting here), and look forward to each new column as eagerly as if it were a new Lockhorns installment.
His most recent column, though, has me worried. Not that it is stylistically off the mark -- it is in some ways the apotheosis of his style. But I fear he may have shot his wad.
The column opens with a graf of breathtaking logical inversion:
Peters claims that Dean supporters are against free speech because they "try to intimidate other presidential aspirants by surrounding the cars delivering them to their rallies and chanting to drown out their speech... These are the techniques employed by Hitler's Brownshirts." I'm not sure what real-world events, if any, he's referring to -- the
Washington Post did report that Dean supporters chanted outside a Gephardt speech; Gephardt's people were obliged to close the windows, and his spokesperson called the act "a little bit disrespectful," which hardly summons up visions of Kristallnacht. (I can't find any reference in actual news to the car thing, which may exist only in one of Peters' brain-bubbles.)
Then Peters compares Howard Dean to Hitler, Goebbels, Big Brother, Lenin, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev.
All good fun, but you see the problem, don't you? The election is ten months away, and Peters has already gone to the money shot. After you've repeatedly compared a candidate and his followers to Nazis, what else is left? Maybe you could compare them to evil space aliens who are a hundred times worse than Hitler -- or Saddam Hussein. But nothing else quite has that Hitler zing.
Now Peters is stuck with the Hitler parallel. He may try to find another metaphor -- comparing Dean to a dung-beetle, say, or an artichoke, or a stagecoach -- but Peters' gift is not so much for creative writing as for monomania, and he will revert. And after a few months of screaming Hitler at the Democrats, Peters will sound like your typical Free Republic poster talking about Lincoln.
The General has given good froth for a few seasons, but it may be that -- like that other great General, Coriolanus -- he has o'erreached.
His most recent column, though, has me worried. Not that it is stylistically off the mark -- it is in some ways the apotheosis of his style. But I fear he may have shot his wad.
The column opens with a graf of breathtaking logical inversion:
It's fashionable in left-wing circles to describe anyone who admires America as a fascist. But the real totalitarian threats of our time come from the left. And no public figure embodies the left's contempt for basic freedoms more perfectly than Howard Dean.First a grotesque mischaracterization of a mischaracterization (us dirty hippies call tough-talking law-and-order types fascists, General -- people who "admire America" we call saps!), then a sweeping and undemonstrable historical generalization, closing with an outrageous slur against Dean and all Democrats that actually mirrors the liberal name-calling Peter first complained about! It's so wrong it's beautiful, like Beavis & Butthead with battle decorations.
Peters claims that Dean supporters are against free speech because they "try to intimidate other presidential aspirants by surrounding the cars delivering them to their rallies and chanting to drown out their speech... These are the techniques employed by Hitler's Brownshirts." I'm not sure what real-world events, if any, he's referring to -- the
Washington Post did report that Dean supporters chanted outside a Gephardt speech; Gephardt's people were obliged to close the windows, and his spokesperson called the act "a little bit disrespectful," which hardly summons up visions of Kristallnacht. (I can't find any reference in actual news to the car thing, which may exist only in one of Peters' brain-bubbles.)
Then Peters compares Howard Dean to Hitler, Goebbels, Big Brother, Lenin, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev.
All good fun, but you see the problem, don't you? The election is ten months away, and Peters has already gone to the money shot. After you've repeatedly compared a candidate and his followers to Nazis, what else is left? Maybe you could compare them to evil space aliens who are a hundred times worse than Hitler -- or Saddam Hussein. But nothing else quite has that Hitler zing.
Now Peters is stuck with the Hitler parallel. He may try to find another metaphor -- comparing Dean to a dung-beetle, say, or an artichoke, or a stagecoach -- but Peters' gift is not so much for creative writing as for monomania, and he will revert. And after a few months of screaming Hitler at the Democrats, Peters will sound like your typical Free Republic poster talking about Lincoln.
The General has given good froth for a few seasons, but it may be that -- like that other great General, Coriolanus -- he has o'erreached.
Sunday, January 04, 2004
DON'T FEED THE TROLLS, DOC. Rachel Marsden is harshing on Howard Dean. (Thanks, Kevin, for the link.) It's mostly the sort of ad hominem bilge (Democrats are "sex-starved, party-deprived" "new age hippies" who have "run out of beer money") that all right-wing pin-ups from Coulter on down use establish their media profiles.
But even ambitious up-and-comers must do their grunt work at the Mighty Wurlitzer, and Marsden takes time to assist in the now widespread misrepresentation regarding Dean's "comments... about not wanting to pin the blame for 9/11 on poor Osama bin Laden."
What Dean actually said, even as excerpted by the vile Washington Times, is very sensible: "I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found... I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."
If you think about it for more than two seconds (as I know a few of us have), it shows a healthy respect for, and confidence in, our system of justice. Of course, thinking is frowned upon in the current media environment, and our outrage merchants have found Dean's comments an easy layup in the game of Gotcha, and have egregiously manipulated them.
This quickly pushed Dean into an unfortunate attempt at clarification: "As a president, I would have to defend the process of the rule of law. But as an American, I want to make sure he gets the death penalty he deserves."
AP helpfully adds that "The former Vermont governor said he was simply trying to state in The Concord Monitor interview [the original source of the first quote] that the process of trying bin Laden needs to be fair and credible." But it still sounds like backtracking: if you don't want your comments to prejudice Osama bin Laden's trial, why say you want him dead?
In the short term, Dean got the politically convenient headlines he probably wanted ("Dean: Death to Osama" -- CBS News). But you know that, once the usual suspects are convinced that the original tsimmis has been played out, this second quote will be labelled another Dean flip-flop, further proving his volatility, unreliability, insanity, or whatever. (In fact, one or two fever-swamp opinion leaders have already done so.)
This may turn out to be a worthwhile trade-off for the Doc. Dean probably remembers how bad Mike Dukakis looked when CNN's Bernard Shaw asked him, during the 1988 Presidential debates, if he would not be tempted to favor the death penalty if someone raped and murdered his wife. Dukakis, clearly blind-sided, hemmed and hawed like a second-string high-school debater with a bad flu. Maybe Dean figured a small expression of righteous indignation, however flawed, might disabuse voters who had been manipulated into thinking that he was soft on bin Laden.
The problem, as I see it, is that Dean's kill-Osama gambit doesn't address his original statement -- it addresses the misinterpretation of that statement. He's playing on his opponents' terms. He might seem more aggressive than Dukakis here because he's using aggressive language. But in the long term, the other guys could turn it all around and say that mad, red-faced Howard has been only been aggressive in defending himself.
He should have just said, "Yeah, I believe in jury trials and the American people -- you got a problem with that?" Then let the trolls tear themselves to shreds. (I'm sure that within days you'd have a nest of commentators explaining to the American people that they are not fit to serve on a bin Laden jury. That would be worth any number of "Death to Osama" headlines.)
I like Dean and applaud his success. So I'd hate to see him pecked to death on stuff like this. Dean's obviously confident enough in his views -- else why run for President? I hope he can communicate that confidence more strongly in the future.
But even ambitious up-and-comers must do their grunt work at the Mighty Wurlitzer, and Marsden takes time to assist in the now widespread misrepresentation regarding Dean's "comments... about not wanting to pin the blame for 9/11 on poor Osama bin Laden."
What Dean actually said, even as excerpted by the vile Washington Times, is very sensible: "I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found... I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."
If you think about it for more than two seconds (as I know a few of us have), it shows a healthy respect for, and confidence in, our system of justice. Of course, thinking is frowned upon in the current media environment, and our outrage merchants have found Dean's comments an easy layup in the game of Gotcha, and have egregiously manipulated them.
This quickly pushed Dean into an unfortunate attempt at clarification: "As a president, I would have to defend the process of the rule of law. But as an American, I want to make sure he gets the death penalty he deserves."
AP helpfully adds that "The former Vermont governor said he was simply trying to state in The Concord Monitor interview [the original source of the first quote] that the process of trying bin Laden needs to be fair and credible." But it still sounds like backtracking: if you don't want your comments to prejudice Osama bin Laden's trial, why say you want him dead?
In the short term, Dean got the politically convenient headlines he probably wanted ("Dean: Death to Osama" -- CBS News). But you know that, once the usual suspects are convinced that the original tsimmis has been played out, this second quote will be labelled another Dean flip-flop, further proving his volatility, unreliability, insanity, or whatever. (In fact, one or two fever-swamp opinion leaders have already done so.)
This may turn out to be a worthwhile trade-off for the Doc. Dean probably remembers how bad Mike Dukakis looked when CNN's Bernard Shaw asked him, during the 1988 Presidential debates, if he would not be tempted to favor the death penalty if someone raped and murdered his wife. Dukakis, clearly blind-sided, hemmed and hawed like a second-string high-school debater with a bad flu. Maybe Dean figured a small expression of righteous indignation, however flawed, might disabuse voters who had been manipulated into thinking that he was soft on bin Laden.
The problem, as I see it, is that Dean's kill-Osama gambit doesn't address his original statement -- it addresses the misinterpretation of that statement. He's playing on his opponents' terms. He might seem more aggressive than Dukakis here because he's using aggressive language. But in the long term, the other guys could turn it all around and say that mad, red-faced Howard has been only been aggressive in defending himself.
He should have just said, "Yeah, I believe in jury trials and the American people -- you got a problem with that?" Then let the trolls tear themselves to shreds. (I'm sure that within days you'd have a nest of commentators explaining to the American people that they are not fit to serve on a bin Laden jury. That would be worth any number of "Death to Osama" headlines.)
I like Dean and applaud his success. So I'd hate to see him pecked to death on stuff like this. Dean's obviously confident enough in his views -- else why run for President? I hope he can communicate that confidence more strongly in the future.
BOOK CHAT. Aren't you tired of politics already? I sure as fuck am.
Been reading a bunch of John O'Hara stories. This guy sold a lot mid-century, and it's easy to see why. Alice in Wonderland said, "What's the use of a book without pictures and conversations?" and if O'Hara didn't provide pictures (though his descriptions of settings are often rendered in clinical detail), boy oh boy did he provide conversations. No matter how dim or introverted, his characters fill their quote marks like senators on a filibuster. During one story particularly, "Andrea," about a long-term affair between two chronic unmarriageables, I kept thinking Shut up! Shut up and get to the punch line already! The punch line, alas, is usually dreary and unsatisfying.
Every once in a while, though, he rings a bell. Gore Vidal, who summed him up in 1964, thought O'Hara rang it in "The Trip," which I haven't read. I heard the bell in "Flight," which starts with an old playwright taking a spectacular fall on an icy sidewalk and, before he (unexpectedly) dies from his injury, having a long, pertinent conversation with his ex-actress wife, and an equally pertinent monologue, addresed to his dead son in a dream:
Vidal thought O'Hara's writing overly improvisational, without a strong sense of direction. But the most skilled and dogged improvisers do develop a knack for bringing it all back home, as they say.
Also read most of George Gissing's "The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft," a made-up collection of journal writings by a Grub Street hack who has found leisure to pen some arty occasional pieces in his old age. (Gissing wrote "New Grub Street," the novel that gave him a brief vogue in his own time and also in the late 1990s, based equally, one imagines, on his experiences as, well, a Grub Street hack.) It's mostly pretty dreadful -- the wheezes of a petty bourgeois playing at Thoreau -- but I find it instructive sometimes to read bad writing from a previous era. This one's sort of like "Tuesdays with Morrie" from the turn of the last Century, with treacly amateur naturalism, imbecile social analysis, and breast-clasping swoons over ancient literature ("But I am thinking of the Anabasis. Were this the sole book existing in Greek, it would be abundantly worth while to to learn the language in order to read it") that remind me of the insufferable David Denby after he took a course in the Great Books.
Speaking of vintage crap, I've also been leafing through "The Spike," the 1980 novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss about a Woodwardesque reporter who learns that the CIA was right about everything and that the American government is worm-eaten by Soviet moles (reaching as high as the Vice-Presidency) who yearn for a CCCP takeover. This piece of shit follows the Ludlam-Drury playbook, with villainous collectivists ("'All we need to do,' Barisov continued, 'is to help a few people -- journalists, junior officials -- to follow their own instincts'") that would make Ayn Rand blush, and softcore porn that would make anyone blush ("His hands were already moving over her slim, exquisitely molded body... Before he was sure she was ready, her deft, slender fingers pulled him deep inside her"). But the political impetus is stark and obvious: hippies and liberals are pawns of the Reds and those with some integrity left must be turned toward the light so that America can finally do something about Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia! Well, it worked, of course, and we see its bitter fruit falling around us now. Never underestimate the power of bad fiction.
There's more, but aren't you tired of art already?
Been reading a bunch of John O'Hara stories. This guy sold a lot mid-century, and it's easy to see why. Alice in Wonderland said, "What's the use of a book without pictures and conversations?" and if O'Hara didn't provide pictures (though his descriptions of settings are often rendered in clinical detail), boy oh boy did he provide conversations. No matter how dim or introverted, his characters fill their quote marks like senators on a filibuster. During one story particularly, "Andrea," about a long-term affair between two chronic unmarriageables, I kept thinking Shut up! Shut up and get to the punch line already! The punch line, alas, is usually dreary and unsatisfying.
Every once in a while, though, he rings a bell. Gore Vidal, who summed him up in 1964, thought O'Hara rang it in "The Trip," which I haven't read. I heard the bell in "Flight," which starts with an old playwright taking a spectacular fall on an icy sidewalk and, before he (unexpectedly) dies from his injury, having a long, pertinent conversation with his ex-actress wife, and an equally pertinent monologue, addresed to his dead son in a dream:
If you lead a completely useless life, but do it with style and die young enough, you're quite likely to be remembered with more affection than the man who has a record of accomplishment. But the secret is to die young enough. If you think you're going to live to a ripe old age, it's better to pile up a record of accomplishment of some sort. It may be bridge-building, or money-making, or butterfly-collecting, but it has to be something. People don't like to see longevity wasted on a do-nothing. And as a rule, it isn't...
Vidal thought O'Hara's writing overly improvisational, without a strong sense of direction. But the most skilled and dogged improvisers do develop a knack for bringing it all back home, as they say.
Also read most of George Gissing's "The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft," a made-up collection of journal writings by a Grub Street hack who has found leisure to pen some arty occasional pieces in his old age. (Gissing wrote "New Grub Street," the novel that gave him a brief vogue in his own time and also in the late 1990s, based equally, one imagines, on his experiences as, well, a Grub Street hack.) It's mostly pretty dreadful -- the wheezes of a petty bourgeois playing at Thoreau -- but I find it instructive sometimes to read bad writing from a previous era. This one's sort of like "Tuesdays with Morrie" from the turn of the last Century, with treacly amateur naturalism, imbecile social analysis, and breast-clasping swoons over ancient literature ("But I am thinking of the Anabasis. Were this the sole book existing in Greek, it would be abundantly worth while to to learn the language in order to read it") that remind me of the insufferable David Denby after he took a course in the Great Books.
Speaking of vintage crap, I've also been leafing through "The Spike," the 1980 novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss about a Woodwardesque reporter who learns that the CIA was right about everything and that the American government is worm-eaten by Soviet moles (reaching as high as the Vice-Presidency) who yearn for a CCCP takeover. This piece of shit follows the Ludlam-Drury playbook, with villainous collectivists ("'All we need to do,' Barisov continued, 'is to help a few people -- journalists, junior officials -- to follow their own instincts'") that would make Ayn Rand blush, and softcore porn that would make anyone blush ("His hands were already moving over her slim, exquisitely molded body... Before he was sure she was ready, her deft, slender fingers pulled him deep inside her"). But the political impetus is stark and obvious: hippies and liberals are pawns of the Reds and those with some integrity left must be turned toward the light so that America can finally do something about Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia! Well, it worked, of course, and we see its bitter fruit falling around us now. Never underestimate the power of bad fiction.
There's more, but aren't you tired of art already?
Friday, January 02, 2004
2004's NEW CONVENTIONAL IDIOCIES -- FIRST TWO IDENTIFIED.
#1: Voting for Democrats is treason.
In the waning days of 2003, General Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters looked forward to the year ahead with these comments:
We are so used to hysteria from the General that it is easy to miss the meme bobbing in the ocean of froth: that the Democrats are the Party of Terror, their field workers suicide-bombers and hijackers, and their election the fondest hope of those who wish us all dead or enslaved.
Close enough to a charge of treason, and I expect they'll aim closer still next time. Meanwhile the New York Post is working #2: Running against Bush is treason, thusly:
Now, standing against Bush, in the old, polite custom of British elections, would seem to be okay, but to disagree publicly with his war policies is... well, see #1.
Boy, that was quick. One would think there's be nowhere to go from there, at least in a southerly direction. But don't bet on it.
#1: Voting for Democrats is treason.
In the waning days of 2003, General Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters looked forward to the year ahead with these comments:
2004 is going to be a year of decision in the War on Terror. As our presidential election approaches, the terrorists remaining at large will sacrifice their last reserves in an effort to dislodge President Bush, freedom's great crusader, from the White House.
The terrorists will seek to convince American voters that the War on Terror is failing, paving the way for the electoral victory of a weakling and allowing them to surge back into vacuums created by an American retreat.
Their last, desperate hope will be to hit us so hard that we elect a coward in place of a hero.
We are so used to hysteria from the General that it is easy to miss the meme bobbing in the ocean of froth: that the Democrats are the Party of Terror, their field workers suicide-bombers and hijackers, and their election the fondest hope of those who wish us all dead or enslaved.
Close enough to a charge of treason, and I expect they'll aim closer still next time. Meanwhile the New York Post is working #2: Running against Bush is treason, thusly:
The [Democratic] party's nominee -- and this includes those who aspire to the nomination -- must understand that the whole world is looking at this campaign.
Looking for signs of confusion, of weakness -- of a lack of American will.
Or for signs of strength and seriousness of purpose.
And so the Democrats must conduct themselves accordingly.
They must be adults, in other words.
Now, standing against Bush, in the old, polite custom of British elections, would seem to be okay, but to disagree publicly with his war policies is... well, see #1.
Boy, that was quick. One would think there's be nowhere to go from there, at least in a southerly direction. But don't bet on it.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
"CONSERVATIVE MOVIES" CONT. In comments to the previous post, a careful reader points out that Brookhiser said "most conservative" rather than "best conservative" movies, a small but not irrelevant distinction.
Giving Brookhiser and those guys some slack (probably undeserved, but New Year's resolutions are still fresh in my mind), it may be that they realize a work by a gay Marxist like Visconti could evince a world view that conservatives might embrace. (I wonder what Brookhiser thinks of "The Damned," though.) A work of art presents a world view, not a bill of political particulars (unless the artist is particularly tendentious and cloying, or a satirist). I like Evelyn Waugh, for example, not because I buy his personal Tory bullshit, but because books like Decline and Fall and Scoop take a mordant view of the follies of men to which I strongly relate. They're also funny and well-crafted. What's not to like?
Also, when NR types talk about conservatism in the abstract, they define it so broadly that nearly anything fits. That's especially true of Goldberg when he starts talking about Burke, as in this passage from a dissection of (believe it or not) "Animal House":
Well, if that's conservatism, sign me up! This is cool-kid conservatism's version of "big-tent" Republicanism. One might call it Jeff Foxworthy Conservatism: if you're in favor of prudence and against heedless reform, y'all might a conservative!
It's a way of making the movement attractive to people who balk at its strictures on, to take one glaring example, gay marriage, which is why we find gaycon Andrew Sullivan throwing props to Neil Boortz -- the guy wants a ban on gay adoptions, but he hasn't specifically called for homosexual heads on pikes, so they're Burkean brothers, y'see.
This kind of woolly thinking has led to the ridiculous, forced phenomena of "South Park Republicanism" and "Crunchy Conservatism." And it's probably why they see validation of their world-view in movies that they like.
It's all good fun, as my mother used to say, until someone loses a legislative agenda. And it may be why many conservatives, historically tight with a buck, are relatively phlegmatic about the big-spending Bush adminisitration. Never mind the hypocracy and the ruination of our economy -- we said fuck you to France, how cool is that? Pass the popcorn.
Giving Brookhiser and those guys some slack (probably undeserved, but New Year's resolutions are still fresh in my mind), it may be that they realize a work by a gay Marxist like Visconti could evince a world view that conservatives might embrace. (I wonder what Brookhiser thinks of "The Damned," though.) A work of art presents a world view, not a bill of political particulars (unless the artist is particularly tendentious and cloying, or a satirist). I like Evelyn Waugh, for example, not because I buy his personal Tory bullshit, but because books like Decline and Fall and Scoop take a mordant view of the follies of men to which I strongly relate. They're also funny and well-crafted. What's not to like?
Also, when NR types talk about conservatism in the abstract, they define it so broadly that nearly anything fits. That's especially true of Goldberg when he starts talking about Burke, as in this passage from a dissection of (believe it or not) "Animal House":
But for the purposes of this discussion -- and for modern conservatism generally -- the most important aspect of Burkean thought is his view of tradition and change. Burke recognized the need for reform (the lack of it, he believed, forced the American colonists to revolt) and he did not fear change... But he thought haste in the realm of reform led to even greater injustice than deliberate inaction... Burke simply didn't trust the problem-solvers. No single individual is smart enough to impose changes on society willy-nilly.
Well, if that's conservatism, sign me up! This is cool-kid conservatism's version of "big-tent" Republicanism. One might call it Jeff Foxworthy Conservatism: if you're in favor of prudence and against heedless reform, y'all might a conservative!
It's a way of making the movement attractive to people who balk at its strictures on, to take one glaring example, gay marriage, which is why we find gaycon Andrew Sullivan throwing props to Neil Boortz -- the guy wants a ban on gay adoptions, but he hasn't specifically called for homosexual heads on pikes, so they're Burkean brothers, y'see.
This kind of woolly thinking has led to the ridiculous, forced phenomena of "South Park Republicanism" and "Crunchy Conservatism." And it's probably why they see validation of their world-view in movies that they like.
It's all good fun, as my mother used to say, until someone loses a legislative agenda. And it may be why many conservatives, historically tight with a buck, are relatively phlegmatic about the big-spending Bush adminisitration. Never mind the hypocracy and the ruination of our economy -- we said fuck you to France, how cool is that? Pass the popcorn.
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
CAN I PLAY TOO? Richard Brookhiser, having tantalized his fellow Cornerites by pronouncing Visconti's "The Leopard" "one of the two best conservative movies," finally breaks the spell by pronouncing Satyajit Ray's "The Music Room" the other.
I've never seen "The Leopard," but I love "The Music Room," which is about a declining Indian rentier who persists in giving a lavish fete in his crumbling music room, even though he knows the expense will bankrupt him.
It is always hard to know what is going on in the minds of Cornerites (loud explosions and snatches of Wagner, one imagines), but perhaps Brookhiser has here displayed an intuition of the current, very conservative Administration's financial management style.
Another contributor nominates "Mrs. Miniver," perhaps because it's the sort of thing old folks like to watch. Jonah Goldberg, of all people, has some intriguing suggestions.
I've seen a few sessions of this parlor game, and I don't know why no one ever brings up "River's Edge." It's about a bunch of nihilistic teenagers, one of whom kills a girl just because he's wasted and, apparently, doesn't know what else to do with his unchannelled energies. The only meaningful authority figure is a boomer-era teacher who congratulates his own generation because "we stopped a war, man!" The teacher's airheaded idealism is sometimes countered by a values-obsessed nerd (the Ben Shapiro role), whom everyone tells to shut up. If this doesn't fit your typical talkative conservative's world-view, I don't know what would.
I like that movie, and I like Whit Stillman's "The Last Days of Disco," which seems to me a cultural conservative's wet dream.
Well, that was kind of fun, but I think I'll go back to my usual standard, y'know, quality: how well a work of art puts over whatever ideas it happens to have.
I've never seen "The Leopard," but I love "The Music Room," which is about a declining Indian rentier who persists in giving a lavish fete in his crumbling music room, even though he knows the expense will bankrupt him.
It is always hard to know what is going on in the minds of Cornerites (loud explosions and snatches of Wagner, one imagines), but perhaps Brookhiser has here displayed an intuition of the current, very conservative Administration's financial management style.
Another contributor nominates "Mrs. Miniver," perhaps because it's the sort of thing old folks like to watch. Jonah Goldberg, of all people, has some intriguing suggestions.
I've seen a few sessions of this parlor game, and I don't know why no one ever brings up "River's Edge." It's about a bunch of nihilistic teenagers, one of whom kills a girl just because he's wasted and, apparently, doesn't know what else to do with his unchannelled energies. The only meaningful authority figure is a boomer-era teacher who congratulates his own generation because "we stopped a war, man!" The teacher's airheaded idealism is sometimes countered by a values-obsessed nerd (the Ben Shapiro role), whom everyone tells to shut up. If this doesn't fit your typical talkative conservative's world-view, I don't know what would.
I like that movie, and I like Whit Stillman's "The Last Days of Disco," which seems to me a cultural conservative's wet dream.
Well, that was kind of fun, but I think I'll go back to my usual standard, y'know, quality: how well a work of art puts over whatever ideas it happens to have.
THE BLINGOISIE. When you're very young, you run across nose-pickers who are obsessed with bling, who as they grow older suffer or thrive in direct proportion to the amount of bling they have acquired. Simple folk, God bless them.
Some of these guys, though, are slightly less simple; they need not only money, but also reassurance that everyone else in the world (or at least in their class) is just like they are. They mock the notion that there are any values beyond bling. They clap for people who tell them that yes, they're right, bling is the thing.
Thus are they spared the horrifying realization that, despite all their education and pretentions, they remain to this day nose-pickers with an adolescent spirit of entitlement and values that, however smartly they have been tricked out, are essentially barbarian.
These people are called Dynamists, or, if you want to be sloppy about it (and why not? everyone else is), libertarians, or if you want be accurate about it, assholes.
(Thanks for tip, Matt Yglesias.)
Some of these guys, though, are slightly less simple; they need not only money, but also reassurance that everyone else in the world (or at least in their class) is just like they are. They mock the notion that there are any values beyond bling. They clap for people who tell them that yes, they're right, bling is the thing.
Thus are they spared the horrifying realization that, despite all their education and pretentions, they remain to this day nose-pickers with an adolescent spirit of entitlement and values that, however smartly they have been tricked out, are essentially barbarian.
These people are called Dynamists, or, if you want to be sloppy about it (and why not? everyone else is), libertarians, or if you want be accurate about it, assholes.
(Thanks for tip, Matt Yglesias.)
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
THE OLD BLACK FLAG. UPI reports bombs delivered to the European Court of Justice and Europol in Den Hague, to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, and to Romano Prodi, Chairman of the European Commission. All the parcels share a common starting point in northern Italy, and investigators suspect an anarchist group operating thereabouts.
Some bombs came with interesting appurtances:
UPI reports that "conspiracy-conscious Italians" think someone's trying disuade Prodi from running against Berlusconi when he leaves the Commission. The IHT entertains speculations about the old Red Brigades, and an anti-EU federation called "Euroopposizione." AP says that "An Italian group calling itself the 'Informal Anarchic Federation' took credit for setting two additional time bombs that exploded outside Prodi's house on Dec. 21, causing a small fire."
What to make of this? Setting to one side the decoy theories, it looks like some crazy fuckers are out to do mischief, and they may have gathered under the old black flag.
As chronicled by Barbara Tuchman in "The Proud Tower," the original Anarchists were genuine dead-enders. Around the turn of the last Century, their followers slew no less than six heads of state, including President McKinley. The Anarchists were not spurred by specific grievances against individual regimes, but by hopelessness bred by the elephantine indifference to their plight of all the government that they knew: "They came from the warrens of the poor," wrote Tuchman, "where hunger and dirt were king, where consumptives coughed and the air was thick with the smell of latrines, boiling cabbage and stale beer... where death was the only exit and the only extravagance and the scraped savings of a lifetime would be squandered on a funeral coach with flowers and a parade of mourners to ensure against the anonymity and last ignominy of Potter's Field."
I think it is reasonable to assume that the living conditions of the current letter-bombers are much better than those of their forebears. And at the risk of sounding insensitive to the intellectual attainments of paupers, it seems only a college man would stick D'Annunzio into an exploding package.
So why bomb? One can with a small effort come up with reasons, positive or negative, for any seemingly unreasonable act, but I think that shows more about the speculator than the assailant. I'm beginning to wonder if we're really going to figure out where Timothy McVeigh was coming from. Or Al-Qaeda. Or the Basque separatists, rich as their history may be, who recently put a bomb on railroad tracks in Spain. Or whoever tried to bomb Musharraf. Or the Hamilton County Courthouse. Or Poso, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Not to speak of Iraq.
It does appear that an alarming number of people are putting their faith in explosives these days.
Some bombs came with interesting appurtances:
Italian media reports said the letter[-bomb] bore a sender's address in Bologna, and the name of Emile Henry, a French 19th century anarchist bomber who tossed a bomb into the crowded Cafe Terminus at the Gare St. Lazare railway station in Paris, killing several people. His motto was "There are no innocents"...
The book sent in the packet bomb was Gabriele d'Annunzio's erotic novel "The Child of Pleasure." D'Annunzio, an admirer and supporter of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, is a literary hero of the Italian extreme right...
UPI reports that "conspiracy-conscious Italians" think someone's trying disuade Prodi from running against Berlusconi when he leaves the Commission. The IHT entertains speculations about the old Red Brigades, and an anti-EU federation called "Euroopposizione." AP says that "An Italian group calling itself the 'Informal Anarchic Federation' took credit for setting two additional time bombs that exploded outside Prodi's house on Dec. 21, causing a small fire."
What to make of this? Setting to one side the decoy theories, it looks like some crazy fuckers are out to do mischief, and they may have gathered under the old black flag.
As chronicled by Barbara Tuchman in "The Proud Tower," the original Anarchists were genuine dead-enders. Around the turn of the last Century, their followers slew no less than six heads of state, including President McKinley. The Anarchists were not spurred by specific grievances against individual regimes, but by hopelessness bred by the elephantine indifference to their plight of all the government that they knew: "They came from the warrens of the poor," wrote Tuchman, "where hunger and dirt were king, where consumptives coughed and the air was thick with the smell of latrines, boiling cabbage and stale beer... where death was the only exit and the only extravagance and the scraped savings of a lifetime would be squandered on a funeral coach with flowers and a parade of mourners to ensure against the anonymity and last ignominy of Potter's Field."
I think it is reasonable to assume that the living conditions of the current letter-bombers are much better than those of their forebears. And at the risk of sounding insensitive to the intellectual attainments of paupers, it seems only a college man would stick D'Annunzio into an exploding package.
So why bomb? One can with a small effort come up with reasons, positive or negative, for any seemingly unreasonable act, but I think that shows more about the speculator than the assailant. I'm beginning to wonder if we're really going to figure out where Timothy McVeigh was coming from. Or Al-Qaeda. Or the Basque separatists, rich as their history may be, who recently put a bomb on railroad tracks in Spain. Or whoever tried to bomb Musharraf. Or the Hamilton County Courthouse. Or Poso, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Not to speak of Iraq.
It does appear that an alarming number of people are putting their faith in explosives these days.
Q.E. FUCKIN' D. "Goodness... another one. I suppose Ms. MacKinnon isn't 'real' either, just like Orson Scott Card was dismissed as not being 'real'." -- guest-blogger Macallan at Tacitus.
The subject is a couple of putative Dems who have publicly stated that they're voting for Bush. Card has been dealt, so to speak, with. Here's a little background on Ms. P. Amy MacKinnon, the latest alleged apostate:
March 24: "My husband is accompanying troops on the front lines, so that we on the home front can vicariously share in the fight with our soldiers... He will use his pen to empower the weak, very often, mute Iraqis who may reclaim their collective voice in a reporter's story... He, like the daring soldiers with whom he now shares tight quarters in a tank heading north through Iraq, is doing our country a noble service. He is presenting us with the truth." MacKinnon's husband is Jules Crittenden; Romanesko links to a story that mentions him under the teaser, "Crittenden wrote about drunk, vomiting U.S. soldiers."
September 25: "I had rationalized my working for a pro-choice legislator by emphasizing all of the other issues we did agree on..." (The guys at Free Republic really liked this one!)
December 18: "The feminist movement gave birth to my generation and it was our legacy to have it all... But as so often happens, the ideals of a generation clashed with their reality." Meaning, MacKinnon, now with three children, wants a "part-time reporting job," a gig hard enough for us single fellas to get, and argues that her experience of "meals, diaper changes, school buses, doctor's appointments, billing cycles, and -- most important -- bedtime" should be seen by editors as a selling point. "So, yes," she explains, "I could understand the importance of the newspaper's deadlines." And all it took was three fucking kids!
So what have we got here? A sob sister with a desire to succeed in journalism, a grudge against feminist baby-killers, and a penchant for Peggy Noonan-style gush. Clearly her best bet is to try and beat Meagan Cox Gurdon to syndication.
Was this woman ever going to vote for any Democrat in 2004? Not a chance in hell. Should we mourn her loss? Well, if we could win without longtime Democrat Strom Thurmond, we can win without her.
The subject is a couple of putative Dems who have publicly stated that they're voting for Bush. Card has been dealt, so to speak, with. Here's a little background on Ms. P. Amy MacKinnon, the latest alleged apostate:
March 24: "My husband is accompanying troops on the front lines, so that we on the home front can vicariously share in the fight with our soldiers... He will use his pen to empower the weak, very often, mute Iraqis who may reclaim their collective voice in a reporter's story... He, like the daring soldiers with whom he now shares tight quarters in a tank heading north through Iraq, is doing our country a noble service. He is presenting us with the truth." MacKinnon's husband is Jules Crittenden; Romanesko links to a story that mentions him under the teaser, "Crittenden wrote about drunk, vomiting U.S. soldiers."
September 25: "I had rationalized my working for a pro-choice legislator by emphasizing all of the other issues we did agree on..." (The guys at Free Republic really liked this one!)
December 18: "The feminist movement gave birth to my generation and it was our legacy to have it all... But as so often happens, the ideals of a generation clashed with their reality." Meaning, MacKinnon, now with three children, wants a "part-time reporting job," a gig hard enough for us single fellas to get, and argues that her experience of "meals, diaper changes, school buses, doctor's appointments, billing cycles, and -- most important -- bedtime" should be seen by editors as a selling point. "So, yes," she explains, "I could understand the importance of the newspaper's deadlines." And all it took was three fucking kids!
So what have we got here? A sob sister with a desire to succeed in journalism, a grudge against feminist baby-killers, and a penchant for Peggy Noonan-style gush. Clearly her best bet is to try and beat Meagan Cox Gurdon to syndication.
Was this woman ever going to vote for any Democrat in 2004? Not a chance in hell. Should we mourn her loss? Well, if we could win without longtime Democrat Strom Thurmond, we can win without her.
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